A/N: AHH!! I know, I know. I am EVIL! Sorry it has been so long. I have no excuses other then school. It's been stressful and then we got let out for break and I spent most of it just being lazy, and then school started again. I am so sorry. But here's your update! Thanks to all those who reviewed, alerted or favorited me. Those who reviewed are: Saffygirl, tic tac toe 03, MkGrays, ScarlettInkHeart94, appleeater123, crystal-darkness-331, PaCho de Nacho, Gin M. Weasley, ixamxsquee, and fattoad. Thanks again!
DISCLAIMER: My last name is not Rowling and my first two initials are not J.K. so clearly I don't own any of this.
Lily was sitting curled up in her favorite arm chair, the big fluffy one closest to the fire, when Alice and Abigail came through the portrait hole. The two girls scanned the common room and when their eyes rested on Lily, they ran right over to her.
"Looks like you got out of Hogsmeade just in time Lils." Abbie mumbled as she sank on to the floor at her friend's feet.
"What do you mean by that?" Lily asked, as Alice took a seat in the arm chair across from hers. Looking closely Lily could tell that her friends were spooked by something, and upon glancing down at her watch she realized that it was much earlier then the Hogsmeade visitors usually came back.
"You mean you haven't heard?" Alice asked, shock in her voice "I would have thought you, being Head Girl and all, would have been told already."
"What should I have already been told?" Lily's pulse was racing now. As her gaze drifted around the common room she noticed that almost all those who had gone to Hogsmeade were back, only a few missing, and every one of them was looking scared. Something bad must have happened.
"Well," stated Abbie "Just after you left Death Eaters attacked Hogsmeade. Alice ran in to the Three Broomsticks to warn everyone but the attack was already huge. I mean there must have been fifty Death Eaters there. It was horrible Lils; everyone was screaming and running every where. And some students were trying to help others get out and others were fighting. Spells were every where. And Lily James, Sirius, and Remus went to fight." Lily, who had been too surprised to react to the attack, reacted to that statement. A look of total shock, and some fear and maybe even anger, was on her face.
"What did they do?"
"Lily, they are the reason most of the Hogwarts students got out before they got hurt. As soon as Alice said the word 'Death Eaters' James jumped up, called Sirius though this weird mirror thing, and went running out side. Remus came with Sirius and the three of them dove right in to the fight. They were really the first to react. Other then Frank of course, who had been with Alice to witness their arrival. I have never seen anyone duel that well before. Really, it was amazing."
"Well, where are the heroes? Why aren't they here soaking up the attention?" Lily couldn't help it. It was in her nature to always find the worst out of something good that Potter had done.
"Seriously Lily, I thought you had gotten over your stupid grudge." Alice said some what exasperatedly. "They are in the hospital wing."
"What?" Terror ran through Lily's veins.
"Yeah, Remus went down and got really hurt. And James got distracted when he saw him and this huge Death Eater attacked him from behind. They don't even know what kind of curse it was. Madam Pomfrey thinks that Remus will wake up tomorrow sometime but she's not so sure about James."
Lily's heat almost stopped. James was hurt, badly. She tried to convince her self that she shouldn't care as much as she did, she had no reason to, they were barely even civil to each other. But her mind just kept repeating "Not James, Not James…" She kept thinking about those few days when they had been on good terms, when there had been minimal fighting, and the kiss. She had never felt those feelings in a kiss before.
"James…is in the Hospital Wing?" Lily managed to force out. Then she remembered something else Abbie had said awhile ago "Wait…you said Frank was fighting too. Where is he?"
Tears came to Alice's eyes. "They…they don't know. He hasn't returned from Hogsmeade yet, even though the attack ended about a half an hour ago."
At that moment Kathleen came running in, her hair all messed up and her lips considerably redder most likely from a make out session with her date.
"I just herd what happened." She gasped "Dylan and I had come back to the castle early to…have some alone time together and when we were…er…done we heard. A Death Eater attack! How could this happen? Doesn't Hogsmeade have loads of protection around it? How could Dumbledore have not seen this coming?"
"I don't know" Said Lily "I am sure there is tons of protection surrounding it, but that doesn't make it unable to access. I mean, people have to get there it's not just a place for Hogwarts students."
Kathleen shook her head. "I still can't believe it happened. Oh and Alice" she said turning to the black haired girl who was still holding back tears "I just saw Frank."
"WHAT!" Alice screamed, causing much of the common room to look at her, "Sorry, what?" She said it more quietly this time.
"Yeah, they were brining him in on a stretcher when I was leaving the Great Hall, he didn't look that good. I thought you knew…"
Alice jumped from her chair and ran out of the common room, presumably headed toward the Hospital Wing.
"We should head that way too" Said Abbie "Frank is our friend too. Plus the Marauders are there. No matter how you pretend to feel about them" she said upon seeing the looks Lily and Kathleen were sending her way "I know you both want to know if they are ok."
With that the three girls made their way to the Hospital Wing.
The Hospital Wing was uncharacteristically silent, only the sounds of Madam Pomfrey scurrying about tending to her patients could be heard. As the three best friends entered they found Alice sitting the bed closest to the door holding the hand of an unconscious Frank Longbottom, who was looking worse for the wear.
"She…she says he will be ok." Alice said with out looking up at her friends, her eyes glued to her boyfriends face, "He should wake up soon." Alice began crying out of relief.
Abbie, Kathleen and Lily quickly hurried over to their friend and hugged her.
Lily looked around the rest of the hospital wing many of the beds were filled with people who looked to be injured, but not greatly, but one toward the back of the room had the curtains closed around it, showing that the person in that bed was not doing well. Sirius was in one near the back as well, sitting up and staring at the curtains surrounding the bed next to his, Remus was laying asleep in the one of the other side of Sirius. Lily got up to go over to the boy sitting up.
"Sirius." She said simply as she approached.
His face turned to look at her and she could see the surprise in his eyes.
"What are you doing here? Come to check to make sure your Head Boy isn't dead? Or come to yell at him for doing something, as you would call it, 'stupid.'" The accusation in his voice surprised Lily; usually his voice was full of humor.
"I…no! I wanted to see if he was ok."
"Well, he's not, alright? He's hurt, badly and for all I know he might not get better. And I couldn't do anything to help him." Sirius ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "He went down and I couldn't do anything to stop it, I was too late in warning him. And I couldn't even hurt the bastard that did this to him because he ran as soon as James hit the ground. And the man who got Remus got away too."
Lily was surprised, Sirius never showed this much weakness, clearly his two best friends getting hurt had affected him greatly. He blamed himself for their injuries.
"Look, Sirius, it's not like if you hurt the Death Eaters who hurt them it would have made anything better. You still would have had two hurt friends. None of this is your fault."
"Evans, I don't know what your game is."
"My game? I don't know what you are talking about, I just came to see how my co-head was doing and I thought you might need someone to comfort you. If that's a game then…"
"Not that." Sirius interrupted, "Your game with James."
Lily had no response; she just stood staring at Sirius.
"How can you be so civil to me when I am ten times worse at pranking then he ever was. I have had more girl friends then he ever has. And yet you tell him he is an arrogant pig every time you see him. You scream and yell and say the exact words that you know will cut him the deepest when ever you can. You treat him like trash when he likes you, really, really likes you. And you refuse to give him the time of day. You know nothing about him and yet you judge him. That's your game."
"That is not true! I have given him a chance and he ruined it by the stupid prank! He was being immature as usually. It just proved me right, that he will never change." Lily could not believe she was having this conversation, for what felt like the 100th time, in a Hospital Wing with the boy they were arguing about laying in the bed next to them, possibly dying.
"You wanted to be proved right." Sirius said it simply, as though it was a fact "You had decided to give him a chance but then you realized that if he did turn out good then you would have no more reason to hate him. You looked for something bad that he did, even something minuscule, and turned it in to something big. That prank? Nothing was bad about it. No one got hurt, no one was insulted, it was just fun. People need cheering up, especially in times like these."
Lily had never seen Sirius so, well, serious. It was clear to her that he was trying to make a point.
"I was not looking to be proved right. I just…was! That prank may have not hurt anyone but who's to say the next on won't?"
"There's not going to be a next on. James said he was never going to do a prank again. You don't know him at all Evans. He actually is a good guy; you just see the bad in him. You need to get off you high horse. He is hurting beyond belief. I don't know what happened that night a few months ago but he came back from that patrol and he hasn't been the same since. He almost never laughs any more and all he thinks about is school. But when we pass you in that hall he pretends to be all happy-go-lucky. I don't know what you did to him, but you really hurt him. You better not be planning on doing that again. He's my best friend; he doesn't deserve to be treated like that."
"I…never actually plan on hurting him." Lily said simply, and then turned to leave.
"You better not." Sirius said to her retreating form.
The next day of classes was subdued. The Hogsmeade attack has shaken the entire school greatly, and the fact that the Head Boy was in the Hospital Wing greatly hurt did nothing to help the students feel safe.
Through out the entire day Lily thought about the conversation she had had with Sirius the day before. "You wanted to be proven right…" Could that be true? Did she really just look for the first small thing James did wrong and then blow up at him about it? The more she thought about it, the more she realized that it was true. And then she had kissed him and proceeded to tell him that it meant nothing to her. She had hurt James Potter.
She made a promise to her self, the next time she went to the hospital wing and none of the Marauders were there, or awake, she would go talk to James. It didn't matter if he was better or not, or if she was even out of his a coma like state. She had read some where that people in a coma could still hear what those around them said; maybe if she apologized he would hear.
James was laying flat on his back with darkness surrounding him on all sides. His entire body felt heavy and he was so tired. He could hear people around him, Sirius, Remus and Peter, Madam Pomfrey, and Dumbledore even. Their voices where all asking him to wake up, they needed him to wake up. But James was so sleepy and he couldn't feel anything. He knew if he woke up he would feel the pain. He didn't want pain. So he slept. Fading in to the darkness, letting it enwrap him.
He felt small, cool hands on his forehead. "Oh James." A voice muttered from somewhere out of the darkness. I know that voice, James thought, but I can't place it.
"I am so sorry. So, so, so, sorry." Such a pretty voice, but it sounds sad. The pretty voice shouldn't sound sad, he should make it happy. He tried to claw his was out of the darkness, but when he was almost out the tiredness came back.
The voice can wait a little; James thought sleepily, I will just sleep for a few more minutes. As he began to let the darkness cover him once more he could have sworn he felt a pair of soft lips press themselves to his forehead. He smiled and then drifted back to the darkness.
A/N: So did ya like it?? I know I didn't have James get better in this one, but at least Lily is beginning to realize that she likes him. They may be getting together soon! *Hint Hint* Review please! Reviews make me feel all warm and cozy inside, and when I am all warm and cozy I write faster!