#pete is about a year younger than alice

[inamindfarfaraway]

TGWDLM AU where on the way to Professor Hidgens’s house, the group see Infected Pete and Ted has a complete breakdown. These monsters got his little brother and he wasn’t even there, he didn’t protect him, didn’t look for him, didn’t even think about him - he was too busy thinking of himself, like always. Now Pete’s gone forever, because clearly whatever happened to Sam isn’t something you can come back from. He swore, he swore after Jenny that he would never feel that bad again. But this is worse. At least she didn’t die! *Audience members cringe* His brother, though, is dead. At sixteen years old. It couldn’t be Ted, the useless bastard with nothing good ahead of him. No, Ted wanted to survive. And Pete - earnest, brilliant, loving Pete, perhaps the last person on the planet to give a damn about him - paid the price for it.

This forces Emma, who has been spending the whole last year dealing with the pain of losing her sibling and not getting to say goodbye because she was off being selfish and neglecting her relationships, to realize: ‘Oh. Fuck. The sleazy asshole has feelings… that I can empathize with. Ew.’ So she tells him about Jane. Although she still hates everything else about him, a) nobody deserves to suffer through that alone, which she knows from doing it alone, and b) maybe if he starts to see her as a person with feelings too, he’ll be slightly less insufferable. And it works. The solidarity lays the foundation for a slow-burn friendship. Will they always annoy each other? Oh yes. But it’s hard to understand someone on such a raw, fundamental level and not reach out to them when you yourself also need support.

Due to his external and internal walls being shattered, Ted has to become more comfortable with vulnerability; he has to be more appreciative of and sensitive to other people. He really, really values the few relationships he has left. He and Charlotte connect more deeply while she’s concurrently processing her complex feelings about Sam and his death, and he might not leave her alone with Sam, imagining how he’d feel to be alone with Pete’s body and the alien inside it. He grows to be an actual friend to Paul and… well, Bill might not have enough time for that, but nevertheless. Maybe in this timeline, a handful of Hatchetfielders get to the PEIP helicopter together. Maybe the Hive doesn’t escape the island. Maybe PEIP figures out how destroy it.

Pete was the good one. Pete was the one with hope. But if Ted’s the one who survives, then he’ll just have to live for both of them.

Or he could let the Infected get him right away and the brothers could sing an epic duet.

@dontsteponthatfish @awigglycultist @blueskiesandstarrynights

#i think they could have reached the helicopter before the hive #if not for the delay of ted’s betrayal and paul and emma then having to escape the infected including the army #also i don’t believe that he knew pete died in canon #or we would have known about it #you think this egotistical mess of self-pity and dysfunction wouldn’t have made it very clear that he was suffering intensely? #yes he recoils from emotional honesty but he can do it when really hurting as seen in ‘time bastard’ when he talks about jenny unprompted #and when he does he Wallows #his drunken breakdown was just about charlotte #losing her hit him Hard #but if he knew that he lost pete and then lost her? #he would have been on a whole other level of grief and despair #pete is about a year younger than alice #i bet ted would have brought him up when arguing that trying to rescue alice was pointless #because of the parallel and to make the situation about him #i love him but i do think he would do that #bastard man. stinky bastard man #not a healthy coping mechanism in SIGHT #but this au idea revolves around my hope that if he knew that he’d lost pete he would be much more invested in his other relationships #and his only remaining significant relationship at that point is charlotte #so he wouldn’t leave her in danger and she wouldn’t die #therefore changing his trajectory from ‘PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN’ to ‘awkward begrudging healing’ #ted spankoffski #pete spankoffski #spankoffski brothers #spankoffski bros #emma perkins #jane perkins #the guy who didn't like musicals #tgwdlm #time bastard spoilers

[honeyspawn]

Silly Assorted Hatchetfield headcannons part 2.

Brooke and Trevor are best friends, and Brooke's family is Rudolph's host family.

Alice and Grace used to have play dates when they were younger, but it was more because their parents were friends, and they didn't really hang out other than that.

Sycamore is a Catholic school. They are very small, with an average of around 40-60 students per graduating class.

Paul delivered pizzas (canon) for 6 whole years. He started when he was 16, almost right after getting his driver's license, and continued through college. He started working for CCRP almost right out of college.

Even though their coffee is bad, Beanie's hot chocolate is surprisingly good (aside from the fact that they spit in it).

Bill got really into stress baking after the divorce. He has a sour dough starter he's really proud of.

Bill's ex-wife is a fairly successful freelance programmer. The fact that she makes more money than Bill was a big contributing factor to their custody arrangement.

When Peter was 7, the Spankoffski's were having a family beach day, and Ted tried to scare him by telling him there were sharks in the lake. Pete proceeded to go into detail about why it is scientifically impossible for there to be sharks in Lake Michigan and why he's an idiot for even suggesting such a thing.

The ages of Linda's kids (at the time of Honey Queen): Trent- 13, Seaton- 12, Jordan- 8, and River- 6 (canon)

Steph has been playing the bass since she was 15. She only really plays for herself, though.

Because Steph was born in October (canon), she has a big costume party for her birthday. It's the biggest Halloween party of the year.

#starkid #team starkid #hatchetfield #tgwdlm #black friday #npmd #nightmare time #alice woodward #grace chasity #paul matthews #bill woodward #peter spankoffski #ted spankoffski #linda monroe #stephanie lauter

[mintytrifecta]

Bestie what kind of Disney lore do you have I really really would like to know

Ooough so much and so many different kinds and I will use this opportunity to talk about Mickey's siblings >:)

So the most common one to see as Mickey's sibling is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit!! Mickey's predecessor by one year and father of 420 kids, Oswald is usually seen as Mickey's older brother or older half-brother.

Oswald came from shorts made by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks while they were working under Universal Pictures but once the two left they couldn't keep Oswald or use him cause of. Yknow. Copyright. So instead they made Mickey and his debut in 1928 was a huge hit while Oswald sort of faded into obscurity under Universal until Disney bought him back in 2006. (well it was more of a trade, really they traded a sports announcer to get him back. Like a wholeass person for this character. Wack)

In 2010 Disney Interactive Studios and Junction Point Studios released a game for the Wii called Epic Mickey, a game which marked Oswald's modern debut. In it, it's revealed that Oswald lives in a world made for forgotten toons where he's sort of the leader. Without saying much cause of spoilers, Oswald resents Mickey and believes that he stole away his life from him as well as the public and Walt's love for him. Throughout the game the two get closer and reveal secrets and reconcile and eventually become brothers :")) unfortunately other than the sequel game Oswald's only had cameos in modern stuff rip

The next character is a little similar but has not had any modern appearances that aren't fan works. The one and only cartoon cryptid and intentionally Felix copycat, Julius the Cat!!

Julius is even older than Oswald, debuting exactly 100 years ago today!! (July 29th, 1922) Julius is from the Alice Comedies, a film series made by Walt and Ub beginning in the Laugh-o'-Gram studios (rip forever in our hearts) and to other studios later on. The series had a live action girl called Alice fall into a world of cartoons and go on adventures with Julius and defeat Pete (Peg leg Pete. That guy. He's still around. He's so old) whenever he caused shit.

The series stopped production in 1927 and Julius was kinda forgotten by the public eye. He's in public domain now but is usually regarded to as Mickey and Oswald's oldest brother by animation or Disney fans who know him. I'm pretty sure he's got a bit of a following here on Tumblr :]

Next up is an actual in-universe sibling, Mickey's older sister!!

Debuting in a 1932 strip "Mickey's Nephews", Felicity (or Amelia depending on where you're from or who you ask) Fieldmouse is Mickey's older sister and the mom of Morty and Ferdie. She's a journalist for a mouseton paper :] unfortunately she hasn't had an animated debut yet.

In fandom works with Felicity in them, Oswald is usually shifted to be the middle sibling with Felicity as the oldest of the trio, but I haven't seen much content with Julius interacting with her yet.

Last up is probably the weirdest addition but bear with me here

Flip the frog. Created by Ub for some Disney shorts before Ub left due to a dispute between him and Walt. This one's probably the most fandom-heavy but it's so entertaining to imagine Flip is Mickey's younger brother. Just think about it,,, incredible

#I'm sorry this took so long to answer xnsnajks

[wacky-hatter]

Woag my family headcanons

Plus stuff like how the family interacts lmao anywho uhhhhh some ground stuff

-I’ll be including some ocs in this, I’ll mark them with “(oc)” to avoid confusion!

-I may end updating this as the reboot is coming out soon and there could be more littles than just Dot’s long awaited sibling, and just more dolls in general

-Ofc the lalaloopsies with littles are still siblings, but for time I won’t mention them cause that’s not a headcanon! That’s just canon!

anyways lets-a-go

-Wacky comes from a large family, he’s personally an only child, but his parents both have a lot of siblings, so he has a lot of cousins, and those cousins have kids of their own, yeah yeah. One of his cousin’s from his dad’s side has a son named Marly Q. Sho-biz (oc), making him Wacky’s first cousin once removed. Marly also has two direct cousins named Simone and Ahava Yuck-N-Gross (ocs).

-Alice Lalaloopsyland and Queenie Red Heart are sisters! Alice is older by a year, and her maiden name is Sparkles. Alice and Wacky fall in love and run away, starting their own family

-Mona Arch Wings is Wacky and Alice’s eldest, she’s adopted as Wacky found this large “snake” and wanted to keep it as a pet. Then it form a cocoon, stayed in it for a few months, and then out came a doll child (yeah the bug lalaloopsies are built different), two years after Mona’s adoption, they sewed Jewel and then Trinket when Jewel was 15, giving them their mom’s maiden name of Sparkles

-TBH I kinda wanna make Valentina Hugs-N-Kisses related to Queenie in some way? Maybe make her Queenie’s daughter? IDK why she’d have that for a last name or why she’s in Lalaloopsyland; maybe she’s adopted, but it would be funny to give Jewel another cousin!

-Patch Treasurechest is the older sibling to Dyna and Tiny Might! He’s a year older than Dyna and 14 years older than Tiny. Treaurechest wasn’t even one of their parents’ lastnames, he snagged it from his grandpa he only heard about from his mom. Let’s just say the Might household wasn’t great and Patch ran away and stayed/got raised by Kat Jungle Roar’s family for a bit

-Pickles’ moms are Olives BLT (oc) and an unnamed women, Olives and her wife got divorced and she fell inlove with a women named Mega Pompoms (oc), sewing Peppy PomPom’s together when Pickles was 11. The family ended up adopting Ace Fender Bender when he was 13 (Pickles was 20 and Peppy was 6), Pickles pulled a single mom and ended up sewing Patty Burgers N Buns when she was 23

-Forest Evergreen has two cousins from his dad’s side of the family, Prairie and Trouble Dusty Trails, they’re both Canadian but Prairie is faking a Texan Accent. Forest’s family also ended up adopting Scarlet and Cape Riding Hood after their sole guardian, their grandma, passed away. The sisters also had a bio cousin, Robin Swindler (oc) who was also being raised by their grandma, so he came along with the adoption

-Cinder Slippers and (Prince) Charming Handsome are siblings! Cinder is older than a year, while their little sister, Ribbon, is treated better than they were as kids- Their parents weren’t really in their lives, and so they got raised by the Royal Advisor, Bijiou Treasuretrove, who is married to Clarity Glitter Glazer

-(Lady) Lovdie Stillwaiting has a few distant cousins, there’s Suzette and Mimi La Sweet from her mother’s side, there’s a close enough relation for Suzette to be the duchess to the Stillwaiting kingdom! On her dad’s side, she has a VERY distant cousin named Charms Seven Carat... their relation is so distant that you’d have to SEARCH to figure out “hey, we’re techincally related!”... which Charms surly did cause she’s obsessed with becomig royalty-

-(Sir) Sentry Battlescarred is the older brother to Star Magic Spells, his younger sibling (they use they/them) got the magic genes from their mom, so Star gets to do magic while Sentry is stuck being a bodyguard-

-Speaking of Kat Jungle Roar’s family; Fluffy Pouncy Paws is their cousin! Flffuy also has an older sister named Bouncer Fluffy Tail... the family reunions are chaotic

-Grapevine and Mint E Stripes are sisters! Grapevine is seen as the disappointment of the family so she went off to do her own thing and doesn’t come to the reunions-

-The ice creams are all related! Scoops and Spoons Waffle Cone have cousins from their dads side; Frost I. C. Cone and Anna Double Scoops! Anna is the eldest sister and overall out of the cousins

-Surprise Party Curls had two younger siblings, Pete R. Canfly and Curls N Locks... I say had as Surprise is presumed dead after a traumatic incident that happened when Pete was 10 and Curls 8. The two got adopted as Darling Brightside’s younger siblings a few years later 

-Snowy Fairest and Little Bah Peep are cottagecore wives :]

-Royal T. Honey Stripes is the mother of Mari and Posy Flower Petals, making the Flower Petal sisters part Bee, and they’re also royalty but shhh :]

-Sweetie Candy Ribbon and Whirly Stretchy Locks are sisters, Sweetie being older by three years, so she’s gotta keep her sister in check a whole lot-

-Peggy Seven Seas has a younger brother named Polli (oc) who she’s 15 years older than and is rather overprotective of, especially after he stuck his hand in the blender all those years ago-

-Ember Flicker Flame and Red Fliery Flame are still sisters, but Red has a twin named Flint (oc), who gets.. babied alot

#sewing canon #lalaloopsy #long post #i have a lot of thoughts ;]

[halothenthehorns]

All in the Family

Chapter 121: Seen and Unforeseen

The house was dimly lit, very old, and had seen better days before the eight of them crash landed in here.

Sirius was thrown so bodily into an old couch he felt something snap inside of it.

James crashed upon a bed that spit up on an unseemly amount of dust.

Remus slammed against a bookshelf so hard, it wobbled dangerously, like it was all going to crash down right on top of him.

Peter landed alone, in a dingy room that had the nearest excuse for a bed in a corner, the book on top, and that was it.

Alice was in some sort of wine cellar that clearly had the most use, judging by all the missing bottles on the rack.

Frank was thrown so hard against a door his nose busted.

Regulus found himself in a barren backyard, in an unfamiliar neighborhood, spotting a dirty river that wound between overgrown, rubbish-strewn banks. An immense chimney, relic of a disused mill, reared up, shadowy and ominous. There was no sound apart from the whisper of the black water.

Lily landed on the roof, and was not inclined to come down when she recognized a horribly familiar house in the distance with a cat weather-vane, that patch of trees behind the park just across the street, or the sign at the end declaring this is as Spinners End.

Frank blinked the spots out of his eyes as he realized he was in the room with Remus, and made a valiant effort not to flinch and run from the room as he fumbled for his wand in the semi-darkness and pointed it at his own streaming nose silently casting the spell, still trying to blink the stars away.

He wasn't entirely convinced he'd managed to hide it all, but it was still better than screaming. At least they were both saved from any stilted conversation by a shouting from behind the bookcase he'd landed in, Peter demanding if anyone could hear him.

Frank and Remus moved in tandem without even looking at each other, both tapping the bookshelf first, but whatever spell they'd tired had no affect, so giving it a shove, and still it didn't seem to want to move.

Sirius roused himself from the couch, shaking his hair out of his face as he went over and called, "stand back Pete!"

Frank looked at him in confusion. "What are you-"

Remus grabbed the back of his robes and pulled, pushing Prongs back into the room he'd just tired to leave from and slamming the door behind the three of them.

There was a soft, muffled exploding noise that seemed to shake the whole house, but at least when five of them converged back in the living room, it was to see the two of them waving smoke out of their face and bickering.

"Could have killed me you arse!" Peter was huffing as he brushed dust from his long ruined clothes.

"What, I got you out didn't I?" Sirius pointed out in exasperation. The bookshelf lay in a scattered mess around them like a war map.

"Remind me never to get rescued by him again," Frank muttered quietly to Alice, who snorted in surprise at him making such a dark joke.

"Where are we?" James interrupted the two, circling curiously on the spot.

Remus went over to a mounted wall light and flipped it on, but the bare bulb only cast the corners of the room into heavier shadows and illuminated their destruction upon arriving. There was an empty mantle, and Regulus knew there to be a very tiny kitchen he'd passed through to get in here, with a few muggle contraptions he couldn't recall what they were called, but he'd seen back in the Dursleys house, if lesser models in here.

"Hey, where's Lily?" Alice asked in concern.

Regulus had spotted a hint of her flashing red hair on the roof, but she'd sat herself down, and he figured she'd be in here by now if she wanted to be so obviously didn't want to be disturbed. "Well, I don't hear anyone else screaming for help, so let's get on with this." He summoned the book to him, which came shooting out of the room that had been behind the bookcase.

Frank thought him a bit more of an arse than usual, he'd thought they'd almost been getting along back in the Weasley's kitchen, and he really didn't care? The end of the last chapter wasn't that pressing of an issue to keep going! The chapter title illuminated no explanation. Seen and Unforeseen? That could mean almost anything!

He and Alice went in search of the house one more time with a thorough inspection but only found more dust and disuse, and then went out back just to make sure, but finally spotted her on the roof, just sitting up there and gazing into the distance.

The two exchanged an uneasy look, feeling almost bad now they'd forced their company on her back in the last place, but they also didn't want her to have to go through this alone. Snape was still being more of an arse than ever in those Occlumency lessons, and it was clearly getting to her. They didn't know what else to say though, they'd made it as clear to her as they could they still wanted to be friends to her whatever her decision regarding him, and if she didn't want to talk about it in the meantime they could hardly force her.

They went back inside, holding hands and hoping their friend knew she could join them when she was ready.

The chapter itself wasn't offering much in the meantime, Hermione was patiently explaining exactly how Harry's date was a disaster with Cho in almost painful detail. Alice watched James in particular during this to see if he was bothering to take notes, and to her unbelievable surprise he seemed to be.

Remus and Sirius were behind him, whispering and snickering more bad advice they hadn't managed to say during the last bits, but Potter was ignoring them and watching Regulus with an intent expression and still looking around hopefully like he wanted to catch a glimpse of somebody else's red hair besides the arriving Ginny and Ron.

Frank had the vague impression he'd pay Hermione to invent said book, 'Translating Mad Things Girls Do So Boys Can Understand Them.' "Have I ever mentioned how much I love you," he told his girlfriend seriously. His nerves had been a havoc convincing himself to ask her out, but it had practically been smooth sailing from there.

"I certainly never grow tired of hearing it," she giggled.

"Well Ginny at least gets better with every mentioning," Sirius perked up in delight at hearing the news she stole her brothers brooms for practice. He had no idea what Prongs saw in Evans, the girl was a nut not even liking the sport. "Don't be getting ideas though you little shit," he added quickly when Regulus gave him a curious look.

Regulus huffed and muttered something about having his own broom thank you as he kept going.

Another game came and went, this time with Harry completely in the stands having to watch as his replacement Seeker spotted the Snitch slower than he would have, the whole miserable experience capped with the score and they were all wondering now if Ron would ever manage to save a goal.

"Honestly, I think I'd just let him quit out of pity after that," Peter winced, he'd take giving up with dignity instead of another fiasco.

"Oh come on, he's got it in him," James bolstered at once, his eyes lighting in excitement. "There's totally a way to fix this problem! First you put one person in the stands until Ron could easily ignore that person no matter what they said or did, and then keep adding people until Ron could block them all out. I don't care how long it took, I'd find a way so that Ron would never let someone get the better of him like this."

"Cheers Prongs," Sirius mock raised a glass at him to everyone's stunned silence except Sirius it seemed. "You're a shoe in for captain next year."

"I'd better be," he nodded, and they couldn't even blame him for the pig-headed tone.

Peter sighed and took an uneasy step back as Remus just laughed in agreement. He swore they'd only liked him before because they'd shared a dorm with him so long, it's not like he was anything like them. He'd made a fool of himself in Keeper tryouts at the beginning of the year trying to get onto the team, and he certainly hadn't blamed the current captain for picking the younger player who saved all of her goals rather than his measly three. Both James and Sirius had promised at the time they'd come out and practice with him for next year even as a reserve player, but of course nobody had seemed to have time for that.

Regulus had watched the entire thing, debating whether he should say something, but Peter just shook his head and waved him on.

Sirius had watched the exchange, and had to bother his mind for several moments as talk left Quidditch and Harry was assaulted by owls for his article in the Quibbler getting released earlier than usual before finally remembering and guessing what must be bothering Peter now.

He winced, just a bit. It's not like they'd done it on purpose, he could have come down to Quidditch practice any time with them but usually stayed up in the dorms with Remus, it's not like Peter had ever brought it up himself again.

He still wanted a way to talk to both of them, but was drawing a blank as to how. Percy wrote the most obnoxious letter possible, he accused himself, you can just go over there! It was easier said than done though, some part of him was still afraid they'd just turn on him again, what the hell was he supposed to do to convince himself otherwise, let alone them.

"I guess that explains the seen part of the title," Remus interrupted his grumbling thoughts with an uneasy smile. "Now what do you suppose the unforeseen bit will be?"

"Some more madness to do with Trelawney I'm sure, that old bat can't foresee the weather," Sirius shrugged without care. He was getting vaguely annoyed watching Peter and Regulus take a few more steps back and start whispering about all the reactions to that article being mailed to Harry, but again he couldn't find any good reason to snap at the two for a moment. He wished he could drag Moony off for a snog, just for something to entertain them, but even if he was trying to consciously stop doing that for now so Prongs wouldn't think he was being ignored, he didn't trust this place enough anyways.

The two of them stopped in outrage as much as anyone though when Harry was banned from Hogsmeade by Umbridge because of this.

"That rotten creampuff needs to have her tounge cut off!" James spluttered in disgust.

"At least Harry doesn't have to follow that decree," Peter reminded grimly, "but I'll get the knife."

Frank and Alice watched as this was clearly the most insulting thing she could do to the Marauders, even if they would have ignored this and every other rule from her as thoroughly as they already did to every other in the castle.

It was of some comfort to Regulus at least that Umbridge's plan to ban the article at least backfired and the whole school found themselves reading it, he certainly enjoyed that part.

Things just continued to spiral downwards from there, as Harry had yet another vision of You-Know-Who torturing someone, though at least this time it was another Death Eater rather than someone they had to care about. Regulus was shivering in revulsion by the end, almost in tears as he kept picturing himself in that future still rather than Rookwood if he didn't find some way to talk his parents out of this when he got back. He wasn't like Sirius, he couldn't just run off to someone's house and expect to be taken in if his parents kicked him out for it!

Sirius nearly went to him then, his feet even began moving unconsciously to do it, Regulus looked miserable and wretched as he read that and clearly his worry about Regulus thinking this would never happen to him was wrong, but then Peter put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and whispered something just for the two of them. Sirius stopped cold and leaned back on his heels instead, they really didn't need him to make it worse if he tried to help.

James listened to it all while having to fight off a scream, he couldn't just come up with a plan for his son on how to casually combat this madness continuing to happen to him! He was nearly screaming and jumping on the spot in outrage as Snape still managed to make the whole experience worse during that next Occlumency class, all but confirming his job as a spy Death Eater, but for whose side he still couldn't trust.

He wished Evans was back down here more than ever, he'd love to watch her in particular to see how she took to him still insulting Harry every other breath after torturing his mind like this!

Something new happened on the next round though to break him out of his revere, and none of them were sure what would happen when Harry cast some kind of retaliation back from Snape's curse, in the form of Protego.

A girl was laughing as a scrawny boy tried to mount a bucking broomstick, and the Marauders felt a thrill of laughter at remembering this as their first flying lesson, and the idiot had done all that to himself, the girl had been Mary Macdonald, but everyone present had been laughing, even Evans would swear she hadn't been despite her twitching lips as she'd pulled him away back to the castle while Hooch had gone after the wayward broom when he landed.

A greasy-haired teenager sat alone in a dark bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting down flies, and Sirius sneered at Snape being such an awful person. He clearly knew the feelings of being alone then, but the idiot wasn't any good at making friends to fix the problem. He didn't even like Evans and he still pitied her having to deal with Snape.

*And then suddenly the last memory was being described, and they all felt a shot of horror as this very room was described, and a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner...

"Oh shit," James muttered, turning crazily on the spot for who knew what, before bursting out of the back door so loud he almost startled Lily off the roof.

She'd been listening with a tightly knit stomach that ached so bad during the whole chapter she wished she could expel all of her intestines with a very particular potion in mind even before it had gotten to Snape's memories, then she'd contemplated jumping from the roof and barging in to stop all this before it went past that first memory.

She had no choice though, she knew that she couldn't save Sev from them hearing about this anymore than she could rescue Harry from the way he was treated. She still hadn't been expecting Potter to come thundering from the house and looking around wildly before spotting her up here.

She didn't know what he meant by it either when he gave her a long, beseeching look, before just sitting down in the grass and waiting out here patiently with her. He didn't apologize, try to get up there with her, or do much of anything besides that.

Her arms finally loosened their tight grip around her knees just a smidge, even she wouldn't deny to herself she felt just a tad bit less alone now just for his presence. She couldn't hear what the others had to say about this, still honestly didn't want to know what that explosion and all the general shouting that had been going on inside was.

She'd never have shared all she knew of Sev's home life with them if given the chance, he'd never even really told her, but she'd suspected it was something like this with the crude comments he made, particularly about his dad.

He'd sneak over to her window when it was a bad night, just like she would go to his when Petunia said something particularly vile, and they'd go hide out in their spot until they'd talked and laughed and it was bearable enough to go back.

Didn't he remember all that when he was being the same abusive arse to Harry? Did he care at all for how it would make Neville feel to be reduced to tears when he nearly had so many times? Did he find more comfort with those cruel friends who offered to torture muggles instead of her commiserating, was that why he wouldn't stop talking to them?

Regulus Black finally kept going, and she knew nor cared what their resolution to this revelation had been, she just wanted to shake Severus and demand answers why he was like this as he just vindictively ignored the whole instance like his past meant nothing to him and turned his wand on Harry again.

Her son found himself in You-Know-Who's mind once more, longing to break past that locked door, and for once managing such a thing and finding himself in the circular room of doors they'd already seen once before. Hot tears spilled out of her cheeks as he just insulted him again for not trying hard enough, as if it weren't her eyes in Harry's face that was begging for help to make this stop. Harry hadn't asked this happening to him anymore than Severus had ever purposely induced Tobias' anger.

Then a scream interrupted before the torturer could go any farther, and the two left it for the night to see what other catastrophe had befallen the castle. Lily bit down hard on her lip to stop a sob of relief escaping it was over again, for now.

The distressed person turned out to be Trelawney screaming over the fact she was finally being given her pink slip by a woman who needed to be buried alive in the color.

Umbridge was somehow even more revolting than usual as she glorified in the Divination teachers dismissal, while a crowd of students could only stand there and watch the poor woman's life get thrown down the stairs.

Lily glanced down and saw Potter's look of disdain for the very same, and she wanted to scoff he thought himself better when he had an audience to most of his shows. He embarrassed and tormented others for his own amusement just like Umbridge. She stopped the thoughts cold though as she imagined what Harry would think of this, and forced herself to really hear her own mental tirade, she knew she was still angry at Severus and lashing out.

James Potter was an arrogant toerag who did whatever for his own amusement, but he'd never driven anyone to tears, let alone stand proudly above the scene of his crime. If the person their prank was used on didn't laugh along, he usually just took the detention with grace and didn't target the same person again. If the curse he'd sent left someone unable to get to the hospital wing, he'd almost inevitably do it himself, if not one of his friends slinking off to go find somebody who would while he took the detention with a smile.

He was an arse, but he wasn't curel, not like Umbridge was until Dumbledore stepped in and stopped the show.

She sighed one last time as she kept looking back on the past five years of her school life with a giant question mark plastered over everything, one she wasn't convinced even a centaur for a teacher could help unravel.

HPHPHPHPHP

*Just so you all know I'm acknowledging it and it's not a mistake, I did do the memories in reverse order that they actually appeared in the story for my own benefit.

#Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #hp #OotP #Marauders #wolfstar #Jilly #James Potter #Remus Lupin #Sirius Black #Regulus Black #Peter Pettigrew #Alice Smith #Frank Longbottom #Lily evans

[allicekitty13]

In 1987 Jasper and Alice meet at the local country club. With all the cards stacked against them can they find their way to happiness? 

Read On Ao3

Read On FFN

                     Let em' say we're crazy, I don't care about that.                  Put your hand in my hand baby, don't ever look back.                              Let the world around us, just fall apart.                       Baby, we can make it if we're heart to heart.

"Don't you have a shift today Whitlock?" The voice rousing Jasper from his sleep was accompanied by a dirty shirt being thrown at his head. The man opened one eye squinting against the bright sunshine currently streaming through his window to look at his best friend Peter leaning against the doorframe of his currently open bedroom door.

"Pete," The twenty-one year old groaned. "The fuck did we do last night?" Jasper remembered they'd decided to go out. He remembered Peter and Charlotte going off to do god knows what. Well, the man had a pretty good idea of what but preferred not to think about it. He definitely remembered the line of shots he'd done with his favorite bartender, Mara. But anything after his seventh Alabama Slammer was either extremely fuzzy or a black spot in his memory entirely. Judging by the way his head was pounding, the sick feeling in his stomach, and the intense craving for a nice greasy burger from McDonald's, it was really no wonder why he struggled to recall the events.

"We got drunk." Peter shrugged. "You know, like we do every Friday. But really man, you gotta get up. It's after noon."

"Haven't you any sympathy for the hungover?" Jasper rolled over as he spoke to lay on his stomach wanting nothing more than to close his eyes and sleep the condition off. Maybe to venture to the living room couch at some point and watch re-runs of sitcoms from the 70's on the sole TV in the apartment.  

"Not when I know you have to be at work in an hour. Rent doesn't pay itself, dude." With that, Peter left his friend alone to the misery of a bad hangover. Daring to open one eye, flinching at the still too bright sun, Jasper spared a glance to the digital radio/alarm clock sitting on the messy bedside table next to him. Although blurry, he could faintly make out the time of 2:13pm. That information caused him to awaken, fully sobering up in an instant.

Peter was right; he did in fact, have a shift soon. In approximately forty-five minutes soon. He would have to skip a shower, something his co-workers wouldn't be too happy about operating in such close quarters without air conditioning. That was nothing compared to the fancy customers he served at the country club who didn't exactly need an excuse to complain. Luckily it was Saturday afternoon, and most of his interactions would involve nothing more than shoving cans of Coors or Tab into coolers for the members to take out to the tennis courts or golf course.

Jasper threw on the polo style shirt he kept around specifically for the stuffy dress code required at the establishment and his cleanest, least beaten up pair of jeans. He quickly brushed his teeth and hopped into his beat-up 75' Gremlin hoping to make the thirty-minute journey in twenty.

Fate, as always, wasn't in the man's favor and he ended up being late. Only by about five minutes, but the glare Angela shot him when he finally arrived to take over the bar caused Jasper to feel as though he'd shown up hours tardier than expected. Once the irritated Angela rushed off to god knows where Jasper busied himself with making sure glasses were clean and everything well stocked for when the night shift arrived in five hours.

Of course, Angela being exceptionally organized and great at her job had, as usual, left very little for Jasper to actually take care of. He often wondered why she spent her time working at the club rather than going to college, but at the end of the day, they weren't really friends. The way Jasper saw it, her personal life was none of his business. If she didn't want to share, he wasn't going to ask. So with everything taken care of, the man figured he might as well venture over to the kitchen for a chat with the equally bored cook Emmett.

Jasper liked the slightly older man; he was a pretty solid dude. Emmett was trying to save up enough money to buy his girlfriend, Rosalie, an engagement ring. So a few months ago picked up a side gig working at the club as a fry cook. Emmett was hard-working, funny, and one of the most genuine people Jasper had ever met. They'd butted heads at first, having vastly different upbringing and thus outlooks on life. Still, over the past few months of working together at the establishment, Jasper found himself looking forward to Saturday shifts exclusively for their engaging talks.

Once he'd double checked to make sure there were no more menial tasks to take care of, Jasper swaggered into the kitchen and plopped upon an empty counter, ignoring the way his friend shook his head at the antics. They had a usual back and forth. Emmett warning the other man that if their boss were to walk in, not only would Jasper receive yet another meaningless warning about cutting his hair. Both parties would be lectured on how inappropriate it was for anyone, let alone an employee, to be acting so unprofessional in the workplace.

Of course, Jasper being reckless had received countless amounts of these warnings. The truth of the matter was that employees were hard to keep. High schoolers could only work so many hours, and most adults willing to take on such a job were quickly worn by the entitled attitude the customer's attracted to such an establishment possessed. Needless to say, turnover rates were high. Management couldn't afford to lose anyone for something like a haircut or unconventional seating choices.

So, as always, Jasper kept his place on the counter, chatting with Emmett about their respective weeks. Rosalie had recently taken a job at The Gap for an excuse to spend more time at the mall that her father couldn't argue with. Emmett had needed to replace yet another part on his frequently failing vehicle setting him back yet again on those engagement ring plans. And Jasper's band had finally scored an opening gig at one of the better-known bars in the area. Sure it wasn't headlining, but for the unknown musician, it was a big deal.

After just short of an hour of conversation, Jasper was in the middle of excitedly going rambling about his dreams of getting away from the California suburbs. Of how he wanted to pack up and head down to Los Angeles and the fabled Sunset Strip, when the bell at the bar counter rang, signaling a customer was waiting for his presence.

What he expected was another irritated woman, upset that she'd had to wait more than thirty seconds for another Tab. Possibly even a man who would chastise him because he paid hundreds of dollars for his families club membership. A fact that the members assumed meant they should somehow receive instant service. What he hadn't anticipated was the absolute goddess waiting patiently at the counter.

She was short, with permed chin-length black hair that she teased her fingers through as she leaned against the counter, talking animatedly with a younger girl. When he stepped behind the bar, she looked over at him with a bright, breathtaking smile. The girl uttered only four words, "Two Coke Classics, please." in her high pitched musical voice.  They were spoken pleasantly, and her attention had been redirected to him entirely, in stark contrast to what he was used to. Typically customers would bark their orders in the mans' general direction before immediately resuming conversing with their companions.

It could have been the breath of fresh air that her attitude brought. Potentially the reason may have been how entirely simple Jasper found it to get lost in her clear blue eyes. In either instance, Jasper must have stood frozen, staring for too long as the girl frowned slightly, her eyes glancing up at the nametag clipped to his shirt collar. "Jasper?" She spoke again, concern lacing her words rather than annoyance.

His name on her lips sparked him into action, "My apologies, ma'am." He finally spoke, reaching into the belly cooler behind him for her order with butterflies beginning to swarm in his stomach.

#Jalice #alice cullen #jasper hale #Twilight #twilight fic

[toongrrl-blog]

The Mommy Myth: Mouthing Off to Dr. Spock (Part One)

American Motherhood in the 1970s was undergoing a real revolution: the country had a 9% unemployment rate, 15% inflation rate, 18%-20% mortgage rates, and President Ford wanted to whip inflation and the most rapidly growing segment of the workforce was mothers with preschool children (Hi Joan Holloway and Kevin, Hi Joyce Byers and Jonathon and Will). In 1970, 40% of married mothers worked and in 1984, 59% of married mothers worked. In 1970, only 24% of mothers with a child one year old or younger worked and in 1984 that jumped to 46.8% Black married mothers were more likely to be in the workforce than white counterparts (won’t be surprised if Mrs. Sinclair had worked outside the home in contrast to Karen) and single-parent households increased by 79% during the 1970s and 90% were headed by women. 

Back then there were few daycare centers, no maternity leave (paid or unpaid), no flex time, no after-school programs, and not the Family Leave Act (mothers still call in sick to watch a sick child) and the VCR and microwave weren’t widely available. 

“This generation of women, who are now approximately 50 years old and older, who raised kids in the 1970s and beyond--these are the ones who are great. It is because of them that companies even established daycare centers, that there are tax deductions for childcare expenses, that there is maternity and even paternity leave (however paltry), that there are now baby seats in supermarket carts. If you are one of these mothers, and your now grown children are even remotely functioning, stand up and take a bow.” The Mommy Myth (2004), Susan J. Douglas and Meredith Michaels

Media centering on motherhood, from women’s magazines to sitcoms, family films were all frozen in 1957. At the same time there was more research being performed on children and infants, to assist in advice columns for moms raising their kids in different circumstances than their parents raised them. But the columnists were often serving mom guilt and had stay in the kitchen attitudes and sitcom moms hardly got angry with their kids and were always soothing and gentle like Mrs. Brady and Mrs. Walton and unlike Flor.

Sitcoms were holding a smaller mom revolution: Maude Findlay (also a grandma), Florida Evans, Ann Romano (the OG One Day at a Time), and Alice Hyatt had feminist inspired barbs at their bratty kids, nosy neighbors, and men while advertisers came out with the supermom. Hollywood mostly focused on alienated young men like Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson while movies targeting women mostly stayed stagnant. 

One movie that focused on the misery of the mid-century housewife as she dealt with being economically dependent on her husband, mindless housework, how she was expected to put her needs and wants on the back burner, and of how men acted like they were so dumb. Diary of a Mad Housewife focused on Tina Balser, a Smith alumni who is married to a man named Richard, who manages to fuse together the worst traits of Ted Wheeler, Lonnie Byers, Pete Campbell, and Don Draper together. He’s an up-and-coming lawyer who preens and condescends and insists his wife cracks ice instead of serving it cubed and dictated Thanksgiving dinner (he doesn’t cook it though) and only wanted Danson Plum preserves on his toast and starts the film complaining about Tina being too skinny and her ability to do things the way he wants and dissed her ability to make a 4 minute egg to their bratty daughters (all the combined bratty traits of Nancy and Mike Wheeler and none of the intelligence, empathy, and passion that drives these characters). 

The lesser known Barbra Striesand vehicle Up the Sandbox opens up with one mother telling another: “I’ve read all the child psych books. To be a good mother you gotta learn to eat shit” (few shit has changed it seems). Based on an novel by Anne Roiphe, the story focuses on Margaret a mother of two who loves her kids but wants to do more than stay home and is....pregnant again. She has wild fantasies that makes Doug Funnie look less...funny like debating with Fidel Castro about the status of women and having a love affair with him and blowing up the Statue of Liberty with Black militants or presumably confronting her husband’s secretary/co-worker if she’s having an affair with him. After they went to a party where busty young women fell over him because he was so interesting and he made a dismissive comment about a female Ph.D candidate who wanted to have one kid and go back to work, is where Margaret tells him off:

A woman like me works twice as hard, and for what? Stretch marks and varicose veins. You’ve got one job, I’ve got ninety-seven. Maybe I should be on the cover of Time---dust mop of the year, queen of the laundry room....(where she can’t live up to his colleagues or her mother) I’m a zero, a nothing” and when he said she can do more and be happy, she tells him off more “Did more? I sew. I squeegee. I spend hours waiting in line for a sale on baby sandals just to save a few pennies...I’m an errand boy, a cook, a dishwasher, a cockroach catcher, and you say I’d be happy if I did more.” Karen, spin that shit!

Women’s magazines had a new challenge: so you gave advice for decades about how moms can beat diaper rash, crochet covers for your toilet seats, and make a birthday cake in the shape of a character your kid liked but now there are sentiments challenging the conventions of marriage and parenthood, what do you do?

In 1973, Redbook magazine had a poll saying 9/10 respondents knew women earned less than men for the same work, 3/4 thought the media degraded women, a large majority believed women were second-class citizens, and 2/3 supported the Women’s Movement. Also more of them were working or joining the workforce, even with small children and more were divorcing and looking for childcare and to pay the bills and wanted a break. The shithead experts said no the latter. 

Mom’s can’t be overprotective but protective enough.

You can’t be over-attentive in your kid’s lives but make them feel loved and always wonderful.

You need them to be independent, but always taken care of.

Can’t be too strict or permissive.

You need to be light-hearted.

Those were the rules many mothers of Gen Xers and Baby Boomers were under (and still the same now). Dr. Spock was singled out, he was the most influential of these experts with his famous book coming out in 1946 (the first year of the Baby Boom) and his advice dominated the magazines in the 1950s and 1960s. He dished out mom guilt for working outside the home or not weaning babies before they were one year olds and that leaving kids with a “mother substitute” would make them needy (so not even date night?). Also you had to be bonding with your kids properly (all while moms were dealing with doctors up against the natural childbirth movement) and even an hour may not be enough. Also normal women were sad when kids weaned themselves off the breast! Any misstep in your kids will fuck them up!

In Part Two, I will go over Bruno Bettelheim and the backlash against the Women’s Movement and the revolution in Motherhood.

#The Mommy Myth #Susan J Douglas #meredith michaels #Motherhood #motherhood in media #1970s #The Womens Movement #Feminism #women in media #Womens History #Stranger Things #Mad Men #The Marvelous Mrs Maisel #Trudy Campbell #Karen Wheeler #Joyce Byers #Midge Maisel #Barbra Striesand #Up the Sandbox #1970s Cinema #Diary of a Mad Housewife #Jenny Lorenzo #Flor Jenny Lorenzo

[notbecauseofvictories]

hi sarah! you'd been talking a lot about the history of blues/bluegrass a few months ago and i just remembered it so i was wondering if you have any book/article recommendations for the history of those genres?

Absolutely! My research has tended to focus on the history prior to the 1960s, since by that point both blues and bluegrass had mostly settled into the genres we recognize today.

BLUES is technically older, and the creation of black Americans, based on a Southern threading together of spiritual music (itself with deeper, trans-Atlantic African roots), slave working songs, and uniquely African-American folk ballad traditions. It encompasses an incredible amount of regional variation, as well as religiosity, and a slide into sub-genres like dirty blues and its euphemistic cousin, hokum blues. (If you want to hear the difference, listen to Lucille Bogan’s “Shave ‘em Dry” versus Bessie Smith’s “I Need a Little Sugar in my Bowl”.)

Sources for the Blues:

Samuel Charters’ “The Country Blues” was published in 1959 and is considered the groundbreaking history of the genre. The book has some failings and errors (it definitely over-romanticizes black life) but it really was the first of its kind and ignited all the study afterwards. Charters’ recordings of the blues artists he spoke with and interviewed has also been made into an album of the same name by Smithsonian Folkways.

There’s no way I can talk about the blues without referencing Alan Lomax—an ethnomusicologist and director of the American Archive of Folk Culture, who, when the Library of Congress stopped funding folk music recordings, went on collecting them independently. “The Land Where Blues Began” is both the title of his account of finding those recordings, and the documentary he directed and narrated for PBS. 

For more of a straightforward history, I recommend "Deep Blues“ by Robert Palmer or “Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music” by Ted Gioia. They’re both good “big picture” histories.

A lot of blues histories are written by white historians and critics—with the exception of LeRoi Jones’ “Blues People” (since publication, Jones has changed his name to Amiri Baraka). It’s less a history than a theoretical project, an ethnography and sociological history of the people blues came from and why black people could make the blues in the first place. Still, it’s a great read and deserves to be on this list.

I’ll also give a shout out to “The Black Musician and the White City” by Amy Absher, which is all about the music scene in Chicago—the chapter I’ve linked here is a fascinating picture of what the music scene looked like, as the Delta blues branched off into Chicago blues and black musicians struggled to make inroads into a highly segregated profession (also, a look at the tension between largely-white unions and black communities in Chicago that continues to inform city politics).

If you’re looking for introductory reading….

I found this article on African-American Song from the Library of Congress a good starting place—it’s only partly about the blues, but I think it’s good to understand the context of blues, and the various other styles that were co-evolving with it. Blues, string-band, vaudeville, gospel….all these genres were talking to one another, and understanding that gives you a better grounding for the actual history of the thing.

Though less formal, PBS actually created “The Blues - Classroom” in 2003, which is a repository of lesson plans and essays to accompany the seven-part film series of the same name. It’s a great, quick resource, if you’re just getting started.

BLUEGRASS is much younger, if you’re going by when Earl Scruggs invented the particular picking style every banjo player since has imitated—or co-equally created, based on old-time string band music and what Al Hopkins in the 1920s called “hillbilly music.” You’ll often see the genre referred to as “bluegrass and old-time music” as a way of referencing both the pre-WWII folk/hillbilly music that gave rise to the genre as well as all the followed after Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. (Though the debate as to what “counts” as bluegrass is so ubiquitous that the International Bluegrass Music Association message boards gave it an acronym: WIBA, short for “What Is Bluegrass Anyway?”)

Sources for Bluegrass & Old-Time:

A pretty foundational text in this area is Neil V. Rosenberg’s “History of Bluegrass”—Rosenberg almost exclusively studied bluegrass in the US, and had a column in Bluegrass Unlimited (the “bible of bluegrass”) for years. If you want just a taste, there are a number of his articles on jstor. Personally, I recommend “From Sound to Style: The Emergence of Bluegrass.” (He tends to be overly partial to Bill Monroe, but it is a heavy-hitter book in the area.)

There are a number of personal accounts that I could list here—for instance, Bill Monroe (the ‘father of bluegrass’) has a biography that’s supposedly pretty good, and Butch Robins, who later played banjo for the Blue Grass Boys, has a video series where he talks about bluegrass and his experience as a musician. However, I don’t know if these are actually enjoyable resources for anyone except the true devotee.

“What is bluegrass anyway? Category formation, debate and the framing of musical genre” by Joti Rockwell, from Popular Music. I love a good categorical debate!

Some of my favorite post-1960s bluegrass comes out of what I would call “folk resistance music”—figures like Pete and Mike Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard, all wielded the particular sound of bluegrass, but in a way that made it ideologically more similar to blues or traditional folk music. As someone who watched Harlan County, USA at a tender point in her life, I have a particular affection for Hazel Dickens, and I did enjoy her biography “Working Girl Blues.”

If you’re looking for introductory reading…

The Library of Congress entry on bluegrass music is a good place to start.

The Journal of American Folklore did an entire issue on hillbilly music and its influence on bluegrass. You can find it digitized on jstor here, including a very instructive article called “Introduction to Bluegrass” by L. Mayne Smith, himself a musician of the folk music revival.

……..as a final note, I also want to point out that though it’s tempting to think of blues as distinct from bluegrass/hillbilly/old-time, as well as easily separated out from folk, gospel, jazz, ragtime, vaudeville, and traditional English/Irish/French/West African/etc. sounds, it’s simply not true. Talking about these musical trends as separate and distinct ignores the fact that many were happening at the same time, evolving concurrently and together, borrowing extensively from one another as musicians swapped techniques, styles, and dirty tricks. 

By way of example, the “blue” in “bluegrass” comes from the addition of blue notes, which is also where you get “the blues.” Bluegrass definitely borrowed them from the African-American artists who had been blending blue notes and various styles of gospel music for decades by that point. But blue/bent notes are popular in Irish and English folk music as well, particularly on various types of mouth harps and pipes (…in America, mouth pipes became the diatonic harmonica, which, along with the banjo—itself evolved from West African gourd instruments—gave birth to cowboy blues. It’s all a huge, weird, mess of people making noise.)

Nevertheless, there are intense politics wrapped up in who each genre “belongs” to. As Lil’ Nas X’s “Old Town Road” recently demonstrated, music genres often serve to keep “black” music and “white” music as distinguishable as possible—even when the sound is the same. This has been true since the origin of record labels, when recordings of black artists were “race records,” or “string-band” and white artists made “hillbilly” or “old-time.” (They sound very similar and frequently borrowed instrumental techniques from one another.) It doesn’t help that bluegrass rose to prominence with an all-white band, at a time of intense racial tension and as many Civil Rights activists and black historians were reclaiming the blues as a distinctly African-American sound. More recently, Joe Thompson and Tony Thomas (a fiddler and a banjo player, respectively) have spoken out about their experiences as black musicians in a musical subculture that is often designated for-and-by white people.

I bring this up not to invalidate the sources I’ve listed above, but to point out that the story of blues and bluegrass and the space between them is complicated—there’s not just one story to tell. The 1960s’ blues fetishism has been equally damaging and helpful; the idea that bluegrass is “white” music is in a sense correct, but also a gatekeeping mechanism to keep black artists out of music they have always participated in and influenced. Much like every other aspect of American history, there is a dense and complex interplay between race, class, and self-made mythology that historians are still unpicking.

But goddamn, the music is cool.

#long post for ts #history #thehazardsolove #the devil went down to georgia (and then went down on johnny) #from the bookshelf

[janchriseurope]

‘Violet and Alice Morris’ go to the show

Hi ho it’s off to the car show we go!!

Sandwiches made, thermos filled, Alice taken out of her wee garage and her top folded down.... we’re off.

We were to meet another two other classic cars at a pub car park. Graham was there waiting but not his mate... half an hour later and still not there so we headed off to Christchurch. Down narrow lanes, through roundabouts, across very busy traffic lanes, we finally arrived and were directed to our site.

The bloke we were sposed to meet was there already ... no apology ... turned up at wrong place and didn’t have the courtesy to ring!!! Anyway, we had a lovely wander around taking pictures and drooling over the different cars. Lunch was set out behind our Morris cars, Violet, the Oxford and Alice the soft top Morris Minor.

Friends of Pete and Gerry rolled up. They have a Classic Citroen VX 1991 - very rare here, but are not allowed to show it because it’s younger than 1983. It was great to meet Andy snd Colin in person, not just on Facebook.

We wandered around Christchurch, then visited the Abbey. It was a Priory until Henry 8th. It has a wonderful legend about its building and how it ended up named Christchurch. It’s been there for 900 years.

Back to the car show and off our the gate, into traffic of Mercedes, Lamborghini, Porsche, and alfa romeros. The boys decided it was beer time so we headed to Tyrells for a beer.

Home to change and tidy to go to their local for dinner.

We are now sitting chatting and chilling out.

Tomorrow we are off to the tank museum while Gerry goes to Torquay for work

The highlight of my day - trip- was coming down stairs this morning to see a squirrel raiding the peanuts on the bird feeder. They are so cute to look at.

[cinemasnob412]

The Definitive Surviving Girls Of FRIDAY THE 13TH

Inspired by an article featured on VHSRevival.com I’ve decided to compile what I consider to be the definitive ranking of the FRIDAY THE 13TH series’s “final girls”. If you’re not well versed into what makes a slasher film “final girl” so special let’s break it down in simple terms: she’s gotta be the smart one, the “pure” one and in a perfect world would go head to head with the big baddie during the film’s finale, ultimately coming out on top, but not successful enough to make it through a sequel. With the ground rules set, here’s a look at the FRIDAY THE 13TH films’ worst to best “final girls”. Warning, there may be spoilers to follow.

12 - Amanda Righetti - Whitney - FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)

I’ve never kept it a secret just how much I dislike any FRIDAY THE 13TH film post-Paramount. 2009′s reboot has a few good things going for it: Julianna Guill and a pretty aggressive Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears). In all reality they’re about the only two positives I can come up with off the top of my head. What it’s lacking though is what really made the original set of FRIDAY THE 13TH films so enjoyable. Marcus Nispel’s film leans more into TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE territory than it does FRIDAY THE 13TH. It’s also short on a likable and true to form “final girl”. Righetti’s Whitney character, while by all accounts is the smart and “pure” one, is too reliant on her co-star Jared Padalecki’s Clay character to be considered Jason’s nemesis this go-round.

11 - Lexa Doig - Rowan LaFontaine - JASON X (2002)

New Line Cinema’s entries into the FRIDAY THE 13TH cannon are my least favorite of the bunch. Along with JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY, 2002′s JASON X feels almost nothing like a Jason Voorhees vehicle. Too bad for Lexa Doig, whose Rowan LaFontaine character exhibits all the “final girl” traits, but does so in a pretty terrible film.

10 - Monica Keena - Lori Campbell - FREDDY VS. JASON (2003)

Monica Keena’s Lori Campbell character is really unnecessary in a film like FREDDY VS. JASON. If Jason was going to have an adversary to challenge him throughout the film’s final reel it needs only be Freddy Krueger (Robert England) right? Final girl fail!

9 - Kari Keegan - Jessica Kimble - JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY (1993)

Adam Marcus’s JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY is not even a true FRIDAY THE 13TH film in name. It sure as hell isn’t a true FRIDAY THE 13TH film in content either. With body-swapping, newly revealed Voorhees bloodline ties and not a teenager in sight, JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY is just a complete mess. Kari Keegan’s Jessica Kimble character, like the film she appears in, is a “final girl” by default only (she’s the last girl standing, so I guess that makes her pretty “final”). Her contributions to the “final girl” club are minimal. I guess she does get to stab Jason in the chest with a medieval dagger, that’s pretty cool, right? No! 

8 - Jensen Daggett - Rennie Wickham - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN (1989)

Ah! Finally, the Paramount Pictures contributions to the Voorhees legacy. 1989′s FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN is easily the weakest of the first eight films, as is the “final girl” character of Rennie Wickham (Jensen Daggett). She dresses like a forty year old mom who’s given up on life, is more of a fragile character than usually required to be an imposing, and victorious “final girl”. It’s not all Daggett’s fault. In reality she's ultimately a victim of lousy writing and poor creative choices by the film’s director, Rob Hedden.

7 - Adrienne King - Alice Hardy - FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)

FRIDAY THE 13TH purists may cry foul with this one. Hear me out. As a die hard fan I love Adrienne King’s Alice Hardy. She’s the perfect “final girl”. The only real drawback to her character is that she never gets to actually go toe to toe with Jason Voorhees. In fact, the one and only time (not counting the first film’s dream sequence finale) she comes face to face with Mr. Voorhees (in 1981′s FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2) she takes an ice pick to the temple! Her “final girl” days were over at that point.

6 - Lar Park Lincoln - Tina Shepard - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD (1988)

In 1987 when Paramount Pictures and New Line Cinema couldn’t come to an amicable agreement on potentially featuring both of their marquee horror icons in one film, Paramount forged on with another “versus” idea. Jason versus “the new blood” (I guess that’s what they meant by that title) Tina Shephard (Lar Park Lincoln). Tina fits the mold of the “final girl” perfectly. Add to that fact that she also comes equipped with almost supernatural, telekinetic powers, and old Jason was in for one heck of a showdown in his sixth outing, and the seventh overall FRIDAY THE 13TH film.

5 - Kimberly Beck - Trish Jarvis - FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984)

Ask me now, ask me in one hundred years, what is the best FRIDAY THE 13TH film? Hands down, 1984′s FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE FINAL CHAPTER. Joe Zito’s film has everything the series has come to be known and loved for. In the fourth entry, Kimberly Beck’s Trish Jarvis, along with her younger brother Tommy (Corey Feldman) put a (temporary) end to the hockey masked killer. Trish is fierce and just as brutal with old Jason as he is with her. She protects her brother, faces her fears head on and ultimately holds her own quite well against Crystal Lake’s most famous resident.

4 - Dana Kimmell - Chris Higgins - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 - 3D (1982)

By 1982, the slasher genre’s “final girl” had become well defined. The third FRIDAY THE 13TH entry runs with that established characterization with no hesitation. Dana Kimmell’s Chris Higgins not only finds herself alone, one on one with the seemingly unstoppable force that is Jason Voorhees, but the film, halfway through clues us in that she’s sort of been through this before, having had an encounter with Jason in her younger days that she can’t quite completely recall. Maybe it was her earlier experience with Jason that prepped her for her Higgins’ Haven redux. She hangs the big fella, whacks him in the back of the noggin with a log and a shovel, stabs him in the leg and even tattoos him in the dome with a full on swing of an ax. She thinks and works quickly, constantly keeping herself one step ahead of Jason throughout the entire final reel of the film. Kimmell’s “final girl” would definitely top the list if it were not for our final three candidates.

3 - Jennifer Cooke - Megan Garris - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES (1986)

Jennifer Cooke’s Megan Garris character is not so much a “final girl” as much as she’s the partner in crime with the sixth film’s “final guy” Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews). Why so high on the list then? For starters she’s hot. That counts for something, right? Seriously though, she’s one tough cookie. Not content with just going along for the ride, Megan helps Tommy along the way, compiling all the necessities to return Jason to his watery grave once and for all (?). She even steps in to save the day when Jason gets the best of Tommy during the film’s finale, on the water Crystal Lake fight scene. Just as Dana Kimmell’s Chris Higgins character did in the third film, Megan leaves a permanent mark on Jason’s infamous hockey mask (thanks to her quick thinking and a readily available boat propeller), something that would visually define Jason’s trademark mask throughout the seventh film.

2 - Melanie Kinnaman - Pam Roberts - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING (1985)

I know what you’re thinking. “But Pam never fought Jason, she fought the impostor, Roy”. Well, factually speaking you’d be right. And if you took what I said about Adrienne King early and applied it here, then theoretically Melanie Kinnaman’s Pam Roberts should also be lower on the list. I say you’re wrong though. Kinnaman’s final showdown with Roy (Jason impostor or not) is the stuff of FRIDAY THE 13TH legend. She’s tough, protective of her younger costar (similar to Kimberly Beck in FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE FINAL CHAPTER) Reggie (Shavar Ross) and aggressive when it comes to taking on the masked murderer intent on putting an end to her. She wields a chainsaw for Pete’s sake! Plus, let’s not forget she looks pretty darn good doing all of this!

1 - Amy Steel - Ginny Field - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 (1981)

Amy Steel’s Ginny Field is one bad ass chick! Her showdown with Jason is pretty standard fare when you stack it up against the others in the series. What sets her apart though is her quick thinking and use of psychology to take on Jason when the chips are down. Tricking Jason into thinking she’s his beloved mother by donning her rotten sweater in an effort to strike the death blow on the confused Voorhees may have worked had it not been for one false move. No biggie though, she still lays the smack down on him by way of a machete in the shoulder blade that not only saves herself, but her boyfriend Paul Holt as well, who is in a life or death struggle with the maniac until she lands the fateful whack. Like the character of Tommy Jarvis in the later films, it would have been great to see the Ginny Field character return to do battle with Jason again. Amy Steel has talked about her willingness to return to the series, so maybe, fingers crossed, us fans will one day see the return of the greatest “final girl” in FRIDAY THE 13TH history. A boy can hope! 

[ohmygodshesinsane]

cut scene/s from cc32

I re-ordered things and these two parts ended up on the cutting room floor because now the timeline is different. but if you want to read a (rough) version of what was originally going to happen in james’ part of the chapter, read below!

 A sullen, sunken silence had settled over the Gryffindor common room. Most of the Gryffindors had piled in, almost on top of each other, leaving their dormitories empty. Cups of cold tea littered the tables, along with scrolls of half-written essays and abandoned textbooks. Alice Rhysfeld and Frank Longbottom went round checking on the younger children. Lily Evans pulled her knees up to her chest on an old armchair. Her eyes were rimmed red. James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter had claimed a corner of the floor. Nobody felt like breakfast. It seemed to be universally agreed amongst their house that going anywhere they might run into the Slytherins was a bad idea. Someone had suggested skipping their lessons, and they all murmured their agreement. Only Marcus McLaggen looked thunderstruck, and he had marched upstairs to change into his school robes. Swot, James thought. The rest of them were in their pyjamas and dressing-gowns, or in Lily’s case, her robes from the day before.

 Peter gnawed on his nail. “I don’t know if we should still go,” he said quietly.

“It’s someone inside the castle,” Sirius said, leaning forward. His grey eyes were narrow and his face looked worn. Sleepless nights didn’t agree with him. Sirius was a bloke who loved his bed. They’d gone up to their dormitory the evening before in the hopes of getting some rest, but Sirius, Remus, and Peter had all ended up sitting on James’ bed. They drifted off in turns, on each other’s shoulders, and whoever stayed awake whispered about who it might’ve been, and what the hell might’ve happened, and then cast more Warming Charms because they’d left the window open so that they could smoke, and the gale blowing in threatened to freeze them solid. James had maybe got two hours of sleep, tops.

“If anything, we’ll be safer in Hogsmeade than we are here,” Remus agreed. James tousled his hair.

“Look, I want to go to Hogsmeade as much as anyone, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t feel right.” He couldn’t place the tug in his gut. It just felt wrong to sneak out of the castle to get blind drunk in the middle of the day while quiet, timid, nice Mary Macdonald who they’d had lessons with several times a day for the past five years was in St. Mungo’s as the healers tried to save her life.

Peter paled. “Cathy will kill me,” he said. “She’s been on at me, James, she thinks you and Lisbete need-”

“Lisbete and I are fine, Pete, don’t worry.” For whatever reason, James’ girlfriend’s best friend was convinced they were doomed if he didn’t whisk her off every other day for some kind of storybook date. James didn’t mind putting on big displays of affection, but they hadn’t even been back at school for two weeks, and it had been busy. He spent hours on the Quidditch pitch four times a week, training hard, and when he wasn’t on his broom, he was practising for the Transfiguration tournament, finishing off homework (he was so busy that he didn’t want to waste time in detention for something as boring as not writing an essay), or hanging out with his mates. There wasn’t enough time in the day to take Lisbete on a bunch of dates, which was why they’d been planning to skive off their lessons for the day.

 “Wormy, you can’t be frightened of a thirteen-year-old girl,” Sirius said.

“I’m not frightened of her,” Peter said quickly. Sirius and Remus exchanged a look. James clapped Peter on the shoulder.

“’Course you aren’t,” James said, and Peter looked pleased.

  [OTHER STUFF WAS MEANT TO HAPPEN HERE]

 The door opened. Alice and Marlene came in first, making for the stairs. Lily drifted in after them. James had never seen her looking so lost. Her eyes were glassy, and half of her red hair had escaped her bun. She pinched her nose. Without thinking, James jumped to his feet. Marcus McLaggen beat him to it. He conjured a handkerchief and gave it to her. She dabbed her eyes. He said something to her and she nodded and patted his arm. Then she left him, passing James by, but she was too quick for him to get a word out. She disappeared up the stairs to the girls’ dormitories. McLaggen trailed after her, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. James swallowed and headed for him.

 “She alright?” James asked, following McLaggen’s gaze up the stairs. Some of the girls’ doors were decorated with flowers or stickers or photographs. James and his mates had only ever occasionally put up signs on their door saying ‘FUCK OFF’ or ‘I’M WANKING’ – and that usually was on doors that didn’t belong to them.

McLaggen looked him up and down, which James thought was a bit rich. “Obviously not,” he said. James was tempted to give him a jinx up the arse. He grit his teeth and tried to be a good little boy instead.

“Anything I can do?” James offered.

“No,” McLaggen said shortly. “Thanks, Potter. I have it covered.”

“Does she need or trunk or anything? I can charm it,” James offered. “I can get food, if the girls need, you know, whatever they want.”

“I can do a basic Hover Charm,” McLaggen said. “Thank you, Potter.” There was a definite note of finality in his voice. James ignored it. He folded his arms across his chest tightly, so he wouldn’t be tempted to make McLaggen’s voice extra squeaky or his shoes too tight.

 A few minutes later, the girls re-appeared on the steps. Alice and Marlene came first, carrying Mary’s trunk, and Lily followed shortly after, holding a small floral bag with a hairbrush sticking out of it.

“Excuse us,” Alice said. James jumped to the side to let them through. Lily came by next.

“Alright, Evans?” he asked. McLaggen shot him a furious look.

#marauders fanfic #hp fanfic #marauders fanfiction #james potter #lily evans #peter pettigrew #sirius black #remus lupin #marcus mclaggen #alice longbottom #marlene mckinnon #creature comfort #cc32

[smokeybrand]

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Home Is Where the Heart Is

Spider-Man: No Way Home is f*cking exceptional. It is the best Spider-Flick not subtitled Spider-Verse and top tier MCU content. Seriously, this is top three for me, sitting beautifully along side Infinity War and Winter Soldier. Great direction, wonderful script, exceptional casting, fluid pacing, wonderfully shot; All the movie stuff is exceptional in this film. I am not exaggerating when i say it’s that good and a near perfect cinematic experience. That’s it. That’s the review. Go see that sh*t right now. And then see it again after that. It’s totally worth every penny and every second. The rest of this thing is just going to be me fanboying in a very spoilerific way, about what is my favorite movie of the year and of the entire MCU to this point.

The Outstanding

Out the gate, i want to give all credit and respect to Tom Holland. Kid is not my Pete, we’ll get o Tobey, but he is the BEST Pete we have so far. He is perfect for this role and fits it like RDJ does Stark. It’s unnerving how effortlessly he lives in Parker’s skin and i hope to see him in future MCU films going forward.

Next on the docket is Andrew Garfield. Look, i am no fan of the Amazing films. I literally did a retrospective about them, basically sh*tting on the duology. I take all of that back. Andrew Garfield is an exceptional Spider-Man who got shafted by corporate mandates. Free from Sony’s corporate sabotage and in the hands of a director who knows how to do more than just romantic comedies, Garfield was able to give life to his Pete. Bro, when he saved MJ, i lost my sh*t. That anguish on his face. That relief in his heart. I felt for the kid and i want to see more of THAT.

Old Man Peter was great to see. The second Maguire came through the sling portal, my audience cheered at the top of their lungs. It was awesome seeing him in the webs once again, after so long. I adore how the two younger Petes give him sh*t for being an old man. First, the organic web shooter things and then the back stuff, all hilarious. Especially the back thing. I love that it’s still a joke, two decades later.

The chemistry between Zendaya and Holland is palpable. I really enjoyed their relationship maturation and it f*cking sucks that she forgot him. It f*cking sucks that everyone forgot him. Punished Parker is one hundred percent a thing and MCU Pete might be the most punished going forward. Or maybe not because...

I think she knows. I think she’s starting to remember. So i hate One More Day. I thought it was a cheap and terrible way to abolish a staple relationship in comics over what can be only described as personal bias. In the comic, once you tell people you’re Peter Parker, the spell dissipates. Pete introduced himself to MJ and she reflectively teared up. I don’t think it’s all at once but i think there’s crack in the spell now. I think that, over the course of the next trilogy, people will remember. I think MJ will be back.

Also, shout out to the fact her full name is Michelle Jones-Watson. That sh*t caught me off guard and i am okay with it. It makes sense that, across the multiverse, an MJ is this MJ but still and MJ, you know what i mean? Like, Old Man Pete has the organic shooters in his arms but MCU and Amazing don’t. Michelle IS Mary Jane and she’s is a great one to boot.

Can we just recognize that Daredevil is a thing in this universe? Like the Charlie Cox version of DD? I love that he caught that brick before Pete and when asked how, he just says “I’m a really good lawyer.” F*cking brilliant. Between him in this and the big bad of Hawkeye being Vincent D'Onofrio’s Kingpin, I'm hoping against hope we get to see Bernthal’s Punisher and Krysten Ritter‘s Jessica Jones. F*ck the other two, though. They were kind of terrible, especially the Iron Fist brat. That said, i wouldn’t mind an MCU run at Jessica Henwick’s Coleen Wing. Simone Missick’s Misty Knight, and Alice Eve’s Typhoid Mary. They deserved so much better and, with this movie, the MCU has proven to be capable of just that.

Aunt May is Uncle Ben. I was not prepared. It broke my f*cking heart. That’s all i have to say about that.

Was that Shang-Chi and Katy shoveling snow in the Sanctum Sanctorum??

I love that Wong is the Sorcerer Supreme, even if it is on a technicality.

All of the callbacks to the Raimi series as jut top tier fan service. My inner Spider-Fan was squeeing the entire time. “The power of the sun, in the palm of my hand.” “I’m something of a scientist, myself.” The entire theater lost their sh*t. Well, the ones old enough to remember did anyway. Speaking of the Raimi films...

Seeing Molina as Doc Ock again was something really special. I loved his interaction with the MCU Pete and even moreso when he got healed up. Hero Otto, finally getting the opportunity to be more than what those arms made of him, was great. Having his Pete recognize that though? Giving us that interaction with Old Man Pete during the climax? My heart was hurting from the May thing but that helped.

Can i just say f*ck Norman Osborn? Like, all love and respect due to Willem DaFoe, he played the sh*t out of this role one last time, but f*ck the Goblin, man. Dude is the only pure evil, irredeemable, monster of the lot. Every other one of these cats can be seen as a victim of circumstance but not Stormin’ Norman. That asshole is just straight up cruel. I do like how the split personality thing came through much clearer than in the Raimi films. I had a proper understanding that the Goblin and Norman are two different entities.

Jaime Foxx’s Electro was pretty well done in this one. Dude had a character and actual pathos. The stark contrast between these character under Sony and Marvel Studios is f*cking ridiculous. The Electro in Amazing II was a poorly written caricature of a villain. The Electro in No Way Home is a well rounded, menacing, threat. I was surprised that Foxx was able to get so much out of such a limited role and so little out of the much beefier presence as the primary antagonist in Amazing II. Really goes to show what great actors can do when they’re involved with a project that knows how to use them.

Sandman and Lizard kind of got shafted a little bit but, i mean, with literally five antagonist to flesh out, someone had to get the short end of the stick. Still, they were really good in their roles, even if Sandman looked like sh*t and Lizard never crept out of the shadows.

I do have to say, though, i loved the interaction while they were all in wizard dungeon jail. It would make sense that Marko would know about the deaths of Otto and Norman, just as much as how Otto actually knew Osborn on a personal level. They’re both super scientist doing very brilliant work in their respective fields. Likewise with Connors and Dillon. Those two actually worked at Oscorp together and it was hilarious listening to them “reminisce.”

That little scene in the mirror dimension was SO much better than almost everything in the entirety of the Doctor Strange film. And that sh*t looked incredible. The MCU continues to surprise me. I definitely didn’t think that sh*t as possible, especially the biggest surprise of all...

The MCU Spider-Man trilogy is one, big ass, origin story. The entire thing is just the origin of “Spider-Man.” I was shocked as f*ck when i realized it. Everyone was complaining about Peter being Tony Stark jr. but that wasn’t the plan. I don’t think it ever was. This was the plan. Giving us, giving Peter, himself, a taste of the good life before the old Parker Luck snatches it all away. And, boy, did it f*cking snatch. We end this film seeing Pete, in the classic red and blues, swinging away into action, J. Jonah Jameson calling him a menace along the way. This was kind of an origin story fr him, too. Also, shout out to J.K. Simmons, the only man who should ever lay JJJ.

The Verdict

I'm old and cynical and pessimistic but this movie brought genuine joy to my heart. And then shattered it into pieces. But gave me a little hope for something better in the future, like any great movie should. My inner child was so goddamn happy. My adult cinema snob was satisfied. My unapologetic fanboy was pleased. Spider-Man: No Way Home is the best Spider-Flick available today and i say that knowing Into the Spider-Verse exists. It’s easily as good as that, if not better.

[siriuslysnuffles]

injuries and prats

JILY CHALLENGE | @siriuslysnuffles vs @beks21 (September 2017)

@jilychallenge: First Wizarding World + Yes james might be injured and yes ow that hurts but lily stop fussing I am a gryffindor i can do this… I will just need lots of snuggles and attention to get me back to full health.

Read it on FF. 

It all started when Sirius suggested they go out for drinks after their latest Order meeting. Alice and Frank Longbottom had declined the offer due to an important Auror mission in the morning–Moody had given them a led to follow–but Gideon and Fabian Prewett along with Marlene McKinnon had accepted the invitation.

The three of them along with Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew and the soon to be Mr and Mrs James Potter sat at a large booth at the Three Broomsticks, being in close proximity to Hogwarts made the still young adults feel safer knowing that Voldemort would not yet dare attack the Wizarding Village with Dumbledore so close by.

‘Drinks are on me,’ Sirius’ boisterous voice announced as he stood up. 'Coming James or is Evans wishing to have you attached at the hip?’

'Perhaps,’ the hazel-eyed boy declared. 'But what beautiful hips they are,’ he sent a wink to his fiancée as he stood to accompany the other dark-haired boy.

'Prat,’ he heard said fiancée mumble.

'You love me,’ he yelled back.

'So how’s the wedding coming along, Lily?’ Marlene asked from across the booth.

Lily’s eyes wandered over to James, examining every visible part of his body. 'Busy but worth it. It’s still a while away, we’re not marrying until mid-October. But I can’t wait to marry him.’ She laughed, 'That’s not something I thought I would ever say considering our earlier years.’

'How about the the future-in-laws? Do they like you?’

'They adore Lily,’ Remus said across from her where he had been having a discussion with the Prewett brothers and Peter. 'She has them wrapped around her little fingers, more so than James.’

'I do not,’ she objected.

Remus scoffed, 'Liar.’

'Why is Evans a liar?’ Sirius asked as he set down a bottle of firewhiskey with James clumsily carrying eight small shot glasses. 'Besides the fact that she says she finds this git attractive.’

'Oy, I am attractive.’ James pouted as they laughed. 'You find me attractive, right, love?’ He pouted at the green-eyed girl.

'Only on Quidditch days.’ She teased, giving him a kiss on the cheek as he sat down next to her. The hazel-eyed boy pouted but even so let one of his hands wrap around her waist, letting his thumb draw circles on her leg in a way that made her mind wander to the rest of his very fine anatomy.

'She claims to not have James nor his parents wrapped around her fingers.’ Remus said answering Sirius’ previous question.

'Drunk already, Red?’ Sirius teased.

'Watch it, Black.’ Lily said attempting to glare at the handsome boy.

'And how did you get to the topic of my wife-to-be being a liar?’ James grinned at them, at his brothers.

'We were speaking of your parents’ adoration of Lily, their soon to be daughter-in-law.’ Remus clarified.

'They adore her, mum always wanted a daughter to pamper,’ James said casually, 'and dad fell in love with her the moment she mentioned her love of potions. Probably would have married her himself if he was eighty years younger.’

'And if your mum wasn’t in the picture, I’d take him over you any day, Potter. He’s a charming man and quite the looker.’ Snickers were heard around the table as the couple bantered.

'You love me,’ he countered, dropping a kiss onto her neck followed by wolf whistles from Marlene, Sirius and the Prewetts. 'You adore me, face it, love.’

'You’re tolerable, I only keep you around because you’re nice to look at.’

'Only nice to look at?’

'I say you must be a great shag, Prongs, if you’re only nice to look at,’ Sirius barked.

James ignored him, focusing his attention on the pretty redhead. He let his lips linger an inch from hers, 'Only nice to look at,’ he repeated.

'Occasionally, the hair’s a bit of a turnoff,’ her eyes seemed to sparkle as she teased him. Her fingers threaded itself through his ebony locks.

'A turnoff?’ he said leaning in to kiss her.

'Oi, lovebirds, as much fun as it would be to watch you co-populate the planet, please refrain from doing so on the table. Rosmerta might not let us return.’

James threw a napkin at Sirius, 'Wanker.’

'Are they always this nauseating?’ Marlene asked causing the rest of them to laugh.

'The only thing worse was before they dated.’ Remus added.

'‘Lily doesn’t fancy me,’’ Peter mimicked.

'‘James isn’t interested anymore,’’ Sirius sighed dramatically.

'Bugger off,’ Lily said, 'you’re all twats.’

James kissed her temple lightly, 'Unfortunately, these twats are our friends, love.’

'Can’t we find new ones?’ she begged, batting her eyelashes.

'Too close to the wedding, not worth it.’

'Darn it.’

'Tossers,’ Sirius grey eyes, however, shone with love for his two mates. 

'Hey, Evans,’ Sirius said taking another shot of firewhiskey, 'tell us the truth,’ he slurred, 'how good of a shag is Prongs?’

'Wouldn’t you like to know,’ Gideon laughed.

'Or perhaps he wants to know if he has any competition for Lily. Always suspected there was something more going on.’ Fabian said.

'Ah, you’ve discovered my plan to woo the beautiful Evans.’ Sirius proclaimed loudly. 'What do you say, Evans, snog me?’

'Not in a million years, Padfoot,’ she grinned, 'my heart belongs to this spectacled git.’

'So many compliments you’ve given me tonight, my love. Git, nice to look at, it’s obvious why you’re marrying me.’ James said, wrapping an arm around her. 'It’s obviously the glasses.’

She laughed. 'Obviously,’ she teased.

'What else would it be?’ Sirius asked, 'He’s an idiot.’

'Oy!’ James exclaimed.

'Don’t be mean, Black, he’s a deer.’ Lily said a mischievous look in her eyes.

'Yes, the way he’s always fawning over you,’ said Remus.

'I heard he’s rather horny doe.’ Sirius barked back.

'Not to mention always prancing about, up to no good.’ Peter added in causing James and Lily to lose the little self control they had left.

'Are we missing something?’ Marlene asked, raising her eyebrows at them.

'Not at all, McKinnon, we’re just like talking about our deer friends.’

'Right,’ said Fabian, 'And do you usually talk about their randy tendencies?’

'Not all the times,’ said Peter.

'Only occasionally,’ Sirius smirked.

'As in a few times a week,’ confirmed Remus.

'And you’re still friends with them?’ Gideon asked the couple.

'Eh, we’re hoping to get some new ones after the wedding.’ Lily answered.

'Maybe we’ll replace them with Alice and Frank, we can double date.’ James added.

'Well, as fun as this has been I think I better get going. I have to be at St. Mungo’s in the morning for my shift.’ Marlene said getting up to leave, 'Thanks for the drinks.’

'We’ll escort you, McKinnon. Can never be sure nowadays.’ Fabian said, motioning for Gideon.

'Be safe, McKinnon, Prewett one, Prewett two.’ Sirius said nodding at them.

'Next times on me, enjoy yourselves,’ said Marlene as she gave them brief smiles. The group each said variants of goodbye to the trio.

'I have to head home soon, mum might freak out if I’m home too late,’ Peter reluctantly said after ten minutes had passed.

'Might want to have a mint before you leave, mate, can’t have your mum thinking we’re corrupting you.’

'So you want to deceive her?’ Remus asked.

'Might get my own place soon, so it doesn’t matter anyways.’

'Where are you thinking, Wormy?’ Lily asked.

'Perhaps an apartment in London, near Diagon Alley.’ He stood up, 'I’ll see you guys soon, yeah?’ His voice hinted at his uncertainty.

'Yeah, we’ll see you soon, Pete. Come over whenever.’

'I’ll walk with you, may as well head home, a bit knackered really.’ Remus said standing up as well.

'Bye,’ Lily said getting up to give them each a hug, 'and I’ll expect a visit from both of you soon.’ She turned to glare at Remus, 'I mean it, Moony, and stop keeping your distance because of your self-loathing dilemma, or I will personally go over and hex your arse off.’

'And we all know that’s your best feature, mate.’ Sirius grinned teasingly.

Remus ignore him before addressing the redhead, 'Bye, Lily,’ he said before leaving with Peter.

'Love, don’t be so hard on him, you know he thinks he’s doing the right thing.’ James said planting a kiss on her temple.

'Well, he’s being a right git about it,’ she argued.

'Git or not he’s our mate.’ Sirius said casually, 'And you’re stuck with all of us once you marry this idiot.’

'Oy,’ James protested, 'I can always take you to one of those dog places Lily was telling me about, you mutt.’

'The pound, love.’ She sighed dramatically, 'How’d I get so unfortunate to be stuck with two?’

'You love us.’

'Can’t live without us.’ Sirius added.

'I wonder if it’s too late to leave you both, maybe I could marry someone with a brain.’ Lily teased.

'You wouldn’t leave me,’ James said, snuggling into her neck. 'You like me too much.’ He peppered kisses onto her neck knowing this was probably the longest time he’d get to spend with her in the upcoming weeks, even if Sirius was gazing amusingly at them.

He could have swore he heard her let out a small moan. 'James, we’re in public.’ He reluctantly stopped.

'So me making out with Mae Darby in the corridor is disgusting, but you two basically shagging here isn’t?’ Sirius groaned.

'Because my tongue isn’t down James’ throat like hers was down yours.’ Lily said.

'I wouldn’t mind if it was,’ James grinned cheekily at her.

'Shut it, you prat,’ she said throwing a crisp at him which the dork attempted (and failed) to catch in his mouth.

'You think we should head out, it’s getting pretty late,’ James said running his hand through his hair, 'we’re supposed to be meeting a few people for wedding planning, then we’re supposed to go to a few bakeries to try out cakes, your house to pick up your mum and take her over to my parents’.’ James returned to snuggling into Lily’s neck. 'Why can’t we just elope, I’m sure Muggles do it all the time.’

'Andromeda and her husband Ted did as well,’ Sirius added.

'Because I only plan on getting married once and want to enjoy it with those I care about, it’ll be worth it. I promise.’ He groaned into her neck, 'Shall we head out then?’

'Yeah, I am a bit tired,’ she agreed detaching herself from her soon-to-be husband. 'Coming, Padfoot?’

He smiled fondly at her, like an older brother, 'Yeah, Red, let’s go before this tosser decides he can’t resist your womanly wiles any longer.’

'My womanly wiles?’ she questioned, raising one of her eyebrows slightly as James slid out after her.* Sirius only stopping in his movements to leave Madame Rosmerta a galleon in her tip jar followed by a cheeky wink.

James sweetly took her hand in his. 'Yes, your feminine powers that allow you to control my best mate,’ Sirius continued.

'Perhaps your mate is just weak when it comes to pretty girls,’ she replied. James began to protest but she pressed a quick kiss to his lips, lingering momentarily.

'Very pretty,’ he mumbled instead, blushing slightly as he regarded his fiancée.

They exited the establishment, not knowing through their slightly intoxicated phase that they were being watched by a particular group of Death Eaters who had been not too far away at the Hog’s Head–Severus Snape, Atreus Avery, Marcus Mulciber, and Evan Rosier. Little did they know that as soon as they had been seen exiting, Evan Rosier had raised his wand and aimed a hex at Lily Evans. 

The hex never reached its mark as Sirius Black turned around, taking the hit instead.

'Sirius!’ Lily screamed as the boy staggered back from the force of the spell. James, on the other hand, raised his wand as he saw four figures approach, all donning masks.

'Well, well, well what do we have here. Two blood-traitors and a mudblood whore.’ Avery said, enunciating every word.

James attempted to shield Lily, but she saw right through his efforts and stood upfront. 'I’d rather be a mudblood whore as you so kindly put it than be a coward who doesn’t want to show his face, Avery.’

Sirius who had been hit with a slightly painful and inconvenient stinging hex let out a laugh. 'I do very much love you, Red.’ Lily smiled affectionately at him in a way that told Severus that she loved him too in a way she had once loved him.

'Proclaiming your love for a mudblood, Black?’ Avery scoffed, 'And here I thought you couldn’t be anymore of mudblood lover. Do you two take turns with her in bed, shagging the filthy mudblood?’

'Wouldn’t you like to know,’ James growled, 'Do you get pleasure imagining it, since no girl with dignity would ever touch you.’

'Enough, Avery,’ Rosier whined, 'You said you we’d have some fun, and I’d very much like to see the mudblood on her knees, begging for mercy.’ He twirled his wand in his hands taunting her to hex him.

James gripped her wrist gently begging her with his hazel eyes to just stand behind him, but he very much knew she’d never allow herself to do such a thing–he both loved and hated that about her.

Sirius stepped in front of her, despite Lily’s protesting. 'Touch a hair on her head, and you won’t even remember your name, Rosier.’ He scoffed, 'I’d recognize your annoying voice anywhere.’

'Like I’m scared of the blood-traitor, but I’ll be sure to tell Regulus you said hello,’ Sirius could hear the smirk in his voice. 'He’ll be upset he didn’t join us tonight, I’m sure the Dark Lord will find something to cheer him up of course.’

James and Lily had their wands out knowing that Sirius’ temper was not easily maintained when it came to his brother, and they were right when a second later Sirius had sent a jinx at Rosier that threw him back.

They heard the grin in Mulciber’s voice as he said, 'I guess it’s time to show the blood-traitors and mudblood who’s really in charge. The Dark Lord will thank us for ridding him of this rubbish.’ He sneered looking at Lily, 'Nice ring, Evans.' 

Severus looked down at Lily’s left hand because she couldn’t have possibly agreed to marry the pompous prat, the arrogant toerag they spent time laughing at and insulting his presumptuous behavior (although if he were being honest with himself, he’d recall that most of the insults had been of his doing with Lily assuring him that she thought Potter to be an arrogant toerag; he’d also recall that the laughter had on occasion been one of hidden affection). He saw what he feared, there on her fourth finger was an engagement ring. Severus glared at it, knowing no one could see his facial expression. It was a beautiful ring, he reluctantly admitted to himself, simple yet beautiful–he knew Lily loved the ring, it was the kind of simplicity she adored. He loathed that it was the kind of thing he would never have been able to afford for her, he hated that Potter was claiming her as his own when she was Severus’, he hated that Lily had agreed to marry the git who had tormented Severus, who had taken Lily away from him.

It broke his heart.

Severus had been so caught up in his thought that he was barely able to dodge the hex sent his way by Black. 

Lily aimed a hex at Mulciber as he attempted to circle around her as if she were his prey. She let her eyes briefly fleet over to James who was taking on who she believed to be Avery, she couldn’t quite tell with his mask on. She flinched as she saw him be hit with a rather harsh stinging hex and felt her blood boil at anyone daring to hurt him.

'So when’s the wedding,’ Mulciber hissed, as she blocked another one of his spells.

'Can’t say, it’s a family and friends only event. I’m afraid James and I left off sadistic Death Eaters when we made the list.’ She hit him with a rather nasty blasting curse, which he mostly managed to block. She was glad to note that it did, however, manage to cause his mask to fall off when he staggered backwards. 'What a tragedy really.’

'You, bitch,’ he growled as he stood up.

'I didn’t think you wanted to come to our wedding this desperately, Marcus,’ she sent a jelly-fingers curse at his wand hand enjoying the look of terror that crossed his features as he attempted to grasp his wand right. 'Are you having trouble?’ She asked innocently.

'You’ll pay for that, mudblood.’

'Seeing as you can barely hold a wand, I’m hardly frightened.’ She saw James be hit by some severing spell and decided to stun Mulciber instead, 'Well, this was pleasant,’ she murmured bitterly before going to help the boys.

'Need me, lads?’ she questioned as she cast a non-verbal shield charm.

'Always, love,’ said James as his spell knocked over one of the other Death Eaters. She cast a full body-bind on him for good measures.

'Don’t get all romantic on us now, Prongs, you’ll have time for that later,’ Sirius said as his Death Eater took advantage of his distraction and got the better of him, sending him crashing to the ground.

'Are you all right, Sirius?’ she asked, not bothering to turn around to look at him, knowing she couldn’t afford the distraction.

'S’all right, Red,’ she could hear him struggling to get up, and she knew it must be taking all of James’ self-control not to go to his best mate.

'Lie down, we have it under control.’

'Yes, listen to the mudblood, Black,’ Rosier scoffed. 'You wouldn’t want to damage your so called dashing looks.’

She heard his struggles again, 'Black, down, or Merlin help me, I will hex you.’ She could almost imagine the pout on his face.

'Careful, love,’ James said as a stinging jinx hit her wrist.

James kept glancing back at her, making sure she was alright and his opponent was taking advantage of that, throwing stronger and darker spells at him.

Rosier finally managed to blast Lily to the ground, she saw Sirius trying to crawl over to her (but was struggling to do so), she shook her head at him, but he persisted.

Rosier raised his wand, going in for the final blow. She look up at him, daring him to do his worst. Right when the spell should have hit her, she felt a body land on top of her instead. James.

'James, what are you,’ she trailed off as she heard him let out a groan. 'James,’ she whispered, holding onto him by his waist. She felt something sticky on her hand.

She saw Evan Rosier take off his mask, wanting her to see his joy at James’ fall.

She saw Sirius finally managing to stand up. She could feel the anger radiating from his body as she attempted to get James to move. 'James, please, get up,’ she said but the only sign that he was okay was the small whimper he emitted.

'Sirius, we have to get him out of here,’ she was panicking, she couldn’t lose him, not him. 'James, I’m going to push you off me okay,’ she asked him as Sirius managed to petrify the two remaining Death Eaters. 

Severus lied on the ground, petrified watching as his Lily cried over James Potter’s body, assuring him (or really herself) that it would be alright. A part a him wanted her to suffer for choosing him over Severus, but part of him still wanted her and hated her for it. He didn’t regret his spell landing on Potter, he deserved it for turning his Lily against him. 

'Jamie, you’re going to be okay, yeah? And we’ll can even elope, just be okay,’ she cried gently as Sirius limped over to her. All hints of her slightly intoxicated state gone.

'Muggle Vegas?’ he groaned lightly from his spot on the ground. She tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob.

'We have to get him out of here, Lil,’ he said as he approached them, slightly limping.

'Can you even apparate,’ she asked him skeptically as she tried to get the blood to stop.

'James is in danger, nothing will stop me from helping my brother–not even Merlin himself,’ looking up at Sirius she smiled–grimaced–at him, he looked very much like an avenging angel.

'Can we apparate him? He’s losing too much blood, he could get worse if we try to apparate him.’

'It’s better to have him splinched than dead and surrounded by Death Eaters whose spells are bound to fade any moment.’

'Expecto Patronum,’ Lily said as she cried, remembering her first kiss with James, the first time she told him she loved him and how nervous she’d been, she remembered Sirius giving her a piggyback ride by the lake one summer day, and getting proposed to by that same lake. She thought of all the time they’ve put into their dream wedding, how Fleamont was going to give her away to his son. She thought of how much she loved James Potter, and she watched as the silver doe that complimented James’ stag erupted from her wand. 'Find Albus Dumbledore, Emmeline Vance, and Edgar Bones and tell them to meet us at James and Lily’s flat.’ She watched the doe nod before prancing away.

'Stay awake, love,’ she whispered in James’ ear.

'Anything for you, my love,’ she gripped his arm gently and waited for him to do the same before they apparated to the flat they shared.

It took ten minutes of Lily and Sirius’ failed attempts at stopping the blood for Emmeline, Edgar, and Albus Dumbledore to show up for along with Alastor Moody.

'What’s wrong, Lily?’ Emmeline asked as soon as Lily swung the door open, ushering them in. She was covered in blood and wasn’t her usually composed self.

'It’s James,’ she said softly, as if that would stop the reality that was occurring around her, 'we were attacked by Death Eaters, James saw that Rosier got the better of me, I was on the ground, and he was about to hex me, but James covered his body with mine and took the spell intended for me and one from his own Death Eater.’ She led them into the bedroom where James was struggling not to sleep. 'We’ve tried everything we could think of, but his cut just keeps opening.’

Emmeline and Edgar approached James, who sleepily acknowledged them, and Sirius who had yet to speak. 'Don’t fall asleep just yet, Potter,’ Emmeline said softly examining the shirtless boy. She took in the cut and bruises that had began forming over his body.

'What was he hit with,’ Edgar asked as he but his medical bag on the floor.

'We don’t know, they both cast the spells non-verbally,’ she answered.

'Have you been giving him anything,’ Emmeline asked, touching James cut, causing all three of the teenagers* to flinch.

'Some blood replenishing potions, that’s all.’

Emmeline nodded, 'We need all of you to leave the room.’

'What?’ Sirius said in his ‘I am this close to hexing you’ voice, 'You can’t be bloody serious!’

'I am a healer, let me do my job and save your best mate’s skin, can you do that for me?’ Sirius stomped off, like a child who had just been told off.

Lily affectionately ran her hand through James hair, 'Be good, yeah?’

'I’ll try,’ he whispered. She followed Sirius out the room where Moody and Dumbledore were discussing something.

She saw Moody’s dark eyes zeroed in on Sirius and her, 'Just say whatever you’re going to say, Moody,’ Sirius said exasperated.

'What were you doing getting intoxicated? How many times have I told you to be on guard,’ he growled at them. 'You must be on guard twenty-four seven, this war does not take a break to allow you to take a few pints.’

'Do you think we don’t realize that,’ Lily said angrily, 'I am covered in my fiancé’s blood right now and have no desire to stand here listening to how much we cocked-up, so if you could please refrain yourself from doing so until after we find out how he’ll be, I’d very much appreciate it.’ Lily stormed over to the sofa, where Sirius joined her, taking her hand in his. Moody looked as if someone had hexed him while Professor Dumbledore had a sad smile on his face, his blue eyes dull.

'What happened, Lily?’ his kind eyes looked over at her patiently.

'We went to get drinks with Marlene, Fabian, Gideon, Remus, and Peter,’ she began tiredly, 'They left, we stayed behind for a bit–we didn’t drink that much–and when we left someone tried cursing me, Sirius took the hit…’ she glared at the boy, hitting him softly, 'You could have been hurt, you git.'– 'So much for girls wanting chivalry,’ he mumbled– 'There were four Death Eaters, a bit of a banter, and we ended up fighting. I stunned my Death Eater, then went to help the lads. Sirius’ Death Eater got the better of him, he was knocked down and couldn’t fight. Rosier got the best of me–’

'Rosier?’ Moody questioned.

'Yes, he was one of the Death Eaters there,’ she sighed, 'He got the best of me, I was on the ground and was about to get thrown who knows what when James’ body covered mine. He took the curse meant for me and took another curse from his Death Eater.’

'Who was there?’ Moody asked.

'Evan Rosier, Marcus Mulciber, Atreus Avery, and I’m not sure who the last one was,’ Sirius said annoyed, 'Should have given them a good hex while I had the chance.’

'Did you see them without their masks?’ Dumbledore asked.

'Only Mulciber and Rosier, Avery and the other guy were too cowardly to take theirs off–not that Mulciber had a choice.’

'And you have no idea who the other Death Eater was,’ Moody probed.

'No, I jus–’

She interrupted him, 'I think it was Severus Snape,’ she said quietly. She had thought about it hard, and it made sense, she remembered a day by the lake when James had first asked her out, she remembered the cut that had appeared on his face. She knew Severus had created a spell (maybe more), but she never wanted to believe the spells were hurtful–not back then anyways.

'Mr Snape?’ Dumbledore asked puzzled, 'And why do you believe so?’

'He hates James, more than anyone. He’s used it one James before–during fifth year–although not to this degree.’

'I see,’ he said pensively. 

They were kept in the dark, Edgar had only come in once to check on Lily and Sirius and make sure they weren’t badly injured. They both seemed to be fine outside except for Sirius’ limping and a few bruised. On the inside, however, they felt like an important part of them was missing with only the person next to them able to understand.

They were kept in the dark to ponder whether James Potter would be okay, whether the redhead and the handsome boy next to her would have a funeral to attend rather than wedding. 

It was an hour before Emmeline came into the living room. Moody and Dumbledore had left by then. Lily and Sirius had decided not to tell Mr and Mrs Potter nor Peter and Remus until they found out more.

'How is he?’ Sirius hurried to ask.

'He’ll be fine, but he’ll probably be in a bit of pain for a few days, maybe weeks.’ Lily saw Sirius flinch slightly, she gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. 'The spell, luckily didn’t cut any major organs, but they were close. He has quite a few bruises, nothing we can do about that, but they’ll heal.’

'Is he awake?’ Lily asked.

'No, Edgar gave him a sleeping draught, he was quite tired. You can go see him if you like.’ Her smile was sympathetic, 'Let him sleep as much as he can, poor thing lost a lot of blood. I start my shift soon, so I have to leave, but Edgar will tell you everything you need to know.’

'All right, thank you, Emmeline.’

'Thanks, Vance,’ Sirius said before he barged into the bedroom.

'Sirius,’ Lily hissed going after him with a swift wave at Emmeline, 'he’s supposed to rest not have you barging in on him and disrupting him.’

'He won’t be up for hours with the sleeping draught, Lil,’ his grey eyes turned to look into her green ones, 'I just want to make sure my brother’s all right.’

Edgar approached them before they reached the bed. 'Hello, Lily, Sirius. Down to business, shall we?’ Lily nodded, looking towards James. 'He’ll need to take the blood-replenishing potions as soon as he wakes up, once every hours for about five hours should be enough to get his blood levels back to normal. You seem to have enough when I checked, but if you’re running low send me an owl, and I’ll send some right away. His bruises are pretty large, but they’ll heal soon enough.’

'Thank you for coming, Edgar,’ she gave him a brief smile, 'I really appreciate it, and I’m sure James will want to thank you as soon as he wakes up.’

'It’s no problem, Lily,’ he said picking up his bag.

'Speaking of which, not that I’m not grateful, Edgar, but when is he waking up?’ Sirius said, glancing from Edgar to James.

'This particular draught should keep him asleep until late morning, maybe until noon.’

'Thank you, Bones.’

'I’ll be leaving now, Sirius, Lily, but owl me of you have any concerns,’ he smiled once more, 'Tell James, I wish him well, and I’ll visit if I can, otherwise, I’ll send Emmeline.’

Lily gave him a huge hug, 'Thank you so much.’

'Again, it was no problem, Lily, but I must get going before my family begins to worry about me.’

'Goodnight–err morning, Edgar,’ Sirius said before transfiguring one of Lily’s vases into a comfy chair and sitting besides James.

'Have a good day, Edgar,’ she said before going to check on her James. 

'Do you want anything to change into, Padfoot?’ Lily asked as she began examining James.

She began pulling down his trousers, 'No thanks, Lil, I’m fine. Although,’ he continued with a smirk, 'do you think this is really the time to begin stripping James.’

She glared at him, 'I will hex you, Sirius,’ she sighed, 'I’m going to change him, I don’t think he’d like waking up in his own blood.’

She continued pulling down his trousers again, 'Need any help undressing him?’ he asked seriously.

'No, rest your leg,’ she said as she took one of his legs out the trousers, before doing the same with the other and discarding them to the ground where his bloody shirt already lied. She studied his chest noticing the newly acquired bruises–purple, blue, green, yellow–that donned his chest, touching them lightly and noticed a frown in his sleep.

I love you, she thought sadly, letting her fingers touch the scar on his abdomen that she could tell extended onto his back. She was very aware of Sirius’ eyes on her, watching her.

'It’s strange seeing you like this, all worried about him.’

'I always worry about him, he’s rather clumsy,’ she laughed gently. 'I worry about you too, you know. You’re my best friend, Sirius.’

'Well I see your taste has certainly improved since Hogwarts,’ he teased.

'I disagree, my standards have certainly lowered. What my fifth year self would say to befriending you and agreeing to marry this idiot,’ she said the last part affectionately, her green eyes held a certain twinkle that only confirmed Sirius’ belief that his brother was in good hands.

'She’d say you were mental, and she’d be right.’ Lily laughed.

'Perhaps,’ she began to remove James’ pants* but thought better of it. She felt a blush reach her cheeks at her audience seeing such an intimate behavior. 'You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ Lily asked.

'A bit, it’s fun to make you blush,’ he teased. 'I only wish I had one of those Muggle contraptions.’

'A video recorder,’ she asked taking out her wand and casting a cleaning spell on the sheets. She began digging into James’ cupboard. She smiled at the pajamas she grabbed, turning to show them to Sirius. 'What do you think?’

He let out a hoarse laugh, 'He’ll love it, maybe add a red nose while you’re at it, Lil.’

She proceeded to put on his green and red christmas bottoms that were adorned with reindeers that James loved to argue were stags. She remembered how James wore them every night from Boxing Day until they had to return to Hogwarts, she teased him endlessly about it when she finally found out that three-fourths of her boys being animagi. It was that Boxing Day and seeing how carefree and loving he was that she finally admitted to herself that she loved him.

She placed the grey sweatshirt with the antlers of a deer over his head, careful to not touch the bruises on his skin. She helped his arms through the sleeves before getting a duvet cover and covering him up. She placed a brief kiss on his forehead, her hand in his dark hair that never managed to lie flat.

'He looks so innocent without his glasses,’ she told Sirius.

'Bloody twat never remembers to take them off,’ she laughed along with him.

'Well, I’m going to take a shower. If I have to be covered in his blood for much longer I might vomit.’

'Sure you aren’t pregnant?’ he teased as she grabbed one of James’ t-shirts and boxers from his cupboard, undergarments from hers and gathered James’ dirty clothes from the ground. 'It would greatly explain why you agreed to marry this twat.’

'Wanker,’ she called back to him. She heard the mutt laugh. 

'You look shaggable, Evans,’ was the first thing Sirius said upon seeing her in James’ clothes, her long hair tied into a ponytail. His once chair had become a sofa.

'Unfortunately for you, I’m engaged,’ she giggled.

'I bet he’s a git,’ he teased.

'Of course he is, but I love him.’ Sirius watched her as she looked over at James, her eyes full of love and affection for his best mate, his brother. 'I love you too, you know,’ she told him, 'I meant it when I said you’re my best mate.’

'Get over here, Red,’ he said ushering her over, 'James, won’t forgive me if I steal his soon-to-be bride away from him because she’s proclaiming her love for me.’

Lily sauntered over, laying her head in his lap. 'I’m going to take a nap, you should too, Padfoot. You look awful.’

'Thanks, Princess.' 

Sirius woke up early the next morning sans a redhead in his lap. He stretched his arms over his head, getting off the sofa and checking on James. He was still asleep, drool on the side of his face that any other day Sirius would have found funny but at the moment regarded with affection. He messed up James’ hair affectionately before following the smell of food into the kitchen.

'Smells wonderful, are those pancakes I smell?’ he asked walking into the kitchen.

There stood Lily Evans in a blue polka dot dress that would have drove James crazy had he seen her. He grinned at her, 'Are you all dressed up for me?’

'You wish, you twat,’ she said throwing a bit of flour at his face.

'I wanted to look nice for when he wakes up, and I have to go do a few errands before he wakes up,’ she said as she began mixing the batter and cooking it over the Muggle contraption. 'I’m making James breakfast; fried eggs, bacon, chocolate chip pancakes, sausage. Do you think that’s enough?’

Sirius laughed, 'you’re going to make an amazing wife if your cooking always looks this good.’

'Grab whatever you want, just leave some for James. He needs his energy.’

'I need my energy too, Lil, do you not love me as much as James?’ he pouted momentarily before taking a sausage off one of the plates, 'and it’s seven in the morning, what are you doing up so early? Bones says he’ll be asleep until about noon.’

'I have to go to my mum’s and cancel the wedding plans we had today, then I have to go to Emma and Monty’s and explain that their son has been attacked by Death Eaters but will be well soon.’

'Relax for a moment,’ he said as she piled on more pancakes to the already high pile. 'Eat and relax, Evans.’

'Grab a plate,’ she said. 

An hour later, Lily had ate a nice breakfast with Sirius, feed Godric, set up a breakfast tray with heating charms and had gone to check up on James.

She placed a sweet kiss on his messy hair and gave a small smile as she saw the ghost of a smile cross his face. 'I love you,’ she whispered to the room before closing the door lightly and returning to Sirius, not before Godric was able to get through and snuggle into James’ side.

'I’ll be home before noon, if James wakes up don’t hesitate in sending me a patronus, okay?’

'I understand,’ he grinned, 'trust me, Evans.’

'I do,’ she said. 'If he wakes up, his glasses are on the counter–he’s insanely blind without them–and give him his food and the blood replenishing potion right away.’

'All right,’ he watched her in amusement as he watched her fidget trying to remember a list of how to take care of his mate. 'I sent owls to Remus and Peter in the morning, so they’ll probably stop by.’ Her wavy hair was loose, and she played with it as she tried to remember everything, 'make sure Godric doesn’t scratch James in his sleep.’

'He’d deserve it for getting you that cat, that traitor,’ he mumbled.

'Godric is almost one year old, get over it, Black,’ he could have sworn she grinned. 'I’m off, take good care of him.’

'Of course I will,’ he said. 

Lily returned around eleven with chocolate frogs, fudge, and chocolate chip cookies. A smile was brought to her face as she saw three boys in her living room playing exploding snaps.

'You couldn’t have chosen a quieter game?’ she questioned.

'What would have been the fun of that?’ Sirius’ dog-like grin looked up at her.

'He thinks that if we’re loud James will wake up,’ Remus said gathering the cards and sliding them into his robes.

'Ah, and I see who supplied him with such,’ she smiled slightly, 'And how are you, Pete?’ she said placing the food on the counter.

'I’m fine, Lily. Where’d you get all the food?’

'Emma made James some fudge after I told her he’s fine and that she shouldn’t come see him until he’s awake despite her protest, my mum made cookies and insisted I bring some back to James, and I decided to get him some chocolate frogs from Diagon Alley.’

'Bloody hell, he didn’t die, Lil.’ Sirius said causing her to turn and glare at him.

'If you care to remember,’ she said coldly, 'he could have.’

'I was there, I remember. But he’s fine now, okay. James wouldn’t like you worrying too much when he’s safe and sound.’

'You’re right, I know you’re right.’

Sirius eyes softened in the way he did for few others–the Potters, Remus, and Peter, the way they had once softened for his biological brother. 'What is it then?’

'We could have lost him, Sirius, and I think you underestimate sometimes just how much I love James,’ there were tears in her brilliant green eyes that made Sirius feel guilty. 'He’s the love of my life. He’s the only person I’ve ever loved this much, and the only person I will ever love this much. I don’t think I could function if anything happened to him, Sirius. Not anymore than you could.’

'I know you love him, never doubt that. I would have talked him out of marrying you otherwise.’

'Like you could convince him not to marry Lily Evans,’ Peter laughed.

'If anyone could, it’d be Sirius,’ she said seriously. 'I’m going to go take him breakfast and wait for him to wake up,’ she said wiping away her tears.

'Idiot,’ she heard Remus say and what sounded like someone getting punched.

Lily set the tray down on the counter next to his glasses, she went to the window and unlocked and opened the doors that led to the balcony.

She smiled at the sight of Godric curled into James’ side–although she was worried he would accidently reopen James’ cut.

'Come here, Godric,’ she petted the cat gently before picking him up and placing him on the sofa, 'Can’t have you scratching daddy.’

'I didn’t know I impregnated you with a cat,’ she heard a hoarse voice say, 'who knew stag plus human equals cat.’

'James,’ her soft voice whispered, turning around to face the handsome man on the bed. 'How are you?’

'Blind,’ he said attempting to move but struggling.

'Stay still,’ she said placing his glasses gently on his face before proceeding to scramble around the room in search of his potion.

'Is that dress new?’ he questioned her. 'It looks lovely on you, and perhaps off you as well.’

She laughed giddily as he threw a wink her way. 'You’re probably all right if you’re already thinking of ways to get me out my clothes.’

'Well mine are too lovely to take off, deer,’ she narrowed her eyes at him in mock glare. She saw him wince slightly.

'Stay still, James,’ she said as she grabbed a red potion. 'You have to take a blood replenishing potion for five hours. Unfortunately, there’s no pain potion yet.’

'S’all right, Evans,’ she rolled her eyes affectionately.

'It’ll be Potter soon, you can’t always call me Evans,’ she lifted the blood replenishing potion to his lips and waited for him to swallow, watching his Adam’s apple as he did.

'You’ll always be Evans to me, love.’

'And you’ll always be a toerag to me,’ he laughed at the statement that had once caused a feeling of immense sadness to a sixteen-year-old bloke who felt himself head over heels over the pretty girl. 'Do you want to see your arrogant friends? They’re waiting outside, rather annoying bunch, really.’

'I’d rather have you kiss me,’ she laughed as he stared hopefully at her lips.

'In your dreams, Potter,’ she leaned in closer.

'And what wonderful dreams they’ll be,’ less than an inch and her lips would be on his.

'Already harassing the patient, Evans?’ Sirius’ voice came from the door.

'He asked for a kiss, and my obligation as a healer is to give the patient what he needs.’ she blushed red at being caught.

'Naughty nurse,’ Sirius grinned as he sat on the sofa they had yet to transfigure back to a vase.

'How do you feel, James,’ Remus asked taking the seat next to Sirius, Peter quickly following.

'I’m a Gryffindor, Moony, it’ll take more than two measly spells to keep me from marrying Lily Evans,’ his hazel eyes took in the blushing redhead, 'no matter how much she wants to get rid of me.’

'Yes, I was so disappointed,’ she sighed dramatically, 'thought I was finally free but alas here you are.’

The boys looked at her with amusement.

'She’s been fretting over you making you breakfast–’ Sirius began.

'Which reminds me,’ she said grabbing the tray and placing it in front of him as he sat up, flinching as he did so, 'you need to eat and don’t move so much.’

'Yes, mum,’ Lily glared at his cheeky smile.

'You looked better unconscious,’ James heard her mumble.

'You haven’t stopped fretting since he got injured,’ Sirius said stealing a piece of bacon from James’ plate.

'Get your own bacon, Padfoot,’ James said as he took a bite.

'I did, it just happened to be off your plate.’

'Mutt,’ he watched Sirius pout like a dog who’s been kicked.

'Aren’t you going to sit down, love,’ James asked the green eyed girl staring at him.

'I’m all right, James,’ she said coming closer to him, close enough for him to be able to count her endless freckles. She let her hand brush his hair softly. James found it too easy to get lost in the feeling of Lily, lost enough to forget his three mates were still in the room until he felt water splash his face and turned to see Sirius twirl his wand in faux innocence.

'Bloody prat,’ he mumbled, shooting a glare at Sirius.

'You were all by shagging in my presence, burning my innocent eyes.’

Remus scoffed, 'Since when have your eyes been innocent?’

'When has any part of Sirius been innocent?’ Lily asked.

'Oy! I resent that.’ There was a slight smirk on his face that reminded Lily of James. Lily wondered whether James had picked it up from Sirius or the other way around. Or perhaps they had individually developed what Lily referred to as the arrogant smirk.

'Don’t resent the truth, Paddy.’ Her eyes twinkled teasingly. His nose wrinkled, pouting like a child.

Lily’s eyes drifted back to James, eyeing his full plate. 'Eat, Potter, I don’t want to see a single piece of bacon on your plate.’

'I can take care of that for you, Prongs,’ Sirius leant in to grab a piece of bacon off James’ plate only to have his hand hit by Lily’s.

'There’s more bacon in the kitchen if you’re hungry.’

'But this is here now,’ the corners of Lily’s mouth twitched at her friend’s whining.

'He needs as much as he can eat,’ she turned and was satisfied to see him chewing quietly on the bacon. 'He’s pale.’

'He’s not pale, bloody bastard looks like he always does, Evans.’

The two bickered like siblings causing a genuine smile to cross Peter’s face, a smile that was half-amusement, half-exasperation and finally the smile on James’ face: content. James loved how well Lily and Sirius seemed to get along, how they could all spend time together without him having to decide which one of them he’d have to pick. He loved days when it was just Lily, Sirius, and him lying around the flat or hanging around in Muggle London, riding around in Sirius’ motorbike. He also enjoyed the days Remus and Peter decided to stop by. Although he wouldn’t object to cozy nights in bed with Lily, nights where they liked to forget the war around them and give in to their more passionate natures, nights where they loved lying in bed, content with just being near one another even if they didn’t say a word. He couldn’t wait to marry her, a promise of forever. A promise that they loved each other enough to want to commit themselves to the other for the rest of their lives. A promise that they would love one another forever.

He zoned out long enough for Lily and Sirius’ bickering to have stopped.

'As much as I’d like to stay, Prongs, I have work in ten minutes,’ Peter said as he got up.

'S’all right, Wormtail,’ he yawned briefly causing Lily’s ears to perk up at the noise. He put a piece of pancake into his mouth to stop her from commenting on it.

'I should probably get going too,’ Remus said, looking tired. The full moon had only been a few days ago and his friend had yet to recover from the effects of it.

'Rest, Moony,’ James said between swallowing his food.

'You too, Prongs,’ he looked him in the eyes, 'try to avoid any more hexes while I’m gone.’ James left out a laugh, 'I’ll try, but you know me. I like living my life on edge.’

'I must have forgot, the boy who silently pinned after Lily Evans since fourth year, took over an entire year to ask her out and made a fool of himself when he did likes to live his life on edge.’

Sirius snorted, 'Silently my arse,’ he let out a dramatic sigh, 'Do you think Evans is pretty, Si? She has pretty eyes and pretty hair and pretty skin. Did you hear Evans today in Slughorn’s, Padfoot? She’s so funny, Padfoot. Her hair is so red.’ He let out a laugh at seeing James’ neck and face flush. 'If you hadn’t started dating in seventh year, I might have murdered you both.’

Lily’s giggles made James’ attention shift to her as Peter and Remus excused themselves, Sirius walking them out to give the couple a moment alone. 'Think it’s funny, do you, Evans?’ James voice was teasing, his eyes mischievous.

'Very,’ she said as she sat on the edge of their bed. 'To be fair, I thought you were quite the looker in fourth year.’

'Did you?’ he tugged on her hand, looking at her in the way that usually got her in trouble when she wanted to focus.

'Yes, even I couldn’t deny that you were going to be quite handsome when you got older,’ she leant down and placed a small kiss on his lips which he tried to deepen before she pulled away.

He pouted at the loss of contact. 'Finish eating,’ she said.

'I think Prongs wants to devour something else, Lil.’ Sirius leaned on the door, grey eyes twinkling.

'Bugger off, Black,’ Lily laughed.

'And here I thought we were friends.’

'Well, my wife-to-be does look quite fit in her dress, hard to resist.’ James eyes lingered on her face for a moment before examining said dress and back to her face.

'I don’t think you’d look quite as lovely in it, you prat,’ she turned around and stormed off but not before James could see the pretty blush on her cheeks. As much as she denied it, James knew she loved it when he complimented her especially when she put an effort into getting ready. 'You can marry the giant squid for all I care,’ he heard her yell.

One look at Sirius had him throwing his head back and laughing. 

At eight, Sirius was the only remaining person as the rest of James’ coming and going visitors had left. James watched as Lily grabbed some clothes from her cupboard then proceeded to take an old Quidditch jersey of his from sixth year and a pair of boxers that had James’ mind spinning.

'All right, love?’ Lily asked him, her hand on her hips. Her eyes checking him out teasingly, the way she did in seventh year to make him blush and stutter.

It still worked.

'Y–yeah, er, yes,’ he could see Sirius snorting on the sofa while Lily’s lip twitched upwards.

'I’m going to take a quick shower. Is there anything you needed?’

'I think Jamie here needs a very cold shower, care to help a lad out?’

Lily grabbed the closest item within her reach—which luckily for Sirius was a pillow—and aimed it at his head, 'Wanker.’

'Why weren’t you a chaser,’ Sirius whined.

'I preferred dating one,’ James heard her yell from the bathroom causing his heart to flutter.

He waited until he heard the water run to begin speaking once more. 'I’m marrying her in less than two months, Padfoot,’ there was a smile on his face that couldn’t be contained.

'Lily Potter, I’ll have to get used to that,’ Sirius chuckled. 'Fourth, fifth, and sixth year you would have been delusional if they thought you would marry her. Bloody prat that you were.’

'Lily Potter, Mrs Lily Potter. Mr and Mrs James Potter.’ Sirius couldn’t help but smile at his lovestruck friend. 'Has a nice ring to it, yeah?’

'Little redheads and black-haired devils running around one day.’

'We talked about having three kids one day, when the war’s over.’ They ignored the silent if that loomed over them.

'Papa Prongs, we’ll at least with a mum like Lily your children will have some chance of being good-looking and having tamable hair.’

'Lily uses a spell on her hair for her curls, s’not tamable the Muggle way.’ James’ eyes twinkled, 'Imagine a little redheaded girl with Lil’s curly hair and green eyes.’

'What’d she get from you?’ Sirius asked, 'Your eyesight?’

'Don’t be ridiculous, Padfoot,’ the grin didn’t leave his face as he said, 'any child of mine is going to have the pleasure of naturally getting on Lily’s nerves.' 

'Did Sirius leave?’ Lily asked James as she closed the bathroom door.

'Yeah, he said he be back tomorrow and to thank you for the food.’ Lily grinned at him, going to sit down on the sofa. James frowned at her, 'Come sit with me, my love,’ Lily felt butterflies reemerge in her stomach at that.

'Are you sure?’

He nodded and slightly hit the left side of the bed. She bit her lip slightly before finally hopping onto the bed.

'Can we talk,’ she whispered lightly as James wrapped an arm around her lightly. He delicately kissed the spot where her shoulder and neck met.

'Yes, love?’ she twisted out of his arms, carefully turning around to look up at his face. 'I thought you were going to–I didn’t think–I just–’ the words trailed off as she tried to control the whimpers that left her throat.

'It’s all right,’ he let his fingers carefully brush her curls, untangling them carefully. 'I’m fine.’ She looked up at him in disbelief. 'I’m a Gryffindor, we can do anything.’

'You mean we’re reckless idiots?’

'That too,’ he let a kiss drop and linger onto her lips. 'I love you, Lily Evans.’

'I love you too, you prat.’

#jily #james potter #lily evans #jilychallenge #canon compliant #siriuslywriting #oneshot #canon compliant oneshot #fww oneshot #jily oneshot #friends: blackevans #friends: prongsfoot #friends: marauders #friends: marauders plus lily #ch: order members #c: injured james #couple: jily #engaged: jily #domestic!jily #tw: cursing #tw: alcohol

[halothenthehorns]

All in the Family

Chapter 87: The Dream

At least this time when Alice face planted something, it was relatively soft, even if she did find herself moments later on the floor instead and whatever she'd hit was now resting on top of her. It was removed moments later, Frank there once more and fighting off yet another sneeze, which she couldn't manage.

Fighting weary limbs to get to her feet with Frank's help, all of them were coughing and sneezing at the musty, sweltering hot room. It was only lit by the fireplace, casting long shadows over the eight of them. The only things of note were the rug in front of the fireplace and the chair she'd toppled over with a tiny table she hadn't managed to disturb, a bottle sitting innocently in place. Yet still no one said a word, they were all covering their mouths and trying to repress the abundance of noise they were making and looking at the lone door. Wherever they were, the very air made them feel as if they didn't belong.

Remus Lupin had landed closest to the window, and he'd been staring out rather than in like the rest of them. Now, eyes still trained outside, he reached over and tugged on the sleeve of his nearest friend. Peter Pettigrew chanced a glance over his shoulder, in the wrong direction it seemed, as he looked up into the sky. It wasn't visible to Alice, but she didn't think it was a full moon, he didn't look particularly worried about it. Then his eyes cast over the rest of the view, and he flinched, nodding his understanding.

The floor moaned in protest as their other two friends finally began to move, making their way over to the window as well. Alice watched their feet carefully to make sure the whole floor wouldn't give out on them. By the time they looked out as well and put it together, Alice didn't think she needed an answer. She was very glad now she hadn't knocked that little bottle over, she didn't want to know what the snake venom that was healing You-Know-Who would do if it had landed on her. Now the real question was, where was the snake?

It stood to reason, as every other animal they'd come across was usually about, shouldn't this one be? Her blood shivered just beneath her skin as if calling to it, she swallowed convulsively and prayed not to vomit as she also remembered the last time that snake had been mentioned, whom it had eaten. Were the bones of poor Frank Bryce somewhere here as well?

A slight tap on her shoulder would have sent a blood-curdling scream from her throat if it hadn't been lodged in place, but it was only Lily, grasping the book tight in her hand, her skin sallow with disgust as she glanced about every corner of the room.

Regulus Black stood alone in the farthest corner, arms crossed and nearly blending into the darkest of shadows. Everyone was accounted for, no-one was currently being attacked by a killer snake, but Alice was beginning to wish they'd landed back in the antechamber of the Chamber of Secrets, the rat bones scattered about and the caved-in ceiling more hospitable than this place.

She gently took the book from Lily, who made no protest, she looked a bit relieved as she more firmly grasped her wand. Flipping along the length of the book, it was quite an achievement they'd made it so far along to her, she finally found where the blank pages ended and their next chapter began. "The Dream," what a seemingly nice notion, for just a silly little dream to be the focus of a fourteen-year-old, rather than this haunted mansion.

Her voice sounded odd in the painfully quiet room, no one had spoken a word but her. The crackling fire set an odd echo to her words, and the topic the trio was discussing was not banishing their ill will by any means. The three fourteen-year-olds, not much younger than them at this rate, were sitting around discussing everything that had happened to Crouch and Krum, throwing about all sorts of possibilities. She grew more grateful with every book her and Frank's original wish did not seem destined to be true, she didn't want Neville involved in this.

Alice glanced up sporadically as she got through their late night, or early morning depending on one's view, to gage the others' reactions. No one was offering their own ideas for these circumstances. The Marauders didn't seem capable of speech at all really, none of them were really looking at each other, but instead looked like they had the lock-jaw curse placed on them. It was no feat to remember who was here in Harry's time, helping You-Know-Who regain his strength, the teenager before her looked more like a ghost every passing second he was forced to remain in this place.

Lily and Frank were no keener of speech it seemed, attention solely fixed on watching her from both sides while she stood the most vulnerable reading in the middle of the room. If they weren't watching the window, door, or shadows about the ground waiting for the telltale hiss of a snake or some other monstrosity to descend on them, they were watching the pages with impatient distress for this to be over.

It was absolutely sad, Alice decided, that as the trio arrived at the owlery for Harry to pass all this along to his godfather and the twins interrupted with talk of blackmail, not one single person could still break the silence on what this could even be about. Regulus Black finally twitched in the corner, but by the time Alice looked up he was still as a statue once more and she had no idea what his inclination for this was. The Marauders were silent as ever, there were no laughs to be had in this place of death.

When Harry and his friends went to talk to Moody and it still housed nothing but speculation and worries, it was almost a relief to switch to Sirius Black sending a letter so quickly, full of worry about his godson. It was honestly quite sweet, and showed him being far more mature and caring in this future than she really thought he was capable of. The only person he'd ever shown concern for here was Regulus, and it was fleeting and intermittent with insults so much it was a mystery how he really felt about anybody.

The trio practicing spells on each other and another divination class kept the pace going in a calm way, though none of them could still manage to relax one bit. Despite how relatively relaxed this chapter had been going, their current environment left nothing of promise. Either Harry was going to have yet another dream about this place, or worse, he was somehow going to wind up here.

An answer came not moments later as Harry dozed off to Trelawney's chat about whatever random planet. A dream then, a nightmare, a waking torment she forced herself through as her heart pounded crazily in her chest.

Peter Pettigrew, being tortured for a blunder, involving Crouch. It was, beyond words, what she was forcing herself to read into the dead air. Alice didn't know what she was expecting from the Marauders as she got it all out, and they didn't seem to either. It was only as his life was spared by You-Know-Who, in favor of feeding Harry Potter to the snake instead because someone else had fixed the Crouch mess, that Peter gasped in almost unintelligible words, "I'm sorry," before he doubled over and vomited. Mostly on Sirius, though due to proximity it managed to land on all four of them.

"Ah Pete," Sirius Black finally spoke to him again in the way he hadn't since before his betrayal had been announced, like an exhausted but overly affectionate brother. He Evanesced the mess away before grabbing his arms and helping him to stay upright, which his shaking knees showed was not an option much longer. James Potter rubbed his back and Remus Lupin was tisking affectionately while doing a much more through job of getting rid of the puddle of sick from the creases of all their clothes. None of them really said anything though, what was there to say?

The sight was somber, like watching ghosts reenact what they were supposed to do. Alice finished in the lingering silence with Harry finally getting into Dumbledore's office and walking in on a scene, feeling less resolved than ever there was a good way out of this.

HPHPHP

For the record, Nagini will never appear in this series, due to her being a maledictus and so technically of human intelligence but trapped in a snake body. It's a mystery they'll never be able to solve but we all know.

#Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #GoF #Marauders #wolfstar #jilly #Peter Pettigrew #Remus Lupin #Sirius Black #James Potter #Regulus Black #Lily Evans #Alice Smith #Frank Longbottom

[inkylizard]

Thanksgiving Stories

When I was 16 or so I started writing a comic about Thanksgiving with my family. The premise was that a technology had been developed that could turn Alzheimer’s patients into healthy, thriving...plants; and that my grandfather had signed my grandmother up for this cutting-edge treatment. I still think it’s a good story, tbh. Maybe someday I’ll finish it. I struggled with representing my family members. It feels likely that my grandfather was a bit indescribable, and now that he’s gone I can never get a new second opinion. I felt his death less like the loss of a person and more like the destruction of an edifice. At his funeral, his family members spoke about him with difficulty; his casual cruelty, his brilliance, his rare and glorious moments of warmth. The staff at his nursing home chastised us; he had been, to them, a figure of good humour and radiant love. That’s always how it is; we save our worst shit for the people we’re closest to. 

Peter E. Siegle died on Christmas; early in the morning, December 25th, 2010.  My aunt and I spent Christmas Eve with him, waiting while he died slowly, but neither of us were there when it happened, appropriate to his dignity. However, we both came back the next morning, both accompanied by nervous new boyfriends. (My guy was an absolute trooper and even though we broke up we’re still good friends; we frustrate each other but he never made me less than I am.) Rachel’s man she later married, and I can’t help it, my mistrust of him began this Christmas morning; when they rolled my grandfather’s body out of his room, covered by a sheet, he tried to make us look away. We said no, he tried to insist. I was furious inside. My aunt is one of the strongest people I know, and in my eyes, this man, trying to be gentle, believing she needed protection, was treating her as if she was weak. We watched with our eyes goddamn open, thank you. But she married him anyway. And I like him now, I really do. Certain things aside. But now Thanksgiving happens in Rachel and Pete’s world, up in New Hampshire, in a big new house with Pete’s big family and no one ever argues and Pete is relentlessly affable and fusses over everyone because he wants everyone to be comfortable at his house. It’s...nice. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It’s just not mine and I can’t get past this feeling that it isn’t right. 

Thanksgiving with my family in my grandfather’s series of boston apartments used to be a battle of wits. The conversation was high level, and if I’m being totally honest, it was more than a little snobbish. There were arguments about ideas. When I was a kid it often exploded into a shouting match between my grandfather and my dad, but as I got older everyeone mellowed just enough, and we found a way of making it work. It was stressful, at times it was fucking awful, but it was mine.  It’s supposed to be like this: my grandfather and my dad arguing and both popping into the kitchen occasionally where my aunt and me are listening to Alice’s Restaurant and peeling sweet potatoes hot from being pre-baked and then my grandfather’s friends show up at dinner time and everyone eats chopped liver on crackers and talks politics and drinks wine. Everyone knows that there are going to be disagreements and arguments, that there’s going to be some discomfort, in fact, because that’s just how my grandfather is, and that’s how things are in his company; he’s tough and smart but not without his own weird brand of kindness, and he insisted that the people around him get on his level.  My family, in kind, wasn’t nice. They were brutal, honest, to the point, intellectual. I didn’t always enjoy that. There was a lot missing from our interactions, we’re often bad, as a clan, at seeming to care, and when I was younger that bugged me. It wasn’t Norman Rockwell, and when I was a kid i kind of wanted everything to be that way, cuddly and warm; and now I miss my hard-edged family more than anything in the world. 

I miss avidly following a discourse from person to person, and my dad or my aunt catching my eye to make me know they haven’t forgotten about me. That’s how it’s supposed to be. A yearly reminder of who we are, heading into the winter: we grapple with the tough questions, we don’t look away. That I’m not alone in being this kind of person, whatever that means. Family was a touchstone. That’s what this holiday was for.  Loss of family transfers responisbilities; I don’t have a lot of the people who re-affirmed my sense of self in my life anymore. So I have to carry that flag for myself, and ...so that if someone else needs to find that reassurance, they can find it in me. We become adults in this way when our own grown-ups die, whether we like it or not, whether we’re ready or not; the responsibility sits there waiting for you silently until you’re ready to pick it up.  It’s been tough to offer gratitude during this holiday-time for the last few years, because I bitterly resent what I have lost, and I wasn’t ready to move forward from that point yet. And that sucks, because gratitude is kind of my thing.  But maybe now that I’ve written it out I can start dealing with this event for what it is now, not what it used to be.

[blackkudos]

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker (c. August 22, 1912 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi Hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie.

Some of his best known songs include "Boogie Chillen'" (1948), "Crawling King Snake" (1949), "Dimples" (1956), "Boom Boom" (1962), and "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" (1966). Several of his later albums, including The Healer (1989), Mr. Lucky (1991), Chill Out (1995), and Don't Look Back (1997), were album chart successes in the U.S. and U.K., and Don't Look Back won a Grammy Award in 1998.

Early life

Hooker's date of birth is a subject of debate. It is believed that he was born in Tutwiler, Mississippi, in Tallahatchie County, although some sources say his birthplace was near Clarksdale, in Coahoma County. He was the youngest of the 11 children of William Hooker (born 1871, died after 1923), a sharecropper and Baptist preacher, and Minnie Ramsey (born c. 1880, date of death unknown). In the 1920 federal census, William and Minnie were recorded as being 48 and 39 years old, respectively, which implies that Minnie was born about 1880, not 1875. She was said to have been a "decade or so younger" than her husband (Boogie Man, p. 23), which gives additional credibility to this census record as evidence of Hooker's origins.</ref>

The Hooker children were home-schooled. They were permitted to listen only to religious songs; the spirituals sung in church were their earliest exposure to music. In 1921, their parents separated. The next year, their mother married William Moore, a blues singer, who provided John Lee with an introduction to the guitar (and whom he would later credit for his distinctive playing style). Moore was his first significant blues influence. He was a local blues guitarist who, in Shreveport, Louisiana, learned to play a droning, one-chord blues that was strikingly different from the Delta blues of the time. Another formative influence was Tony Hollins, who dated Hooker's sister Alice, helped teach Hooker to play, and gave him his first guitar. For the rest of his life, Hooker regarded Hollins as a formative influence on his style of playing and his career as a musician. Among the songs that Hollins reputedly taught Hooker were versions of "Crawlin' King Snake" and "Catfish Blues".

At the age of 14, Hooker ran away from home, reportedly never seeing his mother or stepfather again. In the mid-1930s, he lived in Memphis, Tennessee, where he performed on Beale Street, at the New Daisy Theatre and occasionally at house parties.

He worked in factories in various cities during World War II, eventually getting a job with the Ford Motor Company in Detroit in 1943. He frequented the blues clubs and bars on Hastings Street, the heart of the black entertainment district, on Detroit's east side. In a city noted for its pianists, guitar players were scarce. Hooker's popularity grew quickly as he performed in Detroit clubs, and, seeking an instrument louder than his acoustic guitar, he bought his first electric guitar.

Career

Hooker's recording career began in 1948, when Modern Records, based in Los Angeles, released a demo he had recorded for Bernie Besman in Detroit. The single, "Boogie Chillen'", became a hit and the best-selling race record of 1949. Despite being illiterate, Hooker was a prolific lyricist. In addition to adapting traditional blues lyrics, he composed original songs. In the 1950s, like many black musicians, Hooker earned little from record sales, and so he often recorded variations of his songs for different studios for an up-front fee. To evade his recording contract, he used various pseudonyms, including John Lee Booker (for Chess Records and Chance Records in 1951–1952), Johnny Lee (for De Luxe Records in 1953–1954), John Lee, John Lee Cooker, Texas Slim, Delta John, Birmingham Sam and his Magic Guitar, Johnny Williams, and the Boogie Man.

His early solo songs were recorded by Bernie Besman. Hooker rarely played with a standard beat, but instead he changed tempo to fit the needs of the song. This often made it difficult to use backing musicians, who were not accustomed to Hooker's musical vagaries. As a result, Besman recorded Hooker playing guitar, singing and stomping on a wooden pallet in time with the music. For much of this period he recorded and toured with Eddie Kirkland. In Hooker's later sessions for Vee-Jay Records in Chicago, studio musicians accompanied him on most of his recordings, including Eddie Taylor, who could handle his musical idiosyncrasies. "Boom Boom" and "Dimples", two popular songs by Hooker, were originally released by Vee-Jay.

Later life and death

Hooker performed "Boom Boom" in the role of a street musician in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. In 1989, he recorded the album The Healer with various other notable musicians, including Carlos Santana and Bonnie Raitt.

He recorded several songs with Van Morrison, including "Never Get Out of These Blues Alive", "The Healing Game", and "I Cover the Waterfront". He also appeared on stage with Morrison several times; some of these performances released on the live album A Night in San Francisco. On December 19, 1989, Hooker performed "Boogie Chillen'" with the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton in Atlantic City, New Jersey. As part of the Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels tour, the show was broadcast live on cable television as a pay-per-view program. His last studio recording on guitar and vocal was "Elizebeth", a song he wrote with Pete Sears, accompanied by members of his Coast to Coast Blues Band, with Sears on piano. It was recorded on January 14, 1998, at Bayview Studios in Richmond, California. The last song Hooker recorded before his death was "Ali d'Oro", a collaboration with the Italian soul singer Zucchero, in which Hooker sang the chorus, "I lay down with an angel."

Hooker spent the last years of his life in Long Beach, California. In 1997, he opened a nightclub in San Francisco's Fillmore District called John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room, after one of his hit songs.

Hooker fell ill just before a tour of Europe in 2001 and died in his sleep on June 21, 2001, in Los Altos, California, at around 88 years of age. He was interred at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland. He was survived by eight children, 19 grandchildren, and numerous great-grandchildren.

Awards and recognition

Among his many awards, Hooker was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2016. Two of his songs, "Boogie Chillen" and "Boom Boom", were included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll". "Boogie Chillen" was also included in the Recording Industry Association of America's list of the "Songs of the Century". He was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Grammy Awards

Best Traditional Blues Recording, 1990, for I'm in the Mood, with Bonnie Raitt

Best Traditional Blues Recording, 1998, for Don't Look Back

Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, 1998, Don't Look Back, with Van Morrison

Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, 2000

Discography

Charting singlesCharting albums

Film

The Blues Brothers on Maxwell Street (Chicago) outside Aretha Franklin's restaurant (1980)

John Lee Hooker & Furry Lewis DVD (1995)

John Lee Hooker Rare Performances 1960–1984 DVD (2002)

Come See About Me DVD (2004)

John Lee Hooker: Bits and Pieces About … DVD and CD (2006)

Wikipedia

#John Lee Hooker #08-22 #06-21