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Chapter 27: Disco

Previously: 'Sarah, why don't you go with Remus?' suggested James, a little too innocently. 'No one's asked him, either.'

'Are you sure that's OK?' said Sarah, her voice an octave higher than normal, and then said very quickly, 'It's not a big deal… it's just to have partners… it's just as friends, you know!'

'Yeah, yeah, it's fine! That'd be nice, nice and… fun,' said Remus, his voice also rising to surprising levels. The other six all exchanged exasperated looks, and then the topic moved on to whether or not Suzie should do something different with her hair.

It was exactly three hours since they'd first gone up to their dorm when the four girls descended the staircase, ready, all dressed in casual tops and skirts, apart from Sarah, who wore jeans. Suzie had her hair up in a neat twist, and Caroline's hair was covered in sparkles to match her top. The boys were already there waiting, apart from Remus, who was slightly late perfecting his hair. Once he arrived, all four boys simultaneously bent down, and kissed the hand of 'their fair lady'. The three definite couples then all kissed properly, on the lips, and, arms linked, headed for the portrait hole. Remus and Sarah, blushing brightly from the kiss, looked at the ground, smiling shyly.

"Arm?" said Remus awkwardly, holding out said limb to Sarah.

"Thank you," said Sarah, with a weak giggle, taking it. They smiled shyly at each other, and followed the others down to the hall.

Lily and James were thrilled to see that the house elves and teachers had set up the disco exactly as they'd planned. A table with vast amounts of food, even more than there had been at the parties James and Sirius had hosted in fifth and sixth year, was at the end of the hall. There were some smaller tables with chairs nearby, where a group of sixth-years were eating their dinner. The lights were low, and there were spotlights circling around an area where most of the people in the hall were, dancing. There was loud music being played by The Greymalkin, which consisted of three musicians: a singer, a guitar player, and a drummer. The disco ball that had caused Lily and James so much trouble was hanging innocently from the ceiling, reflecting the stars and the spotlights any time they fell on it.

Caroline and Sirius immediately hurried into the throng of people dancing, and started dancing themselves. Peter grinned at Suzie, grabbed her hand, and led her over there as well, as she giggled loudly. Lily and James went to go and sit down, after grabbing a plate of food. Sarah and Remus stood awkwardly for a moment, before hurrying after Lily and James. The four sat down at a table, and started to eat. After a few moments of contented guzzling, Lily looked up at her friends, who were still dancing.

'They look like they're having fun, don't they?' she said, indicating Suzie and Peter, who were kissing to the slow song which had just started playing, and Caroline and Sirius, who, on contrast, were coming over to them, flushed.

'Come and join us!' called Sirius. Lily and James stood up and walked over to him eagerly, and Remus and Sarah looked at each other. Having to dance would mean dancing with each other. Caroline looked despairingly at the pair, who were sitting very close, but not touching.

'Come on, Caroline!' called Lily.

'One minute! I want to have a word with this pair of muppets!' she replied, and sat down in James' vacated chair. Remus and Sarah were wearing identical looks of mixed trepidation and indignation.

'Oh, don't look at me like that!' said Caroline. 'You are muppets. And you're not only muppets, but muppets of a highly muppetty variety. Look at you two, sitting next to each other like great big lemons! You should be having fun, but you just can't get over this great big psychological stumbling block you have! Denial isn't just a river in Egypt, you know!'

Sarah stared at Caroline as Remus slowly turned red beside her. 'What?'

'Denial? De… Nile? Get it? Denial? You're both in such complete denial about each other!'

Sarah suddenly blushed scarlet as she realised what Caroline was getting at.

'Caroline!' she squeaked, dismayed that her secret, which she'd kept for over a year, was coming out, and in front of Remus, no less. She suddenly stopped. 'Wait, wait. Both of us?'

'Yes, genius. Geez, I thought you guys were supposed to be bright! How could you have missed the fact that you both so blatantly like each other!'

As the pair turned to each other, shocked, Caroline smirked and walked off.

'Mischief managed,' she murmured to Sirius as she returned to the dancefloor. He turned to her sharply.

'What?' he hissed.

'Oh, I just had a quick word with our muppetty friends,' she said. 'Now, dance with me.'

Remus looked at Sarah, and swallowed, as she looked back at him, biting her lip.

'Is what Caroline said true?' said Remus after a couple of moments of painful silence.

She looked at him with wide eyes, before wincing slightly and looking down.

'On my part,' she whispered, 'but I always thought that you didn't like me…'

'I always thought you didn't like me!' he gasped.

Sarah's eyes became even wider, and her head snapped up again. 'Really?'

'Really! I gave you a Valentine. I drew a tiny werewolf paw in the corner, just to hint.'

'And I drew a tiny pink heart, which was meant to be like the one on my necklace…' said Sarah. She groaned, but grinned, and said, laughing nervously, 'Oh my God. We really are muppets.'

'Of a highly muppetty variety,' agreed Remus, grinning at her.

Sarah knew she should be feeling happy, having just confessed to Remus how much she loved him, and hearing her feelings reciprocated, but instead, she burst into tears. Remus looked shocked, and tried patting her on the back, but as he reached his arm around her, she took a shuddering breath, reached her arm around him, and started kissing him soundly.

Do you have any idea how long I've wanted to do that?' she said, smiling, when they finally broke apart.

'Yeah,' said Remus. 'I think I have some idea.'

At that he took his turn, and did the same.

At the first kiss, Lily, Caroline, Suzie, James, Sirius and Peter all let out a sigh of relief.

'As I said,' announced Caroline triumphantly, 'Mischief managed.'

The boys all looked at each other. 'Quite.'

Lily looked at Suzie.

'Suzie,' she murmured, her voice high-pitched and croaky. 'Is it normal to want to cry right now?'

'Depends on the reason you want to cry,' replied Suzie, her voice also suspiciously high. 'But if it's because it's so sweet, then yeah. I think so.'

They hugged, and soon, both of them had tear-tracks down their cheeks. Caroline looked over at the pair, and shook her head despairingly.

'Enough with the emotional stuff, guys! You're supposed to be happy! And besides, you're making the boys jealous.'

'Jealous?' asked Suzie, breaking apart from Lily.

'Uh-huh. They want to cry too, but they can't because they're all manly,' replied Caroline.

'Don't speak for them, Caroline. They know that they don't have to pretend to be all masculine around us,' scoffed Lily.

'You say that, but if they did act 'girly' and start to cry, you'd think they were weird, or up to something, wouldn't you?'

'Well, that pretty much covers them whatever they're doing,' interjected Lily, laughing.

'What, weird or up to something?' asked Peter, who had been listening in.

'Both.'

'But what about extremely sexy?' asked Sirius, who had also been listening in.

'That counts as "up to something", doesn't it, Lils,' said Caroline, smirking.

'Of course,' replied Lily, grinning, as Suzie let out a giggle. At this point, Remus and Sarah, holding hands, came over to join the group.

'Finally deigned to grace us with your presence, eh?' asked James, smirking at them.

'Yes. Sarah reckoned you were worthy of our splendour, but only for a short while,' said Remus, putting his nose in the air. Sarah copied the gesture, and managed not to giggle.

Suzie, however, was not so restrained, and burst into full out laughter.

'Come on, guys!' she squealed. 'We now have no reason whatsoever to be morose! We can be happy, and have fun! It's our last ever night of Hogwarts, and let's make the most of it! Let's dance!'

'Dance?' asked Sarah tentatively, blushing.

'Yes, Sarah, dance. Surely after what you did with Remus at the table, you're not embarrassed to merely dance with him?' commented Caroline, raising an eyebrow.

'Oh, that!' said Sarah, blushing even deeper. 'I, uh… thought you meant… darlence… where you do… um… laundry.'

'None of us believe that, Sarah,' replied Lily. 'But none of us care either.'

'Thanks,' mumbled Sarah, and, as if on cue, a slow song came on, and there were soon four kissing, dancing couples where before there had been eight seventh-year chatting Gryffindors.

After about another couple of hours of general dancing, chatting and eating on everyone's part, The Greymalkin left the stage, and in their place Hagrid put on a karaoke set. The absence of music was slightly unnerving, and no-one seemed to have the guts to up and sing, until Sirius walked up onto the stage and programmed the set to start playing 'Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel'. He took the microphone, walked to the front of the stage and, as the opening bars played, announced, 'This is for you, Caroline, love of my life, joy of my heart… moon of my desire.'

Ignoring the looks from just about everyone else in the room, Caroline burst into giggles, and Sirius grinned, before coming in, full volume, right on the beat, in a surprisingly tuneful voice, with,

'Heaven must be missing an angel

Missing one angel, child, 'cos you're here with me right now…'

Back in the audience, Caroline, calmed down, turned to Lily.

'He can do romantic. Told you so.'

'Yeah, I suppose.' Lily replied, looking up at Sirius boogieing away to his own voice.

'Romantic, Lily?' came James' voice over her shoulder. 'He's singing. That's not romantic. This is romantic.' After saying this, he grabbed hold of Lily, and dipped her back into a dramatic dip-kiss. There were a few wolf-whistles from those near them, and some of the younger years stared, but Caroline merely looked vaguely interested, as if this were some kind of mildly amusing scientific experiment.

'Alright, Mr. Show-off,' she said, when Lily and James surfaced for air. 'You're both romantic. Happy?'

'Very,' smirked James, and they turned to clap as Sirius finished the song. He came down off the stage as a gaggle of over-excited first-years rushed onto it, fumbled with the microphone, and started to belt out 'Hexed Love' very, very badly.

'Once again,' muttered Lily, wincing. 'The younger years show us quite painfully what idiots we were at age eleven.'

'Yes, but luckily there was no karaoke at Hogwarts when we were first-years, and we didn't display our idiocy to the entire school,' pointed out Sarah, the only one still standing with Lily, as both Caroline and Sirius and Suzie and Peter were kissing, and James and Remus were cheering on the first-years. 'Are you going to take a turn? You could sing Misty again.'

'But I'd need my backing singers,' said Lily, 'and that would mean you'd have to sing too.'

'Ah. Right. Maybe not, then,' said Sarah.

At this point Suzie and Peter came over to them, yawning widely. The hall had been steadily getting emptier over the past hour, but so far none of the seventh-year Gryffindors had given in to their exhaustion and gone to bed. Lily wasn't surprised that Suzie and Peter, who had been dancing the most, were the first to crack.

'Tired, guys?' suggested Lily, grinning.

'Wha? Oh, I mean, yeah, I'm tired, we've been dancing all evening,' said Suzie.

'It's been great fun,' said Peter. 'Thanks for organising it, Lily.'

'Er, no problem,' said Lily. 'Are you going to bed then?'

'Who's going to bed?' asked Remus, wandering over with James as the music changed to a song by The Greymalkin, which a third-year couple were singing, their arms around each other.

'We are,' said Peter, gesturing to Suzie.

'Oh, don't! Not yet! I'm not allowing your last memory of Hogwarts to be those two singing "Charmed By You"!' protested James.

'But we're tired!' moaned Suzie. James looked thoughtful for a moment.

'I know! Let's sing something, all of us!'

Sarah looked at him curiously. 'Hmm, yeah, that sounds interesting. But which song?'

'Oh, I don't know. A Muggle one?'

'Why a Muggle one?' asked Sirius, who, with Caroline, had joined the others.

'Because a),' said Caroline, 'loads of us are Muggle-born, or at least half-blood, b) Muggle songs are, on the whole, catchier, and c) The Greymalkin sang just about every magical song ever tonight.'

Lily looked thoughtful. 'You have a point, you know, James. We could sing something. Something for boys and girls. A band song…'

'ABBA!' squealed Suzie, who had been exposed to Lily's record collection the summer before.

'Yeah!' said Lily, happily. 'ABBA!'

'What, Waterloo?' asked Caroline, interested.

'No…' said Sarah, 'How about Dancing Queen?'

'Yeah! Dancing Queen!' replied Suzie, so brightly that one would doubt that she was actually tired.

'Is anyone going to explain this conversation to us poor purebloods?' said Sirius, confused.

'ABBA is a Muggle band. Two boys and two girls. They have a really good song, Dancing Queen. We could sing it,' explained Lily.

'But some of us don't know how it goes,' said James.

'It's sort of "Danc-ing Queeen…Young and sweeet, on-ly se-ven-teeen…"' warbled Peter. The others looked at him. 'I sing it better when I have the tune played at me.'

'Whatever,' said Suzie, 'That was fine. So, are you guys in?'

'Yeah, that sounds like fun!' said Sirius, grinning.

'Do I have a choice?' asked Remus, but he was grinning too.

'No,' said Sarah firmly, mock-scowling.

'Now's our chance!' hissed Caroline, and they scrambled up onto the stage. The two microphones there multiplied into eight, and they all took one. Lily programmed the set, and walked to the front, between her three best friends. Caroline was already jiving to the opening bars, and, after Lily exchanged a grin with Suzie and Sarah, they joined in, remarkably synchronised.

'Ooh, you can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life…' sang the girls, and they began their last ever performance at Hogwarts.

Thanks to Hepsa for the beginning, and a couple of paragraphs later on. Also for beta-ing, and to Lamia for Gamma-ing. Also we discussed lots of it before it was written anyway.

One more chapter to go. Sigh Then JIG is over. Ah well, we have a few more tricks up our collective sleeve, and we'll reveal them with a flourish in the not-too-distant future. Hang in there, and we'll see what happens to them all after Hogwarts.

I may not update soon, because I have a Music Theory Grade 5 exam on Wednesday, which I am freaking out slightly over. My parents are telling me to get off the computer now to go over my Italian terms, and I think my father may explode if I get lusingando, incalzando or, horror of horrors, estinto wrong again. (They mean coaxing, getting quicker, and as soft as possible respectively, if you're interested.)

Review replies:

Moony066 – glad you liked it, and thanks for the explanation of black-jack. Cramming for tests can be good, and it can be bad. Very bad. Please tell me what you thought of this one.

Pyrotechnic – sorry for not updating sooner, but things got in the way. Thanks for your review anyway. It was good.

Review topic: ABBA. Just because.

Larka :)