.Two of a Kind
Chapter 14: What have I done…?
Disclaimer: I own nothing J.K. Rowling previously wrote!
Just recapping what last happened….only shortened:
-Lying on the floor with one foot twisted out of shape was Lily
-"Sirius, you have to believe me when I say I didn't do this." James started,
-"Don't worry mate, we'll figure this our soon." Sirius replied
-"He was supposed to catch me."
Ok onto the new chapter.
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Lily sat on the hospital bed, staring into space. Holly was sitting on a bed opposite her, watching to make sure she was alright. She still didn't know what had happened at the Ball, and Lily didn't feel like talking.
They'd been sitting there for a while. Holly was sure of this because when Sirius left to talk to James the clock said 11:30…it was now 1:00, on Monday morning and Madam Pomfrey still hadn't given Lily anything for her cuts and bruises.
Holly felt lost and out of place, but didn't feel as bad as Lily, or so she imagined.
Madam Pomfrey walking into the area carrying a bottle of dark red liquid and a glass. She looked annoyed at having to work on such an important day for all magical people.
"Drink this Dear," She said handing over the glass full of liquid. "Then you're free to go." She left the ward leaving Lily to take the ghastly potion and for them to leave.
Lily gazed into the bottom of the glass, looking into the depths of the potion. It was as red as blood, recently pricked and feeding on the oxygen it is exposed to. She couldn't see the bottom as the drink was too thick and she could only imagine what it would taste like. Not caring, Lily placed the edge of the glass to her lips and reluctantly drank the entire potion. Cringing as the taste got to her, she slid off the bed, walked to the central desk in the wing and placed the glass on top.
"Let's go back to the common room, you need to rest" Holly stated taking Lily's arm and guiding her towards the door. 'Then maybe I'll find out what actually happened'
Lily stared blankly at her, nothing mattered anymore. She told James not to trust her. Of course she hadn't actually seen Alana do anything to her, but she was 99 certain it was her, she just couldn't believe James was stick up for someone so, so…evil.
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When they finally made it back to the common room, the entire Gryffindor house was sitting down at any place available awaiting news about Lily, well nearly the entire house as Alaina, Sharise and Larissa were nowhere to be seen.
James looked up from where he was sitting and saw that Lily was alright. Of course she wouldn't be fine, not with what had just happened to her, but being able to walk and looking alright was enough for him to relax just a little and release tension that formed around his entire body at the thought of her being hurt.
Sirius and Remus stood up to greet her. Sirius put his arm around Holly as though to show his concern of not only Lily's well-being but Her's as well. She looked up at him, to show her appreciation of is love. It may not have shown but she needed comfort at the moment, but she knew Lily needed it more. As much as she would have loved to go and spend some private time with Sirius, Lily was her friend and it was important to her to stay around and look after her.
"Thanks for your concern everyone, but I think I'm just going to go upstairs and rest for a bit." Lily said to everyone who had bothered to find out if she was ok. She saw the looks on everyone's faces and started to explain her reasons behind it. "Not that I'm trying to escape from you, I just need to be alone for a while and-"
"Alright, move away nothing to see here, well not yet at least." Sirius cut in, catching Lily's eye he winked at her, although unlike every other time he ever winked at Lily she didn't smile at him, but just stared before moving away from the crowd and walking towards the Girl's dormitory stairs.
Remus and Sirius turned to see how James was taking all of this. When they had come up to the common room Sirius had started questioning James, interrogating was more like it, as he wanted to know everything James did about the 'situation' as Sirius liked to call it. James was so shocked that everything he told was them was in bits and pieces and most of the time mumbled out so that they couldn't understand a word he was saying. In the end they found out he knew nothing of the incident except what everyone else had seen or heard. He couldn't believe something like that could ever happen.
Every bone in his body was telling him it was a dark arts spell and obviously came from a Slytherin. He wanted to go hex and prank them until the end of the world, but something inside him held him back, something that kept whispering to reconsider what happened, but reliving the memories of Lily being scratched and twisted made him feel sick. His gut feeling would have to do.
Sirius' and Remus' looks jolted him into existence again, and as he saw Lily walk away from the group he acted on impulse.
"Lily!" He cried out, jumping up and leaping over furniture to reach her before she walked up the stairs.
She turned to look at him, cold eyes staring into his ones of concern. The change between her loving look earlier was so apparent that he couldn't remember why he came over. Thinking quickly he said the first thing that came into his head, and mentally hit himself inside after he said it.
"You look really good." He swore on the inside. 'She looks good? She was just attacked by someone who could quite possibly be invisible considering no-one saw who it was, of course she wouldn't look good, in fact she looks weak, and scared and alone…wait, she does look scared. She didn't look like that when she first came in, only when I came over to her. Oh my god, she's scared of me!'
"Listen Potter, I don't know what kind of game you're playing, because the rest of us don't think it's a good one," Lily answered not bothering to hide the fear in her voice. "But I really can't handle your stupid pranks and your silly games at the moment, so can you just leave me be?"
She didn't wait for an answer, just turned around and hoped to god that no-one was in her dormitory so she could let our all the fear, pressure and strain that was tying up her insides. She felt like screaming and running away, but she wouldn't stand down to James no matter how much she felt afraid around him.
As He watched her leave, James noticed a few tears stained her cheeks and heard the fear that filled her voice as she spoke to him. Once he wouldn't have taken that as an excuse to get away from him, once he would have run a million miles just to get out the words he planned to say to her, once he would have yelled at the top of his lungs to be certain Lily had received the message he was trying to convey. But now, he didn't seem to have the energy or courage to do so. 'She stood up to me, even though she was so afraid, and now I have to let her win. I have to let her be for the moment.'
"James, did you blow it?" Sirius asked as he walked back to where the other Marauders and Holly were standing. By the look on James' face, Sirius knew he'd blown it. "You blew it. What did you say?"
"She called me Potter."
"What?" Sirius demanded. "But she hasn't called you Potter for a few weeks now. Boy you must have done something wrong."
James just looked at him with a stare that said he was ready the kill.
"Sirius, Lily believes James doesn't love her any more." Holly stated, as she knew more than the others did.
"What?" James asked perplexed. "When would I have ever shown her otherwise, I've only ever wanted to be with her for years?"
"She thinks you stopped loving her the moment you didn't think rationally about what happened before the incident." Holly answered suddenly becoming defensive. "I mean, you were fighting, on your first date. Now I don't know what it was about, but to be arguing over what I'm pretty sure was something trivial on the first date, probably doesn't keep your hopes up about having a healthy relationship."
James cringed as he remembered the argument. "You're right, it probably was trivial." He sighed looking at their faces. He could see they all wanted to know what the fight was about. "We were having a small dispute about Alaina."
"Alaina, why the hell would you want to talk about her?" Sirius stated, looking at James in a funny way before leaning over to feel his forehead. James pulled away from him.
"What do you think you're doing?" He snapped.
"Just checking to make sure you're not sick." Sirius grumbled back.
"Continue James." Remus said in an understanding way.
"Well, Lily was…concerned with how nice I am towards Alaina, how we get along. She wanted me to stay away from her, she said that-" He paused. "She said that Alaina was only bad news and that by sticking up for her only gave her and opening to ruin our lives. She must have thought I only cared about Alaina."
"Well, you obviously didn't stop and tell her otherwise." Holly stated anger creeping into her voice a little more firmly than she wanted
"Don't you think I'm killing myself enough over what happened? I hurt her so badly and I'll never forgive myself for causing her so much pain. I'll only slightly feel better to be able to hurt her attacker as much as they, or it, hurt her!" James replied standing up and facing the dormitory.
"James what are you doing?" Remus asked cautiously, turning his head to the side slightly and raising one eye brow.
"I'm…" He paused, what was he doing? He couldn't attack Lily's attacker…he was still unknown, and he couldn't go talk to her, could he? Yes, that's what he planned to do. "I'm going to go talk to Lily, find out what's going on with her. I have to know how I can help."
"James!" Holly jumped up from her seat, slowly making he way towards where he now stood. Choosing her words carefully she tried to approach the situation rationally. "I have to say I don't think you're who she's going to want to see tonight. Now, you might be able to talk to her more easily tomorrow even, but for results tonight I think it would be safer if I went up to talk to Lily."
Holly braced herself for what she expected to be an argument from James, but nothing came. She raised her face to look at his eyes, prepared for anger, but what she saw was understanding and comfort. She was surprised, as were the rest of them as it was different for James, he usually never backed down when he felt passionate about something. From the views of the others James cared that much for Lily that he was will to back down from his most longed desire.
"You're right," James sighed sitting back down. "You're all right. She deserves more at the moment than what I can give her. Tell her I care still, despite what she wants to believe. Tell her- tell her I will find out what happened, and stop it from occurring ever again. Tell her I love her." He whispered the last part as though it pained him to utter those words to anyone other then Lily.
"I will." Holly got up kissed Sirius on the cheek, waved goodbye to Remus- Peter had already retired to bed, unable to keep his eyes open a moment longer- and then made her way up to her dormitory. She knew it was going to be empty because they hadn't seen the other girls in their whole time downstairs. The celebrations were still on and only those in complete distress had turned away from the partying and the excuse to stay up late out of the house rooms.
Entering the dormitory Holly found Lily storming around the room throwing pillows and knocking paper stacks over. 'Throwing a child's tantrum' Holly thought as she closed the door behind her. It was a good thing Lily still had enough sense to avoid the belongings of their other room mates so as not to destroy anything important.
"Lily…?" Holly asked slowly, as though to let the other girl know she had entered the room and was willing to talk.
"He's down their now, thinking he's all High and Mighty because he managed to scare the wits out of me. Is that what you came to tell me, because I already know. How could I even think that he'd changed one bit, always the one to think the slightest rebellious thing was fine, provided it didn't out rebel him. He so insufferable." Lily vented as a way to clear her head, the problem was it wasn't working.
"Lily," Holly took the break in Lily's ranting to get a few words in. "James told us about your argument, over Alaina. Lils, He says-" she was cut off by Lily.
"If he wishes to stand for her so much he might as well be going our with her…I bet that would make him so much happier."
"Lils, that's not what I said."
"I don't want to talk about it."
Holly sighed, 'Why'd she have to be so difficult?' "Lily. James wanted me to tell you-"
"I said I don't want to talk about it!" Lily stated with clenched teeth. 'Why didn't Holly understand?'
"Well you seemed able to say things before!" Holly shot back. She wasn't going to let Lily walk over her because she was upset with James!
"You're going to stick up for him aren't you? Well then I don't want to hear it, and if you think you're going to change my mind think again. You might as well go pledge you friendship to 'Mr James Potter' instead of wasting your time here." Lily spat out the last words as though they were cursed.
"Fine then, I will!" Holly spat back turning around and pulling the door open. She flung it shut with a loud slam and stormed down the stair and into the common room once more.
Lily watched the door close and flinched with its loud ending. Reviewing what had just happened. 'I just lost a boyfriend and my Best Friend in one night. Omg…what have I done?'
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Well that chapter is done and over.
I'll try and keep writing as much as I can, but with final school year starting in 2 days I cant promise much.
Read and Review…thanx!