It all started with Sirius Black, a bottle of firewhiskey, and a rainstorm that had been going on for three days and counting. Somehow this boy, sick of feeling confined in the dorms, had managed to coerce his fellow Marauders and Lily Evans into the Astronomy Tower.
The group was surrounded by a series of unlit candles and a few bags of unknown apothecary items that Sirius had filched from the Hospital Wing.
The five teenagers had been quiet for a while, each lost in their own alcohol induced haze, when Sirius cleared his throat and said, "Alright, I'm ready."
"Mate," James answered, lifting his head from against the wall and meeting Sirius's eyes, "we go to a haunted school. If you want to chat up a corpse, I recommend Nearly Headless Nick. Friendly. Bit eccentric, sure, but at least you know what you're getting into."
"Where's your sense of adventure, Prongs?" Sirius slurred, four shots ahead of everyone else.
"Probably lost it the last time you had a séance and ended up nearly creating an army of Inferi," Remus said with a snort.
"Well, I want to see what all the fuss is about," Lily said impishly as she refilled her shot glass. After quickly throwing it back she continued, "So let's get going, boys."
"Not so sure you do," Peter said, shaking his head back and forth. "It's a little touch and go."
Lily Evans did not care. She and her friends had played around with Ouija boards at home, and they'd always amounted to nothing. An actual séance in the wizarding world? That sounded like it at least had some promise.
She tossed back another shot.
Seeing the resolve on both Lily's and Sirius's faces, James gave a defeated eye roll. He poured himself his own shot as he requested, "Remus, would you light the candles?"
Remus looked around the circle at his friends, cracked a grin, and obediently picked up his wand in order to start lighting candles. As he did so, a loud crack of thunder shattered outside.
"Oh, this is perfect," Sirius moaned happily.
The candles Remus lit cast an unreal sort of glow around the already eerie tower. "I'd like to freeze this moment for a second," Lily said, closing her eyes and listening to the rain.
"What for?" Peter asked.
"The feeling of anticipation," Lily said, practically humming. "It's palpable."
"I think that's static electricity from the storm," James teased, "but sure."
"Enough, enough," Sirius cut in. He elbowed Lily in the side causing her eyes to fling open. She swayed a bit, and then shot him a glare. "Pass me the apothecary stuff."
"You don't even know what any of this stuff does," she whined, heeding his directions despite the annoyance in her voice.
Sirius grabbed the bag from her and began clumsily taking the lids off jars. "Doesn't matter," he said. "It enhances the experience."
Remus began sprinkling some of the mixtures that Sirius had opened. He discarded them over the flames, and blew them in the direction of everyone else.
Peter began coughing, but he took it in stride. "Does my failing lung capacity," he choked, "mean that it's time to get going?"
"Yes," James declared. "I'd say so."
Sirius gave a firm nod of agreement, and everyone sat up a little straighter. "Join hands," Sirius said under his breath.
The process of joining hands was a little sloppy, but eventually everyone was intertwined — Lily's hand in James's, James's in Peter's, Peter's in Remus's, Remus's in Sirius's, and back to Lily again. The group was one wholly intoxicated unit.
"Eyes shot," Sirius slurred.
"Eyes shut," Remus corrected through a chortle.
"You know what I mean," Sirius snarled back. "Just close your eyes."
"Wait," Peter interrupts, "who are we calling?"
"Whomever answers the phone," Lily purred.
"No one understands what you're saying," James pointed out.
"Listen," Lily said, not allowing James to interrupt her zen, "if I can learn hundreds of magical terms, I think you can remember what a telephone is."
"Too drunk to remember," Sirius intervened. "Save your lovers' quarrel for another time." He cleared his throat and then mumbled, "I'm thinking we call someone…"
"Ordinary," Remus filled in for him. "Otherwise you're going to end up with some disgruntled ex-minister whose portrait you can talk to at any time."
"You have too much confidence in the success of this," James said. "This has only ever worked once."
"Someone interesting at least," Peter said, jiggling his leg impatiently. As his movement shook both his hand and Remus's, Sirius began to hum.
The humming, a low throaty noise, continued for about forty seconds before Lily complained, "Are you planning on starting?"
Sirius mumbled something unintelligible about how this was all a part of his method, and then he quickly returned to humming. A minute passed. Then two. Just when it seemed Sirius had entered a meditation, he whispered, "Thank you all for joining us today."
Remus began to chuckle, but a quick elbow in the side from Sirius shut him up.
Sirius cleared his throat again, voice sobering up as he spoke, "As I was saying. Thanks for being here. We are dropping the veil between our world and your world, hoping to welcome whosoever chooses to come through. I ask those living to remain silent and receptive to incoming spirits."
The room was quiet aside from the crackling of thunder that occasionally shook the room. Again, a minute passed. Then two.
Lily took the risk of opening her eyes, and was surprised to find that in front of her was…
Was that her? She couldn't possibly be seeing herself. She was very much alive. Very tipsy, but alive all the same.
Except that the ghost in the middle of the circle looked nearly identical to the way she looked at that exact moment. Her hair was a little longer and her eyes were a little wiser, but everything else seemed very much the same.
Lily let out a small squeak, and as she did so James's eyes flew open. They quickly bounced between the ghost and between Lily Evans herself. A particularly loud burst of thunder rolled, and lightning briefly lit the room.
The disruption was enough to force the rest of the group to open their eyes as well.
It was quiet for a moment. Then, "Either I'm too drunk for this or I'm not drunk enough," Peter said, "because I think I'm seeing double."
The ghost met Peter's eyes, and then each of their eyes in turn. When Lily met her own eyes, she panicked. Her eyes were too serious. Too warning. Somehow both nostalgic and regretful, all at once. Lily couldn't face herself. She quickly pulled her hands out of James's and Sirius's. The circle broke, the duplicate Lily disappeared, and an uneasy static hovered between them.
No one knew how to deal with what they had seen, and so in a particularly charged moment Sirius announced, "I think we need more firewhiskey."