February 14, 1978

Lily woke up with a plan. The previous night her dorm mates had been discussing what they were all doing for Valentine's Day. Marlene, Dorcas, Alice, and even Mary all had planned something to do, and Lily had nothing. She was absolutely sure that James had at least one thing planned for the evening, and Lily did not want to just do what he was planning and not contribute anything. James deserved it, he'd been a great boyfriend and Lily loved him.

And so when Lily woke on the 14th with an actual plan she was completely relieved. The first step was not to sit near James in any classes or at lunch. This would be easy enough for Arithmancy, since James wasn't in Arithmancy, however avoiding him in Defence Against the Dark Arts later would be much more difficult.

Lily managed to seat Alice and Mary next her and Marlene and Dorcas opposite her at lunch so that James was forced to sit farther down the table with his friends. Lily was only avoiding him so that she could surprise him, but he still looked so hurt at not being able to sit near Lily.

After D.A.D.A. ended Lily grabbed James arm and dragged him down the hallway.

"Hey, Lily, wait!"

"No time to lose, Potter, the sun's only out so long!" Lily said, not stopping her march when James had disentangled himself.

James grinned behind her and caught up quickly. "What have you got up your sleeve, Evans?"

Lily smiled at him, "It's a surprise." Lily pulled out her wand and summoned the objects she would need from her room, and James' room.

They came flying down the stairs. Two pairs of ice skates, and all of Lily and James' warm clothes.

James grinned as Lily caught them out of the air.

"Are we going skating?" James asked, seeing the pairs of skates.

"Only if you want to, Potter." Lily offered the larger pair, and he took it gladly.

o0o

Lily glided across the ice that had thickly covered the lake since November. James however was having some trouble. He kept falling onto his butt, or else going into an unwelcome split.

"James, it's not that hard. Just glide."

"Easy for you to say…" He said, struggling back onto his feet after having fallen on his butt again.

"Here." Lily stopped in front of him and pulled him the rest of the way up. "Hold on to me and just walk, but don't pick up your feet."

James held onto Lily more tightly than was strictly necessary, but he was warm and Lily didn't mind. They moved slowly and eventually James was able to mostly stay up on his own.

"Hey, I'm actually doing it! I'm actually skat-" And then he promptly fell onto his butt again.

Lily tried to suppress giggles as she helped him up again.

"I take it back, I don't think I'm cut out for skating. I haven't felt my arse in an hour."

Lily giggled, which made James grin.

"It's okay, James, we can skate together." Lily wrapped her arms around James' neck. He smiled and put his arms around her back.

"Okay."

They went around in slow circles like that for a while, until a snowball hit James' back.

"What the bloody hell!?" James exclaimed turning to see what had hit him. Lily saw a head of long black hair duck down and heard Remus' voice scolding.

"It's Remus and Sirius." Lily said. "They've got snowballs."

"Yeah, well so will we." James nudged her towards a bush opposite where Remus and Sirius were. They skated to the edge of the lake, replaced their skates with boots and rushed to the bush. James started scooping snow together and forming small balls and stacking them. Lily crouched and watched him.

"What are you doing Lils, we've got to build up our artillery!"

"Okay. How?"

"What do you mean how?"

"I mean, what should I do?"

"Make snowballs!"

"Okay, jeez…"

Lily began making snowballs, but her legs quickly got sore from crouching, and her hands were going numb, even under her gloves.

Just as she was about to complain to James that they should go inside a volley of snowballs landed around them.

"Quick Lils, throw!"

James was launching snowballs at Sirius and Remus. Lily stood to do the same, but got a snowball to the leg.

"Ahhh, James I've been hit!"

"It's fine Lily, keep going!"

"Fine…" Lily grumbled. She didn't really see the point of snowball fights, they made you wet and cold, and it was simply a war of attrition. There wasn't a point.

Instead of making more snowballs Lily snuck around the bush and went under the beech tree and began building a snowman.

"May I join you?" It was Remus, he had also escaped the barrage of snowballs being launched back and forth between Sirius and James.

"Yeah, just making the middle now." Remus helped Lily push the ball of snow around until it had picked up enough snow to be smaller than the bottom, but big enough to put the head on top of it.

They had just started on the head, when Lily got a snowball to the back.
"Alright that's it." Lily straightened and marched to the middle. "I am going inside because one of you just hit me and my arse and extremities are freezing. Sirius help Remus finish the snowman and James you come with me."

"But Lily-"

Lily glared at him. "You want to apologize for my getting hit?"

"Umm…" James lowered his head.

Sirius let out a bark of laughter. Lily whipped her head around to glare at him.

"Or perhaps," She glared at him more intensely, "You would like to apologize."

"Yeah...Coming Moony!" Sirius fled from under Lily's glare.

"Much better." Lily marched towards the castle.

James caught up with her. "I'm sorry you got hit Lils. It was a really nice snowman you were working on over there with Remus by the way.

"Thanks."

"Would you like to hear what I had planned?"

"I-" Lily was cut off by her own stomach grumbling. "Guess I'm hungry."

"Let's go to the Kitchens, that's what I had planned anyway, plus I'm hungry too."

o0o

The house-elves were very accommodating. They led Lily and James to the cupboards and giant ovens along the way offering all variety of foods.

After having eaten some of what had been offered at dinner that night, James began pulling ingredients out of the cabinets.

"What are you doing?" Lily whispered. "The elves were very nice to us, don't go rooting through their food."

"Relax, I asked them earlier if we could come in here and bake."

"You asked them if we could bake in here?"

"Yeah."

Lily opened her mouth, but was stunned into silence.

"Want to help?"

"What are we making?" Lily jumped off the chair she had been on and helped James with a large mixer.

"Cookies."

"You know how to make cookies?"

"Yeah, my mum always made them and she said I had to work for them so I helped her make them."

"That's-" but Lily didn't really know what that was.

"Okay grab the flour over there."

They carried on measuring then James turned on the mixer and flour sprayed up and got on Lily's face.

James tried to contain a smiled. "You've got a little…" he gestured to his nose.

"Really? Thanks so much, I hadn't known!" Lily grabbed the flour and chucked some at James.

She giggled seeing him covered in flour.

"Well…" He wiped his glasses and set them back on his face. "If you're going to play like that…" He turned the mixer on again and Lily was sprayed with a fresh bit of flour.

"Hey! No James! I'm sorry!"

"I accept your apology, Evans."

"Good!" Lily tried to clean herself off then remembered that she was a witch. She pulled out her wand and said "Scourgify!" the flour siphoned off her body and she was clean.

"Oh right, good idea!" James pulled his wand out and repeated the spell.

"Let's finish these bloody cookies." Lily said smiling.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Also please remember to leave a review!