the marauders- an inseparable bond

[27] dinner

Ding-dong.

Lily stood somewhat nevoursly, tugging her sleeves over her hands (she always forgot gloves), on James Potter's front porch. Lily had passed her Apparation test, so she'd been able to apparate her family right in front of the home. She glanced over at her parents. Muggle, the word itself, pratically radiated off them; her father's crooked glasses perched on his nose, and her mother's cable knit sweater, and... She looked the other way, and her eyes rested upon Petunia, who could not look more miserable if she had tried.

"I will not go!" she'd yelled. "I won't! Not to a freak house! To meet her FREAK boyfriend."

"It's fine mum," murmured Lily, "she doesn't have to come."

"Oh yes she does!" her mother had declared. "We are meeting this boy's family, and in return, they are meeting us, all of us."

The front door swung open, and there stood Mrs. Potter, cheery as Lily had remembered. She ushered Lily's family in, gushing about how nice it was to meet them and so on. Taking off her coat to hand and hanging it up, she saw him peeking out from behind his mother. It had only been a week, yet it had felt like much longer, and somehow Lily was shocked by just how handsome he looked. His usual square-framed glasses sat on his nose, his chocolaty-brown hair tussled to perfection, he wore faded jeans with a rip in the knee, and a flannel shirt that looked as though it would be soft to touch from being washed so many times. She ducked around her parents and Mrs. Potter, and ran into his arms, where he pulled her close and didn't let go. Damn, he smelt good.

James and Lily escaped upstairs to his room, where Peter, Remus and Sirius were waiting.

"Remus!" she shrieked, running to pull him into a hug.

"Hey," he smiled, hugging back.

"Well don't bother to address us, Lily," called Sirius.

She laughed, and ran over to hug them too.

Once she and James had joined Remus on his bed, she asked:

"Hey, where's your dad?"

"Um, he's at work. He'll be a bit late."

Lily remembered his father hardly being around when she'd come to stay in the summer, but she would have thought so close to Christmas things might have been different. She took James' hand.

"DINNER!" called Mrs. Potter from downstairs.

***

"So James," said Mrs. Evans, "Lily tells me you're on the- um, Kwe-"

"Quidditch, mum," said Lily.

"Yes, the Quidditch team?"

"Yeah, I'm a chaser and I'm team captain," said James.

"And the chasers do what?" inquired Mr. Evans.

"We score the goals."

"Do any of you other boys play?" he asked.

Peter and Remus shook their heads, but Sirius piped up.

"I'm a beater, which means I use a bat to hit the bludgers away from our team and at our opponents."

"And what's a bludger?" asked Mrs. Potter.

Lily rolled her eyes; she had explained the rules of Quidditch to them a thousand times.

"A ball that flies around trying to knock people of their brooms."

Petunia, who had been silent the whole meal, snorted.

"What?" asked Sirius as her parents shot her warning glances.

"It's- it's just all so ridiculous!" she finally burst out.

"That's quite enough, Petunia," warned her father.

She looked as though she was going to say something else, but she didn't. She simply rose to her feet and left the room.

Mrs. Potter feebly complimented Mrs. Evans' sweater, and the conversation picked itself back up again.

The rest of dinner was quite enjoyable. The two families and the marauders chatted amicably and plowed through several helpings of Mrs. Potter's delicious cooking. Petunia did not return, and at one point during the meal when Lily had let her mind wander, she wondered if her sister was even still in the house.

"Hey," James had said, nudging her.

"Hey," she said back.

"You alright?"

She nodded.

Currently, dinner had ended, and James' mom had taken everyone outside to see her magical plants. James and her had escaped upstairs, and now sat together on his bed.

"Is your sister always that weirded out by magic?" he asked.

"I suppose," she nodded. "We were the best of friends when we were little, but then I started being able to do things, and Sev showed up," (James winced,) "and I guess she was jealous. Or it was strange and different for her or something. Point this, I thought after a while she would get used to it. And we would be friends again. But she, uh, never did."

Lily gave a small smile, and James put his arm around her.

"It's okay. You've got other friends now. You'll always have us."

"What d'you wanna do after Hogwarts?" she mumbled.

"I'm not sure. Well, I know I want to join the order."

"The order?" she asked, "What's that?"

"Well, I'm not exactly supposed to know about it, see," he admitted sheepishly. "I was just outside McGonagall's door, I'd come 'round to do a detention, and I heard her and Dumbledore talking about. It's called The Order of the Pheonix, and it's all about fighting You-Know-Who."

"Woah," she said. "Well, then, I'm gonna join up as well."

"But-"

"But what? It's too dangerous?"

"Well, yeah."

"Oh please, James. I can take anything that you can."

He shrugged.

"That is true."

With a pang, Sirius, slightly tipsy from the champagne they'd had at dinner burst in and said loudly:

"Ooooooooooh what do we have here, Prongsy and Lily, kissing?"

Remus speed-walked in after him.

"Shh, Sirius, quiet down."

"Oooooooh Moony moons! You're the one I kiss."

Remus smiled, and said:

"Come on, let's get you into bed."

Within five minutes, Sirius was lying in bed, snoring.

"I should probably go say goodbye to my parents," Lily said.

At the bottom of the stairs, she found them getting their coats on and saying goodbye to Mrs. Potter. As she hugged her father, she whispered into his ear:

"Where's tuney?"

"She's waiting outside. Do you want to come out to say goodbye to her?"

Lily thought for a second about her sister, who had held this ridiculous grudge for years, who would rather sit in the freezing cold than spend time with her, her best friends and their family.

"No," she replied.