"Hey, Lily!" came an urgent voice from behind the redhead who sat at the base of a tree overlooking the Great Lake. She was spacing out, staring into nothing when her friend found her. Her whole day had been kind of weird and sluggish, she just couldn't muster the energy to focus on anything for more than five seconds.
"Could you help me with the Potions essay due on Tuesday? I just can't get a grip on Golpalott's Third Law… Lils, are you even listening?" Marlene McKinnon asked when Lily Evans didn't even seem to register the fact that her dormmate and best friend was talking to her.
"Sorry, what?" the sixth-year witch turned her head up slowly to look at her friend finally. The little crease mark between her brows told a million times more about her discomfort than words ever could. Lily was never one to whine, she was always kind and tried to be helpful to others, so this tell-tale sign alerted Marlene at once.
"Are you alright?" the blonde inquired with concern etched into her voice.
"Yeah, I'm fine, just a little headache." Lily waved her worry off, then noticed the parchment in Marlene's hand. "Want me to take a look at that for you?" she guessed correctly with a small smile playing at the corner of her lips.
"Oh, yes, please!" the other girl exhaled with relief and sunk to her knees to sit on her heels. Lily just chuckled lightly at her overexaggerated response. Like there was ever a possibility she wouldn't help Marlene with schoolwork.
Their assignment was to write a 16-inch essay on antidote making, with an argument on the validity of Golpalott's Third Law, sort of a pet peeve of Professor Slughorn.
"Hm… your paper is fine, except here…" Lily pointed to the fourth paragraph. "Your reasoning is incorrect regarding the law. The antidote for a blended poison cannot simply be created by finding the antidotes to each separate poison in the blended whole and mixing them together. You need to find that single ingredient, which, when added to the blended antidotes, transforms them near-alchemically into a combined whole which will counteract the entire blended poison."
"Yes, I read that in Advanced Potion-Making but what does it mean? I just don't get it!" Marlene threw her hands up in the air in frustration.
"It just means that a whole product is greater than the sum of its parts." the redhead explained calmly. "When you blend different poisons they interact with each other, so the effect is usually greater than the added effect of each separately. When making the antidote you need to consider that and add that extra ingredient in the cases where this alchemical effect doesn't present itself on its own. That's why dear old Sluggy keeps pestering us with the validity of the third law, because in some cases that extra ingredient is not needed, but that's a very rare exception. For example, the Death-Cap Draught's main poison is the Death-Cap mushroom, containing twelve other poisonous elements, but its antidote also only contains thirteen ingredients. In any case, I can't really name another antidote off the top of my head that is the same."
By the time she rattled that all off she was a bit out of breath. The blonde by her side just stared at her wide-eyed.
"That's it! No more library for you for a week! Clearly, you have spent too much time in there and need a little unwinding if you can even rattle off examples of potions where this stupid Golpalott doesn't apply." Marlene chided with a shake of her head but made a note of the things she heard anyway so she could rewrite her essay in the evening.
Lily laughed out at the sight of her friend's pouty face, but it quickly turned into a little cough, which she hid in her fist. All truth be told, she hadn't spent much time in the library this year yet. That particular piece of information came from Severus. Last year before… that incident… they had spent some time together getting ready for the Potions O.W.L. and due to his enthusiasm they covered a bit more ground than strictly necessary for the exam.
Marlene glanced up at her narrowly. That crease was still stubbornly sitting there between her bright green eyes – that is her usually bright green eyes, which now were a little dull and unfocused.
"Are you sure you are fine?" she asked again with worry.
"Yeah, just tired, I think I'm going to go up for a nap," Lily assured her as she scrambled to her feet and swung her school bag over her shoulder.
It was a beautiful early October Friday afternoon, one which they usually spent by the lake celebrating the end of classes for the week. The teachers hadn't awfully loaded them with homework this early in the term, so no late night studies or essay writing yet. Marlene was at a loss for ideas regarding the reason why Lily seemed so exhausted. She quickly got to her feet and caught up with her.
Lily gave her a little smile as the blonde hooked her arm into hers for the walk up to the castle. She suddenly turned her head away, bobbing a little into her elbow with a "h'kishoo". Marlene nearly didn't realise that Lily just sneezed, it was so soft, feminine, and almost inaudible.
"Bless you, Lils," she responded, glancing to her side at her friend.
"I'm fine, Marlene," Lily murmured pre-emptively.
Speak of the devil, on their way up she noticed Snape sitting by himself at the base of the castle wall, engrossed in schoolwork probably, judging from the books and parchments scattered around him. Lily made haste of her steps before he had a chance to notice her.
Once in the Gryffindor common room Lily excused herself from her friend and headed straight for the stairs leading up to the girls' dormitories, not even looking around to see who was down there, thus missing the dark-haired boy heading their way.
"What's with Evans?" a male voice from behind made Marlene nearly jump out of her skin.
"Ruddy freaking bloody hell, Potter!" the blonde clutched at her heart as she spun around. "Must you insist on giving me a heart attack?!"
James chuckled at her reaction, leaning against the back of one of the many red sofas around the room.
"You know me, Marlene. They don't call me heartbreaker for nothing," he gave her a mischievous wink.
She just rolled her eyes at her fellow Chaser, who had been appointed as the Captain of the Quidditch team this year. Although they had been on the team together for the past three years, it was customary for the Captain to hold tryouts at the beginning of each year for all positions except his own to ensure the best possible team. Which was incidentally tomorrow. Marlene wasn't that worried about her spot.
"Aye Captain, just watch out because if your head gets any bigger, you won't fit in through the portrait hole," she gabbed with good-natured humour.
"Seriously, is Lily alright? She seemed out of sorts," the raven-haired boy asked again with worry etched in his voice.
"She just saw Snape on the grounds," Marlene sighed. It was hard not to notice the way she tensed up and practically ran for the entrance of the castle to avoid having to face him.
"What did sodding Snivellus do to her again? I'm going to kill him!" James seethed, already turning to make his way toward the portrait hole to find the git and show him a piece of his mind, or fist, either worked.
"Easy there cowboy!" the girl grabbed him by the arm to stop him. "He didn't do anything, probably didn't even notice us as we came back from the Lake."
Potter visibly deflated, running a hand through his unruly hair in a nervous habit. Guilt has been eating away at him ever since that afternoon during last terms O.W.L.s. As per usual, the Marauders had been having their way with Snape. Correction – James had been hanging him by the ankle, while Sirius had cheered him on loudly, Peter had just snickered in the background and Remus had been shaking his head in disbelief, trying very hard to justify the whole proceedings with his inner conscience and prefect duties. That was when Lily came to his defence, only to be called a mudblood by her supposed friend.
She had cut all ties with the boy whom she had known since she was nine without a second thought, but it was obvious that the whole thing was harder on her than she would have wanted people to know. James felt partially responsible for causing her pain, but he didn't regret Snivellus's true nature finally surfacing. He was bad news all around with the company he was keeping.
"Good. I don't want her around him," he gritted his teeth.
"Well, tough luck, you are not the master of her!" Marlene spat back only to backpedalled a second later. "But incidentally I have to agree with you on that one," she gave a worried glance over to the place where Lily vanished toward their dorm room.
"Is she… still mad at me?" Potter asked hesitantly. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know if that were the case.
All summer he had a sinking feeling that he had officially blown any and all chances he might or might not had with Lily. Not that she ever visibly gave him any chance. James Potter was smitten with Lily Evans ever since the first time he had laid eyes on her on the Hogwarts Express in their first year. His infatuation manifested in pranks and generally making a fool himself in front of her until their third year. From then on, the pool of possibly humiliating moments widened with him asking her out at basically every opportunity he got, but she had always turned him down.
Until the end of last year at least she spoke with him, even if only to chew him out for his latest escapades or to turn him down with a witty comeback. Ever since then she wouldn't even look at him. He really missed those times. Her angry banter was like a siren's song to his ears.
"Just… give her time. She will come back around," the blonde offered. Lily was way too kind to truly stay mad for long, but that wasn't to say that she didn't need time to heal and forgive.
"Ugh…" Lily woke up the next morning groggily despite having slept for like twelve hours straight.
"Lily? Are you coming with? I have to leave soon for breakfast if I want to make it to tryouts," Marlene called from the bathroom just as the other girl was sitting up in her bed.
"Go on ahead, I'll meet you downstairs," the redhead replied while trying to rub the remnants of sleep out of her eyes.
"Are you sure?" she said looking at her watch. "I can spare another five minutes if you want me to wait for you."
"Yeah, it's alright," Lily waved her off with a smile. Marlene hesitated for another second trying to assess her friend then shrugged with a sigh, leaving the room with her broom in hand.
As soon as the blonde was gone, Lily flopped back against her pillow with a big exhale that led to a coughing fit. There was no way around it, she felt like utter misery, stuffed up and achy. Getting sick was the last thing she needed. She promised Marlene to cheer her on from the stands at the tryouts. That started at ten, and it was 9 AM now. Just have to push through the morning then I can call it quits at lunchtime by coming back to the dorm and sleep the rest of the afternoon away. That sounded like a plan, so she started getting ready, even if painfully slowly.
Marlene anxiously glanced at the doors of the Great Hall every other second. It was half-past nine, and Lily was still nowhere to be seen.
"Earth to McKinnon…" Potter waved a hand in front of her eyes, effectively pulling her attention back to the conversation that was going on around the breakfast table.
"Sorry, what?" the blonde turned back to the couple of Gryffindor boys and girls who had still remained of the previous year's team.
"I said, I have to leave to set up. Could you come help?" James raised an eyebrow at her suggestively.
"Er, sure," she nodded getting out of her seat and joined their Quidditch Captain.
"Is Lily coming?" he tried to ask nonchalantly, knowing full-well that the redhead diligently came to every single tryout and match to support her friend and the team. He always secretly (or not so secretly in the presence of his three best friends) liked to imagine that she came to watch him play too. Marlene, of course, saw right through him.
"Yeah, she was just running a little late in the morning," the blonde stated pointedly. At least I hope she is coming… she thought to herself. Honestly Lily didn't look too well earlier.
The sixth-year prefect ended up not eating breakfast – she wasn't too hungry anyway – and headed straight for the pitch, taking her usual place in the Gryffindor stands. She waved at Marlene when she saw the Chaser glance up to indicate that she had made it. The way the blonde's face lit up when she noticed her was worth all the effort it took Lily right now to sit there and not fall over.
The redhead was glad for her foresight in bringing her scarf despite it only being October because the weather was quite windy, especially this high up. Of course, it did nothing for the involuntary shiver that ran down her spine.
"Mind if I join you?" Remus came up beside her.
"No, go ahead," she gave him a little smile as he took his seat on the bench.
Remus was her favourite of the Marauders. Certainly, he was the most level-headed of the bunch. They had spent a fair amount of time together since last year because of their prefect duties. She always wondered how exactly he had fallen in with the rest of them given that he was compassionate, intelligent, peaceful and kind, nothing like the arrogant, boastful, loud and obnoxious pair James and Sirius made. And Peter… well, he worshipped those two. At least they were kind enough to include him in the group, instead of shunning him like they did with most people out of their house whom they thought unworthy of their presence.
Lily sniffled a little, pulling her robes closer around herself as she turned her attention back on the field where the tryouts were just about to start.
"heh'kshee" the sneeze crept up on her without warning, only barely giving her time to bring her hands up to cover, then realising that she had managed to forget all her tissues in the dorms.
"Bless," Lupin remarked absentmindedly, only to notice a second later that his fellow prefect was in bit of a pinch, so he offered her his handkerchief. "Here."
"Thanks." Lily took it gratefully, giving her nose a long hard blow. Leave it to Remus to always have a freshly laundered and pressed hankie on him.
"You know, Madam Pomfrey has these excellent things called Pepper-up," he quipped with a warm knowing smile playing at the corner of his lips.
"I know," Evans scowled a bit. Although very effective, she hated that potion, the way her ears steamed afterwards. To tell the truth, even being muggleborn didn't really explain her aversion, since she shied away from pills too, only taking them when absolutely necessary, usually leaning on the good old honey-lemon tea and bed rest until she got better. Which was exactly her plan after this was over. "But I'm fine."
Remus just sighed, having long learned how stubborn the redheaded witch could be. Just then Lily shivered again.
"Come here," the werewolf put his arm over the girl's shoulder drawing her closer to provide warmth. They had enough familiarity between them for this not to mean anything more than it had to be.
By the end of the second hour of sitting there, Lily was most definitely running a slight fever and didn't protest when Remus offered to walk her back to the castle after the Chasers had been selected and Marlene's position had been secured, blaming her shivery state on the weather. She would just have to find out later from her blonde friend who else made it on the team because she had no energy left to sit the rest of the tryouts through, not to mention that they would probably have an impromptu practice afterwards too.
When they reached the first-floor landing, the sandy-haired boy turned toward the Hospital Wing only to be stopped by Lily.
"I just need to sleep it off, honestly. Let's just go to the Gryffindor Tower, okay?" she pleaded.
"Fine, but for the record, I heavily object," Remus sighed in resignation for like the umpteenth time in the span of the last thirty minutes.
"Duly noted," Lily nodded putting her arm back in Remus's with a smile of mirth to be escorted to the Tower, to which her prefect partner just shook his head in amusement.