"OH MY GODDDSSSSS, OH MY GODDDDDSSSSS!" Lily was shrieking, jumping up and down, clutching Remus's hands in her own, her hair bouncing over her shoulders as she dragged him about in a little dance.

Remus laughed, and the paper crown Sirius had plopped upon his head tipped and fell off onto the floor.

"I can't believe it! But I can - I mean, I expected it, even, but I can't believe it also!" Lily was sobbing officially now, and she tugged Remus quite suddenly into a bone-crushing hug that quite literally took his breath away.

"Lil - can't - breathe," he gasped, and she hurriedly let him free and dusted off his cardigan, her eyes glowing the brightest colour of green they could possibly be. "Breathing is good... I would like to live long enough to attend the training," he joked.

Lily stared at him. "Professor Lupin. It has a wonderful ring to it."

"DOESN'T IT THOUGH?" Sirius practically shouted, and he shot yet another confetti burst from his wand with a pop and the little bits of paper fell over Remus's shoulders, dusting him like colorful snow. "Bloody excellent ring if you ask me."

James smiled from his bed, where he was lounging, chewing on a licorice wand. "What subjects do you reckon you'll be teaching, Professor?"

"Dunno, maybe Charms or something," Remus answered, shrugging, "I don't particularly mind what I teach, only that I get to."

"You'll be brilliant no matter what you teach," Lily said, putting the paper crown back on Remus's head. She put one hand on his cheek and smiled, looking deeply into his eyes for a long moment. "I'm so proud."

Remus flushed, "Thanks Lily," he murmured.

Peter nodded from his bed, "We're all proud, Remus."

"Thanks, Pete."

"And I'm glad you'll be staying for holidays, now I won't be all by myself all the time," Peter smiled warmly. "We can play games and drink cocoa with marshmallows, and --"

"Remus actually prefers Ovaltine," Sirius spoke up. Then, "I'm staying, too."

"Oh." Peter struggled to keep his face from looking a little disappointed. He'd sort of been excited to spend sometime with Remus alone. Remus was usually pretty kind to him, and Peter appreciated that, even if Remus was a werewolf and scared the daylights out of him once a month during the full moon. "Well, it'll still be lovely to all be together for Christmas!" Peter grinned. "It's too bad you guys aren't staying," he added, looking at James and Lily, hoping they'd say that they were changing their minds and would stay... 

Instead, Sirius said. "Dunno if any of you lot looked at the calendar but the December moon is on Christmas this year."

"Is it?" James sat up and looked at his revision schedule book. "Bloody hell. I'm sorry, Moony, what a way to spend Christmas."

Peter looked crestfallen. "ON Christmas?"

"Yeah," Sirius nodded.

"So you won't even get to celebrate Christmas?" he asked, offended for Remus.

"It'll be a howling good Christmas," Sirius quipped.

James rolled his eyes.

"But at least we'll have the rest of the month," Peter said, excited. "Zimmerman said that one of the teachers said they might schedule a couple Hogsmeade weekends!" 

"We can go to Hogsmeade anytime we want, Peter," Sirius reminded him. "We have the secret passageways."

"Oh. True, yeah. I forgot." Peter was quiet.

"Bloody hell," James suddenly said. "I'm going to miss you lot."

Sirius jumped up from his seat and raced toward James's bed, letting himself fly on top of his best mate dramatically, so hard that they both tumbled backwards off the bed and onto the floor in a great writhing mass of limbs. "I MISS YOU ALREADY!" Sirius announced.

Lily laughed, "Oi it isn't a Tuesday, nor a bank holiday, Sirius Black!" and she reached 'round and took Sirius up by the collar of his shirt as he dramatically held out his arms for James and James held his arms out right back.

"SEPARATING THE STAR-CROSSED LOVERS!" Sirius wailed as James laughed at him.

Lily rolled her eyes, "You're such an idiot," she laughed at Sirius as she released him and he threw himself back on James so that they ended up tangled up on the floor as Sirius snuggled against the warmth of James's upper neck and shoulders.

Next morning, the common room was chaos as students going home brought down their luggage and things and ran back to get something they'd missed... Lily and James had their things stacked at the bottom of the stairs and were saying good bye to Peter, Remus, and Sirius, giving and getting hugs. James clapped Sirius on the back and said quietly, "Be nice to Peter."

"Yes mum," Sirius joked.

Lily and James left after giving everyone hugs, confirming the mirror was packed away safely in his rucksack, and wishing Remus good luck with his transformation on Christmas. "We'll see you lot soon," James said, and he and Lily started downstairs to join the queue for the carriages off to Hogsmeade Station, where the Hogwarts Express was waiting to take the students home for the holidays.

The moment they'd gone, Sirius looked around the room. "Well, this place needs some sprucing up." He waved his wand and James's and his own bed were shrunk tiny as could be and shoved off to the wall and out of the way. Another flick of it and there was a large tree, being decorated by magic with lights, tinsel, and little red balls in the space that the beds had been in moments before. As he tree decorated itself, he turned and waved his wand about and colored strands of sparkling lights spurted from his wand as he trimmed the entire room with them and blast a spell at the wall that made it glow with a sparkling light that read Merry Christmas Bitches. Sirius grinned and nodded, pleased with his work.

Peter clapped, "Oh it's so festive!" He looked about, thrilled by the color and the light.

Remus shook his head, mouthing the words Merry Christmas Bitches as Sirius started in on his old refrain, "Jingle Bells, Regulus smells..."

"Alright, Evans?" James asked, helping Lily down from the carriage.

"Thanks," she said, not relinquishing his hand, even after she'd successfully made it to the ground. They walked together, linked at the arm, along the path from the spot where the carriages dropped them off toward the platform of Hogsmeade Station. She swung their arms playfully and James smiled and pretended at skipping for a moment, which made her laugh. "You're such a goof."

"Naturally," he answered.

Breaking through the trees, they came upon the station and pulled up was the scarlet engine with the long rows of train cars behind. Steam came from the stacks, billowing over the rail line and melting snow on the roof of the little station bench. Cold owls were perched on the roof of the engine, getting warm in proximity to the stack, shaking off damp wings and preening merrily. Filch and Dumbledore  were working with a handful of House Elves, moving trunks into the luggage compartment below the rail cars, and students were milling about everywhere, talking to one another about their holiday plans.

As headboy and girl, Lily and James set to work organizing the students into boarding and making sure everything went smoothly. They saw to it that everyone was seated safely and that the prefects were doing their duties of milling about and keeping the peace. James went out to check on Hagrid and Filch and to be sure that all of the student luggage had made it aboard while Lily went compartment to compartment to check that all the owl cages and personal items were carefully stowed on the overhead racks where they belonged. When the Express finally got moving, it was with a bit of exhaustion that they both met up and went into the Marauders' compartment.

Funny enough, everyone was so used to the Marauders taking up the compartment that none of the other students had even bothered trying to sit in there, and they had it to themselves. "Oh this is nice," James announced, laying down across one of the benches like he used to do when he was small. He frowned when he found that the bench was entirely shorter than he was and he had to put his legs up on the wall. "I think it's shrunk, Evans," he complained, laughing as his glasses fell askew.

"I think you've gotten longer, more like, Potter," she laughed.

James sighed, "How disappointing." He balled up his robes and shoved them under his head, happy to be wearing his muggle jeans and a plain white t-shirt. He smiled and closed his eyes for a moment. "Wake me up when we get to London?"

"You really want to sleep the whole way?" Lily asked, "When we have this lovely compartment all to ourselves?"

James opened one eye. "What're you suggesting, Evans?"

"Oh, nothing," Lily answered.

James stared at her. "I'm thick, remember, so if that was an invitation for snogging, I'm going to need a bit more than that." His eyes twinkled.

Lily smirked at him, then waved her wand and the blinds went down on the windows and the compartment door locked. "Get your arse over here, Potter."

"Yes, m'am!" He sat up and rolled off the bench, sliding smoothly across the compartment to the bench on her side and right up beside her, hugging her to his chest. She snuggled against him, loving the warmth of him and the smell. He rubbed her arm and squeezed her closer, resting his chin on her head and sighing, deeply contented, sticking his legs out to use the opposite bench as a footrest. "Well, this is certainly going to be the best Express ride ever."

Lily laughed, her palm splayed on his chest. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he replied, "Never got this cozy with the lads."

"Even Sirius?"

"Well, sometimes with Sirius. But only when the ride coincided with second Tuesdays and Bank Holidays, of course."

"Of course."

James laughed and kissed her head. "I bloody love that we can joke about that rubbish."

"Me, too."

"You get me, and I love it. I love you." He looked down and kissed her as she looked up and their noses bumped.

Outside, snow was falling over the country and the landscape was white and shimmering, lakes were frosted with ice and the forests and trees they passed were dark against it in contrast, the edges closest to the track tinged dark from the smoke of passing steam engines, like a vignetting of an old photograph. They barely saw the majesty of it, though, honestly, as they were quite busy snogging and talking, laughing at jokes, and getting to know one another even better than they'd ever done before.

When the Express arrived at King's Cross and the steam released, it was as though the engine had breathed a sigh of relief and the students began to disembark onto Platform 9 3/4. Lily and James assisted again as everyone disboarded and a mad scramble to collect their luggage began at the compartment. James helped to load luggage onto carts as Lily saw to it that younger students found their mums and dads and didn't get lost. She helped to locate a missing toad, and stopped some boys from playing keep away with Ollie's broomstick.

At last, everyone had located their family and their luggage, the compartment finally empty and Lily did one last check that everyone was off the train and all the belongings from the overheads had been taken down. She returned to the platform to find James with a trolley, both their trunks and things loaded on, standing and talking to Mrs. Evans. Lily lingered in the doorway of the Express, watching as her mum laughed at something he'd said, and he ate some chocolate chip cookies that she'd brought along in a container. Lily hadn't seen Mrs. Evans smile so much since her dad had passed, and she liked the sight of it, and her heart lifted joyfully at the realization that James Potter was the one putting that smile on Mrs. Evans's face. She was grateful to him for it, and felt as though she couldn't possibly repay him the favor.

She was spotted then, and Mrs. Evans called, "Lily!" 

James turned about, holding up the container, "Look, cookies!"

Lily laughed and stepped off the Express, headed over to join them. "Did you leave me any?" she asked, looking into the container.

"A couple," James replied, "But you came just in time, else there might not've been any left." Mrs. Evans laughed. "I mean, these are delicious and I could eat them all."

"He could, too," Lily confirmed, taking one, "You wouldn't believe the food this one packs in." She tapped his belly lovingly and James grinned. "Even the house elves at Hogwarts can't fill him."

"Insatiable, really," James nodded, taking what was his fourth from the container before handing it off to Mrs. Evans again.

"That's what they're for, eating," Mrs. Evans assured him, smiling.

James looked about, "Seen my mum and dad at all?"

"I told them I'd see to it that you got home alright," Mrs. Evans answered.

"Brilliant," James replied. "And well fed, too," he held up his fourth cookie and then shoved it in his mouth.

"Yes, and well fed," Mrs. Evans laughed.

They trooped together out of 9 3/4 and onto Platform 10, walking the length to the concourse. The station smelled of steam and hurried Londoners passed, dragging their suitcases and clutching their tickets. A business man in a dark grey suit went running down the platform, just making his train before it shoved off.

Mrs. Evans had taken the underground, and they went down into the tunnels, the musty smell of heat and earth filling their noses as they worked through the maze of various lines. James was fascinated, having rarely used the muggle underground, and although he tried very hard not to make a spectacle of himself, Lily couldn't help but laugh when he got on the train below and marveled at the idea of standing up on the trains, and he clutched the pole, laughing at the feeling of the velocity of the train nearly knocking him down as he playfully fought to keep his footing as the train took off.

Lily was watching him, smiling and laughing, too, from her seat beside her mum when she felt Mrs. Evans's hand on her arm. Lily turned to her. Mrs. Evans leaned close and said quietly in her daughter's ear, "He's a keeper."

Lily felt a tingle go through her, and she looked at Mrs. Evans and she answered, "Actually, he's a chaser." A smirk went across her mouth, and Mrs. Evans looked a tad confused, "It's Quidditch, mum," Lily answered the unasked question, then, looking at James she said, "But yeah, he's a keeper, too."

James was out of ear shot of them when they kept their voices low, laughing, saying how Sirius would bloody love the train - "A lot like the Knight Bus... How come you can handle this, Evans, and not the Knight Bus? 'Scuse me, ma'm, sorry. Bit wobbly, this standing up bit. There's a seat there by the window..." and he was helping at seating an elderly muggle woman who'd climbed aboard at Russell Square with a bag of groceries.

Lily nodded, "Yeah. Definitely a keeper, too."