A good night's sleep in her own bed at her father's house did Lily a world of good. Walking downstairs to find him serving his best fry up lifted her spirits even higher. To round off an excellent morning, an owl arrived from Sirius announcing that James was awake and asking for Lily. It didn't take her long to be dressed and out the door for St. Mungo's.
At the hospital, Lily stood outside the door to James' room, unsure of what to do. The door was ajar, but Lily had not entered. She could hear a woman speaking, and she could hear James. He was giggling.
"I've never seen anything like this before," the woman said. "I didn't know they could get so long."
James giggled even harder and then cried out, "Stop! Stop. I need a rest."
"I'm not done." The woman grunted and James burst out with another string of giggles. "If you would stop squirming around like that," she told him, "I could finish a lot faster."
Lily couldn't resist. She eased her head through the door and blinked at what she saw. James was perched on the edge of the bed, pulling his hair with both hands. One bare foot was planted on the floor while the other was propped up in the lap of Fiona the Mediwitch, who sat in a bedside chair, wand in hand.
"Is this a bad time?" Lily asked.
James jerked his foot out of Fiona's grasp. "Hi, Lily." He stood and smoothed the hospital gown over his body. It was just long enough to cover his knobbly knees.
"Hi." Lily took a very small step into the room. "I can come back later."
"No need," Fiona said. "I'm almost done with him." She grabbed James by the leg and he fell back against the bed, clutching the edge of the mattress while Fiona jabbed her wand at one of his toes that looked a bit peculiar. It was easy to see that she was tickling him in the process and, now that he had an audience, James was making every effort to resist the impulse to giggle. His lips pursed together in a stiff line and his face changed several colours of red, but at last Fiona was done. She dropped something in a bowl and stood. James released a very relieved breath.
While Fiona jotted some notes down in James' chart, she glanced up at Lily. "How are you feeling, Lily? Everything alright?"
"I'm well." Lily slipped off James' gloves and put them in her pocket.
"No more dizziness?"
"I've never felt better." She smiled at James and he ruffled his hair.
"I'm glad to hear it." Fiona stuck her quill in her hair and picked up the bowl. She turned to James. "I'll be back in an hour to trim those again. You stay in bed until then. Do you hear me?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Fiona stepped out, but James did not get back in bed. He rubbed one foot with the other and adjusted his glasses over his ears. His face was still pink. Reaching behind himself, he yanked the sheet from the bed and pulled it up over his shoulders, around his back. Lily understood. She'd hated those gowns, too.
"How do you feel?" Lily asked.
"I'm okay." James twisted the corners of the sheet between his hands. "Embarrassed," he admitted, "but okay."
She loosened her scarf and shrugged her coat off onto the chair as she moved closer to James. "What's the matter with your foot?"
"Both feet, actually." He sat back against the bed and looked down, wiggling his toes. "It's some kind of Toenail Growing hex. The Healer hasn't figured out how to remove it yet."
"That's sort of icky."
"I know it is." He wiggled his toes again while she looked at them.
"You shouldn't be embarrassed," Lily told him.
James frowned and crossed his arms over his front, pulling the sheet tight around his body. He looked towards the curtain shrouding the window. "I was bested by Snape," he said. And then Lily understood. James didn't care about his hexed feet. It was his pride that was injured more than anything. "I was exhausted and part drunk and I shouldn't have been anywhere near him, or you for that matter." Lily tried to catch his eye, but James wouldn't look at her. "I'm sorry I got you hurt," he said.
The corners of Lily's mouth twitched and she shifted her feet so that she was standing right in front of him. "And here I was coming in to say the same thing to you." That got James to look at her; his eyebrows knit together and his mouth hung open in a tiny frown as he tipped his face up. Lily raised one shoulder in a little shrug. "Maybe there's enough blame for both of us to share."
"None of this was your fault." James' frown deepened and his eyes went back towards the curtains. The knot in Lily's stomach began to grow at an alarming rate and she tightened her lips into a hard line. He blamed himself for everything that had happened; she could read it on his face as well as if he'd spelled it out on a blackboard. But he couldn't do that. He couldn't take all the blame. It wasn't fair to her.
"If I'd followed your instructions," Lily said, "and stayed behind the apothecary, Snape would have escaped through the Floo. Neither of us would have been hurt at all." Lily crossed her arms over her chest and reached up to rub the side of her neck. "Don't try to take this all on yourself. I made choices, too."
James turned his attention from the curtains to his lap, where he twisted and pulled at the corners of the sheet that covered him.
"I was really worried about you, James."
He cast a brief glance at her, too fleeting for Lily to read his eyes.
"They couldn't find you. I was scared you'd been killed." Her voice cracked as she willed herself not to cry, and then James looked at her, straight into her eyes, and his frown softened. "I was worried."
James stood and wrapped his arms, sheets and all, around Lily's shoulders. He stroked her hair and held her close. "I'm sorry," he whispered. Lily slid her hands onto James' waist. Through the cotton of his hospital gown Lily could feel how thin James had become, what the suffering of the last few months had done to his healthy body. And then her brain hitched when she found the gown's open seam down his spine.
She pressed her eyes into his shoulder, felt his hand easing down her back, and it was then that Lily realised something significant. It was while Lily stood there, snug in James' embrace, with his breath in her hair and her fingertips under his gown, drawing hesitant circles on the bare skin of his back, that Lily realised just how important James Potter had become to her. That he had somehow attached himself to her heart in a way that she never could have predicted. She also realised that she found James Potter far too attractive for her own good. And it scared the stuffing out of her.
Lily sighed and leaned her head back to look at him. He wore an expression of such peace as Lily never would have expected – not considering the way her own hormones were swirling. His eyes were heavy lidded and his mouth curved into just a hint of a smile. James brushed his palm down Lily's cheek and she took a step back. His expression did not alter.
She picked at her smallest fingernail while James adjusted the sheet over his shoulders and sat on the edge of the bed.
"Would you like to sit down?" James motioned with his eyes to the space next to him on the mattress. Lily swallowed hard and moved forward, turned, and lowered herself to sit beside him. She hadn't stopped picking at that fingernail.
"How was your stay in the hospital?" James asked her. "Did you have Fiona?" Lily snorted, making James laugh. "She didn't insist on tickling you every hour, did she?"
"She was always grumpy because this Auror she didn't like kept coming around to ask me questions."
"I'll bet it was Savage, wasn't it?"
Lily looked up from her fingernail. "How did you know?"
"He came here this morning, and I could see she's got it in for him." He shrugged and waved the sheet corner around a bit. "Can't blame her, really."
"Why do you say that?"
"Jack Savage is just out of Auror training," he said. "He's barely more than a lackey for the old guys, but he hangs around like he's doing something important. Don't you remember him from when he was in school with us?" Lily told him she didn't. "He was a Slytherin. The annoying prat."
Lily picked at her fingernail again and crossed her ankles by the floor. "I thought he seemed kind of nice."
James raised his eyebrows at that, but opted not to comment. "Sirius said your father came here to see you," he said. "How did he like St. Mungo's?"
Lily giggled; her father's enthusiasm had entertained her every moment. "He was overwhelmed at first, but he pretty much thought everything was brilliant. He talked about the mannequin at the entrance all through breakfast."
"Really?" He made a face that told her he didn't understand at all why the mannequin was noteworthy. "I suppose it is a good bit of magic."
"It is."
They were both silent for a moment, fidgeting.
"Have you seen Georgina yet?" James asked her.
"I rang her yesterday and we spoke for about two hours. She was mad that she didn't get to come see me in the hospital."
"You weren't really in long enough for a string of visitors, were you?"
Forcing a small grin, Lily switched her attentions to a new fingernail. "Richard came for a while," she said. "He was annoyed, though, because I kept sending him out of the room to check up on you."
A broad grin spread over James' face. He looked at her for a moment and then turned his face back to the sheet corner in his hands, still smiling. "Lily, I just wanted to tell you…" James dug one hand into his hair and scratched at his scalp, the smile fading. "It's just…thanks. You've helped me these last couple of months and I appreciate it."
"That's what friends are for."
"Not just any friend, though. You're special. Important."
Lily was burning to reach out and touch him, just to lay her hand over his, but she didn't trust herself right then. She couldn't move. "You're important to me too, James," she told him. "I'm glad you're my friend."
"Me too," he whispered. And then Lily's heart began to race – really race. She knew what James was about to do. She could see it in his dilating eyes. She could see it in the way he was leaning his shoulders. She knew she ought to stop him. But she didn't. And then…he kissed her. He caressed her lips with the gentlest of kisses, causing her to forget where she was and what she shouldn't be doing. He tasted of cabbages and of knotgrass. And then Lily noticed that she was kissing him back. That she was relishing the feel of his mouth against hers. That she wanted more. She turned her head away just enough to stop, and James left his face close to hers, brushing his cheek against her cheek. His warm breath was in her ear. It was intoxicating.
"Lily," he whispered. "Lily, I…"
"Don't apologise, James, please don't." She couldn't bear to hear it. "It was my fault." He leaned back, away from her, and Lily stood up, her heart still racing, blood rushing at top speed through every part of her body. "I shouldn't have let that happen." It the short time it took Lily to say that, James seemed to withdraw several hundred leagues away from her. That mask he used to hide his pain for so long, that stony curtain that Lily had been so happy to see fall away – was back with full force.
Her eyes stung and her stomach was in her throat, and Lily didn't know what to do. She only knew that if she stayed so close to him for one more minute she might just burst into pieces. "I think I'd better go," she said. Lily took up her coat and cast a parting look at James. He nodded and looked away as she exited.
Lily hugged her coat to her chest and strode down the corridor, following the fine lines between the linoleum tiles and avoiding the eye of everyone along the way. She'd never hated herself more than at that moment; she'd never realised that she was capable of such cruelty. Her lust had carried her away without thinking of the consequences, without thinking of how much she could hurt James. Lily just couldn't use him like that. James was grieving. He was grasping for anything that might smother the pain in his heart. He was being reckless and wasn't thinking ahead. And Lily's own reckless hormones were more than happy to take advantage of him.
Lily met Sirius as he was coming out of the lift, and she wasn't quick enough to blink away the tears brimming in her eyes. He followed her back into the lift and punched the button for the fifth floor, not saying a word.
"I'm going down," Lily told him.
"Not yet. You're coming up to have some tea with me first."
She didn't feel like tea. She didn't feel like doing anything but curling up in her bed and crying. But when the doors opened, Sirius wouldn't let her stay on the lift. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the tea room. Lily didn't have the energy to fight.
Sirius purchased a tray of tea for two and carried it to a worn little table. He sat Lily in a brown velvet wingback chair and then settled himself in another chair across from her. They didn't speak for some time. Lily continued to hug her coat against her stomach while Sirius made a show of stirring sugar and milk into the teacups.
It was after Sirius had pushed a steaming cup towards Lily that he spoke. "Did he tell you how they found him?"
Lily shook her head and yet another wave of shame washed over her. She'd never gotten around to asking him about what happened. Sirius seemed surprised.
"Tell me," Lily said.
Sirius lifted his cup to his nose and inhaled; he didn't take a drink. "He'd been stuffed up a drain spout," he said. "He was unconscious, bleeding out of his stomach, hit with every kind of hex." He set the cup down, untouched. "The Healers did nice work on him."
Lily felt sick thinking about it. "I'm surprised he wasn't killed."
She watched him tighten his mouth while he rotated the cup between his fingers. "I thought maybe that was why you were upset."
A tear tickled Lily's cheek. She wiped it away with her hand, but another followed right behind it. "James kissed me," she whispered, and felt the heat flooding her cheeks at the admission.
Sirius stared at her for a short moment while his eyes widened and his brows lifted well into his hairline. But it didn't take long before a smile crept over his mouth, his cheeks, and into his eyes. "Did he, now? And did you return the favour?"
If possible, more colour poured into Lily's face. Sirius covered his grin with a sip from his teacup.
"James is not himself right now," Lily said. "A lot of weird stuff goes on in your head when you're grieving the way he is. He's probably sitting in his room right now, mortified, wondering what he was thinking. Wishing he hadn't done it."
Sirius took another drink of tea and shifted in his seat. "How do you know that James hasn't been nursing a crush on you since the day you met?"
Pushing her teacup further away from her, Lily frowned. "That isn't funny, Sirius."
"You're right." He leaned forward over his cup. "But look, Lily. What's the big deal here? You snogged the Head Boy. Worse things have happened."
"I just cheated on my boyfriend, Sirius." Lily propped her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands. She was so ashamed.
"Can I ask you a question?" he said. "And I don't mean to make a joke or anything, I'm just really curious." He looked up from his cup and met her eye. "What do you see in Bowman?"
Lily frowned. "Just because you lot don't care for him—."
But Sirius interrupted her. "I'm not trying to be flippant, Lily. I told you." His eyes met hers straight on. "I really want to know."
Author's Note: How was it? Moody James, angsty Lily, and a little snogging. Please tell me how you liked it!
