Chapter Text
DISCLAIMER: This Fanfiction is a product of the Harry Potter universe and the great love a young girl had for this series growing up. I want to acknowledge before anyone begins this story that I do not support J.K. Rowling's comments on the trans community. I am disappointed in the ignorant and harmful comments she has made and want to make clear that while I am obviously writing a fanfiction which could not exist without Rowling's imagination, I do not condone transphobia nor the tweets/blog posts/beliefs of J.K. Rowling. I began this fanfiction when I was sixteen years old. In retrospect, I wish I had included a more diverse cast of characters. I hope that despite this you can still find some enjoyment in this story and the characters I grew so very fond of over four years of writing as I still very much love the version of the Wizarding World I created in my fanfic.
Lily Evans was sprawled across the plush orange couch in the centre of Gryffindor's common room. She had a Transfiguration textbook in her lap, following along attentively when a face appeared above her own, soft lips lowering to meet hers.
"How am I expected to get my studying done with you sneaking up on me like that?" When she opened her eyes James Potter was smirking above her. He came around to join her on the couch, lifting Lily's legs into his lap.
"What? The top student in our year can't survive a five-minute break?" His fingers crawled up her legs, towards her thighs, tempting, his face approaching hers, lips nuzzling into her neck. Lily closed her eyes, a shiver running down her spine at his delicate touch. "Besides, I think your boyfriend deserves some of your attention..."
It was like a siren going off in her head. Suddenly, Lily's eyes flung open and she was nowhere near Hogwarts but rather, lying in her sweat-soaked bed at home. I think your boyfriend deserves some of your attention... the words rattled in her head as she ran her hands down her face, slowly coming back to reality and the sound of an owl's beak pecking at her window.
Lily threw back her covers, crawling out of bed to lift the latch on the window for her owl, Apollo, who entered in a flurry, hooting at Lily as if to say, what took you so long?
"Sorry girl," Lily stroked the top of her barn owl's head in apology. "Bad dream."
What the hell was that dream? Her and James Potter? Hell would have to freeze over first.
Lily took a deep breath, breaking the seal on the letter Apollo had delivered.
Lily,
France is wonderful. Mum left after the first few days for work but it's better that way anyhow. Amy's been showing me all around, introducing me to her friends, taking me out to the pubs. Have I mentioned how much I absolutely fucking love being seventeen? I love it. Being officially legal is like a breath of fresh air if you ask me (perks: we will no longer be restricted to muggle bars that can't tell our IDs are charmed!)
The only downside so far has been Amy's lack of free time with work and all. She tries to leave me maps and lists of things to do but I always end up getting lost or confused (you know me). In more exciting news, I've recently acquired an incredibly helpful guide to show me around. His name is Anton and before you ask, yes, we are a little more than just friends. Wipe that look off your face! You wouldn't be able to resist it either if you had a fit French lad showing you around Paris!
Only a few more days until I'm forced to return to reality and kiss my French romance goodbye. On the bright side, I'll be able to spend the next two months running around, wreaking havoc, with you, Mary, and Alice. I can't believe this is it, our last summer as students. Well, no matter, we'll certainly make the most of it, lots of drinking and partying to go around. Talking about parties, I'm keen on your boyfriend's little get-together (which I am incredibly thankful he is throwing a day after I get home). Try not to be too glum without me, I promise to return home with loads of prezzies.
Lots of love,
Marlene
Marlene McKinnon's letter left a smile on Lily's face. She'd hurried off to France to visit her older sister, Amy, the day after they'd returned home from Hogwarts. Lily missed her friend more than she could've ever imagined. It was only two weeks and yet, somehow, they had been the most complicated two weeks of Lily's life - thanks to the incessant dreams about James Potter of all people.
The Evans household was quiet this morning. Her mother had a day shift at the hospital and Petunia was on vacation down south with her boyfriend's family. Lily preferred the house to herself anyway. She strode downstairs to the kitchen wearing only a Holyhead Harpies t-shirt that would've driven Petunia mad.
Theirs was a quaint home with a blue front door, three bedrooms, and horrific floral wallpaper in the kitchen. Lily pulled the box of Frosted Flakes from their cereal cupboard and managed to shake the last of it into a bowl, dousing her cereal in milk before plopping herself in front of the TV - a comforting ritual from her muggle youth. It was how she'd spent Saturday mornings at home since she was a kid - cereal, a cup of tea, and morning cartoons. Of course, back then, she wouldn't be curled up in her father's armchair, he'd be occupying it. Cigar in hand, chuckling along to the TV with her.
Lily was the only one who sat in her father's chair these days. Richard Evans had been taken from his family at the age of forty-five. One morning, when it was just Lily and him at home, he'd gone into cardiac arrest, leaving behind his teenage daughters and doting wife. Lily's mother, Katherine, had been devastated. She'd spent the summer of her husband's death on paid leave, barely rising from bed most days, needing to be reminded to eat.
Lily's father was her favourite person in the world. They shared a special bond, the pair on a frequency neither Petunia nor her mother could ever reach. Lily's fondest memories were with him - like their drives home from primary school when he would sneak her treats, hidden in the car's glove compartment.
"Don't tell your mother or sister, okay? This is our little secret." It always was, too.
It was ironic, Lily thought, that her father should die from heart failure, considering he had the biggest heart of anyone she'd ever known. Unfortunately, he'd never been one to watch his diet. Her mother nagged him constantly about it but she hadn't understood how serious she was until it was too late.
"Rich, you have to pay more attention to your fat intake," she remembered her sighing more than once, watching her husband scarf down his fried eggs and bacon. "It's not good for you, especially at your age."
"Would I be the man you married if I worried about my fat intake?"
"I would just like to keep the man I married around long enough for our golden wedding anniversary." Sadly, they never made it.
Her father had died the previous summer, leaving Lily to discover his body while her mother and Petunia were shopping in the city. She found him frozen in his armchair, a cigarette still burning between his fingers, eyes glassed over and distant. She looked down at that same armchair now, covered in stains from over the years, and the bowl of, now soggy, cereal in her lap. She placed it aside, her appetite long gone.
This summer would be different. There would be no spells of depression or weeks gone by where she forgot to wash her hair. No, Lily refused to let her final summer as a student go to waste. A lot had changed in a year. For starters, she'd grown her hair out, turned seventeen, and was now dating one of the cutest boys in her year.
Lily had a crush on Fabian Prewett for years. When he'd finally worked up the courage to ask her out halfway through sixth year, she'd been thrilled. She'd always been friends with him and his twin brother, Gideon, the only Gryffindor boys she'd been able to stomach in her year for a while. Fabian was kind, funny, and strikingly smart. Not to mention, he was incredibly good-looking, with thick auburn hair and warm brown eyes. He could often be found taking runs around the campus or soaring around on a broomstick during Quidditch games.
Lily had been on cloud nine, until recently. It wasn't Fabian; no, he was still absolutely amazing. It was her. She was off, she had been since returning home, since her dreams had been plagued by a particular messy-haired, bespectacled boy. She winced at the thought of him, terrified of whatever was lurking in her subconscious.
It wasn't as though she and James were on bad terms — they'd gotten over all of that last year. For the most part, they'd managed to co-exist cordially. James had stopped asking Lily out three times a day and she'd come to the startling realization that he wasn't an arrogant toerag — most of the time, anyway. They'd even spent the journey back to Kings Cross together, playing a round of Exploding Snaps and making plans to see each other over the summer. So what the hell was Lily doing dreaming about him?
Was she going mad? She'd have to be to ever think that the two of them could work. Lily Evans in no way fancied James Potter, that was a fact. The pair becoming friends was shock enough, but Lily having an actual crush on him? Not a chance in hell. James may have grown up a little, but he could still be a privileged asshole when it suited him. Not Lily's type at all. No, she preferred the quiet and mature type, specifically her loving boyfriend.
That was the problem, Lily decided: the lack of Fabian Prewett in her summer. She'd been avoiding him, afraid that without saying a word she might somehow reveal what had been happening in her mind, but that was about to change. Subconscious be damned, Lily knew in her heart exactly which man she should be dreaming about.
James squinted up at his friends, soaring high above his head, and adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. Peter, Remus, and Sirius were in the air, playing a small game of Quidditch as they always wound up doing. James threw a leg over his broom, shooting up to meet them, quaffle in hand. He looked towards Peter, who was gripping onto the end of his broom for dear life, his knuckles going white.
"You alright there, Pete?" James asked. He struggled to keep the amusement off his face.
"I hate flying. Why do we always have to do things that involve flying?"
"Quidditch is a religion, Wormtail, get with it," came Sirius - completely unsympathetic. They played up there for over an hour, Peter loosening up over time as he always did, he and Sirius playing against James and Remus who inevitably won, to Sirius' dismay.
"We can't play without a ref!" Sirius started moaning the minute their feet hit the ground, "That throw Peter got was not a foul!"
"Just admit it Padfoot, you're a sore loser. You can't handle that I'm becoming a better player than you." Remus was only teasing but Sirius was too riled up not to take the bait. It continued like that, the rest of them goading him on until they reached the top of the hill at the back of the Potter's manor, James' mother standing in front of the back door, waving to them.
"LUNCH!" she called out and the four boys picked up their pace, incentivized by the delicious meal waiting for them inside.
"So, are we planning to go to the Prewett's on Saturday?" Sirius changed the subject, eyes on James.
He hated when his friends acted like they were supposed to hate Fabian because of him. James and Fabian got along - they always had. Fabian had even done him the courtesy of asking how he might feel before asking Lily out. It hadn't felt like he had any choice but to lie. It's a thing of the past, he'd promised, not because it was true but because he knew that there was no chance in hell Lily would ever choose him over Fabian Prewett.
"Why wouldn't we?" James shrugged. "Besides, Marlene just wrote; she's going."
"How is Marlene?" Remus interjected.
"She's having the time of her life in France, shagging some French guy—" James cut off quickly as they reached the back of his house. His mother was still standing in the doorway and it was better he kept information about Marlene's love life quiet around her. She and Marlene's mother, Maureen, were friends. They had been since James and Marlene were in diapers — destined to become best friends. In fact, at one point their mothers had plotted a union between them, but James and Marlene had never been very interested.
"Wow, Care, did you make those all yourself?" Sirius teased Caroline Potter, eyeing the tray of sandwiches on the counter. She gave him a stern look. James' mother couldn't cook for her life. Growing up with a house-elf did that to a person. James knew first-hand from being spoiled rotten by his family's house-elf, Mimsy, who would do just about anything for him.
"You know, Sirius, I don't have to feed you. You lot could learn to make lunch for yourselves at the big age of seventeen."
"We're very grateful, Mum," James stepped in.
While his mother was older than most of his friends' parents she was still an absolute knockout: tall and thin, her once jet-black hair had streaks of grey now and her smooth, freckled skin wrinkled at the corner of her eyes.
She led the boys through the kitchen into the Potters' dining room - a large room with oaken walls bedecked with classical paintings and portraits of James' relatives staring down upon the grand dining table that stretched the length of the room and could easily seat twenty people. The boys gathered around the far end, closest to the bar cart, Caroline placing the sandwich tray in front of them.
"Can I get you boys anything to drink? Pumpkin juice?"
"You'd forget we have a house-elf," James quipped, earning a smack across the back of the head.
"It is not Mimsy job to wait on you hand and foot James Potter."
"Sorry," he grumbled, waiting until his mother had left the room, using magic to float in a bottle of Pumpkin Juice behind her, to continue his story from earlier.
"Anyway, like I was saying, Marlene is planning to become French." Sirius made a gagging sound.
"And Frank and Alice have the internship at the Auror office?" Remus asked with a mouthful of turkey sandwich. James nodded.
"Oh, and," Peter added excitedly, "have you heard the gossip about Mary?"
"How have you heard the gossip about Mary?" Sirius countered.
"I got lunch with the guys from the chess club-"
"I'm still a little offended that you keep company beyond us."
"She's been shagging Amos Diggory."
Sirius nearly spit out his Pumpkin Juice. Remus was incensed. "Seriously? I was stuck partnered up with him in Defense fifth year, he's awful."
"He's not that bad," Peter argued, though one pointed stare from Remus shut him up - he'd never learnt how to hold his own in a disagreement.
"What about Evans?" Sirius asked, James finding himself very interested in the half-eaten sandwich on his plate. "Have you heard from her Prongs?"
"Me? I don't know. It's not like we're best pals."
"But you two did seem to be getting along well last year," Peter stated optimistically.
"Yeah, I think I only heard her call you an arrogant prick once this year," Remus smirked, making James roll his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, lifting the front legs off the ground.
"We'll see her at the party, I guess. I'm sure she's spent the past two weeks with Fabian. They couldn't seem to get enough of each other last time I saw them." It hurt to say but he shoved the words out with an air of apathy all the same.
If James had to watch Lily be happy with anyone, at least it was Fabian. He was like a golden retriever - pure of intention and loyal. The perfect guy - nothing like James.
"Fuck it, we're getting smashed on Saturday," Sirius declared, clapping his hands together. "And we're all getting laid." He turned his cool grey eyes on Peter. "Even you."
Mary woke up with her long, chocolate-brown hair covering her eyes and a small pool of drool on the pillow beside her face. She rolled away from it, stretching her long legs out with a sigh of pleasure. She was in a broom closet of a room, cramped into a twin-sized bed with a snoring Amos Diggory beside her. The thin line of sunlight streaming in from between his dark grey curtains announced the morning. Carefully, she climbed from the bed and tiptoed around the room, scooping up her clothing.
How Mary McDonald, one of the most sought-after girls at Hogwarts, had ended up fooling around with Amos Diggory - a confirmed nerd - was beyond her. He was quiet, academically driven, and spent most of his days buried in history textbooks on magical creatures. Mary found magical creatures interesting, but that didn't mean she wanted to spend an entire night reading about them.
Still, in the month since they'd started sneaking around together, Mary hadn't found much fault in the guy. He was sweet, if a little self-absorbed, and while no one at school paid him much attention, she thought Amos' shaggy brown hair and soft features were cute. They'd become more enduring once she discovered how talented he was in bed.
Their introduction had come in Care of Magical Creatures. Mary spent the entire year complaining to her friends about how obnoxious Amos was, shooting his hand up to answer every question the professor asked. Mary could have pushed him into the container of Blast-Ended Skrewts. Halfway through the year, she'd been doing terribly in the course and ended up getting tutored by him. It was torture, and she bickered with him most of the time but one night, on the way back from the library, he'd kissed her. She'd meant to smack him but found herself kissing back instead. The rest was history.
Amos stirred in his sleep and Mary jumped away, realizing how insane she looked standing over the bed staring at him. She froze, struggling with whether to simply leave or say goodbye, before finally shaking Amos awake.
His round brown eyes fluttered open, glassy from sleep.
"Mary?"
She smiled, running her fingers through his hair.
"I'm heading out, okay?" He nodded. "Am I going to see you tomorrow night?"
"What's tomorrow night?"
"The Prewett's party?" He must have been the only seventh-year not to know about it.
"Oh, um… not really my scene. I have some reading I need to catch up on." Mary stifled the urge to laugh, settling on a nod instead.
"Okay, I'll see you around, Amos." She leaned down, giving him a quick kiss before sneaking out of the Diggory's family home before his parents could spot her.
Mary could have gone home but she wasn't in the mood. Her younger siblings would all be awake and running around, her mother chasing after them tirelessly. She was too exhausted to deal with that and the questions she'd be bombarded with immediately upon walking through the door. Instead, she made a quick stop at the bakery down the street from Amos' and then apparated to Cokeworth.
Mary walked up the front path of the house with the blue door and well-kept garden, knocking on the door with her foot, her hands occupied by a tray of lattes and a bag of croissants. A sleepy-eyed Lily Evans, wearing nothing by a Holy Head Harpies t-shirt, cracked open the door.
"Mary? What are you doing here?"
"Making sure you're still alive, distracting myself, the usual." Lily widened the door to let her in. "I come bearing coffee and pastries."
"Never empty-handed."
"Never," Mary said, walking straight through to the kitchen like she owned the place. She'd spent a lot of time at the Evans' home over the years, sleepovers with Lily during the summer and holiday parties over Christmas break. Unlike Mary's parents, Lily's had always been welcoming. Her father brightened up every room he entered, it was why his loss felt so heavy the moment you stepped into the house and noticed the sudden lack of him.
Mary sat down at the small kitchen table, sliding Lily's drink in her direction. The redhead sat down, removing the lid and took in a strong whiff.
"This smells like heaven," she said, licking her lips.
"I know you well. Here," Mary pulled an almond croissant from the bag and passed it to her friend.
"Excited for Fabian's party tomorrow?" Mary asked, picking apart her pastry.
"Of course. Sounds like he and Gideon are pulling out all the stops."
"Wouldn't expect any less from them." Mary loved a good party - any excuse to get dolled up, get drunk and flirt. Besides, this was it - their last summer as students, perhaps the last time they would all be together as a group, she wanted to make every second count.
"Have you heard from Marlene? She's supposed to get back today."
"She wrote me before leaving - I'll guess she's sleeping it off today. Poor thing is probably exhausted from all the sex she was having."
Mary snorted. "It's a hard life she leads."
"Anyway, I'm most excited to see Alice - she's been impossible to pin down since she started her internship."
"I know - you'd think they were already Aurors with all the work that office has them doing." Mary couldn't help feeling a little resentful - this was their last summer together and Alice was wasting it sitting behind a desk helping Aurors do their paperwork.
Last summer was a wash - Lily's dad died, Marlene broke her arm playing Quidditch and Alice was loved up with Frank. Mary would not let this summer go to waste the same way - whether they liked it or not, the four of them were going to spend some much-needed quality time together.
"Let's go all out tomorrow night, like the old days," Mary begged. Lily's eyebrows rose.
"The old days?"
"You, Marley, Alice, and me, altogether. Let's get ready together and do a big sleepover like we used to."
"I figured I'd just stay with Fabian tomorrow night-"
"Come on! One night like old times."
Lily relented, falling for Mary's puppy dog eyes. "Alright," she agreed, "I think that can be arranged."
It was eleven in the morning on a Friday and while most normal people were awake by this time, Marlene knew James Potter would not be. She made her way up the Potters' front path toward the gorgeous, tall, Victorian manor with green vines climbing up its red brick walls. She rang the doorbell, a bag of presents hanging from her arm.
Caroline Potter, not Mimsy, opened the door, her blue eyes widening with shock.
"If it isn't my favourite girl in the world!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around Marlene before the latter could cross the threshold.
"How was your trip?"
"Enlightening." It was as much detail as she'd offer the woman she considered to be her second mother.
"How's Amy doing?"
"She's good, really into her job at the bank over there, most likely because she works with her boyfriend."
Caroline offered a sly smile. "Well, I know something about that." As if on cue, Alec Potter came down the spiral staircase in the centre of the entry hall, adjusting his cuff links. His face lit up when he saw her, running a hand along his head of short grey hair, just like his son.
"Look who it is," he grinned, meeting Marlene with a hug at the bottom of the stairs. "Did you enjoy your trip?"
"Very much and I remembered to bring home presents for my two favourite people." She handed each of them a package - an emerald broach for Caroline and a navy striped tie for Alec.
"Oh, Marlene! You didn't have to do this," Caroline looked near tears as she admired the gift Marlene had found in a flea market.
"Please, I've got to pay you back for the years spent feeding and housing me somehow."
"Do you think there's still enough time to convince Maureen to trade kids?" Alec teased, earning a sharp look from his wife.
"We should get going. Don't want to get an earful from Alastor for being late." Caroline pulled Marlene in for another hug, "I wish we had more time to catch up."
"I'll stay for dinner tonight," Marlene suggested, "we can talk then."
"Perfect," Caroline kissed her cheek. "See if you can get those boys out of bed before noon."
"I'll try my best," she said, ascending the stairs as the Potters went out the front door. "Have a good day!"
She had spent more time at the Potter's house over the years than her own. Caroline and Alec had planned to have a large family but had only been able to have one child - James. So, they'd adopted their son's friends as their own over the years, housing and feeding them, even going so far as to give Marlene her own bedroom in the house. She had always been jealous of James - he didn't have to compete with two other siblings for his parent's attention the way Marlene did. It was probably why she chose to spend her holidays at their house over her own.
James's bedroom was in the attic - which might have been strange were it not an entire floor to himself - his private oasis. His parents had renovated and gifted it to him before their first year at Hogwarts - Quidditch posters plastered all over the walls, a large bay window with a view of the street down below, an ensuite bathroom with a claw tub large enough for two people.
Marlene climbed the narrow staircase leading to the room and discovered her friend sound asleep, snoring in his queen-sized bed. A nicer person might have shaken him awake gently but Marlene took a different route - jumping on top of the bed hooting with joy until James was startled from his slumber.
"I'm home!" she squealed, relishing the look of shock on his face as he scrambled to grab his glasses off the bedside table.
Once he was awake, she bounced down onto the bed beside him, out of breath, grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Did you miss me?"
"Not really."
She gave him a playful shove and James surrendered, chuckling. "Okay, okay I might have missed you a little bit."
"Well, if it's just a little bit then maybe I should return these presents I bought you..."
James sat up, leaning back against his wooden headboard. "I take it back - my life has been sad and empty without you. I've cried myself to sleep every night."
"That's more like it." She rolled off the bed to grab the bag of presents she'd left by the doorway when a pair of heavy footsteps sounded up the stairs.
Sirius emerged, shoulder-length black hair still messy from sleep, wearing only a t-shirt and his boxers. He smirked, throwing his arm around Marlene before she could pull away, planting a wet kiss on her cheek.
"McKinnon's home!"
She shoved him off and stuck her tongue out at him in response.
"Against my better judgment, I bought you presents too."
"Couldn't help yourself could you?" He sat on the bed beside James, Marlene pulling brown paper packages from her bag for them. For James, she had purchased a book on the history of the French quidditch team and for Sirius a black cashmere sweater she'd found on one of her many shopping trips and instantly thought of him.
After presents, and once Marlene had insisted Sirius put some pants on, they gathered downstairs in the dining room for breakfast - prepared for them by Mimsy. Scrambled eggs, bacon, and fresh blueberry scones that melted in your mouth. Marlene hadn't realized how much she missed Mimsy's cooking until then.
"Have you seen anyone else yet?" James asked, breaking apart a strip of bacon with his hands.
"Nope, you're my first stop."
"You just couldn't stay away, could you, McKinnon?" Sirius said with his eyebrows raised suggestively. She gave him the finger.
"You're going to the Prewetts' tomorrow night, right?" They nodded. Truthfully, she'd half expected James to bow out - not that she'd ever known her friend to miss a party. The end of sixth year had been hard on him - just as he and Lily had started to develop something resembling a friendship he had been forced to watch her fall in love with Fabian.
"I heard a rumour that Penelope Frasier is single again," Marlene noted casually, blue eyes darting across the table toward James.
"Penelope's single?" Sirius was practically drooling.
"She's not a one-night stand kind of girl," she informed him dryly, eyes still on James.
"I don't even know Penelope Frasier."
"Well, get to know her! That's what dating is all about. Besides, she's a catch - she's smart, funny—"
"—and really, really, fit," Sirius added. Marlene considered throwing her fork at his head.
"Right, well… that too. Anyway, listen, I know you won't admit it but you've been moping since I left, haven't you?" His averted gaze confirmed as much. "I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying. You're a great guy, Potter, and you've come a long way in the past year. I don't want you to feel like it was all just for her… maybe she was just the one to get the juices flowing."
"James has no trouble getting his juices flowing on his own," Sirius quipped driving Marlene to the edge.
"Seriously James, I will murder him."
For Mary's sake - Lily had agreed to host the girls at her place, allowing her bedroom to become overrun with clothes and makeup. Thankfully, Petunia was still away and her mother was thriving in hostess mode, preparing a tray of snacks in the kitchen.
Lily had already picked out her outfit for the night - bell-bottom jeans and a soft blue crop top - which Alice and Mary stared at with trepidation when they arrived.
"That's what you're wearing?" Mary couldn't keep the judgment from her voice, earning a nudge from Alice.
"What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing!" Alice insisted before Mary could get a word in. "It's just..."
"Lame," Mary answered. "That's not what one wears to their boyfriend's party when he is the biggest catch in our year."
Lily rolled her eyes, sitting on the end of her bed, arms crossed. "I don't care what anyone else thinks. I'm not trying to prove anything."
"Of course not, you don't have to prove anything to anyone," Alice agreed, rummaging through the bag she'd dropped on the floor a moment ago. "But, if you do change your mind, I may or may not have gone shopping earlier today and found the perfect dress for you..." She pulled a plastic bag out and tossed it into Lily's arms, smiling proudly.
Lily pulled the dress from the bag, gawking. "Al, this is a slip, not a dress!"
"It's perfect!" Mary exclaimed. "Lil, you have to wear that."
"No way in hell."
"It's green! Green is your colour!"
"I'm going to look like a slag."
"That's the point," Mary insisted, hands on her hips. She wore orange bell bottoms and a white halter top with a plunging neckline. She'd blown out her brown locks and wore a dusting of green eye shadow that made her brown eyes pop.
Lily knew this was a losing battle - her friends had decided she was wearing this dress tonight and there was no way around it. So she slipped out of her current outfit and pulled the green dress over her head, stepping in front of the mirror that hung on the back of her closet door. It was a tiny, curve-hugging lace mini dress with spaghetti straps that left her shoulders exposed. She felt practically naked.
"I feel uncomfortable," she said, tugging at the bottom of it.
"You look amazing."
"I look like a tart."
"Impossible," a fourth voice came from behind and all three girls looked back to find Marlene leaning against the doorway, looking as gorgeous as ever.
Lily squealed like a schoolgirl when she laid eyes on her best friend for the first time in two weeks and practically flung herself into her arms. "I missed you so much!"
"We all did!" Mary added from over Lily's shoulder. "England has been empty without you."
"Well I'm home now, and ready to get absolutely smashed with my girls." The four of them gathered for a group hug and Lily struggled not to burst into tears of relief. Finally, things were as they should be. Marlene was home. They were all together and she was about to spend an evening on the arm of the guy she loved.
"Lil, you look unbelievable in this dress," Marlene pulled back, admiring her friend. "I mean seriously, put the rest of us to shame why don't you."
"Shut up," Lily blushed.
Marlene dropped her overnight bag onto the floor, pulling a bottle of Firewhiskey from inside. "I thought we might get an early start on the night."
"Merlin, I've missed you," Mary said, reaching for the bottle.
"Do you guys think Molly will be there tonight?" Alice had taken a seat in front of Lily's vanity and began fixing her chin-length brown hair, adjusting her fringe.
"I doubt it, isn't she about to give birth?"
"You're right - I forget how much older she is sometimes."
"She's already got two as well," Marlene added, taking a swig from the bottle and wincing before passing it to Lily. "Merlin help her. I can't imagine one."
Lily took a deep breath, ignoring the burning sensation as the alcohol sloshed down her throat and set a fire in her belly. This was going to be a good night. Things were back to normal. Her strange dreams, and uncomfortable thoughts of James Potter, could come to an end. Tonight would remind her just how impossible those thoughts had been, how far from reality.
"Alright," she said, face pinched, "who's ready to party?"
Hope that was good! There is lots more to come as I write through the Marauders final year of Hogwarts and hopefully the few years post school as well! Reviews are always appreciated. xoxo