Chapter Two

"Pomfrey And The Much Needed Safety"

RESCUE MISSION

If there is one thing a Gryffindor can be relied upon, it's his or her ability to be brave in the face of the unknown. Some think of this act as idiocy. However, when you can thank a Gryffindor for your own life due to an act of this sort of idiocy your opinion is likely to change.

That's rather like the case of Mary MacDonald, though she only thought James Potter and Sirius Black were Gryffindor idiots and not Gryffindor as a whole, considering she was one herself. Rather good at school work, James and Sirius were, but so blatantly arrogant that it hurt.

So, naturally, once James and Sirius heard a cry for help coming from the neighbouring corridor they ran. They ran so fast both could hear their own heartbeat drumming like a rabbit in their ears. Armed with their wands they had drawn out moments after they heard the screams and in unison with their sprint to the damsel in distress, they had almost formed some sort of battle cry. Almost.

"HANG ON!" Sirius yelled, his breathing shallow and raspy from the running.

"SIRIUS?" Mary called back, if James or Sirius could have seen her at the point, they would have seen Mary thrown back onto the cold stone floor with a wand pointed to her face. With her eyebrows raised in confusion from the surprise of hearing Sirius's voice.

"MARY?" Sirius replied, equally confused.

Sliding from the lack of friction on the soles of their shoes, James and Sirius landed into the scene. Mary, who was trying to grope around for her strewn wand on the ground whilst keeping an eye on her attacker, caught sight of James and Sirius. There could have been tears in her eyes, but Mary would never have admitted to actually succumbing to crying to Sirius.

The attacker, catching a glimpse at what Mary had seen, fled the scene.

"Come back and fight you bastard!" James shouted to the every growing smaller silhouette.

"Don't bring him back!" Mary said in a hoarse voice.

"Accio moron! Accio… scum!" James said, pointing his wand at where the attacker was thought to be.

"Check the Map, James." Sirius said rather bluntly.

"Where are we?" James began unfolding the Map and muttering to himself under the charmed wand-light.

"Third floor," Mary supplied.

"You're freaking kidding me. Are you sure we're not on the fourth or second of eighteenth?" Sirius asked.

"There isn't an eighteenth floor. And of course I'm sure, over there's McGonagall's office." Mary rolled her eyes; trust Mary to be trying to act cool through something like this.

"Because being on a different floor would be too convenient," Sirius muttered darkly. "I'm assuming McGonagall doesn't happen to be in her office conveniently either?"

"Doubt it. She'll be at the Welcoming Feast still. And she would've heard the racket I made." Mary said, double checking her body for any damage.

" See anything James?"

"Nothing,"

"Are you sure?"

"Well, it's a bit hard in between the Map flashing pink and green at me and it being upside down."

"What's that you're holding?" Mary asked, trying to sit up.

"Map of the school…. Sort of." Sirius explained. "We made it last year, Peter sat on it and now it's buggered."

"Seriously?" Mary asked.

"Well, yeah." Sirius said. "Are you okay?"

"I'm freezing."

"God dammit!" James huffed, interjecting. "Get back you scum!"

"It's not cold."

"Yes it is." Mary protested. "Well at least I am."

"It's not, we better get you to Promfrey." Sirius decided. "Did he do anything to you?"

"Stunned me, I think. I can't really remember. He was trying to do Unforgiveables… I think." Mary muttered, and frustrated that she could barely remember something that had only happened minutes before.

"James?" Sirius asked.

James was so focused on the Map that he jumped –quite literally- when Sirius talked to him.

"He's gone," James sighed. "that bastard."

"We need to take Mary to Madam Pomfrey." Sirius said.

"Right," James nodded. "can you walk?"

"What kind of question is that?" Mary snapped.

"The sort that you're meant to answer,"

"I'm not a cripple, of course I can walk." Mary stood.

"You look a little shaky on your feet," Sirius muttered.

"I swear I'm fi-" Mary stopped protesting, no doubt because Sirius had just put his arm around her waist to prevent her from falling. "Thanks."

Mary's cheeks flushed a vivid red under her freckles. Several short shot of electricity buzzed around in the pit of her stomach.

"Anytime,"

Then the trio walked away to the Hospital Wing, with Mary sandwiched between James and Sirius.

APOLOGIES

It was only when Mary told Lily that she was heading up to bed that Lily realised she only really had one friend. She realised this after Mary left and she suddenly felt too exposed for her own liking and she barely knew anything about the people she had lived and gone to school with for the past five years.

"Hello." said a sheepish voice from behind Lily.

Lily recognised its owner instantly. "Go away, Snape."

Severus sat down in the vacant seat that Mary had filled moments previously. "No. I refuse to."

"I've got nothing to say to you,"

"Well I've got plenty." Severus said, tucking a few oily stands of hair away from his face.

"Not interested."

"I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry, Lily."

"I don't believe you in the slightest." Lily gritted her teeth.

"You know I'd never do anything to hurt you-"

"Liar."

"Please?"

"Go be with Mulciber,"

"As if I care about him! I lo- that doesn't matter." Severus said.

"I couldn't ever be friends with you when you're doing all that dark stuff with those Slytherin's. Above that, I could never ever be friends with you again after you called me a You-Know-What."

"I'll never give up on you!"

"Don't waste your breath." Lily got up from her seat and briskly walked out of the Great Hall, into the quiet spaces where her head was fuming and swimming with thoughts of her only best friend.

She was tense, she was angry and she was upset. She was trying to convince herself that she didn't care about him at all. She tried to hate him. Though, considering she was fighting back sour tears as she fled from the Great Hall, Severus Snape still had some sort of effect over her.

She couldn't even call her cat by his own name without thinking of him.

Figuring that the best part of the day was over and that she should just head to her warm four poster bed as soon as possible, she headed up the dozens of flights of stairs to Gryffindor Tower.

She was almost literally fuming as she walked briskly up a few flights of stairs.

That was, until she came across Mary, James and Sirius.

The trio stopped her in her tracks along with whatever she was thinking about beforehand. Severus didn't matter to her as much as Mary did.

Mary's face was drained of any sort of colour, with her damp locks weaved into a mess at the nape of her neck. She was barely able to walk, but with each of her arms draped over Sirius and James's shoulders she was managing. She appeared to have aged ten years. She looked hollow, like a wax figure that someone had tried to craft only for it to go terribly wrong somewhere along the line. Her skin looked stretched across her face and almost completely translucent, with her freckles looking now black in comparison. Her eyes were distant, as if nothing going on before her eyes could interest her or was of any great importance. She was buckled over, but Sirius had seemed to have taken on the role of Mary's legs to prevent her from falling into a heap on the floor.

"Potter!" Lily strode up to them. "What the hell happened?" She snapped.

"Mary was attacked." James said, adjusting Mary so she didn't topple to the ground.

"You better hope you aren't responsible." Lily warned. "Otherwise your life won't be worth living."

"Why would I even do something like tha- never mind that." James shook his head.

"Where're you taking her?" Lily asked. "What're you doing with her?"

"Madam Promfrey." said Mary, looking up at Lily.

"Right." Lily registered that. "Need a hand?"

"Not particularly." Sirius said.

"Well, that's just too bad. Because either way I am not leaving Mary with you two."

And thus, three then became four.

MENDING

There was quite a commotion when they got to the Hospital Wing at last. You could even call it a wave of mass hysteria, if you so desire. A great chunk of this hysteria was coming from Madam Pomfrey herself, though she was mostly stunned when she first saw four teenagers walk into her hospital, one of whom wasn't even capable of walking independently.

Madam Pomfrey immediately stopped treating a Hufflepuff with his left leg bandaged and skited to Lily, James, Sirius and Mary.

"What's this?" Madam Pomfrey asked, scanning the teenagers as if this will make them cough up an explanation.

"Mary was attacked." Sirius said in a tone that suggested he could have been talking about anything but something as dark as that.

Madam Pomfrey went very pale. "Oh Merlin. Are you hurt? What happened?"

Mary shook her head.

"Well, you certainly don't look it. Come with me and I'll get you something to help with the- you three, go fetch Professor Dumbledore. And don't you dare go alone, who knows if the culprit is around or not. Be quick!"

Sirius, James and Lily quickly left the Hospital Wing.

Madam Pomfrey waved her wand muttering a few strands of words that Mary didn't catch- over Mary.

"Am I dying?" joked Mary, a smile creeping onto her face.

"You're far from that dear, it's just shock. You'll probably have some bruises, but I'll just do one thing at a time." Madam Pomfrey was now flapping about, running into the store cupboard to get extra blankets, only to groan at her own foolishness and then ducking back into the cupboard to get what appeared to be a flask of hot chocolate.

She wrapped Mary in the several woollen blankets she had dug out. She looked like a little blonde porcelain doll the way she was laying there, completely motionless.

She was dead quiet now, however that was not the case in her own head.

Though there were dozens of thoughts being collected simultaneously, they all satellited around the one phrase: Why aren't I safe here anymore?

SAFETY

"Should we take that secret route?" mouthed Sirius.

"Around Evans?" mimed James, pointing to Lily who was walking an easy ten paces ahead of the two boys.

Sirius nodded in agreement and shrugged slightly.

With every few moments passed, Lily became evermore agitated and edgy than she was before.

When they finally got to the entrance of Dumbledore's office, she was shaking slightly.

"Let us in!" Lily demanded to the carved gargoyle that guarded Dumbledore's office. "For God's sake, just let us in!"

"Password?" replied the gargoyle, indifferent to Lily's protests.

"Carnival," James said, rolling his eyes. "honestly."

"Very good." said the gargoyle. "You should listen to him more often, missy."

"Oh shut up." Lily muttered under her breath as she raced ahead of James and Sirius to get up the small flight of stairs.

"Miss Evans," Dumbledore sounded surprised. "and Mr Black and Mr Potter."

"Professor!" Lily was gasping for breath. "Madam Pomfrey wants you to come to the Hospital Wing right now! Mary's been attacked!"

"How long ago did this happen?" Dumbledore asked calmly, a complete opposite to Lily's panic.

Lily turned to James. After all, she had no idea when this happened.

"Twenty minutes?" James guessed, scratching his head.

"Since we found her." Sirius added. "I'd say half an hour tops."

"Very good." Dumbledore nodded and headed out the door.

Lily finally exhaled after what seemed to be a millennia. Dumbledore was here and now everything would be fine. Hopefully.

The four followed Dumbledore, whose purple robes were highlighted by the torchlight and his heels clicking away as he waltzed with ease to the Hospital Wing.

"Do you know what happened?" Dumbledore asked.

"Not really," Lily admitted. "James?"

"Me and Padfoo- Sirius got to Mary after we heard some screaming. We got there and the guy ran off." James frowned.

"James tried to find him. Mary was pretty shaken up about it, so we took her to Madam Pomfrey." Sirius scratched his head as he racked his brains to remember more.

But what was there to say? Should he of mentioned how terrified Mary looked when he found her? How she looked so limp when she saw the attacked run off? Should he mention how she was barely able to form words? How her normally voluminous hair fell raggedly on her sweat dampened face and stuck to it like a bad smell to a pair of old sneakers?

Or should he even of mentioned how he never took his eyes off her until he was told to get Dumbledore? How he wanted to make her smile again?

No, he probably should not have mentioned that. Not at all.

No good would have come from it anyway.

"Well, you did the right thing." Dumbledore congratulated, making Sirius and James smile briefly.

"Thanks, Sir."

"Now what about poor Mary?" Dumbledore thought aloud, casting his eyes over the girl who lay almost encased in crocheted blankets. Donations made to the school, no doubt.

"It's just shock, Professor." Madam Pomfrey said. "She's pretty shaken over the incident. I best keep her here for the night, there's no point waking her now that's she's comfortable and asleep."

"Right you are, Poppy."

"Will you find the person responsible?" Lily asked.

"We can try." Dumbledore promised. "Now, you three better get up to bed. It is late after all. Must not be exhausted for the first day of classes tomorrow, I remember when Elena Wilson decided that she could take an Awakening Potion in order to never sleep again…" He chuckled.

They all nodded. Sirius, before beginning to walk about the door, brushed a few locks of Mary's flaxen hair away from her eyes.

"She hates it when it's in her peripheral vision." Sirius murmured, mostly to himself before joining James and Lily.

The three walked sombrely towards the Gryffindor Common Room, almost in a sort of slightly unsynchronized funeral march.

"James?" Lily asked, her voice a few notes higher than it usually was.

"Yeah?"

"How did you know what the password to Dumbledore's office was?"

"The amount of times Sirius and I've been sent there by a screeching McGonagall." James reminisced fondly. "It's second nature, like blinking."

"Blinking is an instinct. We can't help it." Lily said smugly, skipping every other step.

"Don't bicker with me Evans, I'm tired. I want sleep." James grumbled.

"I second that," Sirius chimed.

"It's only nine." Lily said.

"Well we've been up for almost twenty four hours, mind you." Sirius replied.

"What the hell were you doing that for?" Lily almost laughed. "Wait, don't tell me, I probably don't want to know."

"We had errands to run," James grinned, knowing it would only agitate Lily further.

"What errands?" Lily groaned.

Sleep sounded pretty darn fantastic right now to Sirius, James and Lily.

Much thanks to my Beta, WitAngerAndBravery!

Send me a yell if you're confused.