“Finally! The weekend! A time to relax, breathe and catch up with our friends after being separated for so long…”
“Shut it, Sirius; first of all, it’s only our, what? Sixth week of school? Second of all, in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve only spent every past waking moment with you!” James said grumpily while rolling up Clive’s sleeping bag. Clive had declared that he didn’t need it. His mother was picking him up in another week to take him to Africa, and apparently, they slept under the stars there, in the freezing cold weather, without sleeping bags. Needless to say, the boys were having trouble understanding Clive.
“I’ve got popcorn!” Bridget sang and sauntered into the room. She held a large bowl of popcorn in one hand and a pitcher of pumpkin juice in the other. She sat down and plopped the bowl in the center of the room where they were “making camp.” Sirius had lugged down a mattress and the others brought down their comforters off their beds. Scattered around the center was various bowls of sweets and candies and a blank sheet of parchment on a clipboard.
“I call the court to disorder!” Remus joked and sat down and grabbed the clipboard.
Peter made a face. “That one was a dud.”
“You got a better one?” Remus asked and tore off a piece of Chocolate Frog.
“Well, no…” Peter said slowly.
Sirius cut across, “Well, then, listen to this one-
So, two men were sitting next to each other at a bar.
After a while, one guy looks at the other and says, ‘I can't help but think, from listening to you, that you're from Ireland.’
The other guy responds proudly, ‘Yes that I am!’
The first guy says, ‘So am I! And whereabouts from Ireland might you be?’
The other guy answers, ‘I'm from Dublin, I am.’
The first guy responds, ‘Sure and begora, and so am I! And what street did you live on in Dublin?’
The other guy says, ‘A lovely little area it was, I lived on McCleary Street in the old central part of town.’
The first guy says, ‘Faith, it's a small world! So did I! So did I!’
‘And to what school would you have been going?’
The other guy answers, ‘Well now, I went to St. Mary's of course.’
The first guy gets really excited and says, ‘And so did I!’
He then says, ‘Tell me, what year did you graduate?’
The other guy answers, ‘Well, now, let's see, I graduated in 1964.’
The first guy exclaims, ‘The Good Lord must be smiling down upon us! I can hardly believe our good luck at winding up in the same bar tonight! Can you believe it - I graduated from St. Mary's in 1964 my own self!’
About this time, a guy named Vicky walks into the bar, sits down, and orders a beer. Brian, the bartender, walks over to Vicky, shaking his head and mutters,
‘It's going to be a long night tonight!’
Vicky asks, ‘Why do you say that, Brian?’
‘The Kelly twins are drunk again.’
They all burst out laughing. James was holding his sides and hanging off his bed he was laughing so hard, Peter looked ready to die from lack of oxygen and both Remus’ and Bridget’s faces were bright red.
“Oh god, that’s a good one.” James laughed.
“Yeah, well, it’s takes a genius!” He stood up and gave a flourishing bow. “So anyways, let’s get to business!”
“Whose turn is it now?” Peter asked. Sirius scanned the list of Slytherins.
“Um, we’ve gone through them all actually, I believe Snape the Snake was the last one on our list…” Sirius said frowning.
“Are you kidding me? Well then, on to the big leagues.” James exclaimed excitedly. A maniacal gleam appeared in his eye.
“This time, we’re going for something big! Something huge! A group prank on all the Slytherins. Let’s go…”
“Where’s Bridget?” asked Lily. She looked up from her textbook and gazed despondently at the blank wall across from her. “This is just sad. It’s a Friday night for God’s sake! We should be out partying! Watching a Quidditch match! Sprinting down the hall in our nightgowns singing the Canadian national anthem! Something other than, than- studying.” She looked around in disgust at the girls. Rae and Fern were taking turns practicing turning matchsticks into needles, Alice was mouthing the incantation to a levitation charm and Lily herself was doing homework.
“She’s in the boy’s dorm again.” Rae said with a certain amount of disgust. “She’s been practically inseparable from Sirius, James, Remus and Peter. It’s improper if you ask me.” She gave a small sniff of disgust while her facial expression showed that she wouldn’t mind spending some quality time with the “cutest guys on the face of the whole earth”.
“Oh that’s just great! I wonder what they’re planning this time.” Lily groaned. “I feel bad for that Snape kid.”
“Ew, Snape the Snake?” Alice made a face.
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Nasty.” She rolled over and tossed her book over on the side table and replaced it with a Witch Weekly issue.
Lily felt like crying. She had never felt so torn apart before in her life. She hated Marie for making Bridget mad at her, she hated Claire for ignoring her, but most of all she hated Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin and James Bloody Potter. She tried to ignore the nagging tug of jealousy that wrestled with her emotions. Bridget hadn’t spent one Friday night with the girls. She was always running off, breaking curfew or sneaking into the Gryffindor boys’ dorm room for overnighters. Nasty rumors flew all around Gryffindor Tower about Bridget. Lily had overheard one of the seventh years suggest that Bridget was taking turns- She shuddered. Nasty.
“I’m going for a walk. Anyone in?” Lily walked over to her trunk and pulled out one of her favorite dingy sweatshirts.
“Nah, it’s got to be about minus five degrees outside.” Rae speared another needle on her pincushion.
“Okay then, fine. See you all later.”
She sprinted down the hallways, checking over her shoulder for patrolling Prefects, teachers, and worst of all, Peeves. She strolled about a bit in the courtyard before deciding to take a lap around the lake. Lily crossed her arms over her chest and shivered. Rae wasn’t kidding when she said “minus five degrees”.
The night was chilly; the air was sharp and crystalline. It was a horrible night to be out of the castle. She was one-fourth of the way around the lake when-
“Oof!” She tripped and went sprawling onto a bed of small, sharp rocks.
“S-s-sorry.” The lump stammered.
What the? She pushed herself up and turned the lump over to find, Connor Clive huddled up in a sleeping bag.
“Connor! What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? You’re going to freeze out here!” She exclaimed. She was absolutely horrified to see him lying outside. “Did Black kick you out? No? Well then, who? Potter? Lupin? Pettigrew? McGuire?” She rattled off the names of the current occupants of the boy’s dormitory.
“No one! This is great training for when-” The rest of his speech was cut off with a hacking cough.
“You’ve obviously hit your head on something, Connor. C’mon, let’s go see Madame Pomfrey.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT YOU FOUND HIM SLEEPING OUTSIDE?!”
Lily had no choice but to cower before the awesome power and rage of one Madame Pomfrey.
She turned to the sickly boy lying nestled in blankets. “And you!” She lowered her voice to a furious whisper. “And you! Actually thinking that you could handle it! Well, just last week you were in here recovering from a bad case of the Muggle chicken pox! AND the week before that you decided it was a good idea to go and bond with one of Professor Sprout’s Venomous Tentaculas! Do you have a death wish, Mr. Clive?!”
“Baby!” Lily turned around to see who she presumed was Connor’s mother, sprint across the room and engulf her son in a hug. “That’s it darling! We’re taking you out of this school. It’s far too dangerous for a boy like you; Mummy will take you to Africa!” She hugged him tighter. “Sweetheart, can you imagine it? Africa! The weather will help improve your health by thousands!” She let go of Clive, who was now looking positively joyous, to shake Lily’s hand and engulf her in a hug.
“Oh, so you’re the angel who brought my son to Madame Pomfrey here! Professor Dumbledore told me all about you! Thank you so much! You saved my baby’s life!”
“Mum!” Connor complained.
“Oh, sorry dear! He hates it when I embarrass him in front of his friends,” Mrs. Clive whispered in an undertone to Lily.
“Oh, well, ha ha, it’s no problem.” Said Lily weakly, a bit embarrassed by the situation. She wasn’t about to break it to Mrs. Clive that she- along with the rest of the Gryffindor house- thought Connor a bit, well, odd.
“Oh! And thank you so much for looking after Connor, Poppy. It means the world to me that a friend is looking after him at Hogwarts.” She gave Madame Pomfrey a hug. “I got that beautiful letter that you sent me. I swear if you weren’t such a good Healer, I would send you to a publishing company so fast!”
Madame Pomfrey chuckled and shook her head good naturedly. “Writing was never really in my blood, Caitlin. I’m much happier here. Come, Miss Evans; we’ll leave Mr. Clive and his mother alone.” She ushered Lily through the door to her office.
“Madame Pomfrey,” Lily began hesitantly, “I was wondering if, um, you know what the matter with Remus’ mum is. He wouldn’t tell us why, or what’s bothering her, and he looked a little beat up when he came back, and I was just wondering-”
“Oh, Mrs. Lupin just catches a little bug once in a while, no need to worry Ms. Evans.” Madame Pomfrey said hurriedly. “Quite common, now please scurry along back to your House. Needless to say, your dorm mates are probably very worried about you. Oh here, take this note; if Mr. Filch bothers you just hand him this and explain you’ve been performing a service to the school.” She ushered Lily out of her office and out of the hospital wing. “Goodnight, Ms. Evans.”
“Goodnight.”
The next morning Lily was up early after a long night of regaling the girls with tales of her rescue of Connor. They chattered as they made their way down to breakfast; Lily noticed that Bridget was curiously absent from their group.
They sat down at the Gryffindor table and were about to chow down when she saw a group of extremely tired looking Slytherins walk in and sit down. Almost simultaneously, James Potter appeared at her elbow and plopped down next to her with Bridget and Sirius on his right side.
“I’m absolutely starved. What are you having, Evans?” James said as he nicked some bacon off her plate.
Lily ignored him and instead asked, “Where were you last night, Bridget?”
“In the boys’ dorm; we had some stuff to talk about.” She said vaguely as she shook cinnamon into her oatmeal. “I heard about Connor- bummer. Good for you though!” She seemed strangely overly occupied with her breakfast.
Black nudged Bridget in the side and whispered something in her ear. She grinned, pulled out a mirror and made a show out of arranging her hair. Lily shot a discrete look at Remus; he looked oddly pleased, but his expression was hidden more than Black’s whose face showed outright glee.
Lily craned her neck to see who the object of their amusement would be this morning. She absolutely hated it when they pulled cruel pranks on people. She didn’t really get it- why did they think it was so hilarious? Sure, they had gotten tons of attention for it already, but it wasn’t like it was a way of life. Lily spotted Severus walking into the hall.
Oh no… Severus had been the brunt of many of Black and Potter’s cruel jokes. Unfortunately, he had deserved them… It was time to take action.
“Why can’t you just leave him alone, Potter!?” She got up and turned him around so that he was facing her. “Why him?”
He gave a wolf whistle. “Oh la la! Evans and Snape! You got a thing for greasy Slytherins, Evans?” Snape froze and Lily blushed a violent shade of red.
“Evans and Snapey, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. Wow, Evans, guess we know who your Valentine’s going to be in February!” He laughed enjoying the look of embarrassment on her face. Lily turned an even deeper shade of red.
“Why do you have to be such a git, Potter!” She slapped him clear across his face.
“Grow up, Potter.” She snarled.
“No need to, I’m only eleven. I’m as old as I want to be right now, Evans. Now how about you just simmer down? It seems to me that you’re the one overreacting.” He turned away from her and kept his eyes trailed on Snape. Lily was fuming. She picked up her plate and stormed over to the other side of the table, Alice following in her wake. Claire caught her eye from over at the Ravenclaw table and raised an eyebrow. Lily merely nodded and kept her eyes on her food after that. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. I can’t believe I just did that. She ate a piece of toast and ignored the curious stares from her fellow Gryffindors.
She was about to get up and leave breakfast when she heard an awful screeching sound. She whipped around, only to find the entire Slytherin House in the act of having the all the benches pull out from beneath them. Many of the girls were moaning and trying to brush the food off of their robes, while the guys started swearing quite colorfully. Lily couldn’t help but stare at Potter and his friends. How on earth had they managed to do that? She couldn’t believe that they had charmed the benches to pull out from underneath the Slytherins just as the last person sat down at the table. It was a rather impressive piece of magic, she had to admit. Many of the other students started to clap, and soon the applause was tumultuous.
A/N: Sorry for the long wait! I just finished all my applications for highschool and they were all murder :( So anyways, just a nice lovely filler chapter about the Marauders and Bridget's relationship with them and such.