"No, no," I muttered, taking another step over an unconscious house-elf. "No, this isn't happening."

"I think it is Lily," said Emmeline.

I rounded on her. "Not helping!"

"Look, just calm down a minute Lily," said Dorcas, attempting to sound reassuring. "We can just cook it all again."

"No we bloody well can't!" I cried. "It's an hour to the party and we don't have any food!"

"It'll be alright," said Dorcas, trying to put her arm around me.

I pushed her away and sat down on the ground. "This is horrible. So utterly, utterly horrible. Nothing has gone right since we started this."

Dorcas sat beside me. "Yeah it has. I mean, we started a food fight, didn't we?"

I smiled weakly. "Yeah, I guess."

"And if we can start a food fight, then we can make the food to go with it, right?"

"Dorcas, that's impossible and you know it," said Emmeline.

"Oh shut up, party pooper," said Dorcas. She helped me back up onto my feet.

"So what are we gonna do?" I asked, looking around at all the house-elves.

"We're gonna bring these things back to life, that's what!" cried Dorcas. "Come on, we've got to get these guys back on their feet!" Dorcas leaned down and pulled up the house-elf beside her. "Oh get up you drunk," she said, heaving it onto its feet.

The house-elf swayed on its feet. It tipped backwards and hit its head on the table behind it.

"Oh crap," muttered Emmeline as a large bowl of lollies teetered off the edge of the table and fell onto the face of a house-elf lying on the ground.

The house-elf that the lollies had fallen upon leapt up in fright and ran into another house-elf who was attempting to get back on his own two feet. This caused him to all of a sudden slap another house-elf who Dorcas had pulled up, which caused absolute uproar.

"Did you just slap Fuzzy?" one house-elf cried indignantly.

"I might've," replied the one who had slapped Fuzzy, swaying slightly.

"That's it! I am so sick of you slapping her all the time!" The indignant house-elf pushed back the sleeves of its dirty tea cosy. Other house-elves shouted in agreement.

"Dear Merlin," said Emmeline beside me, her hands clasped together and eyes closed. "Please do not allow a full-scale house-elf war break out."

"In your face, Ponny!" cried the indignant house-elf, aiming a high karate kick at Ponny's face.

"Stop, stop!" cried Dorcas, as the house-elves split into two sides and began scratching at each other's faces.

"STOP!" yelled Emmeline. The house-elves ceased attacking each other and turned to see who had yelled so loudly.

"This is ridiculous!" cried Emmeline. "Stop fighting! We need you all to make us food! Quickly! We have a party on in like twenty minutes! We need food now!"

The house-elves looked at each other.

"Miss is right," said Ponny. "We shouldn't be fighting; we should be making food for other misses and masters and making them happy."

The other house-elves murmured in agreement. Ponny shook hands with the indignant house-elf.

"Now let's cook!" he cried, and the house-elves moved like the wind.

"Okay guys," said Dorcas loudly, taking acting like the leader of her own army, "we need desserts by the hundreds for our Christmas party. Puddings, biscuits, anything and everything!"

The house-elves nodded as they rushed around, baking and cooking and doing everything we had been doing before, but much better.

Within five minutes, we had twice as much food as we had managed to cook earlier.

"This is brilliant," said Dorcas, looking around at them all in wonder.

I turned to Emmeline. "This is the last time I listen to you about anything," I said.

Emmeline hmphed at me.

By ten to seven, all the food was done. Emmeline looked slightly calmer, and a little giddy. I had a feeling she had found some Firewhiskey somewhere in the kitchens.

We put it all onto half a cart that one of the house elves had attempted to conjure, and Dorcas, Emmeline and I made our way out of the kitchens, headed for the party classroom.

Dorcas, meanwhile, tried to shake a particularly rambunctious house elf from her leg where he had taken residence.

"Please!" it was crying. "Take me to the party! Get me out of there!"

"NO!" cried Dorcas, kicking it off and straight back into the kitchen. She slammed the portrait shut and dusted off her hands. "What?" she said when she saw Emmeline and I staring at her.

"Nothing," Emmeline and I said in unison.

We wheeled the half-cart with some difficulty towards the classroom. After the cake had fallen off twice, and both times with very close catches by Dorcas, Emmeline decided to stick everything to the top of the cart with a Sticking Charm.

We got some extremely odd looks as we walked, especially from the first-years.

"It's as if they've never seen three girls in dresses before," remarked Dorcas, giving the finger to one wide-eyed first-year.

"Dorcas!" I said when I saw her give the finger to a second-year.

"What?" she said innocently, giving another one the finger behind her back.

I gave her a look and she grinned.

We reached the classroom and conjured some tablecloths for the desks. We put a few in a line, so it looked like we had a nice long buffet table.

"I just wanna check my hair before we get that stuff off the cart," said Dorcas, Summoning her small mirror from our dormitory. She flipped it open and yelped.

"What?" asked Emmeline, who had been examining our half-cart with some interest.

"I now know why those little midgets were giving us funny looks!" cried Dorcas. "Look at our hair!"

I looked at Dorcas' hair, which I hadn't done earlier, surprisingly, and she was right.

Dorcas' hair was a tangle of blonde knots, with bits of biscuits crumbs mixed throughout. She handed me her mirror and I saw my own hair. I had ice-cream melting in the middle and mine was a frizzy ball of red curls.

"What the hell happened?" asked Emmeline, looking at hers, which was shaped like a birds' nest, complete with egg shells in the middle.

"I dunno," said Dorcas, who was now Summoning her whole hair kit from our dormitory. "But we have to fix it right now." She yanked the zip on her hair bag open and pulled out four brushes. "Pick one," she told us, holding them out like playing cards.

Emmeline and I grabbed one each, and Dorcas used the other two to brush both sides of her hair at the same time.

With two minutes before our party was due to start, we had fixed our hair, but the food still wasn't out on the table.

Dorcas smiled, her hair perfectly styled once more, and went to take a plate of biscuits of the cart.

But it was stuck.

Dorcas swore under her breath. "What – Come on!" She put a foot on the cart and attempted to wrench the plate off.

"Uh, Dorcas?" said Emmeline calmly from behind her, as she tapped our friend on the shoulder.

"Yeah?" she said, still trying to pull the plate off with her own strength.

"Sticking Charm," said Emmeline, holding up Dorcas' wand.

"Oh." Dorcas let go of the plate and took her wand from Emmeline. "Right."

"Git," I said quietly.

"Know-it-all," retorted Dorcas, unsticking everything and handing it to Emmeline to put it on the table.

I shoved Dorcas playfully, so that she almost dropped the punch bowl when there was a knock at the door.

Dorcas did drop the punch bowl.

"Git!" I cried, repairing it instantly.

"Emmeline!" said Dorcas quickly. "What's the time? It's not seven o'clock yet, is it?"

"No." Emmeline stared at her watch. "There's still like a minute to go."

Nobody moved.

"Fine," I said at last. "I'll answer it." I headed over to the door and opened it a crack. "Who's there?"

"Hiya Evans!" cried a voice. A hazel eye was pressed to the crack. "Is the party still on?"

I grinned and opened the door. "Welcome."

James, Sirius and Remus walked into the classroom, looking around with awe.

"Wow," said Sirius. He went to stand to next to Dorcas. "This is amazing what you've done with that tinsel."

Dorcas attempted to look modest. "I try."

Remus had meanwhile taken an awkward shuffle towards Emmeline. "You have egg shell in your hair," he said quietly.

Emmeline's cheeks darkened. Remus reached up to pick it out.

"Good job, Lily," said a voice in my ear.

I turned to face James behind me. "Thanks."

"I didn't think you could do it," he said, looking up at the tinsel that we'd strung from the ceiling. "You proved me wrong. HEY MOONY!" he yelled across the room. "I OWE YOU TEN GALLEONS, RIGHT?"

"WHY?" Remus shouted back.

"YOU MADE THAT BET WITH ME!" yelled Sirius.

"OH RIGHT!" James faced me again. "Sorry. You know, I could have sworn I made that bet with Moony…"

I smiled. "Give them both ten Galleons," I advised.

"Why? Do I look like I have twenty Galleons?" James made a hand gesture to show his fancy new suit.

"Yeah, you do," I said, laughing.

There was a loud knock at the door.

Emmeline glanced at her watch. "It's show time!" she cried.

I felt shivers run through me. It was about to begin!

"Hello," said Dorcas, opening the door extravagantly as Emmeline extinguished the candles. "Welcome the biggest and best Christmas bash ever."

I saw the dim shadows of people walk in. Emmeline and Remus directed them to stand in the middle of the classroom.

"Have a great time everyone!" I cried, flicking my wand and setting off the flashing candles.

Everyone looked around the room first and 'ooh'ed and 'ahh'ed. Then the large windows on the opposite side of the room exploded.

Everyone shrieked and ducked. James tackled me to the ground.

"Ugh, get off," I giggled, shoving him off me. I sat up when the glass stopped shattering on the ground.

A group of three people stood on the stage that had suddenly appeared. They were dressed in jeans and mismatched Muggle clothes.

Dorcas leapt up onto the stage. "I present," she said loudly, "the Merlin Moochers!"

Our guests clapped nervously. I ran forward and grabbed Dorcas' arm as she jumped off the stage.

"What the hell?" I hissed. "Who are these people?"

"My cousins," she whispered back.

"What?"

"What?" cried Emmeline who had joined us. "Did you say your cousins?"

"Yes," replied Dorcas. "They're very good at Christmas songs and I promise to wipe their memories afterwards."

"A very merry Christmas to all!" yelled what appeared to be the lead singer into the microphone. "And a one, and a two, and a three…"

"Silver bells, silver bells," they sang sweetly. "It's Christmas time, in the city…"

The people had begun to mill around, get some food, and punch, and others were happy to dance to the sweet sounds of the Merlin Moochers.

"I don't even know this song," said a girl as her partner twirled her by. "But I love it!"

I smiled, happy that everyone was enjoying the party.

"Would you like to dance?" asked James beside me.

I looked up into his hopeful hazel eyes. "Not now," I said. Disappointment was written all over his face. "When they start singing 'Winter Wonderland', find me." I left him standing there, and went to find Emmeline and Dorcas.

Dorcas was by the punch bowls, chatting with Sirius. They looked very close, so I left them and went to find Emmeline.

I found her hiding behind a group of Hufflepuffs.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her, squeezing into the tight space with her. "I must have passed Remus three times looking for you."

"I know." Emmeline's face was set in a small frown. "He asked me to dance."

I grinned, for her sake. "That's great! Isn't it?"

"I don't know what to say," said Emmeline. "And since the pause I'd started had been going for so long, I just ran."

"Emmeline!" I said, shocked.

"What?"

"After all these years…" I said, shaking my head.

"All these years of what?"

"With your very few boyfriends, you were just making sure that he was right for you, weren't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said firmly.

"Oh come on, Emmeline." I pulled her onto her feet. "Let's go."

"Go where?"

Sheesh, sometimes that girl is so oblivious.

I pulled her through the crowd and found Remus again, sitting by himself on the edge of the dance floor.

"Remus?" I said, Emmeline attempting to hide behind me. "Emmeline would like you to ask her that question again."

"No I don't," said Emmeline in a voice above a whisper.

"What quest – Oh, okay." Remus got to his feet and peered over my shoulder at Emmeline. "Emmeline, will you dance with me?"

The Merlin Moochers began to sing, "Walking in a winter wonderland…"

"Yes," answered Emmeline, still in her barely-there voice.

I smiled at Remus, and turned around to walk away.

"Dance, Lily?"

I nearly jumped right out my skin. "Merlin! You're a stalker, you know that right?"

James just grinned. His hazel eyes sparkled. He held out his hand to me. "Well? They're singing about some winter wonderland, right?"

"Right," I agreed, placing my hand in his and letting him swing me away.

We spun around the dance floor, and I felt like I was flying.

The song came to an end. James stopped twirling me when we were right next to a window.

"Look," I whispered. "It's snowing."

I looked up and found James looking straight into my eyes.

"I love you, Lily," he said quietly.

"Really?" I asked, hugging him closer.

"Yes," he answered. "Really."

And he leant in and kissed me.

When he pulled back, I had the best feeling in the world running through me.

"I love you too, James."

And that's when the tinsel fell down.

"TSUNAMI!"

.x.x.x.

Sunday 16th December 1977

Dear Mum and Dad,

Our party went on without a hitch! Everything went fine, considering everything we went through to get to that point.

Right now, I'm writing this in my dormitory, on my bed. Dorcas is next to me on her bed, lying down with a wet cloth over her eyes. Someone spiked the punch. I think it was Emmeline. She had a bit of Firewhiskey before the party had even started. She and Remus are going out now. They're so cute together. Sirius and Dorcas are going out now too. I don't go anywhere near them when they are together. Their pranks are practically deadly.

And you'll never believe it, Mum, but you know that boy that I always said I hated because he followed me constantly and never stopped asking me out? James Potter? Does it ring a bell? Well, I have some very good news concerning him. And no, he didn't die. I can't even dream of thinking that about him now. You know why?

Because he and I are girlfriend and boyfriend. Isn't that great? I'm so happy.

I hope you both have a merry Christmas. Wish Petunia merry Christmas for me. I probably won't be seeing you. I'm staying at Hogwarts for Christmas. But I'll be sending you presents! James is helping choose. What do you think I should get for him?

All my love,

Lily.

.x.x.x.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and anything related to him (i.e. James and Lily, his parents) are not my property. But I sure do wish they were.

I hope that you all enjoyed my story. :D I certainly had a lot of fun writing it.

With many, many, many thanks to all my reviewers and my readers who have stayed with me this far. I love you all!!!

And also, many, many, many, many, many, many, many thanks to Acelinn. If it hadn't been for you, this chapter wouldn't have gone up. Thanks. For that, and being my pal. :D

Have a Happy New Year everyone!!