/N: Here's the third chapter to my story. I'd appreciate it greatly if you'd review after you read, as always. Much thanks to waking star, eb, turkey, Chelsea, gurl, bluemoonbabe, marissa, and Rose Diana Potter. I'm forever in debt to Kim for beta reading this; and to Sirius because…well just because damnit.
Trepidation of a Rose
Chapter Three: Dancing With the Devil
"The
only thing we have to fear is fear itself –nameless, unreasoning, unjustified
terror…"
The Aurors
Station was a daunting stone fortress, burrowed so deep within the Black Forest
of Germany, that not even it's innumerable towers were visible above the
leafless trees. It was surrounded by what the Auror's called the Death River- a
bottomless river that was infested with Dark magical creatures that would kill
instantly if you fell into the water, and the river's banks were nothing more
than dead grass and dark shadows. When
Moody had first Apparated the young group of Auror's to castle, for their
orientation and first day of training, James had been sure he'd somehow
taken them to a torture house for Voldemort. The air that surrounded the castle
was enigmatic and surreptitious.
The
inside of the Station was charmingly elegant, with grand halls and majestic
jeweled windows that were enchanted so that if you gazed out them you'd see the
grounds covered in crystalline snow. Every room hosted an ornate fireplace that was half James's height, and
the fireplaces were always glowing golden, and more often that not held the
head of one Auror or another, of on some deadly mission. Shelves made of the
deepest, darkest wood lined the walls, and held books with titles such as The
Vampire Wars of 1547- The Revised Edition and How to Guide Yourself from
the Dark Forces, which looked as though it hadn't been opened in decades.
Some books were propped up against jars of brightly colored herbs and even a
box of minuscule dragon fangs were laying under back issues of Witch Weekly.
(When James questioned Moody about this, Moody just hinted that unless James
wanted to get socked into the next universe, he better just forget what he saw.
James conveniently did.)
James
was standing in the Fighting Room- a gymnasium of sorts, with black mats that
covered the floor, and mirrors that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. He
and his partner, Frank Longbottom – another Auror in training, were watching
Bruce Diggle, Moody's right hand man, demonstrate a few 'basic' martial arts moves. Moves James was sure he
wouldn't be able to master in quite some time. Diggle was a short, thickset
older man, with distinguished features and sharp cobalt eyes, and a strong
French accent. He had been Chief of the Dark Force Defense League before
retiring the year before to help Moody train Aurors to fight, duel, and track
Death Eaters. James couldn't help but snicker when Diggle called on the other
two Aurors in the room, Marcus Crockford and Keith McCann, to practice the
moves on each other.
"Potter!
Don't you stand there and laugh boy, I want you and Longbottom doing this too!"
Diggle barked, clapping his hands energetically. James and Frank groaned in
unison, but turned and faced each other. "Right now…fight!" Before James could
register what had happened, Frank had sent a jab to his ribs, and he was
doubled over, gasping for breath. Frank went to kick James, but James caught
his ankle, and twisted his leg, sending Frank to fall flat on his face. James
pinned him down, grinning victoriously when Diggle slapped him on the back. "Good
job, Potter…Longbottom, don't lay there, you great lump, stand up and go at it
again!"
After
several more rounds of vicious attacks, and after Marcus had been deemed the
winner, the four trainees sled down a banister for lunch. James grinned
impertinently when a portrait of a golden haired veela winked at him in
passing. Keith led them down corridors, and up very creaky stairwells, and
James (or anyone else for that matter), thought that it wasn't very much unlike
Hogwarts.
"Frank,
my sister's been asking about you a lot lately; I think she fancies you a bit,"
Marcus rumbled in his deep voice, as they entered a mammoth sitting room, with
framed Aurors dozing on the walls. Franck laughed heartily, not looking a bit
abashed. Frank Longbottom had been known at his days at Hogwarts for not being
able to keep his eyes (or hands) of girls, yet not one girl could resist his
shiny blonde hair, vibrant personality, or turquoise eyes.
"Unfortunately,
I have to turn your sister down," Frank said, conjuring up a plate of turkey
sandwiches, and a few glasses of soda, and after taking three sandwiches, he
passed the plate to his left. "Believe it or not, I met the most gorgeous girl
in Zonko's. She's a knockout," Frank's eyes looked glazed, as if he were picturing
her in his minds eye. "Blonde, blue eyed, and the most wonderful laugh. Her
name's Julia Boot. She's really something."
There
was a short silence as they devoured their sandwiches, gulped down pop, and
tried to out belch each other. "What about you James? Any lucky lady getting
the Potter charm?" Frank asked in a suggestive tone, trying to look wide eyed
and innocent, and failing dreadfully. James snorted and half-smiled as Keith
catcalled about French blondes.
"No, not right now," James said, pushing his glasses up from the end of his nose, hoping that they'd drop the subject, or at least move on to someone else. James romantic life was simply non existent, as he'd only had one girlfriend in his 18 years, and he'd only gotten together with her because Remus had dared him, and James Potter never backed out of a dare. The 'relationship' had ended in disaster of course, after the girl had learned that James had never even been kissed. She'd called him four-eyes and ran away, and thirteen year old James knew he'd be doomed forever.
"Oh,
come now James. Can you honestly tell me no one piques your interest? Gives you
that heart-stopping tinkling laugh? Arouses those manly urges?" Frank nudged Marcus in the ribs, and their hysterical
laughter echoed in the high-ceilinged room. James colored slightly, and managed
a grim smile. "What about that good-looking red head, eh? The Head Girl," Keith
inquired, tossing his napkin at James. Keith had graduated four years ago, as
Head Boy and Ravenclaw Keeper, but he kept up with news around the school.
"Oh…
Lily?" James asked, his eyebrows nearly disappearing into his hairline.
Everyone who knew the pair, knew that they were strictly friends, and never
would have put them together romantically. In fact, everyone who had been in
Gryffindor tower when the Marauders had been, had always spread the rumor that Sirius
and Lily would make a good couple. "We're just friends."
Frank,
who'd finally caught his breath, propped his head in his hands and shook his
head woefully, with a knowing smile on his face. "Famous last words, James.
Famous last words."
* * * * * * * * *
"I'm home,"
Lily sang loudly as she walked in the doorway, laden with shopping bags.
Judging from the smell that was wafting from the kitchen, Natalie was trying to
make dinner, and it was burning. Badly. Lily's eyes watered as she walked into
the kitchen, where she found Natalie bent over a vast pot of a bubbly, smoking
sauce, a leather bound book propped on a bowl in front of her. "Nat?" Lily
coughed, waving her hands in front of her face.
"Oh
hey, I didn't hear you come in," Natalie grinned, stirring furiously. Natalie
had on the clothes she had left the house in, a cream colored blouse, a short
black skirt, and black pumps. Her long, curly blonde hair had been piled on her
head in an elegant French braid, but some strands had escaped, and now hung
lifelessly by her face. "What did you do all day? You got some letters, Kacela
dropped them on your bed, I think." The pot hissed threateningly as Natalie
added what looked to be some kind of spice. Kacela was Natalie's tawny owl with
amber eyes that Natalie had owned since she was twelve, when her mother decided
she needed one, after the summer when all the boys –or Sirius really, became
interested in her, and would owl her all through the night.
"Alright. How did your interview go?" Lily asked, pulling out a chair and sitting down in it, and watching with heavy apprehension as Natalie shredded cheese.
"Well,
I got there and this really hot guy comes out. I mean he's a babe, tall and
devastatingly handsome with the clearest sapphire eyes I've seen," Natalie
waved the block of cheese fervently. "I'm looking at him, and I'm thinking
'Damn, that is a nice backside he's got there', and he looks at me and
asks me for my name. I tell him and he tells me his name is," Natalie paused
dramatically. "Bruce Hoffman. And then he tells me he's going to ask me questions.
At this point I'm praying to Merlin and everyone downward that this gorgeous
specimen is not my boss, because how awkward would that be? So we play twenty
questions, and he tells me I have the job, and that he's my –"
Lily
clapped her hands over her ears as the pot screeched deafeningly, and she
stared up at Natalie in black astonishment as she continued to pour oil into
the pot. "Oh, don't worry," Natalie assured her, reading her face like a book.
"It always does that, it's a signal that it's almost done."
"Right,
well I think I'll go read those letters now. You wont have to call me for
dinner; I'll just come back once you've shut that bloody thing up," Lily
yelled, tearing out of the room, and making sure the door closed firmly behind
her. She'd almost reached her room, when the pot ('Thank you God')
stopped screaming obscenity's and Natalie called, "Dinner's ready!"
Lily,
her hand on the doorknob, was about to call back, but muted voices stopped her.
Someone –or rather two somebody's, were whispering around her, and their
voices were like running water, maybe only impalpable but there. Her brow
furrowed, she turned slightly, and swung an arm out behind her, just in case it
was someone ('But who?!') draped under an Invisibility cloak. There was
nothing, absolutely nothing, but the voices were becoming louder…it was like
listening to static on the radio, as you searched for the right channel. You
knew the station was there, you just couldn't find it, and so you were stuck
with the annoying buzz of static. Lily
leaned forward cautiously, just placing her ear to the door, and they became
louder.
…love you very much…but…very
becoming…work on that…
Lily
quickly took her hand off the doorknob, as if she had
been burned, because when she looked down she noticed a red beam creeping out
from beneath her door. She stared fixedly at it, before hesitantly reaching for
her wand, and kicking the door open. Burning red light stung at her eyes, and a
holy echoing voice filled the air, but Lily fought it all and squinted at the
two transparent figures that stood before her. The man was James Potter and the
woman was herself, and they were both dancing, their arms wrapped around one
another, and they were staring at each other with such an apparent love, it
ached to look at them. Lily watched them, transfixed, as they moved
slowly to their own music, talking softly to one another, completely oblivious
to the fact that they were being watched.
Lily
watched as the hologram James mouthed words –what he said, Lily didn't know, she
couldn't hear him –and the hologram Lily laughed. Lily ( the real one), took a
step toward them, and flinched as the music became much louder, and the crimson
light became much stronger. With each step, it became more and more painful to
become closer to them…the voice was vibrating through her blood, and the couple
radiated more blinding red, but Lily was determined to touch hologram James.
With trembling fingers she touched his shoulder- and his shirt scorched her
fingers, and set her flying halfway across the room, where she was slammed
against the wall, and welcomed the darkness.
* * * * * * * * *
When Lily awoke, some many hours later, the house still smelled of burnt sauce and instead of laying on the floor in a heap, she was in her bed, the covers snug up to her chin. Careful not to disturb her head (it was pounding something dreadful), she cracked open her eyes and saw two- no three- figures bent over a smoking spot on the rug. She recognized Sirius's backside, and assumed that the other one was Natalie. They were talking softly to one another, but Sirius kept raising his voice, and Lily wished he would quit, because she felt like she had a horrible hangover. She parted her lips, and tried to clear her throat, but all that came was a searing white-hot pain from her stomach to her mouth, and Lily felt something trickle out of her mouth. Her stomach contracted as if she had been punched viciously, but she couldn't double over, couldn't gasp out in pain, couldn't even move her head in the slightest. She was being forced to wheeze faintly, her lungs crying for air.
"Oh Lily!" Natalie ran to Lily's beside, and Lily saw that Natalie had obviously been crying –her face was streaked with tears, and her eyes bloodshot, and she looked sick to her stomach. "She's awake!" Natalie cried gratuitously, because Sirius and Remus tore to her bedside too. Lily continued to grasp for breath, her lungs welcoming the faint air that was coming.
"How are you?" Sirius asked, looking at her momentarily as he grabbed a cloth, and wiped her mouth. Lily saw that the cloth was now smeared with a rust red: blood.
"How the fuck do you think I feel? What the hell
happened?" Lily asked, but no one answered her, they all just looked
at her expectantly, a mixture of horror and fatigue evident in their faces. "Have you all gone deaf? Answer me!" Lily
shouted, but there was no response in their faces; they didn't balk or command
her to calm down, in fact Lily would have thought them to be stupefied.
"Why
can't she answer?" Natalie asked no one in particular, her gray eyes meeting
Lily's dull green-gold ones.
"Can't answer? What are you talking about? Can't you
hear me?!" Lily screamed, her heart beating in her chest, banging
against her ribcage unmercifully. She
kept screaming, screaming awful profanity and wretched curses, anything and
everything, praying against logic that by some fluke, they'd hear her. "Listen to me!" Lily
inwardly groaned, and cursed hologram James. Lily's hysteria must have been
shadowed in her eyes, because Natalie clutched her hand even tighter. The query
hung in the air though, because Sirius nor Remus answered. After an elongated
silence, Remus shifted uncomfortably and Sirius sighed heavily and rubbed his
eyes as he spoke.
"Bollocks.
Not only do we not know what happened, but she can't talk. Whatever happened,
and it was evil, no doubting that, must have blocked her from talking." Sirius
bounced his elbows on his chino-clad knees as he pushed his hair out of his
face. "Lily? I'm going to ask you some stuff, if you understand blink once."
Lily really wished she could roll her eyes at this, but her eyes just didn't
seem to want to follow her command. She blinked slowly though, and both Remus
and Natalie shrieked happily and clapped.
"If
the answer to a question is yes, blink once; and if it's no then blink twice.
Understand?" Lily blinked.
"Are you in pain?" Lily made a mental note to herself to kick Sirius in unmentionable places when she was capable of doing so, but she blinked once anyway. "Right, then. Do you remember what happened to you?" Blink. "Did someone attack you?" Two Blinks. "Did a group of people attack you?" Two blinks. "Do you know how the floor caught on fire?" Two blinks. "Your left hand is scorched, Lily. Did the fire from the floor burn your hand?" Blink.
Sirius turned to Remus and Natalie and said, "I don't really know what to do. James is the one who has expertise in this, he'll probably know what did this and how to cure her." He turned back to Lily and told her," I'll start a sleeping potion for you, and Natalie can finish it, since Remus nor I were all that good in Potions." Sirius smiled wryly. "And I'm going to go get James." Lily started to blink furiously, trying to use her hands to stop Sirius, but they just twitched vacuously and made her bones quake with pain. It felt as if she were a puzzle and someone was putting her back together, her bones twisting within the skin. She gritted her teeth so hard, her jaw almost snapped into pieces.
"Look!
Is she having a spasm?" Remus asked unnervingly, grabbing at one of her hands,
as Lily's eyes budged. 'Please, oh God, let me
die!' Eventually the pain subsided somewhat, and Lily was
able to slide her eyes to Remus and blink twice. "She's trying to tell us
something," Remus gasped, and she blinked once.
"You
don't want a sleeping potion?" Natalie inquired, her voice high-pitched and
strained. Lily blinked once, and Sirius stared at her, the perfect picture of an
eloquent man doused in perplexity, with his eyebrows furrowed and his forehead
creased.
"Do
you want me to get James?" Lily blinked twice, and Remus gawped at her.
"Well,
I don't care what you want. I'm going to get him," Sirius flatly told them, and
stalked out of the room. Moments later the three friends heard the roar of the
engine of Sirius's motorbike, his prized possession.
"I'll
go get you something to drink, and maybe something to eat, alright Lily?"
Natalie asked, frowning softly. "Remus could you help me?" Remus nodded, and
with final squeezes of her hand, they walked out into the hallway.
Lily
closed her burning, tired eyes, her thoughts a blur as she fell into a deep,
uneasy sleep that was tainted with images of herself and James Potter.
* * * * * * * * *
Natalie
and Remus were in the kitchen, pouring a pot of soup into three glass bowls,
when James Apparated before them, his hair more tousled than usual, and looking
characteristically scruffy. "Where is
she?" James asked, immediately heading for the doorway that led to the hallway,
which still had boxes strewed about it.
"In
her room," Remus said resignedly. "Where is Sirius?"
"Riding
back," James called over his shoulder as he ran down the hallway, and
half-tripped into Lily's room. He was shocked to find a smoldering gray patch
of wood in the middle of Lily's maroon carpeting, and even more taken back when
his eyes landed on Lily- her vivid red hair contrasting horribly with the stark
white of the bed…and of her face. It seemed unnatural for her face to be whiter
than pale, and for her bottle green eyes to not be dancing merrily.
James walked to her side, and dropped to his knees beside her bed, his heart falling like a stone as he listened to her shallow breathing. He didn't pick up her hand, because he thought it could wake her up.
'This is unbelievable…who'd want to hurt Lily?' James
thought helplessly as Natalie and Remus came into the room, the bowls of soup
floating magically in front of them. "Is she asleep?" Natalie asked quietly, staring down at her best friend
sadly, and then jumping back as Lily's eyes popped open. As her eyes landed on
James, she looked as if she wanted to jump back in fright, but she was confined
to her bed, and was stuck with just staring at him.
"Do
you want some soup, Lily?" Natalie asked, standing at the end of Lily's bed,
holding the steaming bowl in her hands, a cooling charm placed on the bowl.
"No, I don't want any. I don't think I could stomach
any right now," Lily said, and James patted her arm comfortingly,
watching as she blinked twice up at Natalie.
"Besides,
Natalie's cooking isn't all that wonderful is it?" James cajoled, causing Lily
to look at him with widen eyes. "What? She just said she didn't think she could
take any food, it wasn't a blow at Nata-" James asked, looking around the room
at the odd looks on his friends' faces.
"Lily didn't open her mouth, James. Sh…She didn't say a thing." Remus said, starting. James narrowed his eyes, feeling the air in the room stiffen.
"Yes, she
did. Didn't you Lil?" He turned to Lily, nodding almost perceptibly. The
slightest trace of a smile brightened Lily's eyes as James squeezed her numb, trembling
hands into his own.
"Natalie and Remus can't hear me, and neither could Sirius when I woke up
earlier. I don't know how –or why, I can't talk, or why only you can hear me. You're hearing my thoughts, James, and I think…I'm
pretty sure, that is…that I can hear yours too. Because when I was asleep, I heard you think about
who would want to hurt me."
"That's ridiculous and impossible," James said aloud, not noticing the look Natalie and Remus shared. "Tell me then, what am I thinking about?"
"You know, Sirius interrupted my training to be
here. I'm training to be an Auror," James
thought.
"That's very interesting," Lily's
voice said blandly. "I always wanted to be an
Auror, but I don't think I posses any of the strength needed –physically or, as
proven tonight, emotionally." James's jaw simply feel to the
floor as he heard her, but he watched her two, and her mouth didn't open, and
as far as he knew, even a ventriloquist had to move their lips in the slightest.
"How did this happen?" James
asked her noiselessly, and she sighed within his mind.
"That's the catch. I have no idea whatsoever."