A/N: I wrote this for a Jily Secret Santa on tumblr. The prompt was "Jily baking" so... hope you enjoy!


Holding her breath, Lily Evans carefully counted the last few stairs. Which one squeaked again? The third one. Definitely the third one. Or was it... No. It was the third one.

She carefully tiptoed down a few more stairs. All she had to do was make sure she went from the fourth step down to the second. Steadying herself, she stepped down onto the fourth step.

It squeaked.

Fuck, damn, shitshitshit.

Not daring to shift her weight, Lily peeked over the banister and looked over at the couch. She didn't see any movement...

Forcing herself not to worry about anymore squeaks, she launched herself down the last few stairs, and nearly smashed into the front door.

She was starting to see why Sirius didn't like her tagging along for the Marauder's midnight trips to the kitchens.

Forgetting herself for a second, she sighed. Realizing her mistake, she slapped a hand to her mouth.

Yeah, she was definitely starting to see why Sirius hated her tagging along. She sucked at sneaking around.

Still, she couldn't have been too loud. After all, James still hadn't budged from the couch so obviously she hadn't woken him up...yet.

Lily quickly walked to the kitchen and slid the door shut quietly. She leaned against the door and let out a sigh of relief. She'd made it to the kitchen without waking anyone up.

Thank Mer-

"Hey, Lils."

She damn near screamed.

Choking on air, she shoved off the door and spun to face her boyfriend.

"What are you- how did you- are you trying to give me a heart attack, Potter?"

Grinning slightly, he walked over to her. "Back to Potter, are we? Silly me for thinking we were past that."

Trying not to pout, Lily walked past him and plopped onto a chair. "You scared me. I didn't think anyone was up. Why are you still awake anyways?"

"I wanted a glass of water. What about you?"

"Couldn't sleep."

He moved to sit next to her. "Let me guess, you couldn't sleep because you knew your devilishly handsome boyfriend was just down a flight of stairs simply dying to be ravished."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Funny. I didn't know Sirius was here..."

Dramatically placing a hand over his heart, James pretended to stagger and fall over. When Lily only rolled her eyes, he stopped and took her hand. "Well, c'mon then. Out with it. What's wrong?"

"Nothing really. Just couldn't stop thinking, I guess." She shrugged. "It's our last year at Hogwarts. I wish I could have stayed for Christmas, but with Voldemort gaining power... I wanted to come home."

"There's nothing wrong with that, Lils."

"I still don't get why you decided to tag along."

"We've been over this. None of the other blokes were staying and my parents are busy with work. It was either stay at Hogwarts alone for Christmas and stay with you and your family." He tilted her chin up and smiled at her. "I'm not nearly as bored or miserable here as you'd like to think." She rolled her eyes again, but was finally smiling.

"So you're enjoying doing things the muggle way, are you?"

"Well, it's certainly interesting."

She hopped of the chair and grabbed his hand. "Well, come on then. You're going to help me."

"Help you?"

"Uh-huh. We're making cookies."

"It's three in the morning, Lils."

"I know how to tell time, James, but this is what I do. If I can't sleep, I sneak down to the kitchen and bake something. With it almost being Christmas and all, cookies seemed like the proper choice. And stop giving me that look. We are going to make cookies the muggle way and you are going to help."

"I am?"

"Yep. Just try not to burn the house down."

"I would never!"

"I've seen you try to cook before."

"I'm insulted."

Lily patted his head lightly as he sulked, and moved on to gather the ingredients.

Once everything was ready, she called James over. They began mixing everything together with surprisingly few problems.


"Stop eating all of the cookie dough, James!"

"You started it!"

"I said you could try a bit, not eat the whole bowl!"

"Picky, picky."

"Shush. Merlin forbid we wake Tuney up. She'd probably murder us."

"We could bribe her not to with cookie dough?"

Lily kissed his cheek. "Cute idea, but I think we'd be better just running for our lives if she shows."

"We could throw flour on her!"

"James Potter, if you throw flour in this kitchen-"

"You'll murder me in some terribly painful way." He pinned her between the counter and his body and grinned down at her. "You forget I know all your little threats." He bent down to kiss her and she bolted out from under his arm.

She smirked at him. "Behave and maybe I'll give you a Christmas kiss. Maybe."

"You wound me, Evans."

"I'm sure. Now we really need to get these in the oven. Come, come."

He saluted and followed her to help find the cookie sheets.


"Why can't we eat them yet?"

"Because they're too hot. They just came out of the oven."

"We could just cast a quick cooling charm..."

Lily smacked his hand as it reached for his wand. "You agreed to do this the muggle way. Besides, we have to wait for the other tray to come out still."

Sighing, he crossed his arms and went back to staring at the cookies.


"Son of a-"

"Told you they were too hot."

"Okay, okay, you win. You're the brightest witch ever now please put me out of misery."

Lily pointed her wand directly at his nose and smirked. "Put you out of your misery?" She shook her head. "And you say Sirius is a drama queen. You burnt your mouth. It's not the end of the world, dear." She cast a quick healing charm. "Better?"

He pursed his lips and moved it around dramatically. "I think... I think it needs a kiss to make it completely better."

Lily grinned. "Is that so?"

He continued to make weird faces. "Definitely."

"Hm. Well, I wouldn't want my boyfriend to have a damaged..." She walked up to him and pressed a firm kiss to his lips. She went to pull away, but James tugged her against him and pressed her back against the wall.

"James!"

"You don't want me to have an injured mouth, do you?" Without waiting for her reply, James covered Lily's mouth with his once more.


"James, wait."

"Mmm, don't wanna." He tried to press his lips against Lily's again, but she turned her head. He moved to kiss her neck.

Trying not to whimper, Lily said, "No, James, really. Something's not right." He ignored her. "It smells like something's burning."

That made him pause. "What?"

"Something's burning?"

They stared at each other for a moment, then James's eyes widened. "We never took the other tray out of the oven."

Rocketing off the wall, Lily ran to the oven and yanked it open. Gray smoke billowed out.

"Shit, shit, shit!" She grabbed the bag of flour and dumped the flour onto the burning cookies.

White flour dust mixed with the gray smoke, and both Lily and James started coughing.

Then the smoke detector started sounding.

"God fucking-" Losing her temper, Lily grabbed her wand and silenced the alarm and vanished the smoke.

Standing in the middle of the kitchen, wand in one hand, bag of flour in the other, Lily looked over to where her startled boyfriend stood.

He tilted his head slightly and asked, "Is muggle baking always so exciting?"

Slowly, calmly, Lily returned her wand to her pocket and carefully set the bag of flour on the counter. Then she looked up at James, grabbed a handful of flour, and threw it.

"What the-! Lily!"

Laughing hysterically, Lily bent over clutching her stomach.

She never saw his response coming.

James scooped up flour in both of his hands and dumped it all over the back of her hair.

Lily stood up slowly and examined her hair which, rather than being its usual vibrant red, looked more like a ghost's hair.

Green eyes met hazel. "You did not just do that."

He smirked. "Oh, I did."

She glanced at the now torn bag of flour and then back at James.

They dove for the bag at the same time.


A/N: Welp, hope you all liked it! As always, reviews are lovely.