LILY

Teenage Wasteland

Don't cry,
Don't raise your eye,
It's only teenage wasteland.

- 'Baba O'Riley,' The Who (1971)

It wasn't that Lily didn't like Dorcas Meadowes. She was easy to get on with, so long as you coped with her sometimes caustic sense of humour. They'd roomed together for five years, had partnered in a few classes. When the central core of Gryffindor girls opened its loving arms and welcomed everyone to socialise - in the common room, or between lessons, or at lunches - they hung out. But whenever they had a choice, they moved in different circles. They weren't friends.

Jack Corrigan, on the other hand, she struggled to even call an acquaintance. He was a Hufflepuff and a troublemaker and once put Cecil Stebbins through a greenhouse window. That was back in fourth year, but Lily still remembered how Stebbins had only avoided worse injury because Amy Hargreaves had pulled a knife on Corrigan. It was the kind of physical altercation Hogwarts wasn't properly equipped to handle, but which a Muggle-born from run-down Cokeworth had the perfect measure of. If she saw a boy like Corrigan coming down the street towards her, not that tall but muscular and swaggering, studs across the shoulder of his beaten leather jacket, she'd cross the road.

And neither of them belonged on her porch on the last weekend of August.

'Party?' Lily echoed, feeling about ten steps behind the world, catapulted into the void as the Earth moved briskly onward.

'Nathaniel McKinnon's throwing his regular End of Summer party.' Dory's round face was even rounder when she beamed up at her. 'So, I thought we'd go. Before our noses get worn off by the NEWT-y grindstone.'

Heavily-entrenched British courtesies meant Lily could only work her jaw for a few moments before she managed, creakily, 'I don't mean to be rude, but -'

'Why the fuck are we here for you?' Corrigan was tapping ash off his cigarette into the plant-pot next to the door. Lily would have cared more if the front garden hadn't been Petunia's pride and joy. That, and she detected confused solidarity in his question, not dismissive insult. Whatever was going on, she suspected Dory was the mastermind and they were caught in her wake together.

'That was rather the gist of it, yes.'

'Can't a girl show up on people's doorsteps at the end of the day and abduct them to a party in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish lowlands? I promise I'm not going to hide your bodies in Nathaniel's back yard.'

'There's a whole lot that can go wrong before axe-murder,' Lily pointed out.

Dory sighed. 'It's simple. Sturgis and Beatrice have left Hogwarts, leaving me on my lonesome. And you and Chuckles here both had an attack of "my best friend's an enormous racist." I thought we should start a shelter for abandoned losers.'

Lily glanced at Jack Corrigan, who didn't look at her and instead glowered at one of the supremely ugly lawn ornaments Petunia had left behind. 'Leo Travers?'

'Turned into a right little fan of You-Know-Who, yeah. Snape?'

She hadn't realised her falling out with Severus was public knowledge. 'He always was one. I just stopped kidding myself.'

Jack grunted with what she thought was sympathy. 'S'pretty bullshit.'

'There, we're all in agreement.' Dory clapped her hands together. 'Come on, Red.'

'Which bit of my open-mouthed confusion did you take as me saying I'd go?'

'Except, you should.'

Lily spun to see her father in the hallway, arms folded across his chest, eyes twinkling. Stephen Evans was not a big man, and the last few years had shrunk him even more, turned his laughs and smiles to thoughtful silences and pained grimaces. But she recognised that tone of voice, that set of his shoulders and his chin; he would not be opposed. 'You've been cooped up all summer,' he continued. 'You should go out.'

Behind her, she was distantly aware of Jack ditching his cigarette in Petunia's precious plant pot. She tried to ignore it, drawing a raking breath. 'Dad, term starts Wednesday -'

'And I know you; you'll work hard at school and push yourself, and that's great. So make the most of the summer. Go out with your friends. Have fun.' Her father gave a deep sigh. 'I manage without you for three months, Lily. I can manage for one extra night. Go, have fun, don't get in too much trouble, and be back at a sensible time.' Then he turned on Jack Corrigan, and his voice shifted for that clipped, military tone she'd learnt to respect as a child. 'And you, young man, will fish that cigarette out of my godawful ugly hyacinth.'

Jack's indolent slouch died at once, and he mumbled an apology as he scrabbled in the plant pot. Dory beamed again. 'Thanks, Mister Evans. We'll be as responsible as three teenagers could possibly be.'

Realising she had no good excuse to be a shut-in any more, Lily sighed and turned back to her father. 'I won't be late.'

'Honestly, Lily,' he said as he hugged her, 'I'd be less worried if you did act out once or twice. Have fun.'

It was warm enough that she only grabbed a jacket off the coat rack. She felt under-dressed following Dory, with her bright blue hair and wizard band t-shirt - the Taliesins, who'd been the hottest new magical band for twenty years - and Jack, with his cool leather coat. The words, 'ALL THE HEROES ARE DEAD,' were stencilled across his shoulders in red.

'Is that a band?' Lily asked, and felt stupid.

'Nah.' Jack still clutched the cigarette butt he'd retrieved from the hyacinth. 'Just the truth, innit?'

'Don't mind Chuckles,' said Dory, bouncing out the gate onto the road. 'He's a man of few words, some of them deep, some of them raucously abusive.'

'Piss off, Meadowes.'

'See?'

Lily fought a smile and glanced sideways to see Jack doing the same thing. 'So why'd she pick up you?'

'Sat together on the Hogwarts Express first trip up, didn't we? Don't matter to her we barely talked since.'

'I wrote to you, first Christmas!' Dory, leading the way, protested. 'You just didn't write back.'

'You survived.'

Dory just scoffed and carried on. She seemed to know where she was going. The Evans family lived in one of the nicer and thus smaller housing estates in Cokeworth, where the red bricks of post-war semi-detached houses gleamed in the early evening glow. Cokeworth proper loomed down the hill, squatter and greyer and uglier, a gutted mess after the deaths of the mills. She wondered if Severus was down there, spending the night with his nose in a book. A party like this wasn't really his style.

It wasn't really her style. For years he'd been her closest ally, the person she'd spend time with if she had the choice, and this, Lily realised, was why she was nothing more than a friendly acquaintance of Dory and the others. With Severus pushed away, there was nobody to write to over summer, nobody she was looking forward to seeing come Hogwarts. Until, maybe, now. Even if Jack had just chucked his cigarette butt in the neighbour's shrubbery.

'You know,' she told him, 'there are these things called bins, and they take rubbish…'

He did, to his credit, look abashed. 'Sorry. Too used to them being full or broken.' He fished in a pocket and brought out a pack of Silk Cut. 'Fag?'

Lily hesitated, then remembered her father's parting words. I can act out, she thought petulantly, and took the cigarette. 'So how're we getting there?'

Dory had been leading them out of the housing estate, beyond the network of houses and towards the A6 road that split nicer, newer Cokeworth from its old, run-down other half. At this time of night in the summer, there was little traffic on the road, which was just as well because she stuck out her wand and said, 'Like this.'

It wasn't that Lily hadn't taken the Knight Bus before. It was her most reliable way of getting to Diagon Alley or King's Cross, those occasions when her family hadn't the time or wits to drive down to London. She was expecting to use it next week, because the alternative was going to Petunia's on Tuesday night and she'd rather eat the cigarette Jack had just lit for her. But the appearance of the Knight Bus was always sudden and noisy and she still had to avoid snorting a gust of smoke as she yelped, 'Fucking hell!'

Jack laughed. It was a loud, raucous laugh, the most animated she'd ever seen him outside of violence, but he did not, she thought, sound unkind. 'And the Gryffindor princess unwinds.'

She turned her nose up at him. 'We're going to one of Nathaniel McKinnon's parties. I'll show you just how much I can unwind.'

§

Dobbs and Burke were decent Quidditch players but they were not, Lily thought as the trio crunched down the path towards the eclectic gathering of hyperactive Hogwarts students in the McKinnons' courtyard, especially good musicians. That was fine, though, because Myron Wagtail was a ridiculously good singer and guitarist, prancing around on his makeshift stage with enough vim and vigour and half-decent sounds to keep everyone entertained. There was some dancing, though at this time of night more people were interested in the tables of food and drink. An odd energy hummed through the air, the same kind of enthused catching up Lily expected to see on the Hogwarts Express next week, and yet alongside it rode an explosive release of tension, the knowledge this was the last hurrah before school began.

'Dory, you made it!' A blonde shape detached from the merry throng to greet them, and Lily had to blink back surprise when she realised it was Marlene McKinnon. A little mousy, bespectacled, always studious and enthusiastic, a raucous party was not a scene she'd expected of the Ravenclaw. Then again, she was one of the hostesses, however much choice she'd had about it. 'I wasn't sure you were coming.'

'Yeah, well.' Dory jerked a thumb over her shoulder. 'I had to pick up these two losers from their lives of crippling isolation.'

'Hey!' said Lily. 'I spoke to people over summer.'

'Your Dad doesn't count.'

'What about -'

'Or your owl.'

'I'm glad you're here,' interjected Marlene graciously. 'Are you taking Herbology NEWT, by the way? Everyone seems to be ditching it, which is ridiculous because Sprout is so underrated and if anyone wants to get anywhere with Potions remotely seriously, you've really got to -'

'Hey, we're at a party,' Dory interrupted. 'No nerding.'

Jack was stood at the back with his hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders hunched, looking for all the world like he might be about to break something, and blurted at Marlene, 'I'm taking Herbology.' Everyone stared at him, and Lily stared more when he started to go red. 'What, it ain't like I'm one of them fuckin' losers who had their NEWT choices planned since first year…'

Now it was Marlene who turned a fainter, more delicate shade of pink. 'Sure. I mean, who would do that.'

His expression screwed up. 'As if you didn't get your life planned by your family when you were three -'

Dory grabbed Jack's arm. 'Come on, let's get you a drink before you hurt yourself,' she growled, and dragged him towards the refreshments table. He let himself be steered, looking as if he'd been beaten about the head, and Lily followed them with an apologetic flash of a smile at Marlene.

'What was that all about?' she asked as she caught up.

'It's about how you'll do me a kindness and shut up,' Jack mumbled.

'Chuckles has a problem with people nicer than him,' Dory explained. 'I mean, sure, he claims it's a problem with rich pure-bloods, but if he's going to be rude at Marlene then it means he's also a pillock.'

'She's one of our hosts!' said Lily, looking aghast at Jack.

'I didn't mean nothing by it,' he grumbled, shoulders slumped. 'I just don't know how to talk to people like her, do I?'

'You could try,' Dory suggested gently, 'not calling her a loser.' But they were at the drinks table by now. She let him go and he tore over to apply a free tankard to one of the kegs of ale. 'It's okay. Have a drink and forget. Marlene's not one to hold grudges.'

'You should apologise,' prompted Lily, her sense of decorum perplexed by this turn of events. And she didn't want Marlene to think she hung out with an ungrateful thug. 'Try to have a proper conversation with her.'

Jack looked up from his tankard, across the crowd of party-goers to where Marlene had rejoined her friends, Baddock and Dhawan, all of them Ravenclaws. 'Hell am I supposed to talk to someone like her about?' he demanded, indignant. It was a good question. Marlene was one of the brightest students in school, and a wealthy pure-blood to boot. Jack, dour and not particularly academic, not to mention a working class Muggle-born, couldn't have less in common with her if he'd tried.

'I don't know,' Lily admitted. 'Um, Herbology?'

'Merlin's tits.' Dory went for the table. 'Leave him, it's a lost cause. What're you drinking, Red?'

'Butterbeer?'

Dory smacked her palm against her forehead. 'I forgot. Lily Evans is an enormous loser.'

Lily tried to exchange a glance with Jack, but he was busy drinking his bodyweight in cask ale. 'Why did I agree to come out with you tonight, if all I'm getting is abuse?'

'It's abuse coming from a place of love.' Dory shoved a glass of something clear and fizzy into Lily's hand. 'We're going into sixth year. The world's going to shit in a shit-basket. Any one of us might get murdered just for walking down Diagon Alley. And NEWTsare starting. That's not the kind of thing you do alone.'

'Meaning,' said Jack, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, 'with Podmore and Newport gone, she's as much of a lonely loser as us.'

'I figured there's strength in numbers. We can try to be cooler together.' She swigged her drink. 'Try to not get murdered together.'

There had been one advantage, Lily thought, to hiding in Cokeworth all summer and only reading the Daily Prophet once or twice a week. At home she could pretend that her best friend wouldn't rather everyone like her left the magical world. At home she could pretend a growing faction of wizards didn't wish her harm. At home, she had to lie to her father so he didn't know she stood a chance, as Dory put it, of being murdered just for walking down Diagon Alley.

'Fuck them,' she said after a heartbeat. 'I'm as good or better with a wand than anyone at this party. They can bring it on.' Dory and Jack looked at her, startled, and Lily remembered she'd spent much of the last two years away from most people except for Severus - Severus, he who knew more of the details than anyone and still couldn't see the big picture. Her reputation didn't include much room for vehement proclamations.

But Jack grinned and raised his tankard in salute. 'I'll drink to that.'

Dory raised her glass, too, so Lily followed suit and slammed back a mouthful of the fizzing drink, which went up her nose and tasted like a thousand lemons soaked in vodka. 'What the hell is this?' she sputtered.

'I dunno, it was in an unlabelled bottle -'

'Dory -'

'Unclench, Red!'

'Unclenching doesn't mean I want to go blind -'

Then the fanfare started. Myron Wagtail had finished his last song, and not only put away his guitar but brought out a huge, three-horned, trumpet-like contraption. Dobbs and Burke beat a hasty escape, obviously not up for musical insanity of this calibre, but all heads turned as the mellow tunes, good for dancing, vanished for a brass cacophony. The lights twinkling from the courtyard's tall trees and the walls of the McKinnon house stopped basking the party-goers in a soothing, mid-evening glow, and transformed into spotlights to fix on an area halfway down the main path.

That was when Lily saw the flying horse-drawn carriage sweeping down from the skies. A heartbeat later she saw the crest on the door. 'Oh, no,' she breathed.

The handsome Aethonian horse pranced as it drew up, perfectly placed to plant the new spotlights on the carriage door. The Potter family crest positively gleamed before it was thrown aside for the short, round shape of Peter Pettigrew to bound out onto the gravel.

'Ladies and gentlemen!' He couldn't have an amplified voice - that would take a spell and a wand and not even they would risk underage magic just for this - but Pettigrew had made a career of being the herald of things to come. He knew how to project. 'I'm pleased to announce that the party has just begun, because we - they - have arrived! You know them, you love them, the Marauders.'

'Ooh,' said Dory. 'This should be good.'

'Ugh,' said Lily, and drained her glass.

But Pettigrew was carrying on, advancing with all of the vivacity of a ringmaster. While he was always the least of his little mob, she had to accept that he knew how to draw a crowd. 'First, that rascal of Hogwarts, the dashing rogue of the Gryffindor; the ladies love him, the men love him, Sirius Black!'

Black, of course, all but exploded from the carriage. Lily tried to not roll her eyes when she saw him wearing a Muggle leather jacket, like a more expensive, less spiky, more artificial version of Jack's. His beam was broad and obnoxious, he planted his hands on his hips and swaggered out like a peacock, and yet to her bewilderment the reaction was applause, not embarrassed laughter. A wave at the crowd here, a wink in the direction of Marlene McKinnon and Dorothy Baddock's pack of girls, then he was prancing onward to the crowd.

'Second, he might be a shy recluse, but he's a mastermind of -'

'Peter, please.'

Lily didn't know if she should feel relieved or embarrassed to see Remus slither out the carriage and grab Pettigrew's arm, bright red. At least her fellow prefect had no time for this kind of sham, but he should have known better than to get into a carriage with the other three in the first place. And Pettigrew certainly didn't care.

'- of - damn it, Remus - look, ladies, you want someone to read you poetry and stargaze with you, you want Remus Lupin!'

'Did this become some sort of creepy bachelor auction when I wasn't looking?' Lily muttered.

'Sirius did break up with Mary in April,' said Dory, sounding inordinately pleased about this.

Lily looked at her. 'You don't fancy Black.'

'What? No! Oh, here's James -'

Lily put down her glass. 'I'm not looking. It's just what they want. Where's the whiskey.'

'…towering intellect…'

She tried to block out Pettigrew as she made for the far end of the drinks table, where single bottles had been set out - and these ones had labels. She did, actually, know what she was doing with whiskey, it being a quiet indulgence of her father's. But these were all wizarding drinks, so she found herself bewildered as she tried to ignore the introductions behind her.

'…the demon on the Quidditch pitch!'

Lily picked up a bottle, just as a voice next to her said, 'I wouldn't, that's Old Beamish, it's very nutty. Here.' A new bottle was planted in front of her. 'Rigmhonath Signet, much more smoky.'

She turned to thank the sudden purveyor of whiskey, but didn't get further than keen blue eyes and a smile like a challenge over a chessboard before there was a fresh eruption of applause. Despite herself, she looked over to see James Potter, champion attention-seeker and slayer of silent common rooms burst onto the gravel path like it was a red carpet. She could have taken this display in stride, Lily thought, but the crowd was actually buying into it, whooping and cheering like actual rock stars had shown up instead of a band of arrogant Sixth Years.

Grumbling, she stomped back to Dory and Jack. 'Are our lives so wretchedly pointless that this is what passes for entertainment? So glad you brought me here, Dory.'

'It's just a bit of fun.' Dory looked from her, to the whiskey bottle in her hand, to over her shoulder. 'And since I stopped paying attention you obviously had a coolness transplant.'

'What?'

'Five seconds ago you were bitching about some sort of magical limoncello and suggesting Chuckles appease Marlene with Herbology. I turn around and you're slugging single malt on the recommendation of Wick.'

'Wick?' Lily looked back down the table, and realised in her irritation she'd completely blanked whoever had handed her the Signet. Sure enough, there stood Wick the Ravenclaw Seventh Year - tall, quietly dapper in a waistcoat and white shirt, calm and collected at the periphery of the party. 'Oh. Oops.'

But then Jack muttered, 'Are you kidding me?' and they looked to see Sirius Black swaggering up to the band of Ravenclaws, and immediately he dipped to kiss the back of Marlene's hand. 'What a pretentious tosspot.'

'So much for Nathaniel playing host,' Dory said.

Lily looked about the crowd, then spotted the group of Seventh Years by the fountain and sighed. 'I think Nathaniel's indisposed. He's currently trying to drink a yard of something. That'd probably be why Marlene greeted us in the first place.' Near Nathaniel and his friends, she spotted Pettigrew sidling up beside Cornelia Fletcher, and not-too-subtly palm her some coins. Yet again, she tried to not groan. Of course Fletcher had orchestrated the music and light-show of the Marauders' arrival. At least, she supposed, she had the dignity to be paid for the effort.

Jack brightened a little. 'Looks like Marlene's too busy for me to apologise to her, though.'

'Not so fast, Chuckles,' said Dory. 'I'll get Sirius away. Then you go play nice. I'd like to be invited to these things again.'

'How is that my problem?'

'More importantly,' said Lily, 'how're you going to do that? Good luck getting a girl out of Black's sights.'

'It's fine, he owes me a rematch of a drinking competition after last year's Quidditch final.' Dory shrugged. 'I'll just tell everyone he's a pansy if he doesn't think he can out-drink little old me.'

'You had a drinking competition in the common room -'

'This is the opposite of unclenching! And it's not like we fed Firewhiskey to First Years, so I don't know why you're slugging single malt here and bitching at me!'

Lily glared, and poured herself some whiskey. 'This is classier.'

'Enjoy your classy hangover. Chuckles, hand me that,' said Dory, retrieving the bottle she'd first poured hers and Lily's drinks from. 'And you better not chicken out. When this goes inevitably wrong, remember: I died as I lived.'

'Faintly pickled?' Lily wondered as Dory swanned off into the crowd, making a bee-line for Black and the Ravenclaws. But she had to subside, and took a sip of her whiskey. 'I guess you have to go apologise to Marlene now.'

Jack looked like he'd sucked on a lemon. 'There ain't no way this is a win for me, is there?'

She nudged him with her elbow. 'Hey. I think Dory's as much of an outcast as us right now. Let's take all this in the spirit it's intended, and build some bridges. Not burn them.'

'Yeah.' His scowl deepened as he watched Black and Dory detach from the group of Ravenclaws. Arms waving wildly, Black in a moment had summoned Potter, who carried armfuls of bottles. 'You really don't like them.'

Lily blew a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. 'They annoy me.'

'No shit.'

'They -' She gritted her teeth, then waved a hand at the small crowd beginning to cluster where Dory and Black's competition was starting up. 'Okay, imagine I held a party with alcohol in my common room?' Jack looked impassive, and she sighed. 'Imagine you held a party with alcohol in your common room.'

'Sure.'

'Except we wouldn't. Because if a teacher caught us, we'd be strung up. Because if the wrong person took umbrage, we'd be screwed. Because - because they're a pair of pure-blood brats and their tagalongs who don't know how bloody lucky they are, who could get away with murder just because of who they are! If you or I or - or Mary or Wick or any other Muggle-born did half the shitthey do, sucked up half the attention they do, we'd be painting bullseyes on ourselves, and half the bloody teachers wouldn't lift a finger to keep us safe!'

Jack's expression remained flat, and Lily fell silent, chest heaving at the sudden outburst. The sentiment wasn't new, but it wasn't one she'd expressed very often. Nobody wanted to hear criticisms of the beloved James Potter, and certainly not over and over again. And saying it to Severus tended to set him off for hours, when she preferred to not think about the Marauders that often. Now she was left wondering if she'd gone too far, if Jack quite liked them or thought her overly emotional or fussy.

Instead, he just lifted his tankard and clinked it against her whiskey. 'Fuckin' rich kids, huh?'

A slow smile stole across her lips. 'Exactly.'

Not that she was poor. But she wasn't rich, and she was still a Muggle-born. She suspected Jack's sentiment was more important than the particulars, and felt a sudden rush of sympathy for this dour, scowling, violent boy of few words, who'd clearly stumbled from a London council estate at the bottom of British society, and into Hogwarts at the bottom of wizarding society.

'Same shit, different world, huh,' she had to muse, but nudged him again before he could answer. 'But Marlene's nice and I think you did offend her, and look, she's on her own now; she hasn't gone to watch the drinking. She's not even drinking. I bet she's only here because Nathaniel won't make sure things don't get out of hand. Go talk to her.'

Jack finally winced. 'About Herbology?'

'You could apologise, too.' Lily shrugged. 'But it's a start.'

That had been, she reflected once Jack was heading off in Marlene's direction, a little cruel. It was entirely for her and Dory's benefit, because they were on rocky enough ground with the rest of the school that it didn't help them to bring Jack to the party so he could insult everyone. Manners demanded she push him.

Manners also demanded she didn't blatantly run away when James Potter came hurrying over to the drinks table. 'Out the way, contest needs more supplies -' And he stopped short at the sight of her. 'Evans? What the bloody hell are you doing here? Drinking - whiskey?'

That Potter had every reason to be surprised she was at a rowdy party was entirely beside the point. She sipped her drink and stuck her nose in the air. 'Watching you make a fool of yourself, as per usual, Potter.'

He looked down at himself, arms spread out, feigning bewilderment. 'I thought I was being positively suave tonight.'

'With that ridiculous arrival? Really?'

Potter grinned a toothy grin. 'The crowd loved it.'

She couldn't dispute that. So she stepped aside to not block his access to the drinks, in the hope he'd go away sooner, and said, 'I thought it was silly.'

'What fun things,' he said, going to the table and gathering bottles, 'don't you think are silly, Evans? I thought you'd explode if you came near festivities.'

'Evidently not, but it's still unclear if you explode if you're not the centre of attention for five minutes.'

He gestured with a flourish towards Dory and Black's drinking competition. 'I'm but a humble servant to Sirius' inevitable defeat of Meadowes, as you see. I'm quite capable of sacrificing for others. Whereas you'd need others to associate with in the first place, let alone sacrifice for.'

Her eyes narrowed. 'I'm not alone. I was just refilling my drink.' She waved down the drinks table and hoped he wouldn't notice she was nowhere near the bottles of whiskey. 'So I'd better get back to my lovely conversation with Wick, hadn't I?'

Potter looked where she'd waved, and his expression pinched. 'That's got to be riveting.'

Lily considered drawing some comparison between Wick and Potter, or attacking his choice of raucous, ridiculous diversions. Instead she decided to be petty and said, 'I hope Dory throws up on you.' Then she left, returning to where the bottles sat next to her fellow whiskey drinker she'd so rudely ignored. Unsurprisingly, Potter didn't follow, but she felt his eyes on her back for a moment before he returned to the drinking contest.

'I didn't thank you,' she said to Wick, forgetting Potter and lifting her glass, 'for the recommendation. It's pretty good.'

Wick - only now did she realise she had no idea what his first name was - leaned against the table with studied indifference, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his own drink. Brown hair was artfully wavy, and only up close and properly paying attention did she realise how perfectly-pressed and tailored his clothes were. 'It's rather like a Glenlivet. I found it one of the more palatable wizarding whiskeys to start with. The rest are either cheap or decidedly acquired tastes. It's just like wizards to value style over substance.' There was a definite polish to his diction, that hint of 'rather' being pronounced, 'rahh-ther.' After Jack's south London accent, it sounded even smoother, even more pronounced, and she guiltily wondered if he'd heard her and Jack toast their disapproval of rich kids.

'You didn't come on your own, did you?' she said instead, trying to press on.

'Oh, no. McKinnon's a good egg.' Wick nodded towards where Nathaniel was now tilting the yard-horn of ale down the throat of a different Ravenclaw. 'There's only so much of these shenanigans a man can stand before he needs a breather, however.'

'Then I'm not interrupting?' Lily tried to smile. 'I promise no shenanigans.' Truth be told, she had nowhere else to go. She'd rather eat her glass than join Dory at the drinking game, couldn't interrupt Jack, and while she had no doubt Mary and the other Gryffindor girls were here somewhere, she hadn't spotted them.

'I'd have let you drink the Old Beamish if I wanted you to go away. You'd never talk to me again for such an insult.'

'It's that bad?'

'Very harsh.' Wick sipped his drink. 'I didn't know this party was your sort of scene.'

From Potter, the comment had been bristling. From Wick, it was oddly flattering. Lily wasn't aware a Seventh Year like him had any concept she existed, let alone had a scene. 'It was a last second sort of thing. Besides, it's good to unwind; next year's going to be busy enough.'

'It shall. OWLs don't have a patch on NEWTs, I'm afraid; you're in for a whirlwind of a time. Oh, were you thinking of doing Muggle Studies?'

Studies. Those, she knew how to discuss. She shook her head. 'I didn't fancy another year of studying car engines.'

'You didn't hear? Bentley's out. Professor Dearborn's coming back to teach. I had him in third year; he's excellent. I'd really recommend him.'

'Oh?'

'He's actually interested in teaching Muggle society, culture.' Wick's eyes sparked. 'He uses literature as a lens through which wizards can view Muggle society, instead of letting the Pure-bloods sit and snicker about how blasted silly a washing machine is. And not just Shakespeare; we did Hardy, Sassoon, Owen.'

'Huh.' Lily sipped her glass. 'I'll think about it.'

To her surprise, his cheeks coloured. 'My apologies,' said Wick. 'I'm sure you didn't come to a party to blather about studies.'

'Actually, it's not like I've kept track of Quidditch or even much of current affairs over summer. I'mhappy to talk classes.'

He brightened. 'A lady after my own heart. Or, perhaps, you're just using me to get to the whiskey.'

She sipped her drink. 'It's very good whiskey.'

Is this flirting?

Wick glanced over at her. 'I mean absolutely no offence, Lily, but I hadn't anticipated a girl like you drinking single malt.'

'I like to be surprising. But you've got me at a disadvantage.' She tried to not look embarrassed. 'I don't know your first name.'

'Ah.' He smiled. 'I prefer it that way. It might make a hypocrite of me, but I've noticed it doesn't go too well when a chap calls you "Evans" as he flirts with you.'

Oh, he's definitely flirting.

Wait, who's calling me "Evans" as they flirt with me?

But before she could summon a response, Wick's gaze flickered past her, and his expression fell. 'Oh, bloody hell.'

And Lily turned to see the Slytherins had arrived.