Revenge [Lily & Alice]

[Mary Macdonald]

"Darling Mary! What in the world happened to you!" The Fat Lady asked, gazing down at the young girl in front of her.

"Chocolate Truffles." Mary mumbled, in hopes that she could just slip in the common room, away from the eyes that had already humiliated her for one day. She already heard whispering behind her. "Please just let me in." Mary whispered, so only the Fat Lady could hear. The Fat Lady looked at the other people behind Mary and surveyed her options. Mary's eyes started to swell up with tears and immediately, the Fat Lady swung open to let Mary in. She sighed with relief, but her tears didn't go away. In fact, they simply fell harder.

There were a few people in the common room and when she entered, they bursted into laughter. "A Marauder prank, no doubt!" One shouted. "Brilliant one on their part!" another called. The tears continued to fall down Mary's face as she quickly rushed past everyone, knowing just how ridiculous she looked. Her hair was bright pink, sitting up in every direction. Her face had pimples covering every inch that was available, even to the point where she couldn't see past them. Her clothes were drenched in mud and she was filthy from head to toe. All of this was due to the Marauders.

Mary had been minding her own business, walking in from Herbology. It had been raining that morning, but it had stopped when she left the Greenhouses. None of her friends had taken Herbology, so Mary was always stuck sitting by herself, but it was never a bother to her in the first place. This meant she walked back up to the castle by herself as well. Again, it normally didn't bother her. Mary was always used to being a loner or the odd one out. Today was definately the time she wished she wasn't.

The Marauders were taunting Severus Snape, per usual. His greasy hair hung directly over his eyes, a shield to keep him away from the Marauders, but this didn't stop them. They kept going, saying things about his appearance, right down to his lack of friends. Everyone knew this was true about him, but it never helped to point out someone's flaws to them. Mary normally ignored their comments, continuing her walk away from their taunting, but today, all she did was glance back that caused this whole mess to happen.

While glancing, she had slowed down, causing Snape to bump straight into her, darting around her. Obviously, the Marauders had had enough of saying things to Snape and had pulled out their wands. Suddenly, three jinxes hit Mary square in the back and she fell forward, mud covering the mass majority of her body. When she got up, ready to simply run to the castle in embarassment, people started doubling over in laughter at her. Mary's face grew red, not having even seen the sight of herself yet.

"Look Snape! You got yourself a girlfriend! Someone who actually looks hideous enough for you!" Sirius shouted towards Snape. Mary's eyes swelled up slightly.

"Now, now, Padfood. Mary isn't that hideous. Just a little...rough around the edges." James said. This caused Mary to rush up to the castles and upon seeing her face, she went back towards the Marauders, ready to ask them to change her back.

"No way, this is the best laugh we've had in a while!" Sirius said, laughing at the sight of her again.

"It really improves your look you're going for, actually." James added.

"What's that James? Horrific troll?" Sirius asked. James couldn't even get a word out; all he could do was nod.

Mary threw herself onto her bed, crying into her pillow. She tried to muffle her sobs, but it probably just sounded like someone was trying to kill a cat. Mary knew she wasn't the most attractive person around, but a troll? Coming from the Marauders, it must mean it was true. They were the most attractive people at Hogwarts and what they said was always law. Mary tried hard to stop the tears, but knew that all she would ever be was a horrific troll, which just made her sob more. She didn't even sound like a dying cat anymore; she sounded like someone had teared her apart.

[Lily Evans]

Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on

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The scene: not irregular. A seventeen year old girl bites the right corner of her mouth in concentration, magazines littering her bedspread and the scent of freshly opened nail polish washing over the room. Her toes are spread apart by little pieces of tissue, and she paints each toe with precision.

The object in the act: not irregular, but perceived as so. She may have spent a great many of her days studying and patrolling, but that didn't mean she wasn't human and that especially didn't mean she wasn't a girl. She'd been told all too often that she wasn't a normal girl because she didn't spend ample amounts of time molding orange colored clay to her face each morning or because she wore her skirt at an appropriate length. Oh dear lord. The horrors. But this was not to say that Lily Evans did not enjoy some well earned girl time, whether by herself or with her friends. Today it was the former, hiding from the muck of rumors and heartbreaks and unfinished homework behind the deep maroon hangings of her four poster bed.

She did, of course, have to do this with precision. She couldn't just willy-nilly paint her nails (she thought this all in her head, and shuddered at her usage of "willy-nilly", but wasn't sure what exactly to call what she was cringing at since "willy-nilly" is most definitely not a word. An arrange of letters, perhaps?) Surprise, surprise, she'd read somewhere that students aspiring towards a professional job were required to paint nails in less than three swipes, or they'd fail their exam. And while Lily had much higher goals than a future in nail care, she still couldn't resist a challenge...even if she was supposed to be distracted.

She'd been here for a whole of twenty minutes now, and she'd finished about four toe nails. While her composure was pretty calm, her hand pretty steady, her face was beginning to change from her regular shade of pale to a pinkish color and steadily growing to a purply-red. Frustration sometimes made Lily forget that she was supposed to breathe. But this toenail--the toenail that should have been the easiest since it was the smallest!--she simply could not get right. Pent up anger bubbled under her skin, and she pushed one of her "research magazines" (of course, she had wanted to do the deed right) off the bed with her elbow by accident as she furiously licked her finger to gather saliva to use to rub the excess purple color off the edge of her skin. The walls of the room were cringing in pain, innocent ears scarred by the plethora of swear words that had been streamed, words almost as colorful as the paint on her toenails. But she'd sit here as long as it took because, damn it, she was having fun and relaxing right now. Obviously.

One flick across the middle of the toe, covering the majority of the toe. One slow, steady, held breath, wrist arched swipe on the right to carefully and fill in only the rest of the naked toe. One slow steady, held breath, wrist arched swipe on the left to carefully--

The door burst open with a painful bang and Lily, in all her grace and daintiness, mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like "nnauugghhh" and completely misses the remainder of her toe and even manages to pull her hand up to her face in shock and smear nail polish all over her cheek. With fire in her eyes, she flings back the hangings around her bed to find the disturbance and instantly deflates. It is but second nature to dash over to Mary's bed and bundle the girl into her arms, rocks her for a few minutes, not asking questions. Mary tells Lily everything, and its only a matter of time before it will all come seeping out, but Lily knows right now her place is to offer comfort and a giant-sized tissue in the form of her shirt.

She takes in the boils, the hair, the tears, the general effect, and only one question can come to her mind. Despite her instincts to stay quiet, her spitfire annoyance takes over and can't help spitting the words into the cruel world.There could--and was, she already knew it--be only one answer to this incident. "What on earth did Sirius and James think they were getting at this time??"

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For it won't be long
'Til I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on

[alicelogan]

Alice needed to stop drinking butterbeer before bed. After hours and hours of unicorns tap-dancing on her head and swimming in great cup of Professor Slughorn's tea, Alice was beginning to get tiered of such a vivid dreaming experience. You knew something had to be wrong when sleeping exhausted you. Alice was quite fond of sleep; it was one of her favorite hobbies. She really couldn't get enough of it and was told that she did it with great fervor. Almost every morning she would wake up to her bed trashed. Sheets thrown everywhere and the mattress practically falling off the side. She'd almost torn the curtains off her four-poster on more than one occasion and often found herself wake up to the feeling of falling, only to find that she was on her way to a face-first collision with the floor.

That morning, however, she was at least lucky enough to wake up to the sight of the top of her four poster bed. She lifted her hand to her head that was still throbbing from having been tap-danced upon all night. A sound that reminded Alice of someone crying was coming from outside of the curtains. She wondered who could be crying in the middle of the night. She rolled over and checked the clock by her bed. It was nine in the morning! She'd missed History of Magic! Oh... Oh wait, she'd dropped that class last year. Alice let out a sigh of relief and fell back into bed, only to be reminded of the crying sound. She let out a grumbling sound that sounded something like,

"MrmblefrumbleLoudRoommatesgrumblenurmble." She stuck her head out of her curtains to snap at whoever at been making such an ugly noise. Alice blinked several times and shook her head clear when she saw that it was Mary leaning on her bed crying her eyes out and Lily leaning over her comforting the girl. The first thing Alice's tiered eyes noticed was that Mary's hair was suddenly pink and spiky and her skin was covered entirely with blisters and pimples.

Alice pursed her lips and crawled forward on her hands and knees until she dropped out of the bed. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and climbed to her feet. Stumbling toward her two friends, Alice could only help but wonder what had happened to the poor girl. It didn't look too horrible, not anything that Madam Pomfrey couldn't fix up with the wave of a wand, but Alice assumed that Mary's already very fragile ego had been wounded.

She plopped down on the bed next to Lily. To be honest, if it had been anyone besides Mary that this had happened to, Alice might have laughed. She loved witnessing well-thought-out pranks, but Mary was sensitive and everyone knew that. Anyone that would go so far as to hex the girl to this point was not only cruel, but also incredibly foolish, as her two best friends happened to be two of the most fiercely loyal and protective Gryffindors in the school.

"Mary? Mary, Hun, what happened?" Alice looked over at Lily, to see if she had any explanation and she knew immediately what her friend was thinking. She saved that hideous glare for one person and one alone. Damn, what did James do this time?

"Would they really do something this awful? To Mary? Alice had been good friends with James and Sirius since her first year and she liked to think she knew them fairly well. They, like she did, enjoyed laughter and pranks and all sorts of good things along those lines, but she'd never thought them to be outright vicious. It took a fairly tough person to spend too much time around them. Someone who could laugh off all their insults and jokes. Alice was one of these people. Mary was not.

This was common knowledge, and all of a sudden Alice felt herself overwhelmed with a wave of rage towards the two boys that had undoubtedly been behind the mess.

"Don't worry, Hun, we'll get 'em back."

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[Mary Macdonald]

Mary was never one to make a fuss about much. She never complained when something wasn't the way she liked it. Mary never said something was unfair if she thought it was. Speaking any of her opinions were taboo to Mary. When things went wrong for her, she normally never even told anyoen what had happened. Mary was always good at bottling up her feelings and making people think she was "strong" in some way or another, though she probably truthfully was looked at as a weakling.

That was how the Marauders had looked at her. To them, she was weak, she had no reason to defend herself. Making she was the ugly duckling that the Marauders had put her out to be. Mary had thought they had been friends at some point. She had given James countless advice on Lily. She had even let Sirius make multiple joking passes at her without saying a word. Remus, a guy who she thought would stand up for her hadn't. Even after she had spent countless hours in the library with Remus their 5th year, cramming for OWLs. Yet, she was still trash to them.

Lily wrapped her arms around Mary's shoulders, which only made Mary cry harder. She wasn't helpless, or at least she didn't want to feel that way, but as she sunk into Lily's arms from instinct, she realized she was helpless and cried harder. Mary wanted to bury her face into Lily's shoulder like Mary used to do when she was a child to her mother, but held the urge back. Mary was trying to be as helpless as she could, even if the red eyes, puffy face, and stained tears said otherwise.

So she spilled the whole helpless story to them, not skipping a single detail. How James had laughed at her, how Sirius had looked down at her, and how Remus hadn't even helped. Mary felt sorry for herself. She wasn't Lily, who had James Potter kissing her feet and had multiple guys asking her on dates. She wasn't Alice who every guy would drop their girlfriends to date. She was just Mary. Mary McDonald, who the Marauders have no trouble jinxing and turning into more of an oaf than she already was.

"I'm a joke." Mary mumbled in response to Lily's rhetorical question. That's exactly what she was. She wasn't a beautiful 17 year old girl, she was a joke. Mary kept her face away from view as she felt fresh tears burning her eyes. Not only was she a joke, but now she probably looked like a cry baby. Mary wondered how these two were even her friends. Did everyone think Mary was a joke? Were Lily and Alice just in on the laugh too?

"No...I think I feel better now, Alice. Thanks, but we don't need to do anything." Mary tried to give a reassuring smile, but knew it was far from the truth. Though Mary already had the mindset to stay far away from the Marauders, she would never wish her kind of pain on them. She wasn't that type of person and both of her friends knew it. Mary grabbed her pillow and cradled it in her lap. "It's...it's fine." She said, trying more to reassure herself than them.

[Lily Evans]

Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on

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There was something about holding someone in your arms and letting them cry that is so upsetting. You feel so helpless and awful that someone has hurt them in such a way that they are on a pain overload. It was like their body had too much pain and the only way to drain away some of it was to let the pain spill down your cheeks in the form of tears. You sit there and try to think of ways that you can help, but find none. It's the most frustrating job in the world, and yet you wouldn't trade it for anything if you could just help the tiniest bit.

There is something about holding your best friend in your arms and letting them cry that is devastating. Not only do you feel helpless, but you feel like a terrible, awful, horrendous person. Why had something happened to this girl, the girl who has been there for you in every situation? The girl whose smile can't help but make you beam like an idiot because you're so in touch that you always seem to know what she's thinking. Why her? Why not you? You deserve it--ANYONE deserves it--more than your best friend.

Lily was feeling this way now as she held Mary in her arms, gathering her up tighter in her arms to put her lips in Mary's hair. It just wasn't fair. Lily would rather have to take on this kind of pain for the rest of her life than watch Mary grapple with it for another five minutes. Another two minutes, even. Mary was the sweetest girl in the whole world, and she'd (of course) just been a bystander. Lily felt the inside of her stomach ripping itself up in guilt that she couldn't have done anything. She knew that she was in no way connected to this situation, but it still felt like her fault. Why did it have to be Mary?!

Mary's words sliced through Lily's heart, deflating any strength Lily had been holding onto. At this point, Lily was almost at the point of tears herself, and Lily Evans rarely cried.

"You are most certainly not a joke,"

[/b]she told Mary, turning the girl around to face her so she could see the seriousness in Lily's eyes. She wiped a tear from Mary's face with her thumb and sighed. "You are one of the most incredible, beautiful girls in the entire world and I find myself thanking whatever greater power is up there that you took the time out of your life to become friends with me. I know I don't deserve to be friends with someone as wonderful as you, but I'm too selfish to set you off to better things. So don't you ever let me hear you call yourself a joke again, okay?"

The tone of Lily's voice and the reprimanding look on her face left no room for argument, and she knew that Mary was too smart to try to argue with her when she got that look on her face. The room was silent for a few more moments, the girls all sitting there together trying to soak up Mary's tears and lessen the pain, when Alice spoke up.

"Would they really do something this awful? To Mary?

Lily nearly snorted at this comment. This is one of the things she loved very dearly about Alice: Alice could see the best in anyone. She too was one of the most kind and gentle girls Lily knew, though only when it came to people--when she was out on the Quidditch pitch, it was a whole different story. Of course, in Alice's mind, no one could honestly be this mean without a reason. But Lily knew better. How many times had she faced this before? Hadn't one of these amusing jokes been the final cause of one of her best friendships before?

"Of course they could. To Mary, to you, to me, to anyone really. They don't take feelings into account, only how funny the joke could be. Mary could have easily been a first year hufflepuff and it wouldn't have made a difference. It's revolting, really."[/b]

Alice was trying very hard to cheer Mary up, but her efforts were almost as fruitless as Lily's. What words were there to say in a time like this, honestly? Nothing could make the situation disappear.

"Alice, we don't want to sink down to their level,"[/b] Lily grumbled, putting her head on Alice's shoulder so the three girls were connected. "The marauders are all about games, and playing into their games would just serve to make things worse."

But would it? Lily began to think about it. The marauders really only understood games, so what if Lily had just not been making it clear to them in terms they understood? What if there was a way to make this all clear to them and get them to stop once and for all.

"Actually Alice, I think you may just have an idea here on second thought,"[/b] she said softly, pensively. "Maybe its time to give the Marauders a taste of their own stupidity...."[/b]

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For it won't be long
'Til I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on