Chapter 5: One Step at a Time (CHAPTER DEDICATED TO MICHASIA SEKIYA, HOPE YOU HAVE A SPEEDY RECOVERY MUJER!!)
Marian was glued to the bed and stabbed with more needles than she could count which all connected to bags of liquid. An IV, they called it in the Muggle World. She tried turning her head, as painful as it was, to see her husband. Colin was in bed as well, with plenty more needles than her. She wanted to move, she wanted to get out of the bed and rush to his side, but it was more than painful. It was excruciating. She was tired from the drugs the muggles had put in her system and realized she wasn't even breathing for herself. Another machine (as she found she was starting to hate machines) was making a whistling sound as it forced her to exhale and then forced her to inhale. The tube in her mouth was the most uncomfortable. She couldn't talk, couldn't call out to Colin and couldn't ask for help. They even put tape all over her face, which Marian thought was ridiculous. Colin still sleeping from the sedatives but she still wanted to communicate with him. She wanted James mostly. She wanted to see her son. Marian remember having asked for him before they took her away in a big truck that had lights that wailed. Muggles were so complicated. Why couldn't they just use Floo? The would have gotten to the hospital a lot sooner. James was suppose to travel by Floo. Where was James? She could hear her mother wailing in the corner of the room, though she couldn't see her and attempted to move.
Adelaide saw Marian struggle and immediately went over to the hospital bed.
"Oh, sweetheart!" Adelaide cried grasping her daughter's hand, "Don't try speaking. Don't even move. You'll hurt yourself. Here, take this." Adelaide placed a quill in her hand and told her to write.
With scribbles she wrote James? Adelaide sighed.
"I called for him, Marian, but he hasn't come yet. I'll send another note to Dumbledore tonight. I'm sure he'll show up. He knows you're hurt," Adelaide spoke slowly so Marian could understand everything, but in Marian's head all she wanted to do was scream in frustration. She wanted to move, she wanted to hold her son and her husband. She needed James.
Lily had trouble sleeping that night as nightmares continuously woke her up every hour. They ranged from her parents' death, to a fight with Voldemort, to world destruction and finally the worst: dating James Potter. She laughed. That was logical—world destruction would always come before her and James Potter ever dating. With a sigh, she rolled off the bed and started for the shower.
In the meantime, James had a wonderful sleep as he dreamed of Lily shamelessly. When Sirius and Remus came to wake him up, they took one look at his sheets and burst out into laughter. Sirius laughed so hard he was crying and Remus clutched at his aching stomach. James opened his eyes, looked at his sheets, turned red from embarrassment and shouted at them to get out.
"Merlin! Reality bites! If only life were a dream, I'd be the happiest chap in England!" he muttered groggily to himself as he went to throw his sheets in the laundry bin and wash himself with very cold water.
Lily came out from the shower and made her way to the Heads' Common Room half expecting to see another note from James or James himself. She saw neither and was surprisingly disappointed, though she had no reason to be. It felt lonely to be living alone and she had to admit she missed the sound of James and her yelling at each other in the room.
"I think too much about that stupid git," she said aloud as she sat on the couch.
Memories of the last time she saw him coursed through her. She remembered his faced alighted by moonlight, the soft glow of the fireplace bathing his strong body, the careless strands of hair that fell across his face and the sweetness of it all when she brushed them away.
"Stop!" she cried out realizing she had a little smile on her face, "You are not crushing on Potter. That is ridiculous. Lily Evans, you are not ridiculous!" And with that, she ran out of the Heads' Quarters.
Only to bump head first into Amos Diggory.
James beamed. Merlin must really love him if he sent Lily this early in the morning.
"Good mornin'," he said cheerily.
"I'm fine! And you?" she replied stupidly. She realized she replied to the wrong question and corrected herself quickly, "Good morning, Diggory."
"Oh, please, do call me Amos," James threw in a wink.
"Sure," Lily hadn't moved from the spot where they had bumped into each other and James put his hand on her back shoulder and gently pushed her forward in the direction of the breakfast hall.
"Come on, eat breakfast with me," he urged and she obliged willingly.
Lily noticed that none of the girls had looked up to see Amos walk through the door with her as opposed to when she and James came into the dining hall together. None were tittering, none were whispering, none were smiling and none were fainting. She was fairly disappointed.
James noticed this as well and rolled his eyes. Being Amos Diggory sucked.
"Here we are," he said as he pulled up a seat next to Sirius and Remus who were eyeing him suspiciously.
"What's he playing at?" Sirius asked in a whisper to Remus who just shrugged.
"So how was your summer?" James started asking, ignoring the fact that both Sirius and Remus were staring at him completely confused by why he wanted to sit with them.
"Well," Lily started to say, but then she saw Sirius and Remus and turned her attention to them, "What's wrong with you two?"
James turned around to face them and wanted to ask the same question.
"Nothing, Evans," Sirius snapped. Remus took the gentler approach.
"Have you heard from James yet? McGonagall was freaking out yesterday!"
"I know, and no," Lily replied softly, almost sadly, "Well anyway, if James does send word of where he is, it's not going to be to me. He would send it to you."
James smiled liking the fact that he would be able to find out what Lily truly thought about him without giving himself away. He also smiled at the fact that she knew him well enough to know that he would send his letters to Sirius and Remus first.
"So anyway, back to my question," James reminded Lily. She turned back to him quite aware of how close he was. She didn't know whether to be intrigued or afraid.
"What was it again?"
"Your summer. How was your summer," James brought food up to his mouth to force himself not to stare too intensely at her.
Lily froze. Her summer. Her summer consisted of sleeping in the hospital room on a cot for three months only to wait for her parents to recover. Her summer consisted of crying, and displaced anger and counseling. She looked up at him with terrified eyes torn between telling him and not. She didn't even know him that well. Her parents' death was something personal that she would only share with a person she felt very close to. It was too sensitive of a subject and no one at school had found out yet. She didn't want sympathy. She didn't want "aww's" and "you poor thing's". She didn't want the attention because of her loss. The constant reminder of their death would be overbearing. So, she lied to him.
"It was perfect," she said numbly.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing," she replied blandly.
"Ah, well that's not too exciting? I was thinking you might be a more exciting girl outside of school. You know, doing muggle stuff. The skiing and the tennis or whatever they do," James named off the only two sports that his family had actually done.
"Oh, well, we've done that but not this summer."
And so the small talk conversation continued until the end of breakfast. Lily found herself getting more comfortable around Amos. He was essentially a great guy. He had a sense of humor and was very gentlemanly. He had even walked her to their classes again. She thought about letting him hold her books for her, but clichéd couples did that; and Amos and she were not a couple. As the day went on, she started to laugh along with him jokes instead of smiling stupidly. Her nerves had calmed after awhile as she realized he was very easy to talk to. He was quite the charmer as well. He was also very nice, unlike that snob of James Potter, but she needn't worry about him now since she was enjoying herself. For once in her life, the guy she liked had actually realized she was alive. He might even start to like her if they talked for long enough. It was decided—she would try to get him to like her.
Sirius and Remus were unhappy with James' performance that day. Before dinner, they caught up with him in the Common Room.
"Sit down," Remus demanded. James obeyed, almost frightened. Remus was never one to be strict.
"Is anyone here?" he looked around consciously.
"No," Sirius barked. James flinched.
"What's going on you guys," James asked in a small voice.
"What's going on?" Remus repeated, "What is going on?! James! What the hell are you thinking! You can't turn your charms on Evans! You can't! You aren't suppose to make her fall in love Diggory! You're suppose to convince her to fall in love with you! Or at least like you, if that gets anywhere!"
"Whoa! What's that suppose to mean Remus!" James stared at him as if all this was coming out of nowhere.
"James, you're going to break Lily's heart if you act the way you do around girls you like! Look. After two weeks, you aren't going to Amos Diggory anymore. And if it has gotten to the point where you and Lily were comfortable kissing each other at the end of two weeks, think of what the real Diggory would do if Lily just randomly came up and kissed him!" Sirius said urgently, "If he pushed her away, she'd be torn, James! Torn!"
"Calm down! Since when did you care about Lily's feelings?" James asked.
"I don't, but you should," Sirius paced.
"And another thing," Remus added, "What do you think will happen if—"
"Stop!" James shouted. All of this was coming at him so fast.
Remus and Sirius stared at him in disappointment. James was usually more careful when pranks as big as these were being played. And technically this wasn't even suppose to be a prank. Lily was never suppose to find out that James switched bodies. James dug his hands in his hair. This was so frustrating. When she laughed just so, he couldn't stop himself from acting like he did. It was the first time he had even been able to talk to her normally without getting bitch-slapped or bitched at. James let out a heavy sigh.
"What should I do, then," James looked at them, "I got her to tutor me in Divinations."
"Then that's your guideline," Remus said.
"What?"
"The relationship between you two is strictly teacher-student. There will be no feelings, there will be not touching, or whatever you do to get girls to like you," Remus sat on the couch opposite of James and paused long before saying, "By all means, do not do anything that would give her the impression that you like her."
"It's hard!" James whined.
"James!" Sirius warned.
"Fine, alright. I'll do what I can," James muttered.
Meanwhile, Lily sat in the library going over Divinations books for Amos' lessons tomorrow. Her head had been pounding for the past hour with random vocabulary that no doubt a hippy made up. All she saw were words, words, words. Then the oddest thing happened; a shadow fell upon the table and then—
BOOM!
Lucius Malfoy had tossed his stack of books right on top of Lily's Divinations ones with a malicious smile.
"Hey, Evans," he growled sensually. Lily groaned.
"Go away. I'm studying."
"When are you not studying?" he persisted.
"Never."
His hand shot out and grabbed her arm tight, "Don't get short with me, Evans."
"Let me go," she demanded. For God's sake, they were in the middle of the library! He shouldn't even be talking to her if he hated muggles so much.
"You know what I want?" he continued nonetheless.
"Let me take a wild guess—me?" she mocked, "Get off, or I'll start screaming," she threatened. He released her with a sick smile.
"You're a filthy mudblood. A damn fine one, but a mudblood to the vein. But I could deal with it if we were going out," his pale hand reached over the table, but she pulled back and crossed her arms.
"Keep dreaming, Malfoy!" she spat.
"You'll want me sooner of later, Evans. Then there'll be no use denying it," he growled as he picked up his books and left.
Lily let out a sigh of relief. Lucius Malfoy was as bad as James Potter when it came to pranking people and deflowering innocent girls, but at least Potter was a decent kid at heart. Malfoy was cold and abusive. The last girlfriend he had was bruised so badly she had to stay with Madame Pomfrey for a week to heal. Lily shivered. It was also well known that the Malfoy family was follower to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. He was so much off an ass that Lily would screw James Potter before even thinking about touching Malfoy. Lily shook her head. It would never get to that point where she'd be desperate enough to do that. Besides, she was talking to Amos now. Maybe there was a chance between them. Shaking her head, the decided to turn her attentions back to studying, but when she looked down, her Divinations book was gone.
"That ass!" Lily slammed her hands on the table.
He took it on purpose. Lily rolled her eyes and decided she had spent enough time at the library anyway. Pushing her chair back, she made way to the Heads' Quarters.
James sat down in Diggory's bed thinking of how he was going to possibly keep his hands off Lily when she actually liked him now. Well not him exactly, but the person who he was now: Amos Diggory.
"Who am I kidding," he said to himself, "She'll never like the real me." A couple boys in the room looked over at him and stared. James was talking to himself and the other boys thought he was rather weird. James was never one to stop thinking aloud until all his thoughts were done, so he decided it would be better to write it all out. He would start a journal, just like the real Diggory. So James pulled out a fresh notebook, a quill and a bottle of ink and started.
Sirius says that I just like Lily for her looks, but deep down, I know that isn't true. I mean, she is obviously beautiful, but it's not exactly what attracted me to her. Part of it is the fact she's the only girl who has ever ignored me, and I don't know what I've done to deserve it. I know I have the looks, I know I have the charm, but what is it about me that she hates so much? I've never intentionally hurt her in anyway. I never would. I've never had a decent conversation with her for more than a second. It's even more torture as me being Diggory. I know that I'm deceiving her purposely and the guilt trip is unbelievable. I can't tell her how I feel from my point of view because she'll think it's Diggory talking. But I can't tell her that it's me either because once I turn back, she'll hate me even more. Either way, I've screwed myself over. These next two weeks will be hell. She's fair game and I'm going to be fair game to her. She's not the kind of person who sees what she wants and lets it fly by. Not if it's right in front of her. I'm going to die. It's so easy to lose myself when I'm talking to her. This isn't fair to her, and I'm cheating myself by making "Diggory" do all the talking for me, but I can't stand not knowing why she hates me so much. I want her to know me. The real me. And it isn't helping that I'm in Diggory's body. But I can't change back or Dumbledore will suspect something. I have to stick with the plan and I can't let Lily find out who I am. I can't hurt her like that.
James stared at the last line.
"I can't hurt her," James whispered, "I won't hurt her."