"On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me… five gold rings…"

The 28th of December saw snowfall and by sunrise the grounds of Hogwarts were covered in a think blanket of snow. The un-trodden carpet of white, glittered in the early morning sunlight, and the icicles on trees seemed to have a warm glow.

James had fallen asleep in the common room for the second night in a row. While the sofas were extraordinarily comfy, they were giving him a stiff back. He had wrapped the bird whistles individually and had put them in his pocket, ready to take up to Lily's dorm; just after he had finished sitting down…of course he hadn't finished until he had woken up the following morning.

James had woken up just in time to see the dying embers of yesterday's fire burn out. He drew his eyes away from the fading glow in time to see the sun come up from a window across the room.

"Shit, not again." He ran up to the girls' dormitory in his crumpled robes and hastily dropped Lily's presents onto her bedside table. He didn't have time to leave a not, though he was sure Lily would know that they were from him. He shut the door behind him gently, just as Lily was beginning to stir.

"See, I told you he'd fallen asleep in the common room again. His bed hadn't been slept in." James could here Remus' voice coming from the common room below.

"Then why isn't he here?" Sirius was with him.

"Morning guys." James called from the bottom of the girls' dorm staircase.

"There, see. Sirius was stressing out." Remus smiled.

"Was not," Sirius pouted, "Anyway, what are you doing coming down from the girls dorm?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." James stated, a smug smile across his face.

"You didn't." Remus said, aghast.

"That's my boy." Sirius said with pride.

"You didn't." Remus repeated.

"I didn't. I slept on the couch," James said laughing, Sirius looked disappointed. "Got a bad back now though." Sirius brightened.

"Oh look it's snowing!" Sirius exclaimed loudly, causing James some more pain.

"Keep it down would ya? Didn't sleep so well last night." Lily had just stumbled into the common room in her pyjamas, still half asleep, the presents in her hand.

"Wow Lils you look like death." Sirius commented unthinkingly.

"Well aren't you lovely."

Once the rest of the castle finally awoke chaos ensued on the snowy grounds of Hogwarts. More than one window was broken, and then fixed again by magic before any of the Professors could give anyone detention.

Early in the afternoon a snowball fight was started between the Slytherins and Gryffindors, neither team showed any mercy, and if you were a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw caught in the crossfire: lord help you.

James used this as his chance to slip quietly away to Hogsmeade, to find Lily her five gold rings.

When he got to Hogsmeade he had trouble finding rings within his price range; let alone five of them. He was extremely tempted to buy her five yellow plastic rings when something in a shop window caught his eye.

Resting in a box were five golden rings, the rings were looped through each other, James found this rather odd. When he asked the shopkeeper why they were joined, he explained that the rings were a muggle artefact, used in a magicians show. The rings weren't really magic but were an optical illusion. The shopkeeper had lost the instructions to the trick long ago so he couldn't show James how they worked. James took them anyway; maybe Lily could figure them out; since her parents were muggles.

When James returned to Hogwarts he found his Gryffindor housemates lying lazily around the fire in the common room.

"Why isn't everyone outside playing?" He wondered aloud, he had hoped the common room would be quiet so he could wrap Lily's present in peace.

"We lost." Sirius grumbled from a corner.

"To Slytherin?" James said surprised.

"To Hufflepuff." Remus stated. James almost collapsed.

"Yeah, Slytherin hit a Hufflepuff prefect square in the chest, then there was an uprising and they beat us and Slytherin." Sirius moped. James guffawed.

"Well who'd have thought." He sighed as he walked up the boys' dorm staircase to wrap Lily's present.