Mary smiled at her reflection in the mirror after she brushed her long brown hair and he put the cat ears back atop her head. She corrected her cat-makeup where it was a bit smudged, before she left the bathroom in her black dress. She found Marlene in front of the door, leaning against the wall with crossed legs.
"Finally!" she yelled at her friend while she stormed into the toilet, almost knocking the tipsy Mary off her feet as she did so.
But Mary only giggled to herself before she made her way back to the living room, bumping from one wall to another. James and Lily's house was packed with their best friends; most of them drinking and dancing around in their costumes. The "Brown Sugar" by the Rolling Stones loudly filled the room as Mary plopped down on the couch she sat on earlier, grabbing her almost empty glass up from the table. The liquid just reached the tip of her tongue when Lily nearly fell on her as she tried to sit down, causing Mary to spilling the remained firewhisky all over her dress.
"I fell myself so bad," Lily slurred her words, dressed up as Princess Leia. "I shouldn't left Harry alone!"
"He isn't alone," Mary said, rubbing her dress with a napkin. "He's with your parents."
"But not with his mum!" she yelled desperately, tears falling down on her cheeks.
Mary wrapped a comforting arm around her, giving up the fight to try to dry her alcohol soaked dress. But just as she looked around for help, Sirius and James appeared near to them with a broad grin on their faces. Until they saw Lily – then their faces fell.
"I'm a terrible mother," she sobbed, but her voice got stronger as she noticed the boys. "You aren't going anywhere, are you?"
Sirius opened his mouth, but James cut him off before he could've said anything. "No, of course not!" he said, dropping down his Han Solo jacket before he sat next to Lily, wrapping his arms around her and trying to calm her down with his words.
With a loud growl, Sirius fell on the couch, sprawling and half lying on Mary. "No trick or treating this year then, I guess."
Mary tried to free herself, pushing Sirius away who gave no effort to move.
"Is there a problem?" he asked, blinking innocently up at the girl.
"I don't like when you're half laying on top of me, is all."
Sirius grinned. "Would you like me to lay on top of you completely, then?"
It was enough to Mary to gain her remained strength and push Sirius off the couch, having him landing on the wooden floor. That finally made Lily laugh.
"That wasn't really nice," Sirius grumbled as he climbed back on the couch, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Mary.
"I'm really so sorry," she chuckled, showing no remorse at all.
Sirius couldn't help but keep smiling at her, looking into those warm, sparkling brown eyes, watching as she was swirling a loose strand of her brown hair around her finger. Her sweet scent mingled with the bitter alcohol filled his nose; he felt himself dizzy for a second so he turned his head away, staring blankly in the distance as he tried to pull himself together.
"I'll go with you," Mary said suddenly, bumping her shoulder against his.
With his eyes wide, Sirius looked back at her excitedly. "You want to go trick or treating with me?"
Mary narrowed her eyes, "Maybe I shouldn't go. Who know what you meant under trick or treating…?"
A wild grin appeared on Sirius' face before he jumped up from the couch. "Let's get going, then."
Mary stood up slowly, but looked down at Lily, who was still sobbing silently on James shoulder. "Maybe we should stay here."
"Yeah, we definitely shouldn't miss this," Sirius said sarcastically, placing his palms either side of Mary shoulders, turning her around towards the middle of the room. Remus was jumping up and down, half naked, with his sweater on his hand, singing – or more like shouting the lyrics of the "Another Brick in the Wall" along with the music.
Mary laughed loudly, suddenly feeling an urge to join to Remus, but she turned back to Sirius, "Okay, okay, we can go." They left the living room, took on their coats and Mary picked her bag up before they stepped out into the chilly night.
She pulled her scarf up, burying her nose in the soft wool. Mary felt as the cold air cleared her head instantly. "So, what are you usually do with James?" she mumbled into the scarf.
"Nothing special. Getting drunk, making bad decision," she shrugged with a grin. "We can do that too."
"I start to think that coming with you was a bad decision."
Sirius let out his well-known bark-like laugh. "I remember those times when you were too shy for even talk with me, and now – you're hurting me," he said with a pained voice, placing his palm over her heart.
"I wasn't too shy to talk with you; I was too shy to talk with anyone," she corrected him, pulling down the scarf so he could hear her voice better. "There's a difference."
"Well, I'm glad it changed," Sirius said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and pulling her closer. Mary felt her frozen cheeks warmed up instantly, so she buried her face back in her scarf to hide her blush.
Two giggling kids walked past them, both of them in Star Wars costumes – it seemed this was the most popular theme of the year. Mary smiled at the children before she looked up at Sirius, his arms still around her. "Why didn't you dress up?"
"Don't you see I'm a wizard?" Sirius asked, causing Mary to roll her eyes with a smile. "This looks good," his arm left Mary as he stopped, looking at the house nearby with a solid holiday decoration.
"Yes, it's really nice, I think – what are those?!" she asked loudly, almost as a shout as Sirius pulled two dungbombs out from his pocket.
He raised his eyebrows, looking down at her innocently. "Dungbombs."
"You know it's called trick or treat", and not "trick and run", right?"
"I'm not going to run, sweetheart. Usually I just walk away," Sirius shrugged, swinging his arm, but Mary quickly grabbed it with both of her small hands.
"Wait, wait, wait!" she whisper-screamed, causing Sirius to sighing loudly. "Can we try to be nice first? And only throw stinking bombs at them after it won't work?"
"What's the fun of it?"
"We can have chocolate," she said hopefully, still not letting go of his arm. "Please?"
Sirius' first instinct was to say no, but as he looked into those beautiful doe eyes, he found himself unable to argue with her. "Fine. But the first person, who won't give you sweets, will be the first person who will find six screaming mandrakes in their garden."
Mary laughed and lowered her arms slowly, not sure if Sirius was joking or not. Knowing him, he could easily have six pots of mandrakes hiding in his pockets, just in case. She pulled a paper bag out from her handbag as they walked closer to the house; Sirius knocked shortly on the door.
"How disappointing," he said after some time, already looking for the dungbombs in his pocket, but the door opened before he could took them out.
"Trick or treat!" Mary chirped holding the brown bag up. Sirius still seemed grumpy while the man watched them suspiciously, a bowl with some chocolate in his hands.
"Aren't you too old for trick or treating?"
"What are you talking about? She's just sixteen," Sirius said with straight face, causing Mary to throw knives with her eyes at him before she chose some chocolates and dropped them into her bag.
They left the first house; Sirius smiling broadly after Mary hit him gently in the arm. "Stop telling people I'm sixteen!"
"It's not my fault you have this cute face," he pinched her cheek, but she smacked his hand away. "What? I meant it as a compliment, you know."
"It's not a compliment! It's like… I'm the cute little sister to everyone," she grumbled, crossing her arms across her chest.
"You're even cute when you're angry."
"Sirius…" she sighed, but the boy just laughed.
"Mary?"
Their continued their tour; Mary navigating Sirius to only those houses where she saw children got sweets before – but since it was late, the kids already started going home. Everything went smooth and nice; a kind woman even gave them all of the remained sweets, saying they were probably the last ones. It caused Mary grinning like a kid on Christmas morning, which caused Sirius to feel himself like on Christmas morning. He knocked on the door of the last house in a long street; an old lady opened the door but Mary couldn't even say a word when she already slammed the door shut with a loud bang at them.
"Rude," Sirius said shortly before he turned away, walking towards the fence.
Mary quickly hurried closer, tugging at the sleeve of his jacket. "Can't we just go home?" she asked hopefully though she was already sure what his answer will be.
"It's called "trick or treat", not "treat or I'll just walk away"," he said with a smug smile before he climbed over the fence, stopping inside the garden and looking at the girl with crossed arms. "Are you coming or not?"
Mary let out a defeated sigh. She walked closer and pulled herself up; it wasn't so easy to her just climb over with her height. She sat up at the top before she could jump down, Sirius holding her by her waist even after her feet reached the ground, her hands gripping his arms.
Their faces almost touched, not just because Mary landed too close to him, but also because Sirius pulled her into his arms. She tried to avoid his eyes in embarrassment, but it wasn't so easy when all she could feel was Sirius' warm breath on her cold cheeks.
"Are you scared?" he asked in a low voice.
Her eyes finally found his stormy greys. "No. If you do something stupid, I'll hex you."
Sirius laughed again. "Lily has a bad influence on you," he said, though he couldn't deny that he found it so sweet when Mary got so fierce. Especially because he knew that unlike Lily, Mary wouldn't hex him. "And we just broke into someone's garden and you're assuming we aren't going to do anything stupid?"
Mary saw he was right, but she followed him blindly anyway.
They stopped in front of the backdoor, looking around before Sirius raised his wand and opened the door. Mary scolded herself silently, as she didn't think of opening the garden gate with a spell instead of climbing over it. And it wasn't so bad having his arms around her as he helped her down anyway…
She bit her bottom lip to choke back a smile, but pushed the thought away as Sirius threw two dungbombs into the dark room.
"Can we go now?" Mary asked, wrapping his hands around Sirius' forearm. He took some steps backwards with her, but stopped soon.
"We should watch the show first."
As the words left his lips, they heard a loud scream, along with several swearwords too. Sirius laughed loudly, but in the next moment the old woman burst the door open, pointing her wand at them.
"Oh, shit," he said, pulling Mary with himself as they were running towards the street. They heard the woman screeching behind them; they were lucky she was so busy with swearing she forgot to use her wand other than just pointing it at them. As they reached the fence, Mary wanted to pull herself up quickly, but Sirius grabbed her by her waist and pulled her back, opening the gate of the garden.
"It was open?" she yelled, stopping and staring the opened gate.
"Of course it was," Sirius said, grabbing her hand and running away with her. The woman chased them only a few seconds longer, but they could still hear her voice a block away.
Mary adjusted her cat-ears that mysteriously stayed on her head when they slowed down, now just slowly walking on the dark street.
"Do you think she was related to Filch?" Sirius asked, a bit out of breath, causing Mary to laugh.
"Definitely."
They kept walking in a comfortable silence for a while; as the effects of the alcohol left them, they both got tired very suddenly. It was a cold night, and Mary felt her legs shaking beneath her skirt. She sighed when she realized she left her gloves at home, but stuffed her hands deep into her pockets to keep them warm.
"You don't want to go back to the party, do you?"
"All I want to do is wrap myself into a blanket and eat chocolate next to the fireplace until I fall asleep," she answered with closed eyes, already imagining the scenery in front of her inner eyes.
Sirius chuckled softly before he said, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is all I want to do too."
Mary stopped with her eyebrows raised. "Really?"
"Yes," Sirius lied. Well, it wasn't exactly a lie – of course he'd love to go back to the others and partying until the morning, but the idea of spending the rest of the night with only Mary made everything else seemed pointless and stupid.
"Would you like to join me, then? I'm pretty sure the girls aren't going to come back home any time soon," she fell in silence suddenly; though it was true Dorcas and Marlene preferred to leave the parties late, it still sounded like she directly wanted to be alone with him. Not like it wasn't true…
"Sure thing, and let's go before you shatter into pieces," he said, referring to her still shaking legs.
She mumbled something about she didn't dress up for spending half of the night outside as they turned around, walking to Mary's home with fast steps.
"Finally," Mary sighed once they were finally inside the house. They hang up their coats and took off their shoes, but Mary quickly hurried into her bedroom, leaving Sirius alone in the living room. He looked after her with raised eyebrows before he walked closer to the fireplace, drew his wand out and murmured an incendio, making the room already warming up by the time Mary returned. She had washed off her makeup, and it seemed she combed her hair too, as it didn't look so messy than before, Sirius noticed. She didn't change her dress, but she pulled a knitted white sweater above it. Sirius watched silently, with his head titled on the left side while Mary put on a pair of warm, fuzzy socks, before she grabbed a pillow from the couch and plopped down in front of the fireplace.
Only when she looked up at him Sirius realized he was a staring. He cleared his throat before he said, "That's not really nice, Mary. I don't have any clothes to change."
"So I should keep freezing just to show some solidarity?" she asked, pulling the bag of sweets on closer and emptying it on the floor.
"No," Sirius said as he joined to her on the floor, resting his back against an armchair. "Maybe you should give me one of those socks. Look comfy."
"I bought them at the kids' section."
Sirius chuckled lowly, "You're angry when I call you cute. How could I stop calling you cute when you're buying clothes for yourself at the kids' section?"
Mary only rolled her eyes, unwrapping a candy.
"See? You can't even roll your eyes at me without smiling."
"Okay, you know what?" she said, throwing the wrapping into the fire. "No chocolate for you today."
Sirius bit back another laugh. "Fine. I'm not going to compliment you ever again."
"Great."
They spent the next hour with talking about everything and nothing, laughing, eating chocolates and candies that was all new for Sirius. They found them too ordinary and even boring, as none of them tried to escape from their box or explode in his mouth. He opened a box of Sweethearts, examining it with narrowed eyes before he pulled out a small, heart shaped candy, grinning at it before he hold it to Mary. "Look, it says you have to kiss me."
Mary rolled her eyes, smiling before she grabbed a chocolate and stuffed it into Sirius' mouth. "It's a Hershey's kiss."
"Sweet," Sirius said before he swallowed the chocolate. "Not as sweet as you, though."
With closed eyes, Mary sighed, but couldn't wipe the smile off her face. "God, just stop this," she said, burying her flushed cheeks into her palm.
Sirius slid closer on the floor to her and wrapped his fingers around her wrists, gently pulling her hand away from her face. "Let me kiss you."
His words came out almost as a whisper, and Mary wasn't even sure she heard him right until she felt his warm hand cupping her cheek. It started slowly, his lips barely brushing against hers, softly, being careful not to kiss her too deeply. Still, it was Mary who deepened the kiss, causing Sirius to smile against her lips.
"You're awful," he chuckled with his forehead pressed against hers, still holding her face, but she pulled back and looked at him with her eyebrows furrowed in confuse.
"Why are you saying this?"
"I told you I'm not going to compliment you, but I really needed to say something."
Mary sighed, but let her head fall on the crook of his neck with a small chuckle. "Next time just say something nice."
She felt his fingertips touched her cheeks, her jawline, before he raised her chin up and kissed her again gently and deeply. "You're gorgeous. And also, really cute," he said with a smug smile, but Mary only chuckled at it at this point.
"You know what, just let me sleep," she said, pressing her head against his chest. Sirius leaned back to rest his back against the couch, wrapped a hand around Mary and kept running his fingers through her locks until the steady peace of his chest rising and falling beneath her lulled her into sleep.