Chapter Three: Those No-Good Muggle Drinking Games
"What's that like, Lilly?" Petunia asked nervously, eyeing the bottle of dark liquid that Remus was waving at them.
Lilly stiffened a bit, her mind whirring for the right answer. "Well, it's a bit like… I mean, it's obviously liquor. It must be most like what you might call..."
"Oh, hang it all," Sirius silenced her. "It's not like you would know, Evans! You've been too busy sticking to the rules to find out."
James just shot his friend a very mean glare as the girl behind him reddened so deeply that her skin practically matched her hair. In all the tension, it was only Petunia who began to crack up.
"So you were a little bookworm even there," she spoke between fits of giggles.
"Well, now," Sirius shifted his attention to the pretty blonde on the couch, turning away from the arm chair and James's condemning stare. "You see, firewhiskey isn't too bad. I haven't touched any of the muggle stuff, of course, but I would assume all humans can recover from it- magic or not."
"Recover? Wh-what?" Petunia faltered. "You mean it burns you?"
"Maybe not to that degree. But it's still quite… potent. The trick is to recover the next day from what it makes you do," he said lowly, fixing her with a stare that made Petunia blush.
It was Remus who saved her from the subtext in the boy's eyes, by clearing his throat and drawing their attention back to what mattered: the alcohol. He sat down, cross-legged, by the round, polished coffee table in front of them, looking from the bottle to the group- almost as if he was waiting for something to happen. Truthfully, this silly pause thrilled him- he liked being accorded more attention and he reveled in the question of what happened next- what would he choose to do next?
"Now, then… I suppose we could get started in some way or another…"
"Quite the party hostess, aren't you, Moony," Sirius drawled as he pushed back his hair. Remus ignored it- still focused on a more sophisticated plan of action.
"We could… just… drink it?"
Petunia surprised herself when she spoke up: "I know a pretty good drinking game," she offered.
The group turned to look at her- Lilly being the only one who didn't look curious or amused. Her eyes were wide and her nostrils were flaring, and it sort of frightened Petunia. She knew that face- she didn't want to start a fight and leave now. So, as nonchalantly as possible, she tried to defuse the ticking bomb by telling her sister to relax.
"Yeah, relax, Evans," Sirius snapped jokingly, stretching back to put one arm on the couch behind Petunia, as she was quickly shuffling through a deck of cards.
"It's called 'High or Low,' and it's really easy- we all go in a circle and put a card down," she explained as she divided the deck between the five of them. "And you guess whether your card will be higher or lower than the previous one."
"And if it's the same- er- value?" Remus said carefully, a hand in his hair, as he evaluated the potential of her muggle game.
"Oh, then, everyone drinks!"
"Sounds good to me," James leaped from Lilly's side and took a place on the floor next to Remus.
As they proceeded, a pair of panicked green eyes was still dashing between the cards being handed out and the bottle on the edge of the table. It was true, Lilly hadn't been the kind of girl that snuck off from Gryffindor tower for a drink. Was it alright to drink now? James remembered her and looked back expectantly. She sighed and slid from the arm chair, joining him and the rest of the gang around the coffee table.
The game began- maybe a little slowly. Remus was asking Petunia about the automobile's ignition when Sirius, growing bored with the subject, plunged his hand into his pocket to extract his wand. Holding it beneath the table, he began to have a little fun.
"Higher," Petunia declared assuredly before flipping over a card from her pile. As Sirius whispered under his breath, her hand tossed the card to the middle of the table, revealing two small red hearts. It seemed impossible. All of the two's had already been played. And yet, Petunia didn't question it.
"It was lower… well, I guess I lose," Petunia shrugged and reached for the bottle.
'These muggle games are too easy,' thought Sirius to himself, an evil grin spreading across his face.
While he challenged Petunia to a drinking contest that she didn't even know she was playing, the rest of the gang began feeling pretty wobbly, themselves. Lilly was leaning into James comfortably, a hand in his dark hair, unaware of the tricks that Sirius was playing on his sister, who had guessed 'incorrectly' for the seventh time in a row.
"You know, for being the only one who knew this game, you're awfully bad at it," teased Sirius.
"I know!" exclaimed Lilly, making all parties jump. "Why don't we go into the lake!"
The group, a bit surprised by the request, considered it half-heartedly. It was only James who seemed to be fixed on the idea. And so, the five of them proceeded a ways down from the Lupin cabin/house to the cold and, as it turned out, very shallow lake. Remus, fully clothed, dove in with plenty of bravado from the rounds of "High or Low" that he had lost. And, as is expected, in shallow water, he smacked his head hard- giving everyone a cause for alarm as his friends rushed and dragged him out of the water. It was Lilly who, finally managing to collect her wits about her, began to levitate him out of the water and into the house.
"So much for skinny dipping," grumbled James.
"Moony, you ok?" asked Sirius, trying to mask his own disappointment.
"Yeah-huh- hua," came the reply.
"Oh, he'll be fine," James smiled, putting an arm around a scared looking Lilly.
They were almost inside and Sirius, turning to look at Petunia in the dark of the night, reached for her hand and held her back from the living room onto the porch. Petunia glanced, a little worried, after her sister who was- strangely enough- focusing on making a boy float all the way inside. And even more perplexing than the magic, Petunia gulped, seemed to be this boy with dark long hair and a handsome face, keeping her on the porch, and now nodding toward a hammock that she had overlooked in the moonlight.
She followed him and sat down carefully, one leg over the edge, facing him, as he managed to balance himself with both feet over the edge, staring straight out- back to the lake they had come from.
"So… your friend will be ok?"
"Trust me, he withstands a lot more pain than this," he grimaced.
"Oh. The… magical kind? Of pain, I mean?"
"Yeah, you could say that."
"What's it like?" she leaned toward him, her chin almost touching his shoulder.
"Never asked him. Hard as hell, I assume."
"Not him- you. All of you," she paused looking around herself. "I mean, what's it like to feel the magic-anything? Pain or not?"
"Doesn't your sister tell you?" he turned his head toward her, looking at her straight on.
"Well, I guess we're not close when she comes home, exactly," Petunia answered truthfully.
"Well, it doesn't matter. Besides," Sirius said, straightening his back. "You're nothing short of spectacular, yourself, Petunia Evans." And with a coy smile, he bent to the left, toward her, kissing her roughly. He put a hand behind her head and leaned toward her- the hammock swung them a bit off balance, giving him opportunity to deepen the kiss. And next, her leg wasn't even on the ground anymore. Petunia gasped as she realized she was losing control of the hammock and of herself, and Sirius smoothly managed to take this opportunity to slip his tongue into her mouth.
And then, she surprised herself by kissing him back excitedly, wrapping her arms around his shoulder blades, not caring which way the hammock was swinging, as she pressed herself against him. Maybe it had been the flattery, maybe it had been the moonlight, or maybe it had been the striking grey eyes that had been challenging her all day that managed to get Petunia so caught up in the moment. And here she was, being snogged senseless by a stranger. A friend of her sister's, no less.
It was that realization that made her open her eyes and end the kiss- pushing back from the smug boy that she had wrapped her arms around. He smirked at her, almost in a 'shall we?' sort of way, as she realized what he was. He wasn't normal. This wasn't like kissing a boy from her school. He wasn't even human, really. Petunia's head began to swim with insecurities and doubts as she pushed out of the hammock quickly. She marched back into the house, leaving all of the moonlight and sweet talk behind.
And on the porch, a bewildered Sirius Black had stopped swinging and was left scratching his head at what had just happened.
"Well, shit!"
Hope you guys like this story and will keep following it! HAven't had time to post but be sure- some new developments are on the way ;)
