Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: Since I have not removed all of my poly ship fics from my collection called The Round File, the other two parts of this AU are still over there. Those parts are called "Time is Not a Division" and "Over the Moon".

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 13); MC4A
Individual Challenges: Gryffindor MC (x4); Magical MC (x5); Rian-Russo Inversion (x4); Ethnic & Present (x4); Hold the Mayo (x4); Lunar Era; Old Shoes (Y); Quiver Full [Soulmates]; Bucket Listing (Y); Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y)
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 13 – Assignment 03
Subject (Task No.): n/a
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Insane Prompt Challenge [165](Holding a Baby); 365 [218](Nincompoop); Herbology Club [1-2](Bromance); Auction [28-1](Hermione/James); Tell a Joke Day [07](Someone doing DIY)
Other MC4A Challenges: Hunt [Sp Items](French Press); Chim [Deke](Royal Purple); Ship (Thorns)[Sp Mic 1](Soul Marks AU); Fire [Hard](Taking the High Seas); Garden [Rose Types](Bee in Your Bonnet)
Representation(s): Black Hermione Granger/Black Lily Evans Potter/Desi James Potter; Soul Marks & Time Travel
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Grease Monkey; Muck & Slime; Abandoned Ship; In the Trench; Surprise!; Second Verse (Ladylike; Not a Lamp; Persistence Still; White Dress; Found Family; Nontraditional; Zucchini Bread; Middle Name; Nightingale; Spinning Plates; Unwanted Advice; Clio's Conclusion; Three's Company; Deadliest Catch; Lovely Coconuts); Chorus (Wabi Sabi; Fizzy Lemonade; Machismo; Peddling Pots; Mouth of Babes; Tomorrow's Shade; A Long Dog; Larger than Life; Unicorn); Demo 1 (Under the Bridge; Sweetest Burn); Demo 2 (Strange Potatoes; Yarnspinner; Messing with Morlocks)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: T3 (x); SN (Rail); LiCK (Poppy; Tansy; Yarrow); FR (Satisfaction; Liberation); O3 (Oath); HoSE (Schooner); War (Obstruction); TY (Enfant)
Word Count: 935

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Bee in Your Bonnet
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"You should join them," Sirius said as he tried to convince to Harry that peas were for eating, not launching into the air. "Honestly, I don't think they would mind and I've got Bambi occupied."

James looked away from the women sitting close together on the living room couch. Hermione was knitting something out of royal purple yarn while Lily was embroidering runes onto a quilt. It was strangely enthralling to watch the two soulmates together, if only because of the knowledge that Hermione had literally traveled backwards in time to be with Lily.

He had known that he wasn't Lily's soulmate when he had married her, of course. Not only did her mark not match his, James had known from his first night at Hogwarts that his soulmate was Sirius. That didn't change the fact that the idea of doing anything like what he did with Lily with Sirius felt inherently wrong. Soulmate or not, Sirius was not his type in that area. That was more than fine because Remus and Marlene loved Sirius like James and Lily loved each other.

Everything had been fine until Hermione had shown up. Or at least it had been as fine as one could expect with a war going on. They had had a happy life and marriage. Not that they were unhappy now that they had Hermione with them. Everything had just gotten a bit weird. That was all.

Hermione was… interesting. She was worse than Lily when it came to getting lost in a project, often working until her dark brown skin started turning gray from lack of food and water. Wrangling Hermione was easier than trying to do the same for Lily. At least Hermione wasn't prone to snapping at him like the redhead was.

Hermione also had a way of organizing things that rivaled Remus. The kitchen had been in shambles when she had arrived. In a frustrated flurry at three in the morning, she had emptied all the cabinets and reordered everything. It had been confusing at first but honestly, once he had learned where everything was, he liked it much better than what he and Lily had come up with. It seemed to flow more efficiently the way Hermione had organized it.

"You know what, puppy?" Sirius declared after James had let the silence go on for too long. "I think we should visit Uncle Moony. Wouldn't you like that?"

Harry clapped his brown hands together excitedly before reaching eagerly for Sirius. For his part, Sirius was already unbuckling the baby to pull him from the high chair into his arms. Then Sirius fixed his stormy gaze on James again.

"I'm going to be the emotionally mature one just this once," Sirius said, "and tell you that you need to settle where the three of you are at and where you're aiming to go. Leaving yourselves in limbo is helping no one, least of all Harry. She could have gone to any point in time, you know, and she chose to come to a point when you and Lily were already an inseparable unit. There's got to have been a reason."

"They're soulmates, Padfoot," James said only a bit of despondency slipping into his voice. "How can I possibly compete with that?"

"It's not a competition, you nincompoop." Sirius sighed heavily only for Harry to stick one of his hands into his mouth. Careful to be gentle, he extracted it before continuing. "Talk to your wife and her soulmate so that you can stop pining already. It's starting to be more annoying than it was during our sixth year. Don't make me get Aunt Dorea on your case again."

"You would seriously call my mother?" James asked incredulously. "How would you even manage that? She's dead!"

"I heard that Lovegood's wife knows how to speak to spirits that didn't stick around as ghosts," he answered easily as he wiped off Harry's hands. "Apparently, she's pretty good at it, too. Likes to scandalous the stuffy nobles with tidbits from their ancestors. That Dione is quite the force of nature."

"Sirius, are you almost ready to take Harry?" Lily called from the front room. James looked back to see that she was leaning sideways on the couch to look towards the kitchen. She had a suggestive smile on her face. "Hermione and I are at stopping points now."

"You planned this," James accused as he turned back towards his own soulmate. Sirius gave his most mischievous grin. "You planned this!"

"Actually, they planned it," Sirius corrected without even pretending that he hadn't been conspiring against James. "I just went along with their genius."

Without another word, Sirius grabbed the French press that Hermione had left on the counter to dry. Instantly, both of them disappeared. Of course the coffee press had been made into a Portkey. That was just the sort of meticulous planning that James had come to expect from Hermione. She had figured out how to track her soulmate through time and came back with files full of things to change. Really, how could he ever hope to compete against someone that far ahead of him?

James rolled his eyes at himself as he walked into the living room. He plopped himself in the space between the two women. Hermione set aside her knitting while Lily had already put away her needles and thread in the tin sitting on the end table next to the couch.

"I'm a nincompoop," James announced. Both women leaned close to him and kissed his cheeks.

"We know," Lily said.

"We love you anyway," Hermione finished.