Lily opened her eyes.
She was staring directly into James's neck.
She stirred a little and when she moved the firelight caught her finger and the gold ring shimmered and she stared at it, grinning like an idiot, snuggling closer into James and admiring how the ring looked on her finger alongside her golden snitch engagement band. She nestled her head against his bare chest, and sighed dreamily.
"Happy Christmas, Evans."
She looked up into his face. She hadn't realized he was awake until he spoke. He had a knowing grin plastered about his mouth.
"I've just been admiring mine too."
Lily laughed and lay her hand sprawled on his chest. "Can you believe it?"
"Not even a bit. I've pinched myself at least seventy times since the wedding."
Lily smiled, and her eyes roved about the room. "Gosh this house is so incredible, James."
"I'm glad you like it."
"Love it," she corrected.
"I'm even gladder that you love it," he amended.
"And what if I hadn't?" she laughed.
James kept a straight face, "I would've burnt the whole thing to the ground."
"Well don't ever. It's everything I ever could hope and more." She kissed his skin, and he laughed, "What?"
"Tickled, didn't it?"
"What? This?" She kissed him again and he laughed and she grinned enjoying her new game, and kept at it until he was laughing too hard. "Happy Christmas, James." Then she lit up, "OH JAMES YOUR PRESENTS! I have presents for you. They're at the flat!"
"Everything of ours is here, rather," he answered. "Remus, Sirius, Regulus and I moved everything.... now where things are, I'm not sure. Knowing Sirius our most important things will be hidden in all sorts of odd places, and we'll be looking about for days, like an egg hunt."
Lily laughed, "That barmy idiot would do that, too."
James ran his hand across her back gently, strumming her spine lazily with his thumb. "We have all day today to laze about, anyway. We don't leave until tomorrow."
"Leave? Leave where?"
"Our honeymoon? You put me in charge of a honeymoon, didn't you?"
"You mean this isn't it?"
"Of course not! This is our home! Honeymoons are travel to beautiful places and getting away from it all and forgetting things about home!"
"I don't wish to forget anything about this home."
"Very well, but we still get to go away!"
Lily looked at the fireplace across the room, and the empty space above it. "You didn't put anything there?" She pointed.
James smiled. "I thought you'd like to pick that one out. I never found one quite good enough for there."
Lily mused, "Hm, I'll have to think on it."
James's stomach growled and they both looked at it. "Well, then, it's time for breakfast," James said. "My tummy has spoken."
They went downstairs and Lily was amazed all over again by the house. She wandered about marveling while James grabbed the plate of cookies Dora had left and started eating them, rather than making a proper breakfast. He sat on a bar stool in the kitchen at the counter and watched Lily as she looked around, smiling to himself around the mouthfuls of butterbeer cookies.
Mum really does make the best bleedin' cookies in the world, he thought.
Remus Lupin stood in the doorway to the living room, looking about at the others, all asleep well into the mid-morning. He sipped his ovaltine and went back to the kitchen, looking out the window at a light powdery snow falling over London. Some kids were playing in the park across the way, and he watched them for a time through the window over the sink.
"Hi."
Remus turned around. Regulus was in the doorway, looking a bit awkward, his hair sleep frumpled.
"Mornin'," Remus said.
"Mornin'," Regulus echoed.
"You hungry?" Remus asked.
Regulus nodded.
"Well sit, I'll make us some breakfast. I haven't eaten yet either. Happy Christmas by the by."
"Happy Christmas," Regulus answered, he smiled.
Remus went to the fridge and shuffled about for the makings. He surfaced a moment later with a tray of eggs, bacon, and all the makings for a good breakfast. Regulus watched then got up silently and helped in cracking eggs - Remus was making enough for everyone - and they worked side by side for a moment in an uneasy silence.
Regulus glanced at Remus out of the corner of his eyes. He thought about how all the brilliant magic Remus Lupin had performed the day before - and all the time he'd seen Remus at Hogwarts as well, really, and he bit his lip. "Remus?"
"Yes?"
Regulus stayed concentrating on the eggs, which he was now stirring while Remus separated the bacon onto a large sheet pan, "You know an awful lot about magic."
"...I reckon so," Remus answered.
"D'you know much about... darker magic?"
Remus hesitated. "Like what?"
Regulus said, "Well. At school, we learned about this thing where wizards can sort of... store themselves..."
Remus froze.
"It sort of... gives them extra lives, I suppose, the way I understood it...?"
Remus had his back to Regulus, and he stared at the pan of bacon very hard. He was thinking of the nervous expression on Newt Scamander's face when the magizoologist had the nasty tasdk of bringing the news that Lyall Lupin had been killed. He was thinking of the sound of breaking clocks and the cool breeze of spirits...
"Why do you want to know about that sort of thing?" Remus asked.
Regulus said, "I... thought it interesting, I guess."
"Well it isn't." Remus's voice was a bit harsher than he'd meant it to be. He put the pan into the oven and then turned 'round to look at Regulus. Regulus looked nervous and wild eyed, perplexed by the sharp tone of Remus's words. "I'm sorry, Regulus," Remus said, "It's a bit of a sore subject, see. My father passed because of a Time Thief."
"Time Thief?" Regulus asked, confused.
"Mopsus," Remus explained.
Regulus thought of the sound of Mopsus's voice echoing in his head in the midst of the waves of the sea.
"He killed my father and he stole my father's time."
"I'm sorry," Regulus said. "I didn't know that."
Remus nodded, then took the bowl of eggs from Regulus's hands and turned to the stove top.
Regulus bit his lip. "So... so you reckon Mopsus is... evil... then, yeah?"
"Yes." Remus shook his head, "Worse than Vol--"
"Don't say the name!" Regulus gasped.
"Sorry." Remus flushed. "But he's worse than You Know Who."
Regulus frowned and busied himself clearing up the egg shells, pushing them with his fingertips one by one into the empty tray. If Mopsus was so terrible, why did he let Regulus save Sirius in that - vision? experience? - of the future? Further - Regulus had been meaning to allude to horcruxes, not the precious seconds that the Blind Seer traded in. Was Mopsus's long life due to horcruxes the same as like Cadmus Peverell had been talking about? Or, if not exactly horcruxes, was there some sort of connection?
Remus was concentrating on the cooking, and by the time Regulus had finished putting the eggshells in the rubbish for all his dawdling, the first of the eggs were already cooked. "Here, eat while it's still hot. Nothing worse than cold eggs." Remus put the plate on the table and Regulus put the egg tray in the bin and sat down, tipping a bit of salt onto the eggs on the plate before taking a bite.
"I really am sorry if I upset you," Regulus said quietly.
Remus shook his head. "It's alright, Regulus. You didn't know."
But somewhere in the back of Remus's mind, he wondered why the boy had even asked the question to begin with.
"Did you look in the cupboard under the stairs?" Lily asked.
"Yeah, they're not there," James said, "Though I reckon I don't know what I'm even looking for."
"They're all wrapped, James, they literally look like Christmas presents."
"Yeah, but I dunno what their shape is or anything - you know - giving me a bit of a hint what they are might help." He grinned and winked at her.
"You'll find out when we find them and you can open them properly!" she replied, laughing at the puckered lip he was throwing her. "Don't look at me like that, Mr. Potter."
"Ah that sounds lovely, doesn't it?" James asked.
"What?"
"MISTER Potter."
"You've always been Mr. Potter," Lily laughed. "That didn't change."
"Yeah, but now I'm a mister that has a missus."
Lily flushed. "Mrs. Potter."
"Mrs. James Potter," James corrected. "Mrs. Potter plain is my mum."
"Mrs. James Potter," Lily said. His grin widened and she laughed, "You're such a duffer!"
"I'm your duffer."
"Yes you are."
"How about under the cupboards?"
"I looked under the sink."
"I can't believe Sirius did this to us."
"I can," Lily laughed.
"I can, too, actually. I thought I was joking when I said it earlier is all."
"He's probably having a right good laugh back at the flat right now, just imagining us searching the entire house for the presents," Lily said, shaking her head.
James was literally on his stomach in the living room, looking under the couches. "Depending how maniacal he was feeling, they could truly be anywhere... He could've shrunk them."
It took some time but they finally found the presents. They'd been stuck into a very thin little broom closet by the door down to the basement that James wasn't sure he even knew was there. They stuck all the presents under their Christmas tree, and sat on the carpet by the tree, each holding a mug of warm hot chocolate, wearing pyjamas and socks and laughing as they talked about everything and anything at all, eating the rest of the butterbeer cookies and listening to a Christmas concert from the London Symphony playing on a muggle radio that James bought. After the concert had ended, the radio crackled into a replay of the Queen's Christmas broadcast.
"My father watched his grandchildren take their first steps and he knew that all the sacrifices and anxiety of the dark days of the War had been worth while," Queen Elizabeth's strong tones came over the air and James looked at the radio, listening. "Now it is our turn to work for a future which our grandchildren will step into one day. We cannot be certain what lies ahead for them but we should know enough to put them on the right path. We can do this if we have the good sense to learn from the experience of those who have gone before us and to hold on to all the good that has been handed down to us in trust...
"Look around at your families as you are gathered together for Christmas. Look at the younger ones - they are the future and just as we were helped to understand and to appreciate the values of a civilised community, it is now our responsibility to help them to do the same... We must not let the difficulties of the present or the uncertainties of the future cause us to lose faith. You remember the saying 'the optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears that this is true'. It is far from easy to be cheerful and constructive when things around us suggest the opposite; but to give up the effort would mean, as it were, to switch off hope for a better tomorrow. Even if the problems seem overwhelming, there is always room for optimism. Every problem presents us with the opportunity both to find an answer for ourselves... and to help others."
"Brilliant," James murmured.
Lily was hugging her knees. "It's like magique amor."
James thought for a long moment, then, "Evans?"
"Yeah?"
"You know how you said you sort of... forge a connection with people... and you just... you can feel them then?"
"Yeah, sort of like that. It's more like... Well, it's like... you care for others so much that you can feel what they feel and truly understand their pains and fears. And it's like you can just see everything that makes them the way they are, you know? The good and the bad and the in between."
James stared into her eyes. "I don't want you to do that with me."
Lily blinked in surprise. "What?"
He took a deep breath, "It's just... You take on so much when you do it, and I saw you when you were worried for Regulus. And Remus told me what happened when Jasper was being tortured... It's just, I - I don't want you to have to feel all the things I've felt."
"James..."
"No, Lily, listen to me," he said, and his voice was full of passion. "There's loads of stuff you don't know about that happened and -- it's a lot. And I don't want you to have to know all that, to suffer all that like I have."
"But of all the people who I want to feel like that... it's you, James."
James shook his head. "Evans..." His eyes searched hers. "I just want to protect you."
Lily nodded. She would raise the subject again, she thought, another time, when she was stronger in magique amor and more able to control the emotions and he'd seen her handle them better than she'd done with Regulus and Jasper. She'd be better. More than anything else, she wanted to earn James's trust and belief that she could help him to carry the things he carried. More than anything, she knew her love magic would never be complete without him as a part of it. But for now - his eyes were so serious and sincere, she couldn't argue with him, and so she let the topic drop away.
"You should open your presents, love," she said.
James's eyes lingered on her a second, then he looked at the presents and grinned, "Yeah?"
"Yeah," she replied and she crawled over and reached under the tree and pulled out one that was long and skinny. "Here. This one first. It'll be your favorite anyway."
James grinned and took it and he excitedly ripped off the paper and found a new broomstick. "A Cleansweep Two!" James said excitedly. "This is a really good broom."
"I thought this way you and I could use your old broomstick and maybe play some pick-up sometime..." Lily flushed.
James's eyes widened. "Yeah???" he asked, more excited at the prospect of playing quidditch with Lily than even playing quidditch on his new broomstick. "Blimey, that would be ruddy brilliant! This broom'll smoke you on my old Shooting Star, though, Evans, you think you can handle it?"
"Handle it! Of course I can handle it! I don't need to go fast to beat you at a game of pick-up!"
James looked at the window. "You could prove it."
"Now?"
"Why not?"
Lily looked at the window, too. It was snowing but not so much that it would be hard to see. She grinned and turned back to James, "If you can handle losing on Christmas day."
"And this - the morning after my wedding!" James got up and he ran to the front door where his Shooting Star hung on a hook and brought it back, tossing it to Lily. "C'mon. Let's do this, Evans."