Christmas Tidings

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters, etc. Everything Harry Potter related was created by the great J.K. Rowling. I am not making any money off of this and I only do it for fun. And feedback. But not money.

Warning: This fic is plotless, unbeta'ed and has a *mild* slash warning.

My usual beta is on vacation and in interest of getting this out in time, I didn't bother to try to find a replacement. Hopefully I'll have her look at it when she gets back, but until then, beware mistakes.

The slash is nothing big. I wasn't even going to put in a warning, but then I remembered that some people can get really offended about this type of thing. There is no relationships to speak of, only a brief kiss between two boys.

This is a story in response to the 7Q Christmas challenge. It must include the following:

1. Somebody must say "Merry Christmas" in a foreign language.
2. Dobby must knit/have knitted someone socks.
3. Someone must kiss someone else for the first time under mistletoe - and we're not talking a peck on the cheek ;-)
4. Someone must bake something.
5. Someone has to give a quill as a gift.
6. There must be a snowball fight.
7. Someone must say the line "You're looking quite nice this evening. Either that, or someone spiked the egg nog."

To look them over, you would think that I would be NOT writing a MWPP fic for once. Well, you'd be wrong. That seems to be all I write.

Full author notes are at the end.

"You're looking quite nice this evening," Sirius commented when Lily came down the stairways later on that day, and entered the common room where he, James, Remus and Peter were waiting in some of the chair by the fire.

She looked at him with skepticism and expectantly waited for him to finish. There was no way he was going to leave it as a compliment. She wasn't disappointed, either.

"Either that," he continued, "or someone spiked the egg nog."

James leaned across the couch and slugged Sirius in the shoulder.

"Ow," Sirius said, rubbing the spot. "What was that for? It hurt."

"Good. That was for insulting my girlfriend." He turned to Lily and added, "You look very lovely this evening."

"Thank you, James," Lily said sweetly. She kissed him on the cheek.

"Oh, he's just saying that because he's getting some," Sirius said.

"Sirius," Peter asked suddenly, "how long has it been since you were on a date again?"

Sirius looked a little embarrassed, but his voice sounded off-handed when he answered, "I don't know, a couple of weeks, maybe a month."

Remus looked at Peter thoughtfully. "You know, I don't think our friend Padfoot here has had a date since Alice McNamara dumped him."

"Hey," Sirius protested lamely, "she didn't dump me, it was mutual." They all knew he didn't particularly care, nor had he been hurt by the break-up, or they probably wouldn't have been teasing him about it so much. The surprise in that break-up hadn't been that it had happened, but rather that it hadn't happened earlier. Everyone knew, including Sirius and Alice, that things just weren't working out between the two of them.

"Wasn't that at Hallowe'en?" Peter asked.

"You know," Remus commented, "I think you're right. And it's Christmas now, so that would be, what, two months?"

"All right, all right, I get it," grumbled Sirius. "Although I don't see either of you going on dates."

"Excuse me," Peter said, sounding more than a little indignant. "I've been going out with Selma for almost three weeks now."

"Okay, okay, so I'm the only one who doesn't date here. That's not the point. The point is - " Sirius cut off. "What is my point again?"

James laughed. "You weren't even making a point."

Continuing, Remus said, "We were trying to prove to you that you shouldn't be giving James dating advice considering the fact that you don't even have a girlfriend. Oh - and for the record, I haven't been out in a date for longer than you have."

Suddenly bored of the way the conversation was going, Lily stood up. "Is anyone else getting hungry?" she asked. "Let's go down for dinner."

"Excellent," Sirius said, also standing up. "I'm starved."

The others got up too, but when Sirius and Lily reached the common room entrance, Peter stopped and bit his lip. "Uh oh," he said.

"What?" Lily asked uncertainly. In Hogwarts, you could never tell what an "uh oh" might mean, but it was never a good thing.

"Look up," Peter said.

They were standing under the mistletoe.

"Who put that up?" James demanded. "How long has it been there?"

"Some of the fourth year girls decided to decorate the common room earlier," Peter informed him.

Looking carefully at the mistletoe, Remus added, "And I don't think it's been there for long. It looks like they've enchanted it to seek out people."

"And it was our bad luck that it sought out Lily and Sirius," James said glumly.

"I'm not calling it bad luck here," Sirius said. "After all, I get to snog with Lil."

At the death glare from James, Sirius shrank back, his hands out in front of him in the universal sign for surrender, and said, "Kidding, just kidding. Really, Prongs, you can take me entirely too seriously at times."

"We don't have to do it, you know," Lily said, speaking of the kiss.

Remus shook his head. "This isn't one of the traditions that you want to mess with, Lily."

"What, that old story? It's just a superstition, isn't it?" Lily asked, although she wasn't quite sure of herself.

The four boys, all of whom were from wizarding families, exchanged uneasy glances. "I don't know," Peter said slowly. "I remember my mum telling me a story about a friend of hers. Kissed her sweetheart under the mistletoe, but they didn't bury it later. They had a horrible break-up right after that."

"Peter!" Lily said, exasperated. "In case you've forgotten, Sirius and I aren't going out."

"It could mean the end of the friendship as well," Remus pointed out.

"And it's not just that," James added reluctantly. He didn't like the idea of his best friend kissing his girlfriend. "If you don't honour the mistletoe - well, that's not something you don't want to do. I mean, sure a lot of it is superstition, such as the sun not coming back, but there's also the evil spirits. I know it sounds stupid, but I've heard things - or rather overheard things, Mum sometimes tells Dad about the things that she sees or hears about at the Ministry. I'd not like to repeat them, to be honest."

"I've heard things too," Remus added. "It's one tradition you shouldn't consider breaking."

Sirius and Lily faced each other. "Well then," he said.

"This is awkward," said Lily.

"Oh, just kiss her and get it over with," James said testily. Knowing that Sirius and Lily were only kissing out of necessity wasn't helping his jealousy much. It really made him feel worse knowing that they had to do that and he had to watch.

"Okay," Sirius said. With one last cautionary look at James, he took Lily in his arms and, dipping her slightly, kissed her. The seconds ticked by noticeably, and they continued to kiss. Finally, he broke away. Reaching up, he plucked one of the berries off of the mistletoe and the sprig, happy that it had had its kiss, slowly started to creep across the ceiling again, seeking out two more victims.

"What was that?" Lily asked, mildly shocked.

"Yes, Sirius," James said, although his voice came out strangled, as though he were trying to restrain himself from hurting his friend, "what was that?"

"Well, if I had to kiss Lily, I was going to do it properly," Sirius said. His manner suggested that the answer was obvious and he couldn't figure out exactly why anyone was even asking the question.

"We're talking about my girlfriend here!" James said.

"Relax, Prongs. You know it meant nothing." Then, as an afterthought, looking over his shoulder he told Lily, "No offence."

"None taken," she said.

"That's not the point, Padfoot."

Figuring out why James was so upset, Sirius said, "I think it's the attack of the green-eyed monster."

Having felt left out of the conversation, Peter picked an inopportune time and comment to re-enter. "Lily has the green eyes, not James," he reminded Sirius in a self-important manner.

"I think he's trying to say that James is jealous," Remus told Peter under his breath, trying to spare the smaller boy's feelings.

"Oh." Peter coloured slightly.

"Okay," James admitted. "So maybe I'm jealous. But I have every right to be, if you ask me. I mean, you were snogging with my girlfriend!"

"It was just a kiss, James," Lily said.

James waved his hands wildly. "It was more than a kiss! It was a lot more than a kiss."

"Good God," Sirius muttered. He marched over to James and, taking the other boy's face in his hands, firmly kissed him on the lips. James was too stunned to move.

When it was over, Sirius stepped away and said, "There. That kiss meant just as much as Lily's meant. Now I've kissed both of you. You're even now. We're even. She's even. Everyone's even. Or do I have to kiss you two as well?" He glared at Peter and Remus, who both quickly shook their heads. "Now, if everyone's satisfied, let's go down to dinner." He marched out the portrait hole without a look back.

Falling in beside James, Lily whispered to him, "You were being a little unreasonable there. That was the only way he could get you to shut up. You know nothing would ever go on between myself and Sirius."

A little abashed, James answered, "Yeah. I know. I'm sorry, I guess. I mean, I knew it didn't mean anything, it … Well, I … I was just being - "

"Stupid about it?" Lily suggested.

"Yes." James gave her a weak smile.

"I guess I understand why," Lily said. "If it had been one of my friends you were kissing, I'd probably be jealous too, even if it was just under the mistletoe. But you were going on unnecessarily about it."

"Forgive me?"

"Will you tell me what you got me for Christmas?" Lily countered.

"Not on your life."

"Hmm." Lily thought it over for a minute. "I guess I'll just have to settle for a kiss then."

James laughed, but obliged.

"Oy! Love birds!" Sirius called out from the hallway. "We've already had enough of a show tonight. C'mon, let's go eat!"

"Whatever you decide to do, please decide quickly and don't leave me hanging open like this!" the Fat Lady put in, sounding grumpier than she usually would after only being left open for a brief time. She normally had a lot of patience - which was a good thing because their housemates didn't always treat her with the utmost respect, to say the least.

"I'm sorry," James apologized sincerely. "We didn't mean to."

Holding out his hand, which Lily took, they walked through the entrance and closed the portrait behind them. It didn't take them very long to reach the Great Hall, but that was most likely because Sirius kept on bounding ahead, then chiding the others for not keeping up with him.

There were a few others already eating; although the Hall looked empty, probably half the people who had stayed for the holidays were present. As the five Gryffindors made their way to their table, Narcissa Mason started throwing a hissy fit, causing a mild disturbance at the Slytherin table. It would have been more interesting had she not thrown one at least once a week, usually because someone had failed to notice her new robes, or had somehow messed up her hair, or something else along those lines. Needless to say, not many people had a high opinion of her.

"I wonder what the princess is crying about this time?" Lily said darkly as they sat down and started to eat.

To her surprise, Sirius put down his roll and began to snigger.

"What?" Peter demanded eagerly. "Do you know?"

"I was talking to Macha earlier today," Sirius said.

James interrupted. "Why were you talking to Macha?" he wanted to know. Macha was a Slytherin in their year, and she and Sirius weren't exactly friends.

In disgust, Sirius said, "The princess has been carrying on like this all afternoon. Macha was around, so I asked her if she knew what it was about."

Everyone knew that Macha Hutchkiss despised her younger housemate and would be more than willing to complain about her, even to a Gryffindor.

"So, what's the princess' problem?" Lily asked.

"Well, I think she had a moment of insanity - at least she got it in her head that she wanted something special from Malfoy this year," Sirius began.

"And what could top last year's emerald pendant?" Lily asked cynically. "Did you see it? It had a rock the size of my fist."

"No, not that kind of special, she wanted something heartfelt, a personal gift. Something Malfoy would have to put a lot of thought into. So he - well stupid is the only way to describe his behaviour. He took her words at face value, which was mistake number one. I mean, we're talking about Narcissa Mason here. That girl changed her mind at least a dozen times an hour over what colour looks best on her. Why on earth would Malfoy believe for one minute that she would actually settle for something that cost less than a leg and a foot?"

"Well?" James asked impatiently. "What did he get her?"

Sirius laughed again. "A quill. Can you believe that? A big ugly peacock feather quill. He said something about a peacock being just about as pretty as her - an apt analogy, if you ask me, but not something to which you should really compare your girlfriend. Oh - and he also made her a pair of socks. That was his big gift - a quill and a pair of socks."

"What?" Peter, James and Lily shouted, more or less in tandem. Even Remus, who until this point hadn't been following along with the conversation, much preferring to eat than listen to the latest gossip about Narcissa Mason, looked up.

Lily voiced what they were all thinking. "You're kidding, right?"

Placing his hand over his heart, Sirius said, "I solemnly swear that I am not. It's the honest truth."

Lily began to giggle uncontrollably. "Lucius Malfoy gave his girlfriend socks and a quill for Christmas?"

"Yes." Sirius was taking great pleasure from this.

James was guffawing quite loudly, Peter was in hysterics, and even Remus was laughing quite hard.

"What I can't believe is that Malfoy would actually sully himself enough to knit a pair of socks," James said when he had calmed down enough to speak.

"That's the best part," Sirius said. "He didn't. He didn't even have the sensitivity to knit his own pair of socks; he got his house elf to do it for him."

"That sounds more like the Malfoy we know and hate," James said.

"Wait a second," Lily said, a little confused. "Why has she already opened her present? Christmas isn't until tomorrow."

"Oh, Malfoy came to Hogsmeade and they made special arrangements for her to be able to visit him today. Seeing as they won't be together tomorrow, she opened her present today when she was with him," Sirius explained.

"So Lucius Malfoy got his girlfriend a quill and a pair of home knitted socks that he didn't even knit himself," Lily summed up. "James, never get that for me."

Looking scared at that idea, James quickly said, "Don't worry. I have more sense than that."

"You don't want a quill for Christmas?" Sirius asked. "Damn. There goes my present for you."

"Cute, Sirius," Lily said in a voice that suggested that what he had said was, in fact, anything but cute, "but I already know what you got me, and a quill it wasn't."

"How do you - you peaked, didn't you!" Sirius accused. "You went into my room and found your present, didn't you!"

"Sort of. I told you, I'm not very good with surprises."

"Did you have enchantments set up around your presents so that we couldn't peak, Sirius?" Remus asked.

"Actually, I lied," he admitted. "It was too much trouble to actually set up, so I just told you guys that if you went looking for your presents you would be tripping off a curse."

"That's not fair," Peter protested.

"Why not?" Sirius asked. "It worked, didn't it?"

"Not in Lily's case, it didn't," said Remus.

"I didn't hear about this supposed curse until now," Lily told him.

"But would it have stopped you if you had?" Remus asked.

"Maybe," Lily said. "Probably."

Putting his arm around Lily's shoulder, James said, "Lily would have to have fallen for it in the first place."

As she leaned into him, Lily responded, "James, your entire room is booby trapped. If I had heard Sirius had cursed the presents, I would have believed it."

"Shh," James said in an exaggerated whisper. "I'm trying to help you here."

"Oh, like they'd believe that I was the only one not to fall for Sirius pretending to curse his gifts," Lily said. The thought was appreciated, but unnecessary. She shoved her plate away, and immediately the remains of her dinner disappeared. "Is everyone ready to go?"

Eyeing his empty plate, Peter said, "No, I think I'll get seconds."

"Mmm," Sirius said. "That sounds good. Seconds for me, too."

Remus pointed to his plate, which still had food on it. "I'm not finished yet."

"I'm finished," James said, also pushing his plate away. "Where do you want to go?"

Lily shrugged. "I don't care. Let's go for a walk."

"Okay. See you later." This was to his friends. He and Lily left.

Outside the snow had stopped falling. The stars were shining and the moon, less than half-full, was looking down on the snow, giving the landscape a beautiful bluish tint. It was still cold out, so Lily summoned their winter coats down from their rooms, and they wrapped themselves up tightly.

They walked in silence, the only sound coming from their boots crunching as they stepped on the snow. Lily breathed out softly, watching as her breath crystallized in front of her.

"It's beautiful out tonight," Lily said. They had stopped by a couple of trees, just out of the sight from the castle so that they could have privacy in case anyone came along.

"It is," James agreed. He leaned in and kissed her.

Out of nowhere, a snowball came flying at them, hitting them both in the face, and forcing them apart. Not bothering to look for the source, Lily clenched her hands into fists and yelled, "Sirius!"

But when she turned around and saw Sirius' mouth hanging open in genuine shock, Peter looking at Remus in amazement, and Remus doubled over laughing, she realized that for once - maybe even the first time - Sirius hadn't been the instigator. "He's just a bad influence," she muttered, "corrupting everyone he meets."

James, on the other hand, had wasted no time trying to figure out who had thrown the snowball. As soon as it hit him, he was bending over, gathering up snow of his own. He belted Remus with a snowball at about the same moment Lily realized that he had been the one to hit them.

Remus stopped laughing and began to sputter, causing James to crack up. He was laughing long, either, since Sirius, always one to get right into the spirit of things, threw a snowball at James. Not wanting Peter to feel left out, Lily threw one at him.

Within seconds a snowball fight had broken out. It lasted until quite a while later when Sirius and James teamed up to massacre the others. Even though they were outnumbered two to three, they still managed to pelt out ten times more snowballs than the other three combined. Finally, Lily, covering her head with her hands, yelled, "I give up!"

"Me too!" Peter said immediately.

Lowering a snowball, Remus said, "I guess I do too."

"Ha!" Sirius exclaimed. "We won! We are the ultimate champions of the world!"

James, his cheeks rosy from being outside, but his eyes sparkling, asked, "Was there ever any doubt?"

Knowing that the boys would get even bigger heads, if that were even possible, if she didn't do something, Lily said, "Fine, boys. If that helps you sleep at night, far be it for me to tell you otherwise. Let's go inside. My hands are numb." The last bit was true; the snow had soaked right through her mitts.

Taking her hands in his, James rubbed them, trying to warm them up. "That better?"

Sirius groaned. "The lovebirds are at it again. Let's go get some hot cocoa from the kitchens."

James waved them away. "You guys go ahead. Lil and I will me you back in the common room. Bring us back some cocoa, will you?"

"Sure thing," Sirius said as they took off.

"What if I wanted to go to the kitchens, too?" Lily asked.

"Trust me," James told her, "you'll like this better." He grabbed her hand and started leading her back to Gryffindor Tower.

Almost having to jog to keep up, and having had her curiosity peaked, Lily asked, "What is it?"

"It's a surprise," James told her. He refused to say anything else until they reached the common room. "Wait here," he told Lily before running up the stairs to his room.

Sitting down by the fire, Lily spent the few minutes it took for James to come back downstairs drying off and wondering what James was up to.

She looked up when she heard him come back down the stairs. He was running down so fast that she was afraid he was going to trip. In his hand he held a small gift-wrapped box.

"Merry Christmas," he said breathlessly, holding out the gift for her to take.

Lily looked at him in astonishment. "What's this?" she asked.

"I didn't think you'd want to wait another day, so I'm giving you part of your Christmas present now," James told her. "Sirius and the others knew, that's why they went down to the kitchens - to give us some time alone." He rocked back and forth on his heels impatiently. "Well? Open it."

Needing no further urging, Lily tore into the wrapping paper. Inside was a jewellery box that opened up to reveal a matching necklace and earring set. The necklace was a string of matching pearls and the earrings were tear shaped, mad of gold with a small pearl resting at the bottom of each.

Her mouth hanging open slightly, Lily breathed, "They're beautiful."

Beaming, James said, "I hoped you'd like them."

"Like them? They're gorgeous."

He took out the necklace and carefully put it on her. "I saw them in Hogsmeade back in October, but didn't have enough money with me. The next time I went, they had been sold, so I had to have them specially ordered. That's why I got them today - they weren't in yet."

"And here I thought you had forgotten about me," Lily said.

"Never," James said, kissing her cheek. "Merry Christmas Lily."

"Merry Christmas James."

The End
Monday, December 24, 2001

I've taken a little bit of creative licence with the Unicef cards. Not being from England, I don't know how the greetings go on them. I can only use the Canadian ones as an example. Even then, I don't think any of them actually say 'Happy Christmas' or 'Merry Christmas', but rather 'Seasons Greetings' or 'Peace on Earth'. You'll have to stretch your imaginations a bit. http://www.unicef.org is the official page. If you'd like to buy their cards (and I'd suggest you do - it's for a good cause, and they're pretty) go their and then go to your regional page.

I really don't know any language besides English, unfortunately, so I apologize if I've gotten one of the greetings wrong. Okay, so I'm pretty sure Joyeux Noel is right, but at the same time I'm pretty sure the Russian (Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva i s Novim Godom) is wrong. I tried looking it up, but I found several variations. Even then, I have a sneaky suspicion that it translate roughly into "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" instead of just "Merry Christmas". Or "Happy Christmas".

To anyone who can write house-elves, congratulations. It's *hard*.

In the baking scene, I skipped the requisite flour-fight scene. Sorry guys, but I'm sure practically every other story that has a baking scene has one, so go find one of those instead.

I can't think of much else. Merry Christmas to everyone out there who celebrates it. Happy Holidays!

~Trinity Day