Memories

Chapter 5: Christmas Cheer

DISCLAIMER: I don't own J.K. Rowling's work.

A/N: This chapter has been revised. Please review!

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Remus opened his eyes and almost immediately closed them again. Groaning, he thought, I have bloody incredible luck. There is only one room in the Hospital Wing that's next to a window – and I'm in it. That's true Lupin Luck, as Sirius says. Cursing Madam Blitzer and her overzealous love for bright light, Remus struggled to open his eyes once more.

Looking around, Remus found that he was indeed in the window bed of the Hospital Wing, and apparently the only patient currently in the infirmary. Sliding his gaze back to his own bed, he saw his fellow Marauders grouped around his bedside, heads down on their arms. Fondness for the boys he called his brothers and gratefulness for such good friends rose up in his chest.

Sirius was snoring loudly, a string of drool hanging out of the corner of his mouth. Peter was simply dead to the world. Remus could hear James mumbling faintly, and soon his tell-tale eyebrow began twitching. Remus relaxed against his pillows, smiling up at the ceiling. Three…two…one…

James jerked awake and looked around with a panicked gaze. James made quite a sight: his hair was sticking up all over, rumpled from sleeping, his eyes were wild and crazed-looking, and creased lines were drawn all over his face. Remus couldn't help it; he burst out laughing. The laughter was too much for his strained lungs, though, and his laughter turned into fierce coughs that wracked his body. Of course the coughing fit woke up Sirius, who pulled up his head blearily and squinted though his drooping eyes. Judging from the sound that rivaled a herd of rampaging hippogriffs, however, Peter was still fast asleep.

Gasping for breath, Remus attempted to control his laughter and regulate his ragged breathing. His friends definitely were not morning people.

"Oh, shut it, you. That's the thanks I get for being such a nice, caring friend. Getting laughed at in my face," grumbled James good-naturedly. Yawning and rubbing his face tiredly, he attempted to shake Peter awake, but the snoring continued.

"Here, allow me to show you how it's done," Sirius said, who had by now somewhat woken up. Bringing out his wand, he waved it, saying 'Avis!' A noise like a gunshot rang out, and what appeared to be twenty birds flew and twittered, circling Peter's head. When Peter persisted in sleeping, the birds began to peck at any available skin and screech obnoxiously into his ear. Remus collapsed with laughter again at the sight of Peter trying to brush the birds away, mumbling, "Not now, Mum… I'll get up later…"

"Yeah, you sure showed me, Padfoot. All you managed to do was make Pete think you're his mum," James scoffed. "Let the master of pranking show you how it's done." James conjured streams of water from his wand and directed it onto Peter, but he only rolled over, even with water pouring in torrents out of James' wand.

"Ha! Even you can't do better, Potter!" crowed Sirius. This, of course, started a squabble between the two of them, James and Sirius arguing about who was the better pranker. During this period of about two minutes James completely put the still-streaming wand out of his mind. Of course, it was up to Remus to bring him back into reality.

"James! James! JAMES POTTER!" Remus finally had to resort to shouting to let himself be heard over the two others' immature fighting.

"Huh? What, Moony?"

"I think that's enough water on Peter. Really, James! Any more and you'll keep him in bed for three weeks with pneumonia!" Sheepishly, James stopped his wand from conjuring more water, and dried up Peter as an afterthought.

"Now, I think I can resolve the matter of Peter sleeping in too long, even if you two pathetic pranksters can't," Remus said, grinning.

"Outrageous! How dare you call us pathetic!" shouted Sirius. He made as if to punch Remus (in jest, of course).

"Now, now, Sirius. You would never try to hurt poor little Remus, would you?" Remus asked with a pitiful expression on his face. Then, as a thought occurred to him, and a wicked smile broke over his face as he continued, "Poor, defenseless Remus who is recovering from a sickness and happens to be under Madam Blitzer's care?"

Remus grinned with satisfaction as he watched Sirius go pale at the mention of the matron. Slumping with pretended defeat, Sirius said, "I guess I'll have to thrash you good another time, Moony."

"Yeah, yeah. You can try, Padfoot," Remus responded with bravado. Continuing, he said, "But anyway, back to Wormtail."

Leaning so that his mouth was right by Peter's ear, he said in a loud, urgent voice, "Pete! Wake up! You have to study for our potions test!"

Peter jerked awake faster than anyone had ever seen the infamously heavy sleeper wake up.

Remus grinned in triumph, as Sirius slumped back in his chair.

"Well, Jim m'boy, it looks like we are pretty pathetic pranksters if we didn't even think of that."

scene change

James' PoV

I drifted up to the surface of consciousness. I lay still in my bed, unwilling to greet the new day. But it seemed as if the day wasn't feeling very accommodating of my moroseness and was trying its hardest to greet me. Sunlight poured through my window, lighting up every nook and cranny of the dormitory – and shining its absolute brightest on my firmly closed eyelids.

Moaning, I rolled over and attempted to fall back asleep, but it was in vain. I am a very light sleeper, so once I wake up it's very hard to fall back asleep again. It's a cursed Potter trait, I hear.

Anyway, mumbling various profanities about the sun and its determination to get me out of bed, I yawned and sleepily plodded about the dorm, tossing on some clothes from piles of wrinkled clothing flung about our room. Trudging down to the Great Hall, my abysmal mood was lifted somewhat by the beautiful traditional decorations that brightened up the hall.

Five towering Christmas trees had been dragged into the Great Hall by Hagrid, and they looked magnificent. On them hung twinkling stars, glowing lights, and assorted enchanted ornaments. Mistletoe, wreaths, and ribbons adorned the ceiling and walls. Silvery icicles hung from above and flashed brightly in the light. Tiny candles flickered as they lit up the interior of the castle, providing a warm glow and a similar atmosphere.

I found that I could not stay in my bad mood under the gentle glow of the candles, with faces smiling everywhere, and a generally pleasant tone to the place that just rang of home.

Settling myself down on the Gryffindor table, I resigned myself to being the sole sixth-year Gryffindor at Hogwarts for Christmas. The rest of my friends had left for home on the train yesterday afternoon, asking repeatedly if I was going to be alright and waving reluctantly good-bye, leaving me all on my own for the holiday.

Although my parents had wanted me home this year, I declined; they were going off to Rome to visit my stiff relatives, and I had already had enough experience with them to know that I didn't want to be there. So I had foolishly decided to stay back on my own, thinking that I wouldn't be lonesome at all.

How wrong I was.

It had only been seventeen hours (I had counted), but I was already bored out of my mind and terribly lonely. Although a lot of the younger years were around to idolize me, I found I couldn't quite put up with it as much as when Remus was around. And although I had thought of plenty of pranks to pull, there was no Sirius to brainstorm with, and no eager Peter to help spy. And of course without the girls there wasn't much cheerful banter or insistence on festivities.

Sighing, I dragged my spoon around in my bowl a bit, squinting at the odd shapes the swirls of cinnamon were making in my oatmeal. Suddenly, I realized what I was doing, and flung down my spoon in disgust. I, James Potter, Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Transfiguration expert, and infamous Marauder, had been making shapes with my oatmeal. How low had I sunk!

I just stared with blank eyes for a few moments, afraid to move in case I did anything horribly embarrassing again. It's funny, I mused to myself, loneliness does things to the eyes. Because suddenly I was having a hallucination of Lily Evans running through the Great Hall doors. The hallucination rushed up to me and hugged me tightly.

Oh.

I guess it wasn't a hallucination after all.

"Lil?" I asked, confused. "Why are you here? I thought you went home yesterday morning!"

"Well, my parents decided to spend the rest of the week at my sister's fiancé's house. I…decided to pass. So I came back!" She said brightly, in true Lily-style.

"How come? Is your sister's fiancé that bad?" I asked somewhat skeptically.

"Hmm… How to answer that… Well, let me just say that he's about as pleasant as my sister herself," Lily answered.

"Ah," I said. Now I understood. I had heard Lily talk about her sister before. "What's her name again? Begonia, or something?"

"Petunia," Lily corrected, laughing. Sobering up a bit, she continued, "They're quite nice together, actually. They deserve each other, just like Malfoy and Narcissa. That should give you some idea of what they're like."

"Oh. That bad, huh?" I asked sympathetically.

"Yep," said Lily, nodding her head. Brightening up, she said, "Oh, I nearly forgot! I have your Christmas present! Have you opened your gifts yet?"

"Nope, I was actually kind of depressed this morning, so I didn't yet," I responded with a shrug.

"Oh, good! We can open ours together, then!" Lily exclaimed happily.

"Yeah, let's," I said, smiling at her. Lily's enthusiasm was just so catching.

scene change

James' PoV

"Look! Brooke got me some earrings!" Lily eagerly pulled them through the piercing in her ears and turned to show James. "What do you think, James?"

"They look absolutely dashing, darling," I responded in a typical way. I was trying to imitate a Muggle I'd seen on the tebbelision-thing Lily had showed me once, but judging by the fact that Lily had dissolved in giggles, I assumed I wasn't doing a very good job of it.

"Mmm, these Sugar Quills are really good," I sighed as the candy melted in my mouth.

"Mmm-hmm," agreed Lily contently, resting her back against the sofa.

Shreds of wrapping paper littered the surrounding area of the Gryffindor common room. A warm fire was lit in the fireplace and cast shadows on all the gifts we had received, scattered around the floor. The atmosphere was warm and comfortable.

Suddenly, Lily snapped her head up, "I nearly forgot to give you your gift! Let me go get it real quick."

"Oh yeah," I said, belatedly remembering the gift I had stored in our dorm. "Hang on, I'll go get mine, too." Dashing up the stairs I searched frantically in the dorm for the present – under the bed, in the closet, in my desk, everywhere. But the present was simply not to be found. Slumping on my bed, I thought miserably about how Lily would have loved the present. Falling backwards onto the bed, I felt a strange lump underneath me.

Oh. There it was.

I remembered now leaving it on my bed so I would remember to send it; I had forgotten to send it with everyone else's the previous afternoon.

Bursting with joy that I had not indeed lost it, I ran back downstairs to find Lily.

"Here, open mine first," I said, thrusting the package at Lily. I watched her carefully open the wrapping paper, and draw out the gift inside. I watched her face, wanting to see if she liked it, or if she was simply being polite. Seeing the ecstatic expression on her face, I decided that she liked it. I knew I had picked a good gift.

Her present was a necklace. A crystalline lily hung as a pendant on a thin, golden chain. I knew that engraved in gold on the back of the pendant was Lily's name, with a small diamond chip dotting the i. I also knew, although she might not have, that the pendant had a strong safety charm on it, and that it served doubly as an amulet warding against most dark magic as well. I had grown rather paranoid, if I do admit myself, since my grandfather had died, and I had attached safety charms on every gift I had given out this year.

"Oh, James!" Lily breathed. "It's beautiful! I can't even tell you…it's just…oh!" Apparently Lily was lost for words, so she found solace in cutting off my air supply with her vise-like grip around my neck.

"Lily! Can't breathe!" I gasped. As she let go of my neck sheepishly, I massaged my throat gently.

"Sorry, James. It's just so beautiful," Lily apologized, gazing, mesmerized at her gift.

"It's alright, Lil. Well, I assume you like it then," I said wryly, with a grin on my face. "Here, turn around. I'll help you put it on."

Lily turned her back to me, handing me the necklace, lifting up her hair to expose the back of her neck. As I tried to fasten the rather complicated clasp, I became rather distracted by the creamy skin on the nape of her neck. Her intoxicating perfume didn't help matters much, either. Finally, though, I managed to fumble the clasp together and handed Lily a mirror to see her reflection through.

After a few silent moments of admiring the pendant, Lily turned back towards me and handed me her gift.

Carefully pulling apart the paper that covered the wrapped parcel, I drew out what looked to be some very strange shoes. They looked like white ankle boots, with laces all the way up, and a sharp metal blade protruding from the bottom of each shoe.

"What are these?" I asked Lily in confusion.

"They're ice skates, James. Muggles go ice skating all the time in the winter, and I thought it would be fun!" enthused Lily.

"What do you do with them?"

"You wear them, of course!"

"Muggles actually wear these things?" I asked skeptically, holding up the weird shoes.

"Yes, James. We can go try them out on the lake right now! Let's go!" cried Lily, dragging me up by my wrist.

"I have a bad feeling about this," I mumbled to myself as I allowed myself to be dragged outside.

It turned out that my little prediction was destined to be proved correct. I feel that the less said about the whole experience, the better. Although it was fun, I ended up on my backside more often than on the actual skates. Even though I valiantly got up again after every fall, I simply slipped and fell again in a matter of seconds. After a while, I gave up and sat down on a bench, watching Lily skate.

Lily was a really good skater, I discovered. Apparently, she always went ice skating in winter with her family, and had been since she was about five years old. She looked like she was floating as she zipped across the smooth surface of the frozen lake, her crimson hair fanning out like a scarlet banner, and her robe billowing out behind her.

When I finally got the courage to try skating again (or rather, when my rear end got some feeling back into it) I managed to skate in a wobbly fashion around the lake twice.

After I declared my huge accomplishment, Lily and I had a huge snowball fight. We pelted packed snowballs at each other, ducking behind forts we had made. Occasionally one of us would ambush the other behind the wall of snow. We declared a truce, and traipsed into the castle, soaking wet but exhilarated.

As I went to bed that night, I thought of how my Christmas had gone from sour to the best ever. All because of one person – Lily Evans.

end chapter

A/N: Sorry for having taking a long time. Anyway, this chapter is really long in my standards, so I hope it makes up for it. This didn't turn out as well as I'd wanted, but I hope you still like it. Review please!

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