Summary: The Marauders contemplate life, death and rememberance over a shared bottle of firewhiskey.
Categories: Marauder Era Characters: None
Warnings: Substance Abuse
Challenges: Series: None
Chapters: 1
Completed: Yes
Word count: 1207
Read: 2116
Published: 09/08/06
Updated: 09/09/06
1. The Drinking Game by Slian Martreb
The Drinking Game by Slian Martreb
Author's Notes:
Lily's bit belongs to the immortal poet WH Auden, before whom I am humbled.
And Sirius has a mind of his own. I bear no responsibility whatsoever for his part in this.
The Drinking Game
Sirius and Remus all but fly out of their seats at the sudden sound of a loud and nasty bang. Instinctively, Sirius has half the incantation of the Killing Curse spoken and the rest on his lips when Remus screams out a warning, and he realizes James and Lily have Apparated into the flat. Stumbling, they go crashing to the floor in Remus’s attempt to throw a hand over Sirius’s mouth.
“Bad dog,” Lily says with what must be a forced laugh as she’s gone slightly white. “We don’t kill our friends.”
“Bugger you for bursting in without a warning,” Sirius growls as he sits up, rubbing the back of his head. “What are you doing here?”
“We came to get smashed,” James answers with a huge smile.
“Smashed?” Remus echoes.
“Smashed,” James repeats. “Roaring shite faced drunk. Pissed. Inebriated. Rummy. Sotted. Soused. Bibulous. To emulate Bacchus,” he intones. “To revel and otherwise act like utter berks. What do you say?” he finishes with a grin.
“You know bigger words than I thought you did, for one,” Remus says without blinking, and Lily laughs as James makes a face.
“Come on, mates. I want to be completely buggered by the end of the night and it all depends on you. Peter’s coming over, too.”
Remus throws Sirius a long-suffering glance. “They’ve invaded our home.”
“And they’re bringing rats with them, too,” Sirius adds, sounding disappointed.
“Should we put out some cheese?”
“Or mousetraps.”
“Hmm,” Remus says, thinking. “The ones with glue on the bottom, not the ones that snap their heads off, right?”
Sirius looks at him, wide-eyed. “Whyever not?”
“Well, some would argue that it’s“”
Remus cuts himself off with a scream as Peter Apparates in with a crack, stumbling into the couch and nearly falling.
“Can’t you knock!” he demands, exasperated. “How
many times?” he goes on, a hand over his racing heart as though to calm it. “How many times have I told you? Apparate outside. Outside!”
“Sorry,” Peter mumbles, righting himself and his robes. “What are we on to now? James just said to be here.”
“He wants to get buggered by the end of the night. Apparently, he can’t get it done without us,” Sirius answers, eyes glinting wickedly.
“Hey!”James exclaims indignantly as Peter cackles.
“Boys,” Lily says, rolling her eyes as she moves towards the kitchen. “James, get the firewhiskey and the butterbeer, would you?”
“Women,” he mutters in reply, and the Marauders share an understanding nod of agreement before following her.
*****
It only takes an hour to see the lot of them well and truly drunk. They’ve never been able to hold their drink. James and Lily are draped over the couch, limbs loose and lethargic and entangled. Sirius is rocking back and forth on the two rear legs of his chair, long gone after just two bottles of firewhiskey. Peter is sprawled on the floor, perfectly still and seemingly dead but for the rise and fall of his chest every few seconds.
“I can’t feel my brain,” Sirius says into the blissfully drunken silence.
“Don’ think yer sposed to, mate,” James answers. “I, on t’other hand, can’t feel my“”
“Well, I never can,” Lily interrupts him, tracing absent circles on the arm he holds her protectively in.
James makes a face at the top of her head and Remus laughs, the warm haze of alcohol filling him. It amazes him, more so now that he is drunk than it usually does, how James and Lily seem to understand each other without a real need for speech. It must be something about marriage, he decides. Some kind of God-given Legilimency that follows the vows. Right after the ‘till death do us part’ bit.
“Eh,” he starts, raising a tired arm to signal the others’ attention. “Eh.”
“Wha?”
“When you die. When you die,” he starts again, forcing his own brain to work. There’s no reason for his to feel any sympathy pains for Sirius. “When you die,” he starts for a third time, focusing, “what do you want to be remembered for when you die?”
“I don’ wanna die,” Peter says from his spot on the floor.
“Well, yer doin a good job o’ seein you stay alive by laying on the floor half drunk,” Sirius says pragmatically.
“Eh,” James says, raising his bottle in Sirius’s direction. “Don’ blame ‘im for the piss party. You needed to get smas’ed jus’ as badly as the res’ of us.”
“Yes, blame James,” Lily puts in. “Blame James for getting us pissed at the height of the war and leaving my baby with a man missing an eye.”
“Moody scares me,” Peter puts in.
“He scares all of us, mate.”
Peter snorts. “Tha’ was helpful.”
“No, really,” Remus tries again, realizing that conversation has gotten away from him. “What d’you wanna be remembered for?”
Sirius slams back noisily onto all four legs of his chair. “Moony,” he says, his voice heavy with drunken solemness. “You are utterly daft.”
“No,” Remus argues, shaking his head. “Really. What do you want to be remembered for? If the“watchems“Death Beaters“Eaters, I mean. The bad guys. If they“whatsit“kill us. Tomorrow or summat. What d’you wanna be remembered for? On your“thingy“wazzamicallit“where they bury you“gravestone. What should it say?”
“Daft,” Sirius mutters again, speaking into his bottle of Butterbeer, “utterly daft.”
“Sirius,” Remus all but whines, though deep down he agrees.
“‘yers’d say ‘Here lies Moony. He was a lunatic,’” Sirius answers.
“James,” Remus begs imploringly, ignoring him.
He appears to think for a moment, and it’s a moment too long because Sirius breaks in before he can answer. “Here lies James Potter,” Sirius declares, obviously warming to the idea of the game. His voice is stronger and louder as he raises his butterbeer in mock salute. “He was a horny bastard. May he finally rest his piece.”
Peter cackles from his prone position on the floor. James, to his credit, snorts as Lily lets out a fed-up sounding, “Sirius!”
“Can yeh think of anything better, Missus Potter?” he demands before taking another swig.
She is quite for a moment, then says softly, “Here lies James Potter. He was my North, my South, my East, my West/ My working week and my Sunday rest/ My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;/ I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.”
The minute long silence is finally broken by Sirius saying, “I was wrong, Moony. Yer not the daft one. She is. Women,” he finishes, rolling his eyes.
“Oh, shut up, Sirius,” Lily says, her eyes somber. “How do you want to be remembered?”
Sirius hesitates for only a moment before he grins and intones gravely, “Here lies Sirius Black. He liked to ride and he liked being ridden.”
Remus chokes on his drink. Peter kicks his legs against the floor, giggling until James and Lily, laughing so hard, both fall off the couch. Sirius simply looks around the room, smiling and looking altogether too self-satisfied.
And that seems to be the end of that.
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