Untangle Me

Smiling down at the little face that was bundled up in blankets in my arms, I waved my wand making the dishes that lay in the sink begin to wash themselves. I admired Ezra's long dark eyelashes as she slept, my heart swelling with love at the sight of her. I kissed her dimpled cheeks and lay her in her cot to sleep. Ezra had proved to be a really good baby so far and fallen into routine easily which I thanked Merlin for.
I checked my watch to see it was just past three in the afternoon. Sirius would be here anytime soon with James and Lily so I began to make a start on food.

Sirius's ability to arrive home just as I had finished cooking was second to none and low and behold, as soon as I extinguished the flame on the stove, I heard coughing from the living room meaning they'd arrived.
I just hoped they hadn't made too much of a mess of the carpet. Floo powder always caused soot to go everywhere.

I practically dived into Lily's arms when I saw her. It had been weeks since I had seen her last since Sirius had me on strict house arrest. It felt like I had been cooped up forever, being driven insane by the same four walls day after day. He was right though, staying at home was the safest thing for Ezra.

After releasing Lily, I hugged my twin brother James. He had a black eye and a half healed gash upon his cheek. Him and Sirius constantly looked like they had been used as target practice with the amount of injuries they sustained daily.

"Merlin, I missed you both so much!" I exclaimed.
"You too!" Lily replied, "I haven't seen Ezra for so long, I was worried I'd start to forget what she looked like!"
"Speaking of which, where is she?" Sirius asked.
"I put her down for her afternoon nap not too long ago."
"Did she settle okay?" questioned Sirius.
"She was an angel as always." I beamed, "Come let's eat before the food gets cold."

Sirius and I led James and Lily through to the kitchen where I served up our food. I summoned the butterbeer from the pantry as we sat down to eat. Sirius and James were talking Order business so Lily and I talked about motherhood. She was only a few months pregnant so her bump was only really visible if she wore a tight top.

"You know," I mused, "they say everything comes in threes. I wonder who else is next to have a child.."
"Funnily enough, James told me yesterday that Alice and Frank are expecting a child. She's due around the same time as me too."
"You're bloody joking me, right?" I quizzed. "Well blimey! It's about time too!"
"I know." agreed Lily. "Just think, our children will be at Hogwarts together."

If there's still a Hogwarts to go to.

"Have you and James thought of any names?" I asked, trying to shake my morbid thought from my mind.
"For a boy we both like the name Harry James, and for a girl Rose Ophelia." she replied.

My eyes filled with tears at the thought of my possible niece being my namesake. My own daughter had been Lily's after all. Ezra's middle name was Lily. It was only fitting considering she was her god mother after all.

"I think they're wonderful names." I said smiling
"Thank you." Lily replied returning my smile.
"What are you two ladies talking about?" James asked.
"Well before we were rudely interrupted, Lily and I were discussing baby names." I told him.
"Forget that, think of all the great pranks our kids will get up to!" Sirius grinned.
"Way ahead of you, mate." laughed James, "I can't wait to pass the cloak onto my little one. It's just a shame about the map though."
"What ever did happen to that?" I asked.
"Old misery guts, Professor Vaughan confiscated it from us in seventh year. We told him it was a blank piece of parchment but then of course it started to insult him." Sirius explained whilst laughing.
"We did try to steal it back but we figured that the next generation of marauders would benefit from it more than us." added James.
"You do realise I'm not letting you encourage our child's bad behaviour at school do you?" Lily said to James with a serious face.
"Yes boss!" he chuckled and shot me a wink.

Honestly, I'd have said the same to Sirius but I knew it would have been useless and hypocritical because a lot of my time was spent being mischievous and in detention.

As we sat around the kitchen table, for once everything felt normal. My brother and my best friend. My husband and my daughter. It had been so long since we were all together like this, I had forgotten how nice it felt to laugh and to smile. To just feel normal. I soaked up the feeling whilst I could, knowing that my happiness would be short lived. Regardless of how happy I was presently, the fact of the matter was that there was a war going on and it didn't look ready to finish any time soon.