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Hostile Spirits


Mr. Jenkins lit the bonfire as dusk started - the sunlight fading over the ocean, turning the grey water a dark green with the sunset’s reflection. The whole lot of them sang Happy Birthday to Maryrose and there was a lovely cake outfitted with big sparking candles that took her two breaths to blow out. After everyone had gotten their cake, Maryrose and James walked along down the beach together, James carrying a plate with cake on it, eating as they walked, and Maryrose hugging his arm, watching as the moon glistened like diamonds off white caps of waves that broke against craggy jetties that stuck out into the sea. James sucked on his spoon as he ate the frosting from the curve of it.

“You have a bit of frosting --” Maryrose reached up and swept the frosting from his nose, holding her finger up so he could see. James smirked, then licked the frosting off her skin. She laughed, and paused in walking, stepping to stand in front of him while he ate the last of his cake, she stared up at him admiringly. “You’re so handsome, James Potter.”

James snorted. “No I’m not.”

“You are,” she answered and she ran her knuckles gently along his chin, “You need to shave.”

“Do I?” he asked and he felt his chin, too. Sure enough, there was a bit of stubble growing there. He made a mental note to brag about that to Sirius later - that he, James Potter, had managed to get a bit of facial hair before Sirius had.

Maryrose leaned in and kissed James’s chin.

He put down the plate and spoon on the pebbley beach and pulled her closer, bending his neck to kiss her back, his hands on her hips… The kiss deepened and James hand moved slowly up her side… She laughed and put her hands on his chest, pushing him back slightly, staring up at him with wide eyes. “Let’s go somewhere more private. This way.” She pulled him along the beach a little ways further os that the bonfire was a glowing speck off in the distance. It was darker down this way, and the moonlight was pale white against the water, the crashing seemed louder here… and James held onto her hand, their fingers entangled, knotted right up tight as, she led the way.

They came to the end of the beach, and Maryrose climbed up onto a large rock that led out into a jetty, they jumped rock to rock along the outcropping, and James saw between the stones there were little ecosystems, snails and crabs that waved their claws in disapproval. There was seaweed and algae between them, too, and growing on them, even, great grey barnacles… James worried they might slip and he redoubled his grip on her hand… He realized suddenly that he’d left his wand in his sweater pocket and the sweater was back at the bonfire, laying over the log that he and Maryrose had been sitting upon…

...If anything went wrong…

He pushed the thought out of his mind.

“There’s a cave right around here,” Maryrose said, and she pulled James down a steep couple rocks so that the jetty completely blocked the bonfire from view, “We used to sit in here and tell ghost stories when we were little, Pandora and I. It’s really creepy…” she laughed at the look on James’s face, somewhere between fear and excitement as adrenaline pumped through him. “People have died here,” she said.

“Seriously?” he asked, excited. “Or is that just a story?”

“Well the story is that there was a little girl, an orphan, who fell from the cliffs…” Maryrose pointed up at the crags overhead, “And she died in the sea at the mouth of this very cave and her body was never found. The story is that she haunts this cave.”

“Whoa,” he whispered.

Maryrose nodded, “Sometimes, if you listen real closely, you swear you could hear her screaming.”

James shivered.

Maryrose was not exaggerating at all about the creepiness of the cave. Everything was dank and green-blue with algae, the floor slippery with brine, but James couldn’t hear any screaming. He clutched onto Maryrose’s hand tight, though, horrible thoughts of what might happen if she were to fall into the water… The ocean was dark and unforgiving.

Maryrose reached a thin ledge that went round the inside of the cave and pulled James onto it and they leaned against the wall, breathing, staring down at the water pooling at their feet, swirling about in a gentle, lazy tidal wave as the waves crashed against the jetty outside violently. “Nice, yeah?” she whispered, her voice echoing about the stalagmites and stalactites.

“Cozy,” James said squeakily, reminding himself of Peter Pettigrew. “Right homey.”

Maryrose laughed. “Come here, all the way to the back here, I want to show you something.”

“Alright, sure,” James said, and he mustered his bravery and followed Maryrose, their shoes squelching along on the algae and brine covered stone, into the dark. Maryrose, who hadn’t forgotten her wand, drew it now and lit it up, and the walls glowed green and eerie from the light and bats eyes peered at them as they went a bit deeper in and James ducked ‘round a long stalactite that hung from the ceiling. “What’s back here?” he asked, peering into the dark. He really hated it in there, it was creepy and smelled faintly of something horrible that he imagined might be dead fish.

“This.” Suddenly Maryrose took hold of his shirt and pulled him close, kissing his mouth and dropping her wand so it landed on the stone by her feet and running her fingers up into his hair so the curls and messiness twisted about in her grasp… James backed up, away from the edge of the water, so his back hit the stone wall and she fell against him, her newly defined chest pressed to his and James couldn’t help but think that maybe he didn’t completely hate the cave after all…




Lily clutched Sirius’s arm as the Knight Bus cracked and disappeared away. They were in Hogsmeade, at the Hog’s Head Pub, and Lily’s face was pale from the horrid ride aboard the wizarding vehicle. “I hate that thing, I ruddy hate it,” she breathed, looking rather ready to vomit.

Sirius patted her back, “Blimey, you’re worse than Moony.”

Lily looked up at him, “Why do you call him that?”

Sirius laughed, “Moony? Because of the full moon, of course.”

Lily’s eyes lit up with understanding, “Ah. I always wondered, I’ve heard you call him that before. And I suppose him calling you Padfoot has some easy explanation, too? As well as Prongs and Wormtail?”

Sirius smirked, “Oh Evans if I told you the answer to those I’d have to kill you. That’s how top secret that is.” He waved her to follow him, “Come on, let’s go get that mirror. Moony’s going to be the second best thing I’ve ever looked at in a mirror.” He winked.

Lily mimed gagging, “Oh puh-lease,” she groaned.

“I’m only joking, of course,” Sirius said as he led the way, walking backwards, down an alleyway between two of the buildings of Hogsmeade, “Mostly.”

They walked through the trees to the little clearing by the fence that overlooked the Shrieking Shack. A new sign had been put up, warning people of the dangers of trespassing onto the property and Lily paused to read it. “Extremely Haunted, Hostile Spirits,” she laughed, seeing the placard went on to describe horrible, grisly deaths that had been caused by the supposed ghosts and demons residing in the Shrieking Shack. “Blimey. Dumbledore is nothing if not thorough.”

Sirius reached up and jingled some of the enchanted bells and shrunken heads that had been hung about the fence to ward away the evil spirits. “Lot good this does, ey?” and he pushed open the weak spot in the fence that he’d discovered as Snuffles and held it open for Lily. “Might have to crawl a bit to get through.”

She got on her hands and knees and crawled through.

“Lucky James isn’t here,” Sirius murmured, “Your, uh -- in the back -- bit short.” … and he nodded to the back of Lily’s skirt, which had caught up on the fence to show her underpants.

“Bloody hell. Don’t look, you pervert.” She swept her palms over her bum quickly to flatten the skirt and cover herself, her face burning hot with embarrassment.

Sirius snorted, “I don’t give a ruddy damn about your underpants, Evans.” He slid under the fence expertly, having done it a hundred times before. He sprang right back up to his feet and offered her his hand to help her up, “I’m raging gay, remember? Maybe if that was Remus’s knickers I’d be a bit more interested.”

Lily laughed, but she was still red. “Just don’t tell Potter.”

“Potter’s busy with Maryrose anyway, Evans,” said Sirius, “Why would he care about your knickers?”

She eyed Sirius, “We both know he’d care.”

Sirius shrugged, “Maybe. Certainly not as much as he would have before,” he added offhandedly, “He’s moved on.”

Lily had a funny look about her face. “Well just don’t tell him anyway,” she snapped.

Sirius crossed his heart with his fingertip solemnly, then waved for her to follow him off across the yard to the front of the house. He smirked when his back was to her. Of course Potter would care - and he found it absolutely amusing that she cared if he cared...

Lily glanced back at the dark path and followed him through the moonlight, across the grass to the front door of the house. It was rickety and she could see by looking up at it exactly how it was that people came to believe such a place was haunted. It was terrible, this place.

Sirius knelt down on the front step and pulled out a knife from his pocket and she watched as he opened up an attachment and slid it into the keyhole, fiddling about for a few moments, biting his tongue. She tugged his sweater tighter ‘round her shoulders and looked out across the field at the line of trees, a bit of nervousness in her, though she didn’t know why.

“There!” The lock popped and Sirius swung the door open. “After you.”

Lily stepped inside. It was dustier than it had been when she’d seen it back in February, when Remus had been coming down from his wolfish night. She followed Sirius up the stairs to the little bedroom and she looked about at all the things she’d seen there before - the pictures and notes that they’d hung on the walls and the stereo on the desk. She cleared her throat as Sirius ran across the room, flung himself belly-flopped onto the bed and grabbed the small mirror off the nightstand, tugging it toward himself eagerly.

“Moony!” he called out. “Moony?”

The mirror was reflecting nothing but darkness. “Weird, he must’ve put it face down somewhere or something.” Sirius hoped Remus hadn’t given up on him and shoved it in a trunk or something somewhere. He sighed, the mission for the mirror suddenly feeling a bit anticlimatic.

Lily frowned, “Aw. I was hoping to get to talk to him, too,” she lamented.

“Well, we have a long ride back to Maryrose’s house yet, perhaps he’ll pick up the mirror on the way,” Sirius suggested.

“Perhaps,” Lily agreed, though she doubted she’d much feel like talking to anybody once they’d got onboard the Knight Bus again...




James and Maryrose were having quite a go at snogging. He could barely breathe around it all, and his mind had gone all fuzzy like being intoxicated by firewhiskey felt… He was trying to resist the urge to touch her chest, trying to be a gentleman, and keep his palms on her hips… it was taking an awful lot of concentration to stay good… and he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to resist… He just really wanted to know what they felt like… after all, they really hadn’t been there the month before. Then again, being a metamorphmagus, neither had Maryrose’s intensely orange hair or blue eyes for that matter, but that was different… He knew what hair felt like, having some himself.

He was just trying to think of a way to accidentally touch one when there was a splash in the water that made him look up, breaking away from the kiss. “What was that?”

“Probably a wave hit the rocks funny,” Maryrose said, breathless, though she looked over her shoulder, reached for her wand and held it up, looking about the cave carefully.

James didn’t think it had sounded like a wave at all. It had sounded like somebody jumping into the water, like a diver or something. He glanced at the moonlight filtering in through the mouth of the cave. “We should go back,” he muttered, “Your party and everything… Everyone’s probably wondering where we’re at.”

“Oh Pandora knows, I told her to cover for us before we left,” Maryrose said.

James was glad someone at least knew where they were. Just in case. But he didn’t like the suddenly uneasy feeling that had come over him. “I dunno, let’s go back anyway. I’m cold and I left my sweater there and Sirius is probably upset I’ve abandoned him. I should at least check in on him.”

“Alright,” Maryrose said with a sigh, and she grabbed his hand and led him back out through the cave toward the jetty.

They’d nearly made it… Maryrose was standing up on the rock already and she let go of James’s hand so he could pull himself up from the mouth of the cave, and he’d got one knee up on the stone… when a hand jutted out of the water and grabbed onto James’s ankle… pulling him back.