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

Chapter 14: In Which Lily Gets Slightly Squished by James

Or

In Which Lily Celebrates Christmas

She couldn't breathe. She was trying to, but no air was coming into her lungs. Something was pressing on her chest, not letting any air in.

She fell to her knees; cold hard rain was battering her already bruised body.

She had to get up.

She had to keep running.

She had managed to escape the fortress, but that wasn't nearly enough.

She had to get out of this barren waste land.

She had to be far away by the time the Death Eaters came looking for her.

She had already received one mercy; how many more could she expect?

She had to do this on her own. Out here, there was no Severus Snape to look the other way on guard duty and let her go.

She had to breathe. The air still wasn't coming. The fear was pressing down on her like a physical weight.

She had to get some air or she'd lose consciousness. And if that happened, she'd wake back up in her cell to death.

Tom would kill her.

She had nearly escaped.

She had nearly beaten him.

He would rape her and kill her, enjoying every minute of it. She knew this with the utmost certainty.

She had to breathe.

Why weren't her lungs working?

She was starting to fade away; the lack of air was causing her vision to slowly disintegrate into blackness.

Her last thought was, But I'll never see him again. I'll never have the chance to wake up in his arms. I'll never say I love you.

Then the darkness was complete.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Her eyes opened in the darkness.

She tried to sit up, but the weight was still on her chest. She struggled against it, panic taking over her body. Then the weight was gone and she could breathe.

Sweet air filled her lungs.

She was alive.

She was breathing.

She was shivering. Shivering? It was so cold. She had been warm; what happened to her warmth?

Her fingers spasmed on the sheets, convulsively clutching at them and a pitiful cry escaped her mouth. It was so cold; where was her warmth?

As suddenly as it had gone it came back, surrounding her, soothing, comforting, cradling her.

She let herself float into it, basking in the safety it offered. She felt her eyelids droop and she was lost in the unconscious pit of sleep.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Lily woke up slowly. She took a deep breath of air, savoring it. She slowly wiggled her toes and arched her feet, feeling life flowing into them. She only opened her eyes when she was ready to face the soft light filtering through the curtains.

The world had taken on a surreal quality in this light. She looked at her hand lying on her stomach. It looked larger than she remembered. She flexed her hand. It didn't move; odd.

She reached her other hand out and touched it. It felt warm and full of life; why wasn't it responding? She ran her fingers off the hand and up the arm, only to find that this arm wasn't her arm. She turned and found herself looking at a sleepy eyed James Potter, who was just waking up.

"Morning, love," he mummered sleepily, moving his hand from her stomach to her face. He kissed her forehead gently, while Lily's mind raced. Why was he in her bed?

"James?" She said, reaching out and touching his chest; not quite believing that he was actually there, in her bed.

"It's Christmas," he said, wrapping his fingers around hers.

"Why are you here?" Lily said, trying to process what was happening.

James looked startled at her question. He pulled back from her and Lily was flashed back to the darkness and the loss of warmth she had experienced.

"No!" She cried, desperately reaching out toward him, trying to control her panic and keep it from overwhelming her.

"Hey, calm down," James said, moving closer and wrapping her in his arms. She felt his warmth fill her as her breathing returned to its normal pace. Her heart was still racing, though, from fear of losing her warmth.

"This happened last night, too; are you ok?"

Lily trembled. Last night she'd dreamed of the night she'd escaped, but she hadn't been able to breathe.

"I couldn't breathe."

"I'm sorry," James said, looking guilty, "I didn't realize I was holding you too tightly."

"Why are you here?" Lily repeated.

James blushed, a rare look on his handsome face, "I came in to wake you up since it was Christmas and all, but I rather forgot to wake you up and just snuggled up with you instead."

Lily laughed, "You're such a liar."

"I am, but I couldn't help myself; you're so beautiful when you sleep. You look like an angel."

Lily smiled at James' silliness. She took a deep breath, "You're very warm."

"Really?"

"And you smell nice."

James laughed, hugging her tighter. "I suppose we had better go downstairs," he said after a moment.

"Yeah, I guess I have to get all of my presents down there."

"No need, Dad does a charm that puts them all under the tree."

"Really?" Lily said, amazed. That would be a tricky charm to arrange.

"You bet," James said, pulling her out of bed, down several hallways, the main staircase, and into a cozy room Lily hadn't seen yet. It was very nice, with a large Christmas tree in one corner decorated with tinsel, multi-colored lights, and homemade ornaments. Lily sighed happily, enjoying the feeling of Christmas. It was apparently late since most of the family was already up and spread out on the couches and armchairs arranged around the tree.

"We were wondering when you guys were going to get down here," Matt said. He'd personally introduced himself to Lily yesterday and seemed to be a very pleasant man. "Now we get to wake up Joe and Mary!"

James laughed and told Lily, "We always throw water over whoever is the last to get up on Christmas."

"And you didn't get me up sooner?" Lily said, surprised he was willing to run the risk of getting a soaking by his slightly crazy aunts and uncles.

"Sorry," he said, grinning at her, "But Aunt Mary and Uncle Joe are always the last up, so I wasn't really worried."

Taking a quick glance around the room, James pulled Lily over to one of the unclaimed arm chairs and they squished into it together. About 5 minutes later, a soaking wet Mary and Joe showed up, looking quite annoyed.

"Why can't we sleep in?" Joe whined.

"Because we need you to open up your Christmas presents so we can remember what we gave you," Matt said, laughing, "Unlike you young people, our memories are beginning to go."

So the opening of presents started.

Lily had gotten everyone really cheap gifts. It wasn't her fault she was on a tight budget. It was a little uninspired, giving mainly soap and carmel covered popcorn, but she'd been working spur of the moment, so she deserved a break. And really, her gifts wouldn't have been bad gifts because everyone likes soap and food. Unfortunately all of James' aunts and uncles had gotten her expensive gifts.

Oh gods. She was so embarrassed. She just wanted to sink into the arm chair and disappear forever. They'd gotten her expensive reference books she'd only dreamed of owning, a new cauldron set that must have cost a fortune, a 100 galleon gift certificate to Madame Malkin's, and from there it seemed to only get worse.

The worst one of all was from James' mom, Krista. It was the worst because Lily had no freaking clue what it was, and whatever it was, it looked extremely breakable and extremely expensive. It looked like ... well, actually it didn't look like anything she'd ever seen before; she had no clue how to even begin describing it. The utterly horrible thing was that everyone else knew what it was, or was putting on a really good show pretending they did.

They all kept going on and on about how nice Krista was to give that to Lily and Lily just smiled and kept repeating, "Thank you, it's so lovely; really, you shouldn't have." It was going pretty well too, but James as usual knew her too well.

She was so tempted to shove a sock into his mouth as he said, "You don't know what it is, do you?" ARGH! The betraying little git! How could he do this to her?

It turned out the whatchamacallit was actually a hop-er-an-do ... at least that's what she thought James had said and she still had no clue what it did. As James had said it was a hop-er-an-do (or whatever he said) she'd smiled and said, "Oh, that's just what I figured it was," and kicked him none to lightly in the leg, needless to say he'd finally gotten the point and shut his trap.

Lily's only relief were the presents from James' dad. He seemed to follow Lily's philosophy of cheap last minute shopping, except his gifts were designed to draw a laugh. He'd given her a 10 step guide to Potter men that looked to be scrawled on the back of a voided will. Still, she couldn't help but smile as she read it. Her personal favorite was number 4: 'the key to breaking bad news to your Potter is to do it while you're at a quidditch game and he has just taken a large bite of his hot dog'. She'd have to keep that in mind. It sounded very useful. 'Sweetheart, I blew up the house trying to bake cookies for our son's class.' Yep, a quidditch game would sure soften that blow.

Tristan had also gotten Krista a new set of plates, which set everyone laughing.

Tristan really liked James' gift of Doom and Devastation. James had quite exaggerated his story of how he got them, but it was still really funny (Tristan always insisted on getting a story with his gifts and it had been really funny watching Matt, who apparently had really forgotten what he gave everyone, come up with a story out of nowhere about a pocket watch). After learning from James that the fish needed water, he left to go to the kitchen and stick them in the bowl with Rainbow, the product of Lily and James' transfiguration experience.

While he was gone, he missed Krista opening Lily's gift of a hand knitted scarf. Lily had knitted it in her spare time and had planned to send it to her sister via the muggle post, but had figured since Petunia would probably burn it, she might as well give it to someone who would at least keep it, even if they wouldn't wear it.
And best of all, Krista said that Lily's presents were by far the best wrapped. The holly and cranberry strands she'd used to accent them were so adorable. Hehe.

James shot her quite a look after that comment and it probably meant something along the lines of 'if you ever think of wrapping things with holly leaves again, DON'T!' Lily just rolled her eyes', honestly, it wasn't her fault that after getting busted by Tristan last night she hadn't been able to sleep, and the presents did look good.

"Here," James said, handing her a medium size, sloppily wrapped present and blushing. Lily smiled; so this was his present. She tugged at the packing tape that he'd wound all the way around the entire package.

"You don't have any scissors, do you?" Lily asked, because it didn't look like there was any other way to get this present open.

"Scissors?" James repeated looking confused.

Lily nearly keeled over. How in the world could he not know ... oh yeah, she could just use her wand. Oops.

"Never mind," she said, "I'll just go get my wand."

James finally figured out what she was talking about and said, "Oh no, I'll do it. I shouldn't have used so much tape."

"Understatement of the century," muttered the newly returned Tristan.

James bounded out of the room to go get her wand. After he left, she realized that he had no clue where it was.

"What do you think it is?" Mary, at least the slightly damp hair made her think it was Mary, asked excitedly.

"I have no clue," Lily said, giving the box an experimental shake. It was kind of heavy. She had no clue what he'd have gotten her. Knowing him, it was probably a book on his favorite quidditch team so he could read it to her or something.

"Probably something utterly atrocious," Tristan said, and Krista smacked his arm.

"You know he tries, dear," Krista reprimanded her husband, "Just pretend you like it, sweetie, and we'll find him something better to give you for New Years."

Lily shook her head, "I'm sure I'll love it."

"That's the spirit," Matt said, "I'd completely buy that."

Lily tried to think of a way to inform them that she really did think she'd like it just because it was from James, but gave up as James bounded back into the room out of breath.

"I couldn't find your wand, Lils, so I got mine and you can use it."

"Thank you," she said, accepting his wand.

She never really felt comfortable using other people's wands. She waved it experimentally over the package to see if it would cooperate with her, and to her surprise the tape flew off of the present and bundled itself into a neat roll at her feet. She wordlessly handed the wand back to James, who looked as though he was about to faint from the sheer excitement of waiting for her to open his present.

Lily pulled off the wrapping paper, which, of course, had little quidditch players zooming around on it (James was so predictable), to reveal a smooth wooden box with a delicate golden latch on the front. It was about the same size as a book, but perhaps a little bit smaller than her school text books. She glanced up at James and gave him a happy smile before she carefully flipped the latch up and lifted the lid.

She looked down and saw what had to be hundreds of hair ties. She leaned closer and noticed that they were, more specifically, her hair ties. She felt a silly grin spread over her face; he was giving all of the hair ties he'd stolen back to her. She started laughing and snatched a tie dye one he'd stolen in 5th year off of the top and placed it over the one already in her hair.

"What do you think?" Lily asked James excitedly, spinning her head to show it off.

James was grinning like a maniac, "So you like it?"

"Like it, James?" Lily exclaimed, jumping to her feet, letting the box fall, and enveloping James in a hug, "I love it! I'll never have to buy hair ties again and I can finally get my favorite black one you stole in 4th year back."

"I didn't realize I had one of your favorites," James said, looking worried.

"It's ok, James, it's not like I bothered to ask for it back," Lily said, releasing him and bending down to scoop the hair ties back into the box.

"And if you had I wouldn't have given it back to you. I was such an idiot in 4th year."

Lily laughed at James who was working himself into a frenzy. "Don't be so hard on yourself," she told him, "You'd have offered to give it back. You'd just have demanded a date in exchange." Lily put on a mock thoughtful look, "And then I'd have told you to just keep it."

They both laughed and Lily went back to scooping the ties back into the box, smiling at James' thoughtfulness in actually keeping all of them, while James attempted to explain the hair ties to one of his uncles who apparently couldn't quite understand why giving a woman hundreds of hair ties was actually considered a decent gift (especially since they were hers to begin with).

Lily paused as she found a small, midnight blue tissue paper square, folded and taped mixed with the remaining hair ties. She looked up and caught Tristan's eyes. He smiled encouragingly and nodded. Lily picked it up; it felt heavy (for tissue paper), like it was wrapped around something. The room had gone quiet. She looked at James.

"I actually bought that," he said, probably more for his uncle than Lily.

Lily grinned childishly; this was like opening a chest of treasure and finding another chest hidden in the gold. She tore easily through the tissue paper and into her hand slid an exquisite necklace with a gold lily charm hanging from it.

"It's beautiful, James," she whispered, holding it up in front of her so she could see it better.

"It's got tons of defensive charms on it," he said, kneeling beside her on the floor, "So you should wear it all of the time."

"I will," Lily said, promising him.

"I did the spells myself," he told her proudly, "Well, Dad helped a little, but since I did them, they'll be stronger."

"Stronger?" Lily questioned. That didn't make much sense. Tristan was head of Auror Defense his spells should be far stronger than James'.

"I can explain that," Tristan interjected, since James seemed confused about how to put his thoughts into words and kept opening his mouth to say something then stopping and closing it again, "Voldemort can break defense spells easily enough when he puts his mind to it. The only thing that trips him up is if there is something he doesn't understand in the spell, like love, so James' love for you is, of course, included by his subconscious into any spell made for your safety and that strengthens the spell innumerably."

That explanation got her a shy smile from James.

"Thank you," She said, grasping his hands in hers, the necklace tangling in their combined grasps.

"Here let me put it on you," James said, pulling it out of her hands. She turned and he slipped it around her neck fastening it in the back. Then she felt a tug on her hair and her eyes went wide as her hair tumbled around her shoulders.

"Why you scoundrel!" She cried, turning toward him. He had jumped to his feet and was backing away, holding her hair ties in his hand. "Give them back!"

"I can't," he told her, looking solemn.

"Why ever not?"

"I need to start a new collection." He grinned boyishly, "Besides, this tie dye one has always been one of my favorites."

Lily rolled her eyes, laughing, "Fine, I'll just get out another hair tie." She grabbed a fluffy green one off of the floor and put it in her hair. She stuck her tongue out at him and he laughed, pocketing the two hair ties he had stolen.

(Christmas continued in the next chapter)

-------

Yay! I updated and did personal responses. Sorry I only did chapter 13 reviews, but I'm so behind by now I figure there's no point in doing the old ones unless I want to get stressed out. I'll try to get the next chapter (which is a continuation of Lily's POV on christmas) up as soon as possible.

The sad thing about all of this is that I actually updated quicker after exams than I do normally. What's with that?

Daystar - I earned mondo niffer happy minutes and I failed my exams. yay!

Katalina - They are over! Now we just have to do those two squirrelly days in between now and the break.

DestinyCalls - thanks for reviewing!

drumergirl90 - also thanks for reviewing.

AnGeL-GiRl - XxX - I'll admit, not my best work. I haven't had anything happen in what seems like chapters. And your right, no flow, but I'm only perfect in my dreams.

Jackster222 - sorry about my lack of certainty in updating, I just don't work well under time constraints.

Jen-bob-ohio - sorry about the wait, if I could not take exams I would. In fact I'm typing this while I should be studying for my french exam

Rowenhood - another prank? umm ... I'm actually not that creative, I can try though, but I don't really think it would fit in with the story, since I've already got most of it planned out.

Sydney - thanks for the review. Sorry for the fact it stops, but all good (or semi-decent things seem to do).

Lils-X - Thanks for all of your reviews. I really appreciate them.

JamesLvr4eva - yeah James' dad surprises me too. I know as the author he shouldn't, but he just keeps sneaking on to my lap top and writing these crazy things for himself to do

Ashley - As soon as you read this, I'll have updated and now you get to wait again for me to come up with another chapter. Sorry.

Dramaqueen141691 -Yeah exams suck. Good luck with yours. Thanks for reviewing.