how lucky are we?
it’s been a hell of a week,
but we’re all grown now.
there’s smoke seepin’
out of your bloody teeth,
but you’re home somehow.
— from 28, zach bryan
they’ve come to an arrangement now, these gryffindor girls and gryffindor boys; who hogs the common room and why and when. it’s not like the rest of the tower uses it after curfew, not like the tiny firsties and tired fifth-years have anything to do in the commons after hours.
alternate days. the boys are upstairs doing merlin-knows what; they’re here downstairs, sprawled around the fire. just the two of them, because they weren’t stupid enough to get caught after hours roaming the stone corridors by filch and his cat; aren’t scrubbing away cauldrons in the dark of the night.
mary laughs. the fire in the hearth of the gryffindor common room burns low, and casts strange shadows across her face.
lily watches the shapes dance in dark silhouettes over her nose and thinks to herself that if the words ‘holy’ and ‘sacred’ and ‘divine’ were a person, they’d be mary macdonald.
mama always told her to look away from drugs; don’t even think about it, miss lily evans. but mama seems so far away now, now that she’s holed up near a warming fire, lying on the floor of the common next to mary, sprawled across her favourite armchair.
one could say she’s positioned it too close to the hearth; isn’t she sweating?
lily remembers the touch of mary’s palms, fingers interlocking on the way to herbology class: cold hands, cold blood. mary’s always cold.
mary’s always cold, but she is like a sun contained within an impossible human body. lily would be the first to know she burns like a fire; but even her flame stills to mere embers around mary’s fierce laughs, her smiles that are all teeth, teeth willing to tear for love.
marlene grins, “look what i’ve got.” her eyes are shining like little stars in the dark of the common, hazy blonde curls in disarray as lily squints at what she’s holding in her hands: odgen’s finest wine, honeydukes’ finest chocolate.
dorcas reaches across and taps her on the head; affectionate, patronizing, teasing. “good girl.”
marlene’s grin gives way to a friendly scowl, lily watches as she snaps at dorcas’ hand; angular canines poised to bite. dorcas doesn’t even flinch, she just throws her head back and laughs, sharp cornrows whipping with impossible elegance.
lily gestures to a bottle, already knowing what it will feel like when it’s burning her throat: “you can bicker later, give me my share first.”
mama always told her to look away from drugs; don’t even think about it, miss lily evans. mama didn’t know her daughter would be off in the vastness of scotland with death to come knocking at her door any moment, war snipping at her feet, mocking her life and getting louder with every unlived moment.
lily bites off the cork and takes a dainty sip of burning wine: long live these moments of rebellion, by the gryffindor fire and her gryffindor girls.
“there’s a rumour going around,” mary says, in her customary armchair near the flames, jet-black curls a halo around her. this time around she has lily in her arms, flaming hair sprawled across her chest and neck as the girl sleeps against her heart.
she hates being touched, mary does. but she’ll make an exception for lily evans. for some reason it’s easier to take a breath when lily’s arm is around hers, or her legs are lying on top of mary’s torso.
“there’s a rumour going around,” she repeats, turning her neck so slightly to look at dorcas and marlene; dorcas across her in her own armchair, now-box-braids hanging over the armrest, marlene kicking out at dorcas’ left leg from her own spot on the floor with a red-and-gold cushion as a pillow. “dorcas, you’ve been hanging around with the snakes?”
dorcas sniffs, “i’d rather stab myself with a rusty, tattered fork from the nineteen-sixties.” at the same time marlene tsks and says in a show of faux-sadness, “didn’t take you for a traitor, meadowes.”
the sound of laughter vibrates through mary’s chest; lily stirs, just in time to see dorcas leap from the armchair, mischief and a promise illuminated on her face in the brief moment she comes into contact with the light from the fire.
then she’s landing on marlene, marlene’s yelling and kicking and screaming, all for naught. bold, strong-armed, beautifully muscular dorcas only huffs out a laugh and pushes marlene onto her stomach. blonde, wavy locks hitched onto two of marlene’s uncountable piercings; right arm pulled up behind her back.
mary laughs, lily grins, marlene groans and sputters apologies in a pitch growing louder and more panicked when dorcas tilts her head and says, faux-innocently, “did you hear something, lils, mar?”
she puts a palm against marlene’s mouth to muffle the curse marlene yells.
“there’s children living in this tower, you know,” she chides, as if there’s nothing more normal than to be perched on marlene’s back, 2 a.m. in the scottish morning in the warm gryffindor common.
in the brief moment before she takes pity on the short, lean, punk-rock marlene mckinnon, lily can see dorcas’ face outlined in the light of the fire; almost-fangs glimmering white, a laugh lasting in her eyes.
mary runs a hand through bright red-orange hair. “go back to sleep, lils.” and so she does, the world fading away again.
there’s food in the basket in her hands; treacle tarts and pumpkin juice and chocolate truffles, and the shepherd’s pie half of hogwarts knows lily loves. the elves were feeling generous today, but all of that can be forgotten for a moment more.
mary sets down the basket and treads over to a smirking dorcas, a laughing lily; a laughing lily because marlene has her wrists in a tight hold while dorcas runs her fingers down lily’s sides and the soles of her feet.
“what’d she do now?” mary grins down at the trio, taking off her long coat and shaking her head to let the last bits of snow fall onto lily’s face, making her avert that pleading emerald gaze. she didn’t have to take the walk across a snowy courtyard; she just wanted to.
dorcas’s snicker is in tandem with lily’s huffing, begging laughs, “what she always does. silly girl, you’d think you’d learn sometime.”
mary says, “hold on,” and taps gently the curve of lily’s nose, freckled with dainty brown. “what do we not do when mary’s not around to save you?”
lily heaves, deep hollow breaths, grateful for the reprieve from dorcas and her evil fingers, laughing-tears streaming from her eyes. “piss off dorcas.”
“how come you never save me?” marlene asks mary, lips set in a discontented frown.
dorcas wraps a defined, muscular arm around marlene’s shoulder and pulls her into a headlock, before relenting and pulling the blonde into an embrace. dark hands run through sunny hair. marlene’s shoulders slump, she closes her eyes.
mary says, amused, “she loves you.”
“that implies she doesn’t love me,” lily reminds her, sitting up, wiping at her eyes. there’s a wince as she realizes her abs are sore. “damn you, dorcas.”
dorcas winks, and purrs, “i don’t think it’s the damning you want to do to me.”
lily can’t help but fall apart into a laugh again, sweet chuckles like music in the quiet common, as red creeps up her neck and onto her cheeks.
mary picks up the basket and walks over, and bends down to press a kiss onto lily’s hot forehead.
“impossible not to love you, lils,” she says, a stray curl tickling the edge of lily’s jaw. she sits down, unwraps the basket.
marlene’s eyes glint with the reflection of a stubborn fire as she smiles around and announces, “tonight, we feast like queens.”
there’s a war rapping at their front doors, trying to steal away their lives and their happiness. but mary loves lily and they both love marlene and they all love dorcas, who loves them back. they’re gryffindor women. they’re going to grab all the love and life they can get.