Disclaimer: I don't own the cutie boys...Or anyone else for that matter! But anyway...you get the point...JKR and Warner Brothers...Scholastic and all those people own Harry Potter and I don't.
A/N 20 Days until Christmas...20 days until I turn 15...
'Let's cross our fingers and hope for the best'--Chudley Cannons motto.
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Mr. Grinch
James Vs. Christmas. Will James Potter Finally Get In the Christmas Spirit?
By
Sierra Sitruc
To set the mood..."Hark how the bells,
sweet silver bells,
all seem to say,
throw cares away
Christmas is here,
bringing good cheer,
to young and old,
meek and the bold,
Oh how they pound,
raising the sound,
o'er hill and dale,
telling their tale,
Gaily they ring
while people sing
songs of good cheer,
Christmas is here,
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,
On on they send ,
on without end,
their joyful tone to every home
Dong Ding dong ding, dong Dong..."
Chapter 1
12 Days Until Christmas
There were only 12 days until Christmas left and every Hogwarts student was getting antsy, none more so of course then Lily Evans. Her dorm room (much to her room mates' distaste) was covered with muggle decorations--lights, ornaments, little pine trees, wreaths, miniature Santa Clauses and his deer etcetera, not to mention her clothing. Everyday you could expect to see Lily decked out in red or green--not counting her hair and eyes- Christmas was definitely her season.
Then of course she had her wizarding additions to the decorations...The most annoying being a singing candy cane that sprouted legs and danced about whenever a Christmas tune was hummed or sang around it...Which was very frequently with Lily around.
Everyone was used to this of course, the first years had already gotten accustomed to it and the only ones annoyed by this, were presumably...The Slytherins and the Marauders. Now the Slytherins hated anything a muggleborn Gryffindor did, and the Marauders hated anything a Lily Evans did.
If you wanted an explanation on why anyone could hate cheerful fifteen year old Lily, you'd get this.
It started back in 3rd year when competition was getting fierce in Quidditch and grades...No one beat James Potter in those two areas. Until young Lily Evans dared to challenge him. Her grades topped his and her Quidditch skills matched his perfectly.
Ever since then, James referred to Lily as the snobby stuck up nerd and the Marauders faithfully loyal, backed him up. Lily didn't care, she was just glad someone had finally put him in his place, even if it had to be her.
Jingle...
Jingle...
Jingle!
"Oh no." Sirius Black moaned loudly, in the Gryffindor Common Room. "Here comes Evans with her--'decorations'." He pointed out to Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew and James Potter--the Marauders. There was Lily Evans coming down from the girls' dormitories, today bells were tied up in her hair and every step she took a little jingle was heard--okay, a very loud jingle.
A few people laughed and Lily stumbled in the room with an odd look on her face. Normally she was all smiles and giggling by now-- but that morning she looked deep in thought--and not to be disturbed.
So of course, James had to interrupt her mood. "Evans, going for the sleigh horse look today?"
Lily looked at him for a second before saying, "Happy Christmas to you, too, Mr. Grinch."
James couldn't say much to that except, "Who's Mr. Grinch?" He demanded. "What kind of insult is that?!"
Several muggleborns laughed, and Lily took it to her heart to explain. "The Grinch, is a muggle--story thing. He hates Christmas and tried to steal it."
Peter looked appalled. "What?! Steal Christmas?"
"It's okay Pete--it's just a story." Sirius said, reassuring him--Sirius himself was a muggleborn.
Peter sighed and looked relieved--he did enjoy his presents. "I wouldn't think of stealing Christmas...I'd just ruin it." James said grinning wickedly.
Lily glared. "Don't be such a poor sport, just because you don't get any presents--."
"I get plenty of presents, thank you very much. I have more friends then you!"
"Sure you do, Mr. Grinch." Lily grinned, and James wrinkled up his nose.
"It's not fair to insult someone when they don't know how your insulting them!"
"It's not much of an insult...Unless you think being called a green hairy beast with no heart is an insult." Lily twittered. Crossing her arms and smirking.
"Well, that's fine with me, because I don't think that's an insult." James snapped. Lily just quirked an eye brow at him.
"Really, you need to take muggle studies." Lily sighed and started to walk away, when suddenly a loud squawking sound came from the stairway and Lily cringed.
Suddenly a small speckled bird came flapping down the stairs and landed right on Lily's shoulder. Clawing at her in the process.
The entire common room laughed and Sirius yelled out. "Where's your pear tree Evans?!"
"Upstairs actually." Lily said solemnly, it only made Sirius laugh harder. Lily's best friend Olivia Sprocket suddenly showed up looked flustered.
"Sorry Lils! It escaped when I was coming down!" Olivia squeaked, trying to remove the bird from her friend's shoulder.
"It's okay Olive, I don't know WHAT we're going to do with it." Lily sighed.
"May I inquire where it came from?" Remus said tentatively, speaking for the first time.
Lily snorted, "My guess is, it's somebody's idea of a joke."
"Or somebody wants to be...Your true love." James quoted the song 'The 12 Days Of Christmas', laughing.
Lily and Olivia glared viciously, "James don't be an arse." Olivia spat, she detested James Potter for the way he treated Lily--for no reason at all.
"Hey, at least I'm not the one with a pet partridge in my room." James said, grinning and he and his friends retreated from the room.
"He's just jealous because no one admirers him." Olivia said knowledgably. Lily nodded vaguely along. She was very curious to find out who would send her a partridge in a pear tree, she secretly wished that someone sent it out of admiration, but the chances were it was a joke gift from James.
Then the two headed off to breakfast, Lily continuing to jingle and the partridge was locked inside the common room.
As they enter the Great Hall--the first thing Lily heard was James' voice loudly saying how much he hated Christmas.
Lily was of course appalled that anyone could even think of hating Christmas. It was the best day of the year! He'd better have a good excuse--because Lily Evans was about to confront him.
"James!? How could you HATE Christmas!?" Lily growled, and James looked up at her blinking stupidly.
"Easy. I just do." Several people gasped. Imagine, the girl who loved Christmas was confronting the boy who hated Christmas.
Lily just gaped at him for about 10 seconds, completely speechless. Finally she managed to stutter out, "H-how--w-what? WHY!?"
"Because, Christmas is just an excuse for people to get all happy and cheery and spend their money, and all that other materialistic junk, that's why." James said grumpily.
"James Potter! Christmas isn't about that! Christmas is about love--and being with family and--."
"My family's dead." James said coldly and Lily shut her mouth in an instant.
She spoke again but softly, "Sorry...But that doesn't give you a good excuse for hating Christmas."
James looked up at her, focusing his bespectacled gaze on her intently. "No, it doesn't."
There was no more speaking between the two for the rest of the meal.
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There was a prefect meeting that day, so Lily found herself trapped beside James. His constant taunting and teasing was enough to drive anybody crazy--but Lily was not anybody, she liked to think of herself as--somebody.
"Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells." Lily sang loudly, drowning out James' "Jingle Bells, Evans Smells." James could be very immature when he wanted to be.
"Quiet down, prefects!" Roger Billycans, the Head-Boy shouted over the noise in the room. "Now, getting down to business." He said after everyone got quiet. "How many of you are staying here this Christmas?" Lily and James raised their hands and when they discovered they were the only ones doing so, they both felt their tempers rise.
"Good, since there are at least two prefects here, I won't have to stay." Roger said happily.
"Stupid Billycans." James grumbled, slumping in his seat.
"It's not his fault. Where's you Christmas spirit James?" Lily whispered to him.
"In my other pants." James answered.
Lily rolled her eyes. "You are pathetic."
"I never said I wasn't." Lily rolled her eyes again.
"Don't forget--since you two are here, you are in charge of ALL the students and keeping up regulations." Lily and James were very happy almost all the students went home for Christmas. They would only be in charge of about--15 students--20 tops. "This also means--you are in charge of helping Flitwick with the decorations."
Lily grinned and James groaned.
"Flitwick assigned you two all the hallways and staircases--balconies...And of course the bit of trim everywhere outside. He covered everything else."
"What else is there?" James muttered.
"The Great Hall, all the classrooms, the common rooms--oh well, you two have to do the Gryffindor Common Room too--sorry."
"Ack!" James said grimacing.
"'Tis the season to be jolly James!" Lily said brightly.
"'Tis the season to kill Lily, Evans." James hissed back. Lily just smirked and they went up to collect things they would need to use to decoration the castle.
"How many boxes--." Lily began to ask.
"37 boxes of Christmas Decorations. It won't take as long as you think." Roger informed them as he saw the look of horror on James' face.
"Obviously Billycans, you have never decorated with Evans." James said, sounding like he had just signed his on death sentence.
Lily charmed the boxes to float, and Roger called to them, "Get started--the sooner the better!"
Lily and James set the boxes down in a hallway and both wondered how their Saturday would be going.
They began shuffling through the boxes, bantering over what should go where and what they should use. In the end they decided on just a few wreaths and garlands.
They used their skills in charms to move everything around in the right position. Lily was busily putting up holly, singing to herself in her quiet voice. "Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la, la la la la." Singing the ending very loudly. She had made up her mind about five minutes ago, to get James in the Christmas spirit if it was the last thing she did.
And it my very well be so.
"Lily! Would you be quiet?!" James said, using her first name in frustration. He only called her Evans when he was jesting at her or just referring to her, but a lot of the time he would speak to her directly with her first name.
"Let me think about it..." Lily pretended to think. "No."
"Awe! Lily, please! I can't stand the singing, singing, singing!" James said, stomping his foot.
"Oh my! Now you REALLY remind me of the Grinch!" Lily said staring at him. James looked over at her from where he was attaching mistletoe to the ceiling in the center of the hallway.
"I still don't know who he is."
"How many times do I have to explain!?"
"Just kidding! Kidding! Calm down!" James laughed, enjoying teasing Lily, as always. Lily sighed, exasperated as she always was around James. She held up her wand and pointed it at him.
"James-whatever-it-is-your-middle-name-is-Potter! You better behave or NO and I repeat NO Christmas Cookies!" It was a known fact that Lily made cookies for every Gryffindor for Christmas morning, and they were delicious--even James admitted to it.
"Okay, fine, fine. Now who's the Grinch?" James grumbled.
Lily was suddenly fed up. James always tried to ruin her Christmas mood. Every year! 1st year, he'd opened all the windows in her dorm--letting in a blizzard. 2nd year he'd advanced to transfiguring her bed into a snow-bed! She'd woken up and thought she'd wet the bed...
3rd year James and the Marauders had trapped her under the mistletoe with Snape until she kissed him. Luckily, McGonagall had taken the spell off the mistletoe that kept Lily and Snape from moving more then a foot apart. 4th year James out did himself by stealing Lily's presents and replacing them with gag gifts...
"James Potter!" Lily said sternly, marching over to James--who only blinked at her owlishly, waiting for her to say more. She just stood in a battle stance form in front of him, wand held tightly in her hand.
James cleared his throat and nodded upward, a cocky grin on his face. Lily glanced up and saw it.
The mistletoe.
Lily looked at James.
James looked at Lily.
Lily gulped, squealed and ran off in the opposite direction.
"Well, that was an interesting confrontation." James muttered to himself.
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A/N I just LOVE you reviewers...No seriously, I do! I almost cried when I got home from school (after having an awful day) and saw 21 reviews on it!! It was probably just because you all felt sorry for me, but STILL, I'm feeling over emotional--thank the lord I was able to control myself.
Same rules apply. Next chapter will be up if it hits 41 really fast, if it doesn't...Sunday--Maybe Monday, I'm kind of busy. This story is actually all planned and everything, so it's easy to post quickly.
This chapter basically just introduces Lily, James and the rest--and what they're like. I think it gets better--I mean, I think the next chapter is better...But it keeps it's bit of innocent like attitude throughout the whole thing...I think. I'm never really positive with my stories.
Chapter 2:
Lily and James argue (as always) and Olivia and a boy snog. Lily decides James HAS to get into the Christmas Spirit, and reads him some Christmas stories...Why he puts up with THAT, I'll let you wonder about...
I have SO much homework tonight it's not even funny, so review and make me feel better--as I stay up until 3AM writing my debate case--why do I commit suicide by signing up for tourneys?
Just one more quick note--
This story WILL be complete by Christmas--Even If I have to kill myself to do it! I WILL get it done and all posted and such by then. When should the last chapter go up? Christmas Eve? Christmas Day? The 23rd?
PLEASE REVIEW!!!
It boosts my self-esteem. :-)
*~Sierra~*