“LILLIAN GINEVRA POTTER! GET YOUR ARSE OUT OF BED THIS INSTANT!” Ginny Potter’s voice echoed through the Potter mansion as she shrieked at her daughter. A brown haired girl sat straight up in bed, startled out of her semi-coma that she called sleeping.

“Did you have to be that loud? Why are you waking me up anyway? It’s vacation!” Lily said making as if to dive back down under the covers, but her mother’s glare made her think twice about it.

“Yes, I had to wake you up,” Ginny said icily, “or did you forget that we are leaving for the airport IN FIFTEEN MINUTES?” her voice got louder and louder with every word.

“All right, all right, I’m up, I’m up!” Lily grumbled, throwing off the covers and shutting her door to change. Ginny sighed in relief; getting Lily up was her chore for the morning, and Lily was very grumpy in the mornings, to the point of hexing whoever the unfortunate soul was that tried to wake her up.

“You should have shouted louder, luv. I think the people in the village couldn’t quite make out what you were saying,” Harry teased his wife as he came up behind her and gave her a hug. Ginny twisted around in his arms and mock-glared at him.

“Are you making fun of your wife, Potter? Because if you are, I’m sure your wife would be quite happy to kick you onto the couch tonight.” Harry hastily backtracked, pulling an exaggerated look of terror onto his face.

“Not at all, Mrs. Potter. I was merely complimenting the melodious and loud voice of my lovely wife, and investigating what made my wife blow out my eardrums at eight in the morning,”

“For Merlin’s sake, I don’t know how she manages to get to her classes on time, let alone have time for breakfast,” Ginny laughed, leaning into Harry.

“Leah, Charlotte, and Natalie have an air horn, and they take turns blowing it under the protection of a shield charm,” Lily’s twin, Sirius, answered, coming up behind them. “One of them usually ends up coming to breakfast covered in bat-bogeys and cursing the day you ever taught her that hex, Mum.” He grinned, “Pretty amusing actually. If you’re anywhere in Gryffindor Tower when they wake her up, you can hear her screaming. The first years always look terrified when they hear her for the first time. Chris and Jack are trying to convince them that a Banshee lives in the top of Gryffindor Tower.”

Harry laughed at his son’s description. Fred’s boys managed to cause just as much trouble as he and George had in their days at Hogwarts, and each prank was more original then the last.

“Anyway, I got the car all loaded up, except for Lily’s book bag, which she has in her room. When are we going to go?”

“As soon as your sister gets her butt in gear and actually wakes up!” Ginny answered, sending one of her death glares at Lily’s closed door, which suddenly flew open, and Lily came out, with no sign of her previous reluctance to be awake.

“So, when are we going to go?”

“We’re ready dear, we were waiting on you,” Harry said, turning to leave.

Lily looked embarrassed. “Yeah…I’m sorry about that.”

“Come on, let’s go, we’re going to be late!” Ginny hustled them out of the house and into the car.

Half an hour later, they were at London’s international airport, waiting in what seemed like an endless security line. Finally they reached the front and put their bags in the bins to be scanned by security. Lily, Ginny and Lily’s little sister, Hermione’s bags had gone through without any problems, but when Harry’s bag went through the scanner, a loud beeping noise emitted, and the security guard led him over to a table, where he started searching through the bag.

He lifted out a newspaper, a few books, and a file full of papers before he came upon the source of the beeping.

“Aha!” the security guard exclaimed, “I’m sorry sir, but pocket knives aren’t allowed on the plane. I’ll have to dispose of this.”

Harry, who had started to turn red ever since he had been stopped, now resembled a ripe tomato. He and Ginny had been traveling ever since Ginny had gotten out of Hogwarts; he should be used to airports by now. Discretely pulling out his wand, he aimed it at the guard and muttered a quick Confundus Charm.

“What was I just saying?” the guard asked dazedly. Harry took advantage of his confusion to rescue his knife, and then said smoothly,

“You were just about to let me go, because you couldn’t find the source of the beeping.” The security guard frowned, but let him pass, and he went over to Ginny and the girls. Ginny glared at him.

“I saw that, Harry!” she hissed. She looked like she was going to say more, but Sirius was being stopped at the metal detector, and she went over to do damage control. “We’ll talk about this later!” she hissed at Harry over her shoulder.

“Is there anything metal on your person, sir?” the young female security guard in charge of the metal detector asked Sirius, and Lily, who had followed her mum over, stifled her sniggering over Sirius being called “sir”. Sure, Sirius was six feet tall, but he was about as mature as Uncle Fred and Uncle George, which was to say, not mature at all.

“Just my belt buckle…I can’t take it off, though,” Sirius said, grinning in anticipation of her next question.

“Why not, sir?” the guard asked, beginning to look irritated.

“Well, you see, if I take my belt buckle off, my pants will fall down. And while I wouldn’t mind giving you a show,” he grinned flirtatiously at her, “I really don’t want to flash everyone else in the airport. Don’t want to scar little children, you know.”

At this point, Ginny rushed over, and glared at her son. “Sirius, just take off your belt buckle. You’re not going to flash everyone, I bought those pants for you; I know they aren’t going to fall off.”

Sirius glared back at his mum, sullenly took off his belt and walked back through the metal detector. Sure enough, that was the problem. Ginny hustled them over to where Harry and Hermione were waiting after apologizing profusely to the security guard.

“Remind me why we didn’t Apparate again?” Ginny asked Harry, scowling.

Harry answered, “Because I hate Apparating, overseas flights are even worse, and I begged and pleaded you to let us take a plane,” and looked down at his watch. “We’d better get to the terminal. Flight’s leaving in a half hour.”

They headed toward the terminal, but Ginny lagged behind, pulling Harry with her. “What the hell were you thinking, using magic in a public place like this?” She would have continued berating him, but he interjected with a plea.

“Ginny, it was Sirius’s knife, the one he gave me for Christmas the year he died. Would you have me give that up? I was very discreet about it, after all.” He gave her the puppy dog look, the one that got her every time, and she conceded with a sigh.

“Let’s go find the kids; I’m sure that they are up to some mischief right now.”

Lily, Sirius, and Hermione had reached the terminal by this time. Hermione was reading, Sirius was walking around restlessly, and Lily was talking to a guy in the seat next to her. It seemed perfectly friendly, but Sirius was watching him, and the guy, Jared, was eyeing his sister in a way that made Sirius uncomfortable. Lily hadn’t seemed to notice, but Sirius resolved to give Jared a talking to the minute Lily left, which she was bound to do soon. Sure enough, a minute later she left in the direction of the ladies room, and Sirius started talking to Jared. When Lily came back, Jared was nowhere to be found.

“Did you see where Jared, that guy I was talking to, went?” she asked her brother.

“Nope, haven’t seen him!” Normally this would be a perfectly acceptable answer, but something in Sirius’ tone made Lily glance at her brother. A brightly innocent look was on his face, but it was too innocent. Sirius had scared the guy off!

“Sirius, what did you say to him?” she exclaimed, exasperated with her brother’s over protectiveness.

“Nothing, nothing…come on, we better get on the plane.” Sirius picked up his carryon and headed for the plane. Lily intended to say more to him, but with the hustle and bustle of getting on the plane, finding seats, and Ginny and Harry showing up just before they closed the boarding gate, there wasn’t enough time, so she decided to let it go. Ten hours later, they arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Lily rolled over in the hotel bed, nearly crushing Hermione; Hermione looked peeved, and was about to yell at her groggy sister, but Sirius motioned for her to be quiet, a mischievous look on his face. Hermione sat up, interested, as Sirius pulled on a black ski mask and started to climb on the bed. Once he was sitting next to Lily, he put his face in front of hers and said in a sing-song voice,

“Waaake up, Lily Ginevra Potter, it’s a sunny day in Salt Lake City, Utah, with temperatures of 20 degrees and...” He didn’t get any further because Lily opened her eyes, saw the ski mask, and screamed bloody murder. Sirius and Hermione laughed until tears came to their eyes. Lily sat up and glared at them.

“That was cruel, guys…just cruel!” she declared, giving them a death stare reminiscent of their mum’s, and reaching over to put in her contacts.

“Well, we could have just let you sleep, but you would have gotten in about five minutes before Mum came in here to wake you up, and trust me, you really don’t want that to happen,” Sirius told her.

“Yeah, she’s in a horrible mood. I heard her ranting to Dad about the state of the pillow…something about them being ‘too fluffy’,” Hermione added, “but you deserved what you got. You almost crushed me a minute ago!”

“Sorry, Hermione,” Lily said, smiling apologetically at her little sister. At that instant, Ginny burst into their room, looking very irritated.

“Why aren’t you in your ski clothes? We’re leaving in fifteen minutes! Go, let’s get moving!” she snapped at them. They jumped up and started to get dressed. Fifteen minutes later they were down in the hotel lobby and Ginny was arguing with the concierge.

“I don’t care if you don’t eat bagels, you’re the bloody concierge! You’re supposed to be able to tell me the location of a good bagel place near here. If I wanted to know whether you liked bagels, I would have asked you that,” she said in a dangerous voice.

Harry stepped towards his wife. “Ginny, love,” he said, trying to calm her down, “don’t you think that we could find the bagel place on our own?”

“Be quiet, Harry,” she snapped, glaring at the concierge. “Now, can you tell me the location of a good bagel place, or do you need to go and get someone who isn’t incompetent?”

The concierge fled, muttering his apologies, and returned with another man, the manager. “Can I help you, Mrs. Potter?”

“It depends. Are you competent enough to give me the location of a good bakery?” she asked, a hopeful look on her face.

“Of course, Mrs. Potter. That’s what we’re here for, after all,” the manager said smoothly, pulling out a map, and highlighting something on it. “Here is the best bakery in town, and it’s quick too. I assume you’re on your way to the ski resorts?” the Potters nodded, “well, have a great time!”

“Thanks so much for your help!” Ginny said to the manager. She glared at the concierge. “See, that wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”

As they were walking away, the manager and the concierge could hear Harry asking, “Ginny, love, are you alright?”

“Of course I am…I just have this huge craving for bagels.”

********
After lunch, Alta Ski Resort

“Can we take the rope tow over, Mum? Please, please, please, please, PLEASE?!?” Hermione begged Ginny as they were pulling on their skis.

“Fine,” Ginny sighed, looking exhausted.

“YAY!” Hermione shouted, “I’ll go first!” She took off towards the rope tow, and as Lily, Sirius, Harry, and Ginny watched, she slid in near the rope tow, made a grab for one of the ropes, missed, and landed face-first into the snow.

“So much for the athletic superstar,” snorted Lily. Hermione had been teasing her the entire day because she was a slow, cautious skier. She skied up behind her sister and grabbed onto the tow easily. “Having some trouble, sister dear?” she smirked at Hermione, who just glared back at her.

Reaching the end of the rope tow, they glided over to the bottom of the lift. The line was packed, so Lily and Sirius had to share a chair with another skier who was about their age. The skier immediately tried to sit next to Lily, but Sirius, a smirk on his face, squeezed in between them, causing both Lily and the anonymous skier to glare at him. “What?” Sirius asked innocently.

“You’ll pay for this later, Sirius!” Lily hissed. “Sleep with one eye open tonight, because I will have my revenge!”

They reached the top of the lift and, Hermione and Harry, the best skiers of the group, shot off to the right, on an unmarked trail. Sirius and Ginny weren’t far behind, but Lily was lagging behind, trying to navigate the trail and fight her vertigo at the same time.

Suddenly, as she was going through some trees, her ski caught on a branch, and she flipped head-over-heels, cart wheeling through the air. She landed on her back, covered in snow, and struggled to get up. Everything was a little fuzzy, but it didn’t register in her brain until she got up that her contact had popped out, and was now resting in her ski goggles.

Pulling off her goggles, she grabbed the contact and attempted to put it in her eye. Suddenly, the wind picked up and the contact flew off of her finger and into the snow, never to be seen again.

Bloody hell, she thought, what am I going to do now? I can’t ski down the mountain like this; I can’t see a thing. What else am I going to do, though? I can’t contact Mum or Dad. There was nothing else she could do. She had to ski down the mountain half-blind.

Replacing her goggles and grabbing her poles, Lily slowly took off down the mountain. Cautiously trying to navigate the moguls (because, of course, Hermione and Harry had chosen a black run), Lily reached the bottom of the mountain without falling. Sirius, Hermione, and her parents were waiting for her at the bottom.

“Where were you?” Ginny scolded. “We were worried sick!”

“My contact lens fell out; I was trying to take it slow,” Lily replied.

“Can you still ski?” Harry asked.

“Nope. At least, not comfortably,” Lily replied. Her mum looked irritated.

“Well, you’re not going to ruin the ski day for the rest of us; here’s twenty dollars, go into the café over there and wait for us to be done. It won’t be more then a couple of hours,” Ginny instructed her. Lily took the money, and spent a few hours people-watching and flirting with the guys in the café without the interference of Sirius. When her family came back, Ginny asked, “Did you have a good time?”

“Not really, but I made an invaluable conclusion,” was her answer.

“And what was your conclusion?” Harry asked, amused.

“Always carry an extra pair of contacts when you’re skiing.”