The First Hogsmeade
Dear Mary,
For the first time all summer, something finally interesting happened in Killarney! Or at least, something particularly to the teenage demographic. Six lads from in town got into an absolutely mythic brawl, fully throwing punches and kicks and biting the hell out of each other. I’m pretty sure at least half of them lost some teeth because of it! I know that things like that probably happen all of the time in London, but it was certainly a sight to see in this pocket of the world. Boys at Hogwarts wouldn’t last a minute in muggle towns, don’t you think? I have half the mind to tell someone like James how feminine he looks fighting with magic. Like a wand, come on! It’s almost too funny to be true.
I hope you share in this realization that wizards are all wusses.
(P.S. I mean this all with utmost love.)
(P.P.S. But also a great deal of laughter.)
Thrilled to be chuckling alongside you,
Lily Evans
---
Dear Lily,
Boys in Brixton fight like it’s their full time job, though most pay no attention (except for the girls, of course.) Imagining them waving little sticks at each other has had me in stitches the entire night, I have to be truthful with you. It’s a wonder they can ever find anyone to date them, with how truly oafish they must look. I guess we’re tragically susceptible now, the older we get. Hopefully those wand-wielding wussies will start to look a little bit more manly, like they could actually protect you over something. I’m certainly intrigued to see whatever’s going to happen this next school year, that’s to be sure.
Muggle-borns single-handedly keep magical reputation up, in my opinion.
(P.S. We know how much love you have for purebloods!)
(P.S.S. I’m picturing a certain pair of glasses.)
Imagining you blush,
Mary Macdonald
Chapter 16: The First Hogsmeade
In the middle of November, the Gryffindor’s began to gear up for their second Quidditch match of the year, led by the gregariously joyful Frank and James. It was as if a switch had been flipped on that Friday morning, a full week out from the game itself, that made everyone in the common room suddenly giddy at the anticipation of what was to come. Mary, wise from her five full years at the school, could very well tell why. It was the Gryffindor-Slytherin game, sure to draw a crowd that was more angry than most.
As such, she moved through the halls with a little less confidence than usual. She spent all of Friday night holed up in the dorms with Lily and Marlene (who only had to leave for an apparently crucial hour long Quidditch practice), eating magical chocolate and dishing out secrets about the entirety of their year.
It was a nice night, one that they tried to make a weekly tradition. Lily and Mary sat too close together on the floor, opposite Marlene leaning against her own bed.
Late at night, once Marlene was finally back, they talked about their plans for the next day.
“I know we say this every year, but I really believe Hogsmeade is going to be so class this year!” Lily chirped, eating another Cauldron Cake in three dainty bites.
“Every year, and it turns out to be the same,” Marlene remarked with much snark, but smiled.
There was something about them growing up how they did, always together, always sharing this same room, that made it so easy to look back on the past. It felt like 1970 was right around the corner. They were young and standing on the edge of a life, thinking about how thrilling it would be to one day go into town like the older kids could. Then, they did go into town, but they looked forward to other things instead. Everything was thrilling, until it became the thing that was happening. Then they looked on to the next thing, together.
“What’s our itinerary, then?” Mary inquired. Lily and Marlene were very rigorous planners when it came to their social schedules, especially when the Slytherin match was coming up. It was important to keep out of the path of rampaging idiots, like Snape or Regulus Black were likely to be, though they were the least oafish of all their comrades.
“I vote Scrivenshaft’s for new quills, Honeydukes to restock on,” she waved around her newest chocolate frog and smiled, “and then the Three Broomsticks for some more chit-chatting, eh?”
“Honestly, not even I can find a fault!” Lily joked a little, slightly leaning down onto Mary’s shoulder with a giggle.
“Will the boys be joining us?” Marlene asked with a discrete level of annoyance. To be fair, James and Sirius had tended to haunt their interactions whenever possible. In Mary’s mind, the former was the most annoying to ever interact with, as the latter at least pretend to respect their conversational structure.
“Maybe at the Three Broomsticks, if that’s alright? I know Sirius would love to come.” She said before Lily had to make up some excuse of her own. It was good practice to be seen around town with the boyfriends, a practice that covered them up in the right places.
“James too!” Lily squeaked a little, her muscles performing one grateful little nudge into Mary’s side.
“Just as long as you two stay away from Madam Puddifoot’s.” Marlene threatened with a pointed finger, which made the two of them laugh.
“Don’t ever worry about that,” Mary joked back. “I can only imagine the kind of people that must skulk around in that place.”
Lily and Marlene fell into laughter, picturing some of the characters in their grade.
“Some oddly placed Slytherin, right?” she kept on going, “Dorcas Meadowes, Evan Rosier, and loads and loads of pink drapery!” The joke finished out with fits of giggles, though Marlene didn’t laugh as much as she often would.
“Is it dishonorable to mock your enemies so soon to the big game!” Lily picked up a box of every flavour beans and threw it at Marlene, chuckling a little at her reluctance to giggle.
“I need to beat them fair and square,” Marlene grumbled in reply, catching the box with her eyes solemnly closed. She got into an odd mentality about Quidditch, like they were fighting some cosmic battle to save Hogwarts using broomsticks, clubs, and an odd assortment of balls. This odd phenomenon, which tended to mystify the other two, was probably due to the fact that she actually kept up with wizard events, and thus knew how sports factored into them. Mary and Lily, however, had never been more lost.
“Fine, fine, I suppose we can scrap the smack talk, only for a little bit,” Mary declared dubiously, which made Lily giggle. They shared a glance and then yanked their eyes away, hell bent on not thinking what they most certainly both were.
Marlene leapt to her feet and assumed the pose she took for her very best McGonagall impression, “Your house thanks you indubitably, girls!”
This time, they all dissolved into giggles. Marlene’s impressions of any of the Professors never failed to get them going and for that, she would always be adored. For once, they managed to break the two versus one streak they’d been running on. Mary felt glad to finally get Marlene in on the joke, glad that it drove a stake through whatever hormones coursed through her heart.
***
The first Hogsmeade she’d ever experienced with a boy, it had poured the live-long day through. She remembered Timothy Credmorning like she remembered any other of her mythic conquests, which was as a means to an end, and usually not very well at all. In his case, the biggest thing that stuck out was how he’d try to make an umbrella with his wand and ended up shooting out a hose jet that nearly knocked them both over with its force. Safe to say, poor Tim hadn’t lasted very long in the Mary Macdonald books.
He’d only been the beginning of her flawed quest for domination of Hogwarts boys, though. After Timothy Credmorning, lads flocked to her in a never ending stream that she very much enjoyed. They were her boyfriends, her companions, her side pieces, until they asked her for something more than she thought they deserved, which brought her to her very crucial current issue.
Mary had never been with a boy. She was sixteen years old, generally considered to be a ride, and had never gone that far before.
With Sirius, this posed a problem. He would want to do it, inevitably. Rich boys always wanted to the most. Premarital intimacy was the biggest sin for people with money, or at least the most common one. He would want to do it, more than anything, to spite his awfully uptight parents. She didn’t know too much about his “complex mental, inner life” as he’d touted it to her before, but she could assume that much.
Hogsmeade always made her think of it because she’d been groped under a Three Broomsticks table quite a few more times than she’s ever cared for, like leaving the school gave boys a new kind of ugly courage. She was hoping that Sirius was different, or that she could come up with a proper solution.
Tragically, the second option was not very likely. The girls had stayed up until two in the morning gossiping to their heart's content. Someone new was always snogging, the latest couple was always breaking up. It was nice to talk about problems that weren’t their own.
Still, they left very promptly at around ten o’clock, making their way down to the carriages earlier than they knew the boys would dream of to get their errands out of the way. Thankfully, no one was out that early in the morning. The inter-house rivalry had not begun to rear its ugly head, yet, and Mary found herself pleasantly surprised at how simple it was to snag their very own carriage.
Things were always nicer when it was just the three of them. They were able to make quick work of the errands, even creating extra time in the schedule just to windowshop in between each planned stop.
At Honeydukes, Mary picked out Lily’s favorite candy without having to ask, and Marlene chose the most disgusting sweets imaginable, preparing in advance for some awfully enjoyable trick on the boys. Lily blushed when Mary handed her the acid pops, and Marlene guffawed at some particularly realistic looking cockroach clusters.
So obviously, things had been going terrific for the first two hours of the day when, like clockwork, Hogsmeade naturally went to shit.
They were going to find the boys, who were supposedly going to pop out of Zonko’s to meet them, when Severus Snape melted out from the spidery corner he’d been hiding in to stand in front of them, practically shivering under the glare of a late fall sun. He looked to be sickly pale at this point, his black hair hanging in limp, greased up tendrils. Snape had grown up in a way very different from the rest of them. While the other kids grew up, or matured, he seemed to only become an enlarged version of his younger self, expanding and elongating into a very sunken form of teenager.
Mary curled up her nose, but Snape got in the first word. “I’ve been trying to find you-”
“I told you, Sev, I didn’t want to talk,” Lily cut into his words with biting anger. She was looking at the ground and clutching the bag of sweets Mary had gotten her.
“Too bad the company you keep didn’t make you realize the mistake you made,” he grumbled back, just as James and Sirius exploded forth from the joke shop, tumbling to stand on either side of Snape.
The two boys were much taller than him, or simply much more good looking in a way that gave them extra height. They towered over him and the epic war that had brewed over their tenure at Hogwarts was clearly already won. Snape never stood a chance, not when he looked greasy enough to be fried and the other two were models of pureblood breeding.
“Oi, Snivellus!” Sirius barked. “Feeling fancy today, are we?”
“Is he bothering you girls?” James made quick work of matching the taunting tone. They were practiced competitors.
Lily looked at Snape with all of the fear and hurt Mary could’ve possibly pictured pouring forth from her eyes. Her pulse quickened, and her temperature began to rise. How could she stand to be sad over someone like Snape? How could she do such a thing, when whatever stood between them never seemed to make her tick?
“As a matter of fact, he is,” Marlene cut in. She was more like one of the lads than anything else. It was, among other things, her grandest desire to see Snape’s head roll.
“You heard her, Snivellus!” Sirius smirked. “Shove off, won’t you?”
“I only wanted to see the happy couples for myself,” Snape sneered, looking right at Lily. For a moment, Mary imagined she could see him looking at her too, a horrible curve to his upper lip. She tried to look at Lily, who was only staring at James.
“Well you’ve caught a look now,” James wasn’t joking, not like how Sirius dallied and giggled. His face was dark, and Mary was sure that he would’ve understood how she was feeling.
“And it’s exactly what I expected.” He was altogether too pleased with himself, which made Mary feel very ill at ease.
There wasn’t quite a crowd growing, but it was getting to the point where she could feel people brush around her back, bumping in and wondering what the whole issue was. That meant only bad news for the Gryffindors. Snape was good at turning them into something evil, which she thought the boys could tend to be. It never looked good to have five of them against one slimy boy.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” James poked further. Sirius had retreated slightly behind his friend, but brought his wand out from the folds of his robes.
“Oh nothing, Potter. I doubt you’d understand.” He was so clearly placing the bate, Mary nearly kicked James Potter.
“Try me.” James practically had his hands around Snapes collar now, his glasses sitting slightly askew and some disgusting vein popping out of his neck due to sheer frustration. He was far too handsome to turn red, so he settled for burning eyes. Lily was shifting from foot to foot without ever glancing up from the ground.
“All I mean is, does she put out for you, Potter?” Snape broke into a full leer, his face gleefully twisting. “I was only wishing to assess your luck.”
“I-” James stuttered out of absolute pure shock.
“Or is she too good for it?” He was only looking at Lily now. “What do we all think?” Snape turned to the waiting crowd, more daring than she’d ever seen him before, almost hell bent on ruining somebody’s day, month, or life.
Lily’s face turned bright red, flushing all the way out to the tips of her ear, and she ran into the crowd just as James, Sirius, and Marlene pounced on Snape. Mary didn’t know what to do. On one hand, she wished to pound the greasy prick into a thin, filmy, pulp. On the other, Lily Evans was crying and all she wanted to do was make her feel better. Torn between both extremes, she took off after her best friend.
“Lily,” she called into the alleyway, looking down to find her propped up against the wall. “Are you alright, dear?”
“No, I’m not alright,” Lily snapped back, wiping something away from her eyes.
“Idiotic question, eh?” she chuckled in an embarrassing attempt to pull a laugh.
“A wee bit, yes.” She laughed and glared at the same time, though it was hard for Lily to pretend that she was ever mad at Mary. They both knew that much.
“Don’t let Snape bother you,” Mary declared, her eyebrows creasing together. There was a mild commotion coming from the streets they’d just come from, but neither of them particularly cared.
“I wasn’t trying to let him,” she snapped back.
“Then why does it matter?” To Mary, who cared if James and Lily were together in the biblical sense? They were beautiful together, and they were happy. It didn’t matter for shit what someone like Snape said, only bitter about what he could never happen. She didn’t imagine what would happen if something said that about her and Sirius. Not terrifying at all.
“Well, do you think I put out for James?”
“I mean-” she shrugged. She tried not to think about it.
“I don’t,” Lily frowned. “Not often, and not well, and now everyone can see that.”
“Come onto him, then,” Mary shrugged back. It was easy with Sirius, though they hadn’t done it all the way. They made out and Mary enjoyed it, doing her due diligence. She would get the big thing out of the way, one day.
“It’s harder than that,” she objected. “I don’t know why, but it is.”
Mary looked at her dutifully, out of the corner of her eye. She felt her eyebrows fluttering, completely on accident. She looked at her with too much love, an embarrassing amount of affection.
“Lily-”
“I’m not- I’m not- well you understand, don’t you?”
She did understand.
“Of course. Me neither. Of course.” She repeated, and they both nodded.
After a thoughtful pause, Mary assured her. “Snape is a prick, he only wants to snatch you away from Potter, everybody knows that.”
“They do?”
“Of course, dear! And you’ll get it done with James, you know.” She grimaced through some awful pain in her gut. “You two are perfect for each other.”
“You think so?” Lily looked up at her, a high question in her voice. A proposition that Mary could only accept.
“I do.” Mary stuck out her hand, smiling.
“Really?” Lily embraced their fingers together and their pulses shot up in perfect unison.
“Really,” she pulled her up and they were nose to nose, face to blushing, smiling face.
“Let’s go see how bad they’ve sorted him out, shall we?” Mary dropped her hands like they contained a stunning charge that was threatening to zap them both to kingdom come.
“Let’s do it,” Lily smiled back.
She longed to know what was happening inside of her mind. She felt like their conversation set forth something new, a different kind of objective in their relationship. Sleep with a boy, and they were safe. Want one, and they could do anything they wanted forever and ever. Her head spun, but she followed in Lily’s footsteps like a dutiful dog.
Gryffindor had lost one hundred points by the time they got back. Snape was slowly being unfrozen, and Marlene, James, and Sirius spoke giddily to each other with massive grins spread across their faces.
“Oh Lily, I’m so sorry!” James cried out the moment he saw them walk up, running forward to embrace her in one sweeping hug.
She couldn’t hear what they were saying after that. She fell in step with Sirius and watched for the rest of the day as they paraded around each other, hands brushing and faces stretching into smiles.
Mary strategized. She dreaded the week ahead, but knew she could stomach it. London offered lads who weren’t Sirius Black. London offered boys she could make it with, and then dispose of. One Quidditch match couldn’t possibly drag out that much. Eventually, James Potter would leave the spotlight of Lily’s mind, and she would be there in the meantime. Always happily haunting with a strangeness that couldn’t be solved.