au apartment next door has really thin walls
lily moves in on a saturday
and by monday she’s temped to call the police because there’s a lot of screaming and yelling all the time and things keep smashing and really
what the fuck is going on next door
monday night they don’t shut up
so in the morning she goes round and bangs on the door
it opens and her mouth just drops open
the guy is over six feet tall, has hurricane hair and a jawline to cut yourself on
but it’s the fact he’s wearing antlers on his head, is carrying the biggest nerf gun she’s ever seen, has what looks like legitimate body armour on that makes her mouth drop open
also because there’s blood actually pouring down his collar bone
he’s not wearing a shirt beneath the body armour
lily thinks she’s walked into a film
“hey, hiya, alright?” the guy asks breathlessly
“do you know that you’re bleeding?” he looks at the cut, barel glances really, and shrugs, grinning easily
“evidently.” behind him the apartment looks a mess. all lily can see is knocked over furniture, some of it built into what could possible be forts, and various items which don’t belong in an apartment
including (but not limited to) a life size marble statue of zeus, a full length spear, a very big stuffed lion, and what could the entire contents of an ambulance
“hey, you’re our new neighbour!” the guy sticks his head out, it has dried blood on it, and then takes it back, running a hand through his hair andd knocking the antlers askew “i’ll get the blood off first”
“i am. can i ask what’s going?”
“Yeah wait there” he disappears and lily is left standing in the doorway, even more confused than before
the guy returns. his hands are clean. “i’m potter. james potter.”
“um lily. i live next door.”
“Fantastic. remus will be ecstatic. he was worried mrs fritt would never be replaced but you seem alright” lily’s going to reply but then he’s yelling “I SOLEMNLY SWEAR THAT I AM CALLING A MOMENTARY TRUCE. COME MEET OUR NEW NEIGHBOUR YOU WANKERS.”
“MISCHIEF MANAGED” is repeated twice, the voices muffled
the apartment is identical to hers (lily knows because she looked around two and the landlord told her they were all the same) and so she knows there are six rooms all converging on what she can see of the living room
“SIRIUS YOU WANKER IT’S A TRUCE”
james yells as two other men appear
like james they’re not dressed ike any normal human being ever dresses
like james they’re also carrying large nerf guns, both slightly adapted
before lily can ask for an explanation, there’s a yelling blur and then james is being tackled to the ground
i the next second james is being sat upon by a also very tall black haired man in armour, who has his gun pointed at james face and is repeatedly firing
“TRUCE YOU BLOODY TRAITOR I CALLED A TRUCE”
“OUTLAWS DOWN’T RECOGNISE TRUCES”
they’re wrestling now and lily thinks maybe it was a good idea to call the police and that she should go do that now
but the other men dn’t seem that bothered so she waits
and eventually the two wrestling stop and stand up, guns pointed at each others head
the one she guesses is sirius is bleeding
“we’re having a nerf war.” one of the other men tell her “i’m remus this is pete, that’s james and the traitor is sirius”
all the men wave and smile at her. sirius is spectacularly gorgeous
it takes a while (three hours) but they explain it to her
next week she’s got a gun of her own and if notices james watching her in the cheap catsuit she bought online, she doesn’t let on
(until a month later when she’s winning their tenth nerf war and he tackles her to the ground and she tells him she’s glad the apartments have thin walls and he says it might make it a problem in the future and she asks makes what a problem and he says “this” and kisses her)
