Chapter Seven
"Have any any of you seen James or Sirius this morning?" Remus asked, hoisting a squirming Grace onto his shoulders as we walked towards the Gryffindor table for breakfast.
"No I haven't at all. Sirius got up with Peter last night and when I got him up this morning Sirius had already left. Which is really weird actually, he always sleeps late when I'm on Peter morning duty."
"Hmm, well James was supposed to get Gracie ready this morning but he was gone when she woke me up. Which wasn't very pleasant by the way, waking up to have a toddler jumping on your pillow. I think they must be pulling a prank. James has been fairly good so far this year 'cause Lily finally seems to be tolerating him. I knew he'd snap eventually and do something though."
"Lets hope that it's at least a prank we can all take pleasure in. Something anti-Slytherin-y," Billie said looking over at the Slytherin table as if hoping to see Goblin ears sprout out of all the Slytherins heads. I don't think James and Sirius are that good but you never know.
"Well lets hope they make it here to walk down to Hogmead with us, I do not want to have to watch Gracie all day by myself, what with the whole village to hide in and destroy," the little girl looked up at Remus with some pancake sticking out of her mouth.
"She is deceptively cute."
Remus snorted, "Yeah she is, that's what gets everyone, they don't realize her halo is held up by her horns."
"What horns Daddy Remus?" she patted her head smearing syrup into her hair, making Remus groan and me, Iggy and Billie laugh.
On the way out of of the entrance hall and down to Hogsmead we'd still had no sign of James or Sirius but we met up with Lily who was pushing Robbie in his stroller. Remus had gotten Gracie into her stroller with the bribe of a lollipop to have on the way to the village. Quinn was content nowadays as long as he had something to chew on all the time, as he was teething.
"Hey, you guys mind if we walk down with you?" Lily asked, a little out of breath from jogging up to us.
"No, of course not," Remus answered with a smile. "You seen James or Sirius this morning they seem to be M.I.A."
Lily rolled her eyes, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. "Yes I've seen them. They're down stairs scrubbing the corridor outside of the Slytherin common room. Put down some sort of slipping potion down, thought they'd stay down there and have a laugh as all the Slytherin's fell on their arses coming out of the common room. 'Course they got caught 'cause they stayed there to watch. Don't know what they were thinking on that one. Staying at the scene of the crime, did they think they'd be invisible or what? Anyways, they'll be down there the rest of the day, probably won't make it to the village at all. It would actually be quite hilarious to go down there and watch them try to clean it up, they keep sliding down the corridor, takes them five minutes to get back to the bucket of soap and water."
We all laughed and Billie said, "I would pay to watch them do that! Would of been funner to see the Slytherin's do it though."
"It's more fun Billie."
"See, even Iggy agrees!"
I laughed, "Don't think that's quite what he meant Bill."
"Well this blows," Remus said, "Me and James were gonna split baby-duty so we could shop in peace."
"Yeah, Sirius will definitely be picking up some extra two am feedings for this."
We walked the rest of the way to the village in relative silence. Just as we were heading towards Zonko's I burst out, "I have a plan!"
"Oh merlin."
"Not another one!"
I looked at my two best friends with a pained face, "Thanks for the support guys. Anyways it doesn't involve you, although we may need your help a bit. We need to punish James and Sirius for leaving us alone with the kids all day and not doing their part. How better then to leave them completely alone with the kids all night. As far as I know neither of them have looked after their children for more then an hour or so at a time."
"I'm intrigued," Remus said, opening the door, all of us filing into Zonko's, "do go on."
"Don't you think that the detention today was punishment enough?" Iggy asked.
"No way! That was punishment for what they did to the corridor not for what they did to us."
"I have to say that I agree," Lily stated, which greatly surprised me. "Although are you sure you want to risk your children's lives by leaving them alone with those two?"
I thought about it for a second, watching as Gracie tried to get out of her stroller, her beady eyes focused on a spinning top whirling through the air a few feet away. "Yeah, I'll risk it, what's the worst that could happen?" As both Lily and Iggy opened their mouths to respond I cut them off, "rhetorically question!"
Remus bent down to Gracie and said, if you stay in your stroller in the stores I'll let you pick out one toy and one candy from honeydukes."
She seemed to think intently about the bribe for a second, then perked up saying, "Okay Daddy Remus!"
"So Sonnie," Remus said, "what would you say to looking around here and honeydukes then going to plot some revenge over some butterbeers at the Three Broomsticks."
"Well Mr Lupin, I'd have to say that is the best way to plot revenge."
Oh Score! This has got to be my greatest plan thus far, revenge, plotting, possible pranking and a butterbeer with one handsome Remus Lupin. Go Sonnie!
About a half an hour later me and Remus had been ditched with our babies. Although it was less being ditched and more having a best friend who could tactfully leave me alone with my crush to bond over our shared need to make our baby daddys lives miserable for a day.
"Okay, so, the beginning of my plan starts with my whole failed-last-years-potions-therefore-is-taking-sixth-and-seventh-year-potions-this-year thing that I've got going on. Seeing as I am obviously terrible at potions and you are quite good at potions we will use this to our advantage. We will tell our baby daddys," he laughed at this, " that Slughorn has asked you to help tutor me in potions-"
"Why wouldn't he have asked Lily though, since she's the best. Remember, James and Sirius appear to be dense but they won't just take any old explanation."
"I thought you'd say that! Slughorn wouldn't have asked Lily because he thought it would be easier for you, who is not a single parent, then it would be for single-Mommy Lily."
He nodded his head thoughtfully and narrowed his eyes, most likely looking for a loop hole in the story that would make James and Sirius suspicious. "Seems good to me," he finally said, "but won't it be suspicious that it's a one time tutor session?"
"I was thinking it could be weekly-" he opened his mouth to cut me off, "I know this whole thing was for revenge for today but can you really say no to one baby-free night a week? Common that's too good to pass up, we both know that we are the two most involved 'parents' in our little coupley-things we've got going on."
"Yeah, that's definitley true..."
Peter starting making pre-crying noises so I hoisted him out of his crib and onto my shoulder. Gracie was perfectly happy eating some little candies Remus had bought her.
"Almost nap time for Mr Peterson here."
Remus laughed at my little nickname then slapped his hand on the table and said, "Alright, let's do it. Once a week 'tutoring' for the good parents," he held out his hand and we shook on it. " I say when we get back to the castle we have the first one, I've been bribing Gracie all day with sweets so she'll be good and ready for James tonight."
"You can tell someone's a Marauder when..." he laughed and we got the kids all bundled up again and went to find the others.
A/N - This one is fairly short too but don't worry the longer chapters are coming and so is more Remus/Sonnie alone time! All your reviews are lovely, reading them really does inspire me to keep writing. I hope you all enjoyed this and what is to come.