A/N:Welcome back to the 'An Oath' series! If you haven't read 'A Doctor's Oath' then I would suggest reading that, but I suppose this could be read by itself maybe. I am so glad to be writing the sequel, and will try my hardest at putting up a chapter every fortnight. (I'm not going to promise a chapter every week, because I'm not that fast a writer, and anyway I have way too many other stories to write as well.) Anyway, enough of my blabbering! Welcome back to the series!

Ciao, Mint~

Chapter One

Eleven years ago

James Potter hated being alone in his dormitory.

Usually, his best friend and roommate Sirius Black would be around to talk to, but the raven haired teen was in one of his psychology lectures. James couldn't really blame Sirius for not being in – normally he would be out in a lecture as well. He'd woken up that morning feeling terribly ill, his head ached and the acid in his stomach felt as if it were churning.

He still hated being alone though. Both his mother and father had passed away before he'd even turned eighteen; his mother from medical illness – a lymphoma – and his father in a car accident. Ever since then, James had hated to be alone; scared that he could easily lose those close to him as easily as he had seemed to lose his parents.

With a sigh, James pushed his glasses up the rim of his nose. Sunshine filtered in through his bedroom window and finally James couldn't deal with simply staying still in his room anymore. Stretching out his legs, and planting his feet firmly on the ground, he stood up, pulling his blanket further over his shoulders.

Despite it being summer, it was freezing inside the dormitory. Or maybe, James thought, he was just cold because he'd caught one of the terrible viruses that had been spreading around campus during the summer term.

A knock sounded from the front door, causing James to jump slightly. The knock seemed harsh and frantic.

Shuffling towards the door, James wrinkled his nose slightly as he struggled to keep himself from sneezing. His eyes widened as he opened the door.

"James? I… I need your help. Please."

In front of James stood the fourteen-year-old brother of his best friend, Regulus Black.

Current day - March 2nd

"You're going to ask her to marry you?"

James looked between his two best friends Sirius Black and Remus Lupin – both of which were looking at him with expectant expressions.

"Do you think it's too soon?" James asked with an uneasy expression on his face. He had only been dating his girlfriend, Lily Evans, for a year and a half, but James was certain that she was the woman he wanted to grow old with. James settled his eyes on Remus, the only one out of the trio who was married.

Remus had a calculating expression on his face. He was no doubt taking a moment to think of a suitable reaction to James' question. James found himself staring at the table, feeling awkward as he thought of the ring that he had bought a few days ago.

"I think," Remus started, pushing his lunch around with his fork, "that whatever we tell you, you already know if you should propose of not."

James looked back up art Remus, who smiled reassuringly at him. He smiled back briefly before turning to look at Sirius.

"What about you Padfoot? What's your view on my wanting to propose to Lils?"

Sirius deadpanned and suddenly James felt uncertain.

"Are you hearing voices in your head telling you to propose James?" The grey-eyed man asked as he watched James closely.

The bespectacled doctor frowned, "no."

"Are you saying no because the voices are telling you to say no?" Sirius asked. James could see now that Sirius was struggling not to smile and felt his shoulders relax slightly.

"There are no voices."

"Then in my professional opinion, you're not being told by anyone else to propose and the idea is all yours. Figure it out yourself."

James mock glared at Sirius, but let out a short laugh as well. Sirius grinned at his friend. Remus smiled at both of them with a small smile.

"Alright," James decided, taking a bite of his lunch. "I'm going to do it."

Sirius grinned even more as he took the final bite out of his own lunch. Standing up as soon as he'd finished, the man made his way over to James and slapped a hand onto his back. "I wish you luck with that Prongs, but I've got to get back to work now. See you later."

James saluted terribly as Sirius made his way out of the cafeteria before turning back to Remus. Remus had raised an eyebrow.

"How are you going to do it?" He asked, cutting up his lunch and taking a bite. James paled.

"Am I supposed to plan a proposal? I want it to sound as realistic as possible."

Remus shook his head, "James, you don't want Lily to think that you wanting to get married is just a spur of the moment and that you haven't thought it out properly, do you?"

James looked down at the table. "I never thought of it like that."

Remus nodded his head, "I hadn't thought you had."

Lily Evans was bored. She had two more hours left of her shift until she could meet up with her boyfriend for their annual date night. Lily smiled to herself – the couple didn't actually have a set day for going out but at least once a week they'd have a date.

Two more hours, Lily thought again, leaning on her hand as she typed data from patient charts into her computer. On her left, her fellow nurse, Dorcas Meadows, was making phone calls to check whether certain patients could be transferred out of the intensive care unit and into other wards in the hospital.

The I.C.U was always a very quiet place when visitor times were over – mostly because most patients had to be heavily sedated. The patient whose information that Lily was typing into the computer was the newest patient to the intensive care unit. Just out of heart surgery, was a woman named Millicent Bagnold.

Lily let out a quiet sigh, typing slowly to make sure that she didn't make any mistakes. Dorcas put the phone down after a few minutes of compromising with the head of a different ward. She looked quite proud of herself.

Lily waited for Dorcas to speak and brushed a bit of her red hair behind her ear. Dorcas picked up a pen and started writing down important details that had shown up on her own work computer.

"So?" Lily asked after a few moments. Dorcas looked up at her with a smile.

"Mr Daughterly is going to be taken into the neurology ward on Monday morning. Took forever to get the head of neurology to give up one of his beds – but I convinced him that we need free beds more than he does."

Lily nodded, feeling proud that Dorcas had presented a good argument. "I know," she agreed, "the I.C.U always seems so crowded, and we really need to open more spaces for those who keep getting brought up."

Dorcas shrugged as she turned back to her work. "There's nothing more that we nurses can do Lils. We have to lead it to Dumbledore actually."

Lily smiled softly as she too returned to her work. Doctor Albus Dumbledore was the chief of medicine at Hogwarts Hospital, and he was constantly trying to improve the hospital by making it easier to run the wards.

As she was working, Lily got so caught up in her work that she didn't watch the clock. It wasn't until she was tapped on the shoulder by Dorcas did she realised that the two hours had flown by. It was strange when before, time had ticked so slowly.

"Lily, you finish now, right?" Dorcas asked, smiling as she took Lily's pen from her hands. "You should leave now before someone tries to throw more work at you."

Lily nodded, pushing her chair backwards in an attempt to stand up. She smiled slightly at Dorcas, waving goodbye as she made her way down to the changing rooms.

Changing out of her scrubs and into her normal clothes, Lily quickly brushed through her hair and pulled it up into a bun. She looked at her watch – James would be getting off in half an hour, so she had to stick around the hospital for an extra half an hour until he could take her to dinner.

Sitting in the waiting room at the reception of the hospital, Lily almost didn't notice when Sirius came down and sat next to her.

"Hey Lils," he spoke, looking at her with an odd expression that she couldn't quite place. He had a notebook – as was mandatory with his line of work as a psychologist – in his arms and his pen behind his ear. Lily thought that he looked a bit like a stereotypical author.

"Hello Sirius." Lily replied, deciding not to question the odd look. Sirius was most likely doing what he normally did when he was bored – analysing what people were doing.

"Why're you waiting down here?" Sirius asked, "why not in the staff room or something." He moved closer to Lily, whispering in her ear, "The chairs in there have pillows and it isn't filled with sick people."

Lily scowled slightly, hitting the man gently on the shoulder. "Play nice," she scolded. Then with a slightly confused look, "why are you down here anyway? Shouldn't you be up in the psych ward?"

Sirius shrugged, taking his pen from his ear. The pen lid caught on his black hair, and he quickly disentangled the two. "I am only a psychologist my dear red riding hood. I work together with a doctor to come up with ideas for treatments – and I'm stealing Flitwick in a minute, once he's done with his clinic duties."

Doctor Flitwick was one of the older doctors on the hospital staff. He had worked at the hospital before Hogwarts – St Mungo's – and was rumoured to be the doctor who would take over as chief of medicine when Doctor Dumbledore eventually retired.

Lily shrugged, and the two struck up a conversation as they both waited. Eventually, Flitwick left the room, and Sirius left the waiting room, but by then, twenty minutes had already flown by. Lily didn't expect that James would be much longer, and luckily he wasn't.

James rushed into the waiting room as soon as his shift ended – he'd changed out of his scrubs, as per usual – but it seemed that after that, he'd ran all the way down to the waiting room. He let out a sigh, breathing heavily.

"Oh sweetie," Lily laughed slightly as they were walking out of the hospital, hand in hand. "You didn't have to run all the way down."

"I didn't want to leave you waiting," James breathed in response, holding onto his side. He had most likely given himself a stitch when he'd rushed all the way down to the reception.

Lily smiled back at him, swinging his hand as they walked down the street. "You didn't leave me waiting that long; just around half an hour."