Priori Incantatem [HARRY POTTER FANFICTION]

Chapter 54: The Question of the Day

Chapter 54: The Question of the Day

October 1980

Lily stretched and pulled herself out of her chair, wandering over to look out her bedroom window. Twilight had fallen, and beneath the flat people hurried back and forth on their way home from work, their coats buttoned against the October chill.

It was nearly dark inside the flat as well; Harry had gone to sleep about an hour ago, and Lily had taken the opportunity to curl up for a nap as well. She'd learned from three months' worth of experience that it was wise to sleep when Harry slept.

Glancing at the sleeping baby, Lily almost couldn't believe that it had only been three months' worth of experience. Already it was difficult to fathom a world without Harry in it. Everything she and James had done, said, or thought in the past three months had been in some way centred on Harry.

James had been able to take a short leave of absence from his job, so for the first month and a half of Harry's life the three of them had been together almost constantly. Together, she and James had faced the late-night feedings, nappy changings, bouts of crying, and all of the general emergencies, real or imagined, that came with having a new baby. Lily was willing to bet that she and James combined had slept a total of ten hours during that first month, a wager Sirius would willingly have backed her up on. In fact, he seemed to enjoy teasing them about their fixation.

"Stark raving mad, the pair of you," Sirius had declared flatly last week when he'd come in unannounced and caught Lily and James bouncing round and round the sitting room in an elaborate ploy to make Harry laugh.

Shamefaced, Lily and James had both put an end to their respective Bouncing Charms and came to stand near Sirius, neither of them daring to meet his eye.

Harry, on the other hand, had laughed more uproariously than he ever had over his parents' impromptu bouncing and stretched his arms out to Sirius, whom he adored. In fact, Harry had taken to laughing and putting up his arms every time Sirius came into the room. Slightly jealous about this, James had been going to even more elaborate (and often stupid-looking) lengths in the past few weeks to elicit the same reaction from Harry in an effort to prove that he was just as funny as Sirius was.

Not that James, or Lily, for that matter, had ever worried about looking stupid before. They both regularly pulled the most ridiculous faces imaginable to amuse their son, played Peek a Boo and Pat A Cake with abandon, and collapsed into slumber whenever Harry took a nap. Somehow, Lily and James always seemed to manage to get just as wet as Harry during Harry's bath time, and they made Harry's stuffed toys tap dance for him every night when they put him to bed.

True, Lily reflected, having a new baby did rather tend to kill the romance. But in an odd way, Lily felt closer to James than she ever had before. At times, James completely abandoned his slightly arrogant persona in his quest to be a good father, and Lily was seeing sides of him that she hadn't known existed. Unsure of herself and scared by the idea of motherhood, Lily had relied on James much more heavily than she'd ever done before, and James, just as scared as Lily but confident in their abilities nonetheless, had managed to reassure her. James had been right there with her while Lily adjusted to the hectic schedule and late-night feedings, had thrown himself headfirst into this parenting business and managed to make it all fun and exciting and terribly funny. Lily felt that it was largely because of James that the past three months had been amazing as the three of them had adjusted to life together.

Or it had been amazing until two weeks ago, anyway. Lily and James had been lying on the floor applauding Harry's attempts to roll over when there had been a knock at the door. Reckoning that it must be Sirius or some or all of Harry's grandparents, James had pulled himself up and flung the door open carelessly.