"I can't believe I'm doing this," Lily muttered under her breath as she tromped through another bush and peered into the wilderness. She wondered, rather bitterly, what her friends were doing in their warm, comfortable dorm room.
"Lily!" "What?" Lily said, glancing up from her Potions essay.
"I need your help," Alice said, pacing across the dormitory. "I told Frank I'd help him with his Herbology assignment, and I… er… suggested Leaping Toadstools." "Those are only in the Forbidden Forest." "I know… I really need you to find one for me." "Are you crazy?" Lily demanded, sitting up on her bed. "I'll get my Prefects badge taken away for going in there." "Not if you the teachers don't find out," Alice countered. "Please, Lily! I've got Quidditch practice in half an hour, and I promised to help him tonight! You know how much I like him. I won't have time to find it myself, and I doubt you've gotta go in far."
"Fine," Lily growled, shoving her quill in her bag and standing. "But you owe me ten."
Lily stumbled as she tripped over a large tree root, cursing silently. Suddenly, a soft whine came from under her feet, making her jump. She looked around and saw she was in a wide clearing. The sunlight, which she hadn't been able to see through the thick tree branches previously, now shone brightly on the forest floor, of which she soaked up gratefully.
Lily directed her attention back down to her feet, where the noise had come from, and gave a cry of surprise at what she saw. The tree root hadn't, in fact, been a tree root, but a large stag with an arrow digging into its side.
She bent down and inspected the wound. The arrow was sticking in deep, and blood was trickling from the opened gashes in the animal's skin.
As she was conjuring a cloth to stem the blood flow, she heard hushed voices coming towards her direction. She sprang to her feet and raised her wand, narrowing her eyes at the empty woods and ignoring the stag's soft whines.
Seconds later, a crash sounded from a nearby shrub and three boys emerged, looking disheveled and frantic.
"Black? Pettigrew? Remus? What on Earth are you doing in the Forbidden Forest? Where's Potter?" she demanded, placing her hands on her hips.
"Prongs! Mate, there you are!" Black said, shoving Lily aside as if she hadn't spoken. Remus and Pettigrew followed quickly, and bent over the stag. Lily frowned slightly and furrowed her brow in thought. Wasn't Prongs Potter's ridiculous nickname? She had heard it many times before, being shouted across the Great Hall or the Gryffindor common room.
"I was just going to stem the flow, but I hardly see what the problem is. It's only a deer," Lily said. Remus sighed and stood up, looking her directly in the eye.
"Lily, I'm going to tell you something very important, only because we need your help and he's too weak to move to the hospital wing. If you tell anybody about this, these three knuckleheads," he gestured at Pettigrew, Black, "will end up in Azkaban, regardless that they're underage. Do you understand that you can't say a word?" Lily, eyes widened, nodded feebly.
"James, Sirius and I are animagi. Unregistered," Pettigrew cut in, looking up briefly. "Could you please finish up and get down here? Sirius is going to go ballistic if Prongs isn't in the hospital wing on twenty pain potions in five minutes."
"Wait, so if you're all animagi…" Lily said as she hesitantly crouched over the stag, "and you three are here, then that stag is… wait… no!" Remus nodded, his face pale and solemn.
"Potter… Potter! James!" Lily cried, shaking the stag in desperation. Peter placed a hand on her shoulder and attempted to smile, though it came out as more of a grimace.
"James, change back, mate," Black said in a shaking voice. He was gripping the stag's scruff so that his knuckles were white, and tears were threatening to spill from his wide, dark eyes. "You've gotta change back so we can see what we're dealing with."
The stag's face remained blank for a moment, as if comprehending what Sirius was saying for it to do, before scrunching in concentration. Within seconds, it transformed into a skinny boy with broken glasses and a gash where the stag's torso had been. The boy was breathing heavily, and he was groping the cuts as if hoping to take the pain away.
"James!" Remus, Black and Pettigrew cried out in unison. Black reached out to remove the arrowhead from Potter's side, but Lily slapped his hand away and continued to conjure bandages.
"Accio Ditanny… Sirius, the arrow is stopping the blood flow. Remove that thing, and he bleeds to death." Black stared at her, his hand frozen in the air, and it took her a moment to realize she had called him by his first name. She shrugged it off, turning her focus back to James.
The Essence of Dittany she had summoned flew into her open palm, and, with shaking hands, she began to pour the liquid over the wound. At last, she gestured to take out the arrowhead as the skin regrew, stopping the blood flow.
Remus reached over and tugged the head from Potter's side, and the latter sighed in content.
"James, who did this?" Pettigrew asked quietly. Black sat up straight, his eyes searching his friend's face.
"Centaurs," Potter choked out. "I was with you three… and we got separated… centaurs… arrows… that's all I can remember."
The four crowding students stayed silent for a moment, absorbing James' words. Finally, Sirius sprung off his feet and swiveled around to glare at the trees.
"I'll kill them!" he declared, and began to march off towards the forest. Lily watched as Potter made an unrecognizeable noise of protest, and Remus stood and grabbed the back of Sirius' robes.
"Padfoot, no," Remus said in a stern, yet shaky voice. "They got Prongs embedded with an arrow, try and take them on and you won't show up back at the castle."
"I'll be fine," Black said angrily, trying to wrestle out of Remus' grip. "They don't injure young, remember?"
"Padfoot, leave it," Potter said, sounding as determined as he could muster through his weak tone. "Besides, it was an accident. I heard them shouting about intruders and they probably shot me thinking I was human."
"Okay, fine," Black muttered reluctantly, collapsing to the ground in apparent disgust. "Prongs, let's get you to the hospital wing."
"I'm fine, Pads, I just need to-" Potter coughed feebly and dropped to his knees in his attempt to stand.
"Of course you're not fine, you prat. Now come, off to the hospital wing!" With that, Black conjured a stretcher and Lily, remaining quiet and lost in thought, lifted Potter with a quick nonverbal spell.
"Lily!" Potter yelped, realizing she was with his friends. "I can explain, I… we were… it's just…."
"It's okay," she said, shaking her head and smiling. "I'm not going to tell anyone. If I wanted you locked up in Azkaban, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have just helped save your life."
"I wasn't gonna die," Potter mumbled, though he coughed again and slammed his body against the stretcher.
"Okay, let's go," Lily said, rolling her eyes at his stubbornness. "You four can't come in here anymore, it's way too dangerous! See what happened? Really, Remus, I expected more from you, at the very least! You're a prefect! Aren't you supposed to be keeping your idiot friends under control? I mean, yes, I'm here as well, but I'm sure you have all been in here before!" As Lily ranted and Remus levitated the stretcher, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, James shift his head to look at Black and wink.
"Same time next week?"
"As always."
Lily rolled her eyes again, but said nothing else and continued on her way, biting back a smile.