Oh my Rowling! Another missed update. Sorry! But there are two chapters today to compensate, so all's well that end's well.
December 16: 1977
9 days until Christmas…
"You're not serious!" Lily exclaimed.
"'Course I'm not Sirius. I'm James," her boyfriend quipped cheekily.
She groaned. "Enough with the bad pun. I meant that you've really never baked Christmas food? Ever?"
"Nope," he said, popping the 'p'. "My family has a house elf, remember? And when we do make food, there's always magic."
She pulled him by the crook of his elbow. "Well, come on then!"
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see!"
"Wait- you know how to get into the kitchens?" James asked as Lily tickled the pear on a gold-framed painting.
"Let's just say that the Marauders were never good at keeping their voices down in the common room."
"Hey-" James started to protest.
"Hello, sir and madam," a cheery house elf in a tea towel toga greeted them. "Can Minsy be of service to you today?"
Lily smiled and whispered something in the elf's floppy ear.
An hour later, she was no longer smiling. "James! Don't pour the yolk into the bowl. Ugh, I'll do it."
He stepped away from the mixing bowl, hands held up in surrender. "Okay, you can do it. I'll, um…"
"Take the cake out of the oven," Lily ordered, stirring a new batch of frosting.
"OWW!" James shouted.
Lily turned around, knocking over a bin of flour and covering the kitchen with what looked like finely powdered snow.
James held out his ghostly white hand. "I burned myself."
"Aguamenti!" Lily said, yanking her wand out of her back pocket and releasing more swirling clouds of flour.
"Thanks," James managed, soaking his fingers in the cold water.
Lily stared around the kitchen. Broken egg shells floated in puddles of milk that dripped waterfalls into mounds of flour. Half-melted sticks of butter and a crumpled bag of sugar obscured the countertop. "I think… I think maybe cooking just isn't your thing."
James examined his blistered hand. "Ya think?"