Gryffindor vs. Slytherin
Dear Mary,
Petunia has this awful thing for American baseball players, so bad that she literally schedules dates with Vernon around their games, just to watch them play. Honestly, she’s probably the only teenager in the entirety of Ireland who cares that much about the winning and losing records of the Chicago Cubs, but here she is! God bless Killarney for having some running American stations, or the poor girl would probably pass away out of sheer depression, boredom, and loss of pleasure on the eyes. I hope you know, I am spilling her deepest, darkest secret currently in order to make a bigger point. What the hell is the deal with sports, eh? I’d care if I was athletic enough to play, but we’ve never had neighbors even close enough to try out backyard soccer.
I’m hoping you can crack this code for me, please.
(P.S. Those baseball lads are spectacular looking, to be sure.)
(P.P.S. Petunia has such great taste for someone dating Vernon Dursley.)
Lost, confused, and probably tripping over my own feet out of sheer incoordination,
Lily Evans
---
Dear Lily,
If you think American baseball is an odd thing to be riding on, just try some of the girls in my complex. Cricket is their newest thing. Cricket! Like the little bugs that make chirping noises in the country or Jiminy himself from Pinoccio and whatnot. Now, I know that it’s a real sport that is actually quite difficult and very important, but I’ll genuinely never understand the point. So many sports just to hurl different kinds of balls at each other. I haven’t been one for joining in on any kind of pick up soccer, so the enjoyment is lost on me the same as you. Really, it might be the grandest mystery in all of human past and present.
So thus, the code is uncracked, but I definitely agree with its existence.
(P.S. They have nothing on cricket!)
(P.P.S. Or on girls who trip over themselves.)
Wondering how you managed to be so brilliant and yet so clumsy,
Mary Macdonald
Chapter 17
Over the next week, Lily would come to her with random bursts of energy, participating in their regularly mild conversations one second and breaking into furiously kissing the second later. Sometimes they would be talking normally, Mary would even be midway through a joke, and Lily would pull her into a closet, a bathroom, or an empty classroom to press their bodies furiously together.
It was the culmination of too much built up energy. The whole school was in absolute uproar as the end of first term got within their sights, and the Slytherin vs. Gryffindor game drew days closer, and closer.
None of that exempted Mary and Lily from feeling the same as their peers. Though they should’ve been smarter than that, should’ve been far more able to distinguish between what were real, valid emotions and what was overactive hormones, it became stunningly hard to do so.
All of the energy seemed to make them bolder, too. They went physical places that they hadn’t dared go before, pressing into each other with an insistent need.
Mary wondered what the hell was going on with this sort of personal sexual revolution, free love and all of that hippie bullshit. She’d never felt so beholden to her own desires. As things ramped up with Lily, things pushed even harder with Sirius, too. It was some sort of odd give and take, like she had to do one thing to pay for the other.
So, she set to planning on how she would go about the biggest thing of all. She made an extensive list of things that Sirius liked. He liked when she touched his hair, he liked when she let him pretend that he was in charge. There were slight issues with her planning, though. Lily liked it when she kissed her neck, trailing down to her chest but never touching where she ought not to. Lily liked it when Mary climbed on top of her and directed as she wanted. Sometimes she would make mistakes, get things messed up.
Throughout all the need, the wanting, the lead up to the Quidditch match left her nothing but aggressive anxiety, so deep and abiding she turned to Marlene for ways to get her nervous energy out.
Every morning, they went on a freezing cold run around the castle, footing the rough terrain with easy prowess from all of their practice.
“So, what are you up to on break?” Marlene asked. She was far less out of breath than Mary, but to be fair, she was doing this for condition, not because the restless energy inside her body was driving her half to death.
“Off to London,” Mary wheezed. “No more running for me there.”
“Ah, you’ll get the hang of it eventually!” She avoided a large log with one singular leap, and Mary nearly broke an ankle attempting to do the same.
City living didn’t at all translate well at all to the grounds of Hogwarts, which were perpetually wild and untamed. In London, the closest she came to wildlife was playing out at privilege, stretched out on the grounds of some public park. At Hogwarts, there were trees that ate people. Trust her muggle upbringing never failed to rear its head in some way, this time literally swiping her legs out from under her as she stepped in a particularly large mud pile.
It was the Wednesday before the match, and it had poured rain the whole night before, leaving a light mist to fall over them as they ran.
She coughed again, “Bugger off.”
Marlene giggled resoundingly. “We all have our own talents.”
“Whatever you say,” she admitted, and they finally made it to an easier part of their usual route. “How about you then? Big plans in the running?”
“Nah, nothing huge. Just home and family, my brothers.” Marlene was the younger sibling to three triplet boys, the complete inverse of Mary and her family.
“You’re the only person I know with as many brothers as I have sisters,” she marveled. They often made this kind of joke, an easy admission of what was the same among so many things that could be different. Even before the letters and Lily, she’d told Marlene about her sisters, and gave her updates when necessary.
That was another nice reason for the runs, in all honesty on Mary’s part. She liked to hear about Marlene’s family, her easy life. Her brothers were old enough to take care of themselves. Her family was half wizarding wealth, half muggle culture. She had it perfect, and Mary envied her more than she cared to say.
“Ah, it makes Christmas certainly interesting, doesn’t it?”
“Certainly,” she agreed.
They passed the rest of the run wondering about what would be on the table for Christmas dinner that break, though Mary lied about most of her musings. Runs always made them hungry, so they often got off topic. At one point, Mexican food was brought up, which they didn’t have much of in London or Glasgow.
It was simply nice to talk about something that wasn’t shagging. Mary arrived back at the castle smiling, sweating, and full of an appetite for breakfast instead of Lily Evans.
***
Thursday was the eve of the game, a holiday practically more celebrated than the most major religious ones. Tensions grew, which was opposite to most holidays. There was no armistice in the Gryffindor-Slytherin war. On their Thursday run, Marlene had spent much of the time cursing out Dorcas Meadowes with enough fury to knock her over had wayward roots not been doing the job.
Even the Black brothers, who usually were about as stony to one another as the gargoyles that dotted the castle walls, managed to find the time to become fiery.
Sirius and Mary had been strolling along on their way to the Great Hall for breakfast, his arm draped around her shoulder and their clothes slightly disheveled (they’d just finished up one of their newest failed attempts to take it all the way), when Regulus had come brooding up to them, his eyes striking her as mirror of her boyfriends.
“Reggie,” Sirius had squeezed her hand seemingly by accident. They’d never talked about siblings, she’d never told him about the triplets, but it startlingly felt like he understood.
“Don’t call me that,” was all Regulus had mumbled out the side of his mouth.
“Don’t you want to meet my girl? She’ll be cheering for me when we demolish you at the match,” his grin was painfully sly, so much that Mary almost wanted to chide him for it. She detested being a piece in his game and then took back her emotion upon remembering what she was doing to him. “Can’t remember the last time you could say the same.”
“Very mature, Sirius,” Regulus spat hawkishly.
“Always, little brother. You know me!” Mary watched as his brow contorted and twisted with fake showmanship. She saw how much he was hurting, just as he could whenever she got letters from home. She could tell by the concern playing itself out on her face, the same look he always gave her.
By then, they had come upon each other and passed by in the corridor, so the boys were contorting themselves to even catch a glimpse of the other. The conversation was nearing it’s final blows, and Regulus was eager to get the last word in.
He smiled, revealing perfectly pearly white Black family teeth, “Oh Mary?”
Her head shot around from where it’d been stuck staring at Sirius, keeping his emotions in her field of view. She made a little questioning noise, one of her eyebrows slyly raised.
“You deserve better than this absolute twat.”
The youngest Black brother began his brisk pace again, and disappeared soon after around a bend in the cobblestone, leaving Mary struck by the fact that in their first time ever interacting face to face, she found something likable in Regulus Black. Of course, nothing of the sort could ever be said to Sirius, who was still silently seething when James ran up to them. He looked in even more distressed shape, his glasses askew and his dark skin shining with sweat.
“Regulus- this way- was trying-”
“Ah, we gathered,” she patted James’ shoulder, shaking her head at the oafish boy.
“We were talking- and I- was trying-”
“To stop him, I hope?” Sirius added. He took a decisively less approachable tact with his best friend. They’d had many a row about Regulus before. James didn’t understand the idea of leaving a brother behind, while Mary saw Sirius’s perspective, that it would only do both of them in if he stayed in that damned house.
“He was saying something about a letter- I don’t- I don’t know.” James was finally regaining his breath, which made Mary’s annoyance ebb slightly. She couldn’t make heads or tails of what the two of them were talking about, so she remained silent to listen.
“What the hell Prongs!” Sirius barked. “I told you not to talk to him about that anymore.”
“But-”
“I’m done with it. I’m rid of it all. I’m happy and I’m better off.” He grabbed onto Mary’s hand again, like it was evidence.
“I wasn’t telling you otherwise,” James argued, a boyish anger to him. “I was only trying to warn you, there’s no need to be such a prick.”
“Sure you were,” they both stared each other down, which made Mary’s hair stand on end.
“Mate-” James began to apologize, the words on the tip of his tongue, when Sirius cut him off.”
“Let’s go, Mary. I’m too knackered for this.”
She followed him without a word. As his girlfriend, it was her job to pretend like his decisions were correct and his emotions were being thought through to the perfect extent. Besides, correcting him now would get her nowhere in figuring out what this whole letter business was, and that was her main priority. Later she’d cross check her sources, see if Lily had anything that could help her. It was important to know what Sirius was up against, even if he refused to tell her himself.
Still, there wouldn’t be nearly enough time before the match for whatever talk they would end up having. Classes were on all day long, plus her duties as a proper Quidditch girlfriend were at an all time high. She and Sirius frowned all through breakfast, poking and prodding at their food with the combined annoyance of an elderly couple who’s lawn had been stepped on.
At that moment, she didn’t know what he was thinking, but her thoughts were clear enough. Lily Evans had a problematic way of making herself available.
***
The time for them to be alone didn’t present itself until very early Friday morning, long after Mary had spent all of the previous day and night making up fake excuses to get them working on the same task. Remus would shoot down any homework excuse, Marlene would assist on helping them with fashion decisions, and James and Sirius (which meant that Peter always followed) existed as prevalent specters against their ability to get some alone time.
In the very gray hours of dawn, Marlene woke them up through her hurry to get all of her equipment. They helped her gather everything that wasn’t permanently lost to disorganization, and saw her off with very pretend smiles on their faces. No one who had to get up so loudly that early in the morning was welcome in their dorm for very long.
Then, Mary turned to look at Lily, eyes shining with sleep and motioned towards the bed marked Evans. With Marlene gone, they often laid together. It seemed strange not to, a hole dug where one ought never to be, but she always asked just the same. It was important to know if something changed, important to know in case she had to run into the woods and shed every sense of identity out of pure embarrassment.
“She’s a lot, isn’t she?” Lily giggled as they fell into bed together, both smiling.
“But we love her,” Mary agreed.
“Of course,” they both smiled. She fought to keep her eyes open, to watch even a momentary flicker of green eyes through the dusky dark.
Mary wondered what this hour was called. It was the opposite of dusk, before sunrise but after the dark of night. There was probably a name for it, something that would become but hadn’t. She just didn’t know, or had yet to learn.
“Do you think there’s anyone like us out there?” she asked without meaning to.
“Like us?” Lily replied sleepily. She was probably too tired to understand, too tired to remember that they were strange and improper and should not have been laying together at all. It was hard to keep that in one’s mind when they were as comfortable as they were. It was nearly impossible to see that peace as a bad thing.
Mary leaned forward and kissed her and her curls brushed softly against the hair on Lily’s forehead, making her laugh a little. “Like us,” she implored.
“Oh,” Lily remembered. “Maybe. I’d like to think so, but I’m not sure if that’s true.”
“That makes sense,” she agreed, playing at the sleeve of Lily’s sleep shirt.
“Why do you ask?”
“James and Sirius were-”
“Them?” Lily objected immediately, stiffening in protest.
“No, no, they’re not like us,” Mary corrected her perception with ease. “I was just wondering if we seem like them, from the outside. Or if we seem worse.” She mumbled incoherently, but now Lily understood.
That didn’t mean she had anything to say, however. Silence fell between them, a silence that nearly lulled them both to sleep until Mary broke it.
“They seem right, like they have a job and they make it happen.”
“So do we,” Lily told her. She stopped her mindless fidgeting and wrapped Mary’s arms around her in a disjointed bear hug. They held each other in that too small bed, legs tangled up in warmth that verged on burning. “We’re more right than anyone.”
To Mary, it felt like they were, but she understood how it couldn’t possibly be the same from the outside.
“What made you think about the lads, anyway?” Lily asked, laying her head across Mary’s rising and falling chest.
“Sirius and Regulus fought in the corridor yesterday, worse than I’d ever seen it before, and him and James got into a row right afterwards too, like they’d been having issues about Regulus before,” she told her succinctly, each breath coming in peaceful little swells. “Sirius wouldn’t talk about it afterwards, so I was left all in the dark.”
“I see,” Lily thought.
“For a second, they were nearly as much of a mystery as we are,” she joked while brushing away a piece of hair from the nape of Lily’s neck to run her hands over that warm skin. They probably weren’t supposed to do things like this, laying in bed and talking like they would in letters.
“Impossible!” Lily cried, rolling over to smile down at her. “We’re the most mysterious of them all!”
“Very true, dear, I can’t even argue.”
“Oh please, like you could ever argue with me?”
In that instant, Mary leaned up and kissed her hard. It didn’t last for very long, like most of their kisses did. They pressed their lips together, felt that fierce moment, and retreated back under the covers to take a couple more hours of sleep until it was time to actually wake up.
***
Each meal before the match rivaled itself in pure splendor, with the draperies becoming larger and larger and the general food becoming more and more extravagant.
For breakfast Lily and Mary ate with poor Peter, left all by himself, though he would commentate the match. (Remus was nowhere to be found, as he often was.) They dined on tea, biscuits, sausage, and eggs, preparing for what would ultimately become a night of extravagant drinking.
At lunch, it was only the two of them, and it felt like hours of longing to be alone with Lily Evans were being cured in one morning of classes and one afternoon of eating undersized sandwiches at the long Gryffindor table. That was to say nothing of the time they were about to have in the coming evening. For them, things always seemed to happen the most at matches, or at parties. It was hard to keep her hands off when Lily looked how she always did, basking in the glow of the crowd and handing out smiles like free masterpieces. Mary just had to kiss her then. There was simply no other option, no other way the chemicals in her brain would flow, and she detested it greatly.
After their meal, and a little break for writing a Charms essay in between, the girls walked down to the Quidditch stadium together, wrapped in crimson and gold scarves and sporting all of their best lion apparel. It seemed like a nice day for a match. The weather wasn’t as awful as it could’ve been, and the student body seemed good tempered, even genial, to one another.
Mary hoped with all her might that this would not go poorly. Sure, the party would happen either way; sure, everything would most certainly be fine, but she hated to remember that the wizarding world had its flaws too.
They got seats next to Alice, as they always did, and she immediately started into a rant about their new found relationships with the boys.
“Isn’t it just wonderful!” she chirped. “We all have boyfriends now!”
“We’re a proper cheering section,” Mary agreed heartily, peering out of the corner of her eye to smile slyly at Lily for no good reason.
“They’re going to need it this match,” Alice told them sagely. She always had all the proper Quidditch advice, as Frank probably used his newest strategies and plays as pillow talk.
“Oh?” Lily implored further, following good conversational script.
“The Slytherins are a tough match-up, to be sure, plus there’s the added er- tensions.”
“You mean,” it was Lily who began to ask the question, this time willingly, “the war?”
There it was, in a way that struck Mary’s heart with fears she didn’t know to be valid or not. The war. Always, its specter loomed over Hogwarts, loomed over each and every student. She had the faint idea that things were getting worse, and would continue to be getting worse as long as You Know Who couldn’t be stopped. What she didn’t understand was why they weren’t allowed to say Voldemort, or what the devil business he had murdering people like her, and for that matter, why the hell any other wizard cared.
“Of course,” Alice confirmed in hushed tones. “Dumbledore has his eye on us, you know. He’s looking for people to fight back. Frank and I are talking about joining once we’re done with school. He says that this match is important, that it’ll show the- the- the other side that they can’t ever win.”
“But that’s all Frank, right?” Mary added, her eyebrows raised in fear.
Alice understood her immediately. Those were the speculations of a glory-ready seventeen year old. What was true could be exaggerated and what didn’t serve his purposes could be cut out entirely. “Some of it is. And some of its Dumbledore.”
All three of them turned their eyes away from the emerald green crowd gathering on the other side of the stadium and towards the highest box that loomed over the pitch, where Peter was no doubt preparing his speech. There the Headmaster stood, watching through his spectacles as the scene for the match was set. Mary felt distinctly afraid of him, terrified of what he knew or imagined to know.
“Better than a snooze, I suppose?” She chuckled through her teeth, showing that same discomfort to the other girls and pulling out some laughs.
“Much better than a snooze,” Lily agreed darkly and linked their arms together, the cold a perfect excuse to inch even closer.
***
The match began without a hitch, which pleasantly surprised Mary. Between Gryffindor and Slytherin, things very rarely went off so well. Still, that absence of any immediate issues didn’t exactly mean that things were going well.
The Slytherin team, though all of them hated to admit it, was good. They might have been better than Gryffindor by whole leaps and bounds had it seemed like they had any sort of urge to work together. Instead, each individual player performed insane feats of athleticism on their own, and the Gryffindors tried to exploit that selfish weakness. Mary watched Regulus in particular, interested in the fight she’d watched in the hallway. He had a pure and intelligent way of playing, different from Marlene and James, as they played like they were already concussed. He was rivaled only by Sirius, who wacked Bludgers with uncharacteristic care, like he didn’t mind that it would hurt someone, but cared instead who it would hurt.
Dorcas Meadowes, the real standout player of the match, always seemed to be the target (at least as far as Mary could tell). By the twenty minute mark, she had scored fifty of Slytherin’s eighty points, tying the entirety of the Gryffindor team. She felt impressed, but annoyed, whenever her emerald streak would zoom by, constantly tailed by a team of Mckinnon/Black Bludgers.
Luckily, their Seeker seemed to be an absolute twig when it came to the sport. He’d nearly been knocked out of the air by his own teammates at least twice, and suffered from a partial nervous break whenever the Snitch would come close to being caught.
To be fair to the poor lad, tensions rose after each goal scored. Peter’s voice went on with a persistently heightened crack to it, and Mary began to worry that he, or one of the players, was going to faint out of stress.
“Blimey, there’s Meadowes with another ten points to Slytherin,” Peter grumbled over the loudspeaker.
“Marlene’s going to have a right field day about this, isn’t she?” Mary spoke into Lily’s ear over the din.
“I’m preparing myself now,” Lily agreed.
They both were attempting to disguise their anxiety with nonchalance, and failing miserably. The whole house was on its feet, every Gryffindor (and most of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws) were standing in full support of the team on the field, though it also rather made her feel like they were ripe for a riot of some sort.
Somewhere in the whole din, clouds had gathered over the pitch, and rain began to gently fall. She was quickly forgetting everything she’d thought about it being the perfect goddamn day for this, or the fact that things had been going so well.
The Slytherin green and silver of the supporters across from them twisted and writhed under the curtains of downpour, and Mary and Lily squinted harder to pick out the players.
“Bollocks, this isn’t good,” Alice murmured angrily, her hand shielding her eyes in a fruitless attempt to find Frank. “I’ll bet he’s right losing it now.”
“I’d be too, if pricks like little Reggie were kicking my arse,” Mary poked, though there was some truth to it. It felt like the good guys were losing and unable to recover, a fake underdog story that was in fact proven to be true.
“Ah, an answering point for Gryffindor,” Peter bellowed out, this time with actual happiness in his voice.
Lily, ever the optimist, has to disagree with their previous points, “See, they’re gonna pull it off!”
Mary couldn’t help but smile at those green eyes, at that flashing smile. Her way of speaking was so bright it made you believe that they really could do anything. She would follow her anywhere, into the deepest of pits and the harshest of climates, just because of one rousing word.
“Snakes can’t get wet!” Lily screamed into the rain, her voice lost in the wind.
“Is that even true?” Mary raised an eyebrow, but she was already smiling wide.
“Snakes that live in the desert, maybe,” was the answer she received, and it made Mary want to kiss her full on the lips to reward her for a joke well done. Or something like that, a declaration of huge feelings phrased in a less embarrassing manner.
“That might’ve been the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say!” Mary remarked, giggling all the way.
“I tell you, it’s the passion of the game!” They both cackled with laughter, catching many odd glances from other members of their house.
“Dumbest thing ever is a high price, eh?” Alice interrupted, face slick with rain but briefly amused. “You two spend an awful lot of time together for that to be true.”
“Wait-” Mary started.
“We don’t really spend that much-” Lily added hastily.
“I mean it’s not like we’re attached-”
But Alice was no longer listening. As they’d been talking, something miraculous had happened on the field. The Gryffindor Seeker, that utterly useless lump, had begun to dart from place to place quicker than he normally would. Peter’s voice had begun to pick up in volume until he was shouting at the top of his lungs, all while Mary and Lily tried to reconcile their friendship with a girl who was intensely focused on one little fifth year's quest for the Golden Snitch.
For the second time in a row, Mary and Lily found themselves caught unawares as the end of the game was called. Caught in each other's eyes, caught in each other's mouths. The details changed but the specifics did not.
“I DON'T BELIEVE IT! HARRISON HAS GOT THE SNITCH HARRISON HAS GOT THE SNITCH!!”
The crowd positively erupted, carrying his voice above them like Peter was the king of all Gryffindor’s, the prince of the best house in the whole school. On the other side of the stadium, jeers exploded from what sounded like a gutturally angry pit in the middle of the Slytherin students.
“GRYFFINDOR WINS IT! THAT’S RIGHT FOLKS YOU CAN STICK THAT ONE ON THE DAILY PROPHET YOU CAN SHOVE THAT ONE RIGHT UP-”
The microphone cut out right when his boyish exultations might’ve gotten a little much for them all, and Mary turned back to the field to find Sirius floating down to the ground to stand in front of his brother. They were shouting words that no one could hear, and that no one was watching, save for her.
She felt desperation grow in her gut. There was fear there, as a dull murmur went across the Slytherin crowd. All of the players came to stand across from one another, mirroring the stance of the Black brothers, and their shouts too. Slowly, it caught more and more notice. People sat on the edge of their seats, Alice let out a terrified breath of air, and Lily gasped a hole straight through Mary’s heart.
No one knew who lunged first, but the Gryffindor and Slytherin teams devolved into punches the very moment someone crystally yelled: “OFF WITH THE MUDBLOODS!” louder than Peter could try and drown them out.
The pitch was an explosion of crimson and gold on emerald and silver as Quidditch brooms were tossed to the side and Beater’s bats were turned to more violent purposes. Mary didn’t want to be cheering as hard as she was, but she needed the lads to win it for them, for her. She’d never felt so afraid before to be a muggle born. She’d never realized that the person who happened to sit a row or two up from her in Potions could also be the one to hurl violence at her outside of school.
Mary thought of the headlines. She thought of the dead, or the soon to be. She looked down at the brawlers on the pitch, and she squeezed Lily’s hand a little tighter. It was getting worse, and they couldn’t stop it.
All told, the fight lasted twenty minutes, taking another five or so for Dumbledore to break up with some well placed freezing spells. It was clear to anyone who saw that the Gryffindor’s had won both the match and the battle thereafter. Regulus Black walked away with a black eye, Evan Rosier with a broken wrist, and Dorcas Meadowes with the worst of all, bruised pride.
Now, they really had something to celebrate about. Now, the Gryffindors, and anyone who was a friend, were in for something more akin to a rampage than a party.