A/N: Hey, just wanted to drop a note to thank everyone who is reading and reviewing this fic, it's pretty much planned to the end now so updating should be regularly once a week. This is the last Christmas chapter, which was actually written at New Year - probably the reason we got a little carried away with all the Christmas stuff! Hope you enjoy and fear not, the rest of the boys will be back next chapter!

Chapter 14 - New Year

Lily had been distant since receiving the letter on Christmas day. Remus mostly only saw her when they met in the common room or passed each other in the corridors. On New Year's Eve however, they found themselves the only two Gryffindors at the house table for dinner, so they sat together and talked pleasantly while they ate. Remus had tried to discreetly ask her about the letter and why it had upset her so much, but Lily quickly changed the topic and he didn't make any further attempts to question her.

On the way back to the common room, Remus was racking his brains to think of a safe topic of conversation; despite their entirely separate friendship circles, he'd spent enough time with her over their years at Hogwarts to know when she was feeling down.

"Are you doing anything tonight?" he asked eventually, as they waited for the stairs to move back in the direction of Gryffindor tower.

Lily shrugged. "Not really. I guess I might do the reading McGonagall set us."

"You're really going to do school work on New Year's?" Remus asked, thinking about the previous year when Sirius had dragged him to the clock tower and the twelve midnight chimes had been so loud they'd been unable to hear each other speak. "Do you want to come up to my dorm? I bet James has some alcohol left over that we can celebrate with."

"If you were anyone else, I'd think that was a cheap attempt to get into my pants," Lily replied, smiling despite herself.

"What? I –"

"I know," Lily laughed, patting Remus reassuringly on the arm as the stairs finally slid back into place, allowing them to continue walking. "I suppose a night of drinking Potter's beer stash does sound preferable to transfiguration."

"I can assure you he will be suitably put out once he realises," Remus promised. "He thinks none of us know where it is, as if no one else ever goes in his wardrobe when Sirius wears his clothes half of the time anyway."

Lily looked at him, slightly bewildered, but shrugged and said, "Alright. Give me a minute to nip up to my dorm; I think there are a few bottles of butterbeer left from the last Quidditch party. Wouldn't want to let them go to waste."

"Of course not," Remus grinned, heading up the boys' staircase ahead of Lily in order to extract the alcohol in question from under the pile of old shirts at the bottom of James' cupboards.

There had been far more booze in the not-so-secret stash than Remus had anticipated, so they'd cheerfully worked their way through most of a bottle of firewhiskey before it was even 9pm. Lily had decided on a whim that she was going sleep in Remus' dorm, and it seemed strange for her to sleep in one of the boys' beds when she was barely even on speaking terms with them, so they'd hauled all the mattresses onto the floor and used hovering charms to get the quilts to hang over them like a roof. Remus thought it was a fairly successful fort, and sturdy enough that it didn't fall to pieces when they'd had a pillow fight.

They eventually settled down inside the fort with a bottle of butterbeer each and a bar of Honeydukes' chocolate between them. "I'm glad we're friends now," Lily announced. "Unlike certain people we happen to know, we don't feel the need to shag the moment we get a little bit drunk."

Remus laughed. "That's definitely a good thing, I'm fairly sure James would kill me if that happened. Or at least put dung bombs under my pillow every night for the next two years."

"So that's how James handles his enemies?" Lily asked with a roll of her eyes. "I wish I could know about all his little schemes."

"You could just ask," Remus told her, half way between opening another bottle of beer and trying to locate his wand beneath their mountain of blankets.

"And how do I know you'd tell the truth, Lupin?" she asked. "You've lied to enough teachers, haven't you?"

"I prefer to think of it as creative misdirection," Remus smirked. "They never suspect the prefect."

"Hmm," Lily said suspiciously. "I know! We could play truth or dare, then you couldn't lie to me!" She had a slightly evil glint in her eye, a look that told Remus that she, unlike him, was not left in a cold sweat by embarrassing questions about her personal life. He sighed heavily, but he was happy and warm inside from the alcohol, and it was New Year's after all. He didn't imagine Lily would go around the school repeating anything he said to her.

"I'll go first!" Lily continued without waiting for a response from him, "dare!"

This dismayed Remus, as he was terrible at thinking of dares. His friends were more creative; James' dares usually involved doing something stupid on a broomstick, Peter's tended to have something to do with secret corridors and the invisibility cloak, and Sirius' were varied but always ridiculous and often dangerous. Remus, however, never had any ideas. "Uhm." He looked around the room for inspiration, and his gaze rested on the homework Sirius had left on his bedside table instead of taking back to the Potters'. "I dare you to…leave a note reminding everyone about an important test, and sign it with McGonagall's name."

"That sounds suitably cruel," Lily grinned. Remus found her some parchment and a quill and she gleefully began writing.

Mr. Potter,

Your work in transfiguration this term has been of an unsuitable standard for NEWT level. To prove that you are fit to continue in this course, you will take a test on the first day of term, so please be in my office at 9am. If you do not achieve over 75% in this test, I'm afraid I will have to remove you from the course; do take this seriously as it will affect your future career. You will need to revise thoroughly, so please do not waste your Christmas break.

Wishing you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year,

Professor M. McGonagall

Lily scribbled a signature that looked remarkably like that of their professor and held it up for Remus to read.

"I see you're determined to make James' life miserable," he noted.

"Alas, you have discovered my true calling." Lily grinned. "Your go, truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Let me think," Lily replied, absently offering Remus a handful of the cheese and onion crisps she'd found. "Okay, isn't it frustrating that James and Sirius are so joined at the hip?" she asked, thinking of Remus' earlier remark about them sharing clothes, not to mention James' worries about Sirius enjoying Christmas. "I mean, obviously they're friends but they act like a couple half the bloody time, and Black's spending Christmas over there like he's one of the family. Doesn't it get tiresome?"

"Not really," Remus shrugged, "besides, this is first time they've spent Christmas together since first year, and that's only because James' parents have taken Sirius in since he got disowned, so it makes sense that they'd want to spend Christmas together." He picked up his bottle and was about to take a sip when he froze. "Oh," he said. "Oh shit. You didn't know about Sirius. I wasn't meant to tell you that."

"I won't tell anyone," she assured him quickly. Frowning, she added, "I mean, I knew Sirius' family weren't the best of people. They're all Slytherins, right? And I've heard bad things about a couple of his cousins."

"If only it was just his cousins." Remus put down his drink. "His parents are…well, they hate Sirius for being who he is – a Gryffindor who doesn't care about whether or not you're pure blood and who values friendship over corrupt family. Sometimes I think it's amazing he turned out so – so good, you know? I know he's a dick sometimes but that's nothing compared to his family. James is the one who's all noble but it's easy enough to be a decent person when that's all you've ever known. Sirius was basically brought up to be a death eater or whatever they've started calling themselves, but he fights it. It doesn't matter whether someone is muggleborn or a – any other person Wizarding society looks down on: Sirius stands up for people."

"Yeah," Lily said for lack of anything better to say. He was very earnest, and it made her feel a bit guilty for asking the question, "It's hard to dislike him when you say things like that. I'm already soft on one of you, if you make me like Black too I might just have to move schools."

"You don't actually hate any of us," Remus smiled, nudging her playfully in the shoulder. He felt a little awkward talking about Sirius' family without his knowledge, and trying to think of a lighter topic, he raised an eyebrow at her and asked, "So, Peter, Benjy and Kingsley – who would you shag, marry and throw off a cliff?"

"Right," Lily said much later. She was led on her back staring up at the canopy of blankets, and pointed purposefully at Remus with the end of an empty bottle: "The giant squid, a house elf, or moaning myrtle."

"I think we've reached the point where this game is going too far," Remus laughed. He glanced at his watch. "And anyway, it's nearly midnight."

"Excellent." Lily crawled out of the fort to retrieve the bottle of wine they'd saved. "It's a pity this doesn't have a cork in – it's not quite the same as opening a bottle of champagne."

"But at least we won't break a window." As his watch ticked forward to the last minute of the year, Remus flicked his wand so that glowing gold numbers appeared in front of them, counting down from sixty.

"You ready for 1977?" Lily asked, pouring them each a glass of the elf-made wine.

Remus thought about the last year, and tried to dismiss the thought that many of the year's significant events had been negative: two weeks of awful exams, his mum getting ill, Sirius being disowned… This year, he'd start his seventh year at Hogwarts, the finality of which loomed over him. He tried to focus on all the good things the future year might hold: trips to Hogsmeade, the finishing of the marauders' map and the long summer when James promised they would all go on holiday. "I hope so."

The count-down hit 10 seconds and they both joined in. "9…8…7…6"

Lily handed him a glass and they smiled at each other. "5…4…3…2…1"

"Happy New Year!" Remus said, holding out his glass so Lily could clink hers against it. They both drank, and Remus laughed as Lily downed her wine in one go.

She made a face as the cheap wine burnt her throat, and when she looked back at Remus he was pulling an equally appalled expression.

"I feel like 1977 is going to be my year," she said with a laugh, "we're almost done with school, and Madame Pomfrey said that when we start 7th year I can help out in the hospital wing, plus I have made a brand new friend," she grinned at Remus, and reached up to put her arms around his neck.

"You're drunk," Remus said helpfully, as they hugged amidst the laughter and newly filled glasses of wine.

"This is true," Lily replied, grinning at Remus with a hint of mischief. "So how about a New Year's kiss?"

"What?" Remus asked with wide eyes as Lily made a pouty face at him, complete with over the top kissing noises. "I thought we were the ones who didn't do that."

"It's tradition Remus, I should be offended."

"It's my personal tradition to not get killed by James," he replied, quietly moving backwards and almost tripping over their pillow fort. "I'm going to run away from you now."

"I'll have you know that at least 2 boys in our year would love to kiss me," Lily grinned as she hopped with surprising stealth over Sirius' bed in pursuit of him. "I'll catch you!"

"Ahhhhhh," Remus shouted, ducking behind Peter's wardrobe, "I'm being attacked! Help!"

"Attacked!?" Lily demanded when she eventually caught him, giggling in the corner and as far as he could fit under James bed. "I'll give you attacked." And with that, she set about tickling his feet.

"I will kill you," Remus said, out of breath. "You're evil! I'll report you to Dumbledore!"

Lily let him go, laughing as they both resumed a more comfortable position on the floor.

"Happy New Year, Remus." she said, unaware of the spilt wine, piles of blankets and half eaten food that littered the dorm. "It's not like anything more terrible than being kissed by me could possibly happen," she joked.

"I suppose you're right," Remus said jovially, and promptly hit her in the head with a nearby pillow.