Sirius didn’t actually begin to put his plan into action until a few days later, when he finally managed to figure out where and what the phone was.
Sirius stared at the phone, completely oblivious to the fact that he was being watched. Lily and Remus stood not ten feet away from him betting continuously for the last fifteen minutes on how long it would take him to figure out how to dial. Kat was further away and could care less about how the phone worked and more about how cute Sirius was when he was frustrated. (Kat had been staying with Lily and Mrs. Dongle the past couple of nights.)
“So…if I just…uh…” Sirius turned the phone around in his hand, pretending that he knew what the buttons were for.
“Ok, seriously now, five more seconds and we have to go in there to tell him.” Lily whispered to Remus. She had now completely gotten over the whole funny aspect of the situation five minutes ago and was now frustrated to no end.
“Wait a minute; I just want to see if he knows to press the buttons.” Remus covered his grinning mouth with his hand, still not being able to get over the fact that Sirius had even been able to know what the phone looked like.
Lily gave him a withering look.
“Yeah, okay, it’s been long enough.” Remus complied, feeling her glare burning through his skin.
“So I hold it in this hand…” they heard Sirius muttering as the two of them neared him. “Wait, wait, wait! I almost have it!” he held up the hand that wasn’t holding the phone to keep Remus and Lily away.
“Sirius, the phone is upside down.” Lily stated matter-of-factly.
“Right…” Sirius flipped the phone over.
“Why do you need to use a phone anyways?” Remus asked, taking the phone gently from his hand.
“I…uh…want to call my mommy?”
It was then that Lily noticed the black book stuffed into his pant’s pocket. “Sirius!” she grabbed for the book, but he pulled away quickly.
“Lily!” Sirius feigned shock, “I for one am surprised at you! If you really were that anxious we could have at least talked about it first! And then, you know, maybe have a few drinks…”
Lily’s face contorted in disgust, but she didn’t let that distract her. “Give me back my address book!” she tried again to reach for it, but Sirius jumped out of the way.
“Sirius, are you planning what I think you’re planning?” Remus narrowed his eyes, putting two and two together.
“I’m…calling all the eligible girls in town, that’s all.” Sirius replied as he jumped away from Lily yet again.
“You know very well that I have everybody’s number from Gryffindor in there, Sirius Black!” Lily stopped trying to grab her book and began to kick Sirius instead.
“OUCH!” Sirius doubled over, clutching his knee.
“Give it!”
“Fine, fine! Here, take it!” he managed to get the book out of his pocket and throw it at her, finally falling on the ground in pain.
Remus wasn’t looking at the spectacle before him, but rather staring off into space. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”
“What’s not a bad idea?” Lily asked, distracted by the sight of Sirius withering on the ground because of a little kick.
“A party,” The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.
“A what…?” She muttered, still completely taken aback by Sirius and beginning to suspect that he was pretending.
Remus rolled his eyes at Sirius (he was now totally unfazed by his antics) and continued to speak. “Yeah, you know…one of those things with lots of people, some balloons, and perhaps most likely a cake?”
“Uh-huh,” Lily murmured, checking through her addresses to make sure everything was still there. “Wait…a party for whom? The idiot on the floor?”
“Lily, its James’ seventeenth birthday next week; maybe we could have the party for him?”
Lily’s eyes went wide as she suddenly stopping flipping through the pages. “Oh my gosh, it is…” she thought for a moment as Sirius got up from the floor and was instantly tackled by Kat, who had been silently watching from her hiding place. “I suppose we could do something like that…” she said hesitantly.
Lily and Remus started to flip through Lily’s address book to find people to invite. Neither was paying any attention to Sirius and Kat.
“C’mon! Just get off of me!” Sirius cried out as Kat wrapped her arms around him for the twelfth time in the last twenty seconds.
Kat responded by hugging him tighter. “I’m just so glad that you’re ok! I thought for a moment that you were hurt!”
Sirius sighed and tried again to pry Kat off of his waist, but she had learned all too well as a cat to sink her claws into her prey and not let go.
“Look, I was just pretending to be hurt to make Lily feel bad for kicking me, all right?” he told her, waiting for her to realize this so that he could breathe again. “So, if you’ll please let go of m-OUCH!”
Remus and Lily looked up to find half of Sirius’ shirt missing.
“Could you please NOT use your claws to destroy my wardrobe?” screamed Sirius, finally managing to push Kat away to survey the damage of what was left of his shirt.
The others watched as Sirius jumped up the steps to James’ room to find a new shirt, muttering all the way, “Damn it, fifth time today…”
Sirius came back down about ten minutes later wearing a new shirt, having cleaned the new cuts caused by Kat for the sixth time that day. He found Kat, Remus, and Lily in the kitchen, still looking through the book for people to invite to James’ surprise party.
“No! We can’t invite her and that’s that!” Lily was shouting at a very confused Remus.
“But she’s one of the most popular people at Hogwarts-”
“Besides us.” Sirius chimed in.
“-and she knows and likes James!”
“And she’s hot.” Sirius grinned.
Lily gave Sirius a look. “Sirius, you don’t even know who we’re talking about.”
Sirius shrugged. “I just figure that if you don’t want to invite her then she must be hot.” Lily’s face turned bright red in anger.
“We’re talking about Graziana Harding and-” Remus was cut off again by Sirius.
“Oh. She’s hot.”
“ARGH!” Lily started to bang her head against the table. “We’re…not…inviting…her!”
“I get what this is about.” Sirius pointed at Lily. “You’re afraid that she’ll show up here and steal James from you right under your nose, right?”
Lily didn’t say anything, but was betrayed by her face turning beet red.
“I knew it!” Sirius pumped his fists in the air. “You’re the only girl who really has access to him this summer and now you’re overprotective of him!”
“Wow…that actually makes sense…” Remus muttered, raising his eyebrows in surprise.
Kat jumped up from her place on the kitchen counter. “Yay! My Siri is the smart one!”
“What did you just call me? ‘Siri’?”
“Where is James, anyway?” Lily asked amid all the confusion. “Isn’t he supposed to be here?”
Sirius and Remus looked at each other and bit their lips. “Uh…he’s…erm…finally getting around to trying maturing?” Sirius guessed, but Lily obviously was too smart for that.
“Really?”
The two smiled weakly. Remus kicked Sirius under the table for being an idiot.
“Okay, then…never mind…” The table was silent for a few minutes as Remus continued to go through the black book half-heartedly.
“Should we invite James’ sister?” he suddenly asked.
“James has a sister?” Lily and Sirius both said in unison.
Remus rolled his eyes slightly. “Sirius, you’ve always known he’s had a sister. You had a crush on her in fourth year.”
“Right. I knew that.” Sirius looked around nervously.
“What’s her name?” Lily asked excitedly. “What year is she in? Is she older or younger than James? Is she just as immature as the rest of you? How would you rate her maturity?”
“Uh…” Remus stuttered, “Rachel, graduated, older, more mature, uh…seven?”
“Wow…who would’ve thought that someone in the Potter family would be as cool as that?”
“You don’t even know her.” Remus protested, but Lily had already formed an image in her mind of Rachel Potter that he couldn’t change even if he had to. “Oh, well,” he muttered.
“Anyway…here’s what I’m thinking for the party…” Sirius said, and a few minutes later the party planning was in full swing again.
James had no idea what was coming.
James was actually right at that moment in Diagon Alley trying frantically to find something for Lily to make up for the whole ‘turning people into cats’ incident. He had been browsing through the same store for the last hour, a total of five hours actually spent shopping. That alone was too much time spent shopping for any boy, especially a boy who had no experience shopping save for Quidditch.
He picked up a scented candle and smelled it. “Ech!” It smelled like earwax. Definitely not what he was looking for. How did he end up in the scented candle store, anyway? Oh, yeah. It was the only store that didn’t frighten him upon walking in. This was probably the reason why he had been sniffing candles that smelt and probably tasted like various Bertie Bott’s Beans.
Maybe he should leave. James looked around for the exit, but found it blocked by the evil saleslady who was determined to make him buy something. Perhaps if he threw her off his track by knocking over some candles…
James’ thoughts were cut off by someone calling his name.
“James! Over here!” He looked over by the half off sales table to find Graziana Harding waving furiously at him.
Wonderful… He thought, walking over to her reluctantly. It wasn’t that she wasn’t fun to hang out with or that she was annoying and she definitely wasn’t ugly, but she was forever trying to get him to go out with him. Most teenage boys wouldn’t mind this, but James was always trying to get Lily and…well…there was the problem.
Graziana was a slim five-foot-seven black headed girl with an attitude that suggested she really didn’t care about what you thought unless, of course, she did. She was a girl who always got what she wanted, so naturally the fact that James wasn’t into her as much as she was him ticked her off considerably. And oh, yeah. She was in Slytherin.
“James Potter! I would never have imagined that you would be in here!” That was a total lie; she had seen him walk discreetly in here and followed him in. “What are you doing?”
“Uh…I’m just…looking for a mother’s day present…you can never be too early, right?”
Graziana looked a little confused. “Right…” She quickly changed tactics and began to stroke his arm. “So…what have you been doing this summer? Having out with Sirius and oh, what’s-his-face…Remus?”
James hurriedly looked around and found that the saleslady was now busy badgering another customer and the path to the door was open. “Yeah, right…um, I really have to go now…father’s day gift and all…” he quickly began to move towards the door.
“But I thought you were looking for a mother’s day present?” Graziana tried to keep him from going, but James was already halfway out the door.
Damn it! She thought, watching him practically run out into the street, knocking three people down in the process. I’ll have to do better next time. That Lily Evans really does have way too much power over him. We’ll just have to ratify that situation, won’t we?
James arrived back home to find the rest of the household in complete turmoil.
“I never said that she could be invited!” Lily was screaming at Sirius and Remus. Her face was beet-red. She had obviously been yelling for some time now. “I don’t even have her stupid address! You’re the ones who suggested it!”
“Well, if we didn’t you sure as hell wouldn’t.” Sirius pointed out, flicking a grape across the kitchen.
“Who wouldn’t be invited to what?” James asked as he came into the kitchen. Instantly Lily stopped shouting and Kat woke up from the nap she had been taking on the kitchen counter.
“Are we still talking about James’ surprise par-” Remus quickly jumped over a chair and clamped his hand over her mouth.
“My surprise what?” James asked suspiciously.
“We were going to make you a cake?” Remus said rather unconvincingly.
“Great. Make it chocolate, will you?” James sat at the table exasperatedly.
Sirius sighed dramatically. “Now we have to make you a cake, too? I thought that ignoring you would be enough.”
As James and Sirius bickered good-naturedly, Lily went over to Remus and Kat and whispered, “Remember, the party is two days from now. We’ll call everyone tomorrow.”
The two nodded. The rest of the night was uneventful, but tomorrow night would prove troublesome for what Lily had planned.
Two Steps Back by emmablk1
Chapter Notes: Ok, after much deliberation and heartache (AKA conversing with my friends and other readers) I have finally figured out how to write this chapter!!
I can hear the cheering now…and I’m sorry for the delay!