A/N- wheeee, I'm updating! Thanks so much to The all mighty and powerfulM, marauderbabe289, rachel132, DarkHuntress, Kita, Tari, and Shuichi66 for reviewing!!! You all rock!

And without more delay…

"Bye Lily!" Claire, Rose, and Ayrah chorused as they set off to the train. Lily waved back merrily but inside felt anything but. All her friends were going home for Christmas, but Lily really had no desire to hear the word 'freak' one more time from Petunia if she went home so she decided not to. Christmases weren't any fun anymore anyway ever since her parents died.

"Bye Lily! Early happy Christmas to you!" Peter said before jogging towards the train.

"Bye Peter," Lily said, but without much enthusiasm.

"Take care Lily… and don't let James get to you," Remus said as he passed by.

Lily frowned. That was probably one of the main reasons she was upset- she'd be in the Gryffindor tower with only James and Sirius to keep her company. As if they were any improvement from no company at all. "Since when do I ever let him get to me?" She replied haughtily to Remus who decided against answering truthfully to that and left shaking his head a little.

Lily stood and watched the last of her friends leave her alone with the most notorious of the Marauders, but then dismissed the thought as being melodramatic and turned to go back to the tower. Before she was poked in the side.

"Sirius!" She screamed. The air beside her giggled. Lily sighed in exasperation and reached over and tugged and the Invisibility Cloak came off spectacularly. She narrowed her eyes at him before setting a brisk pace towards the Gryffindor Tower with James' cloak in hand.

"Lil-leeeeeeeeeeeeee!" Sirius whined as he matched her pace and attempted to grab the cloak back. "Jamsie is going to kill me if you take that!"

"As if he wasn't going to kill you from your insanity anyway," Lily said to Sirius who pouted.

"How'd you know that anyway?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Oh, I don't know… Lucky guess? By the way Sirius, while we're on the subject of James, here's a direct command from both of us," (Sirius started jumping up and down squealing childishly that Lily had said 'us' at that point and only quieted down after a withering glare.) Lily continued on as if she wasn't interrupted, "Do not try and get us together."

Sirius shrugged. "Okay." Lily stared for a moment.

"That's it? One single word of consent from you? You'll comply to our wishes just like that?" Lily asked incredulously.

"Unless you don't want me to," said Sirius concealing his excitement.

"Of COURSE I want you to!" Lily said rather loudly causing some people to stare. She ignored them. Sirius felt his excitement die down a bit. Oh well, he still had that brilliant plan… "Oh! I know what you're getting at Black! You are going to say that you won't try anything at all so then James and I will let down our guards and we won't be expecting anything when POW -all of a sudden you'll spring some kind of trap on us! But you won't be doing this until very much later when we've finally been convinced that you won't try anything at all. Except that's not going to happen because guess WHAT Sirius? I've found out your plan and it won't work anymore. And if you try to set us up together regardless of the fact that I've found out your plan I will hex you into the next century!" Lily huffed and stalked into the Common Room.

Sirius blinked. "Wow that girl seriously overthinks." He smiled wickedly of the thought of Lily on the lookout during the whole break expecting him to shove her and James into each other at any moment when in fact he really wasn't planning anything. It would be foolish (he decided) to do anything while the others were gone. There would be no one to hide behind when Lily and James went to curse him.

Lily shoved the cloak into James's hand. "Sirius gave me his word that he wouldn't try to set us up together during break, but since he said that I think that he'll actually just wait for us to believe him and then spring a trap on us when we're least expecting it," she stated matter-of-factly.

James looked up from his sprawled position on the couch where he had been reading Quidditch Through the Ages. "Come again?"

Lily sighed irritably and shook her head. "Nevermind."

James placed his invisibility cloak on the other side of him absentmindedly and began to continue reading. Then he noticed the cloak. Wait a moment…

"LILY!!!!!"

A disgruntled Lily descended down the staircase. "What?" she snapped.

"This is my cloak." James said gesturing to the heap of silvery material next to him.

"And?" Lily asked, her eyebrows raised.

"You just gave it back to me," James stated.

"Yes?"

"Which MEANS that you had it in your possession!" James shouted as he picked up and hugged the silvery material close to him.

At this, Lily's eyebrows went higher. "Please, James, trying to sound smart as you reach your conclusion does not match up at all with jealous actions of a three-year-old. And for your information, I took the cloak from Sirius who was using it to poke me."

James narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Is she telling the truth?" he asked his cloak. The cloak, being a cloak, did not give an answer. But James tilted his head to the side and stared intently at the cloak as if it really were telling him something. Then he nodded. "Alright Lily, I'll let you off this time," he said sternly.

Lily rolled her eyes.

"And about that… I've been thinking," James said as Lily mustered up all her self-control not to ask whether it was a first. "You, Sirius, and me are the only 7th years left at the castle this Christmas. And you know, Christmas is all about giving and such, so…"

"Please get to the point," Lily said trying to sound polite.

James gave a tiny glare. "Basically, I'm proposing a truce over break. I won't annoy you, you won't hit or yell at me. If we're about to fight, we leave the room before anything happens."

Lily stared at James trying to read what was behind his hazel eyes, but she couldn't see anything. She nodded slowly. "All right then…" she agreed warily wondering if she was going to regret her choice.

It had been the right choice though, Lily soon found out. Though there had been many complications in the truce at first, leaving Sirius in the Common Room alone started to become a rarer occurrence, and Sirius was especially gleeful. The three 7th years spent their break outside in vicious snowball fights, inside talking, in the kitchens where they caused the house elves to go into raptures of delight from compliments, and roaming the castle. Many times, conversation between James and Lily was stiff, but, as Sirius noticed, not forced.

"Where to today Sir Sirius?" James asked in his most gallant, knight-ly voice.

"I'm not sure. What does Lady Lily say?" Sirius asked turning to look at Lily.

"Excuse me," Lily replied back haughtily with a sniff. "I do believe that my title is princess. Please address me as such."

"Oh what a terrible mistake!" James said deciding to play along after a brief internal struggle.

"Please Princess! Don't kill me!" Sirius wailed as he threw himself at Lily's feet and grabbed the hem of her robe. "It was a simple mistake!"

Lily grimaced and tugged her robes from his grasp. "From a simple person."

Sirius grinned and bounced up again. "So, where to, Princess Lily?"

"Honestly Sirius, I can't believe you just threw yourself at Lily's feet," James remarked with a touch of disgust.

"Oh? And I'm not good enough to be revered and worshipped?" Lily asked. James blinked. He had not seen that one coming. And it was Christmas Eve, he didn't want to have a fight on Christmas Eve! He began to turn away but then heard Lily laugh. "Don't be stupid James." He bristled a bit at the reprimand. "I was joking."

"Oh." Was his intelligent response to this. Lily rolled her eyes.

Sirius whined. "You still haven't answered my question yet, Lily!!!"

"Well, I dunno. Aren't you two supposed to be Marauders? You know the school better. You find somewhere to go," Lily replied.

James gasped. "Did Miss Lily Evans just say that we know something better than her, Sirius?"

Sirius nodded gravely. "I do believe so, James."

"Oh shut it, you two," Lily said accompanied with a glare.

"To the kitchens it is then," Sirius said and capered out of the Portrait hole with Lily and James running to keep up.

The wailing sound of a horn awoke Lily the next morning. She groaned and rolled over before screaming. "SIRIUS!!!! JAMES!!! GET OFF THE BLOODY STAIRCASE AND LET ME SLEEP!!!!!!"

But the wailing noise continued and she heard the mirthful laugh of Sirius and a small chuckle from James. "Ugh. Let them laugh, they're just have to slide down that staircase until I want to come back down," Lily muttered before trying to block out the noise. But a knock on her door stopped her plans.

"Um, you're Lily Evans the Head Girl right?" A timid-looking 5th year asked.

"Yes," Lily snapped not appreciating having her sleep interrupted.

"Could you please… um… go down? Sirius Black and James Potter want you to go down and they won't let us sleep until you do..." the girl said and trailed off.

"FINE," Lily snarled as the girl took a step back and ran to her dormitory. "I am going to have their heads for this," she muttered and went down the staircase.

"Hello Princess. You look ravishing today," Sirius said offering her an imaginary rose.

Lily, of course, looked a bit short of ravishing that Christmas morning. Her nightclothes were wrinkled, her long red hair mussed, and she was alternately glaring and blinking the sleep from her eyes.

James laughed. "And you're quite the morning person I can tell."

Lily was about to retort when she yawned widely. "What the heck did you make me come down for anyway? It's way too early in the morning!"

"Merry Christmas to you too!" Sirius said happily beginning to dance around the room.

"It was his idea," James said jerking his thrumb over his shoulder at Sirius. "He wanted you to come to our room and open your presents there so we could have a, and I quote 'big, happy present-opening!'"

"And why can't we all just open our presents downstairs?" Lily asked.

"Because it took me forever to train the house elves to arrange my presents nicely and artistically and you can't make me ruin it!" Sirius said petulantly stopping his dance around the room. James rolled his eyes.

"So now I'm the one that has to carry all my presents over to your room?" Lily asked scowling. "Anyways, I'm not allowed up there. I'm a girl."

"Oh come on. No one follows those rules anyway," James said.

"Excuse me? You're the Head Boy! You shouldn't be saying stuff like that! As the Heads we're supposed to uphold the rules, not encourage people to break it!" Lily shrieked.

"So you're scared to come to our big, bad room?" James scoffed.

"I am NOT! Just watch me!" Lily huffed as she stalked to her room and easily levitated all her presents with a flick of her wand and walked down the stairs again and without a glance at the two boys, walked right up the opposite staircase. James and Sirius shrugged and followed her.

She walked up the winding staircase holding her wand steady, careful to maneuver her presents away from the walls so that none bumped into something and broke. She climbed the staircase step by step passing by numerous wooden doors when-

"Um, Lils?" Sirius asked tentatively to a fuming Lily.

"Don't call me that!" Lily said and turned around abruptly, one of her larger presents barely missing Sirius's nose. It was only his Quidditch training that made him duck just in time.

"Lily," Sirius amended. "You passed our room," he said motioning to the door she had just passed. She scowled and pushed open the door.

"I knew that."

"Sure you did Lils-ly," Sirius said skeptically. James snorted.

Lily ignored them. She was too busy looking at their room.

"Wow," she breathed.

"Mind moving?" James asked sarcastically, but for once Lily didn't notice though she did slap him out of habit. She was still staring at the room.

The Marauders' room was nothing like the pigsty that she'd imagined. The curtains of their canopy beds had been changed from scarlet velvet to a shimmer cloth of red, green, and white. The ceiling was crisscrossed with muggle Christmas lights and around the room were wreaths of holly. Poinsettias peeked from every corner and in the center of the room was a colossal Christmas tree complete with ornaments. Lily was dimly registered the fact that Christmas carols were playing in the background. She hadn't seen a room so cheerfully decorated with Christmas spirit since the days she went home for Christmas when her parents were alive.

James broke the moment. "I told Sirius and Remus that it was a bit too girly with the flowers and wreaths all around, but they wouldn't listen."

Lily shook herself. "No, no. It's beautiful!"

"Exactly," James said and pushed past her. Sirius was already in the room bouncing on his bed, and Lily went in and sat directly underneath the Christmas tree.

"Look Lily!" Sirius said pointing at his present pile… which was not a pile. There was a tower of seven packages that looked the same but in different wrapping paper and Lily recognized her own present to him in the tower. She worried for a moment that all seven packages were the same but shook the silly thought out of her head. Around the tower were other packages forming a circle, and around that another circle. She noticed that the outer circle all had tags that said things like 'To Siri! Luv ya!' with the I's dotted with hearts. Those would be from his admirers then. And then, forming a platform underneath the other presents were many presents (exactly the same size she noted) that formed a square.

"I'm so glad the elves got it right this year! It's their last chance. You see it actually take a long time to organize this sort of thing," Sirius said as if he were a teacher. "First, you gotta send a note to every admirer in the school that presents sent to Sirius Black must be put in a 5x5x5 box. Then you have to tell the house elves how to arrange this: In the middle there will be a tower of presents from my friends. Silly little creatures kept on putting my girlfriends' presents in the middle as well. But no. The girlfriends' presents as well as other friendly acquaintances are put in the innermost ring. Then around that is the admirer's ring. The chief and more prominent admirers' presents are placed there. Underneath everything is the admirer's square. That's where my normal admirer's presents go," Sirius finished. Lily gaped at him.

"Yeah, he's mental. He kept on harping on the elves everytime they got it wrong and placed some admirer in the wrong place or something," James said as he sat in the middle of a big pile unwrapping a present. "Sirius? Who's Lisa Dunhy?"

"Lisa Dunhy. 4th year Hufflepuff, brown shoulder-length hair with blue eyes. Giggles a lot," Sirius replied promptly as he began to unwrap the first package from his tower of presents from his friends.

Lily shook her head in amazement and began to unwrap her presents. She had definitely misjudged the Marauders.

A/N- hope you enjoyed it! Sorry that nothing too important happened in this chapter, but I just decided to make this Christmas-y chapter a turning point for Lily and James. To tell you the truth, I kinda got annoyed with writing their fights too. Anyway, thanks for reading! -