The last chapter I tried to update uploaded wrong. I'm so sorry, guys, this one should be okay.

Your girl's back in the saddle, kiddos. I mean, relatively so- this came out before the one month mark between my updates. Which I understand is really garbage- I follow a couple of fics that update daily, and every time I read their glorious work, conveyed in a timely manner, I feel worse and worse about my skills as an author and my decency as a human being. But I guess you do what you can, when you can. And right now, my life is kind of a wreck- I've missed a week of school and was in the hospital, so I have six classes worth of AP level material to make up, and I'm still feeling like trash. And I have band auditions soon, not to mention my social life was just sort of turned upside-down with some friendship problems. And that's not even including my family, and the stress of the holidays coming. So I'm sorry, but writing just isn't on the top of my list right now. But I'll try harder.

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed. Please, guys, the feedback means so much to me. Just drop me a quick line, and you have no idea what that means to me. Thanks for sticking with me, guys. It means more than you know.

Now, on to greener pastures. Enjoy, folks.

James swung Lily's hand, entwined with his, as they walked down Camden Street towards the town square. "Where are we going?"

Lily shrugged vaguely. "Who knows. The town is really pretty at Christmastime, just being out at night is a treat."

James cocked his head slightly. "Well, you heard the displeasure in dear Petunia's voice. What could we possibly do that would get her riled up on the eve of the oh-so-important wedding rehearsal dinner?"

Lily smirked. "Well, the least we can possibly do is to get home ridiculously late. She's bound to stay up waiting for a while to see to what degree we're jeopardizing her dinner."

James chuckled. "She's already bound to be blazing mad about the cantaloupe, might as well add fuel to the fire."

Lily shivered slightly against the wind and gently falling snow. Her smile faded slightly. "I can't believe Tuney's getting married in two days."

"Well, she's a grown woman, we really can't stop her. Even if she is marrying the second-worst man I've ever met."

"Wow, only the second-worst? Who is the person upon whom you have conferred these oh-so-odious laurels?"

"Stop using your fancy teacher words on me, I'm just a pilot."

"Please, I edited your essays in our freshman English classes. I know what you're capable of."

"As I recall, you left them so full of red pen that I could barely tell if it was corrections or if you'd used my paper to kill a man."

"That was mostly out of spite."

"Well, whatever the case, the first-place finisher on James' Top Ten Most Wanted List is the grease prince himself, Snivellus." James looked around the town center as they entered. "Speaking of which, aren't you kind of afraid that he might be lurking around tonight?"

Lily snorted. "Please, if it wasn't for me, I don't think he'd have left the stream beside Spinner's End for all of our teenage years." She tightened her grip on his hand slightly. "Besides, don't I have the strongest fighter in the keep on my side?"

"That you do, Lily-flower."

Their gazes locked for just a minute two long, and Lily looked away, blushing. James silently berated himself. Cool it, James, she's not ready. She'll tell you when she's ready, it's not like she's been shy about how she felt about you before.

That's different, though, it's easy to tell someone you hate them, maybe she needs a little tiny push in the right direction-

"Check it out, James."

At Lily's words, James shook himself out of his reverie. He tore his gaze from the pretty redhead to look where she was pointing. He stared across the plaza to the large Christmas tree in the town center. What caught his eye, however, was the church behind the tree, the light inside illuminating the large stained-glass windows, creating colorful streaks of light that made the already cheery square even more colorful. "It's fantastic," he breathed. "I can't imagine growing up in a town like this, especially around the holidays."

Lily smiled softly. "Boy, Sev and I used to have the run of the town around here. The day we met in primary school was the day everyone in town started to regret letting kids out of school at all- we were serious troublemakers."

"I'm sorry, Lily."

She snorted. "Don't be. I've got better people to goof off with now, anyways."

James dodged the gentle punch she directed towards him. "Ha! Nobody punches me without my consent!"

"Is that a challenge?"

James scampered off across the plaza. "Catch me if you can, Evans!" he hollered over his shoulder.

Lily smirked, setting off after him. In no time, she had caught up with the messy-haired delinquent sprinting across the square. She launched herself at him, her impact unbalancing him and sending both of them tumbling into a snowdrift. They rolled through the snow until the two finally came to a stop, James lying on top of Lily as they laughed uproariously, attracting stares, glares, and smiles from passing townspeople.

"Are you okay?" Lily managed to gasp out between bursts of laughter.

"I think I should be asking that of you," James said, chuckling deeply. "I'm the one who probably crushed you by landing atop you."

"Please, it takes more than a scrawny little punk with messy hair to take me out."

"While I am hugely offended, what offends me more is that you can easily outrun me. I mean, I'm on the football team. Literally all I do is run. Up and down the field, trying to make a goal. A five-six redhead in hiking boots just took me out, I need to work harder."

"Please, I outran you back at Bitterwood, this shouldn't really be a shocker. And I'm five-seven, thank you very much."

"I'm still hugely offended."

"Well, maybe you should get over your stupid male ego and realize I'm better than you."

"Please, I've long since acknowledged that."

"As well you should."

James suddenly became aware of where he was- propped up on his elbows, precariously balanced above one Lily Evans, gasping for air and with a face to rival the red hair that was fanned out on the snow slowly seeping through the knees of his jeans. He bent down slightly, looking at her now sober but still sparkling jade eyes, the shocking red of her hair in stark contrast to the turquoise beret perched on her head. Her strawberry scent tantalized him, the memory of her soft lips on his transfixed him, he was so close to her, it was every one of his dreams come true. And then she reached up from the ground, her fingers ghosting up his chest, his neck, his cheek- his breath caught in his throat, as she lifted her face towards his- and moved her hands quicker than lightning to pull the brim of his beanie over his eyes, punched him lightly on the arm, and rolled out from beneath him, taking his elbows out so his face hit the hard-packed snow.

"No fair! You cheated!" he wailed, hearing her giggles on the ground next to him. He pulled his face out of the snow and the beanie completely off. "Oh, you're going to pay now."

He pounced at Lily, who squeaked and tried in vain to escape. But this time, James was faster and had her pinned beneath him, beginning to tickle her relentlessly.

"No! James, stop, stop, I concede, you win, you're better! I give up, stop, stop!" she said between gasps of laughter.

James sat up, smirking satisfiedly. "I knew you'd see reason."

Lily shook her head, but her smile remained. "So tell me, Your Highness, what shall we do to pass these long hours, only for the sake of irritating my holier-than-thou sister?"

James looked back at the warmly-glowing church that had caught his eye before. He drug her over to the large snowdrifts created by snowplows and waded through them to the soft, untouched snow of the yard.

"Everyone's gone home for the night. Let's build a snowman in the churchyard- it'll be a good surprise for the kids tomorrow.

"What would you say about making it into a competition?" Lily said, crooking her eyebrow upwards, a sideways grin twisting her face upwards.

"I would say absolutely yes to any competition of any kind. That being said, how exactly do you have a snowman competition?"

"Winterfest rules. You have thirty minutes to find whatever you need to build your snowman, create the man himself, and present it to the judge, who is the other person. Whoever has the best gets to choose what to do next. Time starts- now!" Lily scampered off in the direction of Cokeworth's commercial district. James grinned, shook his head, and dashed off after her.

-x-x-x-

"And- that's time! Contestants, drop all snowman-building materials!"

The last half hour had made James work up a sweat. Who knew that snowman building could be so exhausting? After dashing into the only store still open to the public- a relatively shabby thrift shop, which he found contained all the costuming items he wanted for his - James dashed back at full blast to find Lily with the body of her snowman half-completed. He discarded the bundle of clothing next to his snowdrift and indignantly said, "How are you back already?"

"Hey! Winterfest rules say you can't look at the other's snowman!"

James grudgingly turned around, then furiously began crafting a snowman. "But how did you do it?"

"I know all the best places to get materials."

"The only shop I could find open was a thrift store, and the counter was manned by an ancient dude. He had to be five hundred."

"You went to Borgin and Burke's?" she snorted. "Newbie."

"It was the only shop that was open!"

"Not if you know where to go."

"That's unfair. I don't know where to shop around here, I'm disadvantaged. I should get some sort of bonus points. Or you should be graded harder, because you know where to shop that you'll get your stuff quick."

"I didn't shop, idiot."

James ceased in the packing of the midsection of the snowman. "Well, what did you do?"

"I used, ah, alternative methods in my collection of resources."

"You nicked it."

"Did not!"

James turned around and raised his eyebrow. Lily, who was in the middle of picking up her snowman-making materials, blushed. "Okay, I nicked some of it. A very small amount. But it's warranted, and anyways, it's for a noble cause."

"Sure."

"Turn around and get back to work, you delinquent."

"Hark who's talking."

"Shut up."

Thirty minutes later, James was panting, hands on his knees, in front of his hastily completed snowman. Looking up at Lily, now splayed on the ground next to her snowman, great gasps of air leaving her lungs visible in the night air. His breath caught as he looked up at her icy creation.

It was him.

Well, it wasn't him, per se, it was his medieval counterpart. His knightly self. She had cut apart a cardboard box and covered it in once-crumpled, now neatly smoothed tinfoil. She had taken another box and fashioned a helmet, also covered in tinfoil, with the end of a broom cut off and duct-taped on to create a plume. An old wrapping paper roller, covered in the shiny stuff Lily had based her entire costume on served as an excellent sword, and, to James' endless amusement, a dark mop peaked out of the edges of the helmet, and a bent-up pair of square wire reading glasses were perched on the end of the carrot nose that protruded from a hole in the helmet.

Lily was likewise taken by the snowman- well, snowlady- that James had crafted with his thrift-shop materials. A very large, worn purple dress bedecked the snowlady, and a white tablecloth, elaborately folded, created a wimple that almost covered the fire-engine red wig escaping in wild wisps from its covering. Green button eyes, a ruby-red nose and a smirking line of buttons completed the image of a noble lady bearing a remarkable similarity to one Lily Evans.

"You won," the two said at the same time.

James grinned. "Please, yours took far more effort than mine did."

"Yours is spot on, though."

"As is yours."
Lily grinned crookedly, her smile identical to the sloping lines on her frosty counterpart. "I can't believe we thought of the same thing."

"They do say great minds think alike."

"In order for that to be true, there have to be two great minds present, dearest Jamesy."

"I certainly hope you were talking about yourself, Lily darling."

"I thought we already established that I was better than you."

"I seem to distinctly remember you screaming, 'You're better!' earlier tonight. Believe me, that's not something I would easily forget."

"But perhaps something you could easily misconstrue."

James chuckled slightly, shaking his head at the fiercely blushing redhead still collapsed in a snowdrift.

"Do tell me, darling, mysterious Lily-flower, where did you find your materials?"

Lily sat up, her scarlet face turning redder still. "Well, back in the good old days, when Petunia didn't have a stick so far up her- well, back when she used to believe in fun, we'd have snowman-making contests all over town in the winter. Two snowmen would pop up everywhere- outside the school, in parks, in front of stores, even in private lawns. There was no stopping our shenanigans. We'd build them wherever inspiration, competitive spirit, or the need to settle a dispute struck.

"Marigold's Deli always throws away any tinfoil they didn't use wrapping sandwiches at the end of the day. Emmett's gets shipments on Friday in huge cardboard boxes. Mrs. O' Toole broke her readers on Sunday, she came to the grocery to pick up new ones while I was working the counter on Thursday, and the garbage truck doesn't come around until Tuesday. The mop was a lucky find in her garbage can, too, and empty wrapping paper rolls are not a rare commodity this time of year."

"And the carrot?"

"That, I nicked. But it's okay, because it's the grocery that runs in opposition to ours, Mr. Weismann is a terrible person, and it's his own damn fault he left his produce outside on a frosty night."

James sat down in the snowbank and laughed until he could hardly breathe. Standing up, he reached out to shake his competitor's hand, missed completely and knocked the carrot out of the nose of the snowknight.

"Wow, assault and battery. My poor crusader thought he didn't have to deal with this kind of thing anymore."

"Tell him that I'm sorry, but he should have expected it going up against the best fighter in this keep."

Lily laughed cheerily as she bent over to retrieve the fallen appendage.

"What next?" James asked, leaning on the cold shoulder of a merry snow-lady as Lily reaffixed the ill-gotten carrot to the cheerful face of her snow-knight. She stepped back, surveying her work, then smirked. She grabbed James' hand and turned her back on the two snowmen in the churchyard. "I have just the thing."

-x-x-x-

Standing on the top of a hill overlooking Cokeworth, James was having second thoughts.

"You know, Lily, I'm all about having a good time and ticking off Petunia, but I don't think hurtling to our deaths on a piece of metal is the answer to escaping the rehearsal dinner."

"Please, James. You're a pilot. Aren't you supposed to be doing loops in the sky, feeling tons of G's, and barely scraping past mountainsides? Widow's Hill is barely anything compared to that."

"Just because I have a slightly risky job doesn't mean I want to become Ethan Frome."

"Don't be such a wimp. Get on the sled, I've done this a million times."

"Wait, did you say this place was called Widow's Hill?!"

"Come on, James. Live a little!"

James reluctantly trudged over to where Lily was already balanced precariously on the front of the sled. "If we die, I'm going to kill you," he grumbled under his breath.

"I hate to break it to you, but if we die, we're both going to hell, so I doubt you'll get a crack at me before Old Harry does."

"I don't think anyone' called the devil 'Old Harry' since the late eighteen hundreds."

"Well, it must be a refreshing change for him. Now, kick us off."

"Are you sure-"

"Go, James!"

James did as she asked, sending their sled speeding down the steep incline. It was quite a rush- James could feel the blood pounding in his ears and Lily's equally loud scream as they rushed down the hill. She was steering, and she made a sharp adjustment to avoid a tree stump, nearly sending him flying off the sled. He grabbed her around the waist, letting his panicked scream escape to join her exhilarated one.

She turned around and yelled something at him, which he couldn't hear over the rush of the wind, the sting of the snow, and the sight of his life flashing before his eyes. "WHAT?!" he yelled, turning his ear to better catch what she was saying. "Et uf!" she yelled.

What the hell? He thought. Et av? Et is and in Latin, I wonder what she's saying. What the heck does 'av' mean-

He caught sight of her rolling her eyes at him before he was pushed unceremoniously off into the snow.

"Hey!" he said indignantly. "You could give a lad a little warning before shoving him off into the snow!"

"I did," she laughed. "I said, 'Get off", then, when you didn't, I shoved you off."

"Oh, I thought you said something in Latin."

This sent Lily off into another peal of laughter. "James, why would I be speaking in Latin? More importantly, why do you know Latin?"

"The same reason I know how to fence. Prep school with the lads."

"I wasn't aware they still taught conversational Latin, even when living in the lap of luxury," Lily teased.

"They didn't, just Latin roots. The boys and I learned it to avoid the teachers knowing what our next prank plan was."

"Overachievers."

"Anyways, I hope you're glad when I catch pneumonia and die for getting mercilessly plunged into the freezing snow."

"Please. As though you got any wetter than you did during our snowperson contest."

"Which I won."

"Actually, I seem to remember you saying that I won."

"Oddly enough, I seem to remember you saying the same thing."

"I plead the fifth."

"Unfortunately for you, this is Britain."

"Screw you, sir."

"The same to you, madam."

Lily stood up and brushed the snow off her jacket. "Come on, let's go again."

James choked. "Are you kidding? Again? I don't have a death wish. I barely survived the first time."

"What happened to the fearless James Potter, conqueror of new heights, noble leader of the college football team, stage performer and the first to rebel? This is just a puny hill. What, are you chicken?"

"No, I'm not insane."

"Come on, lad, we've got another couple runs before our luck runs out."

James looked up at the pretty girl standing above him- her rakish red hair escaping her hat in a rusty cloud that stood out against the night sky, her sideways grin curling around her bright teeth, her hand outstretched as she offered to help him up.

"Besides, your scream was hilarious."

James took her hand and stood up. "Excuse me, I do not scream. Potters do not scream."

"Really? That's what it sounded like to me."

"Are you accusing me of being a scaredy-cat?"

"Maybe I am." She straightened her features into a look of solemnity, mouth straight but eyes still dancing. "It's alright to be afraid of a little hill, Jamesy. Leave it to the big kids."

"Alright, that's it." He marched to the bottom of the hill, grabbing the sled from where it had skittered to a stop after they bailed. He turned around and began resolutely marching up the steep incline, dragging the sled behind him. "This time, I'm driving."

"Hope you stop to ask for directions, because there's a ton of stumps on this hill."

"It'll be fine."

"I thought you didn't want to end up as the next Ethan Frome? I personally have no wish to become Mattie Silver, so maybe I should drive."

James paused. "Fine. But I don't scream when I go down a hill on a sled, of all things. While charging into battle, perhaps, or if Game of Thrones is cancelled. But not while sledding."

"That remains to be seen. Two out of three?"

"Deal."