A/N: an update after 2 weeks? It's crazy how I spoil you guy so much. This is mostly just fun, next chapter shall be more character development, I promise

Chapter 11

Party

Around three in the afternoon Sirius threw open the door and strolled into Lily's room, "Good morrow to my dearest deceptive duo," he gestured to his body, showing off his black slacks loose white button down shirt and black vest, "How do I look? I was going for a David Bowie sort of feel."

"Who?" James sat up and scratched his head.

"Very nice Mr. Black" Lily gave a mock bow, internally amazed at the depth Sirius had gone to in order to learn about the muggle world, and simultaneously drive his mum insane, "and what would you suggest for Mr. Potter an myself?"

"You're going to let me do it?" Sirius' eyebrows rose.

"No, I'm going to let you suggest, I'm going to let James do the actual transfiguring" she stated.

"You are no fun" he stuck his tongue out.

"So you keep saying, but someone has to at least try to keep you lot in line" She gestured.

"How noble of you" he replied wryly.

"I take it you've dressed Moony and Wormtail?" James stood.

"Yep, Christmas jumpers for all" Sirius smiled proudly, "They refused to try anything adventurous."

"Good for them" Lily gave a nod of approval, "though they really should have waited for James to do it"

"I feel like I should keep up the trend" James, ignored Lily's last comment and pointed his wand on his shirt, silently transfiguring it into a red sweater with a white dear across the chest, "yeah?" he turned to Lily and Sirius.

They both shrugged, "good enough"

"Thanks," he muttered, pouting, "Your turn", he aimed his wand at Lily, "I'm thinking green, Padfoot?"

"Green would bring out her eyes," Sirius agreed, "How about a nice little dress, nothing too fancy?"

"Or too risqué"

"And not to matronly"

James nodded, "Spin a little for me," He help up her hand so that she could turn, and she obliged.

With two turns her sweater and skirt had fused together into a knee length forest green dress.

"I approve," Sirius grinned.

"Thank you," James beamed.

"Let me see!" Lily pulled him towards the mirror hung on the back of her door and looked herself up and down; "I accept" she nodded. She did not say so, but this simple dress was one of the nicer things she had ever worn, though she felt like telling James would just feed his ego.

"We best go down and help your mom with those biscuits" James opened the door ushering out Sirius and Lily.

Forty minutes later and amazed Lily was being ushered into the car by James, "I cannot believe that you convinced my mother that we should take separate cars so that we could leave early."

"Yes, well Padfoot has always been good with any mother that wasn't his own, he got mine to adopt him," James teased.

"Not my fault that the older women love me," Sirius winked.

"Ew, Black, we are talking about my mother" Lily shot a glare and settled into the middle seat, as James followed her into the car.

"And your mother is a beautiful woman" Sirius adjusted his seat belt, "Everybody in?"

"All present and accounted for" Peter turned from the front seat to look back at Remus, Lily and James.

"Off we go!" he focused his efforts on following Mr. Evans' car in front of them.

Despite Lily's previous apprehension the party was full of mild mannered middle management types who took answers at face value and did not delve deeper into the boys' dreamed up muggle desires. She was further amazed that they actually had muggle anecdotes, Sirius was talking with one of her father's friends about James Bond, and Peter was speaking to another about the traffic in London.

James stayed glues to her side all evening, not that he had a choice in the matter, but he played the dotting boyfriend all the same. Various older folks came up to compliment her on her dress, and tell her how her father was always going on and on about her.

"It's hard not to with this girl," James beamed pulling her close, "top of the class, compassionate, and stunning"

"And she has a fantastic boyfriend" Sirius had wandered over to interject.

Lily could feel the blush creeping up her cheeks; she was not used to this sort of attention.

The secretary who had come over to chat smiled and excused herself to the refreshment table.

"Your face is reaching the color of your hair" Sirius observed nonchalantly, "I don't think she can take many more compliments, Prongs."

"Yeah, but it's rather entertaining to watch her squirm like this" James smirked and Lily glared.

"Lily, dear," Mrs. Evans hurried up, "You have to meet Mr. Pearson before you leave, he's the head of your father's department"

Lily quickly wiped the glare from her face as she and James were ushered towards her father and a rather imposing man.

"Here she is!" Mr. Evans gestured them into the conversation, "This is my little girl, and her, erm, boyfriend. Lily, this is Mr. Pearson"

Lily blushed again as she could not reach out to shake this man's hand, "Pleased to meet you sir."

"You're not Richard Pearson's father are you?" James' eyes were wide as he took this man's face in.

"Erm, yes," surprise passed over Mr. Pearson's face, "actually, he supposed to be around here somewhere," he looked around at the crowd.

Lily's eyes bulged as she looked at James, "Richard Pearson, Ravenclaw's prefect?"

"That would be me," Richard appeared smiling, "I was surprised to see Remus was here and he said it was Lily's responsibility"

He was an attractive boy, blonde hair, dark blue eyes, a seventh year, top of his class, he had spent a decent amount of his patrol time the previous year yelling at James and Sirius to get back to their common room, but other than that seemed quite charming, and friendly.

"Richard, I didn't know people from your school would be here" Mr. Pearson was looking thoroughly bewildered.

"You go to school with each other?" realization was dawning on Mr. Evans' face.

"James! Remus just told me that-" Sirius hurried over and came to a halt seeing Richard, "Oh, you got the message then, Hello Pearson" he nodded

"Black, I suppose with Potter and Remus I shouldn't be surprised you're here" Richard was still smiling.

"How is it that Remus is on first name basis with everyone?"Sirius gave an exasperated sigh.

"I did patrols with him last year a few times," Richard shrugged.

"Isn't this a surprise" Mrs. Evans was looking back and forth between everyone.

"I didn't realize there was anyone else with a special child in the company" Mr. Pearson had overcome his confusion and Richard rolled his eyes at the terminology, "Perhaps we could have you and your wife over for tea sometime Bernard"

"Of course sir, we'd be delighted," Mrs. Evan's interjected as the younger folks backed away quietly.

"Never thought I'd see a load of Gryffindors here." Richard looked them up and down, "and once I spotted you I wondered what prank you were pulling."

"It's no fun picking on people who can't pick back" Sirius crossed his arms, "Muggle baiting is a bit beneath us"

"Glad to hear it and I'm sure Lily here is keeping you and your mates in line" he looked pointedly down at her hand, intertwined with James.

"It's not what you think!" the words spilled from Lily's mouth, "This toe rag glued us together!" she released his hand and held up the dried substance joining them as proof, "Please Richard, don't tell anyone."

James could swear that those puppy dog eyes could make the coldest heat melt, Richard had no chance.

"Don't worry about it," he said awkwardly, "your secret is safe with me. I'm just excited that I can have a real conversation with someone that isn't about my 'plans' for after graduation"

"I plan on getting into politics, I think I could be prime minister one day" Sirius smiled pompously, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"I don't think you could confound enough people" Richard rolled his eyes, "I usually just tell people I'm planning on being an abstract artist, then they get all quiet and start to ask about my little brother, he's destined to be big in the business world"

"I know how that goes mate" Sirius gave him a pat on the back.

"Eh, it's not so bad, I don't think I'd like to spend my life in the muggle business world anyways, that's a life much more fit for a muggle."

"I didn't know you had a little brother" Lily frowned.

"Yes, well you also didn't know that our fathers worked together" he smirked and looked around, "Oi, Reg!"

"Reg?" Sirius furrowed his brow.

A boy, about their own age, with light brown hair and the same dark blue eyes of his brother, "What's up, Rich?"

"I'd like you to meet some of my schoolmates, Lily Evans, this is my brother Reginald" Richard gestured him into the group.

"Nice to meet you" Lily smiled.

"James Potter" he stuck his hand out to shake and Sirius followed in suit.

"I didn't realize that anyone from your school was going to be here," Reginald looked confused, but smiled anyway.

"My father works with yours" Lily explained, "I didn't realize either"

"I'm glad that Rich has someone to discuss quidditch with now, because I don't understand a word of it" Reginald smiled wider.

Lily saw James' eyes light up at the subject change, and could tell that Richard and Sirius were equally as excited, "You might want to get away while you still can, the conversation is about to take a turn towards wizard sports" she murmured to Reginald.

"Yes well, I really must excuse myself then, I'm in need of some refreshments" he nodded and slipped away into the crowd.

An hour later saw Lily sliding into the back seat of the car once again.

"I can't believe that Pearson actually believes that Hufflepuff stands a chance against the Slytherins in the next match, their Hufflepuff lost their seeker and the new guy, Zeller, isn't up to par. Reg will crush him" James slid in next to Lily, looking for Sirius' rebuttal.

"Yes, but their chasers are top notch and Warrington seems to have decided to fill the Slytherin team with his friends, so weather they have a decent seeker of not if they win it won't be by much."

James pretended not to see the pride in Sirius' eyes when he spoke of the seeker, "Fair enough, which is good cause we'll steam roll both of them and win the cup by miles this year"

"Do they always go on this long?" Lily looked to Remus.

"You can usually side track them with pranks, food, or girls" he smiled softly.

"Did someone say food?" Peter turned towards the back bench excitedly.

"Didn't you get enough at the party?" James gave him an incredulous look.

"Nah, you know wormy, he could eat an entire hippogriff and go back for pudding" Sirius chuckled and started up the car.

Before long they were pulling into the drive, "So what is the plan for the night?" Sirius looked expectantly at Lily as he turned the car off.

"Why does there always have to be a plan?" she groaned.

"You remember the time we filled the common room with pixies? That was when James didn't give me a plan" he gave her a meaningful look.

"It is better just to keep him occupied" Remus sighed.

"Fine, how about we work on our homework?" she asked hopefully.

"How about we don't? We're on holiday Evans, no work!" he stepped out of the car and headed for the front door.

We could eat," Peter suggested hopefully.

"Why don't we build a gingerbread house?" Lily caught up and unlocked the door.

"What?"

"It's something muggle children do at Christmas, build a house from gingerbread, with candy decorations and snow made from frosting. Tuney and I used to build one every year." She led them to the kitchen, and began to arrange ingredients on the counter, "and you get to eat the left over supplies, and the finished product." She turned to look at them, "maybe we should each have our own. I'll show you how."

"Mine shall be the best gingerbread house ever!" Sirius proclaimed.

"Must everything be a competition?" Remus chided, but he was grinning.

"Worst looking house gets eaten first!" James pulled a mixing bowl towards him.

Peter looked towards Lily, "You better start instructing before they destroy the kitchen"

She nodded and fumbled to tie an apron around her neck, "first things first everyone needs to wash their hands, no magic, were doing this the proper way" she looked at Sirius.

"Yes ma'am" he saluted.

A/N: I thought i was going to enjoy this chapter more than I did, oh well, I hope you enjoyed it, enough to review perhaps? *wink wink nudge nudge*