Pafoo, Pongs, Moni and Womtal

Chapter 3 - Of Frogs and Foolishness

James and Sirius shared identical grins as Lily picked the first present to give to Harry, brining it over to him on her lap as he grinned with pleasure at all the attention he was getting.

As soon as Harry figured out that he was allowed to tear through the paper, he immediately grabbed hold of the deep red wrapping paper of his gift from Remus and tore it.

At that moment, three people fell to the floor with a thud, their chairs completely disappearing from under them and their faces wide with surprised. James and Sirius, who were currently standing towards the back, hid their laughs behind their hands as they watched Frank Longbottom, Nikkie Ralston and Remus all stand up quickly, looking curiously at where their seat had been moments before.

Lily, however, looked over the crowd and spotted James and Sirius her eyebrow raised as if asking them what they knew about this.

James just smiled innocently at her, blowing her a kiss and winking at her which, while causing the average witch to faint, made Lily blush deeply and even more so when he waggled his eyebrows at her. She seemed to laugh off the prank and turned away, watching Harry as he continued to try to get the paper off the present.

Meanwhile, Frank and Nikkie were still investigating their mysterious missing chairs. Remus had gotten the point rather quickly and had come around to join James and Sirius in the back, elbowing them a few times for making him look like and idiot.

James looked up to Where Harry was now starting on his second present (a rather violently colored package from Sirius who had claimed to charm the wrapped himself to flash neon colors). As soon as h e tore the next package, Nikkie, Frank's and Remus' chairs all appeared and now McGonagall, Alice and Peter were sitting on the ground, flabbergasted at their bad luck.

Peter didn't have the foresight of Remus and contented himself with sitting on the ground while McGonagall and Alice both cast suspicious glances back at the marauders.

Peter's decision proved rather foolish as with the next present that was torn open, his chair appeared right on top of him, pinning him to the ground so hard that it took both Frank and Andromeda to get him out.

The disappearing trick lasted for a few more minutes and presents, at least until James and Sirius began to get bored and lazily flicked their wands, canceling the charm and activating the new one

Every torn piece of wrapping paper suddenly folded itself into a complicated "paper frog" and began jumping around the yard. As Harry wasn't very strong and there were quite a few tears on the paper, dozens of little frogs started massacring the guest. Sirius and James had to hold onto each other as the laughed as people began trying to stomp on them, only realizing this made them even more annoying as they would just repair themselves and attack the person's foot.

When people finally started to used magic, the frogs multiplied with each spell tried on them till they covered the whole lawn.

"James Potter! Sirius Black!!"

Both boys (or men, technically) who were currently trying very hard not to collapse with laughter, didn't even seem phased as their old school professor marched up to them, her eyes wide with authority.

"Yes, professor? Something you needed?" Sirius asked cheerfully, plucking a frog that was perched on her head. She smacked his hands away and gave them both piercing looks.

"Honestly Potter! You're son's birthday party?"

"Aww, the little pronglet loves it!" Sirius pointed out. Indeed, Harry seemed rather captivated which put Lily in a good mood as she grinned, helping Harry hold one of the frogs in his pudgy fingers.

"Besides, it's not like he really needs all those presents anyway," James reasoned. The medium size of still unopened presents was now half buried in frogs, but Harry didn't even notice those, or the ones he had already "opened".

McGonagall just rolled her eyes in annoyance and walked off, mumbling about "house points" and "detentions".

James and Sirius made their way over to Lily, joined by Remus and Peter as they went.

"I will admit, James, this was probably one of your best ideas yet," Lily said to him sneakily as they walked up to her. Upon seeing him, Harry held out his arms to James, wriggling his fingers. "Up, Pongs! Up!"

Lily lovingly handed her son over to his father as James smiled and tossed him up in the air.

"Doesn't it ever bug you that he never calls you dad? Just Prongs?" Lily asked James.

"Naw," James said without hesitation. "Besides, he calls you 'Tiger Lily' sometimes like I do."

"'igr Liy!" Harry repeated happily, bouncing in James' arms, ready for more play.

"Come here, squirt!" Sirius grabbed Harry away from James and proceeded to flew him around, holding him securely with both hands, making "whooshing" noises as if he was on a broom.

James smiled and wrapped an arm around Lily who sunk into his embrace, both of them watching their one-year-old son play with his godfather. James' eyes flickered over to the rest of the guests, who, finding that magic didn't help, had begun to try and "make friends" with the frogs. Indeed, Little Nymphadora seemed captivated with them and were collecting them in her skirt, already yelling over to her mom that she wanted to take some home. Andromeda, who was occupied with trying to help Dumbledore clean them off the cake, rolled her eyes at her daughter.

"Guess I kind of messed up your plans," James admitted to Lily but she just smiled.

"Yeah, but I'm kind of glad you did..." she admitted.

James just held her tighter, watching now as Remus, Sirius and Peter all took turns playing peek-a-boo with Harry. James laughed out loud at the sight.

"Now there's a site I thought I'd never see..." he admitted. "The Marauders with a baby."

"Hey!" Lily poked him in the stomach. "If I'm not mistaken, that's our baby, not the marauder's baby, unless you want to tell me something?" Lily raised a curious but mischievous eyebrow at him.

James just laughed and reached down to give her a quick kiss. "Never dear."

"Yeah, and don't you forget it."

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