Remus was sitting in the common room, working on his Transfiguration essay, when the obnoxiously loud entourage of the newly formed Quidditch team waltzed in through the portrait hole sometime around 1 PM. The three girls that made it onto the team laughed out at something James had said and soon after everyone dispersed – either back out to the hall or up to the dorms, and some lingered in the common room since they spotted a friend.
Potter walked up to the desk Remus was working at and leaned over the back of his chair.
"Hey, Moony," he greeted as he looked over the werewolf's shoulder to see what he was doing. "You missed the tryouts, Sirius was kind of bummed."
"I was there, right beside Lily, until the end of the Chaser selection," Lupin replied matter-of-factly without glancing up or breaking concentration from his schoolwork.
"Exactly! You missed the Beaters. Sirius made it on, of course," the Quidditch Captain assured his friend as he plopped down on the couch beside him.
"Of course," the sandy-haired boy muttered with a roll of his eyes. He could not imagine a world where James would not pick his best friend for anything.
"So Lily was really down there? I looked but didn't see either of you," in his mildly deluded mind, the redhead was down there just so that she could watch him fly. Pretty darn nice fantasies.
"She was cold, so I walked her back after she made sure that Marlene got selected as one of the Chasers," Remus explained as he rolled up and put away his finished essay.
"Ah," James hummed in understanding. "Always the gentleman, Moony. Just don't let me catch you sweeping Evans off her feet before me."
Remus cast a highly unamused look at his fellow Marauder. Like they hadn't gone over this like a million times already. Even if he was attracted to Lily that way – which he wasn't – there was no way he was ever going to go out with her or anyone else for that matter. Not with his furry little problem.
"I'm just pulling your leg, mate. I know you guys are close because of prefect duties," Prongs patted the werewolf a little bit too hard on the back.
"Do I hear some pranking is in order? Who are we getting this time?" Sirius made his sudden appearance.
"Where is Peter?" James asked looking around for the final member of the Marauders.
"Beats me, probs up in the room or something," Padfoot shrugged. "So here's my idea: let's enchant all the toilet seats to refuse to let anyone sit on them except the ones in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom!"
"We already did something similar in third year," Prongs shot him down with a dismissive wave.
"Also I thought we finally grew out of senselessly pranking everyone…" Moony muttered under his breath. They have been in school for more than a month now and somehow managed to stay out of trouble. Remus helplessly hoped that was going to last, but it seemed his prayers were unanswered.
"Lils?" Marlene peeked into the dorm room with a quiet inquiry, half expecting to find Lily asleep, but she was sitting on her bed, seemingly doing homework, although her blanket was thrown over her shoulders.
"Hey! Nice flying out there!" the redhead commented before turning her attention back to the pile of books and parchments in front of her.
"You came back early…" she probed unsubtly. Marlene was almost a 100% sure that Lily was getting sick just too proud to admit it.
"Yeah, it was kind of chilly out, and I remembered I had home… heh…" her breath hitched. "Homework to do before tonight's prefect… h'tchi… meeting," Lily managed to finish without further interruptions.
"Don't forget to mention the fact that you've caught the sniffles," the blonde chuckled at the pre-sneeze face her friend was making.
"No, I…h'kikti... didn't… h'kichoo," the redhead frowned at that utterly poor display of denial.
"Just admit it and go to the Hospital Wing for some Pepper-up. You will feel like instantly better," Marlene pleaded with her stubborn friend.
"I hate taking medicine!" the prefect half-whined.
"I know, sweetie, and I bet with muggle medicine it's warranted too because they are a load of rubbish. But…" she was cut off mid-sentence.
"I don't want steam coming out of my ears. And I feel fine, so there is no need to bother Madam Pomfrey," Lily declared with finality that was only overshadowed by a slight sniffle at the end.
"Alright, alright…" Marlene backtracked. "How about some tea? It's lunchtime anyway… for like another hour," she added glancing at the clock on the wall.
"I suppose a cup of tea wouldn't hurt," the stubborn redhead relented after blowing her nose and followed her friend out of their dorm room.
What Marlene hadn't anticipated was that tea was all Lily intended to get. The chicken breast sandwich lay forgotten and barely touched in front of the green-eyed witch while she sort of spaced out, sipping the hot beverage.
Lily was deep in thought. That near run-in with Snape the day before had rattled her. She hadn't seen the greasy-haired boy outside of Potions since that incident, even though he lived down the street from her childhood home in Cokeworth. Lily had been purposefully avoiding Severus, never giving him any chance to speak to her even in class. In fact, she hadn't so much as glanced his way, effectively pretending he didn't exist. So when, after many months, she first properly looked at her former childhood friend, a massive wave of sadness hit her at the loss that she had kept putting off with anger.
Speaking of anger, there was one other person whom she really wanted to be furious with, and that was James Potter. But for some reason, even though there hadn't been a moment in their previous years when he wasn't pestering her with either silly pranks or date proposals since the beginning of this term the cheeky Marauder had kept a respectful distance. The change in attitude was so sudden and unexpected that Lily wasn't sure how she felt about that.
Her increasingly worse cold wasn't helping with her emotional state either, and the ceiling above them reflected her gloomy mood. Potter still on her mind, Lily glanced around, but she could only find Peter from the Marauders at the table, which was odd since the two girls walked right passed them outside of the Great Hall, the other three boys being too engrossed in their hushed conversation to notice them. Just as the redhead narrowed her eyes in suspicion, knowing the sixth-year Gryffindors all too well, ice cold rain started pouring from above, drenching everyone who was attending lunch to the bone, even the teacher's table.
Lily instantly felt chilled and shivery, having just enough presence of mind to run out of the Hall amidst the noise of everyone crying out from the cold contact, and apply a drying and warming charm. Only to find two of the Marauders snickering to themselves in the corner, while Remus was two steps from them, not enjoying himself quite as much, but there was still a hint of a smirk dancing around at the corner of his lips. Evidently, she had spoken too soon about the reformed behaviour of the Quidditch Captain.
"Have you lost your sodding… eh," before the redhead could further voice her opinions though, her nose had other plans, hitching her breath. The quickly applied charms seemed to have done nothing to prevent further damage to her already poor health the soaked through clothes have caused, so she turned to sneeze into her elbow. "heh'tshi, hehhttshoo! heh…h'kshee!... hih-tchiew! het-schew! huh-chiew!... chiew! chiew!... eh…heh… heh-sschoo!"
Remus at least had the decency to look ashamed, since he was well aware of her blooming head cold even if the others weren't. Not that Lily was the intended target of that prank, they honestly hadn't seen her go in, and her fellow prefect had been positive that the girl was resting up in the dorms in her condition. He was clearly wrong. As the fit kept going on, leaving Lily utterly winded, James started to become increasingly worried.
"Evans? Are you alright?" the bespectacled boy inquired as he started to approach Lily since it seemed she was seconds away from passing out, but she put up her index finger to halt him. Obviously, she wasn't finished yet. A wave of students was fleeing from the onslaught of the indoors rainstorm, so she tried to stifle the sneezes to avoid drawing attention to herself, with varying success.
"Hih-mppt! Heh-gxnt! Hih-nxgt-chiew! Huh-gnsch-iiew!"
Somewhere during that Marlene had found her way out of the Hall too, still drenched.
"Lily?" the blonde caught the other girl's elbow as she started swaying.
"I'b fide…" the sixth-year prefect mumbled thickly with congestion once she could breathe without setting herself off again, leaning against the wall for support.
"Evans, you should go up to the Hospital Wing," James suggested in a soothing tone of voice that you approached hurt or frightened animals with. "I could take you."
Lily's eyes glinted frighteningly.
"You have already dode edough," the stuffed up quality of her voice deducted nothing from the contempt it held. For a moment the redheaded witch pondered on retaliating with a nice hex (given that her wand was still in her hand, not having had the time or mental capacity to put it away during her fit) that could have had the pranksters running for their money but thought better of it after a good nose blow. "Ten points from Gryffindor and you are to clean up the mess in the Great Hall without wands as detention," Lily huffed, defaulting to her prefect duties, just in time for McGonagall to come out, fully dry as if the prank had never happened. It seemed they had already stopped the downpour of rain inside.
"Excellent suggestion, Ms Evans," their Head of House agreed, giving a condemning look to the boys caught red-handed, arriving just in time to hear the sixth year prefect's verdict.
Without another word, the redhead turned away from the stunned faces of the Marauders towards the grand staircase to make her way back to the Tower before the strict Transfiguration teacher could comment on her red nose or pale complexion, with Marlene close on her heels.
"I'm deeply disappointed in you Mr Lupin," the girls heard McGonagall's voice ring through the hall. "Now, get on with your assigned detention."
Marlene hadn't said a word since they got back to their dorm room but kept stealing worried glances at her redheaded roommate. The afternoon dragged on painfully slowly for Lily. No matter how many warming spells she put on herself she just couldn't get rid of the shakes or concentrate on her schoolwork. Mentally she had cursed Potter to hell and back for the stunt the Marauders had pulled at lunch.
At three o'clock the green-eyed witch decided to give into her body's screaming need for a nap until the prefect's meeting at seven. Unfortunately, her rest was anything but peaceful.
Her alarm clock woke her at half past six, but her mind was so muddled by her fever that it left her disoriented and it took Lily a full five minutes to remember why she had set it in the first place. Vaguely she wondered if she ought to heed the suggestion everyone kept repeating to her the whole day and just go visit Madam Pomfrey. After the meeting… she decided, at last, only to fall asleep again.
Remus hurried along the corridors in longs strides. Cleaning up the Great Hall took longer than anticipated. Maybe they should have checked the intensity of the rain spell before casting it because they literally managed to flood the place. Not mention that James was utterly useless with his mind constantly on Lily and her well-being. If he hadn't asked like a thousand times whether the redhead was alright then never…
Now the werewolf had to hurry to make it to the prefect's meeting in the Head Boy and Girl's office.
"Sorry, I'm late…" he began to apologise only for his concern to be waved off.
"No, you are just on time… Actually, Evans still isn't here," Trevor Milligan, a seventh-year Hufflepuff prefect commented. "Do you have any clue where she might be?"
Lily being late to anything was utterly unheard of, so of course, the Gryffindor prefect's guilt and worry renewed from earlier, but he hoped this meant that she finally had enough sense to seek out Madam Pomfrey. Before he could voice his suspicions, the door suddenly burst open again and a very dishevelled looking redhead hurried in.
"Sorry, I lost track of time," the witch apologised in a raspy voice.
The others didn't pay much attention to her and got on with the agenda points for that day's meeting, but Remus kept glancing at her. She looked worse than in the morning, red-nosed and flushed high up in her cheeks, indicating that she was feverish, but naturally, she tried very hard to keep herself upright in her chair and alert, stifling a sneeze here and there. You could visibly see her façade slump when the meeting was finally over an hour later, and everyone filed out of the room getting on with their business.
"huh-gnsch! heh-nxxt!" Lily sneezed again very tiredly.
"Bless. You really shouldn't stifle them like that. You'll hurt yourself," the werewolf remarked humourlessly.
"I dow," she breathed in a little whiny voice. Lily never whined, at least not in front of anyone but her closest friends. He couldn't help but feel responsible for her condition.
"Are you ready to admit defeat yet?" Remus looked at her expectantly, wishing that common sense finally reached his fellow prefect.
"I was pladdigg od goigg to the Hospital Wigg right after the beetigg, but I'b dot sure I cad get up frob here," obviously, Lily was so stuffed up by now from stifling that even blowing her nose did little to relieve the congestion.
That much was evident to Lupin too. Even from where he stood he could feel the heat radiating off of her. He would bet five galleons if he had them that she was feeling dizzy.
"Come, I'll carry you," he offered, but the witch waved him off in protest.
"No! Just give be a bidute…" the redhead tried to take a deep breath to clear her head but just ended up coughing instead.
In all honesty, although Remus was unaware of this as far as she could tell, Lily knew of his condition, and she didn't want to get him sick by the close contact with only two days before the next full moon. His immune system was usually shot around this time. Now that she thought about it a bit more rationally, she should have just gone straight to Madam Pomfrey instead of the meeting. The fit and the panic of her sudden guilt left her almost hyperventilating.
"Lily, breathe," he crouched down beside her, placing his hands on her shoulders.
"No… I dod't wadt to get you sick…" she looked up at him, trying to hold onto her resolve to keep the boy away but it was actually very comforting that he cared.
"Oh, for the love of Merlin!" Remus sighed and picked the weak girl up effortlessly before she could say another word of protest.
With no energy left to struggle Lily relented and just rested her throbbing head against his chest. She almost fell asleep with the lull of his steps when a very familiar voice rang through the hall that should have been right around the corner from the Hospital Wing given the distance they had come.
"What did you do to her?" Snape demanded from the Marauder accusingly.
Lily was instantly alert but kept her eyes scrunched closed, hiding her face deeper in Remus's chest. No, no, no… he is the last person I want to see right now. There might have been a hint of worry towards her in that question, but she tried as hard as she could to ignore that and the unwelcome pang of sadness that she felt for her lost friend. She wondered for a second just what exactly he had thought had happened if he assumed that Remus had something to do with the state she was in. Even if Sev knew about his monthly turning, surely he was aware that it was not the full moon yet…
"Nothing. Just a bout of the flu, I'm taking her to Madam Pomfrey now," the werewolf replied cordially, not rising to the verbal challenge and walked right past the sixth-year Slytherin without another word.
"He is gone," Remus told her quietly a few moments later.
"Thanks," she whispered, looking up at him gratefully.
Once they arrived, he pressed the door handle with his elbow and pushed the door open with his back, barely jostling the girl in his arms. As soon as he stepped into the Hospital Wing, Madam Pomfrey came bustling to see who had come.
"Oh my, place her on the cot over there," the healer pointed in the right direction. "I'll be right with you, sweetie," she added once Lily was comfortably lying in bed then proceeded to usher Remus out.
The redhead could just about make out the hushed conversation they were having at the entrance about her condition and the Madam's concern over Remus's exposure to her illness at such an unfortunate time. She glanced at their direction just in time to see the werewolf shrug off the concern. Surely if someone didn't have the knowledge Lily had, the exchange would have seemed innocent and inconsequential, but the prefect couldn't help but wonder if she had just made the Marauder's next few days a lot worse than it was strictly necessary.
The healer left him with instructions to come back as soon as he felt any symptoms and made her way to the bed she was occupying.
"I hear you did a number on yourself, Ms Evans. You should have come down in the morning the moment you felt ill," Poppy chided in a motherly fashion as she did her diagnostic charms.
Lily let herself be taken care of without a word, drank the prescribed potions and fell into a fitful sleep again.