Hey! This is a one shot, but I'm really tempted to make it into a two-shot...if you guys want me to. I'm actually a fan of this one, please tell me what you think.

And obviously I'm J.K Rowling, in case you hadn't guessed.

It was Christmas Eve in Hogwarts.

Lily, alone for a moment, paced in her room. She still hadn't gotten him a Christmas present, and she was at her wits end. She traced the pattern of the grey carpet as she paced it, her bare feet feeling the grain. She needed to vacuum. First, she needed to give a present; it was Christmas for goodness sakes! She had all of her other presents bought ages ago.

What was she supposed to give him? It wasn't that she didn't know him; she had gotten to know him rather well this year. Last year, at this time, she would rather have died than spend time thinking of a present for him.

But now it was important, and she had no idea. She couldn't give him clothing, that was entirely too impersonal, she couldn't get him…his favourite food or anything, she didn't even know it! She knew that he was big into Quidditch, but so did everyone else, so he was probably sick of Quidditch related gifts by now. And she couldn't make anything for him, she wasn't creative or artistic! Ah, such a conundrum.

The door flew open, and a head poked through the door. It was her friend Emmeline Vance, who had somehow inserted little gems all over her dark hair. She walked into the room, and looked around. When she saw Lily, Emmeline sighed dramatically, and threw her hands in the air.

"Lils, what are you doing here?" She asked. "It's Christmas Eve, and you're in here stressing about a present to someone you hated a year ago!" Emmeline walked over to Lily's giant four-poster bed and plopped down on the edge, her feet not even reaching the ground.

"Yes, but I don't hate him anymore! He's my fellow, er…Head Person, and I can't just forget about him! It's rude." Lily said pointedly, referring to Emmeline's perchance to "forget" about presents.

Emmeline just laughed. Not much ruffled Emmeline's feathers. "If you say so!" Emmeline replied. "Listen, Lil, he's not that much trouble, if you can't think of it, that's okay. Just tell him his present is coming!"

"I can't do tha…" Lily tried to say, frustrated at the idea, but Emmeline cut her off.

"Tough, sweetheart. I'm kidnapping you!" Emmeline flounced off the bed, and towards Lily's humungous walk in closet. Oh the perks of being Head Girl. She walked it, then walked right back out. "You ARE dressed, right?" When she noticed Lily's dark blue dressy top and black skirt, she sighed, again.

"When am I going to get you into something good! Merlin, Lily, you are SUCH a prude!" Emmeline pronounced, throwing her hands up in the air.

Lily smiled. She had heard this complaint many times, but she wasn't about to wear something like Emmeline's short black sheath dress, that clung so closely to her curves. It looked gorgeous on Emmeline, of course, but Lily would just feel awkward and slutty.

"At least I'm wearing a bit of a heel this time!" Lily said. Emmeline squealed, and clapped her hands together.

"That's my girl!" Emmeline said excitedly. "Now come ON!" Emmeline grabbed Lily's wrist and attempted to pull her from the room by force.

"Wait a moment, please!" Lily protested. Emmeline let go of her wrist regretfully, and tapped her foot impatiently as Lily pulled on her 1 inch black heels.

Laughing, Lily followed Emmeline out of the door, and towards the party.

~xoxo~

It was almost midnight. The dancing and drinking had stopped, and everyone was waiting for midnight to open their presents in the Gryffindor Common Room. By now, it was only 7th years and a few scattered 6th years. Everyone else had already gone to bed, or returned to their own Common Rooms.

Lily looked around the room, laughing. Everyone looked a bit worse for the wear, and most of them didn't hold their firewhiskey well. She was glad that she had thought ahead!

"Sonorus." Lily said, pointing her wand at her throat. An amplifying charm was the only way she could be heard over the music and talking. "Christmas is almost here, guys!" Lily said. People started paying attention to her. "I have pepper-up potions here, for anyone who…consumed more alcohol than they planned…" she said wryly. Then, pointing her wand at her throat again, she muttered, "Quietus."

Lily grabbed a vial herself, and drank it down. She was feeling "buzzed" and knew that it affected her judgement, and didn't want anything to happen. She was an embarrassing drunk, she'd found.

Sirius, who had been standing up, talking with Remus, collapsed onto the floor. He sat up immediately, laughing, but Lily knew he was much too drunk. She immediately grabbed a vial and headed over.

Remus, who had been helping Sirius up, smiled at her. "Here you go, Black." Lily said, trying to hand Sirius the vial of potion.

Sirius eyed her warily. "Why should I drink that?" he asked, words slightly slurred.

"You're drunk, that's why!" replied Emmeline, who didn't approve of Sirius' habits, or anything about him for that matter. The enmity between her and Sirius resembled that of Lily and James first year, but when the similarity was mentioned two them, both vehemently denied there was any "unresolved sexual tension" between them, as there was in James and Lily's case.

"And, my dear Emmeline, so are you…." Sirius replied. By now, he had stood back up. Emmeline looked rather surprised at his semi-civilized answer, then offended when she remembered he was accusing her of being drunk.

"I'm HARDLY drunk, Black, but I will take one of these potions of Lily's. I trust her!" Emmeline replied, insinuating that Sirius didn't trust Lily.

Emmeline stalked over to the table with the pepper-up potions, about half of which were already gone, and grabbed one. She drank it down quickly, jerking her chin, as if challenging Sirius to best her.

Sirius rolled his eyes at her, mocking her childish behaviour. He took the bottle from Lily, and opened it. Bringing it to his nose, he sniffed it gently. "Hmph. It doesn't smell as bad as it did last time!" he said, as if congratulating Lily. He dumped the contents down his throat, shuddering slightly. "Just as gross as always!" he complained.

Remus thumped him lightly on the head. "Be nice. Besides, now you can enjoy your presents!"

Sirius eyes widened, and he leaped up. "PRESENTS!" he cried, and ran to the communal Christmas tree, making everyone laugh as they made their way over to the tree. Sirius began passing presents out to people, one at a time.

Emmeline sniffed at him, and pulled out her wand. She summoned the presents to herself, and levitated them so they all floated around her. As soon as she saw the tag, she would swish her wand and zoom the present to the recipient. Sirius pouted at her, for stealing his job, but seemed happy enough once he got a couple of his own.

Lily sighed to herself. She steeled herself, and walked over to James. He looked up as she came near, and smiled. "Er, James?" she said hesitantly. "I…I don't have your present yet…it's going to be late…I'm sorry!" She hated herself for telling even the white lie, but it gave her accountability, and she would hate herself even more if she didn't give him one.

James laughed lightly. "That's fine, Lilyflower. Oh!" he said, pulling a small package out of his pocket. "Here's your present, I forgot to put it under the tree." He handed the brown-wrapped package to her. It was surprisingly heavy for something the size of her palm. "Go on, open it!" he urged.

Lily immediately turned it over, and began pulling on the tape holding the paper together. James laughed at her gentle treatment of the wrapping paper, looking ruefully at the piles of ripped paper he and the other Marauders had created.

Once Lily got the paper off, she gasped. It was an ink well full of the sparkly purple ink she had been admiring in Flourish and Blotts. Not only was it extraordinarily pretty, it also made your handwriting better, which was something Lily needed to work on. Her handwriting was nowhere near Emmeline's, and it was barely readable. But, this ink, Lily knew from admiring it, was rather expensive. Too much for a present.

Lily looked at James. "I can't accept this." she told him, and tried to hand it back to him.

"Keep it!" He said, pushing her hand, with the ink well still in it, back towards her. "It's a present! Besides, what am I supposed to do with sparkly purple ink?" he asked jokingly.

Lily blushed. "But…"

James interrupted her. "I insist."

"Thank you!" Lily said sincerely. James decided to push his luck. "Can I get a hug?" He asked, standing up.

Lily, feeling very grateful, and just a bit daring, reached out and hesitantly hugged him. Before anyone, not even the watching Marauders, could say anything, she pulled away, and hurried towards Mary and Emmeline, face beet red.

Peter reached out and high-fived James, who was smiling happily. Sirius leaned over towards James and whispered loud enough for the other Marauders to hear him, "Who knows, if you don't mess up, you might even have a chance at a New Year's Snog!" James shrugged.

Mary Macdonald looked at Lily curiously. "Did you just…hug…James Potter?" she asked quizzically. Lily nodded. "And…?" Mary prodded.

"And what?" Lily asked, confused.

"What prompted said hug?" Mary asked, slightly exasperated. Emmeline listened in with curiosity.

"He gave me this!" Lily said, showing her girlfriends the ink. Emmeline snorted. Lily blushed. She seemed to be doing that a lot tonight, and it was all James's fault! Lily knew that neither girl would leave her alone about it, and she might as well tell someone about what she had realised when she hugged him! "And I…think I might like him…" she finished.

Emmeline choked. Mary brightened, grabbed her hands, and danced her around in a circle, singing "She admits it, she admits it!"

Lily scowled at her friends. "Not so loud!" she pleaded. It would just be like James to hear the wrong thing. He did that often. For some reason though, it didn't seem like such a bad thing that he knew…

"Are you going to tell him?" Mary asked excitedly.

Emmeline snorted louder this time. "Right! This is LILY we're talking about, Mary…She doesn't admit anything!" Lily was about to protest, but Emmeline shoved a pile of small presents into her hands, forcing her to concentrate on not dropping them instead.

Lily opened the presents one at a time, carefully not ripping the paper, which aggravated Emmeline to no end. Many of them were little trinkets or thank you letters from students she didn't know very well, which made her very happy.

Mary had gotten her a green shawl; "It goes with your eyes!", Alice Prewett, who was at her fiancé's house, had knitted her a Gryffindor scarf; "Now you'll HAVE to go to the Quidditch games!" said the accompanying note. Emmeline, surprisingly had gotten her a gift this Christmas, a gift card to Flourish and Blotts; "I don't know what books you want!" she had complained.

Once she had finished opening her presents, and the party had died down, many people had decided to go back to bed, to catch a few hours of sleep before breakfast, Lily's own eyes began to droop. She rarely stayed up this late, and it showed.

"I'm going back to bed for now…" she told Emmeline, who was still awake. "Don't wake me up until at least 8!"

Instead of trying to carry all of the various presents, she levitated them back to the Head Dormitory.

The portrait was asleep when she got there, but woke up when Lily cleared her throat gently. It was a picture of a young woman standing in a field, holding a bouquet of flowers. The young woman never said anything to anyone, and always seemed rather melancholy. James thought that the woman's lover had left her there.

Nevertheless, Lily was always polite to her. "Merry Christmas!" she told the portrait. "Truckleberry." The portrait swung open. It was a rather strange password, but it worked.

After depositing her packages on her bed, Lily walked back out into the common area, and stared at James's door.

She still wasn't sure what she should get him. Or how she should think of him. That hug….she had definitely felt something, and he was so much more mature now! She almost wished that James still asked her to Hogsmede regularly…that way she could've seen if what she felt was real…it was an oddly pleasurable thought.

Why not?

Why couldn't she say yes? That was it! He didn't ask her anymore…but he didn't need to! And that could even be his present! But how?

And did she really want to do this? It was rather strange, to go off feelings that had come so suddenly…But they hadn't, Lily realised. She had been building this….liking…was it, love? No, it couldn't be. Whatever it was, it had been building for a while, what with him being so mature this year.

Before Lily could convince herself it was a bad idea, she rushed to her room to get a scrap of parchment and her new inkwell.

Staring at the paper, holding the end of her sugar quill in her mouth, Lily tried to decide what to write.

Something cryptic. Let him guess. How about… that was perfect!

Carefully, Lily uncapped her inkwell, and dipped her quill in. Taking a deep breath, she wrote a single word.

Yes.

She smiled to think of his reaction when he found it. Would he get it immediately? Or would he have to think about it? Regardless, Lily couldn't wait to open this new chapter in their relationship. It felt right to her.

So, what do you think? Hate it? Too much fluff? TELL me! Push that button right down there...the one that says Leave Review, or whatever. Thanks in advance!