The Annual Drink & Cry
"I'm really second guessing this whole boarding school thing" Marlene sighed. She leaned heavily against a wooden wall and took another sip of her margarita. "How do you guys do this every year? It fucking sucks..."
"I do this" James replied with a grin, opening his arms wide in gesture to the large treehouse they were sitting in, and the wide array of drinks he had brought up with him.
"Smart" she nodded, tapping her temple with her forehead.
They took a few silent sips, each thinking about their kids just inside the house, all preparing for their next year away. Their next year of fun and adventure.
Riley and Kylie would be joining Harry, Neville, and Teddy at Hogwarts this year, and in just over 12 hours they would be loading up their cars to drop them off at the train station. Marlene and Dorcas were each dealing with the idea of being without the twins for the first time in different ways. Dorcas was in the house with Lily writing checklists of things to pack, and making the kids promise to call at least once a day the first week. Marlene was getting drunk in the treehouse with James.
"Do you think our parents were this wrecked to send us off?" James sighed.
"Probably..." she shrugged lightly and sighed again. "We were just too excited to notice I bet."
"If someone had told me during my Hogwarts years that I'd be spending this much of my 30's crying and drinking in my kids treehouse the night before send off... I'd have never believed it."
"Really?" She scoffed, "because that's exactly how I always imagined you as a parent..."
He flipped her off with a light chuckle as the backdoor opened up, and Sirius's voice rang out across the yard.
"I brought the good stuff!" He waved a bottle of MD 20-20 with a grin and started to climb the ladder as they cheered through the little cutout window.
"Moony here too?" James asked, taking the paper bag from Sirius and tearing it off.
"Oh yea" Sirius smiled fondly. "He's inside attached to Teddy like a fungus. Drop off days.... you know...."
"I'm starting to" Marlene groaned. "God this fucking sucks."
James grimaced as he took a swig of the bottle Sirius handed him then passed it back.
"Oh fuck me I can't believe we use to chug that trash!"
Sirius sniffed it, then took a big gulp, sticking his tongue out in disgust as he swallowed. "Because it was easy to sneak in under our uniforms, and cheap as shit."
"Oh man... nostalgia in a bottle" Marlene gagged. She passed the bottle of James, and they laughed as he prepared himself to take another swig.
-
"Where is everyone?" Teddy asked as he entered Harry's room.
Ry and Ky were lounging on the bed while Harry tossed seemingly random things into an open trunk next to his dresser.
"Mom and Aunt Dorky are in the kitchen making a check list of stuff that's 5 pages already" he laughed, shaking his head. "And Dad's with Marly in the treehouse."
Teddy nodded knowingly as he made himself comfortable on the bed too. "Ahhh... The annual drink and cry. I nearly forgot."
"We're scared to leave the room." Ky laughed. "Everytime we do we get attacked with hugs and told we have to call every night."
"Or suddenly mom remembers something we need, that we definitely don't actually need, and starts listing all the times we could use it" Ry put it. "I don't have enough luggage for this!"
"There isn't enough luggage in New York City for this..."
"Well, Nev will be here soon" Harry said, checking his phone and texting back a quick reply. "Once Uncle Frankie and Meow get here they'll all move outside and start reminiscing or something and we can finally get some snacks in peace."
"Do you guys ever miss them?" Riley asked.
"Our parents?"
He nodded.
Harry and Teddy looked at each other and shrugged.
"Of course we do." Teddy said. "But my dad works there... and honestly they visit like... a lot."
"We usually miss you guys though" Harry added, unfurling a pair of socks to throw one at each of the twins. "I can't believe we're all finally going to be there together."
"Poor Minnie..." Teddy laughed, though he was grinning.
Harry let out a bark of laughter, and had two socks hit him in the face. By the time Neville arrived the contents of his school trunk were emptied in a mess of thrown clothes and shoes around the room.
"I see I missed the war" he said casually as he came in, shoving the door open against a pile of jeans.
"Neville!" They all shouted happily.
"Yea yea..." he rolled his eyes. "They are all out on the back porch, and Mymy brought pizza. You're welcome."
"Hero!"
"You're my favorite, Nev!"
"Hazzah!"
"Yassssaahhh!" They all shouted, scrambling over the mess to get to the door.
-
It wasn't long before Pete and Em showed up, shortly followed by Ben and Reg. Soon they were all reminiscing on the good times, and trying to talk the kids out of getting into the same trouble they'd all been in at their age.
"I think if Moony had been with us we'd have actually gotten away with more of our pranks" James said.
"I'd have tried my hardest to talk you guys out of the clown shoes incident at least" Remus agreed. "But I can't imagine you would have listened to me any more as teenagers than you do now."
"It still blows my mind that you people think Rem is mature and responsible!" Lily scoffed, shaking her head as she laughed. "This is the same person who talked me and Kimber -and even Petunia- into jumping into the pond mid-winter!"
"You did, dad?" Teddy laughed, shocked and awed at the idea of Remus being even slightly a troublemaker.
"Don't listen to your aunt Lil" Remus snickered. "She's drunk."
She tossed a cupcake at him, and followed that up with the cork from the wine bottle.
"I am not drunk! And yes, Teddy, your dad was just as much of a pain in the ass as everyone else in this family!"
"Hey!" Regulus called, sounding offended, though he was grinning. "I wasn't a pain."
"Yes you were" Marlene, James, Sirius, Benjy, Emmeline, and Pete all said together before falling into fits of laughter.
*
Marlene woke up the next morning to the sound of the kettle going off in the kitchen. They made breakfast together as a family and ate on the balcony, waving to Sirius, Remus and Teddy, who were doing the same thing across the alley on their terrace.
She tried not to think about how different it would be waking up without them tomorrow. She tried to focus on all the good memories she had spent hours talking with her friends about the night before, and the knowledge that her kids would soon get to experience the same. She tried not to cry as they were loading their trunks into the car, or as they were pulling out of the drive.
Dorcas seemed fine though. She asked them what they were excited about, and helped sooth their fears when they mentioned they were nervous. She sang way too loudly with them in the car when Bohemian Rhapsody came on, and generally seemed to be taking their leaving very well.
It wasn't until just before the train whistle blew that Dorcas cracked.
Kylie had joined Neville in a compartment and was beckoning the others to come with them when Riley pulled his moms aside with tear blurred eyes and asked to stay.
"You don't want to go?" Marlene questioned, confused. He had been so excited before.
"What if I don't make any friends?" He murmured, playing with the hem of his sleeve. "What if Ky and I don't even get the same house?"
Marlene and Dorcas looked at each other, saying a million things in one look. Then Dorcas knelt down and took his hands in hers with a little playful smile.
"Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth." She started out strong, but her voice waver a little. "But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!”
By the end of the little speech Ry had joined in with a grin, and they were laughing as they hugged. If a small tear rolled down Dorcas's cheek, she wiped it too quickly for anyone to notice.
"But really, Ry" she said, suddenly very seriously. "If you hate it then you don't have to stay. Just try, ok?"
He nodded and hugged them both again just as the whistle sounded, and the others started yelling for him to hurry up.
"You and that fucking Rocky movie..." Marlene said through a smile and tears as they waved along side the other parents, watching the train disappear.
"Hey I'm just glad he likes those movies as much as me! I was panicking there for a second!" She laughed.
-
The first week Ry would call his moms at least three times a day to talk about nothing, while Ky decided to start a 'picture a day' tradition with Dorcas and Marlene. Teddy, Harry, and Neville visited them at the Ravenclaw table during dinner until they began to make their own friends, but they reserved Friday lunch as family time every single week.