Chapter 21

Lily found him first. One arm around his four-poster, but it hadn't stopped him cracking his head on the floor. She had come looking for him after he had disappeared from his Quidditch party. As it involved his three favourite things, she couldn't understand why he would leave for so long.

Running over to him, she rolled him over. Although her brain was telling her that he wasn't asleep, she refused to believe it until she had tried to wake him up. She called his name and shook him gently. It usually worked, but not this time. Panicking, Lily's mind went blank. She walked up and down the room trying to clear her head, but it didn't work. So she did the only thing she could think of.

"REMUS!" she screamed, "SIRIUS!" But as they were still in the Common Room she didn't really expect for them to hear her, though she screamed as loud as she could.

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Remus and Sirius were sat together in the boy's dormitories, studying an old piece of parchment. Which was working much too slowly for their liking.

'Messrs Moony Wormtail Padfoot and Prongs, proudly present.........'

"We know! We wrote you! Hurry up!" Sirius half shouted at it.

'Mr Padfoot would like to remind you that patience is a virtue," the map told him.

"I'm talking back to myself? Remus, this is supposed to be us talking; I've never said that in my life! Don't even know what a virtue is," he said slightly confused. Remus smiled slightly but decided not to explain the idea of morals to his friend.

"Piece of crap, maybe we should rewrite it?" Sirius added.

'Mr Moony would like say that a map is only as good as its maker!' Since Sirius had begun to silently fume, Remus decided that it would be better if he took over.

"It's alright, James is in his room," he said, looking carefully at the map.

"Are you sure?" Sirius asked.

"The Marauders Map never lies,"

"With Lily!" Sirius smirked after grabbing the map.

"At least, I think it's alright," Remus added looking concerned.

"What is it?"

"He's not moving,"

Sirius stared at him.

"He's in his room with Lily. What do you expect them to be doing? A cross country sprint?"

"No but you'd think he'd be moving slightly. She is," Remus pointed out. The small dot named Lily Evans was pacing up and down the room. Though they had no way of knowing, she was terrified. What was she supposed to do? Just leave James on the floor to find help? Or just stay where she was?

"It can hurt to check if he's ok? Can it?" Remus asked, still worried.

"James has left his own party, to go to his room with his girlfriend. And you want to walk in on them?" Sirius asked, "Well, you're a braver man than I am," but seeing that Remus was still not happy agreed to go.

"I'm telling you, mate, it'll be fine. I bet there's nothing wrong with them," Sirius said, as they were about to climb through the portrait to Lily and James's rooms.

"He's probably just asleep or they were just......" he was interrupted by a scream from above them.

"REMUS! SIRIUS!"

They paused for a moment and stared at each other before sprinting up the stairs in search of Lily. Remus ran over to James who was still lying on the floor. Sirius took hold of Lily's shoulders, his good mood completely gone.

"Lily, what happened?" he asked urgently. She shook her head and tried to get her voice to work.

"I..........I don't know. I just came up here and found him like this," she stuttered. Looking at Remus she asked what was wrong.

"He's covered in blood," Remus said as he looked at James.

"He's cut his head," Lily told them as she peered around Sirius, "Probably where he fell down,"

Whether it was the noise or just a coincidence but James was beginning to stir. Not properly awake he stared at them all blearily.

"He needs to go to the hospital wing," Remus said anxiety written across his face.

"No!" James said looking up in alarm, "Won't!" he muttered sullenly as he sunk back into unconsciousness.

"You can't!" Sirius said, looking at Remus as though he was mad.

"He has to!" Remus hissed back.

"How do you think he's going to feel when he wakes up there?!"

"What's going on?" Lily asked, completely confused.

"He's got a better chance of waking up there, than he has just lying on the floor,"

Both Lily and Sirius recoiled at this. The thought that there was something seriously wrong with him had occurred to them, but so far they had managed to ignore it.

"Look, why don't we just leave it till morning? Everything looks different in the daylight," Sirius said fairly.

"Good idea," said Lily,

"And what are we supposed to do with him during the night?" Remus asked. He was determined to get James to the hospital, however much he hated them.

"I'll stay here with him," Lily volunteered.

"No, I'll stay," said Sirius.

"That depends if you want to sleep in a double bed with him," Lily smirked. "I mean, I knew you were mates but I didn't know you were that close!"

"Lily can stay," he told Remus hastily.

None of them slept that night. Except Sirius, he was sleeping a few feet away, on their sofa. He wasn't too worried about James. They had been through worse together. So what if he couldn't think of any examples? Knowing everything they had done, he was sure that they had.

Remus had returned to the dormitories, the full moon was approaching and he needed all the sleep he could get.

Lily was drifting into and out of sleep; worry was keeping her from closing her eyes for anything more than a few minutes. Every time she woke up she would watch James for a while, just to make sure that he was still moving.

Beside her James was dreaming.

He had just caught the snitch and he was holding it up for everyone to see. The whole school was cheering, and he could see Lily in the crowd, screaming with the rest. He was so happy he thought his heart would burst.

For a second he thought it had.

A crippling pain caught his chest. He fell down, but no one seemed to notice. Not even Sirius who was standing right next to him. Normally he didn't even have to say that anything was wrong for Sirius to notice; but now here he was. Sprawled across the floor in agony and they did nothing.

Then it was gone as suddenly as it came. And his dreaming went back to black.

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Lily was beginning to worry. She had taken the day off lessons to look after James. Naturally Sirius had volunteered but the teachers would be extremely suspicious if both James and Sirius were off on the same day.

With them it was different. Remus calmed her, and Sirius could make her feel better about anything. While they were there, she knew that James was going to be fine, but when they disappeared, all her doubts and fears came creeping back to her. What if he wasn't? Why couldn't they just take him up to Madam Pomfrey?

During the morning James had stirred and muttered in his 'sleep', but he had stopped a few hours ago and was alarmingly still. He was still breathing, but it was hardly noticeable.

If she didn't know better, Lily would have said that James had a fever. His face was flushed and beads of sweat dotted his forehead. Occasionally sending a cooling spell at him she was running out of options.

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He'll be fine

Where is he?

In his room. Lily's with him.

And he'll be ok?

Yes

Are you sure?

Wormtail!

Sirius rolled his eyes at Peter. Why couldn't anyone just have a little faith?

'What do you think is wrong with him?' Peter wrote.

'I don't know!' Sirius replied. Why did everyone always expect him to have all the answers?

Then how do you know he'll be ok?

For gods sake stop being so pathetic!

Peter visibly shrunk at Sirius's words but didn't say anything. Perhaps he was afraid of what he might say, Sirius was bigger than him, in more ways than just size.

Meanwhile, Sirius was running out of ways to avoid Peter's questions. He wanted to think that everything would be all right in the end but he had stopped believing in happy endings a long time ago. He just had to face up to the fact, that although he wanted James to recover, things might not go his way this time.

Moony?

Yes

What's going to happen?

Remus looked up surprised. This was a very rare side of Sirius that he had only seen once or twice. Vulnerable, and almost child-like, so different to his usual image. So Remus decided that if Sirius was being honest, he would too.

I don't know

We should have taken him to Pomfrey, shouldn't we?

Yes

Is it too late?

Hope not

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Thanks for reading. Sorry it's been so long!

Leo x