Summary: Lily, Sirius, James, a party full of Muggles and surprisingly few ghosts. My contribution to the Seven of Quills challenge.

Disclaimer: The characters don't belong to me. You all know that. You all know that they belong to the wonderful author that we all know and worship, J.K. Rowling.

Author's Note: This is in response to the SevenOfQuills list fic challenge. For challenge elements, see the first part.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed. thistlemeg, Mimi Izumi, Bob le beau poisson, Black Ice, ten miles til midnight and Iniga. I apologize greatly for the length of time it took me to get this out. There really was no reason for that. Sorry.

Also, I have Support Services. That means that, if you want, you can put me on Author Alert and receive notice when other stories of mine are posted, even if you haven't paid yourself.

Posted: Friday, June 7, 2002


A Ghost Story
Part 3/3

Sirius was bored. Muggles, he decided, didn't throw very exciting parties. It probably stemmed from the fact that, when wizards got drunk, they tended to do stupid things. Sure, Muggles did the same, but it was easier to do something stupid with the help of a wand - or at least more amusing to those witnessing. But Muggles were severely limited in what they could do.

As soon as he left Lily and James, he made a resolve to make things more exciting. It wasn't until after he had grabbed another beer that he realized that if used magic, Lily would take his motorbike.

"Oh well," he said out loud, his eyes shining. "I'll just have to be more creative."

A passing girl shot him an odd look, but Sirius arrested her fears with a grin. He started to talk to her, and pretty soon a whole crowd had gathered around him.

It was widely acknowledged that Sirius was one of the better storytellers that Hogwarts had seen in a long time. The stories he told were so outrageous that he expected no one to believe them and, in fact, no one ever did, but he still always managed even the most skeptical wonder if what he was saying was really true.

He didn't recognize Lily's sister among the girls. In his defence, he had only seen Petunia a couple of times - the start of her school term was before the Hogwarts Express left. It wasn't until James came over that he realized just how much trouble he was in.

"Petunia," James said in a strangled voice. "Nice to see you again."

The look on Petunia's face made it obvious that she was just as excited to see James as he was to see her.

"Lil's looking for you," James continued. Then he grabbed Sirius' wrist and quickly pulled him away from the group.

Sirius wasn't very resistant. "Lily's going to kill me, isn't she." It wasn't for dramatics, nor was it to gain sympathy; it was a cold, hard statement of facts.

The look on James' face didn't do anything to reassure him. "She'll come around," he said, but he didn't sound to sure about himself. "It's not like you did it on purpose." He stopped and gave Sirius a hard look. "You didn't do it on purpose, did you?"

"No!" Sirius exclaimed. "I'm not suicidal."

"I'll go talk to Lily. Just stay here and stay out of trouble. Five minutes, that's all I'm asking for. Try to stay out of trouble for five minutes."

"C'mon, Prongs. Give me some credit here!" Sirius said.

The look on James' face showed just how little credit he gave Sirius.

"You're supposed to be my best friend here!"

"Yes," James said, "and as your best friend, I've seen you get into trouble in safer circumstances in a lot less time than I'm giving you now." Then he grinned, and Sirius knew he wasn't really upset. "Don't worry, Padfoot. She won't do anything permanent."

"Oh, that really reassures me!" Sirius called out after James' retreating back.

Still, James had given him some good advice and Sirius decided to stay put and out of trouble, maybe for the first time in his life. He stood still and waited for James to return.

Unfortunately, it wasn't James who found him first. A greasy and very obviously drunk man stumbled up to him. "Hey, Tommy," he slurred.

It took Sirius a moment to realize he meant him. "My name's not Tommy."

"Sure it is." The guy slung his arm around Sirius' shoulder. "Hey," he said to a female passing by. "This here's my friend Tommy. He's a real joker. That he is." He nodded sagely and took another swig of his beer.

The girl wasn't drunk enough to be impressed, so she hurried off after giving him a look of disgust.

The drunk wasn't put out by the snub at all. "So Tommy," he said. "Have I told you about that blonde at work?"

"You might have," Sirius said. "I wouldn't know. I'm not Tommy."

He ignored him. "I've just spent the last two nights milking the cow, if you know what I mean." He nudged Sirius with his elbow and winked repeatedly.

Sirius rolled his eyes, but decided there was nothing to do except play along. With a perfectly straight face, he said, "Well, I would have milked the cow, but I was too busy yodelling." He paused, then, his words smothered with innuendo in a perfect mockery of the other boy, added, "If you know what I mean."

The other boy couldn't, mostly because Sirius didn't mean anything by the comment, but in his drunken state found it hilarious nonetheless.

Luckily, Sirius didn't have to put up with him any longer because someone came by and rescued him. Unluckily, that someone was Mike and a couple of his friends.

"Beat it," Mike said to the drunk. The latter wasn't so drunk enough to mistake the threat of Mike's fists, nor did he seem endowed with bravado, a gift alcohol gave to so many. He beat it.

"So, Cyrus, was it?" Mike asked.

How hard was it to remember a simple name? "Sirius, actually," he corrected.

"So are you coming with us to the Dubois house? Or aren't you man enough for it?"

Sirius had heard far greater insults from more impressive men. He refused to get worked up over this one, especially considering he was already walking on eggshells around Lily. "Why, exactly, are we going to the Dubois house?" he asked.

"To see the ghost, of course."

"Oh. Of course," Sirius said.

"Five minutes." Sirius didn't have to turn around to know James had come up behind him. "Five minutes. That's all I asked for, Padfoot. Five measly minutes."

"Padfoot?" Mike asked, sounding confused. "I thought you said your name was Cyprus."

"Sirius," he said, through clenched teeth. "Mike here was just explaining to me why it's so important that we go back to the Dubois house."

"We're not going." James was using his prefect voice. He didn't use it often, but when he did, there was usually no arguing with him.

"Why?" Mike taunted. "Are you chicken?"

James turned to regard him. No one had ever before accused James Potter of being afraid. Not James Potter, who had probably a thousand years worth of magical blood running through his veins. Not James Potter, who had ancestors hailing from illustrious families such as the Merrimans and Noces. Not James Potter, who, despite his track record, had been made a prefect at one of the most prestigious magic schools in Europe, and later the Head Boy.

He now turned to Mike and looked him straight in the eye. "I am not afraid, nor am I going to be convinced by your infantile attempts to bully us into doing your bidding."

Mike didn't look like he had understood half of what James was saying, and neither had any of his entourage of friends. But then, considering not one of them had the initiative to say anything Mike had not scripted for them, that was hardly surprising. He did, however, understand the gist of what James said.

"Buc buc buc buc!" Mike flapped his arms in imitation of a chicken for a visual aid.

James was not impressed. "Oh yes," he said dryly, "because pretending to be a chicken will really convince us."

Unfortunately, Sirius was a bit more hotheaded. "We'll go," he said.

"No," James disagreed, "we won't."

Sirius was firm about his decision. "I'm going. You have two choices. Either you can stay here and explain to Lily, or you can come with me and maybe stop me from doing something foolish." For a brief second, his gaze flicked over to Mike and his cronies so James knew exactly what something 'foolish' might be.

Turning back to the other boys, James said, "Let's go."


"Come again?" James asked skeptically.

"You deaf or something?" Mike asked. "I told you, we had some jokers a couple months ago who thought they could handle the ghost. Turns out they were a bunch of cowards. Anyway, they lost something in there, something of ours that you're going to get back."

"What?" Sirius challenged. "Couldn't you get it on your own?"

"This way you can prove yourselves to us," Mike said.

"You see, there's a flaw in that reasoning. You're assuming we actually give a damn what you think," said James.

Feeling strange that he had been cast in the role of the mediator for once, instead of James or Remus, Sirius broke in. "So what exactly are we looking for?"

"An Ancient Artifact of Great Import," Mike replied. The boys could hear the capitalization.

"What?" James snipped. "A light bulb?"

Sirius snickered, but no one else in the car found it funny.

"Don't be stupid," Mike berated him. "Light bulbs weren't even invented until not too long ago."

"Really? I never knew that," said James sarcastically.

Again marvelling at how he came to be the peacekeeper, Sirius asked, "So what is this important artifact?" He refused to capitalize it.

"You'll see," Mike said, trying to sound mysterious. He failed miserably. "Good luck!" He closed the door and Sirius and James were left alone in the abandoned house.

"They need to get their story straight," James muttered.

Sirius gasped. "You mean they weren't tell the truth?"

"I'm sorry, Padfoot, friend," James said. "You see, there are some people in the world who don't always tell the truth?"

Sirius adopted the wide-eyed innocence of youth look. "There are?" he asked, his bottom lip trembling slightly. "But why? Why would people make things up?"

"I don't know, Padfoot, I don't know," James said mournfully, patting Sirius consolingly. He paused, then added, "Are we finished with that?"

"Sure. So you certainly lost your patience with Mike back in the car," Sirius said.

"Can you blame me, Cyprus?" James asked. "Something about him just rubs me the wrong way. Why did you insist on coming, anyway?"

"I have a plan."

Groaning, James said, "I think it's safe to say Lily's never going to trust either of us ever again."

"And that's changed from before how?" Sirius asked.

James considered that for a moment. "Good point. What's your plan?"


Sirius ran outside to where Mike and some of his friends were waiting and breathlessly panted, "We found it! But we need your help getting it out."

The others, a few of Mike's friends conspicuously missing, were leaning on the fence, drinking and laughing. They seemed surprised, to say the least, when Sirius showed up with the news.

"What?" Mike demanded. "It's easy to get! You shouldn't need any help."

"What are you talking about?" Sirius asked, faking confusion. "The chalice is stuck behind some stones in the basement. We need help moving them. James is down there right now."

"Chalice?" Mike had a scheming look to him.

"Yeah, chalice." Sirius paused, then asked, "That was what we were looking for, wasn't it?"

"Describe it to me," ordered Mike.

Sirius straightened out. Miraculously enough, he had completely recovered his breath already, but no one seemed to notice. His eyes shining in awe, he began: "It's solid gold and about this big." Making a circle with his fingers, he demonstrated the size. "And it's decorated with diamonds and emeralds."

"Yeah," Mike said, unmistakable greed in his voice. "Yeah, that's the one."

"What are we waiting for then?" Sirius asked. Motioning them to follow, he started back for the house.

One the way down to the basement, Sirius overheard one of the boys asking Mike, "What's this about a chalice? I thought we sent them on a wild goose chase?" He was shushed immediately.

Sirius allowed himself a small smile, but since he was in the lead, no one else knew that he had heard.

"Someone get the lights,' Mike commanded. "It's dark in here."

Sirius turned around and looked at him guilelessly. He was almost completely covered in shadows. "The house is abandoned, remember? There's no electricity." Just because he had slept through most of his Muggle Studies classes didn't mean that he hadn't learned anything.

An uneasy silence fell on the boys, broken only when one of the boys pulled out a torch. "The battery should last a couple of hours," he explained.

"Hurry up," Sirius said, leading them down the basement stairs.

As soon as all of the boys had started down the steps, the door slammed shut on its own accord.

"Who did that?" Mike demanded, clearly shaken.

"No one was there, no one touched it," a white-faced boy replied.

With wide-eyed innocence, Sirius turned around and said, "It was probably the ghost. Don't worry, the same thing happened with James and I came down."

The boy in the rear tried the doorknob. "It won't open!" he exclaimed.

"We'll get it later," Sirius said impatiently. "Hurry. Come on."

"Come on," Mike repeated, but he didn't sound nearly as calm as Sirius did.

The strange sounds start when they reached the bottom of the stairs. At first, it was just creaking noises coming from parts of the basement where no one was walking, but shortly afterwards a slight moaning sound could be heard, gradually growing louder. Behind Sirius, the others were looking at each other nervously.

Then the light went out.

"Turn that back on!" Mike commanded urgently.

"I can't!" the boy with the torch answered. Everyone could hear him desperately clicking the switch on and off with no effect. "It's not working." There was still a little light coming from the basement windows, but it was only enough to let the boys walk without bumping into each other. Once their eyes had adjusted to the lack of light, they could see outlines, but little else.

"Let's get out of here," someone voiced, Sirius couldn't tell whom.

Mike vetoed the suggestion. "No," he said. "We're going to get that chalice first."

"But the ghost - " someone cried.

"There is no ghost! Now stop acting like wusses and come on!"

"It's just over here," Sirius said, keeping his voice low not out of fear, but to add to the spooky atmosphere of the basement.

That was James' signal. From his hiding place, he pulled out his wand and made a ghost appear.

Actually, it wasn't as much as a ghost as it was a shade. Creating the image of a real ghost required a great deal of talent and concentration and both James and Sirius had agreed it was too much effort to exert on Muggles like Mike and his friends. Instead James conjured up a shade that was vaguely human shape that started to float across the floor towards Sirius, Mike and the others.

However, it was more than enough to frighten the Muggles. Taking one look at James' "ghost", they ran up the stairs and out of the house (the basement door had miraculously unstuck).

Funnily enough, Mike was in the lead.

"Lumos."

James crawled out of his hiding spot. "I'm disappointed."

Sirius looked at him funnily. "Why?" he asked.

"That wasn't even a challenge," James complained. "I mean, I conjured up a shade, and they ran! We didn't even get to the fun part."

"Well, Prongs," Sirius said, slinging his arm over James' shoulder, "you win some and you lose some and since we won this one, quit your whining!"

"Aww, I guess you're right," James admitted reluctantly.

"I'm always right," said Sirius.

"Don't push your luck." Together they climbed the stairs, leaving the house at a much more leisurely pace than the Muggles.

They both wished they had run for it, however, when they went outside and found Lily waiting for them. As one, they took an involuntary step backwards.

"You promised," Lily said. "You promised."

"Now Lily," said Sirius, being the more suicidal of the two, "I didn't exactly go back on my promise."

"And how can you say that? I just saw a bunch of Muggles high-tailing it out of here, going on about some ghost. Petunia abandoned me; she's furious about what happened. How can you honestly say you didn't break your promise?" asked Lily.

"Well, Lily," Sirius said, "if you recall, I promised I wouldn't use any magic while at the party. I didn't. Clearly we had left the party long before we used any magic."

"We?" Lily asked, deceptively sweetly, as she turned to James.

"Oh, it's not like we did anything too bad. We didn't even do anything permanent; certainly not anything they could trace back to us. There's no way the Muggles could have known we did it," said James.

"Oh, and that makes it all better." A baby could have identified the sarcasm in Lily's voice.

"So you see, Lily, there's no reason for you to be mad at us," concluded Sirius.

"You broke your promise, Sirius."

"I thought we went through that," Sirius said. "I didn't break my promise; I had already left the party."

"You did not. You left the house where the party was at, but you didn't leave the party. You went with half a dozen Muggles, bringing the party with you. So technically you were still at the party when you used magic," Lily said.

Sirius was outraged. "You can't change the rules this late in the game," he disputed. "You said no magic until I left the party. I left the party."

"No you didn't," argued Lily. "You left with the party. The Black Shadow is mine."

"It is not," Sirius said, taking a step closer and looking her directly in the eyes.

"It is too." Accepting the challenge, Lily took another step towards him. She didn't break the eye contact.

"Not." Sirius pronounced the word very carefully.

Lily glared at him for another minute before giving up and turning around. "You," she said, pointing a finger in James' direction. "I'm not talking to you." She stalked off.

"We got off really easily," commented Sirius.

"If you say so," James said, watching Lily leave. "Just remember, you're not the one going out with her." He frowned, then turned to face his friend. "Padfoot - where are your keys?"

"What keys?"

"To the Shadow."

"In my pocket," answered Sirius. He reached in - and found nothing. Desperately, he began to pat himself down, but his keys were missing. "She didn't!"

"She did," confirmed James.

"LILY!"

Quite a ways ahead of them, Lily turned when she heard Sirius bellow her name and proudly displayed the keys to his motorbike. She waited until she knew Sirius had seen them and knew what she had done, then took off running.

Sirius went roaring after her.

The End


Acknowledgments (or, Things I've Stolen and Need to Apologize For)

One – the characters of Lily and Petunia Evans, James Potter and Sirius Black (plus Remus Lupin and Vernon Dursley, but they were only mentioned) as well as the whole universe in which this story is set, do not, predictable enough, belong to me but rather to the one, the only, the marvelous J.K. Rowling.

Two – referring to Sirius' bike as the Black Shadow did not come from my imagination. CLS was the first to come up with it to my knowledge in the story "Black Shadow". Seeing as I know diddly-squat about motorcyles (or motorbikes, whatever), I'm shamelessly stealing it.

Three – the image of Sirius painted blue came from V. Hayrabedian's fic "Ignis". I just couldn't get it out of my mind.

Four – thanks go to Liss who beta'd this for me. If it wasn't for her, you'd be scratching your heads at some of the sentences, wondering if maybe I wasn't drunk when writing this. For example, I originally wrote "you win some and you win some and since we won this won …" Umm, okay.

Five – Be a friend! Review when you reach the end.