Eyes as Green as a Fresh Pickled Toad

Chapter Three
Christmas

Lily Evans and Mimi Ramirez were lounging around the Ravenclaw Common Room, trying to relax. Holidays started in a couple days, and everyone was trying to pretend they were already here. Matt and Susie (two fellow Ravenclaws) rushed in, yelling about some snowball fight or another they were having outside. Matt's socks were also making a great deal of noise, as they were musical and had started playing the William Tell Overture. Mimi and Lily groaned, but allowed themselves to be dragged outside.

The simple snowball fight between a handful of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs soon turned into an all-out war. The Gryffindors, not wanting to miss any of the fun, soon came over and joined in. Then the Slytherins wanted to be a part of it, came over, and started building a snow fort. The other houses followed suit (using magic, of course).

The Hufflepuffs, led by 7th year Amos Diggory, made a very simple snow fort. It was a big semicircle, really, with a few peepholes and two floors. The Slytherins, led by Snape and some of his friends, were in the process of making what looked like a Doomsday fortress, complete with boiling oil. Melody, over at the Gryffindor fort, tried to point out the boiling oil would just melt the Slytherin castle, but would they listen? Of course not.

The Gryffindors had set out to make something of a miniature Hogwarts, but with Sirius Black and James Potter in charge, they often forgot to add things, and as a result, their fort ended up looking more like a lopsided birthday cake than a fortress. The Ravenclaws, who were (of course) led by Lily, got finished first, with a neat, precise, fully armed, rather glorious-looking fort, and began to wreak havoc on the other three houses as they desperately tried to finish building their forts.

Matt's socks, sensing the occasion, started in on a battle march as the war began. The Hufflepuffs were finished next, and then the Slytherins, and last were the Gryffindors, still making additions to their very odd-looking fortress. The Slytherins first decided to pick on the Hufflepuffs, which they figured was probably the easiest target. Lily frowned when she saw this and thought it was an incredibly bad strategy. If they wanted to win, they ought to eliminate the larger threat first. Then she shrugged. Hey, it was Severus Snape. Who said he was going to be good at battle tactics?

The Ravenclaws concentrated on pelting the Slytherins and the Gryffindors---the Slytherins, because they were annoying, and the Gryffindors because it was funny. The Gryffindors wouldn't respond with snowballs. They'd respond with things like showers of blue bubbles, or little pink flowers, or Wet-Start Fireworks-anything but what they were supposed to be using.

The Slytherins weren't responding with snow, either. Instead it was balls of ice and fire, and little bottles of potions that exploded on impact and had strange effects on the people around them. Lily narrowed her eyes and Summoned her cauldron and potions ingredients, whipping up antidotes and such as quick as she could.

The first to fall were the Hufflepuffs. The Hufflepuffs ran to take cover in the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor forts. Amos Diggory came to the Ravenclaw fort and helped Lily make the antidotes. Things in the Ravenclaw fortress were frantic. They were trying to beat out the Slytherins, but all those blasted blue bubbles the Gryffindors kept sending over were making it hard to see. Things in the Gryffindor fort, however, were completely different.

* * *

"I say, old chum, bring me another glass of butterbeer, would you?" Sirius said lazily, sitting back in his chair.

"But of course, comrade!" James replied, whipping out another bottle of butterbeer.

They were sitting in the Commander's Quarters, their latest addition to the rather lopsided fort. It was a room decorated in rich red and gold colors, with two chairs Summoned from the Gryffindor Common Room. A cheery fire was crackling. They had the whole fort connected by Floo Network. James and Sirius were just sitting there, enjoying butterbeers, observing the battles with amusement, and lazily sending showers of blue bubbles in the direction of the Ravenclaw fortress to piss Lily off. Peter Pettigrew's head suddenly popped into the fire.

"Sirs!" Peter said.

"What?" Sirius asked, looking pompous. James straightened up in his chair and tried to look important.

"The Hufflepuffs have been defeated! We have refugees coming to our Grand Fortress for shelter!"

"Let them in, make them work, dismissed!" Sirius said. Peter nodded and left, a smile twitching on his lips.

Sirius and James stopped acting important and slumped back to their normal positions, letting a stream of blue bubbles pour out the window. Just then, Melody burst in.

"Oi!" she yelled, annoyed. "Get off your butts!"

Sirius and James straightened up again. "You should knock before entering the Commander's Quarters!" James said, deepening his voice and doing his best to sound like a Commander.

"Yes, minion! Shouldn't you be shooting pink flowers somewhere?"

Melody glared and responded by throwing snowballs at them. James and Sirius yelled and scrambled for cover.

"Stop!" Sirius said. She didn't listen.

"Do you think we're being overthrown?" James asked.

"I don't know!" Sirius said, ducking behind a chair as another snowball came flying in his direction. "Stop!" he said again. "We have but blue bubbles to defend ourselves!" He proved his point by peeking up over the back of the chair and sending blue bubbles in Melody's direction. Melody laughed, rolled her eyes, and kept pelting them until she ran out of snowballs.

"Now get up!" she said. "Get off your butts, get down there and fight!"

"Why should we?" James said indignantly as he and Sirius rose, dusting off their ridiculous uniforms.

"Because otherwise the Slytherins are going to beat us, dimwits!" Melody said, and she turned and ran from the room.

"The Slytherins are going to WHAT?"

* * *

Albus Dumbledore loved Christmas. He was strolling around the castle, looking at all the decorations and humming quite merrily to himself. He added a little more holly here, another sprig of mistletoe there, maybe another wreath over there, a little more tinsel on this Christmas tree...yes, yes, yes, Christmas was quite wonderful.

Once he was done with his sweep of the castle, he decided to do his favorite thing in the world-decorate his own office for Christmas. Humming "Deck the Halls" quite loudly, he made his way up to his office. All his Christmas decorations were kept in a rather lovely bottomless box, one that had been bought at Flitwick's shop in Hogsmeade some years ago, when it had first opened, and had the silver letters "A-L-B-U-S" on it. It had been given to him by a rather extraordinary girl when he had been in...was it his fifth year at Hogwarts? Yes, it had been-quite a long time ago, too, and, he remembered, that same year he had given that girl a very nice velvet bag-also bottomless. Albus imagined he might have married her, too, if it hadn't been for Grindelwald...but now was not the time to get in a sour mood.

No, it was Christmas, and Christmas always made Albus happy. He hummed as he unpacked the box and set up all of his trees. There were five small ones-one silver, one red, one green, one blue, and one purple. Each had a theme-one was decorated entirely with snowflakes; another, angels; another, Santa Clauses; another, elves; and the last, homemade ornaments and lots of pictures. There was one last tree, a large green one, which was decorated with a bit of everything and very colorful.

Then he had holly, wreaths, mistletoe, hovering fairies, snow globes, figurines of wood sprites who sang beautiful carols, and candles of all kinds decorating his office. Albus enjoyed putting up all his decorations the Muggle way-it got him more in spirit, for some reason.

When he was done, he sat in his chair and looked around, a smile on his face. He got up and walked to the window. He looked out and smiled wider, if that was possible. If there was one thing he loved more than Christmas, it was snow, and there was snow all over the grounds. He looked around and spotted something very interesting going on on the far side of the lake, near the Forbidden Forest. The entire school seemed to be having a giant snowball fight! Albus's eyes lit up and his mouth fell open like a little kid who's just been given candy. He loved snowball fights!

A decision was suddenly made in his mind. He ran out of his office, down the stairs, and tore through the hallways on his way to the Great Hall. "Minerva! Poppy!" he yelled. "You must come and see this!"

* * *

The students were well in the midst of a war, with no hint as to who was going to take the lead, when they suddenly spotted Albus Dumbledore come running out of the castle, arms waving wildly, yelling about something. Half of the students froze. As all the Professors in the school came running out, plus Madam Pince, Madam Pomfrey, Argus Filch, and Rubeus Hagrid, the rest of the students froze.

Lily Evans and the rest of the Ravenclaws on the top level of their fortress were desperately trying to see what had stopped the war through those ridiculous blue bubbles when someone from the lower level burst in and explained what was happening. Instantly convinced they were all in trouble, the students began to evacuate their fortresses. But, as Lily was halfway down, she heard Professor Dumbledore's voice boom out over the grounds.

"Stop! Don't leave! Go back! Continue warring!"

Lily was utterly confused. Why would all the teachers run out, the Headmaster looking rather hysterical, and tell them all to just continue warring? What in the world was going on?

"We've come to join you!" Professor Dumbledore continued.

Oh.

Then his voice was gone and the students all hustled back to their stations.

* * *

Melody rushed to a window and strained to see what the teachers were doing. They looked to be building a magnificent fortress.

"Oh, that's not fair!" Melody cried.

"Sure it is, we just have to fight back better!" Sirius said. "MORE BLUE BUBBLES!"

Melody groaned. "How in the world are blue bubbles going to help with anything?" she asked.

"Have you looked at the Ravenclaw fortress lately?" Sirius replied.

"No..." Melody said, and leaned out the window to look at the Ravenclaw fortress. Its entire top half was surrounded in a blue haze so thick she couldn't see through it. "Oh. Okay then. That'll work."

"Exactly!" Sirius said. "See, we're not as stupid as we look!"

Melody smiled, rolled her eyes, and sent a shower of blue bubbles floating over to the teachers' half-finished fortress.

The Slytherins seemed less sure about pelting the teachers with ice, fire, and potions than they had their fellow students, but once the teachers had their fortress completed they showed no mercy, so the Slytherins stopped their hesitation.

* * *

"Pink flowers-blue bubbles-what in the world are those Gryffindors doing?" Minerva McGonagall demanded.

"I haven't the faintest," Madam Pomfrey replied.

"It's quite ingenious, actually," Albus said, walking over to them and looking out the window. "You see, the rest of us are fighting with things like snow and ice and on and on-but the Gryffindors are sending over perfectly harmless-looking things, like blue bubbles, and pink flowers, and spending more time repairing and defending their fortress than actually fighting. But if you'll look at the Ravenclaw fortress, you'll see what their strategy is." With that, he walked off, humming cheerily, and sending Snowbombs out of every window he passed with a flick of his wand. (Snowbombs are little things that start out as snowballs and roll through the air, expanding as they go and exploding on impact.)

Minerva and Poppy looked over at the Ravenclaw castle and saw the top of it surrounded in a thick blue haze with zero visibility, and the ground covered in pink flower petals that were causing the students to slip as though someone had laid out banana peels for them.

"Smart," Minerva said approvingly. "Remarkably smart."

"Ingenious," Poppy agreed, and then they both had to duck because a very large ball of ice was flying their way.

* * *

Lily collapsed on the Common Room floor some hours later, exhausted. Gryffindor had eventually won because nobody could figure out how to get rid of those stupid blue bubbles and therefore couldn't see. Matt, Susie, Mimi, and the rest of the Ravenclaws shuffled in after her, Matt's socks playing a slow, sad march because of their defeat.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Lily asked Mimi as she plopped down in a chair.

"What?" Mimi replied, closing her eyes and leaning back.

"James Potter is going to pay."

* * *

"Lily! Lily! Wake up! It's Christmas!" Mimi yelled about a week later, bouncing happily on Lily's bed.

"Huh? What?" Lily said sleepily, not even attempting to open her eyes.

"It's Christmas, do-do bird! Presents!" Mimi said, grabbing a pillow and whacking Lily with it. She hopped off Lily's bed and scrambled back over to her own, where she sat on the floor next to her presents and looked eagerly at them. "Come on, Lil, I'm not opening mine until you get up!"

Put the pressure on, why don't you? Lily thought grouchily, but she didn't have enough energy to voice the words. She was not a morning person.

"Lily!" Mimi yelled, irritated. She grabbed another pillow and threw it at her friend. Lily grunted and threw the pillow back lamely in response.

She slid slowly out of bed, eyes still closed, and rolled onto the floor. After laying there for several moments, she rose and opened her eyes sleepily. After running a hand through her horribly tangled locks and yawning a considerable number of times, Lily finally plopped down in front of her presents.

"Open mine first!" Mimi said eagerly, shoving a present into Lily's hands. Lily yawned and gave Mimi a present from her.

Lily slowly and methodically opened her package, being careful not to rip any of the wrapping paper. There was no particular reason for her neatness-she was just so tired she couldn't quite remember what the other way was of opening a package.

She smiled as she heard Mimi's squeals of delight. "Ooh! Magical make-up! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" She cried, leaning over to hug Lily. "I've been dying to get some of this, I just never have enough money. Thank you!"

Lily laughed. "You're welcome," she said, now slightly awake. She pulled out the box Mimi had given to her. She opened it and found two pairs of...chopsticks? "Chopsticks?" Lily asked, slightly confused. "Um...I do like Chinese food..." Lily said, but she was puzzled. The chopsticks had large ornaments at the ends, like silver spirals with butterflies on them and lilies with jewels in place of petals.

Mimi just laughed. "No, silly, they're not for food!" she said. "They're for your hair!"

"My hair?" Lily asked, confused. "Where in the world did you get these?" she asked, turning them over and over in her hands. Mimi laughed again.

"Look, my mom works for a Muggle fashion industry. They've been trying to come up with some new stuff for hair. She brought some prototypes home this summer and I thought they were pretty cool. I'll show you how to put them in later," she said.

"Okay." Lily shrugged. "Thanks." She hugged her friend.

"No problem," Mimi said smiling.

* * *

The Gryffindor Common Room was, in a word, chaos. Smoke, pixies, blue bubbles, fireworks, and levitating witches and wizards were everywhere. It looked as though Zonko's and Honeydukes had moved right into Hogwarts and let the Gryffindor students have a free-for-all with their products.

James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, Melody Cauldwell, and Mundungus Fletcher (another fifth year) were the sole cause of all this commotion. They had all bought themselves and each other as many joke products and candies as they could possibly afford. (This was saying something, as they had all been saving up since last Christmas to party in the Gryffindor Common Room this year. It was in this state that Lily and Mimi found the Gryffindor Common Room later that day when they came to exchange presents.

"Let's go," Lily said the second they stepped in. Mimi nodded and they were just turning around, when:

"Lily!" Lily groaned and turned back around.

Melody ran up to her, smiling and waving, sucker in hand. Her teeth had become buck, her ears were twice their normal size, her hand had shrunk to half its normal size, her left foot was too big and her right too small, pink foam was pouring out of her ears, her eyes were flashing different colors, and her hair was purple.

"Is that even really safe?" Lily asked, an odd, horrified expression on her face.

"Is what really safe?" Melody asked, putting the sucker back in her mouth. Her hair was shot with streaks of blue.

"Being under the influence of all those candies and joke products at the same time."

Melody shrugged. "I don't see why it wouldn't be." She took a look at her hair, which was still streaked purple and blue. "Oh, this looks cool, I'm keeping it like this! Hey Sirius!" she yelled, dropping her sucker and jogging back across the common room. Lily Banished the sucker to the nearest trash can.

She and Mimi carefully picked their way across the common room. "This place is a mess!" Lily yelled at James as he set off another Dungbomb. James turned to look at her. He smirked.

"Lovely, isn't it?" he said happily. Lily rolled her eyes.

"I can't believe I got you a present!" she said.

"Did you, now?" James said with interest, his eyebrows shooting up.

"As a matter of fact, I did, but I don't think I'm going to give it to you anymore," Lily said, looking around the common room and shaking her head. "I've never seen any place look so bad!" she said. James just shrugged. "Besides, I'm still going to kill you for beating us in the snowball fight last week!"

James smirked again. "Sure you are, Lily,"

Lily just glared.

"So, where's this present you were talking about?" James asked, lazily eating some Toothflossing Stringmints.

"Maybe I have it, and maybe I don't," Lily said, hands on hips. "That all depends."

"On what?"

"Well, what'd you get for me?"

James smiled. "Accio present-thingy I got for Lily!"

Lily rolled her eyes, and was mildly surprised when she saw something fly down the staircase from the boys' dormitory and into James's hand. She gave James a Look. "By all rules of magic and common sense, that spell should not have worked," she said.

James shrugged and smiled. "I know! Merry Christmas!" he grinned widely and handed Lily her present. Lily smiled and accepted.

"Well, I guess I owe you one now, huh?" James nodded and smiled eagerly, holding his hands out in front of him like a four-year-old. Lily laughed and dug through her bag of gifts, finding James's now extremely tiny box, wrapped up in plain green wrapping paper. She smiled and dropped it in the palm of his hand.

James blinked and stared at it for a moment, but then, figuring it was probably magical, he shrugged, smiled, and sat down on the floor to eagerly open his gift. Lily laughed and opened hers.

Out slithered a very fine piece of cloth. Lily gasped and picked it up. It was a bag made of very fine crushed velvet, a deep purple color with deep gold drawstrings. It was...beautiful.

"It's a box!" James exclaimed. Lily looked over at him. He looked absolutely delighted and fascinated with the tiny 1 cm by 1 cm box. He was squinting very hard at the tiny silver letters. "I think it has letters on it!" he said.

"James, you idiot!" Lily snapped impatiently, snatching the box away. "You're supposed to enlarge it first!"

"Oh! Then I get a big box!" James said, looking ecstatic. Lily looked at him, slightly alarmed.

"James, it's a box," Lily pointed out.

"I know!" James cried, leaping up. "And I love boxes!" he said. He picked up Lily and twirled her around. "And you're Lily, the Box-Giver! I love you, Lily the Box-Giver!" He said a little too loud, and squished Lily in a bear hug.

"Ca--can't--brea--ea--eathe!" Lily gasped. James let her go and smiled. The whole common room was watching them.

Lily's face turned bright red, and she glared at James as she enlarged his stupid box. "There!" she said, handing it back to him.

"So, do you like the bag?" James asked as he opened the box and sifted through its contents.

"It's beautiful," Lily said, looking at it again. "I did need a new one, but since my parents spent a fortune on it last year I wasn't about to ask."

"Well, this'll last you a long time," James said. "It's got an Unbreakable-er, Unrippable-well, something like that--Charm on it, and a whole bunch of stuff so it won't rip--that and it's bottomless."

"Really?" Lily said as James pulled an instruction pamphlet out of his box. She looked in the bag. It didn't look any different than a normal bag. She stuck her hand in, and then her whole arm, feeling around for the bottom of it. She couldn't feel it. "Wow," she said. "This is amazing."

James smiled and tossed the pamphlet he was holding aside. He then looked in the box and saw several packages stacked on one another. They were very interesting-looking packages of something called-

"Milk Duds!" James cried, and he ripped open a package and started chomping away.

* * *

Lily was going to the library. She was a little bored and wanted something to read.

"Lily flower!" A voice said. Lily whirled around and smiled as she saw the Grey Lady floating toward her in the hallway.

"Hey, Lady," Lily said, smiling.

"It's been a while," Lady said. Lily nodded in agreement. "What have you been up to?"

Lily shrugged. "Not much. Just Christmas stuff. Gifts, feasts, letters, snowball fights..." she trailed off and smiled.

"Ah, yes, the snowball fight," Lady said, her eyes somehow twinkling. "We thought that was very interesting."

"Were you all watching?" Lily asked.

Lady nodded. "Oh, yes. We haven't seen a snowball fight of that magnitude in...quite some time. I was cheering for you all the way!"

"I can't believe we lost because of some blue bubbles!" Lily said, wrinkling up her nose. Lady laughed.

"That was rather ingenious, wouldn't you say?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "I don't know...if James Potter and Sirius Black were behind it, don't give them too much credit. It was probably just a mistake."

Lady smiled. "Ah, Lily flower, you don't mean what you say."

"I know I don't."

"Why are you so hard on these boys?" Lady asked curiously, but all the while knowing the reason.

"They act like idiots!" Lily said. She shook her head and started talking very fast. "Honestly! If they'd try spending two seconds acting like normal wizards, maybe I could stand them, but no, th-"

"Calm down, Lily flower!" Lady said, eyes widening. "I did not mean to get you so riled up."

Lily's cheeks went rather pink. "Sorry," she said, smiling sheepishly. "I just-"

"I know, Lily flower," Lady said, smiling. "I know." Lily had the distinct feeling that Lady was thinking along the lines of Mimi, and was about to say so when another voice cut in on her train of thought.

"Lily flower, eh?" a rather cocky voice said. Lily groaned and slowly turned around to see James Potter standing behind her, looking rather cheerful.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"You look pained to see me, Lily! I'm hurt!" James said in mock sadness. Lily rolled her eyes. She looked over at the Grey Lady-but she was gone. Lily sighed and turned back to James.

"What do you want?" she repeated. James just shrugged.

"Nothing. I was just walking, you were talking, I heard the name Lily flower and decided to comment."

"Will you do me a favor?"

"What?"

"Don't comment." And with that, Lily turned and walked down the hall. This was supposed to be her big exit, but James just couldn't let her have things her way. He jogged up behind her and started following her down the hall.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, irritated.

James shrugged. "Following you."

"And why, pray tell, are you doing that?"

James shrugged again. "Dunno."

"Well, would you stop?"

"No,"

"Argh!"

"That's an interesting word."

Lily turned and glared at him. His eyebrows rose. "Okay, okay, I can take a hint! Sheesh!" James said defensively, holding up his hands.

Lily turned back around and kept walking. James stood in place and looked at her for a couple seconds. Just as he was about to shake his head and turn away, he remembered something.

"Hey, Lily, wait up!" He called after her, and started jogging. Lily groaned and turned around.

"What do you want from me?" she whimpered.

"Calm down, I just wanted to ask you something."

"What?"

"Well, I'm still having trouble with that Teleportation Charm. D'you think you could help me?"

"Fine! Whatever! I don't care! Please, just leave me alone!"

"Okay then, Grouchy. Meet me at MHQ tomorrow at noon. Password's the same as last time."

"Okay, bye!" Lily waved him away. James got a funny look on his face, turned, and left. Lily sighed with relief and kept walking, while at the same time feeling a small twinge of guilt for being so rude. She pushed it away and walked into the library.

"Lily!" someone said as she made her way over to the bookshelves. She turned to see Amos Diggory waving at her from one of the tables, Arithmancy books spread out before him.

"Hi," she said, waving. He got up and walked over to her.

"Hey, Lily, what's going on?"

"Not much, just getting some books."

"Look, I was wondering..." he looked at the floor and scuffed his shoe rather nervously. Lily raised her eyebrows.

"Yes?" she prompted.

"Well, next Hogsmeade weekend is coming up soon, and I was wondering...well, I was wondering..."

Lily giggled. He looked so cute! He just...did. He was all nervous, and she was pretty sure he was asking her out. It was just so cute!

"Do you wanna hang out with me?" he asked, rather quickly, and he was still avoiding eye contact. Lily giggled again.

"Sure," she said, smiling.

"Great!"

* * *

The Christmas feast passed rather uneventfully-a miracle, considering all the Marauders had been there. But their display in the Gryffindor Common Room appeared to have worn them out, and they seemed content to just sit and eat...and eat and eat and eat. Remus wasn't there, though-Lily thought that was strange. When she asked Melody about it later, she had just shrugged and said Remus'd had to go home for a family emergency but that he'd be back in a week.

Lily and Mimi stayed up late that night talking and giggling about nothing in particular. Around one o'clock or so they fell asleep on bean bag chairs by the fire. Mimi woke up suddenly around 3 o'clock, woke Lily up, and dragged her to bed. Lily noticed, as she was falling asleep for the second time, what a lovely full moon there was outside...

* * *

"Okay, so how in the world do you do this?" James asked, sitting on the table rather than any of the twelve empty chairs situated around it.

"It's not that hard," Lily said. "And I don't see why you're still having trouble with it. I've already given all of you lessons at least twice!"

James shrugged. "So I wasn't paying attention. So what? I still need your help."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right! You probably have the Marauders hiding in here somewhere waiting to play a trick on me."

James put on a mask of innocence. "Would I do something like that?"

Lily glared at him. "Okay, okay!" he said, holding up his hands in defeat. "So I would. But I didn't this time. You know why?"

"You're on hallucinogens?"

James glared. "Okay, okay, you aren't on hallucinogens, go on!" Lily said rather impatiently.

"Because I really need to learn this charm!"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine, fine. Have it your way. Let the lesson begin!"

* * *

Lily stomped back in to MHQ an hour later looking furious. James was rolling on the floor, laughing his head off.

"YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO USE THAT SPELL ON HUMANS!" Lily yelled at him, her face red. "And if you EVER do that to me again, I will curse you from here until DOOMSDAY!" At this point Lily looked so angry James stopped laughing.

"And no more lessons for ANYTHING-EVER-AGAIN!" Lily screamed, then grabbed her wand and left, ignoring James's pitiful apologies and swearing never to talk to that git again.

* * *

"I hate him," Lily said, shaking her head. "I've never hated anyone before, but I swear I hate him,"

"Don't," Melody begged. "Don't hate him! You shouldn't hate anybody. Come on, Lily, it was just a joke!"

"And at MY expense! After he promised me he wasn't going to pull a prank on me! I can't trust him! He was never really my friend anyway, so what difference does it make?"

"It makes a big difference, Lily! Come on! He's a good guy, really. You've just got to give him a chance!"

"Why should I? I mean, I'm in Ravenclaw, he's in Gryffindor, we don't have any classes together, we never see each other, I don't need to be helping the Marauders with ANYTHING. Look, Melody, you are my best friend. If you need help with something, I will help you. But for no reason will I ever need to talk to James."

"Except when you become Head Boy and Head Girl in two years."

"Oh, please, Melody, STOP SAYING THAT! I am NOT going to be Head Girl."

Melody snorted. "Yeah, right," she said, rolling her eyes. "That's what you said about becoming a prefect, too, and look what happened! I mean, honestly, Lily, the only reason you had for NOT becoming a prefect was that you got a 99% on one of your exams. Oh, dear, what a shame," Melody said sarcastically.

"Well, that was an easy exam! I should have gotten over 100!"

Melody rolled her eyes again. "Lily, the ONLY people-and I do mean the ONLY people-who scored higher than you on that exam were James Potter and Sirius Black, and that's because they are the best Transfiguration students in the school. And even though they kicked your ass in that ONE exam, you still came out on top of our class. James was second, and Sirius was third. And now, as we are all Prefects, you know exactly where to check the Prefect List for top Prefect standing, and right now, you and James are TIED. So you can't tell me that you're not going to be Head Boy and Head Girl in two years."

"You can't say that," Lily said, blushing. "Things change. Maybe you'll be Head Girl!"

Melody laughed. "That's funny, Lily, it really is, but you know it's never gonna happen. Professor Thorne hates me too much-he'll never give me really high marks for anything. I'll be lucky to scrape by."

"Whatever. This is beside the point."

"What was the point again?" Melody asked, trying to remember what they had originally been talking about.

"Uh...I don't remember."

Melody remembered, but she didn't say anything. Maybe if she got Lily to forget what they were talking about, she'd forget she hated James...

"Me either."

* * *

James tried to talk to Lily the next day in the hall, partly to apologize and partly to talk her in to something, but she wouldn't have it. She didn't say one word to him, just stared straight ahead and acted as though he wasn't there. When she saw Amos Diggory in the hallway, she called out to him and waved, then slung her arm through his and steered him down the hallway, babbling on about something, leaving James quite astounded. Lily and...Amos Diggory? Well, this was a new development...

He didn't want Lily to hate him! It was just a stupid, harmless prank!

"Stupid is right," he muttered to himself, head hung, scuffing his shoe on the floor, taking one last glance at Lily and Amos, and walking away dejectedly.

* * *

Lily took one last glance behind her at James and saw him hang his head and scuff his shoe. She felt a small twinge of guilt and bit her lip, wondering if maybe she should...NO! She couldn't forgive him, it wasn't right. He had been such a...argh! Feeling a new wave of frustration and rage, she turned her head back and kept flirting with Amos, pushing James completely out of her mind...and at the same time hoping he was enjoying the show.

* * *

"Ah!" Lily cried as three more owl swooped into her dorm, each carrying a present-Lily already knew from who. She grabbed the vase of yellow roses, the singing card, and the box of chocolates, then shooed the owls out. She set the yellow roses down on Mimi's bedside table and stuffed the chocolates and singing card into her bottomless bag, which already had six boxes of chocolates and six singing cards in it. She looked around the room at all the vases of roses. There were two on her bedside table, three on the counter by the mirror all the girls used to put on make-up in the morning, and there was one on the windowsill of the window across from her bed.

She sighed and went around the room, watering her roses again. She wondered if someone could cut off owl delivery from a single person or not, and decided probably not. She sat down on her bed and sighed. So what if James was sorry? Chocolates, cards, and several dozen roses were not going to solve the problem. Frustrated and confused, Lily grabbed her bottomless bag and pulled out a box of chocolates. She practically tore it open and started eating mercilessly, not caring what the little map on the lid of the box said. If she bit into a chocolate she didn't like (just about everything with nuts-Lily hated nuts), she threw it at the wall.

Honestly, she thought as she found a really good coconut-filled chocolate. He acts like he's my boyfriend or something. All the hassle, with none of the perks!-well, except the chocolate.

Just then, Mimi and Melody burst in.

"Lily, James is goi-" Melody began, but she cut off when she saw Lily throwing a cashew chocolate at the wall and all the roses situated around the room. "Oh my God. He really has gone crazy."

"Who said they're from James?" Lily said, throwing another chocolate at the wall. She said the word "James" with disgust, almost as though she were mocking him.

"Lily!" Mimi cried, wrenching the box of chocolates out of Lily's hand before she could throw another chocolate at the wall. "Get a hold of yourself!"

Lily didn't respond, just glared at the wall and dug another box of chocolates out of the bag. Mimi snatched it away before Lily could even attempt to open it, and Melody grabbed the bottomless bag.

"All right, if James didn't send all this stuff to you, then who did?"

"Nobody," Lily said, crossing her arms and pouting.

"Nobody, huh? Yeah, he's a good boyfriend. I dated him for a while when I was about thirteen," Melody said, and she started digging through the bag.

"No, don't!" Lily said.

"Why?" Melody asked, looking up, interested.

"It's embarrassing!" Lily said, snatching the bag back.

"Don't go digging another box of chocolates out," Mimi said.

"I won't," Lily sighed. "Give me those," she said, pointing at the two boxes Mimi was holding.

"Why?" Mimi asked warily.

"Because I want to put them back in the bag. Just chill."

Mimi cautiously handed the boxes over, and Lily grabbed them and shoved them into her bag, and then threw it under her bed.

"So, who really gave the flowers to you?" Melody asked as Lily went to clean up the chocolates that had been thrown against the wall. She picked up a vase and examined it, looking for a card. There was none. Disappointed, she set it back down.

Lily sighed as she Banished the chocolates to a waste basket. "James," she said miserably, cleaning off the caramel and chocolate spots on her wall with a Cleaning Spell.

Mimi and Melody traded knowing looks. "Talk to him," they said in unison.

"Why?" Lily asked, flopping down onto her bed. "I don't want to!"

"Because," Melody said, kneeling down next to Lily's bed. "He's sorry. That's got to count for something, doesn't it?"

Lily sighed. "I don't know!" she said, sounding miserable. "I mean, on the one hand, I hate his guts. On the other...on the other..." It wasn't as though she didn't have anything to say. No, it looked more like she had something nice to say that she really didn't want to. "Well, on the other hand, he can actually be a nice guy," Lily finally blurted.

"Aha! See? He's not all bad!" Melody said, leaning away from the bed, smiling and crossing her arms in satisfaction.

"I told you you had a crush on him," Mimi said, laughing. Lily's mouth dropped open.

"You do?" Melody said, half-serious, half-joking.

Lily's face turned red. "Mimi, I'm gonna kill you! You know that's not true!" She threw a pillow at her friend. Mimi laughed and threw it back.

And thus the Pillowfight of The Century broke out.

* * *

"James! Stop sending me flowers!" Lily yelled. James turned around in the hallway, looking shocked and pleased all at the same time.

"So you got them then?"

"Of course I got them! Do you know how long it takes me to water all those roses?" Lily demanded, hands on hips, but looking rather good-natured nonetheless.

James looked rather sheepish. "I was just trying to get your attention."

"You have it! Now is there something you want to say?"

"Well, first of all I'd like to say that I never have to buy you another box of chocolates ever again, even when we're married and have kids, because you love me so much, right?" James asked, smiling cheesily. Lily groaned.

"James, don't jinx me! I'm getting to the point where I can stand being in the same room with you, but don't joke!"

James smiled and shrugged. "Sorry. Anyway, yeah, that's actually what I wanted to say: I'm sorry." He got down on his knees and looked up at her with doe eyes. "Will you pretty please be my bestest fwiend?" He asked in a little kid voice. Lily laughed.

"Get up!" she said, shaking her head. James got up.

"Now, I don't know about bestest, but I guess I can kind of be your friend."

"Kind of?" James asked, raising an eyebrow. "Now, what kind of a friend is that?"

Lily sighed. "Okay, you've got me!" she said, smiling and holding up her hands in defeat. "I'll be your friend. Your regular old friend. But any more pranks from you, and it's war."

James hugged her and laughed. "Don't forget, Lily flower, the last time we had a war I defeated you with blue bubbles!"

Lily tried to give him a sour look but smiled instead. She stuck her tongue out at him and he just laughed.

"So mature, Lily," he said, slinging an arm around her shoulders.

"Like you have room to speak!" She laughed, shrugging him off.

"Hey James?" Lily asked as a thought popped into her head.

"What?" James asked.

"Have you ever seen the Wizard of Oz?"

"Wizard of Oz? Who's he? Where's that? He's not in our History of Magic book, is he?"

Lily laughed and shook her head. "Guess not. But oh well! I'm going to do something crazy anyway!" Lily linked her arm through his.

"What are you doing?" James asked, amused.

"Just work with me, okay?" Lily asked, and she started skipping down the hall.

"WE'RE...OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD, THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ!"...

* * *

"Lily, we need your help!" James whined.

"No!"

"Why?" He whined some more.

"Stop whining! I'm not going to help you!"

"But we need your help to be brilliant!" James said dramatically.

"I doubt that. You just want to drag me into this, for the sake of dragging me into it!"

"No, of course not! Lily, we-" He cut off, seeing the look on her face. "Okay, maybe a little bit just for the sake of it," he admitted, "but really, it'll be fun!"

"No. I'm not helping you."

"Oh come on, why not?"

"Because!"

"That's not an answer."

"Well, 'no' is an answer, and I believe I've said that several times.

"Come on, Lily, we need to annoy Snape!"

"And you've carried on just fine without me for five years, you can do without me for a few more."

"It's really only been four and a half."

"Does it really make all that much of a difference?"

"This is beside the point!"

"Why do you have to pull this prank in Hogsmeade, anyway?"

"Because! It'll just be more fun that way!"

"Look, my answer is still no."

"Can't I at least get an explanation?"

Lily sighed and looked very much as though she'd regret telling him this, but she decided to tell him anyway. "Look, if you must know, I'm going to Hogsmeade with Amos Diggory our next weekend there and I can't be bothered with anything else."

James's mouth dropped open. "You're WHAT?"

"Can we please NOT talk about this?" Lily asked, blushing. "You wanted to know why, I gave you an answer. Let's just leave it there."

"Does Melody know about this?"

"Why should it matter?"

"Because it does!"

"Why, does she have something against Amos Diggory?"

"No, but she'd be mad if she heard about it from me instead of you."

Lily gasped. "James, you wouldn't!"

James got an evil grin on his face. "Wouldn't I?"

"James, you promised! No more pranks!"

"It's not a prank. It's just a little talk, that's all."

"James!"

"Well, Melody's going to want to know why you said no too. I have no reason to keep it from her. However, if you said yes, there'd be no reason to tell anybody."

Lily's mouth dropped open. "James, that's blackmail!"

"I like to think of it as effective persuasion."

Lily glared at him. "You wouldn't."

"Well..." James got a look on his face, as though he wasn't really too sure he'd keep her secret-because he wasn't.

Lily's eyes bugged out. "James! I trusted you! You can't do this to me! It's not fair! I thought you were a nice person! What happened to the person I was talking to on the rooftop that day?" Lily went on and on and on. James felt a twinge of guilt about the rooftop and then immediately knew he wouldn't tell anybody.

"Lily, I-" he began, but she didn't hear him. She was still yelling at him. And if she did hear him, she was doing a very good job of ignoring him.

"Lily-" he began several more times, but she wasn't having it.

"LILY, SHUT UP!" He finally yelled.

"No, I won't shut up! You listen to me!" she yelled right back, and kept going. James sighed, annoyed, and was torn between slapping her and doing something else that he seemed to have the urge to do a lot when he was around her.

After several seconds of debate, he gave into his urge. James grabbed Lily and kissed her in midsentence.

* * *

Lily was right in the middle of yelling at James when he did something terribly unexpected. He kissed her. She wasn't quite sure what to do. Her eyes were wide open, and she was so shocked she couldn't quite figure out what to do. Her heart was hammering hard against her chest.

Before she knew what she was doing, she started to lean into the kiss. Her eyes slowly closed, and her arms were wrapping themselves around his neck.

Then, quite suddenly, she came crashing down to earth and realized what she was doing. She pushed away from James as quickly as she could, and, without even thinking about it, she slapped him across the face.

James looked stunned. He rubbed his cheek and looked as though he couldn't quite believe what either of them had done.

"How dare you!" Lily said. "After I just told you about Amos-JAMES! I can't believe you!" she yelled, furious. "If you tell anyone about this, you are dead!" she threatened, and then turned and stalked out of the deserted classroom James had dragged her into to talk about "The Plan."

God, he was annoying.

* * *

"You're not going to be mad at him forever, are you?" Melody asked.

"Maybe."

"What did he do?" Mimi asked, but Lily shook her head.

"I am not telling you. And he's not telling anybody else, either, or I will kill him."

Mimi and Melody exchanged looks. "Okay then," Melody said. "But I really wish you'd tell us what's going on."

Lily sighed. "I know. But it's all very complicated."

"Well, how complicated is it?" Mimi asked.

"Very."

"So what? Why don't you just explain everything to us? We're your best friends, we'll understand," Melody chided, filing a nail.

"Yeah, Lil, what's the big deal?" Mimi added.

"The big deal? Nothing. You'll just hang it over my head FOREVER."

"Hang WHAT over your head?" Melody looked about ready to explode. Lily never kept secrets from her.

"A girl's entitled to her secrets!" Lily said.

"But I'm your best friend! I HAVE to KNOW!" Melody whined.

Lily sighed again. "You know, this is all James's fault!" she complained.

"But HOW?" Mimi and Melody asked.

Lily just groaned.

* * *

"Hello, Ravenclaws!" Melody stood up and waved across the Great Hall at the Ravenclaw table. There were only five Ravenclaws staying over the holidays: Lily, Mimi, and three second years they didn't really know.

The Slytherin table was quite empty, as well, but there were a sufficient number of Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors.

"Hello, Gryffindors!" Mimi said, waving back. Lily smiled.

"Hello, Melody!" she called.

"Come over here!" Melody yelled.

"No, that's okay, thanks!" Lily yelled back.

"You don't have to sit by James!" Melody yelled.

Lily's face went rather red. "We're coming over!" she yelled back.

Before Melody had a chance to yell, "Great!", they heard a fork clatter onto a plate and the impatient scraping of someone's chair at the High Table.

"Honestly!" Professor McGonagall said, standing up. "All of the Great Hall need not hear your conversations! 10 points each from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, and that will be quite enough yelling for one day!"

This made Lily's face go rather redder, but Melody just waved at her Head of House and yelled, "Cheers, Professor!", which got a laugh out of everyone and caused the Professor to look quite exasperated but not enough so for her to take any more points off.

"So, how's it going, old chum?" Melody asked Lily once she got there.

"Why must you humiliate me?" Lily said. "Why?"

"Oh, do cheer up! Come and have breakfast with us!"

So Lily and Mimi sat down (Lily as far away from James as possible) and enjoyed a quite pleasant breakfast with the Gryffindors. Well, it was pleasant, at least, until after the meal was over.

They were all walking out of the Great Hall together when Mimi stopped suddenly and shrieked, "Mistletoe!"

Everyone looked up, and there were Melody and Sirius under the mistletoe. They both started blushing and managed a quick peck on the lips. It was quite unusual for either of them to be shy, and it made the mistletoe all the more interesting. Mimi and Remus paraded under the mistletoe, and Mimi kissed Remus shamelessly, although it really didn't last more than two seconds.

Lily, Peter, and James all avoided the mistletoe, much to the disappointment of their friends. Lily just stuck her tongue out at them and laughed. They all started walking up the stairs, chattering animatedly. Lily was just sighing with relief that she hadn't ended up under the mistletoe with James, when she heard Mimi yell the horrible word.

"Mistletoe!" she cried, and Lily stopped dead. She slowly looked up over her head, and, with a sick lurch in her stomach, saw the horrible plant hanging right above her. Looking back down, she saw the worst of her fears coming true. James was standing across from her.

"Come on, kiss!" Sirius yelled, looking quite eager to humiliate his best friend.

"They are cruel," Lily muttered. James, who had heard her, smiled.

"Yep," he muttered back, and Lily barely caught it, but she heard it nonetheless. She didn't look at him.

"What are you waiting for?" Mimi asked. Lily glared at her.

"Come on, what's the harm in a little kiss?" Remus chided.

"You'd be surprised," James muttered.

"Just kiss her, dimwit!" Melody yelled. Lily wondered if they all hadn't set this up on purpose.

"Last time I tried that, she slapped me," James said, giving Lily a sideways look.

Eyebrows were raised, and Lily's mouth dropped open. Had he just-did he really just-out of the blue...? She was suddenly furious. She reacted in bad ways in situations like this. Her brain never functioned on a good level. As a result, she did the only thing she could think of.

She slapped him across the face.

"Like that," James said, massaging his face as she stalked away.

* * *