Author's Note: Sorry this took a while! School started recently, but good news! I'll be writing this story during my extremely boring Spanish class, and I have most of the chapters planned out, so updates should be faster! :D

Chapter 2: Of Christmas and Wonderbras

"It's SNOWING!" James bellowed, tearing through the house and promptly slamming into a door. "Mum, mum, it's SNOWING!" he bellowed, arms flailing and eyes wild.

"James, give it a rest!" Ginny exclaimed. "It's not like you've never seen snow before!"

"Snow angels!" Lily shrieked delightedly, pulling on her coat.

"Snowball fights!" James corrected, yanking his right foot into his left shoe.

"Don't destroy the lawn," Harry said firmly from behind his newspaper – he was used to James' manic bursts of energy.

"Just say no to destroying the lawn – got it!" James exclaimed enthusiastically, already out the door, with Lily and Albus trailing behind.

Ginny grinned fondly after her children, looking quite pretty with her auburn hair framing her face and a flowered apron donned over her clothes. "It's been such a long time since I've been in a snowball fight," she smiled reminiscently, "it reminds me of Hogwarts." But then, her smile faded a little, because the ringleader in these snowball fights had always been Fred.

"Why don't we go with them?" Harry suggested, folding up The Quibbler. "Just to make sure they don't burn the place down – maybe throw a few snowballs?"

The flowered apron was unceremoniously ripped off and thrown into a corner, and the two were out the door.

"Dad, dad, look who's here!" James bellowed, his entire head already caked with white frost. He was pointing excitedly to a family of four huddled in front of #12 Godric's Hollow, broad grins on their pale, cold faces.

"Hermione, Ron!" Ginny squealed, racing towards them, as James was already throwing snow over Rose's head.

"Harry!" Ron bellowed, and grinning broadly, smacked him over the head. "Oi, how've you been doing mate?"

Harry took in his old childhood friend, still so gangly and redheaded, and returned the blow. "Good enough, you?"

"Spanking good!" Ron bellowed, as Hermione threw her arms around Harry, her bushy hair windswept. "Harry!" she exclaimed, smiling. "Sorry we dropped by unexpected, but we haven't seen you in so long –"

"OI, WATCH IT!"

Harry glanced up to see a snowball flying alarmingly towards him, and ducked with the reflexes of a Quidditch player, feeling the snow whistle over his head.

"Who threw that?" Hermione exclaimed, but her mouth quirked into a smile as the snowball hit the back of Ron's head, where it connected with a dull thunk.

"Ouch!" bellowed Ron, looking around furiously. "Oi, I'll kill you, you stupid bloody bast—"

"RON!" Hermione shrieked, as James and Rose howled with laughter. Before long, they were involved in a full-fledged snowball war.

Harry grinned as a snowball hurled from Ron pelted towards him; at the last second, he whipped out his wand and bellowed: "Impedimenta!"

The snowball stopped an inch from his face.

"Not fair!" Rose cried, "we can't use magic!"

"Who said you couldn't?" Ron exclaimed, grinning furiously. "Show us what you've got!"

As Lily's snowball flew towards James, the boy bellowed: "IMPEDIMENTA!"

It promptly exploded.

"Er," Harry said awkwardly. He caught Ron's eye.

Before long, they were howling with laughter.

"How the bloody – " Ron choked, doubled over with laughter.

"Oh Ron, don't tease!" Hermione scolded, as even Albus and Hugo started to roll on the floor clutching their sides.

"All right, all right," James scowled, though even his mouth was quirked in a suppressed smile. "It's not that funny!"

"Yes it is!" Lily squealed, merry peals of laughter trilling through the air.

"I'm going to quit while I'm ahead," Harry grinned, brushing the snow off his shoulder, "I'm going to head upstairs to look into the Pensieve, okay Gin?"

"What Pensieve?" Hermione asked curiously, stowing her wand.

Quickly, Harry relayed the story of the Pensieve to his friends.

"Ooh!" Hermione exclaimed enthusiastically. "But that means Teddy can see his dad!"

"I – er – what?" Harry asked, flabbergasted.

"These memories have to contain Remus!" Hermione said impatiently. "He was your dad's best friend!"

"No he wasn't, Sirius was," Harry corrected quietly.

"Whatever," Ginny shrugged. "He'll still be in them, right? You can send it to Teddy! He has no memories of his father, the poor dear."

"Hang on!" Ron protested. "Harry's only had it for – what, a few days? Let him have it for a bit, will you?"

Harry felt a rush of gratitude for his best mate. "Yeah, it's only been a few days, Hermione," he couldn't help saying.

"Oh, I guess," Hermione said disappointedly. "But Teddy will get it, right?"

"Of course," Harry said hastily.

"Speaking of Lupin, mate, I'd love to see him and Sirius again – and your dad," Ron mused enviously.

"Come with me," Harry said suddenly.

"You can do that?" Ron yelped, surprised.

"Yeah, yeah," he said quickly, "Hermione, Ginny - ?"

"We'll stay here," Ginny said quickly, "no need for you to return to a ruined house and a burning yard."

Harry and Ron exchanged glances and grinned.

.:x:.

"Blimey, look at that," Ron said in an undertone, his voice hushed with awe. "Look at all that swirly mass…what the bloody hell is that?"

"Dunno," Harry shrugged, "the memories, I guess."

"See you on the other side," Harry grinned, face illuminated from the light of the Pensieve, before he plunged in it. There was that glorious falling sensation…

"GAWWWD BLESS YEEEEEE MERRY HIPPOGRIFFS," a voice bellowed raucously, making everyone within a ten-mile distance wince.

Harry and Ron found themselves standing in the Gryffindor common room, exactly the same as it was during their own time. There were the same armchairs, the very same fireplace, the exact same books on the history of Gryffindor…

"Great Merlin," Ron said, in a voice that was strangled and amused at the same time.

Sirius…was standing on a table. A gold and scarlet tie was wrapped around his head, and he was wearing scarlet boxers. Only scarlet boxers.

His godfather was as handsome as usual, his dark hair casually framing a noble, aristocratic face, though the gray eyes were currently glimmering with mischief.

"Black! What the ruddy hell is going on?" shouted a disgruntled-looking boy, glaring at the young heir. "People're trying to study here!"

"Oh, sod off," Sirius snorted carelessly, "it's Christmas! Where's your Christmas spirit?"

"Christmas spirit?!" the boy squawked. "It's May!"

"By order of the Marauders' decree, Christmas is now in May and December!" a new voice declared, and James Potter leapt atop the table beside his best mate, a giant gold-and-scarlet Gryffindor banner draped around his shoulders like a cape. "Merry Christmas!"

"Merlin's beard," a girl snorted, returning to her books. The Gryffindors were obviously used to the insanity of the chaos that was James Potter and Sirius Black.

"Here's your present, mate," Sirius exclaimed extravagantly, conjuring a brightly wrapped package out of the air. "Merry Christmas!"

"Padfoot!" James exclaimed, mock-tearing, clasping his hands. "Bless ye, ye bloody wanker!" And with that, he tore up the package with a bloody vengeance, wrapping paper and ribbons flying through the air.

"Blimey, what the…"

James gaped, stunned. In his hands, he was holding…

A bright red, Double-D Wonderbra.

"What's going on in here?" a new voice exclaimed, as a pretty, red-haired girl strode into the Gryffindor common room, looking quite peeved. "Alicia told me someone disturbing – James Potter!"

Lily's bright green eyes narrowed, zoning in on the boy with the bra in hand. It was clear she was in predator mode, and she had never looked quite so dangerous before.

"Lily!" James protested. "This isn't what it looks like!"

"Oh?" she said calmly, her voice icy. "Then what is it?"

"This bra – isn't mine –" James sputtered.

"Well I should hope not," Lily said scathingly. "Don't tell me you stole someone's bra on a dare! That's low James, even for you!"

"I didn't – it's not – stolen!" James explained in vain. "Padfoot, do something!"

"I've never seen that thing before in my life!" Sirius protested, his gray eyes innocent.

James yelped. "Lily!"

But the fifth year had already stalked out of the common room, her dark red hair flying out from behind her.

Sirius raised his hands. "Prongs –" he began weakly.

"Run," Remus advised, not glancing up from his Charms book.

Sirius obeyed.

"PADFOOT!"

.:x:.

"Way to go Padfoot, she's not talking to me anymore!" James exclaimed, looking deeply crestfallen as he sank into one of the armchairs in the common room.

Sirius glanced up from his chess game, put on his 'deeply wounded' expression. "It wasn't my fault, mate!" he protested.

"Did you tell her you didn't steal the…bra?" Remus asked tentatively, as his chess bishop began to take out his anger issues on Sirius' queen.

"Yes!" James exclaimed indignantly. "She wouldn't believe me! Come on, steal a girls' bra? Would I do something like that?"

Remus decided to not voice his opinion on that one.

"Well, yeah, you would," Peter piped helpfully, and received a cuff on the back of his head for the effort.

"Now she'll never go out with me," he said, looking like a dejected puppy.

"The chances that she would go out with you weren't very big to begin with mate," Sirius couldn't help quipping, as his knight began to join the mob of violence.

"That's not the point," James said sternly, "there were chances, and I swear she was warming up to me…"

And he spent the rest of the night moping in a sulky silence.

.:x:.

"JAMES! James POTTER, are you STUPID?"

A jarring voice crashed through his fantasies of Lily Evans, the mental image of sunlight falling on her head so a perfect halo of amber seemed to waft around her…

"Huh whut?" he said dazedly, realizing that he had been floating in midair on the Quidditch Pitch as the Snitch whizzed around his head as if mocking him.

One of his chaser, Robins, was glaring at him with an expression of utter irritation on her face. "For Merlin's sake, Potter, just apologize to Lily! You've been zoning out this entire practice! Are you Captain or what?"

James gaped in indignation. "Why would I apologize?" he bellowed. "I didn't steal that bra! It's mine!"

Everyone paused.

"Er, that came out wrong," James said weakly. "But the point is, I shouldn't have to apologize! I didn't do anything!"

"Hmph," Robins sniffed, flipping her hair. "Boys."

"Boys?!" James bellowed, flapping his arms in frustration. "GIRLS!"

.:x:.

"Prongs, stop bloody moping and give me that dragon heart."

James stirred, raising his head off of his desk. "I'm sleeping," he mumbled, head flopping back down on the table.

"What about your potion?" Remus sighed, reading Advanced Potion Making and swirling a turquoise concoction at the same time.

"Who cares?" James said spectacularly, raising his hands to the heavens (or the ceiling of the dungeons). "Life isn't worth living without my Lilyflower!"

Sirius made a retching noise (in all fairness, it could've been because Peter's potion was beginning to smell like dragon dung) and shoved the dragon heart into his best mate's face. "Don't be dramatic. C'mon, mate, Lily rejects you on a day to day basis; it's not the end of the world!"

"Enough talking over there!" Professor Rueben snapped, her blue eyes flickering to the Marauders. James resumed his sleep, sighing dramatically.

"All right, that's it," Sirius whispered to Remus, casually tossing the heart into James' cauldron. "It's time for drastic measures!"

"What are you doing?" Remus hissed, looking quite alarmed.

"Intervention," Sirius murmured back, and he refused to do anything else for the rest of the lesson, except to sit there with a very grim, determined look on his face.

.:x:.

Sirius Black was well aware that the staircase to the girls' dormitory would turn into a slide if anyone but a girl would attempt the climb. How did he know this? Well, simply stated, he was Sirius Black, and he had chased after more than one girl up those stairs.

"Hmm," he mused to himself, the same blazing light in his gray eyes.

"What are you thinking?" Remus asked suspiciously, eyeing his friend with some trepidation.

"Hmm," Sirius repeated, looking as if he was thinking very hard. "Maybe you just have to look like a girl to get into the girls' dormitory."

Remus shot a wary expression at his fellow Marauder. "Like a wig? Where're you going to get a wig? You can't summon it from a Muggle town, people'll see it!"

"Nah, not a wig," Sirius said thoughtfully, "because then I'd just look like a bloke with really long hair…nah, it has to be something that only girls have."

The poor werewolf was getting all sorts of mental images about things girls had that guys didn't (who knew Remus thought that way?) until Sirius' head snapped up, and he exclaimed: "BY MERLIN'S WIMPY BALLS, I'VE GOT IT!"

.:x:.

It is never particularly desirable to have a boy barge into your dormitory. When that boy is Sirius Black, and he's wearing a very large, very red Wonderbra, it is even more undesirable.

Someone swore.

Someone gasped.

And then, everyone was screaming with laughter.

"I have been scarred for life," Lily said calmly. "I'll tell my therapist to bill you."

"Ladies, please," Sirius said somberly, "I know some of you might not appreciate my new, very sexy look, but it was necessary. But Evans, I need to talk to you."

"Can you take off the bra first?" Lily asked apprehensively, her eyebrows raised.

"Oh, screw the bloody bra," Sirius growled. "If you really must know, Prongs didn't steal that bra from some poor girl. I gave it to him for Christmas."

Lily's eyebrows vanished up into her auburn bangs. "…Christmas? In May?"

"Yes," insisted Sirius doggedly, "it's a Marauder thing, you wouldn't understand."

"You swear?" Lily said suspiciously, "you're not just covering from him?"

"I swear!" Sirius said, sounding very insulted.

"Swear on your looks?" Lily queried, naming the most serious thing she could think of.

Sirius gasped. That was the most serious oath he could make! "I swear," he said firmly.

"All right, if you're sure he didn't raid some girl's closet, then I guess I'll talk to him again," Lily snorted.

"Thank Merlin," Sirius grumbled, "he's been sulking like you wouldn't believe."

He was turning to leave when Lily called: "Sirius?''

The disgruntled Black-heir turned around, looking quite grouchy. "Yes?"

A smile quirked up the corner of Lily's mouth. "That bra looks just dashing on you."

.:x:.

Grumbling, Sirius entered the boys' dormitory, muttering under his breath. Remus could only catch every other word – 'bra' – 'Lily' – 'sulking git'.

Remus glanced up from his textbook – and glanced right back down. Sirius Black in a bright red bra was surely something that would haunt him until his dying day. "So, erm – you worked it out with Lily?" he asked tentatively, resisting the temptation to stare at his fellow Marauder. Perhaps he could forget this sight in 10 years or so, if he was lucky?

"Yes I did," said Sirius dramatically, "Prongs really was making a right old fuss about this. At least he'll stop moping now, the bloody prat."

"Speak of the devil," Remus said dryly, his eyes flickering to James as the boy entered, looking half-amused and half-suspicious.

"Did you really sneak into the girls' dormitory?" James asked warily. "And you fooled the staircase by wearing a bra?"

Sirius gave a melodramatic sigh. "Prongsiepoo, don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to."

" Did you really?" James said tentatively.

Sirius pulled a face. "Yes I did," he grumbled. "And it was too big for me. Prongs, I –"

But Sirius' tragic apology was muffled as James launched himself at his best mate, strangling him in a tackle of a hug.

"Prongs!" Sirius yelped, almost falling over in shock. "I know I'm sinfully good-looking, but I just don't like you that way! And you're my best mate! Don't complicate things – I'm afraid your love for me will have to go unrequited!"

"Shut up, you stupid nancy prat," James grinned, untangling himself from his best friend. "Merlin's balls, I can't believe you did that! Thanks, Padfoot."

"So Lily's talking to you again?" Remus snorted, observing this love fest from his reading nook, a safe distance away from the obviously mentally-unbalanced teens.

"Yep," James said happily.

"Well, she better be," Sirius pouted. "I wore a bra! And it was red! Those Wonderbras are really good, mate, it makes you look like you have something even when you don't…"

"Are you sure about that?" Remus grinned wolfishly.

Sirius flashed an innocent look at Remus. "Oh Moony, I forgot to give you your Christmas present! How inconsiderate of me! I'll give it to you right now!"

And with that, Sirius retrieved a very small, very light package from underneath his bed and tossed it to his fellow Marauder. "Merry Christmas, Moony!" he said innocently, smiling angelically.

"What the bloody hell is this?" Remus snorted, tearing off the package. "I swear, Padfoot, if…" And then his voice trailed away, because the present inside rendered him completely speechless.

A leopard print thong.

Ah, don't you love the holidays?

.:x:.

Harry and Ron stared dumbly at each other, their mouths gaping, totally dazed.

Then, they began to roar with laughter, and with their arms swung around each other, they headed down the stairs, laughing merrily all the way.

End Note: Thanks for reading, and feedback is always appreciated! Did you think James was too dramatic? Did you see too little of Remus for your liking? Let me know! More to come.