The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

Oh Miami

She felt eyes on her and realized Roger was laying at the foot of the bed, where James's legs would be if he were in it, staring at her with wide, yellow eyes, flicking his thick bottle-brush tail.

"Oh hush with that look!" she said to him, "You don't understand how important this is, Roger."

She picked up the book and flipped through, her eyes moving over the runes.

She'd copied so many of them, she could almost read it without copying them now, she realized as her eyes moved over the parts she'd already worked at translating. The funny marks on the page meant things to her already without translation, without charts...

"Whoa, calm down there... nobody needs that much chocolate."

"You've got no idea how much chocolate Remus Lupin consumes on a daily basis, clearly." James smiled at her as he dropped about fifteen large bars of chocolate into a shopping cart that stood between them in the market.

(The very one she needed to remember to pop by later, before James and Mrs. Potter arrived, she reminded herself.)

"Bloody hell, how does he not weigh three hundred stone?"

"A mystery indeed," James answered and he turned to grab more chocolate bars.

"I imagine he must work himself quite broke with a chocolate habit like that," Lily commented, watching James pile it on.

"I keep him in it, mostly," he answered. He put his trainer up on the bottom rung of the cart as he hopped up to the handle to resume pushing it again.

"You do?" Lily asked.

The sweetest smile quirked up his lips then, and though his gaze stayed down, Lily could see the twinkle reached his eyes as he looked at the bars of chocolate in the cart. "There's this hollowed out book on his shelf that he keeps his chocolates in, and I reckon that he must think it's some sort of magical replenishing box or something, as every couple of days I refill it."

Lily's face broke into a smile too as James continued on.

"He doesn't think anybody else knows about the book. It's rather hilarious really, he gets so bloody excited over this damned book..."

"Well, that's very nice of you."

"It's just a little thing, not a big deal," James said, looking up, and their eyes met a moment.

"I think it is... A big deal, I mean."

James shrugged and pushed the cart down the aisle, breaking the stare between them, hopping on one foot, keeping the other squarely on the rung at the bottom, his arms draped over the handles, bent forward as he was taller than the height the cart was meant for... She'd let her eyes linger on his physique from behind, on his broad shoulders and the curve of her back of his neck... his bum.

What a good looking man he was, she thought, and she pictured this good looking man bent down, stashing chocolate bars in his mate's hollowed out book and it made him even more good looking instantly because of course it did - people always look good when they are doing kindnesses... and it was only a plus that James Potter's kindnesses were just as prominent as the features of his physical appearance. He was good looking inside and out.

Lily laughed suddenly and James turned about, looking worried she was laughing at him. "What?" he asked.

"It's just -- Remus, believing he has a magic chocolate book."