Hey! I feel so horrible! I was so busy with Science Fair I had absolutely no time to type chapter 5. But let me reassure you that your time waiting was definitely well spent. I hope you guys will love this chapter as much as I did writing it. So move your mouse downward and continue.
Useless Information: Well, there has been some pretty cool quotes around, and I think I've got a good one. "My Karma Ran Over My Dogma." - Bumper Sticker
Disclaimer: One of my teachers wants to ask around to see if I can get this published! All her idea, not mine. Anyway, everything except a few of Mary Sues belongs to J.K. Rowling and Marion Zimmer Bradley.
If Time is All We've Lost
Chapter 5 - Pricked Flesh
"Friday Night, it was late,
I was walking you home,
We got down to the gate,
And I was dreaming of the night,
Would it turn out right?
How to tell you girl,
I want to build my world around you."
~ Little River Band - 'Reminiscing'
'Great,' James thought. 'She looks stunning and now my stupid male 'thing' has to get in the way.'
But no matter how much James's better half argued, he convinced himself to go on with his planned revenge for Lily. It really wasn't much, just a few drops of poison, but he had no idea what would come of it in the end, what lives were permanently scarred by it.
The Great Hall was elaborately decorated with a gold and forest green theme, and yet, for an odd reason, no Slytherins were on the decorating committee, go figure. Tiny and enormous trees surrounded the Hall, decorated with elaborate little gold ornaments and fairies. Lily loved the way the ball had come out, everyone getting their own groove on the dance floor. The only thing that could trouble Lily tonight was the nagging feeling that her sister wasn't happy.
It wasn't as if Lily could just ask Narcissa what she was going. Narcissa didn't even change in the Gryffindor tower, she imagined. But every time the haunting thought approached her, she shook it off with the firm belief that she was sick, but, for some unknown reason, it wasn't sufficient.
Minerva had been quite excited today. After the reassurance that Narcissa would have Lucius twined around her fingers she only had the task of telling Lily that she was going to marry Snape. Although she had had a strange, well stranger than normal, encounter with the ever-changing Sight. It contained only two things; the word 'Soon' and a black cloak.
The black cloak instantly made her think of Voldemort, but with Dumbledore around, she really had no fear for Lily's life. Voldemort knew the power that Dumbledore had, surely he wasn't planning on facing him on his own?
But the 'Soon' thing she was even less worried about. He hadn't seen or touched Lily since she was ten years old, why should he come here to her at age 18? The whole thing gave her an immense migraine, so she stopped worrying and tried to enjoy the ball.
The feasting lasted only an hour, with the usual food gracing the table. Lily and James went through the whole thing without calling each other any names. Lily, as usual, was very jovial and talkative, while James was, for another strange reason, rather quiet and solitude.
When the dancing began, Lily and James made their way to open the ball. They danced perfectly, barely touching the floor with their feet. No talking about the gazes from the hundreds of eyes, but just what looked like a very thoughtful dance. After that, the music selection started to grow into more group dancing.
After about an hour, the friends from Gryffindor were all worn out and decided to get drinks. (All except for Arabella and Mundungus, they had disappeared about 30 minutes ago.)
"Wait, Lily," It was almost painful calling her by her first name. "I'll get your drink for you."
"Okay," said Lily suspiciously. She wasn't the only one that was looking at him weirdly; that party included Remus, Sirius, Raquel, and Soroya.
James returned about five minutes later with two flasks full of ice cold pumpkin juice. Lily, still wondering where this random act of kindness could come from and what he had done to the juice, drank a tiny sip from it.
"This tastes a little strange," said Lily, looking into it as if it had a severed hand in it. "Here Raquel, you try it and tell me what you think."
She handed the jeweled goblet to Raquel and Raquel sipped it warily as Lily had done. The moment the juice touched her lips, she fell straight to the ground in a dead faint.
Soroya screamed and Sirius caught her, and then came that all too familiar sound of Lily's hand against James's jaw. "You idiotic, worthless, incompetent bastard!" Lily yelled at him. But then she had a moment of realization; if Raquel wasn't given a subsequent antidote, then as soon as all the poison had entered her blood, she would be gone. Lily racked her mind and then started giving orders.
"Soroya, get me 2 rose petals, there still should be some in the gardens," Lily looked up expectantly at her and she took off. "Sirius, get me two large glasses full of hot mulled wine, the house elves in the kitchen should be happy to give it to you. Hurry!" She called to his retreating back.
"Remus, 4 sprigs of juniper from outside and Potter, two needles," She said hurriedly.
"Where would I find needles?" said James.
"Wherever you can! Just get them they're the most important part!"
As James ran towards the door, everyone in the Hall turned their heads to scene that was happening with them. Even Narcissa, who was with Lucius and his group of friends, had had a couple of worried glances at her. Minerva, though, had to be the most worried. She leaned over to Dumbledore.
"Merlin, don't you think we should intervene," she whispered.
"Never in the slightest, my dear," Dumbledore whispered back, boring into her with his light blue eyes. "Lily can do this, she already knows what needs to happen and she's tremendously calm. She's doing fine."
So with that very unsatisfying answer, Minerva leaned back into her chair, said a quick prayer to the Goddess, and took a deep breath. She then turned her attention on how the whole thing turned out.
Lily kept desperately feeling Raquel's wrist for a pulse. It was still there, but it was growing fainter every time she checked. Sirius arrived with the wine first, then James with the needles, Remus with juniper, and Soroya with half-dead rose petals.
She set the two cups on the floor and added one rose petal and two juniper rootlets to them. Everyone in the hall was now staring at her, even Lucius's gang were silent, waiting for the ending, and Narcissa who was white with fear. she feverishly tore the petals in three places and dipped the juniper in nine times before adding the whole thing.
Last of all, she pricked her finger, unflinchingly, as if she couldn't feel it, then Raquel's. Even the almost lifeless body of Raquel flinched when she did so. A single drop of blood into the owner's cup and then Lily swirled them both around.
Lily drank hers quickly, gulping down the drowsy concoction. Licking the excess from her lips she managed to say, "Remus, Sirius sit her up."
They did so and put a little in Raquel's mouth. 'Please swallow…' Lily kept praying, but she wasn't. The antidote kept dripping down her front. Lily knew she had to find a way to get her to drink it and there was only one way.
She put a mouthful of the drink into Raquel's mouth, closed it, and then pressed her hand to Raquel's throat. It worked and within five minutes, Raquel was coughing and sputtering.
When they had sat her in a chair and told her the story, she hugged all of them. She kept thanking Lily for saving her. James noticed that no one had mentioned that he had put the poison. He would have thought that Lily, in the least, would have told her. When James caught Lily's eye, who was kneeling next to Raquel, Lily looked up at him and half-smiled, half-smirked at him. Then she lowered her gaze and went back to the conversation.
Throughout the night, James wanted to apologize to Lily, but she busied herself. She danced with Ethan, one of her oldest friends, and she talked to a few Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs about the potion. She was never away from her friends for the whole night, until…
James saw his opportunity. Lily was standing near the entrance staring at someone, who it was, James couldn't tell. She wasn't smiling but she had a faint trace of a smirk on her face.
"Evans," James said. "Do you mind if we talk? Alone."
"Ah, if it isn't the comeback king himself," said Lily, still not taking her eyes off whomever she was watching. "What did you think I learned at Avalon? How to put on liquid eyeliner?"
"Well," James sighed. "No."
"I'll come," she said, breaking her eye contact. "If you promise not to hex or curse me."
"I solemnly swear," he said.
They left the Entrance Hall together and headed towards one of the balconies. They were passing a statue of Ulnae the Undecided when Lily suddenly stopped.
"What is it?" asked James when he noticed that Lily was no longer beside him.
"Excuse me, Potter, but growing up on Avalon I have developed certain talents. One of those is to tell when unseen people are in my presence and my scar twinged. Oh, well…"
"Sirius, Remus, Peter, and I have made a map that will see people, invisible or not." He said proudly.
"I've underestimated you, Potter," Lily said, concentrating on where she was going. "I need to apologize for calling you Lot of Orkney."
"That's fine," he shrugged. "I'm sure people call me worse things, they just can't tell them to my face."
"In your position it's not hard to get insults is it?" she asked him interestedly. "Quidditch captain, Head Boy, and yet, the only one that can truly insult you is the Head Girl."
"I will not say that that isn't true," she looked up at him and smiled. "And I need to apologize for that little 'prank' I pulled on you. I didn't mean for it to go that far and I seriously forgot that Raquel was deadly allergic to all poison."
"You're not the first that's tried to hurt me," Lily said solemnly. They had reached the balcony now, but it still hadn't gotten them out of earshot enough to not hear the loud music in the Hall.
"How so?" he asked, fully interested.
"Voldemort's there but he hasn't really hurt me, but the threat has, but another has hurt even more…" she trailed off.
"Tell me," he wasn't exactly being comforting, he was making her recall the worst day of her life, he was really curious though.
"Do you have a normal family, James?" this was really the first time she had ever called him by his first name. Startled a bit by the odd question, he took a few seconds to respond.
"Pretty normal, I guess," he said. "I've got an older sister and a younger sister, a mom, and a dad."
"Normal is the last thing you could call my 'family'," she stopped for a second. "When Narcissa and I were four, we found out that our mother had made a deal with Minerva. Minerva came to take us to Avalon. The night before we left she told us that she would always love us. When I came back six years later, she dismissed me as her daughter and didn't even ask why Narcissa had died. Narcissa seemed to feel the same way about our parents as our parents felt about us, so she told me to tell them that she had died. Then Minerva became my only family, and all my sisters on Avalon, but now I am hundreds of miles away from Avalon, my sister is doing Minerva's bidding, and now I think that Minerva is either going to betray my trust like she did Narcissa or she'll use me as a pawn, without me knowing, just like Viviane used Morgaine."
When Lily finally finished, a cold, eerie silence hung in the frosty air.
A/N: Well, that's it for now, I hope you enjoyed it. Umm… thin blue markers and yo-yos to my reviewers. I LOVE yo-yos! Happy Valentine's Day to all, it's techniquely not Valentine's day yet, but oh well. There will be some actual romance in the next chapter, but of course there's a drawback so…Thanks to all who reviewed! Love you guys as usual! Spread the word that If Time is All We've Lost has a new chapter! Love and Thanks, Epequa ;)
Useless Information: Well, there has been some pretty cool quotes around, and I think I've got a good one. "My Karma Ran Over My Dogma." - Bumper Sticker
Disclaimer: One of my teachers wants to ask around to see if I can get this published! All her idea, not mine. Anyway, everything except a few of Mary Sues belongs to J.K. Rowling and Marion Zimmer Bradley.
If Time is All We've Lost
Chapter 5 - Pricked Flesh
"Friday Night, it was late,
I was walking you home,
We got down to the gate,
And I was dreaming of the night,
Would it turn out right?
How to tell you girl,
I want to build my world around you."
~ Little River Band - 'Reminiscing'
'Great,' James thought. 'She looks stunning and now my stupid male 'thing' has to get in the way.'
But no matter how much James's better half argued, he convinced himself to go on with his planned revenge for Lily. It really wasn't much, just a few drops of poison, but he had no idea what would come of it in the end, what lives were permanently scarred by it.
The Great Hall was elaborately decorated with a gold and forest green theme, and yet, for an odd reason, no Slytherins were on the decorating committee, go figure. Tiny and enormous trees surrounded the Hall, decorated with elaborate little gold ornaments and fairies. Lily loved the way the ball had come out, everyone getting their own groove on the dance floor. The only thing that could trouble Lily tonight was the nagging feeling that her sister wasn't happy.
It wasn't as if Lily could just ask Narcissa what she was going. Narcissa didn't even change in the Gryffindor tower, she imagined. But every time the haunting thought approached her, she shook it off with the firm belief that she was sick, but, for some unknown reason, it wasn't sufficient.
Minerva had been quite excited today. After the reassurance that Narcissa would have Lucius twined around her fingers she only had the task of telling Lily that she was going to marry Snape. Although she had had a strange, well stranger than normal, encounter with the ever-changing Sight. It contained only two things; the word 'Soon' and a black cloak.
The black cloak instantly made her think of Voldemort, but with Dumbledore around, she really had no fear for Lily's life. Voldemort knew the power that Dumbledore had, surely he wasn't planning on facing him on his own?
But the 'Soon' thing she was even less worried about. He hadn't seen or touched Lily since she was ten years old, why should he come here to her at age 18? The whole thing gave her an immense migraine, so she stopped worrying and tried to enjoy the ball.
The feasting lasted only an hour, with the usual food gracing the table. Lily and James went through the whole thing without calling each other any names. Lily, as usual, was very jovial and talkative, while James was, for another strange reason, rather quiet and solitude.
When the dancing began, Lily and James made their way to open the ball. They danced perfectly, barely touching the floor with their feet. No talking about the gazes from the hundreds of eyes, but just what looked like a very thoughtful dance. After that, the music selection started to grow into more group dancing.
After about an hour, the friends from Gryffindor were all worn out and decided to get drinks. (All except for Arabella and Mundungus, they had disappeared about 30 minutes ago.)
"Wait, Lily," It was almost painful calling her by her first name. "I'll get your drink for you."
"Okay," said Lily suspiciously. She wasn't the only one that was looking at him weirdly; that party included Remus, Sirius, Raquel, and Soroya.
James returned about five minutes later with two flasks full of ice cold pumpkin juice. Lily, still wondering where this random act of kindness could come from and what he had done to the juice, drank a tiny sip from it.
"This tastes a little strange," said Lily, looking into it as if it had a severed hand in it. "Here Raquel, you try it and tell me what you think."
She handed the jeweled goblet to Raquel and Raquel sipped it warily as Lily had done. The moment the juice touched her lips, she fell straight to the ground in a dead faint.
Soroya screamed and Sirius caught her, and then came that all too familiar sound of Lily's hand against James's jaw. "You idiotic, worthless, incompetent bastard!" Lily yelled at him. But then she had a moment of realization; if Raquel wasn't given a subsequent antidote, then as soon as all the poison had entered her blood, she would be gone. Lily racked her mind and then started giving orders.
"Soroya, get me 2 rose petals, there still should be some in the gardens," Lily looked up expectantly at her and she took off. "Sirius, get me two large glasses full of hot mulled wine, the house elves in the kitchen should be happy to give it to you. Hurry!" She called to his retreating back.
"Remus, 4 sprigs of juniper from outside and Potter, two needles," She said hurriedly.
"Where would I find needles?" said James.
"Wherever you can! Just get them they're the most important part!"
As James ran towards the door, everyone in the Hall turned their heads to scene that was happening with them. Even Narcissa, who was with Lucius and his group of friends, had had a couple of worried glances at her. Minerva, though, had to be the most worried. She leaned over to Dumbledore.
"Merlin, don't you think we should intervene," she whispered.
"Never in the slightest, my dear," Dumbledore whispered back, boring into her with his light blue eyes. "Lily can do this, she already knows what needs to happen and she's tremendously calm. She's doing fine."
So with that very unsatisfying answer, Minerva leaned back into her chair, said a quick prayer to the Goddess, and took a deep breath. She then turned her attention on how the whole thing turned out.
Lily kept desperately feeling Raquel's wrist for a pulse. It was still there, but it was growing fainter every time she checked. Sirius arrived with the wine first, then James with the needles, Remus with juniper, and Soroya with half-dead rose petals.
She set the two cups on the floor and added one rose petal and two juniper rootlets to them. Everyone in the hall was now staring at her, even Lucius's gang were silent, waiting for the ending, and Narcissa who was white with fear. she feverishly tore the petals in three places and dipped the juniper in nine times before adding the whole thing.
Last of all, she pricked her finger, unflinchingly, as if she couldn't feel it, then Raquel's. Even the almost lifeless body of Raquel flinched when she did so. A single drop of blood into the owner's cup and then Lily swirled them both around.
Lily drank hers quickly, gulping down the drowsy concoction. Licking the excess from her lips she managed to say, "Remus, Sirius sit her up."
They did so and put a little in Raquel's mouth. 'Please swallow…' Lily kept praying, but she wasn't. The antidote kept dripping down her front. Lily knew she had to find a way to get her to drink it and there was only one way.
She put a mouthful of the drink into Raquel's mouth, closed it, and then pressed her hand to Raquel's throat. It worked and within five minutes, Raquel was coughing and sputtering.
When they had sat her in a chair and told her the story, she hugged all of them. She kept thanking Lily for saving her. James noticed that no one had mentioned that he had put the poison. He would have thought that Lily, in the least, would have told her. When James caught Lily's eye, who was kneeling next to Raquel, Lily looked up at him and half-smiled, half-smirked at him. Then she lowered her gaze and went back to the conversation.
Throughout the night, James wanted to apologize to Lily, but she busied herself. She danced with Ethan, one of her oldest friends, and she talked to a few Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs about the potion. She was never away from her friends for the whole night, until…
James saw his opportunity. Lily was standing near the entrance staring at someone, who it was, James couldn't tell. She wasn't smiling but she had a faint trace of a smirk on her face.
"Evans," James said. "Do you mind if we talk? Alone."
"Ah, if it isn't the comeback king himself," said Lily, still not taking her eyes off whomever she was watching. "What did you think I learned at Avalon? How to put on liquid eyeliner?"
"Well," James sighed. "No."
"I'll come," she said, breaking her eye contact. "If you promise not to hex or curse me."
"I solemnly swear," he said.
They left the Entrance Hall together and headed towards one of the balconies. They were passing a statue of Ulnae the Undecided when Lily suddenly stopped.
"What is it?" asked James when he noticed that Lily was no longer beside him.
"Excuse me, Potter, but growing up on Avalon I have developed certain talents. One of those is to tell when unseen people are in my presence and my scar twinged. Oh, well…"
"Sirius, Remus, Peter, and I have made a map that will see people, invisible or not." He said proudly.
"I've underestimated you, Potter," Lily said, concentrating on where she was going. "I need to apologize for calling you Lot of Orkney."
"That's fine," he shrugged. "I'm sure people call me worse things, they just can't tell them to my face."
"In your position it's not hard to get insults is it?" she asked him interestedly. "Quidditch captain, Head Boy, and yet, the only one that can truly insult you is the Head Girl."
"I will not say that that isn't true," she looked up at him and smiled. "And I need to apologize for that little 'prank' I pulled on you. I didn't mean for it to go that far and I seriously forgot that Raquel was deadly allergic to all poison."
"You're not the first that's tried to hurt me," Lily said solemnly. They had reached the balcony now, but it still hadn't gotten them out of earshot enough to not hear the loud music in the Hall.
"How so?" he asked, fully interested.
"Voldemort's there but he hasn't really hurt me, but the threat has, but another has hurt even more…" she trailed off.
"Tell me," he wasn't exactly being comforting, he was making her recall the worst day of her life, he was really curious though.
"Do you have a normal family, James?" this was really the first time she had ever called him by his first name. Startled a bit by the odd question, he took a few seconds to respond.
"Pretty normal, I guess," he said. "I've got an older sister and a younger sister, a mom, and a dad."
"Normal is the last thing you could call my 'family'," she stopped for a second. "When Narcissa and I were four, we found out that our mother had made a deal with Minerva. Minerva came to take us to Avalon. The night before we left she told us that she would always love us. When I came back six years later, she dismissed me as her daughter and didn't even ask why Narcissa had died. Narcissa seemed to feel the same way about our parents as our parents felt about us, so she told me to tell them that she had died. Then Minerva became my only family, and all my sisters on Avalon, but now I am hundreds of miles away from Avalon, my sister is doing Minerva's bidding, and now I think that Minerva is either going to betray my trust like she did Narcissa or she'll use me as a pawn, without me knowing, just like Viviane used Morgaine."
When Lily finally finished, a cold, eerie silence hung in the frosty air.
A/N: Well, that's it for now, I hope you enjoyed it. Umm… thin blue markers and yo-yos to my reviewers. I LOVE yo-yos! Happy Valentine's Day to all, it's techniquely not Valentine's day yet, but oh well. There will be some actual romance in the next chapter, but of course there's a drawback so…Thanks to all who reviewed! Love you guys as usual! Spread the word that If Time is All We've Lost has a new chapter! Love and Thanks, Epequa ;)