Lily woke up to the sound to the sound of a scream. She tried to lift her head but it felt as heavy as a brick. Her head pounded and Lily groaned at how much noise Carmen was making in the next bed over. She threw her covers over her head in an effort to block out the sound.
"Carmen's up," Liz commented from a few feet over.
"What happened to me!" Carmen had taken the time away from her shrieking to ask.
"Maybe you should ask Sirius," Liz replied, falling back down onto her bed. "Apparently you two had quite the night," she added, grinning.
Lily managed to pry her head up off her pillow just long enough to catch a glimpse of Carmen. She was sitting straight up in her bed, her arms out in front of her as she stared, horrified at the black pen scribbles marking her gorgeous tanned skin.
"My head is killing meeee!" Carmen whined.
"There's some headache medicine on the dresser," Liz said in a muffled voice. She lifted her arm to point and then let it drop back down to her mattress. "There's one for you too, Lily."
"Mmmnnm?" Lily made a noise into her pillow. Finally, she hoisted herself off of her bed and put her feet on the floor. Her head began to spin as she stood and she took a minute to steady herself.
"Wooaahh," she held her arms out to find something to hold her still. She grabbed onto the night table.
When her head felt a little better, Lily shuffled across the room and stuck one of the pills into her mouth and drained the cup of water sitting on top of the dresser.
"Where are the others?" she asked, looking around the room and seeing two empty beds other than hers.
"They went to breakfast," Liz replied as she pulled on her robe.
"Already?" Lily asked.
"It's almost 11, Lily," Liz handed her a clock as she walked past Lily to get to her mirror.
Lily looked at the dials on the clock. The numbers swam a little and she put it back down on the table. "Oh."
"So, what happened last night?" Lily asked, plopping down onto her bed. She couldn't remember a thing.
"Well, Carmen showed up pretty late with one shoe and a bottle of some drink still clutched in her hands, raving loudly about what a great kisser Sirius is." Carmen scoffed from her bed. She had managed to take her pill as well by now and was resting her head on her pillow. "Then she zonked out half way through her story. Just fell asleep all of a sudden, mid-sentence." Liz grinned. "I guess we'll never know what happened. From the sound of it, he was just as drink as you were." Then she turned to Lily. "And then, about half an hour later, James showed up with you in his arms, fast asleep and snoring like crazy." Lily blushed but didn't try and pretend that it wasn't true.
"He carried me up?" she asked, smiling.
"Well, you were out. Said he thought it was the decent thing to do instead of leaving you somewhere on the grounds in the middle of the night."
Lily managed a small laugh and got up. "Well, I suppose we should get dressed and then get some brunch." She helped Carmen up and promised her they would get the pen off before leaving the room.
As Lily tied her own robe around her, she heard Liz say something across the room.
Carmen was pulling her shirt off, revealing tons more writing. Lily wondered mentally if she wanted to know how it got there.
"Hey, Carmen, are those wedding vows on your back?" Liz asked.
"WHAT!" Carmen screamed, trying with great fervor to get a look at her back. She twirled around in a circle for a minute before tripping over her own two feet and falling with a crash.
Liz broke out laughing. "I was just kidding!"
Carmen sighed heavily. "I hate you," she said as Liz helped her to her feet.
"It does say something about apples, though, whatever that means." Liz added. Carmen giggled and threw a hand over eyes.
"I'm never drinking again," she vowed.
"Liar!" Lily shot at her as she opened the door to take a shower.
Lily followed Carmen into the bathroom a few minutes later. They stepped into their usual stalls and Lily threw her robes over the door. She could hear the water on already in the next stall over and soon the sound of Carmen scrubbing furiously at her skin could be heard throughout the bathroom. Lily turned on the water and set the temperature as high as it would go. She sighed and leaned against the walls, eyes closed; the pounding in her head was far from gone.
"Lily!" she opened her eyes as Carmen's voice floated over into her stall.
"Yeah?" she called back.
"Do you have any of that scrubbing body wash? The one with the beads?" Carmen asked. Lily assumed that the cleansing process wasn't going as well as planned. She reached down and picked the body wash up from the corner of the stall.
"It's coming over!" she warned before chucking the orange bottle through the gap between the two stalls. A second later, Lily heard a thump quickly followed by a clatter as the plastic collided with the floor.
"Owwwww," Carmen groaned.
"Sorry!" Lily apologized as she squeezed out some shampoo.
Lily closed her eyes again as she washed her hair clean. This was going to be a long day.
30 minutes later, all three girls were descending the staircase. Carmen had failed in her effort to remove all of her markings but had definitely put in a valiant effort. She had missed a few spots she hadn't known about or had forgotten, and the rest was fairly faded but not gone. She wore a very sour expression all the way down into the Great Hall and refused to talk to anyone as she at her brunch.
Just as Lily was pouring herself a second glass of orange juice, the Marauders trooped in. James and Remus looked reasonably fine but Sirius looked almost as bad as Carmen. She brightened considerably when she saw the thick black lines drawn across his forehead. Peter brought up the rear; he looked overly twitchy today, his eyes darting this way and that.
James smiled and walked over to Lily.
"Good morning, how's the head?" he asked, kissing Lily on the cheek and then walking around the table to sit across from her.
She glared at him. "Fine." The pain was finally beginning to wane but Lily still felt like crap.
"Good." He placed some bacon on his plate and then some eggs. "Yumm," he commented, taking a bite.
"Thanks for bringing me back to the room last night," Lily said, taking a sip of Liz's coffee.
"Well, I try," he grinned.
Peter silently took the seat next to James. He poured himself of glass of juice and Lily could see his hand shaking as he held the pitcher. She had always felt sorry for him.
"Morning, Peter," she said, smiling as brightly as she could given her condition. He looked up suddenly and gave her a little nod. Then he pulled a book out of the brown bag he had brought with him and began reading, careful to keep the title hidden.
Lily shrugged and went back to eating her toast.
hey...so hope that was good and I'll be back asap but I do have exams coming up (curse you school, system!) so I'll be studying for those. I prolly won't add until the beginning of June...I finish my sit-down exams on the 1st but I have a paper due on the third and after that I'm free till' September so I'll have more time to write!
I keep trying to put little hints of Peter in just to make it seem a little more real, even though you all know what happens!
Jes