Chocolate and Cigarettes

Chapter 38 - The Academy

The Sassy Six all apparated with the Marauders. The eight of them decided it would be easier and that they would find each other much easier that way. And they didn't know anyone so at least they were with people they knew in the group.

As they apparated, their mouth immediately dropped open. There was a huge stage in the middle of the beach. A band was playing songs and in front of that stage were hundreds of people. They were dancing, shouting, signing. And just behind those people were tables filled with alcohol and food with chairs or tree trunks around to sit.

"Shall we go get ourselves a drink and sit down until we spot our friends?" Sirius asked.

All of them agreed and made their way towards the drinks. They all poured themselves a glass of firewhiskey and made their way towards a huge tree trunk before sitting down.

"This party is huge." Marlene commented.

Everyone nodded, looking around.

"Yeah. No doubt Jen and Fabian helped organize it." Lily said taking a sip of her drink.

James looked at her. She looked beautiful with her red hair turned into locks and her yellow summer dress.

"Jen and Fabian? Organizing a party this huge?" He asked her.

Lily held his gaze and nodded.

"Of course. Those are one of the many talents of the Sassy Six." She simply answered.

"Many talents huh?"

Both of them kept looking at each other like hawks for a really long time before Gideon and Sirius decided to cough at the same time.

"Fucking sexual tension." Alice murmured.

Remus snorted in his glass and Peter smiled with a little blush appearing on his cheeks. Jen and Fabian hadn't been there to see it but James and Lily had been at it the whole summer. Sirius and Marlene obviously liked to pester them with it while Remus, Gideon, and Alice threw comments at them once in a while.

"Talking about our friends, where are they?" Alice said again looking around.

All of them looked around searching for their friends when Gideon stopped searching and smiled at the sight. There they were, both dancing to More Than a Woman by the Big Gees. They were both shouting the lyrics at each other, smiling. They looked like completely happy fools.

"Found them." Gideon said pointing at them.

The group looked at them and just like Gideon, all of them smiled. Jen didn't look like the broken girl she was before she left at all. James could still remember the state she was in and the urge to strike Remus. She had been in a horrible state. She smoked a lot of weed and joints and was drunk most of the days. Once she even came back home completely stone and the second she saw James, she fell down on her knees and started crying hard. That was something James had never thought he would see. Something he never wanted to see again. Seeing his sister in pain like that was one of the most horrible things he ever had to witness.

And now here she was, smiling like a fool and dancing with her best friend. He couldn't be happier and prouder of her.

While James and the others seemed utterly happy, Remus started feeling like shit, his heart sinking. He looked at them, Fabian took her hand and made her spin until she crashed into him and started laughing like crazy. She looked happy. She had told him there would be no post-breakup sympathy and she had kept her word. There was none. It looked like she was moving on after only three months and he, thinking he had moved on as well, realized that he hadn't. Watching her dance like that with another boy made him realize that he never wanted to see that again.