Disclaimer: Still don't own anything.
James pulled Lily's trunk effortlessly out of the back of the car as Lily stood beside him, a huge grin on her face.
"I love it when the house is covered in snow," Lily said, leading the way as James carried her trunk up the front steps. Mrs. Evans waited by the door, wrapping her arm around Lily's shoulders.
"Well, he certainly is handsome, he seems nice too. I'm glad one of my daughters knows how to pick good men," she whispered so only Lily could hear. Lily laughed.
"Come on Mum, Vernon's not that bad," she said with some difficulty. They all stepped into the house. James liked the house right away, it felt like home. It was nothing like the huge front entrance to his house, which he found cold and uninviting.
"Just set the trunk down by the stairs James," Lily said. When he did so, she stepped into his arms. Her parents had left into the parlour, giving Lily a moment with James. She smiled at him and kissed him. A dog barking caused them to break apart, and Lily kneeled on the ground to pet the black puppy at her heals. James kneeled beside her, stroking the puppy on the head.
"You must be Blackie," he said with some amusement in his voice.
"Oh look, the freak's home. Wonderful." Petunia said, coming down the stairs. She stopped when she saw James.
"Hello Petunia," Lily said, standing up. "This is James Potter, my boyfriend. How are you dearest sister?"
"Humph," Petunia huffed, stalking off to the parlour. Lily sent James an awkward shrug; she knew just what Petunia had been thinking.
James could see why Petunia was so rude to Lily, it was completely obvious that she was jealous. Petunia was tall and had a long neck, she resembled a horse and had boring brown hair. To put it quite simply, Petunia was plain and Lily was beautiful. There was bound to be a lot of jealous sibling rivalry between them.
"Let's go into the parlour," Lily suggested, taking James's hand.
"Vernon is supposed to come over for dinner, how do I explain to him that she's brought another one of them in to this house!" Petunia was saying.
"Petunia that's enough," Mr. Evans roughly said, seeing James and Lily standing in the doorway. He smiled apologetically at James. Petunia sent them both the dirtiest look she could muster and stormed off to her room.
"Wow, that's lovely," Lily sighed, sitting down on the sofa. James sat down beside her.
"So Lily, how was school?" Mrs. Evans questioned. She was holding Simon on her lap, petting him fondly.
"It's great. Head duties are awesome, and my studies are going very well," Lily grinned.
"Tell us about yourself son," Mr. Evans said. He was seated in what must have been his usual chair, smoking a pipe and smiling warmly at James. James decided he liked Lily's family…well most of them anyway.
"I'm in my final year at Hogwarts, I'm in Gryffindor with Lily. I'm Head boy and couch of the Gryffindor Quidditch team," James replied.
"Quidditch, isn't that the game where you fly around on broomsticks and chase balls?" Mr. Evans questioned, clearly trying very hard to remember what Lily had told him about the game.
"Er, yeah, I suppose that's a quick definition of it. It's played on broomsticks," James answered.
"Gryffindor's won the Quidditch cup every year since James has been on the team," Lily told them, smiling at him.
"Is that so?" Mrs. Evans questioned, clearly impressed. "Robert, we must go to one of those games."
"Sounds like fun," Mr. Evans nodded.
"Well, I better get supper started," Mrs. Evans sighed, standing up.
"Is there anything I can help you with Mum?" Lily questioned.
"Well, you could make the salad if you want," Mrs. Evans replied. Lily nodded and stood up, winking at James.
In the kitchen, Lily took out lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, and various other things to make a salad.
"So, what do you think?" she questioned, beginning to wash the lettuce.
"About James? I like him. He's a really handsome gentlemen, from what I can tell he's clearly smitten with you," Mrs. Evans replied, preparing the meal.
"He is, and he can dance too," Lily said, remembering the Yule ball. "He can ballroom dance, isn't that cool?"
"Your father doesn't dance," Mrs. Evans said wistfully, "I'd love for him to take me out dancing one day."
"Ask him, you never know, he may surprise you. The question is though, do you want to dance with him?" Lily replied, laughing slightly.
"You've grown up so much in the past year," Mrs. Evans commented, kissing Lily on the forehead proudly. "You're a beautiful young lady."
"Gee thanks Mum, get all sentimental and teary eyed, now I'll have to cry," Lily replied, whipping her eyes.
"I'm glad your home for Christmas, I thought after last year…"
"Well that's Petunia for you. Life's never is boring with her around." Lily snorted, trying to not think about last Christmas's incident.
"So how is school?" Mrs. Evans questioned, wondering how her daughter's life was going. It was so difficult having her youngest daughter at a school so far away, with letters as an only way to communicate. Margaret Evans knew very little about Lily's new world.
"It's good Mum, I love it there," Lily replied, smiling. "I'm thinking about becoming an Auror, then I can help get rid of Voldemort."
"Voldemort?" Mrs. Evans questioned, slightly confused. Lily had mentioned the name once or twice during her past visits home, but now she said it differently.
"So Petunia's getting married then for sure? If she's looking for houses with him, then it must be finial," Lily asked, changing the subject. She knew she should probably fill her parents in on all the details, and she would…at the right moment. Christmas Eve didn't seem like the right moment.
"Yes, it's finial. Petunia's wearing an engagement ring and everything," Mrs. Evans sighed, obviously not happy about it. "Well, if he makes her happy I guess."
"He treats us like crap though, well, he treats me like crap. I'm sure he'll be just as rude to James," Lily said bitterly.
"I've talked to Petunia about that already, she shouldn't say anything too you," Mrs. Evans assured her.
"I don't want them making James feel uncomfortable," Lily said, peering into the parlour. James was joking around with her dad, a grin on his face. "I was afraid he wouldn't be very happy visiting with us."
"Why?"
"Well… around this time his parents died, I just figured being around mine would make him uncomfortable," Lily explained. She went back to preparing the salad. "In any case, I really like James and I don't want Petunia to put him down just because we go to Hogwarts, I can stand her putting me down…"
"I understand completely dear," Mrs. Evans said, wrapping her arms around Lily. Lily finished the salad. "You can go join them in the parlour if you want."
Lily walked in as her dad cracked a joke about golfing to James, which James didn't really understand as he had never heard of golfing before. She set the tea tray down on the coffee table and poured tea for her father and James.
"You have to keep your head down when you golf," Lily explained.
"Oh! I get it now, that's funny Mr. Evans," James laughed.
"So James, tell me about Quidditch, what is it?" Mr. Evans questioned a few moments later, taking a sip of tea.
"Well, there are seven players on each side, three of them are called Chasers, there's one Keeper, two Beaters and a Seeker. There are four balls, a Quaffle that the Chaser's throw to each other and try to get through any of the three hoops at either end of the Quidditch pitch. Then there are two Bludgers, which rocket around trying to knock the players off their brooms, which is where the Beaters come in. They're goal is to keep the Bludgers away from their team. The Keeper guards the three hoops and tries to prevent the other team from scoring with the Quaffle. The last ball is a tiny little gold ball that flies around and is very difficult to see and catch, the Seeker must catch that ball in order to win the game, it earns a team 100 points." He explained it slowly so that Mr. Evans would understand.
While James had been in the middle of explaining the game, the doorbell had rung. Petunia answered it and let Vernon into the parlour, and he was looking at James and Lily as if they had eight heads.
"Amazing, so which do you play?" Mr. Evans questioned, nodding at Vernon.
"I am the Seeker," James said proudly.
"Ehem," Petunia cleared her throat. "Vernon's here."
"We can see that Petunia, afternoon Vernon," Mr. Evans greeted.
Vernon nodded and sat down on the other couch.
"Hi Vernon, this is James Potter," Lily smiled as sweetly as she could. Vernon didn't say a word.
"Hello," James grinned, thinking to himself that he and Vernon were not going to get along just fine at all.
"So, James, if your Head boy it must mean that your marks are high?" Mr. Evans questioned breaking the silence. He loosened his collar slightly, he felt the tension. Petunia gave him a dirty look, clearly repulsed that he was discussing Lily's school in front of Vernon.
"Increasingly high," James replied with a grin.
"Petunia, Mum says your getting married," Lily said, trying to edge the conversation away from Hogwarts for Petunia's sake.
"That's right," Petunia replied smugly, patting Vernon on the hand.
"Have you, er, picked a date yet?" Lily questioned, taking another sip of her tea.
"It's in May," Petunia replied, not looking at Lily. James stool a look over at Lily. She was trying so hard to remain polite and friendly with Petunia.
"Suppers ready!" Mrs. Evans called. Everyone stood up and made their way over to the dinning table. Lily and James sat across from Petunia and Vernon with Mrs. Evans at one and at the table and Mr. Evans at the other.
"So, Vernon, I hear you work at a drilling company?" James said a little into dinner, he had grown tired of the silence and he wanted to pick at Vernon a little. Vernon nodded, and James saw his opportunity. "So what is that exactly? Those thingies that Muggles use to make holes in the ground?"
James loved how Vernon looked at him, it was as if Vernon thought James was a complete idiot. Lily giggled slightly.
"No, actually that's not what drills are," Vernon said, clearing his throat and not bothering to hide his dislike for Lily and James. He started talking about what his company did, James sat there pretending to be extremely interested when he wasn't paying the least bit of attention. Lily tried to hide her laughter, she knew what James was up too. Anyone else at the table thought he was interested in what Vernon had to say.
"Do you have a job?" Vernon questioned when he had finished talking about drills. Mr and Mrs. Evans looked over at James, waiting for the reply. James smile easily.
"Actually no, I'm still in school. Once I graduate I plan on going into Auror training," he replied.
"Lily's told us about that, isn't it a very risky job?" Mr. Evans questioned, ignoring Petunia's squeak of warning.
"Well, I suppose so, only if you make mistakes. I don't plan on making any mistakes, I just want to get rid of Voldemort," James replied.
"Voldeywhat?" Vernon questioned, completely confused.
"Lily's also mentioned that guy, isn't he some sort of wizard who's trying to take over the world?" Mr. Evans asked, rubbing his head in confusion. He was extremely interested in the wizard world, and avidly paid attention to anything Lily told him.
"A wizard?" Vernon snorted, clearly thinking they were all unstable. Petunia had filled him in, to some extent, what school Lily went too. Lily imagined she had only told him that Lily went to a school for freaks. Well, she's paying for it now, Lily thought with glee.
"Er, wrong conversation for the current dinner crowd I think," Lily said, deciding Petunia could talk her way out of this one by calling her and James very confused crazy people or something.
"I agree Robert, let's talk about something light," Mrs. Evans said. "Have you decided on the colours for your maids Petunia?"
"Yes, light pink," Petunia replied, smirking at Lily.
"I look horrible in pink!" Lily mumbled. Petunia arched an eyebrow and smirked, as if saying 'exactly.'
After dinner, James and Lily went down to the rec room in the basement for some privacy. Vernon was in the parlour with Petunia and their parents, probably discussing Petunia's wedding.
"She doesn't even want me to be one of her maids, that's why she picked the colour light pink, it totally clashes with my hair!" Lily sighed, leaning against James on the couch. They were watching the fire that Lily had started, soaking up its warmth from the cold greeting Petunia had given them.
"She doesn't want you too steal the moment away from her, I bet you'll look ten times more beautiful then she does on her wedding day," James replied, kissing her softly.
"I just want things to go back to normal," Lily sighed.
"Unless your sister grows up and stops being such a prune, they won't. Maybe she'll change when she reads your letters," James replied.
"Maybe," Lily sighed.