Gift for: oblivious1728
oblivious1728, your gift has been submitted! Enjoyy.
Title: Evergreens
Recipient's LJ name:
oblivious1728
Rating: T
Pairing(s): Lily/James
Word Count: 1291
Warnings: Er, none.
Authors notes: Sam, you fool who I love: I hope you like it! I tried to write something about Gideon Prewett but it didn't turn out too well, so I wrote this one up. If I ever continue the one about Gid I'll be sure to tell you!
Lily Potter did not like the cold. She especially did not like the cold when she was pregnant, or when the wind was blowing extra hard and there were snow flurries everywhere getting caught in her eyelashes and blinding her vision. And, she did not like the cold when her husband dragged her out to a secluded little woods near Godric's Hollow, complaining about how they needed a Christmas tree, and they were going to do it the Muggle way and she was going to like it.
"James! It's bloody f-freezing!" she stuttered, pulling her only form of warmth tight around her: an old cloak. Lily would have put on more layers, but as she was pregnant and showing (if only just a little), the redhead imagined she might look something like a beached whale. " Please, can we just go home?"
James Potter turned around and grinned. "No, Lils, we can't! C'mon, have a little holiday spirit. It'll be just like when you were a kid: you pick out a tree, I'll chop it down-" He gestured to a saw in his other hand, instead of a wand, "- and we can take it home and decorate it! It'll be great."
"Why can't we just buy a tree? James, this is insane! Do you know how cold it is outside? We could get hypothermia - do you want your soon to be child to die all because his idiot of a father wants to chop down a Christmas tree?!"
"Buy a tree? Why would you want to do that? This is a much better experience, if you ask me. You just don't appreciate it because that's how you've always done it. But I can tell you, it's much better chopping down your own than waking up one day to a massive tree in the Entrance Hall, pre-decorated by the family house elves. And you're not going to freeze to death, that really wasn't funny."
"I wish we had some house elves, then," she grumbled, tugging her knit cap on and shivering. "I wasn't trying to be funny - it's the truth!"
But her husband merely rolled his eyes, marching along the snowy ground in search of a nice evergreen.
"What about this one?" he called, pointing to a massive tree in front of them, about four James's high.
"... are you serious? Where do you propose we'd put that? It's bigger than the house!"
He looked defeated for a moment, but then brightened. "Well, we can use magic for that part - shrink it, you know."
Lily cupped her frostbitten hands, blowing on them so that they didn't freeze together. "If you're going to use magic for that, you might as well use it for everything, otherwise it defeats the purpose."
"Nope. Come on, how about that one?" He pointed to multiple trees, and his wife sighed, trembling from the cold.
"It doesn't matter. James, you choose. I want to go home. I can't feel my fingers or toes!"
James frowned and held out his arms for her. She scurried over and he enveloped her, gently kissing her cheeks, red and wind burnt from the cold.
"Look, I appreciate it, I really do. But if we don't leave soon you're going to have an icicle for a wife." she said, smiling weakly.
He took her little hands in his own and kissed them gently, nipping at her palms. "Why don't you have any gloves? Do you want mine?"
"Well I didn't exactly have time to grab a pair because someone shoved me out of the house too fast!" Lily replied, exasperated, before softening her expression and nodding.
James slid his gloves off and gave them to her. She put them on and smiled as her hands got completely engulfed by them, feeling warmer already. "Thanks, love,"
"You're welcome," He smiled back and gently felt the place on her abdomen where the early bump of pregnancy was, hugging her against him. "Next year we can buy a tree, I promise."
She sighed softly. "No, next year I'll wear warmer clothes, and I won't be a crabby pregnant woman." Green eyes darted around the forest, and she spotted a tree not too far from them, nearly perfect size. "I like that one."
James grinned widely, "I like it too."
A moment of silence passed between them as they stared at the perfect evergreen, before Lily hit him in the shoulder. "So go cut it down, you prat!" She laughed musically and jogged over to where it was, inhaling the wonderful scent that Christmas trees carry, her favorite smell.
He quickly followed after her, loving the sound of her laughter, and lied down on the ground, wriggling under the tree with his saw. "Hold it steady - I don't want it falling on me!"
"Maybe I should let it fall, might knock some sense into you." Lily teased, gripping some of the branches firmly as James began to saw the trunk.
"That's not very nice, wife of mine. Clearly I have some sense: I married you, didn't I?" He winced as the pine needles scratched at his now bare hands, making him bleed.
"You have a point. Or maybe I'm the one with no sense for marrying you - ASGNEPGNAEG, JAMES!" Lily shrieked as James finished sawing the tree and it tumbled onto her.
"Merlin, Lils, sorry! Sorry, sorry! Lily... LILY, YOU OKAY?" He got up as fast as he can and pushed the tree off, kneeling beside his wife who now had a few scratches across her lovely face.
She didn't respond for awhile, much to James's panic... and then began to giggle, and that giggle turned into a small laugh, before finally she was full out cracking up, holding her aching sides as she laughed. And then she was pulling James on top of her and kissing him hard on the mouth, her warm lips warming him, too.
"Never let a tree drop on me again or I will castrate you, James Potter!" she scolded, though positively beaming, wondering how only twenty minutes ago she would have given anything to go home, when now all she wanted to do was stay here.
"Okay, I promise, I promise," he murmured, leaning against their fallen tree and hugging his wife, holding one of her hands.
She looked down as he did this and gasped. "You're bleeding! Oh, I'm sorry... the gloves! Why did you let me take your gloves?" Lily raised their clasped hands and kissed at the scratches, not caring that his blood was getting on her mouth, only knowing how much he loved her just from a simple gesture of trying to keep her hands warm.
They stayed like that for awhile, feeling safe despite the things that were happening in the Wizarding World, held close to one another as the snow fell. And later that day, when the couple sat in front of the fireplace sipping hot chocolate, their newly chopped tree set up in the corner, covered with decorations (and a few broken ornaments), they felt truly happy.
The next year they didn't buy a tree, as James had said, but came to the same place; Lily bundled up with layers, holding their new son Harry close, a smile on both of their faces.