Unusually, James was the first one up but for the first time, I was awake early mainly because I was planning a big gesture to get him to forgive me, another rare thing. Usually, I left all the big gestures up to him mainly because my attempts were both pathetic and usually humiliating for everyone involved. Today though, the only thing that could solve it was a big gesture... or an attempt at one anyway.

It was a really bizarre feeling to be downstairs and having to turn the lights on myself rather than come into a living room full of life and noise. I don't know how James did this every morning, I was terrified that there was a Deatheater hiding in the corner and insisted on searching every corner which took me a solid half an hour.

Eventually, I made it into the kitchen, trying to remember what the hell went in pancakes. My parents used to make them for me a lot and I was 99% sure that I had been told the recipe at some point but for some reason it was completely evading me and I was left staring at the cupboards, trying to remember if I could just buy the batter pre-cooked instead.

"Relax, Lily, you fight Deatheaters on a regular basis," I mumbled to myself as I decisively opened the cupboard, pulling out a large bag of flour, "Okay. Great. What now?"

It suddenly occurred to me that I was a witch and I quickly pulled out my wand, holding it out and reciting the incanatation, "Accio Pancake Recipe..."

I waited a few moments, hoping that a book or a piece of paper would come flying. Nothing came and I was forced to do the muggle thing and search manually which was not fun to do so early in the morning.

As I was searching on one of the old bookshelves, it occurred to me that Remus had taught James how to make the pancakes, so perhaps the books were in his room. Slowly, I crept back up the stairs, feeling extremely disconcerted by the silence. Sirius's door was left slightly ajar, something that never seemed to happen so I guessed he was in there with Remus which made it all the more awkward to sneak in. Still, getting James to forgive me with his now favourite food was more important than possibly scarring myself for life at seeing two of my close friends in a compromising position. I'd already walked in on Sirius and Marlene a few times, so this was no different really.

As quietly as possible, I pushed the door open slightly, a slight crack of light piercing through the darkness of his room. As I crept in, the shape of Sirius and Remus, both of them fast asleep which made it slightly easier. With only the light from the door to guide me, I crept towards the large bookcase that Remus kept in his room and began trying to figure out which one would give me the recipe I needed. The bookshelf contained several werewolf biographies, a rather strange book about Albanian moles and the autobiography of Merlin (apparentely) but no cooking books. I was about to sneak back out again, dismayed when suddenly the light flicked on and I realised I'd been caught in the act.

Remus slowly sat up a bit, rubbing his eyes, "James?"

"Do I look like James?" I hissed.

"I have my eyes closed," Remus replied, making a big point of opening, "Now I can clearly see that you're not."

"Turn that off," Sirius murmured, sleepily slapping Remus on the arm, half asleep.

"Sorry," Remus whispered, obliging turning it off and plunging us back into darkness, "What are you doing, Lily?"

"Trying to find your pancake recipe," I replied softly.

At this, Remus scoffed loudly, "Recipe? Recipe? I would never use a recipe for pancakes, their different each time - "

"Well, then what did you teach James?" I whsiepred, "Because he's mad at me and I want to make it up to him with pancakes."

"Why don't you just talk to him?" Remus asked, "I feel like he'd prefer that over - "

"Make him pancakes," Sirius cut in, not bothering to roll over, "Make him pancakes downstairs because I'm trying to sleep."

Me and Remus exchanged a look as I silently pleaded with him to help me. Eventually I heard him sigh and get out of bed, putting on his dressing gown over his pyjamas before following me out. In silence, we walked down the stairs, Remus clearly in a slightly worse mood than normal as shown by his heavy footsteps and constant sighing.

"Thanks for helping me," I said softly as we walked into the kitchen.

"You're welcome," He replied although he sounded a little begrudging, "I would rather be in bed next to my... whatever Sirius is to me so count yourself lucky."

"If it's any consolation, I'd rather be in bed next to me my husband but I'm down here too so... solidarity," I replied although we both knew it was a long shot. Although he was here to 'help' we both knew that he was going to end up making them, mainly because it would take about half the time. I made a mental note to add the toppings myself although I got the feeling that might not happen either, Remus was on a roll.

"What were you fighting about?" He asked, after about five minutes of making the batter, clearly tired of silence, "Sorry for being crabby just now, I'm tired and full moon is in a few days plus Dumble-paw won't get out of my room and it's driving both me and Sirius crazy."

"So that's what that weird scratching sound was," I replied, "I thought it was Sirius in dog form."

Remus gave a sigh as he continued to mix the batter, "It might have been. Sometimes I wake up and he's in the middle of fighting Dumble-paw, he hates that damn cat."

"Does he fight him in human form or dog form?"

"Both," Remus replied, "Don't know which is worse. Here, look at this we're almost at the fun part, flipping the pancakes."

"Or in my case, flipping the pancake off of the pan and onto your sister's newly permed hair."

Remus let out a snort of laughter, "On purpose or by accident?"

"Accidentally on purpose, shall we say... fine, it was an actual accident," I admitted, "But she did deserve it... do you want some tea?"

"Hey, you're meant to watching and helping, not making tea... but obviously, I hate stereotypes but the British one is spot on," He replied with a laugh as he poured the batter into the frying pan, "How is Petunia and Vermin these days?"

"I think they're okay, they're living in Surrey somewhere," I replied as I began to make the drinks, "Truthfully, I haven't seen her since the wedding. Her's not mine, she didn't come to mine. There were too many weird people there I reckon."

"And she was worried that she'd still be the weirdest one there?" Remus asked, turning around over his shoulder and smiling.

"You know, Remus, you can be very savage when you want to be."

"I know. It's a secret gift," He replied, "I've got to save it for special occasions or I'll be too in demand. I hate to pry but what are you and James fighting about?"

"I told him about my secret plan to find the spy and he wasn't mad... about that. He was annoyed that everyone was keeping secrets from him and I think he felt kind of upset. He knows that something's happening with you and Sirius. I don't think he suspects you're together - "

"We're not together," Remus replied quickly, "Well, that's what Sirius says anyway but I think this is a lot newer to him than me. He always says he's not Gay as if being Bi doesn't exist. It's as if he's missed the whole bisexual chic craze."

"Do you think you'll ever tell James?" I asked and Remus shrugged.

"I want to but Sirius doesn't. Prongs wouldn't take it well, apparently and I don't think he wants Prongs to see him differently," Remus replied, "Anyway, enough of that, you're distracting me from the pancakes. These have to be incredible if you're going to get James to forgive you."

Although my grand gesture had mostly been done by Remus, I decided to make up for that by making the toppings as fancy as possible. Turns out, the only stuff we had in the cupboards wasn't particularly fancy and the pancakes ended up being lemon and sugar rather than chocolatey as I'd hoped. Remus declined my offer to have one, clearly eager to get back to sleep. Armed with my tea, pancakes and a crossword for James to do, I decided to do my big(ish) grand gesture.

"James..." I whispered as I walked into the room, nudging open the door with my hip. He didn't stir and I wasn't sure whether to push on with my gesture or let him sleep and allow the food to get cold.

"James!" I hissed slightly louder and this time, he opened his eyes although not in a sleepy way.

"Morning," He rolled over, "I was awake, you know."

"Why did you ignore me the first time?" I asked, perching down on the bed.

He gave a shrug, "I'm still a little annoyed."

"I made pancakes and brought you a crossword. I made tea too but it's for me... although you can have it if you want," I added quickly as I placed the tray on his lap, "It's a big gesture, well little gesture I guess but I wanted to do it for you. I'm sorry for making you feel that way, James, I really am and I thought why not say it in pancakes as big gestures is kind of how we do things.. or you do although I did that one."

He gave a small smile as he examined the pancake, "The pool gesture, I remember. You practically destroyed my pool float."

"Liar, it was fine! It's meant to float!"

"Yes, but not to be jumped on," He added, taking a bit of his pancake, "This is... actually really nice, did you make this?"

"Yes... well, I did the toppings. Remus helped me a little with the pancakes themselves," He raised an eyebrow at me and I sighed, "Fine. A lot."

"They are good pancakes."

"James, I really am sorry. I should have just told you, I don't even remember why I chose to keep it. I'm sorry for keeping you in the dark and making you feel paranoid when I should have just been honest. From now on, unless it's someone else's secret and won't hurt you, I will be completely honest with you," I said, sneakily entwining my fingers with his, "I swear, James, I won't do this again. It's bad enough already with all these suspicions, I shouldn't have pushed you away like that."

At first I thought he was ignoring me before noticing that he'd taken a large bit of pancake and was still taking a while to eat it. Finally, he swallowed and spoke, "I forgive you. I forgave you pretty fast but I was hurt."

"You had every right to be."

"I know," He gave a weak laugh, "Wow, this has not been a good few months for me. How about you?"

"Not really good for me either," I admitted, tentatively leaning my head against his shoulder. He responded by putting his arm around me which was almost an automatic response at this point. I allowed myself to relax, glad to have at least one secret off of my back. I wanted to tell him the other one but it wasn't my place and I knew he'd understand that, "Why hasn't it been a good few months?"

"My parents died, I went to St Mungos twice and I was pretty sure I'd messed up and hurt you guys," He replied, "How about you?"

"Well, the secrets, the stressful trips to St Mungos with you and I managed to piss of Dorcas who might be my only best friend at the moment. Marlene didn't come to the funeral," I told him and he smiled sadly.

"I know. That's why I invited Dorcas, I didn't want you to have to cope alone," He admitted, "Mark got sick I think, she didn't say what and had to stay and look after him. I thought she wrote you a letter? She said she did."

I glanced up at him with slight curiousity, "No, she hasn't written to me in a while."

James shrugged, "Hm, weird, she said she had and she hoped it would explain everything."

"No, I never got one," I curled up smaller, "I need to see her, I think I need to see all of them. A fun little reunion where hopefully I can get an answer to all of this."

"Sounds like a good plan. I feel like I need one of those with the Marauders, especially Peter. I've missed him, I've missed the four of us, feels like we've drifted apart," He replied.

"I think we should spend more time just us too," I replied.

"How about today?"

"Huh?"

"Let's just not get out of bed unless we have to," He suggested. My face broke out into a smile.

"And THIS James Potter, is why I married you."

"Not the fact I'm ruggedly handsome?"

"Well, that was a contributing factor..."