Disclaimer: No, I don't own anything. Unless JK Rowling is actually a 16 year old girl with red hair…nah, didn't think so. But I do own…Chelsea.
Summary: Lily Evans is forced to get a summer job…and soon her mother takes matters into her own hands. Before you know it, things are spiralling out of control as Lily takes on the task of doing laundry...James Potter's laundry.
A/N: Yes, that's right, I've decided to trade in Leila for Chelsea because I just couldn't bare to write this story without her. Now, to be clear, (this is for you il0v3captain0ats) this story is in no way related to The Diary of Lily Evans, ok? Goodygoodygumdrops.
To my lovely reviewers, you are the best people in the world! Honestly. You guys are all awesome and so encouraging and I am a dirty rotten scumbag for not updating sooner.
Washing James' Whites
Chapter Two
Lily Evans was sitting in James Potter's kitchen, clutching her cup of tea as if she were to let go it might explode. That very same James Potter was sitting across from her, a mixture of laughter and downright shock playing across his handsome features. Sirius Black was trying to ignore the growing tension in the room by stuffing his mouth full with the last of the tea biscuits.
Only a few moments ago, the mother's of James and Lily had excused themselves, apparently giving the three some "time to talk".
Lily's thoughts were murderous and flitted around inside of her head, much in the same way as knives that she would have loved to throw at James' now smug face.
"What are you smirking at?" Lily snapped, her thin fingers gripping her teacup even tighter. James' face broke into a smile, but he said nothing.
Lily hesitated, her face growing red with rage. She let out a frustrated scream.
"I won't stand for this! I'm leaving. Goodbye Mr. Potter, Mr. Black," Lily said, her voice curt and clipped. She stood up and swept out of the room.
James' face went blank, and Sirius, with a mouth full of biscuit, waved and then turned to his best friend.
"Prongs, mate, how is it that you manage to infuriate her even when you keep your damn trap shut like Moony tells you?"
James heaved a heavy sigh, and ran a hand roughly through his black, messy, sticky-out hair. When he spoke, his voice was flat and humourless.
"I don't know, Padfoot. Raw talent I suppose."
An hour or so later, Lily stormed into her best friend's room.
"Chelsea, do you still have that stash of old Easter chocolate?" Lily said, dropping onto her friends bed.
"Uh oh, what's the emergency Lils?" Chelsea said, putting down the book she had been reading and brushing her honey brown hair from her eyes. Lily sighed deeply.
"One word: Potter."
"Potter? But it's summer. You never see him at all during the summer, unless it happens to be at Diagon Alley and summer's only just begun!"
"Another word: Mothers."
"What? Lily, I need more than a total of two words to suss out what's happened here."
Lily sighed again and sat up, looking her friend in the eye.
"My mother volunteered me to look after James Potter's cousin. His mother and mine, fully knowing my opinions of James, offered my help. My help…which will be needed every day from eight till eight atJames Potter's house," Lily explained, her voice taking on a venomous qualitly. Chelsea took a moment and watched her friend, and then burst in to hysterical laughter.
"You're gonna need more that chocolate to fix this problem," Chelsea said between fits of raucous laughter, "You're gonna need some Firewhiskey. A lot of Firewhiskey."
Lily groaned, "You know I don't like to drink, Chels."
"I know, but you want to, don't you?"
There was a pause.
"Yes,"
Chelsea smiled, "Come on, mum and dad are out for the night. Call your mum and tell her you're gonna sleep over here tonight and that my parents will drop you off at James' tomorrow."
Lily groaned at the mentioning of 'James' and 'tomorrow' in the same sentence.
The next morning, Lily was quite sure that someone had stolen her brain in the middle of the night and put it in a blender before kindly returning it to her.
"Don't make me go, Chelsea," she whined.
"You have to," Chelsea said, pushing her friend up the walkway to James' house.
"It's not fair…" she whimpered pitifully as she clutched the sides of her head, trying to stop the pain that shot through her temples, "…make it stop…"
Chelsea shook her head, smirking.
"I told you not to drink the blue stuff, but no, you were to desperate to wash away all your despair and loathing."
Lily shot Chelsea a look that could almost kill, "You suggested drinking in the first place. What ever happened to friends who stop you from becoming an under aged alcoholic and tell you to talk about your problems instead? But no, instead you help me practically drown myself in liquor. What kind of friendship is that?"
"The kind that would also make me ring this door bell and then run away?"
"Chelsea Fanrae don't you dare!"
"Too late!" Chelsea snickered as she sped off down the drive way, then turning, waving and smirking as she apparated.
"Bloody good mate she is," Lily muttered bitterly. Lily straightened up when she heard footsteps approaching the door. It opened.
"Oh, good," Mrs. Potter said, smiling, "I was just about to leave. Travis is in the kitchen with James and Sirius. They're trying to feed him. Maybe you could take over, ok?"
Mrs. Potter smiled kindly and Lily nodded as she entered, shrugging off her jacket and bag as she started towards the kitchen. She walked in, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and her face blank and resigned. Hangovers do that to people.
Inside the kitchen, sitting in a highchair was a boy with hair that stuck up in every which way, much like James'. It must have been a Potter thing, Lily thought languidly, her thoughts still murky and unfocused.
James and Sirius were gallantly trying to force a spoon into the child's mouth, but it was quite obvious that the toddler was having much more fun covering the boys in mashed carrots, rather than eating them.
"What are you doing?" Lily asked, her voice flat and bored. Her eyes were dull and tired as she tried to stifle a yawn.
"Lily! Save us! The little brat won't eat!" Sirius yelped as more mashed carrot splattered across his face. They were both covered in random globs of the thick, orange goop. It was in James' hair even, making it stick up even more than usual if that was even possible.
Lily quirked an eyebrow, "Looks to me as if he's trying to be a Marauder in training."
Sirius gasped, " We do not waste food unless it is for a truly important cause! Like making fools of those slimy Slytherin gits!"
James nodded. Lily sighed, "Fine, whatever, just go off and play some silly Quidditch and I'll feed him."
James scoffed, "Like you can get him to eat that nasty stuff anyways. And Quidditch isn't silly."
Sirius nodded, "He won't even touch it except to throw it at us. And Quidditch isn't silly."
"That's because you haven't got a clue as to what you're doing. And Quidditch is silly," Lily snapped, although her voice had lost some of its edge. She rubbed her temples, trying to clear her thoughts. She took away the mashed carrots from Travis and instead pulled out her wand, and muttering some hushed words under hear breath. A banana then appeared in her hand. She peeled it quickly and cut it into small chunks, and then put them in a small bowl and placed it in front of Travis.
"There you go, knock your self out, kid," she said softly, as she made her way over to the table and sat down, putting her head in her hands. Sirius was distracted by the fact that Travis was actually eating the food while James watched Lily mutter to herself as she grimaced in pain.
"Are you alright?" James asked, his voice soft. Lily looked up, her eyes red at the edges from lack of sleep. She left out a deep sigh, "Yes, I'm just tired."
"If you ask me, you look hung over," Sirius said, turning around to face the two.
"Well you of all people, would know all the symptoms, wouldn't you, Black?" Lily snapped, her voice harsh.
"So you are then?"
"What?"
"Hung over."
"I AM NOT!"
"You know Lily, I'm beginning to think you are too," James acknowledged. Lily, as it seemed to be her growing habit, let out a frustrated scream and left the room.
"Our little Lilly-kins is hung over. They just grow up so fast nowadays," Sirius said, mock-sadness in his voice. James smirked slightly, shook his head and followed Lily out of the room.
Sirius turned back to Travis just in time to receive a chuck of banana right in his face.
Lily was sitting in the study, curled up in a chair with a cup of tea she had conjured for herself and reading a book. James sat down across from her.
"What are you reading?" he asked.
"A book," she answered flatly, her eyes never leaving the page.
"What kind of book?"
"One with words, Potter."
"Lily, come on, I'm trying here."
"It's a book on psychology."
"Psych-awhatty?"
"It's the study of behaviour and mental processes."
"Oh."
There was a pause.
"Tell me something about it," James said, his eyes showing interest. Lily looked up from her book, her mind clearing slightly. The tea was helping nurse her hangover.
"Alright, well right now it's talking about what parts of the brain control different things."
"Yeah, like what?"
"Well the Cerebral Cortex, that's the largest part of you brain, is divided into two hemispheres and is responsible for all the 'higher mental processes' which, for example, is thinking in general. Then there's the Corpus Callosum, which connect the two hemispheres. There's also the Amygdala which is involved in aggression, fear and learning. The Hypothalamus is responsible for emotions and drives, such as hunger, thirst, aggression and sex---"
"Wait, the part of the brain that controls your sex drive is called the Hypothalamus?"
Lily nodded.
"I always though it'd have a different type of name, instead of one that closely resembles the word 'hippopotamus'."
Lily snickered, "Actually, there's a part of the limbic system, which is another part of the brain, that is called the hippocampus."
James laughed, smilingbroadly, and Lily, despite her misgivings about James, felt herself grinning as well.
Then, just when that smiling could have been called a 'moment', a loud crash echoed from the kitchen.
A/N: Who would have thought that my psychology class I'm taking this year would actually prove useful? I need to flaunt my knowledge of the brain somewhere. All I've really got to show from that class so far is a nice diagram of a brain and this crazy thing about neurotransmitters. I'm thinking I might work some of my lovely knowledge about neurotransmitters in later too…
(random comment….SiriuslyRavishingRouge4028: hair re-growth products? Everyone knows bald is the new redhead. Buy a skull cap today!)
Anways, who's glad that Chelsea's here? I hope at least some of you are. It's easier to write her, and I figured Leila would have ended up being Chelsea-esque anyways, so I may as well make her Chelsea.
Oh, and from now on I'm going to try and keep Author's Notes short, and only post Reviewer responses when necessary. But I have one this chapter, because they asked me something I found quite flattering.
Daisfunk: I have a large vocabulary? Cool. Um, I don't know how I got it. Reading my brains out, probably. One of my friends actually accused me of reading the dictionary. My parents also call me encyclopaedia girl (but that's because I know a lot of uselss information)…oooooo…I should make a comic…
Oh, and I've sent you all muffins…but I cannot be held responsible for the postal service workers. They often get snack-ish.
As usual, forgive me for the typos, I tried my best. I re read this darn chapter around four or five times and I probably won't notice any of the mistakes until I post it...
IAAOCAG FOREVER.
---SuperSpy