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“My heart talks about nothing but you.”
— Albert Camus, from ‘The Just, The Collected Plays of Albert Camus’
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The music is so loud, Lily swears she can feel the vibrations in her bones. She can’t even decipher the lyrics of the song playing over the bass and the chatter of the people filling the Gryffindor common room. The fact that she’s tipsy enough that everything sounds slightly muffled, like someone stuffed cotton into her ears, isn’t helping either.
“Lils!” Marlene appears in front of her, a bright smile spreading across their red-tinted, kiss-smeared lips. Dorcas is next to them, arm around their shoulder, looking equally disheveled. Lily rolls her eyes good-naturedly; Marlene extends a hand toward her, “Wanna play?!”
“Play what?!” Lily leans forward in an effort to hear her friend better, eyebrows furrowed. She flinches slightly as the drink in her hand sloshes over, spilling over her jeans.
“Spin the bottle!” It’s Dorcas who answers, looking as mischievous as ever. Her smirk widens at the sight of Lily’s wide eyes, “Come on, Evans! Who knows, maybe you’ll get–”
Lily stands abruptly, cutting Dorcas off with a quick, “I’m playing, let’s go!” She places her hand in Marlene’s, a flash of heat settling on her face as she hears Dorcas laugh. She lets herself be led to a far corner of the common room, where much less people are mingling about; Sirius (because of course she’s the mastermind behind all of this) is shepherding the rest of their friend group, along with a few partygoers Lily doesn’t know very well, into a circle on the floor.
“Lily!” She calls as she catches sight of her, bounding up and taking her hand out of Marlene’s and into her own, steering her toward a free spot in the circle. Lily looks over her shoulder, throwing Marlene a desperate look, to which the blonde just shrugs and waves their fingers at her in amusement. Defeated, she lets Sirius push her down by her shoulders in the middle of Peter and Pandora, the latter of which turns to give her a charming smile.
“Right!” James claps his hands, his voice rising above the party noise effortlessly from all his practice as Quidditch captain. “I trust you all know the rules of the game! For those who don’t, it’s simple. When it’s your turn, you spin this here bottle–” Sirius steps into the circle with a dramatic flourish, showing off the glass bottle as if she were a co-host in a gameshow. “And whoever it lands on, you have to kiss. Or, if you would prefer not to, you can take a shot. Whichever option you prefer, that’s up to you.”
Sirius places the bottle on the floor and scampers back to her place next to Remus, that dangerous grin on her face.
Marlene is the first to spin, kicking the bottle with the toe of her boot just as it starts slowing down so it lands on Dorcas, who is sitting across from them. No one made any sound of protest at the broken rules, opting instead to cheer as Marlene whipped an invisible lasso and drew Dorcas in, placing a hand under her chin and pressing their lips together. Lily let out a loud laugh when they were broken apart by Sirius playfully kicking their leg into the space between them, causing the couple to turn and glare at her.
“Get a room, you two!” She exclaims, placing the bottle back in the middle before he gestures for Marlene to pick who was next.
The game goes on, with James landing a cheeky peck on Peter and another one on Regulus on his second turn, earning himself a hard, but playful shove from Sirius, who keeps rigging the game so she could kiss Remus. Lily herself had gotten a peck from Pandora and taken a mutual shot with Evan Rosier when one of her turns landed on him.
“Evans!” James laughs, taking another unprompted shot. “The floor is yours.”
Lily leans forward, ignoring Marlene’s teasing wolf-whistle and flicking her wrist, letting the bottle spin round and round and round, breath lodged in her throat in anticipation. Round, round, round, slowing down with each turn until it comes to a complete stop; Lily sits back on her heels ready to just give whomever it had landed on a quick peck and get it over with so she can go back to sipping her drink in peace. Her eyes lift and she suddenly feels like the world has come to a screeching halt around her.
Mary. The bottle had landed on fucking Mary .
Mary, who is looking at her with inquisitive eyes, watching her every move. Mary, who is getting up on her knees and scooting forward, placing a soft, hesitant hand on the side of Lily’s face. Mary, who, Lily suddenly realizes, smells like lavender and vanilla and is making her head spin. Mary, who still hasn’t kissed her because she’s waiting for Lily to make a move.
Lily jerks forward, pressing her lips against Mary’s own and– oh. Oh.
Her lips are so soft, and Lily can taste the raspberry from her lip balm. It’s intoxicating, clouding her mind and driving out every other thought that isn’t about Mary or her lips or how soft the skin over her collarbone feels as Lily runs her thumb over it. Just Mary Mary Mary Mary over and over and over, until she can’t breathe–she doesn’t want to breathe, because that would mean she’d have to pull away from Mary and she couldn’t, she’d die if she did. She wants to stay there forever.
It’s Mary who breaks away first, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, backing up slowly and refusing to meet Lily’s eyes; Lily falls back on her heels like a woman entranced, staring after her best friend. It’s all quiet around her, but she can’t bring herself to care. The game doesn’t matter anymore, not when she’s just experienced…whatever that was.
Pandora is the one to pull her back into her spot in the circle and after that, she skips every turn she gets called on, scooting back from the game once she feels herself starting to get too hammered to think. But, really, what is there to think about anyways, when all that occupies her brain is the feel of Mary’s lips against her own?
It should be simple, really, but it isn’t. Not at all. Not when her world feels like it’s turned upside down because Mary’s her best friend, has always been and will always be, and she’s never felt anything other than friendship for her, right? Right?
She’s too confused. And she can’t bear to think about it right now. So, she gets up to get another drink.
The night ends with Marlene having to haul her up to their dorm.
+++
Mary feels like she can’t make sense of anything.
The days following the party are weird, to say the least.
She feels like everything is spinning out of control and she can’t stop it, not even for a second–just a second, so she can think and see everything clearly.
It doesn’t help that Lily seems to be putting distance between them, only conversing with her when necessary or when Marlene is there to act as a buffer between them. She hates it; hates knowing that just a little over a day ago, Lily was sprawling across her lap and tangling their hands together and kissing her cheek, and now she won’t even meet her eyes, not even during lessons, and every time they touch, she pulls back quickly, as if she’s been burned. It makes Mary’s heart ache in her chest because they’re best friends, and because it had only been a silly party game, right? There’s no reason why their relationship should fall apart over that. No reason at all.
But if that’s the case, then why can’t she stop staring at Lily’s lips every time she talks now? Why does she replay the moment where their lips locked over and over in her head when she can’t sleep? Why does she feel tongue-tied around her?
Marlene is the one that knocks some sense into her head.
“Right, this is getting pathetic, now.”
“Uh…What?”
Marlene let out a puff of air, regarding Mary with a look of disbelief, “Mary.” They lean forward, elbows on their knees as they press their clasped hands to their lips. Their next words are slow, like they’re giving Mary time to catch up. “You and Lils.”
Yeah, Mary feels no less confused by that. “What about us?”
Now Marlene looks like they want to smack their forehead against one of the posts on Mary’s bed. “Merlin, Macdonald, are you serious?” At Mary’s silence, Marlene let themself fall face-first into the duvet, a muffled scream following their actions, making Mary jump slightly and move to place a hesitant hand on their back. “Oh, you’re both so stupid! ”
“Marlene, just spit it out! Please!” Mary huffs, rolling her eyes at their antics. There’s something in her, though, a voice at the back of her mind, that tells her that she knows exactly what Marlene is on about. But there’s just no way, because Lily is her best friend and it’s totally platonic. Everyone kisses their best friend at one point or another, right? It doesn’t mean anything.
It’s like Marlene knows what she’s thinking, and maybe they do, after so many years of knowing each other and sharing a dorm and being friends, because they turn their face to look at her and say, “No, Mary. Trust me, nobody kisses their friend like that .”
…Shit.
+++
It’s summer when they finally allow themselves to be alone together.
They’d been planning this week together since the beginning of term, long before the party, but now, there’s a palpable tension in the air that makes Lily want to run, because, truthfully? She doesn’t know what to do about it or with it.
She tries, though, to pretend like everything is normal. Like nothing ever happened, like they hadn’t just spent months having stilted conversations and leaving more space between them than they ever had before. And she can see Mary following her lead, bumping their hips together while they buzz around the kitchen, pulling together everything they needed for cookies; Mary even goes as far as grabbing her hand to lead her up to her room, a bottle of liquor hidden under her jumper.
They’re both giggly messes soon after, the half-drunk bottle being passed between them as they sit criss-cross on the bed, the plate of cookies balanced on a pillow the only thing separating them. Lily’s cheeks are being squished by her own palms when she says, “Let’s play a game.”
Mary blinks once. Twice. Looks up at Lily through drooping lids and slurs, “Yeah, I’m down,” even though games never end well for them. But she feels good and her head is cloudy and she’s not quite sure if it’s because of the alcohol or the pretty girl in front of her or both, so she ignores their history and agrees.
“Okay…” Lily trails off, hiccuping before her face lights up. “Truth or dare?”
Mary groans, “Really?”
“Yes, really. Come on, truth or dare, Macdonald?”
Mary shakes her head in defeat, taking another swig from the bottle and wrinkling her nose as it burns down her throat. “Hm…Truth.”
“Oh, boo, you’re no fun.” Lily blows a raspberry her way, giving her a thumbs down before pushing the plate of cookies toward Mary, poorly concealing her disgusted expression as she reveals the dare she’s cooked up. “I dare you to take a shot off a cookie.”
Mary rolls her eyes good-naturedly, grabbing a cookie and making sure to pour a small amount of alcohol on top of it, quickly throwing it back before biting into the sweet treat. She looks back at Lily with a smirk and Lily laughs loudly, awarding her feat with a couple of soft claps. “Thank you, thank you.” Mary pretends to bow before joining Lily’s laughter. “Alright, your turn. Truth or dare?”
“Dare. Hit me with your best shot.”
The game went on with Mary daring Lily to do a cartwheel (which Lily complained wasn’t much of a dare at all, but did anyway) and Lily returning the favor by asking Mary, through a fit of snorts, to recite the alphabet backwards (Mary admitted defeat halfway through, much to the redhead’s amusement). By the time the bottle was nearly empty, they’d long since stopped picking dare, finding themselves sprawled out on the floor, heads next to each other as they spoke in hushed tones.
“Truth?” Lily asks, eyes tracing over the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to Mary’s ceiling.
Mary hums, and Lily has to resist the urge to close her eyes. “You know it.”
It’s risky, Lily knows it. But she can’t help it, she has to know; she needs Mary to let her know that she remembers. That she still thinks about that night as often as she does, that there’s…something. Anything. That it’s not all half-ruined, or ruined completely–that it’s not going to be painfully awkward between them forever.
So she steels herself, takes a deep breath, and says, “Do you remember the party?”
She can hear Mary’s breath hitch next to her, and she wishes, for a fleeting second, that she could pluck the words out of the air and push them back down her throat and pretend she’d never said anything.
Mary’s voice is barely above a whisper, so light that Lily nearly misses the answer to her question completely in the middle of the chaos that’s going on in her mind. “Yes.”
Yes. Yes, she remembers. But also, yes , she knows what Lily means, and yes , she remembers that, too.
Lily’s palms are starting to feel clammy and her heart beats incredibly fast behind her ribcage, fit to burst. And it’s only because she wants to know more, wants to see if Mary will take the thread and pull at it, that she speaks again. “My turn.”
Mary rolls over, head leaning against the heel of her hand as she props herself up on her elbow, and when Lily turns her own head, she can see Mary’s eyes lazily roaming over her face, a painfully soft smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Lily doesn’t know where any of this is going, doesn’t know what that smile means, but she’s willing to go along with it.
She’s willing to do anything, as long as it’s with Mary.
“Truth?”
“Truth.”
“Do you regret it?”
Lily’s eyes widen and she shakes her head so fervently, she faintly worries that there’ll be a knot of hair at the back of her head for her to take care of later. She dismisses that thought, though, looking up at Mary with such sincerity, that she might as well break herself open and put her heart in her hands. “No. Not for a single second.”
Mary nods slowly and swallows harshly, that lovely smile growing across her lips and Lily finds herself in awe, nearly forgetting that it was her turn to ask a question.
“Truth?”
“Truth.”
Lily leans up on her elbows, “Can…Can I kiss you?”
Mary’s smile only grows even more, and Lily knows she wants so say something like That’s not a question , just to fuck with her. But she doesn’t. Instead, she sits up so her legs are tucked beneath her, and slots her hands beneath Lily’s chin, drawing her up, up, up until their noses bump into each other, and her breath fans across Lily’s lips when she says, “Yes.”
Lily’s brain turns off after that. She can’t think straight, can’t even remember her own name. All thoughts are pushed aside in favor of Mary (really, though, what thoughts were there to exile when Mary had already taken over every single one of them long ago); all she can feel is Mary and her soft lips and–there it is again, Lily thinks giddily, that raspberry lip balm. She decides it's her favorite flavour in the world.
And, yes, she knows they have a lot to talk about, a lot of stories to share and a lot of things to figure out, but she’s happy to stay here for now. She’s happy to stay here forever, actually, if Mary lets her, with her hands on Mary’s hips, kissing her until she runs out of breath and her lips go numb under the faint glow of the stars that litter the ceiling.