Chapter Text
“JAMES!” Lily’s frightened shout rang through the corridor.
James jumped to his feet from the couch, leaving Harry, who had been babbling on the floor to his toys, looking on in confusion as his father ran to the hallway.
James skidded to a stop in front of the doorway to the bathroom. His wife, face red with irritation and hair blowing in her face, was irate.
“This is not bloody funny!” She thrust a handful of small, black plastic spiders into his chest. They were only a few of the many that now covered the bathroom mirror and sink, their plastic shell shining in the fluorescent lights.
The look on James Potter’s face said that he did find it quite bloody funny, in fact, he was finding it bloody hilarious that it had succeeded in pissing off his wife so much.
His laughter boomed through the bathroom, and was mirrored by a tinier voice, which had crawled down the corridor after him, and was now giggling while clutching to his pant leg.
“See, Harry thinks it’s funny” James chuckled, grabbing his son from the ground and holding him to his hip. Lily seemed as though her angry face was about to crack, but last minute, she snatched her son away from her husband, kissing his pudgy cheek,
“He doesn’t think it’s funny to scare his mummy, right Harry?” She pouted at the dark haired boy, who blew his lips at her and lightly pat her cheeks.
“Baa baa baa” He said, and Lily raised an eyebrow at her husband as if to say See? He sides with me.
James rolled his eyes, struggling to wipe away the grin on his face.
It was Halloween, after all, and he was a Marauder! It was his prerogative to wreak havoc, and he had tried to prank Harry, but babies seem to prefer havoc to anything else. James had changed his sugar to salt, and Harry had mashed his breakfast down happily. James had charmed his toys to run away from him, and Harry had squealed in delight. James had even charmed Harry’s favorite toy, his small stuffed wolf, to do a little jig, and that hadn’t even phased him. Bloody magical babies.
So, it was James’ only option to prank his wife.
“Where’s my wand?” Lily asked, as she crouched under the sink, digging in the mysterious depths.
“Not under there” James intoned, wondering what the hell could be under there.
“Tch- I know that” Lily stuck her head back out to look at him incredulously. Harry, next to her, wore a twin expression. James feared for his future.“I want it to clear away these spiders before the cat gets them everywhere and your son gets them into his bottomless stomach”
Harry already seemed quite determined to snack on a few, if the way he was gnawing on his fist and grappling for them was any indication.
James considered that he had already succeeded in scaring the daylights out of her, and grabbed his wand from the hallway table to clear away the mess. As he was moving to tuck it back away, Lily pulled her head out from under the sink.
“Aha!” She crowed triumphantly, and Harry babbled happily in response. In her hand were a pair of muggle toenail clippers.
“What do you need toenail clippers for?” James asked, and mentally patted himself on the back for remembering the name from Muggle Studies. He had gotten an O on that Newt with pride.
“For clipping toenails-oh, thank you” Lily smiled at him for cleaning up the spiders, before breezing past him towards the living room to set Harry down. He spotted the cat near the fireplace, and set off running to grab at her elusive orange tail.
“Why not just use the regular spell?” James dropped his wand in the vase alongside Lily’s as he followed her into the kitchen, where she propped herself up on a stool to strip her sock off.
Her feet were mostly unfreckled, unlike the rest of her body, and always looked remarkably soft. James appreciated them just as much as he did the rest of her, for they were absolutely perfect. Her rosebud lips frowned in concentration as she edged the muggle device near her big toe nail, gently clipping until she was satisfied.
“I’ve a hangnail, and that spell is too rough for it” She brushed her hands on her pants, before replacing her thick wool sock. She sighed in contentment, before rushing past him again to return the nail clipper to the dark abyss in which she found it. There was some clanging, and James heard the shower turn on.
He rushed to the bathroom, her name halfway out of his mouth when she let loose a blood curdling scream.
By the time he had jogged to the door, Lily looked even more murderous than last time, now fully throwing a thick rubber snake at his face. He ducked, and the snake bounced off the wall behind them, jostling the photos framed on the wall. He watched as a picture of him, Sirius, Peter and Remus looked rudely down at the snake, before continuing their boyish laughter.
“If I have to see another one of your damned creatures, I will stuff you myself Potter” She slammed the door shut in his face, and he heard the telltale click of the lock.
“Don’t go into the bedroom then!” He called through the door, grinning. He hadn’t done anything to the bedroom, but had found that anticipation of a prank tended to be just as satisfying.
He grabbed the snake from the ground, wiggling its limp rubber body in the air as he walked to the living room. He threw it in one of Harry’s many toy bins, which had been steadily filled from his overly zealous godfather.
James ached to think of his brother. Sirius was currently in hiding, moving from place to place, taking a break from his position at St. Mungo’s to be a “better provider” to the war efforts. By that, he means he knows he had made himself a target by allowing the public to believe he was their secret keeper. Now, he was Merlin knows where, with Moony just as elusive, and poor Peter falling apart at the seams.
Sirius looked and acted like a rogue, like a pirate, but James knew that he liked his little life with Moony, visiting Harry and drinking tea with Lily while they gossiped. He could be anywhere in England, even on the continent for all James knew. His letters were always brief and stinted- how is Harry, how is Lily, how is the cat, yes he was good, yes he was sleeping, no he was not in danger, and don’t worry about it Prongs. It felt deeply unfair that to keep James’ son safe, he had to send his brother out like a battered shield, and he got to relax all day with his wife and baby. He felt unnervingly like he had gotten away with the easy part of it all, while Sirius had to do all the heavy lifting. Not to mention Peter, of course, who seemed to be turning all his hair that didn’t fall out gray with stress. His letters were written with a shaky hand, his visits short and awkward, and James worried about his mental state, how he was possibly faring with the (albeit invisible) target on his back, his mother’s illness, on top of being relatively alone. And bloody Remus, left to transform alone, feel alone, devolve into a monstrous version of himself, reinforcing all his negative self-talk and the thoughts they had all tried to rid him of for so many years.
James groaned and rubbed his face, bending forwards on the sofa. This is why Lily couldn’t take showers, or use the bathroom, or wander off to do her own things. James' brain headed down roads he hated as soon as it was left to its own devices.
“Dadadadadadada” Harry crooned from the rug, having returned from chasing the cat. He tumbled a few steps to James, before deciding crawling would be easier. He crouched, before crawling over the edge of the sofa. He grabbed James' pant leg to pull himself to standing, before pointing to where the cat had disappeared under the dining room table.
“Where did the kitty go?” James asked Harry, if only to watch his little eyebrows scrunch up his face. He put his hands up to his sides, his little approximation of a “I dunno!”.
James smiled before sliding down to lay on the floor with him. Playing with Harry would provide him with a bit more distraction that just sitting on the couch would.
The windows had grown dark a few hours ago, back when they had fed Harry his dinner and James and Lily had eaten themselves. James creaked out a yawn, and considered why he felt so old when he was barely an adult. Only twenty one, and eight o’clock felt like an appropriate bedtime. James and Harry read some picture books, played with some stuffed animals, and attempted to sort some of the colorful plastic balls into the right spaces. James felt that Harry was more interested in how they tasted. As they played, James heard Lily exit the bathroom, and smelt her cinnamon shampoo drift out into the hall. He heard her footsteps tentatively approach the bedroom, and she quickly thrust the door open in fear. He chuckled to himself. Never got old.
“Buhbuh?” Harry asked after a while of him and James rolling around on the floor.
“You want bubbles little man?” James asked, and Harry grinned widely, showing off his few teeth.
“Let’s do some bubbles! Yayyy” Harry clapped his hands to James’ exclamations, giggling as James swept him up into his arms. He walked towards the vase on the hall table, where his wand rested next to Lily’s.