Author's note: Enjoy!
Disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.
Warnings: NA
The Perfect Gift For Remus John Lupin
"Oh, hold on," James said, freezing as they walked. "We should get Remus's birthday present while we're here."
"Mmm, good point," Sirius said. He flipped his hair over his shoulder and veered right towards the supermarket—sprinting across the street towards the shop.
"Excuse me?" Lily asked, arching an eyebrow.
"I promise it won't take long, we know exactly what we're getting," James said. He kissed Lily's ear before letting go of her hand and bolting after Sirius, somehow managing not to get run down by a car in the process.
Lily hesitated for a second before following them. She got caught behind a red light and didn't dare jaywalk in a city as chaotic as London so fell behind. She jogged to catch up with the two men, the store's air conditioning hitting her like a sack of ice cold bricks on her way in. Thankfully, since Sirius was riding in the shopping cart that James was pushing through the aisles, they were pretty easy to find. Both of them were scooping boxes of tea from the shelf into the cart two at a time, loading up on Earl Grey, English breakfast, camomille, lemon ginger…
"Don't need to get anything minty this year, he's growing mint in the window box of our flat and it's taking over everything," Sirius said as he tossed a box back to James. "Oooh, pomegranate green tea!"
"Oh, that's fun," James said. "Yeah, put it in the cart, let's shake things up."
"Keep Moony on his toes."
"Someone has to."
There were probably twelve boxes of tea in the cart when they nodded to each other, satisfied, and James pushed the cart forwards again and smiled when he saw Lily.
"Hey," he said as a greeting.
"What… what are you two doing?" Lily dared to ask.
"Shopping for Remus's birthday," James said simply.
"We nailed this process about three years ago," Sirius said.
"To be fair, it wasn't necessarily difficult. He might be the easiest person in the world to shop for" James said. He leaned on the cart and enumerated items on his fingers one by one. "We get him a year's worth of tea and chocolate, since he doesn't buy nice things for himself. Peter is in charge of chocolate, since he works so close to Honeydukes."
"But we can get him some of those Muggle hard caramels in the little twisty wrappers," Sirius said. "You know, the ones that carpeted the bottom of his backpack in school?"
"Yes, we'll grab tons of those," James nodded. "He can always use warm socks since he gets chilly after the moon does its thing, and those are probably in aisle 15 with the rest of the clothing."
"We should get pajama pants while we're there, his are starting to wear at the hem," Sirius said.
"Oh you're right, good idea!" James said. "And since you and him's new flat has a microwave, we could get one of those rice-filled heating bags that Muggles have? You know, for when his hip flares up? Lily's dad had one and she loved it."
"Smart. He likes scented candles, but again he'd never buy them for himself, so we should go sniff a bunch and pick… three?" Sirius asked, cocking his head to the side and twisting the stud in his nose as he pondered this.
"We did three last year and he said it was too much and we were spoiling him," James said.
"So four."
"Yes, good," James said, nodding vigorously.
Lily bit back a smile and James caught her gaze. That meant Sirius realized something was happening and he twisted in the shopping cart to face her.
"What is it, Evans?" he asked.
"I was just wondering if you were talking about your friend or your grandmother," she said.
"Both," they said in unison. And Lily laughed.
"Problem, Evans?" James asked this time, cracking a smile.
"Absolutely not," she said. And she meant the next part especially hard, since she and her silly boys were caught in a warring world where nothing was promised and where you had to make your own joy and take care of your people yourself. "I'm glad you all have each other."
WC: 701
