It is Christmas time again at Hogwarts. Lily had decided to stay over the break for she did not want to listen to Petunia gawk over her new boyfriend, Vernon. She soon realized she was the only Gryffindor girl to remain at school. In fact, she was the only girl to stay at school. The only other Gryffindors that had stayed were the Marauders (minus Peter who went home to visit his grandmother).

Lily woke up early on Christmas Eve and could not fall back to sleep. Knowing the boys would not wake up this early, she grabbed a book off of her nightstand and went down to sit in an overstuffed chair in front of the common room fire. After reading for an hour, she thought she heard someone snoring.

"I must be hearing things. It's probably because it is actually quiet at Hogwarts for one," Lily said to herself.

Lily then heard the snoring again. This time she knew she was not imaging it. Curiosity getting the best of her, she marked her place in the book, sat it on the chair arm, and got up to look around. Lily started toward the couch and the snoring got louder. She knelt down close to the sound and put her hand down on the pillow.

"Ow…. hey"

Or at least she thought it had been the pillow. At that moment, James' head appeared as he pulled off his invisibility cloak giving Lily a why-the-hell-did-you-wake-me-up look.

"Sorry. I thought you were Sirius," said a very sleepy James.

"Potter. I should have known," Lily said to herself slightly annoyed.

"What was that Evans?"

"Nothing. What were you doing sleeping on the common room couch?" Lily asked in an agitated voice.

"It's a very long story. You don't want to hear it," replied James.

"Well Potter, I am very sorry to say that I have time to listen seeing as Amie and Toria deserted me for the holidays."

"You see, it started yesterday after lunch. Sirius, Remus, and I had just gone outside for our annual snowball fight."

"James, come on. The only other people left in the castle are the professors, a few Slytherins, and Lily," reasoned Remus. "You can't ask any of them to play."

James thought for a moment the agreed. "We will just have to play two on one."

Sirius immediately shouted, "Me and Remus against James!" So they played until dark fell and Sirius became bored and suggested they do something different.

"James, go hex Snape," Sirius said out of nowhere.

"What?"

"Go hex Snivellus."

"Okay."

So the trio went into the castle in search of Snape. James found Snape in the dungeons and went up behind him and hit him with the Jelly-legs jinx. Snape fell on his face and spilled his veritaserum all over the floor. James felt a twinge of guilt when he thought of what he just did to Snape. Lily kept telling him that he was too immature. James went over and tried to help Snape up.

"I don't need you help Potter," Snape retorted and went on his way.

Sirius and Remus came out of the darkness of the shadows and looked at James in disbelief. "What the hell do you think you are doing?" Sirius demanded as he drew his wand.

As James drew his, Sirius yelled, "Expelliarmus!"

James fell back against the wall and hit his head. Remus looked at both boys, sighed, and started making his way back to the Gryffindor common room. Sirius soon turned and walked after Remus. James got up about ten minutes later and headed toward the hospital wing for some painkiller potion.

After James took the potion, he headed back to the Gryffindor common room and sat down on the couch in front of the fire. He couldn't face Sirius tonight. It would give Sirius to much pleasure. He pulled his invisibility cloak out of his pocket and used it as a blanket and fell asleep on the couch.

"That's why you found me hear this morning, asleep on the couch."

Lily giggled, stood up and started toward the Great Hall. "Boys and the egos. Why can't they just face humiliation?" she thought to herself.

She left James, alone in the common room, wondering about his conversation with Lily, her reaction and what Sirius would say when he woke up and came down for breakfast this morning.