"Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley's attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty: he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly unaware: to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with."
— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
20th September, 1975
Girl's Dormitory
Grace
Grace would forever marvel at the sheer hedonism occasioned by Mary MacDonald's birthday.
She could hardly believe that it was only two years ago, when, at the tender age of fourteen, Mary had announced her intention to throw a Firewhiskey Pyjama Party, which, as she so succinctly put it, "Emmeline is not allowed to ruin, so stop looking at me like that and just shut up and do your shot, it's my birthday and I say drink ."
Grace oft wondered what otherworldly powers of persuasion Mary must've had that she could so easily strong-arm the other girl, who was usually so difficult to bully.
In any case, it was for the public good, because few things in the world were as fun and cheerful and stupid as their annual girls-only Firewhiskey Pyjama Parties.
Naturally, the pyjama bit came first.
And so, they'd all washed and changed into their most festive sleepwear. Asha was dabbing a green face mask onto a resigned-looking Emmeline while Marlene painted Mary's toes a pretty periwinkle blue colour — warpaint for the night to come.
Lily was perched near the record player, sifting through a box of Muggle vinyl that Grace had brought from home.
The Firewhiskey had been cracked open, of course, but they hadn't hit it too hard yet. "We need music first ," Asha had insisted, swiping the bottle from Mary a millisecond before it touched her lips. "My vote's for the Beach Boys."
Mary pouted and eyed the bottle.
Marlene groaned from where she knelt by Mary's feet. "God, no! I can't stand to hear you go on about Pet Sounds again."
Asha took a steadying swig of Firewhiskey, causing Mary's expression to sour further as she exclaimed in protest — "It's my birthday !".
Asha ignored her and responded to Marlene in a would-be calm voice; "Marlene. Brian Williams is a beautiful genius and Pet Sounds is the perfect album, perhaps the best of all time. This is indisputable. This is inalienable fact. I beg you to see reason, or at the very least stop before you hurt someone—"
Marlene rolled her eyes and cut Asha off mid-sermon; "Oh, come on! It isn't even their best album, let alone—"
Asha gasped sharply and clutched the material of her nightshirt, as though Marlene had suggested something as taboo as ritualised child murder. "You take that back !"
" Shan't !"
Grace had the impression that Marlene was only barely quashing the impulse to stick her tongue out.
It seemed Asha had arrived at a similar conclusion, as her eyes remained narrowed to slits as she took another fortifying swig of firewhiskey.
She then hotly retorted; "It's people like you , the… the Mike Loves of the world that—"
"Hey, now, there's no need to toss about the M-word." Grace interjected soothingly before Marlene could start again, holding her hands up in the universal signal for 'don't shoot'. She was beginning to feel that running interference between Asha and Marlene was a full-time gig. "I'm more in the mood for something else anyway… Any Otis, Lils?"
"Oh, yes. You've got King & Queen , will that work?" Lily flipped through the records and pulled one from its sleeve. Soon the soulful, warbling tenor of Otis Redding and Carla Thomas filled the girl's dormitory.
Both Asha and Marlene seemed to accept Grace's deflection, and Asha handed custody of the Firewhiskey back to Mary, who hooted happily and took a swig, sloshing half the amber liquid onto her nightshirt.
And so commenced part two of proceedings; getting trolleyed and talking shit about all the people Mary hated (and a lot of the people she didn't, for good measure).
The bottle was passed around, and soon all the girls were very pleasantly tipsy. The room was filled with the low mingling tones of laughter and voices that had smiles in them and soul music.
The Firewhiskey burnt going down, but Grace rather liked the feeling. The drink made her belly warm and she felt a goofy, blissed-out smile cross her face as her mind strayed to Evan Rosier.
They'd kissed and kissed under the cover of the Forbidden Forest, kissed until Grace's lips felt red and puffy from it. She remembered the feeling of being pressed between Evan's firm body and the trunk of a rowan tree. It felt as though he had possessed her with every touch of his hands, his lips… God, being pressed up against him like that had lit a fire in her belly she'd never even felt before. Now, as she drank and enjoyed the aftershocks of that new burn, Grace felt her face flush.
She couldn't definitively say whether it was the Firewhiskey or the memory of her frankly extremely hot encounter in the forest that caused her cheeks to glow so bright hot. She was sure one of her friends would notice and question her if she didn't pull herself together, though.
Taking another gulp of Firewhiskey, Grace tried to focus instead on the music (and not her filthy, salacious, scarlet-woman thoughts).
It's like thunder, lightning,
The way you love me is frightening,
You better knock, knock knock, knock, knock,
On wood —
Grace allowed herself to bop and sway to the music, laughing as Asha joined in from across the room with uncoordinated enthusiasm — in spite of her head start, Asha didn't seem too intoxicated. Not nearly as bad as Mary, who was already slurring a little.
Grace watched as Asha grabbed Lily by the waist and twirled the redhead so forcefully that she stumbled and knocked an open bottle of nail polish. It spilled and stained the outfit Marlene had laid out to wear to Hogsmeade the next day (which caused Marlene to shout quite a bit— "You'd better buy me a new top, Moor, or I'll turn you into a venomous toadstool!").
Grace revised her initial assessment. Maybe Asha was a little drunk.
Soon enough Mary insisted on games, as was their custom (and integral to part three of proceedings — merrymaking). They sat in a circle, cross-legged and perched on beds, while Mary explained the rules of 'Never Have I Ever', which Grace privately thought was going to be pretty dull, considering how little they'd collectively done.
"Never have I ever shagged a boy!" Mary began, bull-rushing the most risqué question with all the subtlety and finesse of a rampaging rhino.
Predictably, nobody drank.
"Look at the sorry lot of us!" Asha remarked dryly, rosy-cheeked and grinning from drink. "Blushing maidens, all!"
"Marlene, your turn!" Mary trilled, undeterred.
Marlene rolled her eyes. "Never have I ever snogged a bloke."
Marlene herself drank, along with Mary, and to everybody's surprise — Emmeline .
There were many noisy exclamations and demands for details, but Emmeline gave no information beyond coyly explaining that the Muggle that lived one hedge over was a good-looking sort.
Everyone was laughing and teasing, drunk and loose and happy.
Except for Grace. Grace had frozen, and she imagined her expression was redolent of a deer in headlights. Should she drink? Her glass hovered uncertainly between her lap and her lips.
Asha, of course, noticed.
" Grace Jones! " She exclaimed, her expression one of pure shock. "You've been snogging!"
"I—"
"She has ," Marlene breathed. "Just look how red she is!"
"Spill, Jones!" Mary demanded imperiously. "It's my birthday and I want to know all about it!"
"Who'd you snog?" Asha demanded, looking more than a little cross. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"It only happened the other day!" Grace scrambled to explain, which seemed to placate Asha somewhat.
" Who ?" Mary pressed. " Where ?"
"Was it Lupin?" Marlene added eagerly.
"Of course not!" Grace said, shifting uncomfortably on her mattress. "It wasn't Lupin. It was Evan Rosier, if you must know."
An uneasy silence followed Grace's words. Asha's no longer appeared to be incensed at having been kept out of the loop, and instead looked quietly troubled. Marlene was frowning.
Mary made a face. " Rosier ?"
"He's very good looking, and talented." Lily said fairly.
"He's a Slytherin!" Mary cried. "He's not your boyfriend, is he?"
"I… well, I don't know—"
It occurred to Grace that though an awful lot of snogging and breathy I-like-you's had been traded under the rowan tree, not once had she bothered to ask if she and Evan were going to be properly dating. Cor, were they even exclusive? Grace felt as though her head was spinning.
"Leave her be." Asha suddenly cut in, eyeing her with obvious concern. "Grace will tell us when she's ready. Won't you, Gracie?"
Grace nodded, so relieved she could've kissed Asha. Then they'd both definitely have to drink.
Asha scowled at nobody in particular, before adding; "And she can snog as many Slytherins as she bloody well likes, Macdonald."
Grace felt a warmth in her chest that had nothing to do with either Firewhiskey or Evan Rosier. She smiled gratefully at Asha, and the other girl shrugged as if to say 'what are friends for?'.
Lily's eyes darted between Asha and Mary. "Alright—"
But Lily was cut off by a surprised shout and a distant thud.
Six heads whipped around towards the door and the stairwell that lay beyond, eyes widened in shock and (in Mary's case) savage delight.
"A boy just tried to get into our dormitory!" Mary crowed, bouncing on her heels and rushing to the door — all resentment apparently forgotten. "Ohquick , girls, I want to see who it was!"
20th September, 1975
Common Room
Sirius
Sirius Black had known James Potter to do some bloody stupid things in their five years of best-friendship. In fact, Sirius could usually be relied upon to actively take part in the Doing of Stupid Things, on near every possible occasion.
But tonight — tonight Sirius felt like he imagined Moony usually did. He felt like groaning and chiding and telling Prongs to go to his room this instant .
Sirius reclined on a chintz lounge, shifting and fidgeting in spite of his comfortable lodgings. Moony and Wormtail were settled quietly into the rug by his feet, pouring over their homework like the diligent little parrot gizzards that they were.
"He's trying the girl's staircase again," Remus remarked baldly, observing James with resigned weariness.
Sirius watched as Prongs limbered up for his latest doomed venture, straining to and ultimately failing in the attempt to touch his toes and then rapidly jogging in place for a few moments.
Sirius snorted with derision. He looked ridiculous .
The staircase, James had argued only hours earlier as he filled Sirius in on the whole farcical plan, was a wizard's (or, more likely, witches) invention and therefore had displayed an impressive resistance to magical befuddlement over the years. It wasn't, however — James had explained with manic enthusiasm — designed to withstand meddling of the Muggle variety.
And so James had concocted a plan, a plan which had its sorry origin in the ridiculous image printed on page two hundred and thirty-seven of Peter's Muggle Studies textbook.
The image had been subtitled with two tiny, fateful words — pole vault .
"He's planning on vaulting up there on some Muggle athletics stick," Sirius answered Moony with derision. "Reckons the anti-intruder wards can't extend the whole way up the staircase."
"Ah, Bruenner's Magical Law of Conservation." Moony nodded knowingly. "It's a good thought, but knowing James—"
"—He's sure to balls it up somehow." Sirius finished flatly.
Though bemused with James' current attempts to breach the girl's privacy, he was glad to find himself on the same side as Remus again. He had worried that his stormy mood and resulting nastiness about Jones would drive a wedge between them, but Moony had forgiven him easily.
Not for the first time, Sirius wondered what he had ever done to deserve such brilliant, loyal friends.
James clapped his hands together with some sort of climbing chalk and picked up a stick at least twice as long as he was tall.
Brilliant, but cracked. Sirius amended. Cracked and mad and bloody stupid.
"He really is going to try and pole vault into the girl's dormitory," Remus said in mild astonishment.
"Was there really any doubt after he bothered to order that bloody ridiculous stick through Owl Post?" Sirius shifted up in his seat, eyes focused solely on James now (who had ceased his preparations and was now pacing out his run for the stairs).
Up until that point, Sirius had at least been trying to pretend that he didn't care about what James was doing. He really couldn't understate how much of a waste of their precious time he thought this whole fiasco was, because who cares if they couldn't get into the girl's dormitory? In Sirius' experience, it was almost laughably easy to coax young ladies up to the boy's quarters when the need arose, anyway.
And call him old-fashioned, but Sirius felt that there was absolutely nothing wrong with a run-of-the-mill broom cupboard.
But now the time had come, and Sirius noted his perverse need to fully attend to every second of his friend's imminent humiliation.
It was a shame that there were no cameras on hand. Eternal photographic proof of what was to follow might've been enough to convince Sirius that the whole venture had been worthwhile.
James breathed, observing the proper form shown in the picture from Wormtail's book, and, gripping his pole, ran towards the stairs.
James got the pole down well enough, Sirius had to admit, and the expression of pure astonishment on James's face at finding himself suddenly and uncontrollably airborne was a treat within itself.
He flew cleanly through the air — gasps of astonishment could be heard from onlookers — and landed three-quarters of the way up what was visible of the girl's staircase. He — quite admirably, Sirius had to admit — managed to maintain his footing and steadied himself against the solid stone of the walls.
James froze, and a long five seconds passed. Sirius himself couldn't help but openly gape.
Surely not… a pole vault—
James shrieked as the ground beneath him gave way and the staircase formed a slide. Desperately attempting to cling to something — anything — James shot arse-first down the stone chute and barreled over a timid-looking second year girl.
The Common Room rung with laughter. Grumpily, James pulled himself to standing and begrudgingly offered his hand to the second-year, who looked rather dazed and more than a bit agog at even peripheral interaction with the James Potter.
Sirius grinned. Remus chuckled.
"Brilliant, Prongs." Sirius made no effort to conceal his mirth.
James grumbled, messy hair messier than normal, robes rumpled. "Shut up."
Sirius had opened his mouth to form some acerbic reply when they started coming down.
First was Jones, who slid down the stair-slide and rocked back on her heels and sprung upright to standing. It was done with a surprising measure of coordination, which proved short-lived as Moor promptly followed, slamming bodily into her and only just managing to keep upright.
Moor, admittedly, wasn't quite as graceless as Macdonald, though, who came down sideways and squealing. Nor McKinnon, who immediately excused herself to vomit in the fifth-floor corridor outside—green around the gills from what was obviously a pretty heavy night of drinking.
It was Vance who proved singlehandedly that there was such a thing as a dignified slide, and Evans fared okay too, all things considered.
The whole lot of them reeked of Firewhiskey.
Vance brushed away imaginary dirt from her pyjama pants as Macdonald eyed the congregation with drunkenly gleeful interest.
"Well? Who was it then?" Vance asked shortly, eyes scanning the crowd of boys and making Sirius feel inexplicably guilty, given that — this time at least — he had nothing to do with it. "Who tried to get up the staircase?"
All eyes went to James, who blushed darkly and muttered something about passive betrayal. Macdonald giggled loudly at him, causing the boy to blush an even deeper red.
"Potter. You're an idiot." Vance said frankly, and just like that the matter was closed.
For a moment it looked as though Vance was about to lead the cohort back up to the privacy of the girls dormitory, but Moor and Jones had already wandered over to the hearth.
"It's so cozy down here!" Moor sighed, drawing her knees up by the fire.
Moor bowed her head towards Jones and started talking, grinning wide and throwing her head back in a laugh every now and then.
Subconsciously, Sirius noticed himself straightening up, orienting himself to face her from across the room. He was dimly aware of James rejoining them and making noise about how unfair it all was, but Sirius couldn't bring himself to give a single fuck.
He was busy. Busy feeling as though he was seeing Moor for the very first time.
Her face had a scrubbed, clean look and her hair was slightly damp. A heedless, giddy grin set her round cheeks aglow - a flush that he knew was from Firewhiskey showed below her bare collarbones.
He observed the way the soft fabric of her fresh pyjamas floated loosely at the hemline of her shorts and wrists. His eyes ghosted over her hands, her fingertips — which were wrinkled and pruned from being in water too long — the line of her jaw and her pointed chin, the small scrapes and bruises that stippled her pale legs — vestiges of her persistent clumsiness.
There was nothing at all erotic or special or different about it, but Sirius felt his heartbeat quicken all the same.
The glow of the hearth made her eyes shine like copper, and he wondered how he had never noticed the brightness of them before… She'd always just been Moor , who had dark eyes and dark hair. Moor , his fellow Gryffindor, part of the furniture of his life at Hogwarts.
And then, of course, she had become his annoyance — Moor , who pricked at his insides with her harsh words that festered in his brain when he was just trying to bloody sleep at night.
But he had been wrong all along.
The girl laughing by the fire was Asha - bright, resplendent, wicked Asha. Asha who had shining, copper eyes and long, fine hair that looked so soft that he was struck with the sudden urge to reach out and brush it with his fingertips. Asha who set the room alight with her unguarded, whiskey-drunk expressions.
Asha, who was frowning at him, because he was staring and she didn't like him— hated him, in fact.
God, how the thought made his chest ache now.
"All right, Black?" She asked archly, shoulders stiffened and deep, dark, pretty eyes staring piercingly in his direction.
Sirius opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again.
"Uh…"
Helplessly, he cast his gaze around to Remus and James, who were both looking at him expectantly.
"Hmph." Moor— Asha pulled herself to standing, extending a hand to Jones as though she were some eighteenth-century gentleman. "Come on, Gracie."
Sirius felt James's lingering gaze on him but was spared the immediate obligation of responding by Mary Macdonald, who became suddenly ill and bolted up the (newly-reformed) staircase to go vomit in the dormitory bathrooms.
Marlene McKinnon, freshly returned from expelling her own stomach lining, sighed resignedly and traipsed up after her — "I'll go hold the birthday girl's hair, shall I?"
Vance nodded at McKinnon and declared the night over. "Hangover potions and bed, you three." She had said to Asha, Jones and Evans.
Evans obliged her with a quick summoning charm — a collection of glass vials clinked against each other lightly as they zoomed into the girl's waiting hands. The brew was a bright mint green with which Sirius was intimately familiar — nobody could accuse Sirius Black of being a stranger to overindulgence.
Asha smiled, and Sirius did not stare at her full lips (nor did he swallow slowly, his own lips parted in a slight daze, and he most certainly did not feel the traitorous twitch of something below his belt), and she said; "Thanks, Lils. You're brilliant."
"It was Sev who brewed it, actually." Evans replied lightly.
"Well, cheers to Snape, then." Asha said brashly before raising her vial in mock-salute.
"Cheers." The others echoed, and there was the sound of chinking class.
Sirius and James couldn't help but make faces at these words, and watched as the three girls gulped down the mint-coloured potion in Snivellus' name before Vance trooped them up to bed. He watched until the very last moment, when Asha's bare ankle (and what an ankle it was!) disappeared from sight as she ascended the stairwell to bed.
Sirius was aware of eyes turning back towards him.
"Anything to share with the class, Pads?" James asked in a falsely-sweet voice.
Sirius blushed furiously. "No. Shut up."
"Not his best deflection," Remus said mildly. "Maybe even his worst."
"You're forgetting that time in second year with the Scottish lass—"
Sirius made a low noise of protest. The incident in question had been placed under a cone of silence some years previous, under threat of bullocks being hexed off and other such horrors.
"I say, Moony, did you notice our dear Padfoot staring into the fire rather avidly just before?"
"When before?" Remus volleyed, a small smile tugging at his lips. "You mean around the time that Moor was sitting by it?"
"I do believe I recall some particular interest in the flames around about then, yes." James grinned. "In fact, it was rather hard to tell if Padfoot was staring at the fire or the girl, though I had thought that Padfoot rather hated Moor."
"It didn't seem a hateful look."
"No, it didn't, did it?" James replied musingly. "More of a…" James snapped his fingers in sudden inspiration. "I know! A desirous gaze."
It was then that Peter saw fit to chime in; "I detected a hint of longing, myself."
James grinned at his rodentine friend. "See that's really interesting Pete, because I observed the same—"
Sirius growled out loud, causing several nearby students to jump out of their skins. " Shut up , will you?"
"You know how to make us stop," James said sweetly, unaffected by the outburst. "Out with it, Pads. And remember, Marauders don't lie."
"Not to each other, anyway," Remus said fairly. "Lying to external parties seems to occur alarmingly often."
James nodded in agreement, hazel eyes fixed on Sirius. It wasn't fair — Sirius had never been able to fool James like he could everybody else. Sometimes Sirius wondered if James was distantly related to Dumbledore — they both had that laser-eyes-of-truth thing going on, where Sirius was sure they could literally see his secrets written across his face in permanent ink.
He buried his face in his hands and groaned low. There was no denying it — this terrible truth of truths.
So he let the words tumble out.
"I've just got a stupid crush on stupid Moor, alright?"
Expectant silence resounded, and so, taking a deep breath, Sirius pushed on.
"Not even a proper crush , per se, more the… the mere shadow of a fancy, really." He paused, cheeks hot, before adding defensively; "I'll be over it by next Tuesday."
"' The mere shadow of a fancy' ." Remus repeated flatly. "Yeah, okay."
James merely chortled, hazel eyes twinkling with so much mirth you'd think Christmas had come early, and slapped his back. "Good luck with that one, mate."
Sirius glowered, privately thinking that there wasn't enough luck in the world to make Moor fancy him — in mere shadow form or otherwise.
As far as Sirius saw it, he had two options;
Forget about Moor and go date other the girls — pleasant girls, friendly girls, girls who smiled and winked and laughed at his jokes even when they weren't that funny, or; Try and seduce Moor — who he apparently found to be really fucking beautiful all of a sudden, down to her actually totally unremarkable ankles — even though she was perhaps the only person he'd yet encountered who didn't actually want his attention and seemed to think of him as literal pond scum.He sighed and rubbed his fingers against his temples in small circles. It really wasn't much of a choice.
He was a Gryffindor, after all.
A/N: Look, Marlene throwing shade at Pet Sounds is a good example of how sometimes good people do bad things.
The coupe de foudre - the lightning bolt moment - has occurred! Or at least one of them has. How do we feel about Sirius' revelation? Entertaining? Bit much?
Next chapter; Hogsmeade, Snape Chat, Benjy, Grace and Rosier content, dire warnings, tentative missives from hopeless admirers, and Remus Tries.