7th year, Gryffindor Common Room
James had unsurprisingly led his team to victory once again which, once again, meant another Gryffindor after party. James revelled in these parties, first to get them up and running and last to leave (never without helping to clean up though, he did have some fear towards Mcgonagall).
Lily was not not a fan of parties, she actually happened to enjoy cutting loose around her friends; uncoordinated dancing mixed with admittedly awful singing which was all heightened by cheap alcohol had contributed to some of her favourite memories of being at Hogwarts.
But this year was always going to be different, there was a war and she was going to be on the front lines in a few months, they all were.
Lily, Marlene, Mary, Remus, Dorcus, Sirius, Peter.
And James.
James and Lily had finally stopped stepping around the fact that they were stupidly in love with each other.
Lily had had to stop reading the paper. The thought of the Daily Prophet and its endless stories of death and violence had started to plague her, not just in her dreams anymore but in her waking hours.
It was fair to say Lily was not faring too well this year.
“Lily pleeeease! It will be fun I promise.” Marlene was two seconds away from dragging Lily down to the common room by her ponytail at this point.
This wasn’t to say Marlene wasn’t also depressed by the goings on but it was moments like these where she simply chose to be a teenage girl. The war couldn’t touch them at parties.
Lily let her head rest on her desk for a moment before giving in, “fine.”
“Yes! It’ll be fun, Lils. You can complain about it tomorrow when we’re holding each other’s hair over the toilets, mkay?”
“Mkay.”
-
A Gryffindor party is exactly what you’d think it is: music blaring from all directions, shirts stained by spilt drinks and good ol’ Gryffindor sweat, red and gold shouting in your face. They were many things but lacking in house spirit was not one of them.
Lily had lost Marlene not 20 minutes after they got downstairs. The blonde had probably slinked off with Dorcus leaving Lily stranded in a sea of drunken teenagers, solo cup clutched in a tense hand. Hmm fuck.
“LILY!”
She looked up to see James waving at her from the other side of the room, flanked by Sirius and Remus who were in some light-hearted debate, about the music probably. Lily weaved through the hoard of people to where James was standing and got locked into his arms as soon as she got within his reach.
“Did’ya see Lils! we won! Again!” He was so happy, and she was so happy for him.
“I’m just saying that ABBA isn't that great compared to literally everything else.” Lily and James turned their attention to the squabble happening beside them.
“Remus you’re just upset that you’re not a dancing queen yet.” And with that the opening beat to ‘Dancing Queen’ by ABBA washed over the room, this was Lily Evans’ favourite song.
“Hey it’s your favourite song,” James said, “you have to dance to your favourite song.”
He took her drink out from her grasp, placed it down on the nearest surface, and then linked his hand with Lily’s and spun her around. All smiling and showing her off.
Okay, maybe this is fun.
-
Hours had passed and Lily did have fun.
She had also had a lot to drink.
Lily had successfully acclimated to the rest of the party-goers and she and James had been practically inseparable the entire night - which was good because really, God knows where Marlene had gone to.
She was completely and undeniably drunk. Like Sirius at James's 16th birthday party, kind of drunk.
“Lils, love, you might want to slow down there.”
Safe to say that she did not slow down. She actually sped up if you wanted to split hairs about it.
“‘M fine, ‘m fine James” was followed by the sound of a plastic cup hitting the table and the realisation that nearly all the contents of that cup had been split down the front of Lily’s blouse.
James felt a bit bad about laughing at her but it wasn’t exactly in his nature to look past the humour in every situation. “Alright let’s get you cleaned up.”
He led Lily, who currently felt like a soggy sewer rat, out into a balcony that had been left pretty vacant all night, grabbing a handful of napkins off of a magicked up table on the way.
Bullshit. This is bullshit.
“You’ve made quite the mess huh?” James gave her the napkins and she clumsily started wiping at her blouse despite them both knowing that wasn’t really going to do much in terms of helping,
“Bull. shit.”
“Hah, what was that?” he was just amusing her at this point.
She looked him in the eyes, this wasn’t fun anymore.
“This. this is all bull shit”
“No, no, it’s okay you just had too much, love-”
“This is it right? This is what you wanted. It’s bullshit.”
She’s just so spiteful all of a sudden.
“What? No. Lily, I told you to slow down wha-”
“No. not just - you. Me. this. It’s bullshit.” Bullshit.
“What….” James looks hurt, what she’s saying hurts.
And she’s acting like she doesn’t know this.
“Just this, us, we’re all like pretending like, we’re so in love and pretending that like, people aren’t literally dying. Every. Day.”
Tears have welled up in Lily’s eyes, all burning and spilling over.
“Do you not love me?” what? No, nononono.
“I-” She breaks her eyes away from him, the napkins have formed a crumpled knot in her hand.
She’s just so angry and upset, and scared.
“Lily. You do love me right?”
She doesn’t know how to say it. She just stands there, nodding her head and pressing the tissue paper napkin tighter into her fist.
Yes.
“It’s just all bullshit.” It comes out in a sob but it’s okay because James understands.
“Yeah, it’s all bullshit.”