Chapter 16 – Happy Christmas
The next few days flew by quickly for Lily. With all of her planning for Christmas, trying to figure out why only half of the prophecy happened to be with Intelligence, and trying to figure out if she was ready for a baby at this direct moment, it seemed like the week flew by before she could even blink. And before she knew it, Christmas Eve was there, and she was walking with James to his parents' house for a party.
"Why couldn't we just apparate?" James whined for the tenth time as they strolled along the snow covered sidewalks hand-in-hand, watching the carolers sing.
"Because I wanted to walk, that's why," Lily smiled as she pressed closer to James's side. She was starting to get cold, not that she'd admit that to James though. He'd gloat and come up with something like, 'I told you that it was to cold to go walking three blocks in a dress,' and she really didn't feel like hearing him gloat at the moment.
"But Lily," James whined again as he looked down at his wife. "I'm cold!"
"Well then, I guess that it's a good thing that we've arrived, isn't it then," she smiled back as she mounted the series of stone steps that led up to two large glass doors.
James looked up and realized that they were indeed at his childhood home, with its' tall windows, bold lines, and stone work, it looked out of place. The rest of the houses that lined the somewhat cluttered street all had wood paneling, and small windows.
James climb the steps and opened the door. The inside of the house smelled like cinnamon, peppermint, and pine. The hallways were decorated with holly and garland, and the fire crackled merrily to his left as he handed his jacket to a butler that was hired for the party.
He made his way towards the music room with his shoes clicking steadily on the gleaming hardwood floors, every now and again being muffled by a rug as he stepped on it.
"There you are! Lily was just starting to wonder where you got to!" Mr. Potter grinned as he came up beside his only son and looked over the crowd of heads that were mingling around. It seemed like everybody picked the same colors for the party. Green, red, gold, or silver, with some white's and blacks thrown in here and there too.
"Why must we come to these things?" James asked his father as he picked up a glass of red wine from the passing server.
"Because if we didn't, our wives would have our heads on platters and serve them for Christmas dinner tomorrow," Mr. Potter explained with a grin as he glanced at his wife, and winked at her when her gaze locked with his.
"Right. Forgot about that," James laughed as he waved to his father and plunged into the crowd of people.
~*~*~*~*~
Lily and James stayed longer than most of the guests, and stayed with his parents until 11:30 before deciding to head home to get a few hours of sleep before getting up in the morning.
The next morning they woke up to a gray sky, and the sound of waves beating against rocks.
"Happy Christmas, baby," James whispered groggily as he opened one eye, then quickly shut it again.
"Happy Christmas," Lily yawned before snuggling into James's warmth even more. Her pajama pant legs were bunched up around her knees though, and they were driving her crazy, so she sat up and reached under the heavy red comforter and pushed them down irritably.
"Mm. . . Come back," James groaned as he groped around for his wife's body.
"Come on, handsome, time to get – " she ended with a gasp as his hand accidentally molded her breast.
James cracked open one of his eyes to look at Lily. Her shoulders were tense, and her eyes were closed, which made him smile for some odd reason. "Wasn't what I was trying to grab, but I think that my hand has the right idea," James smirked as he flexed his fingers, causing Lily to groan in agitation.
"James," she moaned as he pulled her back onto he bed. "We need to get up, out of bed," she instructed, but was silenced with a kiss from two soft, warm lips.
Let's just say that they celebrated Christmas morning the best way possible. Wrapped up in the one you love.
It was a couple of hours later when the two actually got up out of bed, and started to get ready for the day. They were supposed to go and visit Lily's mom, and then go with her over to the Potter's, and then everybody was coming over to their house for dinner. Why they didn't just agree on celebrating in one place, they didn't know.
They made it to Alexandra's house minutes before the noon hour, and greeted her in the sitting room. She had been sitting in an overstuffed blue chair sipping hot coco, staring into the fire when they had entered the room. Now, she was sitting on the floor with her daughter and son-in-law, waiting for Petunia and her family to come over and visit.
"This feels weird," Lily admitted as she looked at the tree. "Last year I didn't come home for
Christmas, so I really didn't feel it as much, but now? It's like everything is missing. If Daddy was still here, everyone would be here, sitting on the floor, couches, chairs, anything that they could find, singing and laughing, and then we'd open presents. But it just doesn't feel right to do that tradition without him here. You know what I mean?" Lily asked as she looked at her Mother.
"Yes, I do. I was thinking about that minutes before you two came in," she admitted.
"Why are you all sitting on the floors?" Petunia asked, her voice ringing with disgust as she and her . . . large husband walked in the room, acting like they were royalty.
Lily rolled her eyes dramatically and smacking her hand against her forehead, said, "Oh the horror," causing James to smirk at his wife, and her mom to laugh cheerfully. "But anyways, Pet," Lily said in a normal voice as she leaned her head on James' shoulder and looked at her half sister, and laughed as she saw the blonde cringe at the old nickname. "We're on the floor because Sirius hexed all of the chairs and couches," she managed to say without a trace of a smile, and even put in a scowl for good measure.
"Him again? When will you get more mature friends Lily? You have got to grow up," Petunia sneered, causing Lily to laugh. "And you Petunia need to enjoy the holiday, lighten up! It's Christmas," Lily smiled cheerfully. She never could manage to be mean or in anything but a good mood on Christmas.
Vernon stared at Lily in a way that gave her the chills, making James sling a protective arm around her shoulders and glare menacingly at the chubby man with two chins. "And you Lily, need to learn how to control what you say to my wife," the man stated as he tried to lower himself to the ground.
Lily shook her head, and sighed. "The furniture isn't really hexed, you may sit on it if you wish to," she informed them as she looked back at her mother, and stared into the identical green eyes as she mouthed, 'I'm sorry,' to her.
"May we all survive this next hour," Alexandra muttered as she gather up the presents from under the tree.
~*~*~*~
After an hour of torture with Vernon and Petunia, Alex, Lily and James all headed over to the Potter's residence, and pretty much did the same thing, except with a cheerful atmosphere.
It wasn't long until Lily had strapped on an apron, and was cooking up what all needed to be cooked. The turkey was quickly finishing, thanks to magic, and she had already finished everything else, so she left the kitchen and headed towards the library, where her mother, and in-laws were, along with the Black's, Kayla, Aria, and Remus.
"Is the food done yet?" Sirius asked as he looked over at her.
Lily laughed and shook her head. "Never change Sirius. How can you stay that thin and eat the way that you do?" Lily wondered as she walked into the room and over to the chair James was sitting in before sitting in his lap.
"Fast metabolism I say," Mrs. Black informed Lily with a grin. "Which is the best thing that his father here passed down to him, seeing as they both could eat a whole supermarket out of food in one day and still be hungry." She joked, causing her husband and son shout indignantly.
"I can not eat a whole supermarket Mum!" Sirius yelled, causing his friends to laugh at him, knowing that if he was given the chance, he'd try.
"Hey, we need to finish opening our presents," Kayla announced as she drew all the rest of the presents in a circle.
"Right," Mr. Black smiled as he and the rest of the adults got up to go into another room, knowing what the kids idea was. They had always opened their presents together without anyone else around.
Lily got off of James's lap, and pulled him up and dragged him into the circle that had already formed on the cream colored rug in front of the roaring fireplace.
"Right-o!" Remus smiled as he handed Sirius his present.
Sirius greedily tore open the wrapping paper to reveal a magical snow globe that had a fire-breathing dragon inside of it, in memory of his escapades with the dragon while he was in training.
Sirius looked at the globe and laughed. "Thanks for the memory pal!"
The rest smiled and watched as he attacked the next gift, which turned out to be a hair supply kit, because he kept on complaining that his hair was getting in the way of his work – this was from Aria. He then got a wrist watch from Lily that said, 'To the brother I never had. Hope this makes you on time more often! Love, Lily.' And James had gotten him a muggle music set, which caused Sirius to pause in his gift opening and try to figure out how to work the thing, until Lily got up and flipped a switch, making him think that she had performed some kind of magic on it. And Kayla had gotten him a glass quidditch model.
Kayla received a diamond necklace from Sirius, a pillow from Aria which said, 'If it looks like I'm gonna bitch at ya', run,' and a box of books from Remus. Lily got her a stuffed animal, like she had every year, but this one was a lot like last years, except it was a white jaguar instead of a white tiger – Kayla's animagus form, and it moved and acted almost like a real animal. And then, James had gotten her a photo album that was filled with pictures of them all from the time that they had first met each other, till recent days.
James got a chessboard from Remus, because even though James sucked at chess, he was determined to beat someone at it one of these days. Aria got him a big box filled with chocolates, Kayla got him a watch that was exactly like Sirius's from Lily, and Lily got him an album that had pictures of only the two of them in it.
Lily got a gift certificate to Flourish and Blotts from Aria, a glass ball from Remus - who for some reason agreed with James's theory on Lily being able to see in the future, a basket of her favorite perfume and bath oils from Kayla, and a oval shaped locket that had a single diamond in the middle of it shaped like a tear from Sirius. James gave her a fairy figurine, along with a close to human sized figurine of the water fairy.
Remus got a few potion books from Kayla, a glass chessboard from James, a snow globe that had a couple of wolves moving around in it from Aria, and he got a big book supply on the Dark Arts from Lily, knowing that he had wished to teach the subject sometime in the future, and a statue of blowing trees from Sirius.
Aria received a globe with three animals in it – a white tiger, jaguar and fox, which all symbolized Kayla's, Lily's and Aria's animal forms, from Sirius, emerald earrings from Remus, a gift certificate for Flourish and Blotts from James, and a statue of a fairy sitting on a log with her wind blowing around her face.
By the time that they finished, the buzzer singling that the turkey was done started to ring, so Lily got up to go and check on it while the others picked up the mess that they had made while opening presents.
It took the five of them a little bit to clean up, because Sirius, during his excitement, had thrown paper every which way, and they didn't want to overfill the fireplace either, so they had to wait for the paper to get burned. After they were done, they went into the kitchen, washed their hands, and then walked into the dinning room, which has never been used before. The large mahogany table held platters of turkey, ham, potatoes, biscuits, gravy, cranberries, yams, and stuffing.
"Food!" Sirius yelled before he sat down quickly and tried to decide what he wanted to eat.
"You'll wait until we say grace," Mrs. Black frowned at her son.
Sirius mumbled a quiet apology and waited patiently for Mr. Potter to finish saying grace.
As soon as the final blessings went around, Sirius dived for the turkey, causing his friends and family to shake their heads in amusement. But then, they noticed that his and his fathers plates were already full of food, and they laughed.
It was good to be together for the holiday again. But they all felt like they were missing somebody.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Authors Note:
I know, this is short, but I'm sorry. I've been getting really stressed over school lately, my best friend ended up in a car accident, and is currently in ICU, and I just haven't been able to find time for my stories. I'm sorry, but I hope that you all understand.
I'm hoping that I'll be able to update in a few days. I've already started on the next chapter, so I don't think that it should take that long. But it also depends on if I have the time to get on the computer.
So, I'm sorry if I'm not able to get a chapter out to you all soon, but please realize that I'm trying my best too.
Well, hope you liked this chapter. Did it seem a little rushed to any of you?
If so, I might do this chapter over and post it at a later time.
Well, tell me what you think!
Mistress del Mare