A/N: I tried getting this out before midnight, but I'll admit that I didn't set myself up for success by beginning at 11pm. Oh well. It's 12 o'clock somewhere, right? Consequently, I cranked this out rather quickly, so be weary of mistakes and please accept this as my premature apology.
**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to these characters. Or Christmas.
…
"Chin up, Lily, it isn't all that bad," Remus Lupin encouraged the sodden redhead witch slumped on the floor, leaning against his bed with a scowl. She huffed impatiently in polite response.
"Yes, chin up, Evans, you're bringing quite the dismal damper to my Christmas cheer," Sirius chirped from his own bed across the room. His words greatly clashed with his appearance as he monotonously tossed a wadded paper ball above his head and caught it, repeatedly.
Lily flicked her wand lazily and allowed a smug smile to interrupt her grouchiness at Sirius's howl as he got the nasty end of a painful pinching jinx. Remus struggled to keep his own laughter silent as he swung his legs over the edge of his bed and sunk to the floor next to Lily.
"You know," he said with a raised eyebrow, "you could always send him an owl."
Lily's head whipped around. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't blame him," Sirius bravely shouted. "He's just trying to stop the pining."
"Pining?" Lily questioned, dangerously.
"Yes, Evans. Pining." A thunk could be heard as his own feet hit the floor. "You come in here with your whining about no snow," he prattled on, slinking toward the other Gryffindors, "but we know what you're really missing." He joined them on the floor, crossing his long legs in what appeared to be a rather uncomfortable manner.
"Or rather whom," Remus contributed, a twinkle making a brief appearance before shooing back away in response to Lily's lethal look.
"I don't know what you two prats are on about, but I think I'll just be leaving." She placed her hands on the ground in an effort to push up from the floor. "This is what I get for coming to the likes of you for company, I suppose."
"Oh, c'mon now, Ginge," Sirius grabbed for her wrist, pulling her back down. "Don't be like that."
"We're only taking the mickey from you," Remus added with a good-natured smile.
"Besides, where're you gonna go if you leave us? The entire castle is home for the holidays. Unless you fancy an evening stroll with Pimply Pingleton or Mangy McGuire. Face it, Evans, we're the best option you've got."
"Especially seeing as you don't have your precious white fluff to frolic around in."
"Don't remind me," she pouted, crossing her arms. The boys exchanged a quick wink of victory as they realized she was staying. "This is the worst Christmas of my life."
"Did you drink last Christmas?" Sirius asked, matter-of-factly.
"What?"
"Last Christmas. Alcohol. Did you drink?"
"No…"
"Hang on." Sirius stood again, moving toward his trunk where he began rummaging through various odds and ends. Finally, he emerged with a grin and a bottle of Ogden's. "There you are." He set the bottle in front of Lily. "Already better than last year."
Lily eyed the bottle through unimpressed eyes. "Do you expect me to just down that and pass out, a happier bird than I was before?"
"Oh, so sorry, Your Majesty," he drawled, pulling his wand out of his trouser pocket. "Fine dining only." With a dramatic flourish, he transfigured a few abandoned wizard's chess pieces into champagne flutes.
With less hesitation than she would later care to admit, Lily grabbed for the bottle, liberally sloshing the strong liquid into her glass. "To a pants Christmas!"
Remus and Sirius wasted no time in filling their own flutes, echoing her proclamation and downing the burning beverage.
…
Two hours and a bottle and a half of fire whiskey later (I'm prepared for all circumstances, Evans, and a true man always has at least three bottles on deck), the three Gryffindors were properly smashed and in quite a state to behold.
"But how does it even become white?" Lily slurred, clumsily shaking an empty bottle over her empty champagne flute. "And where did the alcohol go?" She scrunched her eyebrows together, swinging her head up under the bottle to further investigate. She spluttered as a resolute drop fell onto her forehead.
"I think it's in there, Lily," Remus giggled—yes, actually giggled—poking through her chunky sweater at her stomach.
Any images of Remus Lupin as the morally upstanding Marauder would have been tragically obliterated upon entrance to the seventh year boys' dormitory that Christmas night. He held his liquor for an impressive amount of time before his resolve seemed to dissaparate away in the blink an eye. Shockingly, Sirius was the most sober of the three at this point.
"The snow is in there?" Lily asked the werewolf, with a hint of a hiccup, before sticking her tongue out in an attempt to catch the drop of fire whiskey clinging to her forehead.
"Er-what was the question?" he asked, sheepishly.
"Merlin, y'all are crackers," Sirius snorted, grabbing the empty bottles from the floor. "Never pegged you for an alcoholic, Ginge, but I s'pose I've been surprised by you before."
"Lily, are you drunk?" Remus asked loudly, as if he were scandalised and shocked to hear this news. As if he had not been a lead encourager for her current state. As if he himself was not mere moments from passing out.
"Not as drunk as you, ya lightweight," Sirius reprimanded with a look of disappointment toward his friend. "So, Lily dear, let's take advantage of our sozzled situation. What's the dish?"
"The dish?"
"On you and Prongsie. C'mon, GInge, give us something here."
Lily looked helplessly to Remus but found his slightly bloodshot eyes staring back at her, full of anticipation. She sighed, taking a breath of defeat. They were his best mates, so it's likely they already knew what she was going to tell them anyway. Not to mention...they were completely wasted and would no doubt forget all of it by tomorrow. "Well," she began, "it's like the bloody snow, really."
"Oh Merlin…a metaphor."
"That's a simile, you ponce."
"A metaphor is a simile."
"No, no, a simile is a metaphor, Padfoot."
"Do you boys want to hear this or not?" Lily scolded, indignantly. Both wizards straightened up, looking abashed. "Very good…it's like the snow. You expect it to come on Christmas. After all, the whole month of December, and arguably November, is just build-up for it. It starts to get nippy outside—" Sirius deserved some points for his valiant attempt to withhold his snort at this point in the story, "—and then some flurries start to come and you may even get a good dusting or two before the big day. But when the twenty-fifth comes around…you just know it's going to be a full dump. You're going to wake up and look out the window and want to bloody cry because it's so beautiful and you've been waiting."
There was silence for a few moments as Lily smiled dreamily and the two boys stared at her. Sirius spoke first.
"I have no idea what the bloody hell you just said."
With that, the three teenagers erupted into a cacophony of unattractive laughter, leaning on each other in the literal sense for support. After several minutes of snorting and howling, Lily gathered herself.
"I'm trying to say…that…that James Potter is more disappointing than this Christmas."
"Ouch, Evans." Sirius winced.
"Bold statement." Remus added.
Lily threw up her hands in frustration, knocking over a champagne flute, which promptly turned back into a black knight. "He flirts with me and hints at me and does a right good job of pissing me off in anticipation…and then nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Absolutely nothing." Her scowl had returned as she slumped back against the side of the bed. "It's supposed to snow on Christmas. Everyone knows that." She looked up at the boys, eyebrows furrowed in frustration and desperation. "Why doesn't he know that?"
Sirius and Remus exchanged a wide-eyed look of fear that clearly screamed is she expecting an answer? Lily caught the glance and sighed.
"It's just not meant to be."
"No offense, Lily," Remus spoke up for the first time in a bit. "But if you and James don't end up together by the end of this, I'll probably go ahead and just join up with a werewolf colony and let nature run its course with me."
"Oh my God." Lily cried in disgust, head reeling back. "That's not even funny."
"What's not even funny?" Remus implored, blue eyes innocent and wide as saucers. He looked like he truly felt authentic remorse at being left out of whatever joke had just transpired.
Lily looked at him for a second before bursting into a new fit of laughter. "You're so sloshed."
"You've gotta talk to 'im, Evans," Sirius said, ignoring his mate. "Write him a letter, show up at his house, send him a nude picture of yourself. Something."
"That is vile and I will absolutely not entertain the idea," Lily said, haughtily.
"Dear James," Remus said, looking to the ceiling as if James himself were hovering there. "I love you."
"Okay, that is a ridicu-"
"You're worse than Christmas." Sirius contributed, catching on rather quickly, given his own drunken state.
"No. I'm not—"
"And just like snow." Remus stood to his feet, wobbling dangerously, but managing to catch his weight by gripping the bed. His gaze travelled frantically around the room as if he were looking for something he wasn't even sure if he had, before landing not he desk in the corner of the room. With great difficulty, he began to make his way toward it.
"You're hot as hell." Sirius was saying.
"And I want to snog you senseless."
"Oh, Remus, you innocent," Sirius cooed to the side, before jumping back into the imaginary letter-writing, adding what he thought to be a crucial amendment. "And I want to shag you senseless."
"Guys, that's en—"
"Hurry back to Hogwarts." Remus was hunched over the desk now, scribbling away.
"Happy Christmas. Love, Lily." Sirius finished with a smile, stretching his legs in front of him and reclining his head all the way to the floor.
With a sudden "AH!" from Remus, he stumbled back over to the other two Gryffindors and collapsed onto the floor displaying his art. The sandy-haired wizard had scribbled—out of character for the tight-laced prefect—the made-up letter onto an old homework assignment and seemed to be quite proud of his work.
Sirius barked with laughter. "Moony, this is genius. Send it, Evans!"
"Yes, send it!"
Lily scoffed in outrage. "Absolutely not. I'm not that drunk!"
"Oh, c'mon, what do you have to lose. He already knows how you feel!"
"Don't be a coward."
The fiery witch turned on Remus. "I'm not a coward."
"Prove it," he challenged, bravely.
Her mouth went agape. "I don't have to prove anything to you pricks."
"Because you're a coward," he sang with the hint of a hiccup.
"Am not!" Her eyes were ablaze now, cheeks competing for a close second place in heat.
"Are too."
"AM NOT!"
"Are too!" Sirius chimed in.
"Give me the parchment," Lily demanded, roughly. She rolled it up, quickly, before ripping the skinny red ribbon out of her hair and tying it around the parchment. "Call your bloody bird over here, Black."
Sirius refused to keep his owl all alone in the owlery over the break so he was perched by Sirius's bed, sleeping. Even so, Sirius's shocked obedience at Lily's request forced the bird to wake up, rather grumpily.
Lily grabbed for the roll of parchment and hastily attached it to the sleek, grey bird's leg. Then, getting on eye level with the owl, she looked intensely into his small eyes. "You are to take this to James Potter, all right? Jaaaames Potterrrrrr."
The bird almost seemed to roll its eyes before it beat its wings in impatience and hurried out the window.
The three teenagers stayed silent as they watched the bird flap out of sight before Remus and Sirius turned to Lily.
"What the hell did you just do?" Sirius said, eyes wide.
"And why?"
"WHAT?" she screeched. "You idiots told me to do it!"
"Well, yeah," Sirius said with the most duh-like flair, "but we're drunk."
"Oh my God."
"You just told Prongs you love him." Remus said, in a frustrating display that his memory was indeed still functioning. Of course it would choose this moment to grasp onto the act of recalling information as opposed to when they were talking about bloody snow.
"And that you wanted to shag him."
"I KNOW WHAT THE LETTER SAID." She turned to Sirius, grabbing his collar in the most pathetically dramatic, but adequately desperate attempt for guidance. "We have to get that bird back."
"Evans, I can't just whistle him back to me. He's doing his job! He's taking the letter to—"
"To James! Yes, I know."
Sirius raised his hands in surrender, wisely choosing silence for once in his life.
"God, what do I do?" she lamented. Her head was now in her lap as she struggled to withhold the urge to vomit. The copious amounts of alcohol circulating in her bloodstream did not make the task any more facile.
Remus put an awkward hand on her shoulder. "Go to sleep?" he suggested, weakly.
She considered a biting reply or quick jinx before she truly considered his words. What more could she do? Tomorrow would be a new day and, if there truly was a God and if he truly loved her, she would walk up with a sober head and an unwritten love letter to James Potter.
She settled on nodding, slowly standing and making her way to the vacant bed in the corner of the room. "I won't make it to the Head dorm. I'm crashing here."
"Of course, Evans," Sirius said as cheerfully as he could muster before turning to Remus and whispering, "Should we tell her that's James's old bed or would that deepen the severity of our situation?"
"We will both be dead tomorrow."
Remus's reply wasn't helpful and didn't make much sense, either, but Sirius just nodded and headed for his own bed.
…
A few hours later and a couple hundred miles away, James Potter shot out of bed as something slammed into his window. He didn't take the time to grab his glasses as he stumbled out of bed and rushed to the the glass pane. Fumbling with the latch, he managed to get the window open and greet who he knew to be Sirius's bird, Pip.
"Oh, hullo, Pip," he whsipered, groggily, allowing the bird in. "What'd've you got for me, hmm?"
His next words flew past his lips approximately ten minutes later. "Bloody hell."
He looked up from the parchment toward the bird, who was waiting, almost knowingly for James to finish reading the letter.
"Lily's handwriting is absolutely horrible."
…
A/N: It's not much, but there ya go. Bonus points if you caught my nod to Great Expectations in the naming of Sirius's owl. This is a little nod to my multi-chap fic, Walking the Line, which involves a good deal of Sirius/Lily friendship that I would argue flourishes straight from the heart of Charles Dickens, himself.
Happy Christmas!
xoxo
Abi