Author's note: some of you may be familiar of parts of this chapter because it is a revision from the first version of this story, although there are a number of changes. I hope you enjoy it all the same.
I know there has been a weaving mess of different storylines, I promise it's all coming together. I'm still here writing. I will finish this story. Thank you for all of your support, for all of you who continue to read, leave reviews, etc. It's a great boost to morale as I really do want to get this all out of my head and onto paper.
Chapter 12 will be up soon.
Much love, M.
Though hard to imagine, Hogwarts' Great Hall became even more mystical on Halloween. Instead of torches to light up the dark, thousands of carved pumpkins with all sorts of expressions simultaneously floated above and below the students and ominously lit up their faces from underneath. Bats swooped about, casting shadows into the bewitched ceiling. Another table had been added in the front to host the castle's community of ghosts and spirits who came to visit from all over the Highlands, and even from across Scotland, to commemorate and celebrate their temporary return over rotten food and good conversation.
As the last students trickled into the hall, Professor Flitwick composed and orchestrated the Frog Choir, who sang hymns and tales that filled the halls while the bats squeaked and the owls hooted. All in all, everyone was completely mesmerized by the festive spirit displayed in front of them. Even the seventh-years, who should have now been accustomed to the spectacle, seemed to be dazzled by the annual event.
"Let ancestral dreams take flight," the first row of the choir sang as their toads croaked into the darkness.
"And hear your bone-song by its light," the second row chorused behind, harmonizing and letting the words linger as the first row took a deep breath to expel the last of the words.
"Light."
And, indeed, a stream the color of iridescent gold flew out the end of Flitwick's baton, around the pillars in the hall, to then make its way up to the once-pure black ceiling, filling it with twinkling stars.
The entire Hall erupted into ahs and oos of surprise and awe. Lily giggled as a wave of golden stars circled around her and up to the ceiling, combing a hand through her hair as if one may have gotten trapped in its locks. James noticed as he turned to say something to Peter, and he decided that he was going to take whatever it took to learn that spell— even if it meant blackmailing his Charms professor. Not for nothing, but he reckoned he could toy with it to make it whatever color he wanted. It'd be a good prank if nothing else.
He chuckled to himself, slightly buzzed with the whiskey he and Sirius had been sipping on throughout the day, causing him to forget the still-standing pact he had made to himself to do and think of anything that didn't involve the topic of the redhead.
Whatever, he shrugged, finally turning towards Peter, forgetting what it was he had originally wanted to say and instead mumbling to him about how they were going to blackmail Professor Flitwick for that specific trick.
"Well done, Filius." Their Headmaster had stood up to commend the Ravenclaw Head of House.
On that note, Professor Flitwick waved his hand to dismiss his choir, the students splitting into two rows and almost marching in unison down the sides of the hall, to the front and then splitting up in a haphazard fashion until they were dissolved and seated with their respective houses.
"And now, let us feast," boasted a grinning Dumbledore as their clapping came to a slow halt.
With a wave of his hand, he introduced golden dishes piled high with all the goods of Halloween. The students eyed the various foods with lustful eyes and grumbling stomachs. Halloween always included a different menu— one so special that it was never offered during any other time of the year, not even at the first or last dinners of the year. Both dessert and dinner served side by side, one could find: candied apples, whole goat with roasted rustic potatoes, Black Magic cake, pastries in the shape of pumpkins filled with ham and gooey cheddar, and, last but not least — definitely not least— candy. All the candy and chocolate a child could dream of.
But before any of them could get their hands on any of it, a collective mass of hysteria combined with shrieks, cries, and curses erupted from one side of the hall. Students clad in green ties and green skirts jumped from their seats, hugging themselves as their eyes bugged out from the sight in front of them. Instead of the typical candy-stuffed bowls and mash o'nine sorts, they were met with vermin and insects of every kind, which crawled both fast and slow along the surface of their table. Where there was supposed to be a chicken and sweet potato pie— there was a massive mound of ants; where there was supposed to be a beaker of crudités cut into the shape of fingers— there was a beaker of centipedes. The trays of sugar mice contained no sugar, and the chocolate cockroach clusters were crawling off their plates and onto the laps of the students that shivered and shook at the sight.
A first-year Slytherin wrapped his hands around himself, beginning to cry as he sprung from his seat and onto the Ravenclaw benches, causing an uproar from the Ravenclaws as he stepped on their hands to secure salvation.
At the sight of it, the Marauders clutched their stomachs. Tears fell out of Sirius' eyes as he saw Rosalia Selwyn bump into Marlene McKinnon. Marlene instinctively shoved the witch forward again which only forced her into the likes of Edmund Nott, who stared down at Rosalia as she screamed at him "WHAT IS IN MY HAIR?" Over and over again as she tossed and turned to shake out whatever it was that she had imagined was crawling on her scalp.
Sirius couldn't handle any of it anymore. He got up so he could lie down on the floor, covering a hand over his pained stomach.
"I think I'm going to die," wheezed Peter from Remus' side.
"D-d-do you see th-the-their faces?" James managed with his forehead down on the wooden table. His stomach, too, felt weak and all he wanted was to lie down on the floor and cry alongside Sirius.
The rest of them looked from their own tables to the table before them, completely perplexed as to why the sugar mice on their table weren't scattering about. Others had begun to put two and two together and even started to laugh as their eyes fell on the Marauders— who were all red-faced and trying their best — not really — to not make a scene of it.
"It's them," Chastity Proudmore whispered to Emmeline Vance.
"Of course it is, who else would it be?" Emmeline replied through a grin, throwing her hand over the witch's shoulder to bend them both forward as they tried to stifle their laughs.
"Oh my God," groaned Lily, throwing her face into her palms. "What the actual fuck!?"
"Oh come off it, it's bloody hilarious," said Dorcas Meadowes from her right side. The witch was now staring at a grinning Lupin, who tried to cover it by placing the back of his hand against his mouth.
From the front of the room, Dumbledore had gotten up to inspect the situation but instead of anger, he surprised the room with a bought of laughter.
The Slytherins, once bewildered and disgusted with what was happening, all spun around with shocked-turned-malicious stares at their chuckling Headmaster. Edmund Nott's teeth gritted against top and bottom— something extremely unlikely for the usually well-put-together wizard, and Eoin Mulciber felt himself reaching for his wand.
"They're going to get away with it," awed Melisende Gamp, staring up at the staff table with complete amazement.
"The fucking bastards," spat Cedric Avery, his fist landing firmly onto the bug-infested table. Aphrodite Flint grimaced at the sight of crushed up, dead beetles on her housemate's fist as he released it from the table.
"A harmless Halloween prank," Dumbledore assured them and with a flip of his hand, the bug-infested plates had been replaced with the same contents as that of the other tables.
The Slytherins all looked at one another, sharing knowing glances, waiting and taking signals in silence as to which one of them would take command. Not one of them dared sit back down as the other houses began to fill their plates, albeit hesitantly as they shot glances over at their standing, battle-ready peers.
Remus stopped laughing, his eyebrows scrunching together as he eyed the Slytherins all the way at the other end of the room. He met Peter's eyes, and the latter reached down to tap on Sirius, trying to get his friend's convulsing body to sit back on the bench. There was an eery silence as everyone began to slowly turn around and inspect why the table to the far right hadn't yet been occupied even though the spectacle had been over as quickly as it had begun.
"Oh, that can't be good," Peter muttered, looking up from Sirius to watch what Remus had been eyeing the entire time. As Remus toured the length of the table, he caught his newfound interest's — Evan Rosier's — eye twitching, somehow knowingly finding its way to his own. Remus' stare dropped to the food in front of him, and his breath hitched in his throat as the hairs on his neck stood up.
"Sirius," Remus hissed, the sound blocked by the hand still covering his mouth. Sirius looked up from where he had rolled underneath the bench, his laugh faltering as he met Remus' stern gaze. The wizard immediately sat up, peering over the top of the wooden tables to watch what was happening.
"I will fuck every single one of them with the end of my broom," sneered Cedric. Nobody flinched at his all-to-serious threat, but Moira Palancher glanced hesitantly at him. He hadn't noticed for he was too busy staring at those who dared stare back at him.
Now, no one was eating, no one touched their food. Not a single soul or person in that Hall.
"Fuck this," Eoin scowled under his breath. He stood up on the table, his shoes landing right on top of the mash o'nine, splattering it at his housemates and the walls. If the platter it had been served on wasn't made of silver, they all reckoned that it would have broken under his weight, as well. There was a collective gasp from the other houses, but the Slytherins paid no mind to it. Then, as if it hadn't been enough, the tip of Eoin's shiny leather shoes came into direct contact with the roasted goat, sending it flying off the table. It slid and then came to a halt right in front of where the ghosts sat.
"THAT'S ENOUGH!" bellowed McGonagall, promptly getting up. She made no push to move further, hoping that the Slytherins would collect themselves before it was too late.
"What the fuck?" Remus heard Sirius whisper under his breath as he hoisted himself up from the floor, standing to watch Eoin Mulciber flinging plates of food off the table.
"MULCIBER!" shouted Professor Slughorn, standing up from his seat. But Eoin didn't stop, he continued to step on the food, kicking and smashing everything in his path. At this point, all the professors had gotten up while the students sat there in suspense.
"Look what you've done," Lily scolded from next to Remus, seething at James. He tried to open his mouth to say something, but Lily had already spun back around to watch Eoin Mulciber.
"Shit," whispered Remus, realizing that they may have taken it too far as the Slytherin smashed his boot into the Black Magic cake, screwing it down into the table as he dared stare straight into Dumbledore's eyes.
"Who gives a fuck? Dramatic little tossers," responded Sirius with a grimace, shrugging and taking back his seat next to Peter.
"Yeah, dramatic little fuckers," gulped Peter as he witnessed a loaf of bread flying straight at Ravenclaw Chris Li's face.
"I SAID ENOUGH!" McGonagall commanded, her face stern but her chest puffing from the quick breaths she inhaled. Eoin stopped, looking at her with a sneer, and then jumped off the table. "100 POINTS FROM SLYTHERIN— AND A MONTH'S DETENTION, MULCIBER!"
"Of course," snorted Melisende, shaking her head.
"Fucking cunt," Sirius cursed as he watched Aphrodite Flint point toward him and his friends, his eyes thinning as she uttered something to Eve Kavanagh.
"This is so fucked," spat out Moira Palancher, surprising everyone around her as she was usually not the one who would take the reins in such a context. "I'm leaving," she announced, picking up her robes and being the first to walk out of the hall.
The Slytherins all shared looks amongst themselves, confused with the sudden switch of rank.
"I need a drink," Edmund agreed, following after the Slytherin chaser, and with that alone, the rest of them were able to come to a mutual agreement on the following course of action.
"Bathe in it, more like," muttered Melisende Gamp, pulling Eoin by his black sleeve and following after Edmund and Moira.
Soon enough, and one by one, Slytherins began to part and sulk off back to their dungeons with empty stomachs that were about to be drowned in alcohol.
"Look at that, Prongs," muttered Sirius, an all too satisfying smirk lining his face.
"It's even better than I'd imagined," replied James as he bit down on a cob of corn.
And while they enjoyed their meals, Remus had gone into a full-blown panic. He propped his elbow onto the table, his mouth still kissing the back of his hand as he realized that this risk had been calculated horribly.
"What the bloody hell is wrong with you?" Remus heard Lily say again from his right. She was bending over his shoulder, leaning as far as she could to eye James.
"It's Halloween, Evans, have a little humor," gibed Sirius. Her eyes fleetingly darted to him, a full sneer appearing on her face.
"You think this is funny, Black? You have no idea what you've done, you fucking git," she bit back.
"Oh, yeah? If I'm a git, then you're a bloody—"
"Woah," James cut him off, kicking Sirius under the table.
"Don't call me a fucking git, Evans."
"No, you listen to me, all four of you," she breathed angrily, Remus eyeing the top of her head with much caution as her body had now almost fully covered his own to get to James. "I am Head Girl! My responsibility is to the students, to all students! Not just our house filled with brainless oafs such as yourselves." Lily tried her best to keep her voice controlled, even though she felt like smacking all four of them, Remus included, with the same loaf of bread that had just hit Chris Li like a rock.
"It was just a prank," Remus attempted.
"Yeah, Remus, keep telling yourself that," she countered, finally turning to look up at him. What he saw made him want to dig his nails into the polished wood. Her eyes were filled with such heavy disgust and distaste that he had to bite down on his inner cheek to stifle a whimper.
I deserve that, he decided. Maybe, this time, he had indeed gone too far.
He was no more than rubbish on the street as Lily decidedly stood up, a sudden chill coming from next to him.
"Where are you going?" Dorcas inquired, her eyebrows scrunching up as she watched Lily tour the entire table.
"I'm leaving, I can't sit next to these prats," she nearly growled, deciding on a free spot next to 5th-year prefect, Isla Baxter, further down the table.
"Fuck," spat out Remus once Lily had left.
"Calm down, mate," Sirius said, doing a once-over of his friend. James looked up from his plate, turning to look at Remus as he ran both his hands through his hair, pulling at the sandy brown locks.
"This is bad," Remus told them, pointing a hand back to the now-empty table. "I told you we should have done it to everyone, including us."
"I warned you. I knew he was going to get like this," Peter mumbled under his breath to Sirius.
"Moony, it was their own bloody choice. Did you see how quickly Dumbledore was able to undo the charm? It was barely anything. The food is just sitting there now, going cold. The Snakes are only doing this to spite us and the professors," James assured him.
"I think he's upset about Evans," Peter clarified. It was true, if it hadn't been for Lily staring at him like he was the most despicable creature on the planet — which he already thought he was, so it only made matters worse — he may have been able to keep himself at bay and be more easily convinced by his friends' reassurances.
"She'll apologize," was Sirius' only answer, "she always has."
"Not to me she hasn't," scoffed James.
"It's not always about you," Remus responded, sitting there with his mouth open as their dinner took on an air of discomfort and unease.
"Come on, let's just eat. We have a party to host," James reminded them, forking some roasted pumpkin and shoveling it into his mouth.
Everything will be fine, Remus kept repeating to himself because there was nothing else he could tell himself without vomiting. The face of Lily's angered expression burned right through him. The way Evan Rosier had sent goosebumps crawling over his skin, and the fact that Eve Kavanagh had been one of the first to follow Edmund Nott out of the hall— another meal missed. He did not know which one of the three bothered him more.
A number of the Slytherins had gone off to sit by the lake, enjoying what little they could of the already dismal evening. Others returned straight to their dorms, taking early solace in their beds, or to play a chess game with one of their housemates. In front of one of the fires sat the majority of the Slytherin seventh-year wizards and Melisende Gamp, a bottle of Quintin Black, and some small shot glasses made of crystal placed lazily on the black wood table in between them.
Evan Rosier stood, walking over to the marble fireplace mantle to stare into the green licks of flame. The alcohol was strong, getting to his mind as he began chuckling at the sight of the fire. Behind him, Edmund Nott turned with his own glass of Firewhiskey at his lips and raised his eyebrows at the backlit figure.
"We can't let them get away with it," Cedric Avery uttered for the billionth time, sitting directly across from Edmund. Edmund brought the shot glass back down onto the table, sitting up to better survey the wizards sitting among him. Evan spat into the fire, the sudden contact making the flames sputter for a few moments. One of his white palms lay against the marble, allowing it to cool his heated body.
"We'll give the staff a day," Edmund began but was quickly cut off as Evan spun around, a manic look thundering his already stormy eyes.
"The staff?" Evan began, tilting his head, teeth slightly bared. "The staff? When have they ever shown us justice? Our headmaster is as useful as tits on a bull."
Eoin Mulciber cracked his neck, growing irate as Evan brought back the image of just exactly what the staff had looked like.
"They laughed at us, humiliated us," listed Severus Snape, his eyes dark as he recalled the same memory that stained Eoin.
"I can talk to my father, have them reviewed for expulsion," Edmund tried again.
"I can talk to my father, have them reviewed for expulsion," Evan derided him. "How many times have you said that? And how many times have you failed?" Something akin to a dragon's breath left the wizard. "No. That would be showing them mercy— and they don't deserve that. Not anymore. Not after that."
"He's right," agreed Cedric. "We're of noble houses, and they treat us like we live in the alleys of Knockturn."
"We could poison them," muttered Severus, causing Cedric to spin his attention toward him. "Put them in the Hospital Wing for a couple of days, right before the first Quidditch match."
"Poison is a woman's weapon— I want them to see my face when I come after them," he retorted harshly, causing the black-haired boy to wilt back into the couch.
"Like I would ever use poison, Avery," Melisende interjected, rolling her eyes.
"Then tell us your plan if you're such a fucking genius," Edmund cut them all off, barely holding the impatience at bay.
"Torture," Evan replied maliciously before Cedric could, the latter whose lips turned up into a half grin.
"Torture?" repeated Severus.
"We've always played so dumb, so rashly. You, Snape, hexing Potter every chance he's not looking— but you never seem to win, do you?" Evan taunted. "Admit it! That's why we always lose, but this time will be different. This time... we will hunt them down. " His malice-filled gaze moved to each of them.
"And how are we going to hunt them down? With a bloody bow and arrow?" Edmund challenged, now standing up to face him.
"No, we get them one by one. We wait, we wait until they are alone, and then that's when," Cedric explained, his gaze lingering a moment on Eoin before turning to look at Evan. All three of them seemed to have conjured up the same plan without so much as speaking to one another.
"I will make them squeal like bitches in heat," Melisende snickered, licking her lips.
"I like it," Eoin said, grinning at her.
"We could get in trouble— Lupin is a prefect and Potter is Head Boy," Edmund warned them.
"Then cry to mummy, if you want, Nott," Evan sneered.
"This is no place for pansies," Melisende added.
"Yes, Nott, you can go run off with Black— seeing as you don't want to get your hands dirty," Cedric mocked.
"I want Potter," announced Severus as he sat there in silence, pondering the reality of a dream he had had for years. Cedric Avery and him locked eyes. The latter nodded in agreement— permitting the half-blood his revenge.
"But I want blood. I want to see them on their knees begging," Evan rammed the commands into them. "And whoever won't give me blood is free to walk away right now, whoever joins and quits later will suffer a fate worse than those blood traitors."
"Ay," Eoin nodded, lifting his shot glass up to Evan.
"I'll make sure they wished that they had never left their wombs," coldly chuckled Cedric. The two boys shared a mutual smirk, Cedric then turned to look at Edmund who remained silent. The regal-like wizard looked up at them, his eyes stern.
"They can not treat me like that and get away with it," Melisende confirmed her allegiance to them.
It was the last of their stares to fall on Edmund Nott, who stood stoically above them.
"Do you hear yourselves? You sound like lunatics." But he did not wait for a response, the alcohol had poisoned their brains quicker than usual from the lack of sustenance in their stomachs. "I want nothing to do with it."
"So be it," Evan spat at him.
"Won't need you, anyway," Cedric muttered.
"They won't stand a fucking chance," Evan chuckled, patting Cedric on the back.
"Not a single one."
"What's the plan?" Severus inquired, finding the boyish excitement annoying. He wanted to get to it— to find out exactly what they were planning and to make it happen as soon as possible. He had spent long enough waiting.
"We start with the weakest and work our way up," instructed Evan.
"I always hated that puny babyfaced lump," sneered Eoin.
"He'll be easy," agreed Melisende.
"When?" Severus continued, not wanting them to diverge from the path.
"Patience, Severus," Evan said. The black-haired Slytherin fell back into the armchair reminded, once again, of where he stood. He shook his head as he eyed his housemates with disdain. He wanted to do it tonight, to get to them tonight, but, no, he had to wait. He had to be patient until he could finally bite down into James Potter's flesh. Bollocks.
"Blood and tears," Eoin demanded from them, discarding the shot glass and instead grabbing the bottle of Quintin Black off the table and raising it to his mouth. He threw his head back and downed as much as he could manage.
"Blood and fucking tears," repeated Cedric, clinking his own glass with Eoin's in a salute.
"Wait," chimed in Melisende, her hand up to refocus their attention. Whatever epiphany had occurred in her mind was highlighted by the awe that struck her face.
"What?" Evan asked, turning to look at the witch sitting across from him in the armchair.
"Not them, we won't go after them," she said, glancing over all their faces. "Not just them."
"What?" questioned Cedric, his face going wry.
"No, we'll go after something that hurts more."
"Watch where you step," Edmund warned her, knowing that her ache for power had come to its limit a long time ago.
"Spit it out," Evan demanded, ignoring the wizard still standing at his side.
"We'll go after who they care for most," Melisende continued, smirking.
Severus immediately froze, realizing what that may mean. He tried to think of a solution quick— quick so that no one agreed to it.
"They love themselves more than anyone else… especially Potter," Cedric pointed out. "They care for one another, that is exactly what—" But he was cut off by Melisende's cackle.
"You are thinking so small," she told him in a whisper, shaking her head. "I know what knives will hurt most and where."
And all of them had the same picture in their head: Spring Parkinson's cat dangling in the middle of their common room.
"Do whatever you want, Gamp," Evan told her. "We'll do ours— just bloody fucking do it, and make sure it works. Don't fuck it up."
"A bunch of drunks," Edmund scowled under his breath as he moved past Evan and made way for the table to the far left of him where all of the sixth-year Slytherin wizards plus Moira Palancher and Alexander Sykes were drinking.
Severus' fingers tapped anxiously against his left forearm, his bottom teeth biting into his upper lip as he tried to devise some sort of plan to leave Lily out of this. On one hand, it was good that Melisende was going to be left on her own, meaning she would not have the same strength as they would— but Melisende and Edmund were the two that gave him the least amount of attention. He had never paid it much mind, as Cedric or Eoin would be quick to fill him in if and when they happened to forget him, but now he realized that his lack of knowledge of the witch did not ensure Lily's safety. Who did Melisende Gamp mean to go after? And how?
The entire room was filled to the brim with bottles, music, and most of all, people. There wasn't a space available that didn't have a body lingering in it, whether it was dancing or drinking with a friend or stranger. Like the Great Hall, the room was equally as decorated for the holiday— if not more so. There were pumpkins that floated just as they did during the feast, and there were ginormous cauldrons filled with spiked pumpkin juice and gillywater. Students freely helped themselves while sitting on the available haystacks where they could find scattered bottles of Firewhiskey, Aurora Vodka, and barrels of ale. In addition to the darkness, Remus had been able to charm the room so that there was a constant mist over it. He couldn't lie— he was quite impressed with himself, grinning as he watched Ralph Bowers spin Augusta Lundin around.
As Remus observed from the background, James went around under his invisibility cloak, scaring partygoers as he whispered nonsense into their ears. Remus nearly choked on his drink when he saw Breona Calder, a Ravenclaw, turn around and swat away at nothing. His laughter slowly died down, a boyish look left on his face as he brought the bottle of Howling Jack Pumpkin Ale to his lips.
And though he tried, he couldn't embody their merry mood; not yet, at least. Since the first invitees had arrived, Remus had searched the room, looking relentlessly for a certain redhead that he was determined to apologize to.
"Hey, Remus," he heard someone greet him jovially. He turned, doing a once over of the girl wearing a black dress that flared out by her knees, a thin black and white cardigan over her shoulders, and a pink scarf to finish off the entire outfit. It was rather eccentric, especially since Remus only ever saw her in uniform or baggy overalls.
"Hey, Mary, enjoying yourself?"
"Sure, but it seems that I've lost my mates."
"Ah, not true— I'm here," he attempted to tease, causing an inebriated giggle to come loose from Mary's painted lips.
"Of course, how could I forget!"
"No worries, I'm sure I'll get over it, eventually." He nudged the girl playfully with his bottled hand. "Could I offer you something to drink?"
"Oh no," Mary responded at once, "I'm what us muggles call the designated driver, it's basically someone—"
"I know what a designated driver is," he assured her. "I've read and watched my fair share of muggle culture."
"Right, I just always assume for a culture with no cars, it'd be a little confusin'," the Ravenclaw mocked lightly.
"Actually, Miss Mary, I know how to drive," he whispered conspiratorially.
"What? Really?"
"Uh-huh," he nodded, smugly smiling down at her as he brought the bottle back to his lips.
"Are you any good?"
"That's a question for another day." She laughed in response.
"Yer just full of surprises, aren't ye?"
"Oh yeah, Pandora's Box all right," he chuckled. Mary nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. The taste of the ale evaporated from his mouth, the sourness that returned was a reminder of why he couldn't quite get into the Halloween spirit yet. "Hey, um, you wouldn't happen to know if Lily came tonight?"
"Yeah, she's drinking with Marlene out in the hall. The music sort of got to her head," snorted Mary as she watched him quickly dart his eyes over to the exit. She sighed, nodding her head understandably but rolling her eyes all the same. "Go ahead, Remus, I'll be fine."
He looked down at her. "How did you—?"
"Ravenclaw," she snorted again, tapping on her head. In reality, Remus was not as discreet as he hoped to be.
"That you are."
"Go," the witch insisted, shooing him towards the door. Remus saluted her with a small shoulder squeeze and set off through the crowd. Eventually, after a handful of greetings and smiles, he managed to escape out into the hallway. His head turned both ways, not having to look far until he spotted a leaned-over and laughing blonde figure in one of the windowed alcoves. Remus pursed his lips, shoving his hands into his trousers' pockets as he made his way over to them.
"Oh, hello," muttered Lily, looking down at the still half-full bottle in her hands.
"Sit, Remus," Marlene ushered, moving over on the window sill and making room for him next to Lily.
"I'm okay," he assured her with a quick smile.
"Really, not a problem. Besides— I was just going, have to find Mary, sort of just, well, left her there."
"She's actually looking for you, too. I was just with her. She's in the back by the haystacks," Remus informed her. She nodded and pecked Lily on the top of her head before skipping off towards the door that he had charmed to look like a normal tapestry.
"I came to apologize," he told Lily immediately, leaning against the pillar in front of her. She nodded, flicking her thumb over the edge of her glass.
"I figured that much."
"I can come back at a later time if you want."
"For?"
"Come again?"
"What are you apologizing for?"
"If it's any consolation, I told James that we should have done it to everyone, but he didn't listen," he hastily began excusing himself, simultaneously hoping that it didn't sound like he was throwing his friends under the bus. Lily simply snorted.
"I don't think it's me you should be apologizing to," Lily told him, both of them sharing a look. He nodded.
"To get— will they accept an apology?"
"Will Potter even be willing to consider apologizing— and Black?"
"That, too," Remus sighed. "They're not going to listen to me. Like I said, I tried—"
"Does he ever?" He didn't know what to say. "Listen, I'm sorry for the way I acted before. I know how you are with your mates. I know you wouldn't do half the things they make you do—"
"They don't—" but she cut him off immediately.
"Let me speak, please." He nodded. "But, the thing is, they're going to come back for blood. You know that, right? You can't keep slashing at someone, stabbing them incessantly, and just expect them to sit there and take a swig from their cup as if nothing had happened. You all wonder why they're so cruel, what do you expect them to be? Why do you think Kavanagh treats you the way she does? Sure, maybe it's a superiority thing, but it's also because you, from the very beginning, went in with a dagger behind your back," she concluded, quickly averting her gaze to her fumbling fingers.
"That's not true."
"Yes, it is."
"About Kavanagh? Yeah, that's not true, at least."
"Yes, it is! I heard you, and them, talking about her. You all said things that the poor witch doesn't deserve. Sure, she didn't hear you or know that you said what you said but don't think that she doesn't get it. So, tell me, how do you expect her to treat you with kindness when all you give is ill will?"
"I'll have you know," Remus was taken aback by the sudden mention of Eve Kavanagh by Lily, not expecting to have her brought up in this conversation at all. "What we said about Kavanagh was weeks ago— and, yes, while things were said that weren't necessarily true, I… I also put in a lot of effort with her." They stared at one another as Lily listened to something he had not even mentioned to his friends. "And it worked— you were right." Lily's eyes narrowed at his admission. "She is not that bad, and… well, we— she doesn't treat me badly at all, actually."
And recollections of their time together — the tutoring session, the lake, the kitchens — came back to him. During their first meal together, they hadn't spoken much while they ate, but she did inquire into Remus' life a bit more, exhibiting borderline enthusiasm while in his presence. She had asked about where in Wales he was from, she had asked how he had come to meet his friends— beyond being placed in the same house together, and even asked about what his parents did for a living, muggle mother included. He had learned that she did, indeed, speak Gaelic fluently— that it was her first language as mandated by her father, that she had intentions of returning to Ireland after her studies were over, and that she was a very meat-and-potatoes kind of person when it came to her eating habits.
"Well, that's good," Lily said plainly, clearly at a loss for words as the alcohol had made her brain somewhat useless. "I didn't know that… I had just assumed because—"
"Because she didn't show up that one time?"
"Yeah," Lily admitted. "And also because you said she was giving you a hard time with some of the material."
"She was... Sort of still is, but she's got her reasons," he explained, shrugging. Her brows lifted up, questioning whether Remus had been able to deduce that much on his own. "She didn't tell me what, but she's not— she's not doing it on purpose, at least." They shared a look. "Most of it, I think, isn't on purpose."
"Hm, okay," Lily said without thinking. "Okay, fine, so all is well with Kavanagh— great to hear, but that's not my bloody point."
Remus stared at her, blinking, waiting for her to continue.
"Yes, I was wondering where she fits in all of this."
"She doesn't, I suppose," Lily sighed, shaking her head. "It was an example. We can use Severus as an example, I simply thought you'd be able to empathize more because it pertains to you."
"I already empathize, Lily. I'm ready to apologize to them all in front of the whole student body. But do you really want to talk about this now that you've brought up Snape, too?"
"You came here to apologize, and I want to make sure you know what you're apologizing for."
"I know what happened was fucked up! I tried to change their minds— but if the consequence is them coming for blood, how does that make them any better, if not worse?" His mouth stood slightly open, a bowed head as he attempted to understand whether Lily was all there or not. He wasn't even sure what she was upset about anymore. The fact that they had pulled an all-around harmless prank on those she considered to be under her protection and guidance; the fact that one of those people was her ex-childhood best friend; the fact that it may cause an even worse retaliation from his counterparts?
"I didn't say that," Lily began but she was too drunk to actually remember the cause of their conversation. "I didn't say that they were better or worse. Severus, Severus is just— all I'm saying is that Severus and people like him are just misjudged."
"Snape and the people he concerns himself with are not misjudged, they are misinformed and prejudiced," Remus was quick to counter.
"He's not who you think he is. Listen to me, Remus, people like Severus are people in great pain, pain that you should be able to understand." Lily reached out for his hand, looking into his eyes with something bordering desperation.
"Lily—" What the fuck?
"And, of course, some of them are beyond our help. I tried helping Severus, I really did, a—and...and I couldn't, but that doesn't mean you can't help. It doesn't mean we should continue to push them into a corner. Maybe, just maybe, if you try, you can see them as people and not evil beings to be played with." Lily began crying, warm tears rushing down her velvet powdered face. Remus was convinced that she was drunk out of her mind because there was no other explanation for all this.
"Lily, please don't cry," he whispered to her, his shoulders and face collapsing as she wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. He had never seen Lily cry before and he never wanted to again, especially not when he felt that it was his fault to begin with. "Please, I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, Remus." Because Lily knew that she had to say it— she knew him better than anyone else did. "I promise you, it's not. I-I… Just, ugh, just… All we need right now at Hogwarts is for some micro-war to break out when there's already a bloodbath happening outside."
"I know that," he said as he realized where this was coming from, and where and what had been triggered. "Trust me, I know. I'll do what I can to see how we can fix this— if we can. I'll do my best with James and Peter, I don't know about Sirius."
Lily nodded because, at the end of the day, it was their lives. Remus would have to decide for himself whether he wanted to put that task on himself, and they would each have to decide for themselves whether what they had done merited that kind of response.
"I'm glad things are going well with you and Kavanagh," Lily began as if trying to find some other topic to relieve herself of visiting a deeper vault.
"I will admit, it came as a bit of a surprise but there is hope," he responded, somewhat forcing a bit of a laugh.
"Did she ever apologize for calling you Richard?" This time, a real laugh flew out of Remus. Lily's eyes lifted to his.
"Kavanagh is," Remus began but couldn't finish as the laughter rang hard. "I don't know how to explain it— but she is so odd."
"What do you mean?"
"She's just so odd."
"In what way?"
"She just— I don't know. Where to begin? She really sometimes— just does these…" Remus ran a hand over his face that lingered over his mouth as he continued to chuckle. His gaze was distant as his thoughts stilled on what was making him laugh so much. "She does random, out-of-character things sometimes that you would never expect."
"For example?" Lily asked, leaning forward, a spark in her eyes. "I won't tell anyone, I swear."
"No, I know you won't. It's just— you had to be there, I mean…"
"Well, try! Come on, don't leave me hanging!"
"For example, she had left her Transfiguration exam on the table and, well, I don't know— I noticed and I took it. I didn't look at it or nothing, but I figured I would get it to her at some point, seeing as— well yeah, I tutor her. But I found her waiting for Flint outside the bathroom and so I gave it to her." He realized he was rambling, but Lily was clearly keen on the conversation. "Anyway, long story short, Flint comes out of the bathroom and immediately greets me as Richard while laughing. And Eve, Eve without so much as a second thought corrected her and said 'Remus.'" Lily didn't interrupt, drunk but not too drunk to take note of certain things. "Not only corrected her, but told her my full name and then was like 'That is Remus Lupin,' and she acted as if— like you could see Flint felt like a complete idiot after that."
"Are you bloody joking?" Lily asked, nearly gaping as her eyes searched his face.
"No, not at all, it really happened," he confirmed, nodding his head and taking a sip from his drink. They sat in silence as Lily pondered over the brief anecdote Remus had just confessed to her.
"Oh my God, it's like she cares…" If it hadn't been for the stark emptiness of the corridor, there was no way Remus would have been able to hear it.
"What?"
"She cares… Like about you, she cares?"
"I mean, I don't know," Remus' face flattened into uncertainty as he shrugged. "I don't know if I would take it so far— it was probably just her being polite."
"She practically denounced Flint for your sake," Lily reiterated. "And you just said she called you Remus, first, not Lupin. In front of Aphrodite Flint. And you also just called her Eve like just now, yeah?" Remus didn't know why but he felt heat creep up the back of his neck as he realized his loose words had maybe been a bit too loose. "Which means you two are on a first-name basis— and for you to be on a first-name basis with someone like Eve Kavanagh means that this has gone beyond formalities."
"I hate calling people by their last name, you know that."
"No, I know, so from your end— it's expected, I suppose," Lily analyzed, tilting her head back and forth. "But she cares."
"Respects me," he amended.
"Not to publicly defend you like that in front of another pureblood, Sacred-28, Slytherin witch," Lily shot back. "Why are you fighting me on this?"
"I'm not, it's just Kavanagh," and now he was careful with his words. "She's… odd, and I don't quite fully understand her reasoning behind much. I just—"
"Don't want to get your hopes up?"
"I'm not hoping for anything."
"You care for her, too. Maybe you don't know it yet but you do. And that's a good thing, it really is. People like Kavanagh need people like you to care for them. Or else they end up with the likes of Mulciber and Avery. So, yeah, you're hoping that it's mutual."
"I tutor her, Lily." She snorted in response, throwing her head back as she rolled her eyes.
"Okay. So, you just watch people in Transfiguration to make sure they get their exams back, and when they leave them behind, you take it to make sure that it eventually gets to them? Without looking at it?"
Remus couldn't help but wonder when Sirius and Lily had become so alike.
"Yes. Wouldn't you?"
"No, not when they sit on the opposite side of the room from me, nearly six rows down and on the far side of the table."
Well, at least it seemed that Lily had also taken to memorizing the seating arrangement. For what reason, he wouldn't dwell on, but he could assume it had something to do with his blind-as-a-bat best friend.
"I tutor her in that class. It's partially my responsibility to—"
"Bollocks, it's not your responsibility at all. But whatever, you don't want to admit you both have grown fond of one another because then those," Lily tilted her head towards the tapestry, "idiots wouldn't show you the light of day."
"I just came to apologize," he returned back to his initial goal, trying to stir the conversation away from Eve Kavanagh. Merlin knew he had heard enough from Sirius.
"I'm sorry, Remus. I've had a little too much to drink," she finally admitted. "I know that's why you're here, and I just psychoanalyzed you and Kavanagh and also cried over bloody Severus, again." Lily sighed, tilting her head back against the wall. "Of course I forgive you. I was just, I just didn't know how to react at that moment." I was scared, she wanted to tell him, but the words never found their way out.
"It's all right, happens to the best of us."
But Lily wished he wasn't such a boy. Sure, he was more perceptive than the others, but he was a teenage boy nonetheless. And though she usually enjoyed his company, Lily really wanted him to leave because she wanted to cry. She wanted to cry because Severus had looked right at her at dinner as soon as it dawned on him what was happening; because she knew they would come after Remus, James, Sirius, and Peter; because she knew that she didn't know how to handle any of this. She felt like the weight of the world was on her shoulders, and she finally began to understand what it meant to truly be alone.
Yes, Lily was going to cry.
And Lily wasn't drunk anymore, but she sure as hell needed to be.
After his conversation with Lily, she had asked to use the restroom and he had asked her if she wanted an escort, but she had laughed weakly and told him that she could most certainly take care of herself. He had sat on the edge of the window sill for a while, smoking a cigarette, thinking about Lily's words, and finally decided that they were indeed the words of a drunk. So he ignored them, brushing them off and letting Lily rejoin her friends as he found his own company.
In the end, he had concluded that it didn't matter what she had said, he was just glad that they had made up.
Now long past midnight, the party was still going strong. The drink was still plenty and the laughter rambunctious. Remus found himself sitting in a circle of haystacks with what he liked to call his party company. One of them was Ed Siencyn, a Welsh Hufflepuff muggleborn who had a great sense of humor and could make a joke from anything and everything. Between them all, they split a bottle of whiskey that was already halfway gone.
The half-gone bottle of whiskey wasn't much of a surprise as this specific company that Remus kept was what his friends liked to refer to as the anglophobes…
"I have another mate— we went to school together long back, and you know what he told me once?" Ed began, waiting on their responses. Remus hadn't even gotten over the last joke the Hufflepuff had cracked, still grinning and nearly on the verge of tears. Anwen Talgo, a Hufflepuff witch, had her face on the table, trying her best to calm herself down to make sure she didn't piss her pants as Ed continued.
"'Ed, mate, you've got to believe me. I slipped on some ice just the other day, and I swear I saw my own arsehole flash before my eyes.'" The Hufflepuff wizard banged on the table as he began to convulse at his own joke. Remus laughed even harder, clutching his side that had begun to cramp.
"Please, shut up," cried out Enya Fitzgerald as she, too, began to feel a pain in her stomach.
"Oh man, Ed, you make me wish I was a muggle," Tomlyn Maccabe said as he chuckled, wiping tears away from the corners of his eye.
"Yeah, me too," Ed sighed, bringing the whiskey up to his lips but pausing momentarily as another chuckle slipped out. As Remus continued to laugh, he pulled out the pack of now nearly finished cigarettes and lit one up. "You mind sharing, mate?" Ed turned to ask Remus, his eyelids low from all the alcohol he had consumed. Remus slowly nodded his head, puffing a few times before handing it over to the Hufflepuff wizard.
The anglophobes.
What one would find at that moment is what Remus liked to refer to as the unspoken agreement of the non-English Hogwarts wizards and witches. Ed Siencyn was the head of this completely informal committee that only ever gathered all together at parties. He was a muggleborn wizard from South Wales with an accent thick as wood and a pride of his homeland that could rival James' pride of himself. It damn near crossed house lines, Remus had found out once, when Ed had attempted to recruit Aphrodite Flint, respectively Welsh, and Eve Kavanagh in their first year— of which he had been quick to learn about the rule of blood, something once foreign to the muggleborn.
But the requirement was simple: anyone who wasn't English and could down a bottle of whiskey in one night was welcome. That's how Ed Siencyn, Anwen Talog— both fully Welsh, Scottish Tomlyn Maccabe, and Irish witches Enya Fitzgerland and Laura O'Garvey came to be seated all together that night with Remus Lupin. All but Laura O'Garvey were Hufflepuffs and, thus, the Hufflepuffs were a close group of friends outside of parties. Marlene McKinnon also had an honorary place among them as did Mary MacDonald, the latter purely because of her last name.
Mary MacDonald was the consequence of an odd event that had occurred in muggle Britain where her ancestors had been shipped off to Australia or New Zealand for whatever reason, Remus couldn't quite remember. Her parents had only come to England for something that had to do with her father's job, and that same year she had received a letter from Hogwarts which ended up making their stay permanent. Again, he didn't remember all the details. He did remember, though, that she was quite proud of her Pacific identity and didn't quite know much of the origins of her surname. The fact still stood, however— she wasn't English. Ed Siencyn had been content enough with that backstory.
Ed had also tried to spread his wings a bit to get those like Rohan Singh and Chris Li on board, but the latter two had grown up in the dense urban centers of London and could not hang onto a single reference that Ed made. They ended up forming another group of— what Remus liked to refer to as the tenderfoots — Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs from the major industrial cities of London, Manchester, and Birmingham, creating some sort of imaginary division between them and everyone else. Somehow, Sirius had not been a contender for this group, either, because they had been quick to realize that the pureblood wizard had really no clue about city life.
The muggle world was just as strange as the magic one, Remus noted.
Now, the reason Remus had a place was that Ed Siencyn had declared that being born and raised in Wales, as well as knowing the most basic conversational words of the Welsh language, made him fully Welsh— forget the other half.
So, Marlene McKinnon, Mary MacDonald, and Remus Lupin were all fair game as long as none of their English friends tagged along.
James had learned that the hard way.
"Ah!" They heard a girl shriek as one of their peers grabbed her by the waist, pulling her towards him and against the wall with a grin. She began to giggle as he attacked her cheeks, his lips traveling down her neck. Tomlyn huffed at the scene, turning back around to look at his company.
"It'd be nice to have a lass," muttered Tomlyn under his breath as he took a swig from the bottle.
"Nah," Ed countered. "A bottle of whiskey is good enough for me." Tomlyn shook his head in disagreement. "And a fag," Ed finished as he leaned over to return the burning cigarette to Remus.
"I'll die single," Anwen Talog concluded.
"Bloody hell, why are you always so sad?" Ed turned to look at Anwen.
"Cause' she's not stupid," Enya defended her, a laugh breaking out amongst them. "Right, Remus?"
Remus snorted and nodded his head in agreement because he knew he wouldn't ever be that, he knew it just wasn't in his cards.
"She doesn't even like men," Laura corrected Enya.
"So?" Anwen asked, a pinched look on her face.
"So? There're no others like that… that we know of here. Of course, you're going to die single," Laura rebutted, rolling her eyes.
"That we know of," Anwen repeated as she chuckled, reaching her fingers out to Remus for the cigarette.
James was leaning against the wall behind a pillar, grinning and smiling at all the dancers as they spilled their drinks onto one another without so much as realizing. He'd throw a party every day if he could. The Head Boy loved carousing others, catering to them in a way that would give them something worthwhile to remember.
Or not.
Depending on how much they drank and if they were prone to blackouts, of course.
His eyes darted around the room. It was already an hour or two past midnight, and though some had taken to the floor, a good many were still standing firm. He, too, was a little buzzed, but he made sure to keep his drinks numbered because — and from what he had seen — all his friends, even Remus, were well on their way to forgetting tonight ever happened.
And at least one of them had to be there to make fun of them for it.
He caught Kyra's eye and winked at her as she dragged Emmeline to some dark corner to do whatever illicit substance they had gotten off of Fletcher. Normally, seeing the other members of the Gryffindor team doing too much of anything that could affect their performance would be cause for attention, but he laughed— it was Halloween. He pressed the edge of his glass to his lips and threw his head back to finish it. It was then that his sight caught on to two green dots looking his way, suddenly becoming super aware of himself.
James tried his best to fix his disheveled hair, but there was really nothing he could do to make it more presentable. It was what it was, no matter how much he tried to make it otherwise. And, matter of fact, it wasn't like that's why he was brushing through it. He was just trying to find something to do that didn't entail making eye contact again— he really wasn't looking for a fight.
Lily smirked, watching as James Potter shoved a hand into his pocket, looking sheepishly down at his drink with a small grimace then back up to the others. Her clouded, whiskey-infused judgment led her to put one foot in front of the other until, eventually, she was standing by his side. She didn't say anything at first, tilting her head curiously as she observed him. The entire time, he used his height to his advantage and looked straight past the top of her head.
"Hey," she finally announced, almost shouting. James' brows raised and he greeted her with a quick lift of his chin.
"Evans."
"What're you up to?"
"I am…" James' lips tightened while his brows remained up, still not looking at her. "Perusing."
"Perusing?" Lily giggled, her shoulders shaking. It forced his attention on her.
"Yes," James affirmed. "I am perusing my own work."
"You're taking credit for Remus' work?"
"Excuse you," he scoffed, his chin jutting inward. "Sure, he conjured a spell or two—"
"Uh-huh."
"But it's…" James stopped as he realized that Lily Evans was teasing him, the smirk on her red-painted lips all too blatant. His eyes narrowed on her, trying to figure out if Lily Evans was actually just there to tease him. And if she was trying to tease him— why would Lily Evans want to tease him?
He shoved the thoughts away as he was beginning to jump to conclusions that were far too away for him to reach.
"I like to watch everyone enjoy themselves," he clarified. She nodded, scanning his body from head to toe. He cleared his throat and decided to continue, seeing as any talks of pranks and Slytherins were yet to be dealt. "How 'bout you? Enjoying yourself?"
"Oh yeah, tons, but I'm a little dizzy from the drink."
"Fancy some water?" But she shook her head. "Fresh air?" He asked almost too fast. He didn't even know why he had bothered to ask, at this point he already knew that she was going to write him off, that she was going to laugh and say: "Me? Go with you? Ha!"
But she didn't.
"Yeah, sure," she agreed somewhat enthusiastically. And he was starting to think that Sirius had slipped him, or maybe even her, one of Mundungus' magic mushrooms during supper.
"Uh," he froze, trying to gather his thoughts. "Okay, this way then." He made his way to the back of the room, behind the cauldrons filled with booze and the haystacks they had placed about.
"That's the wrong way," he heard her say from behind him.
"There's another," he told her. She shrugged her shoulders and followed him. Her inebriated mind was so giddy and light that she didn't even care that she was off to some unknown part of the castle with the boy she considered her sworn enemy. With the same boy that she had proclaimed she would date the Giant Squid before she ever went close to him.
"You have to pass through that wall right there," James informed her, pointing at it.
"No, I— I'm not an idiot." Lily feigned a haha and a tight smile as she looked from the wall to James. "Very funny, you think I'm that stupid?"
"No, really, you just have to go through it."
They stared at one another.
"Okay, you do it first, then," she demanded.
"All right, no problem," he retorted with a snort, walking right through the wall with ease. Lily gasped, her drunken mind actually surprised by something that was a given in the wizarding world. Hesitating, she followed suit by first placing her hand through the wall before attempting the rest of her body.
James couldn't help but chuckle as he saw Lily's silver-covered arm reach out through the wall. He raised his eyebrows in amusement as he watched her slowly and cautiously step through it.
"Oh my god. That was so cool," she whispered to herself.
You're pissed, he commented internally. Lily was funny when she was drunk, and he didn't mind it one bit.
"Here I am," she announced joyfully, stepping closer to him, face beaming.
"Here you are," he repeated a little less loudly. Lily observed where they were: the bridge that connected two towers together, except no one ever knew how to get to it. She stared with her mouth slightly open, pausing at one of the archways to gaze out into the open.
"It's amazing," she awed, looking back at James who leaned against the space between the two archways, watching her as she ogled at the lake.
And no matter how much his inner voice tried to tell him otherwise, James never saw someone or something so beautiful. The moonlight shined off of her porcelain face and her large eyes glistened like stars. He found himself holding his own breath, pursing his lips, and making himself look away before he ruined everything… Again.
He ran his hand through his hair and turned so that it was his back and not his shoulder that pressed against the wall. Lily heard his shuffling and turned to watch him. The dim light hit him at an angle that elongated his already sharp jaw. He had taken off his glasses to rub his eyes for a moment, placing them back onto his nose and blinking as his sight returned to him.
"Your eyelashes are really long," Lily commented.
"Er, thanks?" James didn't know whether to snort, smile, or scrunch his face so he did all three.
"It's so unfair."
"Why's it unfair?"
"Because I have short lashes…" Her words trailed off and James looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "And they're red."
"But they're black now."
"It's called makeup," Lily said, rolling her eyes. James still didn't quite know what to say so he just kind of did something he normally never did— he didn't say anything. "You're rather handsome." It didn't quite slip out the way it was supposed to or, at least, it didn't seem that way to him. It seemed almost as if that was where this had all been leading to in the first place.
But she was drunk, and everyone looked good after six shots of whiskey, he reckoned. Not that he didn't believe her, it's not like he thought himself ugly— not the least bit, he knew he was handsome, and there had been plenty of attention from others that had suggested the same.
Still, his eyes widened just slightly, finding that he didn't exactly know how to react. So his body took charge, doing it for him as he stared at her, his neck turning red and his face heating up.
James Potter was blushing.
James Potter never blushed.
"Thanks, so are you," he managed, immediately regretting his words. If she had turned around even for a second, he probably would have slapped himself, too.
Really? Handsome? Git, he cursed, staring up at the bridge's roof. She was biting down on her lip, trying to stifle a small giggle.
He took a deep breath to calm his speeding heart and his too-warm neck. This was getting ridiculous.
Blimey, was he glad Sirius wasn't here to see this.
And she watched him, the last of the giggle fading away. She found herself completely mesmerized by the boy standing in front of her. She watched his hands as they ran through his hair. They were strong and flecked with veins, and Lily couldn't help but think how they would feel on her face, on her waist, on her breast.
The thought alone made Lily's breath stop short, glad that he hadn't noticed. She wondered if it was him, James, or if she would be like this with any bloke that stood before her.
Yes, she concluded for herself. If Remus was standing in James' position right now, she would be thinking the exact same thing. Because that's how Lily got after too much drink. She craved yet lacked intimacy. She wanted someone to touch her; she desired that human warmth, the feeling of someone's face cradled inside her neck as they left their mark.
And he was handsome, he was a handsome, handsome boy with a very good body and a very good face, and Lily was a lustful, lecherous little girl who had drunk too much for her own good.
James turned to her for a moment.
"Evans?" He questioned in a low voice, taken aback by her comportment. Her lips were parted just slightly and her eyes were low and heavy. James knew that face, he had seen it plenty over his short life span. But before anything else could be said, Lily closed the gap between their two bodies, pressing her strawberry-glossed lips to his.
James almost had a heart attack. The sudden lunge sent him almost out of the archway and he had to grab hold of the edge before they both went tumbling.
She stood between his legs, his body frozen, and awkwardly leaned over to accommodate her. The witch pulled away, but he could still smell the whiskey-laced breath and the warmth of it on his face. Her green eyes smiled at James as he stared at her with an open mouth, his hands loosely at his sides as hers cupped his jaw.
No, James was having a heart attack. He couldn't move.
She had him wrapped around her finger, and drunk Lily felt another fire ignite in the pit of her stomach knowing it. She slowly pressed her lips to his again, deeply and passionately kissing him. James left her to do whatever it was while he recomposed himself, finally finding his breath and pushing back against her force.
Lily's hands lifted from his face to his hair. James snaked his hand around her waist, pulling her closer to him as he began to kiss her back with everything he had. Though she kissed him gently, he was anything but; his kisses were needy and quick, the two Gryffindors black and white as their teeth clashed and their tongues fought one another on that tower bridge. He traveled from her lips, leaving wet and sloppy kisses on every inch of skin along his path, all the way down to her neck. He took the skin between his teeth, sucking gently as she pressed her chest to his own in response.
"James," she sighed.
But that alone brought him back to reality, and James stopped moving. He realized that no matter how perfect Lily was, no matter how much he wanted her, no matter the fact that he was kissing — KISSING — the girl he had craved for so many years... She was drunk.
Lily pulled back when James had stopped moving, eyeing him suspiciously. His hand became limp around her waist and he found that he couldn't bring himself to meet her gaze.
"I can't," he admitted against every single fiber in his body.
"What?"
"You're drunk, Lily. I can't, I just can't," he continued.
"You're not… I want to snog you." James inhaled deeply and pretended he had heard her wrong.
"Yes, but you're also drunk and… And I'm not sure if you know what you're doing."
She scrunched her eyebrows, pursing her lips, and suddenly felt very awkward. And angry? She let go of him, stepping back once so that they were no longer touching.
"I know perfectly well what I'm doing," she threw back at him.
James really wouldn't have minded if she had wanted him to hold her for the rest of the night. At that point, he didn't care about any party, he didn't care about drinking or smoking. If Lily Evans wanted him to hold her in his arms for the next few hours, or if she wanted to lay down next to him in the Astronomy Tower— James Potter would go to her running.
But she was drunk.
And that's not what she wanted from him.
That's not what she had asked him to do.
He knew that.
"I'm sorry, I thought you wanted…" she trailed off and he couldn't help but think she was annoyed at him.
"No, no," he rushed. "I do, more than anything I do. Believe me. It's just not right and…" He felt his heart pinch in a way it hadn't ever before. "I don't want to be a regret in the morning."
And that was the truth. Because if she did regret this in the morning, James would shatter into a million pieces, and he didn't know how long it would take his friends to pick them all up. There was no way he could survive living with himself knowing that Lily regretted him. He could be a million things to her— but he would not want to be that.
So he saved all of them the trouble. Himself, his friends, and Lily.
It was the least he could do.
Because he already knew she was going to reject him in the morning, and that was okay— he could live with it. It wasn't as if he was going to return to an infantile stage and go chasing after her, begging her for a date despite what happened. It was too short, too brief— it meant nothing to either one of them.
"You're not going to be a regret," she assured him, stepping forward again to kiss him, but he placed both hands on her shoulders, keeping her back.
"Lily, if in the morning this is what you want, then come back to me and I would be the happiest bloke in the entire universe. I swear. But right now… right now, I don't even know if you'll remember this." He could barely even finish his sentence because he could already see the want she had had for him just moments ago diminishing in her eyes. And it was already obvious that he had just been an easy pick.
Easy, James Potter was easy. He wanted to hex himself off the bridge.
Lily blinked at him. The world was glazed over and she couldn't really understand what was going on. She really wanted to be with somebody, and if it wasn't going to be James, then she was just going to have to find someone else.
"Okay," she mustered.
He nodded, pursing his lips and dropping his hands to his sides.
"I best get back to my mates," she said. "They're probably looking for me."
He nodded again. There wasn't really much he could say, or that he knew to say.
"Do you want me to walk you back?" He offered but hoped to every god in the world that she didn't.
"No, I'm sure I'll find it all right," she forced a smile. He returned the gesture, albeit fleetingly and weakly. "Right, see you around, I guess."
He waited until she disappeared before letting out a breath he didn't know he had been holding.
"Fuck," he yelled out into the darkness, his foot coming in contact with the stone wall. He pressed his palms against the archway, leaning over it and letting himself freeze in the early winter wind. That was not how he had wanted their first kiss to be, that was not how he had wanted them to be, and that was not how he wanted her to see him. It was also not how he wanted to see her. He couldn't help but feel like a used little whore at that moment. All those years of chasing her when he was a child had only led her to believe that he would fuck her the first moment a drop of liquor touched her tongue? James could not comprehend the twirl and whirl of emotions running through him at that moment. That had been everything and nothing that he wanted at the same time. How was that even possible? "Fuck," he repeated, his breath turning to smoke in the night air. James Potter never regretted anything, but he regretted this.