Odd that the thing most likely to actually kill me was the one habit I could never quite shake. Angie and I were mostly "Boozy Faggers", as our particular circle of Knowle St. Giles miscreants branded ourselves when alcohol and cigarettes were just far enough from our grasps to be considered cool. We only ever smoked when we were drunk, or at least drunk enough to think inhaling toxic chemicals was cool.

And, oh, did it ever make us feel cool. It was the closest thing to intrigue we could muster in our little patch of the muggle world, a forbidden fag or two after several highly illegal pints of some cheap muggle beer. Those nights in back alleys with too many bottles and paper cartons and the nagging reminder that we could never really relate to these kids drinking and smoking with us were the closest to rebellion I ever got in my teenage years. I loved the burning liquid guzzling down my throat, the choking smoke filling my lungs, the burdens of the rest of the world leaving my shoulders to focus on the current focus that I could very well die in this particular moment and, if I did, that would not be such a terrible thing.

So, when Angie appeared in the closed shop with her arms full of plain paper bags, I knew immediately what was in them.

The boys joined us for a while, but neither Fred nor George had much of a taste for the muggle stuff. Firewhiskey was more their thing. Now, the wizard brands were fine now and then, but hard times called for drastic measures, and Angie did not spend her money on their tastes. After all, this was not for them. In times like this, when the night seem particularly dark and the fire offered no warmth, no solace to the unnatural silence filling the void around us, they turned to each other, as did Angie and I. I loved George. She loved Fred. But tonight, I needed her like George needed Fred. I needed the bottles of IPA she pulled out of those bags, remembering how this was the real stuff, the stuff that hit us the hardest in our tender teenage years.

Tender teenage years. We were only nineteen now.

Eventually, Fred and George left, and we told them not to wait up. Something told me they would stay awake that night anyway, just as I knew it would take all of that IPA to get me to sleep. I felt exhausted, weariness settled deep in my bones that even sleep would not extinguish, but too many thoughts crept into my mind to allow me to rest.

A bottle or two after they were gone, Angie dug them out. I had not seen a pack of Lucky Strikes in years, but the sleek white package with the red circular logo seemed as familiar as if I had just held one in my hand that morning. Oh, that morning, when I had forgotten this all had happened and spent a few precious moments relishing in the engagement.

The engagement. Ruined now. How could we tell them such happy news after this? After the greatest man any of us would ever know had been killed? Killed by someone we all trusted so much?

"Gimme on'a those," I demanded, holding my hand out expectantly. Angie obligingly tapped out a Lucky Strike and passed it to me. She pulled out her wand to light it, but I flicked my finger towards it instead. Through the growing fog of IPA in my head, my conjuration missed and nearly set our bags on fire, although the flames thankfully extinguished in the air. "Oops," I mumbled, trying again with much greater success. My poor aim did not worry Angie in the slightest, and she leaned forward while pushing her hair back for me to light hers.

We both took long, slow puffs. I always had a fondness for the American brands, although Lucky Strikes fell in the strange territory between American and British. They were owned by a British Tobacco company, if I remembered correctly. Although, considering how much IPA I had in my system at the time, I do not see how I could remember much correctly. Still, the brands made for Americans always seemed that hair stronger, fuller, more vibrant.

Sober, I hated the suffocating feeling of smoke filling the top half of my torso. With alcohol coursing through my bloodstream, though, I thrived off of it. Angie did, too, and she let the smoke out in a long, slow stream towards the ceiling. I did the same, leaning back on my elbow and feeling so very, very small among the towering shelves and massive displays of our store.

"Y'know wh'I think?" Angie slurred. I took another drag and looked at her. "I think 'iss way more com-comp'ica'ed than we realize." She nodded as if she found great pride in deducing this. "What you think?"

"I dunno what to think," I murmured, finding solace in reaching the bottom of my bottle. She slid another at me, and I popped the cap off with a wave of my hand. It made my head throb like when I first learned to use wordless, wandless magic to do so in such a state, but I found that I relished in the pain. Something to show I could still feel, I suppose. "I always trusted Snape."

"I never liked 'im. Greasy. But you did. An' if you liked sum'un," she pointed unsteadily at me, "I liked 'em."

I snorted. "Tha's sweet, Ang. Thanks."

"Think this is all part of some big ol' plan? That Dum, Dumbsey, Dumbleydore had this all worked out?"

No way. He had to know what his death would do to us all. No bigger blow could be served to our side. No plan could be so big that he had to let himself get killed. What could be worth that? None of us were as powerful as him. We did not strike fear in Voldemort like him. He was the best chance we had, and he died. He would not voluntarily die, not without telling us. There was no plan, no sacrifice. As much as I wanted to dream this was a step towards a much bigger victory, it could not possibly be. The facts were simple. Dumbledore died. Snape broke the stalemate. We were losing. How could I possibly say that, though? How could I say that he made a mistake and put his trust in the wrong man?

Turns out, I did not have to find the words. My silence said enough, and Angie sighed wearily. "I don't, either."

Silence settled then, with nothing but the occasional crackle of a dying ember to interrupt the quiet. I lit another cigarette when mine grew too short. Angie stamped hers out to enjoy another beer. She always preferred to keep her beers and fags separate but related while I smoked and drank interchangeably – a puff here, a swig there, another puff, another swig. Different styles, same result. Drunker, sadder, one step closer to dead and one step farther from caring.

I do not know what time it was when the boys came crashing down the stairs. We were nearly done with the pack of Lucky Strikes and were splitting the very last bottle of IPA, so I assume it was fairly late. Late enough that the panic in their eyes was comical. Hilarious. Angie started laughing first, sputtering and nearly spilling the beer she tried to drink. That was what truly made me laugh, which then made me choke on my puff, which made Angie laugh harder, which made me laugh harder, which only confused the poor lads even more.

"What in Merlin's name are you two doing?!" Fred burst.

"We smelled a fire," George added.

"A-a f-f-f-ire!" Angie snorted. "Tha's no fire."

I grabbed the pack and held it up, but it did no good. Smoking was a muggle habit; the boys had no idea what the gesture meant. They knew what our flushed faces and the empty bottles around us meant, though, and pushed bottles and bags away from us in case this mysterious fire-smell could be dangerous to the two drunk girls. If only they understood that this was the least dangerous thing there was. Booze and fags could hardly do us any harm considering what was out there.

"Ya' smoke 'em," I explained. To demonstrate, Angie tapped one out, put it to her lips, thought better of it, took a swig of IPA, put the Lucky Strike back to her lips for me to light, and did a quick inhale and exhale, making sure to blow the smoke directly in Fred's face. To balance things out, when I took my next puff, I aimed it at George. Their wrinkled noses and slight gags made us giggle like the schoolgirls we used to be.

"Try," Angie ordered, passing hers off on Fred so she could drink more. I handed mine to George. "Put jus' the end in yer mouth, yeah? Good, right, tha's good. Then, inhale."

There was an art to smoking that Angie and I learned in those alleys with Harold Mitford and Paisley Hanover and Georgiana Austen. Inhale steadily. Hold it to really let the nicotine sink into you, spread through your bloodstream, impact every bit of you. Exhale dramatically in a steady, even stream to seem as cool as possible.

In her state, Angie could not even begin to explain that to them. She only just remembered to tell them "Shallow breaths!" after they started choking on their deep inhalations. Oops. Funny, though. I snorted into our last bottle of IPA, took my sip, and passed it over to them. The drink made them gag, but it helped them regain a bit of their breath.

"Why would you want to do that?" George gasped as he passed the cigarette back to me. I shrugged and took another drag.

"Feels good," Angie said.

"Feels like dying!" Fred corrected.

They were all gone now. The Hanovers were moving from Knowle St. Giles to Wales of all places. The Mitfords were still there, but the illustrious Harold had struck out on his own after finishing Harrow, living somewhere in London trying to make a name for himself. Georgiana died when the Millenium Bridge collapsed into the Thames. An innocent victim of our war.

"No, it doesn't," I corrected. "It feels like living. It feels like pain an' fire an' jus' a bit of fear. Y'don't get more alive than that."

Maybe it was what I said, or maybe it was how bitter it sounded, but the room once again fell silent after that. George had some more IPA. Fred tried the Lucky Strike again. Still hated it. Angie took it from him and stamped it out on the floor.

And maybe it did feel just a bit like dying. Maybe that was the point.

"Change your clothes before you go to bed," Fred requested when he and George stood to retreat back upstairs. I imagine they were using this feeling, this sense of utter emptiness, to be much more productive. Making a new product or something that could protect us. Angie nodded soberly.

George did not give me any such order.

Just before they took to the stairs, I felt the indescribably strong urge to tell George, "I love you." It stopped all three of them. When George turned to me, I could have sworn his eyes had just a bit of a shine to them, although that could have been because I suddenly felt like the entire world was going to shit and I needed to curl into a corner and bawl about it.

Drinking always eventually made me emotional.

That did not feel like enough. I did not think he understood just how much I loved him. How deeply and uncontrollably I needed him with every fiber of my being. So I told him again, this time significantly louder. "I really fucking love you, Goerge."

"I-I love you, too, Mellie."

"I mean, I really love you."

"Aw, Mellie." He walked towards me, and I scrambled to my feet as quickly as I could. That ended up being a terrible idea because my head throbbed painfully from the alcohol and the magic and the Lucky Strikes. But George caught me, as George always did, easing my fall. Instead of pulling me up, though, he eased me to the ground, falling with me. He held me close, pulling my head to his chest so the IPA and the Death and the Knowledge and the Lucky Strikes could pour from my eyes to ruin his robes.

Somewhere in this, Fred sat with Angie (or maybe she pulled him down – hard to say) into a crushing hug.

The four of us stayed that way until morning, clinging to each other until the first rays of the sun made stomachs churn and heads throb and lives seam just as bleak.

Next Chapter: Something Borrowed, Something Blue