Happy Christmas

A finalist. A finalist!

Lily clutched the M.O.M. letter desperately in her hands.

Congratulations Miss Lily Evens! You are on our short list of candidates for a three month internship with the Auror Department…

She didn't read the rest. She didn't even care that they'd misspelled her name.

She was a finalist and she was going to fight for it just like she promised her pen-pal.

The letter had been waiting for her when she arrived home for Christmas break. Her father was ecstatic, even though he had no idea what the whole auror business was about and would probably be horrified if he found out it was a life-risking sort of occupation.

Lily daydreamed and stared out the window over the sink. She was absentmindedly scrubbing biscuit dough out of the cookie cutters she and her dad had been using all afternoon. When she was done they would pull the finished gingerbread trees out of the oven and decorate them- her father would do most of them with plops of icing, while Lily herself would only make it through a few, but with great attention to detail and excessive sprinkles.

If her mother had been here there would have been flour and egg fights. It was tradition, one that Petunia (who was spending the holiday at her fiance's home) would have even begrudgingly participated in. And afterwards they would have all gone into town to shop for each other's gifts. Lily missed the look of awe on her father's face at the beautiful store-front displays, but he hadn't felt like going out in years.

"Lily, what's this about a practical evaluation?"

"What do you mean, dad?" She snapped out of her reverie and turned to her father, who had been proudly pouring over her letter from the Ministry.

"It says to report during the first week of February for a practical evaluation of spell mastery, composure under pressure, ethical decisiveness and ability to work in a group."

"Oh… to be honest, I never finished the letter. I was so excited."

"I don't blame you sweetie. I'm sure you'll do fine."

Lily felt fairly confident. Spell mastery, ethics… none of that should be a problem. Composure under pressure… would that be an issue? An image of James Potter- all fancy dress-robes and a plate full of caviar- flickered into her mind, quickly followed by the accompanying image of her gaping like a fish, with nothing to say, and tears burning behind her eyes. Maybe she hadn't been responding to pressure so well as of late.

Lily looked at the little glass bluebird that sat on the windowsill. It had always made her mother smile to see the sun glint through the blue glass in the mornings, throwing rainbows on the walls. Now, bluebirds made her think of her pen pal as well. He had made her promise to fight for what she wanted, and she vowed not to let him down.

Like in Peter Pan, she reckoned. He had become her happy thought.

And speaking of her pen-pal…

"Look, Lily! You've got more birds at the window!" Her father hopped up from his place at the counter and threw open the window. He was always filled with gleeful wonder to see owls hopping into his home like domesticated canaries, bringing good tidings from his daughter at school, or letters about her achievements from the Ministry itself, magical or otherwise.

Lily's heart fluttered with excitement as she tugged off her dish gloves. She had hoped for, but not expected, a letter from her dear friend while away on holiday. And yet, he'd thought of her. "It's Archimedes! And he's brought a friend along."

Indeed, Archie was accompanied by a stunning blue-grey owl with a white face and orange eyes. She hadn't seen it's likeness in the owlery or the Emporium.

Lily smiled at Archie and let him step onto her arm. She lifted him to her face and he gave her an owl-kiss on the cheek. "Who's your friend, Archimedes?"

He gave an indignant hoot and lifted his leg to deliver his letter. Apparently, he was not a fan of the new owl. When Lily had taken the letter, he hopped over to Lily's father and looked at him expectantly.

"Usually they just deliver and… well then they leave, don't they?" He asked, nervously reaching out to touch the bird.

"He wants your coffee," Lily replied absently, unscrolling the parchment.

E,

I'm not sure if this falls under the realm of the "specifics" we decided not to share, but I have an uncle working in the South African mines on the uses of platinum and diamond dust in potions. From time to time, he sends me gifts he thinks I'll like (and as much as I wish it were diamonds or precious metal, it never is). I'd like you to meet my Christmas gift from him- a Southern White-Faced Owl who answers to Brinkley. Most of them left the area when they starting mining, but they found this one injured in the compound fence and unable to escape. By the time he was rehabilitated, he was far too domesticated to return safely to the wild. My uncle sent him on to me (his favorite nephew) for care and keeping.

Archie hates him. He's dead jealous. I thought perhaps you might be able to give Brinkley a new home? I don't know how you feel about me re-gifting him to you, but this way you can share letters without waiting for me to send Archie, since I'm generally impatient to hear from you.

The only trouble is that Archie is cross about you having your own owl. He's quite unwilling to share you,

As am I.

Happy Christmas, my darling friend.

Yours,

P

Yours. Lily stared at the letter, a huge grin on her face. "He's mine," Lily breathed.

"What's that, Sweetie?"

Lily looked up, startled. Her father had brewed a fresh pot of coffee and was pouring Archie his own cup.

"The owl," she said. "He's mine. He's a Christmas present!"

"Which one- the nice fancy one?"

Archie puffed himself up and flapped out the window with an indignant squawk, clearly declaring that they all could kiss his feathery British backside.

"Dad, you hurt his feelings."

"Lily…. he's an owl."

Lily shrugged. "He's an over-sensitive owl. At least I can send my reply with Brinkley, here," she realized cheerfully. "I'll be back before the biscuits are ready."

She rushed up the stairs and wrote out her reply. She couldn't believe it- her very own owl! No one had ever given her such a valuable gift. And it was accompanied by such a sweet sentiment from her friend. She was glad that she'd thought to buy something for her pen-pal for Christmas, even if it wouldn't be worth half as much. She knew he would like it, but she was far more worried about the contents of the hasty note she'd written him.

She wrapped up her letter and the package with brown paper and a bow and attached them to her new owl. "This is a particularly important message," she told him. "Take care, and I'll have something special for you when you get home."

After sending him away, she went down and occupied a lovely couple of hours icing gingerbread Christmas trees with her father. Then, for the first time since her mother died, they braved the hordes of holiday shoppers to get a cage and food for her new owl.

Her heart full, Lily thought that seeing her father take in the frosted windows and twinkling lights of Diagon Alley at Christmas might be the best gift of all.

James, as usual, was spending Christmas at his parent's tedious holiday party. It was basically a Slughorn gathering for grown-ups: the guest list was all his parent's work friends, the who's who and hoity toity of the wizarding world. He was growing rather tired of hearing his father tell anyone who would listen that his dearest son was a finalist for the Ministry's auror internship, and hearing them reply "Of course, it's in his blood!"

It gave James the tiniest feeling that perhaps Evans was right, and that letter he'd gotten from the ministry this morning had more to do with who he knew than who he was. He wished that girl would get out of his head.

He even felt vaguely bad about the exorbitant amount of caviar he'd just scraped on to his plate.

"Stop it, James."

James grinned. At least his best friend was at this year's party to make the whole thing tolerable.

"Stop what?" he said, playing dumb.

"Stop brooding. It gives you frown lines. They'll never let you be the poster-boy of the Ministry if you have frown lines," Sirius answered, in a tone James suspected was meant to mimic Mrs. Black.

"Considering that most aurors are missing limbs or great chunks of their faces, should that really be my top concern?"

"Fair point," Sirius answered, picking up a plate for himself and loading it with cheese and pudding. "I don't know how you can eat that stuff, James. It's fish eggs. It is literally fish eggs and you are putting it in your mouth."

"Merlin, will you people get off my back about the caviar! Between you and Evans I feel like I'm eating… I don't know, babies or something."

"Little baby fishies."

James snorted.

Sirius narrowed his eyes. "Is that what's got your knickers in a twist? Evans?"

James set down his plate with a heavy thunk. "At Slughorn's party she went after me again. She's decided to feel personally victimized about this whole internship thing, and I'm the big bad wolf!"

"Like Mooney," Sirius offered.

James rolled his eyes. "She makes me look like the bad guy."

"I hope you didn't just stand there and let her yell at you. I hope you really let her have it. Sometimes I worry that you aren't fighting for this internship as hard as you should because you don't want to hurt her feelings. That maybe you have a bit of a thing for her."

James snorted. "She's pretty, but not enough to throw me off my game."

"I think she's a fox."

"A what?"

"F-O-X."

James snorted. "She's nothing special."

"Well then, you've changed your tune about her lately. That's not what you used to think." Sirius shrugged. "Whatever. This party blows. Let's take the food and a bottle of Ogden's and see what Moony and Wormtail are doing tonight."

James, who was eager to drop the subject, thought that sounded like a fine idea. He ran up to his room to see if Archie was back so he could send him to Remus's (and if maybe he'd brought word from his pen-pal).

He found Archie sitting in his open cage, blissfully pleased to have the perch to himself again. He hadn't been overly welcoming to Brinkley, to say the least. James sent him out with invitations to Remus and Peter to visit for the evening.

Sirius appeared a moment later, a bottle of Ogden's and four glasses in hand. "Happy Christmas and cheers!" he said. "Oy, that was fast. Your owl's back!"

James turned back to the window and saw, not Archie, but Brinkley flying in. His face lit up with a grin. "She's written back!"

"She… you're still talking to the mystery bird?"

"I guess," said James, not hiding his excitement very well as he ripped at the paper packaging.

"So is that…" Sirius hesitated. "I mean, are you guys like a thing?"

"I haven't even met her, Sirius," Jame said evasively. He finally freed the contents of the package to reveal a pad of very nice stationary with snitches in the corner, and a deluxe eagle feather quill. He smiled at them both- it had become a bit of a joke to them that he was always writing his messages to her on the corners of menus and crumpled napkins. He was always in too much of a hurry to reply to hunt down proper parchment.

Sirius scrutinized his friend. James had always been fairly indifferent about girls. He'd find one pretty or interesting now and then (or both, like when he'd first met Evans) but right now he had that over-excited buzz he got when walking on to the quidditch pitch for a high-stakes match. Suddenly Sirius sensed that they were dealing with something new here.

"Interesting. The guys aren't gonna believe this-" Sirius began slyly, but he was interrupted by a yelp from James.

"Merlin! I don't believe it!" James had a letter in his hand that had presumably fallen out of the package. He waved it over his head, jumping and crowing.

"What in sodding-"

"It's finally- I mean she's- ha ha Happy-freaking-Christmas to me!"

"James!" Sirius shouted, bewildered. "What's this all about, now?"

James grinned like the Cheshire cat and held the letter up in triumph.

"She wants to meet me."

A/N: Yay! Big meeting coming up in the next chapter. Aren't you excited? Aren't you just going, "Oooh!"? - What's that from? Do you ever quote something but you can't remember what it is you're quoting?

I'll try not to be too long with it. Also, make sure you shoot me a review if I haven't put your favorite part of the movie in yet. I'll do my best to work it in. I got a PM last week asking me if I could spell Fox. Yes, yes I can, see?

I just wanted to thank everyone who is taking the time to review. It really makes my day!