The next morning, James was the first up. He was quite surprised to find himself stretched out on the sofa like he would be on an ordinary bed. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realised that one of his friends had enlarged the piece of furniture so it was big enough for 2 grown men to sleep comfortably. Despite this, Remus was still curled up in a ball by the armrest for some reason.

Gingerly James inched himself off the sofa and stood up, unfortunately knocking Harry's basket as he did so. He tensed, waiting for his son to start complaining but, much to his relief, Harry stayed quiet, although he could tell he was awake as he could see the baby's eyes shining in the darkness.

There was a movement at the far end of the sofa, and James sighed as he watched Remus get up, knowing that his friend had been woken by the tiny sound made by his feet as they touched the floor.

But then he glanced at the watch on the table beside him and realised it was actually 08:16. Why was it so dark in the room?

James picked up Harry and walked out the room with Remus, not bothering to be quiet as Sirius was capable of sleeping through a thunderstorm.

He turned to Remus when they got to the kitchen.

"Thanks for enlarging the sofa last night."

"Oh, that wasn't me. It must've been Padfoot."

James suddenly felt a bit bad about making Sirius sleep in the chair.

-

Harry started to get a bit more vocal, so James warmed his bottle in the microwave, while explaining to Remus what he would do that day.

"I'll need to go down to the ministry to talk about, well, everything."

"You don't have to do that Prongs, me or Pads could go instead."

"Well, everyone thinks you're a spy Moony, and are we really trusting Padfoot with that kind of responsibility?"

James was testing the milk on his arm, while Remus was busy having an embolism.

"That's why you were avoiding me?"

James nodded, giving the bottle to Harry who clasped it in delight.

"Why did you think that though?"

"You were away a lot and we knew someone was giving the death eaters information."

"Well here's a whole heaping load of irony for you."

"What do you mean?" James asked in confusion.

"My mum was sick. Actually sick. In fact she died in June."

"Oh Moons, I'm so sorry." James said, putting down Harry's bottle and going over to hug his friend. "But Dumbledore was convinced it was you, why didn't you tell him?"

"I did. In hindsight he might have recognised the old excuse and decided I was lying."

"That has never been your forte." James agreed. "I don't know what we were thinking, you'd have made a terrible double agent."

"I'm not sure whether to be offended or not, but for the time being I'll go with not." Remus replied with a laugh.

Sirius walked in then, and sat down at the table.

"You know what, while I'm in the ministry, I can get you taken off the dangerous list." James continued.

"Wonderful." was Remus' dry reply, "now I'm only on the "mostly dangerous" list."

"There's worse lists." James reassured him. "I had an uncle who worked at the ministry who said there's a list of people who have blown up toilets and are, as a result, not allowed in room 890B."

"Presumably we should be on that list then." Sirius pointed out, "Nice work with the blackout spell Moony. I slept like a log."

"You'd sleep like a log on Piccadilly Circus." James pointed out.

Sirius was busy rummaging through the fridge, finally emerging with some eggs.

"Scrambled eggs everyone?"

-

Much to everyone's surprise, Sirius turned out to be a pretty reasonable cook, although Remus and James did have to spell quite a bit of shell out of their breakfasts. James left for the ministry after they'd eaten, leaving his friends with Harry. Before he left, he pointed to a blackboard hanging in the hall that read: "Potter Family Rules." There were lots of soppy ones like "Always tell the truth," and "Work hard." But right at the bottom, in capital letters, was: "Don't spell the baby, even if he's crying really loudly."

"Hint taken Prongs."

Harry had started crying again, so Sirius showed Remus how to change him. It was going well, until Harry, with truly remarkable accuracy, sent a jet of excrement straight onto Remus' shoulder.

"A 1 year old's got a better aim than you Moony." Sirius teased the annoyed and embarrassed werewolf.

"I don't think he was aiming." Remus replied grumpily, feeling quite bad because James had insisted he borrow his clothes again and the fancy pale blue shirt was now covered in poo.

"He won't mind." Sirius reassured him, knowing that was what was worrying his friend, "Go and wash it off and I'll finish cleaning up Harry."

-

Having discovered that taking care of Harry appeared to be quite a messy business, this time Remus opted to wear one of James' brown t-shirts that hopefully wouldn't show any stains.

When he came back into the lounge, he found Sirius and Harry sitting on the floor together with equally bored expressions.

"What do we do with him now?"

Remus considered the question, then gave Sirius a broad grin.

"We could make him a den!"

-

It could definitely be argued that Sirius and Remus had the most fun making the den. They grabbed sheets and towels from the airing cupboard and soon had pegged them up all around the room. Remus had insisted it would be more fun without magic, and for the most part Sirius agreed although he had put a sticking spell on one particular peg which kept slipping off the lampshade.

They got in the den with Harry and sat on the cushions.

"What do you do in a den?"

"I don't know Moony, it was your idea."

"When I made dens I was by myself, so they were reading dens."

"I suppose we could read something to Harry."

Remus went upstairs to find a storybook for Harry and he also browsed through the bookshelf on the landing to find himself something to read. White Fang, Call of the Wild, it looked like James had been doing some research on how to tame wolves. He eventually settled on The Incredible Journey, (no deaths and minimal negative wolf portrayal), and came back downstairs.

-

Sirius dutifully began to read Harry "Babbitty Rabbit and the Cackling Stump" while Remus contentedly followed the adventures of the old dog, the young dog and the cat. About 2 minutes later, Sirius declared it was Remus' turn to read to Harry.

"Oh but you're doing such a good job Padfoot." Remus teased, as he awkwardly accepted Harry.

"He keeps pulling my hair, no you need to support his head, oh give him here." Sirius leaned over to rescue Harry from Remus' dismal attempt at holding a baby.

"Right, make sure he's in the centre of your lap, then support his head against your chest like this."

"How do you know this? Reg's only a year younger than you." Remus asked as he struggled to manoeuvre Harry into position.

"My family was always having big gatherings and Andromeda was the only cousin I really got along with. She loved babies and it was such a big family there were always plenty of those so we always spent time with the babies." Sirius replied, skilfully intercepting as Harry slid from Remus' lap into his arms.

"What about I hold him while you read Moony? Anyway, if he got his hand in your hair, he might never get it out again."

"Can we stop with the hair insults! I'm getting it fixed!"

"Alright, keep your hair on." Remus shot him a steely glare. "Now, as you can tell, the cross one is the wolf-" Sirius started explaining to Harry, but he was cut off by the jet of water that spurred from the end of his friend's wand and hit him full in the face.

"Now who's got terrible aim?"

"See what I mean." Sirius said to Harry as he used a quick drying spell on himself. Remus' skill meant the water had only hit Sirius, leaving Harry completely dry.

Harry had grown tired of the book and was now trying to chew it, so Sirius went to go and find him some toys.