Chapter 2: In Which There Are Letters and Gossip
The next morning I woke up to the sound of a thud. Blearily, I opened the curtains around my bed and found Lily, on the ground and holding her head, moaning. I could barely see her outline, however, so I stood up and pulled open the red velvet curtains on the windows. At once the moaning grew louder. I hesitated, torn as to whether I should close them again, but decided against it.
"Wake up, girls." I said, my voice irritatingly cheery in my own ears, "It's our first day back!"
Dorcas Meadowes, a tall, bronze girl with black hair, was the first girl besides me to slowly start to get up. She, like the others, was in a horrible condition, but she had admirable discipline. She was a star player on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and there is no doubt that if James hadn't been captain last year, she would have.
Meanwhile, Marlene, I could see through the gap in her bed curtains, was pulling the blankets over her head, and the bed that should have held Bertha Jorkins didn't show any signs of life at all.
Seeing that they were mostly content to wallow in agony rather than do anything, I sighed.
"I suppose I'll get that potion, shall I?"
Lily was the only one to respond, and she just managed to do that by whimpering.
I threw some robes on before leaving, then made my way towards the Marauders' dormitory. I felt apprehensive; no matter how good of friends with them I might have been, I tried to avoid their room whenever possible. It was their base of operations, and I didn't care to see what they did in their spare time, even if I had a pretty good guess. When I arrived, they already had a table out, and Peter, ever the servant, was attempting to sell hangover potions. He was doing a rather miserable job of it; he would get so flustered trying to give back proper change and write down everyone's name in his giant accounting book that several people grabbed potions when he wasn't looking and ran off with them. I rolled my eyes at the slow moving line and, finally, I found myself before Peter. He was perspiring heavily, and I grimaced.
"They made you sell it again, did they?" I asked him. I always tried to be nice to him when I could.
He nodded, and I gave him what I thought was a smile. However, it must have been particularly gruesome, as it made him flinch and look away.
"Just give me four, Peter."
He put four clear glass bottles on the table, then held out his fleshy hand.
"F-four sickles."
I dug into my robes and found my coin purse. I pulled out the money and was about to put it into his palm when a hand closed over mine and a familiar voice said "That won't be necessary. She gets them for free."
I could hear people around me exclaiming that it wasn't fair. I wrenched my hand from the one I knew to be Sirius's, picked up the bottles, then glared at him.
"I'm still mad at you." I said childishly.
"I figured that." Sirius said, running a hand through his hair. "How can I say I'm sorry?"
"You can't." I sniffed, walking away, "You aren't sorry. You had your party and it was a smashing success."
"You think so?"
I didn't bother to respond. I took the steps that led to the girl's dormitory, and Sirius continued to plead with me at the foot of them.
"Alice? Come now! Please?"
"No." I said firmly. For some reason, I turned back, and my heart plummeted at the look on Sirius's face. It was one of superiority; he knew that I would forgive him and that he didn't have to beg any more, and, in fact, he had only done so to begin with for begging's sake. The worst part was that he was right; I was hopeless at holding grudges. In that instant, I felt unspeakably cheap and used.
I wrenched open the door to our dormitory, then slammed it shut. The four girls in there groaned in anguish.
"Sorry." I said softly. "Here now, drink this."
One by one I brought the bottles to their lips and forced the potion down their throats, a routine that I had done for them a thousand times before. Slowly their appearances improves, until all four of them were fully recovered, rosy cheeked and healthy looking. They began to get ready, and Lily came to sit next to me on my bed where I was thinking on the situation with Sirius.
"What happened?" Lily asked, "The last thing I remember is the feast…and I…my mouth has a horrible taste in it."
I hesitated, trying to figure out how to best tell her what had taken place. I first made sure that Bertha was safely in the bathroom and out of earshot, then I told her, as gently as I possibly could.
When I finished, she had gone pale, and she looked like she might throw up again.
"I- I what?" she asked throatily, "Oh God, Alice…how can I…I can never…"
"Don't worry about it." I said, ever the comforter, "Nobody will remember, they all got drunk same as you."
She leaned over and put her head on my shoulder.
"Black and Potter will remember." she moaned, "even Pettigrew will know. They don't get drunk, and…oh God, even if nobody remembered I'm so ashamed, you must think so horribly of me now…"
"No, no." I said quickly. I didn't respond to the comment about Sirius and James, because she was right. I could only hope that they'd never bring it up. We sat in the same position for a while, until Bertha came out of the bathroom. She studied us and frowned.
"What's with you?" she asked in a would-be-casual voice.
"Nothing." I said, standing up.
"Right." Lily said thickly, "Nothing."
Bertha continued to look suspicious, but I went to the bathroom to temporarily escape her.
After I had taken a shower and gotten dressed, Dorcas and Bertha had already left. Marlene was sitting on her bed, telling a story about some conquest or other, and Lily was sitting on hers, pretending to be interested. When she saw me, she looked relieved.
"Right. Are you girls ready to go?" I asked. Lily still seemed apprehensive, but Marlene jumped up eagerly.
"I thought you'd never ask." she laughed, "I told Fabian I'd meet him in-" she paused and checked her watch, "oh, well, I was supposed to meet him five minutes ago."
"As in Fabian Prewett?" I asked incredulously.
"Yes. He's absolutely gorgeous, and he's in Ravenclaw too."
As we grabbed our bags and followed Marlene out, Lily and I exchanged glances. Not only was Fabian Prewett extremely good-looking and smart, but incredibly rude. He seemed to believe that people came in ranks (his being the highest, of course) and that he could only be seen associating with people of that rank. Therefore, I was horrified when Marlene turned to me.
"I could set you up with his brother, Gideon. He's just out of Hogwarts, and he has a job and everything." she beamed as though she had done me some incredible favor.
Marlene was always trying to set me up with people who she had either deemed unworthy of her time or who she had already dated. She did this specifically for me, because Lily's only trouble with boys was that James chased them all off, Dorcas would punch anybody who suggested dating, and Bertha was so unpleasant that Marlene didn't even bother. While the attempts seemed to be good-hearted, she had the habit of choosing the most horrible people. Last time, it had been Barty Jr., a boy who was so obviously in love with Marlene that he'd agreed in hopes of winning her favor. I had thought that one to be the worst, but Gideon Prewett…that one just took the cake.
He, too, had been in Ravenclaw, and he'd made it a point to torture me mercilessly my first four years at Hogwarts. Once he had been made a prefect, he'd stopped, but I still felt that every time he saw me he was thinking something horribly unpleasant.
"No thank you." I managed to say.
"Come on Alice, why?" she whined, "I know he was a bit of a prat in first year-"
"-and all the years following it." Lily muttered.
"-but he's really nice now." Marlene finished.
"I'll think about it." I lied as we reached the Great Hall. I didn't feel like arguing.
What I should say, and for the longest time I refused to admit it, was that I always tried to please people. It came, I think, from some deeply rooted belief that I never fit in. It began when I first came to Hogwarts and saw the two groups of people, muggleborn and pureblood. The purebloods were an altogether different sort than I was- they had this incredible blasé attitude about everything, not in the least concerned about what would be happening to them. The muggleborns were all passionately curious, wide-eyed in all that they did. I…I was somewhere in the middle, neither one nor the other. Though eventually everyone was on the same footing, I still felt terribly alone, in spite of Lily and later the Marauders and Marlene and any other of my friends. I didn't understand the way they worked; like how somebody falling down was funny, or how it was cool to break as many rules as you could. Lily didn't think those things, obviously, but she understood why the were that way; I didn't.
So like I said, I became a people pleaser. I did whatever was asked of me, believing that I owed people something for their friendship. I hated to fight; it seemed silly, and I loathed the insecurity of not having people like me. Sirius took advantage of this, just as he did with Remus, to get away for what he shouldn't, and Marlene used it to make herself feel like she was a good friend for pitying me.
Marlene danced off to the Ravenclaw table, where rusty haired Fabian was smirking and asking a flushed second year a question. Lily and I made our way to the Gryffindor table, Lily trying to hide her insecurity while I steadfastly avoided Sirius's gaze. We seated ourselves as far away from him and James as possible and therefore found ourselves sitting across from Bertha. She barely took any notice of us, as she was studying the Slytherin table.
As I spread marmalade on my toast, Lily finally ventured to speak to her.
"Er- what're you doing, Bertha?"
She shook her head slightly, causing her yellow locks to bounce every which way.
"What?" she asked, "Nothing, nothing." She looked away from the Slytherin table and concentrated hard on her food. I was unconvinced. Her 'nothing' sounded like the ones that Lily and I had just used earlier when we had talked to her. I craned my neck to see what was happening with the Slytherins, but all I saw were Narcissa and Andromeda, acting, as always, like the royal family of Hogwarts. There was no sign of an upcoming prank or anything of that sort. I frowned.
"Schedules." Lily said, sticking them under my nose. I jolted out of my reverie and took them. Looking down, I groaned.
"Professor Binns still teaches Advanced History of Magic?"
Lily, who was scanning her schedule thoroughly, barely looked up.
"I thought he died?" she said.
"So did I."
"I heard that he's a ghost." Bertha said conspiratorially, "I heard he doesn't even know he's dead."
"How do you know?" I countered.
She smirked knowingly.
"Nearly Headless Nick told me."
Lily clicked her tongue.
"Sir Nicholas." she said sternly, "Sir Nicholas De Mimsy Porpington. Honestly, why can't you say the whole thing, Bertha?"
I looked at her in confusion, and could see that beneath her lowered lashes, her eyes were dancing. I grinned. Bertha was perhaps the one person in the world who Lily played her subtle jokes on, and she was the one person who would take the most offense to them.
Bertha made a face.
"Evans, you're possibly the one person in the world who would care." She got up, grabbed her unfinished toast, and flounced off.
"She's crazy." I said, shaking my head. "Either that or embarrassed."
Lily finally looked up from her schedule, sighing deeply.
"Oh well." she said, "Probably both. If she's right about Binns though…"
"There goes all of our hopes that he'd die, hm?"
Lily smiled superiorly.
"I have no idea what you mean, Alice."
"Sod off, damn prefect." I laughed. We were able to eat in peace for a time, until all four Marauders came up to us. Lily put her head in her hand and looked away. I could have killed her, leaving me to deal with them myself.
"What do you want?" I asked, more rudely than I'd intended.
Sirius crossed his arms.
"We're not here for you, Prissy Knickers." he informed me solemnly. "We're here for that one." He pointed at Lily.
"Wh-Oh." It had become a tradition that once every week, the Marauders would accompany James to ask Lily out on a date.
"I think we know the answer already, really." I sighed, "Just leave her alone."
At this, James ran a hand through his hair.
"Evans?" he asked, using his ridiculous deep voice that he reserved for moments like these. Lily simply folded her arms across the table and put her head completely down.
"Just go." I said softly, "James, you're making an idiot of yourself."
James, seeing how absolutely miserable Lily seemed, looked like he was about to comply, but Sirius stopped him, looking upset.
"No, James, you keep at it." he said, looking straight into my eyes challengingly. "She's just a girl, she'll break eventually."
Lily's head shot up at this, but I replied before she could open her mouth,
"Why ever would she want to go out with an idiotic boy who thinks only of himself?"
"Here, now-" James began, but Sirius and I were only talking to and about each other.
"Because she's a do-gooder with a stick up her arse and doesn't know how to take a joke!" His voice was raised now.
"She knows how to take a good one, it's just he doesn't know how to be funny!"
"Is that supposed to bother me?"
"Yes, it should!"
"Enough." Remus said, uncharacteristically firm. Sirius and I both looked at him in surprise.
"Shut it, Moony." he said nastily. He turned back to me, but I was already getting up, feeling exhausted and something else, horrible sensation in my stomach. This, I realized, was guilt. That thing in my head that told me I had to please everyone was scolding me, saying what have you done, you've ruined everything.
"Thank you, Remus." I said. "Come on, Lily."
Lily got up as well, smiling at Remus and sending a glare to both James and Sirius. Sirius said under his breath,
"Well, I hope Evans was more sociable last night."
"Yes, I'd definitely say she was." James said, sounding somewhat bitter. Beside me, Lily stiffened.
"Come on, Lily, don't-" I started. It was to late. She whipped out her wand, and shouted,
"Tarantallegra!"
Instantly, James broke out into a wild dance. He shouted loudly as his limbs flew every which way, threatening to pull themselves from their sockets. Lily surveyed her work with satisfaction.
"Now we can go." she said evenly. Sirius pulled his own wand out, but before he could do anything, Professor McGonagall swooped down on us furiously.
"What's going on here?" she demanded, "No, don't tell me. Miss Evans, I'm surprised. Our first day, and already hexing your own house?" she rounded on Remus, who was staring at the ground. "And you, Mr. Lupin, have you been petrified? Why didn't you handle this?"
"I'm sorry, Professor." Lily said, "I allowed Potter's words to get the best of my judgment."
"And you, Mr. Lupin?"
Remus didn't reply, and looked as though he wished the floor would open up and swallow him whole.
"Five points from Gryffindor." she said. It appeared that Lily was going to say something, but Professor McGonagall held up her hand.
"Another word, Miss Evans, and it will be ten." Lily looked like she'd been stricken. Generally, McGonagall favored her, and Lily, in turn, found losing house points to be one of the most loathsome things one could do. McGonagall turned on her heel and began walking away.
"Oy! Minnie! Aren't you going to put James right?"
McGonagall turned around very, very slowly, and when she was fully facing Sirius, her mouth was the thinnest of lines.
"That is Professor to you, Mr. Black. And I believe that you are fully capable of 'putting Mr. Potter right', as you so eloquently put it." She left without another word, and Lily and I did as well. Lily and I both felt awful. She, because she knew she felt she'd utterly betrayed her position, and I because I'd known, the instant that Sirius had dared call Professor McGonagall 'Minnie', that I forgave him completely.
Even seeing Professor Binns enter class through the blackboard that morning was not enough to distract me from my misery.
Andromeda Black, Bertha hissed in my ear that night, was pregnant.
When she said this, I dropped my goblet of pumpkin juice on my lap, causing Fabian, who was sitting on my other side, and Marlene, who was sitting in his lap, to say the most atrocious things as some juice dribbled onto them. Bertha found this a highly rewarding response, and leaned back to survey the fruits of her effort. I was the only one who had heard what she had said, so naturally, everyone wanted to know what she'd said, including Sirius, who was sitting across from me. Lily was having a meeting with the other prefects and head students, and I was not able to see how she'd react.
"Ask her." I spluttered, pointing at Bertha and placing one of those endlessly useful cleaning spells on my lap. She tried, and utterly failed, I might add, to look modest.
"Your cousin is pregnant." she said pointedly to Sirius.
"Which one?" he asked, eyed narrowed, "If Bellatrix has finally-"
"No, no, it isn't Bellatrix." Bertha said impatiently. "It's Andromeda."
Sirius's mouth went slack. All of us turned to look at Andromeda. Her stomach was looking suspiciously round, but it wasn't enough to accuse her of anything other than overeating over the summer holidays.
James, who was sitting next to Sirius, said loudly, "You mean to tell me she's- and she isn't-" he narrowed his eyes at Bertha as though he'd like very much to accuse her of lying. "How could she be pregnant?"
Marlene rolled her eyes and slid off of Fabian's lap, making things even more crowded that they'd been a moment before. They were the only two who didn't seem to care.
"How does one generally go about getting pregnant, James?" she asked meanly, "Honestly, you're a boy, don't you know?"
James turned very red. Sirius looked at Marlene and said, in shock,
"But- Andromeda can't have-"
"And why not?" Fabian asked, tossing his blond hair disdainfully, "She's older than you; You probably have."
Sirius made a sound like a dying animal. I winced.
"Would you know, Prewett?" he demanded, "Have you done something with her?"
Fabian looked over Andromeda with an eye filled with scrutiny. At the moment, she was looking rather pretty, with her crow colored hair let down and looking much less aloof than her nearly identical older sister. He shrugged.
"No." He looked like he might have said something more if Marlene hadn't been right there, watching him most suspiciously.
Sirius was breathing heavily through his nostrils.
"Tell me where you heard this, Jorkins." he commanded. He had a menacing, half crazed look in his eye, and I knew that if Bertha had any brains in that pudding-like head of hers, she wouldn't give him a cute answer.
Bertha, apparently, had more brains than she let on.
"Your brother."
All color drained from Sirius's face.
"Regulus?" He hissed, "She- she effing told Regulus, but not me?" He stormed off, and he went, not to Andromeda, but out of the Great Hall altogether. We all looked at James expectantly, and he shrugged.
"How the hell do you expect me to know?" he said to our unasked question.
After dinner, I went straight to my dormitory. There was nobody else there; they were probably all in the common room. That, I decided, was fine by me. I sat by the window and gazed out at all of Hogwarts. Lights still twinkled merrily from the other towers, and every once in a while a dark silhouette would pass across them. The moon was waxing, only a few days from being full, and its beams were completely unconcealed by clouds, allowing an almost eerie light to be cast on the grounds.
I felt, for a moment, the inexplicable urge to launch myself out the window, to fly and be, no matter how fleetingly, a part of that beauty. The thought quickly passed, but the moon still pulled me in with its clear and pensive face. I turned away from the window long enough to find an inkpot, a quill, and two scraps of parchment. Then, I opened the window and with a motion I had perfected since first year, I swung myself onto the roof.
Once I was there, I felt like I was being soaked in liquid silver. I breathed the crisp air in, then, slowly, let it out. I turned over on my stomach, unscrewed the inkpot, and started writing on the first piece of parchment, which I had against one of the large smooth strips that covered the roof.
Dear Mum, I started,
How are you and Carlos? Things are going great here- Sirius is being a typical boy, as always. Lily says hello, of course.
I paused, thinking of what I could possibly say. Coming to the conclusion that there was nothing that was really worth writing about, I began to write a letter, not to her, but to myself.
I think, sometimes, that I must be the only one who feels like I do. I wonder if you feel that way, Mum? Perhaps you did, back when you and Daddy got a divorce. If you felt this way, then I suppose that I don't blame you so very much.
I smiled bitterly and dipped my quill into the inkpot.
You see, it's not at all that I'm not happy, because I am, for the most part, anyway. I don't even feel like I'm hiding how I feel, because when I'm with other people, I feel the way I appear. But it's times like this- sitting on a rooftop, writing a letter I know I won't send you, that I start to think. And when I think, I can't quite- can't say exactly how I feel, and that's probably the most frustrating part. If I'm not able to tell myself, how can I tell anyone else?
Urgh. What a horrid letter. Never fear, Mummy, I promise to burn it.
Love, Alice
I sighed, looking at it. It had scratch-out marks all over it, and my handwriting, which was never neat, looked like chicken scratch. I crumpled it up and stuck it into my pocket. However, I didn't feel like going in, and there was still a perfectly good piece of parchment to work with. I wet my quill, then started on the next letter, this time addressing it to my father. As always, I had to have one for each.
Dear Dad,
How are you? The last time I saw you, you were still apologizing about that trip to Majorca. Don't worry about it, honestly.
Truth be told, what I'd really like from you, more than any holiday or present, is for you to start taking care of yourself. Really Dad; I know I don't see very much of what's going on, but I know enough. You're dating girls only a few years older than me, and your drinking hasn't gotten any better. Really, what do you like so much about a firewhiskey that makes it so much better than me or Mum? I know I'm not supposed to ask, but Merlin, how can I not?
Angrily, I rammed the quill into the inkpot, getting flecks of ink all over my hands. I didn't care.
Daddy, I wrote my letter that I won't send to Mum about my problems, but you have so many problems that I have to write your to-be-burned letter about yours. I'm only sixteen, Dad! I shouldn't have to think about your problems!
I feel so horrible writing this, so yes, I will burn it, but one day I will ask you about this. I can only hope that you have more answers than I do, because sometimes I suspect you have just as little of a clue, if not less, what you're on about.
Love, Alice
I used my wrists to wipe the tears from my eyes, and used my sleeve to keep my nose from running for lack of handkerchief. I crumpled the second letter, then put it in the same pocket I'd put the first one in. I felt like a burden had lifted from my chest and fallen into my pocket, a burden I hadn't even realized I carried.
After a long time up there, or perhaps a minute- time passed differently under that moon- I slipped back into the room and unnoticed into my bed. There would be time for burning letters and confronting pregnant girls and changing my pathetic ways later. For now, for that night, I was one with the universe.