Author's Note: THANK YOU for the reviews. Claire-125, Agloechen, J.E.A.R. , AmeliaBedelia(YOU UPDATED!), Headmaster Cromwell, Logical Raven, The all mighty and powerfulM, GryffindorGoddess28, starborn, and LilyFLower1001. It made my day! This chapter is really short, but I should have the next chapter out VERY soon, I just want to look it over again. If you're confused after you read this, it should be explained in the next chapter.
Cursed
By HazelMist
Chapter 4: What Happened?
Lily opened her eyes. The room came into focus, swimming before her as it slowly became clearer. Lily wiped her tearful eyes with her sleeve and sat up.
She was in the Transfiguration classroom. Her hand fell upon another person as she stretched out her stiff arms.
Lily turned and saw the deformed James Potter just as she had left him when she had taken her journey down memory lane. She almost screamed because she didn't recognize him, but the events of the day came back to her quickly, preventing her from doing this. She removed her hand from his arm and quickly scooted over, so that she was no longer right beside him.
The memories were over.
Lily sighed in relief. She was finally back. She didn't know how long she had been sitting there, reliving the terrible moments of the past that she fought to keep back for almost seven years with nothing but her own sheer will. It seemed like forever. It had been awful and almost as bad as the very days themselves in which they had taken place. Every word, every action had stabbed Lily in the heart and brought her grief all over again. Unknowingly, she had begun to cry during her travel through the moments of the past. Lily was so grateful that it was over that she could've kissed the Transfiguration classroom floor. Who would've thought memories could be so painful?
However, Lily had learned a valuable lesson. You couldn't lock up painful memories and never look at them again for six years. They had overwhelmed her. Whether she liked it or not those memories were going to break the barrier. Lily should've known that you couldn't turn your back completely on the past.
"I learned that a little too late," Lily grumbled, rubbing her eyes once more. She sighed and straightened up.
She felt like she had been hit with a ton of bricks. But at least she wouldn't be reliving that any time soon.
But another matter at hand was just as stressful and complex. She turned her head focusing her emerald colored eyes upon her major problem.
There was never a time when James Potter wasn't the problem. It was always revenge or having to deal with the results of a prank. She was used to the thought of James being trouble for her. But this, this was different.
All her life Lily had waited for this moment. The moment when James Potter would be thrown on the ground and she would finally get the recognition she deserved as the smarter and cleverer of the two. Now that moment had come. Why then, did everything still feel the same?
Professor McGongall had thankfully left the classroom. She had gone searching for James and still hadn't returned. Lily figured that her detention was pretty much over and that she could leave.
"But what am I going to do with him?" she wondered not for the first time.
She turned her thoughts over in her mind, hoping for something to go on. An inspiring idea was what she was searching for. But none came.
"I guess I'll leave," she decided. But she couldn't just leave him here. McGonagall might come back and find him and figure out what happened. She had to take him with her.
Drawing out her wand, she pointed it at James for the second time that night.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
James lifted into the air and slowly Lily began walking forward, never taking her eyes off the wand or James.
There was a soft knock.
"Sirius?" someone hissed.
Sirius Black glanced up from the charm's essay that he was attempting to copy off of Remus. Remus had fallen asleep and had no idea that his charm's essay was now Sirius'.
Lily's best friend, Diane stood leaning against the door to the boy's dormitory. She folded her arms across her chest and glared when she realized what he was doing. Sirius grinned innocently and hurriedly slipped the charm's essay out of sight.
"What are you doing here anyway?" Sirius asked her as he stood up.
Diane's glare melted away.
"I'm worried about Lily and James," she confessed, as they closed the dormitory door behind them and started walking down to the common room.
"Why are you afraid that Lily might steal your former boyfriend? You never know they could be having a snogging session in there or something more!" Sirius joked wagging his eyebrows.
Diane punched his arm.
"What was that for?" Sirius asked, massaging his arm.
"James and I are finished. We're over. Get that into your little brain," Diane said sharply. She hated it when people said that she still cared for James. There had been a point when perhaps she had. After all she and James had remained together for three months before he cheated on her and dumped her abruptly.
Sirius looked slightly taken aback when he saw the look on her face.
"Okay, I won't talk about it anymore," he said seriously.
Diane glanced up at him and looked him in the eye. He was serious. Hopefully this would be the end of his dreadful teasing. Diane certainly hoped so.
"So, do you want to go find Lily and James?"
"Yeah. It's after midnight and McGonagall came here a half hour ago looking for James. Something must've happened," she worried.
"Let's just jump a step ahead and check the hospital wing," Sirius suggested, opening the portrait.
"Trying to sneak out?" a voice asked from the shadows.
They both whirled around to see Diane and Lily's roommate and other best friend standing behind them. Somehow, during the time they were talking, she had snuck up on them without making a sound.
"Mary!" Diane gasped, frowning as she caught her breath. "Don't do that!" she scolded her.
"What?" Mary asked, innocently.
"Don't sneak up on people!" Diane said, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah, you shouldn't do that," Sirius said sternly, imitating Diane. Then he leaned over and in a loud whisper asked, "Hey, can you teach me how to do that?"
"I heard that!" Diane snapped, glaring.
Mary laughed and pushed Sirius away.
"It's a secret," she chuckled. Ever since they were little the Marauders had been trying to figure out Mary's secret, but with no success. For Mary always answered in the same manner, insisting that it was a secret.
"Come on, I'll chaperone you two love birds and make sure you don't do anything you might regret," Mary offered, draping her arms around her two friends.
Back in the corridors, Lily was walking along pointing her wand at something that no one else could see but her. She never moved her eyes or wand from the invisible object and it must have looked very strange to see her walking, and staring, and pointing straight ahead like a zombie. Every once and a while you could hear a bump or a thud, like something was bouncing very hard off of a wall or a suit of armor.
"Oops!" Lily giggled, grinning.
"It just seemed to slip, like that!" she laughed loudly as there was another thud.
Thankfully no one was in the hall at midnight or there would have probably suspected Lily to be drunk, very drunk.
"Love Birds!?" a familiar voice floated down the hall. Lily heard it from a distance and almost turned her head and lost her concentration.
"Heavens, no!"
"Fine, whatever."
That was Sirius and Diane, definitely Mary too. Lily smiled.
"Anything but birds would be fine."
"Sirius!" Diane exclaimed and it sounded like she hit him.
"What am I going to do with you two?" Mary asked, exasperated. "You two need more than a chaperone!"
Their voices were coming closer. Lily turned down a corridor, concentrating on smashing James into a suit of armor.
"We're looking for Lily and James. Remember?" Diane asked, hastily trying to change the subject.
"I'm sure that's exactly what you two were thinking when you decided to take a walk by yourselves around the school at midnight!" Lily called, cackling. She walked toward the suits of armor as her friends all turned to look at her in shock.
SMASH!
"What the -?"
"Lily?!"
"Are you alright?"
Lily lost all concentration and just sat down upon the floor, laughing as James slipped down the suit of armor and fell to the floor. It was just too funny. Her friends all hurried toward her and surrounded Lily who had hidden her face in her hands and was shaking.
"Is she crying?" Sirius asked in a whisper.
Diane shook her head and knelt down beside Lily.
"Lily, are you okay?"
Lily didn't say anything but continued to rock back and forth, shaking uncontrollably. Diane hesitantly reached out and touched Lily's shoulder.
"What's wrong, Lily?" Diane asked softly. She thought Lily was crying.
"Diane and Mary scare me too, Lily. But there's no reason to cry about it," Sirius teased. He earned a slap from Mary and a glare from Diane.
Lily snorted and lifted her head. She burst out laughing unable to hold it in any longer.
Her friends jumped away, not sure what to make of her.
"Um, what's so funny?" Mary asked.
"Sirius isn't that funny you know," Diane said.
Lily shook her head laughing and pointed at the invisible white haired hexed James that had just smashed into the suits of armor. But Lily was the only one that could see him.
"She's drunk."
For once Diane and Mary whole heartedly agreed with Sirius, nodding their heads.
"Either that or James put some sort of spell on her," Diane added as they walked over to Lily and helped her to her feet.
"Come on, Lily. We're going back to the common room right now," Mary said firmly, steering her in the right direction.
"Wait!" Lily managed to yell. She broke free of them and stumbled over to James. Her hands came across something that she didn't recognize, a cloak of some sort that was invisible even to her own eyes. Perhaps, when she cursed him she'd done something to that too. She covered the invisible James with it, earning more weird looks from her friends, and then obediently headed back with them.
She would deal with James in the morning. Right now, she thought, as she slipped into sleep, she was exhausted.
Rumors spread fast at Hogwarts, and by the next morning people all over Hogwarts were hearing the most outrageous story about the Head Girl. At the Gryffindor table, one gossipy witness was determined to get people to believe what she had actually seen with her very own eyes.
"She was drunk! I'm telling you, she was definitely drunk."
"Lily Evans? The Head Girl? Jenn, you can't be serious!"
"But I am serious! Lily Evans came in last night so wasted! She couldn't even stand up straight."
"You're lying."
"Taylor, I swear it's the truth! I saw Sirius, Mary and Diane come in with her last night. She was out cold. And they were even saying she was drunk!" the brunette confessed to her friend adamantly.
"Are you sure it was Lily, Jenn? We've known Lily for like seven years, and she isn't the type of person to go crazy and get completely trashed like that," her friend said, shaking her head.
"She's certainly not," Lily Evans said, coming up behind the two girls. The two girls turned around startled, and Lily gave them a sweet smile.
"Good morning, Taylor, Jenn." Lily let the notes drop a little bit as her sweet smile faltered when she glanced at Jenn. Jenn was James' current girlfriend and Lily had a thing for hating any girl that was currently with James, especially one that had just been gossiping about her.
One would think Lily should join James' fan club. She certainly would get along with the other girls who also hated any girl that was with James.
"Lily, what a nice surprise! We were just talking about how you came in last night a little⦠tipsy," a cold voice was followed by the sound of cruel laughter. Lily whipped around to see Serverus Snape.
"Word travels fast doesn't it," Snape observed, grinning. Lily sent a glare at Jenn who was already making an exit under her watchful gaze.
"Honestly, Snape, I never thought you were one for gossip," Lily said, tilting her head and crossing her arms over her chest.
"I only like hearing the truth," he said slyly. "Especially when the truth concerns a certain colleague of mine. I just want to inform everyone else of one of our top student's hangover," Snape drawled.
"Ahh, misinformation often falls into that small brain of yours. No wonder why you were once considered to be a squib," Lily shot back.
She didn't feel like pursuing the topic and instead sat down at the Gryffindor table beside Mary who had just arrived along with Diane. For one moment there was silence, as Lily wondered how to bring up the topic of her being supposedly drunk last night.
"How's my favorite Slimy Git today!" someone called after Snape.
"Sirius always lets everyone know when he's awake," Diane said, dishing out some toast onto her plate.
"Not the quiet type is he?" Mary chuckled with a glance at Sirius, who was now rushing up to Snape with a big grin on his face.
"Buddy old git, how have you been? Your hair looks nice. Have you started washing it monthly instead of yearly?" Sirius' voice carried all the way across the room.
Diane shook her head and took a bite out of her toast as Remus arrived at the table, throwing himself down across from them.
"What's the rush? It's only Binn's class," Lily said, watching as Remus began to shovel toast in his mouth.
"Can't talk now." Munch. Munch. "Got to" Munch. Munch. "get to the library." Lily made a face and backed away as toast crumbs spread all over the place.
"Okay, seems self-explanatory to me. No need to say more," Lily said, brushing some toast crumbs off of her robes.
"'Morning everyone," Sirius greeted them cheerfully, plopping himself down beside Remus.
"What's with the cheery greeting and the early arrival at the breakfast table?" Mary asked. Sirius and the other Marauders were often late sleepers. This was due to the fact that they chose to sleep in the day rather than at night. Pranks, and food raids, and secret trips that the girls didn't know about were better at night when it was dark, and Sirius had a better chance of setting his detention record.
"No reason," Sirius said, shrugging.
"You sound like Lily," Diane said suspiciously.
"After she's done something to James," Mary finished. They broke into laughter. Lily grinned proudly.
"That's right. I'm the girl who does stuff to James Potter," Lily announced. The others just laughed harder as James' fan club, who was sitting nearby, looked at her with wide eyes.
"He's doing stuff with her!" one fan club member gasped.
Another fan club member broke into tears.
"All this time they've secretly been doing "stuff" and just acting like they hated each other!" She wept. Downtrodden and giving Lily evil glares, they went to the library to deal with this new threat and hold the weekly "James Potters Fan Club" meeting.
"Yep, that's me," Lily said, beaming. Diane slid off of her seat onto the floor laughing even harder. The others weren't faring very well either. They looked like their ribs were about to break as Mary ducked beneath the table to control herself.
Lily looked at them all perplexed. Then she realized with a mortifying look upon her face why they were all laughing uncontrollably.
"Oh, you guys. You know I didn't mean it that way!" She said staring at them. But they just continued to laugh.
"You're unbelievable!" Lily sighed, throwing up her hands and standing up. She grabbed her books. Shaking her head, she walked away from the table.
"I, Lily Evans, doing stuff with James Potter? Over my dead body!" she spat. "That'll be the day when I come to my senses and drop dead. But not before I use that killing curse on J-" Lily trailed off, suddenly realizing what she had somehow forgotten.
"Oh, my gosh!" she giggled. She took off at a run, nearly knocking over a group of first year girls in the process.
"Where's she going in such a hurry?" Mary asked.
"Beats me," Sirius said, shoveling more food into his mouth.
"Where's James?" Diane asked, suddenly getting a panic look upon her face.
The four met each other's gaze.
"Oh, no!" Diane gasped.
"James!" They all said in unison.
Before you could say Quidditch, the four had gathered their books and took off after the red head.
"Where'd she go?" Remus asked Sirius. Sirius was craning over the heads of a group of Hufflepuffs that were moving with the speed equivalent to that of a very elderly snail.
"Don't know," Sirius replied, seeing no sign at all of the red head who had somehow gotten away.
"You'd think with that color hair it would be like a sign "Here I am!" Remus grumbled.
"Hope James' life doesn't depend on this," Diane said, smiling as she walked along at a leisurely pace.
"Don't get your hopes up. I'm pretty sure James isn't about to let Lily get the best of him," Mary said, returning the smile.
How wrong they were.
Lily ran down the empty corridor, listening to her own footsteps echo behind her. She stopped and glanced around. It had been right around here. She took a few more steps. Was he still invisible?
Abruptly, her foot caught on something and she fell flat on her face.
"Ouch!" Lily cursed and scrambled to her feet, trying to find what she tripped over and gather her books together.
"Well, if you look at that. Somebody had an invisibility cloak and didn't tell me," Lily chuckled, moving the cloak off of James.
Lily wasn't surprised to notice that his hair had changed back and all of the curses were more or less gone. A few still had left traces upon his skin but Lily didn't bother to do any of the counter curses. It just slipped her mind.
What she was surprised to find was that James Potter was curled up, sound asleep and snoring softly.
"Aww, little James is fast asleep," Lily snickered but she did think that he looked a little cute like that. Too bad he couldn't stay like that forever.
She pulled out her wand from her pocket and pointed it at the innocently sleeping James. Luckily this time no hexes came out.
"Enervate!"
James opened his eyes. He groaned and sat up very slowly and stiffly. Rubbing his back and muttering under his breath, he looked around the room trying to figure out what where he was and why he was there.
"Did you have a nice nap?" Lily asked, sarcastically. She folded her arms across her chest with her wand still out just in case.
"Huh?" James glanced around, looking a little bewildered until his eyes focused on Lily. Then he looked at her.
Lily felt slightly taken aback. James didn't glare at her, or scowl, or narrow his eyes. He didn't laugh, or smile. All he did was look her over from head to toe, and then he raised his eyes back to hers, and he stared. It sent a chill down Lily's spine. Something wasn't right.
Perhaps, he was planning some new scheme to get back at her. But Lily still couldn't rule out the fact that was the most obvious. James was looking at her in a very odd way. Almost as if he didn't...
"Lily! There you are!" Remus cried, panting.
Sirius, Mary and Diane came scrambling to a stop behind him, all breathing heavily.
"Oh, and look you have James with you," Sirius sighed in relief. "And he's still breathing! Excellent!"
But Lily wasn't listening. She was watching James. Suddenly, she got to her feet and backed away with a scared look upon her face.
"Lily?" Diane asked.
She and the others were now very frightened and were watching James and Lily closely because they were acting very strangely. They had never behaved like this before. There hadn't been a single insult or curse thrown in the last thirty seconds, in fact it appeared that they hadn't said or done anything to each other, which was ten times more terrifying. Something was very wrong.
Lily backed up against the wall and stared at James from the other side of the room. He had that perplexed look upon his face as if he didn't remember her. But what was far worse, much worse than that, was the new light that was in James' brown eyes.
She had only seen it once before. And that had been when James had been crazy about Diane.
"Lily," he said in a soft voice, finally remembering her name.
Lily's eyes widened.
"What have I done?" she whispered.
A/N: James wakes up! I noticed though that a lot of you are now on Lily's side after the flashback. Memories play a key role in this story! You'll see why... The next chapter is coming soon I promise! Please Review!
