Disclaimer: I own nothing
Chapter 9: Creatures and tensions
James and Lily were still plodding through the forest –still dragging the unconscious Sirius carelessly across the ground— when they both came to a conclusion: they were utterly lost. This was not good news. Being lost in the forbidden forest was like getting sunburnt on your backside: basically a right pain in the arse. What James had thought was the right direction towards the exit of the forest had been completely wrong. Lily wasn't surprised.
"Evans," James began, preparing for Lily's fury to come, "I think we're lost."
"No shit, Sherlock," she replied moodily.
"Huh? Who's Sherlock?"
Lily sighed, "Never mind. I thought you knew where we were going, that's why I followed you! Now we're lost. Great, well done Christopher-bloody-Columbus."
"What? Will you stop insulting me by calling me names I don't understand?"
"Nope, it's fun." Lily smiled evilly. They carried on walking until James dropped Sirius' arm in exhaustion and ambled over to a tree, with Lily being pulled along in his steps. "Potter? What are you doing? Have you had a concussion as well as Sirius?"
"Ya know," James brought a hand to his chin, "We must be walking around in circles because I'm sure I've seen this tree before." He squinted, looking at the tree trunk and branches. He gazed at the tree as if it would somehow respond and confirm his suspicions.
"How can you tell? All these trees look the same," Lily said.
James gestured a finger towards her. "You maybe right there…"
"You're delirious, Potter," Lily remarked. She examine at the tree for herself. "Hey, don't bowtruckles live in these trees?" she asked curiously.
However, James wasn't listening. For some odd reason he was taking out his anger. At the tree.
"Stupid tree! If only you would bloody respond and tell us how to get out of this niffler crapper forest!" James wailed his arms in the air like a madman.
"Potter, why are you yelling at a tree? You must be delirious."
Probably because he's exhausted...Lily thought, noticing the sweat dripping from his forehead. Although I'm exhausted too and I'm not yelling at a bloody tree,
"I hope somebody cuts you down, you-you...useless, overgrown shrub!"
Oh God. He's insulting the tree now...
"Don't some of these trees make our wands, Potter? I wouldn't call them useless-" Lily swiftly stopped speaking when James started hitting the tree with his fists in frustration. He howled in pain and began kicking the tree because of the throbbing it caused him.
"Don't do that, Potter! Have you lost your mind?"
Apparently, James had indeed lost it. He was also most definitely not prepared for a swarm of bowtruckles who had been living in that particular tree –which he'd been brutally hitting— to attack him for his actions.
"Huh, what the—?" James was cut off as he saw the tiny pixie-ish creatures that looked oddly like twigs fling themselves at him; not just at him, but more specifically at his eyes. He shrieked as he spotted their sharp fingers as they pounced on his glasses, trying to scrape through them and gorge his eyes out. At least James had his glasses as protection, but he had a feeling they wouldn't last much longer as the bowtruckles were attacking them with fury.
"EVANS!" James waved violently with his hand at the bowtruckles that were flying at his face. "HELP ME!"
"I've got my own problems, Potter!" Lily shouted in return. Even though she hadn't attacked the tree, the bowtruckles had decided that she must also be some kind of threat or companion of the 'tree-beater', so were also trying to gorge her eyes out as well; or maybe they were just trying to blind her just for the pure fun of it. She had no glasses so was in more of a difficult situation, and let's say Lily valued her eyes very much.
They both staggered backwards as the flying creatures tried to assault them, further behind which led them to Sirius' unconscious body. Funnily enough, the bowtruckles had decided not to attack him. James stumbled over Sirius legs, luckily not falling over for once, whilst Lily stepped clumsily on his Sirius stomach, not that Lily minded as he made a loud groan in pain.
In quick thinking, Lily spotted the lamp beside Sirius and speedily grabbed it, waving and hitting the annoying creatures that threatened to make her permanently blind.
I don't care if they are magical creatures that shouldn't be harmed! Lily thought angrily. They're attacking my face!
The plan seemed to work as the bowtruckles backed off from the light in shock. Much to her relief, they left her alone. James wasn't so lucky. There were no other lamps and the creatures didn't seem to be getting off him anytime soon.
"OW! Bloody flying twig things!" James moaned as a nasty bowtruckle bit him painfully on the neck.
They're like vampires! They're sucking out my blood! I need blood! James thought, quite outrageously. I'm positive it's a necessary important thing to keep me alive!
"Now will you help me, Evans!" he begged.
Lily sighed. "Fine, if I must."
She flung the lamp repeatedly at the bowtruckles surrounding James face. They eventually backed off and flew off in annoyance, back into their habitats of the trees.
Unfortunately, when Lily was waving the lamp violently in the air; at her final swing she accidentally swung the lamp off course, instead, hitting James' face.
"Bugger! Potter, I'm sorry!" Lily immediately apologized as she watched him stumble and clutch his forehead in pain.
James didn't respond to the apology because he'd promptly fallen backwards. His eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the forest floor, Lily also falling to her knees beside him.
I can't have hit him that hard! Lily thought. She poked James in the face as his eyes were shut and expression of surprise, just as she'd done with Sirius as he lay sprawled on his back. The poking technique she used a lot.
"Oh, crap." Lily realised James was out cold.
Suddenly, she heard the sound of groaning and shuffling next to her. Turning in the direction of the sound, she breathed a sigh of annoyance at where it had come from.
"Huh?" Sirius mumbled groggily. He noticed he was covered in mud and what looked like to be something's droppings. He was also greeted with the sight of Lily exhaling noisily as she watched a passed out James who not only still had his black eye, but a bump on his forehead to complete his battered look.
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Twenty minutes later, Lily –and Sirius this time- were pulling the unconscious James lying on his back along the forbidden forest's ground.
Why couldn't I be knocked out? Lily wondered. It always has to be the stupid boys.
"I have to say, you'd make a good beater for the Gryffindor quidditch team. You knocked out James completely," Sirius said impressively.
"Thanks, Black. But I'm not a fan of heights so quidditch is out of the question for me." She looked over at Sirius who appeared to be walking oddly and letting out the occasional whimper of pain. "I'm not even going to ask what happened to you earlier. The word's 'Remus mugged me' and 'James bit me in the balls' confused me enough."
"Yeah, the story is rather disturbing. I'd rather not tell you it and re-live the traumatic experience in my head." Sirius winced as he rubbed the teeth marks on his hand.
"I'm glad to hear that. So where exactly did Malfoy disappear off to?" Lily asked, still chatting as the darkness was quite unnerving.
"I told you already, he went to go hump the nifflers."
"I thought you were joking."
"Well, the more times I say it, the more believable it is to me. Besides, you know what a sick twat Malfoy is." Even saying 'Malfoy' made him pull a face of repulsion.
"That's true," Lily agreed.
"And those nifflers were horny buggers," Sirius added.
"Uh..what? How would you know if the nifflers were horny? Not unless you...oh my God, Black! That's sick, you and the nifflers!" Lily said in horror.
"What! No, that's not what I meant!" Sirius protested. "I just saw them, they were, well, um, frisky and—"
"So you were watching them were you, Black? Oh, that's horrible. You're some kind of magical creature pervert!"
"WHAT? No—but—I—didn't—damn it!" Sirius cursed as he couldn't get his words out and gave up.
Lily laughed and they continued walking. It wasn't that hard for her to pull James considering her hand was stuck to his. Sirius, however, was annoyed considering he was injured and was dragging another injured person: this was clearly not right to him. He wished he could have stayed unconscious or at least faked it so he wouldn't keep heaving James' body.
"Bloody hell, when James wakes up, tell him he need's to go on a diet!"
Lily was about to gladly concur but an unexpected protest of 'Hey, I heard that!' halted their walking. They looked at each other, mystified.
"Okay...that was either the sound of your stomach speaking, Black, or the supposedly James Potter who should be passed out right now. If it is the latter, then he will die a slow and painful death."
They titled their heads down to see the allegedly 'passed-out' James, wide awake and running a hand through his hair. Lily and Sirius were not pleased.
"Unfortunately the latter, but Evans, you can't necessarily kill me because of many reasons. One: I was indeed unconscious until ten minutes ago and...er, okay, I got nothing else," James said regretfully.
"Okay, I'm trying to think why exactly you didn't say anything ten minutes ago when you woke up...still trying to think why...still trying..." Sirius got more and more annoyed every second.
"Stop rambling, Black, so I can strangle him."
James stuck out his arm protectively in front of his neck.
"No! No, wait! I've thought of another reason!".
Lily sighed with annoyance. "Now look what you've done, Black! While you were babbling on, he thought of a reason that may stop me from killing him!" Her eyes blazed.
"Sorry," Sirius apologized, afraid Lily might cut off his tongue with her piercing eyes.
"Okay, my other reason is, you can't kill me because then you'd have to carry a dead body around with you all—"
"You used that excuse this morning, Potter," Lily cut in tiredly. "You can't use the same reason twice. It's against the rules."
James shot her a strange look. "What rules?"
"My rules," Lily answered venomously.
James cowered. "Okay, okay. I didn't say anything because I wanted to see if you guys would talk about me. Unfortunately, you didn't, which I am very insulted about by the way! And all you bloody talked about was the topic of 'the berk Malfoy' and 'Sirius the animal pervert'," such interesting discussions at the Gryffindor great hall dinner table.
"I am not an animal pervert!" Sirius objected. "A pervert maybe, but definitely not an animal pervert!" The boys smirked at each other.
"Okay Potter, since you've got no other reasons, I can consequently strangle you-"
"No! Wait—I thought of two other reasons!"
Lily scowled at him, noticing his arrogant smile which would mean that these reasons would definitely as conceited since they would be coming out of such an egotistical person.
"What are they?" she asked eventually.
"Because I'm incredibly handsome."
Lily rolled her eyes. It was just the answer she had expected.
"And, since you knocked me on the head with a lamp, I'd say we were even." James looked at her smugly, pointing to the bump that had formed boldly on his forehead. Lily was about to argue but she knew James was right, and she even felt a bit sorry and sheepish for the accident of hitting James –although Lily had dreamed many times to hit James in many situations— but she thought he had suffered enough since he had been punched and slapped that morning.
Damn him! Lily thought furiously, Making me feel guilty…
"Fine, Potter," she grumbled.
James grinned happily in response, still lying on the floor.
"So...are you going to give me the pleasure of helping me up?"
"I'll give you the pleasure of knocking you out again if you don't get up by yourself, you lazy git."
Sirius chuckled as he gave a hand to James and pulled him to his feet.
Sirius faked affront and narrowed his eyebrows at his friend. "Ya know, you're one sneaky git," he told him James.
"I know, but that's why you love me," he replied, and was startled by a loud, forced cough by Lily.
"I hate to interrupt your gay moment," Lily commentated, "But do you see something unbelievably white over there?" The boys ignored the statement of having a gay comment and looked to where Lily was pointing to. Some sort of creature was slowly coming towards them; the creature was gleaming white and the fifth years had to shield their eyes.
"Whatever it is, it's blinding me," Sirius muttered in annoyance.
Finally, the creature got close enough for them to recognise it. Lily gaped with awe. It was now close enough to distinguish but the boys were still puzzled on what it actually was.
"Wow, it's a unicorn!" Lily revealed breathlessly.
Unicorns were rarely seen so she was amazed. The creature was beautiful. The boys didn't admire the beauty as much; they were more into 'manly' creatures. Lily stepped towards the horned animal so she could stroke it. James abruptly stopped her, looking agitated.
"Are you sure it's not dangerous?" James asked. He looked at the unicorn wearily as it pawed the ground with its golden hooves.
"Yeah," Sirius agreed, "The thing does look a bit uptight." He eyed the creature from afar.
"I'm sure it's not dangerous," Lily told them, batting a hand. At least...I think it's not...she wondered.
"Besides, it's too cute to be dangerous," Lily said lamely.
"But I'm cute and I'm dangerous," Sirius said brashly.
Lily rolled her eyes. She didn't want to talk anymore or listen to Sirius explain how 'handsome' he was, she just wanted to go stroke the unicorn because it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Lily –now with more confidence— stepped towards the unicorn whilst James was pulled along with her. Sirius followed reluctantly. Neither of the boys were keen on animals at the moment considering that night the magical creatures tried to physically harm them both.
Somehow, I think nothing good will come of this, James stated mentally.
The trio now had gotten closer, merely only a few metres away from the jittery unicorn. The creature focused on Lily and didn't seem to mind her appearance.
Then, the unicorn's eyes landed on the boys.
Suddenly, the unicorn was pounding its golden hooves at the ground rough and fiercely.
James tittered. "I don't think it likes us," he said in abnormally high voice.
Sirius agreed. "That horn looks pretty sharp," he commentated.
"Oh come on," Lily snapped. "Don't be such babies."
She took a bolder step towards the creature, dragging James with more force. This step seemed just too far for the unicorn to handle. The creature made a sort of grunt noise and took an unexpected step towards them in return, not exactly in a friendly manner.
"Um, since when do unicorns grunt?" Sirius asked, noticeably sweating.
"Well it's bloody grunting now, Padfoot."
Slowly Lily remembered back to a Care of magical creatures lesson with Professor Lerangis where he was explaining about unicorns. She recalled a very important detail, and her eyes widened. The boys immediately looked at her, noticing her sudden agitated self.
"Um...I think I remember Professor Lerangis telling us an important thing about unicorns," she said quietly, watching the creature take another furious step towards them.
"What exactly was it?" Sirius eyed the unicorn.
"Well, um, something about them only liking a girl's touch and not being so keen on boys—"
Before she could finish, the unicorn had bowed down his head so its horn was straight out and had speedily charged towards them, grunting and galloping. The boys yelled as the offensive unicorn's horn was aimed at their buttocks.
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After manic running through the forest, they had eventually managed to loose the crazy chasing unicorn. Regrettably –although the boys had run away from the unicorn's spiking horn, it had somehow managed to get two lucky shots and had painfully pierced James and Sirius' buttocks. At the time, Lily was frightened as the unicorn was attacking them. Of course, she found it hilarious now it was over and was laughing at the boys injuries.
"Oh, it's too cute to be dangerous!" Sirius mimicked Lily's voice. He rubbed his arse and sighed painfully. Not only was Sirius walking oddly before because of the niffler accident, his walk was even worse now after the unicorn had brutally attacked him. "My butt is one of my so many godly features!" This comment made Lily laugh even harder.
"I'm dying," James complained as they ambled.
"Oh Potter, you're over exaggerating. Besides, the unicorn did us a favour."
"What? How exactly did that bloody creature help us in any way?" James asked in annoyance.
"Look ahead." Lily pointed in front of them.
The boys both feared looking in front of them; bad things had happened last time the red head had pointed something out to them. The boys turned their heads slowly and found themselves sighing with happiness.
Hogwarts was magnified in front of them.
"Oh thank-bloody-God," Sirius cheered. He bent down and kissed the grass in joy.
They were finally out of the forest, and had been chased the way of at a sacrifice of pain in their arses – in James and Sirius' case. As they were all laughing happily at the sight of school –which was an odd feeling- they saw Professor Lerangis walking toward them, eyeing them curiously.
"My goodness, what happened?" he questioned as he took in the fifth year's appearance. He noticed the new bump on James head that wasn't there before and Lily swiftly avoided his eye contact, taking a sudden interest in the length of her fingernails.
"Long story sir. We couldn't find the nifflers and we got into a bit of trouble." Sirius said, still rubbing his arse. The professor looked at him oddly. Sirius caressing his buttocks was not a pretty sight - well, at least not to him.
"Trouble?" The professor looked concerned. "Why didn't you send red sparks into the sky with your wands?"
The three of them stared at him vacantly, all registering what he'd just said. They mentally cursed themselves for their lack of common sense at forgetting Professor Lerangis' words. But, as always, the stubborn Lily blamed James because, of course, it was more likely James was to blame for her forgetfulness. She swiftly hit James on the head without thinking.
"Miss Evans, please." Lily was too irritated to apologize to the professor for her actions.
"What the hell was that for?" James barked.
"Because you should have remembered to send up red sparks!"
"Hey! What about you? You should have remembered!"
"Even if I did remember, Potter, I wouldn't have been able to since I can't use my wand since my wand hand is attached to yours."
James was about to argue when he realised she was right. Lily smiled smugly.
"Oh yeah, but what about Sirius? He has a wand too!" James argued.
Lily sighed, "Sirius wasn't listening to Professor Lerangis - no offence, Professor," she added to him. He simply nodded in reply; he was smiling and looked amused by the conversation. "He was too busy looking at my chest," she told him simply. Sirius, who was indeed looking at Lily's chest at that precise moment, tilted his head up and answered "true" and then continued staring.
In a swift motion, James smacked him on the arm, which made Sirius look at him with much confusion.
"Why did you hit me?" he asked, looking at him with affront.
Lily was also looking at him curiously.
"...I really don't know," James answered truthfully, scratching his head.
Was I actually annoyed that Sirius was looking at Lily's chest? James wondered. I shouldn't care though. But I do, because I hit him. Why do I care?
Sirius and Lily were looking at him oddly until a sound behind them made them look. To their happiness, it was a limping Malfoy coming towards them out of the forest. He was also covered in mud and what looked like to be nifflers droppings, and to the boys' delight, he looked a lot worse then they did. He was covered in cuts and bruises and his school uniform was slashed and ripped. Malfoy was also dragging four leads that leaded to four nifflers. Somehow he'd managed to catch the nifflers, which seemed to be completely unbelievable to Sirius.
Problem was the nifflers looked dead.
Maybe it was the fact that they were lying on their backs, feet up in the air as they were dragged carelessly by a dishevelled Malfoy.
"Malfoy, I thought I told you to bring back the nifflers unharmed," Professor Lerangis reminded sternly as he approached the group.
"I only stunned them. Stupid black fur balls," Malfoy cursed.
Lily looked at the nifflers sadly; they appeared so cute and harmless.
The boys sniggered at Malfoy's frightful appearance.
"Look at that, Prongs," Sirius said as he pointed at Malfoy's bleeding nose. "I did that!" he said proudly, remembering hitting Malfoy with the branch. The two marauders chortled.
"It's rude to point Black. Besides, you caught me off guard."
"What happened to you, Malfoy? I suppose Sirius was right when he said you went off to hump the nifflers," James said viciously.
Malfoy was about to raise his wand at him but Professor Lerangis stopped him.
"That's enough," the professor ordered.
Malfoy glared at James. "If this detention is over, I'm going back to my common room." He dumped the nifflers at Professor Lerangis' feet and made what he thought was a dignified exit towards the Howgarts castle.
However, it hardly looked dignified as he was limping, and also, he hadn't noticed that he had a ripped mark on his trousers, placed appropriately on his arse, so his ugly yellow underwear was brightly displayed.
"Yellow pants, Malfoy! That's disgusting! I wonder how they got that colour!" Sirius called as Malfoy stormed off, muttering obscene insults and swearwords to do with; James, Sirius, Lily, Professors, nifflers, trees—lets just say a long list.
"Night, Malfoy! Sweet dreams!" James yelled. "Don't let the bed nifflers bite!"
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The fifth years finally returned back to the common room as their detention was over. It was so late that the common room was empty, except for the loyal Remus who was awaiting their return, sitting in one of the common room couches. As the loyal friend Remus was, he had promised to stay up and wait for his friends who were serving detention. And, of course, Remus had fallen asleep, a book resting on his lap and was lightly snoring.
"Moony!" Sirius yelled as he skipped through the portrait of the Fat Lady, disrupting Remus from his peaceful sleep for the second time that day. "I'm honoured that you waited here for my return!"
"I was waiting for James and Lily," Remus joked, as he stretched and yawned.
"Cheeky git!" Sirius grabbed a cushion and aimed it at his head. Once Remus had finished recovering from his nap, he finally took in the three of fifth year's appearance with raised his eyebrows.
"Okay...I take it that detention didn't go so well."
"You could say that," Sirius replied as he sat next to Remus on the couch, but Remus promptly sprang away from him and sat up, blocking his nose.
"Bloody hell, you stink, Padfoot!" Remus said in his pinched nose voice, backing away from him, which lead him nearer to James and Lily. He immediately sprang away from them as well: they also whiffed the similar smell. "Get away from me! You all smell of excrement!"
The three looked thoroughly insulted and were about to argue, but each of them took a strong sniff of themselves, then realised Remus was right.
"I need a shower," Sirius announced, as he inhaled the niffler droppings perfume that had somehow clung to him.
"Sure," Remus answered. Using his wand, he muttered a spell which shot out water at its tip, hitting Sirius in the face.
Sirius gurgled as the water entered his mouth. The minute Remus had stopped; he fled to the staircase and up to the dormitory.
"I'll get you for that, Moony!" the drenched Sirius said, chasing after Remus. James was creased up laughing and was about to join in the fun and follow them when he felt his had tugged back.
"What are you doing, Potter?" Lily demanded.
"Going to bed," James told her, as if explaining to a small child.
"Our hands are stuck, remember?"
James stared at her, expressionless.
"Oh yeah," he realised disappointedly. "So your bed or mine Evans?"
Lily's reflex action was another hit to the head. James had suspected this so had ducked and missed the hit, much to her annoyance.
"We'll just have to sleep down here," Lily told him, looking around the common room: their 'dormitory' for the rest of the period they were stuck together.
"Here?"
"Yes, here," Lily confirmed.
James moaned, giving up, "Fine." He used his wand to say a spell which changed his school uniform to his favourite red shorts, his only and usual clothing he wore to bed. Lily eyed him nervously; embarrassed by the lack of clothing he was wearing.
"Um...Potter...aren't you going to wear anything else?" Lily mumbled, avoiding eye contact with him. She didn't want to stare at Potter at all, especially since he was shirtless and practically half naked.
"I get hot when I sleep," he simply replied.
"Fine," Lily grumbled. "Er…I'm going to need you to do a spell for me
James raised his eyebrows curiously.
"Change my school uniform to pajamas," Lily commanded. James grinned slyly. "Into something respectable, Potter," she added warningly.
"Respectable? Oh sure." He flicked his wand and Lily's uniform changed instantly, but not to Lily's liking.
"Potter, this isn't funny!"
James looked at her grinning as her face beamed a right red. Lily was wearing a green shirt, which she didn't mind at all. She was more bothered by the other particular clothing she was wearing: James' blue, golden snitch underpants.
"I'd say that was respectable. You kept talking about them so much earlier, I thought you'd like to wear them," James told her cheerfully, preparing for her shouting to come. Lily could feel her hand about to strangle him again when she stopped herself.
"You know what? I'll wear you're stupid quidditch stained underpants because, frankly, I'm too tired to argue."
James was shocked; he'd never thought she'd actually agree to wear them. He then realised what she'd rudely said.
"They are not stained, thank you very much."
"Whatever alright? I have to say though," Lily started hesitantly, "The shirt's nice. It's a similar colour to my eyes." She eyed James suspiciously.
James looked from Lily's striking green eyes to the similar colour shirt.
That is freaky. Did I make them the same colour on purpose? James wondered. Nah, I can't have, it was just a coincidence...
"Yeah, that's weird," James agreed finally. Using his wand, he conjured up two sleeping bags and pillows that appeared on the floor next to the fireplace.
"Wow, you're such a gentleman, Potter. And here I was expecting extravagant, four-post beds, but sleeping bags? That's just divine."
"Hey! It's the best I can do!"
"They are nicely coloured co-ordinated though. I suppose the pink bag is for you and the blue one is mine then?" Lily assumed. James was about to argue that it was the other way round but she'd already walked over to the bag and climbed in.
Heaving a sigh, James got into the pink one. They both lied down, staring at the ceiling in silence.
"So, er, good night Potter," Lily told him, closing her eyes.
"Night, Evans," James replied yawning as he did the same.
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They were both meant to go to sleep then; that was supposed to be how it worked. The problem was they didn't. Maybe it was the crackling of the fire that kept them awake, or things that were on each others minds, funnily enough: each other. Lily's eyes were shut and she was trying to fall asleep but she was thoroughly aware of James fidgeting next to her.
"Potter, are you awake?" Lily opened her eyes, still looking up at the ceiling.
"No," he replied sarcastically.
Lily faced him and was startled to see James facing her with his hazel eyes.
"Why aren't you asleep?" she interrogated.
"I could say the same for you. Anyway, my head is keeping me up." James rubbed the bump on his head that was throbbing.
Lily felt a sudden guilt inside her again. James watched her as she sat up and reached for the ice from a jug of water that was on a common room table. She wrapped the cubes of ice into a handkerchief and sighed.
"Give me your head, Potter." Lily regimented as he sat up beside him.
"Excuse me?"
"Just let me see your head," she ordered again. "Don't worry; I'm not going to hit you again."
He looked at her oddly, but nonetheless titled his head forwards. She slowly touched her hands to his forehead. James didn't even flinch as she pushed his messy black hair out of the way. She raised the handkerchief of ice and placed it on the bump on his forehead. He breathed a sigh of comfort and closed his eyes.
"That feels nice," James admitted. He relaxedas the pain weakened.
Why am I doing this? Lily thought. You're helping him numb the pain! You are totally deluded... She bit her lip, preparing herself for what she was about to say next.
"Sorry for hitting you, Potter."
James made a scoff of surprise, his eyes still shut.
"Wow, Evans apologizing to me? I must be asleep and this is a dream."
"Yeah, well don't get used to it because it'll be the first and last time you'll hear me say it," she told him, chuckling. James opened his eyes and chuckled a little as well.
They looked at each other too long and Lily suddenly felt uncomfortable and tense as she held the hand made ice pack on his forehead. She could hear each other's breaths deepening, each other's eyes lingering in places they shouldn't. Lily's eyes wandered to James lips, again, and James' mind pondered exactly how and why Lily looked so comfortable and attractive in his underwear.
"Um, maybe you can hold the thing by yourself now?" Lily suggested, reddening.
"Uh…yeah. Sorry," James said, oddly nervous. Lily handed him the wrapped up ice and they both lied down back on their pillows in their sleeping bags.
"Um, good night, Potter," Lily said in a flustered voice. She turned on her left side, away from him.
"Uh, yeah, good night...Evans," James replied, equally as embarrassed as turned on his right side, away from her.
They were facing opposite directions and were far away from each other, but their joined hands remained in the middle of their separate sleeping bags.