The week passed slowly, and yet too quickly for both James and Lily as each grappled with their separate dilemmas. Neither of them approached each other, and due to James adding extra Quidditch practices before the three week break, they didn't share Head duties until the very last night of the term.

Lily was sitting at the desk in the Heads' office, absentmindedly chewing on the top of a ballpoint pen as she attempted to start creating a rotation for January after the break, when James entered the office. She glanced up quickly, giving him a soft smile as he carelessly threw himself in the chair across from her.

"Do you know when Remus is planning on visiting his Mum in January?" She asked, knowing that Remus usually requested a couple of days away from patrols each month as he went home to visit his Mum, who had been sick for as long Lily had known Remus.

James hesitated, screwing up his face as if mentally counting something before answering. "I think he's seeing her over the break, so he won't be going home for January. Keep him off the rotation for the first week of February though."

Lily nodded, noting down James's input. She continued working on the schedules, doing her best to ignore the tapping of his fingers on the desk. Since getting to know James this year, the redhead had noticed his constant need to be in motion and his completely inability to stay still. The endearing quirk was the perfect symbol of James's dynamic personality and his drive to get what he cared about done. In fact, as the year had gone on, she had begun noticing more and more things about James, little details that she stored away. Like the way he ruffled his hair to the side when he was uncomfortable, or the little smirk he'd give her when he'd just thought of an inappropriate comment or a clever pun, or even the way he laughed, throwing his head back and giggling like an excited little boy. When had she begun paying so much attention to James Potter?

"Come on, Lily," he drawled, drawing her out of her reverie. "We've got all break to work on these schedules. Can't we do something fun on our last night?"

She raised a single eyebrow. "Fun? For you that usually means something against school rules, or illegal, or both."

The look he gave her was positively wicked. "What's the point of being young if you can't reckless once in a while?"

Maybe it was leftover resentment from Petunia's letter, or maybe sixteen years of being responsible catching up with her, but for once, just once in her life, she wanted to throw it all to the wind and let James take the lead. "What did you have in mind?"

The wattage of James' smile could have lit entire cities. "Have you ever flown over the castle at night?"

Riding on a broomstick, in the stillness of midnight, above the snow trimmed castle, turned out to be one of the most-if not the most exhilarating things that Lily had ever done. Besides flying lessons back during first year, she had never spent a lot of time atop a broomstick, since she'd found it awkward and slightly terrifying, but flying with James was completely different. The broomstick was like an automatic extension of him, following his sleek lines and commands as he weaved them around the castle and Hogsmeade. She imagined that this is what it must feel like to be a bird, free to fly about without worrying about school or the war or everything that weighed on her so much back on the ground.

Lily tossed her head back and laughed as James sped even faster around one of Hogwarts' many turrets, her red hair streaming behind them like the tail of a falling star, which she imagined they must resemble to any observer back on the ground. James, hearing her deep laugh, turned around, smiling at her with that smile that crinkled up the corners of his hazel eyes, the smile that she thought she wouldn't mind seeing every morning as she woke up.

In that moment, however, his eyes seemed to ask, "Do you understand now?" to which Lily just nodded, because she had never gotten Potter's obsession for flying and for breaking the rules, but right now, high above the castle she loved, she understood the freedom and the rush that breaking a rule and being reckless brought. It was something that she could easily get addicted to.

James, for his part, couldn't believe that this moment was actually happening. He'd imagined flying with Lily so many times, in his wildest, most impossible dreams, but never for a second had he seriously thought that one day he'd actually be up here with the only girl that he'd ever wanted to share this feeling with. He kept glancing back, making sure it was actually Lily with him and that he wouldn't just wake up in bed back in Gryffindor Tower. As Lily tossed her head back and laughed, he thought that no moment could ever surpass the happiness he felt right then and there. This was everything he could have ever hoped or asked for, and he tried his best to commit the feeling of flying through the night with Lily's arms wrapped around his waist to his memory forever.

Too soon for either of them, however, James steered them back towards the ground. Reluctantly, Lily unwrapped her arms from around his waist, noticing for the first time that they'd been sore from holding on so tight. Funny, when she was up there, it felt like she just wanted to hold James even tighter.

James bent over, picking up the broomstick, before looking expectantly towards Lily, trying desperately to flatten down his hair, whose messy look was not at all helped by their moonlit ride.

"That was…" Lily said, at a loss for words. "Wow."

"It's something else, isn't it?"

Lily nodded. "I never knew flying could be so breathtaking, so liberating. Thank you for showing me that."

"My pleasure," James replied, his eyes an intense, molten gold.

Lily blushed, but wasn't sure why. Nothing about their conversation sounded very romantic, but with the leftover heady feeling from their ride, she couldn't help but flush as his words brought up the image of what other things would be very pleasurable with James as a partner. "I don't want to go back, not just yet at least," she said, trying to conceal her growing feelings.

"Me either. How about we head down to the lake for a bit?" James proposed.

Lily nodded, and started walking, James a warm presence at her shoulder. They didn't say much as they made the short walk towards the lake, coming to a stop under one of the willow trees that ringed the shore. As they looked over the inky water, Lily shivered and wrapped her hands around herself, finally noticing the biting chill of the late December night.

Noticing Lily's discomfort, James shrugged off his jacket, wrapping it around her shoulders. She shot him a startled look, and tried to protest that he too would be cold without his jacket.

"Don't worry about it, Evans," he said with upturned lips, "we Potters have warm blood. I've grown up in the cold Scottish winters, while I'm guessing Cokeworth never had the bone chilling wind that we get in these parts."

Lily couldn't argue with that, so instead shot him a grateful look as she wrapped herself up in the jacket. It smelled like him, that Jamesy smell that she just couldn't explain but felt natural. She'd never admitted it to another human being, but earlier in the year, as they brewed Amortentia in NEWT Potions, that was all that she could smell for two weeks.

"So Lily, there's actually something I've been meaning to ask…" James said, leaning back against the tree.

Lily turned to face him, curious about the uncertainty that she'd detected in his tone. It wasn't often that James Potter gave any indication that he wasn't invincible, even as he'd become more tolerable over the years.

"Sure, go ahead," she said, once it became clear that he wouldn't go on by himself.

"This is super late, and I know that you'll already have plans with your family, but my parents usually have a giant Christmas Party around this time of year- well more of a ball actually, but Mum doesn't like calling it that because it's too elitist…" James babbled nervously.

Lily took it upon herself to rescue him. "And you were asking me to come to this party?"

James ran an uncomfortable hand along the back of his neck, ruffling up the back of his jetty hair, making it stand on end. "Well, you see here's the thing, my Mum kind of already thinks that you're coming… But you definitely don't have to, it's just that she asked who I was bringing, and I forgot to ask someone this year, and she just jumped in and assumed I was bringing you and she didn't give me a chance to deny it."

Lily was taken aback by the fact that his mom would automatically assume that James would bring her to this ball/party thing. Her first reaction would be to decline his invitation, but then she paused, and remembered that she wasn't Fifth Year Lily and he wasn't Fifth Year James. They were- yes, friends was the word for it- and friends invited each other to Christmas parties. Plus, she obviously enjoyed being in James's company if tonight was any meter, and did she really want to spend three weeks sharing a house with the Vernon and the Dursleys? No, even a sojourn with the Malfoys sounded better than that prospect.

"It could be fun, sure yeah I'll come. " She said, before inspiration struck. "But…"

James could have started doing cartwheels when she said yes (which wasn't the best idea for him under any circumstance but especially in the pitch darkness on the shore of the Black Lake) but his happiness was short lived when he heard the but come out of her mouth.

"But…" Lily said, "My sister is getting married during the last week of break to the most odious, obnoxious Muggle that she could have found, so if I'm to survive that ordeal, I'm afraid that I must have someone to help me ridicule the whole lot of them, and since I'm coming to your party, you are my chosen victim."

The relieved smile that cracked James's face could have broken his cheekbones it was so wide. Spending more time with Lily over the school holiday? That was no punishment. The opposite, rather.

"Well it sounds like I'm getting the short end of the deal, but a deal's a deal," he said, extending out his hand. Lily took it and shook it with an amused smile at the seemingly grown up gesture from James Potter, the antithesis to grown up. Although, that wasn't true anymore. She'd overheard conversations in the Common Room between Lupin and Black and Potter, conversations about the future and the dark times ahead for all of them that showed a different side to Hogwarts' favorite and most prolific mischief makers.

"When's this party then?" Lily asked, as she stifled a yawn. The late hour was starting to get to her.

Noticing her tiredness, James indicated the road back to the castle with a short jerk of her head, and when Lily gave a short assenting nod, started on the road back to the castle as he went over the details.

"The party itself is the first Friday of break, December 23rd, but Sirius and Remus are both coming to my house straight from the train station, and Sirius is bringing Marlene, so you're more than welcome to do the same. God knows my parent have enough room for all of us." James explained.

Lily nodded, thinking over his invitation. On one hand, it meant even less time with the Dursleys, but on the other hand, it meant not seeing her parents until Christmas Eve, something that she hated to do because she already got so little precious time with them.

"OH! I'm an idiot," James said, actually slapping his forehead, looking rather comically like one of the cartoon characters that she remembered from lazy Saturday mornings on the couch with Petunia and her dad, causing Lily to let out a little giggle. "Evans, you should tell MacDonald to come with too- Frank and Alice are also staying over for some of the week and I totally forgot to invite Mary along."

Lily was excited at the thought of seeing her friends, who had graduated three years prior for Frank and last year for Alice. "I will let Mary know. I'm sure she'll want to be there if Alice is there too, especially since we haven't seen her all term. It will be good to catch up."

"Yeah? So you'll come with too?" James asked, hopefully.

Lily hesitated before answering. "I'll have to check with my parents at the station before I can make a decision."

"Of course." James said with a solemn nod, inwardly happy that her hesitation was not out of spending a whole week with him but rather of disappointing her parents. "Well, my house isn't going anywhere, Evans, so whenever works for you."

Lily was grateful for James's ability to make anything so easy. It was clear to her that the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to spend the week at James's house, with her friends and James, who had somehow gone from an inhibitor to an incentive in the space of less than a year.

As they approached the main doors, however, something occurred to Lily. "James," she said getting his attention away from something he was holding in his hand furthest away from her, out of her limited line of sight in the shadows of the torchlight of the front doors.

"Yeah-hm," he replied.

"How are we going to get back to Gryffindor Tower without getting noticed by Filch or one of the teachers?" she asked, worriedly.

He put whatever he was consulting in his back pocket, too quickly for her to catch sight of what the mysterious object was, before giving her another one of his wicked grins, the ones that she privately called Marauder smiles.

"Follow me," he said, noiselessly opening one of the side doors and sliding into the shadows that lined the entrance to the Great Hall.