Monday 26th December 1977
As she had the day before, Lily woke up early on Boxing Day. She could hear someone snoring on the other side of the curtains, and it was still mostly dark. But where yesterday she'd woken up excited and full of Christmas spirit, now she felt… well, like shit to be honest. She wriggled out of the dress that she'd collapsed into bed still wearing last night and then buried herself in the duvet rather than getting up and dealing with the world.
The second wake up was slightly more successful. The room was silent and empty when she pulled back the curtains to find that the clock read half one in the afternoon, and she dragged herself up the stairs to the bathroom to wash her face.
Lily emerged into the common room half an hour later, fully dressed, to find it completely empty – it seemed that everyone was either sleeping off the previous night or down at lunch. She made her way down to the Great Hall. Last night's decorations had already been cleared away and replaced with the usual Christmas ones – it was almost like the ball had never happened. The hall was full of its usual assortment of people eating and chatting, a few evidently nursing hangovers. Lily joined her friends at the Gryffindor table and reached for a sandwich.
"It's alive!" Marlene joked.
"Yeah where did you go last night, I thought you said you were going to the bathroom?" Jenny asked.
"I didn't feel well, went to bed," Lily lied.
"Ah, that sucks. I'm guessing since you slept for so long you didn't notice that someone didn't make it back last night?"
"Does this have anything to do with the fact that Marlene is wearing someone else's shirt?" Sirius said innocently, looking up from his plate.
"How do you know that it's not Marlene's?" Peter said, confused.
"If you want the details of my sex life Sirius, all you have to do is ask," Marlene said calmly. Sirius pulled a face and shook his head. "Thought not."
"Oh yeah, some post came for you at breakfast Lily, it's in our dorm, don't let me forget about it," Eliza said. There were several horrified reactions at the idea of anyone being awake for breakfast after last night's celebrations. "Don't look like that James, weren't you up early today to talk to your parents anyway?"
Lily's stomach dropped as her brain finally pieced the last few facts together. Last night had been the full moon – obviously, Remus hadn't been off visiting his mother – so where had the other Marauders been going? She highly doubted that they'd actually gone to get an early night… But they couldn't possibly be stupid enough to risk their lives sneaking around with a werewolf. And where was Remus going? Dumbledore had to know, so it must be somewhere safe, but where could they keep a transformed werewolf – was there some secret room in Hogwarts somewhere?
Her thoughts were interrupted as Jenny asked her something and she had to get her to repeat the question, but she was distracted all the way through the meal and back up to the dormitory. Just when she thought things couldn't really get much worse, Eliza dropped Lily's post onto her bed. There were two envelopes; one held a small card, the other a letter.
Lily made her excuses to Sirius, Marlene and Peter, who tried to drag her into a game of Exploding Snap as she crossed the common room, crawling through the portrait hole with the letter clutched in her hand.
The Owlery was empty of people, and the owls around the walls were all sleeping with their heads tucked under their wings. Lily shivered as she picked her way across the icy and dropping covered floor, wishing she'd grabbed her cloak before she left the dorm. She went to cast a warming charm, but someone cleared their throat behind her and she jumped, nearly slipping on a patch of ice.
"Hey," James caught her arm to steady her, looking concerned. She hoped he thought her cheeks were just red form the cold – Snape had wiped all thoughts of the conversation with Will last night from her mind, and why did everything have to happen at once? There was too much to process.
"What are you doing up here?" Lily blurted out, and then winced as she realised how rude it sounded.
"Just didn't think you should be running off on your own if you're ill, you seemed a bit out of it," he admitted.
"Oh. Um, thanks?" Lily went back to looking out of the window, even more confused than before.
They were quiet for a moment, looking out over the snowy grounds.
"So what's up?" James asked a few minutes later. Lily fought the urge to ask him if he was endangering his life with a werewolf on the full moon, but surprised herself by giving him part of the truth.
"My sister is getting married. They've set the date."
"Oh… congratulations?" James offered.
"She wrote me a letter." It was the first letter Petunia had sent to Lily since she left for Hogwarts (owl post, like everything else that was now part of Lily's life, was for freaks).
"That's nice of her?" He didn't really know what the right reaction was to this.
"Not exactly. Mum tried to make her have me as a bridesmaid."
"Doesn't she want that?" James was frowning now.
"Oh, she doesn't want me there at all," Lily forced a laugh.
"Well then, there's something wrong with her, not you," James said angrily. Lily shook her head.
"When we were little she was my best friend," she tried to explain "And she's marrying this… Well, the world's most boring man doesn't really do him justice – I ran off to Hogwarts for official freak training and she hates it – but Mum won't let her disinvite me completely, so I have to go. And I want to go, but I want her to want me to go, you know?"
She was horrified to realise that she was on the verge of tears in front of James Potter and hastily wiped at her eyes, hoping he wouldn't notice.
"She clearly doesn't know what she's missing out on, not having you around then," James said more gently, moving to put an arm around her shoulders. Lily leaned in (for the warmth, she told herself) and closed her eyes for a second.
"Everything's just a bit shit," she said quietly.
"We all have bad weeks," James said "Come on, you'll freeze to death up here. We should go play snap with the others, make your sister wait before you send her a rude letter telling her that you will absolutely be at her wedding and you can't wait to see her and her horrible fiancé. Bring a friend, really drive her nuts, you get plus ones to these sorts of things right?"
"That's not a bad idea," Lily gave a watery laugh as she carefully followed him down the slippery stairs.
"All of my ideas are excellent Evans, there's no need to sound so surprised."
And as unlikely as Lily was to ever tell him this, talking to James had definitely helped. Deal with one thing at a time, she told herself, and shoved it all to the back of her mind. For now, she was going to continue enjoying Christmas with her friends.
Saturday 31st December 1977
Remus didn't return for nearly a week. On the plus side, this gave Lily plenty of time and space to get her head straight without another person who would notice her being unusually quiet. On the other hand though, Lily spent half the time worrying – did this mean that something was wrong (or more wrong than usual)?
In the end, this was what made her mind up for her. Lily worried because she cared. She'd meant every word she said to Snape, and really nothing had actually changed just because she was aware of it now. The best thing to do was to say nothing. Telling him would only cause a panic (and there was a very real chance that James and Sirius would do something permanent to Snape that would get them expelled at best), and whatever probably quite stupid thing they might be doing on full moon nights was their business. Werewolf or not, Lily trusted Remus, and he wouldn't let them do anything that would end in them being killed, or worse.
"Madam Pomfrey wasn't happy with me staying out so long on Christmas Day and not resting properly," Remus told the other Marauders on the morning of his release "You'll have to tell me everything I missed, bed rest gets really boring when you only brought two books."
Before they could fill him in on the Christmas ball and the week following it (which mostly involved a lot of eating, sleeping, snowball fights and playing games), Lily, Marlene, Jenny and Eliza emerged from the girls' dormitories and joined them in the quiet common room.
"Ah, excellent, we're all here!" Sirius said excitably "Everyone ready for tonight?"
"What's tonight?" Eliza asked warily. The Secret Santa had gone well (even if they hadn't figured out who gave to who just yet), but as far as she was concerned that only decreased the odds of Sirius having another good idea so soon.
"New Year's Eve?"
"Yes, what about it?"
"It's obviously the perfect opportunity for a party! We've got Moony back, I've been reliably informed that the sixth years are planning to sneak up to the Astronomy Tower – pretend you didn't hear that, Head Girl – and the fifth years and below have all been persuaded to stay in their dorms, so we can have the common room to ourselves!" Sirius was practically bouncing with excitement by the time he finished.
"This is a terrible idea," Lily sighed "But I'm in."
"Excellent!" Sirius rubbed his hands together "Right gentlemen, we've got work to do. We might not make it to dinner, but I want you all down here at eight, okay?"
"How bad is this going to be?" Jenny wondered as they made their way down to lunch.
"I would say it depends on how much alcohol is involved," Eliza said "Shall we go outside after lunch?"
"As long as there isn't another snowball fight, I'll end up with pneumonia at this rate," Jenny complained.
There was inevitably another snowball fight. They ran into Patrick and some of his friends while they were walking around the grounds, and they wasted no time at all in starting a full out war, chasing one another across the lawns and ducking and dodging flying snow.
"Shit!" someone shouted as one of the Hufflepuffs accidentally skidded out onto the frozen lake and frantically slid their way back to solid ground while everyone else stood and laughed.
"Thanks for the help guys."
"The ice is like four feet thick, you weren't exactly in any danger." Marlene launched another snowball and they were off again.
Dinner that night was quieter than usual without the presence of any Marauders, leaving Lily with plenty of time to wonder when their near constant presence in her life one way or another had become the norm.
"It's strange with none of the guys around," Jenny said, mirroring Lily's thoughts.
"Quiet," Marlene observed.
"How did we cope like this for all those years?" Eliza asked dramatically.
"Yeah, thanks for managing not to argue with James for three months straight," Jenny teased Lily.
"I'm sure he gets some credit for finally growing up a bit."
"Aww, see, that was almost a compliment! Things are getting strange this year," Eliza laughed.
They were quickly distracted from the subject by the appearance of dessert, but Lily's thoughts lingered. She might have mostly come to terms with the drama with Snape (as much as she could in just one week anyway), but she'd tried her hardest to avoid the other revelation from the night of the ball. The problem was, once you have a thought there was no unthinking it, and once you acknowledged something like that it only got worse.
It was like some special kind of torture, Lily reflected, knowing that one year ago it would have been a mutual feeling but now that she well, very much did not hate him anymore, of course he'd moved on. Not that she could blame him; she'd made her lack of interest crystal clear over the years.
"Alright there Lily?" Jenny nudged her, pulling her back to the present.
"Hmm? Oh, fine, just thinking." She returned to the conversation, forcing herself to pay attention again.
"If you mention homework right now Elizabeth I swear," Marlene was saying.
"I'll mention it for her then, we really should get the rest of our homework done next week before we're back in classes and getting more of it," Lily said.
The tables cleared of plates, goblets and cutlery, reminding them of the time, and they were among the last to leave the room. The corridors and staircases echoed with their chatter and laughter as they made their way back up to the girls' dormitory (the common room was still suspiciously empty of both the Marauders and anyone else – just what had Sirius done to keep everyone away, anyway?).
"What do you even wear to a last minute New Year's Eve party thrown by Sirius Black?" Jenny asked, throwing open the doors to her wardrobe.
"I wasn't really planning on changing," Marlene shrugged.
"I guess pyjamas aren't acceptable then?" Lily was lying on her bed, trying to decide if she was actually awake enough to make it to midnight.
"You're al terrible," Jenny informed them.
"What did I do?" Eliza asked, returning from the bathroom.
"You weren't here to back me up!"
"Hadn't we better head down soon anyway, it's nearly eight," Marlene said, causing everyone to check the time.
The Marauders had returned at some point during the forty minutes or so that they'd been upstairs, the furniture had rearranged so that a rough circle of sofas and soft armchairs sat in front of the fire, and someone had extinguished the chandelier so that all of the light came from the fireplace and the candles on the walls, but otherwise the common room was untouched. It looked much more casual than any other Marauders party Lily had witnessed over the years (usually post Quidditch victories). Assorted snacks, a crate of Butterbeer and several bottles of Firewhiskey sat on the floor in the middle of the circle.
Sirius looked up from where he was lounging in one of the armchairs, limbs hanging over the arms, and grinned when he spotted them coming down the spiral staircase.
"Ladies! Right on time, take a seat!"
Marlene claimed the remaining armchair, while Eliza and Jenny sat on the smaller sofa.
"Budge up Prongs." Remus shoved James upright so that Lily could join them on their sofa.
"So, I've gathered you all here this evening," Sirius paused for dramatic effect "The final night of nineteen seventy seven!" another pause "To celebrate in the only way appropriate!"
"Get on with it!" Jenny and Eliza shouted. Sirius scowled.
"We're going to play questionable drinking games and then get drunk enough that we can pass off all the bad decisions we already made as alcohol induced," Remus interjected before Sirius could continue.
"Don't say it like that Moony, have some enthusiasm!" Sirius grinned "Shall we start with spin the bottle?"
"… Can we maybe be a bit less sober when we do that one?" Marlene said "Also, don't we need an empty bottle first?"
"Excellent point, get drinking!"
"Ignore him," James rolled his eyes "Have a Butterbeer and calm down Padfoot, we're having a nice evening."
Lily realised her mistake in seating choice seconds later when James reached past her for a bottle of Butterbeer, bare arm brushing against hers.
They chatted aimlessly for a while, telling Remus stupid stories of the things that had happened while he was gone.
"Sirius nearly fell out of that big tree down by the lake during a snowball fight, it was spectacular," James said gleefully "He was sitting on this branch summoning snow to throw, then Lily froze the snow underneath him solid and he slid straight round, he was hanging off upside down for age!"
"Okay, okay, it wasn't that funny!" Sirius folded his arms as the others howled with laughter at the memory.
"Please tell me that one of you took photos," Remus said.
"There are no photos!" Sirius blurted out incriminatingly fast "Nope, none."
"I'll show you later," Lily whispered, smiling innocently at Sirius.
"I can't believe it's nearly the year we graduate," Jenny said when she was halfway through her own Butterbeer "Next New Year's we'll all be out in the world doing who knows what."
"Right, if we're getting to painful premature nostalgia then it's actually time for drinking games," Sirius cut in before anyone else could reply "Anyone else for Firewhiskey?"
"Fine," Marlene relented "But we're still not starting with spin the bottle!"
"Everyone get a drink then, Never Have I Ever to start, if her Highness doesn't have any objections to that?"
Marlene stuck her tongue out and reached for a glass and the bottle of Firewhiskey, passing it on around the circle.
"First the rules! I'm guessing I don't need to explain how to play this one but needless to say nothing leaves this room. We aren't assholes," Sirius said seriously "Not usually, anyway." Lily snorted.
"So we drink if we haven't done it right?" Peter asked anxiously. There was a collective groan from the room.
"Other way around Wormtail, drink if you have done the thing," James sighed.
"Eliza, start us off?" Sirius pointed across the circle.
"Me? Umm… Never have I ever, I don't know, broken a bone?"
"So now you drink, Pete," Remus added, taking a sip from his own glass.
"Never have I ever cheated on a test," Jenny said once they were done drinking. All of the Marauders drank except for Remus.
"Let's get the obvious out of the way here," said Sirius "Never have I ever kissed anyone, except I have." Predictably, or so Lily thought, everyone drank. Peter's eyes went wide when he spotted Remus drinking.
"Who'd you kiss?!" he exclaimed. Remus went slightly red.
"We're not playing truth or dare," he pointed out ("Yet," Sirius muttered) "Never have I ever stayed up all night."
"Never have I ever had a crush on someone in this room." Lily nearly choked on the crisps she'd been eating, and Marlene started laughing when she was the only person in the room not to drink. "Seriously? Our friend group is getting weirdly incestuous." Everyone else was pointedly not making eye contact with anyone (except Sirius, who seemed far too relaxed about the whole thing).
Within another few rounds Sirius and Marlene were refilling their glasses.
"Okay, okay, following up on my last point… Never have I ever kissed anyone here," Marlene said smugly. Remus took a drink surreptitiously, hoping that no one would notice, but fortunately most were distracted by Jenny and Eliza drinking.
"Never have I ever been caught having sex in a public place," Jenny said quickly.
"Is the Astronomy Tower really public though?" Marlene asked, unashamed, and then drank anyway.
"Never have I ever had a crush on a teacher," Lily called, reaching for more food.
"Well, have you seen Professor McGonagall?" Sirius mock fanned himself as they laughed.
"Right, I need the bathroom," Marlene stood twenty minutes later, when some people were starting to head towards really quite tipsy.
"I think we've pretty much exhausted Never Have I Ever anyway," James said, pouring himself another glass of Firewhiskey "Lily?"
"Hmm? Oh, thanks." She held her glass out.
"Can we break out the cake?" Remus was eying a box in the middle of the food pile.
"There's cake?" Eliza made grabby hands for the box.
"Of course there's cake, Moony is here. Although he's already down a glass of Firewhiskey, so maybe he isn't," Sirius joked. Remus stuck his tongue out.
"Seems just like Remus to me," Lily muttered, receiving an elbow to the ribs from her right in response.
"What? What was that Lily?" Sirius leaned forward in his seat, grinning widely.
"Nothing, she didn't say anything!" Remus said quickly.
"You know what, I think it's time for truth or dare, if you lot are done with cake," Sirius suggested "I'll start shall I, Lily, truth or dare?"
"Why me, you could just ask Remus."
"This is far more fun, and you're more likely to actually say truth. Now, truth or dare?"
"Fair enough, truth," Lily said, and Remus groaned.
"Traitor."
"What do you mean, 'seems like Remus to you'?"
"That can't be a proper truth," Remus protested. Everyone ignored him.
"So the first Slug Club dinner after we were both seventeen," Lily began "Remus remembered that we're allowed wine now," Remus was hiding his face in his hands "We thought it might make things more interesting… Except, it wasn't a very exciting meal… and he drank a bottle or so on his own."
"It was not a whole bottle!"
"True, it was closer to one and a half, I was being nice," Lily smirked "And he was insisting that he wasn't drunk every time I tried to get him to leave."
"You weren't that sober yourself…"
"So then Professor Slughorn tried to start a conversation with him, and it turned into an argument over why anyone would want crystallised pineapple when there's chocolate in the world," Everyone was laughing at the idea of a drunken Remus defending his love for chocolate "And I thought that was the peak of the evening, but then when we did leave," Lily was nearly crying with laughter as she tried to speak "He couldn't even walk in a straight line, we got lost three times on the way from the dungeons to Gryffindor Tower, and we spent half an hour on one staircase because he fell in a trick step and got stuck!"
"You got drunk and you didn't even tell us?!" James said in surprise.
"Yes, alright, moving on, your turn Lily," Remus said.
"Umm, Sirius, truth or dare?"
"Dare of course!"
"What time is it, half nine? Okay, go out into the corridors and declare your love to the first person you find – even if it's a teacher."
"No problemo Evans, who'll be my witness?" Sirius jumped up.
"Oh I need to see this," Eliza got to her feet.
"Chuck us the Firewhiskey Marlene," James said once they'd gone, and they all topped off their glasses again.
"How long do you reckon they'll be?" she asked.
"Depends how many people are around I guess, hope it's not too long anyway."
"I've had a brilliant idea!" Sirius shouted as he climbed back through the portrait hole into the common room.
"He also got down on one knee and told a terrified looking fourth year that he loved her and needed her in his life," Eliza followed him through, still laughing.
"Yes, yes, dare complete, but my idea – give me an empty bottle," Sirius spun the bottle "James! Truth or dare?"
"That's your great idea? Really? Anyway, truth, I can't be bothered with moving right now," James said. And he did seem quite comfortable where he was, one arm lying along the back of the sofa behind Lily, who wasn't at all aware of this fact. Not a bit. And her face was red because it was really warm in here.
"Hurry up Sirius, before midnight would be nice," Marlene said when Sirius didn't respond for a minute.
"It's hard to think of good truths! I need something that I don't know the answer to yet…" His eyes lit up suddenly "Yes! James… When you and Lily made that Amortentia that Slughorn was gushing over," James groaned as he saw where this was going "What did you smell? And don't try telling us that you didn't take a sniff."
"Broom polish, apples, and I don't actually know what the other thing is, I swear," he said, colour rising on his cheeks as he grabbed for the empty Butterbeer bottle "Is this how we're going it now then?"
"Yep, spin away," Sirius waved a hand in the vague direction of the bottle.
"Marlene, truth or dare?"
"Fuck it, dare."
James leant over to confer with Sirius for a moment.
"Strip down to your underwear and go all the way to the library and back. Run or walk, your choice," he said finally.
"Alright," Marlene shrugged, removing her clothes without a hint of embarrassment and casually walking out of the room. Lily jumped to her feet to follow after her as a witness (and to get a few minutes with more than a couple of inches between her and James). She was definitely feeling the effects of a few glasses of Firewhiskey as she carefully climbed through the portrait hole.
"Don't suppose you fancy running, it's pretty cold out here," Marlene asked as soon as the Fat Lady's portrait swung shut behind them. Lily groaned.
"Not really, but I'll vouch for you?"
"They'll never believe you did it that fast anyway, never mind," she sighed.
"We can speed walk at least?"
"I can't believe you've been holding out on us all about drunk Remus for so long though!" Marlene said after a minute or two of silent walking.
"I promised I wouldn't tell anyone," Lily laughed "This is the first opportunity I've had to get it out! The more important question is, do we call Eliza and Jenny on some of the stuff they drank to if we get the chance?"
"Sirius may beat us to it," Marlene pointed out "But I really want to know who those two kissed out of the eight of us, since we can rule most of them out pretty fast."
"It wasn't me obviously, neither of us drank… Didn't they go to a party with the Marauders in third or fourth year, it could have been any of them."
"Peter didn't drink… James maybe, or Sirius… Yeah, we've just got to ask them really, haven't we?"
They'd made it to the library by this point, and they were just about to turn back when they found themselves face to face with Will and a few other Ravenclaw seventh years just leaving. None of them seemed to know quite where to look when faced with Marlene wearing only matching scarlet underwear and looking utterly unrepentant.
"Hey," Lily said, breaking the awkward silence.
"Hey… having a good New Year's then?" Will kept his eyes fixed on Lily.
"You could say that. You?"
"Not half as interesting as yours by the looks of it."
"Okay, pleasantries out of the way, nice seeing you again Will, can we go now, it's freezing out here," Marlene said impatiently.
"See you!" Lily waved over her shoulder as she followed Marlene to Gryffindor Tower.
"Right, give me that bottle," Marlene said as they took the now empty spaces on the sofa that had been Eliza's and Jenny's. Her smile widened as the bottle came to a stop. "Jenny, truth or dare?"
"Truth, I guess."
"Excellent. Who in this room have you kissed?" she said promptly. Jenny became very interested in her knees all of a sudden."
"Eliza," she said without looking up. There were several raised eyebrows.
"When did this happen?!"
"You've had your question Marley, piss off," Jenny stuck her tongue out.
"Aww, come on, you can't leave us hanging like that!"
"Shouldn't have asked then should you," Jenny reached for the bottle and spun while Marlene muttered something about Lily wanting to know as well.
"Well then, Lily, truth or dare," Jenny smirked.
"Truth," Lily said warily.
"I'll continue Marlene's theme, who did you have a crush on in this room?"
There was a heart stopping moment where Lily thought that she somehow knew about James, even though Lily herself had only realised it a week or so before, but then she realised what Jenny was getting at and scowled.
"You already know the answer to this!"
"They don't thought," Jenny said innocently. James was examining the contents of his half empty glass of Firewhiskey intently.
"Fine, Remus, it was in fifth year or something, bottle please."
Remus went nearly as red as Lily and Jenny handed the bottle over from her position in the armchair next to Lily's seat.
"Sirius, truth or dare?"
"Dare – can people stop saying truth to everything, we're nosy," said Marlene.
"Dares are harder to come up with too… I dare you to sing everything you say for ten minutes," Lily said after a pause to think. Several people groaned.
"You're going to regret this," James sighed. Sirius span, and the game continued.
"Wormtail, truth or daaaaaaare?" Sirius sang out in a high pitched falsetto, making everyone wince.
"Dare?" Peter squeaked, sounding like he regretted it already.
"Ask the first person you find on a date, you aren't allowed to tell them it's a dare."
Lily wasn't really sure you could call that singing, and was already regretting making this dare last ten minutes.
Shortly after Sirius' time was up (just after he'd stood on a table and belted out one of his favourite songs, taking the dare far beyond what was asked) Peter scrambled back through the portrait hole looking flustered.
"She said yes!" he said helplessly "I don't even know her name, what am I going to do?!"
The others all fell about laughing, Sirius swaying dangerously from his position on the table until Remus offered him a hand down.
"Eliza, truth or dare?"
Eliza hesitated for a moment before saying truth.
"Pete, if you don't ask her about Jenny I will hex you into next week," Marlene said pleasantly.
"What happened between you and Jenny?" he asked, glancing nervously over at Marlene. Eliza glared at him.
"Threats are cheating Marley!"
Marlene shrugged.
"You still have to answer the question."
"Fine. You remember the 'mystery guy' in fifth year?" The girls all nodded, while the Marauders looked thoroughly confused. "There was no guy… It was just Jenny, we invented the guy to keep it quiet because you lot kept assuming."
"Wait, so you two properly dated and didn't tell any of us?" Marlene looked offended.
"Not for long," Jenny said. Neither of them seemed all that bothered about it now that it was out in the open. "It wasn't anything very serious, we make better friends as it turns out."
"Anyway," Eliza retrieved the bottle "Remus, truth or dare?" Sirius stared at him pointedly.
"It's not like I've done a truth yet either Sirius, stop looking at me like that – fine, dare."
"Spin the bottle, seven minutes in heaven with whoever it lands on."
"You realise that could be you, right?"
"Balls. Except me?"
"Too late to change it now, pass the bottle over."
Several people laughed when it landed on Sirius (including Lily, who gave Remus a knowing look as they awkwardly stood to go upstairs).
It was quiet and dark once the door to the seventh year boys' dormitory swung shut behind them, cutting out the noise of other New Year's celebrations along the staircase and their friends in the common room. Remus reached for his wand to light the room, but Sirius caught his hand, stopping him.
"So," Remus said, looking down at his feet "What now?"
"I'm sure you know the rules of seven minute in heaven Moony."
"You know what I mean."
"Hmm. Well, I distinctly remember us going on a date – sorry, not going on a date – a few weeks back," Sirius said, stepping closer.
"And?"
"And I never got to do this."
The kiss was brief, just a light brush of his lips against Remus' before he pulled away a little.
"Smooth," Remus snorted.
"Wow fuck you," Sirius laughed, and then abruptly stopped as Remus took a step closer, and another, until Sirius' back was pressed to the door.
"Maybe another time," Remus murmured, and kissed him properly. A significant portion of Sirius' brain (virtually everything that was left after the many glasses of Firewhiskey) gave up on logical thought. There was nothing particularly gentle about this kiss, and one of Sirius' hands found its way into Remus' hair while the other slid down his back, feeling the warmth of his skin burning through the thin shirt. He gasped, surfacing for air as one of Remus' legs slid between his own, and fucking hell this could be embarrassing but that thought was gone almost as soon as it arrived because they were kissing again and Sirius felt like he was on fire (although, again, Firewhiskey).
A shark knock right by Sirius' left ear made them both freeze, carefully detangling themselves.
"Seven minutes are up, make yourselves presentable and get back down here," Lily's voice came through the door, followed by receding footsteps.
"That was a surprisingly well behaved reminder," Sirius observed as he reached for his comb and desperately tried to fix his hair. Their friends had been known to end these kinds of games by just bursting straight into the room unannounced. Remus' faint blush deepened.
"Oh, um, Lily maybe knows, well, everything?"
Sirius stared at him.
"You told her we went on a date?" he said, smile growing.
"I told her we didn't go on a date, yes. Come on, we'd better get back down before it's too suspicious."
They took their seats and Remus span again.
"Marlene, truth or dare?"
By half past eleven there had been another nearly naked trip out of Gryffindor common room, Remus had swapped clothes with Lily and had to be frequently reminded to keep his legs shut in a skirt, and there'd been an enlightening showcase of the contents of Jenny's underwear drawer as modelled by Sirius Black (over his clothes, fortunately).
"James, truth or dare?" Peter asked.
"Dare."
Sirius grinned, shaking the can of whipped cream that Peter had retrieved on his last dare menacingly, and leant across Remus to not very discreetly whisper in Peter's ear, nearly falling into Remus' lap as he did.
"I dare you to – what?" Peter turned to Sirius again.
"Wormy dares you to lick cream off of…" Sirius glanced around the circle "Eliza."
"Why me?" Eliza said resignedly.
"Why not," Sirius said "Now lie back, shirt up."
"Yeah, no, you didn't say where, you can have an arm or something," she protested, rolling up a sleeve. Sirius muttered under his breath but gave in and squirted a shaky line down her forearm. James pulled a face, but licked the cream off as instructed. Lily looked away, shifting uncomfortably, as thoughts of better uses for James' tongue came into her mind and wow she was definitely drunker than she thought.
"You alright Lily?" Marlene asked, looking up at her as she stood.
"Yeah, bathroom," Lily picked her way across the circle and up the stairs to the girls' toilet where she cracked open the window for some air and sat on the closed toilet lid.
"I'm so fucked," she said to herself after a few moments.
IT seemed that they'd given up on truth or dare by the time she returned to the common room. The more sensible people were drinking water, and Remus (still wearing Lily's skirt and shirt) was sitting on the floor in front of the radio with his wand, looking for the right station.
"Five minutes to go," Marlene said as Lily sat back down on the sofa.
"I have champagne!" Sirius announced, emerging from the boys' dorm with two bottles tucked under his arm "I've been reliably informed that Muggles drink this for New Year's." (Sirius liked lots of Muggle things such as motorbikes, some genuinely and some to irritate his family, but Muggle alcohol probably topped the list).
It took a few attempts before someone conjured up a set of glasses that had a passing resemblance to champagne flutes, and by the time Sirius had poured eight glasses it was only a minute to midnight. They all stood around the radio, leaning against one another as they waited for the countdown to start.
"TEN!"
The shouting came from the radio, the group in the common room and the other Gryffindors, echoing down the stairs and making it sound as though there were far more than eight of them in the room.
"NINE! EIGHT! SEVEN!"
Lily caught James' eye across the circle and he grinned at her. She smiled back, clutching her glass in suddenly sweaty hands as she remembered that people usually kissed at midnight. Then again, no one here was dating – well, mostly – so that was a fairly stupid thing to be thinking about right now.
"SIX! FIVE! FOUR!"
Sirius and Remus were standing opposite one another and seemed to be having a conversation made entirely of pointed looks and raised eyebrows.
"THREE! TWO! ONE! HAPPY NEW YEAR!"
"Oh fuck it," Sirius moved forwards and grabbed Remus by the hand, pulling him into the middle of the circle and kissing him hard. Peter coughed and spluttered as his champagne went down the wrong way, and there was a moment of shocked silence broken by Marlene wolf whistling loudly and then shouting "Get a room!", and then everyone spoke at once.
"Excellent idea Marlene," Sirius grinned as he downed his glass of champagne, not taking his eyes off Remus "Maybe we will." James made a strangled noise.
"We share that room!"
"Is anyone going to explain what's going on?" Jenny asked.
"It's about time," Lily said, taking a seat on one of the sofas.
"Why are you not surprised by this?" said Eliza, eyes narrowing.
"They've been secretly dating for months!" James pointed at Sirius and Remus who were still holding hands and smiling and maybe blushing a bit, and just generally being much cuter than they had any right to be.
"How do you know?!" Sirius demanded.
"Also, we haven't exactly been dating…"
"I saw you two kissing after the Quidditch match!"
"I feel like someone should tell this from the beginning," Marlene suggested "Since some of us seem to know a lot more than the rest of us."
"Can it wait until we're all sober and properly awake?" Remus yawned, pulling Sirius down onto the sofa with him. The others considered this for a moment.
"Fine," Marlene decided "So… It's nineteen seventy eight now."
By the time the clock reached one Jenny, Eliza and Peter had all fallen asleep. Sirius was talking to Marlene and James, one arm around Remus who was talking quietly to Lily, seemingly on the verge of falling asleep himself.
"Come on you," Sirius nudged him "We should go to sleep."
Marlene carefully shook Jenny and Eliza awake while Sirius woke Peter, and they all stumbled off up the stairs to their dormitories. Lily grabbed an empty bag and started picking up empty bottles and bits of rubbish from the floor and chair cushions, and then nearly jumped a mile when she turned and found herself face to face with James.
"Aren't you going to bed?"
"Aren't you?" he pointed towards the bag in her hand "You really don't have to do that."
Lily just nodded and returned to collecting bottles. She heard James sigh, and then the bag was being taken from her and gentle hands pushed her towards the spiral stairs.
"Come on, up you go… Good night Lily."
"Night James," she muttered sleepily. All that she could think was that it wasn't fair. He wasn't allowed to start being all nice and considerate and attractive now that he wasn't interested anymore.
She just about managed to strip off her clothes – well, Remus' technically – and put on her pyjamas before she fell into bed, unconscious almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
A/N: This chapter was either going to be uploaded a day late or a day early (I'm going to be separated from my laptop for a few days), so I picked early! Normal Sunday posting resumes next week :)