[About shoplifting a bottle of alcoholic drink]
John: I can't believe we're doing this.
Charlie: Desperate measures.
John: It's illegal.
Charlie: It's harmless and expected.

~ Halloween H2O: Twenty Years Later

Pumpkin spice cake.

Hogwarts smelled faintly of pumpkin spice cake 'round All Hallow's Eve.  It was on the velvet cloaks, on the yellowed parchment, among the scattered leaves, inside the wool in the worn scarves.

And she smelled of it too.

Carved orange pumpkins set near portraits and old tables, ghosts singing haunting tunes.

"I don't much like 'Hallows," she whispers.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she says softly. "For kids, Black, for kids."

"If you don't mind, Evans," was the nonchalant response, "I'd quite like to enjoy the holiday without your cynical whining.  And if you don't mind, Evans I'd quite like to kiss you now."

So he did.

A quick kiss.  Chapped lips met glossy and glittery ones and the warmth of the fire overwhelmed them.

Wrong--Right--did it really matter?

Sirius Black always got what he wanted.

Fifteen. 

"Black."

"Mmm?"

"Do you ever wonder 'bout us?"

"Always, my little Lily, always."

"That perhaps if it weren't for James we'd have happily ever after? Forever and for always?"

"No need to become sappy, Evans," he says quickly, "no need at all.  But yes, Evans, I do think on it sometimes. Not too much though. Ain't worth it, Evans. It's bull-the lot of it."

"Bull," she says quietly, "the lot of it.  Just bull, isn't it? You...me...us."

"Very much so," the young man says coolly.

"I won't keep faith in something that's not worth keeping faith in," she says firmly as he squeezes her hand tightly.

"Now go on," he nudges her slightly, "go meet your boy, will you?  He loves you, Evans.  He loves my little Lily and I'm going to let you go now. But you best go...now."

"Right, Black," she says as she lets go of his hand.  "Happy Hallow's Eve."

"Lily?"

"Mmm?"

"If James doesn't want you, I do."

She laughs:  "'Kay, Black."

"To bed you go, Evans."

"I'm going to see James," she comments stiffly, "your best bloody friend. And just remember, Black, you kissed your best friend's girl and you won't be living that down anytime soon.  There's loyalty between you two—and I'll never understand it—but it's there.  Remember kissing me when we were twelve, do you, then?  It was wrong then, Black. Perhaps it's still wrong.  I don't know—Black—it's Hallow's Eve—it's wild out there."

"Evans--" he says in a warning tone.

"I know, I know, I'm going.  Happy Hallow's."

*