Title: Moons and Cycles
Author: Nesma
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine.
A/N: Well, I have another story going up tomorrow, but I figured I would also post this little thing that I wrote today as well because, why not?

"Lily-"

"No, James! I'm not making this up! You're being a complete arse-"

"You're being paranoid thanks to your-"

"Excuse me?" Lily said in a low whisper, and James' hands were already tangled in his hair, and he realized that Lily's deep breathing and hard line of grimace was not invitation right now to tell her the exact ending of his sentence.

He took a deep gulp, shut his eyes for a second as he let his hands drop to his side, before opening his eyes again. Only to find his girlfriend was still in the same fiery rage that she was only moments ago.

"Lily, I think you're confused-"

"I've been tracking, you know." Lily said angrily, not letting him finish as she bent down and started to rummage through her bag. Books dropped, parchment floated, and quills snapped until she found her beloved black leather bound planner. She quickly stood up, flickering through the pages and bending down the ones she needed before stepping forward, her eyes still focused on the first date in her planner.

James peeked over her shoulder as he realized she had marked the full moon for every month since they started dating. Lily tended to treat her planner like a journal, doodles on the side, favorite quotations written across the empty days, invisible ink was used for some of her thoughts or drawings, and inexplicably on every full moon day, there was a sad face and a note along the lines, 'James cancelled.'

James' eyebrows shot up as he took the planner from her hands and flicked through the pages. Almost cringing as he noticed the amount of times he had cancelled a date with her or refused to see her around the full moon.

"Look, I know this, uh, looks like I'm avoiding you-"

"You are avoiding me." Lily said angrily, her arms crossed tightly across her stomach as she leaned her weight against her left leg. "And for the silliest of reasons-"

"I swear Remus has the most demented rabbit ever-" James spat out bitterly, as he closed the planner aggressively, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Bullshit."

"I've shown you photos Lily! And the letters from his mum!" James said exasperatedly, running a hand through his hair. Extremely frustrated that his hours of convincing his own mum to purchase a rabbit to take photos of in 'natural settings', the textbooks he read to manipulate the photos of a smiling Remus with a rabbit, and the amount of letter exchanges he had to endure with Mrs. Lupin to ensure that the hand-writing forgery charm was absolutely foolproof.

Literally, days of his life completed wasted over Remus', 'furry little problem' and the one person that it was meant to fool wasn't even buying the lines he was feeding her.

"I know those photos were fake-"

"Remus inserted himself in those photos, he misses his rabbit so much-"

"Remus doesn't have a rabbit!" Lily said angrily, her own hands going straight to her hair before pulling them out, a wince crossed her face. "He only has a rabbit during my period. Do you have any idea how fucked up that is?" Lily demanded.

James felt his face go scarlet. Though the human body, especially the female type, was extremely fascinating to him… he still was squeamish about the whole menstrual cycle. And how women dealt with that on a monthly basis. He wasn't sure why there wasn't a potion or something that let women just skip it entirely. He tried reading about it in a potion book he found at his house but immediately hid it in a spot that he promptly forgot about the second he heard footsteps echoing in the hallways.

"I swear he has a rabbit." James said firmly, racking another hand through his hair as Lily stared at him coolly.

"Call Sirius over." She said, jaunting out her chin in the direction of his robe pockets and James gave her a confused glance.

"I know he's secretly terrified of me after I hexed him a few weeks ago. He won't lie to me, bring him down here with that mirror of yours." She said evenly as James' jaw disconnected with his head.

"You-you want me to involve Sirius on a matter of our relationship?"

"No. I would rather not involve your best mate in our relationship. He's merely here to fact check."

"He's my best mate! How do you know if he's telling the truth?"

"He's your mate but he's scared of me. He won't lie to my face so easily."

"But-but that would mean you're telling him about your cycle-"

"Potter, every woman has a menstrual cycle! This is absolutely nothing for me to be ashamed about! Merlin's beard! It would be weirder if I didn't have one!" Lily spat out as James started to rustle through his pockets.

"Unbelievable." He muttered darkly before retrieving the mirror out of his pocket.

"Oi! Padfoot! Can you come to the Head's Office?" James shouted in the mirror as Lily strutted towards the worn down sofa.

"Sure thing!" Sirius shouted back through the mirror, and James let out a breath as he leaned against the desk.

"He's coming." He said dryly, staring straight at the door.

"I know." Lily said, flicking her hair back and crossing her arms.

After five unbearable minutes of silence, Sirius burst through the door, his expression elated for a second before he noticed the tense atmosphere in the room.

"Whoa." Sirius said, shutting the door behind him with a soft click as he entered the room more fully.

"Padfoot, can you confirm that Remus has a furry little problem involving the world's most demented rabbit?" James said quickly, his eyes meeting Sirius who kept on shifting his gaze from Lily to James.

"Erm, yes. I thought everyone knew about his rabbit? Didn't someone write a hilarious piece about it in the school's newspaper?" Sirius said uncertainty, as Lily started to scowl more at the pair of boys.

"Oh, and I take it that James Potter is the only one who has managed to comfort Remus in his time of need? That he's the only one that can help with the various of potions required to heal the world's sickest rabbit? You know, I'm actually good at potions." Lily said, standing up quickly as she walked over to the boys who were standing shoulder to shoulder.

"Alright, I'm confused. What's this fight really about?" Sirius asked, turning to face James who opened his mouth, once or twice before promptly closing it.

"It's about the fact that James refuses to hang out with me while I'm on my period." Lily said sternly as Sirius turned to look at James, a look of disgust crossed his face.

"You're not that immature, are you?" Sirius asked, and Lily beamed brightly as James rolled his eyes as he passed the planner for Sirius to flick through. It was only after a couple of months worth of pages did the look of revolt melted off of Sirius' face and a look of understanding crossed his face.

"Ah. That is unfortunate luck." Sirius said darkly, shutting the planner closed and letting it hand limply at his side.

"It's not my fault." Lily said angrily, crossing her arms again as she stared at the wall.

"Of course it's not your fault-" James started, in what he thought would be the world's most thoughtful boyfriend speech of all time. That was, until Sirius Black chimed loudly into the middle of the speech.

Prat.

"Wait. You're not the alpha female?! But you're Head Girl! You're practically the alpha female of all of Hogwarts" Sirius asked incredulously, laughing at himself as Lily covered her mouth to laugh along.

"I'm am actually not the alpha female of the Gryffindor seventh years. Sadly." Lily said, shaking her head a bit as James suddenly started to put the pieces together.

Well, by pieces, it was really just the fact that he overheard his mother talking very animatedly with another female friend about this article she discovered in a muggle magazine about menstrual cycles synching up whenever women lived together. At eleven years old, James merely frowned before wondering to the backyard to fly on his broomstick.

At seventeen he was insanely curious to discover who the alpha female among the Gryffindor girls was.

"Is it Marlene? She seems like she could be the alpha female." Sirius injected excitedly, walking over to lean against the desk with James.

Lily shook her head. "It's not Marlene…" She trailed off, biting her lower lip as she jiggled her leg.

"It's Emmeline. Isn't it?" James asked, punching the air in excitement as Lily nodded her head, laughing at James' antics.

"Emmeline? She's so quiet though! How is she-" Sirius started before spotting Lily's confused face and shrugged shoulders.

"Beats me. But she has been the alpha female for a while now." Lily said, shrugging again as Sirius faced James.

"Isn't that so cool. I wonder who would be the alpha female if we were women." Sirius said, grinning as if he were recalling a fond memory rather than trying to picture which of the Maruaders would be the alpha female if there was a gender swap. James rolled his eyes at Sirius.

After all, wouldn't it be obvious that it would be him, James Potter, the alpha among them? Though, Remus would make sense as well.

"Lily, would you like to join us tonight as we make a potion for Remus' furry little problem?" James asked, shoving Sirius slightly to the side as he stared at Lily's face that brighten a bit at the mention of a potential date.

"Mind you, we'd have to hang around Sirius and the other lads, but we always have lots of snacks like chocolate and such. It would be fun to have you around." James said sincerely, as Lily tilted her head to think about it.

"You know what? I think I will. I would rather you not poison the rabbit." She said sweetly, standing up and gathering her book bag. Disregarding her spilled supplies as she wondered over to give a quick kiss on James' cheek. She then turned to Sirius with outstretched hands and he willingly gave her the journal.

"I'll see you later tonight in your room?" Lily asked, and James nodded quickly. Lily grinned at the pair of them, waved, and then left the office. There was a moment of silence as the boys listened to her retreating footsteps.

"Prongs?"

"Yes?"

"We need to find a fake potion for a fake problem for a fake rabbit." Sirius said with hollowness in his voice as he realized the implications of the event tonight.

"I know." James repeatedly, rubbing his eyes while awkwardly bumping his glasses into his forehead.

"And I ate all the chocolate. By accident of course." Sirius said, shooting James a frighten glance who merely sighed.

"We're going to need to buy a lot more chocolate now. Double the amount." James rationalized as Sirius hummed to himself.

"Let's triple it. I think my stomach expanded." And James groaned as Sirius laughed. James was thoroughly excited for the day that Sirius' stomach would shrink to the size of a pea.

"Hogsmeade?" James offered.

"Hogsmeade. I'll meet you at the passage in five."

AN: Love it? Hate it? Review it!