With some very unhelpful help from Sirius, I finally decided to send the things I had bought to Lily, along with a letter. Now, letters weren’t really my forte, as you might know, and this was indeed a Very Important Letter, so I spent a lot of time on it. I finally came up with something that didn’t make me wrinkle my nose in disgust when I read it, which you have to agree is a good sign.

Dear Lily, it said,

How are you? I hope things went okay on the train and that they weren’t too horrible to you. I had to hand out a few detentions myself, but no one was injured, thankfully. I thought you could use some cheering up, so here are some things I think you’ll enjoy. If you need more to take your mind off it, I’d be happy to take you down to Hogsmeade some time and buy you a Butterbeer or two, if you’d want to.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love, James.

I was really quite proud of myself. Who would’ve known I could come up with something like that? Not me, that’s for sure. I mean, if she wanted us to just be friends, or whatever it was we were, the invitation to Hogsmeade could easily be dismissed as a friendly gesture. If I was so lucky that she was actually interested in a reprise snogging session, however, she would probably recognise it for what it really was. Now I only needed to find that famous Gryffindor courage and actually send it to her.

***

Christmas passed without any remarkable incidents. I had finally gotten around to sending Lily her present late on Christmas eve, so I was unsure whether it had arrived in time or not. I was also quite a bit nervous about whether or not I would get anything from her. My head was saying that I shouldn’t be expecting anything, but my heart simply couldn’t resist doing so anyway. Needless to say, I was quite a bit depressed when I went to bed that night without having received as much as a Christmas card from her. Must be true as Sirius had suggested then – she hated me. Right at that moment, I did too.

I woke up rather early on Boxing day, and at first I couldn’t understand why. Some sound had woken me up, but there didn’t seem to be anyone in my room. Now, when you’re living with Sirius Black, you can never be sure about anything, so I was a bit apprehensive about whether he was under my invisibility cloak until I remembered that I had left that at Hogwarts over the holidays. Glancing over at the window, I noticed my owl hovering outside it, pecking the window impatiently with his beak. I immediately jumped out of bed, instantly awake, and practically ran over to the window and opened it, impatient to see whether Lily had sent me a letter or anything. As my owl flew inside, my heart did a funny little flip flop and a huge grin spread over my face.

She hadn’t only written me a letter, she’d sent me a package as well.

I tore the parcel away from the owl’s leg and went back to my bed and sat down on it, opening the parcel. It contained a long, light, wrapped gift, a small, heavy one, and not one, but two letters. Curious, I opened the one which was closest to me, which resembled a Howler somewhat with its red envelope, only it seemed to be made of paper instead of parchment. Inside, there was a shiny card with a Christmas tree printed on it. I turned it over; it simply said Merry Christmas, Lily. Placing the card on my bedside table, I reached for the other envelope, which contained a letter.

Dear James, it said, and I felt my grin widen as my heart started hammering wildly against my ribs. James! Ha.

Thank you very much for your presents! How did you know what my favourite sweets were? My sister is eyeing them as I write this; I think she’s tempted to try some of the ice mice, but of course she’d never touch anything magical. The ink was really wicked, as well – I didn’t even know they made ink like that. Do you think Binns will appreciate it if I write the essay about the history of British hags with it?

I’m sorry that this is so late – I bought you your presents ages ago, but I don’t have an owl and I don’t know your address, so I had planned to just give you this at school, but then your owl turned up and I decided to just mail them to you. I hope you like them, it’s nothing special but I’d thought you’d like them.

Merry belated Christmas and happy new year!

Love, Lily

PS: If you hadn’t asked me to go to Hogsmeade with you, I would’ve asked you. So yes, I’d like that very much.

PPS: I never thought I’d say this, but I kind of miss you. We never got to say a proper goodbye, what with the Slytherins and all that. I wish we had. Anyway, see you soon!

I was grinning so widely that it was a miracle my face didn’t burst. I had never been so happy about Sirius being wrong before, and that was saying something.

***

‘Would you please stop that? It’s driving me mad,’ Sirius said quite sharply as I wrung my hands nervously. We were sitting on a bench outside King’s Cross, waiting for Peter and Remus, who should have arrived over fifteen minutes ago.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered, trying to keep still. ‘Now, please remember, not a word to Remus or Peter, okay?’ Sirius rolled his eyes.

‘Yes, I know, you only told me about three billion times.’

‘Because, you know, I might have misinterpreted that letter and even if I didn’t, she might not want anyone else to know -’

‘James, I know!’ Sirius said loudly, causing quite a few onlookers to stare at him. ‘Besides, you better stop blabbering if you don’t want them to know, because here they come.’ Indeed, Remus came walking into sight at his words, closely followed by Peter.

‘We thought you meant the bench around the corner,’ Remus offered as a greeting. ‘We have been waiting for you for nearly half an hour.’ Eyeing Peter, he added,

‘Well, I have. Peter just showed up five minutes ago.’

‘Very punctual, are you, Pete?’ Sirius said, smiling. Peter scoffed at him.

‘Whatever. We’d better get onto the platform,’ he said, pushing the trolley with his trunk on it in front of him.

‘So,’ Remus said as we approached the barrier, ‘anything interesting happen to you two during the holidays?’

‘Weeeeell -’ Sirius began gleefully, but fell silent as I gave him the coldest stare I could manage.

‘Nothing,’ I said, my stomach squirming with nervousness. ‘Nothing at all.’ Peter and Remus gave me some odd stares, but didn’t say anything. Remus went through the barrier first, followed by Sirius, and then Peter. Taking a deep, shaky breath, I pushed my trolley through the barrier, closing my eyes as I crossed it. Walking over to stand with the guys, I quickly scanned the platform for any sign of red hair, my heart beating so loudly that it was the only sound I could hear. It doubled in intensity as I spotted her standing near the train, talking to her friends.

‘I’ll be right back,’ I said in a very strangled voice to the lads, and Sirius gave me a clap on the shoulder as I went. Lily was standing with her back to me, but as I neared, one of her friends must have told her I was coming, because she turned around, her face alight with happiness. I felt my knees go all rubbery and had to force myself to continue walking.

‘Hi,’ I mumbled nervously as I came up in front of her, forcing myself to look into her smiling eyes.

‘Hi,’ she replied, and then simply reached up, put her arms around my neck, drew my face down to hers and kissed me.

‘I don’t think she minds that people know, James,’ I vaguely heard Sirius call over the loud beating of my heart, but I didn’t care. I brought my own hands up to Lily’s hair and deepened the kiss, not caring about her giggling friends standing only a few feet away, the comments and questions from my friends, or someone wolf whistling further down the platform. I didn’t care about anything but her lips on mine, and the beating of her heart against my chest, its racing rhythm matching my own.

I had gotten my chance. I wouldn’t mess it up.

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