"This is literally the stupidest thing we have ever collectively taken part in and I don't blame him if he takes two steps into this house and hexes us all dead."

"Oh come on, it's BRILLIANT, and you LOVE it."

"I love YOU, which is why I'm even slightly going along with this."

"Why am I going along with it, then?" Peter asked, "I'm not in love with him."

"Because, you, Pete, are my official sidekick. Super Sirius and Ratboy, rememner?"

Remus sighed.

The floo hissed and turned green.

"THIS IS IT BOYS, PREPARE YOURSELVES!" Sirius called.

The moment James Potter came through the fireplace hearth and stumbled into his living room, Sirius dropped the needle on his record player.

A WOP BOP A LOO BOP A LOP BOM BOM!
Tutti frutti, oh rootie
Tutti frutti, oh rootie
Tutti frutti, oh rootie
Tutti frutti, oh rootie
A wop bop a loo bop a lop ba ba
I gotta gal, names Sue, she knows just what to do
I got a gal, named Sue, she knows just what to do
She rock to the East, she rock to the West
But she's the gal that I love best!
Tutti frutti, oh rootie...

All three boys were honking kazoos along with the music - Remus half as enthusiastically as say Sirius, who was acting like he was Clarence Clemmons with his Saxophone playing back up to Bruce Springsteen or something as he rocked out with no shame. 

James laughed as he regained his balance and looked at the three of them, "What are you arseholes doing?"

Dora came next through the floo and she stumbled into James, who righted her up, and looked about in surprise at the boys. "What's all this?"

"We're apparently the welcoming committee," Remus answered.

Sirius wagged his eyebrows with amusement as he continued on playing his kazoo with gusto.

Lily stepped into the room rather gracefully and Sirius flung his arm about her as she blinked in confusion at him.

"They're the welcoming committee," James said.

When the song ended, Sirius was on his knees, having slid across the room on them, and Dora clapped and said, "Good show!" Then, "Oh! Look at us, all here! I'll bet we're all quite hungry. How about a brunch?" and she nodded, "Just the thing!" and off she went top speed.

"I hope brunch includes bacon," James said.

"She knows you, of course it does," Sirius said.

"She held up getting to the hospital to make you those sandwiches. I can confirm that she knows all about your love affair with bacon." Remus said as handed Sirius his kazoo. "Seriously, though, mate, welcome home, we're glad you're alive  and in one piece and all of that."

"Yes, it's quite grand to find my harem is three dimensional and not smushed under the foot of some ugly Gurg."

"A real achievement," piped up Peter.

"Like bubblegum on the bottom of his giant shoe!"

James laughed, "You lot are mad."

"Include yourself in that grouping, my dear," Lily said, kissing his cheek, then, deciding James needed some time alone with his lads, she went to help Dora, which had become one of her favorite things to do anyway. Lily loved it - spending time with the beautiful woman that had raised her husband was such fun, and she really had learned quite a lot from her by way of cooking that way.

"Oh she got you good, Prongs!" sang Sirius, hooting as Lily smirked on her way out the door.

James sat down on the couch heavily - he did have to admit, he was pretty sore and heavy feeling after the long, unremembered events of the last couple days - and Sirius scrambled over and threw himself onto the cushion besides James, laying his head on James's shoulder and grinning up at him. "Oh darling, I did so miss you."

"We talked half the night," James said.

"It's been DAYS since I've seen you --"

"I was at the flat just yesterday, before I headed in to the office --"

"-- and I feel 

A/N: We now interrupt this silly story to bring you a silly announcement. 

My cat is a genius. Yes, I mean Luna Moony Blackbean, the co-author of this fan fiction, who just now woke me up at 3:12 am by walking on my head and then stepping all over the keyboard. She produced the following message to you:

÷≥æ

Now, see, her's the genius part. First of all, she's clearly a fan of Ed Sheeran and who can blame her? Attending The Maths Tour was one of the best things I've done in my entire life. But see I don't even know, as a human, how to make my keyboard produce any of those symbols. Yet she, as a cat, has figured out how to tell you that divide is greater than whatever ae is. I'm assuming it's cat shorthand for anything else and would like to say that yes Divide was his greatest album until Subtract came out and she's clearly petitioning for the sake of the classics. I've taught her well.

Anyway, back to the story dears.

Oh wait. One more thing. I finally saw Tom Felton reading fan fiction on TikTok last night for the first time and I'd like to say, Tom, if you ever stumble upon this and end up reading this particular "A/N", that I'm quite sorry you've not been in it very much, and you can take this moment to deliver Draco Malfoy's most iconic line: "I can't GO to Pigfarts, it's on MARS. You need a rocket ship. Do you have a rocket ship POTTAH?"

Wait. Sorry. Wrong Draco. 

A/N on the A/N: If you haven't seen AVPM I'm very disappointed in you Mr. Felton and expect you to immediately issue an apology and then go and watch it and please film your reaction video as you do (and if such a video already exists someone link it for me because I need to see him seeing AVPM).

&list=PLC76BE906C9D83A3A 

Also I love you and if you like you can be one of my British husbands. (I have a list. They're mostly named Harry but we can change your name. That's what we did for Vance Joy except we also changed his nationality as well so he could be on the list and he didn't seem to mind.)

7:40 AM Update: I don't remember writing 90% of this but I'm told that makes it funnier and I've decided to leave it in. Sirius Black approves this message.

/End Authors Note

"And I feel so glad that you're back home that I could just serenade you." He paused, then lifted the kazoo and started honking into it.

James laughed, closing his eyes as Sirius kazooed in a heartfelt manner.

"Believe it or not, he hasn't even had sugar yet this morning," Remus murmured.

"I don't believe it for even a minute," James answered. Then, "Wait, is that - are you playing Queen on your bloody kazoo?"

Sirius grinned, "I'm a very talented kazooer. Kazooier? Kazoozler."

"The proper term is Kazooist," Remus said.

All three of the others heads turned to look at him.

"Proper term?" Peter asked. "There's - there's a proper term for a person who plays the kazoo?"

"Yes," Remus said. He'd sat down also and now, with one leg crossed over the other and his elbow-patched jumper buttoned up, he looked very smart and teacher-y, and said, "There is such a thing as a professional, classically trained kazooist."

"You are full of shit," Sirius said.

"I'm not!" Remus kept a completely straight face as he said, "It's rare to see a kazoo in an orchestra in Europe, as they're an American-invented instrument --"

"Instrument is a bit of an extreme description, mate," James laughed.

"--but a kazoo concerto was once performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City and --"

"HOW DO YOU KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT KAZOOS?" Sirius interrupted at the top of his voice.

"About everything, really," James laughed.

"YOU REALLY ARE A BLOODY REMCYCLOPEDIA!"

Remus grinned, his eyes sparkling chocolate, as they all dissolved into laughter that felt reminiscent and nostalgic of the days in the dormitory in Hogwarts. It seemed as they did that some sort of relief came over the lot of them - like letting go of a breath you didn't know you'd been holding - and they became sillier and sillier as they talked. There was a good deal of flailing limbs from Sirius and honking laughter from James. It felt like a full moon night in the hours before the moon had fully risen and there would be a time after everything had happened when Remus would think of that conversation and forget that it hadn't been one of the full moon nights they'd spent together.

As the boys proceeded to goof off and chatter, their laughter and the odd shout from Sirius reached out to the kitchen, where Dora and Lily took it in turns rolling their eyes in amusement at their boys.

Soon enough, brunch was ready, and Lily was ushering the boys to the table where the whole group of them had a wonderful breakfast. Remus even got Bradley to come out of the suitcase - he hadn't wanted to before, feeling shy, but after a few minutes of the Marauders' antics and Dora's delicious cooking, Bradley had become much more comfortable, and even ended up telling Dora Potter about Wolverine and how he had so many ideas for comic books of his own, and how he wished he could draw better. Dora told him the best way to get better at it was to practice and to never give up on himself. Meanwhile, James was enthusiastically singing the Queen song that Sirius had been playing on his kazoo before to the bacon ("oh you're my best friend!") and Sirius pretended at being heartily offended while Peter laughed so hard he snorted and turned quite red in the face.

After brunch, James looked quite tired, so Dora thanked the other three boys for coming over to greet James on his arrival, but shooed them off for a bit so her son could get some much needed rest. Sirius hesitated insisted on staying behind, but promised to change into his dog form and go with James up for a nap, and Remus said he had to go and take care of the creatures in Newt's suitcase. Bradley said goodbye to Dora with a great big hug and she patted his head and Remus brought Bradley and the suitcase back to the flat in East London, while Peter said goodbye (getting his own hug and head-pat) before going to start doing his deliveries for the day out of Diagon Alley.

When they'd left, James headed upstairs, followed at the hells by the shaggy black dog, and he practically fell into the comfort of his own bed, trading his pillow for the one on Lily's side, which smelled like her, and tucking his glasses into the drawer beside the bed. Sirius curled up in his fluffy black form right next to James, curled in a ball against his torso. James hugged the dog as he drifted off to sleep.

Lily went upstairs to ask James a question, but he was asleep when sh got there. She stood in the doorway, watching him sleep for a few moments, just thinking about how glad she was that he was alright. After all, she hadn't even had a chance to worry about the fact that he'd been off in another whole country fighting giants all day - she hadn't known. She pictured just how terrified she would have been if she had known and even thinking of it made everything in her shiver nervously. 

This would be everyday, she suddenly realized. With James Potter being an auror at the Ministry, during a time like this, of war and battles, James would be constantly off fighting terrifying people in horrible situations and she, Lily, would be off somewhere entirely else, not knowing that her husband's life was in danger. She didn't know if she could take that, being separate from him, wondering about him all of the time...

The dog's head raised up to look at her, and she realized Sirius was probably picking up on the tension in her which her thoughts were causing. He stared at her with those big grey dog eyes.

"I'm alright," she whispered. She tiptoed over and rubbed the dog's head gently behind the ears, scratching the soft fur there and smiling at him. Snuffle's tail wagged slightly, careful not to thump too hard against James's legs. She bent down and softly kissed the dog on the forehead, then turned and kissed James's temple. 

He shifted, eyes opening slightly to peer up at her, and he smiled sleepily, and hummed something that might've been intended to be words, but came out more of a soft "hmm". His eyes drifted closed again.

Lily sighed, "One day, you simply must let me incorporate you, James," she whispered, "Just so I can keep my sanity when you're at work all day fighting giants without me knowing it..." Her eyes met Snuffles's eyes again and she whispered, "Go back to sleep."

The dog promptly shut his eyes.

Lily tiptoed back out of the room and closed the door quietly, careful not to wake James again.

Snuffles's eyes opened back up. He paused, lifted his head to look at the door of the room, then rolled over and transformed. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling for a moment, the same realization coming to him as Lily had been having in the doorway. He felt his throat tighten at the very idea of James fighting something like a giant alone - and Sirius's head turned to look at his best friend - his soul mate.

If Remus Lupin was Sirius's entire world, then James Potter was the sun light around which that world orbited.

And if James was fighting giants or dragons or death eaters or even Voldemort himself, Sirius Black needed to know about it the second it started happening - not hours later, like this. He needed to know so he could get to James as quickly as possible.

Sirius took a deep breath.

"After all," he murmured, "You didn't tell me not to do it, did you?"

And he slid his hand across the mattress, catching James's palm up into his own, and he held on tight...