A/N: Since the Epilogue is chapter 50...this is sort of the penultimate chapter. Very weird. THANK YOU for everything :)
Chapter Forty-Eight: Since you hate blue
There was something tickling my ear. I swatted it away and hugged my pillow closer to my chest. Merlin, sleep was good! I'd forgotten how good it was to sleep through the night. I'd spent all of Sunday catching up on sleep after sending my guidebook to Witch Weekly and organizing the delivery to the other Fifth Years. Despite the joy I'd felt finishing my guidebook, I didn't want to get out of bed on Monday morning – I was too comfortable.
The tickling became a scratch and then a smack. My eyes flew open and I groaned at Marlene's face, an inch from mine.
"Happy birthday," she grinned and I couldn't help but smile back.
"Happy birthday," I replied and she pushed me until I sat up. She was holding a large present and looking at me expectantly.
"Hang on," I said, shaking myself awake. "Yours is under the bed, get it will you?"
"Effie! You can't even reach under your own bed to get me my present?"
I rolled my eyes at her and slumped over the side of the bed, almost falling as I dug under my covers and retrieved her gift. Again, I tried to shake myself awake. This was our tradition – since we shared a birthday. She woke me up, left the bed hangings pulled and we exchanged gifts in private, away from the other girls in the dormitory. Usually I was a bit more alert, but my week of sleepless nights had put me into slow gear.
"Okay, you first!" she said, bouncing on my bed.
I unwrapped the gorgeous set of inks and paintbrushes and beamed at her. Marlene – always perfectly fitting for every situation. Last year it had been a coupon for a year's worth of Sleakeazy – she knew exactly when and how to shift according to where I was in life. She was genuinely the best friend I would ever have.
"I love them! When I'm a big shot at Witch Weekly, I will display them proudly on my desk," I smiled, hugging her. I pushed my gift to her and she had a manic smile as she unwrapped it. It had cost me a good amount of money, but it was absolutely worth it. First, she gushed over the painting I'd done of the two of us and made a show of propping it carefully on my bedside table and then she unwrapped the glove.
"A Beater's glove?" she asked, with slight confusion.
"Sirius says that James is telling Gallagher to stuff it – they reckon you would have been the best person for the job in the first place," I said. "It's for next year."
"For me to play Beater?" she said excitedly, pulling the glove on.
"For you to DESTROY as Beater," I replied, laughing as she threw her arms around me.
The necklace that Benjy had bought Marlene glinted as he wrapped it around her neck while she looked through the Quidditch book Jasper had given her with a large grin on her face. Benjy and Jasper gave me Honeydukes chocolate and a Dickens novel respectively and my Mum had sent a beautiful blue dress, but perhaps the best present was when the owls started delivering the guidebooks to my fellow Fifth Years. It had been Remus' idea – a cool surprise at breakfast and he'd been right. I watched as everyone opened the books, flipped through them and gaped. And my name was written on the front of every single one. I saw them glance between each other, whisper and then look at me and for the first time in my life, I was truly thrilled that people were talking about me. There was absolutely no way they would make fun of me for this – in fact, some of them couldn't seem to look away from their books. Emmeline took the time to hold it up and give me the thumbs up and Benjy, Jasper and Marlene were all talking through their favourite pages now that they were holding the final product.
As I grinned and enjoyed the attention, I saw Regulus flipping through his with a stiff expression. He must have felt my eyes on him, because when he looked up, we just stared at each other. In a way, I was still letting him know that I'd valued whatever we'd had – even if parts of it had been fake and it had ended badly, I still only knew the spell to make the drawings move because of him.
"Hey! What's all this?" Sirius asked as he and the Marauders joined us by the table. Regulus looked away immediately and I dropped my eyes to the table. Sirius picked up the card from my mum and his eyes widened.
"It's your birthday?"
"Marlene's too," I said, nodding at her. She grinned and pointed at her necklace.
"What?" James said sticking his tongue out at her. "You didn't tell us."
"Yeah," Sirius said, elbowing me.
"Honestly…I sort of forgot. I was a bit busy," I said, nodding at some of the Hufflepuffs flipping through my guidebook.
"Ah," Sirius said, his eyes glinting as he and James exchanged a significant look.
"Effie! Did you do all of this yourself?" Bertie Hobblesworth had appeared in front of us with some of his friends and they were all holding my book.
I nodded and shrugged, despite feeling excited jolts running through my body. "Just the drawings – the notes are from the older students and Marlene, and you – thanks for that," I said.
Bertie shook his head. "No! Thank you! I've never wanted to read my own notes more. Seriously this is going to help us with revision so much."
He looked around at his friends and they all nodded in agreement. One of them hadn't even looked up from the open book in his hands.
Sirius was tapping a little distractingly on the table, but I grinned at Bertie and his smiling friends. I was so full of pride and happiness I could have burst.
"That's great! Sort of exactly what I wanted!"
Bertie was eyeing Sirius now and he nodded.
"Well, we'll see you in Herbology – I want to get there early and show Sprout. You deserve some House Points for this at least!"
As soon as they'd left, Sirius grinned at me and I smiled back.
"This was all because of you, you know?" I said and he shook his head adamantly.
"Hey, I just scrounged up some paper – you did it all yourself," he replied, nudging my knee with his under the table.
"Did you write these notes on Unicorns?" Benjy asked him and the group of us spent the rest of breakfast flipping through my book and then enduring some painfully out of tune singing of Happy Birthday to Marlene and I.
The Marauders walked with us to Herbology on the way up to the Common Room for their Free and so, I almost laughed when Bertram Aubrey approached us in the corridor looking shifty. It was funny how little his presence bothered me now compared to the years I'd spent dreading his bullying remarks.
"Oi Savage, are you deaf? I've been calling for you for 5 minutes," he said, looking warily at the Marauders.
Even though I didn't look bothered, Sirius still stepped in front of me with a dangerous look on his face. Marlene and Benjy grinned at Jasper's rolling eyes and the Marauders exchanged looks but said nothing.
"Careful Aubrey, I can still give you a tail to go with those antler stumps," Sirius said. Although the stumps were finally gone, Aubrey still ran a hand over his hair self-consciously.
"Sirius, give it a rest," I sighed, tugging on his sleeve. He was still the same Sirius, ready to protect me even when I didn't need it. He looked over his shoulder and grinned guiltily before he nodded and stepped back to my side.
"What do you want, Bertram?" I asked, jadedly.
He shrugged. "I just wanted to say that this," he held up my guidebook, "is really good."
I bit my lip to keep from laughing, but my friends didn't bother hiding their amusement. Though he looked embarrassed, Bertram continued, shifting the book uneasily from one hand to another.
"You're really good at drawing. I didn't know."
I raised my eyebrow at him. "You never really knew anything about me."
He shrugged and looked again to where Sirius was still twirling his wand by his side.
"Yeah, well…bye."
And then, he very bizarrely, took off running down the corridor at top speed.
"What a prize idiot," James said making Sirius laugh.
It had truly been one of the best days of my life. All of my Professors had patted me on the back, awarded me points and some of them even suggested that my fellow students and I refer to certain pages of the book while we were revising. The best was McGonagall, whom I had never seen look prouder of me. Even more shockingly, brief acquaintances weren't the only people coming up to randomly compliment or congratulate me, even people who I considered my enemies had nice words to say. At the very end of the day, as Marlene and I were about to have another one of our birthday traditions, Florence tapped me on the shoulder. Wendelin was standing behind her, studying her nails.
"Effie – this is the best revision guide ever. I had no idea how talented you were…it's really amazing," Florence said. She then looked over her shoulder and her voice became oddly firm. "Wendy?"
Wendelin shuffled forwards, still glancing at her nails before she shrugged. "I guess it was cool how you got all the Sixth and Seventh Years to help you," she said. "And the drawings weren't bad."
I smiled and nodded. "Thanks."
"Well, Happy Birthday girls, we'll see you in a bit," Florence said grinning and grabbing hold of Wendelin's arm. She was examining her blouse now, still not really looking at me.
"Thanks Florence. Wendelin."
When they'd turned the corner, Marlene laughed.
"Oooh look at you Miss Popular! What's next? Are they going to invite you home with them for the summer?"
I shook my head and shoved her lightly. "Yeah, I've been in the market for a new best friend…"
She rolled her eyes and we headed off down the hall, chatting about our day.
"Where'd Benjy and Jasper get off to?" I asked as we started to climb the staircases ducking around a strange procession of ghosts.
"Not sure. They said they had to get to the Common Room for some reason. It's a good job really because I thought this would be a perfect time for us to split our cake!" Marlene replied, grinning maniacally.
I clapped my hands as we arrived in the corridor leading to our Portrait hole. "Ooh, what flavour did we get this year?"
She gave me a look and pulled out the usual vanilla cupcake with chocolate icing.
"Did you get the candle?"
"Yup, ordered it with your birthday present," I said, producing the wax 16 from my pocket and spearing it in to the middle of the cupcake as we stood in front of the Fat Lady. We waited to go inside since this was one of our best friend birthday moments, and we grinned at each other as she lit the wick and we blew out the flame together. She broke off the bottom part with most of the cake and handed me the thin top with the masses of icing. As I enjoyed the chocolate goodness, she laughed with her mouth full of cake.
"You've got it all over your face," she choked as I said the password and we climbed through the portrait hole.
"SURPRISE!"
In front of us, the Common Room was filled with Gryffindors wearing party hats and the wall between the staircases held a large banner reading the words "Marlene and Effie". And under the banner stood a very pleased looking Sirius and Benjy.
"Oh dear Merlin," I muttered as Marlene laughed in surprise.
We got dressed upstairs, Marlene in a new white dress and me in the blue one my mother had just sent. Nervously, I fiddled with my hair in the mirror and attempted to slick on the eyeliner the same way Emmeline had many months ago. It looked presentable but I was still feeling fiddly.
"What's wrong?" Marlene asked from the door when she noticed that I was dragging my feet.
"These parties…" I said. "They terrify me."
"This one's for us though, so you know it'll be brilliant," she said, squeezing my hand. "I wonder if Sirius had it planned with Benjy or if the two of them just worked it out after breakfast."
I cringed at the way she'd lumped Sirius in with Benjy, like he was another boyfriend in the scenario, but forced a smile.
"Nah, too complicated – it was definitely an impromptu gathering. Still nice though, I guess."
"Try and enjoy it, it'll be over soon!" Marlene said as we exited the dormitory and headed down the steps. I saw Sirius waiting at the bottom, his eyes locked on me, watching as I descended the stairs wearing that extremely blue dress. I suddenly wished the dress were any other colour.
"Something to do in the Common Room, my arse," Marlene said, kissing a triumphant Benjy. Sirius was still watching me and I shot him a small smile when I got to the bottom step.
"Thanks guys, this was really nice of you," I said stiffly.
"Don't mind her – parties make her nervous. But I want to dance!" Marlene said, grabbing Benjy's hand and pulling him off to the dance floor leaving Sirius and I to stand awkwardly amongst the loud music and commotion. Dear Merlin it was a Monday night! We all had lessons in the morning…and exams soon. Surely this wouldn't go over well.
As we watched the dancers in silence, both of us holding pumpkin juice, Sirius chewed the inside of his cheek.
"Shit," he laughed after a minute.
"Oh?" I asked in return.
"I forgot that you usually try to escape these things. Obviously not one of my better ideas," he said, shaking his head. "Sorry…I just wanted you to have a great birthday."
"No!" I replied, feeling guilty. "It's brilliant."
He studied my face for a minute before he nodded. "The Seventh Years are going to murder me because I promised them no more parties after March…but, oh well."
"Maybe we'll wrap it up early?" I said with a hopeful grin and he stifled another chuckle.
"Yeah, probably wise. I think Peter's tipsy already."
He pointed to where Peter was dancing in the middle of the room. Everyone was giving him a wide berth as he flailed his arms around, but Remus and James were cheering him on and calling out their favourite dance moves.
"You look nice. I like that dress," Sirius said as I giggled at Peter's chicken dance. I stopped laughing and looked at him in surprise.
"What?" he said innocently. "The colour…it suits you."
I raised an eyebrow at him and he laughed again, puzzled by my response.
"I thought you'd hate it," I shrugged. "Since you hate blue."
He shook his head in confusion again. "When did I say that? Blue's my favourite colour."
Ah. Of course – more lies from Regulus. What a particularly random one.
I smiled. "Never mind."
He was still looking at me like I was mad, but we were both distracted when Peter lowered the volume on the wireless and announced in a loud voice,
"Spin the Bottle! Let's play Spin the Bottle!"
A/N: My last ever cliffhanger! This is all feeling a bit familiar isn't it? Do you think Effie and Sirius will be playing? Until tomorrow, ;)
