"How did Remus and Sirius manage to pay for the ice skates

Disclaimer: All characters here belong to J.K Rowling, and I suppose Warner Bros as well. O.o;

My deepest sympathies are with the victims and their families in last weeks attack. May God have mercy on their souls, and kill all the terrorists.

"How did Remus and Sirius manage to pay for the ice skates?"

Huh? They bought ice skates too?"

"3 pairs."

"Jamesee! You're going to skate too?!"

"Nuh uh uh uh uh. You know I'm …" James paused, and lowered his voice so that Lily could hardly hear him. "You know!"

"Yes, you're scared of ice, aren't you…" mused Lily, not bothering to keep her voice down.

"Lily!" hissed James, looking around quickly, as if expecting Severus Snape to jump out and laugh at him.

"Oops. Sorry." Lily grinned sheepishly and turned around, walking til she was in front of the toy store they just passed.

James mumbled something, but at Lily's request for him to repeat himself, he just pretended he never heard her, and darted past into the store, a tad red.

It was a new toyshop; different from the one they had been thrown out of. It was as if the shop had se out alluring traps for Sirius and Remus, just placed right there, with no security guards or anything. Lily was positive they were in there.

As she stood in the doorway and thought about random stuff calmly, like girls often do (AN: complicated girls minds…they're hard to figure out O.o;), James bounced back to her, and, grabbing her arm, pulled her into the shop.

Ignoring her silent protest, he then set off to look at some model airplanes, which were remarkably realistic for mere toys. Just as he was considering making them able to self-fly, some whispers and giggles from the next aisle attracted his attention. Giving up on the planes for the moment, he crept to the end of his aisle, sticking his head around the corner and peeking into the next one. What he saw in there made him start to laugh, but he stifled it before the two teenagers in the aisle heard him, and he went to go find Lily to show her.

Lily was currently in the stuffed animal aisle, trying to decide what to give Sirius. It was a touchy subject with him, however, and only a select few ever got to meet Beano, his rather old stuffed rabbit, who was missing most of his fur and stayed, locked in comfort, in Sirius' room at his parents' house.

Therefore, it was with deep scrutiny that she chose a little owl, which wasn't really small, but not quite medium either, which stared at her from majestic, slightly scornful yellow button eyes.

Just then though, James came up her aisle, still giggling at infrequent intervals.

"Hey Jamesee, whatcha think of this for Sirius?"

He gave her a wounded look, which was only slightly ruined by the snicker that closely followed. "So you're buying Sirius a present before you buy mine?"

He turned to the sympathetic display of little bears, and whined "She doesn't love me anymore!"

She smiled and threw a dignified looking cow at him. "Course I don't. What do you want for Christmas?"

James pondered this for a second, before he remembered what he had come to find Lily for. Not bothering to answer her question, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to the aisle in question, wherefore she took one look and laughed out loud.

"Remus! Sirius! What are you doing?"

The two whirled around, their dresses flowing around between their knees and thighs, and gave two almost identical guilty grins.

"We're … uh ...practicing to be princesses!" replied Sirius, admiring his rather-too-small princess kit, which included a dress, elbow length gloves, rings, necklace and tiara, all pink and gray (AN: complimentary colours, I assure you =P).

"Yeah." Piped up Remus, who was wearing much the same, except his colours were violet and black. "I always wanted to be a princess."

"Yes… I see. You want them for Christmas?"

At this, Remus laughed. "Uh huh. I can just see McGonagall telling Sirius to be more ladylike…"

Sirius promptly "Ew"ed, while the others laughed.

"Anyway, let's go." Lily turned to find James putting on a red and gold princess dress

"Look guys! Quidditch dresses!"

"Really James. Cant' you be a bit more mature?" Lily mildly scolded, while the boys cracked up.

James turned to face Lily, putting a gold tiara on his head and grinning. "We're teenagers, Lil. Immaturity is all we've got. Besides. I know for a fact I look stunning in gold."

Remus giggled, while Sirius cheered, and Lily just gave up.

Snatching all three tiaras she ran down the aisle, giggling madly while they angrily yelled out after her, chasing her around the store.

Store clerks, less than amused after finding out that they weren't planning to buy anything (Lily decided against the owl: If it had to be an owl, it had to be really little), extended their stores hospitality to the area outside the doorway. Giving up their protests, the three boys turned to Lily.

"Where now, Lils?"

"Come on, let's go skating now. There's a lake in the park a few roads down."

The three exchanged wary glances. They weren't too sure about this.

AN: I don't know if there's a lake..but rinks wont cut it this time….need a lake for Christmassy background ^^ …never mind the fact that its not for another few months anywhere….It's enough to bring up the question "Why on earth write a Christmas story in summer?" I dunno… Go figure… anyway, hope you enjoyed it, sorry its so late, please review!

Cheers and white ferrets!! ^^