Dinner that night was fairly uneventful. Mr. Potter's colleagues came over around 6:30 and dinner was served promptly at seven. It was an enjoyable evening but the four friends took their leave early, letting the Potter's have some privacy after dinner. They all disappeared upstairs. They were playing a game of cards when Mrs. Potter came in to bid them goodnight and tell the boys to take the girls upstairs. About ten minutes later Lily and Dawnelle were sitting in Lily's room wearing their pajamas and talking about Christmas.

"No, I got Sirius a jacket and a scarf," Dawnelle told Lily. "What did you get James?"

"I thought I told you already."

"No you probably told Amber."

"Oh, I got him a new copy of Quiddich Through the Ages. Have you seen his old one?"

"That raggy old thing that can hardly be called a book anymore?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

"Wow he is going to love you!" Dawnelle paused for a moment and then said, "of course, he already does already so this will just give you bonus points I guess." Lily laughed and nodded.

"I really don't know how I missed it this whole time. I mean, you all knew."

"Well, we did agree with you that he was completely obnoxious but that didn't mean that we didn't tell him to stop at every opportunity."

"You're all crazy."

"No, he is. He's the one who never got the message!" They both burst out laughing at that point. They sat and talked for a good while longer before the both fell asleep on Lily's bed.

The next day and a half passed quickly for the almost graduated seventh years. Remus showed up the next morning and the boys felt it necessary to wake the girls at that point. Neither of them were happy until James announced that breakfast was ready. Amber arrived later in the afternoon and, once she was settled in, they all apparated to London to get some dinner and have some fun. They got back to the house around ten o clock just as James' parents were getting ready to go to bed. James and Sirius disappeared into their rooms and everyone else went to bed as well, in their own rooms tonight for a change.

About an hour after they had separated and gone to their own rooms Dawnelle was sprawled out across her bed. She had dozed off while reading a book and it was lying next to her where it fell out of her hand. The light next to her bed was still on and, had she been awake, she would have seen the door handle leading out to the balcony turn downwards and the door creep open.

Sirius Black crept silently into her room and walked over to her bed. He gazed down at her for a moment before pushing back a strand of her hair from her face. He slipped the small piece of paper he had into one of her hands and, when she started to stir he immediately crept out again and waited on the balcony.

She opened her eyes sleepily and sat up. As she moved her hand she felt the paper underneath it. She unfolded it quietly as she stood up. I'm waiting for you outside, was scrawled hastily onto it. She grabbed a robe and met him outside.

"Sirius?" she asked as she shut her door behind her. He wrapped his arms around her tightly and she leaned against him. He sighed contently into her hair and just held her for a moment.

"Can I tell you something?" he asked.

"Sure. Anything."

"Ok." He pulled the box with the necklace out of his pocket and fiddled with it for a minute.

"What?"

"Dawnelle, I'm not very good at this."

"At what?"

"I love you." He said this breathlessly. He'd never felt so open and vulnerable. He had just poured out a heart he had been keeping hidden for most of his life. He knew what was coming next. She was going to laugh at him and tell him to stop acting so serious. Or she would leave him and rip his insides to shred. It was one of these two things, or something worse.

"I love you too." Ok, or it could be that.

"I'm serious Dawnelle. I really do love you."

"I know you're Sirius," she said smiling. "And I really love you."

"Dawnelle, I…" he started. She didn't let him get much farther. She placed a finger against his lips and silenced him. She grinned and shook her head at him.

"You don't have to say anything." He nodded and swallowed hard as he pulled the box out and handed it to her.

"I want you to have this."

"What is it?"

"Open it." She carefully opened the box and gasped at the sight of the necklace.

"Sirius! It's beautiful!" He took it gently from the box and delicately wrapped the chain around her neck. She leaned closer to him so he could see the clasp and she pulled her hair off her neck. He took, Dawnelle felt, longer than he probably needed but she didn't care. Finally, he pulled back and his hands trace her neckline until he reached her face. She leaned towards him, raising herself up onto the balls of her feet so she could kiss him.

The next day was Christmas Eve. The house was in an absolute uproar. By eight o clock in the morning breakfast was being laid on the table in the kitchen and by eight forty five it was being cleared because the table needed to be used for the day. Mrs. Potter was a little crazed, running around checking on everyone and everything, making sure it was all going well for that evening, Mr. Potter simply followed her around and made sure she didn't get to crazy. Sirius and James took the first opportunity they could to get their friends out of the way and hidden in their room. They spent the better part of the day up there, a house elf brought some sandwiches up for them around one. The dinner was set to start at seven o clock that evening and at three the girls disappeared saying they needed to get ready.

"Do they really need FOUR hours to get ready?" Sirius complained to James as he sprawled out on James' bed.

"Apparently they do." Remus had left about an hour before to get ready. He was planning on apparating back at the Potter's around six.

"Did the tailor get the color of the girl's dresses so we can match them tonight?"

"Sure did. Did you not look at your tux?"

"Why would I?"

"Cuz it's hanging on the front of your closet."

"Oh." Sirius looked at James' closet where his tux was hanging. The tux, instead of having a colored vest and tie, was the standard black and white. They walked to Sirius' room and saw that his tux had a blue vest and tie.

"I thought yours was suppose to match too."

"Well, I figure Lily either has an absolutely wild color in her dress that wouldn't look good matched or her dress is black or white."

"Oh."

Upstairs the girls were taking showers and putting on make up and the bathroom was an all around uproar. Dawnelle, the last one to shower, got out and dried her hair and started her make up while Lily finished pinning up Ambers' hair. Once that was done Lily began working on Dawnelle's hair, pinning it up and curling it, using almost no magic at all except to heat the curling iron up. When the final bobby pin was in place and all the make up had been cleared away to make some breathing space, Amber and Dawnelle attacked Lily's thick red hair. The girls timed everything perfectly. They finished clasping shoes and zipping up dresses just as the doorbell rang announcing Remus' arrival.

Amber was wearing a strapless dark red dress with a white pattern decorating the top and the middle and the bottom fanned out. Her hair was mostly down and pulled into big thick curls and her shoes were black and strappy heels. Dawnelle was wearing a strapless sapphire blue dress with a dropped waist and a small train. She had beige colored shoes to match it and the pearls she wore around her neck. Her hair was straightened and half up, pulled over to one side with a small clip. Lily was wearing a strapless white dress with a ruched bodice and a long, thin, draped skirt. The girls had finally managed to pull her hair back into small, tight curls that fell down her back, her shoes where the same color white as the dress.

The girls met the awed boys in the entrance way. As guests started to arrive James and Sirius took place with Dawnelle and Lily by James' parents to welcome them. It took almost forty five minutes before his parents let them go join Remus and Amber. At eight thirty dinner was served in the dining room. There were about sixty people there, many important ministry officials and some close friends. Lily and James were sitting across from two couples in deep discussion about some recent magical attacks on the muggle community.

"Yes, they say he's calling himself Voldemort. He runs some sort of hate group against muggle borns," one of the woman said the other. Her husband, whom James told Lily was the head of the department of mysteries, scoffed.

"That's not what I would say. He hates anyone who doesn't agree with him. He's got a scary group of followers too."

"How long has this been going on?" the other man asked.

"We started getting reports of his followers attacks about six months ago."

"Haven't you been able to do anything about it?"

"Not really. We have no idea who the attackers are. They were hoods and cloaks."

"Surely there is something you can do."

"As of now there's not much we can do. He's lying low right now. But he's getting more serious. Last month he had a ministry official murdered."

"Oh no, I read about that! Was that Him?"

"Yes." James and Lily looked at each other. They'd been reading about the attacks like everyone else all year. They hadn't realized that the ministry was so concerned about this freak. The conversation continued but now it was more about Quiddich so they tuned it out.

After dinner was finished music started playing and the table was magically cleared and moved out of the way. Several smaller tables and chairs appeared one the edges of a gorgeous dance floor. Lily and James went to sit with Sirius, Dawnelle, Amber and Remus at one of the tables. Several couples got up to dance. Remus asked Amber to dance and the two of them left.

An American swing song came on and Lily laughed.

"I love swing dancing!"

"Good let's dance then!" James pulled her to her feet and dragged onto the dance floor.

"You know how to do this?" Lily asked surprised. Not many people she knew could swing dance.

"Yeah! I learned a couple years ago. I'm surprised you do!"

"I guess it's not very popular anymore really." They were both laughing and enjoying themselves and not paying much attention to the world around them. That is, until a huge CRASH sounded from the entrance hall. Then the world stopped.

Everyone stopped what they were doing in surprise and looked through the huge doorway towards the entrance hall. It was filled with smoke. Hooded figured appeared in the door way. One of them, he appeared to be the leader, if he was a he, pointed his finger at the room and laughed evilly. Wands were raised and pointed at the people in the room.

"NOW," screamed the leader. Curses started flying every where. People screamed and tried to get away. Others pulled their wands out and attempted to form a defense. The Potter's were among those people. James yelled at Lily and knocked her out of the way of a curse.

Chaos filled the room. People were lying around, wounded or worse. Lily was near tears. She was holding James' hand dodging curses and trying to find her friends. James yelled out to her and pulled her down to the ground next to a fallen man James had identified earlier as his uncle. He had a nasty gash in his head. Lily pulled out her wand and quickly muttered a spell to stop the bleeding.

The smoke was seeping into the main room now and it was getting difficult to see. She looked around and thought that the hooded figures seemed to be losing this battle. The group of people fighting back were clearly very skilled, however their number was shrinking. She saw Remus and Amber on the other side of the room trying to pull some of the injured people out of the way. She looked for Dawnelle and Sirius. James spotted them before she did. Sirius was bent over the still form of Dawnelle. Lily, in a desprete attempt to get to her friend stood up quickly. Too quickly. She didn't first check for flying spells. The last thing she remembered was James yelling and the shock of being hit by some form of magic. Then, she blacked out.

(A/N: I'm sooooo sorry about this!!! It's been pretty nutty lately. Plus, it's getting hard to write!!! It's coming to the time when I need to start thinking about bidding my characters farewell! Anyways, this one is fairly long and I hope you like it. I'll try and get the next chapter up tonight as well. Love ya!)