Author's Notes: Ten points to anyone who can tell me what book Mary's quote is from.

Chapter 1

Judicial Discretion

"Are you going out for the Halloween weekend?" Lily asked Remus one evening, while she shaded the crack of Sirius's derriere and tried to keep her attention away from the mole/blackhead hybrid.

It was looking more moleish today, but her opinion on that swayed regularly.

"Probably," Remus replied. "A couple of friends are coming up from London, so we might go to the pub on Friday."

"Wild."

"Isn't it?"

"No," said Sirius, posing provocatively on the chaise lounge.

"If you can't see us, you can't talk to us," said Lily loudly.

Sirius slung a glare at her over his shoulder, looking very much like a sullen prostitute under the red neon light their teacher had purchased from eBay to better serve his muscle definition. As of late, it was becoming patently clear that Trelawney was using their sessions to realise the strange, sexual, Sirius-centric fantasies that knocked about in her head. She kept highlighting his nipples with her laser pen and sketching large, charcoal renderings of his genitals.

It made the class very uncomfortable, yet Sirius was unperturbed by Trelawney's lust. He didn't mind where attention came from, so long as it was directed at him.

"I was about to say – before we were so rudely interrupted – that you should go to the Swan if you go anywhere. My housemate works there, and she'll give you cheap drinks if you tell her you know me."

"Guaranteed?"

"Her dad is the landlord. Also –" She leaned toward Remus's easel, and lowered her voice to a whisper. "She wants to meet that idiot."

"Does she know he's not house-trained?"

"Mary doesn't care."

"But he studies philosophy."

"She's fond of the unemployable."

"So, you're under orders to ask about our Halloween plans?" said Remus, his lips curving into an amused grin. "Is that how this works?"

"Oh yeah," Lily replied, nodding like a bobblehead figure on a car dashboard. "There's a whole set of rules. I don't even want to go out this weekend – I'm bloody exhausted – but if I let my best friend's thirsty genitals take preference, next week she buys me a cake."

"And it's mandatory that you're there with her?"

"Yeah, because I know you, and you know him, and that's the introduction sorted. Women hunt in packs. Like lionesses."

Remus shifted away from his drawing, turning his knees towards Lily's chair. His light brown eyes – prematurely lined but decidedly sharp – were alight with interest. "This is fascinating."

"I know, right?"

"What kind of cake will she buy you? Does it depend on how the night goes?"

"There's no variation on the cake as long as I play my part."

"What's this about cake?" Sirius piped up, making them both jump. "And who has thirsty genitals?"

"One day, Sirius, I'm going to snap and throttle you with a roll of yarn from the textile cabinet," Lily threatened, and motioned for him to turn back around with her pencil.

"Lily and I were just arranging to have a drink at the weekend," Remus supplied. "She wants me to meet her friend Mary, who can get us cheap drinks, apparently."

"I assume I'm invited?"

"No," said Lily flatly.

"But you love my company!" Sirius cried.

"I'll concede that your company might be more enjoyable when I'm not forced to look at your arse for the evening."

"Then I'll cut a hole in the back of my jeans, just for you."

"That's the spirit," said Remus gently.

"Am I allowed to meet Mary too," said Sirius, grinning evilly into the void. "Or is that only for good boys?"

"Turn back around, you shit, you're interfering with my light."

"Evans! Stop criticising the model!" cried Trelawney, her usually soft voice cracking like a whip through the room. Two easels down, Jenn Costner jumped in fright and accidentally slashed a long, dark line through Sirius's spinal cord with her pencil.

"Professor?" she called out. "Can I get your help for a moment?"

While Trelawney swished her mauve peasant skirt and crossed the room in a flurry of scarves and jasmine perfume, Lily scooted her stool closer to Remus and bent her head towards him.

"She's definitely not a real professor, right?"

"Not a chance in hell," Remus deadpanned. "Do you have a plan in place for the weekend?"

"Yes, I do, which is why I need you on the inside."

"That sounds deceptively exciting."

"You'll take that back when this is the central plot to the movie of your life."

"If this is the central plot to the movie of my life, I'll throw myself into the Nene river."

Trelawney straightened up from Jenn's easel and swept towards them with her nose aloft, sniffing the air for subpar artistry, so Lily and Remus returned to their drawings and tried to look busy. Their teacher had a tendency towards dramatics that increased tenfold when she caught somebody slacking.

"The hands have vastly improved from your last piece," she informed Lily, and tapped her sketch of Sirius's right hand with the end of a paintbrush. "You've been practising?"

"I've been sketching my own hand at home."

"Good girl," she said, and patted her on the back. "Lupin, how are we faring with perspective this week?"

Her chat with Remus on the length of Sirius's back compared to his various limbs took them through to the end of class, and Lily couldn't talk to him again until they'd packed up their easels, and Sirius disappeared into Trelawney's bedroom to put his clothes back on.

"So, Friday night," she began, extracting her hair from beneath her handbag strap, where it had gotten caught when she slung it on her shoulder. "Mary's working until 8, then her dad's letting her have the rest of the night off. Can you guys come in about an hour before? She'll have a reserved sign in one of the booths, so you'll have a place to sit."

"A reserved sign?" Remus's eyebrows travelled up his forehead. "Are you setting up our friends, or running a military operation?"

"Is there really a difference?"

"The military might think so."

"Then they never met Mary Macdonald," she quipped, and placed a hand on Remus's shoulder. "I've got to dash off and get home in time for the groceries, but I'll see you both Friday?"

He gave her a thumbs-up, a very un-Remus-like gesture that made her laugh. "See you Friday."

"You're a star, Remus Lupin."

"Not really," he countered. "I'm in this for half of your cake."

Lily spent the rest of her Tuesday working on an assignment in the flat – though with the delightful interlude of a microwavable shepherd's pie that had a mildly soapy quality to its flavour – and found it had the enervating effect that only mind-numbing boredom can bring. By the time her housemate got in from work, sometime after midnight, Lily had fallen into a bleary slump on the sofa with her laptop on her knees and a cold, half-consumed mug of tea forming a ring on one of her textbooks.

"It's me," said Mary softly, tiptoeing through the door.

Shaken out of her stupor, Lily rubbed furiously at her overworked eyes and blinked in Mary's direction, while her friend kicked off her shoes and hung her jacket on the cardboard cutout of David Tennant that doubled as their coat stand. "Hey."

"Returneth I from ye olde boozer."

"David missed you."

"I missed him more," said Mary, with a saucy wink for the cutout. "Did the groceries get delivered?"

"Yeah, but they were out of barbecue chicken grills, so they gave us – er –" Her sleepy brain groped in the darkness for what she was looking for. "You know the other kind?"

"Reggae Reggae?"

"Honestly, I don't remember. I don't know what words are anymore."

"Burning the candle at both ends, are we?"

"You know me," said Lily, and stifled a yawn. "Living that party lifestyle."

Mary dragged herself across the room and threw herself into the armchair with an exaggerated sigh of relief. "My feet are killing me."

"Same, only it's my head."

"Then go to bed. You don't need to wait up for me every time I work late, you know."

"I know, and I promise I'll stop, just as soon as we eradicate rape and murder."

"I thought that's what you were doing?"

"Sadly, no. No more treats today," said Lily, squinting at the screen. "Commercial law is nevertheless suspicious of judicial discretion as exercised through equity. Why?"

"What?"

"Exactly," she sighed, and shut her laptop. "How was work?"

"Delightfully damp."

"That sounds like the world's worst porno."

"If only," Mary replied, with a lazy snort to express her amusement, slouching sideways in her chair. She shimmied her bra out from under her shirt, took a sniff and tossed it across the room. "The new guy smashed a bottle of Jameson, so cleaning that up was a fun half-hour, and then some idiots were asking for a lock-in – oh, and I saw Arlène, and she told me to say hello –"

"Hi, Arlène," said Lily dully.

"More importantly, how was my darling future husband today?"

"Naked and irritating."

"Same as always, eh? I like that he's consistent."

"Consistent in shaking his arse in my face and telling me I can't touch the goods, you mean?"

"He's not still doing that, is he?"

"I think the murderous look in my eyes from lack of sleep might have put him off."

"Atta girl."

"Also –" Lily yawned again, and stretched out her legs to regain the feeling she'd lost during her cramped, impromptu nap – the sofa was not built for sprawling. "He is going to be wearing clothes on Friday, so try to reign in your disappointment."

Mary righted herself instantly. A tendril of dark hair had escaped her ponytail, and she flipped it away from her eyes. "Friday's happening?"

"Friday's happening."

She squealed, and leapt from the chair with an energy that Lily could not for the life of her have imitated at that moment unless the flat spontaneously combusted.

"You!" Mary slid across the faux-wood floor in her stockinged feet and dropped a firm, protracted kiss on Lily's forehead. "I fucking love you!"

"Yeah, I know, I'm a cool kid."

"Finally, my marble statue, I shall divest you of your undergarments."

"Don't come crying to me if he disappoints –"

"He won't, I've seen your drawings."

"I wouldn't put that much faith in my artwork if I were you."

Mary, however, was too transported to care, launched by her second-wind into a hormone-driven need to groove like a drunken uncle at a wedding.

"Let's talk about sex, baby," she sang, twirling her way around the coffee table, her arms pumping up and down like a time-delayed sprinter. "Let's talk about you and me –"

"Let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be –"

"Let's talk about – oh –" She stopped spinning, and placed a hand on her chest. "Heartburn."

Lily snorted.

"I got McDonald's after work, don't fucking laugh at me," Mary grumbled, then laughed at herself. She hobbled over to the couch and stretched her hands out in front of her. "Come on. Time for bed."

"I don't want to get up."

"I'll keep dancing if you don't."

"Gassy liar," Lily accused, but she allowed Mary to pull her to her feet, clutching the laptop to her hip with one hand. "Remember, no McDonald's when you shag the marble statue."

"Can you put that on a t-shirt?"

"If I can wear it to your wedding."

Friday night, though a few days early, doubled as Halloween for students and the gainfully employed, and so Friday saw the city overrun with a battalion of costumed revellers – scantily clad nurses, assorted superheroes, a gaggle of Harley Quinns and Jon Snows aplenty – and in amongst the rabble was Lily, all dressed down with somewhere to go.

Lily was punctual as a rule, and as such she stepped into the Swan at exactly the stroke of 'after they arrive but before I finish work,' as instructed by Mary. She quickly spotted Remus in the Good Booth, so named for its proximity to the bar, the toilets and the plasma screen. Across from her friend sat Sirius, recognisable by the back of his head alone, and with them, she supposed, were the friends from London. A small, blonde man with a rodent-like face sat to the right of Remus, and with Sirius was a mystery fourth, sporting a pair of flashing plastic antlers atop a head of dark, electrified hair.

She ignored them and strode to the bar, and Mary, who had pinned a synthetic braid into her hair and come as Lara Croft.

"Where the fuck is your costume?" she demanded, after extracting herself from a crowd of punters and giving Lily a disgusted once-over.

"I've come as myself."

"Well, you haven't, because Lily's hair is longer than that."

"Lily got a haircut," Lily retorted, and squeezed through Super Mario and a half-arsed Michael Myers to secure a spot at the bar. She fluffed the ends of her new bob, into which casual, beachy waves had been painstakingly styled. "Because Lily is tired, and needs to study, and isn't getting anything else out of this deal."

"Except cake."

"Not immediately, and anyway, I spent the rest of my fun money on my hair so I couldn't afford a costume."

"You lie. You hate costumes."

"Well, since I'm only here to enhance you, my love, there wasn't any point in dressing up."

"Not the rose, but near the rose," Mary quoted, a crinkle forming between her eyebrows. "What's that from again?"

"I'm genuinely too shattered to remember."

"You're so extra," said Mary sweetly, and reached over to ruffle her hair. "And pretty, even if you are dressed like a substitute teacher."

"Can't that be my costume?"

"No, you tosser. Go over and say hello to the guys."

"But I only just got here."

"I don't care, here's been here twenty minutes and I've already seen a bunch of other girls making eyes at him."

"You know, I prefer you when you're not fixated on a bloody man," Lily grumbled, and opened her handbag. "Hang on while I text Remus and tell him I'm here. Sirius can't know you pointed him out because he'll get –"

"He'll get all arrogant and assume he occupies a position of power," Mary parroted, and tugged at the straps of her tank top, no doubt to enhance an ample cleavage that already needed no aerodynamic assistance. "I know."

"This is true."

"But it doesn't matter."

"Believe me, it will with this bloke."

"I just want a shag, not a meaningful relationship."

"And you'll get a better shag if he feels the need to impress you," said Lily, having fished her phone out from beneath her keys, her purse and a box of Anadin Extra. "Can you get me a Coke?"

"Coke and?"

"Ice."

"It's Friday night, you bore."

"Put a twisty straw in it, then," she countered, tapping a message into her and Remus's WhatsApp thread.

I'm at the bar with Mary. Text me when you're ready and I'll pretend I just saw you guys (V essential as she MUST appear very busy and important and unaware that Sirius exists)

She hit the send button and smiled at Mary, who was spraying watered-down Coke into a tumbler and scowling darkly.

"No glass bottle today?"

"You don't deserve one. Being set up by you is like being set up by my nan."

"Your nan would definitely try to set you up with Remus instead of Sirius, so that's not even true."

Mary slid the Coke across the bar and shooed away a mad scientist who had approached her for service. "I'm off-duty, mate. Go ask the guy in the banana costume."

"But he told me to ask you."

"Then go back and tell him I'll kick his arse," said Mary moodily. "I'm talking to my friend."

Lily's phone buzzed, and she checked Remus's response.

All set. We're in one of the booths. Turn around and we're on your right.

"Is that him?"

"Yup," said Lily, and turned around to wave at Remus. "Gird your loins, Macdonald."

And then.

And then.

And then.