Catch Me If You Can
Chapter Nine ll Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
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[ You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm
telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
He's making a list
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who's naughty
and nice
Santa Claus is coming to town
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows
if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!
Oh! You better
watch out!
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus
is coming to town
Santa Claus is coming to town ]
Christmas day.
Struggling feebly through thick, scarlet curtains was a small ray of pale light. Enclosed in her own, comfortable darkness was Lily, who was still sound asleep at seven o'clock, Christmas morning.
How very odd.
Lily found it exceedingly hard to get up on cold mornings; in fact, she found it a rather punishable chore.
After having a furious debate with herself, Lily decided that she must simply must awake and open her presents. So stifling a yawn, she crept out slowly and slid her crimson curtain of her four-poster bed away.
She was flooded with extreme white light, which almost blinded her. Giving a yell, Lily rolled back into her bed, dropping her curtain so that she was consumed in darkness once again.
After attempting for another three times, she managed to get out of bed properly on the fourth time.
Glancing down at the pile of presents at the end of her bed, she beheld an oddly misshapen creature lurking around.
She blinked.
The creature looked up at her. They also blinked. It's eyes were huge, and a creepy luminous yellow.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Luckily, Lily was the only girl still in her dormitory. The other girls had gone back home for Christmas.
After her screaming extravaganza, Lily gasped and rolled backward on her bed. She tumbled off the edge and landed onto the carpet with a thud. The redhead dared to peer over the edge of her bed, and saw that bewitched creature again.
Cautiously creeping nearer to her present pile, the creature suddenly leapt right in front of her.
"AHHHHH!"
Lily scrambled several feet away from the brown creature, that looked most anxious and apologetic.
"Oh miss! Essilie is awful sorry miss! Essilie was only here to deliver Miss Lily Evan's Christmas gifts and was about to leave!"
What the...?
Lily crept a little bit more closer to the creature, studying it more carefully.
It looked most peculiar; a small straggly figure, with creamy brown skin and large yellow eyes aforementioned. It was wearing a pale blue pillowcase that looked as if someone had made it into a sort of dress. Two silk white ribbons were tied around each pointed ear.
"Oh -- um -- it's okay, really... I was just a little surprised, you know..." Lily said uncertainly.
The creature beamed up at her, and Lily smiled back, though she was still uncertain. She watched a few more seconds as this odd figure scuttled around, obviously finishing the last of her jobs of delivering Lily's presents.
The redhead finally mustered enough confidence to ask, "Err -- excuse me -- but -- what... what are you?"
"Oh!" the creature turned to Lily, beaming, and performing a low, deft curtsey, "Essilie is a noble, respected house-elf, miss. Essilie works at Hogwarts, miss, for the wonderful Albus Dumbledore, miss!"
"Ooooh!" Lily said, wondering why she hadn't made the connection before, "Oh, how nice. Do you enjoy working?"
Essilie looked confused, "Enjoy, miss? Oh miss, we house-elves don't think whether or not we enjoys the work, miss."
"Oh, okay," Lily was now the one who looked confused.
Essilie's ugly face broke out into a beam.
"It was very nice meeting you, Miss Lily, but Essilie must go back now!"
"Oh, okay," Lily said again, "It was very nice meeting you too, Essilie."
"Goodbye, miss!" Essilie did another curtsey, before she scampered away, and disappeared from Lily's dormitory.
Lily watched as Essilie left, then shook her head. Well, that had certainly been odd.
Her eye caught the pile of presents, and she moved forward to take the gift on top. She unwrapped it slowly, feeling happy that it was Christmas morning.
James Potter and Sirius Black, the only occupants in their dormitory for Christmas, were having a present-unwrapping competition.
They did not seem to notice the actual presents beneath the wrapping paper, but just the wrapping paper to be torn off as quickly as possible, before moving onto the next one.
"I win!" Sirius said triumphantly, after he had unwrapped his sixteenth and last gift.
"Oh, darn it," James sighed, glancing at the accursed last three presents that still laid, unwrapped.
As Sirius began to pore through his actual presents, James unwrapped the last three. To his surprise, he found out that one of them was from his father, who had already sent him a gift.
Since when had his dad bothered to send him two presents?
This one seemed to floppy. It must be clothes, James thought grudgingly. Well, he saw no point in his father sending him clothes, when he had already sent him a kit on keeping a broomstick... now that was absolutely fantastic...
James tore the red wrapping off, and it was revealed that his father had given him a cloak. It was silvery, very light, very thin and seemed to be transparent.
"What's that?" Sirius asked curiously, emerging from his pile of items (presents).
"I don't know... A cloak?" James tried, swinging the cloak over him, "Dad sent it..."
"Holy foley hell!" Sirius exclaimed, almost choking on a Chocolate Frog.
"What? What's the matter?" James asked, feeling worried.
"Mate -- you're invisible!"
James' eyes widened, and he glanced down at his body. Sirius was right.
"Whoa! It's an Invisibility Cloak!"
A note fell from the cloak, and James bent down to pick it up.
Dear James,
Happy Christmas son! Well, here it is - my Invisibility Cloak. It's a Potter family heirloom, passed to the oldest child in the family. I would have given it to you earlier, but your mother didn't approve. Use it wisely.
Love,
Alex Potter (Dad).
"Whoa! Imagine all the stuff we could do after hours with this!" James exclaimed in a hushed voice.
"Now that sounds promising," Sirius said with a grin.
James went on opening the rest of his presents. After going through some spectacular ones from his family, he came down to his the gifts his friends had sent him.
Since something called friendship existed between Lily and James sometimes, they were permitted to give each other Christmas gifts. James had sent her a few flashy quills.
What Lily had sent to him was a box of fudge and a large packet of something else that James did not recognise. The stuff inside it were about half the size of the average human thumb; they were very fat and somehow banana shaped, with curvy ends rather than pointed ones. All of them were different coloured.
Inside the friendly Christmas card Lily had sent as well, contained a stiff message.
Those things in the other packet are jelly beans. They're Muggle candy and NO, they aren't poisonous.
James open the packet of these jelly beany things, picked out an orange one and popped it into his mouth.
"Did Lil send you candy too?" Sirius asked, through a mouthful of chocolate, "She gave me Chocolate Frogs and a box of fudge -- what are these?"
He was looking at the jelly beans, "You know what they remind me of? Bertie Bott's beans. Except these are bigger."
"Well, these are -- jelly -- beans," James responded simply, swallowing the jelly bean, "They're Muggle candy, and NO, they're not poisonous."
Sirius looked bemused.
"The one thing I don't like about Christmas is having to tidy this up..." James looked over their dormitory, which was covering in untidy wrapping paper, due to him and Sirius' competition.
Sirius grinned, "And also trying to find out what's the present and what's the wrapping paper."
He was looking at a present that someone had given him. It was just a new sheet of wrapping paper.
How very odd.
"Honestly, who would give wrapping paper as a Christmas present?" James asked in disbelief.
Sirius shrugged, "People who aren't quite right in the head."
"That's for sure..."
---
Lily hadn't made a huge mess like the guys' had. She had taken the wrapping paper off the presents carefully, and had taken time to actually have a look at the present itself.
She was in the process of unwrapping a gift that had been sent from Petunia. Petunia was usually quite good at giving presents, she understood what Lily wanted at whatever age was at.
Her older sister had gotten her a bead set, complete with different coloured beads, string and a little leaflet on how to make pretty necklaces, earrings, bracelets, etc;
That was nice of Pet, Lily thought with a smile upon her lips.
After she had unwrapped all of her presents, she put her gifts in their places, and neatened the stack of wrapping paper she had created.
"Hey Lily!" someone called.
She turned around and saw Sirius and James at the doorframe.
"Oh, happy Christmas!" Lily called back, turning back around to put away the last of her gifts.
James spied on the stack of wrapping paper.
"Whoa! Look, Siri! It's in perfectly good condition!" he cried, and he and Sirius rushed into the dorm and began to play with the wrapping paper.
"What in the name of crumb cake are you doing?" Lily asked dumbfoundedly.
She watched as James and Sirius tore up the shiny paper and chuck it around the room hysterically, like little children would.
"Alright, if you must do that... You're in charge of cleaning it up in the end," Lily instructed, sounding just like an impatient, weary mother of three. She disappeared into the bathroom.
"Oh, we will!" James and Sirius chorused to Lily's retreating back.
Five minutes later, the redhead was still in the bathroom, but the dormitory looked a bit ... dismantled.
"You know, if we make a run for it... Lily's going to kill us," James said uneasily, as the dormitory looked as if a missile had hit it.
"Yeah, of course she'll kill us," Sirius said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "But you know what, she's killed us about three times, and we're still here!"
"True," James said slowly, but he was smiling at the same time.
The two bolted for the door, but just as Sirius wrenched it open, some invisible force was dragging them back.
When they had reached to the middle of the dormitory floor, the force stopped. James turned around and saw Lily with her wand out.
"Oh no you don't!" Lily said accusingly, "You two aren't going anywhere until this dorm is spotless."
James pouted.
"Clean it up now or I will hex you!" Lily said, obviously trying another approach.
"Yes ma'am," Sirius saluted. He brought out his wand and managed, with James' help, to clear up the wrapping paper mess.
Soon, the room was 'spotless' and they could finally all go down to breakfast.
"So what did you guys get for Christmas?" Lily asked, on their way to the Great Hall.
"Sirius got wrapping paper," James snorted.
Lily cracked up.
"How random!"
"Yeah, whatever," Sirius murmured, "But James got an Invisibmerprhst--"
James had clapped his hand over Sirius' mouth, and shot him a look that plainly said, "Shut up."
Lily gave them a funny look, but didn't say anything.
When they had almost reached the Great Hall, Lily began to feel rather light. She saw glowing lights everywhere, the boys' voices began to go uncannily high and fast, everything blurred...
A couple of times, Lily staggered and almost fell flat on her face.
"Hey, are you alright?" James asked finally, as he helped the redhead back up for the fifth time.
Lily turned her head slightly to look at him, but then something seared across her mind.
"No, not aga--" she managed to say, before her entire body went limp and she collapsed onto the ground.
"Ah yes, not again indeed," James said, with a small moan. He crouched down beside Lily.
Sirius looked puzzled, and also a bit nervous. He sat down beside James.
"Hey James, can I ask you something? What's wrong with Lily? She's always collapsing, and it's starting to scare me. Is she okay? Is she sick, or something?"
"It's not easy to explain, y'know..." James said with a little sigh, glancing over Lily's colouring face.
"Well, you can explain. We have time," Sirius said consolingly.
"Oh -- alright then," James said, seeing no other way out of it, "Lily's part Wiccan."
"Oh... okay," Sirius looked even more lost, though it was odd considering he came from a family of respecatble pure-bloods and was warrant to know lots of things about the wizarding world, "Well... what in the bloody hell is that?"
"I don't even know," James admitted, "But it's something powerful... Dumbledore reckons she's got powers, and one of these powers is to receive premonitions -- you know, see things from the future and the past," he added at the lost look that had appeared on Sirius' face again.
"Whoa, that's freaky," he said blankly, looking astounded, "Well, I'm glad she's not ill or anything. But how does the collapsing bit fit into this?"
James shrugged.
"I really don't know... But every time she collapses, she gets a bit of the future or whatever... And I think it's because she's too young to handle premonitions, so she weakens every time, y'know?"
"I hope so," Sirius said, with a little nod.
There was silence.
"Uhh, how did you find out about all of this stuff?" Sirius finally asked.
James looked away; this was something he hadn't wanted to tell his best friend, for he had no idea how he was going to handle the news.
"Well... Dumbledore reckons... he thinks... he thinks I could be part Wiccan too..." James looked down at the stone floor, wondering what Sirius' reaction would be.
"Merlin, that's so cool!" Sirius exclaimed, "What, so have you got powers too--?"
Lily shot bolt right up, gasping for air.
Both Sirius and James turned to her.
"Welcome back," James said loftily, "Did you see anything interesting?"
Lily looked at him, still gasping, then at Sirius.
"I know who poisoned me on Halloween."
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---->A/N: Ooooh! Cliffhanger! Muahahahaha! --MSQ.