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Best Birthday


Nobody in the world could ever deny that the Gryffindor common room was not the site of the best parties in the castle. Even other houses would if they ever got a glimpse of the absolute chaotic glory of a Gryffindor party.

Sirius return from McGonagall’s office only twenty minutes behind James to find the party in full force. He grinned when he stepped through the portrait hole to find the room filled with noise. He’d given Lily and the other two Marauders permission to move the stereo downstairs again for the occasion and the Rolling Stones were playing as Sirius stepped inside. There were brilliant golden streamers decorated with paper snitches with flapping wings all about the room and glowing letters that spelled out Happy Birthday James strung over the mantel.

Sirius stared around the room at the revelers. They had James in a corner, showering him with gifts of sweets and small odds and ends and he was currently laughing over a prank gift from Frank Longbottom - a tin of licorice wands that, when opened, turned out not to be sweets at all, but actually a spring-loaded toy hippogriff that flew out of the can and scared the hell out of James so that they all laughed at the look on his face as he gathered his wits about him. Peter was talking nervously to some of Ali’s dorm mates, turning pink as one of them fixed his tie and Sirius smirked, glad to see Pete was getting some much coveted attention from the ladies. And finally he spotted Remus, sitting on the stairs leading up to the boys dormitory, a book open on his lap, watching the party from his perch, sort of bent forward and rubbing his ankles.

Sirius went over and sat down on the stairs beside him.

He had a sudden sense of deja’vu and he wondered for a moment where it had come from when he realized this was exactly the same sort of situation and place where Remus Lupin had first kissed Sirius… that unwanted first kiss, when Sirius had pushed him away.

What the hell was that, Lupin? He could almost hear the echo of his own question.

Remus looked over at Sirius. “Hey. How’d it go with Minnie? James told me she did the career counseling for you lot today. Was it horrible?”

Sirius shook his head, “It was alright.”

“Did you lot narrow down some options for you?”

“Basically study like hell for the O.W.Ls.” Sirius shrugged.

“What did you put on your list?”

“A load of tosh, but Minnie and I talked and I’m going to try to get the O.W.L.s I need to go into the Healer program at St. Mungo’s.”

Remus smiled, “I was hoping you’d say that.”

Sirius leaned back and looked up at him. “You were? But --”

“You told me about that dream the same night I told you about mine of being a teacher,” Remus said, “I said it then, I’ll say it now - I think you’ll be brilliant at it.”

Sirius felt his throat tighten. Remus Lupin. Always the one to believe in him first. Always the one who’d never doubted Sirius. He slid a little closer and put his chin on Remus’s knee. “Thanks, Moony, for always being there for me.”

Remus stared down at his book. His cheeks felt hot, though they weren’t flushing just yet. He nodded, “Yeah. Of course.”

Sirius closed his eyes and drew back slowly, leaning back against the steps. He watched the party a few minutes more, wishing desperately this was two years ago and that Remus would lean ‘round and kiss him again and this time he’d not pull away… this time he wouldn’t waste all the time he could’ve spent in love with Remus Lupin.

Love, he realized, was a funny currency. Once somebody else had run out of it, all of the love you had leftover inside of you was no longer of value… and you were stuck just holding onto it pointlessly, your fingers gripping tightly to what could’ve been.




Lily was a bit nervous that her gift was stupid. But there were few things that you can get the boy who has everything, the boy whose wealth allowed him to want for nothing. And she’d wanted to give him something Special. Something that wasn’t just candy from Honeydukes or something to get him in trouble with Filch from Zonkos. So she sat, clutching it in her hand until everyone else had finished giving him their gifts and he was grinning as the majority of the partiers had returned to dancing merrily about the common room. Then she sat down beside him.

“Great party, Evans,” James said, grinning.

Lily smiled, “I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”

“Definitely,” James nodded.

Lily hesitated, then, “So earlier when you caught me on the stairs, I was coming back from the Trophy Room Passageway…”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I had to fetch this.” She pulled out Marlene McKinnon’s Polaroid from where she was holding it under the table. “Sirius said he’d left it in the alcove there after the Valentine’s Day incident.”

James smirked, “That was bloody brilliant, that prank. Best prank we’ve ever pulled. Gonna be hard to top it next week.”

“Next week?”

“April first.” James’s eyes twinkled.

“I’m sure you’ll do your very best.”

“Of course.” James had a party hat on his head - it was shaped like a crown and had paper jewels around it. “So what’s the camera for? Documenting the greatness that is the party you’ve thrown?”

“Sort of. It’s… it’s also your birthday present.”

“You’re giving me Marlene’s camera?” James laughed.

“No… I’m giving you a picture of us.” She paused. “For my wall.”

James stared at her, his heart rate picking up. “Yeah? You want my ugly mug on your wall?”

Lily nodded.

A smile crawled over James’s lips.

“I didn’t know what else to get you.”

“I love it,” James said.

Lily flushed. “Well… well good. So... let’s take it then and I’ll… invite you upstairs… so you can see that it really goes on the wall.”

James grinned. “Oi. Longbottom,” he called, getting the attention of Frank, who sat across from them, talking animatedly to Andy Woodhouse. “Mate,” James said. “Could you take a Polaroid of us?” he held up the camera and Frank took it, looking it over awkwardly.

“Sure.” He turned the camera to look at the pair of them and held his finger over the trigger button.

James and Lily leaned into each other and James nervously put his arm ‘round her shoulders and Lily smiled up at Frank and the camera as James drew a shaky breath and smiled that crooked-mouth smile, excited by the intoxicating proximity of Lily Evans beneath his arm. The camera flashed twice as Frank took two photographs. They whirred and rolled their way out of the camera, landing on the table top. “There you have it!” Frank said.

“Thank you,” Lily said and she took up the two photos as Frank laid the camera down on the table top between them, nodding, and returning to the conversation with Andy Woodhouse. Lily and James each shook one of the photos as they developed. “Well, I guess now you’ve got one now, too, if you want it,” Lily said.

James nodded eagerly.

When the photos had developed, they put them on the table and laughed at the goofy expressions on their faces and the way James’s ridiculous party hat looked. They each selected which picture they wanted - though there was very little difference between the two, and Lily led the way to the stairs to the girl’s dormitory. “Come on, then.” She reached out and took James’s hand.

“They won’t chuck me off, then, if you invite me?”

“Ali says they don’t chuck Frank off when she invites him. But you have to go with a girl or else they do.”

James said, “Imagine how long it must’ve took Godric Gryffindor to bewitch the stairs to do all that?” he snickered.

Lily smirked and they went up the steps, leaving behind the partiers, who were still singing, dancing, shouting, laughing behind and they snuck up into the empty girls dormitories to Lily’s room. She’d neatened up specifically knowing she’d be bringing him there and he looked about, marvelling again at all the Lily-ness of the room. She’d gone right over to the little wall of pictures and taken out her want, applying spellotape to the back of the polaroid. She looked at him. “C’mere, James.”

He went over and stood beside her.

“Where shall I put it?”

He looked over all the pictures and bits of papers and things she had on the board and he finally spotted an uncrowded spot around her eye-level a little bit above Sirius’s photo with her, where there was currently a picture of Lily and Jasper. He pointed, “Could cover that up, you could.”

Lily said, “Yes, I probably should take poor Jasper down from there.” She reached up and took the picture of Jasper off, then put the one of her and James up. “There you are. A photo on my wall.”

James grinned at it.

Lily stared at it, too, then looked up at him. “I’m sorry it’s such a stupid present.”

“Evans. Seriously. I love it. I do.” James turned to her and stared into her eyes. “I cannot tell you how much it means to me.”

“You should’ve been there anyway,” she said.

James shrugged.

They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment. James could feel his insides knotting up and his palms pooling sweat and he cleared his throat nervously. Lily swallowed back the anxiety building up inside of her. She reached up a shaking hand and pushed a bit of errant hair from his forehead softly. Her touch electrified against his skin. James licked his lips. “Thank you,” he breathed.

“You’re welcome,” she whispered.

He started to lean closer, “Evans?” he asked.

“Yes?”

“Will you go on the next Hogsmeade weekend with me?”

Lily felt her stomach twist. “Perhaps.”

James smiled. “I need a yes or a no answer, Evans. I can’t go getting excited over a perhaps and have you cancel on me at the last minute and break my bleedin’ heart.”

“Yes.”

James’s smile widened. “Best. Birthday. Ever.”

Lily laughed.

“Evans?”

“Yes, James?”

“Thank you.”

“You’ve already said that.”

“I s’pose I have,” he whispered… and he started to lean in…

Nerves won over inside Lily and she turned away, hurrying toward the door, “We should go back downstairs, birthday boy, before they notice you’re missing.” She grabbed the door handle, her hand shaking.

James stood awkwardly leaning forward like he’d been for a moment, eyes closed, then he glanced once more at the photo on the wall, at the snowglobe on the nightstand, and followed her back downstairs as the picture of himself on the wall waved and hugged the smiling pictuure of Lily Evans all the tighter.




Sirius’s shaggy hair hung over his forehead, only just long enough to reach his eyes, and his words stuck together a bit as he slurred, leaning over the arm of the overstuffed chair by the fire, his stocking-feet in the air over the opposite arm, “Oiiiii, this has been the besttttttt daaaamn party!” His fist wrapped ‘round a bottle of Firewhiskey and he beamed up at the ceiling, laughing stupidly. He’d ended up leaving the stairs and getting out the alcohol and getting quite crazy, becoming his usual life-of-the-party self, dancing on the table and singing along with nearly every song at the top of his voice, telling jokes and getting giddier and giddier the more alcohol he drank.

James laughed, his eyes squeezed tight, and the world sort of rushing about him. He had a cigarette, taken from a pack that Jackson Maw had left on the table, and he held it between his forefinger and his middle, and he leaned back against the cushion of the couch feeling cool, feeling sixteen, feeling intoxicated and dizzy in a good way. “It really has.”

“How much trouble would we beeeeee in if Minnie or annnyyy teacher ever bothered checking the common room past curfew, ‘ey?” Sirius drawled and he rolled so that he hung like a Z over the side of the chair so he could look at James. “We’d be in soooo muchhhh trouble.”

“So much trouble,” agreed James and he took a drag off the cigarette, trying not to choke on the smoke. He was getting better at it.

Sirius grinned, then reached for the camera on the coffee table and clumsily snapped a photo of James Potter, cigarette hanging at a lazy angle between his finger, grinning a sloppy sort of smile and looking so young with his birthday crown upon his face, and so alive, that even then, in those moments, that photo made Sirius miss him. Even though James was right there.

“This will be your fucking mug shot for the player books when you go National, Potter,” Sirius declared, waving the Polaroid to develop the film. “All of the girls will swoon upon your sexiness.” He paused, looking at the photo, “And some of the men, as well; Merlin’s Beard, Potter, when did you become sexy?”

“I haven’t,” James declared, blowing a stream of smoke from his mouth, “You’re just so fucking drunk you’d think a house elf was sexy.”

“Oh is that it? So tomorrow you’ll be an ugly, specky git again?”

“‘Zzzactly,” James said.

“I don’t give a damn how drunk I am, I’d never find Kreacher sexy, so -- so specky gits are one up over house elves. Congratulations.” Sirius inspected the camera, then aimed it at himself, made a face like he was Elvis Presley with the Presley Sneer, and snapped a photo. “Mother of a Gargoyle, I forgot how fucking bright that flashy thinger is.” He blinked back the dots that hovered in his eyes.

“Bright. That word sounds funny. Bright.” James murmured the word, as though trying it on for size in his mouth. “Brrrrrr-iiii-ght.”

Sirius dropped the Polaroid to the floor, the photo he’d taken developing itself on the carpet. He rolled out of the chair and climbed onto the couch, his stocking feet bunched up. Between him and James lay Peter and Remus, both of whom were lightweights and fallen asleep after just a few sips of the firewhiskey each. Sirius was beside Remus and he took an extra long pull off the bottle as the scent of Remus Lupin - warmth and chocolate and worn in jumpers - assaulted his nose. He aimed the camera at Remus and snapped the photo, the camera whirring as it processed and spat out an image of Remus Lupin, his hair a mess, laying back in the cushions, a chocolate bar in his clutch. Sirius stared at the photo as it faded into view.

“Bright…” James was still muttering.

Sirius looked over at him. “Prongs?”

“Pads?”

Sirius put his arm ‘round so it laid across Remus and Peter’s shoulders, and he leaned back into the cushion, smirking to himself, “What’d you tell Minnie today? At counseling?”

“Exactly what I said in the hospital wing that day… I’m going to do auror training. Goin’ to kill Moldy Voldy, I am. Gonna be the death of that slimeball.” He grinned up at the ceiling. “What’d you tell her? Besides the rock star bit?”

Sirius closed his eyes, “Healer.”

“Healer? You?” James looked over, taking a drag of his cigarette.

“Dost I hear doubt in thine voice, fair Potter?” Sirius asked, cracking one eye open and taking another sip of firewhiskey.

James said, “I just can’t picture you wearing a white uniform without getting it dirty.”

Sirius grinned. “I do have a great talent for making things dirty, don’t I?”

James smiled.

“I’d be a fucking fabulous healer, Prongs. I will. Minnie says I can and whatever Minnie says goes.”

“Well. If Minnie says.”

“She does.”

“I believe in you, Sirius,” James said, lowering the cigarette and squinting over at Sirius on the opposite end of the couch. “You know that, yeah?”

“Course.”

“I think you can do bleedin’ anything, mate.”

Sirius’s eyes flickered to Remus, who’d shifted, yawning and leaning into Sirius’s shoulder in his sleep. He brought his arm back from Peter’s shoulders and wrapped it around Remus Lupin, whose head rested on his shoulder, and leaned his own head against Remus’s, closing his eyes. “Not anything.”

James stared at the pair of them. “Welcome to my world.”

“Fuck. This is how you’ve felt about Evans all this time?”

James hummed affirmation, taking the last long drag off his cigarette before turning slightly and putting it out in a tea cup one of the first years had left laying about after practicing for Transfiguration class. James leaned back into the cushions and said, “Yup.”

Sirius breathed deep the scent coming off Remus’s hair and felt a shiver of longing rattle it’s way up his spine. “Like a bit of you’s missing.”

“Yes.”

“She has the answer to every question I’ve ever asked of the world. And not just because she’s smart and pretty. She’s funny and creative and...”

“Yes he is,” breathed Sirius.

“Think we’re talking about two different people,” James murmured.

But Sirius didn’t answer.

James pushed the crown up on his head - it had fallen over his eyes - and he looked over to see Sirius was fast asleep, leaning against Remus Lupin. James leaned back into the cushions and closed his eyes again. “Best birthday,” he breathed as he fell asleep, too, falling into a dream in which he was kissing Lily Evans.