What on Earth happened in here?" James exclaimed a few days later. Both the kitchen and it's two occupants were covered in something yellow.

"I tried to give Harry some mashed banana for breakfast."

"But you decided to give some to the ceiling instead?"

"If this was Remus you'd be cleaning it up and definitely not shouting."

"Padfoot I can assure you, if the bona fide Minister of Magic got banana on my ceiling I would still be shouting. As for you, get a mop. I'm going to clean Harry. How did it get up there anyway?"

"You know when you were little and your parents did "here comes the harpy" to make you eat?"

"Padfoot, you and I had different childhoods, my mum said "here comes the broomstick""?

"You get the gist though?"

"A truly extraordinary amount of things break and/or explode around you but I fail to see how the harpy went so off-course."

"I was multitasking."

"That explains it."

Sirius busied himself cleaning the ceiling, not with a mop of course, while James struggled to spell the gunk off of his wriggling son.

"What were the tasks?" James asked eventually.

"Feeding him and getting coffee. My levitation spell for the former went a bit off-target."

"I see. Are you finished?"

"Yeah, all done. Why did you tell me to get a mop?"

"It was Lily's punishment for me. If I ever did something like that, I had to clean it the muggle way. You're lucky you're growing up with three birth wizards," he added, turning to Harry, "the guilt muggleborns can throw at you is unbelievable."

Sirius made the two of them cornflakes while James fed Harry.

"See Padfoot, how I'm holding the spoon and not trying to use a complicated spell that could easily backfire."

"Alright, I get it!"

-

After they'd eaten, they carried on trying to get the lingering banana smell out of the kitchen. There were far worse things for a room to smell of, but it still wasn't particularly pleasant. However, at least 10 spells later, neither of them had made much of a difference and, thoroughly bored, they gave up. It would annoy Remus but that couldn't be helped.

"I was thinking," Sirius ventured "that London's really not that far from here and it would be a good sized journey for my bike."

That day, James and Sirius were sorting through the latter's flat.

"There's three of us."

"I've got a sidecar."

James considered the proposition. He had been so bored being the sensible one, a role he had been unwillingly thrust into since the death of Lily. He'd received a bonus lot of duties as well in the last few days, as Remus had been incapacitated and before that he'd been having moon swings. (The term the marauders had come up with to describe his pre-transformation volatility.)

"Where's Moony?"

"He'd already left when I woke up."

While James and Sirius were in London, Remus was going to his parents house in Hertfordshire to retrieve the few Lupin heirlooms before it was sold. Part of James was hoping he'd burst into the room and tell Sirius in no uncertain terms that Harry was not getting on a motorbike. However, a slightly larger part of him was desperate for some adrenalin.

"Let's do it."

"Oh sweet Merlin, my fellow marauder has returned."

"He's only returning if everyone wears helmets and you promise not to go on the motorway."

-

It occurred to James somewhere near Gatwick that Remus would have a literal fit if he could see them. Sirius, decked out in his shiny leathers, was rocketing along Surrey's B roads at a breath-taking pace. James was perched on the seat behind him, only loosely holding onto Sirius' middle. In fact he was really enjoying the challenge of balancing, something he hadn't been able to do for a while as he had been banned from flying when the fidelius charm was in place. Harry was still small enough to be completely obscured by the sidecar, and he'd had enough sticking charms cast on him that a hurricane couldn't have moved him. The baby was shrieking, hopefully in delight, as they hurtled past numerous cars.

As they entered London and headed towards the City, James let go of Sirius entirely and threw his arms out to the sides, revelling in the return of his freedom. That said, he had already had to stop Sirius from making the bike fly; there were firm limits when it came to Harry.

-

James' "no motorways" stipulation meant it took just over an hour to get to Sirius' flat in Charing Cross. That was way longer than a 1 year old's attention span, and Harry had been complaining vociferously for the last 20 minutes of the journey.

"We're flooing when we go back." James told his friend as he pulled off his helmet and ruffled his hair.

"Fine by me. To be honest, if Moony caught us he'd probably go to Azkaban for murder, and neither of us has worked out the washing machine yet. Have you got the boxes?"

James retrieved a handful of tiny cardboard cubes from his pocket.

"Here."

-

Once Sirius had stowed his bike in the hidden garage, they all climbed into the lift. After his exciting morning, Harry had fallen asleep on James' shoulder. Despite being very young, the baby was so used to weird sensations that he no longer seemed to notice them.

On reaching the 3rd floor, Sirius produced his key and opened the door to his flat.

"I'd forgotten how glorious your man cave was." James breathed in reverence.

Sirius' spacious flat was probably best described as the ultimate bachelor pad. There were all sorts of expensive muggle devices on every surface, with a 22 inch television set taking pride of place in the living area.

Sirius disappeared off to the bathroom to fix his helmet hair, while James put Harry down for a nap on one of the plush velvet sofas and continued to look around.

He was admiring a bright green spinny chair, when Sirius returned.

"Right then, what do I want to take?" He pondered, spelling the boxes back to their original size and picking up his lightsaber desk lamp.

"What don't you want to take?" James countered, "All of your stuff is unbelievably cool."

Sirius grinned and looked at his mass of possessions, which could only have been acquired by a single 21 year old with more money than most people would ever have.

"I'll need my bed obviously, and I'll take this little table and the chair."

James dutifully started shrinking the furniture and packing it into boxes.

"I'll go and see if I've got any post. Just pick out anything you fancy."

Sirius disappeared, leaving James sitting among the boxes with a blissful expression on his face. He had been wrong- this was freedom.

He had never actually lived on his own, having been with his parents until he left school and moved in with Lily. ("No we don't need a lamp shaped like a cleansweep James!") But now…

Oh, now he lived with Remus, who would probably have only slightly less strict rules on decor than Lily.

Despite this, James had filled four large boxes of things he considered truly awesome by the time Sirius came back up.

"I just spoke to the landlord and told him I'm moving."

"Cool." James replied absentmindedly.

"Are you sure all this stuff's going to fit in the house?"

"Right now your room has literally no furniture in, and it's not like Moony's in the position to supply any."