Marauders - Always - Part One

Po-tay-toe, Po-tah-toe

"Maybe later we can do some driving lessons for you," Lily said.

James perked up - he'd nearly fallen asleep. "Excuse me?" he asked.

"Driving lessons for you," Lily said. "You'll want to learn so you're good at it by the time the baby comes. So you can drive me to the hospital."

James nodded, "Oh. Right. Yeah. Driving lessons."

"I'm not driving myself to the hospital," she said. "And I love Sirius but he drives like a mad man, so he's not driving me to the hospital, either. I'll need you to know how to drive."

James looked at all the levers and buttons and remembered the time he'd been going to try to drive and how Lily had climbed over him and pushed him out of the way and ended up driving herself. Once upon a time, James would've been battling to get into the driver's seat again - for the rush of it, for the thrill of having the power of operating such a vehicle. He wondered why he didn't really fancy giving it a go now? Why it sounded more like a daunting challenge he didn't particularly want to rise up to meet now? Why the thought of it made him dread her deciding it was time to start and all he wanted to do was put it off.

He decided to just change the subject.

"I was thinking we could take mum for a ride, rather," he said. "She'd fancy a ride in the car, I'll bet. I wonder if she's ever been in one before?"

Lily blinked in surprise at the oddity of this statement. "Really?"

"I mean, why would she?"

"I --" Lily paused, then, "I dunno because it's normal to have been?"

"For muggles," James shrugged. "She's pureblood, don't forget, Evans. Grew up in the Black family, no less. They definitely wouldn't have had a muggle car..."

"Your Dad would've loved a muggle car," Lily mused.

"Yeah, he would've fancied this a lot," James nodded. "Would've thought the color should've been red, though, like Gryffindor, not Hufflepuff yellow."

"It's mustard, James. Closer to gold than yellow."

"Potato potato," he said, pronouncing it po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.

Lily said, "Maybe we should invite Remus and Sirius as well. Dogs like going for rides."

James laughed.

When they arrived back to Godric's Hollow, Lily drove through the town and there were people looking at the yellow car as they passed. In a wizarding town, you don't see a lot of muggle cars and the ones that you do see generally attract attention - even when they aren't bright mustard yellow, but doubly so when they are. James waved to a couple of the people he recognized as neighbors and saw a little wizard boy clapping his hands and pointing at the car with a joyful expression on his face as he turned and lobbed a punch into his brother's arm.

Lily pulled up just past the house where a short dirt car park wrapped 'round the side. She turned off the engine and they sat, listening to it cooling down, making small ticking sounds. She smiled and stroked the wheel as though she were patting and animal. She turned and looked at James, eyes sparkling. "Thank you so much," she said solemnly.

James smiled, his lip hanging up on his tooth, "For what?"

"For buying this car for me," she said, emotional, "For our family. You're so good to me."

"We bought the car, Evans," he laughed.

"With your money," Lily answered.

"The money in the vault is yours as much as it is mine, love," he said.