A/N: This is dedicated to Sriya, who I hope has an amazing Christmas! Special credit goes to biggerandbeta on tumblr, who beta'd this for me.


"JAMES FRANCIS POTTER, GET YOUR ARSE DOWN HERE NOW!" Lily's skin positively glowed with rage. She faintly heard a stifled yawn and James stumbling on a lone shoe. He deserves to break his neck, a voice in the back of her mind muttered.

"What?" He squinted at her - he'd left his glasses upstairs - trying to understand why she'd woken him at 8 in the morning. Even without his glasses, he could tell that she wanted to murder him. "If you wanted couch-sex, you could've given me some warnin-

Lily broke him off by slapping a hand over his mouth. "I don't want to have sex with you on the bloody couch! I'm talking," with her other hand, she grabbed the end of some red tinsel, "about this!"

James licked the palm of her hand, and Lily squealed and withdrew it quickly. "That's always worked." He said with a wink.

"Explain the freaking tinsel, Potter." She hissed, her eyes narrowing at him.

"Oh, I decorated! Do you like it?" He gestured vaguely to the living room, where almost everything had been covered with tinsel. "I used those Muggle decorations that you have hidden up in the attic. It took me two and a half rolls of Spellotape, so you better be grateful."

"Do I look like I'm bloody grateful?"

"Well I can't really see right now." He waved a hand at his glasses-less face. Lily stormed up the stairs, pausing slightly to through James's shoe at his head. "Watch it, love! That almost hit me!"

"It was meant to!" She yelled back, continuing into their bedroom. Lily grabbed James's glasses of his bedside table, and trying not to snap them - but if she did, who could blame her? - she shoved them in her pocket. She marched back down the stairs and thrust the glasses into James's hand. James just looked at them, so she pointed to the glasses: "Put them on then!"

James shoved them roughly onto his face. "Are'ya happy now?"

"I will be once you get this crap sorted out!" Lily pushed tinsel out of her face and stormed into the kitchen.


James heard clanging from the kitchen and frowned. I was only trying to do something nice for her, and she has to fucking ruin it by ordering me to take it all down. He reached for his wand, then growled under his breath as he realised that they weren't allowed to use magic. Those stupid Death Eaters...

He tugged on the end of one piece of tinsel, and it started to unravel from around the banister.

"James!" Lily's voice echoed from the kitchen. He rolled his eyes and dropped the tinsel.

"What?" He muttered as he dragged a hand through his hair.

"You decorated the kitchen as well?"

Ugh. "Well, I'm sorry, but I thought you'd like it."

Lily's face gradually got redder. "You've fucked up my kitchen, James, and you know that I don't let people use my kitchen, let alone change it completely. You've bloody covered everything in tinsel, so how am I supposed to do Christmas dinner? I bet you don't even know how the oven works, James. You need to use the hob, not put a Christmas tree on it! Oh, and look, you've got pine-needles in the mixing bow-mfghh!"

James, who was getting fed up of her ranting, had glanced around and grabbed a mince pie from last night, which he shoved in her mouth. Under her silent glare, he held his hands up in surrender and stepped backwards. "Uhh..."

"James..." He prepared himself for another bawling out, but felt something hard hit his cheek. James looked through his squinted eyes at Lily, who was stifling her laughter.

"You little bitch! Using mince-pies to abuse me..." He grabbed another one off the tray and lobbed it at her head, but she ducked and it smashed into the wall behind her. Lily grabbed the tray, and James legged it out of the kitchen and back into the living room.

She chased him in, and threw it at him, tray and all. Lily missed by a few metres, and the mince pies spilt onto the sofa.

"See, this is what you get for marrying a Chaser; you can never live up to my superiority." James stuck his tongue out at her and leaned over to pick a bit of pastry out of her hair. The problem was, Lily had gone to smack him around the head, so James tripped over a piece of tinsel and toppled onto the sofa, making Lily fall on top of him.

"James!" Lily smacked him on the arm, but made no move to stand up.

"Y-you have pastry in your hair." James raised his hand to pick it out, but threaded his hands through her hair instead of removing it.

Lily took a deep breath. "So do you," she whispered.

Their faces moved closer to each other, until their noses touched. James swore he could count the freckles on her cheeks. "Lily..."

"Yes?"

"I have a mince pie up my arse." Lily whacked him on the arm, chuckling slightly.

"Way to ruin a romantic moment, James." He grabbed her round the waist and flipped them over so he was on top of her.

James leaned down so that Lily could feel his hot breath on her ear. "Good luck with those pies," he whispered, then pecked her on the cheek.

"Is that all I'm getting?" She said slowly, looking at James from under her lashes.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I was under the impression that you're pissed off with me!" James moved to get off her.

Lily grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his face down to meet hers. "I'll be pissed off with you if you don't kiss me," she muttered, just before his lips crashed down on hers.

They'd kissed before, of course, but they'd been passionate and sloppy – nothing compared to this soft, chaste kiss. James swore that she still tasted of peppermint.

He pulled back from her and whispered: "Merry Christmas, Lily."


So there we are! Tell me what you think down in the review box, and hopefully I'll use all your advice in future writing!

~AJ