The last part of "I'd Love You To Hate Me" will be coming soon, I promise. But I was so into writing this that I couldn't bring myself to wait till after I finished ILYTHM. And a short remark before we start: Sometimes I use the lyrics to a song although I don't like the artist. So don't yell at me for using songs of a group you don't like, maybe I don't like them either... But as long as the lyrics seem appropriate, I use them.
As We Go On...
Part 4
I can't imagine
Any greater fear
Than waking up
Without you here
And though the sun
Would still shine on
My whole world
Would all be gone
But not for long
If I had to run
If I had to crawl
If I had to swim a hundred rivers
Just to climb a thousand walls
Always know that I would find a way
To get to where you are
There's no place that far
Westlife - No place that far
"What exactly do you think you're doing, James?" Sirius, hands on his hips, glared at his friend who was frantically throwing clothes in an overlarge backpack.
James didn't even bother looking up, his answer came through gritted teeth. "What does it look like, hmm? I sure as hell won't let her face Voldemort alone."
"Oh no, you will not go to search for her. Not -" Remus took now part in the conversation as well, but was cut off by James.
"Don't tell me what to do, Remus. That's my business, and there's nothing, absolutely nothing you can do to stop me."
The addressed boy raised both hands in the air; palms turned up, a sign of agreement. "Okay, okay, James. But you could at least let me finish before going off like this. What I was about to say is: You won't search for her without us."
James's anger disappeared in an instant. "Oh."
Silence filled the boys' dorm, only the soft humming of a lost bumblebee could be heard. No one said a word, none of the boys moved, giving James the time to consider his two possibilities. When he shrugged his shoulders, it was like the sign to breathe again.
"I don't know... Look, this could be dangerous, maybe I'd better go alone..."
Sirius let out a snort, filled with anger and disbelief. "What day is today? The international "I have to be a hero and leave my friends alone in order to ensure their safety although they chose the danger"-day? I don't think so, James Randall Potter. Lily's our friend, too. Maybe not the love of our life, but we still love her. In a platonic way, of course."
Far too tired and anxious to argue, James nodded his agreement and turned back to his backpack when a sudden idea came to his mind, stopping him in mid-turn. "Jessie? Sarah?"
Sirius grinned a lop-sided grin that showed that he wasn't completely happy with the answer he had to give. "They're packing. We tried to talk them into staying at Hogwarts, but Sarah wouldn't even look at me, even less hear me out no matter what I have to say, and Remus didn't succeed either in persuading them. Although we really need someone to stay here, just to inform us what's going on. We have to write daily letters to Dumbledore, by the way. His condition to let us search her."
"You talked to Dumbledore?" James had a confused look on his face.
"Depends how you want to put it. Actually, Dumbledore talked to us. He called us to his office and already knew our plans."
"But he didn't want to stop us?"
"He said that he knew we would find a way, so there was no use in trying to stop us. Peter will stay at Hogwarts, by the way, he is the one who has to give us the news about what's going on here." (Bad idea, isn't it?)
James shook his head. "You planned everything, didn't you?"
"We know you, Jamie-boy. And now hurry up and finish packing, we already did after breakfast."
***
James, Sirius, Remus, Jessie and Sarah each offered the boy a broad smile as he opened the door to the Knight Bus for them. Being in raptures about having passengers at his age, he grinned back, the corners of his mouth almost reaching his ears. The driver just nodded and turned back to his steering wheel.
Sean, as the boy had introduced himself, guided them to the back of the bus where he knew five empty beds. His uniform, glowing faintly in the dark, whipped with every of his steps, his arms flailing while he was talking rapidly. "You know, that's odd, we aren't used to pick people up at Hogwarts, and now it happened two days in a row. Today it's you five, and yesterday we had this girl. Poor thing, looked like death itself - she was beautiful, though. Her grandmother was sick, and it seemed to really scare her."
The five adolescents exchanged glances, clearly thinking the same: Bingo!
"Where did you drop her?" Remus asked, trying his best to sound as casual as possible.
"Oh, at Diagon Alley. She needed to buy some medicine first. But her grandmother lives in Edinburgh, I think."
"Diagon Alley?" Sarah and Sirius repeated at the same time. They locked eyes for a second or so, then Sarah narrowed hers in anger and turned towards Sean, ignoring Sirius's pleading expression. "That's a coincidence. We have to go there as well."
Sean nodded happily. "We'll be there around eight in the morning."
"Is that the driver calling you?" James asked, hoping to make the boy leave so that they had the chance to discuss their plans.
His head bent to the side, Sean listened intently, and as if on cue, there really was the driver's voice calling out to him. Wishing them a good night, he smiled and jogged through the bus, over enthusiastic like in everything he was doing. Although she didn't voice it, he reminded Jessie of a young puppy. A friendly young puppy.
They all went to claim their beds. Needless to say that Sarah wasn't exactly happy to find herself in the one next to Sirius, and after a few quiet words with Jessie, the two girls switched. Sirius tried to keep a straight face, but it was obvious that he was hurting.
Well, maybe I deserve it, though. What was I thinking? Silently, he scolded himself, looking up at the starry ceiling of the bus.
Remus's voice jerked Sirius out of his thoughts. "So... What do we know about what Lily's planning?"
"Not much." Sarah shrugged helplessly. "Just that we won't have to search for her anywhere near Edinbugh."
"Wrong." James sat up. Now that he was on his way to search for Lily, he looked a little happier. "Lily knows that we'll try to find her or that at least someone will try to find her. When she mentioned Edinburgh, she was hoping that we'd forget about it because she said she'd go there. It's logical, you see? She's trying to foresee our thinking. I bet that she's not more than an hour away from there."
"Maybe you're right, James, but she's one day ahead, so what are we going to do?"
"Very simple: Find her before Voldemort does." As if in order to emphasize his statement, James crossed his arms and lay back, eyes closed and face turned to the wall, not willing to let anyone see his pain.
The others decided to let him have his peace, and after a few minutes of silence, almost everyone went to sleep or tried to, at least, even if some had more trouble in finding their needed rest.
***
If I
Should stay
I would only be in
Your way
So I'll go
But I know
I will think of you
Every step of
The way
And I
Will always
Love you
Will always
Love you
You
My darling you
Mmm.
Whitney Houston - I will always love you
Somewhere else, Scotland.
Our world is civilized. Take your car, pick a route and you can go everywhere you want to. For modern, enlightened people like us, nature is no longer a mystery. We've seen lions in the zoo, far away from their natural living space, and after watching them and being bored after two minutes, we grabbed a coke in the next McDonald's restaurant. We've seen the Rain Forests on our TV screen, watched the reporter riding down a random river in their comfortable motorboat, and during the advertising break, we went to make some popcorn in the kitchen. We've built houses, a hundred floors high, we found out that Caesar had had flatfeet and we've been in our living room, glued to the TV set, as Neil Armstrong spoke his famous words "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." We listen to our weather report when we need to know if it's necessary to take an umbrella with us and we write tests about how a storm is caused. For us, nature is not more than an ingenious system of chemical processes, and there's no doubt that we, the mankind, are born to rule this system which also means that we have the right to destroy it whenever we feel like it. (Yeah, riiiiight.)
And yet, there are places where we can't control nature, places where men aren't more than an unimportant and often enough undesirable part of the circle of life. These are the places we can't dominate, in these places, nature didn't give up its millions of years old right to be the most important and powerful force, to make its own decisions. Not yet. Here, you can feel the power of life in every tree, every blade of grass, and every tiny insect. They have their own will, and a human is nothing more than an intruder, tolerated, even a part of it, but not destined to make any decisions for their fellow beings.
This is where our story takes us now.
Even with closed eyes, it was impossible not to perceive the waterfall only a few feet away, the water glittering whitely and mysteriously in the light of the no longer full moon. Willows were bending over the gorge, their branches trembling in the slight breeze. In a cave, behind the curtain of the falling water, Lily lay sleeping on a mattress of moss she had collected during the day. Her huge backpack lay next to her on the floor; she had placed a loaf and a bottle of water on a ledge.
After two stressing days with only a few hours of sleep, the full force of her exhaustion had finally hit her, and the moment her bed had been finished, she had fallen asleep, not even bothering to eat anything. Despite her lack of sleep, she didn't sleep soundly, tossing and turning from one side to the other, her eyelashes trembling as if she was trying to force them open but couldn't because they were glued to her skin.
Do you know that? With a jerk, you wake up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. You can't remember having a bad dream, you don't remember hearing an odd noise, and yet, all of a sudden, you're fully awake although you don't know why. Lily sat up, her eyes opened wide; she held her breath, listening intently for any sound that didn't belong into her natural surrounding. Quietly, trying not to make the slightest sound in order not to give away her position to any possible intruder, she searched for her wand and finally found it under her temporary pillow. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw Nero's bright green eyes approaching her, glowing in the dark. He greeted her in rubbing his head against the palm of her outstretched hand, and then he curled up next to the pullover that had to replace Lily's pillow.
Although her exhaustion was still there, when Lily lay back again, pulling her cover closer to her body, she couldn't get back to sleep. The running thoughts she had been able to put aside thanks to her overwhelming tiredness where back now, all her problems, the lost feeling, her fear, her sadness, mostly caused by having to leave her friends behind, everything was there now. She tried to listen to the calming sound of the running water. It didn't work. Her try to count unicorns was just as successful. She was glad when the first rays of sunlight finally filled her cave with light. They were falling through a hole in the ceiling, just beyond the place where Lily had set down the bred and the water.
Stretching, she got up, her fingers nearly touching the ceiling, then she went over to the entrance and peered out of it. The sight was breathtaking. Only a few feet away, the water fell into a huge basin. She was hardly more than a man's length beyond the surface of the water, the entrance to her cave was in the middle of a rather steep wall of rock, well covered by fast-growing ferns and the branches of an enormous willow. No one who didn't know it was there would have been able to find it, even though she had known where it was supposed to be it had taken Lily more than an hour to spot it. Silently, she thanked her father for sharing this secret with her; this was where he had spent more than four weeks after being informed of his parents' death, right after the Second World War. It had been their secret, and Lily was absolutely sure that now that he was dead, she was the only one who knew this place.
Being torn between the joy the beauty of her surroundings caused and the pain of having to leave behind everything she cared for, she sighed, then called Nero and began her descent to wash her face and hands in the clean water, coming directly from the mountains.
*****
Not a very long part, I know. But it's all I can do for now.
I already said that I had to format my computer, didn't I? Well, it worked, but now here's a problem: Jess, Anna, Cassie: I lost your email-addresses during the process. So... Could you send them to me, once again? Thanks!
Pipsqueak: Wow! Now, that's what I call a long review! *grins happily* I love long reviews. Even more if they're funny. Your computer broke down as well? Which just proves my theory that computers are evil, maybe even guided by a mysterious will that wants to see every one of us going crazy or something like that. Okay, I'm rambling here...
Amethyst: I totally agree with you. But that's just the way it is sometimes, isn't it? And no relationship is perfect - except mine, of course *laughs* -, everyone has their little problems from time to time. Sirius and Sarah make no exception of the rule. But believe me, I couldn't stand them being mad at each other for too long.
Waterlily: I can't tell you how long Lily will be on the run. I didn't plan it this way, it just happened. That's how I write my stories, and from time to time you can find me looking at the monitor wondering how the hell I came up with this or that twist of the plot. I'm only the author. - That didn't make any sense, did it? But that's how it is, really. Heck, even if I try to stick to a plan, I end up writing it differently. So I eventually decided not to plan at all and that's why I can't answer your question. Sorry, really. - Oh, and as for Peter: I hate him, I do, but Lily doesn't, or otherwise, she wouldn't have agreed to make him the secret keeper. So I just had to think of something nice to write. But I guess you noticed that it wasn't as friendly as the things she wrote to the others...
Fiona: Even though I don't plan, I can tell you one thing: I won't kill Lily. Promise.
Sirius: Is this really your nickname making you that twisted or was that just an excuse? *g* Sorry, the opportunity was just too good. Anyway, you were giving references to my stories? Aw, I'm flattered now. Even if you don't believe me - and I know you don't - I'm still amazed that people like my stories that much. After all, English is a foreign language for me.
Bunny Chan: Are you sure that walking over to Voldemort saying "Hey yo, man, kill me, wontcha!" would be the best possibility? *lol* Well, it just turned out this way, and I have to say that if I were her, that's what I'd do, I guess.
Padfoot's Gal: You have to polish your school shoes? Are you wearing a school uniform? That's interesting. It's something that doesn't exist in Germany, you know. Erm, anyway. What did I want to say? Oh yeah, why did she run? Well, of course Hogwarts seems to be safe. But hey! Would you be able to think clearly in her place? I don't know... There are a few advantages in running away, but the most important thing is that her friends should be safe then.
