Of Chocolate and Raindrops

Shared Vinyls and Things She Knew

Saturday, October 1, 1977

September passed without much activity. Somehow, Lily and James had managed to escape punishment for skipping class (which may or may not have entailed a lot of flattery and the fact that Lily Evans was a teacher's pet), but Marlene found out that they had skipped class together and henceforth began to intensely grill both of them about it, because Lily Evans had never skipped class. Ever. She wouldn't skip class with Marlene (her best friend) so why would she skip class with James Potter?

"You willingly skipped class with James Potter?" she had said to Lily. "James Potter. Lily. Are you sure?"

Lily laughed awkwardly. "Um, yes. We sorta just hung out. It was unplanned, honestly."

Marlene had glared at her for another moment. "Alright. Next time tell me before you skip, okay?"
"Next time?" Lily giggled. "There won't be a next time!"

At the time, Marlene had laughed and left the matter there, but she knew that if James Potter had his way, there would be another time, even if Lily couldn't see it yet. That had been the beginning.

When she had asked James about it, he smiled widely, but she could see a bit of apprehension in his eyes.

"Yeah, we just ate in the kitchen," He chuckled nervously. "Why are you asking?"

"Why are you so worried?" Marlene had said to him, placing a hand on her hip.

He didn't meet her eyes. "No reason. Honestly, we hung out because we thought it would be fun."

Nearly a month later, Marlene hadn't gotten any closer to the truth about why they skipped class, but that was probably because it slipped her mind.

...

The first of October was always one of Sirius' favorite days for a few reasons. One, it meant that his birthday was in fourteen days. Two, it meant that Halloween was coming very soon. Three, it meant that he had survived the first month of school in one piece, which was actually a pretty hard thing to do if you were Sirius Orion Black.

It was a brisk day, with a hint of wind flowing into the trees beside his dorm window. The world hadn't wasted any time switching to autumn weather and Sirius was okay with that.

There were already some students outside, despite it being ten in the morning. Granted, however, not everyone had Sirius' odd sleep schedule. Some nights he would sleep at ten p.m., others he would sleep at three a.m., and sometimes even six a.m. He'd either sleep in for hours or wake up with the sunrise. He supposed that it was incredibly unhealthy, but there wasn't anyone to tell him to shape up (with the exception of Remus, who he never listened to), because it wasn't like his parents cared about his health.

When he woke up this morning, Remus was already gone, but Peter was still sleeping. Sirius climbed out of bed and shook Peter's shoulder. "Pete," he said. "Pete!"

Peter woke with a gasp. "I didn't take the cherries!"

Sirius burst out laughing. "Don't worry Pete, there aren't any cherries here. Do you want to go down to breakfast?"

Peter yawned. "Sure. Just let me get dressed,"

Sirius widened his eyes. "Oh, Pete, I thought we were just going to go down like this!" he said sarcastically, gesturing to his pajama clad body.

Peter blushed. "Whatever,"

Sirius snorted.

Ten minutes later, they were sitting at the Gryffindor table with James, Remus, Lily, Marlene, Alice, and Mary. James was sitting next to Lily and nearly talking her ear off. Sirius wasn't sure how she managed to refrain from telling him to shut up, but he applauded her on her patience. He somehow got talked into sitting next to Marlene, and the two of them hadn't said a word to each other since Sirius and Peter had come downstairs. She was talking to Mary about a new album that some band had released.

"Honestly, it's good, I guess, but I really prefer their old stuff, you know?" Mary said conversationally, biting a piece of bacon.

"I don't know," Marlene frowned a little. "All of their stuff is good. It's still them, the same four people with the same four instruments, still making music. I don't see why everyone is so upset about the new album."

"What band?" Remus piped up from the left of James.

"The Hobgoblins," Marlene grinned.

"Oh yeah, they released that album yesterday, right?" James asked, turning his attention away from Lily for a moment.

"Yeah," Mary replied. "It's called Stupefied Before Dawn."

"You already have it?" Sirius asked, raising his eyebrows. "You said it came out yesterday."

Marlene blushed. "Um, yeah. I may have sent in my order for it last January. I really, really love The Hobgoblins."

Sirius smirked. "I've never listened to them before."

Marlene's eyes lit up. She always loved it when she could assimilate someone into loving her favorite band. "I could lend you their albums! If you have a record player I have the discs."

Sirius felt confused for a moment. Marlene McKinnon, offering to share some of her most prized possessions with him? That was new. "Sure," he stammered out. "I'll listen to it."

"Cool," she smiled at him. She and Mary went back to debating about the band's new style.

James raised his eyebrows at Sirius. Sirius ignored him.

...

Lily was tired. She hadn't been sleeping well ever since the attack. She had known that something like that was going to happen. She also knew that it would happen again. There had been whispers among the students, little bits of warped information about what was coming; about the rising threat of He Who Must Not Be Named and what he was going to do. She also knew that some of the parents of Slytherin students were involved, and she knew that they were trying to recruit some of her pureblood friends. She knew that the Slytherin students in question were upset that she was getting so close to purebloods. She had to prepare herself. She would not be caught off guard.

A/N: Hey guys. Sorry about the six month wait. Life has been ridiculously busy. I won't go in to details but I really haven't had much time to update this story. I'm trying to do as much as I can. I'm definitely planning on finishing it, but as you may have guessed, it'll take a little while. This chapter is me just reestablishing everything, ya know what I mean? I also want to thank all of you for reading this :) It means a lot to see your comments and they really do motivate me to finish this. Just remember that I do have a lot on my plate, so please don't comment "UPDATE" a bunch of times, because I am trying my best to write more chapters of this story. Okay, thanks for for listening guys, and I promise you that Chapter 12 will be up soon. Seriously. I won't take six months again. 

Hope you're all doing well :)