Author's Note: I know I backed up James and co.'s Hogwarts Era more than a decade, but it workes. Not as if Hogwarts really notes the trends of the outside world-the uniform is the same if it's the Roaring Twenties or the Sixties Hippies.

Augusta

Disclaimer: If it can be traced to no universe in print or on screen, then it is mine.

Chapter Eight: Memories and Mistletoe

Springfield started to have the familiar tension associated with the Christmas season not long after James's second dinner with the Spauldings, an atmosphere he regarded warily. It would be his first Christmas here-and the first in his adult life without Lily, without any family at all. Sometimes he felt as cold as icicles hanging from the roofs, especially when he thought of them. Anne was always very solidly there, backing him and getting backing in return. He didn't know what he'd do without his sister, under the circumstances.

On the twentieth of December, Marina and Danny put up Company's Christmas tree. James walked in from a meeting with Billy Lewis involving a possible trade deal, and there they were, ornaments in hand, the angel having ended up on Danny's head one way or another, kissing while Marina held up some mistletoe that came nowhere near being over their heads. The broke it up when they heard the door close. " Nice hat, Danny," James said, managing to keep his face straight by virtue of his years of talking his way out of trouble as a Marauder.

" Nice..." Danny said, obviously unaware of his unique headdress. He reached up and felt his head. "Marina!" he exclaimed. Marina dissolved into giggles as Danny took the angel off his head and put it on the tree. " The place for the angel is not my head," he told her with exaggerated patience, as if talking to a two-year-old. Marina collapsed against him with laughter, and he put an arm around her shoulders to keep her upright.

A flashback to his last Christmas at home hit him, and for once, he didn't try to fight it off. For some reason, he wanted to remember it. He wanted to remember the way things used to be, before he found out that Peter was a Death Eater, before he and Lily went into hiding with Harry, before a dangerous war became desperate...

' D'you know why I married Anne?' Sirius quipped. The Potter sitting room quietened down at once in anticipation of the joke. Anne herself was in the kitchen, trying to make Christmas cookies, rather unsuccessfully by her fluent cursing.

' Why?' Elizabeth asked, a slight smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

' Well,' Sirius began elaborately, ' the bachelor life was great, but eating my own cooking got the better of me, so me and Anne got hitched.' There was some laughter at that. No one really believed food was Sirius's only motive in entering matrimony, though it was plausible with him. ' But then, alas, I found out a most awful and dark secret about my little wife. She's an even worse cook than me!' They all erupted into hilarity.

' Um, Padfoot?' Peter said, gasping for air from laughing. ' This might be the time to run, mate.'

' Why d'you say that, Wormtail?' Remus asked, a knowing grin appearing on his face as he looked over Sirius's shoulder.

' Because Anne's right behind Sirius with a rolling pin in her hand, and by the look on her face, she heard that!'

Sirius whirled around to face his wife, looking rather alarmed. 'Um-hi, Annie-' She tapped the rolling pin in her hand. Sirius did the smart thing in changing the subject. He did the stupid thing in changing it to what he did. 'Are you feeling well?'

'I'm perfectly well,' Anne said in the pleasant tone that meant she was really angry and hiding it very temporarily. 'Why do you ask, loverling?'

'It's just that you're looking awfully pale, and-no, it wouldn't be kind to tell you that,' he interrupted himself, half-bowing to her.

' Tell me what?' Anne demanded.

'It's your hair, dearest,' Sirius said, as if each word caused him new pain. ' Every bit of it's gone gray.' With a screech, Anne flew to the nearest mirror. Vanity had always been her besetting sin. Her face and hair, like the rest of her, were covered with a layer of flour from her baking. She turned on her husband in a fury.

' Sirius Black, I am going to kill you!' An animated chase had followed, which resulted in almost everyone from old Great-Grandpa Henry to three-year-old Regina Lupin getting knocked over. Through his mirth, James noticed Lily apparently wrestling in the floor with Harry.

' Er-what're you doing, Lil?' He managed.

She looked up, a harrassed expression on her face. ' I'm trying to save our son from strangulation,' she replied in exasperation. ' He's trying to eat the tinsel!'

'Here, Lily,' Serena said, picking the baby up and twiriling around with him before reclaiming her seat by her father-in-law-Serena and Anthony had been even closer than they had always been since George's murder had left Serena a widow. ' I'll look after him-he is my grandson, after all.' Serena smiled at the boy on her lap. ' Harry knows he's best off with Grandma Rena and Great-Grandpa Tony, doesn't he?' she asked Harry, as if expecting him to answer or correct her for talking to him in third person. Lily smiled indulgently at her mother-in-law. Even Serena admitted that Lily was an excellent mother, but Serena Wright Potter was the most baby-crazy woman in the world. She watched Anne and Elizabeth and Lily's waistlines almost religiously for signs that she might expect another grandchild to spoil. Young Miss-even James called Solenge Young Miss, and she was his grandmother, Old Miss was his Great-Grandmama Gina-laughed.

'Serina, you weel spoil ze boy rotten,' she proclaimed in her French accent.

' Ah, be easy, love,' Anthony said, turning an adoring look on his wife. Age hadn't decreased her looks, inherited from her veela great-grandmother. ' We spoiled George and Marguerite more than our Serena spoils Harry.' The old lady threw up her hands in exasperated surrender.

James pulled himself roughly back into the present. Marina was looking at him, a faintly sympathetic look on her face. She seemed to get that holidays were difficult when your life has been turned abruptly upside-down. " Don't just stand there staring at us," she chided. " Come help us decorate this tree." She tossed a string of lights at him with as much skill and precision as a good Chaser. Quidditch was one of the little luxuries he had missed most since the War started.

As he already well knew, it was impossible to dwell on the past or be in a depressed state around Danny and Marina; their enthusiasm for what they were doing and for each other was infectious. As they were hanging ornaments, Marina said, " We've set a date for our wedding."

" Really?"

" Mm-hm. April 14."

" I'm happy for both of you," he said, and meant it.

" You're invited, of course," Marina said. " We wouldn't think of not having you there." She grinned. " You're a Springfielder, if the most...unique one I know of. You live with the Coopers, eat dinner with the Spauldings, and manage not to make an enemy out of either one. "

" It's my multiple personality disorder," he said dryly. " Each personality has its own way of doing things." Marina laughed and pushed her auburn hair out of her face.

" So that's what's wrong with you," she said, continuing the joke. " I did wonder."

" Sad but true," he returned. " Madness runs in the family."

" Oh yeah?"

" Yeah. It's a combination of inbreeding and ambition."

" Sounds like the Winslows to me," Danny threw in, making them both laugh.

" Are you three ever going to get that tree decorated?" Buzz demanded from behind the counter.

" Oh, but of course, Buzz," James said. " It'll just take a while-none of us wants to end such dazzling displays of wit so soon after we began them."


The sense of expectation continued to build over the few remaining days till Christmas. On Christmas Eve, James went to the special Mass at the local chapel just out of the principle of the thing. There had been a time when he attended Mass daily and confession at least once a week, he thought wryly. Lily had been a very good influence, but not even the best of influences lasts forever. He wasn't entirely sure how he would spend Christmas-he didn't have any family to go to, and he wasn't sure if the Coopers would want him intruding on their celebrations-but that wasn't on the top of his list of things to think about as he headed back to Company after Mass. There had been something very soothing, almost theraputic, about going to services again. He'd have to do it more often. He heard a voice speak behind him.

" Nobody should spend Christmas alone, not even people like us." Almost immediatly following that statement, a snowball hit him. He whirled around to see Dinah, bundled up against the cold and laughing merrily, a rare enough thing from her. Her humor was usually a mirror of his own sarcastic wit. " What?" She said in response to what must have been a very dense look on his face. " You Brits never heard of a snowball fight?"

" I haven't been hit by a snowball since the winter of '62," he said slowly. " My best mates and I and our girlfriends all got into a Snowball War right in front of the whole school. I will have you know that my girlfriend and I managed to thoroughly whip all the others."

Dinah's eyebrows went up. " Was that a challenge?"

" Was it?" He didn't miss the beginning of a grin on her face.

" I think so," she said, twiddling with her hair as if to distract him.

" And how do you answer it, Lady?" He asked, trying to remember just how that quote from Sir Somebody to Rebecca in Ivanhoe went. He was close enough, in any case.

" I say bring it on!" That was the end of acting their ages, or anything remotely near their ages. Until the snow on Company's walkway was too trampled and widely dispersed to be used for snowballs, they indulged in a most satisfactory snowball fight-it couldn't be properly termed a Snowball War like Gryffindor House termed the ones between several people in team-like groups, but it was still the most fun he'd had in years. By chance, Dinah, alight with laughter and with snow in her hair, got the last throw of the day. He dodged it and hit the door as she almost simultaneously hit a patch of ice and fell forward. He instinctively reached out and caught her before she hit the ground.

" Thanks," she said, regaining her balance. " That would have been embarrasing, falling like I don't know how to walk." Her gaze swept upward. " Uh-oh."

" What?"

" Look right over our heads." He followed her gaze up to the highest point of Company's door, and spoke without thinking.

" Mistletoe."

" Uh-huh." Dinah had a thoughtful look on her face for a split second. " Oh, what the hell?" She said rhetorically, and before he could register what was going on, she kissed him.

" Now," she said a minute later, somewhat breathlessly. " As I was saying, even someone with no family and someone else whose stepmother has a restraining order against her shouldn't spend Christmas alone, don't you agree?"

" Christmas is a time to share with others," he agreed, following the 'analogy' as if the persons Dinah was referring to weren't him and her.

" Meet me at Towers tomorrow evening," she said, more an order than a request. " Having a nice dinner and some drinks'll do us both good. Besides, it's not as if either one of us has an engagement or anything better to do."

" What, Jeffrey didn't ask you to spend Christmas with him?" he joked in return. Jeffrey and Dinah couldn't pass each other in the street without getting into a screaming fight that got them in trouble for disturbing the peace.

" Nope, and I doubt that Lily's called to ask if you're going to be home either."

" Nope. Care to have a drink now?"

" You're buying."

" That was the idea."

They finalized the plan to meet at Towers, one of Springfield's more high-class restraunts, on Christmas Day over a drink. It would be open, due to the Lewis Construction Christmas Party, traditional rival of the Spaulding Enterprises Christmas Party at the Beacon. When Dinah left to complete her shopping-American women were no different that English ones in their love of shopping up to the eleventh hour- James was left thinking over the whole situation. He wasn't the sort to agonize long over a failed relationship, not even one that ended the way his marriage did, but there was one thing he had to do before he could move on with Dinah or anyone else. He sighed and got Marina to bring him another drink. It was time to face his past and the women who had shaped it.