MORSMORDRE {marauders - au - redux | O/A

[LittleStevieHorseAndPhone]

For a moment after Hilaeira left, Antonin was left slack-jawed, looking as if he'd just been smacked in the face. That woman always had been quite the egotist--always ready with something snappy. She was disarming. It was infuriating.

Grip tightening around his glass, he glanced through the crowd once more, just in time to see Billie stepping away from the Auror she'd just been dancing with.

Now that Antonin was freed up, perhaps he ought to go and make sure that little situation was under control.

After Vaquelin walked away, he approached Billie and grabbed her around the arm just enough to startle. It wouldn't do to rough her up in front of all these people...but just because she had witnesses didn't mean he was going to let her completely off the hook.

Just wait until she came home for Christmas, and he'd put her in her place.

For now, he'd have to settle for a stern warning. "For your own sake, girl," he hissed, "whatever you were doing with that Auror, it had better have been recon and nothing more. The Dark Lord does not tolerate disloyalty, and if it turns out you're fraternizing with the enemy, I won't testify in your favor. The only reason I've kept you alive is out of love for your departed mother, and don't you forget it."

He'd have gone on, but about that time, Hillaeira Potter fell to the ground. Antonin rolled his eyes and groaned, "She's always been so melodramatic..."

But it wasn't melodrama. Gasps echoed through the crowd, people gathered around, and pretty soon the word had spread that Mrs. Potter was dead.

Billie's Auror was quick to order the students all out of the Great Hall. "Questions? Yes...of course, anything," Creighton Potter murmured, his face blank, and all Antonin could think was how that Auror was lucky he'd set his eyes on Billie, because if he'd chosen Lise instead, Antonin would have already murdered him years ago.



location: the Great Hall with: Billie, then the rest of the party guests



▇ ▇▇ ▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ IT'S BEEN THREE YEARS SINCE YOU'VE SEEN THE SUNLIGHT BUT I KNOW YOU'RE HAVING FUN ▇▇▇▇▇
BOUND, GAGGED, AND CHAINED UP IN MY BASEMENT.

[Akikko]

☼ D A F F O D I L ☼ A S T E R I A ☼ M A R J O R I B A N K S ☼
// 'cause there's a world outside with //
// injustice and music and july, july //
// with history's arc, with your family, with art //
// but it don't mean nothing-- //
// not to you, not tonight //
☼ S E V E N T E E N ☼ H U F F L E P U F F ☼ N E U T R A L ☼
// location: Daffodil's room //
// talking to: Travers //

content warning for heavy drug use.

Daffodil was comfortable leaning against Travers in her bed. His scent calmed her nerves. She felt herself filling out, going back to what she felt the most comfortable at. Her real self. The Hufflepuff had always been unabashed about how she looked and what she preferred around everyone, but this was different. It was weird to be so normal in such an intimate setting. It was a nice change of pace.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Travers pulled out a syringe from her purse. She looked at him with a sly grin. "Oh, you're going to love this one," she said mysteriously, taking the syringe from him and digging through her bag. "It's a pretty intense Muggle drug, but I can guarantee it's probably not like anything you've done before."

She rummaged through her bag and pulled out several items: a small, plastic bag of brown powder, a tourniquet, a cotton ball, her wand, and a tiny metal cup. Carefully, she poured some of the powder out into the cup, took her wand to mutter Augamenti before mixing together the water and powder to create a liquid solution, mixing it with the tip of her wand. Satisfied with the result, she took the cottonball to soak up the solution before uncapping the syringe and pulling the concoction into her it. Daffodil deftly put the cap back on the syringe and turned to Travers after placing the cup and her wand on the dresser beside her.

"Let me see your arm," she said gently, taking Travers's hand to pull his arm closer to her. She tied the tourniquet shakily around his arm, found it was unsatisfactorally loose and decided to untie it and try again. "Sorry," she apologized, "I've only done this once before. An older student showed me last summer."

That was a lie - it was practically a stranger who showed her how all this works. She'd been at a club and heard someone say it was the best high they'd ever had, so she'd tried it for her own. They were right when she said it was unlike anything she'd ever had before. Since then, she'd been craving it like an itch in the back of her mind, but she didn't want to do it on her own. It was perfect that Travers had suggested it. She didn't know how to bring it up with him before.

Once the tourniquet was tight, she closed his hand gently into a fist. "Open and close it a few times," she encouraged him. It didn't take long for a suitable vein to pop up. He was an athlete after all, and his arms sure as hell showed it. Daffodil didn't consider herself to be shallow, but she loved strong, muscular arms on men. Not only did they hold her tightly in an embrace, they also had the strength to move her around in bed like she was nothing. Not many men could say the same for themselves.

Satisfied with the vein that showed, she tapped it a few times with her fingernail to get a feel for it. She gingerly tore the package of the alcohol wipe to take it out and disinfect the skin right above where she wanted to inject it. Daffodil removed his tourniquet gingerly, removed the cap from the syringe, and held the needle to his skin at a 30 degree angle, keeping it as close to parallel to the skin as she could manage. "This is gonna sting," she warned him before inserting the needle into his skin. She pulled back on the plunger ever-so-slightly so that blood mixed with the concoction in the needle. Daffy moved forward to hold him close to whisper into his ear. "You're gonna fade away. Maybe kind of float a little. Just let it happen, okay?" She studied his face for the go-ahead before she pushed the syringe to let it flow through his veins.

"Now for the fun part." She watched him with interest to see how he was doing as she sterilized her needle with the wave of her wand, getting ready to do the same to herself.

[mandygurl71]

XXXPrudence McKayla BakerXXXXXX

Dancing with Garret just like they had when they were younger made Billie feel like she was a teenager again, and all the things that kept them apart now hadn't happened yet and it was just the two of them. So when the dance came to an end, she wished she could have just walked off the floor with him and stood by his side for the rest of the evening like she would have back then...but they both knew that wasn't going to happen.

The song came to an end and Garrett said his goodbye, leaving her on the dance floor before she could say anything else that might change her mind. Reminding her about their planned interview just before he left. "Right..." she said to herself as she watched him fade into the crowd of students, lost in her thoughts. Hoping that what just happened did not make him think things could change...

They couldn't be together. It was just a dance, that was it...

A hand grabbing her arm more roughly than acceptable made Billie jump slightly, and when she snapped her head in the direction of the person who had done it her anxiety just shot higher through the roof than it had been all night...and only her Stepfather could make her feel that way.

"Stiefvater, I-I'm sorry! I-" he was leading her off the dance floor as he spoke, as usual not listening to whatever she was trying to say and just going on with his issue about what had just happened...

He saw her. Antonin saw her dancing with Garrett and it made her heart drop to the pit of her stomach. She didn't know what to say as he threatened her quietly. She was used to the threats, but they still hurt sometimes. Considering the situation though, she would much rather he be threatening her than Garrett...otherwise her leaving him in the first damn place wouldn't have mattered! This was exactly what she was afraid of, swallowing her fears though she was about to speak, to tell him that of course it was just recon, to see if he would say anything to her but she didn't need to lie. He quickly became distracted by someone falling on the floor.

Billie did not know who the woman was, not at first, but when she heard a familiar voice shouting for his mother and saw the younger boy, James she remembered his name from when she was in school, he was the same year as Liesel, she figured that the woman was his family and judging by her father's attention staying on the woman she guessed he knew her.

"I don't think she's over reacting..." she said, more just to fill the silence that had fallen between them than to actually expect a conversation between them. She knew that would never happen...

As horrid of a thought it was, Billie knew she shouldn't stick around talking to her stepfather for long before he became undistracted and she had the perfect way out...a perfectly healthy woman dropping dead in the middle of the great hall with ministry officials around not knowing what happened made a good story, and she was the only reporter here.

"Excuse me..." she said, inching her way forward, feeling guilty for doing this to the poor woman and her family, but she couldn't risk getting yelled at by Antonin again.

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[mandygurl71]

XXXXSandra JoycelynXXXXX

After the conversation that the ministry official and Creighton had outside, they wasted no time returning to the great hall to find his wife on the ground with James by her side shaking. He looked a wreck and she didn't blame him. It was very easy to see from where she was standing that his mother was dead...and that was no sight a boy his age should see. Apparently, judging by Creightons choice of words when he first arrived, he did not notice right away and it hurt Sandra to see that. He tried to play it off but when she watched the realization dawn on him that she was gone, she waited to see the pained expression that should come from a husband losing his wife so suddenly...

But it didn't come. Instead she saw relief in his eyes and while Sandra knew what he really felt with that, she couldn't help but hope no one else noticed the look in his eye as he stood dazed with the truth.

It was a sad sight to see for sure, regardless of who the woman was in her life, she was dead now and she was leaving behind a grieving son and relieved husband...It hurt Sandra to look at James, but was she just as bad as Creighton by looking at him and feeling the same way he looked to her.

Yes, she was bad for feeling that way...because regardless, so much time had passed, that was the last thing she should be thinking about.

The ministry officials started clearing the students away, ending the party, and instead of turning to help, she walked up to James instead. Even if she would have rathered gone to Creighton's side, she knew James had seen enough. He needed to be pulled away and Creighton wasn't doing that right now.

"James, c'mon..." She said, and he shrugged her off at first, "Just over here...there is more nothing that can be done..." and with that he moved, slowly, to the side of the hall that was already pretty cleared of students. A path already being cleared as she saw Dumbledore making his way in.

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[mandygurl71]

XXXXXXXXXXXXJames 'Prongs' PotterXXXXXXXXXXX
It's been a long day
And all I've got to say is make it strong
It's been a long day
And all I've got to say is I've been wrong

The auror's let him through once they realized who he was and James ended up sprawled out on the ground next to his mother as he grabbed her and, he didn't remember shouting for her, but he felt his lips moving as he called for her to wake up.

She wasn't moving.

He didn't remember the tears beginning to fall as he tried to shake his mom's hand, since that was all he could bring himself to touch, but they had. Nor did he remember seeing his father come through the crowd but one second he was wondering where he was, and then he was there. Coming up just behind him was his Professor, and it was a stupid thing to notice, but he did.

He also thought he was shaking his mom's hand to try to wake her, but when he tried to stop doing it willingly, he realized it was just him, shaking. He couldn''t stop.

She was gone, and no one seemed to know why.

Useless.

People were talking, shouting, around him, giving orders and taking them, but right now James didn't care. His mother was gone and as he looked up at his father, hoping to see some familiar look of pain that he was feeling all he was met with was more disappointment. His father just looked lost. Probably just shocked, but shouldn't he be doing something else, shouting to find out what happened...demanding answers? Not just staring off into space...

Heck, James would have even accepted a total break down like he was feeling right now...or a hug, or just something?

Someone did reach out to him though, Professor Joycelyn who had been behind his father had made her way over to him and started to guild him away. No... he tried to say but all he managed to do was tug his shoulders away..

"Just over here...there is more nothing that can be done..." She said into his ear and she was right...

Nothing more that he could do anyway.

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It's been a long week
And all the lines come down heavy on me
Its been a long week
I'm finally feeling like its okay to break

[SheIsCursedTea]

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"Honestly? I'm not much of a Quidditch fan. I don't understand how watching people throwing a ball backwards and forwards and trying to get it through little hoops entertains people. I'm sure it's great to play, but watching is dull." Dom gave a small shrug and smiled weakly. "My father, well step-father, took me to a few games when I was younger, an attempt to 'bond'. Didn't go well and he gave up in the end." Dom realised he'd been talking an awful lot, and he fell into silence, just listening. The way Danny spoke about Maire was so open and he felt a jealousy rise up inside of himself. His feelings were something he hid from others, feelings he'd been told from a young age were wrong. But, at the same time, he admired Danny for her openness.

Dom shook his head. "I wouldn't say being different was a good thing. Fitting in, pretending to be something you're not or pretending to think something you don't, it's hard. Don't worry, I won't judge and I won't tell anyone." He chuckled softly. "You would never guess that any of them had a rough life, they all seem so ..." He frowned, glancing at Maire. "Strong. Out here, they seem to have everything figure out. I don't know what they're like in private. I only get to see them out here, I think what everyone else thinks. We regular people aren't privy to the inner works of the Slytherins. Part of that fitting in thing."

It was at this point they reached the Slytherin common room entrance. "Yeah. I should head back towards Hufflepuff. Look, if anything I said has offended you, I apologise. Goodnight Danny." With a wave, he turned on his heels and headed back the way they had walked, retracing his steps until he reached a corridor he could get to Hufflepuff from. He moved closer and closer, only to be intersected by a large group of Hufflepuffs all getting escorted back to the common room. He slid in, engaging with a few of his housemates, discovered why. He fell into silence for the rest of the way back.

He moved through the common room, past the crowds of people gathered that were talking, and headed straight for his dorm room. Pulling his clothes off, he pulled the curtains around his bed and just sat there for a while, staring, thinking. He felt guilt surge up inside him at the thought that he'd been joking, laughing an enjoying himself, while that poor woman was struggling, was in pain ... was dying. His hands shook and his eyes filled up. For a while, he cried to himself. Then, he felt ridiculous. He didn't even know this woman and yet he cried over her death. What gave him the right to feel sorrow over this?

Wiping his face, he grabbed the parchment and quill from his bedside cabinet and began to write a letter.

Dearest Angelo
I have been thinking over what you said in your last letter and I think you are right. Finally, I listen to reason! I need to get over him. I cannot live my life wishing that some relationship could come from someone who has never even looked my way! I am making an effort not to look at him. If I can stop myself looking at him, for me, that is the beginning of something new. That is the beginning of my freedom.

I needed you today more than ever. The ball I told you about? A woman died. She was the mother of one of the Gryffindors, and while she was dying, I was laughing and joking, completely unaware. That was a horrible feeling. I've never been so disgusted in myself in my entire life.

A yawn broke through his mouth and he rubbed his eyes. He placed the parchment and quill back in the draw, blew the candle out and lay down, closing his eyes. After a little while, he finally drifted to sleep.

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Location :: Corridors With :: Tori Outfit :: Lookin' Sharp

[SheIsCursedTea]

•·.·´¯`·.·• •·.·´¯`·.·••·.·´¯`·.·• •·.·´¯`·.·••·.·´¯`·.·• •·.·´¯`·.·•

Liz felt like she was asleep for a long time, but really it was only a few minutes. She woke up on Kutner's command and rubbed her eyes. She blinked around sleepily, her head still fuzzy. Turning to face Kutner, she found her face closer to his than she thought and pushed away from him, jumping to her feet. For a second, she seemed flustered, then she regained her steely composure. "Please accept my apologises Kutner. It seems I drank a little more than I could handle and lost myself. I would appreciate it if you refrained from mentioning this to anyone. Goodnight."

She turned sharply on her heel and walked towards the large crowd gathered by the door, She took little interest in what was going on, however, and pushed her way through to the otherside. A cool breeze floated in from the open door, and she felt drawn towards it, sliding out into the cool air. Out of her bag, she pulled a cigarette and lit it with the tip of her wand tagging a long drag and sighing. It wasn't common knowledge, but Liz liked to smoke every once in a while. Now was one of them. She enjoyed another two long, slow drags before finishing it quickly and turning back inside, only to be escorted back to Ravenclaw by a prefect. Turns out all the commotion was about a woman dying.

She followed her house mates back to the common room in silence. Around her, the other Ravenclaws were mumbling and muttering about the death, but Liz's expression remained blank. She felt completely emotionless about the whole thing, people died all the time, why should he care? Returning to the common room, she pushed through the crowd to get to her dormitory. Once there she showered and changed, then climbed into bed. Pulling the book on her bedside cabinet on to her lap, she began to read. Soon she was lost in the words and the sun rose before she lay back to go to sleep.

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Location :: The ball With :: Outfit :: Prom

[LittleStevieHorseAndPhone]

Worse for wear as he was, Sirius couldn't help but smile when Sam led him into the corridor and back towards the Great Hall by the hand. "Well, would you look at that! You're actually holding my hand," he remarked. "At the risk of spoiling the, uh, moment...do you know how long I've waited for this?"

It might not have been any big secret--if it hadn't been for his Quidditch-star best friend James' six-year pursuit of the lovely Lily, Sirius would be the talk of Gryffindor for his rather obvious crush on Sam, who was always quick to shoot down his flirtatious banter with some belligerent comeback. He could've had his pick of any of the other girls, but none of those other girls were her, and for a couple of years now, he'd been soldiering on like this, but who would have thought that one day she'd actually give in, even just a little like this?

"If I'd known all I had to do to to get your attention was to get taken hostage by a psychopath..."

When they reached the Great Hall, the music had been shut off and it was chaos.

He saw the back of James' unmistakable messy dark hair towards the center of the crowd and said, "I'd better go check this out."

He pushed past the crowd--the Ministry workers were trying to evacuate them, obviously this was big--and arrived at the center of the commotion just in time to see Mrs. Potter motionless on the ground and hear one of the Aurors declare her dead.

"Mum?"

"You heard the Aurors; everyone back to their dorms," one of the Ministry workers told him--wait, was that Dolohov's old man? Well, didn't he look like a four-car pile up wrapped around a trainwreck? Guess the whole thing about Liesel's mum hit him hard. (Sirius used to be more in the loop with the Dolohov family--it was nothing he wanted to relive.) Anyway, didn't Dolohov work at a desk pushing papers? What business did he have telling Sirius what to do?

"Didn't you hear me? Unless you're the next of kin of the deceased--"

"I am," Sirius responded automatically.

When his own folks wouldn't tolerate him in their ancient-noble madhouse of a family tree, the Potters had taken him in. They'd given him more than three squares a day and a roof over his head. They'd given him a real family, for the first time in his life, and now...

He swallowed and glanced sideways at James as one of the Aurors said something about returning to the dorms. He was sure they both felt the same crushing sense of shock inside.




location: the Great Hall with: Sam, James, everyone else, and Mum


▇ ▇▇ ▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ GOD, GIVE A LITTLE LOVE ▇▇▇▇▇
BRING ME BACK A DOG IN THE NEXT LIFE.

[what sara said]

TIME SKIP

THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY MORNING. In lieu of Hilaeira Potter's abrupt unexpected death, it has taken several days to arrange a funeral. Family and friends of the deceased will be excused from the Hogwarts grounds to attend the ceremony. Others may go about their day as normally.

[LittleStevieHorseAndPhone]

It had been a miserable week for Liesel Dolohov.

She'd been splitting her time between burying herself in her own little world and avoiding anyone terribly important.

It had finally come to pass. The day Liesel had been dreading since she put two and two together and realized what a horrible crime she'd been made a victim to. The day she had a panic attack in public.

And not just a sudden flash of guilt or hate or fear--she had those all the time in class and hid them flawlessly.

What happened at the gala was different. It was a full-fledged, hallucinating-her-father's-face-grafting-itself-onto-her-best-friend's-head, run-away-on-the-brink-of-tears panic attack. Phillip had to think (well, know) she was crazy. Anyone who'd caught her in her moment of weakness had to at least know she wasn't the person she pretended to be.

And as if that wasn't bad enough on its own, she'd run off with Peter Pettigrew of all people--her enemy-lover who meant nothing to her, or at least, he was supposed to mean nothing to her, until she fell into his arms for comfort, got both of them stoned off their asses, and curled into him like a ******** housecat seeking warmth.

"With you, it's like...for the first time, I just stopped wishing I was...normal," she was saying, all pressed up against him in the dungeons, when Phillip walked in with the shoe she must have stepped out of while she was busy running for what she thought at the time was her life, or at least, what remained of her dignity.

She didn't even know what kind of a freak Phillip must think she was now.

She'd been dodging him for days with one excuse or another, but she knew pretending to have homework wouldn't save her arse forever. She was the Liesel Dolohov; everyone knew she never did her own homework.

Still, she'd spent all her time surrounded by at least three minions at a time, making herself look busy to avoid that dreaded conversation when he caught her alone and cut off ties with her because of how clearly unworth the fight she was. Wayward didn't even begin to describe it.

She was listless when she arrived at the Slytherin table on Saturday morning, cheeks hollow, dark circles prominent under her eyes.

"C'mon, Lise, you've got to eat something," said Kiera, pushing a plate towards her. "Don't you like living?"

Honestly? Not especially. After last weekend's fit, her life was practically over, and not an hour had passed since then that she hadn't thought about throwing in the towel. But she couldn't swallow poison because how pathetic would that look in the obits? She still had her pride.

"Course," said Liesel, and she took the plate.

Beignets with powdered sugar and strawberry jam were honestly her favorite food in the universe, but she had trouble choking even those down under this much stress. Nothing ever went down easy when she was troubled. It had to be a Dolohov thing--Vati was the exact same way.



location: the Slytherin table with: a few minions



▇ ▇▇ ▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ RIDE WITH ME, I KNOW ▇▇▇▇▇
YOUR FRIENDS SAY THAT I'M TROUBLE.

[NightisDark21]

The one ball he skips out on and he misses all the excitement.

Edward Haydar normally did go to the social events the school hosted. And with so many guests there he surely would have attended. However he decided that the event had no need of him so he held up in his quarters doing his regular studying on ancients, something he found more and more time for the deeper he dove into the subject. He hadn't actually fallen asleep that night. There was hardly anyone in the common room so he wandered down stretching to ease his aching back, it was then he had seen Lisel rush in and disappear into her dorm. He was curious as to what had got her all worked up but he didn't even have a chance to question her. As not long after everyone had returned all at once. The gossip saying that someone was killed.

It must have been quite the show.

Sadly his curiosity was sated the following day when he was asking for details. Who was it? How did it happen? From what he could tell, one there was no big battle so no death eaters, and two it involved Potter, the head boy from Gryffindor. He bore no love for family nor for the house the boy was in. And he was not one to speak ill of the dead, but a body who simply fell in the middle of such an event was quite obvious. Whatever took her had done so before the festivities started. Judging from how many ministary officials were around, according to his house mates. There would have been no time for anyone to cast any curse onto the dearly departed Potter. He took this and turned into fact, and let the death leave his mind, coming to the conclusion. It didn't involve him, he didn't care.

What did get his attention however was of one of his fellow classmates. A slytherin he held in quite hard regard Liesel Dolohov. Edward was ever the observer and while they exchanged words regularly he did pick up on her behavior the past week. She didn't speak as much, she barely spoke to him, and was very distracted. This took much more prescience over the death of the Potter mother. This he was more concerned about.

As he strolled into the great hall for breakfast he was sure to confront her and just see what was happening. What was worse, it looked like she was eating something that would normally she would enjoy, and now it looked like she wanted nothing to do with it. Eyes furrowing he walked up behind her moving his hands he rested them under her jaw and lifted them up so she would be looking at him. "Still alive I see" he chimed before scanning her face, the true reason for him touching her so nonchalantly. He sighed as he saw how exhausted and just deathly she looked. "But not by much...."

Moving next to her he ordered "Move" he said to the first year near by to make room for himself. "So what's got you so distracted?" he asked as he served himself a beagle with some hot coffee. He gave her a side glance as he studied her expression. "Have anything to do with that those boys you seem to be avoiding?" Edward had known Leisel for quite some time. Their thought patterns were similar, they had the same bad habits, they just got each other, 'friends' some would say. He could tell when she was going out of her way to do something, or in this case, staying away from someone.

Slytherin Table: ♞ L o c a t i o n
Leisel and a few others :♞ W h o ' s H e r e
: ♞ F e e l i n g
:♞ O u t o f C h a r a c t e r

[what sara said]

location: the dorms with: the marauders

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It was a somber morning in Gryffindor Tower, just like it had been for the last week after Mrs. Potter passed away.

Peter had missed the event itself, but he hadn't explained that it was because he'd been high as a kite, pinned underneath a drunk Liesel Dolohov and her great big display of a ball gown. If the question came up of where he'd been when Mrs. Potter fell, he said he'd simply drank too much and passed out early, and he explained his absence from the dorm in the morning easily enough. It wasn't uncommon for him to sleep in a drawer curled up in rat form.

Liesel'd said something cryptic to him that night in the Slytherin dungeon, but he hadn't had much time to think about it in light of Mrs. Potter's death. Peter hadn't known her too well despite how close his and James' fathers were said to have been in school, but he'd always thought she was a kind woman, even if he overheard his dad mentioning now and then that he'd never liked that Hilaeira woman and wasn't sure Creighton ever had, either.

(Peter hadn't meant to eavesdrop on his parents' early-morning gossip while practicing with his animagus form one summer, but the only place he could practice was the house, while his parents were home, because of the Trace, and these things happened.)

Mostly he just hated to see James so torn up and miserable.

A normal morning in the Marauders' dorm consisted of Sirius or James waking up the whole house with some noisy explosive prank, Peter narrowly escaping having a heart attack and Remus settling them all down while chuckling about it under his breath, but all this week the atmosphere had been dampened.

Peter was now sitting up in bed, staring at the cheap secondhand suit he'd had laid out since yesterday night for the funeral, which was today. "So," he said hollowly, waiting for somebody else to say something, do something, anything. There was something about a death close to home that made all of time grind to an uncomfortable halt.

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[what sara said]

location: the Slytherin table with: Liesel and Edward

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Marilyn didn't remember much from the night of Professor Riddle's formal dance.

She remembered shooting pure ethanol into her vein and the next thing she knew she was awake, in her bed, at noon on Sunday. She'd been a little down on herself for sleeping in so late, as she'd probably missed any window of opportunity to ask Phillip Kutner if she could join him for his morning jog--that's when it flashed back to her that she'd kissed him on the dance floor after Liesel ran off, only to have him push her away and then act like it was her fault that she likewise retreated.

He'd literally rejected her; what did he expect her to do? Hold him down, tie him up? Of course, maybe that was what would work, maybe that was what he wanted after all...

Were all boys this complicated or was it just the devilishly handsome ones?

Either way she had spent the last week playing it as cool as she possibly could and hoping no one broke the word to Liesel that Marilyn had snogged her boy toy while her back was turned.

So far it didn't look like Liesel was any the wiser. Then again, if she knew, she wouldn't tell Marilyn off the bat. This was Slytherin, she would scheme in secret. But Liesel looked far too distracted this week to bother plotting against Marilyn so that was where she had the upperhand.

It was almost satisfying watching Liesel deteriorate, the Queen Bee wavering, the glow inside of her dimming, except in the last week she seemed to have grown even thinner and a part of Marilyn was dying with jealousy. How did Lise do it? And without even trying.

To eschew any suspicion, Marilyn walked up to the Slytherin table and took her usual place next to Liesel, who was having a conversation with that charming Haydar boy in her year. Nope, nothing to hide here. She touched nothing at the table except for a goblet, which she filled with ice water and a couple of raspberries just to spruce things up. "Haydar, good morning. Liesel, hello! Ugh, have you lost weight? You have to tell me your secret before I just crack from envy."

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[LittleStevieHorseAndPhone]

"So," Sirius responded in an equally somber tone after Peter was the first to speak up. He hadn't slept much--after getting sick in the loo from drinking too much last night, he'd only gotten a few hours in before the sun started to creep through the curtains. Before his friends had stirred, he had another couple of shots of Firewhiskey to dull the coming hangover and crawled back into bed.

Now, he was digging through his trunk for a pair of socks to wear with his dress robes to the...

You know.

Funeral.

All this week, he'd tried not to let his grief show. If anyone had a right to feel beat-up by the whole situation, it was James. This was his mother. She'd been there for him his whole life and now she wasn't. Sirius had only had her for about a year.

But in some ways, that was just the thing. He'd just gotten a real family of his own for the first time in his life, and it had already been struck by tragedy.

"You get Lily Evans to come with?" he asked James. He thought he'd heard something about Lily coming along to support James. A bit unexpected, seeing as the two of them had spent so much of their Hogwarts careers at odds, but Lily did have quite the compassionate streak to her, and if she was turning up, that could only be good news--James would have one more person to support him.

And if Lily was coming, that made it all the more likely that Sam would join them. Sirius had asked her if she wanted to come, but part of him was still wondering if, or perhaps worried that, she would cancel. Why wouldn't she? She didn't have much of a reason to attend the funeral of a woman she hadn't known, outside of Sirius, and all they had shared was a hostage situation.

Then again, sharing a hostage situation was kind of a big deal. Sirius couldn't name a single person besides Sam with whom he'd had that experience. It had to have brought them at least a little close. Maybe even close enough for her to lend him some support. His mum was dead.




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BRING ME BACK A DOG IN THE NEXT LIFE.

[LittleStevieHorseAndPhone]

Liesel was interrupted from nibbling on her breakfast by the touch of fingertips against her chin--she startled a bit, but swallowed her surprise and managed to meet Edward's eyes.

Evidently, he hadn't missed how disheveled she looked.

"I'm afraid I might be coming down with something," she invented, shrugging out from under his touch. "Best you keep your distance, or I might infect you."

She thought about withholding what was really on her mind, just like she always did, but he cut right to the quick, and at that point, what point was there in avoiding it? It wasn't like she would fool him. He was one of her closest friends, and...okay, maybe she didn't trust him. She didn't trust anyone. But the conversation flowed easier between them than it did between her and most people, if only because he was perceptive enough to see through about seventy percent of her ruses.

She sighed, glanced over at the Ravenclaw table, and looked back down at her beignets. The jam was starting to soak through the pastries, thank Merlin--it made them soft, a little soggy, and much easier to swallow.

"I just feel bad. Phillip's a decent person, and I'm just...well, you know me. I'm only capable of wreaking destruction," she said. "If I was a smidge more selfish, I wouldn't care that all I'm ever going to do is cause him pain. And if I was a smidge more altruistic, I'd cut him off right now and save us both the trouble. But I'm not those things."

Sometimes she thought she was human garbage and sometimes she thought she was the Second Goddamned Coming, but when you got down to it, she was only human, stuck in the middle ground like everybody else.

"And as a result, everything sucks," she sighed. "Not that it's a big deal or anything. These so-called 'emotional' matters are trifling, they hardly matter in the long run. We all know that. It's just...he's my friend, I want the best for him. Just like I want the best for you. And I wish he'd just pass me up already for someone, well, someone with a heart, for one. Someone like..."

Just then, Marilyn turned up at the table, taking her place at Liesel's right hand. "Maire!" she smiled, but was quickly put out when Marilyn brought up the recent state of her health as if it was a good thing.

"Well, for one thing, I'm hopelessly addicted to ******** opium," she said. "I also might be coming down with the flu. Do you want the flu? 'Cause I can give you the damn flu."

That was a bluff--she didn't have the damn flu. But she'd say anything to get Maire to shut up about her little obsession. She loved Maire like a sister, but her whole doctrine about how much space people could take up could get really annoying at times.

"You haven't got a thing to be envious about, Maire, you're easily the prettiest girl at this table. Besides, boys don't like sharp hipbones and protruding ribs, they like tits and arse. Right, Edward? Knock some sense into her," she said. "Now eat something, Maire--don't you like living?" she echoed Kiera's words from before.




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YOUR FRIENDS SAY THAT I'M TROUBLE.