Just ask her out
They all stood or sat around the table, taking it in turns to throw little plastic balls into cups with unknown liquid inside.
Dorcas tried to concentrate very well on their aim, they needed to get drunk. And forget about Marlene standing right there, laughing and cheering and looking back at Dorcas every second.
Dorcas managed to get the ball in, cup after cup, even beating James who was usually the best at the game.
They eagerly drank the next cup, which seemed to be filled with cheap red wine. And tasted disgusting. But they carried on drinking it till it was empty.
"Why are you drinking so fast?" Regulus said from right next to them.
Dorcas jumped with surprise, they didn't realise he was right there, "why are you so quiet and sneaky?"
He waved his hand dismissively, "my upbringing. Now answer my question."
Dorcas groaned, and dropped the empty cup on the nearest service, which seemed to be a large piano.
Regulus glared at them, and moved the cup before stroking the piano as if to comfort it from having an empty cup placed on it.
"Marlene. She looks so good, I mean she always looks good-"
"Just ask her out", Regulus prompted.
Dorcas shook their head, "No. No. I can't do that, what if she says no?"
Regulus sighed and walked away with a small smirk on his face.
"Hey, where are you going?" They called after him.
Regulus disappeared into a cupboard and returned after a few minutes with singstar microphones and the singstar party disc.
James spotted him and cheered, running to the tv to plug in the PlayStation.
"Teams! Teams! I'm team red!" James called.
Sirius flopped onto the sofa next to Remus, "Same! Team Red! Team red!"
"I'll be blue", Regulus said as he sat down next to James, by the tv.
James added people's names next to the colours.
"I want to be red!" Marlene shouted to them.
Regulus nudged James' shoulder, "put Dorcas in blue."
James nodded in confusion, but wrote Dorcas' name down in blue.
"Hey. I haven't said what team I want to be on yet!" Dorcas said to him.
James looked at them, "Oops sorry. I thought you had."
Sirius turned to Remus, "be on my team", he pouted.
Remus nodded and kissed them, "Put me in red, Prongs."
James nodded, typing his name down. The others told him what teams they wanted to be in, ending up with even numbers on both.
The songs shuffled until landing on girls just wanna have fun. The tv showed who would be singing for each team: James for red and Mary for blue.
The two put on a large performance, barely concentrating on the bars and ending up with fairly low scores but loud cheering from their friends.
The next to sing was Remus and Peter, singing hungry like the wolf. Unlike Mary and James, they both tried to focus on the bars to win instead of giving a performance.
Sirius instead, lipsang to the song leaning over to Peter to throw him off.
At the end of the song, Remus beat Peter but both had pretty good scores.
"You threw me off!" Peter crossed her arms and glared at Sirius.
Sirius laughed, "you should have predicted I'd try to throw you off. Too late now, Pete."
Emmeline and Regulus were next, singing, video killed the radio star. Neither of them being great singers, Regulus focused on keeping the bar as close to the line as possible. Emmeline instead focused on the lyrics and following along the quiet voice of the original singers.
Regulus ended up only just winning, both of them getting fairly high scores.
Marlene and Dorcas ended up next, and to a love duet.
Both of them were very drunk by now, and as such, they eagerly clutched the microphones in anticipation for the lyrics to appear on screen.
As they started to sing, Marlene stood up and pulled Dorcas up with her.
Don't go breaking my heart
I couldn't if I tried
Marlene didn't let go of Dorcas' hand and the two twirled around each other as they sang.
Honey if I get restless
Baby, you're not that kind
They laughed and grinned as they sang, getting closer and closer to each other as the song went on.
So don't misunderstand me
You put the light in my life
Oh, you put the spark to the flame
I got your heart in my sight
As the song finished, Dorcas looked down to Marlene's lip and Marlene leaned in to kiss them.
Before their lips touched, James jumped off the sofa.
"Dammit. Dorcas won the round, Sirius you better do damn well since it's your turn next."
Dorcas and Marlene jumped apart, and sat back down without glancing back at each other.
The songs shuffled again and Sirius and Lily were handed the microphones to sing who do you think you are.
Neither were great at it, and they stopped singing to argue over which spice girl they were halfway through the song.
When it was nearly the end of the song, Mary passed Sirius a drink, they took it immediately forgot they were still meant to be singing.
Lily swooped in, at the last twenty seconds or so, and gave her absolute best.
As the scores came up on board, with Sirius scoring almost nothing and Lily with a little more.
Mary winked at Sirius before leaning over to high five Lily. The tv showed the blue team as the winners; James, Marlene, and Sirius called for a rematch, complaining of unfairness.
The blue team agreed to the rematch, and an hour later the blue team won again.
Mary and Emmeline decided to leave, Emmeline staying sober in order to drive them back.
"Dorcas? Peter? You want a ride back?" Emmeline asked, as they got up to leave.
"Oh you can sleep here if you want to stay a bit longer", Lily said.
Peter got up, "I think I'll go, yeah. My mum's are coming over tomorrow so I should probably be there in the morning."
Regulus turned to Dorcas, "you should definitely stay over though. Marlene is staying as well."
Dorcas nodded, "alright yeah I'll stay. Thank you."
"Me and Moony are having the spare room, so you and Marlene are gonna have to sleep down here." Sirius said as they came back into the room with Marlene.
Half an hour later, Marlene and Dorcas were alone together downstairs. They were sat in the dark, lying on opposite sofas with blankets covering them.
They could barely see each other in the dark so Marlene lifted her arm up to feel where Dorcas was.
"That's my face, Marls", Dorcas' voice called out.
Marlene was about to take her hand back when Dorcas reached out and kissed the back of it causing Marlene to freeze.
She mumbled something then pointed the kissed hand to Dorcas.
"I like you so much."
Dorcas smiled widely, "I like you so much too."
Marlene pulled her hand back and tucked it under the blanket before rolling over.
"Is that why you kissed my hand?" Marlene asked, her eyelids falling down.
Dorcas laughed, "perhaps… hey… give me your hand back."
Marlene stretched her arm out back to Dorcas who got out their own arm and linked their pinky fingers together.
"Cute", Marlene laughed as she felt Dorcas' finger connected to her own.
They slowly fell asleep with their hands still connected and joining the two together.