A/N: I've just realised I labelled the last chapter as "Chapter Fourteen: The Rogue Bludger. " It's actually chapter 18, I'll edit tomorrow. Anyway, review responses be up tomorrow.

Wish Upon A Falling Star by Thoughts and Pondering.

Chapter Nineteen: The Hospital Wing

Lily sat in the teacher's stands. It was a slightly chilly day and Lily wrapped her cloak even tighter around herself. She took a seat beside Snape, who was wearing Slytherin colours (as he, after all, was Head of Slytherin house.) She hadn't watched much Quidditch before. To her, sport was a rather frivolous waste of time…people looking for silly little balls on a broomstick, of all things. A waste of energy which could be used doing something more constructive.

She watched as the players kicked off the ground, the Slytherin players looking rather menacing as they did so. She watched the game for a few minutes, relaxing back into the bench as she saw the Slytherin team score seven goals. The Gryffindors were putting up a fight, but the teams were equally talented and the Slytherin's superior brooms were giving them the boost they needed.

She looked upward, putting a hand in front of her eyes to block out the early winter sunlight. A scarlet blur, which she deduced was Harry, swerved around a partically dangerous Bludger above. She watched as one of the Weasley twins beat it away, then watched in confusion as it came back. Bludgers didn't come back. That much she did know.

"Duck…" Lily whispered. Harry glanced in her direction, staying stationary for a moment too long. She saw the Bludger hit Harry in the forehead. In this split second she felt her heart leap into her mouth. "NO! HARRY!" she screamed, feeling as though she was about to jump out of the teacher's stands. She stood up so quickly she nearly toppled the bench. Snape stood up next to her, stretching his arm out, preventing Lily from jumping down to her doom.

Snape muttered something under his breath that Lily did not hear with all the squeals and gasps in the stands. He pointed his wand at Harry and his descent slowed. Lily ran down the steps and onto the field. Over by the goal posts, Wood, the Quidditch captain signaled for time-out.

Lily ran over to the spot where Harry landed. Snape's spell had made him float down slowly. His Nimbus 2000 floated away, but she did not run to catch it. She looked up and immediately ducked. The Bludger came in again, having rebounded when it had hit Harry's head. She shakily drew her wand. "Reducto," she muttered, and the dangerous Bludger exploded. What had caused that Bludger to attack Harry? How dare anyone try and hurt her son?

She had known ever since the day Ron told her about Harry playing Quidditch that it was a bad idea to let him on a broom. Hadn't she asked them what would happen if Harry took a Bludger to the head during a Quidditch game? Of course, she hadn't thought of it as a very likely possibility. But if even half the student's rumors were true, spending time in the Hospital Wing wasn't anything different.

"Don't worry now, Harry, I'll fix you up."

Lily looked up. The beaming face of Gilderoy Lockhart looked down on her. He smiled the smile which had won him the Most Charming Smile award five times, smoothed some of his curly golden hair and pointed his wand at Harry's forehead and started saying, "Frans Emen—" before Lily stopped him, having drawn her own wand.

"I suggest you stop," she said, her wand pointing shakily at him.

Lockhart backed away slightly, wide eyed at his colleague's irritation. "My dear lady," he said weakly, "I am merely fixing his head. I am trying to do you a favor."

"You were mispronouncing it. It's Frons, not Frans. I'd rather not watch my son's brains fall through his nostrils, thanks. We don't even know if he's skull is cracked. He could just have a mild concussion.

"He fell a long distance!"

"And is unconscious due to the blow to his head, not the fall. Either leave me alone or make yourself useful."

Lockhart nodded weakly, then waved his wand and conjured a stretcher. At least he was able to do something right.

An hour later, Lily was holding Harry's hand in the Hospital Wing. The match had to go on, in accordance to Quidditch rules, with no substitutes for injuries. From the groans over on the pitch, Gryffindor was losing. Badly.

Madam Pomfrey had reassured her that he was going to be all right. She told her it was lucky he was hit on the forehead and not on the temple, as a hard blow to the temple could cause instantaneous death. She had heard her telling a passer-by that "Mr. Potter is in here again." It didn't sound like the first times was for a batch of Pepper-up potion either. She barely knew anything about him. She could count the facts on one hand.

She knew he was the Boy-Who-Lived. She snorted aloud as she thought of this. You would need to be deaf, blind and living under a rock not to know that, it seemed. She looked at him. He was lying down peacefully. Lily squeezed his hand and smiled. She stood up and pulled the blanket to his chin. She moved her plastic chair over to the window. The Quidditch game had just ended, and Slytherin had caught the Snitch, which was unsurprising, since Gryffindor was playing without a Seeker.

She turned back to Harry. She barely knew a thing about him. Everything she knew was what everyone else knew too. And there was the case of the Bludger…why had it tried to attack Harry? Did Bludgers occasionally come to the conclusion they were bored and decide to off a random person whom was unfortunate to get in the way? James would know. He would also know what to do. He wouldn't be walking around in circles trying to figure out what was happening.

He would be doing something…but right now, he wasn't doing anything. Lily felt the back of her eyes prickle with tears.

She stared out the window and into the night sky. She saw something move among the stars. Was a bird? Was it a plane? Was it Superm— no, it was a falling star. Did falling stars land? "I wish I understood…" she whispered. "…knew why this is happening to me…"

She watched the star fall out of sight. She looked at the sky, and upon seeing all the stars felt oddly insignificant. "To the world I am only one person…" she said aloud. She turned around to look at Harry, who was breathing quietly. "But to one person I am the world. Feeling better about herself, she fell asleep, her head resting against the cool window glass.

Flashback:

The alarms went off, ringing loudly…louder than anything Lily had ever heard in her whole life…not even the smoke alarm the night her mum died. She ran up the stairs, two at a time. She was going to die…she was going to die…Harry was in her arms, not understanding why his mummy looked so scared. There was a fireplace in the bedroom…maybe she could escape. She reached the bedroom, and put Harry in his crib, tugged the blankets up to his chin. "Goodnight, Harry," she whispered, as she saw green lights coming from downstairs and what she thought was a body hitting the floor.

She shivered…"James…" she whispered. He was gone. Gone. She felt dizzy…what she would give to be able to just…turn back time…but there was no time turner lying innocently on the chest of drawer.

The door blasted open and Lily stood rooted to the spot, in front of Harry's crib. Her eyes traveled to the door.

"Why, hello, Mrs. Potter…" Voldemort hissed. His blood red eyes were focused on Harry's crib. Rain had started to splatter the windows, a steady beat of water hitting glass. Lily tried to say some witty retort but her tongue was frozen in place, and she found she couldn't speak.

Voldemort drew his wand and pointed it directly at Lily's heart. "Well? Speak! Your husband at least had the common decency to act brave…I know you're back early from your 'trip'," he said mockingly. Lily nodded numbly. How could he have known about that? Remus's mission…and the holiday cut short by the choice to go into hiding…and they also had to leave because the person in the next room was eaten by a Lethifold. Which just proved that there didn't have to be a war to have thousands of young, innocent people die per day…

"I'm not surprised…you're pretty good…for a Mudblood. Pity you couldn't save your worthless husband's life…oh, yes, he did put up a good fight, but the Dark Order will always prevail!"

She looked at the tip of the wand pointed at her chest, and the fear flowing through her body was overtaken by something else. Rage. How could he just come flouncing in, murder her husband and dream about hurting an innocent, beautiful, child? She felt something fall onto her cheeks, and she was crying, angry, but crying. She forget about magic, she forget that she was just a twenty-one year old woman who was about to face her death at the hand of the darkest wizard of all time. She curled her hand up into a fist and swung it and Voldemort's face. "Shut up, you bastard!" she yelled. "Don't you dare talk about James that way! He is worth ten of you!" He stepped aside easily before her hand made contact, plunging her fist into the mirror behind. She gasped, her hand was bloodied, but she did not feel any pain at all. Most likely one of the shards of glass had cut a nerve or something.

"Was…" Voldemort whispered the corner of his mouth turning up. "One chance. Stand aside, you silly girl."

She shook her head slowly from side to side. Even if she could move, she wouldn't. Not her son…not her son…"Please…have mercy…have mercy…"she pleaded.

Voldemort's eyes flickered lazily to the dark wooden grandfather clock behind him, and the other side of his mouth rose, yet it still didn't look like a smile. Just two smirks. "Time's up," he whispered, and yet she caught every word. Voldemort's eyes gleamed cruelly as she heard him say the two words she had been dreading. "Avada Kedavra!" he shouted, and a pale green beam was emitted from his wand. Lily felt the beam hit her…she was falling and falling and falling… then there was nothing.

And that's what scared her the most.

End Flashback.

Lily woke up, her face drenched in cold sweat. Another dream…yet it wasn't really a dream, that had happened. She stole a look down at her hand. It was a normal hand. Something Umbridge had mentioned to her floated unbidden into her head. "Lily Potter's body is still in its coffin." So was this her body, or was there another body that looked exactly the same that she was inhabiting, and her soul had floated back into it after she died? What had happened after she died, anyway? One minute she was floating, falling, and the next…she was standing in a reconstructed Godric's Hollow. How did Umbridge come across that information? She hadn't checked, surely. She didn't seem like a grave robber.

Harry was kneeling on his bed; the bandages still around his head. "Come back, Dobby!" he shouted, his left hand curled in a fist shape, and his right one clutching at his head.

"Dobby?" Lily asked in alarm, "was he here?"

"He said he sent the Bludger after me," he said vaguely. "Why are you crying?"

"He sent the bludger after you? You could have been killed!"

"He said bad things were going to happen at Hogwarts," Harry said, as he searched for his glasses on his bedside cabinet.

"Harry, bad things are always happening at Hogwarts. What about last year?" she asked as she sat on the end of the bed.She wiped at some of the tears that were still forming near her eyes.

Harry sat back down on the clean white bed sheets. "The Philosopher's Stone?" he said questioningly.

"Is that what it was?"

"You didn't know? I thought Dumbledore or someone would have told you."

"If half the rumors are true…"

"D'you know what the Philosopher's Stone is?" Harry asked his mother, as he huddled up underneath his blankets.

"Isn't it a stone which can grant the user immortal life and can turn any substance into gold?" she leant backwards a little bit. She had heard of the Stone during her work as an Unspeakable.

Harry wiped at his bandages. "Yeah, anyway, Dumbledore was hiding this stone at Hogwarts--"

"— At Hogwarts?" Lily interrupted.

"It had a series of trials guarding it…"

"And let me guess. These 'trials', meant to keep a grown wizard out, couldn't keep out three first-years?"

"Dumbledore said it was because we worked as a team…" Harry trailed off, as he realised grown adults could work as a team too.

"Dumbledore says a lot of things. 'Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!'" she imitated, a sarcastic tone in her voice.

"But there was the Mirror, the Mirror of Erised…" he continued, in a tone of voice not dissimilar to an adventurer telling someone about an adventure that had not gone to plan.

Lily's ears perked up. She turned to Harry, some of her dark red hair hitting her in the face in the process. "The Mirror? What about the Mir—"

The door burst open, and Dumbledore and McGonagall ran in, holding what looked like a dead body between them. Lily did a double take, and realized it was Colin Creevey. And he didn't seem to be dead, just petrified.

Dumbledore's eyes reached Lily. "Call Madam Pomfrey," he issued. Lily looked behind her, Harry looked like he was in a very deep sleep, his glasses were even slightly askew, and Lily knew he was faking. That was the least of her concerns, however.

She knocked on Madam Pomfrey's bedroom door. She had already awoken due to the noise the Professors had generated. She came out of the room, pulling on a purple knitted cardigan over her nightdress.

"What's wrong?" she asked, as she ran to the bed McGonagall and Dumbledore had set the small, mousy-haired first-year on. She saw the body and froze. "Merlin's beard!" she exclaimed, edging closer. She looked at Dumbledore, her eyes wide and her cardigan unbuttoned, "What happened, Albus?"

"I was going down to the kitchens to get a cup of hot cocoa, and I found him at the bottom of the stairs." Dumbledore looked unusually grave. The twinkle in his usually joyous blue eyes had disappeared. Even his purple night cap made him look solemn.

"He had a bunch of grapes in his hand," McGonagall said. "We think he was trying to visit Potter. And I opened the back of his camera," McGonagall showed them the boy's camera, which she was holding in her hand, "and it's all burnt!" she opened the back, and showed it to them. There was no film in there.

Lily looked in confusion at the faces of the Headmaster, McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey. They all looked at her as if they expected her to say something. Suddenly self conscious of the tear strains on her face, she asked, "What does this mean, Professor?"

Dumbledore looked her in the eyes. She had never seem him look so old. "The Chamber of Secrets has indeed been opened again."

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So what do you think? Notice how Harry was conveniently interrupted when Harry was about to tell her about what Dumbledore did with the mirror? I've also decided on a sequel name, and it will be called The (insert story spoiler here) Wishes. I can't tell you the middle word, because that would ruin the end. Any guesses?

From now onwards, I'm going to tell you a little bit about the next chapter. Anyway…

Chapter Twenty: Merry Christmas: In which Lily and Harry have a talk about prophecies, James and life in general. Lily, Dumbledore, McGonagall and Lockhart have a conversation about the Chamber.

See you next time and don't forget to review!

Thoughts and Pondering.