AN: Thank you's etc. at the bottom!
Chapter 10: Fear
Long after she had finished healing his many wounds, Lily sat on the grass in the pitch dark, clutching an unconscious James to her chest and sobbing uncontrollably. Finally, when it seemed she had no tears left to cry, she took a deep breath and composed herself. Gently, she moved James' upper body off her lap and unsteadily got to her feet. She looked down at him, lying prone on the cold earth and felt a fresh wave of tears rising within her. She choked them back and again took up her wand. With a deft flick, James' unconscious form was floating at her side.
Slowly, she made her way back up to the castle with James bobbing beside her. She paused at the oak doors, still visibly shaken and now unsure of what to do. Where should she take him? They couldn't go to the hospital wing . . . but he really needed to be in the hospital wing. How would she even get him anywhere without anyone seeing? And how on earth was she supposed to avoid Filch while levitating him?
She finally decided to take him up to Gryffindor tower and use a disillusionment charm to conceal him. It was all she could do to hope like hell that luck was on their side with regards to Filch. The path to Gryffindor tower was slow and nerve wracking, and she was forced to move at snail's pace in order to make sure she didn't drop James, since she couldn't actually see him; she gave every statue and suit of armor a wide birth for fear of sending her charge crashing into one. This made Lily feel particularly exposed, as she wasn't able to stick to the shadows the way she usually would, and it forced her to take a long circuitous route using only little known secret passages and dingy disused corridors.
By the time they arrived at the portrait of the fat lady, Lily's nerves were shot, and the combination of fear and exhaustion threatened to send her into hysteria. The fat lady was not at all charmed by Lily's late night appearance and started on what promised to be a lengthy lecture on 'forays into the illegal' before Lily cut her off with the password. Her irritable grumbles and questions as to why exactly Miss Evans was pointing a wand at thin air fell on deaf ears as Lily scrambled through the portrait hole.
There was a thump and then a small groan as James' head collided with the doorway. Lily swore, and the few remaining people in the common room turned and fixed their eyes upon her. She pasted a smile on her face and tried to act normal. A few of the students had already turned back to their work, but those that hadn't were now staring at her in a mixture of terror and grotesque fascination. Lily belatedly realized that she now looked anything but normal and tried to school her features into a less frightening expression. Giving up, she made her way up the boys' staircase, ignoring the curious looks, with James in tow.
Their room was deserted, and she found herself wishing that Sirius was with her. She felt very alone and helpless. She carefully lowered James onto his bed and removed the disillusionment charm. In the light she could see that he was paper white, still covered in dirt and blood. She stripped off his shirt and conjured a bowl of warm water and a sponge. When Sirius finally arrived back from giving Hagrid a cover story, he walked into the room to find Lily tenderly sponging off an unconscious James. At first she didn't even notice his presence, so absorbed was she in her task, and Sirius felt as though he was intruding on something private, something sacred. He cleared his throat, and she looked up. He had expected to find anger in her eyes, but he saw only fear, and to his surprise: relief.
"Sirius," she breathed out his name, a sigh of gratitude, as if the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. Ignoring his guilt, he walked slowly towards James, almost afraid to look at what he had done to his best friend. He was white as a sheet with angry red marks slashing across his torso and large gashes that seemed to be too stubborn for even Lily's spell work to heal. She was watching him anxiously, as if waiting for some cue from him, and he suddenly felt that the weight that had been lifted from her shoulders had been placed squarely on his. He turned and met her eyes; she looked so vulnerable.
"What can I get that'll help him?" His question snapped Lily back into leadership mode. she seemed to flounder for a moment, but quickly gained confidence, her mind latching on to the idea of all the things that would help James and running with it.
"Uuuuh, Murtlap Essence . . . help with the pain . . . heal faster," she murmured to herself. "You're going to have to steal Murtlap from the dungeons," she instructed. "And scarab. I'll need crushed scarabs and . . ." The list went on, and he grabbed a quill and parchment off Remus' desk and hastily jotted the items down as she reeled them off. Next, she conjured two glass bottles and quickly labelled them before handing them to him. "I need you to fill these up at the hospital wing. They take ages to make, and we don't have the time. Madame Pomfrey should leave at dawn to fetch Remus, so that's your best shot. Be careful with the bright blue one, keep it as cold as you can, and don't slosh it around too much." He wanted to know why but was afraid of her answer.
He was half way out the door when she called out to him. "Where d'you keep your potions kit?" He pointed towards Remus' trunk and then sped out the door without a backwards glance.
Sirius slunk quickly and quietly down the corridor towards the dungeons. He blended expertly into the shadows, holding his breath and pressing himself into the wall at the slightest sounds. Never had it mattered so much that he not get caught. On the second floor he almost ran into the caretaker's cat.
He saw her eyes first, gleaming orbs in the distance, and for a second he stopped breathing. He made a mad dash for a tapestry that concealed a staircase. Ripping it aside, he took the stairs three at a time, almost plunging to his doom more than once. He burst out of the other end and toppled over the landing behind a rather large and ugly statue of a long-dead wizard who had, at some obscure point in time, done something to merit the creation of this statue. Neither Sirius nor the rest of the population of Hogwarts particularly cared what this once esteemed man had done, but at that moment Sirius was particularly glad he'd done it because the statue was the only thing obscuring him from Filch's watchful eyes.
Sirius breathed a sigh of relief when Filch's shuffling footsteps finally faded away, and he made his way to the dungeons without further incident. Once there, he immediately fell upon Slughorn's personal supply closet. The lock was stubborn and refused to give way to any of the spells he tried. However, the owner had not anticipated a different kind of attack, and when Sirius produced his muggle lock-picks the lock was no match.
Sirius enlarged his pockets and set about stuffing every ingredient on Lily's list into them, along with anything else that looked as though it may be useful. Then he carefully re-ordered the closet in an attempt to mask his theft, locked it, and sped back towards Gryffindor tower.
Lily rummaged around in Remus' mostly empty trunk until she found his potions kit, quickly setting it up and then casting around for something to do. She looked over the simple ingredients the potions kit contained. Her mind came up with plenty of potions she could make with only them . . . none of which would help James. She walked back over to him and brushed his messy hair out of his eyes. He would be okay. Even without going to the hospital wing he would be okay. It was just going to take a little while. She repeated this to herself again.
A small part of her didn't believe it. A nagging fear in the pit of her stomach told her that he was going to leave her. He was going to give up and die and leave her all on her own.
She hated how much that terrified her.
The intensity of her fear scared her. It made her want to run away, to retreat.
But something stopped her from doing that. She was drawn to him with a force that overrode the force of her fear. And that scared her even more; the fact that she wanted to stay, even needed to stay.
She shook her head, trying to clear away her nonsensical thoughts. She brushed her hand over his hair again, needing the solid reassurance of touch, the proof that he was indeed there.
"You're going to be okay," she whispered to him. "You're going to be alright." She bent down and placed a soft kiss on his forehead. She felt tired, so exhausted. Without pausing to think about it, she climbed into the bed behind him, wrapping an arm around him. "You're going to be okay," she repeated softly, before drifting into a fitful sleep.
Sirius barged through the door, loudly declaring, "Alright! I have R . . ." before his words puttered out at the sight of Lily and James. Lily's eyes snapped open to meet his and then widened and flashed with guilt. She sat bolt upright, her whole face going red as quickly as a traffic light, looking extremely flustered and sputtering out unintelligible excuses. Sirius tactfully chose to ignore this behaviour, and continued with the speech he had started on arrival. When he was done, his bed was covered in potions ingredients, and he was looking at Lily with an uncertain "Have I done good?" expression that five year olds often wear on their faces.
Lily's eyes sparkled at the virtual treasure trove in front of her. Oh, the potions that she could make with this! The only word that came to mind was, "Wow!" Satisfied with this, Sirius swiftly departed on his mission to the hospital wing, leaving Lily to her potions.
A little while later, James finally regained consciousness, opening his eyes to see Lily grinding away at something with a mortar and pestle while a small cauldron bubbled away next to her. He felt sticky and looked down at himself to find he'd been stripped to his boxers and almost every inch of his skin was covered in wet bandages.
"Ah . . . Hey," he managed to get out, his voice faint and scratchy. Lily looked up, almost afraid to check if she'd been imagining things. He was awake. A smile came unbidden to her lips.
"James," she said softly, with such happiness and awe that he felt invincible. If she would only say his name like that a few more times, he was sure he'd be completely cured and shouting from the rooftops.
When Sirius got back from the hospital wing it was just after dawn. James was asleep again, and Lily was applying a revolting smelling ointment to James' shoulder, which appeared to be his most serious wound. Sirius walked quietly over to where Lily sat and put the potions she had asked for on the bedside table beside her. She nodded her thanks and immediately grabbed the bottle of blue potion and measured most of it out into a goblet. Gently, she shook James awake and commanded him to drink, urging him on when he wanted to stop drinking. He wrinkled his nose when he was done and muttered something that sounded like "disgusting", before gulping down a few sips of the water that Lily handed him and going back to sleep.
Sirius watched silently throughout their interaction and a strange feeling stole over him: a strange sense of foreboding.
AN: Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed this one, it was a bit fillerish, but it needed to be done. The next one is almost finished, but I have decided that I'll only post it in about two weeks, if you guys want it sooner than that, then REVIEW. If I get over twelve I promise to update within the week, but otherwise you shall wait, since I was rather disappointed with the number of reviews I got for the last chapter! Come on guys, I got twelve for chapter 8, and then all of a sudden I'm down to 8! There are like sixty of you who have me on your alert lists and only eight reviewing! You can do better than that! Anywho, I promise to reply to all who review, and to all my faithful reviewers, you are all wonderful and lovely and fabulous and I hope you live long and happy lives filled with chocolate and sunflowers!
Oh, and if you didn't review the last chapter because it was crap, then please review and tell me it was crap!
Anyway, big thanks go out to my beta: Lyny Angell, as well as all my magnificent reviewers: Sarah, Eckzr0, PhoenixWeasley, Lyny Angell, -Scp-, this-recurring-dream, Untamed Loner and twinkley-toes