Sorry for the wait, thanks for your patience, here is chapter 10. There is an explanation at the bottom of this chapter.
If there are spelling and grammatical errors within this please let me know. I haven't edited this properly but I will by tomorrow night. I just wanted to post it so you wouldn't have to wait any longer.
Disclaimer: All of the recognizable characters in this story are property of J.K. Rowling. The plot is mine and so are the characters Artemis West, Ivory Greenly, Professor Blithe, Professor Calder, Professor Ori and any other unknown characters.
The Previous Generation
Chapter 10: Finally Everything Is Returning to Normal
James groaned bringing his un-bandaged hand up to his aching head. What the hell had happen? Where was he and where was that stupid light coming from? James opened his hazel eyes slowly only to be blinded even more by bright lights which increased the throbbing in his head.
"James…" he heard someone call his name in a sweet but panicked voice. His eyes getting use to sudden lack of darkness allowed him to look around at his surroundings with his blurry vision.
"Yeah?" he whispered knowing immediately who the voice belonged to without having to see their face, not that he could really see anything but blurry figures anyway.
"I'm so glad you're awake…" Lily replied getting up from her chair beside his hospital bed and engulfing the injured boy into hug, forgetting for the moment that James was in that bed for a specific reason.
"I'm glad to see you too Lily, but could you may be save the tight squeezes for when I'm not lying in a hospital bed injured." James said through groans and sharp in takes of breath.
"Sorry," Lily apologized embarrassedly pulling away from him and sitting back in her chair.
"It's okay," the Head Boy replied as he carefully sat up in bed, avoiding further injury to his all ready bantered body. It did not help much that he still could not see well. As much as he loved it when the Head Girl showed any sign of affection towards him, he was still in a lot of pain, and he really could not remember why or how he even managed to land himself in the school infirmary in the first place. What he did remember was talking to Sirius as they flew around the quidditch pitch after winning the game then everything went black, leading him to wake up in the hospital wing.
"Do you want your glasses?" Lily asked noticing that he squinted his eyes when he looked at her.
"Yeah, it would probably be a big help," he answered squinting his eyes even more trying to get a clearer look at his surroundings.
Lily stood up from her chair and carefully leaned over James in order to get his glasses from the night stand on the other side of his bed. She picked them up and handed them to him before sitting down again.
"So what happened?" James asked setting his glasses rightly on his nose as his eye sight finally became clear.
"You don't remember?" Lily questioned confused.
"I remember talking with Sirius then darkness." James replied looking closely at the hand which was wrapped up with white cloth.
"You…um fell, about twenty feet to the ground." Lily answered. "You were hit with a bludger to the back of the head."
James instinctively brought both hands up to his head feeling around for any bumps or dents. He grunted closing his eyes tightly when he felt a large bump, the size of a goose egg, in the back of his head hiding under layers of hair. He dropped his hands instantly opening his eyes again waiting for the pain to subside and secretly scolding himself for being curious about the cause of his headache. "How long have I been out?" he asked.
"Almost a whole day, we weren't even sure if you would wake up today." Lily replied slowly not sure how well James would take it.
"What about our victory party? What about your birthday celebration? Please tell me you celebrated your birthday Lily?" James questioned becoming frustrated. He knew Lily had been looking forward to her birthday; she had only spent last week talking almost non-stop about it.
"I wasn't going to celebrate it while you were here in the hospital wing. We decided to postpone it for a few weeks until you are up to it. Besides a victory party without the Head Boy and Quidditch captain wouldn't be the same." Lily stated sincerely looking deeply into James' hazel eyes.
"I really wish you didn't postpone it. Last night was supposed to be about you and here I ruined it for you." James said solemnly, feeling like the biggest jerk in the world at that moment.
"James, it's not your fault that some idiot decided to enact their revenge on you or Sirius. In fact he was aiming for Sirius but you managed to get in the way. But I can tell you this before Professor Ori pulled Sirius off Roe and Remus off Mason they had bloodied both the Slytherins up badly. It was quite the brawl. Of course I had followed you up here so I only saw both of them afterwards. McGonagall wasn't too happy with their behaviour and now they are facing major detentions." Lily said trying to lighten the mood. It worked she got a small smile from him.
"Well at least I know my friends had fun yesterday." James said grinning at the thought of his two best friends coming to his defense.
"Yeah," Lily said giggling at the look on James face as he pictured Sirius and Remus beating the shit out of the two Slytherin beaters.
"Speaking of which, where are they and everyone else for that mattered?" James asked for the first time noticing that Lily was the only one out of their group who was there beside him.
"They just left a few minutes before you woke up. Sirius actually refused to leave and was really close to hitting himself over the head with something just so he could stay here with you. Now that is loyalty to the fullest extent."
"Yeah Sirius has always been like that. He feels like he owes me something for some reason." James responded quickly suddenly becoming uncomfortable with the topic of Sirius.
Lily seeing the opportunity to stick in her two cents about the current predicament that James and Sirius were in, mostly on account of her, she took it. "A friend like Sirius is hard to come by and as much as I didn't like him before this year began, I think anyone with a friend like Sirius is very lucky."
"Look Lily I appreciate what you're trying to do with the whole making Sirius look good and all but could we not discuss that particular situation. Right now all I want to do is focus on getting out of this bed and finding myself some Slytherin beaters so I can kick their asses." James said sliding down into the bed and placing his head gently onto the two white cased pillows. "I think I should get some rest now. So I'll talk to you later," with that James turned his body in the opposite direction of Lily and stared at the bed beside him.
"Yeah sure, I'll just go tell Madame Pomfrey that you're awake and be on my way." Lily said shocked by James' sudden behaviour.
James heard the Head Girl get up from her now unoccupied chair and leave. He couldn't explain what just happened except that he wasn't ready to deal with the problems which still lingered from the day before. Sure he was ready to hear Sirius out and perhaps even forgive him, especially after knocking around his attackers a few times. But when it came to the situation between him and Sirius, the last person he wanted to discuss it with was Lily. Not that it was a big deal or anything, he would just rather not have those two mixing together for the moment, especially if they were going to start paying each other compliments. Wasn't that what started Lily's infatuation with Sirius anyway, the whole fact that he was loyal? James wanted to prevent that from happening again. So it was probably best to keep both of them separate from each other, just incase.
He drifted off to sleep shortly after Lily had left, not waking up when Madame Pomfrey came out from her office to check him over making sure everything was fine or when his group of friends gathered around him a few hours later. James slept soundly until he was woken up for breakfast the next morning.
"Hey Lils, how's it going?" Artemis asked as she entered the Head Girl's bedroom, without bothering to knock.
"It's good know that my friends feel comfortable enough to walk into my room without permission or any indication that they are dropping by." Lily replied sarcastically though she was smiling. "I could have been changing or something, you know?"
"Oh come on, its not like you don't have anything I don't see everyday and besides why would you be changing this late in the day? There would only be two reasons I could think of and since there is no one else present, it would have to be because you are trying to impress someone." Artemis implied as she walked further into Lily's extremely neat looking room. "What are you doing anyway? I thought you had to go talk to Dumbledore or something."
"I do in about half an hour and for your information, I am gathering up some extra things to bring to James while he's stuck in the infirmary." Lily responded while packing some books, parchment, quills, inkpot and anything else she thought would be entertaining for the Head Boy to amuse himself with for the next few days into her bag.
"How's he doing anyway, I mean has he woken up yet?" Artemis asked sitting down in the chair at Lily's desk. Lily stopped what she was doing and sat down on her bed across from her best friend.
"Well…" she sighed, "…he's awake. He woke up a little more than an hour ago. We talked briefly and it was going great until the topic of Sirius snuck in." Lily said tugging on the sleeves of the grey sweatshirt she was wearing.
"I'm guessing Sirius is still a sore sort between you and him. What did he do?" Artemis asked understanding full well how much everything between Lily/James/Sirius was still not entirely solved. Sure everything was out in the open and everyone, for the most part, had been forgiven, however, the three of them had not sat down together to work things out. Instead they all remained separate and were continuing to tiptoe around the whole incident.
"He avoided it and said he wanted to get some rest." Lily answered simply.
"What did Pomfrey say about his injuries? Was she able to repair everything? Falling off a broom twenty feet in air is pretty serious." Artemis said.
"Yeah, he's lucky with what injuries he did get. Well she said he had a broken wrist, few fractured ribs and he twisted his ankle really bad. Other than that he has a major concussion and will be in a bit of pain for a few days, but he should be back to normal in no time. However, she is going to keep him in the infirmary for at least another day just to be sure he doesn't have any internal injuries." Lily explained leaning back on her hands while looking at Artemis.
"That must suck. So how are you dealing with all of this?" Artemis asked directing all of her attention and concern towards her best friend.
"I fine, I mean I'm not the one lying in a hospital bed at the moment so all things considered I think I got the better end of that deal." Lily answered suddenly standing from her bed. "Anyway I think I should be heading off to talk to Dumbledore. If you want to hangout here until I get back your welcome to but I got to go. Talk to you later."
Lily grabbed her bag off her bed and headed toward her bedroom door. She left her room leaving it opened for Artemis; she turned one last time toward her friend. "One last thing Tem," Lily began to say causing the darker haired girl to look up at her. "stay out of James' room while I'm gone. I know how tempted you get to go through other people's things while they are indisposed." Lily shot Artemis a warning glare before stepping out further into the hallway and exiting the Head dormitory on her way down to the Headmasters office.
"I wouldn't have even thought of that before you said anything Lily." Artemis muttered out loud to no one but herself then collapsed on Lily's bed. As tempting as it would be for her to go snooping through James' room, Artemis was better than that and besides it was probably locked or had some kind of magical security alarm. Artemis could think of nothing better to do then close her eyes and sleep while she waited for Lily to return. Remus was probably in the hospital wing or library and Ivory was more than likely hiding out in a closet with Sirius at the moment. So this was how Artemis would spend her Sunday afternoon and she was content with it.
"Please come in Miss Evans and have a seat," Professor Dumbledore said inviting the Head Girl into his office while gesturing toward one of chairs across from him.
"Thank-you Professor." Lily responded shutting the door behind her. She walked over to one of the chairs and sat down slowly while placing her bag on the floor in front of her feet.
"Well I have some good news for you Miss Evans, I have run your idea by the staff at our last meeting and several faculty members have shown interest in supervising. We actually had to have a vote on which Professor would be the best candidate," Dumbledore announced chuckling to himself at the last part. "And an unused classroom on the ground floor has already been turned into the first official Hogwarts Gazette or whatever name you decide to give this newspaper, newsroom."
Lily could barely contain the smile which had appeared across her lips, "that is absolutely amazing. Thank-you Sir. When do is the first meeting scheduled for?"
"Well that is to be determined and as editor and founder, it is your job to pick the day in which the first issue will appear and organize what kind of columns and stories that are going to be found within it. Remember Miss Evans, as exciting as this new addition to Hogwarts is, it is also a big responsibility and you have the most important job of all those who decide to participate."
"I understand Professor, and I really appreciate this opportunity. I won't let you down." Lily replied.
"I know you won't. Just remember Miss Evans, if you need any help at all do not hesitate to ask me or any of the staff. I'm sure even Mr. Potter, once he is better will be more than willing to lend a hand."
"I won't Headmaster. Thank-you again." Lily repeated standing up from her chair and shaking Dumbledore's outstretched hand. She then grabbed her bag from off the floor and made her way towards the door stopping briefly and looking back at her Headmaster. "Who is the faculty supervisor?"
"Well I thought the best person for the job would be Professor McGonagall. Which reminds me, she asked me to tell you that she will meet you tomorrow after supper to talk about the newspaper more thoroughly. Good day Miss Evans."
"Good day Professor," Lily responded then exited Dumbledore's office.
"Prongs do you have nothing better to do than sleep?" Sirius laughed as James sat up in bed.
"Well I'm sorry Padfoot, next time I'll let you have the bludger to the back of the head instead." James replied sarcastically letting out a small moan at the change in his position.
"No thanks Prongs, but may be next quidditch game it'll be one of the Slytherins lying in the hospital bed." Sirius replied smiling. James only rolled his eyes at his friend's remark.
"So…are we going to talk about…," Sirius began slowly, pausing when Madame Pomfrey walked by glaring at him while on her way to her office in the back of the hospital wing. Once out of sight Sirius continued, "…the way we left things before your accident?"
"Sirius, you just had to ruin a good gimmick we had going with bringing reality into it didn't you?" James replied jokingly.
"I'm serious Prongs," Sirius retorted getting frustrated. Why did James always do this? He just wanted things to get back to normal between them and here James was being an idiot.
"I'm only joking with you Sirius." James said but turned serious when he noticed that Sirius wasn't smiling, "okay what do you want from me? You want me to forgive you, I do. I forgave you after the game and I would've told you but then I kind of got hit in the head and well that ruined my plans."
"Are you just saying that so the subject is dropped or are you being sincere Prongs?" Sirius asked not entirely sure if he should believe James or not.
"Yes I am being sincere but I won't be if we don't drop this topic. Look its now in the past and that is where it needs to stay. I do hope you took something away from this though or else the entire situation would've been completely pointless. That's all I want you to do, is to at least have taken something away from all of this."
"I have Prongs, trust me." Sirius said relieved that things between him and James were finally settled and they could now get back the way things were minus the drama.
"So how are things between you and Ivory?" James asked curious about Sirius' current relationship with one of Lily's best friends. "I must say Padfoot; I never thought I would see the day when you actually dated a girl for more than a week. This must be some kind of record."
"Yeah, well Prongs I am turning over a new leaf. Besides I really like Ivory may be just about as much as you like a certain red head." Sirius said hinting at something.
"I don't know about that Sirius," James replied. He wasn't sure if Sirius actually knew how he truly felt about that certain red haired girl; he wasn't sure himself how he felt about her. What he did know was that Lily was very special to him and he would do anything for her whether she asked him or not.
"So what are we going to do for your birthday?" Sirius asked randomly picking different topics to talk about. "You're going to finally be an adult, we have to celebrate. I know we could gather up Moony and Wormtail and sneak down to one of the local pubs..."
Sirius never finished his thought, "Actually I was thinking of celebrating my birthday with Lily. I kind of owe her for putting a damper on her party. So I was thinking of doing a three in one party."
The only look James received from Sirius was a confused one. "What I mean with that is to have a party where I celebrate my birthday, Lily celebrates hers and the house celebrates our victory over the Slytherins."
"Are you sure you wouldn't rather go out with your friends and get smashed?" Sirius asked a little disappointed with James lack of interest to hangout with just the boys on his birthday, like they had for the past two years.
"Not this year Padfoot." James replied noticing the disappointed look on his best friends face. "I promise we can do that for your eighteenth birthday. Its only like what seven months away."
"Whatever, I think I should go and get started on my homework. Are you going to be outta here by tomorrow?" Sirius said quickly changing the subject.
"I don't know that depends on what Pomfrey thinks. I sure hope so. Its boring in here." James replied.
"Well I'll see you tomorrow either way." Sirius said getting up from the chair he previously occupied. He squeezed James shoulder in a brotherly supportive way before leaving the raven-haired boy alone with his silent thoughts.
Early on Tuesday morning James was finally let out of the infirmary after a very long and thorough check up from the middle-aged, averaged height Matron who insisted on coddling all of her patients (secretly making them wish they never had to come back). However, James by now was used to Madame Pomfrey's over-protective motherly behaviour, simply because he had been to the hospital wing more times than he could count. Though every time he was placed in her care he could hardly wait for the time when he would be released.
Slowly he limped out of the infirmary making his way down the hallway and to the closest staircase. Madame Pomfrey had done her best at repairing his injuries; however, she could only do so much. A sprained ankle was one of those simple injuries which had to heal with time. There was no magical remedy for it because it wasn't a fracture. So James just had to deal with it. At least there were potions that could numb the pain long enough for him to get around.
James made his way up the several flights of stairs to the seventh floor, where his dormitory was located, as quickly as he could with an injured foot. It certainly wasn't one of the easiest things he had ever done.
The first classes of the day had all ready started which meant all of his friends were no where in sight. It was too late to go to Herbology and too early to head down to the Great Hall for lunch; his only option was to get started on the homework from Transfiguration and Charms. So that is exactly what he did.
He sat down at his desk and pulled out his quills, books, and extra parchment, looking over the instructions Lily had written down in her neat hand writing for both assignments.
They seemed simple enough, hell he could finish the Transfiguration assignment in half an hour tops. However, the Charms seemed to be a little more complicated than he would have liked. Perhaps if he left it till later he could get more details from Lily. It would probably make more sense that way and it would give him an excuse to study with her.
It was decided then; he would get Lily's help with the Charms and finish the Transfiguration assignment before lunch. He picked up one of his quills, dipped it into the inkpot and began writing out what was need for McGonagall's task, occasionally stopping to test out different transfiguration which she had the class try out before they were to do the write up.
Started out of his current sleeping state, James looked up to see who had been bold enough to wake him up.
"Hey," a familiar redhead greeted with an awkward smile as James blinked the remaining sleep from his eyes.
"What time is it?" He asked hoarsely looking at his wristwatch.
"Lunch started about fifteen minutes ago. We went to see you in the hospital wing but Madame Pomfrey said you had left. We were planning on kidnapping you if she didn't let you go. " Lily answered laughing at the last part. "But I can see we were a little late."
"Yeah, she released me around nine and it was too late to head off to class, so I came here and started working on yesterday's homework which apparently bored me to the point of sleep." James said looking up at her towering figure. She wasn't exactly standing over him but she was close enough that she cast a shadow.
"Well are you going to our afternoon classes?" she asked leaning against his desk.
"Yeah, if you give me a minute to get ready I will join you for lunch or at least the walk down to the Great Hall." James said standing up from his chair.
"Okay, but hurry up." Lily agreed standing up straight and making her way towards his opened door. James had all ready opened his trunk and was searching through it for a clean uniform to wear when Lily shut the door behind her. She went down the hallway into the common room sitting down in one of the chairs while she waited for the Head Boy to finish. She didn't have to wait long because almost immediately after she plopped herself down, James had opened his door walking into the hallway dressed and ready to go.
"That was quick" Lily commented as James walked into the common room with his packed bag slung over his left shoulder. "I can see you didn't spend anytime trying to fix your hair huh?"
"There's no point. It doesn't do anything I want it to anyway." James replied running a hand through his unruly raven locks.
"I guess your right," Lily stood up from the chair and moved closer to the much taller boy. "Let's go down shall we?" she said as she looped her had through his right arm as if he was her date to a formal event.
"Sure," James answered desperately trying not to blush or at least let Lily see. It couldn't quite place it but there was something different about Lily. He didn't know what but she hadn't been acting herself around him lately for some reason. He tried not to put too much thought into it however, because that usually got him into trouble.
He managed to cover up his embarrassment with a confident smile as he led the way over to the door with Lily still connected to his arm. "I have something I want to run by you," James said as he opened the door for both of them to exit through.
"Okay," Lily said not sure if she really wanted to hear this. James did have a reputation for having inappropriate ideas from time to time.
"Don't worry its nothing bad," James said reassuring her while trying to contain a laugh after seeing the look she had given him. "I just want to know if you want to get to together later and work on the Charms assignment. Seeing as how you are better at that subject than I am and I also have no idea what to do for it since I wasn't in class yesterday."
"Well I don't know," Lily replied stopping in the middle of the corridor which they had been walking through. "it depends on what you will do for me."
"What do you mean?" James asked confused.
"I know a lot of people who would pay to have me help them and here you are expecting something for free. Come on James I thought you knew me better than that." Lily said lightly hitting him on the arm.
"Um…you're joking right?" he asked absentmindedly rubbing his arm. She hadn't hit him hard enough for it to hurt.
"Of course," Lily responded. "When do you want to get started?"
"After dinner I suppose would be the best time." James answered, they had resumed on their journey down to the Great Hall while continuing to tease each other along the way. Both of them happy with the way things were going.
I was going to write more to this chapter however I decided to stop it here because I think it was a good place. Its not as long as I would have hope, actually this is the shortest chapter in the entire story. I bet you are all wondering what took me so long to write it. Trust me I started this chapter many times over the past few months but everything I wrote I didn't like it so I would start again. I finally like this chapter and though it may seem a little boring I hope it is satisfying enough for you.
I had been putting to much pressure on myself to come up with a really good chapter and I had many things planned out, however, I have been rethinking certain things that I originally planned to put within this story. Some of my ideas seemed perfect when I first thought them up but now I'm not so sure. So I am following, for the most part, everything I planned to write in this story but this chapter and chapter 11 for sure are being completely rearranged. The original ideas I had for them no longer are an option and I am just going to write whatever comes out of my head and hope that it makes sense. I have a strong idea about what is going to happen and I think chapter 11 will be much easier to write than chapter 10. Anyway, please don't be too harsh with this chapter. I promise chapter 11 will be much more exciting.
In chapter 11:
Lily and James' relationship will become more than a friendship scenario
The party for Lily and James' will happen
We will learn more about what will happen with the Slytherins who were involved in James accident.
The first issue of the Hogwarts newspaper will be out and that may stir up some controversy.
One last thing, I'm not sure what to name the Hogwarts newspaper so I am open for suggestions. As for the other story I started, A Year Never Forgotten, I'm thinking of merging that with this story. I am opened to suggestion with that as well. The merging will of course be your basic rewriting of the story.
I hope you enjoy this chapter and please review, you comments are greatly appreciated.
Thanks to all those who reviewed to my last chapter. I will try to get chapter 11 written as soon as I can. I hope to have it done by March 12 but I am not making any promises.
© By Mythology, March 2, 2006