Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story. This is all copyright of Rowling and I am in no way making money off this.

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James sat in the Great Hall slowly eating his dinner while observing the people around him. He kept glancing up at the doors casually to see if Lily was going to come. He was really starting to get worried. Apparently his casual glancing didn't go unnoticed by Remus.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

James looked at him confusingly.

"What's a penny?"

"Nevermind. It's a muggle expression. What's going on in that head of yours?"

"Yeah Prongs. You've been quiet during dinner and didn't even laugh during Herb. when I started dancing with a broom and ended up hitting Professor Sprout over the head with the mop. Of course the fact that she lost balance and ended up falling on top of Peter was extremely funny. Mind you I have no idea how the mop got there." He said wrinkling his brow "Oh well anyways what were we talking about?"

"We were trying to figure out what is wrong with Prongs, you dolt."

"Nothing is wrong guys, I'm just thinking."

"About?" Remus inquired.

"The best way to get Snape to go out with me, duh." James had of course, due to his expert acting skills, said that all with a calm expression.

"Oy, never knew that men and grease was your thing but to each his own." Sirius said.

"I was joking you idiot."

"Were you really? Yes I supposed you were. How astonishing!" Sirius replied looking slightly surprised.

"You've been reading that book again, haven't you? I thought I told you not to read that book before you go to bed. You always end up acting like that damn lizard in there the next day." Remus said seriously.

"I didn't know you could read, Padfoot. What book exactly?" James said astounded.

"It's calling Talking with Dragons- hey wait a minute… There was an insult in there right?"

"I didn't hear one did you Prongs?"

"No Moony I didn't detect one either."

Sirius looked back and forth between his two best friends and said "Rrriiiggghhhhtttt. And my name is Albus Dumbledore."

"Why hello old chap nice to see you. How are the children?" James said comically with a slight nod of the head.

"Yes yes how's the wife? Still fairing well I hope. What with you being at least 200 years old and everything." Remus said with a slight nod of the head also.

"And people think I'm mental. Geesh. I need to find new friends."

"We're mental? What about you? You were running around with a bloody cape the other day calling yourself the conqueror of all cats. If anything you're mental." James said huffily.

"Ah Fruit fruity fruiter cake cakey caker. I have my moments."

Now it was Remus's and James's turn to go "Rrriiigghhhttt."

Just then Arabella popped up out of nowhere scaring the shit out of Sirius, who promptly fell out of his chair.

Arabella started giggling uncontrollably.

"A little help here, dear. As nice as it is to see your knickers and everything, I WOULD LIKE TO GET UP!"

For that lovely comment Arabella stepped right on his stomach while James and Remus started cracking up. She sat down in Sirius's seat after rubbing her particularly sharp heel into Sirius. He got up and sat next to her, clutching his stomach.

"You're going to be the death of me woman." He growled.

"And you still love me. For some reason I don't see the problem. And I can list the reasons why."

"You wouldn't da-."

"One: the world would be saner. Two: the intelligence of the school would be greatly improved… Mumble"

Arabella had been ticking the reasons off on her fingers until Sirius had covered her mouth with his hand.

The only thing he didn't anticipate was…

"EEEWWWWW! THAT'S SICK!"

Sirius screamed to the Hall, earning a lot of looks. By the way he was furiously wiping his hand off on his jumper and her smug expression; one would assume that Arabella had just licked his hand and who knows where that's been.

"Anyways. What's up?"Arabella asked calmly after the guys had calmed down.

"Nothing much. Eating mostly, and in the case of Sirius, being brain dead." James replied boredly.

"Hey I am not brain dead; I just chose not to use it."

"You do realize that you just insulted yourself right?" Moony asked.

"Of course I did."

"Dear just be quiet. Anyways guys I've been thinking-."

"Oh Great. That's never good when Arabella actually thinks. The world is coming to an end." Sirius flew under the table and started to shake back and forth.

Arabella sighed and pulled Sirius out from under the table.

"No dear that's only when you think which never happens I might add."

Sirius huffed loudly.

"BACK to what I was saying. I've been thinking and I was wondering what we were going to do about Lily, like how are we going to help her?"

"What are you talking about? Why the hell would we help Evans after the way she treated you?" James exclaimed.

"Guys I have forgiven her about that because the other night after it all happened and I went upstairs to go to bed. Well she came out of the bathroom and was laying on her bed. I wanted to see what she was doing so I watched her through a crack in my curtain and she leaned over and"

"And you got a great view of her chest? Tell me what size is she? A, B, or C?" Sirius asked pervertly.

"SIRIUS BLACK! Do you ever want to have kids again?"

Sirius nodded meekly.

"Then I suggest you get your small brain out of that gutter this instant. And let me continue with my story."

Arabella at that time looked exactly like Professor McGonagall, which is a scary thought to your boyfriend.

"Yes Ma'am!" Sirius said with a salute.

Arabella rolled her eyes and continued, "Well she leaned over and pulled something out from under her bed. She sat there for the longest time and was staring at it. Then she started crying and put it up. After that she got up and went to the Commons to read, I presume. And well, see, I went over to her bed and well I looked under her bed and I found this photo…"

"Precious Arabella 'the teacher's pet' 'the angel' invaded someone else's privacy? I'm surprised at you." James put his hand to his chest and looked shocked.

"No guys ugh. Just listen to me. I looked at the picture and it was a picture of two girls. Do you know that Alana chick that was always with Lily?"

"Yes I do. She helped me with some potions homework once. She was very smart. But it seems that she didn't show up this year. I don't know why though." Moony said.

The other two nodded so she knew that they knew who she was talking about.

"Well it was of her and this beautiful girl with long red hair about the length of Lily's and these gorgeous emerald eyes. She really resembled Lily so I thought she must be her cousin or someone related to Lily. So to see if Lily wrote the names down on the back I flipped it over and I think it said 'Lily Iris Evans and Alana Camille Bundt. Best Friends forever.' Or something like that. So it was Lily. And"

"That's touching and all but why did you forgive her?"

Sirius interrupted.

"Because she had started crying and showed that something did affect her and before she yelled at me, she had showed so much emotion and she looked like she was going to tell me then she closed up like a clam. And there was no way she would talk to me. I think she's afraid to get close to me and I don't know why but all I know is that it's going to take a lot more to get me to stop trying to help her. So are you guys in or out?"

"In or out on what exactly?" Remus asked stupidly.

"Trying to being Lily's friend, you idiot. And you call yourself the smart one."

"I guess then I am in." Remus replied.

"Sure, why not?" James said with a shrug.

"No I don't want to know her anymore. I wanted to help her at first but not after what she did to you." Sirius said stubbornly.

Apparently Sirius had taken Lily yelling at Arabella a little too hard.

"If I have forgiven her then so should you, I overreacted that night. And you're overreacting right now."

Sirius sighed, "Will it make you happy?"

Arabella nodded excitedly.

"Fine then I'm in."

"Okay then see I had this idea…"

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(Back with Lily and Alana)

Then it was Alana's turn.

"Well I'll start with when I went home. Shall I? When I arrived home… I was immediately slammed into the wall by my father. He started screaming and shouting about something or the other. I think he couldn't find his socks or was it underwear? Oh well. He blamed me for it though I hadn't been home in forever. I kind of tuned him out for as long as I could until he was practically spitting in my face which I must say is extremely gross. I started trying to wipe it off my face and he somehow thought I was mocking him, which I was in a way, and he decided that for my "sheer nerve" that I would get to test out his newest invention. Oh joy. Well…"

~*~Memory~*~

She was literally being dragged down the stairs to the basement.

A couple of times she found herself wishing he would just fall and hopefully kill himself. But alas he never missed a step though he did hit her body on the stairs as much as he could. With his hand around her throat and the other pinning her arms together it was kind of hard for her to balance herself no matter how hard she fought.

At one point she did manage to break free by shoving her heels into the stairs as hard as she could. That surprised him and got her loose for a few seconds. She started to run on the stairs and was almost at the top when her father recovered his senses and grabbed her left leg out from under her which nailed her chin on the top stair. Bleeding and bruised she was yanked down the stairs by the one leg.

When she got to the bottom and all the dots cleared from her vision, she saw just how much time her father had on his hands. He had built his own special torture chamber equipped with a rack, knives, chains, and almost anything that would hurt. He also had the courtesy to build a jail cell for her.

"How nice of you father. This is going to be a lovely welcome home party. I'm kind of disappointed in you. No hot irons this time? Whips? Tisk tisk tisk. I thought you could do better."

She sure pushed the line with that one.

"Shut up you stupid little bitch."

And he promptly backhanded her.

*OKAY IMPORTANT HERE! If you don't like torture and graphics then just skip this whole next part. I got some ideas off some sites for torturing and they even bothered me. I don't want to bother any of you so please don't read if you don't think it's wise. I'll tell you when to read again just look for big letters. Sorry*

He then started his torture session.

First he strapped her to the rack and turned the wheel so her arms and legs felt like they were practically being ripped out of the socket. Her muscles felt like they were on fire.

'Okay you can do this. Don't give him the satisfaction of hearing you scream. You can do this; just think about Lily and Hogwarts and that extremely hot Remus Lupin. Okay deep breaths. You're fine. Oh Mother f'er.'

He had picked up the chain and was smacking her with it all over. Her face felt like it was being shattered and she knew he at least snapped one rib by the sound of it.

She had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out when he picked up the knives and started carving on her.

Blood was pouring from her in alarming amounts but yet she still wouldn't cry out.

She was not going to beg for him to stop because that just fueled his sick pleasure in this.

Consciousness was slowly losing and then coming back at the worst moments like when he wrapped cloth around her mouth and nostrils so that she could barely breathe, and poured a steady stream of water into her mouth. The water ran down the cloth to the back of her throat, so she had no chance of breathing. She experienced the same agony as a person about to die. When the cloth was taken out so she could scream and he could continue his torture, it was covered with water and blood.

She started coughing and gasping for air.

'That was certainly new. He must be brushing up on ways to hurt me.'

And those were her last thoughts before she was unconscious.

She spent the rest of her time until now in the jail cell without food and occasionally water.

~*~Memory Ends~*~

*OKAY YOU CAN READ AGAIN! Thanks for being so patient and understanding. And for those of you who did read it, it was really graphic right? Sorry about that.*

"I know I spent time in the cell but I can't remember what happens after he took me out of it and I haven't had a chance to gauge the damage yet. But judging by your reaction it's not good."

Alana had been gazing out the window while she was telling her story and when she glanced back at Lily she saw that she was crying.

"Aww Lils don't cry for me sweetie. Don't worry about it. Come here."

The two teenage girls hugged each other and after all she had been through and the times when anyone would have cried and she didn't, Alana finally cried sitting there with her best friend in the whole world knowing she was safe. For now.

And that was all that mattered.

They cried and carried on for some time until Lily finally decided that Alana was going to the Hospital Wing whether she liked it or not.

On the way there Lily thought of something.

"Alana?"

"Yes?"

"How'd you get out?"

"You don't want to know."

"Oh okay."

And it was left at that for now.

They finally made it to the Hospital Wing after being slowed down by Alana's injuries.

"Madam Pomfrey? Madam Pomfrey?"

"Yes dear how can I help—what happened?"

She exclaimed upon seeing Alana.

Alana just focused her eyes on the floor.

"She fell down the stairs, Madam. She was running and she slipped and you get my picture." Lily supplied.

The nurse nodded although she clearly didn't accept that excuse.

"Well come over here Ms. Bundt and let's see all the damage."

They closed the curtain and a couple of times Lily could hear Madam Pomfrey gasp and she did scream once when she saw all the cuts.

After 20 minutes they reemerged and Alana walked out. Bruises still intact.

"What about the bruises?" Lily asked.

"They have to heal on their own. I don't have the supplies here to fix it. This young lady had 3 broken ribs, a broken wrist, and so many other injuries I'm shocked she could even breathe."

"Oh well we better get going then. We're kind of hungry." Lily said.

"Yeah hungry."

"Bye."

The two scurried out the door as fast as they could.

Lily glanced at her watch.

"We still have 15 minutes of dinner. You have to be hungry."

"I am. Well let's hurry."

"How do you feel?"

"A lot better though I don't think she bought your story."

"I know but it was the best I could do. You ready to face them all?"

"Why the hell not? I lived through that; this should be a piece of cake."

Lily pushed open the door and stepped through.

"Come on Alana."

With that the Duo walked in the Hall.

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(Marauders)

"And that's the plan."

She finished with a flourish.

"It might actually work." Moony said.

James furrowed his brow in concentration.

"I think you're on to something there Arabella."

"What do you think Honey?" Arabella asked.

"It'd work if she actually cared. But she doesn't and I doubt she ever will. She's even more closed up then before when that Bundt chick was around."

"It's Alana. And yes we know that but she deserves a chance. And so help me if you don't give her one I'll."

With that she finished the sentence in Sirius's ear. Whatever she said had to be bad because he turned a ghostly pale.

"You wouldn't." He exclaimed.

"Oh I would. Trust me I would."

He gulped nervously. No one could find out about his strange obsession with playing with Barbie's and his unhealthy craving for anything and everything pink.

"Okay let's give her that chance. When are we going to put said plan into action?"

"I don't know yet. I still have to iron out the details here and there."

"That's great can we eat now?" James exclaimed.

Arabella sighed.

"Yes you can eat now."

With that the three growing, handsome, and may I add sexy, young men dug into their dinners.

Towards the end of their second helping the doors to the Great Hall pushed open and in walked Lily.

A few people looked up but then back to their plates when they saw who it was.

More people looked up when they heard Lily's voice say "Come on Alana."

Alana Camille Bundt was back in town and she was covered with bruises.

Some Slytherins actually had the nerve to snicker until they met her eyes and then they were so quiet you couldn't get a word out of them if you tried.

Professor Chapman took it upon himself to stand up and say, "What's the meaning of this? Why weren't you here at the beginning of school young lady and why do you look like that?"

That got a few laughs until Alana turned and looked him straight in the eyes and showed him the birdie.

"Young lady how dare you? I never--"

"Will you shut up you old grease ball?"

Alana barked out.

"That's detention and twenty points from Gryffindor."

"Oh look I'm shaking in my boots. Whoppie-fuckin-do."

"Come on Alana let's go sit down and eat."

"Fine."

With that they walked to the end of the table and sat down.

Alana piled her plate high with food and was about to dig in until she noticed all the eyes on her.

"What the hell are you looking at? Eat your dinner. NOW!" With that they all turned back to their food.

Lily shook her head and started on her plate.

"So do you need me to wake you up in the morning?"

"No I got it Alana." Said a new voice. The voice of James Potter.

It seems the whole Marauder crew was coming to join them at their little isolated spot.

Lily was in front of Alana and she looked up and caught her eye and raised her eyebrow.

Remus sat to the right of Alana while James sat the left of Lily. Arabella then sat to Lily's right while Sirius sat the Alana's left.

"What do we owe for this pleasurable company?" Lily hissed.

Alana was unnoticeably squirming in her seat by Remus and kept stealing glances at him.

Unnoticeable that was for everyone but Lily.

'Hmm. I'm going to have to find out about that later.'

They sat in silence for a moment until Arabella spoke up.

"How are you Alana?"

"Perfectly fine thanks."

"But you look horri—" James started.

"I said I was fine." Alana grinded out.

"Where were you at the beginning of the year? I've been needing help with my potions for months now."

"My father wouldn't let me come back to school." She said darkly.

"But I'm sure Alana would be more than happy to tutor you tomorrow. And to have you catch her up with her work. Right Alana?"

Lily said finally getting the gist of why Alana was squirming. She liked him.

"Yeah sure. Whatever."

"Okay I'll find you then."

"Well since she's busy, what are you doing tomorrow Lily?" Arabella asked innocently.

"I'm busy all day. I have my punishment and tutoring." Lily said venomously.

"Oh." Arabella looked visibly put-out.

"Well we have to go now. She has to get up early and I'm exhausted."

"Bye."

They all chorused. Lily and Arabella left after that.

They got up to their dorm and got changed for bed. After crawling into their own beds and snuggling up, Alana glanced over at Lily's bed.

"Hey Lils."

"Hmm?"

"Are you cold?"

"Somewhat. Why?"

"Here."

Alana threw Lily her second big feather blanket.

"Thanks." Lily said thankfully.

"Goodnight Lily."

"Night Alana."

There was silence until Lily said, "Alana, I missed you."

"I missed you too Lily. I missed you too."

With that they drifted off into dreamless sleep.

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