Selenophile // Marauders

|126| Beach Avalon

16th of November, 1978

It was Riley's nineteenth birthday, but it also marked the third year she had spent without Ivy.

She heard a bang on the door, then glanced at the clock without lifting her head from the soft pillow. She chose to ignore the knock and try to go back to sleep even though it was eleven AM.

Another bang came from the door, Riley groaned, then pulled the blanket over her head to try to make it go away. She could hear someone mumbling something, then another bang.

She went downstairs after finally waking up. She cursed under her breath, rubbed her eyes, and scratched her head.

"Who the fuck are you?" she asked without opening the door.

"We are a total of eight people, Padfoot, Lily, Wormtail, Moony, Marlene, Mary, Dorcas, and, of course, the one and only — OW! Lily! Sorry, and Prongs."

"Go away," Riley said simply, then started walking back to her room.

"Crim! Come on!" a voice shouted. "It is your birthday!"

"No shit," she muttered to herself. Then she opened the door slowly. Eight people stood with smiles on their faces, shouting "happy birthday" in unison. She rolled her eyes and started closing the door again.

"Oi!" said Sirius as he put his foot in between the door to prevent Riley from closing it again. "You aren't gonna just make us go away, are you?"

"That's exactly what I'm gonna do," said Riley tiredly. "You woke me up."

"It is eleven o'clock," said Dorcas. "Woah, Riley slept past seven. This is very rare..."

"Really, I don't wanna celebrate, all right?" said Riley as she ignored the others complaining and whining. "So, just go away."

"But we have something special planned—" said Lily.

"I don't wanna do anything special, just — please."

"No," said Remus. "I guarantee you'll love this."

"I bet you'll even cry," said Marlene smilingly. "And that's rare, too." Dorcas and Marlene high-fived.

"I'm already planning on crying today. So, that's not a special thing."

"Er — have I said 'happy birthday'?" said Peter awkwardly. Sirius rolled his eyes, Riley ignored him.

"You'll really feel better," said James, "when you spend the day outside."

"I never liked going out," said Riley.

"No, we aren't just gonna go outside and sit at a restaurant, that's boring shit." Mary grinned. "This really is special."

Riley sighed. She opened the door more and let the others come in. Lily jumped, then hugged Riley tightly.

"Happy nineteenth!" she said cheerfully. Riley hugged her back, but then let her go. She then looked around the house a bit, her face changed a bit, she looked rather concerned.

The house was messy, and Riley was aware of that. It had been like that since her mum passed away, she never was in the mood to do anything nice to make herself feel a bit better. It wasn't because her mother did all the cleaning, she just didn't feel like cleaning it anymore. There wasn't much food in the kitchen, her room was messy as always.

"Er — it's a bit—" Mary stuttered. "Messy."

"It's fine," said Riley. She walked upstairs. She saw the others following her. "You don't have to follow me..."