Sunday 25th December 1977
Lily woke up a little after four on Christmas morning, simultaneously cursing the existence of times before eight and bouncing with excitement. Everyone else in the room was still asleep, and she tiptoed across the room to get her Christmas jumper and pull it on over her pyjamas, then crept down the spiral staircase to the common room carrying her Secret Santa gifts.
The embers of the fire had died down, leaving only a slight glow in the fireplace. The sun was nowhere to be seen, and most of the candles had gone out during the night. Snow fell gently past the windows to settle on the lawns far below, and a bright moon lit the grounds. Blankets of snow gave way to the icy lake and white frosted Forbidden Forest, and Hagrid's hut looked like a gingerbread house in the distance. Between the windows stood the enormous Christmas tree that they had put up and decorated at the start of the month, but now piles of presents in bright festive paper sat underneath it, flooding that corner of the room since so many students had stayed behind for the holidays. Lily stood and took it all in for a moment before making her way over to the tree and tucking her parcels in amongst the rest.
She settled into her favourite armchair, near one of the few still burning candles, and pulled out her book to wait for everyone else to wake up. Everything was so silent that it was almost as if she was the only person left in the entire castle.
The next thing she knew, someone was shouting 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' at the top of their lungs. She retrieved her book from where it had slipped onto the floor and rubbed at her eyes, yawning. Sirius came barrelling down the stairs, followed at a more sedate pace by James, Peter and a rather pale and tired looking Remus, all also still in their pyjamas.
"LILY!"
"Sirius!" Lily got to her feet, stretching "What time is it?"
"No idea," he said happily "Go wake the others up?"
"Half seven," Remus said "But I'll be amazed if anyone is still asleep after that."
The soundproofing in Hogwarts was better than Remus gave it credit for though, and Marlene, Jenny and Elizabeth were all still fast asleep. Lily debating being nice for about half a second, and then dismissed the idea.
"IT'S CHRISTMAS," she shouted loudly, causing Eliza to jerk awake and look around wildly. The others opened their eyes somewhat unwillingly, muttering incoherently and trying to burrow deeper into the pillows.
Eventually Lily got them all out of bed and downstairs, Jenny with the whole duvet wrapped around her shoulders. They took advantage of the otherwise empty common room to spread out over the best seats, next to the first that had been relit while Lily slept. It was snowing more heavily now, so that all that could be seen out of the windows was white, but everyone's attention was fixed on what was under the tree.
Other students were starting to emerge from their dorms as they fished out presents with their names on from the pile, calling out names every few seconds as they found another one. They retreated back to their seats around the fire to open everything. The air was soon filled with exclamations of excitement from them and the other people who had started opening their own gifts. Everything quickly descended into chaos as people ripped off paper, and it was impossible to keep track of who had received what.
Lily pulled the ribbon and paper off of a bundle of Muggle sweets and chocolate that her parents had sent her, watching Eliza (who was sat next to her) opening her gifts out of the corner of her eye, trying not to look too interested as Eliza unwrapped the scarf, hat and gloves that she had given her for Secret Santa.
"Whoever my Santas are, I love you," Remus proclaimed, already starting on a truly enormous slab of Honeydukes best chocolate and waving a book in the air to illustrate his point.
"Ditto!" Sirius called as he opened a broom care kit, having already received a bag of assorted Zonko's products.
Peter looked like he might cry with happiness when he opened a box of drawing pencils and charcoal, grinning happily and squeaking his thanks. Sitting next to him, James was flipping through a very technical looking book on Quidditch tactics – 'full colour, multiple perspective diagrams of every move!' – probably already re-planning the entire of next term's training.
Lily picked up the lumpier of her two Secret Santa gifts and poked at it, trying unsuccessfully to identify it before she shredded the paper to find a set of good quills in bright and glittering colours, with bottles of unusual ink (everything from the common colour changing variety to one that could read itself out when you wrote with it to an automatic translating ink with over twenty languages). She shouted her thanks to the group in general before starting on the second package. She had to peel off several bits of Spellotape before she could make any headway with the silver paper which fell open to reveal a bundle of tinsel. Lily laughed and unwound it, finding a book underneath entitled 'The Potion Masters Record Book'. She'd been admiring one just like it in Flourish and Blotts before the start of term and she immediately began flipping through it – there was advice on potion editing and creation along with all the pages and pages for notes.
"What's that you've got Lily?" Marlene leaned over to look at it.
"It's a potions diary, pretty much. For recording experiments and brews and stuff," Lily hugged it to her chest, smiling "It's perfect!"
Jenny was reading the back of some winter romance paperback, absently sucking on the end of a sugar quill from the Honeydukes box sitting next to her. Marlene had put her new model Quidditch team up safely on a side table and moved over to James to compare Quidditch books (hers had the rather less serious title of 'One Thousand and One Dumb Ways to Play Quidditch').
"Are you lot seriously not done yet?" Sirius asked incredulously, seeing that James, Peter and Eliza all still had unopened presents in front of them.
"It's not like we're in any rush," James pointed out.
"On the contrary Prongs – if we have breakfast too late then we won't be able to eat all of the fantastic Christmas breakfast and lunch, and that would be a tragedy."
James rolled his eyes, and picked up his last present, poking and shaking it as he tried to figure out what it was, eventually giving up and ripping off the paper to find… another layer of paper. And another, and lots of balled up paper to disguise the shape, until he got down to the last layer covering what was now clearly another book. He peeled off the final sheet of paper and found a folded piece of paper on top, which revealed itself to be a poster for the upcoming World Cup next summer which would update itself throughout the season (currently two of the sixteen teams were left to be announced) and he carefully refolded it before turning to the book.
"Definitely a theme with presents this year," Jenny commented "Is that actually a book on the World Cup that hasn't even happened yet?" James looked affronted.
"This isn't just a book on the four hundred and eighteenth World Cup Jenny – it's got the entire two year build up, information on all the teams who participate in the group rounds and whole chapters for all sixteen qualifying teams once they're announced, all the information on the players and potential tactics…" Jenny yawned widely "You just don't appreciate Quidditch properly," James muttered, turning back to his book.
"Is that a chocolate mouse?" Eliza asked Peter?
"It's a rat," he said, pointedly ignoring Sirius, who was shaking with laughter, and examining the rest of the contents of the gift bag which included fudge, chocolate frogs and a box of mince pies.
Finally Eliza opened the final present (in their corner of the room, at any rate – many Gryffindors had only just woken up, or were still sleeping, and the pile under the tree was still impressively large), and thanked her mystery gift giver for the Christmas jumper which she put on immediately.
Eventually, with a lot of groaning and complaining about the distance from Gryffindor Tower to the Great Hall, everyone got to their feet, putting their new presents away in their dorms and then regrouping, all still dressed in their pyjamas. Lily had put on her favourite Christmas socks and draped the tinsel around Marlene's neck, but mostly they all looked as though they'd just gotten out of bed (although Jenny had finally released her duvet). They threw most of the wrapping paper that had been strewn all over the floor into the fire and then headed down to breakfast.
The food at Hogwarts was always wonderful, and especially so for feasts and special occasions, but they really pulled out all of the stops of Christmas Day. Breakfast included, perhaps slightly unusually, mince pies and shortbread shaped like reindeer that actually walked and flew a few inches above the plates.
Sirius immediately began heaping food onto his plate indiscriminately, accidentally dumping a spoonful of scrambled eggs on top of a mince pie that was already precariously close to a small lake of baked beans. Lily shook her head, and reached for the pancakes.
"Anyone guessed their Santas yet?" Sirius asked around a mouthful of food.
"Pretty sure mine were Lily for the jumper and probably Jenny for the hat and stuff," Eliza said, catching a reindeer biscuit.
"I was the hat actually," said Lily.
"Yeah, you got us the wrong way around," Jenny added "How did you guess though?"
Eliza just smiled and shrugged.
The ceiling of the Great Hall showed a white sky, promising more snow later on, but the blizzard had passed, so as soon as they were all finished with breakfast they bundled up in the warmest clothes they owned and went out onto the lawns in front of the castle. Many of the other students clearly had the same idea, and the grounds were filled with shapes made mostly unrecognisable by all the layers of wool.
Lily and Elizabeth set about making a snowman – without any magic, as Lily kept insisting that magic was cheating, which meant that theirs quickly began looking more like it belonged to some of the first years.
"That's a very nice looking, er, lump of snow you've got there," James commented, building what seemed to be a Quidditch player complete with broomstick with Sirius a few yards away.
"Whatever, it isn't finished yet, you'll see!" Lily stuck her tongue out and continued shaping the head.
"Where have the others gone anyway?" Elizabeth asked a little later, when it became clear that their snowman wasn't likely to start looking any less like a big pile of snow anytime soon.
"Not sure actually," James frowned, looking around. Before they could say anything else though, several snowballs launched themselves through the air with varying accuracy, one hitting James' arm. Sirius dived behind his snowman, cursing, and immediately grabbed a handful of snow and started looking for the source.
Remus and Peter were scrambling out of a nearby tree, while on the other side Marlene and Jenny were preparing to hurl more snowballs.
"THIS IS WAR!" Sirius yelled, diving towards them, snow in hand.
Several sixth and seventh years joined the fight, and within minutes wands were out and Shield Charms in common use as snowballs sped by. Someone had enchanted a handful of snowballs to follow Peter around, and while Sirius was busy laughing hysterically at the sight of Peter running as fast as he could with the snowballs chasing after him Lily and Marlene struck up a temporary truce and snuck up behind him to shove handfuls of snow over his head and down the back of his neck. His laughter quickly turned to shrieks and promises of revenge, and they scattered again to find new targets. Remus had surprisingly good aim, and was throwing snowballs from a relatively safe distance at anyone who came into his line of sight, and a bunch of Ravenclaws were overheard debating making a catapult.
After a few hours though snow began to fall again, and most people began to head back to the warmth of the Entrance Hall. Their woollen winter cloaks and jumpers were all soaked through, and they hurried back to their common rooms to avoid Filch catching them dripping all over the floors and losing his very limited patience (he'd nearly made a group of second years cry a few days ago when they accidentally tracked muddy footprints inside).
"Shit, we were outside longer than I thought," Lily swore as she checked the clock, drying herself off by directing a stream of hot air from her wand.
"Twenty minutes to get dry and down the lunch." Marlene peeled off her wet outer layers as they raced up the stairs to their dormitory.
Miraculously they arrived in the Great Hall just in time, sliding into the remaining spaces at one end of the Gryffindor table. The snow storm outside had increased, blocking out the weak sunlight and leaving the hall mostly lit by the candles and live fairies. The room was full of chatter and laughter, and everybody that Lily could see looked happy. Every member of staff was present at the top table for once.
Everyone fell silent as Professor Dumbledore stood, wearing very festive robes with reindeer all over them.
"The kitchens have outdone themselves this year, so I won't keep you from your feast a moment longer. All I have to say is Merry Christmas, one and all!" Dumbledore clapped his hands as he had at the welcome feast, and the previously empty plates filled. Stacks of wizarding crackers sat every few feet along the table, and whole roast turkeys sat at regular intervals carving themselves upon request and surrounded by heaps of roast potatoes, stuffing balls and little sausages wrapped in bacon. There were whole trays of roasted and boiled vegetables, pots of cranberry sauce and several dishes that didn't look like any Christmas food that Lily had ever seen but presumably came from other countries. Loud bangs sounded all along the tables as they filled their plates, obscuring everything in clouds of blue smoke.
"Pull one with me?" She turned to find James waving a Christmas cracker at her. A bunch of flowers and a large floppy hat fell out when they pulled it, along with a noise like a cannon. He put on the hat and offered her the bouquet, grinning.
"Merry Christmas Lily," he said as she took them and stuffed them into an empty goblet. Several live mice scurried down the middle of the table, presumably from someone else's cracker, and Jenny (wearing a bright orange and green bobble hat) dropped a straw boater onto Lily's head. They laughed and ate and swapped hats until all of the platters were cleared and Professor Dumbledore stood again, dimming the candles. At least fifty flaming Christmas puddings appeared at the tables, accompanied by bowls of brandy butter, jugs of cream and custard, twelve flavours of ice cream, gravity defying towers of profiteroles and the unavoidable mountains of mince pies.
By the time dessert had vanished most of the students were leaning against one another on the benches, groaning.
"I've never eaten so much in my life," Jenny said, rubbing her stomach.
"The third helping of pudding was a mistake," Remus was lying stretched out on the bench, top hat nearly falling off and looking even more ill than he had that morning. No one was particularly willing to move, and it was over half an hour before the first new students started trickling out.
"We'd better get going if we want to get ready for the ball," Eliza sighed, getting to her feet. James stared at her in horror.
"The ball's nearly five hours away, what can you possibly need that much time for?" he asked.
"Every person in Hogwarts is going to want to have an incredibly long shower this afternoon; I'm getting in while I can."
They made their way out of the hall slowly, carrying the contents of their Christmas crackers and finalising the plans for that afternoon. As they passed the Slytherin table, nearly out of the doors into the Entrance Hall, someone stood suddenly.
"Merry Christmas," Severus said awkwardly, staring at Lily. Fortunately neither James nor Sirius heard, as they were walking ahead of her and arguing about whether Christmas pudding or mince pies were better. Lily frowned at Snape for a moment, but then relented.
"Merry Christmas," she said shortly, and followed the others out.
Unfortunately, it seemed that most of the students in Hogwarts had had the same idea as Eliza; there were queues outside every shower as Lily walked down the corridors, heading for the fifth floor. But being a Prefect had its perks, and there was no queue by the statue of Boris the Bewildered. The door was locked though, so she settled against the wall to wait.
Ten minutes later a fifth year Prefect emerged, looking a little embarrassed to find the Head Girl waiting with her fluffy towel and clean pyjamas, and Lily turned to give the password. She rarely bothered to use the Prefect's bathroom, since there were plenty of other showers closer to Gryffindor Tower, so she spent some time turning taps on and off to find the best bubble mixtures until the enormous bathtub was full and then just floated in the water for a while. The only sound came from the gently echoing splashed as Lily moved around. Eventually though she had to rinse out her hair under one of the water taps and leave, glad to find that no one was waiting outside the door.
Lily made her way back up to Gryffindor Tower in her pyjamas, towel wrapped around her hair, and found that she'd spent long enough soaking in the foamy water that only Marlene was off waiting for a shower somewhere still. Eliza was carefully combing and drying her hair in front of the mirror, forcing it to fall straight for once.
"This is such a pain," she complained, trying to get the back of her hair properly. Lily took pity on her and pulled her own wand out, taking the brush from Eliza and directing hot air.
"How long have we got?" Jenny asked, searching under her bed for something.
"Hours still, relax," Eliza said, flopping back onto her bed with her now dry hair and pulling a bottle of nail polish from her bedside table. Lily took her place in front of the mirror, swearing occasionally as she tried to work the knots out of her own hair.
Lily had been back for nearly an hour by the time Marlene returned, grumpy after her long wait for the shower.
"I told you, you should have come down earlier with us," Jenny said.
"Oh piss off, I'm done now," Marlene sat on the edge of the bed in her underwear to towel off her short hair.
"Ladies, anyone have some spare Sleekeazy's?" Sirius appeared in the doorway, causing Eliza to jump and drip nail polish over her bedsheets.
"How the fuck did you get up here?" Jenny demanded, pulling her dressing gown closed more tightly. Marlene seemed unconcerned, and threw a bottle at Sirius' head. He ducked and caught it, shouting his thanks as he ran back down the stairs.
It seemed to Lily that they suddenly went from having hours to get ready to nearly no time at all. There was a lot of last minute panicking and missing shoes and makeup problems, and a frantic search for the spell that would fix a smudged nail, but finally all four of them were dressed and ready to go.
The Entrance Hall was already crowded with people as they descended the main staircase. There were brightly coloured dress robes, people posing together for photos, and lots of loud and excited chatter. The doors were still shut, as it was five minutes before the scheduled start time, and they stopped just before the bottom of the stairs while they could still look over everyone's heads.
"I've spotted Patrick, I'm just going to say hi!" Marlene quickly disappeared into the crowd, and Lily kept looking around until-
"Look, there's the guys," Eliza pointed over to where James, Sirius and Peter were standing. They made their way over, trying not to step on anyone's feet.
"- still can't believe this, he shouldn't be on his own on Christmas," Sirius hissed under his breath.
"I know, he insisted though, we'll join him after, it'll be barely later than usual," James replied quietly "He wants us to have fun." They all jumped a little as the three girls approached.
"Well don't you all look stunning," Sirius said loudly to cover the moment of weirdness.
"Beautiful," James said sincerely, and Lily had a moment of confused panic because he was looking at her why did he keep looking at her? She felt herself turn pink and looked away awkwardly.
"Not bad yourself," Eliza winked and turned to wave Marlene over.
"Where's Remus?" Lily asked, frowning and looking around.
"Ah, an owl came from his mother. He's gone back to visit her for a few days, had to rush off this afternoon," James said "Nothing to worry about."
They all still looked worried though, and Lily was particularly reassured. At that moment though the bells rang out the time, and the doors to the Great Hall swung open slowly. And she knew it was a terribly clichéd theme and they did basically the same thing for almost every single ball, but Lily couldn't help but be excited as she saw all the new decorations.
The twelve enormous Christmas trees still stood along the walls the same as they had done earlier in the day, but the fake snow now falling from the ceiling caught in the branches and dusted everything with white. The four house tables had vanished, replaced with a large icy looking dance floor in the centre of the room surrounded by smaller round tables. Long tables stood along the back wall, looking like they might split under the weight of the food (if it wasn't for magic, anyway). Piles of finger food sat on platters, everything from sausage rolls and pizza to salmon appetiser things to little cakes and tarts. The grand centrepiece of each table was an enormous and elaborately decorated Christmas cake. The teacher's dais now held a band rather than the usual table, and elegant ice sculptures were dotted around the room. Icicles hung wherever it was possible to fit them – over the fireplace (enchanted to burn with icy blue flames tonight), from the edges of tables, ever replacing the candles entirely with floating ice shapes that glowed gently.
Lily allowed herself to be swept along with the crowd into the hall, still staring around at everything. The band was playing quietly in the background, and several teachers (including all four heads of house) were stood around the room wearing dress robes and ready to prevent any inappropriate behaviour.
"Come on, let's grab a good table, quick," Jenny grabbed Lily and Eliza's hands on either side of her and pulled them straight across the middle of the dancefloor (which fortunately felt far more like wood than its icy appearance would suggest) to an empty table near its edge, not too far from the buffet tables. Sirius grabbed a chair from the next table over so that there was space for all seven of them, and they settled down to wait for things to get past the initial standing around awkwardly stage. Trays floated around the room with glasses full of pumpkin juice and other non-alcoholic drinks, and Professor McGonagall gave Sirius a very stern look as she walked past until he returned his hip flask to the pocket of his robes.
Professor Dumbledore stood at the front of the room after about five minutes, silencing the band and the students.
"Good evening everyone! Before we begin properly, I'd just like to thank our Head Boy, Mr James Potter, for organising this event tonight with the help of our Prefects," James looked like he would quite like to sink into his chair and disappear for once "And I hope everyone has a magical night!"
There was a polite round of applause, and a few moments later the band started up again, louder and a little faster. Professor Dumbledore immediately offered his arm to Professor Sprout and took to the dance floor, performing a surprisingly good waltz considering the height difference between the two. A few students, mostly couples, joined them, looking torn between staying at the edge noncommittally and moving to the centre of the dance floor – away from the mocking of their friends, but with everyone's attention on them.
"Who'll dance with me then?" Sirius asked as the floor began to fill more. Lily shook her head, preferring to watch for the start until she felt more like dancing.
"I'll do a few songs with you after I'm done with Patrick," Marlene offered.
"Poor Patrick," Sirius laughed.
"He promised one dance, and then he's done. I'll go find him now actually." And Marlene got up and left, waving back at them over her shoulder.
"Anyone else?" Peter asked hopefully. There was silence for a moment, and then Eliza sighed.
"I'll dance a few with you if you want Pete." Peter looked thrilled, and they soon vanished into the crowds.
"That girl is a saint," Sirius shook his head, watching them go.
"He's your friend!" Jenny pointed out.
"That doesn't stop him having two left feet," James said "I hope she doesn't like her toes the way they are…"
"Anyone fancy the buffet yet, while I'm waiting for Marley?" Sirius asked, glancing over at the food. Everyone else groaned.
"I'm still not recovered from lunch," Lily said, looking a little green at the thought of eating so soon.
They talked and watched a little longer, until a sixth year boy – Lily thought he might be a Slug Club member – came up and asked Jenny to dance, looking incredibly nervous. Lily gave her a thumbs up and mouthed 'he's cute' when Jenny looked back over her shoulder as she walked away, getting a slight nod in return.
Shortly after that Marlene returned – having managed to con two dances out of Patrick, who had clearly decided that dancing with his girlfriend was slightly more bearable than dancing in general – and whisked Sirius off. Within seconds they were doing something far faster and more violent than really suited the music, clearing a noticeable gap around then as people avoided the sudden limb movements.
Lily turned back to face the table, and realised that she'd been left alone with James. She blushed again, for no apparent reason. It's just because he liked your present and he hasn't figured it out yet, she told herself, avoiding eye contact.
"Do you know who either of your Santas are yet?" James asked, seemingly reading her mind. Lily shook her head.
"Not really – probably one of the girls for the Potions diary, I think I might have mentioned it to them. It's fantastic," she said, smiling. James seemed a little redder than usual in the warmth from all the people in the hall. "How about you?"
"Well one book was almost certainly Remus – I'd bet he got Marlene's too, even when you think a book isn't what you want he's got a knack for finding one that's perfect. I'm not sure about the other one though… They're both so great, I half want to accuse Remus of cheating and helping someone else."
He certainly hadn't, Lily thought, although he was probably right about Remus getting him the other book. Another tray floated past and Lily snagged two drinks, sliding one glass across the table to James.
"Are you going to tell me who you gave to, or is Sirius still threatening people for their secrecy?" Lily asked.
"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."
"… Am I allowed to guess?"
"Maybe," James grinned, apparently confident that she couldn't.
"I think you had Marlene's other gift – the Quidditch models – and I'm not sure, maybe Sirius? I know Sirius and Jenny gave to Peter."
"Jenny, really?" James seemed surprised "I don't think I've ever seen him so happy about a present before." She noticed that he didn't respond to her guesses.
"She's good at remembering little things. And she said her other was Eliza, so that's her sorted."
They continued trying to piece together the puzzle that was Secret Santa. None of the others returned in the time they were talking – not hungry or tired enough yet – so their conversation remained uninterrupted, but Lily still couldn't figure out who gave her the book, which was the mystery she really wanted to solve (because clearly someone deserved a very nice thank you).
"You know what?" James said suddenly as Lily was musing on this out loud.
"What?"
"This is a ball, balls are for dancing aren't they?" Lily stared at him, uncomprehending.
"We should be dancing," he explained after a moment.
"Well, I would, but we're a little short on dance partners," Lily pointed out. It was James' turn to look at her as though she'd said something very confusing.
"You could dance with me?" James said, not meeting her eyes. He was definitely going a bit red now, she thought.
"… Sure," the response slipped out without much thought, and she couldn't quite believe she was doing this as they walked out onto the dance floor. Fortunately the band was playing something fast and energetic, so they didn't have to try and dance properly that much. It was almost the polar opposite of the last ball, Lily thought as she spun around. ('Dance with me Evans?' James had asked two years ago, and looking back how had she never realised he wasn't entirely joking. He'd been kind of an ass in fifth year though, so different to how he acted now – everything was changing this year though, flipped on its head.)
Their dancing had brought them closer to the opposite side of the room, and another spin gave her a brief glimpse of Severus, wearing slightly shabby dress robes and with long hair obscuring part of his face. She felt a surprisingly strong pang of regret as she watched one of his Slytherin friends lean over and make some comment to him. There was another thing that had changed since Christmas of fifth year… She'd thought the boy she'd grown up with had been better than all this Dark Arts stuff.
The song ended and Lily pushed her nostalgia away. This was a party – she should be in the present, having fun. And she was having fun, even dancing with James (she didn't know she should laugh at him or not – she was pretty certain that his parents must have taken him to dance lessons at some point – but she did it anyway).
They danced a few more songs, until something slower began and Lily started to become aware of all the places her shoes pinched at her feet. She followed James back to their table, not occupied only by Peter (Eliza had been dancing with someone different every time she spotted her, and Marlene and Sirius were still going strong out in the middle of the dancefloor), and flopped into a seat, instantly going to take off her shoes.
"Why isn't there a spell for breaking in nice shoes," she muttered as she rubbed at her feet. Jenny dropped down into the seat next to her a second later, also quickly discarding her heels.
"Come get some food with me Lily?" she asked, standing up again not long after she'd sat down.
The buffet tables were fairly busy now, and they joined the queue at one end, grabbing paper plates and napkins.
"So how was your dance partner?" Lily asked, nudging Jenny.
"Not bad, eight out of ten for the dancing, seven for the kissing," Jenny said promptly, piling cocktail sausages and cubes of cheese onto her plate "His name is Dirk," she added.
"Can I steal your icing?" Lily looked hopefully at the slice of cake that Jenny was cutting.
"If you tell me about dancing with James – I did see that right, didn't I?" It was clear that this was Jenny's real intention in getting Lily away from the table. She considered this for a moment.
"Fair deal – I don't know, we wanted to dance, there wasn't anyone else around to dance with, so…"
"Did he ask, or you?"
"He did, why?"
"Just curious. Did you have fun?"
"Sure," Lily shrugged "Why wouldn't I?"
Jenny just rolled her eyes and muttered something about them being impossible. They made their way back to their table with fully loaded plates to find that everyone but Eliza had returned, also with food in mind. The others went up to get food as Lily and Jenny sat down to eat, Lily stealing the thick icing from Jenny's cake.
"I'd watch the punch if I were you," James said cheerfully as he sat down next to Lily "Sirius just poured a fair bit of vodka or something into most of the bowls I think, and the Refilling Charm we put on them should replicated the alcohol as well."
Lily, to Jenny's surprise, didn't reprimand James for failing to carry out his Head Boy duties and just laughed.
"Maybe we should wait a few hours, until the teachers aren't keeping such a close eye on everyone," Lily nodded towards where Professor McGonagall was standing near the refreshments, clearly keeping an eye out for anyone who might be less than sober.
"Are you condoning drinking alcohol at a school party?" James gasped in mock horror, teasing her.
"What, we're of age. I drink at Slughorn's stuff when we're allowed," Lily said defensively.
"Yes, but we're not allowed here," he pointed out. Lily looked like she was tempted to start an argument (it's not like she didn't drink and do other fun things, just because she liked to follow the rules most of the time!), but fortunately the situation was diffused by the return of Marlene, Sirius and Peter, the former pair still looking very warm from their exertions on the dance floor. Sirius shrugged off his outer dress robes as he sat down, leaving him in just a shirt, bow tie, trousers and bright red waistcoat. Lily excused herself, and ducked out of the doors for five minutes of fresh air before they inevitably returned to dancing.
"Getting a little peace?" She jumped as Will's voice came from behind her.
"I – hi, yeah, um…" She tried to find something to say, tongue tied.
"Don't worry," Will seemed amused "I kind of got the idea, since you haven't spoken to me since Slughorn's party."
"I – yeah, I'm sorry about that," Lily felt suddenly more guilty about it than she had all week, when it had seemed like the best plan to just avoid Will.
"It's cool, I know you and that James Potter have something going on," he spotted her expression and hurriedly continued "I just figured we're friends still, right?"
"Of course, definitely, just – hang on, can we go back a moment, what was that about me and- and James?" Lily said, confused. Will looked uncertain suddenly.
"Shit, sorry, is it a secret or something," he said apologetically "I've put my foot in it now haven't I?"
"No – I mean, I guess, but – look, what do you mean, me and James?"
It finally seemed to dawn on Will that she had absolutely no clue what he was on about – because he couldn't mean…
"Aren't you two – you aren't together then?"
"No?"
"Oh. Right. I thought, what with him having stopped asking you out all the time and you two hanging out now, I assumed you were getting somewhere now."
"I- no, we're just friends," Lily said. And with the castle at their backs, music and laughter leaking out into the night air, she realised that maybe – well, maybe that wasn't what she wanted after all.
"We should get back inside or you'll freeze to death in that dress," Will broke the silence, nodding towards her bare feet resting inches from the snow. He held out a hand and she let him pull her to her feet.
"So," she said as they walked back inside "Friends dance together, right?"
By the time Lily got back to their table, Sirius was off dancing with Jo Sayre from the Quidditch team and James and Peter were making a second trip to the buffet. Eliza and Marlene were sat at the table, heads close together as they gossiped about the evening so far.
"Apparently Joanna's boyfriend was jealous that she's so involved with Quidditch now," Eliza informed her as soon as she sat down next to them "They had a fight about three feet away from us, pretty quiet but nasty, I think Sirius is trying to cheer her up."
"Him and James claim that they had nothing to do with the fact that the guy has left already," Marlene said. James and Peter joined them, carrying more food than two people could possibly eat and carefully levitating glasses of the spiked punch.
"I swear we didn't have that much drama when we were what, fourteen?" Lily shook her head.
"Hmm. Anyway, was that Will I saw you dancing with?" Eliza asked.
"Yeah," Lily said "We're just friends," she clarified as Marlene winked at her. James didn't look up from his conversation with Peter.
Marlene and James were stolen away by some of the Quidditch team a little later, and Lily danced a few songs with Peter, then Eliza, and a surprisingly pleasant half an hour or so with Sirius after her third glass of punch (she swore they were getting stronger).
"I think I'll head off to bed soon," James said not long after midnight, when they were mostly all back at the table for more drinks and food.
"What?!" Jenny exclaimed "We've still got an hour left!"
"I promised I'd floo call my parents tomorrow morning though," James said apologetically.
"If you're off then I'll come," Sirius yawned unconvincingly – Lily was sure it was faked. Peter nodded along (he did look like he might fall asleep in his chair though).
"We'll see you lot at lunch tomorrow I expect?" James asked.
"Should do, if we're awake," Eliza didn't sound like she thought that was particularly likely.
"Where's Marlene gotten to?" Sirius looked around "We should probably let her know before we leave."
"I wouldn't worry, I saw her going out the doors with Patrick just now," Jenny snorted. James, Sirius and Peter said their goodbyes and left the hall, outer robes thrown over their shoulders and bowties undone.
"Shall we go up and dance again then?" Eliza stood, and Lily and Jenny followed her back out onto the dancefloor.
"I'm just going to the bathroom, I'll be back soon," Lily shouted over the music (which had gotten increasingly louder as the night went on). She ducked between the crowds of people and out of the doors into the quieter Entrance Hall and down the corridor, alone with her thoughts again. 'I assumed you were getting somewhere now.', Will had said. 'Now', like her and James was some inevitable conclusion that they'd been failing to reach for the past six years. Well, maybe it hadn't been that far off. It seemed that they'd just managed to miss each other.
The further Lily walked the quieter it got, until she could hear another set of footsteps behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder, and then stopped dead.
"Lily…" he began.
"What do you want, Severus?" she sighed. She suddenly felt very tired.
"I, just – we were friends, once," Lily raised her eyebrows "I fucked up, I know what I did – I would never – I should never have," he said, and shut his eyes for a second. Despite herself, Lily felt a pang of sympathy – she'd heard this all before, apologies for something unforgivable, but… He had told her about magic, he had told her about Hogwarts. He'd held her hand when she was scared on the train that first year and they'd made their first potion together in Professor Slughorn's dungeon and all of that stuff didn't just go away at the end of fifth year.
"I just had to try and fix things again," Severus pushed on.
"We've been over this before," she said quietly "Not while you're up to your neck in the Dark Arts, hanging out with those… those future Death Eaters every day."
"Because the company you keep these days is so high and mighty," he snapped.
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Lily hissed angrily.
"Hanging out with Potter and his little followers, like you're suddenly fine with him being an asshole!"
"So this is about James, is it?" Lily said incredulously.
"You're getting awfully friendly with that lot these days."
"So what, I hardly think that's really on the same level as your lot! Mary Macdonald was never the same – but that was just a harmless joke, wasn't it?" Lily raised her voice, almost shouting at him now.
"Does this mean you haven't noticed that you're running around with a monster? Such a shame he couldn't be here tonight."
Lily stared at him, confused, but only for a moment as Severus continued.
"An arrogant toerag, a blood traitor, a coward… and a werewolf. Where's your moral high ground gone -" He stopped mid-sentence as Lily's wand paused an inch from his neck.
"You are incredibly lucky," Lily began in a voice like ice "That I am actually aware of Remus' condition." Severus tried to reach for his own wand, but Lily fished it out of his pocket before he could and flung it over her shoulder without looking. "You won't be needing that, you vile scum." His eyes were wide with fear, and she jabbed the wand into his throat to make her point clear as she continued speaking.
"Remus is ten thousand times the man that you are, Snivellus, and if you so much as breathe another word about this to anyone else – and I mean anyone, none of your disgusting little cronies in Slytherin – well, I'm not a murderer like they aspire to be, but you'll live to regret it, understood?" She was mere inches away from him now, almost face to face but for the half a foot height difference, and he shrank away from her.
"Understood?" she snapped. Severus nodded carefully. "Now get the fuck away from me."
She turned and walked away – "Lily?" – past Severus' wand lying on the floor – "Lily, please, wait!" – past the open doors to the ball and the party beyond which already seemed like a different night entirely, and up the main staircase. She maintained her façade of calm all the way back to Gryffindor Tower, barefoot (she'd left her shoes in the hall) and wand still hanging by her side. She hadn't exactly been lying to him – there was really only one thing that fit Remus' pattern of disappearances and illnesses – but to have it confirmed… She stifled a sob, and then remembered that she was alone and gave in.
Lily lay in the dark for a long time, tears running down her face. She guessed it was sometime after one when the others not so quietly stumbled in, giggling and whispering to one another, but she didn't move, just stayed there and waited to fall asleep.
