A/N - I warn you now that this chapter is pathetically short!
"Oh. My. Merlin!" I shoved a pillow over my head and tried to drown out the screaming. This was so not fair, of course every night I wake up to get the screaming baby Sirius doesn't so much as roll over and the night I'm supposed to sleep the kid decides to cry and cry and cry...
"Blood hell Sirius what are you doing to the poor kid?"
"What do you think I'm doing? Shoving pine cones in his diaper? I fed him a bottle, I burped him and now I'm rocking him and he's still screaming," Sirius looked about ready to pull his hair out and I was pretty close to breaking point myself.
"Give him here," I said, reluctantly getting out of bed to grab the screaming terror. I held him to my chest and started pacing the small room, I tried rocking him I tried bouncing him a bit and I even resorted to trying to sing a lullaby, he screamed even louder and even Sirius winced at my terrible singing voice.
Sirius bent over and actually did pull at his hair. "Why did we get stuck with the only kid who doesn't sleep through the night?" He came over and took Peter from me, I flopped onto my bed and covered my face with my hands. "Pete, buddy," Sirius said, holding the screaming baby at arms length, "I swear if you stop crying right now I will let you copy my homework for the rest of the year! Marauder's promise here Pete, common!" Peter stopped crying for a second, we held our breath. It worked, it really worked! He hiccuped took a deep breath and...continued screaming.
"Hey! Where's the diaper bag?" I asked.
"Over by the crib... no, no the other side, by the door." I lent down and started dumping everything out of the bag and... "Aha! Here give him to me." I cradled him in my arms and sat down in the rocking chair, popping the pacifier into his mouth. He stopped crying and seemed to be debating whether or not to suck on the pacifier or to spit it out and continue to torture us.
Slowly, very slowly his eyes slid shut. Sirius punched the air mouthing, "Yes!" We were both afraid to make any noise or sudden movements. I sat and rocked him with Sirius standing over us and watching for a good twenty minutes before I ever so slowly stood up and put him down very gently in the crib. "He's probably teething."
As we both got into our beds I looked over and said, "You know this means there is no way that I am going to let you sleep in tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he muttered, turning towards the wall and pulling the covers around himself.
"You two look like shit," this was what Billie felt was an appropriate greeting.
"Peter too much for you to handle there Sirius?" Remus smirked. They all seemed so pleased by our miserable-ness.
"I think I speak for us both when I say you guys are shite friends."
"Here, here," Sirius mumbled around a large bite of toast.
It was now almost the end of September and I couldn't remember the last night that Peter hadn't kept both me and Sirius awake for at least an hour and a half. I pointed my fork at the surrounding "parents" and said, "You don't know how lucky you are that your children sleep through the night. This child is the devil!" I gestured at Peter who let out the cutest gurgling giggle and totally ruined my point.
"Yeah well at least you don't have to worry about losing him! He just stays wherever you put him," this was a generally consensus, Remus and James had enough trouble watching Gracie and now if either Billie or Iggy took an eye off Quinn he'd have crawled away before they could say stupify.
As Robbie was incredibly shy Lily rarely had any trouble with him because he was always glued to her side. He seemed to be the sweetest kid and we all agreed his parents must have really messed him up to get him sorted into Slytherin.
After dinner that night we all walked up to the common room. It had become normal for us all to eat together, it made it easier on all of us to have the children together so they could entertain each other and let us eat in relative peace. Gracie was still a handful for James and Remus but they found if Robbie was there for her to play with she wouldn't go running off only to be found inside a suit of armour, who by the way was not happy to have the little giggling girl inside him. Neither were her two daddies.
As we settled the kids on the floor with toys to keep them occupied we all started in on some homework or another. James was the one who noticed the newly placed bulleton board with one peice of paper tacked to it. He whooped and turned to tell us all that the first Hogsmead trip would be the following weekend.
A/N - Sorry this is so incredibly short, don't really know how that happened but I'm just going to post this now so you've all got something to read. Next chapter is Hogmead! Hopefully this will encourage you all to leave me lovely reviews. Or un-lovily ones, I'll be happy with anything!