The Dinner
“New York, here we are!” Marlene yells, stepping off the plane.
James laughs. “You’re going to do this every time we land, aren’t you?”
“And when we take off.”
“We have a hotel, right?” Sirius asks.
“You two don’t know how to plan ahead for anything.”
“That’s why you do it for us.” Marlene replies.
James rolls his eyes and Remus scoffs. “You can’t let him do everything for you.”
“Sure, we can.”
“Alright, alright. Enough.” Lily says. “James and I planned for our hotel rooms anyway. I’m assuming Regulus did, too.” Lily turns around and shouts, “Hey! Black!”
Regulus walks farther up towards them. “Hmm?” Regulus hums.
“Did you reserve hotel rooms for your friends?”
“Uh, yeah. Alice and Narcissa were busy.”
Remus laughs. “Your brother is more responsible than you.” Sirius sticks his tongue out at his boyfriend.
“See, Siri.” Lily says. “Your brother knows how to be responsible.”
“Shut up, Lils.”
Lily laughs. “Come on, Jamie. Let’s go be responsible and drive the cars.”
“You drive the cars?” Barty asks from behind them.
“Let me guess, you have a driver?” Mary says from beside Barty.
Barty rolls his eyes. “Of course, we do. We’re famous.”
“We’re famous and we drive our own cars.”
“Yeah, well. We don’t want to.”
“Shut up, Barty!” Evan says. “Let’s just go.”
Barty rolls his eyes and starts walking ahead of everyone with Evan. Pandora, Regulus, and Dorcas get in the car with them, along with their driver waiting in the front seat. Mary, Marlene, Remus, Sirius, and Peter get in the other car, with James and Lily in the front. Alice, Emmeline, Narcissa, and Minerva’s car is waiting on the other side of the street for them to arrive, which their airplane will come in a few hours, as they had stuff to do before they left.
***
James flops down on his bed just as there’s a knock on the door. James groans loudly and gets up to answer it. “Dorcas,” James says confusedly.
Dorcas pushes past James and into his room. James closes the door and walks over to the couch where she’s sitting. James sits down and waits patiently for her to start talking. “So, I have a question.” James nods, signaling Dorcas to continue. “It’s about Marlene,” James nods again. “I think I’m scared.”
“Scared of what?”
Dorcas opens her mouth and the closes it. “I don’t know.”
James realizes what she’s talking about. “Do you think maybe it could be because you think she won’t like you?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, I can tell you that she does, in fact, like you.”
“How do you know that?”
“You tell your best friend everything, don’t you?”
“Yeah, oh.” James nods. Dorcas smiles. “Thank you, Potter. This meant a lot to me. Thank you.” Dorcas stands up and stops in front of the door before walking out. “Oh, and don’t tell my friends I went to you about this and not them. They’d scold me and I’d much rather not have that happen right away.”
James smiles. “I get it. I won’t tell them.”
“Thank you.”
After Dorcas left, James flopped back down on his bed and took a nap.
***
“James Fleamont Potter!” James jolts up from where he was sleeping on his bed and turns to his friend. “What the hell do you think you're doing still sleeping?”
“I was tired.”
“So? You have to get ready, Jamie. We have dinner tonight with Minnie and you know she’ll get mad if you miss it.”
“Em, we just got here, and our first show is tomorrow.”
“Which is why the dinner is tonight.” Emmeline says. “Come on, James. Your clothes are on the end of your bed. Just get ready and I’ll meet you downstairs.”
James groans while Emmeline walks out, leaving James to get ready himself.
***
“Time for dinner!” Marlene screams outside the hotel. Everyone on the street turns to them, glaring for disturbing the peaceful night.
“Calm down, Marls.” Lily says.
They all start walking to the restaurant which is a few blocks away from where they’re staying in the city. “You’re late.” Minerva says.
Mary smiles nervously. “Sorry. James took forever.”
Minerva turns her glare to him before turning around and walking into the restaurant. Narcissa and Alice are both at the table talking while they wait for everyone. “Where’s everyone else?” Remus asks.
“Probably exploring the town somewhere.” Alice says. “You get used to it.”
“They should be here soon, though.” Commotion comes from the front. “That would be them.”
“Of course it is.” Emmeline says under her breath.
Barty and Evan come stumbling in and sit beside Alice, Pandora and Regulus sit beside Narcissa, and Dorcas beside Marlene.
Minerva sighs. “Boys, sit.” They do. The waiter comes over to take their orders before Minnie starts talking. “I’m Minerva McGonagall but you can call me Minnie. I’m not sure if you’ve done this before, but every night before every show in a new city, we sit down and talk. We catch up, we discuss the next few shows in the city that we’re in. But, for now, we can get to know each other. So, Regulus, tell us a little about yourself.”
After the first portion of talking, they get into talking about the show they’re doing tomorrow. Regulus, Evan, Pandora, Barty, and Dorcas are doing some of their most popular songs to start off the tour, Marlene, Mary, and Lily are doing a few songs from their most popular album, and James, Remus, Peter, and Sirius are doing their less popular songs. They think if they play during more tours, they’ll climb up the ladder.
They started talking about random things when they stopped talking about the show and Barty decided to start a ruckus because he got cut off from wine and just went into the back and came back out with a bottle of it. By the end of the night, they were all stumbling trying to walk to their hotel and finally made it after a lot of help from Minerva, Narcissa, and Alice.
James and Marlene stumble in Marlene’s room and fall down onto the bed together, falling asleep without a trouble in the world. In the morning, they’ll find out the room they stumbled into wasn’t Marlene’s, but someone else’s.