Pumpkin Boy
There were some things that a younger Lily would never have believed even if you had waved a photograph of it in her face. Her dating James Potter was one of those things. Her marrying James Potter wouldn't have even come into the equation.
Then there was this. It was happening right in front of her and she still didn't believe it. Because, really? Who would have thought that this would even happen? Definitely not her but she wasn't complaining.
"Look at him, Lily. Look at him."
James held Harry up in the air who gurgled happily. Lily had done a double take.
"What in Merlin's name...?"
"He's a little, tiny pumpkin!" James said proudly.
He was. Their tiny, baby boy was dressed in the most adorable pumpkin costume ever. Or maybe it was because it was Harry and they were unashamedly biased. Eh, the semantics didn't matter. What mattered was how adorable Harry was in his puffy, little pumpkin suit that was perfectly set off with his little orange hat with a stem and leaves on the top. It was just perfection, there was no denying that. He even had little orange bootie things! Oh, this kept getting better and better.
"I need to get the camera," Lily said.
There was no way that this was going undocumented.
"There," James pointed to the table in front of him. "I already took loads as I was dressing him."
Lily gave him a fond smile. Of course, he did. That was James all over. The number of photos of her, Harry, her and Harry was just getting ridiculous. And he was rarely in front of the camera himself! It wasn't fair!
Well, that was being fixed right now because she was going to take a whole bunch of photos of James and pumpkin-Harry.
"Smile," she ordered, holding the camera up to her face.
James grinned as he lofted Harry so both of their faces were touching. It was adorable.
"Perfect," she said after taking what had to be a dozen photos.
There could definitely not be too many photos of pumpkin-Harry.
"Of course, he's perfect," James said, pressing a kiss to Harry's nose which made him scrunch it up. "Because he's a perfect little pumpkin."
Now that was something Lily could definitely agree with. Mind you, she was surprised that Harry hadn't shook the hat off his head yet.
She knew she never should have introduced James and Sirius to the muggle tradition of dressing up for Hallowe'en. They had been so put out when she had told them that children only really did it. But, in hindsight, she should have been more suspicious. They had accepted that far too quickly.
"Where did you even get the costume?"
He had either been working late (being an Auror in the middle of the war tended to necessitate that) or spending time with her or, more precisely, Harry. She didn't think that he would have had time to find a costume for Harry. Nor would he want to waste precious time with Harry doing that. The man tried avoiding going to the bathroom for Harry's first few days because he didn't want to miss any time with him, come on!
"Sirius."
"Ah."
Of course. How could she have thought anything different? Obviously, her husband's (and no, she still hadn't lost the thrill of saying that) partner in crime would be involved in this somehow. She was just surprised that it was something as tame as a pumpkin costume. And she said as much to James.
"Oh, this isn't the only costume we got," James said absentmindedly as he bounced Harry up and down. Harry scrunched up his face and then let put the tiniest of burps. "Aw, did that make you feel better?"
Lily raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
Not the only costume? Did she hear that right?
"Well," James gave her a guilty look. "Sirius brought back this catalogue..."
"Oh, James."
There was no way that this had ended well. Just what exactly had they bought?
"Well, you see. There was this wolf costume..."
Lily placed her hand over her face and did deep breaths.
"So, you got it."
James gave her an incredulous look.
"Well, yes, of course! He could be a tiny Moony! We weren't passing that up!"
Lily sighed. Of course, they weren't.
"And, if course this meant we had to find other Marauder costumes," James continued.
"Other Marauder? Oh, James, please tell me you didn't..."
That meant three more costumes. Three more. That made five in total. Five.
He flashed her a grin. "I would never lie to you, Lily."
Another sigh from her. Fantastic. Did a three-month-old really need five costumes? Apparently, James thought he did.
"Come on, you know there was no way Harry could be a wolf without being a stag, dog and rat as well, don't you?"
"These are his toys all over again."
"You like those toys."
She really did. The dog one was particularly cute but she wasn't going to tell James that.
"So, you got him the other costumes as well," she said, bringing the conversation back on track.
"Yes. It took some searching I'll tell you that."
"Oh, I'll bet," she muttered.
James ignored her and continued. "Did you know that there's no end of dog and wolf costumes but rats and deer, in particular, are hard to come by?"
"Well, they aren't exactly scary," Lily pointed out.
That was the whole point of Hallowe'en costumes, after all.
"But still!"
That didn't make any sense.
"I'm just surprised you managed to find all these costumes for babies," she said before James could start complaining.
She had only ever seen pumpkin costumes (and not as good as this one) and maybe a wolf and wizard or witch? Not a lot of choices for babies out there.
"I don't know where Sirius found it," James admitted.
"But you went with it."
"Obviously."
Yes. Obviously. Honestly, Lily didn't know what she had expected to come from all this.
"But he is just the cutest little pumpkin," James cooed, pressing kisses all over Harry's face. "Yes, you are. Yes, you are!"