Unofficial Portkey Archive

Two Steps Back by Emmablk1
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Two Steps Back

Emmablk1

Yay! It's finally here,

Everybody give a cheer!

Hey, I never said I was a poet, ok?

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

After quickly getting dressed, James went downstairs to find Lily searching frantically through his kitchen cabinets. James took a step back to admire the picture of Lily's flushed face. And her butt. Although, he would never admit that if she caught him.

"You know, most people would look in the fridge for food." He said after a few minutes of…er…admiring.

Lily's head snapped up and James caught the wild look in her eyes. "Do you have any cat food?!" She practically shouted. However, James never had a chance to respond, as Lily began to push him towards the front door.

"I really thought you may have actually have thought this through, James. You are just going to have to go out and buy some food for them!"

"Wait just a minute!" James steeled himself against Lily. "Isn't there something in the fridge that they could eat? If I leave I'll be killed! Didn't you see the way they were glaring at me?!"

Lily gave him a look that he was getting all too used to, but stopped pushing him. "All I'm saying is that my comfort zone is here," he gestured around him, "And I'd be stepping out of said comfort zone if I go outside to be mauled by the crazy cats! I mean…people."

Lily sighed. "It doesn't matter anyways; you'd still have to go out to get food."

"Are you telling me that there is no food anywhere in this house?"

"Not enough to live on. And the two people who could fix something up are outside trying to lick themselves!"

Ignoring the licking comment, James raised his eyebrows at Lily. "It's the second day that you've been here and there's no food at all anywhere?" She carefully avoided his gaze. Then the light bulb came on in James' head. "You can't cook, can you?"

Lily blushed scarlet and then mumbled something under her breath. "What was that?" James asked, trying not to giggle. He reached down and lifted her chin up to look at him.

Blushing even redder, she said, "Mum never taught me because she assumed that I wouldn't need to know…being a witch and all…"

He thought about laughing, but then realized that it was cute. "I can teach you," he whispered, bringing her face closer to his. "Of course, all I can cook is boiling water."

Merlin, he's actually going to do it…I can't believe it…ahh! I can't think at a time like this!! Lily's mind was hardly working at all, but apparently her body knew exactly what to do; her arms went around James' neck and her feet went on their tiptoes to match their couple inches difference in height.

There came a YOWL! from the front yard and Lily and James broke apart as quickly as they had come together. (A/N: c'mon, you all knew this was going to happen…) Matching the other's bright red face, they both ran to the window to find a black kitten practically screaming from a high tree branch and a orange kitten with his hair on end staring at another black kitten who was mewing down at the bottom of the tree.

"Oh bloody hell."

*~*~*~*~*

"Padfoot, you can come down now, you know…she's not going to hurt you." Remus coaxed from the ground, after getting over the scare that the kitten had given the two of them.

"But she…but she..." Sirius whimpered from the tree, not letting Remus calm him down. "She violated my personal space!"

Remus rolled his eyes as well as a cat could roll his eyes. "She did not. She snuck up behind you and you ran into the tree. If anything you violated the tree's personal space."

Sirius glared at him. "You're not helping."

"Yeesh. Really, you can come down now." The cat said, beginning to lick her paw.

There was a pause while Sirius tried to pull his claws out of the tree branch. "I…uh…can't…I'm afraid of…uh…heights?"

Before Remus could have a chance to answer, James stormed out of the front door, Lily trailing right behind him. "Sirius Black!" James yelled, "Come down this instant!"

Sirius' reply to this was to stick out his tongue.

"Hello there. Will you pet me?" The black cat politely asked Lily and she stared at it blankly.

"Remus, since when do real kittens talk?" she asked, not taking her eyes off of the kitten for one second.

"Since real people turn into kittens." Remus replied, beginning to lick his fur, and then stopping. "I have got to learn to stop doing that."

Lily bent down to the black cat and asked in the sweetest voice she could manage (well, the cat was a kitten…), "And what's your name, kitty-kitty?"

The cat looked at her with an undertone that suggested that she would be rolling her eyes if she could. "Don't patronize me." Lily blinked, and then muttered an apology, but the kitten kept on talking. "I'm Kat with a K, not a C; don't confuse it."

"Now, why didn't I see that one coming?" Remus thought to himself, shaking his head and sitting in the grass.

"And I didn't mean to scare your friend over there," she continued, glancing up at Sirius and then at Remus, "but I couldn't help it! Do you know how long it's been since the last animals to walk through this yard haven't been a rat, dog, werewolf, or moose?"

"Stag!" James angrily yelled, momentarily taking his eyes off of Sirius to correct her.

"Whatever. All I'm saying is that I'm a little starved for attention." She looked at Sirius again and winked at him.

"Please don't tell me that a kitten just tried to hit on me." Sirius' eyes went big, unsettled.

"She didn't try," Lily smiled broadly, "she most definitely succeeded." She began to pet Kat's head, who purred in response.

The next hour was spent watching James try to get Sirius to come down from the tree, who looked like he really wanted to, but the instinct to make James mad overcame that want.

"So, how old are you?" Lily asked Kat as they watching James climbing the tree to physically take Sirius down from it.

"I wonder if he even remembers why he wanted him to come down so much in the first place?" Remus said to himself, knowing that no one else was listening.

"In human years I'm probably about ten." Kat replied. (A/N: I have no idea how cats age according to humans.) She was sitting in Lily's lap, having her own personal massage. "But looking at that," she tilted her head towards the two idiots in the tree, "I know that I'm much more mature than ten years old."

Lily looked over at Remus, who was trying not to lick his fur. "You know, you are a very cute cat, Remus."

Remus blushed and involuntarily licked his paw.

All three looked up when they heard a THUNK and watched as James come crashing to the ground.

"Whoops." Sirius said, nimbly leaping to another branch and shaking a leaf out from his fur.

"You…did…that…on…purpose…" James groaned from the grass.

"You can't prove that."

"Wanna…bet…?"

Lily sighed, rolling her eyes. "Okay, that's enough." Putting Kat on the ground, she stood and stepped over James to get to Sirius. "Sirius get down here!"

He immediately jumped into her arms.

"We're all going inside to sort this out." She said, walking into the house, trailed by Kat, Remus, and James, who had finally gotten up off of his butt.

"James," Lily said when they all were assembled at (or on, considering they're kittens) the kitchen table, "You have to turn them back."

James looked down and mumbled something.

"You can't turn us back?!" Sirius shrieked, launching himself at James and trying to scratch his face off.

"Sirius! Control yourself!" Lily tried to get him off of James to no avail.

"Yeah, go for his heart firs, not his head!" Remus yelled.

When Lily finally got Sirius to calm down, she looked around at the cats, and then at James, who was nursing the cuts on his face.

"I think I can turn you guys back." Lily said and watched as their faces brightened. "But you might suffer from cat-like personalities for several days." From the looks on their faces, she could tell they didn't care, but just in case they came complaining later, she wanted to be able to say 'I told you so.'

"But I'm the one who's good at transfiguration!" James protested.

"Well maybe you should have thought about that before you turned your best friends into cats." Lily hissed, throwing a towel at him. "Go get cleaned up. When you come back they'll be as good as new."

*~*~*~*

James cleaned his cuts the best he could, but couldn't help thinking that he looked as if he had just collided with a cactus.

"Maybe it'll make me look more rugged." He thought out loud, but when he put on his glasses, he realized that he had been beaten up by a cat. And that was as far from rugged as you could get.

*~*~*~*

"Ah…to be human." Sirius took a good look at himself in the glare from the fridge. "I look even better than I did before!"

"And here I thought it was impossible for someone to compliment himself and boost his ego even more." Remus sighed, looking at himself in the fridge too.

"I just thought it was impossible for his ego to get any bigger." Lily agreed halfheartedly, staring at Kat.

"What does that look mean?" Kat asked, nervously looking back at Lily.

"I think I have an idea."

Sirius and Remus heard a wand PING and turned around to find a ten-year-old sitting on the kitchen table. She was dressed in all back; black mini skirt, black shirt, even long black socks and black shoes. Her hair was jet black with, curiously enough, red highlights.

"Huh. I didn't see those when you were a cat." Lily remarked, touching a red strand. Kat grinned.

Remus and Sirius both stood wide-eyed, mouths open. Remus found his voice first. "Wow, Lily…I didn't know you could do that."

"Yeah, when I was really little I used to turn my bunnies into people sometimes so that I could have someone to play with." Lily said as sadness briefly crossed her face.

Kat hopped down from the table and crossed over to Sirius, " So, what do you want to do now?" She smiled as she put her arms around his neck, her feet on her tiptoes.

Sirius squeaked, "Uh…problem!" and ducked out of her arms, backing into the fridge. He held on for dear life. He looked at Lily. "It was fine when she was a cat and all, but…" he looked back at Kat. "Could you age her or something?! This is starting to get a little creepy!"

Lily and Remus burst out laughing at the same time, doubling over. At that moment, James walked in.

He saw Kat and did a double take. "Do you have a tattoo on your bellybutton?"

Kat glanced down and saw that her shirt had come up when she lifted her arms. She giggled mischievously.

"Can cats even get tattoos?" Sirius wondered as Lily and Remus calmed down.

Still chuckling, Lily waved her wand at Kat and everyone watched as she aged seven years.

"Okay, it's still kinda creepy." Sirius whimpered, which sent Remus and Lily into hysterics again. Angry, Sirius rushed out of the kitchen, ignoring Remus' pleas of 'Wait! We're almost done! Come back!'

"Sirius!" Kat whined, chasing after him, but she stopped as he ran up the stairs.

Impulsively instead of running to James' room to destroy everything he owned, Sirius turned the other direction toward where Lily was staying.

Stopping short of the door, Sirius suddenly heard a voice telling him to stop, but he waved it off, realizing it was his conscience.

The room was small with two beds stuffed in, but Sirius immediately knew which was Lily's. A small black book caught his eyes, but after searching through it enough he only confirmed what he already knew; that Lily and James had the hots for each other.

Moving on to a brighter book (okay, so the color caught his eye; he's easily distracted, alright?) he found it to contain nearly every person in Gryffindor's phone number or address. A thought struck him and he raced out of the room to find a phone.

He had a lot of phone calls to make.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

So? How was this one? You're all wondering what Sirius is going to do, right? MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Okay, I know most of you have figured it out already. Oh well. At least you're enjoying it.

See you all next chapter!

Emmablk1

P.S.

Here's a hint:

James' birthday is coming up.