Ah, sorry it's late. I'm really busy lately.

Disclaimer: Don't own

Chapter 38

I sit at the Gryffindor table, impatiently tapping the table with my nails. I'm sort of disappointed in Lily. I can't believe she left me there just waiting for her till morning. I yawn. I stayed up the entire night, waiting for her. I had to clear up the unused decorations and everything I had prepared, and then run back to get my school robes. None of the girls were up yet, so I just came down first and poured myself a bowl of cereal.

From the corner of my eye, I see Rosalie running towards me, her blond hair messily flying everywhere. Weird. Usually Rosalie never lets herself be seen without perfect hair. She looks damn worried too. She reaches me in record time, and in between pants, she asks, "Hey, have you seen Lily?"

"What? No. Isn't she with you?" I ask, frowning.

"No, she's missing. Her bed was unmade and she was just gone. She's disappeared. I don't know where she is. I thought she was with you?" Rosalie is breathes heavily as she straightens and shoots me a quizzical glance. "Okay. I'm going to go check the girl's toilets."

"Yeah. I'll check the school halls," I say, standing up and abandoning my cereal. Sirius comes up and offers to check the library and grounds with Remus. Peter is still asleep. The rest of the girls check empty classrooms and every once in a while the dorms.

Panic erupts within me as I struggle to keep a calm poise. Lily is missing? Merlin, how much drama can one year possibly hold? But more important is the question: why is Lily missing? And where is she? I sprint out of the Great Hall, and I begin jogging through all the Halls.

I've run through every hall in all seven levels, and still no Lily in sight. Worry grows and strengthens in me as I cast one final glance around before running back down to the Great Hall. Shit. Shit. SHIT. Where is Lily? I wonder if she is alright? I begin to hyperventilate as I sprint back to the Great Hall.

There is a small crowd back at the Great Hall, consisting of the Marauders and the girls, and right in the centre, looking slightly bedraggled, tired and surprised, is Lily. Shoving my way through my mates, I breathe heavily from my sprint as I glower at Lily. Why did she make me so worried? And why isn't she wearing her school robes? She's wearing a turquoise shirt and denim shorts, and a funny black stone-studded coat-like-thing, leaves strewn in her red hair, twigs caught in threads over her clothes, scratches lightly drawn over her flawless skin. Mud is skimmed on her shoes and streaked across her face. She looks exhausted, and frankly just plain bemused. Her eyes are ringed with darkness, and she tiredly brushes away her friends, as she sits down and turns to smile at me. "Hi, James."

Sirius drags me away before I can open my mouth in indignation. "Rosalie found her sleeping in the bushes, dressed like that. When she woke her, she looked really exhausted, and said she couldn't remember anything that had happened the whole night. She guesses she must have sleep-walked." I glance over at her. Rosalie is fussing over her, helping her with the simplest of tasks, like pouring sugar into her porridge or pouring her some pumpkin juice. Rosalie looks very worried, stroking her tangled hair softly and speaking quietly to her. I'm pretty worried too. Lily is just accepting the coddling, yawning and slowly eating. Usually she'd tell Rosalie she was alright. She must be really exhausted. Almost like her brain had been addled.

"Sleep-walked?" I mutter, unconvinced. I continue watching as Rosalie guides a rather slow-minded Lily back up to the dorms for a quick wash-up before first class in about twenty minutes. "Strange." And for some reason, I feel eyes watching me.

…

Lily's POV:

I ache all over. At first I thought it had been the uncomfortable position I was curled up in the laurel, but now they are sharp, aching jerks, like pain left over from a greater anguish. I feel as though I've been severely beaten, or something. It's difficult to move quickly, and I also feel extremely sleepy and a little dazed.

I visit the Hospital Wing, but Madame Pomfrey was attending to a Quidditch victim so she just suggests a pain-relieving potion, so she jerks her thumb at the medical cupboard for simpler potions, where I find myself a small bottle of purple liquid labelled 'Pain-Killer'. I sniff it and it doesn't smell so bad. I carefully take a measured gulp by Madame's instruction, and it's way more potent than it looks, and way grosser than it smells.

I place the rest in my pocket, gasping for air as the burning sensation fades a notch, and the aches all over my body eases slightly. I thank her and run off for my next class.

Class is torture today, because my mind just feels so hazy I have to scribble my notes almost to the point of illegibility so I have it pinned down on paper before I forget what the Professor has said. My mind wanders too, so some of my spell work has become disasters. My sock turned into miniature rabbit instead of changing material. My Cheering Charm was too strong, leaving James, my partner, giggling like a schoolgirl for ten minutes. It also leaves me in quiet, hysterical giggles, and I make another trip to Madame Pomfrey's for a calming spell. She thinks part of the spell may have backfired on me.

When I sit down for dinner, I mix honey into my pain-relieving potion – I checked with Madame Pomfrey whether it was okay. That was a big mistake. The once slightly bitter potion with a biting edge that burned in my throat is now sickeningly sweet, and when mixed I tastes like a gooey mesh of something I don't want to describe. I realize the best way to deal with this is to mix it with water to dilute it to a hazy purple-dusted liquid and plonk some ice-cream in it. It doesn't do anything to the potion, so it's alright. The potion gives the vanilla ice cream a slight bitter taste, but it is interesting. So I mix a tablespoon – Madame Pomfrey's prescription – into the warm water and put in the ice cream, stirring it all up into a faintly purple mixture, which tastes better and more interesting than it really looks.

I feel extraordinarily tired, and a pounding headache, so I kiss James goodnight, wave at Rosalie and hop out of the hall, beaming and humming. Despite my sleepiness and the headache, I feel strangely light and happy and I absentmindedly skip to the dorms, singing Christmas carols. Somewhere behind the blind and unexplainable happiness there is doubt and there is fear, but it is a horrible feeling, so I push it far, far away and bound up the stairs, yawning into my mouth.

James POV:

My eyes follow Lily out of the Hall. I mean, I'm happy when she's happy, but she's so… eerily happy. She's been acting strange the whole day. Maybe she fell while she was sleep-walking. If she even was sleep-walking. My suspicion grows on a certain Slytherin. I bend my head so my mouth accepts a spoonful of fried fish, and while I chew, staring at the glass of my goblet, I just reminiscence the Cheering Charm and half-blush in the embarrassment at the recollection of being a giggly boy. At least it made me forget a second.

When I look up, however, I notice a certain place at the Slytherin table is empty, when it was full a minute before.

I stand and run for the Gryffindor Dorms.