The Secrets They Keep
Girls' dorm, five a.m.
Lily woke up a split second before she was drenched with scalding water. At least she thought she woke up first because after a minute, the pain became so intense that she couldn't think of anything besides the fact that she was biting her tongue to keep from screaming.
Seconds later, just as the water was cooling, and Lily was starting to shiver, ice water fell from the ceiling, soaking Lily and her bed for the second time that morning. There was no doubt about it, she was truly shivering now and cursing James Potter with every fiber of her body.
Slowly, shaking from rage and chills, Lily reached over, found her wand, and dried off herself and her bed. However, that did nothing to halt the cold that was slowly seeping into her bones. She kept a firm grip on her wand as she made her way out of the dorm and down into the Common Room, and she wasn't surprised at all to see James sitting in front of the dead embers grinning up at her as she made her decent.
"Scalding water," she hissed as she neared him, her voice rising with every syllable. "You dumped scalding water on me! What the bloody hell are you trying to do, kill me?"
"Just wanted you to be on fire for the new year," James was answering as Sirus came down the stairs to see Lily gripping her wand tightly, ready to raise it at any second.
"Let me take that," he said running over to where the two had situated themselves. He gently eased Lily's wand out of her hand and cast a silencing charm around the two. Neither noticed but continued with their row.
"I only saw one of us on fire, and that was drenched pretty quickly," Lily had finished saying to James by the time all of Sirus' precautionary measures were in place.
"Well, that one's tradition," James answered.
"Yeah, lovely tradition: the girl who always had a cold the first day of school."
"If you know it's coming, Evans, why don't you protect against it."
"Because that'll really daunt you," Lily mumbled and began to walk away. "I'm going to salvage my sleep."
"Okay, just run away," James taunted, but the words had barely left his mouth when Lily turned around and elbowed him in the stomach. James was too stunned to retaliate, and Sirus just watched the change of events occur. It was the first time she had physically struck him.
"Why do you have to do this every year?" Sirus asked, as he and James began to walk up to their dormitory. "Doesn't it ever get old?"
"Does hexing Snape ever get old?" James questioned in return, and Sirus just shrugged.
"Remus is going to kill you."
"She won't tell him; she never tells anyone."
"Think there's a reason for that?" Sirus muttered under his breath, too low for James to hear him, while being pretty sure that Remus knew more than James gave him credit for. "I still think you were a little too hard on her."
"It's Evans, Sirus," James replied, his face suddenly hard. "It goes back too far."
Girls' dorm, same morning
Lily got in the shower, still shaking with silent rage, after her first confrontation of the year with James. For a few minutes, down in the Common Room, she had been warm, but now, always from the battlefield, she could feel that bone-numbing chill.
Since it was so early, Lily was able to spend a good thirty minutes under the hot water without anyone knocking angrily on the door. However, the water was not quite as hot as she would have liked considering the situation, but she was having trouble staying under the water once it was heated past a certain temperature. So she got out, dried herself off, then slowly got into her uniform. Seeing as it was only six o'clock, Lily laid back in her bed and wrapped herself under the covers to see if she could recapture her lost heat. Unfortunately, it didn't work very well, and in another half an hour, Alice and Mary were beginning to stir.
"Lily, are you okay?" Alice asked, coming over to where Lily was lying around seven o'clock. "You're usually up by now."
"I'm fine, Alice," Lily replied, opening her eyes and looking up at Alice. "I've been up for about two hours. Whenever you two want to go down to breakfast, I'm ready."
Soon enough, Alice and Mary were ready so the three girls made their way out of their dorm. In the Common Room, they met up with James, Sirus, Remus, and Peter who joined them walking to the Great Hall.
"Did you not sleep well, last night, Lil?" Alice was asking as they were leaving the Gryffindor Tower. "You were up awfully early this morning."
Sirus glanced over at Lily to see her reply, as did Remus. The latter had no clue what had happened this morning, but seeing as it was the same thing every year, he was pretty sure of what had transpired.
"I never sleep well on the first night back," Lily replied, trying to ignore the looks she was getting. "It's just the same thing as ever year."
"Are you sure you're okay?" Alice asked again, obviously concerned. "You have red patches all over your skin. I didn't want to say anything, but they look really painful."
Lily reached up to touch her face, wincing as her fingers came in contact with her cheek. She had forgotten that the scalding water James had woken her up with had left its mark, and she had hoped it would have disappeared by the time breakfast had started.
"I must have taken too hot of a shower this morning," Lily answered, but her voice faltered suddenly.
Whether or not Alice noticed, she said nothing farther on the matter and instead caught up to James, Peter, and Mary to join their conversation. Lily was left with Sirus and Remus who looked like they had been waiting for her to be free.
"Are you sure you're okay, Lils?" Remus asked, wrapping his arms around Lily, urging her to lean on him. "It looks really painful." He brushed his finger lightly down her nose, the watched sadly as she winced once more.
"It was just James' first day back prank," Lily answered, putting more of her weight on her boyfriend. "Dumping water on me at five in the morning."
Remus hugged her tightly, and Sirus glanced over to see if Lily would say what James had done differently this year. However, Lily stayed silent, and like Alice, Remus didn't press the matter either. He cared passionately about Lily, but James was one of his best mates who found out about him being a werewolf and went against the law to help him out. So he tried to remain neutral. It was difficult, especially when tempers flared on both sides. Depending on what he saw and where he was, he said different things to try to bring tempers back down to normal. Usually, it worked well enough to get things back to a status quo. He would confront James about this particular incident in a few minutes, when he was free, but for now, he was supporting Lily.
About a floor above the Great Hall, James drifted away from the other three. Remus squeezed Lily and began to walk toward the other boy.
"I'll be back; I'm going to talk to James."
Lily kept walking, trying to ignore the fact that Sirus was still watching her out of the corner of his eyes. Well, she wasn't going to give into his maddening silence; if he wanted her to talk, he would have to ask first – something she dreadfully hope that he wouldn't do. Unfortunately, Sirus almost never complied with Lily's hoped expectations.
"They know, and you still won't tell them? I don't understand that, but you won't even tell Remus about the new development in the usual events? Lily, why the act still? It doesn't make any sense."
Lily was silent for a minute before she answered. "I don't expect you to understand, Sirus. It goes back a long time."
Sirus shook his head. Lily and James sounded so much a like sometimes. He really didn't understand what happened between the two of them, and soon enough, he would find out. Soon may not mean within the next month, but he was sure it would be solved eventually.
