Years later, Lily Evans was never quite sure how she had ended up stepping off the Hogwarts Express onto Platform nine and three-quarters in King’s Cross station to be enveloped in a massive hug from Mrs. Potter.
“My dear, I can’t tell you how pleased we were when James told us you were coming to stay, he’s told us all about you, of course, and I’ve been longing to meet you for ages, but James says you’ve been busy” “ Lily smiled guiltily, but Mrs. Potter didn’t even notice “ “and I daresay you have, Head Girl, you must have worked hard, James says you’re the best in your year “”
“Oh no, I’m not!” Lily was gratified, but felt compelled to object for modesty’s sake.
“Nonsense, dear, I’m sure you’re just being modest,” beamed Mrs. Potter, steering her toward the gateway that led to the Muggle world. “Hurry up, dear,” she called back to James, who was wrestling his and Lily’s trunks onto a trolley. Lily noticed what he was doing and quickly levitated the trunks onto it for him.
“Thanks,” he panted, hurrying to catch up with them.
“You must be exhausted,” Mrs. Potter said to Lily.
“Oh no, I’m “” Lily began, but Mrs. Potter cut her off.
“That journey from Hogwarts is horribly long. Are you hungry at all?”
“Well, I’m “”
“Of course you are, Chocolate Frogs and Pumpkin Pasties don’t constitute a decent meal, but we’ll be home in no time, and then you can have a real dinner. Ah, here’s the car, if you could just load the trunks into the boot, James dear. No, you can’t use magic, this area is full of Muggles!” she added quickly, for James had pulled out his wand.
“Oh, right, sorry Mum,” James muttered, quickly stowing his wand back into the back pocket of his jeans and heaving Lily’s trunk off the trolley.
“How many times have I had to tell you not to put your wand there?” Mrs. Potter hissed angrily. “Mad-Eye has always said “”
“Mum,” said James impatiently, rolling his eyes, “I’m not going to get my buttocks blown off! Mad-Eye’s a nutter when it comes to “”
“Your father thinks very highly of Mad-Eye Moody,” said Mrs. Potter with some severity.
“Well so does everyone, he’s a brilliant Auror, isn’t he?” James agreed placidly. “I’m just saying, it’s not only his eye that’s mad, that’s all.”
“Well it’s a pity we can’t all have that kind of insanity,” said his mother coldly.
“Oh come off it, Mum, you don’t want me to jinx everyone who looks at me funny, do you?” said James impatiently, safely stowing Lily’s trunk.
“No, of course not,” snapped Mrs. Potter. “But you are a little too relaxed when it comes to safety and security. I’ve lost count of how many letters I’ve received concerning your habit of wandering around the castle after dark “”
“I haven’t done that since fourth year!” James protested.
Mrs. Potter gave him a hard look.
“All right, I haven’t been caught since fourth year!” admitted James, reddening. “It amounts to practically the same thing.”
His mother gave a small smile, but said in a very severe voice, “Finish loading the trunks into the car please, dear.”
Grinning sheepishly, James obeyed her, and they drove off to James’s house chatting amicably.
Christmas morning dawned cold and clear, and Lily awoke with an extremely contented feeling to find a bulging stocking hanging over her bed. She had just reached for it when the door burst open.
“Awake already? Excellent!” James had entered the room, pajama-clad, clutching a stack of toast in one hand, and a stocking similar to Lily’s in the other. “Thought we could open them together,” he explained, in answer to her inquiring look. “It’s not that fun opening presents alone. I usually do it with Sirius, but… well…” he trailed away. Sirius was staying with Jocelyn in London. They were looking for flats together.
“He and Jocelyn still coming for dinner, then?” Lily questioned, pulling a package carefully out of her stocking.
“Think so,” James nodded, dumping the contents of his stocking unceremoniously onto the foot of Lily’s bed, and seating himself next to them. “Look at this,” he added a moment later, waving a book in her face. “From Remus. ‘I hope this will help you in Charms,’” he read off a card that had evidently been wrapped with the book. “‘Happy Christmas.’ What rubbish!” He threw the book aside and snatched another package from his pile. “Remus never gives good gifts,” he explained to Lily, as he ripped open the second package. “And this is from Peter, he’s never been great either.… See?” he added as the wrapping fell away. “A quill. Very useful.” He looked disdainful and threw it behind him. “Ah, but this one’s from Sirius, his are always good. And… yes! He’s got me a month’s worth of Zonko’s supplies! Brilliant, I was running low!”
James kept up a running commentary as he opened the rest of his gifts, which included a hearty supply of Chocolate Frogs from Jocelyn (“Well, that’s not so bad, but I’d rather have had Pumpkin Pasties.”), and a really excellent book on Quidditch from Lily (“Wow, Lils! I’ve been wanting this for ages!”).
“What did you get, then?” he asked her, when he had unwrapped his final present, a pair of socks from his mother.
But Lily did not answer. She had picked up the book Remus had given James and had become so immersed in it that, after several fruitless minutes of trying to get her attention, James finally gave up talking to her and headed downstairs to have a second breakfast.
Sirius and Jocelyn arrived mid-afternoon and were warmly greeted by Mrs. Potter. She put Sirius and James to work immediately, but allowed Lily and Jocelyn to go up to Lily’s room.
“You look exhausted, dear,” she said kindly to Jocelyn, who did indeed look extremely pale.
“So, how was London?” Lily questioned as soon as Jocelyn had shut the door. “Any luck finding a flat?”
“No,” said Jocelyn flatly. “Sirius says something is sure to turn up in the next few days though.”
“How is Sirius?” Lily asked quietly.
“All right, I suppose,” Jocelyn shrugged. “I think he feels a bit lost without James. But enough about us, how has it been here?”
“Amazing!” Lily answered dreamily. “If I’d known what it was like here I would have accepted one of James’s invitations ages ago!”
Jocelyn smiled at her friend. If she had known, less than four months ago, on the train ride the first day of term, how much things would have changed by Christmas… how much Lily would have changed… how much she would have changed….
“So what did James give you for Christmas?” she questioned, shaking away these thoughts. “Hopefully something more romantic than a Quidditch book!” she added, laughing.
“That’s what he wanted!” said Lily defensively. “But yes,” she added with a shy smile, “it was more romantic than that.”
“Let’s see it then,” grinned Jocelyn.
Lily held out her right hand so Jocelyn could admire the ring that now encircled her fourth finger: a thin gold band with a delicate silver lily at the top.
“It’s beautiful,” whispered Jocelyn sincerely. Her thoughts momentarily strayed to the very unromantic new Beater’s bat Sirius had given her, and she winced slightly.
“So what did you get?” Lily asked, almost as though she had read Jocelyn’s thoughts.
“I received a very mysterious gift, actually,” said Jocelyn, smiling mischievously. She reached into her robes and pulled out a fine silver chain with a star-shaped pendent dangling from it that she had around her neck.
“Lovely,” grinned Lily. “Who from?”
Lily did not know how painful it was for Jocelyn to say what she did, had no idea how much Jocelyn would have given to have said a different name.
“Hector,” Jocelyn answered, smiling coquettishly.
“That was thoughtful,” Lily grinned. “Did it come with a card?”
“Yeah,” Jocelyn nodded, pulling it out of a pocket of her robes and handing it over.
“‘Adhara: I saw this and it reminded me of you. A star seems a very appropriate analogy for you. Distance doesn’t diminish your brilliance, yet for many you seem to be the sun. Happy Christmas. ~ Hector Freemonte.’ Well,” Lily grinned, “at least we know he passed his Astronomy O.W.L.”
“Oh, shut up,” snapped Jocelyn, snatching the card back.
“I don’t know, Joce’,” said Lily more soberly. “Sounds a little too Shakespearean for my liking. You know, ‘It is the East, and Juliet is the Sun,’ all that nonsense.”
“Who’s Shakespearean?” asked Jocelyn, frowning in confusion.
Lily shook her head hopelessly.
“You really should have taken Muggle Studies,” she told her friend. “But never mind that, didn’t you two just properly see each other for the first time last week? This seems a bit sudden, doesn’t it?”
“Er “ yeah, I was thinking about that as well,” Jocelyn confessed.
“Ah well,” said Lily carelessly, throwing herself onto her bed, and holding her hand up so she could admire her new ring, “it could be worse. It could be Severus Snape, couldn’t it?”
Jocelyn didn’t answer. Lily was different than she had been before she’d started dating James, and Jocelyn was not sure she liked this new Lily as well as the old one.
“So, any luck finding a flat?” James asked Sirius. He flicked his wand at the table, which set itself instantly.
“Yep,” Sirius nodded, levitating a cauldron of soup onto the table. “Two days ago. I haven’t told Jocelyn yet, though. I figured it would be better to wait until after Christmas. I’ll show her in the next few days, though. It’s ideal, Prongs.”
“Ideal for hunting Bellatrix, you mean,” said James shrewdly.
Sirius nodded soberly.
“Does Jocelyn know that’s what you’re using your inheritance for?” asked James, already guessing the answer.
“Er “ no,” Sirius admitted. “I don’t want to worry her.”
“Jocelyn’s not stupid,” James reminded his friend. “She’s going to figure out what you’re doing before long. You’re going to have to tell her eventually, Padfoot.”
“Yes, but not just yet,” Sirius insisted.
James gave him a hard look, then grinned.
“When are you going to settle down, Padfoot?” he questioned. “Stop plotting revenge, find yourself a nice girl, give up your independence….”
“What, like you? No thanks,” Sirius responded, grinning as well.
“It’s really not so bad,” James insisted. “It’s great, actually.”
“I think that all depends on what girl you get,” muttered Sirius, his grin vanishing.
“For example, if you have a girl you keep secrets from…” said James harshly.
Sirius flinched.
“I’m going to tell her when I’m ready,” he snapped.
“What if you’re never ready?” James questioned. “Jocelyn’s an extremely good-looking girl, Padfoot, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, and she’s not going to stay single forever just because you never make a move!”
Sirius stared at the floor.
“I just don’t want to follow in the Black “”
““ family tradition of marrying your cousin,” James finished mockingly. “How very touching. Snap out of it, Padfoot! If she’s the girl for you, it shouldn’t matter!”
“It’s different for you!” Sirius snarled. “You have your girl.”
James grabbed Sirius roughly by his shoulders.
“If you wait around much longer,” he said warned, “some one else will have yours.”
“What, are you a Seer now?” said Sirius sarcastically.
“I’m being honest with you!” snarled James, slamming a goblet down on the table so hard it cracked.
“Well I don’t need honesty,” snarled Sirius. “And I don’t need advice!”
“You need a brain, is what you need!” James snapped.
“No, I need you to stop harassing me about this!” Sirius corrected. “You have Lily now, why do you care about my relationship with Jocelyn?”
“He doesn’t care about your relationship with Jocelyn, he cares about Jocelyn’s relationship with you,” interjected Lily, entering the kitchen.
Sirius jumped.
“Where’s Jocelyn,” he demanded, his eyes darting around the room, as though he were afraid she had been hiding in a cupboard, listening to his and James’s exchange.
“In my room, sleeping,” Lily replied. “The poor darling is positively exhausted. What have you been doing to her, Sirius?”
“Nothing!” said Sirius defensively. “And what did you mean, James isn’t worried about my relationship with Jocelyn but Jocelyn’s relationship with me? What’s the difference?”
“A great deal,” Lily answered. “But the difference doesn’t matter now, because both happen to be in danger.”
“What d’you mean?” Sirius questioned.
“Did you see that necklace Jocelyn was wearing?” Lily inquired.
Sirius and James both shook their heads. Lily rolled her eyes.
“Well she was wearing one,” she informed them. “It’s very beautiful. And it happens to be a Christmas present from one Hector Freemonte of Hufflepuff glory.”
“WHAT?” Sirius bellowed. “That bloody “! He sent her a NECKLACE?”
Lily gave a small smile.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes he did. And I think it made Jocelyn realize that there are other gnomes in the garden, if you understand me. James is right, Sirius. If you don’t make a move, someone else is going to claim her.”
Sirius didn’t answer. He merely looked murderous. Lily looked up at James.
“I think that about covered it,” she whispered, and he nodded in agreement.