"Lily, dear, why is there a toilet disk on the counter?"

"Mum, I can assure you that there is a perfectly legitimate reason. However," Lily continued, leading Maggie by the sleeve out of the kitchen, "I must have a word with Maggie in the sitting room."

"Do you have attention deficit disorder or something?" Maggie asked, sitting on the sofa, arms crossed.

Lily sat beside her, eyebrows furrowed. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Oh, I don't know. You're dragging me around by the arm and can't seem to stay in one place nor on one subject of conversation." Maggie paused, then shrugged and added, " And it makes me sound intelligent."

Lily put a hand to her forehead and sunk further into the couch. "Just give my brain a moment to process..."

And for once, Maggie did as she was told. She had to bite her lip to do so, and though she feared it may bleed, it was worth the pain. She couldn't count on her fingers how many times she had had to choose between her best friend and her cousin because of the friction between them. This time, she was impossibly on both sides at the same time, and she knew that in order to make things not implode she would have to excercise much more self-restraint than she normally used.

Lily breathed out deeply. "Okay." She stood and positioned herself as if going to war. "If I don't make it, tell my owl I love him." She stepped into the kitchen.

Maggie shook her head and muttered, "Drama queen..."

The next several minutes consisted of the story behind the toilet disk, James and Sirius returning with a carton of broken eggs, Mr. Evans asking James, Sirius, and Maggie about Wizarding homes, Mrs. Evans leaving to fetch a new carton of eggs, and finally, as the conversation turned towards Quidditch and the spare tickets James just "happened" to have for the World Cup, Lily ushered the group outside to the Evans's backyard (and as far away from her father as possible).

"Narcissus," Sirius commented, bending down to sniff a bed of flowers.

"I'm impressed." Lily admitted, pushing her hair over her shoulder. "Sirius Black: notorious badass by day, softie florist by night."

Sirius straightened and smiled an odd, faraway smile. "Actually, my cousin is named after them...Narcissa Black."

"Oh." Lily said, thinking she had touched a sore spot. She looked at Maggie who's expression said to change the topic of conversation, and quick. But the nice thing about Sirius Black was he always had something to talk about, reliving Lily from groping for small talk.

"Notorious badass, huh?" Sirius quirked an eyebrow.

"Or so some people think." Lily shrugged.

The sun was low in the sky, but even the late evening could not halt the mid-July heat waves. Lily sat down on the steps that led inside, leaning her head against the cool metal handrail. Maggie was laying beside Sirius in the grass, and James was walking her way.

"Beautiful day," James commented lightly. He sat beside her, a step down, and propped his elbows up on the step above him.

Lily picked her head up. "Yeah..." She admired the intricate way the sun cast it's rays upon the grass and how the trees blew gently in the wind. It really was stunning.

"Hot, though..." James added.

Lily found it hard to believe that James Potter was making small talk to her. It was somehow sensitive to see him doing so. It made him seem less egotistical and more...real.

"Yes." Lily agreed. "I wish there was a pool nearby."

James grinned. "Or a sprinkler."

"Huh?"

James pointed.

It took Lily a moment to realize she was actually seeing this with her own eyes: Sirius and Maggie were stripped down to their knickers and dancing around in the sprinkler. For, what they were doing could only be qualified as dancing, as their hands met and their feet moved in time to imaginary music (though if this situation had been romantic, the two of them could have been swaying in time with the wind, but as it was decidedly not, they looked a bit odd dancing to nothing).

"Please shoot me if there's something going on between them?" Lily not so much asked as ordered James.

"Er—not that I know of." James appraised his cousin and his best friend. The thought had never occurred to him before.

"In that case..." Lily jumped to her feet and ran over to the sprinkler where she whisper-yelled, "What the hell are you doing?"

Sirius spun Maggie, who said, "Cooling off."

"Really? And I thought you were beating each other with the hose. That at least I would find entertaining. You realize I have neighbours? Religious old ladies who have fifty cats and disapprove of skirts shorter than their ankles!"

"Wow, Evans," Sirius said. "No wonder why you're bored."

"You wanted something to do," Maggie pointed out as Sirius spun her around again.

Lily crossed her arms. "Brilliant idea! Why don't I strip down to my knickers and join you? Then perhaps we can go smoke on the street corner and offer joints to little children that pass by!"

"Don't give him any ideas," James muttered, coming up behind her.

"You have quite a diabolical mind for such a stickler, Evans." Sirius looked impressed.

"Just be spontaneous!" Maggie urged. "It's past five; the old ladies are already in bed."

Lily looked at James, who seemed to have swapped places with Maggie for the moment. He shrugged. "It is rather warm..."

"Shut up, James," Maggie implored, "she knows you have ulterior motives."

Lily shook her head. "Dinner is at seven." She turned her back and walked inside.

"And I've already pissed her off..." Maggie muttered, hastily drying herself with her wand and pulling her clothes on. "Don't do anything I wouldn't," she told James and Sirius. "Scratch that—don't do...anything. Yeah." She ran inside.

Sirius stared after her, and James couldn't help but to ask.

"There's nothing...?"

Sirius pushed his hair back. "What?"

James opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind. "Nothing."

-...-

"I'm sorry."

Lily did not move from her position face down on the sofa.

"I swear, from from now on I'll be Magret Tightwad Potter. Just, please don't be angry with me."

Lily grunted.

"I'll take that as a yes. Will you do the honour of swearing me in?"

Lily grunted again.

"What was that?"

"I said," Lily sat up, "will you, Margret Esther Potter, accept the duty and responsibility of changing your middle name to Tightwad?"

Maggie solemnly put her hand up. "I will."

"And, in any circumstance that may present itself in the future, will you refer to yourself as such with pride and without hesitation?"

"I will. Tightwad is just as proper as Esther anyway. What my parents were smoking when they named me, I'll unfortunately never know. Which is a bloody shame, because I want to try some."

Lily breathed out a laugh. "I'm not mad at you. Don't apologize. My week is already ruined, I at least want you to enjoy yourself." She sighed. "My parents are just driving me up the wall...and my sister..."

"Say no more," Maggie sat down beside Lily, glancing around the room. "Your parents do have odd tastes...you weren't kidding about the wallpaper."

"You should see their bedroom," Lily shuddered. "Looks like a bloody circus..."

"They aren't contortionists, are they?" Maggie smirked.

Lily hit her in the arm.

-...-

"Dinner looks absolutely delectable, Mrs. Evans."

Mrs. Evans smiled, flattered. "Thank you, Sirius. Harold, will you pass the rolls around?"

"What are you kids up to tomorrow?" Mr. Evans acquiesced. "You know, there's a carnival downtown that opens Monday."

"Yeah, I thought we'd go to that sometime during the week." Lily said, putting a bite in her mouth.

"They're supposed to have a ferris wheel and everything this year," Mr. Evans continued. "Ever been on a ferris wheel, boys? No?"

And that was all Lily remembered of the dinner. She tuned out all of the talking and smiled when she heard her name. Luckily for her the conversation revolved mostly around the fact that none of the three guests owned a television or a car. She loved her father, but he was very talkative and very, very curious.

The next thing she knew, her plate was cleared and James was insisting that he wash the dishes. Lily thought this to mean purely wand work, a swish and a flick, but to her surprise he collected all of the plates and silverware and set to work on filling the sink.

"I have to use the loo." Maggie declared, excusing herself.

Lily noticed Sirius was already missing from the room before her mother tilted her head towards the kitchen and said, "Help James with the dishes, will you?"

He was performing admirably, Lily thought, inspecting his work. The sink was full of soapy water and he had placed the dishes in the right positions on the drying rack.

"Looks like you don't need any help," Lily said as she approached him. "I didn't know you knew how to do dishes the Muggle way."

James shrugged. "There's a lot you don't know about me."

In the blink of an eye, Lily Evans saw more of James Potter than she ever had before. Rather, it wasn't what she saw, more than what she hadn't yet seen. She had realized there was more to him than meets the eye, and somehow it had only taken him to roll up his sleeves and immerse his hands in a sink full of dishes for her to discover he that.

-...-

The sun streaming in through the curtains woke Lily the next morning. She stood and stretched before thoughts of the day before consumed her mind. Thinking twice, she got back into her bed and pulled the covers over her head. This was going to be a long day.