It's one in the morning, and my idiot Head partner is drunk.

Not just drunk. Wasted.

All the Marauders are, actually. Peter's handling it the worst - I don't think he's ever had a sip of alcohol in his life, and now that he's been provided an unlimited amount of Firewhiskey, he's gone completely off the rails. First he tried to fly a broomstick around the common room, and then he peed onto the floor because he couldn't make it to the loo in time. I also think he just tried to make out with Marlene McKinnon, because she's been screaming at him for the last four minutes.

Sirius and Remus are handling the inebriation relatively well. Sirius drinks Firewhiskey like it's water, so I suppose he's gotten used to its effects by now. Really, he hasn't changed at all other than the fact that he's a bit louder than normal. And Remus is always cool and collected, even when he's drunk. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was drinking orange juice.

Then there's James.

James doesn't drink that often, so I'm not surprised that he's totally plastered. Normally, I'd berate him for it - Head Boys aren't typically supposed to get schnockered in front of the first years, after all - but I guess he deserves a bit of fun. After all, he just led the Gryffindor team to their first Quidditch House Cup victory in over a decade.

"400 points," Alice O'Neil slurs from next to me. Alice and Marlene are my roommates. Like the Marauders, Alice is drunk as well, but then again, she's always drunk, so this isn't much different from her normal state of being. I guess all Gryffindors are natural alcoholics. Except me, of course. I'm a prude. "400 points, Lily! We won the cup by 400 points. Do you even realize how many points that is?"

"400?" I venture. Alice nods furiously.

"Yes, exactly!"

I would laugh if Alice wasn't acting like such an imbecile.

"James Potter is a God," she continues on. "How did he manage a 400 point margin? How? That's never been done before, Lily! Never!"

I glance over at James. He doesn't look very God-like to me, stumbling around like a lunatic, running into walls and knocking over chairs. Sirius and Remus are laughing their asses off at him.

As moronic as he looks, though, I can't help but feel some sort of pride for James. He really was amazing at the match - I'm not a Quidditch fan, but anyone in the audience could tell that the game was his. He was flawless.

Or, at least, he was flawless until he decided to get completely smashed.

But I'll let him have a night of fun. Like I said, he deserves it.

"When are you going to let him take you out, Lily?" Alice suddenly says, in a much louder voice than was necessary. I shush her, and she laughs. "Oh, it's not like he can hear us. Oi Potter!" she shouts.

James does not look over.

"See? He's completely oblivious to the world," Alice confirms, taking a sip of her drink. "So?" she asks.

I really wish we weren't having this conversation.

"I don't fancy James, and he doesn't fancy me," I tell her, for what seems like the 500th time this term. I've pretty much got this speech memorized by now. "We're friends, and nothing more."

"Pah!" Alice scoffs. "You're ridiculous, Lily, you really are. He's hot. He's sexy. I'd go out with him."

"Don't let Frank hear you say that," I tell her, desperate to get off this subject. Conversations about James and I seem to go on for hours. My friends are obsessed with us.

"Frank isn't even here, the sore loser," Alice mutters. Frank Longbottom, her boyfriend, is in Hufflepuff house. AKA the team that just got decimated by Gryffindor. Sorry, Frank.

Suddenly, Marlene stumbles up to us. "Put Peter Pettigrew on the official list of Hogwarts sex offenders," she says without a trace of humor. "I'm kidding. I didn't let him kiss me. But he almost did."

"My condolences," Alice and I say in unison. Peter isn't the most desirable-looking person in the House.

"It's fine. I just wish Dorcas hadn't seen it," she says, glancing over at Dorcas Meadowes, this annoying fifth year bimbo who tries to act older than she is. Right now, she's attempting to flirt it up with James, who's clearly not interested at all in giving her the time of day. I feel my heart swell up with pride. Go James! "Dorcas is going to tell the entire school that I'm dating Pettigrew, and I'll be a laughing stock!"

"Anyone with a brain will be able to tell that you're not dating Pettigrew," I assure Marlene.

"Still," she says haughtily. "He's tampering with my reputation!"

"Off with his head!" Alice suddenly exclaims, and a few people in the vicinity look over curiously. I roll my eyes. My friends are idiots.

And speaking of idiots-

"Evans!" rings out an all-too-familiar voice.

James is wobbling over to us, a stupid grin on his face. Alice instantly begins giggling, and it makes me want to hit her.

"Hi, James," I say to him, as if we're having a completely normal conversation and he's not batshit hammered. "Good job at the match."

"All for you, love," he says, blowing a kiss. Alice giggles even harder, and this time I actually do shove her away.

"James, you're drunk," I tell him. He nods understandingly.

"Absolutely," he says. "Totally. Definitely. Completely. Utterly. Entirely. Wholly. Positively-"

"Are you a walking thesaurus?"

He flashes that classic grin at me. "I have genuinely no idea what that means. Hey, Evans?"
I raise an eyebrow.

"I want to go home."

By "home", James means the Heads dormitory that the two of us live in. It's not too far away - just in the next corridor, about a five minutes walk from Gryffindor tower - but I'm still not entirely sure I'll be able to get him there in his current state. For all I know, he could pass out right in the middle of the corridor, and how would I explain that to McGonagall?

"Are you sure you don't want to sleep here, James? In your old bed? With all your friends?" I hope desperately that he says yes. I really wasn't planning on having to babysit Potter tonight.

But he shakes his head. "I want to go home," he complains. I roll my eyes and sigh.

"Fine. Let's go."

James brightens up instantly, and grabs my hand to pull me toward the portrait hole. I hastily say goodbye to Alice and Marlene, but they don't seem to care. Dorcas-the-fifth-year tries to block James from leaving, sticking her boobs out at him and asking him to dance with her, but he pushes her out of the way without a single word. I smirk. She deserves it.

James and I finally make it out into the corridor. He's talking adamantly about the match. I think he's making about half of it up, because I don't remember a dragon coming in halfway through the third quarter and lighting the end of his broomstick on fire.

"That didn't happen, James," I tell him.

He seems shocked. "What? Yes it did. You're delusional, Evans."

I snort. "You're delusional."

Just then, James rams into my shoulder with his body. I don't think he did it on purpose - he seems to be having trouble walking in a straight line. He then stops walking and rubs my shoulder very frantically with his hand, as if that will do anything at all to fix it.

He is a complete moron.

"James, stop," I demand, pushing his hand away.

"But I hurt you," he argues. "I have to make it all better."

"No, you didn't hurt me," I assure him. "It's already all better. Can we just get back to the Heads tower, please? I thought you wanted to go home. Remember?"

"No, not really," he confesses. "I just wanted alone time with you."

I feel my face starting to get hot. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. This always happens when James is drunk.

"You don't mean that," I mumble, grabbing him by the elbow and forcing him to keep walking. I can see the door to the Heads tower, now. We're so close…

"I do!" he exclaims. "I love you, Lily."

"No," I correct him, still dragging him along the corridor. "You don't. You're just drunk."

"I've wanted to tell you for so long, Lily, but I've always been scared of how you would answer. Did you know that?"

"James, you're being stupid," I tell him. We're almost at the Heads tower, now. I just need to get James to bed, and then I can finally rest. "You don't love me. You don't even fancy me. We're friends, remember? You told me at the beginning of the year that you didn't fancy me anymore."

"I was lying," James says immediately, and for a fleeting moment, I almost believe him. Could he really…

No. He doesn't still fancy me. That's absurd.

"I had to lie," James continues. "Or else you never would have put up with me. But I'm not lying now. I want to be the father to your children. I've already got all their names planned out, do you want to hear them? Mary, and Jerry, and Sherry, and Larry, and Barry, and Terry, and Harry, and-"

"Shut up!" I practically scream. I am really not in the mood for this tonight. "Look, James. We've made it home." I open the door to our tower and practically shove him through it. "Now go to bed, and when you wake up in the morning, you'll realize how ridiculous you sound. Okay?"

But James just shakes his head vehemently. "No, I won't. I love you, Evans. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouI-"

"James, please just go to sleep-"

And then, suddenly and without warning, his puts his hand under my chin, tilts my head up, and his lips are on mine.

It takes me a few seconds to react, just because I'm in pure shock. When it finally hits me what's happening, I pull away faster than you can say Quidditch.

"What the hell!?" I exclaim, trying to ignore the tingly sensation on my lips. My mind flashes back to something Alice said once, about James being the best kisser at Hogwarts.

She wasn't wrong.

But now's not the time to think about that.

James looks mortified, as if he's suddenly snapped out of his intoxicated-ness and realized how ridiculously stupid he's acting. "I-" he starts.

But before he can finish, I shake my head. "You're drunk, James," I tell him. "Drunk. You don't mean any of this. We're just going to forget that it happened, okay?"

And without another word, I turn on my heel and march to my bedroom, leaving him alone standing there.

Note from Da Author-

Picture this: It's April 13, 2021, and it's my birthday. I'm supposed to be studying for my final exams, but I have no motivation to do that, so I decide to take a nap instead. During my nap, I am struck with inspiration about a story involving a drunk James Potter, an unrequited kiss, and fourteen chapters of pure chaos. When I wake up, I write all fourteen chapters in one sitting.

Fun way to celebrate my birthday, right?

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-me