DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything you recognize, all I own is my OCs.

"Pixie!"

Pixie turned her head, just barely being able to hear her friend Jada over the loud thumping music. She squinted, trying to look for her purple haired friend through the pulsating, different colored lights. Mentally, Pixie was cursing herself for allowing her friends to take her here, but they had insisted on it since it was her twenty-first birthday. Although, she could think of thousands of other things she would rather do than be surrounded by headache inducing music, epilepsy triggering lights, and scantily clad, hot , sweaty bodies crammed into a small space. However, Pixie always had a hard time saying no to people. So, when Jada finally arrived to Pixie, cheeks flushed and eyes lighting up with glee, Pixie put on a smile that hopefully didn't portray the discomfort she felt at being in such a claustrophobic setting.

"Have you seen Gemma?" Jada asked, slightly breathless from all the dancing she had done so far tonight.

"No, not recently. Last I saw, she was dancing with some guy." Pixie responded, brushing her pale hair out of her face.

Jada's hazel eyes lit up with excitement, and her dark red lips turned up into a grin. "Man, I seriously hope she hooks up with him. I'll finally be able to get back at her for last time."

Pixie rolled her eyes, remembering the incident Jada was talking about. Jada and Gemma were both a few years older than her, so they were used to the club scene, and about a month ago, Jada had hooked up with some guy she met while clubbing, and she was so in love with him, but she hardly remembered what he looked like. He turned out to be a nerdy sixteen year old who had gotten in with a fake, and while he was a generally nice guy, Jada had to nicely let him down. Of course, Gemma had teased her about it to no end, simply because she could.

"Believe me, he's nothing like your experience." Pixie snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. "Not to be a downer, but when can we leave? I still have packing to do."

Jada raised a perfectly done brow, and adjusted the short, low-cut white dress that made her dark skin pop nicely. "We've only been here for two hours, Pixie." Jada said, a whining edge to her voice.

"Isn't that long enough?" Pixie sighed, wincing from the headache she had. "This isn't exactly my scene."

"Hey, I wanted to go to the one down on fourth street, but Gemma insisted on here." Jada placed her hands on her hips. "Can't you stick it out for a bit longer?"

"I really need to do some more packing though." Pixie bit her lip, feeling a bit guilty. She knew Jada, along with Gemma, didn't want her to move to a different state. That was partly why she had agreed to come out with them tonight, so they could be the ones she had her first club experience with. Considering she was moving in only five days, they had barely any time left together.

"How about we leave here, but you don't go home just yet." Jada said after a moment, tying her dark purple hair up in a bun. "And we find Gemma, and go get a tattoo together so you don't forget about us when you move to New York."

"As if I could ever forget you guys." Pixie averted her eyes, pretending she didn't notice the sheen in Jada's eyes that showed her tears. Pixie didn't want any crying tonight, that could be saved for when she was truly gone.

"Sure, sure kid. Whatever you say." Jada joked, and then shook her head a bit, as if to clear her thoughts. "So, want to go get a tattoo?"

"Yeah, if I can find any space left." Pixie replied, half kidding. Jada snorted, then turned to look for Gemma.

Pixie already had gotten quite a few tattoos, though she planned on getting far more. At some point, she planned on getting a full sleeve, but for now she settled for the few she had scattered on her left arm, the one on her side, the one behind her right ear, the one on her collarbone and the rather large one on right her thigh. So of course when Jada asked about getting a tattoo, one that all three of them would have, she agreed with it instantly.

Pixie held out her arm, and Jada linked hers through it. They made their way towards the dance floor, not bothering to try calling Gemma since she always kept her iPhone on silent, just like Pixie. Pixie and Jada would just have to hope they would be able to find her the old fashioned way.

Pixie had never felt more uncomfortable in her life, with sweaty bodies being pushed into her; knocking into her arms, stepping on her feet, singing and laughing in her face, simply because they were either drunk or having too much fun to care. The music got louder and the lights brighter, and more intense, leaving Pixie frantically searching through the crowd for a glimpse of Gemma. Occasionally, someone would stumble into Jada or Pixie, and start hitting on them, their breath reeking of alcohol as they slurred their words and got too close for comfort, and they would try to hurriedly move past them, normally successful. If the person refused to leave, Pixie would use her silver ridiculous heels, (which she swore up and down in her head she would never wear again), and stomp on their feet, causing them to move out of their way.

Finally, Pixie spotted Gemma sitting on a couch with the guy she had been dancing with, flipping her short, impossibly natural red hair back as she laughed loudly at whatever was said. Pixie pointed her out to Jada, and with a smirk on Jada's face, they walked over to them with determination in their step.

"Oh Gemma!" Jada sang, practically shouting so she would be heard over the music.

Gemma glanced over, her deep ocean blue eyes looking panicked when she saw the look on Jada's face. She looked at Pixie for help, but all Pixie did was give her a sympathetic smile and hoped for the best.

"Hey guys." Gemma replied far less enthusiastically than Jada, slowly getting off the guy's lap she was sitting on, hesitantly walking towards them.

"Gemma, no need to get up, you guys looked so adorable!" Jada squealed in fake excitement. Pixie felt her pale face flush in secondhand embarrassment for Gemma.

"No Jada, it's fine." Gemma started walking towards them more quickly, obviously hoping that would shut Jada up.

"What's your name, by the way?" Jada walked over to the stranger, her voice sounding overly-interested. "Would you like to see some pictures I've got of Gemma, her mom's real nice and will give you just about anything you ask of her, so I've got some lovely pictures of her I'm sure you'd love to see-"

"I'll text you later, Keaton." Gemma shouted, grabbing Jada's arm and pulling her away before she could say anything else.

The guy, Keaton apparently, looked utterly confused and slightly amused. Pixie shot him a sympathetic smile, and then hurried to catch up with her friends who were of course bickering with each other. Pixie simply followed them, far too happy to be leaving the crowded club to say anything to them. Of course, once they were out, Pixie stopped them.

She went in between them, throwing her arms over each of their shoulders. "Guys, in case you've forgotten, it is my birthday, and it would be highly appreciated if you would both quit your bitching."

Gemma opened her mouth to speak, but Pixie quickly cut in. "Anyways, what should we get for our tattoos."

"As long as we don't get something basic, I'm good." Jada offered, letting her hair out of the bun it had been in and tossing it over one shoulder.

"Same." Gemma said, the squabble with Jada already forgotten. Their friendship was always like that, they would fight over something and the next minute, all would be forgotten and forgiven.

"Okay." Pixie pondered in silence for a few minutes, and then her face broke out into a grin. "Let's get Harry Potter tattoos!"

Jada groaned, while Gemma thought for a moment, and then nodded in approval.

"That'd be cool." Gemma said, smiling at Pixie.

"Dude, I know you're obsessed, but really? A tattoo?" Jada raised an eyebrow. "I like Harry Potter and all, but do we need to get a tattoo for it?"

"It's my birthday, and I think we should get matching Harry Potter tattoos. That's something that brought us closer, remember?" Pixie asked, remembering how their shared love of the series had brought them together to become what they use to jokingly call "modern day marauders."

"What would we even get?" Jada asked, still not completely willing to get one.

"We could get marauder tattoos!" Pixie said after a moment of hesitation, the idea coming to her at random.

"Like, 'I solemnly swear I'm up to no good'?" Gemma questioned, cocking her head to one side.

"No, like we'd each get a paw print that represents the marauders." Pixie explained, already imagining where she was going to put the tattoo. "Like, a wolf print for Remus, a dog print for Sirius, a deer track for James, and nothing for Peter because he was a piece of shit marauder."

"I love it! Let's do it!" Gemma exclaimed, warming up to the idea and getting excited by it.

"Not to be a bitch, but that's kinda lame, like, isn't the point of getting a Harry Potter tattoo so that people will know it's a Harry Potter tattoo?" Jada asked.

Pixie bit her bottom lip, seeing what Jada meant. "Yeah, I guess you're right. We could always get like, the Deathly Hallows sign."

After a bit of debating, the girls decided on getting the outline of Harry's scar tattooed on their wrists, and they headed off towards a tattoo parlor that was nearby, getting the directions off of Pixie's iPhone.

Their conversational chatter of course inevitably ended up at them talking about Pixie's move that was happening in just four short days. It was a conversation Pixie would have preferred them to stay away from, in all reality. But of course, that's where the conversation ended up.

"So, have you got your apartment and everything settled for New York?" Gemma asked, as though they hadn't already been through this very question at least a thousand times.

"Yup." Pixie replied, suddenly acting far too interested in the directions the map was showing her. "About half a mile until we get there."

"Are you sure you want to move to New York?" Jada burst out, as though she couldn't contain herself from asking that question for even a minute longer.

Pixie eventually that question would come up, but it definitely didn't make it any easier to answer. She knew that New York was where she wanted to go, and she knew that that was what her dream had always been. Ever since she had learned of all the different states, she knew that New York was where she wanted to go, so she could pursue her dream of being a special effects makeup artist there, and finally begin the rest of her life. She knew that New York was where she wanted to build her life, even if her best friends, sisters practically, weren't going to be there. It hurt, it definitely did, knowing that they wouldn't all be in the same town, or even state, any longer.

But New York was Pixies dream.

"Pixie?" Gemma broke the tense silence that had erupted after Jada's question, glancing between a stone-faced Jada and a conflicted looking Pixie.

"Yes, I'm sure." Pixie gnawed on her bottom lip in distress, wanting to explain what they should already know, about New York being where she would start her career and become a somebody, something she had already explained numerous times to them, but she knew they were hurting right now and hell, so was she.

Their conversation ceased, and then came to a stop shortly after Pixie had said her answer, and Pixie tried hard to ignore the fact that it was majorly her fault, but her friends, best friends, should understand. Finally, they arrived at the tattoo place, simply called Tattoo Emporium, and Pixie pushed open the door, and they all walked inside.

The guy standing at the counter, his name tag said Luke, glanced up when they walked in, and gave them a smile. With his huge gauges, two full sleeves, light brown hair messily pulled back into a ponytail, beard, ripped jeans and black shirt, he made Pixie feel severely over-dressed in her too short, too tight dress, and sky-high silver heels, and she could feel her cheeks flaming up as she walked over to the counter.

"What can I do for you ladies tonight?" Luke asked, giving them an easy going smile that showcased his almost blindingly white teeth.

"We'd like to all get matching tattoos, in the outline of a lightning bolt." Pixie replied, unlocking her phone and showing him a picture she had saved.

Luke studied the picture for only a moment, and then nodded. "Alright, just give me a few minutes to draw this up and I'll come get you guys when I'm ready."

"Thank you." Pixie said, watching him as he walked out of the entryway of the parlor, and into the back room where they must do the tattoos.

She was left with a slightly awkward silence between herself and her best friends, and for the first time in their lives, they had no idea what to say to each other.

Gemma wordlessly sat down and began flipping through a magazine they had sitting out, while Jada wandered over to the photos on the walls of work the tattoo artists here had done. Pixie merely messed around on her phone, the silence creating a deafening ringing in her ears. After only a minute, Pixie couldn't stand it any longer, and decided to open Snapchat so they could all take a picture for Pixie to post to her story; which was already loaded with selfies of them all since it was indeed Pixie's twenty first birthday.

"Guys, let's take a pre-ink selfie." Pixie asked, trying to sound upbeat like nothing was wrong between them.

It seemed to have worked, because Gemma let out a loud laugh, and then she and Jada both walked over to her so they could take the picture.

"I like how you say "pre-ink" selfie, but yet you're the one that has more tattoos than Jada and I have put together." Gemma shook her head, laughter evident in her voice.

"That's not very hard, considering you literally have no tattoos yet, I only have two, and Pixie has like seven." Jada chuckled, fixing her hair.

"Let's just take the picture you idiots." Pixie shook her head, a soft smile on her face, knowing that whatever had been wrong between them all was now fixed for the time being.

They all smiled, posing for the snapchat, and Pixie saved the picture, reminding herself to make it her lockscreen the minute she had the chance, promising to also send it to Jada and Gemma. They were debating on taking another one when Luke walked back out.

"We're ready for you guys, come on back." Luke motioned them towards the back room, pulling the black sheet covering the entrance away so they could walk through.

Luke brought them over to where he did his work, and then spoke. "So, who's going first?"

Pixie was quickly volunteered to go first, mainly because she had obviously been through this far more than they had. Immediately, guy started admiring her previously done tattoos.

"That's a beautiful tattoo." Luke said, pointing at Pixie's tattoo on her arm, which was a black rose on the inside of her forearm, with the sentence we're all mad here written above. "Do you want your bolt to be on this wrist, or the other?"

"This one." Pixie said motioning towards her left arm, which had her other tattoos already on it. She would have put it on her other arm, but she was planning on getting a rather large tattoo there soon.

Luke nodded, grabbing his sterilizing equipment. He then seemed to notice the one on the inside of her upper arm, which looked similar to the moon on an Ouija board, slightly different and with more detail.

"You mess with Ouija boards?" Luke gave Pixie a small smirk as he began prepping her wrist for the tattoo, sterilizing her skin and getting the ink put in the needle of the tattoo gun.

"Oh yeah man, all the time." Pixie bluffed, having only played with one a few times as a teenager.

Luke laughed, and outlined the tattoo on her wrist. After he was done, he started on the tattoo itself.

Pixie flinched slightly when the needle touched her wrist, simply because although she was expecting it, it still shocked her to feel the needle slicing into her skin. Compared to her other tattoos, this one took hardly any time at all, since it was so small. After only around ten minutes, not even, Luke was done and ready for the next one.

As Pixie went to stand up, Luke happened to notice the tattoo on her thigh, since her dress had rode up a bit.

"What's that a tattoo of?" Luke asked her, pointing at her thigh.

"It's a black cat inside a mirror." Pixie replied, sliding her dress up a bit so he could see it a bit more clearly. "I got it about a year ago."

"What other tattoos do you have?" Luke asked as he gathered more supplies for the next tattoo.

Jada sat on the chair, giving Pixie a look, raising her brows suggestivley as she looked between Luke and her. Pixie's eyes widened and she blushed fiercely as she answered Luke's question, mentally cursing her much too pale skin.

"I've got a dead tree that resembles the whomping willow from Harry Potter going up my side, the birds on my collarbone leading into my shoulder," Pixie motioned towards her right side, then her collarbone, and then continued. "And, the first tattoo I ever got, an alien head behind my ear." She moved her light hair out of the way, showing him what it looked like.

Luke nodded in approval, starting Jada's tattoo. As he got closer to being done, Pixie could notice how nervous Gemma was getting. Pixie reached out and took hold of Gemma's hand, rubbing her thumb over her hand soothingly.

For Gemma, Jada was done much too soon, and it was her turn. Despite how nervous Gemma was, Luke managed to get her calm enough so that she got through the tattoo relatively easily, gripping onto Pixie's hand so hard that Pixie was sure it was broken.

At last, they were done, and went to pay. When Pixie started to take out her wallet, Jada and Gemma hurriedly paid for their tattoos, not allowing Pixie to pay anything since it was her birthday, no matter how much she protested.

They thanked Luke for his work, and before they left, he gave Pixie his number. Jada and Gemma giggled the whole way out of the parlor, causing Pixie to want to smack her head into the ground repeatedly.

"I bet he noticed your tongue piercing and he decided he wanted in on that." Gemma spit out during her laughing fit.

"No, it was definitely the tattoos!" Jada exclaimed, hardly able to breath through all her laughter.

They kept making jokes the whole way home, even while in the cab, leaving Pixie to severely wonder how they had managed to act sober in the parlor yet so drunk once they left. Of course, she knew there was a possibility they had smoked before they all met up, since Pixie had been almost immediately separated from them once they go to the club.

The ride home gave her a headache, and she tipped the driver greatly when she got out of the cab, since she was dropped off before Jada and Gemma. At least it wasn't her that had to put up with those idiots that she loved dearly.

Pixie made her way into her apartment, and quickly shoved off her heels and sighed in relief, then walked into the bathroom to scrub off her makeup, something that was automatic to her at this point since she always wore it.

She was careful not to accidentally rip out her nose ring while washing her face, something she had done many times before. When she was done, she braided her long, pale white hair and walked into her room. She took off her dress and slid on shorts and a tank top that had yet to be packed away, then decided to christen her new Harry Potter tattoo by re-reading one of her Harry Potter books, The Deathly Hallows. She flipped to where Harry was immersed in Snape's memories, eventually drifting off into sleep when Harry was seeing how his dad, Sirius, and Lupin acted towards Snape.

Pixie slept peacefully, unaware that her entire world was going to change overnight.