A/N: I was possessed by the irritating urge to write a typical one-shot in which Lily gets delightfully smashed and ends up snogging her arch-nemesis, James Potter, senseless. I enjoyed writing it so much, though, and didn't get to fit in nearly as much as I'd wanted, that I think I might turn it into something slightly more long-term. It's a tad silly and cliché, but it was a lot of fun to write, and I can't wait to manipulate and embarrass these characters a bit more. I think following chapters should be a little longer than this; this one's not even ten pages, and I'd like to have a little more action and variety in chapters to come.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the characterizations—and they're weak ones, at that.
Chapter One: I Kissed a Drunk Girl
I kissed a drunk girl. I kissed a drunk girl.
I kissed a drunk girl, yes I did.
Kissed a drunk girl on the lips.
I let my guard down.
How could I have been so dumb?
Her eyes were open.
I know I am not the one.
I know I am not the one.
I know I am not the one.
Why do I do these things I do to myself?
I kissed a drunk girl,
And I'm sure I could have been anybody else.
-Something Corporate, I Kissed a Drunk Girl
--
Lily Evans tripped through the portrait hole of Gryffindor Tower with all the grace of a baby elephant, reaching out an arm to grab hold of thin air in an admirable attempt to steady herself—and proceeding to fall flat on her face in the process. She popped up with a giggle, seemingly none the worse for her fall, and traipsed into the Gryffindor common room.
Dorcas Meadowes, walking cautiously beside Lily, reached out a hand to steady her friend of over six years.
"Easy there, Lils," she said in soothing tones laced with laughter. "We're not in any rush here."
"I'm perfectly capable of walking on my own, Dorcas," Lily slurred reproachfully, as she tripped elegantly over the corner of a rug and stumbled into the arm of a chair she was quite sure had not been there a moment ago.
Dorcas titled her head slightly and took in with amusement Lily's flushed face, unsteady balance, and large, goofy grin. She wondered vaguely just how many Hogwarts students would pay galleons to see their esteemed and respected Head Girl pissed beyond belief… Perhaps she would invest in a Pensieve and charge for viewings, she mused—rather like they did at Muggle movie theaters; it could be a comedy of sorts.
Neither girl noticed four boys sitting in the far corner of the common room until one of them cleared his throat loudly, causing Lily to whip around in surprise and collide rather spectacularly into Dorcas, sending both girls crashing to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs. Lily was giggling furiously, but Dorcas looked less than pleased and shoved Lily off of her with a bit more force than necessary.
James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew sat staring at Lily and Dorcas, identical looks of dumbfounded disbelief plastered on all four faces.
It was a testament to just how drunk Lily was that upon catching sight of the boys, her face spread into an even wider grin, and she ambled over to where they were sitting with a hearty and welcoming shout of "Boys!"
James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter eyed her suspiciously—but either Lily hadn't noticed or—the more likely scenario—she hadn't cared because she plopped unceremoniously onto the love seat James was occupying, pulled out from somewhere amongst her robes an already significantly depleted bottle of firewhiskey, and said very pleasantly, "Dorcas says I've had enough to drink, but I rather think I disagree." She hiccupped eloquently. "Would any of you care to share a nightcap—or two—with me?"
Next to Lily, James shifted uncomfortably and said, "Er—Evans—is this some kind of trick to get us to drink in front of you so you can take away house points in a fit of self-righteous indignation and rage? 'Cause, really, I think you'd be better off trying that one out on the Slytherins, seeing as they're not in our house and all. Just seems more effective that way," he concluded meekly, shrugging his shoulders and smiling benignly at Lily beneath a mop of jet black hair.
Lily blinked dumbly at James before turning to look at Sirius, Remus, and Peter, who were still staring silently at her with expressions of bemused (and amused) suspicion on their faces.
"All right," she said calmly, "James doesn't get any."
Sirius, having recovered his wits, snorted at this proclamation. "She must be drunk, Prongs. I've never heard Lily Evans refer to you by anything other than 'Potter' or 'That Speccy Git' or 'You Unimaginable Tosser' or the infamous—and my personal favorite—'Arrogant, Bullying Toerag'…" Sirius trailed off, grinning wickedly at the look of exaggerated loathing on James' face.
Sensing that Sirius was up to No Good, Dorcas cleared her throat and said, "I assure you, gentleman, that Lily is quite genuinely pissed. In fact," she continued, moving closer to Lily and trying unsuccessfully to yank her off the love seat, "I think it'd be best if I got her up to our room before she leaves any more irreparable destruction in her wake."
"It was a very small fire, Dorcas," Lily interjected reasonably, swatting her friend away. "Hardly any damage done at all—and I'm sure that house elf will be back on her feet in no time."
"Lily…" Dorcas said warningly, but her lips were twitching in an obvious attempt not to smile.
"Oh, come on, Meadowes," Lily said with gentle poke at her friend, "I'm trying to celebrate over here. It is your duty as my best friend to support me in this endeavor." She surveyed the boys sitting in front of her and glanced sideways at James. "And you lot are celebrating now, too—no excuses; I'm Head Girl."
"Smashing reasoning," Remus commented dryly, but he was smiling kindly. He reached forward to grab one of the shot glasses Dorcas had conjured resignedly with a flourish of her wand and asked, "What are we celebrating, anyway?"
Dorcas made a face and looked like she was going to say something, but Lily spoke first, exclaiming rapturously, "Why, a wedding, of course! Petunia married her wanker-in-shining-armor today, and as I was not invited to the festivities—a grievous oversight, I'm sure—I thought I'd celebrate here."
"Er—who's Petunia?" Peter ventured tentatively, feeling increasingly certain that Lily had gone quite mad and that they should all be maintaining safe minimum distance.
Lily's eyes were shimmering brightly, and Dorcas was suddenly afraid that she was going to start crying, but Lily only shrugged her shoulders listlessly and took a swig from her opened bottle of whiskey, inhaling sharply as the fiery liquid slid down her throat and settled uncomfortably in her stomach.
"Her sister," Dorcas answered with a scowl. "Her sister—and she didn't bother to invite Lily to her wedding. Thus—this," she concluded dully, gesturing vaguely towards Lily, who was now pouring Remus, Sirius, and Peter generous shots of firewhiskey with a surprisingly steady hand.
James reached up a hand to tousle his already messy-beyond-belief hair. Lily noticed and turned to James, studying him with an unsettling look of intense scrutiny on her face.
"You need a drink," she said finally, thrusting her bottle into his hands. "Drink."
James looked at her warily but obligingly threw back some whiskey, handing the bottle back to Lily with a quirked eyebrow when he was done.
"Happy?" he asked.
"Quite," she said, and she smiled at him sweetly.
James inwardly cursed himself for still finding Evans attractive even when she was piss-drunk and entirely unaware that she was jovially sharing a bottle of firewhiskey with four boys that—under normal circumstances—she avoided like the plague.
"If I had known this is what you do in your spare time, Evans, I would have befriended you years ago," Sirius commented idly, reaching across to grab the bottle from Lily and pour himself another shot. "I was always under the misguided impression that you were a pretentious, rule-abiding swot."
Rather than pulling out her wand and hexing Sirius into oblivion—as was the anticipated response—Lily started giggling madly, leaning forward in her apparent mirth and almost tipping off the couch entirely before James shot out a hand to steady her and pulled her firmly to his side—only so she wouldn't end up passed out in a ridiculous heap on the floor, he assured himself sternly.
"I am a pretentious, rule-abiding swot," Lily asserted, leaning heavily against James and causing his stomach to turn flip-flops. Next to her, Dorcas snorted, and Lily whipped her head around to glare. "I am," she repeated obstinately.
"Is that so?" Dorcas asked innocently. She looked like she was about to say more, but Remus interrupted.
"Come on now, Lily," he prodded slyly. "We're all friends here." Dorcas snorted again, and Remus grinned. "Do you really mean to tell us that this is the first and only time you've ever gotten piss-drunk and—er—set a house elf on fire?"
Lily smiled winningly at him. "As if I'd be likely to tell you, Lupin," she said. "You're a prefect. And you," she directed towards James, "are Head Boy. I'll confess to nothing. I wouldn't want to receive a spanking, after all." She grinned cheekily at James, whose eyes had widened to an impossible degree behind his glasses, giving him a rather owlish appearance.
This was all too much for Sirius, who spewed forth a shot of whiskey, liberally dousing both Lily and James with a fair amount of the noxious smelling liquid.
"Thank you, Black," Lily said, reaching up a hand to delicately wipe from her face Sirius' second-hand whiskey. "That was a very refreshing and astute contribution."
"Leave it to you to continue using big words even when you're completely smashed, Evans," Sirius said with a shake of his head and an infuriating smirk.
"Which word was too big for you, Black—'refreshing', 'astute', or 'contribution'? Shall I run and fetch a dictionary?"
"I doubt you can 'run and fetch a dictionary' right now, Lils, but if you deem it worth the failed effort, you're more than welcome to try."
Dorcas, Remus, and Peter looked as though Christmas had come early; their faces were positively glowing with mirth. This night was turning out to be far more entertaining than any of them could have anticipated.
Lily shot Sirius the finger and poured everyone another shot before leaning her head against the back of the love seat and letting out a long sigh. She wondered vaguely in the depths of her muddled mind why she had allowed herself to become so upset over Petunia's marriage to Vernon Dursley. She'd known for months that she hadn't been invited—in fact, she'd long ago convinced herself (and her worried and guilt-ridden mother and father) that she would have declined anyway even if she had been invited.
Yet the "big day" had come, and Lily couldn't help but spend it feeling as though she'd been hit with an extremely large load of heavy, unfriendly, and unforgiving bricks.
Her big sister, married—and Lily excluded from the event entirely.
"I wonder what her dress looked like," she heard herself speculate out loud, her voice grainy with emotion. "I hope it was ugly—and poofy," she added as an afterthought. "I hope it was ugly and poofy, and I hope it constricted her breathing, and I hope she passed out on the cake."
James' heart contracted uncomfortably in his chest at the obvious pain in Lily's voice. He wrapped an arm around her and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. Sirius raised an eyebrow at this display of affection, and James shrugged, slightly embarrassed. This is certainly romantic, he thought wryly. Almost like we're on a date—a date where all our friends get to tag along and Lily's probably too drunk to remember my name and too miserable to realize how positively charming, endearing, and sensitive I am.
"James," Lily said suddenly, causing James to jump skittishly and silently amend his previous assumption that Lily couldn't remember his name—though, really, Lily had never referred to him by anything other than Potter (or Sirius' aforementioned insults), so in all likelihood, her calling him James was probably Lily's equivalent to forgetting his name. "Do you remember that time in fifth year when I pushed you into the lake and told you to try asking out the giant squid because you were never going to get a 'yes' from me?" she asked dreamily, as though recalling a particularly fond memory.
"Vaguely."
Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Dorcas sniggered unabashedly.
"Well," Lily continued, "Did she—or he; I'm really not sure, are you?—ever say yes? Did you ever get your date?"
"Perhaps you should take her up to bed, Meadowes," James said, shaking his head in disbelief. "She really has gone 'round the bend."
"I don't know," Dorcas responded nonchalantly, patting Lily on the head as though she were a beloved pet. "I'm rather curious myself."
James glanced at Lily, who was staring morosely into the now-emptied bottle of whiskey, a look of bleary-eyed contemplation on her face. He sighed; this night was fast descending from slightly strange to entirely absurd and bizarre.
"Well," he acquiesced finally, grinning mischievously at Lily in an attempt to bring a smile to her pensive face. "Turns out you aren't the only girl at Hogwarts who won't go out with me. The giant squid—I like to call her Sheila, personally—shot me down, too. Tried to choke me with one of her tentacles, come to think of it." He sighed dramatically. "And so it goes; you've tried to choke me a few times yourself, Evans, though you usually settle for a nice debilitating hex or two."
It worked; Lily smiled, turning to look at James with a hint of laughter glinting brilliantly in her eyes. This was the closest James had come to having a civil conversation with Lily since their first year when Lily had asked him if she could borrow a quill during one memorable Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. It was vastly disconcerting—and more than a little disappointing that the only time Lily seemed able to send more than insults and language-not-suitable-for-children his way was when she was one shot of whiskey away from puking all over herself.
A lull in the conversation prompted Remus to glance at his watch; he was surprised to see that it was already well past three in the morning. He stood up and stretched, enjoying the slight, sleepy buzz he'd acquired from the alcohol they'd consumed.
"As much as I'm enjoying all this reminiscing—and, really, it's quite enjoyable—I'd like to be up sometime before noon tomorrow, and I'm completely knackered."
Remus emphasized this with a yawn, glancing askance at Sirius, Peter, and James, who, on Remus' cue, stood up, as well—though James did so a bit reluctantly, Remus was quick to note with amusement.
Dorcas followed suit, reaching out a hand to help Lily up, but Lily refused, muttering vaguely about not being ready to go up yet and smacking Dorcas' hand away in irritation. Dorcas sighed, obviously torn between not wanting to leave an incoherent and drunken Lily alone in the common room and her equal desire to burrow into her soft and welcoming bed and pass out from sheer exhaustion.
"Lily," she began carefully. "Come on up to bed. You're drunk—and I'm tired," she concluded bluntly, pulling futilely on Lily's arm.
"Oh, get out of here," Lily responded, releasing her arm from Dorcas' grip and waving Dorcas away. "James will stay down here with me until I'm ready to go up." She gazed imploringly at James. "Won't you, James?"
James wibbled incoherently as all eyes turned to him. He threw his hands into the air and shrugged—a gesture of consent. Remus, Sirius, and Peter threw a few suggestive winks his way, and Dorcas eyed him dubiously before each turned and ambled up to his or her respective dormitory. James stood awkwardly for a moment before reclaiming his recently abandoned seat and clearing his throat nervously. To his surprise, Lily leaned forward and laid her head in his lap, closing her eyes and stretching her legs out to hang over the edge of the small sofa. James shifted uncomfortably, not entirely sure of what his next move should be in a situation of this nature. Lily seemed in no rush to speak or move, and as if unbidden, James found his hands winding their way through Lily's vivid red hair, running his fingers gently through her tousled locks. Lily sighed contentedly, and for perhaps the tenth time that night, James felt his traitorous heart turn over in chest.
After a time, Lily sat back up and fixed James with the same scrutinizing stare she had subjected him to when she'd first stumbled over to the sofa and taken a seat next to him. Now, however, James held her gaze, and for a moment they sat there silently, eyes locked. It was a decidedly strange moment, James mused absently, but it felt somehow important, and he didn't want to be the first to look away. Lily broke eye contact first, shaking her head and smiling at him shyly.
She leaned forward, squinting her large, brilliantly emerald eyes to gaze curiously into James' modestly hazel ones. "Your eyes-" she said, "They have flecks of gold in them. It's nice," she mused, "But it's kind of making me dizzy."
Their faces were only inches apart now.
And quite suddenly, Lily was leaning even closer—and quite suddenly, her lips were on James'—and Lily Evans was kissing James Potter—and James was leaning into her kiss and pulling her closer, clutching at her waist and shifting her so that she slid onto his lap—and Lily's arms were wrapping around James' neck—and it was so wonderful and so horribly wrong and he could taste the alcohol on her breath—and—
He pulled away abruptly, leaning his forehead against Lily's and breathing raggedly. Lily's eyes remained closed, but she too was taking shallow breaths, clearly as unsettled as he was. She shifted self-consciously in his lap, and James groaned inwardly at what he was about to say.
"I think," James said, "that it is time for us to go to bed—separately," he clarified as an afterthought.
Lily nodded mutely, allowing James to pull her to her feet and lace his fingers through hers. He walked her slowly up the spiral staircase, laughing softly as she bumped her head against the doorframe of her tower room. She motioned to the only unoccupied four-poster bed left in the room, and James led her toward it, allowing Lily to lean heavily against him as they walked—or stumbled, more like—to her bed. He helped her out of her robes, watched her clumsily kick off her shoes, and pulled back the soft comforter covering her bed so she could slide between the sheets, still fully clothed in her pleated school skirt, untucked white dress shirt and black vest, loosened tie, and black stockings. Her hair fell in disheveled waves around her shoulders. Her large green eyes were bleary and unfocused. And dammit—she was still inexplicably adorable and sexy.
He turned to walk out of the room, but Lily grabbed his hand, holding fast to him and pulling him closer to her bed. She sat up on her knees and leaned forward to kiss his cheek softly, pulling him into an unexpected hug that warmed his insides and made his skin tingle pleasantly.
"G'night, James Potter," she said finally, pulling away from him and giving him an uncertain smile.
"G'night, Lily Evans," he responded in kind, kissing her forehead and brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face before turning slowly and making his way regretfully towards the door of the seventh-year Gryffindor girls' dormitory.
It was the last place he thought he'd be tonight and the last place he felt like leaving now that he was there.
This was not how he'd imagined his Great Romantic Interlude of Destiny with Lily Evans. In his fantasies, she hadn't been drunk. In his fantasies, he hadn't pulled away. In his fantasies, that first mind-blowing kiss had led to something far more explosive and pleasant afterward.
In his fantasies, Lily would be able to remember their Great Romantic Interlude of Destiny the next morning in vivid, Technicolor detail.
James groaned as he stalked into his dormitory, yanking off his tie and throwing himself face-down on his bed. Sirius grunted in his sleep in the next bed over.
This was really no good, James reflected decidedly.
This was really no good at all.
--
I pulled away. I kissed a drunk girl. I know you don't care about me.
I didn't think it would be right.
I said, "Let's save it for another night."
And she said, "No, no, no, I know
That everything is gonna be just fine."
How could I do this,
When I want her to be all mine?
Why do I do these things I do to myself?
I kissed a drunk girl,
And I'm sure I could have been anybody else.
I'm sure when all is said and done,
And I go home feeling lonely,
You will have had your fun.
Do you even remember?
A/N: We'll find out next time if Lily remembers…
