Chapter 2
Rosier and Snape
What happened before: Lily is in potions when she falls over, smashing her vial of Drink of Despair causing her intense pain. She looks up and sees Sirius Black behind her and before she passes out she sees a boy dragging Madame Pomfrey to her.
Lily woke up in a clean white bed, complete with crisply ironed sheets and a very soft pillow. Blinking a few times, she began to see shapes appearing around her: people hurrying about, beds neatly made, bottles of skelegro amongst other nasty potions and cabinets of dusty bottles. Looking down at herself, she saw bandages covering every inch of her and after a moment's contemplation, she figured she looked like a very clean mummy. Only after a few minutes of looking around did she spot two familiar figures slumped in the chairs next to the bed. After a few shakes and bashes on the arms, they woke up.
"Lily! Thank Merlin you're alright!" Marlene and Alison both rushed over to the bed where they continued to ask her questions.
"What happened? One minute I'm having a great nap and the next you're on the floor screaming!"
"How did you trip this time? You've been so much better about picking up your feet!"
"I saw you look at Black after you got that potion all over you. What's that all about?"
"How are your arms? Sore?"
"Guys, guys! Slow down!" Lily tried to raise her hands to motion slowing down, but her limbs didn't feel like co-operating much. "I have a few questions first. Number one, how long have I been here?" Alison answered first.
"You slept here overnight, if that helps. I think it's about lunch-time now."
Great, just great. She had missed all of Monday's lessons as well as a good portion of Tuesday's. That would be fun to catch up.
"Two, what did Madame Pomfrey say about whatever it is that happened to me?"
"We didn't hear much as she is a complete devil when it comes to visiting and checking up on you, but from what I can gather, you're not too bad as you didn't drink the potion which would have seriously screwed you up. Only touching it must have made your skin burn like crazy, but no permanent damage. You're just your normal, clumsy, dorky self!" Marly smiled and gave her two thumbs up. Lily rolled her eyes.
"What I meant was: when can I leave?"
"You can leave today, but not until dinner time." Lily started to protest, but Marly held her hands up. "Look, Lily, we tried to barter with Madame Eat-Me-Alive over there, but she told us if we didn't stop arguing with her, she was going to make you stay an extra day."
"Fine, fine. Can you at least bring in catch up work?" Ally and Marly looked at each other. Lily recognised their guilty looks immediately. "You didn't grab my work, did you?"
"I'm sorry Lils! We were very distracted, because as you may have noticed, our best friend is in the hospital!" Marly was getting louder and louder with every word.
"It's not my fault stupid Sirius Black decided to shove me, is it?" Lily felt herself starting to get a bit irritated at her friends, who acted like it was all her fault.
"Guys, stop shouting or Madame Pomfrey is going to throw us out." Alison looked pointedly at Marly. Not for the first time, Lily was grateful Alison was there; she always was the one to stop arguments blowing up in their faces.
"I'm not yelling, I'm talking at a very normal pitch." Marly said, eyeing Pomfrey as she attended to a boy with a bulging eye on the other side of the hospital. She had looked up, glaring at the group of them disapprovingly, but the boy's eye burst some pus so she seemingly forgot about them.
"Whatever. Anyway, can you guys collect for me for the remaining lessons then?"
"Sure. We've got History of Magic and Defence together, and I think that's the rest of the lessons we have this afternoon…" She pulled out her timetable to check that was correct, whilst at the same time loosening a folded slip of paper from her bag, which tumbled to the floor. Lily, spotting that it had fallen out, bent over the edge of her bed and picked it up, nearly falling off in the process. On the front, her name was scrawled in an untidy font.
"What's this?" She held up the paper for Alison to see, a confused look on her face.
"Oh yeah, after James brought Madame Pomfrey to the Dungeons, he stayed here for like an HOUR before Dragon-Mouth ordered him to his lessons. He gave me this note to give to you." Lily's eyebrows rose in surprise. What was Potter doing writing her a note? It was very unlike him to do something so polite, civil and friendly. Well, civil for him anyway. One couldn't expect too much from James Potter. A 'please' or 'thank you' was already pushing it.
Lily Evans,
I came back earlier. I was wondering if I could come and see how you were doing. I just wanted to check you were okay. See you later for house points and detention cards.
James Potter James
Wasn't it lovely he was so articulate? Lily mentally rolled her eyes at his indecision and crumpled it up, stuffing it in her bag whose brown strap was slung over the wrought iron headboard. Her two friends were looking at her eagerly, eyes as wide as teacups.
"What?" They looked at her some more. "What?! What do you want? And please, for Merlin's sake, stop with the eyes!" She hid their Bambi eyes with her cotton hands. Marly shook it off immediately, but Alison seemed glad for a way to keep her head up without trying herself.
"We want to know what it says." The amount of concentration put into trying to will Lily into telling was almost comical – Marly's face was screwed up in a tight, scrunched up shape, but her eyes remained wide.
"It's not important, guys. What is important is my class work." She looked pointedly at the pair.
"Jeez, Lily. Stop worrying about classes for a moment and be a teenage girl. Since you seem to be new at this, let me clue you in. We thrive on gossip, and a nice juicy chunk is sitting in your bag." Alison said, very matter-of-factly. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Marly eyeing the bag that lay just a few metres away.
"It's not interesting, trust me. Just Heads stuff."
"Lily Evans, you tell me right now or I shall get Pomfrey to drug you again so we can nick it. Ally was so good at not peeking up until now, so make her loyalty worth it." Marly said with a dangerous edge in her voice, but a barely concealed smirk on her face.
"Oh my MERLIN you guys are weird!" She reached over and grabbed the crumpled bit of paper. "Here!" She stuck out the note to her friends who pored over it like it was the source of their life. Psh. Friends.
"Well, this is interesting…" Alison murmured as she continued to look at it. After the fourth minute of looking at it, Lily gave up and grabbed it back. They both yelled in protest, but after a loud 'SHHHH!' from Pomfrey, they were subdued to screamed whispers.
"You have been looking at it for FOUR minutes. It does not take four minutes to read eleven words."
"Maybe not to you, you seem to read at the speed of light, but us, we take a while."
"Plus we like to read the subtext which you clearly do not get." Marly whispered, and Alison gave her a knowing look. Lily positively hated that look.
"Then, by all means, do share your insights, which, are probably looking way too much into things." Lily sighed and gave them back the paper. She might as well let them have their fun or she wouldn't hear the end of it.
"Okay, so, obviously the crossings out indicate indecision, a key writing habit that guys who like a girl have." Alison gestured to the various crossings out.
"Uh, no. We are not off to a good start."
"We are too. Look at his varied use of forenames and surnames. This could mean that he's called you by his first name, but not vice-versa, and could also mean that he wants to be more friendly with you as he wrote the first names first." Marly was the one this time to point out the crazy and complicated things that her friends seemed to pick out from virtually nothing.
"No, it means he wasn't focussing when he was writing. Lots of crossings out are clear examples of someone who is doing something else and is scribbling while they talk, for example." Marly and Alison tried to formulate a reason why that was not the case, but came up with nothing. Lily grinned in victory.
"You have just been lawyered, my dears. Next time, think it through more carefully." They both jumped up in dissent, but Lily waved them back down. "Later guys. I've had enough of your wonderfully inaccurate comments for the time being. Let me rest up so I can get going when I'm set free from this cage of white linen and disinfectant." Her friends, unwillingly, gave up on their quest to introduce Lily to all things inane, and returned the note.
"Here. I hope you're happy." Marly glared at Lily, but bent down to give her a suffocating hug. "Get better soon, Lily, or I may have to permanently chain you to a safety room."
"Safety room?"
"A room which has walls made entirely of bubble wrap. Duh!" Shaking her head at Lily's supposedly silly question, she grabbed her bag and began to walk to the doors.
"Bye, Lils. We might not be able to make it back before dinner as Slughorn has the entire class cleaning the dungeons because of yesterday, but we'll see you at dinner, okay?"
"Yeah, sure, see you guys later!" A quick hug from Ally and then they were both gone. It was surprising how much quieter the Wing was when her friends weren't there. The silence seems to grow and expand, filling up the Wing and causing a sudden drowsiness to overcome Lily. Looking over at the nurse, she saw that a spell had been cast, causing Lily to curse not being aware enough to see the sleeping spell coming, whilst lying her head down on the soft pillow and snoring her troubles away.
A sharp snip sound caused Lily to awake with a start. It was dark outside, which was expected as winter was coming, but nevertheless caused Lily to panic for a moment. The snipping came from Pomfrey's wand cutting some of the bandages from her legs.
"Miss Evans! I could have stabbed you!"
"But you didn't!" Lily tried a winning smile, but it came out desperate. Pomfrey frowned.
"Why do you want to get out of here so badly? Got a date?" Lily turned red. Madame Pomfrey almost smirked.
"No, I have work to do."
"You know, Miss Evans, I have never met someone who was quite a belligerent and stubborn about work as you are. Anyone would think it's your lifeline."
"Who knows, maybe it is." Pomfrey finished cutting the bandages off her legs in under a minute. Lily stared at her pale legs for a moment, confused by their marbled appearance. As if reading her mind, Madame Pomfrey answered.
"Your skin is a bit marred because of the potion burns. They should disappear soon if you take this," she held up a vibrant green bottle, "regularly, unless you want another night here to fix that sooner…" Lily almost screamed her opposition at that notion.
"No, please, thanks. Not another night."
"Very well. Your robes are there." She pointed to a neat pile of clothes. "You can change in the bathroom at the end of the Wing. Then you are free to go." Lily almost wept with joy. It had been such a boring day and she couldn't wait to escape the monotony of sitting doing nothing.
"Thanks! Thanks for fixing me up!" Lily leapt out of bed, only to stumble for a moment on her throbbing legs. After a bit of jiggling around, they felt a bit better and she ran off to get changed.
Lily had been down to dinner, but had found the Hall incredibly empty, not a Gryffindor in sight. There had been a couple of second-year Ravenclaws and several Hufflepuffs, but no-one she knew. She had barely finished her dessert when she looked at the grand clock she called her watch and found it was already ten past eight. Remembering her promise to do Heads chores, she pushed back the bench and sprinted out of the Hall to the Dungeons. Veering round the corner, she ran headfirst into a stone wall. After a bit of cursing and rubbing her head, she began to stagger towards the stairs, but heard raised voices from the Dungeons that caught her ear.
"…her own fault. Bloody Mudblood didn't seem to care that the Dark Lord could kill her and that stupid group she belongs to in an instant."
"You shouldn't have knocked her down, Rosier." She recognised that voice. Who could forget the slow drawl of Severus Snape?
"She asked for it. And besides, I didn't directly push her over."
"Shoving Black was pretty much a direct hit." Black? He shoved Black? So Sirius hadn't pushed her over. Lily almost felt guilty for blaming Sirius when it was all Evan Rosier's fault. He was an unhinged kid, following the Dark Arts like a religion, worshipping Voldemort to the point of no return.
"Was not. I thought she might trip up at most, but who knew she had such an unstable head on her spindly little legs?"
"Watch it, Evan. You shoved Black pretty hard and she's smaller than most guys here." She felt her heart leap at Sev's, admittedly poor, defence of her. It was nice to know he made an attempt to care.
"What does it matter to you? You promised Him that you wouldn't consort with her anymore, let alone care for her. She's a filthy Mudblood, Snape, she's worth as much as a Muggle tramp." Lily felt her heart drop and a lump rise in her throat.
"She's not a Muggle tramp, you-"
"What's going on here?" Another unmistakable voice. James Potter had joined the party. A weird, psychotic, mind-boggling little party. Well this was going to be awkward.
"Mind your own business, Potter." Snape's tone had gone from cold to angry and hissing. Lily could almost imagine the snake biting the lion in the foot.
"I don't care about you two having a lovers spat, but I do care that Lily hasn't turned up yet and you two, who I can't say have the best reputations, are coincidentally standing here, right where we were supposed to meet."
"Since when is it Lily?" Sev almost sounded hurt.
"Since none of your bloody business. Now move so I can go find her."
"Fat chance of that happening. Date or no date, Mudblood Evans isn't coming anywhere near my pure blood." Rosier answered that time. There was an echoing silence. That wasn't good. That was never good. Potter and Snape were never silent around each other. Lily rounded the corner and sprinted down the stairs, only to see James throwing a well-aimed punch at Rosier's nose. She ran down the last few steps and grabbed James by the waist, dragging him away from the two Slytherins. Still struggling, he didn't even seem to have realised who it was who was hauling him away, only that he was now too far away to punch them both. Severus leant over and helped Rosier up, who was screaming obscenities at James who had finally stopped struggling when he saw a familiar flash of red hair.
"Lily?"
"No, James, its Batman."
"Seriously? Hey Batman! You're a lot more attractive than in the comics…" James smiled widely, winking as he did. Lily almost smiled as well, until she was reminded of the situation when Rosier began screaming again.
"Who let that filthy creature down here? Dirty, mangy, polluted girl!" He dusted off his robes as if he was worried Lily had gotten some of her muddy blood on him. "How dare you come to this classroom? How dare you touch a Pureblood?" He was on a roll, and Sev trying to drag him away wasn't helping. "You sick, inhuman bitch! Get away from those who are true wizards! Get your disgusting mitts off of us wizards!" He lumbered over to her, his face inches from hers. James tried to get between them, but Rosier grabbed him and shoved him against the wall, causing him to hit his head and fall to the ground.
"Do everyone a favour and go back to the hole you call a home and kill yourself." She could see the saliva dripping off his torn lip, his bloodshot eyes boring into hers. The lump in her throat threatened to slip out, but she held her ground, biting back retorts in an attempt to not anger him further.
They stood there for a whole two seconds, until Severus managed to tear Rosier away. The pair stalked off, Severus snatching a glance of Lily bent over a limp James Potter as they did.
"Potter. Potter!" Lily shook him hard, but got no response. "Bloody HELL, JAMES POTTER WAKE UP NOW!" Lily slapped him hard around the face. She wished it didn't feel so good, but after building up every horrible thing he'd ever said inside of her and packing it into one great slap, it felt, in a word, satisfactory. James sat up quickly, bashing his head against Lily's who was leaning over his previously dead-looking body.
"Holy mother of-" He seemed to remember where he was at this point in his sentence. "-sunshine and rainbows. What did you do to me?" James sat there rubbing his cheek which now had a nice red welt on the side. Lily sat next to him, rubbing her head for the second time in the last five minutes.
"Nothing! I needed to wake you up, that's all. You know, to check you aren't dead."
"Well, goody, goody, I'm not dead." He winced when he rubbed his cheek again. "Alright, well, help me up." He stuck out his hands for Lily to grab, which she did. They walked to the dungeons in silence, both mulling over the events of the previous few minutes. James ran forward and pulled open the door, keeping it open for Lily to walk through, just like a real gentleman. Lily frowned slightly at James's politeness, but walked on past nevertheless. Within a few minutes, they had started work on the detention cards. There was a very noticeable silence that Lily felt she needed to break.
"Shall we split these into ones that need to be done, and ones that don't?"
"Are you okay?" James said hurriedly, as if he'd been thinking about asking it, but wasn't sure if he should. After asking it, he went back to shuffling the cards noisily.
"Yeah," Lily said slowly, "you?"
"Fine. My head and face hurt a bit," he smiled at her, a twinkle in his eye, "but I think that was pretty predictable." He turned around and she saw a bit of blood matted into his thick black hair. She dodged through the table and inspected his head, which caused much protesting from James.
"Man! Rosier threw you hard! You should get that checked out by Pomfrey." She stood there for a minute, staring at the back of his head, until he coughed uncomfortable and shuffled away.
"Nah, it's okay. It's just skin deep." She walked back to her set of cards and continued sorting them. James Potter, James Potter, James Potter… How many detentions had this boy had?!
"Shall we have a completely separate box for Potter detentions?" Lily, said, chuckling.
"Nah. I think we'll need a few hundred between me and the rest of the Marauders." He smiled back, laughing with her. "Merlin knows we have enough. Between stupid pranks and accidents, the teachers aren't so stingy with the detentions." Lily was stunned. There she was, sure that Potter couldn't ever admit he did stupid, reckless things, but here he was, more or less admitting it.
"True. But people can always reform right? Who knows, Dumbledore clearly picked you for Head Boy for some reason. Or maybe he just lost his mind for a moment." She said, baiting him into saying something malicious to spite her. She knew that he was going to lose his gentleman's touch any moment anyway. What was the point of getting all chummy with a boy who firstly, she hated, and secondly, wasn't really himself?
"Oi!" He shouted, faking an offended look and bumping her shoulder, still smiling. Now Lily was even more taken aback. What had happened to the callous, vicious, sadistic bully that she knew to be James Potter?
