Chapter 7
"Miss Evans can you sit up dear?" Lily groggily opened her eyes to see eight floating heads around her. She groaned and closed them, having been hit by a sudden wave of lightheadedness.
"Lils, it's okay. Come on, open your eyes, Lils." Lily felt a hand touch her cheek affectionately, recognizing the voice as Lucius', she figured the hand must belong to him as well.
Lily screwed up her face and forced her eyes open. She waited for them to focus and then recognized the eight heads, no longer seemingly floating. The school nurse, Madame Chevalure, was to her left and Lucius was opposite to her, on Lily's right. Then, crowded around the bed were Mae, Gina, Toni, Remus, Sirius, and Bryant, all wearing worried expressions. Lily thought she saw a flash of black hair leaving the Hospital Wing, but she couldn't be sure.
"Miss Evans, I'm going to need you to sit up." With a little help from Lucius, Lily propped herself up against the headboard of her bed. She attempted a smile at her friends, but it came out as more of a grimace. "Dink this, it will make you feel better." Lily took the cup that Madame Chevalure was holding and downed the disgusting potion. Seemingly satisfied, the nurse scuttled away.
"What happened? And why do I feel like shit?"
"You don't remember?" Mae asked in a worried tone.
"Umm ... not really. I remember being in the forest ... and a stag." Remus, Sirius, and Bryant exchanged nervous looks, but they went unnoticed. "Then I remember Lucius ... he was picking me up ... said it was going to be okay ... and he was taking me to the Hospital Wing." Lily rubbed her temples trying to calm down the migraine she felt was soon going to surface.
"We don't really know what happened either, Lily. You got lost in the forest somehow and we started to look for you. We heard you scream and then we found you on the front steps of the school an hour later." Mae looked extremely shaken; her eyes were red and puffy and her hair was in disarray. Bryant had a comforting arm around her waist. Neither Gina nor Toni were in much better shape. Toni had a small, partly dried, stream of blood escaping a large cut on her left cheek. Her wavy dirty blonde hair, which had been previously held up by a clip, was now falling about her face and shoulders, matted and messy. Sirius was shooting her worried glances, but was not making any move to comfort her. Gina was clutching Remus' hand tightly and he had his other arm wrapped around her waist. The twinkle that had previously been in her eyes was replaced by a scared, anxious look.
I can't imagine I look much better, Lily thought. She reached up to touch her own hair and sighed as she felt the dirty mass that was her hair.
"You feel like shit, as you so eloquently put it, because you fainted. And however you got to the steps, you managed to bruise a rib or two. A migraine's to be expected after fainting, according to Madame Chevalure," Remus explained. He looked the most composed of everyone, but Lily could still see the lines of worry that had creased across his brow.
Lily sighed and said, "I think I'd like to sleep." Everyone nodded sympathetically.
"You guys should get some sleep yourselves. I'll stay here."
"But, Lucius, when are you going to sleep?" Mae touched Lucius lightly on the arm, their previous discord apparently forgotten.
"I'll be okay. Go ahead back to your dormitories." Lucius smiled and motioned towards the door. Reluctantly, Remus, Gina, Toni, Sirius, Mae, and Bryant all filed out of the Hospital Wing. Lucius looked back at Lily with a worried expression and, cupping her face in his hand, rubbed her cheek with his thumb. "You gave us a right good scare, Lils." Lily smiled weakly at her boyfriend. "Try and get some sleep okay?" She sighed and nodded, lying back down on the bed. Lucius pulled a chair next to her and sat down, taking Lily's hand in his.
...
A huge monster ... growling. Crouches down, going to attack. Fear. A large stag, with brown eyes. So much like his eyes. He tries save me ... the stag. But it's not working. He's drifting away ... but the monster stays ...
"Lily, wake up. Lily, its okay!" Lily woke up with a start and opened her eyes to see the very worried face of Lucius Malfoy. "It's okay, it was just a dream." She let out a sob as Lucius enveloped her in a warm hug. She laid her head on his chest and sobbed into him, wetting his robes with her delicate tears.
"I was in the forest ... it was going to ..." Lily trailed off as more sobs wracked her thin frame.
"It's okay, Lils. I'm here. I'm not going to let anything hurt you." Lucius kissed her head and rubbed her back comfortingly. Lily fell back to sleep a few minutes later, only to be woken an hour later to eat breakfast. Shortly after she and Lucius had eaten, he stood up and put on his cloak. "Unfortunately, I do have classes today. But, since Mae has a free first period, she should be here in a few minutes. You'll be okay, right?"
"Yes, Lucius. I'll be fine. As soon as that old bat lets me out of here, that is." Lucius chuckled and kissed her forehead before striding quickly out of the Hospital Wing.
Gryffindor Common Room
"Lily! You're back!" Sirius jumped up and ran to Lily, throwing his arms around her in a huge bear hug.
"OW! Sirius!" Sirius jumped back as if something had bitten him.
"Oh my god! Lily! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you! Are you okay?!" Lily chuckled and patted Sirius on the shoulder.
"It's fine, Sirius. But you seem to forget that my ribs are still bruised. Take it a little gentler next time, okay?" Sirius nodded at Lily with a scared expression as the rest of her friends came up to her.
"Feeling better, Lily Flower?" Lily was a bit startled to see James; she hadn't seen him since she yelled at him. But she smiled warmly nonetheless.
"Yeah, I am, thanks." He returned the smile sheepishly. Luckily, Madame Chevalure had let Lily out of the Hospital Wing the day following the incident in the forest. Mae, Gina, Toni, and Remus came up and hugged her gently, expressing their happiness that she was not only okay, but back with them as well. "I don't know about you lot but I'm starving!"
Remus chuckled and said, "Well you know them," he gestured towards the rest of the Marauders "they've got a whole stash of food in our dormitory. Come up and have a look." Lily smiled and followed Remus up the boys' dormitory stairs. It was late already, so dinner was over and she didn't particularly like the idea of trudging down to the kitchens for some food.
James sighed as he watched Lily disappear up the stairs. Mae, Gina, and Toni exchanged knowing looks, said their good nights to the boys, turned and left for their own dormitory. James, Sirius, and Bryant flopped down on the couch; the Common Room was deserted, save for the three Marauders.
"So Lily said something about a stag." Sirius nudged James in the rib with his elbow playfully.
"Don't Sirius."
"Look, James, we all know you're going to end up telling us what happened. So why don't you tell us now and save us all the energy." Bryant smirked at Sirius as James rolled his eyes.
"There's nothing to tell. She thinks Lucius saved her and ..." James sighed, but forced himself to go on, "and that's what she would want. I just complicate things."
"I don't care what the sodding hell she thinks, Prongs. What really happened?" Sirius cocked an eyebrow and James raked his hands through his hair, making it stick up more than it already was.
"I turned into a stag and found her. Then she got on my back and I carried her out of the forest. Set her down at the front steps of the school and that's all there is to it. She remembers Lucius helping her and I'm perfectly fine with letting her believe that he did." James sighed sadly; in all honesty, he really wanted to tell Lily what had truly happened. But that would complicate things even more than they already were. He wanted Lily's happiness more than his own, and if that meant her being with Lucius Malfoy, then so be it.
"You're not going to tell her?" Bryant asked, well it was more of a statement than a question. He knew very well what was going on in James' head; after being close friends with someone for four years, you get to know how their mind works.
"Lucius and I made a truce ... I'm not aloud to try to impress her, or in other words, I need to leave her alone, and he promised not to do anything to hurt her. So I think telling her classifies as breaking that truce." Sirius snorted unbelievingly.
"I can't believe you made a deal with that git!"
"What did you want me to do Padfoot? It was either learn to be civil to Lucius or lose Lily, even as a friend." James sighed and shook his head as he stood up. He heard Lily laugh in the dormitory stairs and saw her descend a few moments later.
"Goodnight you three." Lily walked over and kissed each of them on the cheek, making James' heartbeat increase to an unhealthy level. "I wanted to say thanks for being there for my girls you know?" With that, Lily smiled and walked up the stairs to her dormitory.
"I'm going to bed," James said dryly. Without a backwards glance at either of his friends, James proceeded up the stairs.
A/N: Hello all! Sorry for the long wait! Many natural phenomenons have been keeping me from posting this chapter; so blame it on nature not me! Anywho, isn't James such a sweetie?! I know you all hate Lucius (the stream of death threats is pretty steady), but I promise that he serves a purpose! So become one with the calmness and try not to retch when he and Lily snog, hehe! Thanks a bunch for reading, but you can make me lots of the happy by reviewing!
Dans-girl-4ever: LOL, I'm glad you liked it. I know, it makes me a tad queasy to write those scenes ... but its part of the plot, so I trudge through it. I've read your story ... LOL, sorry this took so long to post! How was this?
Shoe Malfoy: Holy Mother of Moose! LOL, I was afraid you had dropped off the face of the earth or something! Hehe, jk. I'm so flattered. Lucius' darker side won't really come out, for reasons known to only myself! Mwahaha! But anywho, how was this chapter?
Daleia: Well, yeah, you're supposed to hate Diggory. And I love Lily's temper! It's going to come out a lot in later chapters! Well, you know that the Nile isn't just a river in Egypt (haha, that was cheesy!). I know, nice Lucius is hard to picture, but there is a purpose! LMAO! I'm sorry that I grossed you out so much with that scene! Hehe it burns the eyes! It won't get better in regards to that for a while, sorry!
ATTENTION: Alrighty, so here's my little tid bit of advice if you readers would like some foreshadowy goodness. This won't really get explained in this fic, but take a look at chapter 14 of "Days" (my other fic). I will strongly suggest that you all read it later on down the road, but for now it's just a bit of foreshadowy goodness! And if you figure it out and leave the right answer in a review ... you will get kudo points!
Disclaimer: I feel pretty, oh so pretty, and witty and fun ... actually, I don't feel witty so you'll have to deal with this disclaimer being plain and simple: I don't own Harry Potter!