Hey guys, I know I've been extremely lame by not updating in forever, but i simply didn't have the time, I hope to update more now, but I can't promise any kind of regularity.

(I would like to apologise to user 'dontsayitsgay' for any offence I may have caused by using the term 'gay' in the above paragraph when I meant lame. I did not mean it as an offensive term, I have absolutely nothing against gay people.)

I hope this makes up for it, it's the longest chapter yet (4,000 words YAY!) and one of the funnest to write (when is truth of Dare not fun?) so i hope you enjoy!

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What do Firewhisky, The Fat Lady, broomsticks, a scarf, make-out sessions, hilarity and chaos all have in common? The 7th year Gryffindor's annual All-Out Truth-or-Dare WAR!


Chapter Five – Life or Death? Try Truth or Dare!

"Hey Emma!" Alice yelled across the room. Alex, Lily, Alice and Emma and Marissa were all sprawled across the Gryffindor Common Room, sitting, lying and pacing all around the room, doing their homework. It was about 10.30 and the Marauders were all out doing, something marauder-y with Frank, and Gracie was off with some Hufflepuff fifth year. All the younger students were already in their rooms, save for Meredith Stewart. Meredith Stewart was a 4th mini-Emma in-the-making who was hard away at some complex Transfiguration spell in a 'Study Alcove' on the furthest wall of the room. Meredith didn't look up for her work once, (not even when Alex swore so loudly after she nearly burnt the tips of her fingers off trying to charms her essay into writing itself, that you would have thought Godric Gryffindor himself could have heard it from beyond the grave, or at least Scruffy The Caretaker [again, not his actually name, another charming Marauders allocation due to his ever-present scruffiness and his apparent inability to wash his clothes]), and never said anything, so the 7th Year Girls had the Common Room pretty much to themselves.

"What?" She responded impatiently. Emma was always like this when she was studying, which, apart from when she was eating, sleep or attending class, was always.

"What are the properties of Salamander blood?" She asked boldly, knowing full well that Emma would never, ever, give her answers to a school question. Emma merely sighed in response and turned back to her work.

Emma was sitting at the desk in the 'study alcove', as the teachers like to refer to it as, writing her Potions essay on The Properties of Salamander Blood. Alice was across the room, lying in the middle of the floor, surrounded by pieces of parchment and various books of all shapes and sizes. Alex was lying on the couch 'brainstorming' (aka talking about guys but pretending to be studying) with Lily who was on the floor in front of her. Lily had already finished her Potions Essay and had moved onto the questions due for charms, which she was blitzing through. Marissa was in between Alex and Lily, and Alice, pacing across the room, trying to remember the equations for Arithmacy. Alice was trying to finish her potions essay and Alex was 'working' on a translation for Ancient Runes.

Alice had given up on her potions essay and gone to sit with Lily and Alice. There wasn't much room left so she went to get a chair from the 'study alcove' to sit in.

"Whoa!" Alice exclaimed when she saw Emma essay. "Hey Emma." She began seriously,

"What?" She asked preoccupied with the medical uses of Salamander Blood,

"Is you Potions essay running?" She asked, completely seriously,

Everyone looked up from their work at stared weirdly at her (Not Meredith), Emma looked the most confused, "Sorry what?"

"You potions essay, is it running?" She repeated, smiling cunningly as she said it,

"No." Emma answered hesitantly, not sure where Alice was going,

"Then why does it have six feet!" She asked, cracking up as she said it. Lily smirked and shook her head, Alex sighed and Marissa just kept pacing.

"Wow that was bad," Lily commented,

"Shut up" Was all Alice said in response as she dragged the chair over to where they were sitting and sat down on it the wrong way round, so that her legs wrapped around the back.

"So….." Alice began,

"Given up on the homework?" Alex asked sarcastically,

"What homework?" Alice asked innocently,

"You know you'll have to do it eventually," Lily told them, the only focused on of the trio, "I mean," she continued, "We have NEWTS this year."

"Ugh! Can't we, like, just not talk about NEWTS for 2 minutes!" Alex groaned, "All day it was just NEWTS this, and NEWTS that, don't the teacher shave anything else to talk about." She complained, burying her face in the couch cushions.

"You only had one class today!" Lily and Alice pointed out.

"Yeah, but I had to listen to everyone else complaining about NEWTS" Alex defended, "Plus," Alex went on, "Professor Trucklov droned on for, like, 20 minutes, in class today about the importance of 'Proper Note Taking'" Alex said, making quotation marks with her fingers when she said 'Proper Note Taking', as if there was no way such a thing could even exist, "I mean, what is 'Proper Note Taking' anyway?" she asked the room.

"I'm sure if you'd listened to her you would know." Lily answered half under her breath, and half whispered to Alice. The two giggled before looking guiltily up at Alex when she gave her signature loud 'AHEM!' cough/attention-seeking device she used to bring the topic of conversation back to herself. Alex looked at Alice and Lily as if to say, "Well… what were you two just talking about?", raising her eyebrows and looking questioningly at them.

"Nothing," Lily and Alice dismissed simultaneous, resulting in another quick giggle session, answering Alex's non-verbal question and quickly changing the topic.

"So… everyone prepared for tonight?" Alice asked secretively,

"Prepared for what?" Emma asked, who revealed she had been secretly listening to their whole conversation (Professor Slughorn Who?).

All of the other girls (Meredith included) looked up at Emma completely bewildered at her lack of 7th Year Gryffindor knowledge.

"It's their annual, start-of-term All-Out Truth-or-Dare War!" Meredith exclaimed. Everyone was so shocked at Emma's non-knowledge of this historic event that they ignored the fact the Meredith had stopped working.

"Oh, right, that." Emma rolled her eyes.

"That? That? THAT?" Alice looked like she was about to explode over Emma's cavalier dismissal of what was basically the highlight of every 7th year Gryffindor's year, well; every 7th Year Gryffindor, apart from Emma.

"Alice, calm down." Lily told her seriously, "just ignore her." Emma rolled her eyes again,

"You act like it's the Olympics or something." Emma commented as she began packing up her things to go off to bed.

"Olympics, psh," Lily responded rolling her eyes back at Emma, "it's far more important than the Olympics," she concluded matter-of-factly, before turning back towards the rest of the girls who had gathered round the couch in a sort of group-huddle.

"So," Lily began in a hushed voice, giving the meeting the impression of war-strategy importance, "who are we picking this year?" Every year, the girls chose one boy to pick on, and the boys pick one girl. The chosen boy and girl are then given the hardest, most embarrassing and wackiest truths and dares.

"Sirius"

"Sirius"

"Sirius"

"Frank"

Alex, Marissa and Lily all looked quizzically at Alice. They girls always chose one of the marauders to pick on (truthfully, a bit unfair, but they all figure the boys deserve it for all the pranks they will surely be playing on the general student body in the coming year).

"I just figured, since we've never picked him." Alice explained, "I mean, the boys will probably pick Lily, they usually do," this was true, for 4 of the past 6 year they chose Lily, usually so that they could make her kiss James, or sit on his lap or something like that, like strapping her down and forcibly pouring Veritaserum down her throat then asking her a million times and a million ways if she liked/fancied/loved/was attracted to/enjoyed the company of/etc/etc James), "but I just think we should go a little different this year" Alice continued, "you know, pick someone they won't expect, cause they'll be expecting us to pick of the marauders. Besides it'll be fun trying to think of ways to humiliate Frank, seeing as none of us have ever done him before." This was apparently the wrong choice of words for the others three girls all started snickering and trying (unsuccessfully) to hold back laughing.

"Oh, you know what I mean," Alice said, partially frustrated with her friends' one-track, dirty minds.

Lily shrugged; she honestly didn't care who they picked, she was just praying that the boys didn't pick her; so the girls agreed to pick Frank.

It's well past curfew, and the teachers and prefects have long since given up wandering about the halls. Three dark figures are running through the seventh floor corridors, their hands full with various food items (having just visited the castle kitchen). The figures move at a surprisingly quick pace, and surprisingly gracefully, for a group of 17 yr old boys heavily bogged down by cakes and pies and such. They quicken as they approach their target. This is perhaps not the smartest move as they burst through the Gryffindor Common Room portrait hole at such a speed, and stop so suddenly after coming through, that very soon there is a large pile of boy and cakes lying on the floor of the Gryffindor Common Room, just in front of an appalled and slightly stunned (and half-asleep) Fat Lady. Luckily someone had the common sense to say (or shout) the Gryffindor password as the boys were approaching, so that none of them actually collided with the Fat Lady, but it being midnight and all, the Fat Lady began to open very slowly, only to be thrown open at the arrival of Remus, James and Sirius.

"Shall we begin?" Lily questioned the awkwardly-stacked marauders (well, three of them; Peter was never allowed to go on these types of excursions as he was not quick or agile enough) a smile spreading across her face, as she watched the three boys try to untangle themselves and pick up all their food.

"You know, if you boys wanted some alone time, we could just host this tournament tomorrow." Alex suggested, unsuccessfully attempting to keep a straight face. All of the boys went bright red and, unable to say anything in response, they all jumped up quickly and laid the food out in front of the girls and Peter, and took their places in the circle.

The lights in the Gryffindor Common Room were dimmed to almost off, the majority of the light in the room coming from candles, charmed to bob around the heads of the 7th years. Every Gryffindor except for Alice, Alex, Marissa, Lily, Gracie, Sirius, Remus, James, Frank, Daniel and Peter had already gone to bed. Some of the 5th and 6th years wanted to stay up to watch the Truth-or-Dare competition but James and his marauders always managed to 'convince' them not to stay (through a combination of sleeping spells, unbreakable lock charms and his general charisma and charm). Lily used to drag Emma along as well, but was just so unenthusiastic it was really no fun, so now it's just all the 7th Year Gryffindors, minus Emma.

James' original idea of how to decide who went first involved a complicated series of tasks and magically skill testing, but instead Lily suggested to him that they play 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' (after first explaining what 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' was) as this was far less likely to result in injury. Sirius and Marissa were always the one to do the actually 'Rock, Paper, Scissor-ing', because they were the best at Occlumency, making it harder for the other person to try and find out what they were going to do.

The tension in the room rose steadily as Sirius and Marissa each leant forwards, hands outstretched, waiting for the go signal.

Scarlet and Gold sparks emanating from Lily's wand, filled the room, marking the official start of the 1977 7th Year Gryffindor All-Out Truth-or-Dare War.

The tension in the room rose rapidly.

Their hands bounced once.

Twice.

"Rock"

"Paper"

", ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, you lose, you lose, we win we win" James cried out in triumph as Marissa slumped back into her spot in the circle dejectedly, and Sirius rose cockily up and began slowly turning around and around, arms outstretched.

"Okay, okay, you guys won, can we get on with the game now?" Lily asked impatiently,

"I don't think it's up to you anymore when the game starts me dear Lillikins," James taunted,

"James." Lily growled warningly,

"Fine, fine, "

"LET THE GAMES BEGIN!" James shouted, popping a bottle of butterbeer stolen from the Kitchen and downing it in one go then placing it in the middle of the circle, hands poised,

"Spineth thy bottle my good man" Remus urged Sirius, and so he did.

The bottle span round and round, turning slower and slower, everyone agreed a couple years ago that the whole experience would be a lot more fun if they used as little magic as possible, so all of their wands were sitting in a little neat pile on the table next to them, because it's generally not the smartest idea when you're dealing with drunk, over-excited 17 yr olds to bring rowdy magic and random flying spells into the mix.

The bottle slowly came to a stop...in front of Marissa.

"Truth or Dare?" asked Sirius. It was an innocent enough question; 3 simple words, two choices, one answer; but combined with bored, over-achieving, hormone-crazed, alcohol-driven, magical teenagers; things could get pretty crazy.

"Dare." Marissa answered confidently.

And it had begun.

"Okay, I dare you to ..." Sirius looked around the room, trying to think of a good dare to get Marissa to do, Sirius raised his eyebrows and bent down to pick up one of the five bottles of Firewhisky on the floor in front of them, "drink this whole bottle in one go."

Sirius handed her the bottle and Marissa took it hesitantly.

"In one go?" She asked tentatively; Marissa had never been a big drinker, but she could hold her alcohol fairly well. Not many people handled a whole bottle of Firewhisky in one go very well though.

"In one go." Sirius repeated, staring her off and wiggling his eyebrows at her.

Marissa raised the bottle to her mouth, took a deep breath in, and threw her head back, the level in the bottle dropping with each passing gulp. Marissa managed to get the whole thing down pretty quickly in one go, but she sort of swayed a little giving the empty bottle back to Sirius.

"My turn!" she said, swallowing and scrunching up her face and holding a fist to her face to prevent a burp escaping.

Marissa spins the bottle much quicker than Sirius did so it takes longer to stop, but when it does it stops pointed at Gracie.

"Truth or Dare?" Marissa asked, her words slurring, already feeling the effect of the ¾ of a litre of Firewhisky that she just skulled.

"Truth?" Gracie replied. It was more of a question, Gracie never really liked dares but for the past couple years, if you picked 'truth' you were labelled a coward, but some of the dares had gotten pretty extravagant.

"Wuss." Lily whispered at her. Even Lily, who's dares were usually the worst (something along the lines of; sitting of James' lap for the whole game; flashing the boys; missing entire days of classes [which most people would love, but Lily [being the studious Head Girl that she is] hated) normally picked dare.

"Okay; would you rather: have sex every single night until you die?" she began, Gracie looking questioningly at her, "or eat a slice of chocolate cake every night until you die?"

"Every night?" Gracie asked,

"Every night." Marissa confirmed

"Does it have to be chocolate cake?" Gracie asked, she never was much of a chocolate enthusiast (and that was probably why she was so skinny)

"Yes."

"What if I don't have anyone to have sex with?" Gracie asked, cleary putting a lot of thought into the logistics of the questions as opposed to just answering it, "I mean, like, what if I'm not married, or don't have a boyfriend, or anything like that?"

"Do it with a random."

"What about –"

"Enough questions." Marissa cut her off, "Choose NOW."

"Can I alternate the days?" Gracie asked hesitantly,

"What do you mean?" Marissa asked, sounding confused.

"I mean, like, cake one night, sex the other." Gracie clarified, "so like, I could burn off the calories from the cake from last night with the sex of tomorrow and such."

"Fine, yeah, sure." Marissa agreed, "you can have sex one night, and chocolate cake the next."

"Okay my go!" Gracie said excitedly, picking up the bottle and spinning it clockwise.

The bottle stopped half-way between Frank and James; now in most games, you would try to pick which one it is closer to and just dare them, but in an All-Out Truth-or-Dare War, you dare both of them.

"Okay so Frank first." Gracie began, before glancing secretively back at her fellow girls, seemingly having a short, telepathic conversation, "Truth? Or dare?"

"Truth."

"If you had to have sex with someone here, right now, who would you pick?" Gracie posed to Frank, Frank immediately freezing up, "And it doesn't have to be a girl," Gracie added, "you know, if that's how you like it." She finished with a smirk.

"Ummmmmmmmmmmmm..."

"Frankie" Gracie began sweetly, "CHOOSE NOW!"

"Ummmmmm, Alice?" He finally answered sheepishly, again, sounding more like a question.

Alice looked downed embarrassed and Frank was trying to avoid making eye contact with anyone.

"Oooh, why?" Gracie pressed on, completly ignoring how obviously uncomfortable Frank and Alice were.

"Umm, cause she's nice, and pretty and..." Frank answered nervously, Gracie nodded excitedly along with each reason

"Okay, this is getting awkward." Remus cut in, picking up the bottle and handing it to frank to spin.

"Thanks" Frank whispered to Remus.

"Hold on!" Lily reach out to stop Frank, "We still need to give James a dare."

James cursed and clicked angrily; "Dam"

"Come on Potter, I know you're normally a wuss, but can't you make an exception tonight? I was actually planning on having fun." Lily teased.

"Fine. Dare."

"Okay..." began Marissa,

"Hey Marissa, can I do this one? I have a great idea." Lily asked,

"Okay, but I get to do one of yours later." Marissa conditioned.

"Deal. Okay Potter. I dare you to go get your broomstick and fly around the castle five times." Lily told James,

"Pfftt, easy." James replied.

"Uh-ah" Lily warned, holding out a finger to stop James before her got up, "In your underwear," she finished.

"But it's like 5 degrees out" James protested,

"Not going to wuss out are you James?" Alice chided,

"Yeah, come one prongs, it'll be easy, just fly as fast as you can and you'll be back in no time" Sirius told his mate, getting up to fetch him broom, then bringing it over and handing it to him with a pat on the back.

Reluctantly, James walked over to the large window by the staircase, open it, squatted up on the ledge, broom in hand, and jumped out.

"Oh! And I'll know if you take any shortcuts!" Lily called out after him.

"Well, I guess it's my turn to spin the bottle, seeing as James is a little indisposed at the moment." Frank decided, picking up the bottle and spinning it, ultimately landing on...Alice.

A collective "OOooooooooh" ensued from everyone except Frank and Alice, who both looked a weird mix of petrified and embarrassed.

"Hey, I got his one mate," Sirius told Frank, "Alice: Truth or Dare?"

"Dare." Alice said, trying to avoid any awkward questions about Frank.

"Oooh, bad choice." Sirius told her, "I dare you, to give Frank... your underwear."

"WHAT?" Alice exclaimed, completely shocked,

"And not any old underwear from your draw, the underwear you're wearing right now." Sirius continued.

"No way." Alice refused,

"Now, now, you wouldn't want to get put in the box of shame now would you?" Sirius asked, indicating the large cardboard box sitting just left of the group.

Alice didn't say anything but simply got up, walked over behind the couch and proceeded to take off her underwear.

"Nobody look!" She commanded, but nobody really followed. Luckily she was wearing a skirt, so there was no pant-removing action, but her skirt was pretty short.

"Here you go," Alice said grudgingly, throwing her undies at Frank, and sitting back down.

"Good girl" Sirius said.

"My turn," Alice said dryly as she took the bottle and spun it, landing on Remus.

"Okay Remus, truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"I am not quite as mean as your dear friend Sirius here, so I will give you an easy dare. I dare you to spend the rest of the game blindfolded." Alice said, taking off her scarf, and proceeding to wrap it around Remus' head.

After this, people got a little drunker, and things started to get a little dirtier.

"Lily," Sirius said slowly, "I dare you, to kiss James. On the mouth. For at least 30 secs."

"Padfoot, what are you doing?" James asked Sirius, concerned, "if you do that she'll never like me!"

"Calm down prongs, if you don't kiss her soon you ain't gonna get her." Sirius told James, "Lily. Kiss James."

Sirius pushed James forwards towards Lily, and the two just sat there awkwardly for a couple seconds before James finally leant forwards; "Sorry", and pressed his lips against Lily's.

At first the kiss was mostly one sided, with half-drunken James taking full opportunity of his chance to finally kiss the love of his life, and Lily just sitting there; but at about the 26 second mark, a curious thing happened (or at least appeared to happen in terms of what the rest of the group thought they saw), Lily began to kiss back, this appeared to shock James as much as everybody else for he almost immediately withdrew.

Lily quickly turned away from James and picked up the bottle; "Okay, my turn."

She spun the bottle quickly, as James slowly staggered back to his seat, confused and overjoyed at having just kissed Lily.

The bottle slowed in front of Gracie, but Lily quickly muttered a quick spell under her breath, and the bottle speed up again and stopping completely in front of Sirius.

"Okay. My turn." Lily repeated, an almost menacing glare in her eyes.

"I dare you, Sirius Orion Black, to kiss...Remus"

Sirius', Remus', James' and Peter's jaws all dropped and just started at Lily.

"But, but" Sirius objected

"We're not gay." Remus finished,

"Oh, I know" Lily said, "I still want you to do it though. I'm not asking you two to have sex or anything, just a quick peck on the lips."

Sirius and Remus continued to sit there, blankly refusing.

"Seriously guys it's not that big of a deal," Marissa said, who was easily 5 times drunker than anybody else (probably because of the earlier Firewhisky-bottle-chugging-incident) , who then got up and walked over to Gracie (also pretty drunk) and planted one right on her lips, and then proceeded to snog her for several seconds, "See?" she finished, walking back over to her seat, leaving an indifferent Gracie, and four even more shocked (if that was physically possible) boys.

"Do it, do it, do it, do it" Marissa, Lily, Gracie, Alex and Alice all began chanting.

"Fine!" Sirius yelled, grabbing Remus and giving him the quickest kiss ever then slumping back into his seat.

"Happy?" he yelled angrily at Lily.

"Quite," she replied calmly.

Things continued to get weirder and weirder as everybody got drunker and drunker, and sillier and crazier. Marissa and Daniel decided to forgo actual participation in the Truth or Dare War and proceeded simply to snog for the entire rest of the night and Peter mysteriously disappeared around 3am.

Alice was dare to sit on Frank's lap for the rest of the night; James returned from his daredevil flight only to be dared to do a full nudie run through the great hall at breakfast the next day; Peter was asked who would win in a fight – A half unicorn, half lizard hybrid creature, or the giant squid for Hogwarts' Black Lake, he answered the Squid; Frank was dared to lick the carpet, Alex was dared to lick her foot, Gracie was dared to wear a toilet paper turban and Alice (who probably got some of the weirdest and craziest dares, and was subsequently crowned Queen of Truth or Dare) was dared to scale the side of the Gryffindor Tower, and it just went on, and on, and on.

The night finally wrapped up around 4.30am and everyone went to bed (with only 2 and a half hours til they needed to be up for classes) extremely drunk, tired and having had one of the most fun nights ever.


Hope you enjoyed reading that the next chapter should be up within a day or so cause I;ve actually already written it (well 95% of it), in fact i wrote it first, why's that i hear you asking? that's right it's...

SLUGHORN'S PARTY

what this stroy is all about, if you haven't read my other 'story' "Slughorn's Party" please do, ans that is what this is based off of, and that is what will be happening next chapter.

xx Mermer

Working on chap 6 now! If you're lucky I'll post by tonight (though probs not cause I'm going out to see Tom Gleeson at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival) but maybe after or early tomorrow? I will see, but soon!

Wow, I just re-read some of my previous chapters, major continuity issues!
I mean what's up with Daniel, the supposed 6th 7th year Gryffindor boy who was suspiciously absent during this whole thing, did he just disappear?
And what up with him and Marissa,? Did I ever acutally plan on resovling that mini cliff-hanger I brought in at the end of chapter 1?
Oh well, please forgive my problems, Daniel has now reappeared, and will hopefully stay for a while. I will try to leave as few continuity mistakes as possible but no promises. (and I'm just gonna leave the Marissa/Daniel thing open for now, might fix it late, might not, let's just forget I ever wrote it k? If you have any good suggestions about what happened [if you don't know what I'm talking about go back and read the end of chap 1] post them in a review and I might write it in later)