Lily Chapter 68: Mixed Drinks, a harry potter fanfic

A/N: Okay, okay, okay, maybe the guessing-the-last-word contest thing was not the best idea ever. There have been 32 – count 'em – 32 guesses, and not a single correct one thus far. Here are some wrong ones: Night, Wonderful, Family, the End, After, Music box, Kipper, Love, Dancer, Forever, Fuzzy (what?), Happily Ever After, Kiss, Lily, Scar, Harry, James, Always, Me, Marauders, Potter, Light, Voldemort, Dead, Stronger, Away, Black, Power, Evans, Dursleys, Back, Goodbye. That's both pathetic and understandable, everyone. Would you like a hinty-hint? *watches reviewers nod politely or attempt to attack us* Okay then. The last word is a proper noun. Cheap, I know, but don't you have a better shot at it now?

And we're awfully sorry about how long this is taking. We both have a very demanding course in real history, so we can't really concentrate on Lily's. Not to say that reality is better than fiction. You know where we stand on that one ;O)

Disclaimer: JKR owns the setting and MWPP/L. We own the plot, Chantel (RIP), Chrissy (RIP), Professor Lollio, Perry Mifflebey, Vanessa (she has no last name?), Juno Frese, Eurydice Ramsey (RIP….?), Professor Francisca McBride, Amelia Black (RIP), Jessica, Anna, Kipper, Kippette, Lily Junior (cat), Pamela Vancouver (poor soul), Eva Sinclair, Quinn Baker, Michael Daehn, Ella Vourassa, Lena Riley, Tommy Rillton, Irene Hamilton, Brittany Morrison, Brendan Christenson, Harvey Locksmire, Sarah Abbot, Robert Archy, Orpheus Berry, Lotus Bone, Eva Ingsa, Robert Marley, Miriam Forsythe, Nick Johnson, Professor Trombley, Professor Gadani, William Baxter, Julia Thomas, the Calabrese Opera Witches, Professor Mace, Adam Morse, Mr. Lyons, Professor Machiavelli, Geoff Thatcher, Paul, Julie, Jess, and all the odd quirks you notice in the story that aren't featured in the Harry Potter books.

Lily

Chapter 68

Lily walked down the hallway to Charms, decidedly miserable. It was her birthday. Fifteen years old and not a single "Happy Birthday." And why should there be any, when everyone knew perfectly well that it was destined to be a horrible birthday – she had a seat booked for four-thirty on the Knight Bus to take her to Petunia's wedding. And the dreaded event was sure to take too long for any birthday celebration to take place after she returned. "Exams are coming up, too, Lily, so we should really get enough sleep for classes," Peter had said, speaking for all the Marauders. "Maybe this weekend, we'll grab some sweets from Honeyduke's or something and steal a few exploding candles at Zonko's. Okay?"

Of course it wasn't ok! There had to be some way to get out of the wedding. Hell or high water, she'd take one or both. But then again, maybe Petunia would act halfway decent towards her. Remus had pointed out the perk of free food, but to tell the truth, Lily wasn't feeling very hungry. She shifted her books from one arm to the other, then jumped slightly when the smaller book, a blue one she wasn't accustomed to seeing, suddenly whispered, "I wonder if I might have a word with you."

She rolled her eyes, ducked into an empty classroom, and set the book down on a desk, where it promptly Shifted into a feather duster and busied itself dusting the desk. She started to walk out again, saying, "Listen, Kipper, I'm going to be late. Don't mess with me today. I'm in a terrible mood."

"But I-"

Lily slammed the door behind her and kept walking. Just as she was thinking that maybe she wouldn't be late after all, Sirius jumped out into the middle of the hall and threw a pillowcase over her head. "What are you doing??" she shrieked, as she felt all four of the Marauders hoisting her up and carrying her along.

"Shh!"

"Yeah, we're under the Invisibility Cloak, so don't worry."

"Relax, Lil, you've memorized the Charms book anyway."

Not too sure why, she kept quiet until her captors set her down and took the pillowcase off of her head. She looked around, smoothing her hair self-consciously, and recognized the entrance to the Dissendium passageway. Juno must have joined them at some point, because she was there, too, grinning just as broadly as any of the boys. "Okay, what's going on here?"

James handed the map back to Sirius to erase it. "We've kidnapped you. It's your birthday, and that means it's your job to have fun."

"You, little missy, were not completing your job," added Sirius.

"So we had a powwow and decided to give you a hand. Do the job for you!" Remus said.

"We're taking you to Hogsmeade whether you like it or not," Peter said, opening the passageway and climbing in.

Remus followed, then Juno, saying, "Happy birthday!", and Sirius.

James looked at her with eyebrows raised. "What d'you think, Lil?"

She hesitated. "I really shouldn't be skipping class like this…"

"C'mon." He grabbed her hand and tried his best to make a sad-puppy-dog face.

Lily laughed, kissed him, and jumped into the passage with the rest of them.

"Evenin', miss," said the conductor of the giant purple bus, tipping his hat congenially and stepping aside so that Lily could make her way to the back.

She smiled at him and ran her fingers through her hair to comb out any confetti left over from the Marauders' noisy celebration at the Three Broomsticks. It had been roughly two hours long, and Kipper had tried to intrude about a dozen times, insisting that he had to talk to Lily about something. Every time, they found a new way of telling him to sod off, and he found a new way of telling them that they'd be sorry. The last time, though, he showed up in the form of a blue-clad fairy godmother and screeched at Lily, "Oy, pumpkinhead, you're going to miss the bus!"

As the bus started up, Lily reached into the bag she'd brought along. Inside were a "normal" blue dress, a fancy snowglobe wrapped in shiny paper, and a copy of Little Women, which she had been reading for awhile. Juno had insisted that she bring Lily Junior along, so the cat now slept peacefully on the empty seat beside her. She pulled the book out and set it on her lap, and no sooner had she noticed the extra blue bookmark than it flew out of the pages and took the form of a little blue Chihuahua. Instantly, Lily Junior's eyes shot open, but then, as though blue Chihuahuas were a dull, everyday occurrence, the eyes closed again and Lily Junior went back to sleep.

"Kipper, you really can't keep following me like this."

"I know. If you'd just let me talk for twooo seconds, I wouldn't bother you again."

"Can't it wait?" she said, exasperated.

"I could wait, but the thing is that…well, where do I begin?"

As Kipper searched for a good starting point, the bus stopped, and Lily noticed a wizard trundling by with a huge cloth suitcase that was unzippered on one side. Seeing her opportunity, she seized the tiny blue dog and stuffed it into the suitcase just as the wizard stepped off the bus. "There!" she sighed, and went back to her book.

Forty-five minutes later, Lily disembarked herself, and, with Lily Junior waiting obediently outside the public restroom at a Muggle fast-food place, changed into her dress for the wedding. She looked at herself in the mirror and thought hard about what she wouldn't be able to say or do. "I'm in pretty good shape," she thought, remembering the summer before when she and Sirius had ended up in a Muggle mall. "At least I know what a pretzel is."

She was in the church early and saw all the other guests file in. When the wedding march finally started playing, Petunia came sweeping down the aisle with who Lily assumed to be her soon-to-be father-in-law. Lily fought to keep down giggles at Petunia's layers upon layers of crinoline and lace. Really, there could not have been much of a reason to turn herself into a human blizzard. She was icy enough as it was, with a snobbish, triumphant expression that said plainly to the world, 'I win, you lose. Let's play again.' And naturally, she didn't even notice her sister sitting there in the fourth pew from the front. Not even when Lily had to lean over and pretend to tie her shoe or something because she was laughing so hard at the groom – Vernon Dursley, when asked whether he took Petunia to be his lawfully wedded wife, promptly grunted, "I am."

But all in all, the wedding went off smoothly.

It was the reception that got a little more interesting.

Lily sat down at a table with four people she'd never seen before in her life. The only boy was about Lily's age, maybe a year or so older, round-faced with glasses to match and a pitiful attempt at a Mohawk with blonde tips. He sat immediately to her right. On his right was an angry-faced girl with shoulder-length auburn hair and enough black eye makeup to make her blue eyes stand out like tiny diamonds in the rough. Then, to her right, a girl who needed and wore no eye makeup – her giant cerulean eyes looked like stone orbs in her pale face, contrasting her brown hair. And on Lily's left sat an absolute caricature. She had the exact same eyes as Vernon, so Lily presumed her to be his sister, disappearing beneath yellow frills that did not hide her enormity…or her puppy. A bulldog sat in her tremendous lap and ripped mercilessly at a bone. The woman stroked the monster and cooed over him, saying, "Of course, I've been simply dying for a male since Miffy came of age, so that they could breed. I've always wanted to breed bulldogs, and Colonel Fubster's been an absolute gem about it all, the old fart. He's promised to give me all his dogs when he retires. Can't happen soon enough, if you ask me, he forgets to feed the poor creatures half the time…"

Lily toyed with her napkin and stifled a yawn, watching the other three people at the table take in this stream of chatter in their own ways. The two girls seemed to act as one – or rather, the girl with huge eyes acted as a mirror for the other's actions. If the auburn-haired one glanced up at the clock in tedium, so did the other. They would nod, look at each other to assure unison, and nod again. It was rather strange, Lily thought, and began to wonder, with friends like these, why Petunia would ever consider her to be abnormal.

Suddenly, the boy reached over and poked Lily in the side. She jumped about a foot out of her chair and stared at him. He was smiling as though it had been a really clever gesture. "What are you doing?" she hissed. He just kept grinning, looking supremely idiotic, and poked her again.

"Paul," said the auburn-haired girl, interrupting the dog talk abruptly, "You don't even know her."

"Sod off, Jess," he whined.

"Erm, I was saying-" began the dog owner.

"Sod this off! And quit poking her, it looks like you're grabbing her arse from this side of the table!" she turned to her friend. "Doesn't it, Julie?"

"Well, looks like either her arse or her…well…" there was a scandalized pause, then Jess and Julie burst out laughing.

Paul sat back in his chair, blushing. "I can't ever do anything right…" then he glared at the two hyenas. "Go to hell!" For a second, he reminded Lily of Peter.

The bulldog suddenly put his paws on the tablecloth and started lapping up tea from the saucer. "Ripper! That's frightfully ill-mannered!"

"Marge, it's a dog! What on earth d'you expect?" said Jess in a terribly low, sarcastic voice. Without waiting for an answer, she took off her hat, lifted up her arms, and started fanning her armpits with it. "Gor, I'm sweating like a monkey…"

"Don't be so bloody rude!" yelled Julie, still with a huge smile on her face.

Paul poked Lily again.

Jess continued fanning herself. "C'mon, it's ridiculous to have a wedding on such a hot day anyway. Besides, you were a dozen times ruder when we were playing hangman the other day, that was a highly inappropriate sentence you made me guess…"

"Well, it was true. Martha's an absolute slut…"

Paul poked Lily again, this time harder and with an even bigger grin.

"If I might continue what I was saying!" boomed Marge.

"And you might not!" said Jess.

Paul poked Lily, and she let out a squeak that could have shattered his glasses. He giggled.

"PAUL!!" raged Julie. "STOP GRABBING HER-"

"I'm going to get a drink!" Lily shouted, snatching up her glass and stomping over to the bar. To hell with the legal drinking age, this was the worst birthday ever, and she deserved some sort of respite. Maybe butterbeer…

"What's your poison, dearie?" intoned the bartender, a reasonably cute young man wearing a bright blue uniform that clashed horribly with the yellow decorations. He must have noticed Lily staring at it, because he smiled both heart-meltingly and self-consciously and said, "I've gotta work for some other company, eh? So what'll it be?"

She'd cooled down considerably since being in the thick of all that insanity, so she simply rubbed her side and asked for a Coca-cola, having realized that butterbeer was probably not on the list of options. There was a twinkle in the bartender's eyes (which matched his uniform, actually, which was a little strange) as he slid a tall glass of soda across the bar to Lily. "I added a couple cherries and a little umbrella for ya," he said, winking.

Lily gave him an unmistakably sideways look, downed the cherries in one bite, and took a gulp of the soda like it was her last hope for sanity. There was a little bit of a too-sweet aftertaste as she walked back to the table, so she turned around angrily. "Did you put sugar in this…?"

But he had walked away, nowhere to be seen.

"Must be going on break, all the better for me," she muttered, taking another sip of that hypersweet soda.

As Petunia and Vernon took the floor for the first dance of the reception, Paul suddenly poked Lily again. She hiccupped this time – he must've gotten her right at the diaphragm or something, she thought. Then she decided to poke him right back.

As if he hadn't been smiling widely enough already, he grinned so hard it looked like his ears were going to blow off the sides of his face. "Whoa!"

"Oh, come on," Lily chuckled. "That didn't hurt you, you've got enough cushioning!" For a second, he looked hurt, but she kept giggling, so he smiled again and poked her in the stomach. She poked him back, and before she knew it, they'd gotten into a regular poke-war…and he had grabbed her and pulled her over onto his lap.

All of a sudden, Lily felt the pressure of three very pointed stares coming her way: The black-rimmed daggers from Jess, the wide, surprised circles of Julie, and of course, Marge's little scrutinizing piggy eyes. She turned bright pink, climbed down from Paul's lap, and mumbled something about having run out of Coke.

She watched very carefully this time as the bartender, who'd mysteriously reappeared, turned his back, poured in the ice and the Coca-cola, and then did something that Lily couldn't really see, but presumably, it was just the cherries, and this time, a little plastic sword. And the sugar again, she thought to herself, as the first sip had the vague sweetness at its edges again. He was sitting there the whole time with one eyebrow cocked and a flirtatious smirk on his face. With a tone to match, he said, "Something wrong?"

"No-o-o," she said, leaning over the bar. "It's very sweet, isn't it?"

He winked again, and Lily was struck by the blueness of his eyes. "So are you."

She giggled, almost tripping over the hem of her dress on her way back, and did not notice that as soon as the bartender turned away, he disappeared completely and turned into a blue rose in a blue vase on the bar.

Three Kipper Coca-colas later….

Lily laid her head down on Paul's shoulder and threw her arms dramatically around his neck, knocking over Jess's glass of wine in the process. "Oops! I'm sorry about that. It matches your dress, anyway – hehehehehehe!" She was yet again on Paul's lap, and she grabbed the glasses off of his face and put them on hers. "Y'know, my boyfriend has glasses too."

Taken aback, Paul said, "Your boyfriend?"

"Ah, he knows I'm here. I know him from school. He's such a…a geek!" she adjusted the glasses. "But it's better, I guess, since he always fixes his glasses right away. Never uses masking tape, mm-mm! So I suppose he looks like less of a geek. He should really fix his eyes, so he wouldn't need glasses at all, y'know? He's got pawzzzitively gorrrrrgeous eyes. They're grey. Like yours, Paul. Nooo, wait…your eyes are brown. Brownish-grey. And you're a good kisser. I mean, he is. I mean…hey, I wouldn't know, he's the only one who's ever kissed me!" She hiccupped, then the goofy smile dropped off her face. She grabbed Paul's face between her hands. "Wanna give me something to compare him to, Paulie?" Much to the hypothetical dismay of a sober Lily, she fastened her lips over his in what was quite possibly the sloppiest kiss in the history of man. Then she looked around at everyone at the table, wiping her mouth with the tablecloth. "Both of you have blue eyes. I don't like blue, because I met a perificator once who was always blue. I'll bet you don't know what a blue is. I mean a perificator."

"I'm sure I don't," Marge said icily. "Get off his lap and stop making a spectacle of yourself, you filthy drunk!"

Lily stared at her for a second, then leaped down from the chair and walked around the back of Paul. She stood on her tiptoes next to Marge, but still was not as tall as her. "Just a minute," she slurred, and gathered up her skirt in one hand, using the other to climb onto her own chair. "Do you have any idea," she said to the top of Marge's vast blonde head, "The trouble you could get yourself into by saying that if I had my wand?"

"Your what?" shrieked Jess.

"Oh, shut up, you bony sack of snob! And Julie, it's not really charming to always agree with her. As a matter of fact, I'll bet people would like you better if you just hauled off and whacked her in the jaw one of these days. Yes, my wand! I'm a witch. Mm-hmm. I could turn you all into toads right now if I wanted to."

"I knew a Wiccan once, and you can only do abstract sorts of spells," said Jess.

Julie rolled her eyes. "Carrots, you're such a liar."

"That's probably true…and I'm not a Wiccan, I'm a witch. I go to school and get taught by wizards and witches, but they're grownups, of course. Hogwarts School of Witchway and Wizardcraft…Hogsmarts Fool of Witchgrift…um…something like that. I skipped a year, too! I'm a bloody genius!"

"You're a bloody lunatic," said Paul.

"You're a sucky kisser," she shot down at him. "And if I had my wand right now, so help me, you'd all be toads. Then again…I'm almost as bad at Transfiguration as you are at kissing, Paul. You know who's better at Transfiguration is James." She felt strange at the name. "James," she repeated. "My…boyfriend…who's good at Transfiguration." A shaft of guilt pierced her murky brain like light in an attic. "And I kissed you…" her stomach turned.

Suddenly, a hard hand fastened itself around Lily's wrist and pulled so sharply that Lily lost her balance and tumbled to the floor, her forehead striking the side of Marge's chair as she went. Against white starbursts of pain, she made out the furious, horse-faced figure of her sister, Petunia, looking like the White Lady of Death in her wedding gown. A fiery hatred was in her eyes that Lily firmly believed could have scared her to death if she hadn't been infinitely more frightened in her lifetime. Then she spoke the first words that had passed between them in years: "Get away from my wedding. I never want to see you again."

The pain in her forehead, the nausea in her stomach, and a new inky blackness started gathering at the edges of her vision. She felt the vague sensation of being picked up and carried, then the sound of a door closing behind her, and just darkness after that.