Winner's Party
Dear Mary,
I think we might’ve found the only lads in the world who actually have half of their heads out of their arses. Truly, I run into these boys around town and wonder how they’ve gotten so far in life at all. The four that we have are capable of full sentences and emotional thought, when they want to be. They laugh at our jokes and tell jokes that are actually capable of being laughed at. Nothing has ever been such an achievement.
Pray for my summer, Mary Macdonald, and the oafs I deal with.
(P.S. I half expect them to assemble and turn into a pack of ogres.)
(P.P.S. Maybe magic also gives lads a personality.)
Yours in puzzlement,
Lily Evans
---
Dear Lily,
Well I certainly concur with you, I’m glad to say that it sounds like Brixton boys are slightly better than the Killarney lads. I think it’s something about power or growing up or something like that. Getting older, or getting more responsibilities gives lads the ability to actually form thoughts and have conversations that are better than grunting. No offense to you, but I struggle to think that James has ever gotten to that point, at least with me. Hopefully he’ll pull it together if he wants you so bad.
He’s a ride, after all.
(P.S. See how I must admit you’ve bagged a particularly good looking ogre!)
(P.P.S. Like a princess in a novel, I tell you.)
Yours in agreement,
Mary Macdonald
Chapter 31
The Gryffindors, without any anxiety, soundly defeated Slytherin in the Quidditch tournament and took home the largest trophy Mary had ever seen. She spent the whole game leaning on Marlene to stop herself from falling over with boredom, while her friend watched Dorcas in the sky.
She did make a formidable Chaser, standing out alongside Regulus Black as the only Slytherin worth their salt. Sirius would probably rage against it later, yammering on about how he should’ve slammed a good deal more Bludgers at his head. At least, he would if Remus could stand to give him the air to speak. They had been fighting lately, it seemed to Mary. She couldn’t imagine what two lads even had to fight about, but everyone was fighting lately, weren’t they?
Whatever the matter, the entire house was extremely drunk and strewn about in various fashions across the common room. Mary felt herself slipping drunker and drunker, her head sliding off of Marlene’s shoulder and lolling in the air before she would take another shot of Firewhiskey and perk up again.
Lily was dancing far away in the center of the room with James, the pair of them amid a group of revelers so dense Mary could barely see through them.
Marlene nudged her at intervals when they were left alone to their slumping.
“You should go talk to her,” she said.
“She doesn’t want me to,” Mary slurred in reply.
Thus went the inebriated cycle. Even through her high Mary remembered that Lily detested her lately. Their shouting loomed large on her mind, fighting against her each time she tried to break the silence and poke herself into James Potter’s protective bubble. Always, Lily shot her a darkened sidelong glance. Always, her hands clung to James tighter.
Then, out of the pure blue, Remus stepped forward to them.
“How’re you lot?” he grunted, clearly in an extremely foul mood.
“What’s wrong with you?” Marlene asked instinctively, her voice jumping into a near laugh.
“I could ask you the same, eh?” In his own pointed way, Remus made a rather evil joke.
“Fair enough,” Marlene shrugged.
“Sure, fair enough,” Mary concurred.
“Lily told me you three weren’t speaking.” He leaned on the wall next to them and inconspicuously lit a fag.
“We weren’t,” Mary shrugged full of fury. “But now we,” she gestured between herself and Marlene, “are. We,” she gestured between herself and faraway Lily, “are not.”
“I see,” Remus took a long drag before handing the cigarette to Mary.
“So that’s what’s wrong with us,” Marlene chuckled.
Wrong with me, more, Mary thought.
“And I, thankfully, remain a mystery.”
“A prick, morelike,” she bit out a laugh.
Lily must have heard her laugh cut over the party like a knife straight through the heart. There were gunshots through the night in Brixton, sharp and loud and violent. That’s how Lily looked at her now, eyes full of fire and turned up to ten. She let her mouth fall open as her breath came raggedly.
Remus turned around where he stood, stretching so as not to knock over a pack of girls that ran around his chest and took off for more booze. They both saw what she was looking at, even over all the people. Marlene snatched his cigarette, covered by his apparent distraction, and did not notice Lily Evans drawing James into a kiss so intense it would have stopped the stars.
Mary sighed. Remus looked at her.
“You should go talk to her,” he told her.
“She doesn’t want me to,” Mary gave him her reply.
“Maybe.” His bony shoulders shrugged. He looked stronger then, a defiant smile playing at his scarred features, than any other lad she knew. Smarter, too, with a perception that ran right through her. “But you two always find a way.”
***
Sirius came upon Mary alone, next time. They had not spoken in days at that point, orbiting on worlds far separate from each other, even if they did both have their shared kind of sadness. He was still almost the same as her. He still had nice eyes that gleamed when he grinned. But they had not spoken in days, weeks really.
Well, at least Sirius got to keep all his friends even when Remus was mad at him. It gave Mary a very good deal of hope for when Lily never spoke to her again.
“You alright there Macdonald?”
Marlene had left her long ago to get another drink, and then to play some asinine game with James and Peter. Thankfully, Sirius found no interest in such habits. His charms came from a much more refined place that did not involve winning and throwing things about.
“Horrid, actually,” he laughed. “We know how to piss ‘em off, eh?”
Mary got the sense he was hiding a deep guilt over whatever happened. She saw it in his eyes, the way his chuckles fell and broke halfway through. The f hanging from his hand was flickering out. He probably deserved it, maybe even as much as she did.
“We do indeed.” She watched as he took out an ornate House of Black lighter from the pocket of his trousers and re-lit his cigarette in several halting attempts. She wondered if Regulus Black smoked, partied down with Dorcas Meadowes.
“How have you been?” she slurred.
“Alright,” he told her honestly, tossing his hair back.
“It’s been a while, you know,” she rolled her eyes. “Since you’ve spoken to me at all.”
“I’m sorry, Macdonald.”
“Oh yeah?” It was funny, Sirius Black saying sorry at all. He didn’t have a leg to stand on for apologies. Money gave the illusion that forgiveness was easily bought, and most people tended to reinforce that notion. Not Mary, though. As much as she longed to be wealthy like he was, her life had been so absent of wealth that she couldn’t really miss it. You couldn’t miss what you never had. Or so some saying went.
“I was a right prick to you, and you didn’t deserve that.”
“Whatever,” she shrugged, jaded and unfeeling for his sincerity. He’d been right, in his own way. They were destined to fail because he groomed his hair for hours each morning and she did not long for him in the slightest. They both deserved the anger they were getting.
“It’s my own head working against me. Not you.”
“I figured.” Again, she shrugged. “Projecting and whatnot.”
“Whatever you prefer to think, yes.” They could certainly dish it out to each other, to be certain. It didn’t even hurt when Sirius said it, his gray eyes glinting mischievously in the firelight.
“Funny that we both ended up the same way, eh?” she laughed.
“We haven’t ended up as anything yet,” he retorted back quickly, cuttingly.
“Well you know what I mean, with Remus and Lily mad at both of us.”
“Sweet Merlin, public opinion is going to be much worse when I end up as the Minister of Magic anyway.” Sirius raised a sly eyebrow.
“And when I end up as a famous actress!”
It would be funny to be old. She wondered if they would talk, way down the line. She wondered if they would still smoke, or if the habit would get more sour as the threat of death loomed more imminently. Mary hoped she would know Sirius, still. If they didn’t smoke they could still drink together, on special occasions.
As they often did, her eyes landed on Lily. She could tell that Sirius was watching her stare and it would only be a matter of time before he said something. Whatever the matter. He had an inkling of it already.
“You should go talk to her,” Sirius told her, eventually.
“She doesn’t want me to,” Mary replied, again.
“Everyone wants you to, Mary Macdonald,” he laughed, head thrown back and beautifully lit. “That’s your magic, you know. Can’t say no to that smile.”
***
Later that night, much much later, Lily ran right by her and tumbled up the stairs towards their dormitory. Mary watched her pass, a blur of red hair and freckles and green eyes that she halfway conjured in her mind. It seemed like an emergency, or something of the sort. Usually, Mary would’ve followed quickly on her heels, but she only watched. She could not bear to make it worse.
Then, like her own personal disaster, James Potter came to stand next to her.
“Hiya, Mary!” he chirped. “Nice party, eh?”
“Very nice party, yeah,” she agreed.
“It’s not the same when there’s something going between you girls,” he continued condescendingly.
“Oh?” Mary was slightly dumbfounded at his pure boldness. How deep was he in his own world that he couldn’t see how hard this must be for them? Even in its barest form, it was nearly impossible.
“Really, you two light up the room.”
“If only I could get her to believe that,” she laughed a little, halfway shocked. If only Peter wasn’t so shitfaced already, he could’ve added to the lad’s tour of her night and psyche. James Potter, getting under her skin. James Potter, live and in person.
“Ah, she’s probably just feeling overwhelmed or something. She won’t tell me what it’s about, you know. So it’s probably nothing, I mean,” James rambled.
“Mysterious woman, Lily Evans.”
“Merlin, I know,” he chuckled.
They were quiet, both bobbing their heads in time with the music.
“You two are best friends,” he tried to comfort her again, after a while. “That means something. Like, when or if Sirius is mad at me I know it’s never gonna make us split from each other because we’re best friends. You two are the same.”
If only they were the same, so simple as Sirius and James could be.
“Besides, you’ve got me on your side, Macdonald!”
Mary laughed in disbelief, shaking her head on why that was even true.
“You’re good for her, I can tell.” Sometimes, Mary thought she could tell it too. Lily laughed when they were together. She smiled and she laughed and she said things that she didn’t say to anyone else.
“Go talk to her,” James told her, gesturing up the stairs.
Mary looked up, then back to his smiling face, already double-crossed.
“She doesn’t want me to,” she replied sincerely, her voice nearly breaking.
“She does, Mary,” James Potter told her. “She just doesn’t know how to tell you.”
***
Lily was standing in the middle of the bedroom when Mary got there, doubled over in the center of the room with her hands clutching her waist and her stomach.
For a moment, she could not muster the courage to say anything at all. They hadn’t consciously been in a room together since the fight. One of them had always been sleeping, dead to the existence of the other for the only time in the world. It was too hard to avoid your roommate, see. They lived with each other, slept next to each other, slept in each other’s beds.
“Lily?” she said like she had to make sure. This picture was very alien from the best friend that she knew. Lily Evans didn’t get sick at parties, she didn’t even get drunk enough to imagine such a thing.
“We’re not talking,” Lily told her, spitting each word together.
“Aren’t we talking right now?” Mary wasn’t the kind of drunk to throw up yet, only the kind to laugh at things that weren’t funny.
“Not really, we’re not supposed to.”
“James said I should,” she told her honestly. James, and basically everyone else too.
“Well James doesn’t know what in God’s name he’s talking about, does he?”
“He’s your boyfriend, Lily. He knows something.”
“Don’t say something awful again. I can’t take it.” Wasn’t like she took it last time, either. She dished it out before it ever got that bad, and Mary was the one who took it. “You know James doesn’t understand these things. We never fight, he won’t let us. We never fight like you and I.”
“You’re drunk, Lily. I can help you to bed.” Mary stepped forward and reached out a hand for her to take.
“I don’t need your help.” Lily stepped back.
“I don’t see anyone else to help you.”
They both blinked, staring. Mary just wanted to hold her close. No kissing, no heat. It was the sign of something much worse inside her heart, something far more damaging to both of them.
“And I want to take care of you,” she murmured softly. Needing it, more than wanting. That was the thing, the big ticket item.
“Then do it,” Lily spat it out like the insult that it was.
Still, Mary did. She took her hand and led her to the bathroom, splashed water on her face and led her to the toilet so that she could vomit the bile out of her stomach and sober up again. Mary combed through her long red hair once she was done vomiting up what was left. Then, even when she was sober and the remnants of anger could return, sleep overtook that. Something warm and dark and soft.
She led her back to the bed and laid her down with gentle support. It was cold in the bedroom, except for them. The covers were a welcome comfort, evident in Lily’s peaceful sighs. When Mary moved to stand she was pulled back by a sure and light hand clamping around her wrist.
“Kiss me,” Lily pleaded, only once.
“Lily, I don’t-”
“Kiss me,” she demanded. “And lay down.”
So, even though she knew it would make her angry in the morning and they would go on to who knows what, she bent down and pressed a soft kiss to Lily’s lips. A goodnight kiss.
She laid in bed and opened the book on Lily’s bedside table to the bookmarked page. It’s Remus’s handwriting that flags the page.
For you to mull on. His handwriting was hard to read, scratchy and grating. Lily’s breath snored softly next to her. Mary read on.
“Wild nights - Wild nights!” by Emily Dickinson. She was American, Mary was relatively sure. And dead for a long time now. And depressed. Of course Remus loved her. Mary didn’t read poetry, not like the other two. She struggled with words that meant much more than what they sold themselves as. Only when meaning struck her dumb across the face did she understand it. Nothing struck her dumb yet.
Wild nights - Wild nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
(Wild nights, eh? Remus copied down. He’d doodled something in the margins too, a little heart, a little bit extra.)
Futile - the winds -
To a Heart in port -
Done with the Compass -
Done with the Chart!
(Done with the Compass, Done with the Chart. Do you see? He continued. There was a little ship in the margins, and more notation that Mary couldn’t read.)
Rowing in Eden -
Ah - the Sea!
Might I but moor - tonight -
In thee!
Remus’s little notes scrawled in the margins at odd intervals that must’ve held some meaning to them. You understand what she’s telling you, don’t you? He scribbled. His commentary held no explanation, no further details. He told Mary what she had already read and told Lily all the secrets that she longed to know so badly. There it was, the view to Lily’s brain, and Mary’s vision clouded over.
She was struck dumb, then, by the meaning of things that she did not grasp. The notes in these margins were like Julien’s club. The rhythm and pacing pounded just the same. She felt it, if only barely, in Dickinson’s lilting refrain.
All Mary could think, through the scent of Lily’s perfume in her nose and the gentle sound of her breath soothing to the ear, was that she was mooring in her tonight, certainly. Emily Dickinson would have enjoyed that fact. Did she take lovers? Did she get drunk and have them put her to bed? Mary kissed the top of her head and smiled. Moor in thee, she thought, laughing.
Soundly, she let the wild night come to its end, and leaned on Lily Evans to snore softly away.
They didn’t speak in the morning, again, but Mary saw well enough that Lily was smiling when she woke.