Tears of Flame
FINALLY!!! I'm so sorry this took so long – it's been half completed in my notebooks for several weeks. I've had a bad infection that's damaged my immune system, so I've been in bed for the last week, but I finally recovered enough to finish it last night. Add that to the crime of starting yet another new story (I'm sorry! I couldn't resist!) Pitch It Like Pendragon – please check it out if you have the time – and that makes for a very very late chapter. I hope it's of sufficient quality to make it up to you!
Disclaimer – As much as I wish otherwise, it is clearly evident from the quality of my writing that I do NOT own Harry Potter or any related characters etc.
Well, I've kept you waiting long enough… here's the chapter!
Chapter 7
When Lily woke up that morning she didn't notice anything unusual. She stretched and yawned, and opened her eyes. She stopped, and tried again. No, it was still dark. She lifted a hand to her face and felt her eyes. Definitely open. Then she realised what had happened. At once, the memories of her horrific injuries and slow healing sprang to mind. She had gone blind again.
With a sib if anguish she opened her mouth and screamed, trying to drown out the sense of terror and loss that threatened to overwhelm her.
***
"You did what?!" Remus yelled. "I can't believe you'd do that! You're supposed to play pranks. They're supposed to be fun, a joke that everyone can laugh at. But this…" his voice had sunk to a deadly whisper. "This is just cruel."
James, a little spooked by Remus's reaction, tried to laugh it off. "Cruel? Come off it, Rem, it's only Neffy."
"Only Neffy?" If it was possible, Remus's voice got even colder. It was once again a formidable volume. "No she's not. She's a real person who's got real feelings and has probably suffered more than you could ever imagine. And her name is LILY!!!"
James, a little peeved that Remus had tarnished the triumph of his prank, got defensive.
"Fine, then. If she's so great, go hang out with Lily. Oh, sorry, I mean NEFFY THE FREAK!!!"
Remus, once again, went deathly quiet. "Yeah, I think I will, thanks. At least Lily has a heart, not just an ego. There are more important things than your stupid pride, James. Think about it."
And with that, Remus turned and left the room, heading for the girls' dormitory.
He started up the stairs, but before he was even halfway up them, a dishevelled Lily appeared at the top of them, tears streaming down her cheeks, her body shaking. She started down the stairs, but stumbled and would have pitched head over heels down them if Remus hadn't leaped to catch her.
"Lily…" he said as he hugged her, her tears soaking into his shoulder. "Lily, I'm so sorry. I never should have left you. I can't believe James would do that to you."
"That's not what hurt," Lily sobbed. "It hurt that I thought you helped him." Remus opened his mouth to protest, but Lily carried on, "and it hurt because… well, when I got these," she indicated the bandages on her face, "I went blind for a while. It brought back all the memories, all the pain, all the fear when I thought I'd never see again." Remus hugged her even tighter, before putting an arm around her waist and helping her down the stairs to the Gryffindor common room.
"Do you have any idea how frightening this is? I feel so helpless. I can't do anything for myself. And I have no one to do anything for me. No one cares."
Remus gripped her hands in his. "I care, Lily. I know what it's like to be different. I'm so sorry I left you, Lily. Will you forgive me? I'd really like to be friends again. Please, Lily."
"What about Potter?" Lily spat out the name, angry despite her tears.
"I don't want to be friends with anyone who could do something that spiteful to someone else, especially when they haven't done anything wrong."
Lily wiped away the last remains of her tears and gave a watery smile. "Oh, Remie, I've missed you."
Remus hugged her tightly. "I've missed you too, Lils. I've missed you too."
***
Over the next few days, it became a normal sight to see Remus walking with Lily, an arm around her waist, guiding her to classrooms. Lily still couldn't see properly – the nurse, Madam Vervena, had cast the counter-curse, but because Lily's eyes were still damaged by the burns, they took a long time to recover from her second blinding.
Remus helped her as best he could, not only helping her to walk but also serving her food, reading out passages in text books so she could do her homework, and in the evenings just sitting in front of the fire with her, chatting away and eating chocolate frogs.
Lily, once over the initial shock, didn't mind being blind too much. She didn't do much in lessons anyway, blind or not, now that Dumbledore had blocked her magic. Remus helped her to find her way around Hogwarts and the pranks on her had stopped. She had been told how to get to the kitchens by Kitty McGonagall, normally a fiercely guarded secret from the students, so she didn't have to go to the Great Hall. The curse would wear off in a few days and meanwhile, she had become so close to Remus that she almost considered him a brother. For someone who had been sobbing her heart out in the common room less than a week ago, Lily was remarkably content.
James, on the other hand, was not. After the entertaining few minutes in the common room, Lily had reacted as disappointingly to this prank, his best effort, as she had to the others. James had been given a weeks worth of detention for cursing a fellow student, and had lost a friend because of the prank. Worse, he was now experiencing feelings of guilt. James wasn't used to this; his pranks were just a laugh, the victims deserved what they got. Or so he had thought. But Remus's parting words when he left the dormitory five days ago had been ringing in his head ever since. Had his prank been cruel? Was he so proud he caused other people suffering? These were the questions that occupied his mind as he slouched off to the dungeons for his third detention of the week.
As soon as James entered the dungeon, he emitted a loud groan and almost turned around and walked straight back out again. Indeed, he would have done, if his groan hadn't attracted the attention of Professor O'Cairn, the grim-visaged Potions teacher and Deputy Headmaster.
The reason for James's distress was that the dungeon contained two of his least favourite people – a particularly malicious Slytherin by the name of Severus Snape, huddled over a simmering cauldron doing extra credit Potions homework and of course, the irrepressible Sirius Black, who was glowing a strange shade of green in the darkness of the dungeon. Intrigued, sure that none of his pranks had had that particular effect, James was about to ask what it was when Professor O'Cairn cleared his throat and began to explain their task. They had to catalogue Professor O'Cairn's potion ingredients, making a note of any that were running low, as well as hanging bunches of fresh herbs to dry and shredding the dried bunches. James was pleasantly surprised – this was much less work than polishing all those trophies, although the company left a lot to be desired.
When Professor O'Cairn left for his office, where a warm fire, a mug of cocoa and a large pile of marking were waiting for him, Sirius risked starting a muttered conversation with James.
"So, what are you here for, then?"
"Oh, I cursed Neffy the freak. O'Cairn and McGonagall went mental, so I got a week of detention for making her go blind."
"You made her blind?!
"Yup. Nothing else seemed to work. Not that this prank could be called successful," James said morosely. "So, what did you do?"
"I tried to booby trap Filch's office. It was going great, I planted a couple of Spell Spheres that would have given him a soprano voice and turned his hands into mopheads, and I was just levitating the luminous paint over the doorway when that blasted cat appeared and launched herself at me, hissing and spitting and scratching like a rabid gnome. So, of course, I moved my arms to protect my face, and the paint sort of… tipped, and so," he gave a shrug, "here I am. I suppose it could have been worse. Filch was threatening me with the rack."
"Is that legal?"
"Guess not, or Filch would have carried out his threat. Merlin knows he wanted to. Oh yeah, another good thing," a mischievous glint appeared in Sirius's eyes, "At least the deluge got Mrs Norris too."
James's face split into a wide grin, until he and Sirius simultaneously realised they were supposed to be enemies, and turned back to the bundles of herbs.
After another hour or so, the carefully compiled catalogue of ingredients was complete, and they only had the herbs to shred. Snape, too, had finished and was clearing away his ingredients, when a malevolent gleam appeared in his eyes. He carried his beaker of Kelpie Saliva over to the bench where the two Gryffindors were working. Seeing that the pair were busy, furiously chopping herbs, the evil glint became clearer and Snape, smirking, upended the beaker over the pile of parchment the Gryffindors had slaved over.
As the two turned, wide-eyed and glaring, Snape's smirk grew. "Sorry. I… slipped." Sneering with satisfaction, he withdrew into the shadows.
James and Sirius exchanged furious looks. "Why, you greasy little bastard!" Sirius yelled, and grabbed his wand. But James was quicker.
With the fire of vengeance in his eyes, he flicked his wand in a complicated pattern and shrieked out, "Morphus Cabra!" Sirius stared, and began to chuckle. In the place of the smirking Slytherin stood a particularly murderous looking goat. Sirius added his own touch, turning the goat hot pink. The animal glared ferociously as James also started to laugh, but utterly failed in its attempt to intimidate them. It opened its mouth to attempt a threatening growl, but all that emerged was a loud "BAAAAHHH!"
This was too much for both James and Sirius. They collapsed to the floor in hysterical laughter, completely incapacitated. This continued for several minutes until the boys stopped abruptly as a cold voice rang out from behind them.
"And just what, exactly, happened here?" Professor O'Cairn had returned.
***
The goat episode in the dungeons earned both Sirius and James another two days of detention. They didn't mind – they used their time effectively, plotting a prank to get even with Snape as they cleaned the Owlery.
The two were now firm friends, much to the astonishment of the rest of the school, who had watched them curse each other mercilessly only a few days before. The professors were especially glad that the rivalry was over – it was much easier to teach when your students weren't trying to transfigure each other into parrots. The Slytherins, on the other hand, were not pleased to see the enmity between Potter and Black disappear. As Sirius said, it had distracted them from the important things; "We've been so busy pranking each other, we haven't played a single prank on the slimy Slytherins!" Now, however, they more than made up for lost time, aided and abetted, it was suspected, by Kitty McGonagall. The formidable skills and fertile imagination of James and Sirius had been fairly amazing when directed at each other. Now, combined, the pranks they came up with were incredible. The Slytherins, Snape in particular, feared for their own sanity, and began to develop some unusual phobias, most notably of fish, which Sirius seemed particularly fond of using in his pranks.
Within a week, Sirius and James were so close they were almost brothers – a fact which rendered the incredulous members of the faculty, as well as their own house, speechless. The two boys were astonishingly alike; both talented wizards, from pureblood families, with a carefree attitude and a streak of mischief a mile wide. Perhaps that was why the rivalry had begun – the boys were just too similar.
Lily and Remus's friendship had also progressed in leaps and bounds. Although, at first, Lily had been reluctant to trust Remus after he had hurt her so badly, having to depend in him because of her damaged eyesight meant she had quickly regained her trust in him – and he tried as hard as he could to be worthy of her trust.
Unfortunately, instead of Lily being accepted by the other Gryffindors, her friendship with Remus had led to him being shunned by them along with her. The two were outcasts, considered inferior, fit only to be sniggered about behind their backs. Although the two were slightly saddened by this, neither really minded – after all, they both knew it could be worse.
OK, so that wasn't the world's best chapter, but I needed a bridging chapter so I can get on with the action! Hope you enjoyed the Snape goat – I enjoyed writing him!
Oh yeah, could you please suggest original prank ideas in your reviews – I'm planning a prank war, but I don't want to have to resort to changing the colours of people's hair, or dressing boys in girls clothes. YAWN!!! They get so tedious… Anyhoo, if you have any ideas, please tell me! I NEED them – I'm not evil enough to come up with them all on my own… (*evil glint and manic laugh shows that fire-bird is lying…) OK, I admit it. I'm just plain out – I seem to be fixated on transfiguring things into fish. I need something else! Please help me!
And I don't mean mental help either. I enjoy being insane, thank-you very much…
Revenge of the rabid rutabaga farmer… HA HA HAAAAAAAA!!!
Sorry, sugar high showing… Better be off before you catch what I've got…