Chapter Four…

The days and weeks began to pass in a blur and before he knew it, James had watched September blend into October. The days grew chillier and an excitement could be felt building in the bones of every student as Halloween approached. Through all this, though, Harry found himself bogged down with work given by his teaches as they all said, "You're in the seventh year now, it's time to be serious!". Most days James could be found hidden behind a stack of book in the library writing various essays for cranky teachers and studying for the fast-approaching mid term exams.

Sometimes James would pass Lily in the hall while they both ran from classroom to classroom, making the mad dash to beat the bell. He would smile and sometimes she would return the gesture, a bit of pink resting in her cheeks as she took her seat two rows behind him. Without extra time to spend time with their friends it was all James and Lily could do to maintain this low-key hallway relationship.

The school got a surprise when Dumbledore's voice floated through the school the morning of Halloween and announced that there would be no lessons that day and he was inviting the students to relax and have fun. There would be an opportunity from 3-5 that afternoon to help decorate the hall for the annual dance that evening if you so wished. Boys and girls all over the school were running around hooting and hollering while other, more careful students, ran to their teacher's living spaces to double check that they had heard correctly. The news came as James was putting on his left sock and he let it drop to the floor as he jumped up and down in the air. None of the boys could believe it. Dumbledore had only become Headmaster in their 5th year and an unannounced holiday could not be remembered ever having happened in the history of Hogwarts. Even the teachers smiled as they stood back to let piggy-back riders through the halls, whooping as they went.

The boys made their way down to the Great Hall to find it packed with students all talking excitedly to one another about how crazy this was and what they were going to do with the whole day off.

Sirius plopped down next to James at the Gryffindor table and sighed.

"God, that Dumbledore is a saint. I really need this break from all that studying I've been doing," he said as he passed the orange juice pitcher to Remus who snorted loudly.

"What studying?" James laughed as he buttered his toast. Sirius hit him in the arm. James looked up from his plate to try and spot if Lily was there. He couldn't find her though so he just went back to his bacon.

"Hey guys, I gotta bring these books back to the library so I'll be back in a few minutes," James said a few hours later. He hoisted himself off the floor from where they had been playing exploding snap and rummaged through his bag for two books.

"Yeah, get those out of my sight. I don't want to see any books today because it's a-" Sirius paused dramatically, "HOLIDAY!" He finished noisily.

James chuckled. "Ok, whatever you say, mate."

A few minutes later as James was signing his book back in, he noticed a mop of fire red hair sitting at one of the tables in the back.

"Thanks Ms. Mattoon," he said to the lady behind the desk. Then he turned and made his way over to Lily's table. As he came up behind her, he stuck his hands over her eyes. She twisted her head up and around but it was no use.
"Who is it?" she asked in slightly mad tone. James laughed quietly.
"Why such hard studying on this holiday, Ms. Evans?" he asked, releasing his grip on her. She turned to look at him.

"If I don't take this extra time to study now, I'll never get this all done," she answered, turning back to her parchment. James surveyed the table. It was littered with crumpled bits of parchment, quills and a massive piled of books.

He took the seat beside Lily. She sighed in obvious frustration.

"How long have you been working, Lily?" he asked her. She passed a hand through her hair and added a sentence to her paper before answering.

"Four, maybe five hours. I'm not even close to finishing though," she said distractedly as she searched for a book. She spotted it sitting next to James hand and went to pick it up but he got there first.

"Come on, give me that!" she begged. He held it out of her distance.

"You can't keep working like this, I won't let you," he answered.

"Fine, if you won't give me that book I'll just work on my Advanced Arithmancy homework. As she moved her hand to pick up a folder, James's fingers closed around hers. He shook his head.

"You are going to have some fun. C'mon Lily, we have the dance tonight and teachers weren't allowed to assign homework due tomorrow so there is no way I'm letting you continue to work. That is, unless of course, all of this work is ," he lowered his voice to almost a whisper, "late." He fake gasped and threw a hand over his wide-open mouth. Lily scowled at him.

"Of course it's not late!" she hissed, looking at him as is he had just called her a dirty name.

"Well then, let's go!"

The next thing Lily knew, her bag was packed with all its' books and James was pulling her out of the library. He dropped her bag along the wall saying they would get it later. The day having been declared a holiday, students with permission to visit Hogsmead were allowed to visit the town is they wanted to. Lily had permission but had never gone because she had found the quieter common room a good place to catch up on work. However, James insisted that they go so she found herself donning her jacket and following him out of the main gates and into the village.

Before long Lily actually found herself laughing as she talked with James. She allowed her guard to come down and let herself have some fun. After a 2 hours, lots of sweet buying and a warm butterbeer later, they headed back towards the school.

"What's that?" Lily asked, pointing to a decrepit-looking building up on a hill set away from the rest of the quaint village. She could see some 4th year boys taunting each other to go nearer to the bolted doors. James's eyes darted around and he removed his fingers from her grasp.

"N-nothing. J-just an old haunted building," he tried to say nonchalantly. Lily could tell he wasn't telling her the whole truth but she could also tell that he didn't want to talk about it so she took his hand back in hers and smiled. "Ok."

James hurriedly changed the subject. "So, you wanna do the hall decorating with me? Sounds like fun," he asked.

Lily nodded her head as they stepped into the warm front hall. "Yeah, ok."

Lily and James entered the Great Hall together and walked to the tables with all the decorations. Lily smiled bright as she saw the lights and streamers they had to put up.
"You look happy," James commented as they strung skeleton lights around the door frame. He looked down at her from the ladder he was on. Her grin faltered a little.
"My mum used to love decorating the house for all the silly little holidays," she said as she handed him another set of lights. "I haven't done this in so long. Not since…well, you know," she smiled weakly and looked up at him. He looked into her eyes. They were swirling with so many emotions but he knew that somewhere in that deep pool of green was happiness.
He climbed down the ladder to examine their work. Then he picked up her hand and simply said,
"I know."

That night James met Lily in the common room for the dance. It was informal dress so he had changed out of his robes and into his regular clothes. Lily had decided to take a more festive route. She was wearing her usual white bellbottoms (that was their time, right?) but her shirt had pumpkins and spiders spread across the chest and sleeves. She wore a wreath of bats in her hair and black cat earrings glinted at her ears.
She twirled for him and giggled. "You like?" she asked.
"Very much so. Where do you find this stuff?" he asked, examining her outfit piece by piece.
She shrugged. "I had a dress-up trunk when I was little so I looked through and found these." She held up a finger telling him to wait. Then she snapped her fingers and her earrings began to light up different colours. She laughed again. "I charmed them."
"You always were good at that sort of thing. C'mon, let's go down," he said.

When they got to the hall they saw tables set up for anywhere from 2 to 10 people. They spotted Remus, Sirius and Peter and went to join them.
"Lily, you look ravishing this evening," complimented Sirius as she sat down across from him at the circular table.
She rolled her eyes. "Already been drinking this evening, Sirius?" she retorted.
"Just a little," he replied, grinning. She couldn't help it; Lily let herself smile at him. She saw a small group of her friends walk in and she waved them over.
Dinner began shortly and after the meal a small band trooped onto the stage that had been set up and the tables were moved to create a dance floor.
Sirius asked one of Lily's friends, a girl with short blonde hair, to dance and they got up and walked onto the dance floor. Remus followed suit and James offered Lily his hand. The last girl sitting at the table didn't look too pleased to be left alone with Peter so she left to find herself a boy to dance with. Peter tried asking a few girls to dance but after being rejected and laughed at he decided to leave unnoticed.

After a lot of dancing James shouted to Lily that he wanted to sit down butas they were walking off the floor, the band struck a slow tune and Lily pulled her back.
"Lily," he said, panting slightly.
"I love slow songs," she whispered in his ear. He raised an eyebrow and followed her to an empty spot. She draped her arms around his neck, he put his around her back and they swayed.
Soon their breathing mellowed and she rested her head on his shoulder. She even closed her eyes and swallowed his scent She didn't even noticed when the song ended and the band announced that this would their last song of the evening. Couples began to leave and soon the two were alone in the hall. Lily finally opened her eyes and looked around at the empty room.
"James?" she said, lifting her head from his shoulder.
"Mmnm," he replied.
"We're the last ones here," she said.
He kissed her on the neck and continued to hold her. He took a deep breath before replying.
"I know."