Party Games

Chapter 17: Baby, Baby, Will You Please, Please Smile?

"I can't believe you two didn't tell me you were together," Sirius pouted.

"In all fairness, Sirius, we were pretty obvious about it." Lily raised her eyebrows. "Was the hand-holding, hugging, and generally lovey-gooey nonsense not enough for you?"

"I thought you were just experimenting with your sexuality!"

"Yes. I went to all that trouble to discover I am straight."

"Not that anyone's complaining," James added helpfully. Lily smacked him upside the head. "Ow! I'm just being honest!"

"Well," Sirius huffed, "I guess there's really only one way to resolve the issue, isn't there?"

"We weren't aware there was an issue."

"REMUS! PETER!"

"Yes, Your Majesty?" Remus appeared on the spiral staircase descending from the dormitories. He had a slight twitch in his eye, as if he had been forcibly stored in the dorm for hours just for this purpose of appearing on cue.

"Where's Peter?"

Peter trooped down the stair, looking extremely miserable. He was wearing a pair of clip-on earrings and drugstore lipstick, and he seemed generally angry at the world.

"Peter…" James started, then faltered. "…are you…?"

"What? No," the victimized character replied indignantly. "Of course not. The diva phase was a one-time thing."

"Peter will be playing a girl," Sirius declared, "for we have not one here today."

Lily glared.

"Erm, Sirius." James poked his friend tentatively. He was genuinely confused for the seventh time that day. "Sirius? What, exactly, are we doing?" Images of what they could possibly need a false woman for flashed through his mind, but he repressed them, slightly traumatized, mostly in awe.

"'Baby, baby, will you please, please smile?'" Sirius said casually.

"Don't call me baby." James turned red.

Lily gaped like a fish.

"No," Sirius said impatiently. "'Baby, baby, will you please, please smile?' It's a game. One person goes around a circle and asks someone that. They can do anything to try and make the person smile except tickle him. If the person can say, 'Sorry, honey, I love you, but I just can't smile' without smiling, then the middle person has to ask someone else. If the asked person smiles, he becomes the middle person." Sirius scratched his ear in boredom as James and Lily attempted to process this synopsis at once.

"And… we're playing this why?" Lily ventured. Sirius immediately broke the calm.

"WHY? WHY!?" he yelped, flailing his arms around. "ONLY BECAUSE IT IS AN AMAZING GAME! AND BECAUSE YOU ARE DATING JAMES, THAT'S WHY!" he stopped, seized a thermos of coffee beside him, and took a large gulp out of it, twitching as he did so.

This, at least, explained his edginess.

"You," he said suddenly, fixing Lily with a dog stare, "against me. Winner gets James."

The game, as Lily was beginning to figure out, could not have a winner.

Remus was perched primly on Peter's lap. One arm was draped around his friend's shoulders. "Baby," he said in a sultry voice, "baby, will you please, please smile?"

Peter sighed, and with what seemed like genuine sadness replied, "Sorry, honey. I love you but – I – just – can't…" He burst into tears, and Remus, mildly alarmed, moved off.

He approached Sirius, gave him the evil eye, and said, "Smile, you bastard."

Sirius made a noise that sounded vaguely like "Bitch!" but took Remus's place in the middle, grinning. He strolled around the circle, which had grown considerably in the last thirty minutes (as Mary, Marlene, Alice, Frank, and a few others had wandered into the common room, subsequently being roped into the game).

"O, Lily," he said airily, plopping down in front of her, "don't think I've forgotten our little… tête-à-tête." He winked. James looked scandalised.

"If you mean your little caffeine-fueled outburst earlier," Lily deadpanned, "then I haven't forgotten it either."

"Good!"

"Yeah!"

"YOUR MOM!"

"YOUR FACE!"

"YOUR MOM'S FACE!"

"YOUR FACE'S MOM!"

"So, whaddaya say, wanna smile?"

Lily considered this for a moment. "No."

"Well, OKAY THEN!"

"IT IS OKAY!"

"GLAD WE SETTLED THAT!"

"SO AM I!"

"Mary?" Sirius turned to the other girl, look hopeful. "Maybe you?"

"Maybe no?"

"God," Sirius said. "You all suck. Remember, I didn't want to do this." He approached James.

"Hey, sexy."

"Hello, Sirius."

"Why does that not freak you out!?"

"We're best friends, Sirius. We've publicly confessed our gay love for each other several times. There comes a point when it's not weird or even funny."

"Oh." Sirius looked mildly disappointed. "Well, how about I tell the whole room about your little picture of –"

James tackled Sirius in what seemed like slow motion. He seized his friend by the shoulder, and they rolled over and over, scratching and kicking at each other until James finally said, "Okay! I'll take the middle, you berk!"

"Whoohoo!"

"Hello, Sirius," said Lily, whom he no was sitting beside. "I hate you."

"It had to be done."

"What picture?"

"Huh?"

"What's it a picture of?"

"Oh," Sirius said. He appeared to be deep in thought. "You know what his Animagus is, right?"

"Yeah, he told me."

"Well. It has to do with that."

"Wha – ?"

"Lily?" James grinned hopefully at Lily, interrupting the conversation. "Will you please smile?"

She almost did at the sheer sweetness of his tone, but managed to keep a straight face. "Sorry, but I just can't smile. Maybe you should come back later."

"Ah, well," he said, retreating.

Frank, A lice, and Peter all tried unsuccessfully to make Lily smile – though Peter was closest. His lipstick had smeared into an… "attractive" ring around his mouth, and it was evident he was also wearing mascara, as it had run during his crying episode.

"Lily," he ventured. "You remind me of my childhood."

"Okay," she replied, confused.

"Your hair is like fried rice – surreal and underappreciated."

"Okay, Peter."

"You deserve to believe it's not butter!" he blurted.

Now she was just concerned. "Peter?"

"Your… your face is as ugly as… as an ugly-face person!"

Lily started to choke on her own spit, and it was several minutes before she could talk, which worried her friends but mostly embarrassed her. She did not, however, break her winning streak, much to Peter's disappointment.

"Oh, you little fucker," Sirius said when he saw this. "Can't you fail at something once in your life?"

"You know, Lily," James said thoughtfully, "you are kind of depressing."

Smack.

"Ow! I was just being honest!"

Thank you, everyone, for the great support and the number of reviews that have been left! I've found a bit more inspiration for this story, so hopefully I will be updating it more often. For those of you who know of party games I haven't used yet, I'm very open to suggestions. (I'm starting to run low on ideas!)

For this chapter, I am requesting 20 reviews. That can't be so hard, can it? :D Thank you in advance!

And please go check out my "new" story, Higher Than Your Heart!

miss bella green: Whoops! Thank you for catching my mistake. You're very right - sometimes I will forget when writing these that "the troupe" is in sixth year. Reading back, though, I realize that needs to be changed! I will change it as soon as I get the chance. :)