Part Nine
***
From the heavenly hights of spending time with Lily, James was thrust down to the first circle of hell -- an absolute confusion and embarassment.
"Sex?" he croaked, the last gulp of his buttebeer going up his nose... and Lily seemed pleased at his reaction.
She nodded eagerly, as though like his opinion on the matter was of the utmost importance to her. "Which type of a guy are you? The 'she's-got-great-body-so-I'd-like-to-get-into-her-knickers' type, or 'she's-got-a-body-so-I'd-like-to-get-into-her-knickers' type, or 'I-admire-her-for-her-mind-so-I'd-like-to-get-into-her-knickers' type, or 'it-looks-like-rain-so-I'd-like-to-get-into-her-knickers' type?"
James was glad he was out of butterbeer because he was sure he would have choked to death on it. It was not what Lily talked about that embarassed him -- sex was one of the top three topics of the conversations in the boys' dormitories, if not THE top one -- but the fact that it was Lily talking, the object of several fantasies of his and a heroine of more than one of his... eh, dreams. He would die first than tell her about that. Besides, Lily was the last person he expected to venture into that particular subject, so he was taken by surprise.
"I never thought about it," he lied after coping with the shock. "Who came up with those categories anyway?"
Lily shrugged happily. "Some magazine of Daisy, I believe. I don't remember the whole list, but it was quite extensive. So?"
"So what?"
"Which type are you?" It seemed that the answer was really important to her.
"None of them," he answered, attempting to fit to her suddenly.. frivolous, to put it mildy, mood. "I don't fit into categories."
She sighed, not content. "But what kind of girl would you like enough to sleep with? The big-breasts kind like Julie or sweet-face kind like Daisy?"
He blinked. "Lily, the only girl I would sleep with is a girl I love, so neither Daisy nor Julie qualify."
A beatific smile formed on her lips. "Really?"
That smile, together with the devilish sparkle in her eyes, made James notice how hot it became in the room. Understandable, with all the crowd, and with steaming drinks...
"Of course."
"The rumour has it that you..." she giggled.
Giggled! Lily never giggled! Was she drunk or something?
"Rumour is just that, a rumour. And I thought you don't listen to rumours."
"I don't. That's why I asked you."
James nodded. "I see," he said, not seeing anything.
"Did you... you know... with Daisy... when you were still in love with her?"
James stared. Seeing her like this, eyes curiously widened, lips slightly pouting, hair in disarray, her... chest falling rapidly, was one of his fantasies, but it didn't feel quite right. Something was wrong here, by Merlin! Lily would not ask him such things were she in her right mind!
"Lily, are you all right?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
That wasn't an answer he was hoping for. In fact, it wasn't an answer at all. "You... er... usually don't discuss sex..."
She pouted. Pouted! "You started, with Professor Flitwick's anatomy."
Well, yeah, he did, kind of... to make her laugh! He hoped to make her blush and a conversation about sex might as well be the reason for her to blush... But instead of blushing, she giggled and pouted!
James picked up her empty glass and examined it closely. It was impossible to get drunk on butterbeer though!
Lily looked around excitedly, blissfully unaware of James's concerned musings. Her gaze stopped on the Slytherin trio accompanied by a Hufflepuff. "I heard that to Slytherin girls it's a matter of honour to bed all of the boys of appropriate age in their House. Do you think it's true?"
Once again, James stared incredulously. Lily giggled, pouted AND gossiped! He wanted his Lily back! "I don't know... I think it's an exaggaration," he muttered, although he had heard the same fables. Immorality of the Slytherins had no limits, after all. "You would have to ask them."
She drummed her fingers against the table. "You're right. I'll ask them."
Mouth agape, James watched as Lily rose from her chair and begun to pick her way towards the bar. Somebody hit me in the head and make it end, he thought. Unfortunately the divine forces remained deaf and he saw Lily standing behind Leocadia Lowell. It can't be happening...
He sprung from his chair and, almost stumbling along the way, rushed through the crowded room to Lily, just in time to hear her say: "... like whores? And do you make bets?"
The arctic gaze of the Slytherins -- Merlin, one of them was Celestina Warbeck! -- told him that whatever Lily had said was very un-Lily-like. Leocadia, however, looked like a cat that has just eaten a canary. James leaped to the rescue in an attempt to minimalise the damage.
"Excuse her," he said wryly, trying to think up a feasible excuse, "She had too much to drink... and the heat in here..." He ushered Lily out of the Slytherins' way and pushed her towards the door. "I think we would be leaving now."
"But James," Lily whined... whined! "I didn't get an answer!"
His resolve to get out strenghtened. "Curiousity killed the cat, Lily!"
They went out, back to the sunlit street. Lily sighed a sultry little sigh. Danger! Danger! some voice screamed inside James's head as he looked down to see her licking her lips. Merlin and Circe and all the Founders... it was December and here he was, hot and sweating.
He took a deep breath. He had to stay calm. He had to stay sane. He had to deliver Lily to the safety of the Common Room and outwait whatever it was that posessed her.
"Lily, we should go back to Hogwarts."
An adorable little frown marred her forehead as she cocked her head. "Should we?"
It was his turn to lick his dry lips. Maybe they shouldn't. Maybe they should go into some secluded place and... "Yes," he managed to sound firm, Merlin only knew how.
"Okay," Lily responded cheerfully and clung to his arm.
James made a hesitant step forward. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad...
It was much worse than he could have imagined. The entire walk back to Hogwarts was a pure torture. Lily didn't talk, but she was right next to him. To make things worse, she was oblivious to the efect she had on him, pressed so close. If only she was normal, he would have enjoyed the whole affair immensely. He would be extatic to hold her. If only.
As they walked up the staircase inside Hogwarts, something whirred, moving down the railing at astonishing speed, making James crane his neck in an attempt to see what what was it. Lily seemed to wake up. She shook James's arms off her and looked down at the bottom of the staircase.
"Clancy Rogerson!" she shouted. "Stop it this second!"
The 'it' turned out to be Clancy Rogerson, a Gryffindor second-year, having fun sliding down the railing. He looked up, his brown eyes widening at the sight of the Head Boy and the Head Girl.
"Oh shit," he muttered.
"What did you think you were doing?" Lily asked, her eyebrows furrowed.
"I... er..."
"It's dangerous!" she said forcefully. "The staircase could have moved!"
Clancy sighed. "But... it's the longest railing in the castle... and nobody's looking... and I could go so fast..."
James took the pity on the boy. He remembered how much fun he and Sirius had had, doing just the same. They were guilty of corrupting Peter and Remus, who usually preferred to watch the stability of the staircase.
"C'mon Lily," James said. "Don't be so strict. Nothing happened. Clancy's just a kid and this railing is hard to resist."
Lily looked undecided. "I should detect twenty points and inform Professor McGongall. He did it again."
"He will never do it again, will he?" James spoke to Clancy, who climbed up to them.
The boy looked at the railing regretfully. "I won't," he mumbled.
Lily still looked doubtful.
"I promise."
James glanced at Lily, who stood torn between two sets of pleading eyes and duty.
"Oh Lily, you know how it is, to just speed down like this..."
"No, I don't." Now she looked positively sulky. "I've never slid down the railing."
James had to stop himself from a shudder. Not that new unpredictability of hers! "Lily, it's just some childish antics..."
Before he had time to finish, Lily was out of his reach, seating herself on the railing and grinning like a madwoman.
"Lily!"
"See you down, James!" she waved her hand and let herself go, after a second becoming only a blur of colours.
"Lily, are you out of your mind?"
Why do I even bother to ask that question, he thought sprinting down the stairs, of course she is! The peal of joyous laughter answered him.
And then, when the blur of colours was almost at the bottom of the railing, something happened.
The staircase moved.
They say that in the moment of death your entire life replays in your mind. James felt something like that right then. Every moment of his acquitance with Lily that he could remember sprang to his eyes. Through a haze, in slow motion, he could see Lily's form falling down to the marble floor that awaited tens feet below.
Think, James, think! Or she's going to die!
He had fallen off his broomstick from only thrity feet, and he was told it had been a close brush. There were no cushioning charms on that marble floor either, Lily was going to die...
Wait. Go back. The cushioning charms?
With tremebling hands, James reached to his pocket, taking out seven minimised packages. He threw them after Lily.
"Velocitas!" he shouted to hasten the packages forward, so that they would fall before Lily. "Activatio!"
He couldn't see them activated since the cushioning charms destined for Quidditch brooms were invisible, but he could hear the paper getting ripped.
Lily hit the floor with a soft 'pluck'.
Thank Merlin, James thought, speeding down. "Lily!"
"Mr Potter, what is the meaning of this?!"
James didn't stop, even though he registered the horrified voice as McGonagall's. "Lily, are you all right?!"
Lily was sitting on the floor of the main hall, looking around dazedly. "James? Did you see that?"
His lips were numb with terror. "Lily," he choked out, "Are you hurt?"
Her eyes were wide. "No! Why?"
Professor McGongall materialised next to James, her face betraying shock and astonishment. "Miss Evans, what did you just do?"
Lily got up to her feet and... dusted her robe. "I was sliding down the railing, Professor."
McGonagall opened her mouth to say something, a harsh rebuff in all likehood, but no words came out. Then she managed, "You were sliding down the railing?"
"I've never done that before and when--"
James intervened before Lily could get herself deeper into trouble. "She hasn't been herself for some time Professor--"
"Quiet, Mr Potter," McGonagall snapped. "You're a Head Girl, Miss Evans! You're well aware of the fact that such disregard for school rules can result in severe harm! You could have died, wasn't it for Mr Potter's quick thinking!"
Lily sounded like a petulant first-year. "But Professor--"
"What is wrong you, Miss Evans!" the Head of Gryffindor demanded.
"Nothing!"
McGonagall, clearly having decided that getting a decent explanation from Lily was impossble, turned to James. "Well?"
He didn't know what to do. He might get Lily in trouble, but she might be ill, or under a spell... "I don't know Professor," he said, praying McGonagall didn't notice his hesitation.
No such luck. "Talk, Mr Potter, it's a serious situation!"
"I think it's the heat... she's been acting strangely for several hours now..."
McGonagall watched him with narrowed eyes and he squirmed. His Head of House, usually full of understanding and pleasant to be around, suddenly turned into a suspicious Chimera worse than Professor Castor. She took out a wand and James backed away a little, half-expecting her to jinx him. The wand, however, was pointed at Lily.
"Dementia revallo!"
A cloud of white smoke enveloped Lily. Nothing happened.
"Magya dolus probanda!"
Once again, white smoke revealed nothing. Lily took a step forward to get out of the smoke, but she stumbled and had to regain her balance.
"Ex intoxicatio inventare!"
This time, the white smoke changed colour into ugly yellowish-brown. Lily started coughing.
"Professor MvGonagall?" James inquired, unsure of what has just happened. It was clearly some kind of diagnostics, but James had no idea what the yellowish smoke might mean. McGonagall's face, however, didn't forebode anything good. In fact, her face was furious, or as close to furious as McGonagall could come.
"She's drunk," she said icily.
James stared at his Head of House dumbly.
"Would you care to explain Mr Potter, how your companion, clearly unfit to tell herself, wound up in such state?"
His mind reeling, he shook his head helplessly. "I don't know... we were drinking only butterbeers!"
Professor's eybrows shot up, a speculative glimmer in her eyes made James's throat go dry.
"It's very unlike Miss Evans to deliberately ignore rules..." The implication underneath was clear: "But for some I know, it's not."
James gulped. "Professor, honestly..."
She sighed. "I believe you, Mr Potter. We shall talk about it later. Now if you excuse me, I shall take Miss Evans to Madam Pomfrey."
Not sparing him another glance, McGonagall gathered her robes around her and took Lily's arm in an imperious gesture. The girl, still grinning and winking at James, complied. James was left alone in the main hall.
How was it possible? he asked himself trying to remember when exactly Lily started to behave strangely. When she confessed her problems with her sister? No. When she accepted his invitation for Christmas? No. It was when she asked him abour sex, her tone intimate and iviting...
Lost in his wistful memory, James was startled when a derisive chuckle came from above his head.
"Trouble, Potter?"
He looked up. Snape stood high on the landing of the large stairway, his elbows propped up on the railing. Great, exactly what he needed.
"Everything's wonderful, Snape." he lied through his teeth. "How about you?"
"Oh, simply peachy. Your date with the Head Girl went well?"
"My..." James's fingers twitched, eager to grab his wand and curse Snape to hell and back. "Why, jealeous?"
A dangerous glimmer flickered in Slytherin's unreadable eyes. "Jealous of a Gryffindor? Dream on, Potter."
Deciding he had more important things to do than standing in the middle of the hall and exchanging insults with Snape, James shrug and started his way to the Hospital Wing. He had to know how come Lily managed to ger herself drunk.