I feel like I should tell you guys that I'm sorry. The original story had different names in it than this one and so I sometimes get really confused and really mixed up with character names. I appreciate everyone who has e-mailed me and mentioned that I've made name mistakes. Sometime I'll go back through and edit them. Once again, I apologize.

The Pain of Recovery

It was much more difficult for Lily to get back in the swing of school this time around. Unlike after her attack, her body had been beaten and battered and her mind was definitely nowhere close to the right place to be thinking about her education. And that didn't even begin on her emotional injuries. She and James, intentionally or otherwise, avoided each other for much of her first week back. Normally, she would have protested, but her time in the hospital wing had given her many opportunities to think.

Whether she loved James or not, she was way too dependent on him for her tastes. Before her attack, she'd been completely independent. She could walk the halls without a care in the world, without fear of someone kidnapping her, raping her, or hurting her in any way. After her attack, she'd leaned heavily on James for emotional support and protection. But that wasn't his job. They didn't live in medieval England anymore. Lily was as responsible of taking care of herself as anyone else in that castle.

Not only that, but Lily had come to the conclusion that should she have separated herself from James, made sure she didn't become dependent on him, she wouldn't have been put through the hell she'd gone through in the dungeons of some Death Eater lair. She was confused, she was hurt and she wanted answers from everyone. How had she managed to escape that dungeon? Who had perished in James place? Some of her biggest questions circled around her own emotions. She'd spent a lot of time denying she was worried, that she was attached that she was-

In love.

Lily paused right in the middle of a busy hall, accidentally forcing people to trip over her until she was pressed against the stone wall. Where had that thought come from? She wasn't in love with James Potter. In fact, if anything, she was frustrated with him to no end. He'd been the one that had been so sweet, so kind, so protective, that she grew to rely on him for everything. He'd weaselled his way into her life and made himself a comfortable little nest in her heart. Normally, and under any other set of circumstance, she would have set him straight about how much she didn't need him in her life. Instead, they'd become friends and even she, the current queen of denial, had to admit they were special to each other.

She sighed heavily as she finally made it to the empty classroom Dumbledore had asked her to meet him in over the lunch hour. It was their usual training period, a chance for Lily to try and exercise the magic Voldemort had seemed so keen on taking from her. It was a lot of work, but it was her gift and if it could help their side in the war, she was willing to do whatever it took to train herself to use it.

It was just too bad her research had shown she couldn't bring people back from the dead. And too bad Voldemort hadn't known that. She straightened her shoulders, absently listening to Dumbledore's instructions. Her pessimistic attitude was something that had woken with her after her kidnapping and she'd done a brilliant job of convincing herself that James didn't care about her. She told herself it was especially true after their fight. She'd heard the gossip, heard the rumours. He was back to his old ways. She was nothing special.

And it hurt

Things were collapsing around him at an alarming rate. Not only had Lily stopped talking to him and started avoiding him, James knew the school was talking about it too. They'd been inseparable before her disappearance and now it was impossible to find them together. Rumours spread like wildfire through the first few days that he'd tried to sleep with her and she'd turned him down flat. Other rumours were more along the lines of him finding a new girl to take her place and throwing her aside. Either way, he didn't want to think about it. He knew he and Lily had been out of sync for at the very least a couple of weeks leading up to their fight and her disappearance. Above all else, with his whole heart, he just wanted to fix it. But Lily found a way to block him at every opportunity.

Since her abduction, she'd quarantined herself off from the rest of the school including Beka and Katie. She spent her free time holed up in some remote corner of the library with her assignments, readings and studying, so much so that she maybe saw them for meal times. He knew she had only been working, hadn't taken time off or time to herself. He wasn't stupid enough not to peg it as a coping mechanism. What was bothering him so much was that he couldn't seem to figure out if it was bothering her as much as it was bothering him.

The fight was still fresh in his mind and had this uncanny ability to pop up in his brain whenever he stepped into the common room. He could still see the shattered Tinkerbelle from where he and Katie had picked up the pieces. He could still hear the hurt in her voice, see the pain in her eyes when he sat in front of the fire. He hadn't been able to work in that common room since she disappeared.

But no matter how much he'd intentionally or unintentionally hurt her, he was having a very hard time dealing with some of the comments she'd said. He'd never ever thought of spending time with her as babysitting. He'd always wanted to spend time with her, to get to know her, to understand every little unique nuance of who she was. It was second nature for him at this point to want to be in her company. Protecting her was his personality, part of his nature, part of who he was and he'd never considered even for a moment that she'd want her freedom. She'd seemed just as happy to have him around as he was to be around her.

Apparently, he'd been terribly and horribly wrong.

Beka knew Lily had created a bubble. It was what she did when something was really bothering her, when she couldn't get something out of her head, when all she really wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry. It was this reason that she and Katie hadn't worried about it in the beginning. Now though, things had changed. No matter how upset Lily was, she inevitably came to either her or Katie. But there had been no sign of Lily except at wake up and at bed time. The girls never talked, Lily never talked, and it was disconcerting to say the least. Beka couldn't think of the last time Lily had even subjected herself to social interaction outside of the classroom. She'd buried her head so far into those books Beka was starting to worry if they'd ever come out.

Beka liked to think she knew Lily, arguably better than Lily knew herself. She knew how the redhead worked. So it was painfully difficult for her to see Lily so upset, so much so that she avoided people like they'd burn her. Stella had watched many disturbing things in her life and heard so much more from the stories Katie's parents, as wizards, had told, but Beka wasn't sure anything could have prepared her for this. She felt betrayed. And the worst part was that Beka knew only one person could change the way Lily was.

So as she approached James Potter, sitting in one of the really squishy arm chairs by the fire, she had to take a deep breath. He didn't look up until she cleared her throat.

"We need to talk."

"Katie?"

Katie jumped, not realizing someone had joined her in the astronomy tower. She'd been having a good quality think up in the quiet about what had been going on with her best friends. Everyone was so subdued and it was starting to scare her. "Remus," she greeted calmly, turning back to the stars.

Remus took a seat on the ledge beside her, just studying her. Finally, he opened his mouth to speak. "You're worried."

It was a statement, one that she didn't confirm or deny. Remus had become a constant in her life since Lily and James had started their intense bonding and Katie had found that they both tended to play the third party observer role. They often found themselves acting as go-betweens for their friends since Beka stuck very close to Lily and Sirius to James. So they'd started to stick together.

"How is Lily?"

She knew there was no way she could lie to him. "Terrible. James?"

"About the same."

They sat in silence for a moment. Remus followed her gaze before he spoke and Katie braced herself for something she might find offensive.

"Do you know why she yelled at him?"

It was a genuine question that Katie had to think about for a few moments. "She never told me."

It was a neutral answer.

"Guess."

Katie shrugged. "I'm not even sure Lily understands," she told him honestly. "She cries herself to sleep at night. She's thrown herself into her school work. I'm don't think I've had an honest conversation with her since she woke up."

"Sirius is starting to worry about James."

Katie nodded absently at the announcement. "I feel like I should be mad at James for something, you know?" she said after a few more moments of silence.

Remus nodded his understanding. He often felt the same way about Lily. "I can't be," he replied, cementing her belief that they were in this together. Remus leaned his head back against the stone wall where they sat. "She changed him."

The comment took Katie by surprise. "What?"

"Tink changed James. Not many people noticed it and I'm surprised you didn't. He's not the same person he was before her attack."

Katie had to consider that a moment. It was very true. Before James had found out about Lily's abusive relationship, he was constantly seen with a new girl on his arm every day, snogging a new one in the hallways before classes, pulling pranks on anyone who simply walked past him. The pranks had suddenly stopped one day and James was only ever seen walking down the hallway with a certain redhead. Sure, he still had his fair share of dates, but Katie hadn't been sure if those were war stories from the girls around the school or truth. It had stopped completely when Lily had disappeared and only started up again as the school noticed that they couldn't find James Potter with Lily Evans anymore.

"True," she acknowledged finally. A contemplative silence fell over them once again. "She's broken," Katie whispered, angry at herself for the tears she found punching at her nose.

"So is he."

"We can't put the pieces together," she continued.

"No matter how hard we try," he agreed.

"So what can we do?" She sounded like a lost little girl.

"I don't know, Katie."

"I hate seeing her like this. She doesn't even seem to try anymore. She's just going through the motions."

Remus empathized with her and told her as much. "I know."

I know this probably isn't the chapter you guys wanted, but it was a necessary chapter. You get to see how almost all of them are coping with everything.

One more chapter and then I think this can be considered complete.