Chapter 36:

"Lily" James began "I challenge you to….. Jump over the table without touching it or falling, for two shots"

Just because you couldn't do it" she said "fine I accept your challenge, but I raise it to 3" she challenged

"3 it is" he smiled

Lily took a run and totally cleared the table, swiftly moving to pour James 3 shots "Drink up" She told him.

"I think Lily knows what she's doing" Sirius muttered to Marlene nervously

"Sirius and Marlene, I challenge you four shots between for a team challenge" she smiled

Sirius nodded intrigued "What do we need to do?"

Lily turned to discuss with Remus who nodded with a smirk, James watched in appreciation of how amazing Lily was with her bright ideas and her logical thinking, even if it was for a drinking game she always thought deeply about every little thing, he loved that about her.

Lily turned round with a smile on her face to look at both Sirius and Marlene, "We challenge you to sit opposite each other with a serious face, without laughing, without breaking eye contact"

"Easy" Sirius said

"For 5 minutes"

"Deal" Marlene said

Lily turned to high five Remus knowing that has instantly won this challenge, and correct they were, Marlene and Sirius lasted longer than they had expected, 50 seconds.

"Remus, wanna take this one?" Lily asked

"Sure" he said "Peter, I challenge you 2 shots, I'm going to list 5 words and have to not laugh at any of them"

James cursed knowing that they were going to lose this one

"Deal" Peter grinned confidently

Remus decided to start easy on him "Bottom"

Peter felt the sides of his mouth twitch upwards but he didn't laugh.

"Willie" he said "Penis"

Peter managed to hold himself, just.

"Pussy"

Peter sniggered and James cursed to himself

Remus turned to high five Lily.

"Well that was easy" She said "Drink up Pete" she smiled

Then she turned to discuss with Remus their next plan off attack "I think we should give them a chance to take advantage of our advantage, but if it goes right it will work to our advantage too" she muttered to him.

Remus raised his eyebrows "I don't know what you're thinking but I'll trust your judgement" he whispered back

Lily nodded to him "as we are winning" she said to everyone else "We would like to give you an opportunity to take the lead"

"We're listening" Marlene said

"But each of you in your team would have to drink three shots"

"Deal" James said instantly, he could hold a decent amount of drink even though, he'd already had several but he wanted to take a chance, he might be able to grab hold of a lead.

Peter groaned "I don't know if I can" he said

"Come on" James tried "The game has only just started and we need to take the lead again"

Lily smirked and sat down and sat down knowing she wouldn't have to get up again for a while

James kept challenging Sirius and Marlene, not wanting to risk his lead against Lily and Remus, so he played it carefully. He managed to get each of them to drink 5 shots in total until Sirius completed a challenge successfully and he turned it back on James to get his revenge as James was the cause of his failing in the challenges.

Remus laughed quietly "You really have a game strategy don't you"

"Of course" Lily told him

"I think I always want to be on your team" he said

"Everyone always wants to be on my team, but all you ever need to do id apply logic and don't lose your head, it's easy" she shrugged

"I'll use that tip" he said

"You should, it's a valuable one" she told him

He laughed and they watched the others sown pints until they lost all knowing of what they were doing, the only people who would remember from then on out would be Remus and Lily.

"That was toooooooo easy" Lily smirked

But then the drunken James turned to her and said "Lily I challenge you to kiss me"

Lily snorted thinking he was kidding but Remus nudged her forward

"Fine" She blushed, this is not how she wanted their first to go, but she guessed it was better than nothing. "How many shots are you laying forward?"

"6 because I don't think you'll do it"

Lily smirked "get ready to drink up then" she warned moving over to James and pecking his lips

"That wasn't a proper kiss" Peter slurred before falling asleep

"fine" she blushed before kissing him properly, despite the amount of shots James had taken he was still an Amazing kisser, the thing that would have made it better was if he didn't taste of alcohol, he'd remember it, and if he actually wanted to kiss her and it wasn't a challenge.

James took the shots and fell asleep instantly.

"One team down then, one more to go" Remus said

"I'd say you enjoyed that Lilyflower" Sirius said "if you get what I mean" he winked

Lily rolled her eyes and managed to get both Sirius and Marlene out within the next 10 minutes.

"So what did Sirius mean when he said 'if you get what I mean'?"

"No idea" Lily shrugged

"Are you sure, because I get the impression he's right and you are crushing on James..." he said

Lily blushed and looked to her feet "I'm not..."

"It's ok Lily your secrets safe with me"

"Why is that you and Sirius can work it out practically before I do myself?" she moaned

"Because you're great at giving advice, but you can't give it to yourself because you're blind when it comes to you" he said simply

"I guess" she said

"Well I won't mention the kiss to James, I will leave it to you as I'm sure we're going to be the only two that remember what happened" he told her

"Do I have to tell him?"

"I guess it's up to you" he said

Lily woke in her bed the next morning and walked down into the heads common room to find Remus sat reading a book with four sleeping bodies scattered around the room. After the game of drunk man's challenge she had told him to sleep in James' bed as James wouldn't be using it and so he wouldn't have to sleep on the floor or try and get back to the common room without being caught, even though he was a marauder.

"They still not awake?" Lily asked

He shook his head in response

Lily smirked "fancy playing a prank?"

Remus laughed "you really have been hanging out with us too much" he smiled "what did you have in mind?"

"Just harmless prank... Like hiding their wands so they can't get rid of their hangover and leaving the room so we can't help them, perhaps leave a note saying that their wands are hidden in the room somewhere"

"That's cruel" he smiled

"But harmless and funny"

"Let's do it, but I suggest we write the note first in case they wake while we are hiding the wands"

Lily nodded grabbed some parchment and wrote 'we have stolen your wands and hidden them in this room, it's your own fault for being such fails at drunk man's challenge, good luck, love Remus and Lily xx'

"Right you do Marl's and James" he told her

She nodded and took Marlene's wand and hid it behind the books on the bookshelf, when she came to James she decided to nice as the previous morning he had removed her hangover for her so she simply hid it under the sofa.

"Done?" Remus asked her

"Yeah, let's go get some breakfast" she told him setting the note on the table so that it was obvious to them when they woke.

"You are both-" Sirius shouted at them attracting the attention of others in the great hall

"Something we are ALL too nice to say" James said calmly turning to high five Lily with a laugh "great prank, don't believe even I could come up with that" he smirked

"How'd you know it wasn't me?" Remus asked

"firstly the note was Lily's hand writing, secondly if it was your idea you would have done it before now, thirdly my wand was in the easiest place to find and only lily would have put it there as she would feel bad as I got rid of her headache yesterday" he said

"Wow" lily laughed "that was..."

"Logical?" he suggested

"Logical" Lily agreed

A couple of days later it was Christmas eve and Sirius was getting over excited again about Christmas trying to persuade them all to get up at stupid hours of the morning, of course Lily was not too pleased about it.

"Look Sirius, Christmas will be exactly the same whatever time you get up, you'll have the same presents, the same group of people, just a slightly less tired Lily" she said

"Well how about we get up at 7 am then?" He suggested

"It's better than 5" Lily shrugged "Fine…. 7 it is"

"Did you all want to sleep here again?" James asked "this time we can get you blankets and stuff though" he said

"Yeah alright" Remus said

"YEY!" Sirius roared "A Christmas eve sleepover" he grinned

"How about we bring our matrasses down" Lily suggested "We can enlarge them so that none of us have to lie on the floor"

"Yeah okay" James said

"We can just levitate them down the stairs"

Once the sofas were pushed back and the matrasses we're laid down, they each summoned themselves their own blankets and laid it where they wished to lie. Lily and Marlene shared Lily's matrass and the over four on James' which was enlarged more than Lily's.

Lily lay down wanting to now sleep but she was stupid to hope for that as of course the boys wanted to stay up till late.

"Pillow fight?" Someone shouted

Lily groaned "Night guys" she said burying her head under her own pillow

In the end they convinced Lily to join there pillow fight which to her luck didn't last that long due to the immense amount of energy it took from each of them, and within 15 minutes they were exhausted and they all kind of nodded at each other and made their way to bed without saying another word.

"Lily" she heard a voice whisper in here ear and a strong and gently hand shook her shoulder "Wake up" Her senses came to her and she heard more notice around the room as her eyes fluttered open and she saw James crouching down by her. "Merry Christmas" he told her

She smiled "And you. So what dreadful hour have you woken me up at?"

"8, I put Sirius into a sleeping charm so he slept longer"

"You should do that more often" She smirked

"What wake you up or make Sirius sleep"

"Make Sirius sleep you noob" She smirked

"Just checking" He smiled "Need a hand?" He said offering to help her up

"Sure" she smiled taking his hand as he pulled her up out of the matrass bed on the floor "Thanks" she said

"No problem" he told her "Now let's put Sirius out of his misery, he's been staring at the presents for about 20 minutes straight"

Lily laughed "Come on then"

Presents were given and received by one another, they all wore matching grins on their faces as the opened their own presents giving hugs of thankfulness to each other.

Sirius gave everyone a kiss, of course this made everyone laugh until Sirius turned round on them, Of course Marlene didn't mind, she was snogging him every day out of choice, Lily wasn't that bothered, it was only a kiss on the cheek, it was the other boys he didn't want to be kissed by Sirius but of course with a struggle, Sirius managed to kiss each of them.

Peter gave them everyone some form of food, either a chocolate frog or a berties box of every flavour beans.

James gave Sirius as new beaters bat, Peter a pack of exploding snap, Remus some slippers that looked like werewolf feet, this caused Remus to crack a small smile and a chuckle. Lily smiled at the gesture, James could make something that Remus most hate so largely seem less serious and more manageable.

Marlene gave the boys food, and Lily a book.

Remus gave James a whistle and explained that he could use it in practice to blow in Sirius' ear when he's flirting with the girls on the team, He gave Peter

Lily gave Sirius a pink fluffy diary and a matching pen and said "pour you heart into it, seeming as you have feelings like the rest of us" She said causing Sirius to laugh. She gave Peter some socks, Remus a book, Marlene a bracelet, and James a broom repair kit.

The whole of Christmas day they sat in the heads common room and played Christmassy games except for when they went out for meals or to stop by the kitchens to get some food.

James truly kept his promise to make sure that Lily's Christmas was the best she had ever had, because it really was, there were no arguments, there was no one or nowhere else she would rather be, it was her best Christmas

They all slept in the heads common room again that night as it was late and the boys had a bit to drink as well and well it was nice to have a sleepover with friends even though they were 17 years old, but how old do you have to be for a sleepover?

I hope you enjoyed that chapter and you've all had an amazing Christmas, next chapter will be about New Year's… (HINT HINT).

Thanks for all your reviews, I'll look forward to more :)

JadedLights07- I hope this was quick enough for you? ;)

Littlefish130- I know! It broke my heart when I wrote it!

. - thank you, Merry Christmas to you too!

Guest- Haha glad you like the challenges, it was a bit of a weird idea that popped into my head whilst I was writing.

Guest- Awhhh thank you thank you thank you!:) It's a good idea and thankyou for suggesting it but I have read it in other fanfics&& I don't want to overuse it, but yeah I am trying to come up with a good plan for good ol' Severus.