Disclaimer: You know the drill, nothing here belongs to me.

Chapter Fifteen

James woke in an oddly quiet and still dormitory a week later, he lay silently for a moment and listened to the sound of at least one other person breathing, letting him know that he wasn't alone.

After the attack on Sally Dearborn security in the castle had tightened three fold, students were not allowed out of their common rooms after 8 o'clock no matter what year they were in and first years could not leave for breakfast without an accompaniment of prefects.

James knew that he, Sirius and Peter were going to have trouble sneaking out of the castle for their nightly tours of the grounds with Remus every month. But right now, that wasn't the only thing that was bothering him.

He was beginning to become more and more uneasy about these attacks on students, as though he subconscious was screaming at him that it was only a matter of time before another Gryffindor was targeted. The only two muggleborns in their year were Mary McDonald and Lily Evans.

Mary had already been targeted.

Fear swooped in his stomach as it often did at times like this, when he was alone and couldn't help but think the worst. But Lily was strong, she could look after herself.

James rubbed his eyes in one last attempt to rid himself of those thoughts before throwing the duvet off and climbing out of bed. He glanced over to see both Sirius' and Peter's beds were empty, but Remus was still sleeping soundly. He dressed quietly, not wanting to wake him, and padded towards the door thinking he might make a head start on some homework while Sirius was so obviously pre-occupied.

He was just debating between Transfiguration and Charms when he reached the bottom step and heard voices coming from the Common Room.

"-can't hide it from me, Ginge" the unmistakable voice of his best friend and pain in the back side, Sirius Black was saying.

"I'm not trying to hide anything, Snuffles" Lily's voice replied.

"You're a worse liar than Prongs, and that is saying something" Sirius laughed.

"You won't tell him, will you?" Lily begged.

James' ears pricked and his mouth went dry, he knew he really shouldn't be listening but he couldn't help himself.

"Come on Lil, you'd make his Christmas."

"You don't know that."

"Trust me, I do."

"Don't you think James would find it a bit weird?" Lily asked.

"Well he'll definitely be more than a little shocked" Sirius laughed in agreement.

"Just let me figure out how I really feel before you start making announcements in the Great Hall" Lily sounded miffed as she said this.

"I don't understand why it's so hard for you to just admit you fancy him" Sirius teased.

James felt his insides freeze up as he stepped out from his hiding place in the stairwell, unable to listen to anymore of the conversation. Of course he had always known this day would come, that Lily would eventually find someone she wanted to be with, he just hadn't expected it to happen so soon.

"Hey guys" he called, making his way over to them.

"James!" Lily squeaked, flushing red and avoiding eye contact.

He assumed it was because she didn't want to talk to him about her potential suitor, which was absolutely fine with him because he didn't want to hear about anything less.

"Where is everyone?" he asked, taking a seat beside Sirius.

"First day of the holidays, mate" Sirius said, looking at him strangely, "Everyone's gone."

"Have you been to breakfast yet?" he asked.

For some reason he couldn't bring himself to look at Lily, he felt almost as if an invisible barrier had been erected between the two of them suddenly. He knew it was stupid because they were only friends, but finally hearing her say out loud that she liked someone had almost made it more real for him.

"Went to get some toast and walked around the lake" Sirius said, "You and Remus were sleeping like the dead and I got bored."

"We could always go down to the kitchens now" Lily suggested, "I always get a serious craving for chocolate mousse at Christmas."

"That is an idea, Evans!"

Sirius was up and out of his seat before James could even reply.

"I think I'll just skip breakfast" James said, ruffling his fingers through his hair. "I have a Potions essay I need to write."

Sirius' mouth fell open as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing, "Prongs" he said slowly, "It's the first day of the holidays."

James could understand the surprise; he didn't think he'd ever done homework before the last day of the holidays since he'd started at Hogwarts. The truth was he really didn't want to do his Potions essay, in fact the only thing he wanted to do less than his Potions essay was try and make conversation with Lily when all he could think about was the conversation he'd just heard.

"I can always help you later if you like" Lily said when he didn't reply, smiling at him like she wanted nothing more than to help him with his Potions essay. "Slughorn hinted he might have us brew Amortentia next term."

"That's okay Evans, I was just gonna head over to the library and get started" he smiled at her, "I wouldn't want to slow you down."

Lily looked at him with hurt in her green eyes, even Sirius looked at him like he'd grown a second head. The two of them didn't bother trying to convince him further after that, simply left to go down to the kitchens together.

The rest of the holiday's continued much in the same fashion, in fact James' best Christmas ever was quickly crashing around his ears. On the days building up to Christmas he made as much effort as possible to ensure he wasn't alone with Lily, but even when Remus and Sirius were around he still found it impossible to talk to her. All their conversations were painful and awkward but he couldn't help it, he just didn't know what to say to her anymore.

He knew Sirius and Remus were wondering what was going on too, but they both waited until Christmas morning when they were all unwrapping presents to mention it.

"What's going on with you and Lil?" Sirius asked as his enthusiastically ripped the paper off his gift from James' mum. "You're acting weirder than you usually do around her."

James shrugged as he shifted through his presents, trying to decide which to open first. "I'm just trying to be friends, like she wants."

"From the way you're acting it's like you don't even want to be a passing acquaintance" Remus commented.

"We were getting too attached to each other" James said simply, "We were closer than just friends."

Sirius shook his head and threw something across the room at James, it landed with a soft thud on the bed coverings, "You might need this when you change your mind" he laughed.

James picked up the little cluster of mistletoe just as Lily Evans flung the door open and sang, "Happy Christmas!"

She was holding presents against her chest and luckily made her way over to Sirius' bed first so James had time to shove the mistletoe under his pillow.

"I thought I'd bring up your presents as I'm all alone in the girl's dormitory" she said, passing one over to Sirius. "Thanks for the perfume Snuffles."

"Anytime" he winked at her, before wrapping into the wrapping paper.

She passed a gift to Remus next, murmuring her thanks for his gift and taking a seat on the bed beside him as he showed her a book his parents had sent him.

James wasn't sure if she had bought him a gift and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. Part of him would be relived that she wouldn't sit next to him on his bed and he wouldn't have to try and make conversation with her. But another part of him would be hurt that she hadn't thought of him when he had hoped that they were really friends.

So his heart skipped a beat when she stood and started making her way over to him.

She almost looked nervous as she approached his bed, "I hope you don't mind me coming up here" she said quietly, holding out her beautifully wrapped gift with wide eyes. Sticking out over the top of the giant jumper she was wearing shined a new necklace that gleamed silver in the light, it started in a knot in the centre and stags horns grew from the middle and curled up over her collar bone, hanging there connected by a fine silver chain.

It was the gift he had bought for Lily before he had heard her talking about the boy she liked, afterwards he had debated whether or not he should give it to her, but as he didn't have another gift he didn't have much of a choice.

His heart soared when he saw her wearing it.

"That you for my present" she said softly, her cheeks flushing pink.

James shrugged, "I thought about just gift wrapping myself, I am the perfect present after all."

Lily laughed but seemed unsure how to respond so James patted the spot on the bed beside him encouragingly, "Come on then Evans, where's my present?"

Lily climbed on the bed next to him and crossed her legs, she was wearing shorts that rose up on her thighs and huge woolly socks that James knew she had knitted herself, only because Sirius had demanded a pair for Christmas last year. He took the hand wrapped gift from her, trying not to get distracted by this view.

Carefully out of the wrapping he pulled a huge, leather-bound book. As he smoothed down the cover with his hand the words Mischief Managed glittered gold before his eyes, then quickly disappeared again.

He glanced up at Lily who was smiling mischievously before cracking the spine and opening the book.

On the very first page was a photograph of him, Remus, Sirius and Peter. Sirius was stood on the end, his hair was disarray, he was wearing a torn black shirt and holding a bottle of Ogden's best Firewhiskey. Next to him was James, his arm was resting on Sirius shoulder and he was laughing at a forgotten joke. His other arm was casually slung around Remus' shoulders, whose nose and white shirt was smudged with dirt. Beside him was Peter, fully dressed in an immaculate uniform and looking at the other three with something akin to hero worship in his eyes. Their backdrop was the forbidden forest, and while James couldn't remember that day he knew it could have happened any time through the years.

The photo wasn't moving, but froze perfectly in time like a small slice of history. It made James wonder who had taken it.

"Have you been taking sneaky photos of us, Evans?" he asked, looking up at her and narrowing his eyes.

She held up her hands in surrender, "You boys are just really popular, apparently everyone likes to take your photo."

"Some of us are just blessed with good looks" Sirius commented from next to them.

As James flicked through the book he saw she was right. There were dozens of pictures of the four of them, there were pictures of Sirius pushing Peter in the lake and James pulling Remus along on a sledge in the snow. The was even pictures of Lily where she shook her head exasperatedly and laughed at Sirius but his favourite had to be the one of the two of them dancing in circles around the courtyard, him practically dragging her along while she shot him daggers and tried desperately not to smile.

"I hope you don't mind I made myself an honorary Marauder" she said, reaching out a hand to point at the picture.

James grabbed a hold of her wrist and pulled her across the bed in surprise, planting a kiss on her cheek before she could even compose herself enough to get up. "You're more than an honorary member of this group" he assured her.

"You're Marauder through and through, that's for sure" Sirius agreed, jumping onto the bed to join them and glancing over James' shoulder at the photos. "Give us a look" he said, going to take the book out of James' hand.

"Hey this is my present from Evans, get your own!" James said, scowling as he tugged the album back out of Sirius' hands.

"We didn't all get such interesting presents from Evans" Remus teased, eyes twinkling as he joined them on the bed.

James glanced at Lily to see she had turned a boiling shade of red and was avoiding eye contact. He turned back to the album, his heart hammering in his chest and his breath caught in his throat as he tried as hard as possible to push away the thoughts of the mistletoe stuffed under his pillow.