DISCLAIMER: I do not own any recognizable characters or settings.
Achoo!
"Achoo!" A few teens and pre-teens flinched at the loud sound. A pale red-haired girl smiled weakly and wiped her red nose.
"Why don't you go see Pomfrey, Lily?" asked a pretty brown-haired girl exasperatedly. She had been repeating the same question relentlessly for the last three hours and still, Lily had not let up.
"Because I don-" She paused and sneezed loudly, causing a large amount of people to jump and groan. "Because I don't need to. It's not that bad." The brown-haired friend narrowed her eyes.
"Yes, and McGonnagal knows how to do the Macarena. Keep wishing, Lily."
"Oh, give it a rest, Em. She's not going to budge," drawled a lazy voice from the couch next to them.
"You're exactly right, Sirius. I'm not going to visit Madame Pomfrey. Ever." The redhead had a peculiar grudge against the school nurse ever since the time she had a sprained wrist in third year and was not released for a full two days. "I prefer not to spend my time observing little children with frightful injuries and teenage girls in need of pregnancy tests." A few chuckles replied from the boys seated around Sirius.
"No one needs your dramatics right now, Evans," sneered a bleach blonde from the corner of the Gryffindor Common Room. Tears welled in the poor emerald green eyes of the red haired beauty.
"Lily…" said Emmaline uncertainly. And then the dam burst. "Oh, now look what you've done." The combination of tears and coughs caused hiccups to erupt randomly from Lily. Emmaline gingerly waved James over to help comfort her and removed her tanned arms from her shoulders. James' took their place.
"Sh, Lily, it's alright. She didn't mean it." That just caused the tears to come faster.
"Oh, yes she did. She meant every bloody word," she blubbered. A tissue was conjured and handed to James, who, in turn, lifted it to her nose.
"Blow," he commanded, so she did. Eventually, the tears subsided leaving her usually sparkling emerald eyes irritated and red. Her occasional sneeze would break the silence that had enveloped the common room so a whole box of tissues was conjured and handed to her, in hopes that it would keep her quiet.
"Say, Remus, is the answer to numb-". Peter was cut off by a vicious "Shh!" from a quartet of irritated fifth years studying for their O.W.L.'s diligently. Emmaline and Sirius rolled their eyes and went back to their game of wizard's chess. Studying this far from N.E.W.T's was below the pair. Lily scoffed (and sneezed) in their general direction.
After another half hour of silence, a glance at a watch had the entire common room filing out of the common room and towards the Great Hall for dinner. James clasped Lily's hand, the one that wasn't holding the box of tissues, and led her silently through the halls. The Marauders, Lily, Emmaline, Dorcas, Alice, and Frank all took seats in the center of the Gryffindor table so as to have the best assortment of food possible where barely any declarations similar to 'pass the potatoes' were needed. Dumbledore stood silently at his podium and waited patiently for the quiet murmurings to subside. The usual twinkle of his electric blue eyes was absent but the piercing, calculating gaze was not. He scanned the solemn faces of his students and sighed inaudibly.
"Good evening, students. I, myself, am quite hungry at this time and I shall suppose that you all are as well, so my only words for you now are: tuck in." He smiled absently and took his seat at the center of the staff table. Tuck in they did. The quiet murmurings of before developed into delighted conversations and the loud clattering of silverware hitting the golden plates drowned out the sneezes emitting from Lily.
"You really should see Pomfrey, love." Lily rolled her eyes and wisely chose to ignore James' statement. Her head was pounding, she could barely breath for sniffling, and phlegm was draining into her throat. She DID NOT feel like visiting the fussy school nurse. Not now, not ever. And she would stick to that.
Dumbledore sadly reported another death and called for a young girl to meet Professor McGonnagal after the feast. The poor girl was close to hysterics but remained inaudible. He dismissed the students and sent them off to their "warm, inviting beds" and wished them a good nights rest. I wish…thought Lily angrily as another sneeze threatened to come.
She kissed James' on the cheek, whispered her goodnight and accompanied her friends up the Girl's Dormitory stairs. After completing her nightly rituals, she regretfully slid under her soft covers and placed her trusty tissues on the nightstand. She wasn't looking forward to tossing and turning all night trying to fall asleep. She knew it was a lost cause. A faint vibration lulled her out of an uneasy sleep somewhere near her foot. She rubbed her puffy eyes tiredly and felt around under the covers. Was that a sheet of parchment? Her mind turned uselessly in her head as she tried to remember why it would vibrate. Suddenly, a sweet warming smile popped into her head and the answer clicked. James. She took it out and waited for the message to finish printing.
"Can't sleep beautiful?" he had written. Leave it to him to write her at 1:30 in the morning to check on her.
"I did…briefly," She wrote back in her elegant script.
"That's good. Still have the snuffles?" he replied kindly. She experimentally sniffed and found nothing there.
"Actually…no, I don't. They mysteriously disappeared. I bet you did something." She could picture him chuckle and shake his messy hair, causing a raven lock to fall onto his forehead. He would blow it out of the way, wait a few seconds, and then down it would come. Then, he would huff and bend back down to write.
"Maybe. Maybe not. You, my dear, have no proof." And then he would smirk mischievously and run his hand through his eternally messy hair.
"Of course I don't. You would make sure of it. Now, goodnight, love. Xoxo" Then he would smile wistfully and whisper goodnight. He knows that I'll hear him. He would picture me smile, settle back into my pillows, and whisper my love and then fall into a dream world where all that exists were he and I. Then, he would follow.
End.