Chapter Ten: The Punk Disco Debate
Lily had decided it was best to get this break up over and done with. Three days after Kenneth's trip to the hospital was, she decided, enough time for him to recover to the point that she no longer felt guilty for ending things with him. To further alleviate her guilt, she reminded herself that Kenneth was almost certainly as in love with her as she was with him, which was not at all.
Her guilt reappeared almost as soon as Kenneth's mother answered the front door.
"Oh, hello" greeted Rita Pritchard, giving Lily the usual look of disdain.
Rita did not think Lily to be a good match for her son, seemingly based solely on the fact that she didn't to have ginger grandchildren.
This thought was what caused the sudden rise of guilt within Lily. She remembered when Rita had voiced this fear of ginger grandchildren over dinner, after which Kenneth and her had decided that if they did have a ginger child they'd name it Rita.
Even at the time she'd known that she'd never give Kenneth the ginger children his mother so desperately did not want.
"Kenneth's got a visitor at the moment," said Rita. "Would you like to wait in the sitting room?"
"If that's alright?"
Unenthusiastically, Rita moved aside to let Lily enter the house. She then prepared Lily a cup of tea with an equal lack enthusiasm and a good deal of tutting.
Once she gave Lily the tea, Rita disappeared to trim the roses in the garden. Lily could not say that she missed the company.
At least she could feel grateful that she wouldn't have to deal with Kenneth's mother anymore after that day.
Just as she began to wonder how long she would have to wait for Kenneth's other visitor to leave, she heard a creaking on the stairs. Assuming it was the mysterious visitor leaving, Lily went back into the hallway only to find James Potter.
"James," she cried in shock.
"Lily," he replied, equally shocked.
(Fifteen minutes earlier)
"Kenneth, you've got a friend here to see you," Rita called through her son's door.
Having expected Stebbins or Jones to walk into his bedroom, Kenneth remained in the position of lying on his bed in a t-shirt with several holes in and his oldest pair of underwear. As James Potter entered the room, Kenneth started and pulled a blanket over himself. He would have to remind his mother not to use the word friend so liberally.
The way that James' eyes widened made Kenneth fear that James was judging his greying underpants. Then he realised that James was probably in shock over the huge bruise on Kenneth's right thigh.
"You doing okay?" asked James awkwardly, leaning against the closed door so as not to intrude too much in the room.
"I'm fine," said Kenneth.
He wanted to ask what on earth James was doing there, but there was no way could imagine asking that question without it coming off as confrontational so he waited for James to speak once more.
"In light of recent events," James began, still by the doorway, speaking as formally as possible, "I feel as though it is my duty to inform you that Aniseed Twists are not nice. I lied to you. They are awful. They're actually the worst thing I've ever tasted and once I drank beer with piss in it."
"Why would you drink piss?"
"That's not important," said James, waving a hand dismissively, "The point is that you should never eat Aniseed Twists."
"Then why did you tell me to buy then?" asked Kenneth with a frown.
"Because I thought it would be funny. But then you… well, standing up to the Richies like that was pretty cool. Even if we did get the shit kicked out of us." James let out a breathy laugh. "But anyway, after what you did I felt kind of bad about the Aniseed Twist thing."
Kenneth smiled and said, "Thanks for letting me know."
Now that James had said what he had come to say, he was filled with the sudden desire to leave as quickly as possible in order to avoid any further awkwardness. Bidding Kenneth a goodbye, he left the room and made his way downstairs.
However, his hopes of avoiding awkwardness were dashed when he heard his name.
"James," said a female voice.
James' head snapped up and he saw a very confused Lily Evans staring at him. Without thinking, he ruffled his hair with his right hand.
"Lily," he replied. Still standing on the bottom step of the stairs, James leaned over the bannister and asked, "How are you?"
"I'm alright. You okay?"
"Yeah."
"Look, I don't want to be rude but how come you're here?" said Lily.
"I had business with your boyfriend."
"Getting him beaten up again?"
James did not laugh.
"Sorry," said Lily quickly. "I didn't mean that. I'm just nervous."
"Why are you nervous?"
"Never you mind," she said.
Lily then looked at him meaningfully. He thought for a split second she might be gazing deeply into his eyes and had become spellbound by their hazel glory. Quickly, he realised that she was doing nothing of the sort and was silently indicating that he should move out of the way so that she could go upstairs to her boyfriend's bedroom.
As she passed him, he noticed that she was anxiously wiping the palms of her hands on her tights. This filled James with the overwhelming urge to comfort her and tell her there was nothing to worry about.
In that moment he thought he must be completely in love with her.
As she disappeared from sight, James felt that perhaps he should leave.
After breaking things off with Kenneth, Lily felt no need to talk about it anymore. Mary agreed wholeheartedly, but Dorcas did not believe that it was healthy to move on so quickly. At least not without talking the whole break up for a few hours.
The next day the three girls were sitting in the school canteen, and Dorcas was trying to steer the conversation towards Kenneth.
"Lily, are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" she pestered.
Lily sighed, "Cas, why would I lie to you? Now can we please just talk about something else?"
"I think my brother is failing out of university," said Mary.
"Really? Derek?" asked Lily.
"Yeah, he's really stupid so I'm not surprised,"
"Do you think he cried?" mused Dorcas.
"Who? Derek?" asked Lily, knowing full well who Dorcas was referring to.
"No, I meant Kenneth," said Dorcas, confirming Lily's fears.
And with that, the change in conversation had failed.
Lily groaned, "Cas, can't we talk about your boy problems instead?"
"But I don't have any!" Dorcas whined. "Ever since Hestia and Fabian had that fight over dinner, I've realised that I don't really want a boyfriend."
"So let's just not talk about boys," suggested Mary.
"But that's boring," said Dorcas, picking at her sandwich crusts moodily.
"Cas, why don't we talk about maybe writing an article on the farm for your next newsletter?" said Lily. "We should have done it last month as well."
"I didn't even write one last month though, did I?" said Dorcas wistfully. "All because I want distracted by boys. Okay!" She slammed her hand down onto the table causing two girls from the next table to turn and gawk. "No more boy drama. From here on out I will concentrate on more important things."
"Me too," said Lily. "I can't be tied down by a boyfriend anyway. I've got stuff to do."
"So what should we talk about?" asked Dorcas, looking at Mary for some guidance.
"Well," said Mary, smiling. "Now that we've sworn off romance conversation, maybe I can get a word in?"
"Go ahead, Mare."
"Well, for starters, have you heard that Caradoc's moved back into the Dearborn house?"
Mary then took a gleeful bite of her apple and waited for a response.
As lunch neared its end, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were left thinking that James was not going to show up to Chess Club that day.
By the time James did arrive, an argument had ensued between the three boys.
"Sirius, I think you need to calm down," said Remus. "We're gonna have to play disco music, okay?"
"Some disco is good anyway," said Peter. Sirius shot him a look that could kill. "Not all disco," he added quickly. "Not even most. Just some."
"All disco is evil," snapped Sirius, as though that settled the matter.
Remus gave Peter a small nod before beginning to whistle 'The Hustle'. With a smile, Peter joined in.
"I hate you both," said Sirius.
Just then a third party joined in the whistling: James had entered the room.
"What's going on? Why are we Hustling?" asked James, giving a small shimmy.
"We're trying to figure out what music we'll need for the disco," explained Peter. "Sirius doesn't want any disco music."
"Yeah disco music at a disco would be weird," mocked James. "Out of curiosity, Sirius, what music did you think would be better suited for a disco?"
"Punk," Remus answered for him.
"Don't pretend like a punk disco wouldn't be fucking cool!" cried Sirius defensively.
"Something tells me people are gonna want us to play Dancing Queen," said James.
Sirius looked as though he was going to raise an argument against Dancing Queen, but James made a swift change in conversation before the debate could continue any further.
"Look," said James, "Enough of this music nonsense. I've got a plan to get the Richies back for what they did to me and my glasses." He thought for a moment before adding, "And Kenneth."
"What's the plan?" asked Peter nervously.
James turned and directed his next comment at Sirius, "You're not going to like it."
"Why not?" said Sirius.
"Does it involve ABBA music?" teased Remus.
"It involves going to one of those dinner parties you're always avoiding," said James, wincing before Sirius could even respond.
However, the anger James expected did not come. He did not even attempt to argue. In fact, Sirius was smiling.
"Do I get to spoil the dinner party?" asked Sirius, grinning like a mad man.
"Of course," said James.
"By the way, where have you been?" said Remus.
"I was rescuing a child from the roof of the church."
"Really?" said Peter, eyes widening.
"No, I had detention," James admitted. "Anyway, let's talk about just how much disco we'll need to play at this disco. I'm thinking mostly ABBA. What do you think, Sirius?"
With a good six school years between them, Dorcas Meadowes could not remember much about Caradoc Dearborn. She knew that his family were incredibly wealthy and powerful, that the Dearborn's had bought an house in the poshest road in Sowsworth, inhabited it for three years, and then disappeared without so much as a goodbye.
This had given the Dearborn family an unusual air of mystery, and the empty house in the middle of Hangleton road had been subject to much gossip for six and a half years. The empty house was all Dorcas really recalled about the Dearborns. It was all most people remembered.
Dorcas had made her way up the hill and climbed over the gate to Hangleton road. Walking past many mansions, she eventually found the Dearborn house. It was a god-awful mock Tudor monstrosity, but with the front lawn left to grow wild it almost looked cool. She made her way up the path, weeds brushing her ankles, and knocked on the front door. It took Caradoc three minutes to answer the door and it took Dorcas a further thirty seconds to imagine what her signature would look like if her name were 'Mrs. Dorcas Dearborn'.
Caradoc, despite being six years her senior, could only have been an inch taller than Dorcas. His hair was dark, his suit was brown, and his smile was warm. That was all she registered in those thirty seconds and still she was worrying about the possibility of changing her last name to Dearborn having to deal with the unfortunate alliteration.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"Caradoc?"
"Yes, that's me," he said.
"Hi," said Dorcas breathlessly, deciding his face was quite beautiful. "Sorry, my name is Dorcas Meadowes. Would it be okay if I interviewed you for my newsletter?"
"That depends. What would you like to ask me?"
"What is your honest opinion of the Prewett farm business?"
He opened his mouth, closed it again, and frowned.
"I'm not sure I know what you're talking about," he said. "I'm not exactly up to date on village gossip. I haven't actually lived here for six years."
"Well, can I explain the situation to you?"
"Alright," he allowed. "Come inside and I'll make us some tea."
"Okay," she said, her blue eyes lighting up.
In the next thirty minutes, Dorcas learnt that, in 1960, Caradoc's father had purchased a rather successful company which designed logos. After this, he had relocated his family to a new house in Richmond so he could be close to his work. The house in Sowsworth had been left behind, to be sold at a later date. This was why Caradoc had come back. His father had given the property to Caradoc for his twenty-first birthday, saying that he could do whatever he wished with it.
Caradoc wished to sell it as quickly as possible. After this, he would move back to London and vow to never again go farther west than Surrey.
Due to his general indifference towards Sowsworth, Caradoc declined providing any assistance in saving the Prewett farm. He did, however, allow Dorcas the right to quote him as "hoping that the Prewetts would find a way to keep their farm," even if he had nothing to do with it.
"Will that be all?" he asked.
The two were seated in his sitting room, on two very dusty arm chairs. The tea had turned cold a while ago.
"Unless you want to tell me anything else?" said Dorcas hopefully.
"I think that'll do for today."
Caradoc stood, indicating that Dorcas should do the same. He showed her the door and shook her hand in parting.
As Dorcas made her way back down the hill to the village, she found that Love Will Keep Us Together had somehow got stuck in her head. She hummed the tune for the rest of the day.
Sirius Black had not attended a single dinner party since the age of seven. This was the age that Angie Potter had seen the lonely little boy through her living room window, hitting an oak tree with a cricket bat. She asked if he'd like to stay for dinner. Angie had introduced him to the various elderly members of the community, and they had taken quite a liking to Sirius. He had not eaten dinner with his family since then, eating instead with the handful of elderly people down in the village who had either never had children or had children who were grown up and far away. Sirius did not mind acting in the role of son every evening in the slightest.
Until James Potter had come to Sowsworth, these old women and men were the closest things to friends Sirius had ever had. But now, Sirius had friends. He had three friends who he liked more than he could have ever imagined, and it was because of these three friends that he was breaking the rule he had always considered unbreakable: he was going to a dinner party with the Richies.
Still, at least he had Peter to keep him company.
They had snuck into the kitchen of the Rosier's house almost as soon as the party had begun, avoiding any possible conversation with the Richies. It was in the kitchen that Sirius and Peter brought James' master plan to life.
"Have you got the bottle?" asked Sirius.
Grimacing, Peter held up the plastic bottle of yellow liquid.
Sirius found the Babycham glasses in a cabinet, and set out a dozen on a tray. The Babycham itself was in a crate in the pantry.
Before Peter could pour a little of the contents of the plastic bottle into each glass, Sirius reminded him, "not too much, yeah? We don't want them to be able to tell before they drink it."
"I'm not stupid," snapped Peter.
Afterwards, they topped up each glass with the Babycham itself.
"Right, now you hand these out to the Richies. Not the adults though, we don't want to get in too much trouble," ordered Sirius.
"No," said Peter defiantly. "You can't keep telling me what to do."
"Look, Pete, I realise you're trying to stand up for yourself and I'm very proud of you and all that rubbish, but you really do need to be the one to hand out the drinks."
"Why?"
"Don't you think it will look a little suspicious if I'm being at all helpful?" reasoned Sirius.
"Good point," said Peter.
Unable to attend the dinner party without arousing too much suspicion, James and Remus decided to wait for Sirius and Peter at James' house. As they waited, Remus was drawing up posters advertising the disco using James' bedroom floor as a table.
"You're pretty good at drawing," said James, looking over the posters Remus had already finished.
The pictures weren't exactly intricate but Remus could still draw a better disco ball than James could.
"Well, when you can't play football with the other boys, you have to find other stuff to entertain you," said Remus, writing the ticket price at the bottom of one of the posters.
"Hey, how accurate would you be able to draw a naked woman?"
Remus considered James' question for a good minute, before replying, "Not accurate enough."
"Fair enough," James sighed.
He then reached for the pack of crayons on the bed and began to colour in the posters Remus had finished drawing.
"Hey, James, can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"It's about your master plan."
James rolled his eyes and said, "I've already told you how I got the idea."
"Yeah, I know. You once drank a pint of beer which was half piss."
"And it was fucking disgusting so obviously the perfect revenge against the Richies is to get them to drink my piss."
"But I still have a question."
"Which is?"
"Why did you drink the whole pint?" asked Remus.
James shrugged, tossing the purple crayon aside and grabbing a green one.
"I suppose," said James slowly. "It was a pride thing."
"How does that save your pride?"
"Because if I'd spat it out or something it would've been a sign of weakness," James explained. "I had to down the whole thing otherwise he'd have won."
Remus pulled a face of disgust.
"James, you drank his piss. I'm pretty sure that means he won."
Janine sorely wished that her political views were shared by more pleasant people. If she hadn't been so firm in her love of capitalism, she would never have abandoned Lily, Dorcas, and Mary. Polly was lovely and all that, but she rarely disagreed with anything Janine had to say, and that could be tiresome.
Janine's mother had allowed her to invite Polly to the dinner party that night because Polly could fit into one of Janine's old, expensive dresses, and she'd keep quiet. Dorcas and Lily would have laughed loudly and mocked everything. Not mention that they'd have worn cheap clothes and lipstick. Mary would have sat there, scowling at the extravagance, complaining that the whole thing was a waste of good money. None of them would have kept their political opinions to themselves. The best thing about Polly, in the eyes of Janine's family, was her complete lack of political opinion.
"Janine," said Polly in a worried voice. "Are you sure there won't be any fish for dinner?"
"Yes, Pol, I'm sure," replied an exasperated Janine.
She had answered this question at least five times already.
Just then, Peter Pettigrew came over, carrying a tray of Babycham, and offered the two girls a drink. They accepted one each.
"It's just that fish is so rich. You know I can't stomach strong flavours," said Polly, raising her glass to her lips.
"Who knew Remus was so good at drawing," Sirius mused, watching James staple a poster to a pin board down the English corridor.
"I know," said James, standing back to look at the drawing.
"He's really a solid okay when it comes to art."
"He really is."
The two boys were promptly interrupted by Lily Evans calling James' name down the corridor.
"Oi, Potter!" she cried, making her way over to them.
"How did you find out?" asked James.
"How did I find out what?" said Lily.
"You're not angry at me?"
"No, I was going to ask what you were stapling to the wall. Why what have you done?"
Sirius muffled laughter behind his hand.
"What did you do, James?" she asked, half curious, half concerned.
"In my defense I did it in the name of revenge against the people that caused serious pain to me," he thought for a moment before adding, "And your boyfriend."
"Oh, we broke up," said Lily in an off-hand manner. "But anyway what did you do?"
James tried his hardest to ignore the fact that Lily had just informed him that the girl of his dreams was currently unattached (which was made exceptionally difficult given that Sirius had been poking him in the back ever since she had said the words "we broke up") and instead concentrate on revealing his master plan to her in such a way that would not encourage any sort of anger towards him.
"Well, Evans," he began cautiously. "I figured that the Richies needed some payback for what they did to me and your former boyfriend. So I pissed in a bottle and gave it to Sirius and Peter so they could sneak it into one of their dinner parties and mix it with their drinks."
"So they drank your piss?" she said.
"Yeah, they all drank it," clarified Sirius.
Lily nodded slowly, biting down slightly on her bottom lip. Then, without warning, she burst out in fits of laughter. James turned to Sirius for guidance, thoroughly confused by this reaction. However, Sirius simply shrugged, proving to be useless in helping James understand this situation.
"What did they do?" choked Lily through her laughter, wiping a tear from her eye.
"Spat it out mostly," answered Sirius. "Except for Mulciber who looked directly at me and Peter and downed the whole thing. No idea why."
"It's a pride thing," said James.
Lily's laughing subsided somewhat and she shot Sirius a questioning look over James' shoulder. Sirius raised his hands to indicate that he didn't understand what James meant by 'pride thing' either.
"So you wanted to see what we were stapling?" asked James, relieved that Lily appeared to be in no way angry.
Lily walked to stand directly beside James so she could see the poster properly.
"Oh, that's nice," she said. "Who drew it?"
"Remus."
"He's almost very good," she observed. "Hey, do you think I could help you lot out with this disco planning stuff?"
"You don't have to," said James.
"It looks like fun though."
James tried to remain as casual as possible when he replied, "Yeah, you should come sit with us tomorrow at lunch so we can talk about it."
Sirius let out a loud cough which sounded as though it was covering a laugh.
"That sounds good," said Lily, either ignoring Sirius' cough-laugh or mistaking it for genuine coughing. "I'll see you tomorrow then."
Unsurprisingly, the Richies themselves did not find James' master plan nearly as amusing as Lily had. The majority of them had gathered at Mulciber's house that afternoon to discuss plans for revenge. They were seated around the dining room table, perhaps with the thought that this would make their planning feel more professional.
"So it was Pettigrew, right? He gave us the drinks," said Rosier.
"Obviously," stated Mulciber in a bored voice. "Pettigrew's been hanging around Potter for weeks. Sirius'll have been in on it as well."
"We don't know that," snapped Regulus.
"Don't be ridiculous," said Severus, his voice cold and sharp. "We know exactly who it was. It was Pettigrew and Black on Potter's orders."
"Does this mean we're going to go and kick them around," asked Ascella, yawning as she fiddled with her hair.
"I wouldn't have a problem with that," said Mulciber.
"No. We have to be clever about this," voiced Severus.
"What's your idea then, Snape?"
"I'm glad you asked," he said, smirking and pulling out a folded piece of paper from his pocket.
Unfolding it, he revealed to the group an adequate drawing of a young boy in flares and the words 'Disco: Help Save The Prewett Farm'.
As they waited for Lily to turn up to chess club, James was trying his hardest to wipe the sweat from his hands without his fellow chess club members noticing.
"Clammy hands?" asked Sirius the second James rubbed his left palm on his own thigh.
"How could you tell?" said James.
"Nervous to see Lily?" teased Remus who was currently losing a game of chess against Peter.
"Why would I be nervous?"
"Because you love her," said Peter. "Checkmate."
Hiding his bitterness over losing to Peter (by far the worst chess player in the group), Remus turned to James and queried, "Are you going to propose?"
"Very funny," said James sourly.
"Have you thought about what you'll name your kids yet?" asked Peter.
"Pete, that is a ridiculous question," said Sirius. "Of course he's named their kids. A better question would be 'what names have you picked out for your future children'?"
Remus and Peter both chuckled.
"Ooh, what's funny!" cried Dorcas, bursting into the room. Lily and Mary followed her.
"I brought the girls. Is that okay?" said Lily, not waiting for a reply before seating herself between Sirius and Remus.
The table only had six chairs around it, so Dorcas perched herself on a neighboring table. Just close enough to hear.
"So what do we need to plan?" asked Lily in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Who made you the boss, Evans?" said Sirius.
Lily glanced up at him, well aware that he was attempting an intimidating gaze. She met his gaze and remained staring, unblinking, at him, refusing to back down.
"We still need to decide the music," said Peter quickly, attempting to quell any possible arguments.
"Oh!" cried Mary, suddenly perking up. "Can I be in charge of the music? I have a load of disco records."
Lily and Sirius groaned in unison.
"Can't we have punk disco?" asked Lily hopefully.
Sirius frowned at Lily for a moment, before turning to James and declaring, "I've changed my mind; I like her."
"Why are you telling me?" said James defensively.
"Wait, what do you mean you've changed your mind?" asked Lily in a hurt voice. "You didn't like me before?"
"Don't worry about it, Evans. It's a distant memory of times gone by."
"You mean two minutes ago?"
"Exactly."
Remus cleared his throat. All eyes turned to him.
"I hate to break up this bonding session," he said. "But we really do need to agree on the music. Hands up for a punk disco." Only Lily and Sirius raised their hands. "Hands up for letting Mary play her disco records." Mary's hand shot straight up. Peter, Remus, James, and Dorcas all raised their hands as well. "That's settled then. No punk disco. What next?"
"Food?" suggested Dorcas. "Are we providing food?"
The discussion and debate flowed in much the same way for the rest of lunch. By the hour, they had settled on arrangements for food, drinks, and ticket sales and distribution. The only thing left to organize was the matter of chaperones.
"I'll ask my dad," said Mary.
"I can ask my mum," offered Lily.
"I'll ask someone as well," said Dorcas, thinking it would be the perfect excuse to visit Caradoc again.
"Okay, well we'll figure out this chaperone stuff later," said James.
The bell rang, indicating the end of lunch. They all picked up their bags and each made their way to their next lesson or the common room.
"James," whispered Dorcas, grabbing his wrist to hold him back. Once the others had left, she answered his questioning look. "I need to ask you for some boy advice."
"Alright," he said, pulling out a chair to sit on, assuming this would be a long conversation.
"If a girl knocked on your door once to ask you for an interview to put in her newsletter, then knocked on your door just a few days later to ask if you would chaperone a disco, would you think she was into you?"
"I would probably assume that she genuinely wanted to interview me and to chaperone a disco."
"Okay," she said. "You can go now."
"That's it?" asked James incredulously.
Dorcas nodded. James swallowed and considered something for a moment.
"Can I ask you something?" he said.
"Of course."
"Do you think I might have a chance with Lily?"
Dorcas clapped her hands together with delight.
"I knew you still liked her!" she cried. "This is so exciting."
"But do you think she could like me back?"
"Oh, I have no idea," replied Dorcas. "Probably not. I mean, you've been a real prat."
James racked his brain for a reasonable counter argument, but could not find one. After all, she wasn't exactly wrong.