Lily walked around the house making sure everything was cleaned; she could hear James in the other room messing around with the stereo system. Suddenly the music blasted loud and she rushed to the room and turned down the volume and turned to James who gave her a sheepish grin.
"Why don't you stick to getting the drinks?" She asked and he kissed her cheek.
"Wonderful idea sweetheart." He said and headed towards the doorway. "What time is everyone supposed to be here at?" He asked as he looked over his shoulder and stopped at the doorway.
"Eight."
"Oh, we have plenty of time." He said with a shrug.
"James sweetheart its ten minutes to eight." She said and he looked at the clock on the wall and then back to his wrist watch and tapped it.
"Oh mine must be slow." He said and turned and walked out of the room and she smiled to herself as she looked at the messy pile of CDs on top of the stereo and glanced back towards the basement where she heard James rummaging around and talking to himself. She straightened everything out and heard a knock on the door and glanced at the grandfather clock and saw it was five minutes before eight. She heard something crash downstairs and a string of profanity.
"James dear is everything alright?" She asked as she came to the doorway of the basement and saw him appear at the bottom of the stairs.
"Yeah everything is fine." He said with a smile and fixed his crooked glasses.
There was another more impatient knock at the door and she looked to the door and back at James.
"Sounds like Becky." He said with a smile.
"I'll get it." She said and walked to the front door and peered through the peep hole and saw Rebecca prancing in place with a bag in her arms with Sirius and Remus behind her.
Lily opened the door and Rebecca gave her an annoyed look.
"Please take your time, its only below freezing out here." Rebecca said and walked past Lily to the kitchen and Lily looked at Sirius oddly as she let him and Remus in to the house.
"What is that?" Lily asked and Sirius gave an annoyed look and Rebecca walked back in to the front room.
"It's a mouse that attached itself to his chin which he has carefully stylized." Rebecca said sarcastically and gave Lily a hug and Sirius glared at her.
"We've been over this before, it's a goatee. A soul patch." He said pointedly and Rebecca slipped off her coat and handed it to Remus who hung it up for her.
"Soul Patch my ass! What's gonna happen if you take it off? Your soul gunna fall out? Looks stupid doesn't?" Rebecca asked Lily, ignoring the look Sirius was giving her.
"Um…" Lily said not wanting to take sides.
"It does not. It's rugged and manly." Sirius said and Rebecca rolled her eyes.
"Prissy."
"I heard that." He said and Rebecca smiled sarcastically and looped her arm through Lily's and walked with her off to the living room and Sirius looked at Remus who shrugged.
"I have no idea how you can stand her all the time." Sirius said and went off in search of James with Remus following.
"Wormtail is coming right?" Remus asked as he walked in to the kitchen and leaned against the counter as James set some bottles of wine and firewhiskey on the table.
"Merlin it smells good in here." Sirius said as he smelled the air.
"Yeah he should be here soon; you guys are a little early I think. Lily told me if you touch anything she will kill you so I would just let the food be for now, you don't want to cross Lily." He said with a smile and went over to the bag that Rebecca had brought and pulled out a pack of cups and turned to Remus and Sirius. "What would you guys like to drink?" He asked.
"I'll have a beer." Sirius said as he walked to the fridge and pulled out three bottles of beer. "You know I think it might be exciting to cross Lily, I haven't had any real excitement in a while." Sirius said with a grin.
"Are you kidding our lives are nothing but danger and excitement." Remus said sarcastically. "A beer sounds nice." Remus said and took one from Sirius and he held out one to James who shrugged and took it from Sirius.
"Might be the last thing you ever do mate, I wouldn't advise it." James said with a laugh.
"Who else is coming tonight?" Sirius asked as he leaned against the counter and took a drink of the beer.
"I know that the Prewetts were going to stop by later on tonight. Jenny and Tessa are coming after dinner. Caradoc said he might come, and I believe Frank and Alice are coming by later as well."
"Alright should be fun." Sirius said with a smile.
"You boys need to clear out, we need to finish up cooking, and you boys better not have eaten anything." Lily said crossly as she looked at each of them.
"No, but we should have." Sirius said and Lily crossed her arms over her chest.
"Alright we need to do some cooking, so you guys, out." Rebecca said with a wave of her hands and they shuffled out of the kitchen and migrated to the living room.
"This looks good Lily." Rebecca said as she looked at the turkey in the oven.
"Thank you. Did you bring the mashed potatoes?" Lily asked as she looked in to the pot of cranberries.
"Yes, I also brought the pie." Rebecca said as she pulled out a large bowl of mashed potatoes and an apple pie.
"So how is Remus doing?" Lily asked quietly.
"He is doing better, its going to take a while but he doesn't just lie around any more, he has been keeping himself busy looking for another job." She said as she got out some vegetables from the fridge and washed them.
"What about the bookstore?"
"He was gone too much." Rebecca said with a shrug.
"It's not fair for Remus; he is such a good person." Lily said with a sigh.
"I know." Rebecca said and shook her head to herself and cleared her throat.
"So uh the wedding is in just a few months, can you believe it you're getting married." Rebecca said and looked over at Lily who was smiling to herself and she looked at Rebecca.
"I keep asking myself how I got so lucky."
"Hey you guys were meant to be together, now I am not saying it was fate or anything because I don't believe in that stuff but I knew from the moment I saw you guys together you would somehow end up together."
"How could you have possibly known that?" Lily asked humorously. "I hated him."
"Well Lily my dear, hate and love are the same, you need to love someone to hate them."
"So does that mean that you and Sirius love each other?" Lily asked with a laugh and Rebecca rolled her eyes.
"No, that's a completely different matter." She said and opened the fridge and pulled out a carton of eggnog.
"You don't actually hate Sirius do you?"
"Well since school he has become…tolerable. I don't hate him like I did in school." She said and paused. "How about a little eggnog and firewhiskey?" Rebecca asked with a grin as she held up the carton.
"Well…" Lily said and bit her lip.
"Good, me too." Rebecca said and poured some into two of the cups and opened up the bottle of firewhiskey and poured a little in to each of the cups and used her wand to stir it around before handing one to Lily.
"Let loose a little." Rebecca said with a grin as Lily brought the cup to her lips.
After dinner they all sat around the table sipping on their drinks and talking.
"This was a great meal Lily." James said and leaned over and kissed her cheek.
"Thank you James." She said with a smile and took his hand.
"So Peter what have you been up to lately?" Rebecca asked Peter and he looked up quickly and stared at her for a moment before taking a sharp breath.
"N-nothing much. Got a j-job editing for a newspaper." He said nervously and she smiled.
"That's great." She said and looked at James.
"When do you finish up your training?"
"I test in three weeks."
"Do you think you're ready?"
"Yeah, between the Order and the Auror training, I think I can take anything they throw my way." James said with a smile and sat back in his seat.
"Should we take this to the living room?" Remus asked as he got up.
"Sounds good to me." Rebecca said as she got up.
"I'll take care of the dishes." Lily said as she got up.
"Padfoot and I will take care of them dear." James said as he took her hand.
"Thanks Prongs." Sirius said sarcastically.
"No its fine, Becky and I will take care of them, go have fun." She said and pecked his lips.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes I am sure. Go, reminisce." She said and swatted his butt and pushed him towards the living room.
"Gee, thanks for volunteering me Lily, I appreciate it." Rebecca said sarcastically as she started to pick up the plates.
"Oh don't be a baby." Lily said got some plates and brought them to the kitchen. There was a knock at the door and James gave a holler of 'I got it' and ran to the door.
"Hey guys." Tessa said as she appeared at the doorway with Jenny.
"Hey." Lily said and gave them each a hug and Rebecca gave them each a hug as well.
"Alright you have been recruited, help us clean." Rebecca said and motioned to the table and they brought the food and plates back to the kitchen for cleaning.
"I'm going to bring Remus his drink, I'll be right back." Rebecca said as she held up a drink and walked in to the living room and saw the boys huddled around the Christmas tree suspiciously.
"Something interesting about the tree boys?" She asked and they all spun around with identical looks of a deer caught in the headlights before Sirius and James recovered quickly followed by Remus who gave a smile and Peter looked around the room awkwardly.
"Yes everything is fine." James said and Rebecca looked at him oddly as she walked over to Remus and handed him his drink.
"Thank you Becky." He said and kissed her as she looked suspiciously at Sirius and James who were smiling way too much.
"No problem." She said slowly and headed to the door way and turned around and saw them leaning in towards the tree and they backed up as they looked at her and she took a deep breath and nodded to herself before walking back to the kitchen to help with the cleaning.
"Everything alright Becky?" Lily asked as Rebecca walked in with an odd look on her face.
"Uh yeah, strange encounter with the boys." She said with a shrug and waved her wand at the dishes drying and they were instantly dried.
"Becky you don't need magic for everything." Lily said crossly and she shrugged.
"It makes everything so much quicker." She said and waved her wand again and everything started to put itself back in to the cabinets and drawers until everything was done. "Besides I'm feeling lazy, the turkey is making me kinda tired."
"Alright I suggest we go back to see what the boys are up to." Lily said and they all walked back to the living room and saw that the twins had joined them.
"Hey guys." Rebecca said with a grin and they motioned her over to them and pulled her down between them and held her in place.
"We're stealing your girlfriend Lupin." Fabian said with a grin and Rebecca raised an eyebrow at Fabian.
"I hope you don't mind." Gideon said.
"Not at all." Remus said with a light laugh and she frowned at Remus.
"How sweet of you." She said sarcastically.
Everyone sat around the living room with drinks in hand and Rebecca cringed as Sirius went in to the chorus of 'God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs' rather out of tune due to the amount of alcohol he had consumed and Rebecca resisted the urge to hurl something at his head, not yet have had enough alcohol to listen to him go on.
"Did the tree just move?" Rebecca asked as she looked at the tree next to her.
"Trees don't move Becky." James said with a smile.
"Well the Whomping Willow does." Tessa said and drank back the rest of her drink.
"I think you've had too much to drink Walcott, you're seeing things." Sirius said as he leaned against the chair before returning back to the song.
"Black would you shut up, you're horribly out of tune." She said and threw her pillow at him and hit him in the face.
"Must we go through this again? I don't think Lily would appreciate if we destroyed the room." He said and looked at Lily.
"I would prefer to keep the room in order please." She said and turned back to Alice and Rebecca sighed and leaned back and took a drink of her eggnog and saw something twitch out of the corner of her eye and she looked at the tree again.
"It moved." She said.
"I saw it too." Jenny said as she pointed at the tree.
"Tree's don't move Becky, how many times do I need to tell you?" James said and Rebecca stood up and looked at the tree carefully and blinked when she saw a pair of eyes looking at her.
"The tree has eyes." She said shocked as she stood back and suddenly legs sprouted from the bottom and the branches turned in to arms as the tree lifted itself up. A mouth formed in the middle and a loud growl came from it and she stepped back and tripped over Peter's feet and tumbled on to the ground and scrambled to get up as the tree came after her and the girls who took off running. The boys laughed loudly as the tree chased them through the house.
"You guys are so dead." Rebecca yelled as she fumbled for her wand in her robes and stunned the tree and it fell over on its side motionless and the sound of the boys laughing filled the house as the girls made their way in to the living room and glared at the boys.
"Oh shit." James said as Lily glared at him.
Rebecca and Remus left the house well after midnight, Remus held his arm around Rebecca who seemed to be having trouble walking.
"We'll see you guys New Years Eve. Have a good Christmas." Lily said from the door as Remus helped Rebecca down the stairs as she insisted on going up on the roof to see if she could fly to the moon.
"Becky that might not be the greatest of ideas." Remus said with a smile.
"You're just jealous I thought of it first." She said.
"You too Lily, tell James I said Happy Christmas." Remus said and Lily nodded and Rebecca leaned her head against his shoulder.
"That was a lot of fun." Rebecca said and rolled her head around. "My head feels like a bowling ball." She said as she leaned it from side to side and gave a giggle.
"Yes I am sure, let's focus on getting you home alright?" Remus said and she giggled again.
"Alright we're going to apparate." He said and she gave a nod and looked up at the stars.
"The stars are all so pretty." She said and he pulled out his wand.
"Alright here we go." He said and apparated them back to the apartment.
Kind of a short chapter but i just wanted to get a little Christmas party in there. Next chapter will be up Monday