A/N: Three totally new chapters in one day. Right? Three? God, who knows. I may have entirely lost the ability to count at this point. My math placement test should be fun...

Chapter 35 - Smile Like You Mean It (Ly)

"You absolute fuck head why on earth would you possibly think that was a good question to ask?" I demanded, beating Scorpius with the sole of my Converse. "I can't believe you have the nerve to call yourself my twin brother!"

"Whoa, babe, chill out," Dylan said, grabbing me by the elbows while Scorpius cowered. I struggled against him unsuccessfully.

We were standing in the attic of our flat for the Christmas holidays. Well, Scor was lying on the floor. Dylan and I were standing.

"Shouldn't you be fucking your boyfriend?" I demanded of him.

"Well, I would, see, but he's in Ottery St Catchpole," Dylan reminded me. "Makes it rather challenging. And having sex in a Floo is just – yeah, just don't try it. Trust me."

I seethed at Scor, who dragged himself into a sitting position and poked his swelling eye in minor confusion.

"Simple questions the doctors told us," Scor said. "I figured there was no simpler question. How the fuck was I supposed to know you'd say you'd fucked James instead of Fred?"

"I hate being sick," I said grumpily, crossing my arms and sitting down on one of the couches.

"I'm sure holding your breath until you get your way will work quite well in this instance," Scor said, sliding across the floor away from me.

"You've got diamond prints on your face," Dylan informed him cheerfully.

"Do I?" Scor asked. "You don't say?"

I ran my hands through my hair in irritation. "I'm going out."

"At this hour?" Dylan asked. "How?"

"Mate, we're eighteen," Scor reminded him. "Since we really only barely missed being the year ahead of you motely lot by two days…"

"So?" Dylan asked.

"Apparation," I explained, before I turned on the spot and disappeared.

The minute my feet hit ground I regretted instantly not wearing a coat. Shuddering from the cold and the snow, I ducked into the Hog's Head.

It was entirely deserted except for the lone barman who was wiping down the counter.

"We're closed," he said without looking up.

"Mate, it's Christmas," I said. "Shouldn't you be at the Burrow?"

James dropped the rag he was holding in shock and stared at me. He regained his composure quickly and brushed his hair back out of his eyes agitatedly.

"Too many children," he said dismissively. "Avoiding it as long as I can."

I nodded and sat down at one of the barstools.

"Are you even legally allowed to be at the bar?" he asked me.

"James, you're four days older than me," I reminded him. "And it's not like we haven't been drinking together for…four years? Longer?"

"Five. Approximately," he said. "The first party you went to in the Tower was in October of your second year." He looked down at the bar awkwardly. "Can I get you anything to drink?"

"Just pumpkin juice," I said.

He raised his eyebrow at me in utter shock.

"I have to apparate home," I explained. "It's most of the way across the country."

"Right," he said, reaching under the bar and handing me a glass.

We stood there in silence for fifteen minutes while I drank my pumpkin juice.

"Why are you here?" James asked, sounding like it hurt him to ask.

"Dom and Roxie and Rose told me what happened," I said. "I wanted to apologise."

"For which part?" James asked. "For being sick? For sleeping with Fred? For kissing me? For kissing me before the Christmas holidays four years ago? What do you want to apologise for?"

The bitterness in his voice hurt more than I expected it to.

"Thanks for the drink," I said quietly, dropping a galleon on the table and apparating away.

I landed back in the attic. Scor now had a raw steak pressed to his eye and was lying on one of the couches. Em had joined the party.

"Where were you?" Em asked me.

I said nothing and sat down in one of the chairs. Scor, Dylan and Em exchanged worried looks and then Dylan sat on the arm of my chair.

"I went to apologise to James," I said. "And I think he's still mad at me."

"For being sick?" Scor asked. "Dick…"

Em and Dylan gave him a dirty look.

"Sort of for everything," I said, leaning against Dylan's chest. He stroked my hair comfortingly.

"Those damned Potter men, right?" he asked. I slapped him in the leg. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I can't help it that we have the same taste in men."

"Or at least the same branch of a family tree," Em said.

I almost laughed.

"I'm just so sick of everything being so fucked up," I mumbled.

"I know, honey, I know," Dylan said, continuing to stroke my hair. I sniffled.

The four of us sat in silence for a bit.

"It's all my fault," Scor said quietly.

"No, I fucked up my own life without your help," I said.

"Yeah, maybe, but I fucked everything else up," he continued. "I fucked up Rose, and then she fucked up Lucy, and then the rest of you girls stopped talking to her, and then…"

"And then I slept with Fred, so he and James didn't talk to each other for a year, and then because of that Fred hated himself and slept with Em," I said, nodding in her direction. "Which made Will hate him, which led to a war between them for years that's now culminated in their both being single and miserable, and James hates me."

Scor shrugged like he was still guilty of worse.

"Oh, and then I slept with Sam, which is what made Roxie notice him, and then she and Dom didn't talk to each other for a few months because Dom was jealous," I added. "So you get Rose and Lucy, I get everyone else."

"Actually, Al and I were just fucked up on our own," Dylan said, smiling brightly at me and Scor. "That's the problem with being in the closet and being in love with your best friend. It's just not a good situation. It's much better this way."

"There weren't even closets involved with me and James," I pointed out. "And we still fucked it up."

"At least you do actually still talk to each other," Scor muttered.

Dylan, Em and I exchanged bewildered looks and slowly approached Scor's couch.

"Erm…mate?" Dylan asked cautiously.

Scor dropped the steak off his eye. I'd given him a fabulously purple black eye.

He ran his hands through his hair and looked like he was staring to go crazy. "I – I – I can't get her out of my head," he groaned, sitting up with his elbows on his knees while he pulled his hair out and stared wildly at the floor. "For years."

Dylan, Em and I glanced at each other. I tentatively put my hand on his shoulder. This is the first time in four years that he's actually sounded like my brother.

"I just – I keep seeing her face when she walked into the Great Hall and saw me snogging Fiona Finnegan," Scor said. "I can't make it go away."

There was an edge of desperation in his voice now.

"I've had this theory that there's one person for everyone and once you've fucked that up, you're just fucked," he said. "And I figured I'd already fucked it up, so I was going for anything else since I'd…"

Dylan raised his eyebrow incredulously. "Since you'd already lost the girl you…love?" he asked tentatively.

Scor stared at him with desperate eyes.

"It's never too late to maybe, I dunno, fix it," Dylan said softly. He was talking to Scor, but at the same time, he glanced significantly at me and Em. "Because if you can keep your friends through all the shit you've done…"

"If she's still mad, it means she's not over you," supplied a very odd voice from the attic doorway.

Dad strolled in and looked around curiously. "So this is what you lot have done with the attic. I know we gave you free reign here when you were just kids, but…" He paused and sniffed deeply. "Who brought the alcohol?"

The four of us took a deep whiff. The attic didn't smell like anything to me, so I assume none of the others smelled anything either.

"What alcohol?" Dylan asked.

Dad sniffed again and followed his nose to the hatch where we've been stashing liquor for the past four to five years. He turned around and raised his eyebrow at the four of us while holding several empty bottles.

"We're all of age," Scor pointed out.

"You are now," Dad replied. "And unless you lot have taken to drinking three year old gin, I'm going to say you weren't when you drank this."

"We should really invest in recycling this stuff," Scor muttered.

"Yeah," Dad agreed. "At least before Amy finds it." He smiled like a little boy at the mention of her name. Despite the day I was having, I had to smile at him.

He took another deep breath and then looked mildly repulsed. "Who was having sex up here?" he demanded, pointing his finger at each of us in turn repeatedly.

Very slowly and uncomfortably, Dylan raised his hand and then scratched the back of his head.

Dad narrowed his eyes at Dylan and kept pointing at him. "I'm watching you," he said in a half-heartedly menacing tone. He paused at the door. "It's dinner, in case any of you were wondering."

OOooOOooOOooOO

"Alright. So we've got three months left of Hogwarts. Ever," Roxie said. Dom and I nodded solemnly. "You two do realise what this means, right?"

We nodded again and Roxie dropped a stack of magazines on the floor between us.

Dom grinned first. "Flat shopping!"

We each grabbed a magazine and started flipping through it.

"Ooh, what are you guys doing?" Lucy asked, flopping onto her bed.

"Looking for flats," I replied. "What about this one?"

Dom and Roxie looked at it over my shoulder.

"It's in Muggle London," Roxie said distastefully.

"But it's in a magical neighbourhood," Dom reasoned.

"Yeah but…" Roxie said.

"Yeah," I agreed. "We should look for one in Diagon Alley."

"My mum agreed to it," Rose said, bounding into the dorm and looking surprisingly excited. I really wish she'd tell Lucy she's not a whore. However, considering the reason Lucy's still mad at her is because of one of the guys Rose actually did sleep with, it might not help.

"To what?" Dom asked.

"She's going to help me with the rent for the club," Rose said enthusiastically. "I mean, right now it's just a basement in the Alley, but still. It will be a club. I promise."

"You know what would really help the club's reputation at the beginning?" Roxie asked.

"What?" Rose replied, so happy she was actually bouncing on her bed a little. Dom and I glanced at each other and backed away inconspicuously.

"Live music," Roxie said. "Just for some songs. But if you were to look for a singer…"

"Yes," Rose said. "Definitely. I won't be able to pay you right away, but definitely."

Roxie grinned.

"Who are you going to have bartend?" Dom asked while we continued to slide across the floor back towards my bed.

"I was going to try and get Frank to do it," Rose said. "I figured that drug dealers would probably try to set up territory in my club since it'll be so new, but if I have an established drug dealer already working there, they might back off."

"Are you going to let him sell in your club?" Lucy asked incredulously.

"No," Rose said, staring at Lucy like she was mad. "If you want to get your drugs from Frank, you'll have to buy them from him on his own time."

Lucy narrowed her eyes at Rose, then went back to scribbling in her notebook.

"How's the ice cream shop going?" Dom asked her.

"Fantastic," Lucy said.

"And how's Lysander?" I asked.

Lucy turned pink. "Fantastic," she said in the same uninflected tone of voice.

"How's he compare to Ly's brother?" Roxie asked.

"Lysander and I are not sleeping together," Lucy said drily, continuing to stare at her notebook like she was going to burn a hole through it. The minute she got too close, however, it snapped shut on her nose. She recoiled with a jump. "Fuck him!"

"Fuck who?" Rose asked. "Lysander?"

"James," Lucy complained, holding her nose and shoving her glasses up her face.

"Why?" I asked slowly.

"He charmed all my books to bite me in the nose if I got too close," she said, glaring at her notebook like it was at fault.

"Well…" Dom said. "That does sound like James."

It doesn't just sound like James. It sounds like the James who I made Everlast Colour Change Ink with in second year. And the James who I met in a loo on the train in first year running from Roxie. It sounds like my James.

"Oh my Merlin's balls, I found it," Roxie said, staring wide eyed at her magazine. "Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, just above Madam Malkins."

"But can we afford it?" Dom asked.

"My dad'll pay for it," I said. "Probably without asking questions."

"Well…" Roxie said.

"At least until we all have paying jobs and can afford it ourselves," I added.

"Okay," Roxie said. "But…"

"But?" Dom and I asked.

"But we've got a plan now," Roxie said, grinning at both of us. I couldn't help but smile.

Review! (Uber special thanks to darkhk, kaitie, and talyag who did)

Title from the Killers song, because of the title more than anything else what with Ly not being able to help herself with the smiling...