At eight in the morning, Lily heard a knock on her bedroom door. She looked over to her clock and realized that she had slept through the alarm and more importantly, there was someone at her door. Thinking it was Cassie, she slid out of her comfortable bed and went to answer the knocks.
"Why didn't you wake me up sooner?" asked Lily as she swung the door open to reveal a boy with messy hair and a lop-sided grin. Lily nearly screamed.
"Good morning, darling," said James happily as he gave Lily a one-armed hug and handed her a cup of coffee.
"Get off of me!" said Lily. She was furious that her friends would let Potter into their room, but she was even more enraged at the fact that James would even consider knocking on her bedroom door in the first place. She longed to be at Hogwarts where the boys weren't even allowed in the girls' dorms.
"What are you even doing here?" Lily asked while she tried to break loose from James' grip. At that moment, Sirius walked through the door singing some sort of bizarre song that Lily supposed he must have made up himself.
"Group hug!" he exclaimed and ran over to lock them in a tight embrace. He squeezed the two so hard that Lily was turning blue from lack of oxygen.
"Let... go... Black...!" Lily wheezed between breaths.
He finally let go to let a laughing James and enraged Lily breathe.
"Why are you two here?" asked Lily at last, her hands on her hips.
"We have come to take the lovely ladies to breakfast in the dining hall down stairs," said Sirius formally.
"You should probably change," added James. "Unless you want to show up in your boxer shorts." He gave her one last wink before he closed the door behind him.
Lily screamed into her pillow for a good thirty-seconds before changing into her ski clothes and meeting everyone in the kitchen.
"All right," said James, "now that everybody's here, let's get going!"
The group was seated at a circular table that was similar to the one they ate at a few nights before.
"So, will you get to snowboard with the big kids today, Sirius?" asked Cassie cheerily.
"Ha ha," said Sirius and he rolled his eyes at her.
"We're really proud of you, buddy," said James with a fake high-pitched voice. "We really are."
"You're growing up so fast.... And guess what guys?" said Lily. "Our little Sirius is wearing pull-ups now!" Cassie, Bess, and Jill started laughing, but Lily could tell by James and Sirius' blank expressions that neither of them had the slightest clue what pull-ups were.
It wasn't until everybody had ordered and begun eating when Lily spotted the blue sign.
"Hot chocolate social at seven-thirty tonight in the dining hall. Come to socialize with other guests and enjoy hot beverages," read Lily out loud to the table. It sounded like fun and possibly a way to get away from James and Sirius for a night....
"Wanna be my date, Evans?" asked James who had sat next to her.
"I'd rather go out with the Giant Squid, Potter," Lily said angrily back. It was her usual retort and not very original, but it was true... mostly. James looked disappointed, but he hadn't truly expected anything more.
"The Giant Squid?" asked Jill from across the table.
Oh, Merlin, thought Lily. What was I thinking? Giant Squid.... How am I going to get out of this one?
"It's an expression," piped up James. "At our school, there's this painting of a woman kissing a huge squid when there's a man right next to her. Under it is a caption that says, 'I Choose the Squid.'"
"Yeah, it's a really famous painting...," added Sirius. "You may have heard of the artist, Harry R. M. Pitts."
Jill, Bess, and Cassie just stared at Sirius with confused looks on their faces.
"That's what we should name our first born." James whispered to Lily.
"Go soak your head, Potter," Lily hissed back.
"So, seven-thirty?" Sirius asked Cassie. "You, me, and hot chocolate." He winked at Cassie causing her to blush.
"Okay," she replied with a huge grin on her face.
Jill and Bess looked happy for their friend, but Lily could also see a bit of jealousy in their smiles.
"Then I call James!" said Jill quickly.
"Sorry, but I'm taken."
"But Lily said no!"
"Yeah, I said no!"
"See?"
"See what?"
"All right, everybody shut it!" said Lily. "This social is to meet new people. You don't need dates!"
Jill looked disappointed and Lily heard James mumble something that sounded a lot like, "You'll come around, Evans...."
***
Sirius had decided to join the group today instead of going with the little kids, so they were stuck doing the easier runs. They didn't mind though.
"Sirius, if you were going any slower, you would be snowboarding backwards!" shouted James. Everybody had already reached the bottom of the hill and were now waiting for Sirius who was still about halfway up the mountain.
Once Sirius had finally made it to the bottom, the group headed over to the ski lifts. Much to Lily's dismay, she ended up with James and Sirius. She threw one last snowball at her friends before getting on the lift.
"How am I doing?" asked Sirius.
"Um... you're doing...," started Lily. She didn't know how to tell him how awful he really was.
"You suck, mate."
"Thanks, Prongs," said Sirius with a sneer. "Give me a break though. My parents never let me do Muggle stuff."
"How come they let you come then?" asked Lily. The Black family was obsessed with their blood status and hated Muggles and Muggle-borns. The whole lot of them were in Slytherin, except for Sirius. He was treated horribly at his home because he was in Gryffindor. Lily doubted that Sirius had ever done muggle activities before in his life.
"They didn't," said Sirius simply. "Well, they did say I could go to Albania. If they knew I was at a Muggle ski resort they would probably crucio me."
Lily imagined Sirius' parents, both with his grey eyes and dark hair, waiting with their wands out for him at the front door. Ready to torture him to insanity. She shuttered at the thought.
The rest of the day went mainly like the last, except much slower. They decided to call it quits when Sirius went off the double green track onto a back diamond. It took him thirty-five minutes to climb back up the side of the steep mountain with one foot still stuck in the snowboard.
"I saw my life flash before my eyes!" recounted Sirius back in the girls' room.
Cassie was hanging to his every word.
"Look at the time!" said James suddenly, interrupting Sirius' story. It was almost time for the Hot Chocolate Social and nobody had even changed out of their ski clothes. Once the boys left to their own rooms, the girls quickly got ready.
Lily decided to wear jeans and a sweater and to put her red hair into braids. She reminded herself of the Muggle story, Pippie Longstockings, that her mother read to her when she was younger.
Once Cassie had picked out the perfect date outfit, they headed to the dining hall. They met the boys halfway down (Sirius was thankfully not wearing dress robes this time) and made their way to the party.
It wasn't very large. There was a good amount of people of all ages drinking hot chocolate and talking with each other.
Lily, Jill, and Bess went to the food and drink table to get something to drink.
"Excuse me," someone with a French accent behind Lily said. She turned around to see a boy who was about two years older than herself smiling at her. He had sandy hair, bright blue eyes, and a perfect smile.
"Hi, I'm Jim. I saw you come in and, well, I thought you were really pretty...," Jim was blushing now and Lily felt her own cheeks redden too. "I guess I just wanted to say--"
"Back off, buddy, she's mine!" cut in James as he put his arm protectively around Lily's shoulders.
"I'm... I'm so sorry... I didn't know...," Jim stuttered as he backed away slowly. "If I had known... I didn't mean to... sorry." James glared at him until he had made his way back to his friends.
"Well, now that that's solved..."
"Potter! You had no business doing that!" Lily shouted. She tried to wriggle out of his grip, but he wouldn't let go. "You're an obnoxious, immature, annoying...."
"If you can't have him, I will!" said Jill who immediately headed over to where Jim and his friends were talking.
There was silence as James and Lily glared at each other until Bess cut in.
"I'll go help Jill," she said uncomfortably and she left the two to their glare-off.
"Don't you go anywhere, Potter," Lily hissed as James began to inch backwards. "How could you do that? Were you not thinking about my feelings? What about Jim's? No! All you care about is yourself! You arrogant, pathetic, self-centered, jerk-face--"
All of the sudden James leaned in and kissed her. Lily was absolutely stunned. It was short, but enough to leave her speechless. James was smiling, most likely at the horrified look of Lily's face from the mere shock.
"Jerk-face?" he said finally. "Come on Evans, you can do better than that." His hand shot to his head to mess up his hair before he made his way to find Sirius (who was most likely in a closet with Cassie somewhere), leaving Lily planted to the floor, unable to move.
What just happened? she thought as she watched him walk away with a bit more spring in his step.
Snowflakes by The_Dream_Team
Chapter Notes: Thanks so much to Colores, my mod! I hope everybody enjoys chapter 5!
Chapter Endnotes: I hope you all liked this chapter! Please, please, please leave a review to let me know what you think! Thanks for reading! =D