A/N: I thought it was time to write some obligatory Christmas fluff... it came out a little bit less fluffy than I'd intended, but never mind. :)
Just to make it crystal clear, this one-shot takes place in December of the Marauders' sixth year. Enjoy, and I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Christmas was coming to Hogwarts. The bitter weather had set in, and while that meant difficulty in avoiding all the snowballs thrown by the younger students (with the addition of James Potter and Sirius Black, of course), it also meant that the festive cheer was beginning to show. The castle decorations looked spectacular as always, and even Professor McGonagall was starting to ease up her workload.
On their way back from first-period Herbology, Lily, Mary and Marlene took the longer but less snowball-ridden route, despite the fact that it strayed briefly into the Forbidden Forest.
"But you're a prefect," Marlene objected teasingly when Lily suggested it.
Lily elbowed her friend in the ribs. "Oh, shut up."
She was in good spirits, though. Herbology used to be the lesson she dreaded the most because it meant seeing him, but lately she'd decided she didn't care and today they'd even had an enjoyable lesson. Professor Sprout seemed to have sensed her students' fatigue and let them chat whilst feeding the plants and decorating the greenhouses.
"Guys," Mary said suddenly, her voice low. "There's someone here."
That struck Lily as odd. Though they were hardly the first students to enter the Forest, it was strange that somebody else had gone in at exactly the same time as them. It quickly began to feel creepy in there; the girls carried on walking, but they spoke in whispers and couldn't stop themselves from glancing behind them every so often.
After a while, Marlene stopped in her tracks. "I know who it is."
Lily sighed. If she said it in that tone, it could be none other than Severus Snape. "You two carry on ahead; I'll catch you up," she said wearily.
"You don't owe him anything," Marlene reminded her, aggressive.
"I know, I know. I just want to get him off my back," Lily insisted, and although Marlene didn't look entirely satisfied, she and Mary carried on back to school.
Hesitating slightly, Lily took in a deep breath. She was almost an adult. She could handle this.
"Sev?" she called out to the empty forest. "I know you're there."
There was a pause in which Lily was worried that Marlene had got it wrong and she was accosting some random stranger, but then there was a rustle and a boy with greasy black hair emerged from between the trees.
"Lily," he said, and the way his face lit up when he saw her made Lily feel sick. She wasn't sure what the emotion accompanying her nausea was, but she knew she didn't like it.
"What do you want, Severus?" She was torn between wanting to be civil and wanting to make it clear that she hadn't forgiven him.
"To talk to you."
"And you think you'll get that by acting like some - some kind of stalker?" Her resolution not to lose her temper wasn't lasting long.
"It's just..." Severus seemed to be struggling with himself. "It's hard to get you on your own in school."
"Oh. I see how it is," Lily said, fuming. "You don't want to be seen with me. Wouldn't want your Slytherin friends to see you associating with a Mudblood." She spat the word.
"No! Come on, you know I didn't mean to call you... that."
Lily shook her head. "Look, Severus, we've been through this. I'm tired of hearing you and your excuses."
"Then at least let me give you this." He rummaged in his bag and then pulled out a scruffy brown parcel. He held it out to Lily, who took it dubiously.
"What is it?"
"Open it," Severus instructed. "It's a Christmas present. For you."
She didn't comply. "Why would you get me a Christmas present, since we're not friends?"
"We were friends. Best friends."
"But you changed. You're not the Sev I knew."
"No," he argued, "I grew up. Everybody grows up. You're not the same either."
"I'm not the one hanging around with a group of wannabe Death Eaters!" Lily shrieked. She could feel tears prickling her eyes. She was not going to cry in front of him.
"I don't care about them! I just want you back." Severus pleaded, and if she hadn't known better, Lily really would have believed him.
"That's what you said six months ago. But has your behaviour changed in any way? I don't think so." She shoved the present back at him. "I can be civil with you, Severus, but please take me seriously when I say that I don't want you in my life anymore. It's too late."
He called after her, but Lily knew that if she didn't walk off right then, she'd start crying, and that was the last thing she wanted to happen. As she carried on out of the forest and towards the castle, she couldn't help wondering what was inside the parcel.
Clearly Alice and Emmeline had been filled in on the events, because when Lily got to their usual corner of the common room, the first thing Alice said was "What did Severus want?"
If Lily had been in a better mood, she would have laughed at Mary's expression of despair; they'd been trying to teach Alice about subtlety, but clearly it wasn't going well so far. "Just the usual. And he wanted to give me a Christmas present." She rolled her eyes.
"I hope you told him where to shove it," Marlene said immediately.
Lily laughed half-heartedly. "Yeah. I don't really want to talk about it."
She wished that she didn't care, but she did. She didn't feel any emotion towards this new Severus - in fact she was completely indifferent towards him - but the absence of her childhood friend, the old Sev, left a hole inside her.
"Oi! Evans!"
Great. James Potter was just what she needed right then. "I'm really not in the mood right now," she told him, before he had the chance to say anything.
"No, no," he said hurriedly, coming over with Sirius, Remus and Peter by his side. "I haven't come to annoy you, I promise." Marlene gave a snort that she didn't quite manage to pass off as a cough.
"All you ever do is annoy me, Potter."
"Listen, Potter," Emmeline intervened, and Lily felt a rush of gratitude towards her friend. "I'm sure you have the best of intentions, but none of us want to hear your voice right now. Just run along and... do whatever you and your little pals like to do."
"Lily hasn't had the best of mornings," Alice chimed in unhelpfully.
"Well then, this should cheer you up," James declared, and Lily groaned as he produced a red and gold parcel from his sleeve with an overdramatic flourish.
"What's this?" Lily was hit by a sickening sense of déjà vu.
"I bought you a Christmas present, silly."
"Potter, I would recommend that you stop right there," Marlene said, rolling her eyes. "You stink of desperate."
"Oh no, I'm not going to ask her out again," James assured them. "I stopped doing that about six months ago. Around the time I decided to start being a decent human being. I think it's going alright so far." Lily cast her mind back over the past few months and now she thought about it, she couldn't recall any particular recent occasions of James Potter's idiocy. "You can think of this as a peace offering, I suppose."
Lily stared at the package, wondering whether she should take it. Her first instinct told her no, since she'd just rejected the one from Severus, but why should Severus have anything to do with her decisions now? Then she reminded herself that this was James Potter. She hated him. Didn't she?
"Why do you think I need a peace offering?" she asked eventually, suspicious.
"Because you hate me, and I wanted you to notice my efforts to stop being an arrogant toerag."
"I don't hate anyone," Lily muttered, but she knew that if anybody had asked for a list of the people she hated the most a year or so ago, James Potter would have been at the top.
"Fine. Think of it as... an apology, then. I've got plenty I need to apologise for. Come on, Evans, I tried really hard."
"He did," Remus confirmed, and Sirius and Peter both nodded. For some reason, Remus's approval seemed significant. Lily had got to know him well during prefect duties for the past year and a half, and she now knew that he wasn't just a quieter version of James and Sirius.
She gazed at the package thoughtfully.
"Merlin, you're not actually going to take it, are you?" Marlene demanded.
"Come on," James almost pleaded. "It won't hurt anyone."
In fact, Lily could think of a certain person who it definitely would hurt, but six months ago she vowed not to care about how Severus Snape felt anymore, so she wasn't going to let him influence her decision. Except maybe a tiny part of her got some satisfaction out of doing something that would hurt him. He'd hurt her, so why shouldn't she do the same to him? Not that he'd ever know. Still, it felt spiteful and it felt selfish, but she took the parcel.
"That's my girl!" James said triumphantly.
"I am not your girl," Lily protested, but she opened it anyway; there was no going back now.
"What is it?" Alice asked excitedly, and even Marlene looked interested, although Lily knew she'd have to listen to her disapproval for days after this.
It was a bracelet - a simple gold chain with a single charm hanging off it, which proved upon further inspection to be a tiny, intricate Gryffindor lion.
"James, this... looks expensive." It looked very much like the sort of present one would get from a boyfriend, and Lily felt guilty taking it from somebody that she had no intention of getting anywhere romantically with.
"This old thing? Nah. Sirius knows the lady in the shop-" Sirius gave an exaggerated wink which confirmed Lily's suspicions that knows was code for is sleeping with "-and she said we could have anything we wanted for half price. So I got something for my dear mother, of course, which meant that I had a few Sickles spare and when I saw this, I thought of you."
"Well, er, thanks," Lily told him, not really sure what else she was supposed to say.
"It's my pleasure," James insisted, bowing low, and Lily rolled her eyes. "Have a nice day!"
"Did you really just do that?" Mary demanded, when the boys were out of earshot.
Alice looked affronted. "He was just being nice!"
"Don't be ridiculous," Marlene snapped. "You're so naive! He's clearly still head-over-heels for her. Lily, remember this is the idiot Potter we're talking about, no matter how charming he tries to be."
"Please don't tell me you're falling for him," Emmeline added.
"Of course I'm not. He's not my type," Lily said absently, turning the lion charm round and round in her fingers.
"They'll be screwing by the end of the year, I'm telling you now," Marlene muttered, but Lily was lost in thought.
She still wasn't sure if accepting the gift had been a good decision. It might have seemed like a meaningless gesture but perhaps in taking his gift, Lily was allowing James into her life, just as she had shut Severus out of it earlier. She'd made a choice.
James used to be the enemy, but now, in the scheme of things, he was harmless. She never would have thought that it was Severus she'd need to worry about. No matter how much she wanted to deny it, she wouldn't be surprised if he ended up working for You-Know-Who in a few years. That sweet-natured little boy she used to meet in the playground, dressed in clothes that were too small for him and terrified to go home to his father that night, was gone.