A/N: I'm onto Elaine's chappies now! Watch me go!!!!!!!!!

Chapter 19

In the Great Hall, the following day James, Sirius and Remus were all playing exploding snap together at the Gryffindor table. Earlier that morning they had exchanged gifts with each other. They had all vowed not to open them until Christmas day and James had even told them an tiny white lie that he had put a jinx on the presents so that they couldn't open them even if they tried.

Lily was so happy. It would be the first time since she'd been at Hogwarts that she'd get to go home and see her family. Everyone was coming over at Christmas and Lily couldn't wait.

Hagrid came in looking very white and said "Train's here, everyone going 'ome fer Christmas better leave now!" Lily was one of the first to leave and get into a carriage. Gemini and Katie quickly joined her.

"It's gonna be so cool seeing my family again, I can't wait! I wish we could just hurry up and get there!" Lily said.

"Woah! Hold your horses Lils! We'll get there soon enough!" Katie joked. Lily then burst into tears, unable to contain her excitement anymore. Gemini and Katie looked at each other, not knowing what to do they finally decided on hugging Lily which could be seen as friendly or comforting.

"So, Katie," said Lily wiping off her tears, "What are you doing for the holidays?"

"The usual, nothing special. It's going to be strange without Simon though, he was always the funny guy who mum and dad adored. I used to be really jealous but he's gone now," she went silent and stared out of the window, obviously not wanting to talk any more.

Gemini decided to break the silence, "Well me, Sirius and James are all going to the Potter's house. We'll see Aries again, he was so miserable after we left him, it nearly broke my heart!"

"Who's Aries?" asked Katie.

"My little brother, haven't I told you about him?" she said, surprised, "I'm sure I have but anyway, he's five and three quarters and looks a lot like Sirius. He's really sweet now, but with Sirius in the family he's bound to turn out cocky."

"Sirius isn't bad, he's just…" Katie started, searching for the right word to describe him.

"Yeah," replied Lily, "He's not as bad as my sister's friend Vernon Dursley though. He's so ugly and annoying. He thinks I should adore him like my stupid sister does but I hate him! I don't know why on earth Petunia likes him, he's so infuriating," Lily said. Gemini and Katie laughed.

Soon they were all on the train and they managed to get a compartment to themselves. They played exploding snap and wizard's chess throughout the journey back to Kings Cross.

As they entered though the barrier and Lily broke into a big smile as she saw her mum and dad. She rushed over to them and hugged them both. Gemini and Katie went over to them and Lily introduced her friends to her parents. When she asked where Petunia was she found out that her sister was in the car, sulking. She said her goodbyes to her two friends and went off happily with her parents.

The ride home in the car was spent relating the year's events to her mother and father. She told them all about Hogwarts, including the detention but she failed to mention the countless times she had been told off for arguing with James Potter. Petunia was trying hard not to listen and to blatantly ignore her sister but failed when her curiosity got the better of her.

"So, Lily, is it better than normal school?" Petunia asked, genuinely interested.

"Yes it is and I've made loads of great friends! There's Gemini, Katie, Remus, Becca Hall, Anna Haigh, Sarah Chadwick oh the list is endless!" she laughed but started to miss her friends, the holiday was going to be quiet without their endless banter.

When they reached number four Privet Drive Lily noticed her grandmother's shiny, red mini cooper parked outside. Lily's face lit up and asked her mother if her grandma was her, she found out that she was staying until boxing day along with her Auntie Hilda and Uncle Nobby.

When the car stopped Lily got out as quickly as she could, leaving her dad to struggle with her bags, and rushed inside her house. She went into the sitting room and found her relatives sat around the roaring fire having a cup of tea. She rushed over to her grandma and gave her a big hug. Petunia pushed past them in a huff, greeting her auntie and uncle and then stormed off to her bedroom.

Meanwhile Lily began explaining to her grandma what she had done at school and everything she had learned, but wasn't allowed to show her anything because of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, Paragraph C and also section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statue of Secrecy. These together basically said that people under 17 couldn't perform magic out of school and in front of muggles.

That evening they ate dinner and talked some more before going to bed.

"LILY! LILY! IT'S CHRISTMAS! WAKE UP WAKE UP! PRESENTS!" Petunia screamed to her sister early on Christmas morning. She bounced around the room and opened her curtains. To her extreme delight she saw, "SNOW! SNOW LILS SNOW! IT'S A WHITE CHRISTMAS! SNOW SNOW SNOW!"

Lily got up immediately and raced to the window, she broke out into a grin when she saw that her back garden was covered in a snug blanket of snow. Lily pulled on some clothes as fast as possible and her and Petunia raced outside to play in the snow. Even though they were 12 and 14 in age they still threw snowballs at each other and built a snowman.

After about an hour they came back inside rosy cheeks and gasping for breath, huge grins plastered on their faces. They changed into warm clothes and put on children's television. Outside snow had begun to fall again form the heavens and it coated the slush that lay in the back garden.

At around nine o'clock their relatives roused and got up. Whilst they were singing the Balamory theme tune their mother made them breakfast and they ate it, glued to the television set.

Petunia and Lily kept hinting towards the pile of presents under the sparkling Christmas tree, their fingers itching to tear off the wrapping paper. Finally their mum let them open the presents and they began straight away. Their mum, dad, grandma, aunt and uncle were all looking very tired with their cups of tea on the sofas and chairs with Lily and Petunia on the floor ripping off the paper on the presents.

"WOW! THANKS LIL!" Petunia yelled as she opened her present, a set of videos including such classics as Dirty Dancing, Sleepless in Seattle and Edward Scissorhands.

Lily opened her presents and was delighted to find lots of great things. She got a book on charms from Katie, an endless supply of sweets from Gemini and Sirius and a piece of rock from Remus. Sarah and Anna had put their money together and got Lily a camera which took wizard photos. Lily hoped that her friends enjoyed their presents as much as she was enjoying hers.

She opened a packet of Bertie Bott's and popped one in her mouth as she opened the presents from her parents. Petunia, spying the open box of sweets, reached in and grabbed a red jellybean, expecting it to be strawberry or possibly raspberry. She put it in her mouth and began to chew and was overcome by the strong taste of chilli. She raced into the kitchen and downed a glass of water.

"I'm fine!" she yelled from the kitchen, Lily laughed trust her sister to have a bad experience with Bertie Bott's beans!

Lily opened the rest of her presents to find that she'd got a selection of clothes from her parents along with plenty of other bits and bobs. But by far the most intriguing present she got was from her grandmother. It was delicately wrapped in silver tissue paper; she opened it and found a small pink box. She carefully lifted off the lid and saw something glittery. She lifted it out; there were two things, a charm bracelet and a necklace. The necklace had a tear drop shaped diamond pendant on a silver chain. The charm bracelet was silver and had tiny tear drop diamonds hanging off it. Lily smiled in awe and put them on before hugging her grandmother and thanking her profoundly.

Later that day Lily and Petunia were surrounded by their family retelling old jokes from the crackers and wearing the silly hats on their heads. They had just finished their magnificent Christmas dinner made by their mum, grandma and auntie. Their cousins had come round to join them in the festivities.

The dining table, which had just an hour ago been piled high with food, glistening from being piping hot. The centre of the table was laden with the turkey, plump and juicy and full of stuffing. There were bowls of assorted vegetables, ranging from bright orange carrots to green broccoli and white cauliflower. A bowl with fluffy white mashed potato was next to the gravy dish, which was steaming.

Now the bowls were clean, scraped empty of every trace of food and the family was enjoying a game of charades in the living room.

"Three words, it's a film, third word…ILL!… NOT WELL! …HOT! …FEVER! IT'S FEVER!"

Lily's cousin Jamie was having a hard time miming Saturday Night Fever. He was trying to do Saturday by pointing around him but they only managed to get 'Christmas' or 'house.' He ran out of the room and fetched a calendar and pointed to the word Saturday.

"AH! SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER!" screamed Petunia and went to stand in front of everyone to mime Cats.

It was well into the night when everyone finally went home and Lily went to bed feeling very happy.

James' Christmas was just as exciting. As usual Sirius, Gemini and Aries had joined them for Christmas and Shirley had made a huge fuss out of them, especially Aries.

James had woken up to the happy cries of Aries and was about to go back to sleep but was attacked by Sirius jumping on his bed. He rubbed his eyes and groaned as he saw what time it was. Even though he liked Christmas, he liked sleeping even more, especially at four in the morning. James scowled and got up, once Sirius started there was no stopping him.

When he went downstairs he saw Aries eating his breakfast and Gemini was sat at the table sipping a glass of orange juice to try and wake herself up. Sirius was also in the room, busily tearing up the wrapping paper on his presents.

James decided to join him and shook off the sleepy shroud that just a few minutes before covered him. He began tearing off the wrapping paper too. He said thanks to Gemini, Aries and Sirius for the toy broomstick that they had got him as it hummed quietly round the room.

He opened the pile of presents from his parents and his eyes widened at all of the amazing things that he saw. He'd got a pile of books, a new gobstones set, a luxury set of snap cards, plenty of sweets, a set of Puddlemere United robes and lots of other things.

"Wow Aries," he said, as he saw what Aries was playing with, "Who got you that?"

"Your mummy and daddy," Aries replied and carried on playing with his plastic figurines of the Puddlemere United squad.

"Can I play with them with you?" asked James.

"No!" yelled Aries immediately screwing up his face in pretend tears. James left him to it.

Later that day, noise and chaos surrounded James. Everyone was talking happily and Aries was playing with James' youngest cousin Tom. Soon they began to cry as Tom had taken Aries' figurines to play with and wouldn't give it back. Their parents began immediately to try and separate them to cease the racket they were producing.

"Why won't they shut up?" moaned Sirius.

"Because they're babies," replied Gemini.

"AM NOT!" screamed Tom, hearing what Gemini said.

"Yes you are," Gemini laughed back.

"AM NOT! AM NOT! AM NOT!" yelled Tom.

"Prove it," said James, exactly like the time when he'd challenged Lily to knock on the door of the Slytherin Common Room.

"How?" asked Tom, being young and naïve he was desperate to prove himself.

"By not crying and not taking Aries' toys," Tom cocked his head and thought for a moment. He nodded and shut up pretty soon.

The rest of the evening was pleasant. They ate a magnificent meal that filled everyone up to the brim. After they'd finished the adults stayed inside talking whilst the children went outside to play Quidditch. Aries and Tom were left on the ground as they had no brooms to play on and the others said that they were too young.

By the time they went back inside the adults were all about to leave. They said their goodbyes to everyone and went home. James went upstairs, to his bed and fell straight asleep.

The next day Lily was told not to make too much noise, as her grandma wasn't feeling too well. Lily thought that it must have been all of the delicious food as she tiptoed past the door of the spare room.

In the kitchen she found Petunia looking in the distance. She crept up behind her and shouted, "BOO!" Petunia jumped and smashed the plate that she was holding.

"Why did you do that?" she screamed.

"I'm sorry, it was just a joke," Lily said apologetically.

"Ok, leave me alone then," Petunia said, staring into the distance again.

"What are you looking at?" Lily asked, following her sister's line of vision.

"Nothing," Petunia said, hastily looking back at the washing up again. As Lily was shorter than Petunia she couldn't see what her sister had been looking at and decided to go into the living room.

She glanced out of the window and saw that it had snowed some more over night. She decided to go outside and play in the snow and went to see if her sister wanted to join her. Of course Petunia said she wanted to and they went outside and built an army of snowmen. They were so busy having fun that they didn't hear their mother calling them desperately. When they finally heard her they raced inside to find their mum stood leaning against the doorframe with tears streaming down her face.

"What's wrong mum?" asked Petunia.

"It's your grandma, she's not feeling well, your dad's just taken her to hospital I'm going to visit her now. You can come if you want to, I think she'd like it if you did," Rose Evans said.

That night Lily spent ages trying to get to sleep. She was restless and tossed and turned for most of the night. There was no use even trying to get to sleep, as she couldn't. She kept thinking about all of the great times she'd had with her grandma over the many years. When she heard the phone ring she got up and went downstairs.

Petunia was already downstairs, sat on the sofa with her mum. Lily went and joined them and sat on the other side of her mum. Her dad was on the phone, sat on the chair and he was very pale indeed. His hand shook as he replaced the receiver back on the phone.

"Is she…is she?" Rose asked her husband, tears already forming in her eyes. Robert Evans nodded in reply and sat next to Lily and hugged his daughter. The Evans family just sat like that, silently crying for well over an hour.

Ruth Evans' funeral was arranged for the following Tuesday.

Meanwhile James and Sirius were sleeping in but Gemini and Aries had been up for ages, making snow angels outside. Aries wasn't very good at it however, as he couldn't get back up without spoiling the shape.

Gemini had promised Lily that she would telephone her during the holidays, well, attempt to telephone her. The Potter's had always had a telephone, just for effect, but it had never been used. Gemini stood up and brushed the snow off her coat.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Aries pouted, "Don't leave me!" Gemini explained what she was doing and left to go inside. Aries pulled out his Puddlemere United squad and started playing with them.

Gemini picked up the strange device and looked it over. She had no idea how to use it and asked Edward Potter for some advice.

"Err…Mister Potter?"

"How many times do I have to tell you Gem, call me Edward," he laughed.

"Um…I was wondering, how do you use the telephone?" Gem asked.

"Err…well…I'm not to sure really, it's just an ornament really," he said.

"I need to phone Lily, do you have any instructions?" He nodded and went off. He came back with a sheet of A4 paper. She read it and pretty soon she was talking to Petunia and then Lily.

"How are you? Did you have a good Christmas? What did you get?" asked Gemini in one breath.

"I got loads of things, thanks for my prezzie. Did you have a good time?" Lily answered and asked at the same time.

"Yeah! It was so much fun! Thanks for my present too! I loved it! So, what are you doing?" Gem asked.

"Nothing much," said Lily gloomily and began to cry.

"What's the matter Lils?" Gemini asked, worried for her friend.

"My grandma died last week and I still haven't really acknowledged it yet," Lily sobbed.

"Oh Lily, I'm so sorry, are you ok? Stupid question, of course you're not," Gemini fumbled.

"I'll be fine, I'm really sorry but I've got to go now, see you on the train, bye!" Lily said.

"Yeah, and sorry again. See you on the train! BYE!" Gemini said whilst she hung up the phone and sat down. 'Poor Lily,' Gemini thought, 'her grandma dies right near Christmas, life is so unfair!'

The next couple of days passed by in a blur for Lily and soon it was time for school again. She couldn't wait to she her friends again but really wasn't in the mood for either James or Sirius.