Forever
Year Six
Part Four
Subtitled: The Calm After the Storm
a/n – hey everybody, I know it's been ages since I posted regularly but I'm back and I promise to finish out the series. I do have two questions and they may seem entirely silly (or at least one of them should) but bear with me. If you could tell me a country you'd like to see them in it would really help me a lot. It can be any country but Japan, Brazil or anywhere in the UK. Also, let me know if you want me to continue this after Hogwarts. I had planned on it, but if you guys don't want me to, I won't. So that's it, on with the show.
Lily stepped out of the headmaster's office and onto the cold flagstone. She took a deep breath and looked around her. James offered a weak smile which she tried to return and Anna and Sirius just stood, staring at nothing in particular.
"So." Lily said after a moment. "Should we go back to the tower?" she ran her hands roughly through her hair.
James and Sirius exchanged looks. "I guess." Said Sirius with a shrug.
"I don't really want to." Anna said softly. The idea of facing all those people, Roslyn, Remus and Peter in particular, and to have to lie to them, to not be able to tell what had really happened, what was really wrong, killed her. She didn't think she could take anymore to pain today. For the moment she was numb. She wanted to keep it that way.
"Me either." Lily agreed as she shuffled her feet.
"Where should we go then?" James asked tiredly.
"I don't care." Said Anna.
"Me either." Sirius said and shifted uncomfortably, emotional intensity, like what they had gone through this afternoon, really wasn't his specialty.
"Why don't we just go to the red room?" James asked, eager to get out of the hallway where he felt so vulnerable. For the first time in his time at Hogwarts, he didn't feel safe behind the thick stone walls.
"Yeah, okay." Sirius said.
"Sounds good." Lily said.
Anna just shrugged noncommittally.
They walked with about as much enthusiasm as they felt. Lily could smell the musty air of this part of the castle which was rarely used. She could hear her friends walking both behind her and in front of her. She could see the paintings on the wall and the coat of armor at the next bend. As she bit through the skin of her lip, she could taste the saltiness of her blood but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't feel anything. She thought of James and felt…nothing. She thought, swiftly, of this afternoon and felt…nothing. She thought of her parents, her friends, her future, her past and still…nothing. Had she been capable of it, this sudden lack of emotion would have scared her half to death, but the more she thought about it, the more she was grateful that her feelings had suddenly deserted her. If she couldn't feel, she couldn't hurt. She hadn't dwelt on this long, though, when they came to the red room. With closed eyes and arms outstretched, they stepped through the stone wall separating the hallway and the red room one at a time.
The red room, besides as an occasional meeting place, served no real purpose and was in fact, not just one room, but two. James had found it in their second year when he had leaned against the wall to tie his shoe and tumbled through into the red room. It had been given its name for the sole reason that it was entirely red or some variety of the color. Since it's christening at Lily's 12th birthday party, it had been improved upon immensely. Bunk beds had been added (in red of course) to the second room, as had a pantry to hold any food they got their hands on. There were also huge stashes of any needed prank material imaginable. Most of the changes had been made during the years that late night potion brewing and research were needed for the Animagus transformations. The first room had a sort of eating area with a table, chairs and a pantry. There was also a fireplace with a plush couch and too armchairs in front of it as well book cases filled to the rim with books. In the second room were three bunk beds, one single bed and a bathroom.
As the boys checked the pantry for food, the girls set about cleaning things up. Anna made the beds and Lily lit the fire. They went through the motions efficiently, but silently.
"There's not very much food." James said, after a moment. Nobody, not even Sirius, cared. James shut the pantry door and sat down heavily in the arm chair nearest the fire. For the first time all day, he put his head in his hands and allowed himself to think things through. Sirius was about to join him, as there was another chair directly opposite his, but thought better of it. He, instead, strode across the room to a large scarlet chest and pulled open the lid. He looked inside and managed a grin.
"Hey, at least there's supplies." He said and held up a dungbomb for proof.
"Great, maybe we can turn you-know-who yellow!" Anna snapped with a scowl and curled up on the couch.
Sirius' smile faded and he slowly put the dungbomb into the chest and shut it. He sighed, bit his lip and pushed a strand of his dark brown hair out of his eyes. With a glance at his shaking girlfriend, he walked to the couch. Not knowing what to say, he put his arms around her and just held her.
Meanwhile, Lily, unlike her friends, was not about to approach the situation with thought, denial or sarcasm. In fact, she wasn't going to approach it at all. She bustled about the "kitchen" like area of the red room, preparing dinner. She set the table, poured the drinks and flicked her wand expertly as she prepared lasagna, a salad and even cheesecake. What she didn't have in the room, she summoned, humming all the while.
"Dinner's ready." She said crisply and reviewed her work with satisfaction. Lily's lips twisted into a very small smile. After all her motto was: When in doubt, keep busy.
Everyone else looked up with a cross between amazement and confusion.
"You made dinner, Lily?" James asked incredulously, as he eyed the steaming plates.
She nodded with pride. Anna opened her mouth to say something but decided against it.
"Well, come on," Lily said. "are you going to eat or what?"
Sirius raised his eyebrows at his cousin, but, as he was never one to turn down food when offered to him, he sat down and dug in. James and Anna exchanged looks but joined at the table.
*****
Roslyn glanced at her watch and frowned. "Where are they?" she asked.
Remus shrugged and looked up from his book, mildly interested. "What time is it?" he asked.
"Nearly eight." She said, shaking her head and pursing her lips. "We have classes tomorrow and I know for a fact that Anna hasn't done any of her homework yet."
Remus raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Eight?" he asked with a small laugh and a small. He shook his head. "Will they ever learn?"
"Well I hope they learn soon. If Avery catches them sneaking back they will be in detention until they graduate." Roslyn said as she tossed her long black hair.
"You say it like it's a bad thing, Ros!" Remus said playfully, a grin playing on her lips.
Roslyn smiled despite herself and rolled her eyes. "You're bad news, Lupin." She said.
Remus nodded. "So they keep telling me." He said, his grin growing wider. "hey, speaking of missing, where's Peter?" he asked, noticing for the first time that his friend was absent.
"I don't know," she said as she looked around the room and noticed too, that he wasn't in the common room. "He was at dinner."
"Hmm," Remus said and dismissed it. "Oh, and don't worry about Lily, James, Anna and Sirius." Remus continued, a smirk replacing his grin. "They probably just got…ahem…carried away."
Roslyn opened her mouth with a whole-hearted agreement when she felt a light tapping on her shoulder.
"Roslyn?" A timid first year, asked.
Roslyn smiled warmly and nodded. "Yes?" she asked.
The first year scuffed his feet, and spoke softly without looking her in the eye. "Professor Dumbledore, told me to tell you," he recited "that (he started counting the names off of his fingers at this point) James, Anna, Lily and…and…
"Sirius?" Roslyn supplied.
"Yeah! Sirius went to…" he paused as he strained to remember what she had said. "Oh! to visit Mrs. Black who is sick." He finished and looked up hopefully to see if the message meant something to her.
She furrowed her eyebrows, but nodded. The first year, glad to be released from his chore, bounded off to do other things.
"That is so weird." She said, with a shake of her head.
Remus nodded in agreement. "I wonder why Anna went."
Roslyn shrugged, "I dunno," she said. "I guess she was there when they found out and wanted to go along. I hope everything's okay." She added.
*****
After dinner, Lily cleaned up, and then they just gathered in front of the fire. Sirius and Anna took the couch and Lily and James took the arms chairs. Anna, probably the most visibly shaken of the four, seemed in control all through dinner, but then Madame Pomfrey's potion began to wear off and James and Lily looked on helplessly as she sobbed in Sirius arms. After a minute or two, he silently gathered her in his arms and carried her to the next room. With a click, the door was shut and Lily and James were left alone.
They sat in silence for a moment but after a minute the quiet, without Sirius' lame attempts at jokes or even Anna's cries, was unnerving.
"I'm sorry!"
"Thank you!"
James and Lily burst out at the same time. They both laughed.
"You go first." James said graciously.
Lily smiled sweetly and tucked a piece of auburn hair behind her ear. "I just wanted to say thank you, James, for today and being so great and everything."
He shrugged. "I was glad to do it." He said simply.
She smiled. "So what were you going to say."
"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry."
Lily looked at him blankly. "For what?" she asked.
He looked at her in total and complete remorse. "Lily, I feel awful about this. I should never have asked you to go to Hogsmeade. It's all my fault." He said heavily.
"That's ridiculous, James. This is no more your fault than mine," she then smiled shyly. "Besides," she said, a blush creeping into her cheeks. "I'm glad you asked me." She said, looking him in the eye.
"Really?" he asked, dropping the argument for the moment.
She nodded and he grinned. He bit his lip, took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "Alright, Lily, I mean I know this is awful timing, probably the worst timing I've ever had, but if I don't ask you this, I'll explode." He took another deep breath and Lily nodded encouragingly, despite his rather lame speech. "What I mean to say is, Do you want to give it another shot?" he asked, his gorgeous blue eyes searching her green ones.
Lily thought quickly before a smile grew slowly on her face. "Okay," she said. Maybe the day wasn't completely from hell. She thought as they smiled at each other.
*****
Over the next couple of days, Anna finally calmed down. She didn't cry in the day any more and her crying at night was less every night. She and Sirius, despite being slightly subdued, went about things in the red room as though nothing had happened. James wasn't fooled by his antics.
He knew what happened that afternoon haunted Sirius as much as it did him. Sirius hadn't, in the site of anybody, shed a tear. But late at night, James, who slept in the bed underneath his, could hear him tossing and turning relentlessly.
James, as it was his way, had thought out everything that had happened from start to finish. Every time he saw, in his mind's eye, Lily sobbing on the ground, those people in the street, or the look of terror on Sirius' face, his knuckles grew white as he clenched his wand.
As for Lily, she kept extraordinarily busy during the day, but at night, no amount of scrubbing could kept the night mares away. The truth was, no matter how scared or shaken her friends were, she beat them tenfold. She had experienced those murders first hand. She felt every curse, every wound, ever death as though it were her own. And you don't just shake off your death. She didn't know what had come over her that day. She wasn't even sure she wanted to know.
They would return to the rest of the school on Sunday afternoon and then go to classes. Lily couldn't wait to get back: the more people, the more distractions. Then again, she was enjoying the quality time with James.
*****
Thursday
Noon
Red Room
"I win!" Anna cried triumphantly and swept her earnings off the table and into her arms. "I win! I win! I win!" she sang and danced about the red room happily.
"You're such a sore winner." Sirius said with a pout.
"And you are such a sore loser!" she said and grinned at him infuriatingly.
"Oh yeah?" he asked, his eyebrows up.
"Yeah." She said, meeting his challenge. Her arms crossed defiantly over her chest.
"Okay then," he said, a smile playing on his lips and before Anna even knew what was happening, Sirius had pounced on her and was tickling her madly.
Her giggling reached hysterical heights and James and Lily looked on with amusement.
"Kids," Lily said, shaking her head. "When will they learn?"
James shrugged, a wicked grin forming on his lips. "I don't know." He said and took a leaf out of Sirius' book and tackled her.
******
Thursday
6:35 pm
Gryffindor Common Room.
"Did you see his face?" Roslyn called breathlessly as she, Remus and Peter burst into the common room.
"Yeah, it was classic!" Remus said and collapsed into the nearest armchair as he burst out laughing.
"Priceless!" Peter added with a giggle and sat down Indian style opposite of Remus.
"I think that Snape might finally do something about his hair." Roslyn said as she remembered with pride their newly pulled prank.
They had spelled a sign over Snape's head that alternately flashed some very kind phrases. "I'm an ugly git." "I don't believe in personal hygiene!" or Roslyn's personal favorite: "Kick me if I smell bad!" to name a few.
Peter glanced at his watch and jumped up. "I'd better go," he said and started towards the portrait.
"Where?" Roslyn called after him.
"Detention." He said, and was gone.
Remus turned to Roslyn shrugged. "He's the what, fifth friend we've lost this week?"
Roslyn grinned. "What can I say?" she said. "We have mad skill."
Remus rolled his. "I think I'd rather be good at potions." He said, as he remembered his potion test the following morning.
"You could always ask Snape for help." She said with a smirk.
Remus raised his eyebrows. "And then give him a swift kick in the ass, too?"
"Well, only if that flashes." She said, her blue eyes shining with excitement of yet another chance to embarrass Snape.
"I can wait." Remus assured her and gathered his books.
"That's my boy!" Roslyn said. "Go get 'em Tiger!"
Remus turned around just as he had reached the portrait and grinned charmingly. "Am I a Marauder or what?" he asked and was gone.
Roslyn shook her head with pride and started on her Charms homework.
*****
Sunday
7:15 Pm
Gryffindor Common Room
"Hey!" Roslyn cried and enveloped Anna and then Lily in a hug. "Welcome back you guys!" She steered them to the couch. "Oh my god," she gushed. "You missed so much!"
Lily smiled weakly at her friend and sat down on James' lap. He put his arms protectively around her and she snuggled into his chest.
"Apparently, though, not as much as we did." Remus said with a smirk as he eyed James and Lily.
James grinned. "What can I say? Stuff happens."
"It's about bloody time, too." Sirius added, much to everyone's pleasure.
"Here, here." Remus said and put his butterbeer to his lips.
"I'll drink to that!" Roslyn added.
"So, are you official now?" Peter asked curiously.
Lily nodded, though she blushed slightly.
Remus smiled, happy for his friend. "Good." He said and sat back content.
