December 9th, 1976: Alice Abbott

"Give me your wands," says Professor Tonks, more exasperated than anything. They're anything but eager to comply, Sirius and Marlene in particular, so she repeats, "Your wands, please," with the kind of intonation that means she doesn't intend to take no for an answer.

Grudgingly, they hand them over. Marlene hesitates to relinquish hers at first, and there's a split second of tug-of-war between her and Tonks before she lets go, still fuming. Evidently, she hasn't blown off a whole lot of steam since class today.

To be honest, Alice hasn't a clue what any of her fellow Gryffindor sixth years have been up to since leaving the Hospital Wing, and maybe that's part of the reason why they've found themselves in Tonks's office—why an otherwise carefully controlled session of dueling practice in Defense Against the Dark Arts spiraled out of control the way it did. It seemed like an explosion of spellwork and hostility at the time, Alice reflects, a whirlwind of anger and tension unleashed that ended before it felt like it had started. In retrospect, though, Defense class that morning didn't so much explode as fall apart, all their suppressed resentments unraveling into a mess of an illegal duel, curses flying everywhere, no allies, nobody safe.

Now they're in detention, their first time together since the incident, and Alice is passing her wand to her professor and wondering how such a close-knit group of nine witches and wizards devolved into this.

"I'd like all of you to clean the classroom by hand," announces Tonks as she tucks the wands into her robe pocket. "I want the floor swept and mopped, blackboard cleaned, tables scrubbed with the gum scraped off from underneath, windows wiped, essays filed by year and house—you get the idea. You'll find all the necessary Muggle supplies in the cabinet by my desk. I'm locking you in and giving you until midnight; when I come back, this room better be sparkling, and you all better be on fantastic terms with each other, do you hear me?"

Marlene still looks ready to put up an indignant fight but, mercifully, restrains herself as Tonks sweepingly departs. The door clicks shut; Alice holds her breath and waits for the chaos to ensue.

Lily is the first to break the silence, sheepish and soft-spoken. "Can I just say—I'm sorry I hexed you, James. It wasn't my place—Marlene can fight her own battles—"

Awkwardly, James shakes his head. Alice guesses that this isn't the kind of thing he wants to confront her about until they're alone. "It's all right; you were just defending your mate. I got carried away, it's my fault we started dueling, I retaliated—"

"Can you just snog and make up already, spare the rest of us from having to hear all the sap?" says Marlene sardonically.

"Shut it, McKinnon, it's not like that," James says. He stares at the floor and avoids all eyes for a moment, then adds with an edge to his voice, "And even if it were, from what I hear, you're not in the best position to judge what a healthy relationship looks like."

Marlene looks ready to lunge for a minute, and Alice is half afraid she will, but she holds back, merely retorting, "All right, fine, I don't know what the hell I'm doing with my life, but that doesn't mean I need anyone else's happiness shoved down my throat."

James starts to speak up, surely in Lily and his defense, but Lily interrupts before he has the chance. "We're not happy, Marlene," she says; "none of us are—why else would we be sitting in detention right now?"

"Speaking of sitting around," Peter pipes up quietly, "we should really get a move on and start cleaning. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish."

"Shut it, Pettigrew, nobody cares what you think," says Marlene dismissively, to which Peter just glares a little but says nothing.

When Peter doesn't defend himself, Remus steps in to do it for him. "I care," he says, "and anyway, he's right. You can't refuse to do the work and land us here in another week when it's your fault we're here in the first place."

"My fault? Black was the one—"

Alice is a prefect; her job is to mediate in situations like this, and once upon a time, she was good at mediation. Right. "Marlene cast the first underhanded spell," she says with as level a head as possible, talking over Marlene as she bitterly protests this fact, "but it's all our faults for reacting the way we did and getting involved. Professor Tonks said—"

"Eff Tonks," mutters Marlene.

She reiterates, "Professor Tonks said to clean up the classroom and work out our differences that caused the duel, and it's a pretty smart idea for a punishment, when you think it through, so can we please just follow Peter's lead and get started?"

They break out the supplies in the cabinet and set to work. Broom and dustpan in hand, Alice assigns herself to floor duty and starts sweeping with renewed empathy for Muggles. How do they stand this, honestly?

Of course, compared to the task of patching up the holes in these friendships, cleaning the classroom will be a piece of cake, Alice realizes within minutes.

Emmeline talks next. (Alice is fast getting weary of this pattern: somebody speaks, somebody squabbles, and sooner or later, everything disintegrates into silence, secrets, and hushed and hateful words. She can't take it much longer. She doesn't know why they've all taken this for so long—)

So Emmeline talks next, saying, "So are we going to get group therapy over with or what?"

"Yeah, Marlene, what possessed you to defy the rules and throw enough unruly hexes at me to land me in the Hospital Wing for the day?" says Sirius mockingly. He's still nursing wounds from this morning, holding up to his left eye a cloth dipped in some healing solution or other.

"Sirius," says James warningly, and Sirius backs down. "Look, we're not going to get anywhere if we pin all the blame on Marlene, all right? McKinnon and Sirius are not the only ones at fault for this. We've been lying to ourselves and each other for too long now, and it's about time we admit it."

"So we're just going to sit around in a circle and talk about our feelings now, are we, James?" says Sirius irritably.

"No," says James, "we're going to scrub this room clean, and we're going to tell everything."

Meekly, Mary echoes, "Everything?"

"Everything."

Something of a painful silence follows. Alice is starting to recognize more and more just how disconnected from each other they all are. "Fine," says Marlene, still disgruntled, "then why don't you tell us what the hell your deal is with Black and Lupe?"

Paling, Remus protests, "Marlene, I really don't think that's such a good—"

"You know, honestly, Jay, if he's so sick and meddling in something so dangerous because of it, don't you think that as his mates, we have the right to know?" Marlene continues bitterly, ignoring Remus completely.

Wide-eyed, James says, "Marlene, that wasn't what I m—"

Alice interrupts, "What do you mean, dangerous?"

Stammering, Remus says hastily, "It's not that simple—"

"Eff it." Sirius. All eyes turn to him. "He's a fucking werewolf, and he's letting Damocles Belby use him as his lab rat in the search for a cure that he's not going to find."

It's the kind of statement that should warrant a dramatic pause, but what follows instead is absolute madness. "You bastard, Sirius, that wasn't yours to share!" erupts James, slamming his fists on the desk he's scrubbing down for emphasis; a shaking table leg knocks over his wash bucket, and soapy water sloshes everywhere, dousing Alice's feet.

She's still processing this as Sirius retorts, "Someone's got to call him out! He's making a colossal mistake, and since none of us can knock any sense into him—"

"God, Sirius, how many times do you have to be told that it isn't a mistake? There's no logical reason to think that there can never be something out there to at least lessen the effects of lycanthropy," says Lily now, squaring her shoulders and eyeing him down.

"Wait, backtrack, you knew about this?" asks Mary, her tone almost accusatory.

Marlene confirms, "And didn't see fit to bother to mention it to me."

"You mean to us," Mary says, her anger directed at Marlene now. "Not everything is about you and Lily, Lene."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Marlene shoots back.

"Cut the crap, Marlene, you know exactly what I mean!" shouts Mary. "You've replaced me with her, poor little orphan Lily, just because her Death Eater best friend dropped her and her parents died, but, like, that doesn't mean I'm petty and worthless just because I used to dye my hair blonde and read Witch Weekly. Dammit, Lene, you were the closest thing I had to family; I thought that meant something to you!"

From the looks of it, this shocks Marlene into silence, just long enough for Peter to cut in, "Lord, how self-centered are you?" Mary slumps against the blackboard, shame-faced; Marlene takes a deep breath, steadies herself. "Maybe I'm crazy, but I think my best mate's lycanthropy trumps whatever misunderstandings you two have right now."

"On the bright side, at least they don't seem to think it a complete scandal," mumbles Remus, smiling halfheartedly.

"I'm sorry, Lupe," Mary apologizes, head bowed. "I can't even imagine what that's like for you."

Alice's mind is reeling. Remus, their Remus—a werewolf? All her life, she's been raised to believe that werewolves are both a joke and a menace—soulless wizarding outcasts that she used to laugh off even as she prayed to god she'd never encounter one. It's the wizarding way, to hate and fear that particular line of bestiality—and now the joke's on her, that she's been living with a werewolf for the last five and a half years of her life. It doesn't add up. It can't add up.

If she feels awful about it, it must be a thousand times worse for Remus himself; she knows that. To be on the receiving end of that kind of persecution… Remus isn't the stereotype for a teenage werewolf, not at all, and he certainly doesn't deserve any of the intolerance and ridicule that come with it.

"I feel terrible," sighs Alice, resting her hands on the top of her broom handle and not even attempting to fight off her overwhelming guilt.

"You would, wouldn't you?" Emmeline muses. Alice stares. "Always going out of your way to feel the most politically correct emotions in every circumstance… it's getting old, really."

Alice isn't quite sure what to say to that, blurting, "Forgive me, but I thought this was about Remus."

"It is about Remus," says James impatiently, "so Sirius, for god's sake, if you have so little trust in Belby's potion, why are you angry with Remus because of it?"

"Because he knows better!" Sirius says, fuming. "Because he can't trust Belby, and this whole half-arsed plan is stupid and reckless and bound to fail—"

Peter interrupts, "You know, Sirius, that sounds a lot like the kind of principles you live by."

"Shut it, Peter," says Sirius, exasperated. "Dammit, Remus, you're going to end up either dead or ousted from the wizarding world when this goes wrong, and I think I have the right to be mad at you for throwing your life away."

"He isn't going to end up—" Lily tries to say.

Remus says over her, "Thank you, Lily, but it's all right. Padfoot… it's my life, and I know what I'm doing with it."

"I hope you do," says Sirius darkly.

Smiling a bit, Remus says, "Well, he hasn't killed me yet, has he? I have a lot of input on the recipe… if with nothing else, I trust Belby with this, at least not to do me in on purpose."

"Remus could use our support, you know," Peter suggests, timid but standing his ground. "If he's wrong and really is throwing his life away, he's going to need us to be there for him more now than ever."

Sirius doesn't speak, just goes back to scraping the gum out from under a desk with a penknife. Alice reflects on how much this whole setup sounds terribly like a clichéd empathy card: All I want is to be there for you in your time of need…

"Remus, why didn't you just tell us?" asks Mary, distress laced into her expression, her intonation.

After a moment, Remus answers, "I didn't want to burden you with it. It's a lot of responsibility to carry that around."

"Says the werewolf himself," Mary says to this, smiling faintly. "You don't have to carry it alone."

"How was I to know whether it would have been too much to pile on all your plates?" says Remus. "Everybody has something they're hiding; I didn't think it was my place to judge my secrets to be heavier than any of yours."

A tentative silence starts to settle in. To break it, Lily says slowly, "You could have come to us—you could have at least come to me. I know I haven't been the greatest mate to any of you before the last few months, but you've all come around for me in ways I never imagined you could; the least I can do is return the favor when any of you are in need."

"I know I can relate, with everything that's happened between me and Reg," Mary pipes up. "It's hard. You shouldn't have to deal with it on your own, even if it seems stupid."

"Thanks, guys," says Alice. She shifts from foot to foot, the water James spilled completely soaked through her shoes at this point. "I should get a mop and start cleaning this up…"

"I ought to help you with that," James volunteers, leading the way to Tonks's cabinet of cleaning supplies.

They're back to scrubbing in silence for a minute now, and Alice can't decide whether the tension is lesser or worse than before. Remus Lupin, a werewolf… she can't reconcile it. She can't.

Eventually, Mary starts to say, "Lily, what I said about you and Marlene—"

"No, it's fine, I get it," says Lily, shrugging. "You miss your friend. I can understand that."

Indeed she can, thinks Alice. "It's not fine. Maybe you appreciate the last few months, but, like, I know I was never very nice to you for the five years before that. You were my roommate; I should have been better to you," says Mary.

"It's in the past now, right?" forgives Lily, smiling weakly. "You didn't trust Severus, so you didn't trust me. I get that."

"Mare, for what it's worth, I miss us, too." Marlene. Alice is surprised she's speaking up and letting down her guard, but she can't say that she isn't glad to see it.

"Marlene…" begins Remus, clearly hesitant to speak. "I know that you probably don't want to talk about it, but we're supposed to be getting to the bottom of this duel tonight, and in order to do that, we're going to have to address the hostility between you and Sirius."

"You're right," she says stiffly, not missing a beat. "I don't want to talk about it."

Remus answers, sighing, "Well, I didn't want to talk about being werewolf, but you didn't seem to have a problem unveiling that one, did you?"

There's a slight, uncomfortable pause. "What's there to say? We used to be friends; now all we have is sex and lies—" Marlene starts to say.

Sirius interrupts, "Marlene—"

"Just shut it, Black, I don't want to hear it," says Marlene without even attempting a shred of patience. Alice doesn't blame her: if she were in Marlene's shoes, she'd have stopped giving Sirius chances a long time ago.

"It's not like that…" Sirius says slowly, inhaling. No one else speaks; Alice gets the feeling she'd be intruding to say anything at all in this conversation, and from the sound of it, so do the others. "You do matter to me—"

Marlene accuses, "Just not as much as any of the rest of it."

"You know that's not fair. I'm not saying what we have is healthy, but you're just as much a willing participant in it as I am. I never forced you into this cycle. You could have stopped it at any time if you'd wanted to—"

"Could I have, though? I was the one who fell in love with you. You knew I was lonely and needy and pathetic, and you took advantage of—"

"Oh, don't even start with that. Who says I don't need you? Who says I don't have a void to fill? I'm not some grandmaster manipulating your reality. Hell, I probably wish as much as you do that we could have figured out years ago how to do the thing properly instead of sticking ourselves in this circle of feeling ashamed of it and avoiding each other whenever we're not going at it."

"If you wanted something better for us, you could have just asked me."

"So could you," Sirius retorts.

"I can't believe you're playing the victim after all this time," says Marlene hotly. "For all that time, you treat me like I'm never going to be enough for you, and now you're trying to rewrite history like it's all just some simple misunderstanding. I gave everything to you! I'm there for you as a friend when you need me, not that you seek out my friendship often—I let you sleep with me repeatedly even when there are strict wizarding laws against it for minors—I go along with your dysfunctional cycle of codependence—"

"I never made you do any of that. If you want to talk about rewriting history—"

"Well, I wish I hadn't done it. I wish I'd never even met you."

He closes his eyes tightly. "Let's back up. I think we're losing sight of things here. Marlene—I love you."

"How convenient."

He looks like he's been slapped in the face, physically recoiling at Marlene's answer. A little embarrassingly, Alice even finds herself suppressing a wince as she keeps mopping, head bowed and sneaking sheepish glances. Finally, Sirius asks, "Would it be better for you if we broke up for good?"

She says bitterly, "Seeing as I didn't realize we were properly together, I can't say it would either way."

There's a drawn-out pause now as Sirius gapes and Marlene scrubs at the blackboard with a vicious amount of pressure. Alice wishes she could unlock the door and run out of this classroom, stop intruding on this moment; she wishes Tonks had never had the idea for this detention in the first place, even if it does help them all in the end, if only it would have meant that Sirius and Marlene would be alone for this.

"Do you want us to be together?" Sirius tries again with incredulity.

"Not on your life," Marlene scoffs.

Another pause. It's gotten to the point that Alice averts her eyes.

And out of the blue, Mary tells them, "My parents are Catholic and got divorced because Dad couldn't accept that his daughter was a witch." Alice doesn't quite know how to react. "I just thought you should know that, like, you're not the only ones with messy problems."

"When my parents died…" Lily swallows thickly, then continues, "They left everything—our house, our savings—to my sister, Petunia. I always knew Mum got along better with Tuney, but I never would have expected…"

"Malicious even in death," James mutters, crossing his arms.

"James—"

"I never liked your mum, you knew that," he says shortly, but Alice knows he feels more empathy than anything. That's James.

Peter says, "I'm sorry, both of you."

Mary acknowledges, "Thanks, Pete," wearing a quiet little smile.

They've dropped a few too many bombshells today, Alice decides. For someone who tries to lead such a drama and confrontation-free life, it's a bit more than she'd been prepared to handle. "You know, what we really need is a chance to get away from all of this," she muses, still mopping. "Get away from the war, get away from our families… just get back to each other, really."

"Well, it can't be this weekend; I leave for France tomorrow," says Lily; Alice can't blame her for not sounding all that disappointed about it.

"Over the holiday, then," says James, and judging by his tone of voice, Alice would say that he's just had a light bulb idea. "Yeah, you can all stay at the manor for a couple of weeks. We have enough guest rooms for all of you, and it's the perfect time to reconnect, isn't it? Christmas spirit and all that."

Unperturbed, Emmeline declares, "Count me out."

"It's not optional," James decides, shaking his head, "especially for you."

Marlene disagrees, "No, I always spend Christmas with Doc—"

"There's no need; you live with him full-time now," Lily reminds her, a smile growing on her lips. "We're in."

"Me, too," says Peter as Remus and Mary nod their agreement.

Turning to Sirius, James asks, "Sirius?"

"It's either that, Grimmauld, or Hogwarts," he says with a shrug, "so it's not like I have much of a choice either way, mate."

"So it's settled?" Alice asks, leaning on her mop and looking between her friends' faces.

James nods, too, rumpling up his hair. "I believe this means it is."

They go back to cleaning in silence after that—not because they're angry anymore, Alice believes, but because they're drained, done, with nothing left to say to one another. It occurs to her that she has nothing of substance to share tonight—that somewhere amidst her determination not to get caught up in drama this year (or any year, for that matter), she somehow lost hold of her closeness to her mates.

No matter what any of the nine of them try to do to stick together, they all seem to wind up in the same position: far too far apart.

Alice mops and mops and prays to god that Christmas at the Potters' will be a longer lasting solution than any old quick fix.