Chapter Text
“You are seriously intimidating, you know that marls?” Mary chuckled with a voice rich in sarcasm, as she stepped over Marlene’s trunk that appeared to have exploded with a bounty of clothes covering every inch of floor.
“Of course I am!” She huffed, biting the tips of her fingernails indecisively.
“Stop doing that, I just painted them for you!”
This comment earned a subtle eyeroll.
“Back to the task at hand,” Mary offered up a choice of scarves to which Marlene shook her head in disgust. “Dorcas is shy, from what I remember…or at the very least more shy than you, so if you…” Mary held her tongue. “ ‘hope to score’,” she winced reflecting on Marlene’s previous choice of words. “Then you will have to ask her. You have to make all the first moves.”
Mary knew this all to be redundant, as Marlene had more balls than any man, but she didn’t really have any other words of wisdom. She found herself particularly distracted.
“I will, you know I will, I’ve just been…preoccupied, and I need to look really hot when I ask her as well, hence…”
“You know you’d be able to find things faster in here if you just let me organise it for you like I offered,” Mary reminded.
“No! You don’t know my system!”
“What system?” Mary begged, standing there drowning in leather pants and shiny belts.
“You have so many tops I could steal half of them and you wouldn’t even know!”
“Oh, speaking of tops…I was looking at Dorcas the other day in the library studying…”
Mary jerked her chin up and twitched her eyes back and forth in comprehension, like someone had just ran past her window naked and she had about 2 seconds to process.
“and she looked so beautiful…her eyes are the most mesmerising thing, as well as her smile, not to mention the biggest set of—
“MARLENE MCKINNON, I do not need her measurements!”
Marlene’s laugh was loud, echoing from a bright smile.
“You are just up your own ass, Mary, because that was going to be the juiciest bit of goss you’ve gotten all week.”
She began to finally piece some garments together.
“Possibly true, although I did accidentally walk in on Frank and Alice in the prefects bathroom yesterday…all I can say is…fucking graphic!”
“Alri’ Longbottom! Who would have thought?” Marlene threw a fist loosely into the air.
“I think I might hate all these happy couples. Oh god, are we sad?” Mary cracked.
“Are we just the saddest people ever?”
“I’m not!” Marlene nearly giggled.
She finally grabbed a pair of blue bootcut jeans with metal rings sewn in by the pockets, and a tank top shirt that read ‘I am the hottest female in this establishment.’
“I’m about to score me self a sexy date for this weekend in Hogsmeade. I shall leave the three mischievous children in your hands, ta ta.”
She referred to the boys who were down stairs residing in the common room, and then began to loosen her school tie and tossed it onto her bed.
“Unless you’re staying for the show, darling?”
They both shared the same amused brow lift.
“we haven’t reached that point yet marls,” Mary turned around to leave.
“Oh so there’s a yet?” Marlene followed behind her with tip toe like steps.
“Jesus Christ, get away!”
“Don’t be mad, love. You can have me when I’m back from my date with Dorcas. Maybe she’ll be up for a threesome?”
“I am leaving you perv,” Mary took a shoe off the floor and aimed it at Marlene’s head, then snuck out quickly down the winding stone stairs to the common room.
Remus and James sat in the corner together working on a pairs assignment, for potions, from what she could tell, while Sirius sat with legs out on the couch grooming himself.
“Did I hear something about threesomes?” he turned his head around with a sway.
“Oh yeah, Marlene and I are sleeping together on the side, didn’t you know?”
“Yeah right,” he cracked. “and James and dating my brother…”
Remus, James, and Mary all stood with odd faces for a moment, giving delicate side eyes to one another trying to calculate what to say next.
“wai…guys? James?!” Sirius turned his body fully to face his best friend, who was sweating under his collar surely.
“No, No I’m not! As if mate,” James said coolly, before Sirius gave a sigh of relief and James turned nervously back to Remus. Mary could have sword she’d seen him mouth ‘FUCK’.
Mary climbed over the back of the couch, lifting up Sirius’ legs for a place to sit before putting them back down onto her lap.
“Do you want me to poke my eyeballs out?” He yelped with a long comb in his hand, smoothing out his jet black tresses, and he asked this as if it was the most serious question he’d ever spoken.
“sorry drama queen.” Mary put her hands up.
“What’s up anyways, where is McKinnon off to?”
“She’s off to find her precious lover Dorcas Meadows to ask her on a date.”
Her grumpiness was reflected through her tone.
“why do you sound jealous?”
“I’m not jealous.”
“you sound it.”
“I’m not! Pads, I’m sad!”
“you are always sad!”
“But this time it’s reasonable. I am literally going to be alone forever. Did you know that I just realised that today? It’s just so great. I stopped for a moment and looked around and realised everyone is fucking coupling up!”
“Erm, like who?”
“Well now, Marlene and Dorcas, Frank and Alice, you and Remus…” she whispered the end of that.
“W…w…what…wha hold on! Me and Remus? How did…let’s…let’s circle back to that.”
He composed his shock for a moment to concentrate.
“You aren’t alone Mary, you just haven’t found the right person yet, and not everybody does when they are young.”
“Right just…everyone I’m friends with.”
“I mean, do you want me to…set you up with someone or somethin’” he offered, mid attempt to trying to put his dark mane into a sort of braided tied updo, but failed and let go frustratingly, until Mary clicked her fingers to bring him sitting upright so that she could do it for him.
“Maybe…but no fucking weirdos. I already have the three of you.”
“You know you love us,” James chimed in.”
“Come on Mary,” Remus added. “You know it’ll be the pair of us looking after this lot ‘til we’re ninety.”
“There’s plenty of eligible people here in Hogwarts,” Sirius assured, although not sounding like he even believed himself. I suppose having your eyes only set on one guy since you were eleven years old will have that sort of effect.
“Sometimes you just have to keep an open mind,” Remus added again.
“and open legs…” Sirius smirked.
“Pads!” Remus sounded like he was scolding him with a command, and it worked.
“But seriously Mary, the right people find you when you aren’t looking for them. Sometimes in life, you have to sit back and wait for someone to walk through the door.”
Mary sat there trying to process the most bullshit string of sentences making their way out of Sirius’s mouth, before her attention snapped away to the common room door opening, and she watched as Lily Evans crawled through and greeted them all with a smile.
“Hey guys!”
“Oi Lily,” James looked at Sirius and then at her excitedly. “You’ll never guess what we were just talking about.”