Until The Very End

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Truth or Dare

James's PoV:

Today was 10 March- Remus's eighteenth birthday. The snow wasn't gone. It had turned into nasty half-melted slush. If anything fell from the sky, it was rain. The outside world looked gross to say the least. Lily kind of liked it. She was excited for our group trip to Hogsmeade to celebrate Remus's birthday. She said that she liked to sit in the warm stores and look out the windows. Lily liked the "aesthetic," whatever that means. To add on to this disgusting weather, it was cold. It wasn't dead of winter cold, but I wouldn't want to be outside without a coat of some sort kind of cold. The temperature tended to hover around four degrees celsius.

Anyway, it was one of those dismal days. Thankfully it was slightly warmer than usual (seven degrees celsius). It was cloudy but not rainy- Thank Merlin. Us Marauders spent a lot of time spoiling Remus in Honeydukes and Zonko's. Lily and the girls had gotten him some books and teas from the other shops while we were there. We all had a large, late lunch at the Three Broomsticks so we could skip dinner and have some fun. And have fun we did.

We found ourselves in mine and Lily's common room yet again on a birthday. It gave us privacy to celebrate on our own- just our friends. We were all relaxing when Lily had a stroke of genius.

"I have a great idea for a game but I don't know if anyone wants to play," Lily said.

"I'm down for anything. What game were you thinking about?" Remus asked.

"Why truth or dare, of course," she said, a mischievous gleam in her eye.

"Only if we play Marauders Style," Remus said.

"What's the difference?" Alice questioned.

"Marauders style involves alcohol and truth potion," Sirius explained.

"Not Veritaserum, right?" Lily asked.

"No that's way too strong and hard to brew. It's a pretty basic and mild one. Found it in an old book in the library in Second Year. You forget that some of us aren't master potioniers, Evans," Sirius joked.

He was right. Lily was top of the advanced potions class. The only person in the room who wasn't in that class was Peter. He struggled far too much with potions. No amount of Lily tutoring him helped.

"All that aside, I want to play dirty truth or dare," Marlene said.

"Combine the two. The more chaos, the better," Alice suggested.

"I'm down," I said. "What does everyone else think?" Everyone either nodded or said yes. "Great. I'll get the booze," I said. I went up to my dorm and grabbed two bottles of Fire Whiskey from under my bed. I walked back downstairs and set the bottles on the coffee table. "Shite, I forgot glasses."

"I'll deal with that," Lily said. She grabbed a small stack of parchment and went through them one by one, turning them into shot glasses. When she was done, there were seven sitting next to the bottles.

"We just learned that last week!" Peter exclaimed.

"I've been practicing late into the night. Sometimes James has to get up and tell me to sleep," Lily said.

"I only have to because you don't know how to get the proper amount of sleep," I chided.

"Says you," she fired back. I rolled my eyes.
"Yes, 'says me!' I only am up late when I'm with you for something or when I am with the guys. I know how to get ten hours of sleep! I know how to be awake in the morning!" I exclaimed. Lily rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue.