Saturday, 13 December 1979

Lily swore again under her breath and wrapped the pale blue yarn around the needles again. She followed the motion in the book and managed three more stitches before the needles slipped and she dropped another stitch. She growled from the back of her throat, situated the needles once more and wrapped the yarn again. Before she could complete the next stitch, someone flopped on the sofa next to her, jostling her hands and causing five stitches to slip off the needle.

She wanted to scream. Instead, she delivered an icy glare to the man who had made her mess up. Again.

"Sirius! What are you doing? Can't you see I'm busy? You made me drop stitches!"

He grinned and waggled his eyebrows. "Whatcha doing, Lily-flower?"

"Don't call me that."

"Oh, come on. It's yarn, why don't you charm it? I mean the book you're referencing has the spell right there."

"I want to do it by hand; it means more if it's homemade." She lowered her knitting project to her lap and straightened her back which popped twice with the movement. "I want everything to be perfect."

"Lily, you just found out you're pregnant. You've got plenty of time to make this baby blanket. You're stressing yourself out when you don't have to," he said. He reached over and pulled her project from her lap and set it on the coffee table. "Come on, Prongs is bouncing off the walls and wants to go to Diagon Alley."

"And what's that have to do with me?"

"He wants to buy baby furniture already, I figure you'd rein him in if you come with us. And I need to buy some Christmas gifts and you always have such great ideas for Moony."

She sighed and looked forlornly at her sad little pile of yarn. "Fine, let's go stop him before he buys duplicates of everything."

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Sunday, 12 April 1980

"What do you mean we need to move?" James asked Dumbledore. "We just bought this place; it's perfect. We're going to have a baby!"

The Headmaster looked down and nodded before speaking, "I know you're going to have a child, James. That's why you must go into hiding. I've gained intelligence that your family is going to be targeted because of the child Lily carries. It would be prudent," he paused and let his eyes slip over to Lily, "to go into hiding now before anything happens."

His words, as usual, tickled the back of Lily's mind. She always trusted him, but he had a habit of speaking in riddles and double language. This time he meant before she had the baby and before Death Eaters attacked.

Lily stood and moved closer to her husband, putting a hand on his arm. He visibly calmed and turned to her, eyes wide with worry behind his glasses. "It'll be fine James. It's only things. Our lives are more important."

He nodded shakily before taking a deep breath. He looked back to Dumbledore and nodded. "All right. Where are we going?"

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Tuesday, 21 April 1980

"Has anyone seen my knitting project?" Lily asked as Sirius and James directed their floating furniture into the smaller living space of their new house in Godric's Hollow.

"Nope!" Sirius answered loudly, laughing as he bumped James with the floating armchair. "You still working on that?" James grumbled under his breath as he stumbled and pretended to glare at Sirius.

"You know how hectic things have been lately, Sirius. I've worked a bit more with it but then I set it aside and now I can't find it. I thought it was with the baby's things but I've already unpacked that room," Lily answered as she put the dishes in the cupboard above the sink by hand.

"You've already got the baby's room unpacked?" Peter asked as he came in carrying a small box in his arms.

"Yeah Pete, that room was the first one she did. The one for the baby—who's not here yet. Not our room, not the kitchen, you know, important rooms?" James teased, flicking his wand to shift the sofa a foot to the left. "Or the toilet! You know she rearranged the baby's clothes twice before she remembered to put paper in the loo!"

Remus chuckled and glanced at Lily. She looked sheepish but laughed with them.

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Sunday, 26 July 1980

"So today's the day, right?" James whispered as he kissed the top of Lily's head. She'd surrounded herself with pillows to try and find some comfort and sleep. She was surprised there was enough room left in the bed for him.

"Maybe," she answered.

He shifted up on his elbow and brought his watch-clad wrist so close to his face it's a wonder he didn't go cross-eyed. "No, no, the date says the twenty-sixth. It's today."

She giggled. He'd obviously woke up before her to put his watch on just to go through this little scenario. "The baby might be late."

"No!" he said, bringing a hand to his chest in a dramatic show of disbelief. "Well, the first thing to do when he gets here is to teach him that timing is important. He's going to have to work on that to be a first-rank prankster like me and his Uncle Padfoot."

She giggled again but then sighed. "I don't feel ready."

"We've triple checked everything. The bag's by the Floo. Padfoot's just a Patronus away. As soon as you say you think it's time, we'll be at St Mungo's."

"I know," she paused, "I feel bad that we lost my knitting project in the move. I really wanted to have a homemade blanket to bring him home in."

"I'm sure they've got blankets at the hospital, Lily."

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Saturday, 1 August 1980

"You ready to bring little Harry home, Lily?" Remus asked. They were all sitting in the hospital room waiting for her to be released. Harry was sleeping in Peter's arms right next to the bed.

"We've got something for you first, though," Sirius said. He was grinning and Lily recognised that mischievous glint in his eyes. He pulled out a small gift bag and set it on her lap.

"What is this?" She asked before peeking into the bag. Inside was a baby blanket, the same pretty baby blue coloured yarn that she'd lost months ago. She pulled it out and unfolded it. The blanket was lopsided and there were a few knots where the yarn had snarled. She looked up at them with a blinding smile. "You found it? Who finished it?"

Remus nodded towards the bag. "There's more."

She set the blanket aside and pulled the other thing from the bag. A small photo album. She opened it to see a photograph of Prongs with yarn tangled in his antlers and blowing gently in the breeze as he blinked. She could almost see a frown on the stag's face. She laughed and looked up at James. "What?"

He smiled back and encouraged her to continue looking through the pictures.

The second photograph must have been taken right after the first because it was of James, with the knotted yarn all over his head and tangled up in his glasses. He was trying not to laugh, trying for that over-dramatic frown, but he couldn't hold it and the photo showed him cracking up with laughter.

The next showed a close up of Padfoot with yarn wrapped around his muzzle. His puppy dog eyes seemed to say help me. The next image showed Sirius trying to untangle the yarn mess they had created.

What followed was Sirius holding his arms out in front of him with the yarn wrapped around both. Remus was beside him winding the yarn into a ball from Sirius's arms. Sirius's smile was bright and Remus was grinning.

The next two were of Peter. The first showed him looking wide-eyed at the needles and yarn ball. Then a close up of Wormtail with his little paws holding one of the needles and the ball of yarn sitting on top of him.

The last one was of Remus actually trying to knit the blanket. He was cursing as Sirius and James flopped on the sofa on either side of him causing him to drop stitches off his needle. The look of annoyance on his face as he looked at his best friends was priceless.

She looked up at them. "You stole my project!" she said, but she couldn't even pretend to be mad because she was smiling too much. "Thank you all; this is beautiful." She spread her fingers over the blanket and noticed how even some of the stitches were. "You still resorted to using the spell, didn't you?" She looked over at Remus.

"I did the first half of it," he said in way of an apology, "but Padfoot just had to try the spell. Knitting's hard!"

She laughed. From Peter's arms, Harry cooed a little and started squirming. Lily unfolded the blanket and laid it over her arm. "Gimme my baby," she told him playfully. Peter stood and carefully placed baby Harry into his mother's arms to be swaddled in his homemade, pale blue baby blanket.

This was entered into the Facebook group "Beyond the Book Fanfiction Nook" for their April Fool's OS competition. It won Best Angst, Best Feels, and tied for Best Mystery! The other entries were awesome and I can't believe I caught one Best, let alone three! So shout-outs to all the awesome authors that entered the competition with me because they deserve so much praise!