Only Dreams (Regulily Short Story)

Regulily

(7th year)

Lily felt blissfully happy in a group of her Gryffindor friends. The Marauders, plus Marlene and Lily, were playing an intense game of Truth or Dare out in the courtyard. Sirius had nicked a bottle of veritaserum, Merlin knows how, from Slughorn's stores and a bottle of fireball from his own personal preserves.

There was electricity and excitement crackling through their veins. The adrenaline, they were on fire. The world was falling apart around them, cracking through the seams, the edge of a cliff where the water below was inevitable war. There was nothing left to do but jump, and they knew that. But for now, they would enjoy this night and commit it's happiness to memory so in the end they knew they had lived, not just survived.

"Lily Evans, Truth or Dare?" Marlene playfully asked her best friend.

"Well I just did dare, and that ended horribly." Lily said with a laugh, the rest joining in. "So let's go truth."

"Take a drink." Marlene grinned at her, as she picked up the bottle and took as much as she could handle. It burned as it passed through her throat yet she loved the feeling. Painful, but the kind of pain that reminded you you're alive and here for a reason. The kind of fire that makes you forget the world is falling around you. The burn that tells you that it's okay because you have friends you'd die for, and who'd die for you, and for now that was enough as they tease you for the face you pull when the bottle is put down.

Lily laughed and waved her friends laughter away, "Oh shush. I have had a lot to drink and it's starting to get to me alright, I can make a face if I want."

"Watch this." Sirius winked at Lily as he downed the rest of the bottle. For him, this pain was different. A pain he had felt on one too many nights. Too young to have found a meaning to life other than the one he thought he'd see through the glass at the end of the bottle, he kept drinking. A pain that made him forget the ache of abusive nights as a young child, huddled in the blankets as the blood seeped through his too-thin clothes. He looked through the glass as the last of the fire slipped down his throat, James distorted face in view, and Sirius smiled. He may not have found a meaning to the endless cosmos he'd stared at so many lonely nights, but these friends, they gave him a purpose. While they were here, he had something to live for.

"Wow, way to show me up there Padfoot. Real nice of ya." James cut off with a laugh, just loud enough to tell that the man was wasted too. Sirius barked out a laugh, "Next time don't be such a bitch then eh?"

"Fuck off, bitch." James yelled over to his friend, his brother, through a smile. James had too much of that bottle himself, and the effects were all over him. Slightly dizzy, wobbly, though the smile rarely left his face. That was just James, always the one there for you if you needed him. He would kill for his friends, and die the most painful death if it meant seeing them happy. He could still feel the flame of the fireball caught in his throat, his warm breath now visible in the cold air, and he smiled. In this moment, he was happy, surrounded by the only people who had ever really mattered, he had peace. He watched his breath disappear into the night air, his impression left on the world. Sirius had found a home, Remus had found a family, and Lily had found an escape.

"Alright, alright, will someone please give me a question for that truth?" Lily shouted out, interrupting Sirius' smirk and no doubt what would have been a clever retort. She took a sip of the potion, and was soon met with a question.

"Lily, have you ever been in love?" Remus asked from the corner, having been relatively quiet this whole time. He had gotten drunk as well, but for him it was more a reflective, sometimes volatile, state. He wondered if he could ever find love, only to assure himself that he would not. Tell himself he's a monster, unlovable. He could feel the wolf in his chest now, scratching, screaming to make it to the surface only to be drowned as the end of their second bottle is seen by Remus. In the glass, he sees his own face reflected, the monster under your bed at night, and shatters the bottle on the ground next to him. Even through the end of the bottle and a distorted reality, he couldn't see he was one of the only whole and kind human beings to walk the Earth.