Disclaimer: Don't own anything
Chapter 14: Out of the Closet
It was five o clock on Boxing Day and it seemed that Lily and Jessica were about to go through what they had done yesterday with Felicity as they watched her dig through her trunk and pull out possible outfits. Not that Lily had told her specifically where they were going, there was no way in hell that Felicity would even consider coming if she knew they were going to Claudia's Boxing Bash. She had a fair idea that Jessica knew where they were actually going but she was putting on a brave face.
"I've been looking for this dress for ages!" Felicity exclaimed pulling out a dress that had white straps and a white neckline but was a rusty orange everywhere else. Jessica was already sending the pleading signals in Lily's direction.
"Yes, I think I will wear this dress tonight, to celebrate the finding of it," Felicity said to herself and placed the dress neatly on her bed. Jessica sighed with relief.
"Now Jess, I know you like pants but there is no way I'm allowing you into a party wearing jeans," Felicity was saying as she continued to dig through her trunk, which Lily suspected was bigger on the inside, with a purpose "However I have the perfect pair of pants in mind,"
"You own a pair of pants?" Jessica asked her in disbelief.
"Of course I do," Felicity sighed in exasperation "They are going to be huge this summer," She pulled out a pair of white pants which Lily assumed had a high waist with two white straps to go over the shoulder that were attached to the front and back of the pants. "I would say ... definitely a black shirt with this for you," she told Jessica and passed her the pants and a black top she had discarded earlier.
"Thanks?" Jessica said, thinking that something bad must be coming her way. Felicity never approved of her wearing shorts. She took her items into the adjoining bathroom to get changed. Lily continued watching Felicity sift through her belongings, knowing the next thing she pulled out she would be wearing.
She pulled out to Lily's surprise a pair of black jeans that reached just below the knee and looked like they had been folded back but were sown in place. She then pulled out a white top that had a low neck line in a v like structure, with the thick straps and the 'neck' line being black and covered with all these metal like squares that reflected in the light.
"Here you go," Felicity told her and Lily took the clothes graciously. She didn't want Jess exclaiming why she couldn't have worn the jeans. As soon as Jess exited the bathroom Lily walked right past her and inside to get changed.
When Lily returned to the room, the other two were fully dressed and Felicity was just adding a white belt around her waist.
"So how are we getting there?" Felicity asked as they all exited their room and climbed down the stairs.
"Floo powder. Through the Gryffindor fire place," Lily told her as they reached the bottom of the stairs and she crossed the common room towards the fire place with a purpose. She picked up the terracotta pot that was on top of the fireplace and held it out to her two friends. They took a handful each. Lily took her handful as well before placing the pot back where it belonged. The three of them ducked their heads and entered the fireplace, with Lily in the middle.
"Now I want you two to link arms with me," She told her friends who did so obediently "And now cover your ears,"
They did this too. Lily didn't want Felicity hearing their destination and flipping out and ending up in some foreign fireplace. With her spare hand, Lily counted down using her fingers from three before saying the mysterious destination clearly and the three of them dropped their powder simultaneously.
Lily and the others began spinning in the system of fireplaces but before long Lily felt them slow down and their feet landed on a small pile of ash. Arms still hooked, Lily pulled the other two out of the fireplace and into the room beyond and gasped.
They had come through a fireplace that appeared to be in the house's front foyer as straight ahead was a large, curved staircase with a handrail that looked to be made of gold and the stairs made from a light marble. The roof was quite high with a trim all around the edges with patterns weaving all over. There were quite a lot of small shrubs in pot plants in the front hall and a few pillars that seemed to make a arches into the room off the foyer which looked similar to a formal lounge room, though more formal that one Lily had seen before.
"Can we open our eyes now?" Jess grumbled. By her tone she had already peeked and obviously figured out where they were.
"Yes,"
Felicity and Jess opened their eyes and Jess's widened in awe at the scale of the room, whilst Felicity's widened with realisation and horror.
"Oh no," she cried and spun around to escape back through the fire place, however Lily had been expecting this reaction and had formed a firm grip on the girl who tried to release herself, however to no avail.
"Let. Me. Go," Felicity snapped, wiggling her arm from Lily's.
"No Fe. The way to bring the enemy down is within the system itself. Besides, Claudia can barely see past the end of her own nose, I doubt she'd recognise you with your new appearance," Lily reassured her and Felicity ceased to squirm.
"So we're not just here to have a good time?" she asked Lily who shook her head.
"How would this be considered a good time if we were just here to party? The fun starts with the bringing down,"
A gust of wind startled them as they turned around to see that more people were arriving behind them and so they hastily made their way over to the side of the foyer so they wouldn't hold up the incoming traffic.
Ten minutes later there were at least forty people standing around in Claudia's front foyer waiting for, well, god knows what they were waiting for.
"Hey Lily!" she turned at the sound of her name and found James making his way through the crowd, a bouncing Sirius beside him and a disgruntled Remus dragging along after.
"Hey," Lily greeted as James came to a stop next her.
"So you're all still here then. No escapees?" he joked and Lily smiled.
"Oh they tried," she said, grinning at her friends which was when she realised that the other four members of their party were standing around awkwardly next to each other which made Lily feel a little guilty.
"So Sirius, how are you enjoying those sweets?" Lily asked him innocently but it was Remus who replied
"They're a bloody nightmare! Can't get to sleep because heavy things keep landing on you! Sirius is the only one who is still being amused,"
"How could I not continue to be amused? How could you not be amused? It is raining fricken sugar in our room! Do you know how long I'd dreamed for this to happen? Since before I could remember so stop ruining my fun," Sirius growled at him and Remus rolled his eyes.
"Are you serious?" Jess asked him "Was that look supposed to look ... frightening?"
"No I was supposed to look so terrified that it would take you months before you were able to fall asleep at night in your dark and quiet room,"
"Ah huh. Well, hate to break it to you sunshine but that ain't 'terrifying'," Jess snickered and Sirius had a sudden impulse to protect his dignity.
"Well I'll just come and visit you tonight while your asleep and we'll see how well you fare when I'm standing over you in the darkness," Jessica laughed.
"Yeah, and how exactly do you plan to get into our dormitory? Not by the stairs surely,"
"No my dear friend, the window. You see, me, being Sirius Black, happen to be quite good at flying, thus the reason I'm on the Quidditch team and so as to be on the team I must possess ownership on a broomstick which I could quite easily fly from our window, around the other side of the tower and into your window,"
Jessica's face dropped instantly. Sirius felt his pride was fully protected.
After that, conversation broke out between Felicity and Jessica about how disastrous this party was going to be and an argument ignited between Remus and Sirius when they got back on topic about the raining sweets.
"What is it?" James's voice broke into Lily's thoughts.
"Sorry, what?"
"You have that look you have on your face whenever you're in deep concentration. So whatcha thinking about?"
"Them," Lily replied, indicating in the direction of Remus and Felicity, who although they were actually standing next to each other they had their backs away from each other so they could continue their conversation with another member of the party.
"Planning?" James guessed and Lily shook her head.
"No, for once I'm not planning, or scheming or plotting. I'm just genuinely thinking about them. Thinking about them as a couple,"
James tilted his head to the right.
"Well, if you look at them from this angle you can't really see them as a couple, however-" he tilted his head to the left "You can see them as a couple from this angle,"
"Yeah but I was just thinking, can you see them as a couple the right way up?"
"What do you-" his question was cut short when the lights in the foyer were shut off. A few of the girls let out a small squeal or a scream before a spotlight illuminated to the top of the staircase to reveal Claudia standing up at the top of the staircase in some ridiculous pose which Lily thought must be her trying to be 'sexy'. She had a short, champaign coloured halter neck dress on with a pair of gold and white heels that had the top cut so that you could see her toes.
Slowly and gracefully, she made her way down the stairs to some music that just happen to begin playing. Lily had to stop herself from laughing; this whole charade looked rehearsed, she wondered how many times she would have climbed up and down the stairs to make her ascend into society as elegantly and beautifully as possible.
Looking around at the other people who filled up the hallway, Lily noted more than one person was sneaking a look at their watch on the wrist and Lily couldn't blame them. Most people here wanted the loud music and the disco lights to start playing, not having to watch the host take an hour to make it from the first story to the ground floor to music that was so soothing it was like a lullaby and to prove her point, Jessica started to yawn.
As soon as both her white and gold heels touched the ground floor, the room again went dark and was illuminated seconds later with a pathway of lights leading away from the foyer. The students instantly began to move, at quite a fast pace in case they had to endure another entrance. James grabbed Lily's hand to stop them being separated and Felicity clung to Lily's other hand, not wanting to be left alone.
"Oh no you don't!" Sirius growled and grabbed Jessica around the middle and lifted her up and turned her to face the right direction before setting her down "If I have to suffer through this, so do you,"
"Pfft this isn't suffering for you. It's just a matter of time until the alcohol comes out and the girls will be stripping off like crazy," Sirius shrugged.
"True, but I'll be suffering till then so I've chosen you to be my buddy," he announced gleefully and pulled her into the swum of students and they soon got swallowed. When the corridor ended, Lily found herself inside a large, open space. Well, she would have thought it was large and open but there were so many people in here that it was hard to tell.
The lights that they had followed into the open space now dimmed and turned off and bright, flashing and revolving lights took its place on the roof above them. Then the music started. At first Lily had no idea what was playing, it was just very very loud noise, but then under all those loud pounding beats she recognised a familiar song by Pink Floyd.
"Come on buddy! We're dancing!" Sirius exclaimed, his hand in an iron grip with Jess's and was pulling her into the middle of the dancing arena.
"Oh no! We Are Not! I am not dancing with you and you're two left feet!" she yelled to be heard over the music, digging her heels into the ground and pulling hard to get her hand free. Lily, James, Felicity and Remus found themselves being pushed back by the amount of people heading to the dance floor that they found themselves backing into one of the few walls that the room had.
Lily turned her head towards Felicity and Remus who were looking awkward standing next to each other and was about to break the ice when Claudia decided to make it into the heart of the party and walked directly towards Remus, grabbing the collars of his shirt and pull him close enough so that their lips could touch.
Felicity flipped her head away from them, her hair swinging and covering her face and she had her face scrunched up as she tried to tune out the noises they were making; she wasn't the only one.
Claudia pulled away slowly, a smile on her face showing how please she was before she slid her hand down Remus's body until she found his hand and with one last giggle she led him away. Lily turned her head away to face James.
"So, do you want to dance?" he asked her, gesturing to the crowd already bobbing like a mad mosh pit.
"Uh, not right now. I don't want to leave Fe," Lily told him "Sorry," He shrugged.
"S'ok. We probably shouldn't leave her anyway after that display," he said and nodded his head towards the other side of the room and Lily could make out Claudia leading Remus away from the party and towards the staircase.
"I don't want to know," Lily shrudded and the three of them walked over and sat down on three of the chairs further along the wall. James began to say
"So we never finished our conversation earlier. What do you mean by-" but a voice next to Lily startled her and she turned around to find one of the sixth year Ravenclaw prefects who was at dinner last night talking to Felicity.
"So, uh, we never quite finished our dance last night so I was wondering if we could, uh, finished it..now?"
Felicity smiled shyly and nodded and slid her hand into the one he had out waiting and he led her into the floor.
"Damn," Lily complained "She gets asked to dance after Remus has already left and doing god only knows what,"
"Ah well, what can you do but make the most of the song. Dance?" James asked her again. Lily shrugged and nodded "Dance,"
Two hours later and things started happening. All those boys who carefully walked up to the punch bowl and when nobody was looking, slipped in all the fire whiskey they had on them into it had added up and so the punch was no more that fire whiskey with chopped up lemons, oranges, strawberries and mint leaves lying on top. Anyone who had drunk a full plastic cup was of course smashed, with teenagers not having a good system to stand up to too much alcohol.
Most of the party had moved downstairs into the indoor pool where apparently party clothes were no long necessary and that revealing bras and panties would do as swimmers. The spa was overflowing with bodies all over each other and hands were allowed to go anywhere under the water.
Couples were forever escaping out of the occupied rooms and going together behind closed doors and soon it wasn't safe to open any doors. Remus and Claudia never returned to the party though Lily told herself that she didn't definitely know what they were doing, though her brain had a shrewd idea.
Only a few remaining people were not drunk. Felicity was still dancing with her Ravenclaw, James and Lily were still sober and so was Jessica and surprisingly Sirius. There were five other couples on the dance floor with Felicity and the Ravenclaw and they all seemed themselves. It was hard to tell if the couples snogging were drunk or not because it's not really drunken behaviour.
"Come on!" Sirius was complaining "One look! Just one look!"
"No, absolutely not," Jess snapped "One look at those practically naked girls in the pool and I wouldn't be able to get you out of there,"
"That's the point," Sirius grumbled. Jess turned on James
"And I know you don't want to go down there because your more mature than Sirius," she told him. James scrunched up his face.
"Well..." Lily hit him.
"So what are we going to do now?" Lily asked them. The others shrugged, some party this was starting to be.
"I have a suggestion," a voice said from the doorway. They spun around to find Claudia and Remus standing in the doorway. Lily made her face light up.
"Claudia!" she exclaimed and the two exchanged hugs.
"So what's this idea?" James asked her. Claudia smiled slyly.
"Anyone up for Seven Minutes in Heaven?" she asked. Lily tried to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Half the party was playing this game in pairs except they didn't give themselves a limit.
"Umm," Lily said eyeing James who shrugged "Sure,"
"Sirius?" Claudia asked and he replied "Sure, why not,"
"Jessica?" she asked in confusion when she identified the girl standing next to Sirius "How come you're here,"
"Oh, Sirius invited her," Lily butted in, both parts of the party in question looking at her as if they had never seen her before.
"What?" Sirius growled. "I gave you those sweets, remember?" Lily hissed.
"Oh, right. Yeah I asked Jessica to the party," Sirius said, doing an awful job at covering up "And yeah, she'll play too,"
Jessica looked murderous.
"Anyone else in here want to play?" Claudia demanded to the rest of the rooms. The couples dancing paused to discuss it with each other, a few then turning away and continuing as they were and a few stopped and joined the group forming. Felicity looked up at Lily from over her partner's shoulder to see what to do and as Lily inclined her head for Felicity to join them, she lead her partner over and the made up the last of the group.
"Come on then, follow me," Claudia announced and led the party of around twelve into the hallway, up the large staircase that Claudia had decended at the beginning of the evening and ran up with Remus shortly after, along the corridor and into a rather large bedroom with a door on three sides of the room with the back side made of glass to have a good view of the city lights.
Claudia led the party past the four poster bed situated in the middle of the room with satin sheets and through the door on the right hand side of the room. The group filed in one after the other and Claudia closed the door behind them before flicking on a light.
Lily found herself in a large, circular room, which was painted white everywhere there wasn't a door or a mirror. And there were a lot of both. Lily counted...six different doors, all different colours. Maybe they were coded? And there was a mirror in the middle of the space between each of the doors.
"Everyone in a circle," Claudia ordered "And for god's sake mix it up a little. Do you know how dull it is when couples land on each other?"
"Great," Jessica grumbled "I could be a potential victim of any of these guys. Fantastic. Best Christmas ever,"
"Uh uh uh!" Sirius tutted "Christmas was yesterday,"
"Whatever Black,"
"Everyone mixed up? Excellent," Claudia placed an empty beer bottle in the middle of the circle and spun it and it came to a stop on
"Lucky me," Claudia said, as the bottle landed on her and one of the boys who was dancing before "I'll be back in seven," she said to Remus before kissing him softly and standing up.
"You coming Henry?" she asked the brunette boy who kissed his, well, assumed girlfriend and stood up and walked towards Claudia. When he was in reach, Claudia pulled his loosely done up tie so he fell with her into the first closet. Lily watched his girlfriend who was looking extremely mad by Claudia's behaviour.
"So, uh, do we just continue?" the other boy who was dancing asked.
"Not like we want to listen to the sound of them making magic," Sirius said, taking the bottle and spinning it. It continued to spin until it landed on
"Oh you have GOT to be KIDDING me," Jessica exclaimed, jumping to her feet.
"I don't see why you're so upset. Personally I would have been thrilled,"
"You would, and probably do. That's why you're always in the bathroom! But no. No no no no no. You can't make me," Jess exclaimed and folded her arms across her chest.
"The rules say you have to go into a room for seven minutes," the guy told her "And you agreed to play so..."
"Agreed? Pfft. Blackmails more like it," she grumbled, then comprehension dawned on her face. She jumped to her feet and ran towards the door. Sirius ran after her eagerly until she slammed the door in his face.
"Hey! What's the big idea?"
"The rules say you have to go into a room for seven minutes! That guy said so. But he didn't say you had to be in the room with a guy,"
The guy shrugged "I thought it was a given,"
"Open up!" Sirius demanded, banging on the door "You have to come out some time!"
"No I don't!" Jessica yelled back "Lily, you can live off leather can't you?" Lily sighed.
"Ah well, only six minutes of this left now," James told her. The others decided there was no point continuing to play with the commotion Sirius and Jess were making from either side of the door so the group sat back and watched the scene unfold.
The other couple there that had been previously dancing, seemed a little bored with this sitting around and waiting for the bottle so they stood up and sneaked into one of the other closets available in the room.
Henry's girlfriend kept taking anxious looks at her watch every few seconds before at some point jumping to her feet and crossing the room in a few strides and banging on the door that Henry and Claudia must have entered seven minutes previously.
"Coming," Claudia sung out and the door opened a few seconds later and the pair tumbled out. The girl grabbed onto Henry and began pulling him back to their spot on the floor. Claudia looked real pleased with herself and took her spot back in the circle.
"You spin this time baby," Claudia told Remus, passing him the bottle. Lily heard Jess chocking in the closet and tried to stifle a snicker. Remus spun the bottle and it spun around in a circle and landed on
"Oh look," James said and nudged the bottle so it went one space back to point to Felicity. "Well what do you know,"
Felicity managed to blush herself into the next century and Remus coughed to break the awkwardness. He slowly stood up and Felicity followed suit and they found themselves standing up in the circle.
"Um, yeah, should we, ah" he began, gesturing to the closet next to the one Jess had locked herself in.
"Ah, yeah, okay," Felicity squeaked and followed Remus into the closet who shut the door behind them gently. Lily checked her watch.
"Jess, you're time is up,"
"Oh praise the lord!" she cried, throwing the door open, believing she was free ... until Sirius grabbed her and pulled her in and pushed his mouth on hers. Her body went rigid then limp as he continued to kiss her. Before long he was pulling away.
"You do realise you are now, officially, dead?" Jessica told him "Would you prefer to be buried or cremated?"
"Hey, you dwindled me out of seven minutes. You owe me that much," he growled before sitting back down in the circle.
"Well James, since you tampered with the bottle, I think you should be the one to spin the bottle next," Claudia snapped, obviously a little upset. Ha, upset being a tad an understatement.
"Fine," James said and took the bottle and spun it and Lily felt her eyes grow wide when the bottle landed on her.
"Finally!" James cried exasperatedly, jumping up and pulling Lily to her feet in the same motion before pulling her towards and unused closet and shut the door behind them.
"Finally," James repeated and Lily could see his arm searching for something in the darkness. "Aha!" he exclaimed, his fingers twisting around something and pulling and Lily had to blink as the whole closet was suddenly illuminated.
"Finally?" Lily questioned him "What exactly have you been waiting to do?"
"Finish our conversation that we started before her highness made her grand entrance! Now back to my question, what do you mean 'a couple right way up?'" Lily sighed.
"I dunno, I was just rambling. Second thoughts, I don't know. But it shouldn't matter to me whether I can see them as a couple or whether I think they could be compatible, you can't control who you fall for and I'm not here to stop those feelings, I'm here to support my friend whoever the guy and try and squeeze him out of the clutches of a heartless bitch who only wants him for the physical attributes of the relationship,"
"Wow. Remus a good kisser? Never would have figured that," James joked and Lily punched him.
"Sorry. But that does make sense and Felicity's really lucky to have a friend like you. But if you think about it, love shouldn't be this hard," James told her. Lily stared at him lucriously
"Are you kidding? Love is always hard. All those broken hearts, all the jealousy, all the cheating, all the lust, all the unrequited love. Love is hard,"
"But initially. All that, some of that can't be helped. Some obviously can, cheating can always be helped, but unrequited love? You can't make somebody love you back, no matter how much you wished they did and no matter how much you love them and think you're love is enough. But love? Love should be easy. It should be like smack, a bang, a spark. Realisation. That's easy. Once you have realisation of the love between the two people, that's when it then becomes hard. But not before. Definitely not before,"
"Why Mr. Potter, that was deep," Lily told him in surprise and he bowed his head "I do my best,"
"Since when do you so much on this particular subject? I know you have all the women but that's hardly deep," he shrugged.
"I dunno, once you go through realisation, you understand it. One of those life experiences,"
"Well, spill. Who's the girl?" Lily asked him and James stared blankly at her. Someone rapped three times on their door.
"Seven minutes guys, come on out," Lily began to move towards the door but James stopped her.
"What?" Lily asked as James ran his fingers through his hair and making it messier than it usually was before ruffling his shirt. He reached over and began messing up Lily's hair and she smacked his hand away.
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
"Lily, I have a reputation to uphold," he told her in all seriousness and before she could resist he messed up her hair.
"That'll do, come on. They'll be throwing a fit that we got an extra minute,"
They needn't have worried. When they returned they found the room entirely deserted but not in the least quiet. They exited the round room, back out through the bedroom, along the hallway and down the grand stairs. They heard Sirius's and Jess's voice echoing up from the formal lounge.
"Where is everyone?" Lily asked them as she joined Jess on one of the sofas. They hadn't seen anyone on the whole walk down. They both shrugged.
"Basically after you guys went in, everyone bailed into their own closet. Remus and Claudia couldn't manage to keep their hands off each other even on the way to the closet. Henry and his girlfriend Dawn went inside the closet next to the one their friends were in. And Felicity and that Ravenclaw? Well they thought they'd try a closet all their own. Didn't know she had it in her," Jess told her. Lily looked surprise at the news about Felicity.
"Well, what do we do now?" James asked the group. No one had a good answer.
A/N: So …. Here is chapter 14. Finally updated, I felt bad for not doing so but I kind of needed inspiration. Also, I really couldn't be bothered writing bitchy in my present state.
For those who care, this is my reason (If not, please review!):
On my birthday, the 24th July and coincidently the last time I updated, my mum picked me up from Grey Mustang's place where we walked to from school and hung out all afternoon. When we arrived home there was a message on the machine for my mum to go back to the doctor, where she went the day before to have some tests for menopause. Anyway, she returned home and I knew something wasn't right, which sounds sooooo cliché but true. Anyway, turns out my mum has cancer.
Yes so that turned my life on its head, my mother was diagnoses with cancer and I spent the better half of a month moving between my friends houses to live because my mum has been a single parent since my father passed away from cancer when I was seven.
So that's why I haven't written or updated anything in the past … three or so months now. I don't know when I'll post the next chapter, sometime soon. I have remembered the direction this story will go in now so all I need to do now is write it.
And so thus ends my sad and soppy tale.
Please review! xox