Chapter Five
Authors Notes: There are some mistakes in life that you cannot erase. You cannot wipe the tears from someone's eyes, and pretend that all the pain never existed. Sometimes, when you break a heart, maybe when you even break your own, you have to feel the pain to appreciate that brief light of happiness that once was, and you must never…. Forget.
Always,
Aly
Lily woke up in her bed the next morning with such exhaustion she felt her eyes had never closed.
"Geez Lil, what the hell happened to you?" Jenny said from across the room.
All about Lily's bed were her covers, thrown askew and disheleved. Her pillows were on the ground, her sheets were twisted around one of the four posts. Her hair had fallen from its braid and now lay about her shoulders in haunted waves. Her tank top was falling off one shoulder, and one of her legs lay dangling off the edge of the bed. She sat up slowly and wiped a few tiny beads of sweat from her forehead.
"Lil? You're scaring me." Jenny said, slowly walking towards her. Lily stood up and took long strides into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She pushed on the cold water full blast and got in, allowing the exhilarating cold to beat reality into her. She stood there, motionless for a few moments, her thoughts flying about her brain like crazed bees. She washed her hair and then, as if time had either gone on terribly slow, stopped, or sped ahead to a dimension to which she did not know, she was standing before her mirror desperately trying to recall what had haunted her to these depths. Just as she was leanign down to splash water on her still pale face, she jerked her head up and looked at her reflection. Horrified, and near tears she recalled what it was that had stolen her sleep.
"Yeah, so she's a mess. She's upstairs all pale and sweating and shaky. I'm scared." Jenny whispered to Sirius over breakfast. Her kinky brown coils springing about her cheeks and chin.
"Jenny, I'm not trying to scare you more but James is exactly in the same condition. He was screaming in his sleep, I thought he'd wake the whole castle up. He woke up sweating, crying, it was horrifying. You would have thought someone killed him in his dreams." Sirius said as they left the Great Hall and headed towards their first class - Divinations.
Lily sprinted through the empty halls. The spandless blue sky was pushing its way through the long narrow windows, as if trying to bring summer directly to the students. Lily had just managed to pull her school robe on and pull her hair back as Divinations started. Now, as she was desperately running up the tower in a futile attempt to sneak in without being noticed by Trelawny, she was she this was going to be an unforgettable lesson.
"Why Hello Ms. Evans. Sleepy dear?" Mrs. Trelawny mused, pursing her ruby lips together in a angry, amused fashion.
"Sorry Ma'am, just couldn't get moving today."
"No excuses, just sit down." Trelawny's robes were of deep purple today, and reflected with youth against the sunlight, protruding through the windows. Her neck seemed slightly weighed down by her large necklaces of opals, rubies, and topaz jewels, all surrounded in gold. She spun her long wispy fingers, a ring of a different color on each one, around her clouded crystal ball and closed her eyes.
Lily sat down awkwardly, between Jenny and James. Sirius stared at her from across the table.
"What!" she whispered.
"Nothing, just wondering how you were." He said, diverting his eyes.
"I'm fine. Thank you Siri." She whispered, as she glanced up at Trelawny, who she was sure had fallen asleep.
"Lily, you and James should compare evenings, you both obviously had a long night." Jenny said.
James eyes reached hers quickly. "Nightmares?" he asked.
"Terrible." She said, opening her green eyes wide.
"So, what was yours about?" James asked Lily, across the table from her at dinner.
"Lets not talk here." she mouthed, just as Greg came over and sat next to her, wrapping his arms about her waist.
"Hey you." she said softly.
"Hey Beautiful. How are you?"
"Great." She smiled.
"That's the most fake smile I've ever since." James grumbled into his plate.
"What?" Greg asked.
"Nothing, I was talking to Sirius. How are you Greg?" He answered with a smirk.
"Wonderful, now that I'm here, with this incredible one." Greg smiled, kissing Lily's cheek.
"Do you know how much more pleasant life is with you in it Lil?" Greg asked her.
"Greg. Can you not sit so close to me right now? I'm not feeling well."
"Sorry." he mumbled, dejectedly.
"We've got to work on that paper, James." Lily said.
"Off to the common room?" Greg asked.
"No, the library." James interrupted, waving goodbye.
"Lily!" Greg called out as they were about to leave. "Don't forget, right after graduation we're leaving for Rome."
"You're going to Rome with him?" James asked.
"Do I detect some bitterness?" Lily retaliated.
"You're going to stay with him, aren't you?"
" Yes." She said. There had been long silences between their sentences, and now they were seated at a table in the quiet, spacious room.
He placed a hand on her leg under the table. "Why?"
"I have to James. I need my mother, goodness knows she the only family I have left." She turned her face from him…tears now sliding down her face. Her turned her face toward him, and brushed her tears away.
"Stop. Don't you do that for me. I don't deserve them." James said. His brown eyes peering at her from behind his black frame glasses, and then Lily saw the child she had seen in her dream. She quickly looked away.
"You look like him." she whispered.
"Like who?"
"Him…the child in my dream. He was just an infant, falling all around the house, with wild black hair and excited green eyes." She smiled. " I loved that child, even though I don't know any one with an infant like him. I think he's a figment of my imagination."
"Lily, that baby was in my dream too. Only, you were holding him."
Lily felt ice take the place of her blood. "Then there was a fire."
"An explosion."
"Then a grotesque gray face, with hell-brazen eyes." She whispered.
"Then it all went black." He finished.
They had clutched hands under the table without recognition.
"But I had another before that, someone is trying to kill me, James."
"Kill you before that child can be born." He answered.
"You can't fight destiny though…can you?"
"I'd like to." James whispered, leaning towards her, and kissing her softly.
