It's not mine; it's all J.K. Rowling's.

Chapter 12: In Which Lily Has a Tiny, Tad Bit of a Mishap With Pouncing

Or

In Which Lily Gathers Holly

Lily threw the present she was half-way through wrapping at the clock, which had just chimed midnight. She groaned, putting her head in her hands. She was so tired, but she had to finish wrapping tonight because she probably wouldn't have time to do it tomorrow after the funeral. She was almost finished. She got up and retrieved the thrown present. She taped the final bit of wrapping paper into place, slapped a bow on it and tossed it into the pile of finished gifts. She surveyed the presents and pulled out the checklist she'd made.

5 Aunts - check

5 Uncles - check

Krista Potter - check

Tristan Potter - check

That was everyone! She could finally go to bed. She pulled on her favorite pair of sweatpants and a tank top, sighing happily at the thought of sleep. She had just pulled back the covers on her bed when it hit her.

James ... James Potter ... as in the James Potter she hadn't gotten a gift for.

Holy Shit!!!! What was she going to do?!? Ok, the key was not to panic. She stared out the window, desperately trying to think of something. She suddenly remembered him saying once that he loved the smell of Christmas. He'd said it back when she'd thought she hated him, so she'd laughed and told him Christmas didn't have a smell, but in truth she knew exactly what he was talking about. The smell was indescribable, like Christmas trees and ginger bread men, but with many other things thrown in.

She had it, she could make him one of those popcorn cranberry chains, they smelled like Christmas to her. Grabbing her wand she concentrated and with a graceful flick, managed to produce a bowl of popcorn (which was rather off color, but close enough) and a bag of cranberries (whose shapes were a bit off, but again, close enough; she wasn't a brilliant hand at Transfiguration). With another wave of her wand, she produced a thread and the popcorn and cranberries began stringing themselves. That wasn't too bad, James would probably think she was really cheap, but it should be the thought that counted, right? She looked at the growing string of red and white and knew it needed something, but what?

"Holly," she said out loud. Holly would be perfect. The green would make it Christmas colors. She closed her eyes and pictured the holly in her head, waving her wand. She opened her eyes to see a jumbled brown bunch of twigs.

Damn, her Transfiguration skills had to choose this moment to give out, didn't they? She closed her eyes and tried again. No luck. She groaned and picked up the mess of brown twigs and brought them over to the window, intending to throw them out when she saw it. Or, more specifically, them, a whole row of lush snow covered holly bushes clustered around a statue maybe 100 feet from her window. It was perfect, but how could she get out there? She had no clue how to find a door outside and even if she did, how would she ever find her way back to her room? James should seriously have a map made of this place.

She closed her eyes, picturing the walls she'd seen when she'd arrived; they were brick, old brick, and would probably provide many footholds. She was practically a monkey from taking so many years of gymnastics, or as James liked to call them gymnavtics; she could climb down the wall.

Probably.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

Besides, what was the worst that could happen? She could get trapped outside and freeze to death. That wasn't too bad ... sort of.

Lily tugged a baggy sweat shirt over her head and slung the boots that Krista had loaned her over her neck. There was no way she'd be able to climb down with the boots on; she wouldn't be able to get her feet in the footholds since the boots were so large. She moved to the window and turned the creaky lock on the window. Prying the window open, she shivered as the freezing air enveloped her.

She was insane ... insanely in love with a man she didn't have a Christmas present for.

With that thought she swung her legs out of the window and winced as her bare feet met with the cold brick. She crept down the side of the house, her limbs trembling as her quickly numbing hands and feet sought solid holds. Finally, she dropped into the snow. She quickly shoved her feet in the boots; they didn't really help much. She reached into her pocket to pull out her wand and perform a warming spell and her eyes went wide.

Where was her wand? She looked in her pocket; it wasn't there. She checked all of her other pockets, but it wasn't there. Damn it! What kind of witch was she? She never had her wand when she needed it. She must have left it in the room. Now she was faced with a choice: climb back up and get it or go and get the holly and then climb back up without the security of a wand. She didn't feel too bad; besides she didn't want to climb up and down two times, that would feel like such a waste. So she struggled through the snow to the holly bushes and collected what she needed, cradling the now precious holly sprigs to her body.

As she made the return trip back to the house, she could feel the energy fading from her body. She tried to move faster, but her lethargic muscles weren't cooperating. She felt panic building up in her chest as she reached the wall. She collapsed, leaning against the wall. Tilting her head back she stared up at the now impossible distance to her window; it had grown at least twice as long in her absence (or so it seemed). There was no way she'd be able to scale the sheer wall in the condition she was in; she needed a trellis or some ivy, something easier to climb. In the back of her mind, she could hear a little voice reminding her of what the worst could happen was. Ignoring it, she began a slow journey around the house, fighting her way through every step, looking for anything that could help her.

She shivered violently, nearly loosing her balance. Then she saw it, her salvation, a trellis that went up the wall to a window that was (praise the gods of luck!) cracked open! Hallelujah! Steeling herself, she took off the boots and put the holly sprigs in them. Swinging the boots around her neck, she started to climb.

It was a real pity she didn't know that if she'd gone another 5 yards and turned the corner there was a nice unlocked door there. Real pity.

Lily kept climbing and finally she was there. She was trembling so hard she could barely grab the window. Shoving the last of her strength into her arms she pushed the window open and fell with a thunk into the room. She heard a snort from the bed, but didn't even have the energy to pick herself up and discover whose room she'd fallen into. She lay there for ages, trembling, just trying to regain control of her limbs. She tugged off her sweatshirt and pants after it became apparent that their soaking wet fabric was only making her colder. Taking a deep breath, she managed to push herself to her knees and lean against the wall, hugging herself for warmth. It was then that it hit her like a sledge hammer, in one of those horrible moments of realization: she'd bought James' Christmas present weeks ago, planning to give it to him anonymously, and put it in her keepsake box.

In her keepsake box, which was in James' bag, which was in the house in the room across the hall from hers. A nice heated room.

Piece of shit memory! She banged her head against the wall a few times for good measure and then froze as someone in the bed rolled over in their sleep. She had to get out of here. She was sitting around in her underwear and a tank top in some random relatives of her boyfriends' room. Struggling up, she grabbed her soggy clothes and boots with their precious holly leaves. Well, not so precious anymore, but still this damn well ought to show her undying freezing cold love for James; she deserved girlfriend points (which are suspiciously similar to niffer happy minutes).

Her muscles in her arms spasmed painfully as she pushed the window down. Ugh. The bed sheets rustled and Lily snuck to the door, quietly pushing it open, and went into the dark hallway.

It took her all of 5 seconds to realize that she had no clue which room was hers. So she had yet another choice to make; either she could go and open every door in the hall (assuming her room was on this hall) and try to find her room, or she could go back in and politely ask the rooms' sleeping occupants for directions. She weighed the embarrassment possibilities and practically ran back into the room. She'd much rather have 2 people know about her midnight activities then risk the whole family finding out. She closed the door of the room behind her and crept over to the bed.

It was there that she received her second pleasant surprise of this annoying evening (the first being the cracked window, even if she hadn't been in the right frame of mind to appreciate it at the time), there was only one person in the bed, meaning it was James since everyone else would have had a wife or husband with them. She grinned, happily surveying his dark form lying with his face into the pillow. Now, she could easily have gone back to her room, seeing as it was just across the hall, but she was feeling rather giddy and she had just earned a good deal of girlfriend points; basically meaning that she deserved a kiss.

So she pounced on him.

He woke up cursing, and that's when Lily realized she'd made a mistake. For this certainly wasn't James. Lily felt a moment of mortifying, mind freezing embarrassment as the man called for lights and then she found herself looking at the one, the only, Sirius Black.

Wasn't he supposed to be at Remus'? Why was he here, pretending to be James? How had he gotten the pink hair dye out of his hair? And more importantly, if this wasn't James' room, which it obviously wasn't, then it wasn't across the hall from her room, so where was her room?

"Lily?" Sirius said, looking horror stricken and trying to back up through the head board of his bed.

"I'm sorry," she said, scuttling back so she was more sitting on his knees than his waist. She hadn't realized she looked so horrible.

"Look, Lily, I'm flattered, but you're James' girl and I'm not messing around with my best friend's girlfriend. I mean, he loves you and it would just kill him."

Lily just sat there staring at him open-mouthed. He thought she wanted to cheat on James with HIM! Ewwwww!

"Sirius, you don't understand ..." Lily started, but was cut off by an apparently frantic Sirius.

"Please, when you break up with him, don't tell him about this, don't tell him that I'm the reason, he's had girls do that before and I don't want him to have to go through that with someone who means as much to him as you."

"I'm not going to break up with him, Sirius ..." Lily said, and once again was cut off.

"Not break up with him? Listen you're a great girl, but James deserves better than a girl who'll go after his best friend and ... and if you don't break up with him I'm going to have to tell him what happened because I'm not going to let him get hurt."

"Sirius, this is just a misunderstanding," Lily said, crawling forward and placing her hand over his mouth to forestall any further comments, "You are so full of yourself if you think I would even dream of cheating on my extremely handsome and sexy boyfriend with an idiot like you. Oh and of course you have to top it off with the fact that you're my best friends boyfriend."

"Lily ..." he said, looking at her with an uncharacteristic serious expression.

"I just mistook you for James, Sirius."

"So you really mean to be sitting on top of James?"

Lily blushed, remembering she was sitting on top of Sirius, "Yeah."

"Oh, in that case," Sirius said, breaking into his traditional mischievous Black grin. He then leapt up and scooped her into his arms, dragging her, her soggy clothes, and boots off the bed, out of the door, and down the hall. Reaching a door that looked just like all of the other doors in the hall, he pushed it open, lugged her in, and threw her quite unceremoniously on top of the beds occupant, who sat up, sputtering.

Sirius bowed and ran out of the room, grinning gleefully.

"Lily?" James said sleepily, rubbing his eyes. He yawned and yanked the spell chain by his bed. He looked at her and froze, after a few moments he cleared his throat.

"Do I want to know why you're wearing ... or not wearing ... ummm ... well much of anything?"

"I didn't want to freeze to death and my clothes were wet."

"Ahhh," he said, "And Sirius?"

"I rather mistook him for you," Lily said, blushing.

"I see," he said, although he was refusing to look at her.

"Why won't you look at me? I'm sorry, ok! I thought he was you. How was I supposed to know it wasn't my boyfriend I was pouncing on? I mean, come on, it was dark and I thought Sirius had pink hair ... and I actually thought he wasn't here ..."

James was at least looking at her now.

"Pounced?" He said, his voice sounding strangely forced.

"Yeah, pounced," Lily said, blushing full force and playing with a loose thread on James' bed spread.

"I'm not mad at you and you don't need to apologize."

"Oh good," she said, looking up to find that his eyes had a rather disturbed look in them.

"Are you sure you're alright?" She asked.

"Well, no ... but I'm sure I will be."

"James, I'm sorry!" She wailed, starting to cry. She was just having such a bad day. She'd been trying to surprise James and instead he was mad at her

"Hey, stop crying, I'm not mad at you," James said, reaching his hand out to her.

"Then why aren't you ok? Why are you looking at me so funny? What else can I do to apologize?"

"Nothing, Lily. I'm not mad at you. The only reason I'm not ok is that my girlfriend is sitting half naked on my bed and I'm a little preoccupied with the fact that she was planning on pouncing on me because that sounds like a brilliant time to me. So the only thing I'm mad about is that you got the wrong room and really that's my fault since I couldn't find you a map or what not. And I'm sorry if I'm looking at you funny, but maybe I could do a better job if you put on one of my shirts or something. And unless you're interested in apologizing for being incredibly sexy, please ..."

Lily cut him off by pinning him to the bed and kissing him senseless.

"I love you," James said rather bemusedly, as she snuggled into his arms.

"Mmhmmm," her reply was muffled by his shirt. He gently ran his fingers through her hair while she breathed in his wonderful smell.

"Just out of curiosity, why were your clothes wet?"

"I went outside." Lily felt James start to nod, then he stopped.

"Outside! Why were you outside?"

"I needed some holly sprigs for your Christmas present. Although, it was really pointless since I bought your gift ages ago and completely forgot about it."

"Lils," he said, shaking his head, but still grinning.

"Alright, it's back to bed with you," he said a few minutes later.

"I don't want to."

"Come on," he said, pulling her up. She pouted.

"Ah, come on, Lils. I would love to let you stay, but my mother would murder us and that's no way to spend the holidays."

"Being murdered wouldn't be so bad if you're with me."

"You're so silly," he said, and scooped her into his arms, carrying her across the hall. Her room was freezing since she'd left the window open.

"Geez, Lily, why's your window open?"

"How else was I supposed to get back in?" She said, pulling out of his arms and closing the window.

"Wait, you climbed out your window to get outside?"

"Yeah."

"Your second story window?"

"Well, unless we're thinking about two different windows, yes."

"You're a nut," he said, pulling her tightly into his arms, "Why didn't you just use the door?"

"I would have gotten lost and starved to death before I found it."

"You could have gotten killed."

"But I didn't."

He kissed her soundly and then picked her up, plopping her down on her bed.

"Sleep tight, angel," he whispered, pulling the covers over her.

"I love you."

"I love you too," he whispered back, kissing her forehead. Pulling away, he hopped over her still multiplying popcorn cranberry chain and with a chuckle waved off the spell. He looked back at her when he reached the door and she smiled sleepily at him.

"I really like that underwear, Lils; rainbow colored all the way."

Then he was gone and Lily was left to blush herself to death in privacy.

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Thanks for all of the reviews!!

I've almost got the next chapter typed up, so I should be able to update soon. Just to warn you it's complete fluff and has little to no meaning to the rest of the story. (I still like it though).