The Bachelor Party

THREE WEEKS BEFORE THE WEDDING

"Okay, James, which of us did you pick?" asked Sirius.

James said something muffled and angry sounding.

Peter asked, "Did he say my name?"

Remus said, "This is ridiculous. Sirius, how do you expect him to answer you like that?" He pointed to the chair where James was tied and gagged. James looked up at him hopefully. Was Remus going to untie him? No chance. "You've got to take the gag out first. Then, you put it back in if he won't answer." Remus removed the gag.

"Pah! I'm not telling!" spat James.

Remus held the gag threateningly.

Sirius leaned close to James and shouted almost in his ear, "TELL!"

"Ow, take it easy, mutt. That hurt," James pined.

Remus and Sirius looked gravely at each other. "I think it's time for Plan T."

"You don't mean . . . ?" asked Sirius in horror.

"Yes." The two of them and Pettigrew turned away from James and conjured something. Then they turned back and attacked James with a vengeance after Remus muttered one more spell.

"Ooh! No! Aw, gee it's cold in here! Oh, no, ah!" James cried.

They'd vanished James's robes so that he was sitting tied to the chair in his boxers and they were viciously tickling him with feathers. "Tell us!"

"Give!"

"Out with it!"

James was only able to hold out about 4 minutes. He was very ticklish. "I give! Alright, alright! Cease-fire! I'll tell!"

His three friends nodded grimly and stepped back.

"Could I have my clothes back first?" asked James.

"Nope. You have to freeze until you tell us," said Sirius.

"C'mon! Who ever gives me back my clothes gets to be it."

Remus and Sirius looked at each other and shrugged. "No deal. Tell or you don't get your clothes back. We know you already picked."

"Okay, okay," James muttered. "I pick . . . my furry friend with four legs."

"That describes all four of us, you twit," said Remus.

"Right. I pick the guy with the wettest nose. Sirius, old buddy, you are my best man."

Sirius did his "happy dance". It was not a pretty sight.

"Now untie me! I've got to get ready. Lily is coming over for dinner tonight."

Peter snickered, "I think we should leave him like that."

"Yeah, I agree," Sirius started.

"Hey, Remus, you're my bestest friend, right? You want to untie me? You can be my best man."

"Well," Remus pretended to consider.

"Oh, no you don't, Jamesie-waimsie!" Sirius started to untie the cords that bound him. He didn't know where Remus had sent James's clothes so he conjured him a blanket instead. "Okay, buddy. Your bachelor party is in 2 weeks!"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Lily was getting ready to go over to have dinner with James and Alice was over again, chatting.

"You really do have to have a bachelorette party, Lils."

"Why? I don't drink and I don't want to see any strippers."

"Sirius is James's best man. You know his party is going to have all the trimmings. You've got to have one too."

Lily was staring into the mirror as Alice combed her hair for her. Her green eyes widened and she grinned. "I've got an idea, Al. What do you think about . ." Lily described her idea.

"You're a genius, Lily! No wonder you got top marks. This'll be the best of all time! It'll top anything that those numbskulls did at school."

They started plotting.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

TWO WEEKS LATER

James had resigned himself to the fact that Sirius was going to give him a wild bachelor party no matter how much he protested that he'd outgrown that sort of thing and needed to start settling down now that he was getting married. He knew that even if he tried not to drink any alcohol all Sirius would slip something (probably Firewhiskey) into whatever James drank that night anyway. James just hoped that his hangover the next day wouldn't be too bad if the boys got him drunk.

Sirius had decorated James's favorite big, stuffed, comfy, ratty old armchair up to make it look like a throne and he'd set up little tables on each side of it for James. There were other tables set-up with food and drinks for everyone else.

A lot of people were there already. Frank Longbottom (he and James had been working on getting along, despite past differences) was there. Gideon and Fabian Prewett (Gideon a year older than James, Fabian a year younger than James) were already there. Victor Boot was there, and Philip Fortescue too (who'd brought ice cream from his dad's shop). Victor was due to be married in a few months, and Frank had gotten married only the month before. A few others mulled around but James didn't see his 3 best pals anywhere in sight.

He sniffed at his glass, vanished the contents, and conjured some water. He was not going to get drunk (not if he could help it, and certainly not this early).

Sirius voice boomed out of sight from the top of the stairs. "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! Oops, my mistake no ladies here. No gentlemen either, I see. Hmm, oh, I've got it, honored guests! No, that's not right either. Okay, I got it! People whose names I found in James's address book, I present to you, tonight's show."

Some music came, though James didn't know where it came from.

Suddenly three very, very ugly girls appeared in front of James's "throne". They were wearing coconut bras (though they were obviously very flat-chested) and grass skirts.

They started to dance and James recognized them for who they were. He grinned, "Shake it, ladies!"

Sirius danced more vigorously than the other two. It had clearly been his idea. He came up to James as the song was ending and fluttered his eyelashes, he was using a falsetto voice, "Hello, big boy, aren't you handsome?"

"You're ugly. And you smell like Firewhiskey."

"I do not! I haven't had a drink in 2 days!" He broke character.

James just laughed and pushed him off his lap. Everyone listened to some music and ate food (after making Peter test everything to make sure it wasn't hexed, some of it was).

Remus had immediately gone upstairs to change after his dance was over and come back down dressed normally. Peter was being the food guinea pig since even James and Remus didn't know what Sirius had cursed. Sirius probably couldn't remember even if he wanted to just what he'd cursed, even if he was willing to tell (which he wasn't). Sirius went around still in costume attending to different things at the party and after a while he disappeared into the kitchen.

Soon Sirius called from the kitchen, "ATTENTION, ALL YOU PEOPLE CLUTTERING UP THIS HOUSE!"

Everyone looked at Sirius for a second, and then went back to whatever they'd been doing.

"Don't I get any respect?" asked Sirius indignantly.

"Nope," said Remus.

"HEY, EVERYBODY! THERE'S CAKE!" shouted Sirius.

They looked at him again; he was pushing a huge cake out of the kitchen.

"Now, Jamesie here is going to blow out the candles on top of the cake and there's going to be a surprise inside."

James had heard about these. He whispered to Sirius, "Come on, Siir, I already told you. There's only one naked girl I want to see and that's my wife. AND that's not going to be for another week so just stow it. I swear I should have made Remus my best man. He might have done something tasteful at least."

"This girl isn't naked. Besides, it's all in the spirit of fun. Sit back in that chair." Sirius stuck out his wand and brought the chair up so that it hit James and made him fall down on it with a cry of "oof!"

The top of the cake burst open and some of it landed on James's face. He tasted it; it was real cake and not some ridiculous cardboard thing! Delicious. He focused on the bits of cake that had fallen on him and ignored the girl in the cake.

Unfortunately, he couldn't do that for long because she reached out and tilted his chin up toward her. She was wearing layers upon layers of lace, which she slowly twirled out of.

Her face was covered with a veil, even her eyes were covered, though he supposed she somehow still managed to see. The only distinct feature he could note was that she had brilliant red hair.

She was still twirling out of her layers of lace. He knew that hair. But it couldn't be. She would never do something like this. Never. That was just crazy. Sirius must have gone to a lot of trouble to find somebody with hair like hers.

Now the girl was up to her shoulders back inside the cake. She dropped what was left of the lacy thing out onto James's lap.

She started to crawl out of the cake and James grew alarmed until he realized that she was still wearing a pretty tasteful swimsuit (in fact it looked familiar . . ), but then she came and sat in his lap. She put her arm around his neck and then pulled off her veil.

Lily's big green eyes stared up at him.

"Hello, James." She kissed him once, got up and bowed to her audience and then scurried back into the kitchen.

Sirius followed her, shouting, "What'd you do to Marie?"

He got to the kitchen only a few seconds after her but found her (and an accomplice he didn't know about) gone. There was a banging coming from the closet and Sirius opened it, surprised to find it locked.

Marie, the girl he'd hired for the party, was sitting there tied to a chair.

He looked at her, confused.

James stuck his head in the kitchen, "Great party, Sirius."

Sirius couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not and just went on frowning, trying to figure out how James's fiancé had gotten inside the cake.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

LET'S SEE HOW LILY GOT IN THE CAKE

Alice tried not to giggle. This was going to be fun. They'd snuck into the kitchen. It hadn't been hard to find out from Peter earlier this week just what Sirius had planned and then quickly make Peter forget he'd told them. It hadn't been hard to sneak in here earlier and snatch James's "secret" invisibility cloak.

"Ssh!" whispered Lily, nervously. She knew that for what she was doing, she was dressed extremely modestly, but there was no way she was going to wear anything less decent.

They were sitting outside the window. The girl Sirius had hired to jump out of the cake appeared and Sirius talked to her for a minute before going out to talk to the rest of the party. Now was their chance.

Alice quietly subdued Marie by tying her to a chair and gagging her before she stuffed her in the broom closet. Lily somehow managed to get herself inside the cake and then Alice closed the top for her and hid under the cloak.

Sirius came back in. "Marie, are you ready in there?"

"Uh-huh," Lily squeaked.

Sirius called to the men from the doorway, "ATTENTION, ALL YOU PEOPLE CLUTTERING UP THIS HOUSE!"

"Don't I get any respect?" Lily heard Sirius asked someone indignantly.

"Nope," she heard Remus reply.

"HEY, EVERYBODY! THERE'S CAKE!" shouted Sirius.

Lily found herself being pushed across the room. Sirius was talking to James.

"Now, Jamesie here is going to blow out the candles on top of the cake and there's going to be a surprise inside."

She strained her ears and heard James's whispered reply, "Come on, Siir, I already told you. There's only one naked girl I want to see and that's my wife AND that's not going to be for another week, so just stow it. I swear I should have made Remus my best man. He might have done something tasteful at least."

Lily smiled. Well, at least he was loyal. And not really perverted.

Sirius responded, "This girl isn't naked. Besides, it's all in the spirit of fun. Sit back in that chair."

Lily heard James fall with a cry of "oof!" She took this as her cue to jump out of the cake.