Marauders - Always - Part One

Let's Try It Again

"Love magic me, Lily."

Without a second of hesitation, Lily Potter leaned forward, putting her hands on the sides of James Potter's face so that her fingers were up in his hair and her palms were cupping his jaw and she kissed his mouth and the moment their skins touched it happened.

In a second it happened.

In a blaze of bright white light that seemed hours long and like a single electric shock passed between the touch of two static-charged fingers.

"I can dim the lights and sing you songs full of sad things... we can do the tango, just for two... I can serenade and gently play on your heart strings, be your Valentino, just for youuuuuu...."

Sirius's voice rang out as the memory came into focus, accompanied by the beat of crunching grass beneath four sets of walking feet. A bird let out a cry far across the field from where they walked through the woods, nearly shoulder to shoulder. Except for Sirius, who was draped dramatically over Remus's shoulders, shouting/singing loudly into the tops of the trees, howling out the lyrics as he clung onto his husband.

"Hey boy where do you get it from? Hey boyyy where did you goooo? ....I learned my passion at the good old-fashioned school of loverboys!" He ended his serenade with a lick across the length of Remus's scar - the one which ran the length from one temple to the jaw on the other side, directly across his nose.

"Enough about your dirty, dirty sex lives!" James voice echoed through the memory and he was standing, arms out, presenting the land they'd just explored - the trees, the field, and in the distance the back view of the cottage that Lily and James now lived in. "What do you lot think?"

"We could have a blast, just like back in Hoggywarty-Hogwarts days!" Sirius burst out. "We could camp out sometimes... Go swimming. Skinny dipping."

"Skinny dipping, Evans?" James voice was full of laughter. It was mid-summer, the moon was in the sky - not full, waning quarter, actually, so it wasn't even very bright. They were in the woods, Lily and James, alone, the house small across the field. James's face flushed and he grinned, "You're joking."

But Lily's green eyes flashed seductively and she'd spun about, a playful look on her face, and she'd skipped into the woods, ducking below the treeline, pulling at the bottom hem of her blouse as she went.

"Oh gods, Evans," James had said, and he'd broke into a run following after her, ducking under the trees, too, his fingers fumbling for the buttons of his shirt as he passed by her shoes and stockings, her blouse hanging from a branch... her skirt... her bra, her underpants laying on the shore... and there was a splash and he was kicking off his trousers and pushing down his boxer shorts as he reached the water's edge to see her there, floating in the water, reflecting the stars overhead sho she looked like she was in the middle of a pool of diamonds, her red hair lavender in the moonlight.

He splashed, ungracefully into the water himself, and waded over to her, sinking into the water so that only their shoulders and heads stuck out of it, and he laughed nervously, childishly. It wasn't that he hadn't seen her naked a hundred times by then - this was after they'd been married and trying for a couple months to have a baby, after all, but there was something different about it being outside like this.

She'd laughed and she'd reached over and laid her palm on his bare chest. She bit her lower lip and grinned at him. "I don't have anything to grab on to pull you closer," she whispered, "So you'll have to just come over here yourself."

"There are things you could pull on if you wanted, Evans," he said slyly.

"You're such a toerag," she laughed, eyes sparkling.