Chapter 7

"Take the shot! Take the shot!" Sirius and Becca insisted.

"FINE! Give me the bloody glass!" I took the shot glass full of tequila from Sirius and drank it down in one big gulp. You know, tequila goes down pretty smooth after you've had four or five shots of it. I'd tell you how many I've had, but I lost count after 6.

"Becca, your turn!" Becca picked up a galleon and bounced it off the table and into a shot glass full of rum. "Oh! Rum! My favorite!" Becca said before tossing back the shot, not even batting an eye. That had to be her 16th or 17th shot, every time she got the dang galleon in the glass, she took the shot instead of giving it to someone else.

Before tonight I had never had a drink of alcohol before in my life. After the movie and dinner, the topic of drinking had somehow come up. Apparently Sirius keeps a nice little stock of different types of hard alcohol in his trunk at all times. When I asked him why he gave me the excuse "medical purposes" and wouldn't tell me what exactly his medical purposes were. Some how, the conversation about alcohol ended the entire group up here, in James and Sirius's room, all but Becca drunk as skunks. Don't ask me how she still managed to stay conscious, much less act normally after the amount she had drank.

"So, Becca, howcom yur not dwunk?" I asked her. Three guesses whether I'm drunk or not.

"Oh, I get a lot of practice with this. My sister's in college now, remember?"

"Sistrer? Whot sis-sisther?" I asked.

"You know, Elizabeth, my older sister, Sophomore in college, short, has long black-brown hair, she used to beat the crap out of us in poker?"

"Oh yeah… dat sisfer."

"I vote Lily is disqualified from the game before she starts losing brain cells."

"Here-hic-here!" Rebby said, raising her the shot glass full of firewhiskey.

"Thas not fayer! I wanned to play!" I complained. I stood up to protest and a wave of dizziness fell over me. "Whhops!" I said falling over on top of Mikki, who was giggling madly, Remus, who seemed to have a permanent red to his cheeks and glaze to his eyes, and James, who was the only other person in the room who acted fairly sober, probably because he had escaped taking shots for most of the evening by pawning all of his off on me, Sirius, Rebby and Peter. I think Peter passed out after two shots of vodka. I don't know where he is now, but I hope he's better off than I am at the moment.

It just so happened that the way I fell I ended up laying on my back, my head resting in James's lap. Talk about akward. Of course what comes out of my incredibly drunk mouth but "You havv nice-hic-eyes. They're all pretty and hazelly-green and pretty and I'm tired." James looked down at me and smirked.

"Mate, I think she's drunk." James said to Sirius.

"Well, good luck getting her back to her room. I'm seeing triple right now. Oh! My turn!" Sirius turned back to the little ring of shot glasses and took the galleon and bounced it off the floor, narrowly missing a shot glass. "How could I miss all nine of them?"

"There's only three, Sirius." Becca said to him.

"Oh." Sirius looked at the ring of shot glasses for a minute, then back up at Becca. "You're prrrrreeeettttyyyyyy." Sirius swayed and fell over backwards.

"It's okay! I got him!" Becca pulled Sirius over onto his side and put a pillow under his head. "Don't want him drowning in his own vomit now do we."

"Uuuughhhh…" I moaned at the thought of vomit. Now I felt a little sick. "I think I'll go back to my room now." I tried to stand up again but couldn't get past sitting.

James stood up and offered me his hand. "Here, let me help you." He said. I took his hand and he pulled me up onto my feet. I almost fell back over again, but he held onto my hand and pulled me back before I actually fell. "Alrighty then, here we go now." James situated me so that one of my arms was around his shoulder and bent and pulled my legs out from under me, forcing me to fall back into his arms and hang onto his neck for dear life. James hefted me and carried me out the door to his room and into the hallway. I looked up at him and the word vomit came out again.

"Yur hawt." I smiled at him.

"You know, I've been waiting for the last five, no, six years for you to say something close to that, and now that you have, I wish you hadn't."

"And wizezat?"

"Cause I'm not sure if you really mean it, or if it's just the tequila talking."

"Hmm… I like tequila. And rum. I love rum."

"Yes, I can tell." He was laughing silently as he smiled back at me. "You know, you're cute when you're all weak and innocent and er, drunk."

"Thank you. Yor cute too, and your ass is pretty nice as well."

"Um… thanks?"

"You're welcum."

"Here we are." James said as he shifted my weight onto one knee and used his free hand to open the door to my room. He walked me over to the massive bed thing and plopped me down on the covers.

"Hmm, soft…" I said, sighing.

James smiled at me and pulled the top blanket out from under me and pulled it up to my shoulders. He then proceeded to act like a mother hen and tuck me in while telling me a bedtime story. "Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who was loved by a handsome prince. The princess didn't believe the prince actually loved her, so she got mad and threw him out of the castle. Then, one day, the prince saved the princess and proved to her how much he loved her. The prince and princess got married and lived happily ever after."

"That's a nice story." I said, already half asleep. James bent over and kissed me on the forehead.

"Nighty night, princess." He said and headed for the door.

"Wait, don't go, you're not supposed to leave drunk people alone and asleep, they roll over and drown in vomit, or lose consciousness and fall into commas. Or hit their heads when they fall down on the way to the bathroom when the room starts to spin." I said. I really need to never drink again. I say things that are completely gross when I'm drunk.

"Okay, then I'll stay."

"All night?"

"All night." James went over and picked up and chair and sat it next to the bed. "I'll just sit in this chair until the girls come back."

I held out my hand to him. "Take my hand." I said. That was the clearest thing I'd said all night after the third shot.

James grabbed my hand and I rolled over and pulled him onto the bed with me. His yelp of surprise told me that this was completely unexpected. Good. I didn't expect it either.

"Um, Lily?"

"Yeah-wuh?" I replied. Oh yeah, I'm smooth.

"Any reason I'm in the bed?"

"Nope."

"Can I have my arm back then?"

"Nope."

"This is akward."

"Only cuz yah still have yur shoesss on and ther messin up tha covers."

"So I have to sleep here, with you, in this big bed, all night, alone."

"Yep, but doncha get any ideas-hic-er else."

"Okay."

"No roaming hans er any other porsons of yer body, got it?"

"Yup. Keep all body parts to myself that you aren't holding onto for dear life."

"Good. Now go a slep." I grunted, closing my eyes and drifting off into dreamland.

"Hmm…" I groaned slightly as a strip of light fell across my eyes. Damn sun, couldn't it wait until tomorrow morning to come up? I snuggled futher under the blankets pulling the arm draped over me closer into my protective cocoon of blankets. Wait, arm? What arm? I opened my eyes and looked at the arm. That's a man's arm. Why is there a man's arm in my bed? I followed the arm with my eyes, tracing it back to its source: a shoulder. A man's shoulder. I turned onto my back and sat up slightly leaning on one elbow and looked down at the head that had been snuggled into my pillow, and my hair for that manner. OH MY GOD.

"POTTER! What in bloody hell are you doing in my BED?!" I half screamed at him. I would have completely screamed, but I might have woken someone else up, and that would be awkward.

"Gmrfhhnmfepfehr…" was the only noise James made, rolling over and pulling the pillow over his head.

I ripped the pillow off of his head and half screamed at him again. "Potter! Get OUT of my bed this instance!"

"Just ten more minutes mum." James mumbled. This is ridiculous. James Potter is sleeping in my bed with me and is too unconscious to even try anything. Must be my lucky day, or night, or, well, whatever.

I sat up on my knees and pulled the covers off of James. He curled up into a little ball in response to the lack of blankets. "That's it! You asked for it buddy!" I bent over and, placing both hands squarely at his back, gave a great shove that rolled James off of my bed and made him go splat onto the floor.

"AH!" James jumped to his feet a split second after he hit the floor and pulled out his wand.

"Good morning sunshine, this is your 8:30 am wake up call telling you to explain why in bloody hell YOU were sleeping in MY bed!"

"Huh?" James said, clearly not awake yet.

I picked up the pillow and hopped off the bed. I began beating James thoroughly with the pillow, saying a word between each heavy smack of the pillow to his skull."You, me, bed, sleeping, together, last night, why?"

"Okay! Okay! Calm down and just give me a minute." James said. He yawned and stretched, then rubbed his backside where he had landed on it. "You remember anything from last night?" he asked.

"Well of course I remember…" wait, what did I do last night? "Err…"

"No? Didn't think so. What is the last thing you remember about yesterday evening?"

"Walking back from the restaurant and going up to your and Sirius's room with everyone else. Then it's just sort of … blurry…"

"That would be the six shots of tequila, 3 of fire whiskey, and 2 of rum that you had last night."

"No! I've never drank before in my life! I didn't… I couldn't have…. Why would I…?" Now I was confused. I definitely don't remember drinking anything last night, but then I hardly remember anything from last night. I do however have the headache from hell right now, a classic hangover symptom.

"You did, you could, and you would because everyone was playing a drinking game and you were everyone's favorite victim. Except for Becca. I think she drank all of her shots. And she's good at that game, whatever it was called, something to do with American muggle money…"

"Quarters?"

"Yeah! That's it. How did you know?"

"I always get to hear Becca's crazy stories about playing drinking games with her sister and her sister's friends."

"Fun."

"Wait, you didn't answer my question! Why were you sleeping in my bed?!"

"You invited me."

"What?"

"You were falling down drunk, and I was the only fairly sober one left, so I carried you back here and put you in your bed and tucked you in and told you a bedtime story. Then I went to leave and you told me to stay. I got a chair and sat it next to the bed to sit in, but before I could actually sit, you grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the bed."

"Oh god, don't tell me anything happened."

"No, actually you told me I couldn't leave, at least not if I wanted to take my arm with me, and that I wasn't to "get any ideas" which I took to mean no touching except the arm you had in a vice grip. Then you passed out."

"Oh thank god." I sat down on the edge of the bed, the pillow in my hands slipping to the floor. "Thank God I didn't do anything stupid."

"Er, I feel loved."

"And thank you for, um, being a gentleman."

"Well, you know, whatever. The whole rape thing isn't really my style." This elicited a slightly nervous giggle from me. "I would have waited until you were asleep and snuck away, but I figured I'd do that when the other girls came back, but, apparently they never made it here."

I looked around and for the first time realized that my room mates were not in the room and that it was way too early for them to be awake yet. "Hmm… care to join me in a glass of water, a couple Tylenol, and a waking of the hangovers?" I smiled evilly. This was going to be fun.

"Sure. I could definitely use the Tylenol, and a cup of coffee after the waking bit would be nice."

"Well I hope you don't expect me to make it. I can cook a lot of things, but coffee is not my forte, it always comes out gross. Tea is better for a hangover anyways."

"I thought you had never drunk alcohol before?"

"I hadn't, but Becca and Rebby have, and so have my parents. Have you ever been present for Bunko night? It's crazy. Imagine ten middle aged women in a room with booze and cards laughing like hyenas at a comedy convention."

"Hmm… What's Bunko?"

"It's a card game where… you know what, never mind. Let's go say good morning to everyone else." I smiled evilly again.

"You're kind of scary when you smile like that, you know?"

"Good. They should be scared." I rubbed my palms together menacingly and, after gathering a small arsenal to use on the others, left for James and Sirius's room, James following with that stupid smirk of his plastered to his face.

I filled James in on our plan of attack just outside the door to the room. James smirked as he heard my plan and nodded his understanding. We snuck into the room silently, careful to place a pillow between the doorjamb to keep from causing extra noise by closing the door.

I looked around the room. There were people and random objects everywhere. Sirius was passed out on the floor, lying on his stomach with his face buried in a pillow. Becca was using his back as a pillow. Rebby had managed to make it to a bed; she was sprawled across Sirius's, width wise that is, with out covers. Mikki was rolled up in the quilt from Sirius's bed, only her hair and an odd toe or finger poking out from underneath. James's bed was occupied by an unconscious Rachel and Remus; Remus was at the foot of the bed sleeping sideways, Rachel was at the head, hanging halfway over the edge, and her fingers inches from the floor. I pushed open the door to the bath room and saw Peter situated in the little niche between the bathtub and the toilet, where he had apparently spent a busy night emptying the contents of his stomach through the incorrect end. The rest of the room and the bathroom were covered in an inch of colorful confetti.

"Looks like they had fun after we left." James whispered to me.

"Just a bit." I replied. "Let's get started."

James nodded and pulled out his wand. He started with Rebby, turning her skin blue with orange polka dots, her hair bright pink, and putting shaving cream all over her head and arms. I laughed silently and walked over to Remus and Rachel. I pulled my wand out and began changing their skin color and hair color to match one another. Remus received bright red skin with pink and white hearts, Rachel, bright pink skin with red and white hearts. Their hair was changed from blonde and light brown to an extremely bright shade of neon green; and just because the effect wasn't as startling as I had hoped it would be, I made their hair flash like a turn signal every five seconds, first Rachel, the Remus consecutively. I was almost finished, just one more thing to be done. I tied a little string to both Remus and Rachel's wrists that was connected to two buckets I had hanging from the ceiling. When Remus wakes up, a load of nice sticky honey would fall onto his and Rachel's heads. When Rachel wakes up, a large amount of feathers and the confetti that was covering the floor like a night's snowfall would fall from the sky and stick to their honey covered bodies.

Next I moved on to Peter in the bathroom, following much the same routine, except instead of little hearts, I gave him polka dots that flashed different colors and a fake orange mustache that wouldn't come off until he yelled that he liked to wear girls underwear ten times loudly.

Satisfied with my work, I looked over to see how James was doing and realized exactly why he was such a good Marauder, other than his incapability to follow school rules. Not only had James pulled the classic maneuvers including water balloons, honey, shaving cream, and about a mile of yarn, he had also made use of a large amount of glitter, two or three hundred ping pong balls, and the biggest water balloon I'd ever seen, at least 3 feet in diameter, filled with Jell-O.

"Okay, just two victims left." We both looked menacingly down at Becca and Sirius, our best friends, then back at each other and grinned wickedly. "Any ideas?" I asked James.

"I'm going to need a foot deep plastic baby pool, fifty or sixty pounds of Jell-O, more glitter, some extremely strong hair gel, fake fur, and two extremely embarrassing hats and other assorted accessories." He said his grin growing to reach all the way to the corners of his eyes. If I were the two unconscious people right now, I'd be afraid, very afraid.

"Sir, yes sir!" I gave him a mock salute and started conjuring supplies while James transfigured one of the chairs into a plastic kiddy pool.

Working together, we lifted our best friends a foot in the air with our wands, slid the kiddy pool underneath them filled to the brim with jello topped with glitter and fake fur, and placed a timed hovering charm on them, set to go off in about 5 minutes. In the next four minutes, James and I took the hair gel and gave Becca troll hair, like the little colorful dolls, not actual trolls, and Sirius the Mohawk from hell complete with pink and purple highlights. As for the embarrassing items, I had conjured up a bright pink and orange apron which James immediately put on Sirius as best he could without waking him, and a leopard print thong, which I put on Becca's head at a nice jaunty angle.

Checking to make sure everything was set one last time, James and I retreated out of the room and peaked through a small space in the doorway, waiting for our own version of an alarm clock to ring. Just seconds before the fiasco was set to begin, James turned to me and said "Now how come you never have fun like this at school?" but before I could answer him, the alarm went off.

BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! The room was filled with the ringing of a huge church bell, tolling the hour, 9 am.

Everyone one in the room reacted at once. Rachel screamed and rolled off the bed backwards, landing in a massive pile of chocolate fudge. Remus sat up too quickly and smacked his head on the bed post. The buckets of honey and feathers that had been hovering over them, spilled onto their extremely surprised heads, making them look like a couple of extremely large, extremely gooey multicolored birds. Peter was heard screaming in the bathroom, probably because there were a few hundred fake spiders crawling all over his body now. Rebby jumped to her feet on Sirius's bed and pulled out her wand, yelling "Who goes there?!" before being coated in honey and having a massive amount of multi colored glitter fall on her head. Mikki jumped out of her blanket cocoon and was immediately hit by the gigantic Jell-O water balloon. Sirius and Becca were dropped into the pool of glitter covered Jell-O as soon as the bell had rung, and were now slipping and swimming around in the goop, trying to stand up, but failing miserably.

Then the real fun began, the ceiling started raining ping pong balls. They were flying everywhere, bouncing off of peoples heads and sticking to bits of honey or fudge. Water balloons filled with colored water flew through the room, dive bombing people, chasing them if they ran. When Mikki tried to run from a particularly vicious water balloon, she became tangled in a massive net of yarn causing her to fall backwards onto a large pile of feathers. Becca and Sirius finally managed to get out of the pool of Jell-O, just in time to get hit by floating cans of shaving cream that had surprisingly good aim. For cans that is.

I couldn't hold it in any longer. I looked up at James, who had been leaning over me to see through the crack in the door, and burst out laughing. He started laughing too, and we both collapsed onto the floor in fits of hysteric laughter. We were still laying there laughing like maniacs when the spells wore off and our friends finally heard our laughter and peeked out the door.

"I think I've found the culprits." stated Becca glaring down at James and me.

"Really? Could you be any more obvious?" asked Rebby.

"Yes. You're hair is polka dotted."

"Any other hidden talents you'd like to share with us?" Mikki asked.

"Just my love of poetry; for instance I wrote this one just now. The sky is blue, the grass is green, some one we know, is about to be in pain!"

I took that as my cue to scream "RUN!" to James and leap from the floor and down the hall. James somehow managed to get away from them as well, and took off after me. We ran down the hallway with the others right on our heels. They chased us down the stairs, through the pub, onto the muggle streets, back inside the pub, up the stairs, and back into James and Sirius's room, where they cornered us next to the pool of Jell-O.

"You're turn!" Becca said, tackling me into the goop. Sirius shoved James in it too, and the rest of our friends proceeded to hand them odd bits to through at us and coat us with. By the time they gave up, James and I were worse off than all of the rest of them combined.

I stood up from the pool and looked over at James, who at one point had managed to crawl out of the pool and get halfway to the door before being tackled by a shaving cream armed Rebby, and smirked. "Hmm… Potter, you look better than ever. You just need one more thing." I pulled out my wand and gave him a clown nose.

"HEY!" he exclaimed, then tackled me to the floor and started tickling me madly. Now how on earth had he known that that was just about the worst thing he could do to me? I am the most ticklish person I know, and I keep it secret for this very reason, yet somehow, he knew just how to get to me.

"No… James… stop… please… I can't…. can't breath… hahaha!" I tried to beg James to stop tickling me, but I could barely talk for laughing. My friends weren't any help either, they were all draped over the beds or on the floor laughing crazily at the sight of me wiggling around in an inch of confetti being tickled by a honey, fudge, shaving cream, Jell-O, glitter, feather, ping pong ball, and confetti covered James.

James finally stopped tickling me and collapsed onto the floor next to me out of breath from laughing so much at my laughing. I was completely exhausted from laughing so much. I breathed out a sigh of relief that the torture, other wise known at the tickling, was finally over.

"So," Mikki sat up from her spot on the floor quite suddenly and started talking "You two planned this, did you?" she glared at James as if it was all his fault and I was just some sort of side kick, Santa's elf if you will.

"Don't look at me." James said "It was all her idea." He pointed to me.

"I would never…" I said, looking at Mikki innocently.

"Mmm-hmmm, and I'm the Easter Bunny." Becca rolled her eyes.

"You traitor!" I said, glaring playfully at James.

He smiled at me innocently and asked "What?" I smacked him on the arm. "Hey! A little abusive?" I smacked him on the back of the head. "Ow!"

"Look at that, they're flirting, how cute." said Sirius. I blushed. Becca followed my example and smacked him in the back of the head. "Hey!" she back handed him in the stomach. "Ugh! Now that was uncalled for!" she whacked him on the arm.

"Stop while you're ahead Sirius." Remus said, laughing silently.

"But I'm not ahead, I'm behind."

"Well in that case…" Becca smacked him on the arm again and smiled brightly.

"Thank you, my bruise needed another bruise."

"You're welcome."

"Look who's flirting now." I whispered to James. Sirius and Becca were now facing off, each arguing loudly, about what none of us knew, not even them. I looked over at Mikki and she winked at me. She moved so that she was standing just behind Becca, and Rebby moved behind Sirius. Uh-oh. Here comes trouble. Mikki held up one finger, then two, then three. On the third, Mikki and Rebby gave both Becca and Sirius a shove. One minute they were arguing like little kids, the next, they were catching each with their mouths. By "catching themselves with their mouths" I mean they caught each other and started kissing all at once. And then they didn't stop.

"Um… we're just gonna… um… go, now…" I said, standing up and walking out the door, James, Remus, Rachel, Peter, and a giggling Rebby and Mikki following me out. "Well, that was awkward. And you realize she's going to kill you two later, right?"

"Yeah, but it was worth it just to get the two of them to shut up." Mikki said. "Listening to them is like listening to you and James argue."

"Yeah, it's pointless and incoherent." Rebby added.

"Do you even know what incoherent means?" I asked her.

"Yes, it means unable to be understood by others, as in anyone who has to listen to the two of you."

"Though it has been quiet recently."

"Yes, I noticed that myself." Rachel decided to join the conversation. "Like the other day in Diagon Alley at the ice cream parlor, I was surprised to even see them sitting at the same table with him after what happened at the end of the school year, much less eating ice cream and talking civilly."

"They talk as though we're not here." I said to James.

"Maybe we're not. Maybe we're ghosts and nobody ever told us."

"You mean like how Professor Binns was a ghost for about a week before anyone got up the guts to tell him."

"Yeah, but in Dumbledore's defense, he was busy helping the ministry sort out some of those Death Eater blokes."

"How do you know that?"

"Well, with all the time I spend in his office after getting in so much trouble, he and I talk a lot. We'd be on first name basis if it weren't for the fact that he's a professor and I'm a student."

"Huh, really?"

"Yeah, and he seems to have a soft spot for pranksters. He always has us, Sirius, Remus, Peter and I that is, do our detentions with him."

"Really? I wonder why."

"They're crazy about each other and only one of them realizes it." Rebby continued. "Of course, I don't blame Lily, I didn't see it myself until Becca pointed it out to me."

"Well at least they're finally being nice to each other." Mikki said.

"Well, James has always tried to be nice to Lily, he just kept going about it the wrong way, and then she would never give him the time of day." Remus said.

"Really? We just always thought he was being obnoxious." Rebby said.

"No, he was just trying to get her attention, but he didn't understand that she wasn't going to give him the time of day while he acted like a love struck puppy. I kept telling him to wise up and ct like a normal person instead of an idiotic git, but did he listen to me? No. He did finally decide to try "playing hard to get" this summer, which was at least a step in the right direction. He gave up yesterday though, decided it wasn't right if he had to pretend to be someone else to get Lily to go out with him."

"That's a good thing to realize. It's all deep and stuff." Mikki said.

"Maybe now that he's acting normal Lily will actually give him a chance."

"I don't know, but she seems to be already I think."

"Um, hello, we're standing right here. And your embarrassing me, now shut up. Last one to the balcony is the last one to get a shower. Ready, GO!" I said, trying to break up their discussion before my head got so red it exploded. We raced up to the balcony; James came in first, not even bothered by the up hill sprint, Peter was last and was breathing so hard I could swear one of his lungs gave out.

"Well, you're first in the shower. See you later." I said to Rebby who had managed to be the first girl up the stairs.

"Hey, I was first!"

"Yes, but you're a boy, go shower in Remus's room if you must."

"Oh. Well then. I'll be back in a bit." James and Rebby both disappeared down the stairs to take their showers. The rest of us sat on the Balcony talking, waiting for our turn to clean up. Becca and Sirius showed up a little while later smiling like crazy and holding hands. Wonder what happened there?

All summer I kept wondering how school would go this year. Whether it would be the same as before, or if it would be completely different from years before. If school this year is anything like the past couple of weeks have been, it's going to be a great year. A little hectic, a little crazy, and where Becca and Sirius came in, more than likely a little heart breaking. But overall, I have a feeling this year will be good. Maybe.