Sorcery and St Ives

Lily, Tigs and Molly clung tightly to each other as they disapparated. After a few seconds of slight discomfort, they landed, all intact, on wide road in London. Enormous white terraced houses lined the street on either side, they were very grand and were owned by the very rich. The road curved round a corner, the houses curling round too. Someone who didn't know London very well might assume that they had apparated into Downing Street.

"This is a bit fancy," said Molly, looking around.

"My mum always said that the Potters were loaded." Said Tigs, lighting a cigarette.

"A bet the front room is bigger than my whole house," sighed Lily, "And James said they own a few different houses,"

"Can't you just bang him for the money Lil?" asked Tigs laughing.

"Oh shut up," giggled Lily. The three girls walked up the road together, Lily counting the numbers on the houses as they went.

"There it is," she said, pointing to a large house on the corner. "Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane,"

"Come off it Lily," said Molly, erupting into laughter.

"It does look the Mary Poppins house," laughed Tigs. "Imagine the hell James would give a nanny." The girls laughed at this mental image, Lily still giggling as she knocked on the front door. James opened it a few minutes later, his hair all over the place, sunglasses on his nose and a huge smile across his face.

"Girls!" he beamed, "Hurry up we are about to leave,"

"Spit spot," said Molly under her breath and Lily snorted loudly. James didn't hear them and continued to lead them through the wide hallway, past an ornate staircase and through into a very large sitting room.

"Mum and Dad are in the big sitting room so we'll have to floo out of this one," he explained, and Tigs and Lily exchanged looks. Tigs' living room could easily have fit inside James' "small" room three times over. Sirius, Remus, Dorcas, Peter and Amelia were already there, all of them holding cases or rucksacks.

"Ready Sirius?" asked James, and Sirius nodded, stepping into the large fireplace, a pile of floo powder in his hand.

"Remember to send my case in after me," he added, before dropping the powder into the flames and saying "Solarium Manor!" He disappeared in a roar of green flames, and James used another handful of floo powder to send his case after. The small group filed into the fireplace one by one, all speaking the name of James' holiday house clearly before disappearing into the flames.

Solarium Manor was a large house situated on a cliff overlooking the beach in St Ives. Like the Potters' other residences, it was large in stature but lacking in grandeur. The interior mostly relied on the house's structure, rather than any fanciful furnishings. Spare a few portraits of members of the Potter family, the walls remained largely bare. This meant that the grandiose houses avoided looking tacky, and contained an air of class that Euphemia, James' mother, was very proud of. Out of all their residences, the Potter's spent the least amount of time at Solarium Manor. It had been many years since the wizarding population in St Ives had depleted; therefore the Potters found themselves spending a week or two there are year, at best. It had hence been an easy decision for Euphemia when James had asked that he and his friends stay at the house for a few weeks. Their long absence from the property also meant that their house elf, Caster, only worked a few weeks a year, and, so it was rumoured, had held a few parties there during his master's absence.

It was just coming up to lunchtime when all of the Hogwarts students had successfully arrived in Solarium Manor with all their cases. Caster had prepared a banquet for them on their arrival, and any trace of a party, whether he had hosted one recently or not, was long gone. The house was undeniably spotless, and many of the sixth years felt shabby in comparison. They left their cases in the sitting room while they enjoyed their lunch. Once their bellies were full, they ventured on a tour around the house, James attributing bedrooms to each of them. Sunlight streamed through the windows, bouncing off the clean floorboards. James looked out at the view from his own bedroom window, his eyes met by the crystal blue water of the sea below him.

"Who fancies a trip down to the beach?" he shouted through the house. Cries of agreement echoed back. James opened up his case, pulled his swimming trunks out and put them on.

"Last person in the sea is a flobberworm!" yelled Sirius and the friends all began to run through the house as quickly as they could.

"Peter is the flobberworm!" laughed Dorcas, as Peter jumped into the sea a fraction of a second after Amelia.

"Get him!" shouted Sirius, and the Marauders all leapt on Peter, splashing him and dunking his head under the clear blue water.

"Gerroff!" laughed Peter, pushing his friends away. They were all dripping wet, water pouring from their hair and down their faces. The girls, in comparison, were still rather dry, none of them going particularly deep into the water.

"Is it just me," began Remus, smirking, "Or do the girls look too dry?"

"Yes I think they do Moony," said Sirius. The four boys looked between each other before each diving towards the girls, splashing them with seawater.

"You bastards!" laughed Lily, shaking water out of her hair. the group all erupted into laughter, and continued to play in the cool water for a few hours before, one by one, they began to return to the warm sand on the beach. The afternoon slipped away in a mixture of swimming and sunbathing and soon the evening was falling upon them.

"I suppose we should head back up to the house," said Amelia, looking at her watch.

"Yeah it's starting to get late," agreed Peter.

"Why don't we stay out here?" asked Molly, "We could camp out!"

"I like the sound of that," said Tigs, "We could build a fire, get some drinks and some food-"

"Sleep under the stars!" added Lily, as excitement began to grow within the group. They all agreed to the idea and headed back up to the house to fetch clothes, food, and firewhisky.

"We don't have much stuff to eat," said James, who had tried and failed to find the house elf Caster, who may have been able to give them so food.

"Caster's gone walkabout," he explained, "He's been prone to wandering off over since we stopped coming here."

"We could walk to the shop and get something to cook on the fire," suggested Sirius, "I don't mind popping down to the village."

"Yeah that'd be nice," said Remus, "A couple of sausages and burgers and we'd be set for the night."

"I'll head down there now then," concluded Sirius, "Tigs can come with me to help with the muggle money,"

"Sure," replied Tigs, and the two set off towards the village. The others strolled happily down to the beach and set about building a large bonfire. Sirius and Tigs walked in the opposite direction, following a winding coastal path to the adjacent beach. They reached it quickly, the sun low in the sky and glistening of the clear blue sea. They soon found their way into the quaint muggle village which, at that time of year, was always a buzz with tourism. Tigs and Sirius found that they did not look out of place amongst the other visitors to St Ives, as they might have done if they had chosen to visit at a less popular time of year. They soon found a small butchers shop that was just about to close up. Tigs ordered and paid for, using muggle money, the food, while Sirius looked on, perplexed, from the side lines. After popping into the sweet shop to pick up some marshmallows, they headed back out of the village and up the coastal path. The sun was setting now, the last orange glow disappearing beyond the horizon. The pair chatted about pieces of idle gossip as they walked, and it wasn't until they were on their way back that Sirius changed the subject.

"Why didn't you ever tell me that you're a Carrow?" he asked, rather abruptly.

"I'm not a Carrow," said Tigs, taken aback, "I'm a Tighe."

"Yeah I know technically you are a Tighe," he said, "But your mum's a Carrow. You're like me, we could've helped each other."

"But I'm not like you," she said softly, "I never grew up in that pureblood mania because my dad was a muggle, and no amount of denial from my mother could change that fact. I was disowned from the moment I was born, I never had to put up with the shit that you did."

Sirius pondered this for a moment. "Your mum's Augusta, right?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"I've met her. Hundreds of times. She's easily as bad as my mum. I get that you weren't ever part of the-" he put on a posh, old fashioned voice- " 'The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black', but I refuse to believe that you had it easy."

"I didn't have it easy, it was just different." She said after a few minutes.

"How so?" pushed Sirius.

"My mum, she was always so angry. She never forgave herself for falling in love with a muggle, for betraying her blood status. She was a blood traitor, and I was the living evidence of that. So she used to take everything out on me, she hated me, and that was all before I even had chance to do anything that might upset her."

"I always thought she was a nasty old bitch," joked Sirius, and Tigs snorted, "You can talk to me about anything though Tigs," he added kindly.

"Thanks, I'll hold you to that."

Tigs and Sirius re-joined the group, a huge fire ablaze on the white sand. A small pile of sticks had been separated from the firewood for cooking things upon, and no sooner were Tigs and Sirius back with the food than the cooking began. They ate far too much each, as there was something irresistible about cooking food on a real fire.

"I feel so sick," groaned Molly, rolling backwards on to the sand and clutching her tummy, her sixth marshmallow burning to a crisp in the fire.

"Little nightcap to settle your stomach?" asked Amelia, dangling the bottle of firewhisky in front of her friend's eyes.

"Okay," Molly breathed, sitting up right once more and uncorking the bottle. She took a rather generous swig and passed the bottle on. They were all a little dehydrated as they had forgotten to bring any drinks for with their meal, so they chugged back the whisky like it were pumpkin juice. Each one falling drunker than the last.

"WALKING ON THE BEACHES LOOKING AT THE PEACHES!" Shouted James and Sirius in unison, attempted a very slurred rendition of the Strangler's song. James kicked up a hug pile of sand, which rained down over Sirius. Sirius then threw himself on top of James and the two fought playfully for a few minutes, their friends egging them on. They had just returned to the fire, which was now smouldering gently, when the first of the group succumbed to sleep. Molly, who had easily drunk the most out of all of them, collapsed onto the sand in a drunken slumber. Amelia prised the firewhisky bottle out of her hand and drained it, before throwing the empty bottle into the fire triumphantly.

"Looks like Molly's down!" laughed Lily, this was met with chants of 'lightweight' from the others, which were only stopped when Sirius, the leader of said chant, passed out leaning against Peter. The group began to drop like flies, each of them falling asleep in the soft white sand, until only Tigs and Remus were left. They were both ludicrously drunk, and their garbled conversation would have made absolutely no sense to passers-by. They wittered on for a quarter of an hour like this, neither of them entirely sure what the other was talking about. After a little while, they began to grow sleepy, and their energy had diminished along with the members of their group. Tigs rested her head on Remus' shoulder, while he strained to drink the last drop of firewhisky from a bottle. Tigs muttered something incoherent about the stars and Remus, just as incoherently, agreed.

"Y-y-y-you're my best-hiccup- friend," slurred Tigs, pointing at Remus.

"N-n-no –hiccup- you are my –hiccup- best friend!" he replied, rather loudly. Tigs giggled and leant into towards Remus. He supported her awkwardly with his arm. Not knowing what came over him, nor what compelled him to do it, whether it be his drunken stupor or his real confused emotions, Remus did something he hadn't expected to do that night. He leant in and kissed Tigs. She was in his embrace for a moment or two before she too, fell asleep, but that didn't matter. He had kissed her.

Hello everyone,

It took me slightly longer to update this time, but the next chapter is already half written so it should be up in a jiffy! I'd like to thank AGirlLostInTime for another lovely review, thanks so much! You've definitely inspired me to keep writing :)

Love and kisses,

ImagineHP