Chapter One, Frank Sinatra
Snow was drifting past the window lazily. It brushed against the cold, archaic stone before falling in whispers to join its contemporaries on the ground. Paper snowflakes were taped to the thin glass panes of the gothic edged windows. They were too thin, really. They made the room cold when the fire was out.
But the girls hadn't noticed. They were dancing around half naked, singing old Beatles hits of their childhoods. Lily had spent months bewitching her record player to work, and she had brought her whole collection with her at the start of term. Now Alice, Linda and Alectai were enjoying them with her. Patty had gone home for the holidays.
It was the last day of fall term. The train had gone (there were a few tearful goodbyes when Patty got on the train), the last presents to family and friends back home had been sent off, and schoolbags had been shoved beneath beds, to be resurrected in January.
The four sixth year Hogwarts girls were delighted that Alectai's brother had sent her a large bottle of rum from his stay in Jamaica. It was being put to good use. As was the bag of marijuana he had also sent, but she was the only one brave enough to try it.
Linda and Lily disapproved but said nothing, for fear of being thought prudes. It was 1975, of course, everyone was doing it, but girls took into stride the horror stories their mothers had told them about what smoking could do to someone.
Patty was the one who would have said something about it, but she was gone. That was why Alectai had chosen not to break it out until she had left.
Alectai was wild, and they let her have her fun. In moderation, of course, because she needed a little governance. Even still, the mothering attention of her friends hadn't kept her from sleeping with every boy she dated and trying every drug she was offered. She was partners in crime with Sirius Black, and their friends-with-benefits approach of one another kept him the lives of the other girls.
"Can you at least open the window, Ally? That stuff stinks." Alice said.
She was spread out on her bed reading a magazine, while the other girls were dancing around Lily's record player. After their last class the girls had gone up to the tower and pulled on sleep shirts and boxer shorts and put on music. Alice was lying on her stomach with her legs sticking up in the air. Her thick brown hair was tied up, making her round face seem slimmer.
"No, it's freezin' out there." Alectai said, twisting her long black hair up into a ponytail with one hand, careful not to alight her hair with the joint in her hand. She adjusted the tick leather bracelet on her arm and smirked at Alice.
"Then put it out, it just isn't right." Alice said, ripping a page out of her magazine. She pulled a roll of Spellotape out of her nightstand and fixed it above her bed. It joined other cut outs of Robert Redford and John Travolta.
"Don't think you're one to be lecturing on morals, Liss," Alactai said lightly. "Least not when you're out shagging Frank Longbottom every weekend."
"There are worse things I could do." Alice replied plainly, sitting back down on her bed.
"Like smoking this?" Alectai said, gesturing to the joint in her hand, but she put it out anyway.
The fact that Alice slept with Frank was something that the girls just didn't talk about. Only "fast" girls did things like that, and Alice wasn't like that. It was fine for Alectai, who had "abandonment problems" and kept it quiet, but Alice came back from her midnight indiscretions sloppily and loudly. She would bang into the room drunk and smelling of smoke, with tears running down her face and trying to be quiet. Patty, who was a light sleeper, would sit up with her in the bathroom, holding her hair back when she threw up and then cleaning her face of makeup before putting her to sleep, always with a trashcan next to the bed.
There was a momentary silence.
The girls had been friends since the first day, when they arrived in the room together and had nothing to say. Alectai and Linda were loud, getting the others to introduce themselves, hating the silence they thought might be imposed on them.
Patty and Alice were quieter, but they soon came out of their shells.
It was Lily who didn't speak at all. She was feeling overwhelmed and anxious, the little muggle girl who didn't know anything.
They had come a long way since then. They had, respectively, become themselves.
Alectai was the wild one, who had all of the money and all of the boys and none of the kindness from the parents she hardly knew. She was beautiful with her deep blue eyes and long black hair, and she knew only in her future that she wanted to get out of where she was. It was only natural that she had been drawn to Sirius, he was the only one who could challenge her spirit but still understand her. He also understood what it was like to be ignored. That, on the whole, was worse than all of the pressure and mistreatment they had ever felt from their parents.
Linda, or Rosalinde, was the Hollywood baby. She was an American from California, and spent most of her time changing other people's hair colors. She had lustrous gold hair that fell to her waist in waves that she liked to straighten. Her light blue eyes saw only for Sam Faktorow, a Hufflepuff that her older sister had set her up with. She was well provided for by her middle-class parents. The Chalek's had seen three daughters through Hogwarts, and her little brother Damien was set to follow through the next year.
Patty was the artist. She had short curly dark hair and liked to spend her time holed up in a little alcove with a bench and a window in the Hogwarts common room with some paints and a canvas. Her older sister Nancy was a seventh year, and she spent much of her time with her and her friends.
Alice wasn't the anything, really. She was pretty, with her thick hair and curvy figure, but the boys at Hogwarts didn't quite go for girls like her, she wasn't what they would call remarkable; in spite of her perpetual kindness. She had loving parents and a nice family and got good marks and it was anyone's guess why she slept with Frank Longbottom, since she never did anything else disreputable.
Lastly was Lily. She had brains and beauty, her friends said. What she lacked in "proper" heritage she made up for with charm, smarts and sass. She was pretty, yes, but she lacked Alectai's striking beauty or Alice's serene grace. Her hair was long and auburn and fell past her shoulders in curls. But the eyes were what made her stand out. They were large and green, with a piercing stare. Lily was everyone's sweetheart; they loved her. Everyone's…but James'. But that was another story.
"Bugger off Peter, this is important." Sirius said, giving the smaller boy to his left a bit too hard of a shove. He stumbled and caught his balance on the mahogany doorframe, still anxious to come on his mates' adventure.
"Don't go with them, Peter, you'll just end up freezing your arse off while they serenade girls." Remus said from his bed without looking up from his book. Peter looked across the room at his for an encouraging look, but Remus remained in his own world.
"Is that really what you're doing? You're going to go sing to the girls?" Peter asked excitedly, sweeping some whispery blond hair off of his sweaty forehead.
"No," Sirius said shortly. "We're singing to the mergirls down at the lake. You'd be frightened. Don't come."
Peter was afraid of water and believed them.
"Oy, will yea stop lyin' to 'im?" Frank asked, sliding on his coat and pulling a mommy-made scarf around his neck. "They're goin' go sing to Lily and Alectai." Frank's Lancashire accent set him off from the other four, who were from Southern England.
James closed his eyes and inhaled angrily.
"What makes you think you're coming?" he burst out, pulling on the gloves his father had sent him as an early Christmas present.
"Why shouldn't I come? I could jus' as well go tell McGonagall on you, and then where would you be?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Sirius, who was planning on going out wearing nothing but a silk top hat, was checking himself in the mirror next to the door. He brushed his dark hair to the side and made sure the hat was cocked just right. He turn back to the rest of the room and pointed to Frank and then Peter.
"Fine, you can come, but Peter's staying here with Remmy. We can't risk having an incident like last Halloween."
"I told you, that wasn't my fault! The stupid armor was suicidal, it tipped itself over! Please let me come!" Peter pleaded, putting his hands together.
But Peter was left with Remus, who was told to watch him while the rest of the boys had their fun.
Sirius had stashed a pair of knickers in James' coat pocket for the trip back up to the dormitory, but was striding nakedly on through the Hogwarts corridors to the Entrance Hall.
When the boys were outside, everything was quiet. The snow had deadened all sounds but Sirius's loud cursing at the cold.
"So where's their room?" Frank asked, pulling a toffee out of his pocket and popping it in his mouth. Frank was famous for his candy supply and his charm. He kept large stashes of various sweets in concealed places in the boys dormitory, all away from Sirius's prying eyes. He was charming and handsome, although he could never rival James' smile or Sirius's dashing good looks. He lived in a drafty old mansion with his overbearing mother in the north of England. His father and two older brothers had been killed by Voldemort just before Frank started at Hogwarts, but it was Christmas and not time to speak of such things. He wasn't part of the other boys' gang, and he liked it that way. He preferred time with his Ravenclaw friends, but they were all home for the holiday, and his Gryffindor friends were an alright subsititute.
Sirius trudged along beside him, muttering "bugger" and "fuck" under his breath at random intervals. Sirius had all of the girls, all but Alectai de Salem, who would always be too good for him. He loved her, of course, any man would, but she was too frightening to really get close to in that way. She had grown up in a family like his, although her parents were Ravenclaws all the way back, not Slytherins. He would never make a commitment to her, no, of course not. He was just going along with his mates to impress the girlies he loved so dearly. There was nothing like the Hogwarts sixth year girls, who all put themselves above him and his glamour.
James, of course, was there for obvious reasons. Lily was the one girl who had always resisted him, making her that much more attractive. She wasn't the sort of girl he would usually go for, she was too smart and lacked the outgoing nature and supreme beauty of other girls that he'd had.
"This one." James said, discreetly consulting Moony's map. They had stopped in front of the Gryffindor tower. Seven stories up was the girls' window.
"All ready?" Sirius, asked, pointing his wand (stashed in James's pocket, don't worry) to his throat and muttering Sonorus. The two other boys did the same, and James magicked a snowball to hit the girls' window.
"What the bloody hell was that?" Linda asked from the girls' bathroom. The music had been turned down and the girls were readying themselves for bed. Lily was wearing a flannel plaid nightshirt that had been her father's and was toweling off her hair. Alice had slid into a paisley bathrobe and was setting her hair in bobby pins. Alectai was wearing her normal lingerie and Linda was brushing her teeth wearing normal pajamas.
Lily went to the window and looked out. She saw nothing, but one of the paper snowflakes Patty had strung up had been dislodged and was now resting on one of the throw pillows on the sill. Lily shook her head and threw her towel to Linda, who hung it up on the shower rod.
The bathroom light was turned off and the four girls slipped into bed. Another whump came at the window closest to Lily's bed and she sprang up, cursing loudly. She threw open the window and ducked just in time to narrowly avoid snow to the face.
On the ground, James signaled to his mates and they burst into song, James leading and the other boys backing him up.
"I…don't want much for Christmas. There is just one thing I need," James sang, smiling and pointing up to Lily. She scoffed and slammed the windows shut, but the other girls, hearing the commotion, all got up and went to the window. Lily was pushed the front and Alectai and Linda giggled while Lily and Alice remained silent, watching the boys far below them.
"I don't want a lot for Christmas, there is just one thing I need."
Linda gaped at Lily. "Aw, Lil, how come you never told you never told us James sings like a British Frank Sinatra?"
"Not hardly." Lily replied stonily.
"Oh, I don't care about the presents underneath the Christmas tree. I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know…"
"Look!" Alectai pointed, laughing. "Black's all in his starkers!" she and Linda giggled and shrieked. Sirius, clearly egged on by this, began to sing with considerably more gusto.
"Make my dreams come truuuueeee! Baby all I want for Christmas is YOU!" James was pointing up at Lily, smiling. Linda and Alectai smiled and clapped. The boys bowed and whooped, except for Frank, who was merely standing there watching them.
Lily pulled the windows shut and huffed into her bed. Linda and Alectai looked at her wonderingly.
"Lily Honour Evans," Alectai said, shaking her head. "I just don't understand how you can just ignore the kind of boy that will come to your window and sing to you at night."
"Easy," Lily said. "He's awful."
The lights were turned off and when the door slammed no one had notice that Alice had been gone the whole time.