Although it may not sound totally believable, but from late September through to mid December - the first main weeks of our real friendship - Lily never seemed to realise the true extent of my feelings for her. I didn't put this down to any great effort on my part (I was a prat around girls all the time, even more so around those I was besotted with), but somewhere at the back of my mind I knew Lily to be perhaps more innocent and naive than she would've liked people to think.
Lily was the kind of girl who never really got much recognition. She drifted between social groups like a butterfly in the breeze. Often for weeks on end she'd be the talk of Hogwarts and then she'd just fade into the background. I don't think many people knew her at all and just recognised the name. But then again, it was almost as if no one was able to really know Lily. She was unreachable. Unattainable. Elusive, even to the supposed elite of the school; if she'd maybe been a little more outgoing, she'd have definitely been on the highest social tier.
I was lucky. Being head students together gave us plenty of time to just hang out - usually in the Head's lounge where we may have caught each other in passing and remained to simply talk and joke in a way that I couldn't remember doing since those first nervous years at the school.
And it was great. I won't deny it, not to anyone. Lily was ... dazzling. The most radiant person in the whole student population, though few saw it.
The weeks to Christmas ran up on us all faster than usually and it was a beautiful snowy day as the Marauders made our way down the long twisting drive of Hogwarts. Gravel and frost crunched under four sets of feet in a steady rhythm as we walked in silence, Gryffindor scarves pulled up high around our necks, hands encased in gloves and shoved deep into pockets. Behind us was the loud chatter issuing from students' mouths accompanied by steaming puffs of warm air that floated about in the still morning air.
Now we were in seventh year, Hogsmeade had lost most of its appeal. It was no longer new and different to us, having spent many days sneaking out to the village via the secret passageways hidden around the school.
Upon reaching Hogsmeade the gaggle of third to seventh years dispersed off to the various shops lining the high street while Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and I made our way to the Three Broomsticks. A small bell tinkled overhead as we shuffled in out of the cold, shaking a light dusting of snow off our cloaks and wiping our boots on the welcome mat.
Remus and Peter went and claimed our regular table in the far corner and me and Sirius walked straight over to the bar.
"Good morning lads, your usual is it?" Madame Rosmerta, the barmaid swished up to us in a flurry of bright clothes, a flirty smile fixed on her face.
"Yes please! Four butterbeers o'great Rosmerta, apple of my eye, cherry of my...something," Sirius grinned roguishly, handing over a galleon. She bent down behind the counter and drew out the butterbeers, emptying the bottles into huge wooden tankards. Handing Sirius back some change, she moved onto two more students waiting to be served and me and Sirius carried the foaming drinks over to our table.
"So, are we Christmas shopping today then?" asked Peter who had gained a strange foamy moustache from his first sip.
"I've only got to get yours. As normal." Sirius replied
"Same here - just you three to buy for. It might be an idea to split up for a couple of hours, so as to get all our shopping done," Remus added, "By the way - what do you guys actually want? Anything in particular?"
I shook my head and took a gulp from my butterbeer as Sirius waved his arm madly in the air with cries of "Me, me, me! I know! I know!" before reeling off a list of Zonko's products - something he had obviously rehearsed beforehand.
We soon finished our drinks and went our separate ways, myself along towards Dervish and Banges in a desperate attempt to find something original for Remus this year. He was the hardest to shop for. I hunched my shoulders against the Arctic air as I trudged through the dull brown snowy-slush that lingered on the high street. Each shop I went into greeted me in with a warm cascade of fireside heat.
Eventually I managed in procuring gifts for my three best friends plus Lily (an everlasting candle that changed scent to suit the persons mood) and began to make my way back to the castle. I knew that the rest of the school would've already left as it was nearing six O'clock and, dinnertime for them. I planned to get something from the kitchens when the first signs of hunger tickled my stomach.
I whistled to myself as I walked. Whistling wasn't really one of my greatest strengths and the tune in my head came out if a strange collections of high-pitched blasts of air, none of which corresponded to the actual melody. But I didn't care. No one was around to hear and life was good. It felt good in the way toffee feels good in your mouth, stuck in your teeth, half slithering down your throat. And I was happy.
"James!"
The voice broke me out of my reverie and promptly halted my whistling. I looked up and saw Lily splashing through ice puddles towards me, her hair flung out behind her in a banner of bright berry red. I stopped as she slowed to a halt in front of me, bending over, her hands on her knees as she tried to regain control of her breathing. When she lifted her face up I saw her flushed normally pale cheeks shining like autumn apples, a perfect smile fixed on her sweet lips.
"Why didn't you come back with the rest of the school? I wanted to see you toady - we've barely spoken all week!" Lily slid her arm through mine, grinning up at me.
"I had a bit of shopping to get done, it's hard finding original presents for three guys year after year. What you want me for?"
"I don't mean to nag -"
"But you're going to anyway?"
"It's just -"
"Hear we go..."
"We've done no work on the end of year dance and I'd really like to at least get some ideas down -"
"Do we have to?"
"Please James! Pleeeeeeease?" She looked up at me with an exaggerated pout and reproachful eyes - the only thing to give her away was she was desperately trying and failing to hide a teasing smile.
"Fine, fine, fine," I agreed, Lily beamed. This had the extraordinary effect as my heart jumped up way too high almost hitting the roof of my mouth before zooming back down through my body to rest lazily somewhere near my ankles. I smiled back nervously...
***
"Okay - theme, yes or no."
"Definitely no."
"Dress code, smart, casual any ideas?"
"Smart, maybe Muggle. Can't stand dress robes on either sex."
"Same here. Music?"
"How about Soceress Seline?"
"Oh no, not her!"
"Erm....The Griffins?"
"Kinda dreary."
"Ooh, I know! Charmers Inc.! Everyone loves them!"
"Sounds good. Invitations?"
"What about them?"
"What should they say?"
I rolled over on the couch, whipping my spectacles off and rubbing my eyes wearily. "Lily, I don't care. Whatever you want is fine with me."
Lily tipped her head to the side, slamming the notebooks she'd been writing in down on her lap. She looked up at me pleadingly. I just closed my eyelids and waited as the strange scarlet light behind them faded into darkness. Beside me the sofa moved slightly and the cushions sagged a bit as Lily sat down at my feet. When I opened my eyes I saw her curled up, feet tucked under herself, trying to stifle a small yawn.
"Tired?"
"Yep. Can't really be bothered to go back to the dorm. Might just sleep here." Lily smiled sleepily, shaking out her hair to create a veil around face.
"Well, I've laid claim to this sofa so I'm afraid you've gotta fend for yourself," I hunkered down into the soft cushions, half expecting Lily to leave. But I was mistaken and instead, as my eye's flew open in shock, I found myself lying right next to the auburn beauty as she snuggled down next to me. Her legs were stretched out along mine - although her feet ended halfway down my shins - and I could feel her heart beating against my ribcage; it's steady, peaceful rhythm contrasting to the hammering in my own chest.
"... to share, won't you!" she was saying something, a cheeky grin on her porcelain face. I was vaguely dazed and shook myself.
"Huh?" I replied confused and pretty much incapable of human speech.
"I said: 'well you'll just have to share, won't you!'," she ran her index finger down the length of my nose, "You're kinda cute, you know that James?"
"Really?" I half-gasped at the touch of her skin against mine. It was soft and gentle, and, to my mind, every move was with great purpose and filled with meaning.
"I think you're cute," she whispered against my ear.
And with that she promptly closed her eyes and was asleep in minutes, her lithe figure moulded against me, breathing out light, fluttering breaths that tickled across the skin of my neck. The rolling curve of her back was calling out to me, daring me to run my fingers down her spine in neverending sweeps, brushing against her long fiery hair that smelt of lush damp grass and dewy jasmine. I wanted her so badly that my mouth was dry and my very being ached with an intense longing, for just her and only her.
As I lay in silent rapture, I seemed to me that my estimation of Lily Evans had been correct, and that - even whilst sleeping - she was as always: unattainable.
***
"CHRIIIIIIIIIISTMAAAAAAAAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
I rolled over in my four-poster bed and groaned. In a second I knew Sirius would leap on my bed and proceed to test the springiness of my mattress by jumping wildly up and down singing some cheesy Christmas song.
I lay for a while as he jumped, hoping that maybe this year he might get bored and go back to bed like any normal person. However Sirius was not a normal person and when I refused to lift my sleeping head from the pillow he dived at me, grabbing at my arm and attempting to drag me out of my warm cocoon under the many blankets and eiderdown.
"Remus, please get him OFF me!" I cried as the cold winter air flooded over my skin, and my back and shoulders made contact with the hard wooden floor.
"Mphf..." came the reply. Looking up I saw Remus's head was buried under several pillows, his hands clawed at them, holding them fast to his head as Sirius moved onto his next victim. Peter was already up, I noticed, and I could hear him singing something Christmassy in the shower. It was always him and Sirius up first on Christmas day, spreading their seasonal festivity at ungodly hours of the morning.
"James, you've gotta get up and go find Lily! I promised her she could come over to our dorm to open presents!" Sirius whined, lying on top of Moony tugging at the pillows to mumbled cursing on Remus's part.
I jumped up from the floor immediately. "YOU WHAT?!" I shrieked.
"I say, does someone have a crush on my little flower?" Padfoot smirked and even Remus stopped thrashing around to yell a distorted "HA!" from under his pillow. I just glared and began rushing around trying desperately to find something warm, clean and mildly attractive to wear. Not an easy thing, I tell you...
As Peter flung wide the door to the bathroom, billowing scented steam following him, I bounded past like one possessed. I leapt down the dormitory stairs two at a time and then attempted to ascend the spiral that led to the girls rooms in a similar fashion. As my foot hit the sixth step a loud klaxon seemed to go off all around me and the steps fell from under my feet forming a makeshift slide. By the time I'd slithered down to the bottom Lily had arrived at the top of the staircase and the steps had returned under her. I glared sulkily up at her.
"Sirius didn't tell me they did that..." I mumbled, folding my arms defiantly across my chest. Lily laughed and held out a hand to pull me up from the ground. "Thanks. Merry Christmas."
"And the same to you," she replied. It was then that I noticed she was only wearing a large Quidditch t-shirt proclaiming:
'Falmouth Falcons - Let us win, but if we cannot win, let us break a few heads'
I blushed as she continued to speak, "I'm surprised you didn't know about the stairs by now."
"Well, as you saw, I obviously don't and why should I know by now? I've never even entertained the idea of going into the girls' dormitories!"
"Seriously?" Lily arched a single disbelieving eyebrow, "Well, that's certainly not what I've heard..." but she trailed off as I stared at her confused, "Oh dear..."
"What have you heard?" I asked sharply.
"Nothing."
"Lily -"
"It's nothing important."
"But it's something?"
"No... yes... forget it!"
"Okay."
"I said - Huh? What did you say?"
"Okay."
"Oh," she seemed puzzled. Had she really expected me to press the matter? Of course she had. That's what the old James would've done. To tell the truth I was dying to know what curious rumours she'd heard about me. "Right, presents. Just a sec', let me go get them." Lily turned and hurried up the stairs leaving me waiting at the foot.
"Maybe some trousers too unless you want Peter to have a heart attack." I called after her retreating back, but she just sent an inappropriate hand gesture in my direction.
In a couple of minutes she was back, wand out with a good few presents floating in the air behind her. She had taken my advice and was wearing some pale blue Bell Bottom jeans.
"You support the Falcons then? Rough team, they are." I said as we began to walk to the boys dormitories the gifts whizzing around our heads.
"Yeh, I know, but I don't mind a bit of violence on the pitch every now and then. And anyway, they were the first professional Quidditch team I ever saw play so I thought I'd follow them properly when I was in second year. You support anyone?"
"The Appleby Arrows. Local team, supported since I was a kid," I grinned, "Top of the league at the moment. Got three great Chasers at the moment - Creech, Highfield and Samuels. Just bought a new Seeker, Josef Wronski, but no idea what he's like yet. Fresh out of school in Poland and he's still in training... Sorry, am I boring you?" I knew I always got carried away by Quidditch but Lily shook her head furiously.
"Oh no, no, no! It's great! None of the girls in my dorm really like Quidditch that much so it's always a relief to find someone else who does! We'll have to go see a match together sometime." she added.
"Yeah," I replied, a smile growing on my lips, "Yeah, we should." We'd reached the dorm and I flung the door open to reveal...bedlam. Absolute chaos.
The blankets and bedding had all been shoved onto the floor while it seemed Sirius was preparing to dive from the top of a four-poster into the mass of fluff below; Peter was, somehow, stuck to the ceiling along with a load of presents, screaming like a Banshee; whilst Remus, normally the sensible one, was swinging round a bedstead singing at the top of his voice an appalling rendition of 'Santa Baby'. I always knew he was gay...
"GUYS!" I yelled into the room and suddenly all sound stopped and the only movement was the slow swivelling of their heads on their necks towards me and Lily framed in the doorway. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" I screamed, quite unnecessarily in the new silence.
If they had been standing there would've been, I'm sure, a nervous shuffling of feet but instead there was an awkward silence. Sirius looked at the other two, who looked at each other and back at Sirius.
"Nothing," came the reply in unison.
"Well stop it," I stepped over the bedding into the room as Sirius swung down from his perch on top of the bed. Remus jumped to the floor too and started picking up the bed sheets before thinking better and just magicking them neatly onto the respective beds. I whipped out my wand, pointing it up to Wormtail, and waited as Peter and the gifts sunk to the floor before beckoning Lily into the previous warzone.
"Lily!" whooped Sirius catching her in a huge bear hug, "Merry Christmas! Are those presents?" he said eyeing the still floating packages.
We settled down on the rough floor and spent the next hour or so ripping paper off packages, laughing and hugging together. The five of us. And it was great having Lily there, a change from previous years. Each unwrapped present was greeting with smiles.
"Wow, Lily! It's perfect!" exclaimed Moony, enveloping her in his arms. Lily had presented him with a collection of Defence Against The Dark Arts books with titles like 'The Mathematics Of Evil' and 'Boomslangs, Boggarts and Bowtruckles'. When Remus released Lily she turned to me holding a beautifully wrapped package.
"Merry Christmas," she said again, smiling. I examined the parcel carefully. It was covered in dark red paper that shimmered under the light and the whole thing was tied-up with a golden ribbon that curled into loose coils at the ends. I held the box up to my ear and shook it slightly, hearing something move around inside.
I went through the same careful ritual of present examination every year. I liked to savour things, memories most of all and my first proper Christmas present from Lily was - to me - a very precious thing.
"James, can't you just open the present?" whined Sirius as I took in the texture of the wrapping; smooth and almost like silk. Before I could reply to my friend, Lily jumped in,
"No, let him be. I like it."
"Lily - he does it with every single damn thing!" added Peter, getting impatient. But it didn't matter; it was tradition to me and if Lily liked it then, well... who was I to complain?
Slowly I tugged at the golden ribbon feeling it slip slightly between my fingers as it unravelled itself in one fluid movement. The red paper was not stuck down with anything so I folded it back, following the creases, slowly, methodically. Once the paper was gone I was left with a simple brown box. It was rough and wooden with a handmade feel and a hinged lid. It was about the size of a paperback book and extremely light.
"Yes, James," said Remus earnestly, "It's a box. Now all you have to do is look inside it and then we can open the rest of our presents... Come on now. Not hard." I narrowed my eyebrows at him and began to lift the lid, painstakingly slowly so as to cause my three friends the most torture possible for their attempts at stopping my Christmas custom. I peered down at the contents and a small gasp escaped my mouth.
"A Pensieve?"
The small circular dish was decorated with thin symbols that wove around each other. There was nothing yet in the shallow basin but still I reached down a ran the tip of one finger around the edge. I gazed up at Lily. She looked worried.
"D'you like it? I wasn't sure what to get for you but -"
"It's wonderful Lily!" I exclaimed. Sirius and Remus both gave me a sideways glance. They knew as well as I did that the giving of a Pensieve was not something to be entered into lightly but now was not the time or place. I was sure I would be cornered about it later though neither of them said anymore as we continued to unwrap various gifts.
The morning went by fast and soon the five of us were hurrying down to the Great Hall. Barely anyone had remained for Christmas over the past few years - in fact, apart from the teachers it was just us four Marauders and Lily that December. The House Tables were at the side of the Hall leaving just one in the very centre.
Dumbledore looked up beaming as four of us - me, Peter, Remus and Lily - hurtled in through the great oak doors swiftly followed by Sirius screaming at us, his wand brandished like a sword. We'd pushed him into a trick step and then spent ten minutes laughing as he tried to struggle out. Unfortunately, then, for us, he'd then succeeded and began chased us through the school throwing hexes and curses in our direction and yelling a string of words that even I found offensive.
"YOU LEFT ME FOR DEAD, YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING LITTLE BAS - hello, Professor Dumbledore! Fancy seeing you here!" Sirius skidded to a stop as we all quickly cowered behind the old Headmaster. Dumbledore chuckled heartily and told us to sit down with the suggestion that 'Mister Black may like to put his wand away now as Christmas is supposed to be a day of goodwill to all men - and women' he added, smiling down at Lily's face.
To mine and Sirius's delight there were loads of Cribbages Wizarding Crackers. After I'd eaten all the turkey, roast potatoes, stuffing, peas, carrots, chipolatas, bread soaked in gravy and Christmas pudding (McGonagall got the silver sickle in her piece) that I could manage, I had acquired several new hats: a tall powder-blue damsel-in-distress style pointed hat that had a long trail of shimmery material flowing down it; a Muggle pirates hat with skull and crossed bones on the front; a Native American chieftain thingy that was getting feathers everywhere and a huge sombrero that took up an extra chair.
After lunch, Lily decided to head back to the Common Room - something about writing a letter or possibly another Lily-ish task, I wasn't really listening - and me and the other Marauders spent the afternoon having a truly spectacular snowball fight that ended with a fabulous throw by Moony that not only caught Peter, who he was aiming for, but rebounded off with the help of a Bouncing Jinx and hit Sirius squarely on the nose.
Soaked, but cheerful, we returned to the Marauder HQ, aka the Common Room. Lily was finishing off what looked like a short novel - a note to her mother apparently. Later in the evening the House Elves brought up massive turkey doorstop sandwiches and Christmas cake finished off with huge steaming mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows. And, as we sat by the fireside talking and listening to the distant howling of the December wind and the faint creaking of the castle, I settled back in my favourite armchair - the perfect end to the perfect day.
A/N Thank you all so much for your reviews for the last chapter! I really appreciate it, you guys! Next chapter out sometime Monday so keep reading!
Me (!) – Oh Michael, you're so… discreet! Thank you for (finally) getting round to actually looking at my story!
Paige The Goddess – Thank you! And there most certainly is going to be more! Keep reading!
Captain Oblivious – Wow, thanks! I feel flattered you think that! I've read quite a few starting like mine and I was just like, "Mine sounds pathetic!" And yes, poor, poor boy! Aw, I love Remus!
Bessyboo – Thank you! Glad to get you out of the rut! If you want two really great stories look in my Favourite Stories in my profile – I LOVE them both! But they are kinda long now…
Hannah7 – Yay! Thanks very much! Although I think your James is cooler than mine!