A/N: Here we go, part 2 of my gift for jamesxlilyxpotter, hope you like it! Sorry it took so long to get this posted. There's a few original characters mentioned in passing, and they're borrowed from the Better Together universe. You can check out thosemarauderboys for more information on original characters.

Hogwarts, December 1972

I'll have a blue Christmas without you

I'll be so blue thinking about you

Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree

Won't be the same dear, if you're not here with me

"Evans!" James called out, hurrying to pack his notes away and follow the redhead out of McGonagall's classroom. "Oi, Evans, wait up!"

Lily turned in time to see James rushing through the door of the classroom, bag swinging from his shoulders. She cocked her head and watched as he approached, waiting to see what he wanted from her.

"How d'you think your midterm went?" James asked as he caught up with her.

"Oh, fine I suppose," Lily answered, tucking an errant curl behind her ear. "Transfiguration isn't really my strongest subject to be frank. How do you think it went?"

"I thought it was quite lovely," James smiled, and they started walking back toward the Gryffindor common room.

"Yeah, well, you're the Transfiguration wonder boy, aren't you?" Lily mumbled. She was half in awe of his skill and half envious, bitter that he was so infuriatingly and effortlessly good at it while she struggled. But then, she supposed it was quite the opposite in Potions class.

One of the older Gryffindor girls pushed past Lily, sniggering at the two of them, and Lily rolled her eyes at the girl's back.

"Well, anyway, I just wanted to give you this," James said, reaching into his bag with both hands. He seemed to struggle for a moment before he extracted a large package, much larger than had any right to be in that bag.

"How did you do that?" Lily asked, her eyes wide.

"Undetectable extension charm," James grinned, and Lily's eyebrows flew higher.

"You can do those?" she exclaimed, surprise written all over her face.

"Oh yeah, piece of cake," he winked, shifting the strap of his bag on his shoulder. "Nah, only joking, my father did it for me before the start of term."

Lily laughed, light and pure, and James' heard leapt at the sound.

"Anyway, this is for you," he said after a moment, shuffling his feet uncomfortably as he held the green wrapped present out to him.

"Thank you," she said, placing her hands on the sides, fingers brushing against James'. "But what's it for?"

"Happy Christmas, Evans," James said with a shrug. "I thought… in case your sister didn't get you anything. I didn't want you to be a present short."

"Well, thank you," Lily replied, surprised that he would do such a thing.

"Right, well, I'm going to go meet Sirius, Remus, and Peter for dinner, but, er, I'll see you later then," James mumbled, turning to go back to the Great Hall with an awkward smile.

Lily frowned down at the package in her hands as she turned to face the portrait hold. "Mistletoe," she said absentmindedly as she considered the gift. Something bothered her about what he had said, the idea that one could have the wrong number of presents, as though there were some kind of quota to be reached. Lily shook her head slightly, reminding herself that James' family came from money, of course he probably got loads of gifts. But that hardly mattered, it was still a lovely thing that he'd done for her. She climbed the stone stairs to her dormitory and sat down on her bed. There was no one else there, the other girls having gone straight down to dinner most likely, and Lily's fingers toyed with the overlapping folds of giftwrapping.

She probably ought to wait until Christmas, but curiosity was getting the better of her, and she just really wanted to know what he had gotten her. Gently, she eased the paper off the box, and flipped the lid open. Inside was a tiny, living Christmas tree, with miniature baubles and little glowing orbs that looked almost like fairy lights, and thin garlands strung delicately over the branches. There was a note lain very precisely amongst the little branches, and Lily picked it up, gazing at James' untidy scrawl.

Dear Lily,

I know how much you like to decorate trees, so I thought you ought to have one you can play around with a bit. The decorations should all change to look however you like them, just say the word "muto", and imagine what you'd like it to look like. I hope you like it, Evans. Happy Christmas.

James

Lily smiled at the little tree, pulling it out of its box and setting it on the little night table next to her bed. It was such a sweet gift, she thought, as she ran her fingers over the branches, so very thoughtful of him. She would have to thank him properly when she saw him later.

Lily packed the little tree in her trunk when she woke in the morning, back in its box laid nicely alongside her clothes. She closed the lid with a smile, clicking the locks shut, and hauled it downstairs to the common room, from which point it would be brought to the train for her. With a skip, Lily set off to the Great Hall for breakfast, excited to go home for the first time in months, though she was anxious as well. The summer hadn't been awful, but still, things had not been the best between her and Petunia. And Lily was a little worried that it would only be worse when she went home now. She felt like she didn't know Petunia anymore sometimes. Lumina said the same thing had happened to her and her sister, said it was just part of getting older, that it would probably get better when they were older too, but Lily wasn't so sure, it seemed like more than that to her. Still, it would be good to be home.

When she reached the Great Hall, Lily sat down between Mirabelle Faulkner and Rosaline Barrington, glancing around the Hall.

"Who are you looking for?" Mirabelle asked, as she tucked in to her beans on toast.

"Potter," Lily answered as nonchalantly as possible, still gazing up and down the Gryffindor table.

"I doubt you'll see him down here before dinnertime," Rosaline scoffed, exchanging a mirthful look with Mirabelle. "He and Black were up till nearly four in the morning. Didn't you hear their competition to see who could sing American Pie better?"

"No, I must have been dead asleep," Lily laughed, entirely unsurprised that James and Sirius would do something so ridiculous.

"You're going home for Christmas, right?" Mirabelle inquired, and Lily nodded, her mouth too full of scrambled eggs to answer. "I saw you packing yesterday."

"Are either of you going home?"

"Sort of," Rosaline answered first, reaching across the table to pluck a scone off the platter. "My parents and I are going to visit my brother in America – he's gone to uni there."

"And I'll be skiing in the Alps with my family," Mirabelle added, and Lily smiled at the two of them.

"That sounds lovely," she said, although privately she thought that she wouldn't give up her little holiday plans of baking cookies and decorating trees and singing carols for anything in the world.

"I suppose we'd better get going then," Rosaline declared after a few minutes of idle chatter. "McGonagall will be leading the group back to the train any minute now."

The three girls stood and fixed their clothes, a habit after breakfast – you never knew when Potter or Black might fling scrambled eggs into your lap – and made their way out of the Hall, other students around them standing and following suit. All the students who were going home for the holidays gathered in the Entrance Hall, and not long after marched down the sloping lawns of Hogwarts toward the train station.

It was nearly midnight on Christmas Eve, and still James sat alone in the Gryffindor common room. He had come back after dinner, insistent on remaining there, playing Exploding Snap with Sirius, or chess with Remus. He watched as the fourth years and above came down from their dormitories, dressed in fancy clothes, meeting their dates to go to the Yule Ball. About an hour earlier, Peter had started yawning, and James sent him off to bed, insisting that the others didn't need to keep him company. Remus had gone up ten minutes after Peter, and Sirius not fifteen minutes after that. So James had continued to sit, all alone in the common room, waiting. Finally, the older students were starting to trickle back in, the ones who would be coming back at all, and James was starting to give up hope that she would ever come down.

But she had to, he thought to himself. James knew how much Christmas meant to Lily, how much she enjoyed it, and he simply knew that she would not spend it holed up in her dormitory. Not after all the fun they'd had last Christmas Eve. He hadn't seen her lately, so he couldn't be sure, but James was positive that the gift he'd given her was the best gift anyone had ever given. (He was also positive that Lily would not have waited until Christmas morning to open it.) He had been hoping that she would bring it down with her tonight, so he could tell her all the wonderful things he had done – how he had charmed the tree so that it would live longer than normal (or at least, he'd tried to, with Professor Flitwick's help); how he'd made it so that the little fairy lights could twinkle if she wanted them to; how all this had come from the idea of just getting her a little fake Christmas tree that she could decorate on her own, but that just hadn't seemed like enough.

At quarter to one in the morning, James went down to the kitchens, bringing back a platter of Christmas cookies and mince pies, determined to have everything perfect when Lily eventually came downstairs. He settled down on the couch, sketching pictures for a while – of Santa and Mrs. Claus, of an elf who looked weirdly like Lily without trying, of a little girl decorating a Christmas tree next to a fireplace that had cookies and milk laid out for Santa. After a while, he leaned back, starting to doze off.

James' eyes flew open to the sound of laughter, high and feminine, and he sat bolt upright, looking around for Lily. To his disappointment, he instead found Florence Hertford, arm in arm with Gideon Prewett. He had nothing against either of them, they were perfectly nice, and Gideon was a good Quidditch player, but neither of them was Lily Evans.

"What are you doing up?" Gideon questioned, and James remembered that he was a prefect – not that he was doing anything wrong simply by staying up in the common room.

"Waiting," James answered, not entirely wanting to elaborate.

"What, for Santa?" Florence teased with another little laugh. James realized now that it did not sound anything like Lily's laugh, and he wondered how he could have mistaken it.

"No, I'm waiting for Evans, if you must know," he grumbled, determined not to look at Florence. He could already see that soft expression from the corner of his eye, that look that grown-ups had that meant ah-look-young-love, and James did not want to see that look because that's absolutely not what this was.

"Evans? She went home for Christmas, mate," Gideon informed the room, seemingly uncomfortable with being the one who had to break this news to James.

"What? Lily Evans?" James sputtered, completely taken aback.

"Yeah, sorry," Gideon continued. "I saw her leaving with the rest of them the other morning to catch the train."

"Oh," James answered, now feeling entirely dejected. "Well, thanks."

He stood up slowly, trying not to look too embarrassed as he walked past Gideon and Florence, but he seemed unable to lift his feet up. He climbed the stone stairs to his dormitory, disappointed and angry with himself for assuming that she would be staying here for Christmas, for not asking. James tried to push open the door as quietly as possible, tiptoeing across the bare wood floor so as not to wake the other boys.

The curtains on James' four poster were open, and as he drew closer, he saw faintly the outline of an owl, sitting happily on his pillows. He edged closer, careful not to jostle the little bird as he took a small square package from it. The owl took off the moment it was free, and James drew the curtains closed around him.

"Lumos," he whispered, and the tip of his wand began to emit a soft glow of light, just enough for James to see the little square envelope taped to the lid of the box. He peeled it off carefully, and then tore open envelope, too excited to be careful any longer. Inside was a note in Lily's neat cursive.

Dear James,

Happy Christmas. I hope you are enjoying the holidays. It seemed only fair for you to get your gift before Christmas morning, since I did. I'm cutting it a bit close, I know, but it took me a few tries to work out the spell.

I hope you like it.

Lily

P.S. Shake it. Like a bell.

Intrigued, James lifted the lid off the box, and inside he found a red bauble, nestled among tissue paper to keep it from moving. He pulled it out carefully, and turned it over in his hand, smiling at the rather poorly painted gold lion. It appeared Lily's skill in drawing had not improved much over the past year. Gently, James pinched the top between his fingers and gave it a bit of a shake, the exact way he would ring a bell. Soft music began to flow from it, and a moment later, he heard Lily's voice.

"One the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree," she sang, her voice young and sweet and so beautiful. As she continued the song, James clutched the bauble tightly, positively enamored by the sound of her voice. The song finished, and James shook the bauble again, and once more, Lily's voice floated out from it.

James shook the bauble one last time, and then set it on the nightstand next to his bed. He fell asleep within moments to the sound of Lily singing. The last thing he thought before sleep claimed him was that it was the best Christmas present he had ever gotten, perhaps the best present anyone had ever gotten.