Disclaimer: See first chapter

The Hooded Stranger

The next morning Lily awoke to an owl pecking on the window. She quickly got up to go get it. It was from Dani! Wow, that was really quick! Hopefully the answer is yes! Lily opened and skimmed through the letter.
Dearest Lillian Marie,
How are you this fine Wednesday morning? I am extremely tired thanks to the owl you sent at 2 AM!! Why did you send it so quick? Anyway, it woke up my dad AND myself so I asked him right away if you could stay here for a while. He said... OK!!! This will be SO MUCH FUN! He has to leave at 2 today to go to the base for a week so it will be just you and me. It sounds awful having to stay with Potter? And if he is Jip... I can only guess what is going to happen. He will probably find out that you are there and, OH NO! I just thought of something! What if the noise you heard was him coming into your room! Doubt it though, I always think of the worst. So Sirius is there to eh? Hmmm, put in a good word for me! Just joking! The whole clothes buying gig? That is just so that you'll like her enough to be your substitute mom. Don't give in. My dad had SO many girlfriends like that after mom died; they were all trying to be so nice to me. I scared them all away. I don't want dad to get remarried. Anyway, come to my house by floo at about, 2:30-3:00 ok? Well, I have to go catch up on some sleep that I was deprived of last night so, c-ya at my place.
Your extremely tired friend,

Dani

Lily was so happy. I don't have to stay here for a while! Lily was brought back to reality fast, there was a knock on the door, and then someone came in. It was Mrs. Potter.
"Lily, I just wanted to make sure that you didn't need anything before I left. Your breakfast will be up here shortly, five minutes maybe ok?"
"Um, Mrs. Potter, my friend owled me and asked if I could spend a week over there and go there at about 2 today? And I was wondering if you wouldn't mind..."
"Of course not dear! Why would you think that? I'll give you some floo powder so that you can go on time. It will come up with your breakfast ok?"
"Thanks"

"Sirius, GET UP!"
"Prongs, what is wrong with you! It is 9:00 in the MORNING!"
"I have something to tell you. Last night, I couldn't sleep so I decided to check to see if Lils was here. So I went to her room through our passageway and –"
"And what!"
"Don't interrupt me, she woke up so I hid under her bed while she wrote a letter to Dani,"
"Oh, that punk with the blue hair?"
"Yeah whatever, anyway when she got back in bed I called Perkins back and read her letter. Padfoot, she heard us talking! She heard us say the stuff about checking to see if she was here! That must mean that she-"
"Has an invisibility cloak! Oh my word James, we thought we were the only ones! Hmmm, if only we could bring her in with us and then we would have 2 cloaks, double the pranks!"
"Nice try. She also said something about a dream she had. It had my initials in it Jip. Isn't that strange?"
"Umm yeah sure. Can we eat breakfast now? I'm starving."
"Sure, but AFTER breakfast, we visit your old room. You forgot something there..."
Lily was sitting at the desk eating her breakfast. She couldn't wait to get out of here and go to Dani's place! It would be so much fun! Not to mention the fact that she would be away from Potter! I really hope that he doesn't know that I am here. I know that Dani was joking about the noise being him but, what is she was right? Lily quickly went to the closet, pulled the invisibility cloak off the trunk and began to get things out of her trunk that she would want to take along. She had no idea how long she was going to be staying at Dani's so she didn't know exactly how to pack. She just put half of her clothes in a bag and figured that was enough. She glanced at her watch. 12:34 PM. Almost two more hours until she could leave here for a while. Mrs. Potter was nice and all, but really, she was WAY too nice. Lily took out her favorite book on poetry from her trunk, Where the Sidewalk Ends. This book was her favorite because it was so funny. One of her favorite poems was "Magic". She loved this poem so much because it seemed to relate to her from before she went to Hogwarts.
Sandra's seen a leprechaun,
Eddie touched a troll,
Laurie danced with witches once,
Charlie found some goblin's gold.
Donald heard a mermaid sing, --

The pounding of feet and loud voices shook Lily back to reality. Shouts of "I'll beat you Sirius, then I'll tear it up" and "No James, you can't! Remember your promise", "Well, I LIED!" were heard all throughout the corridors. Sigh, so I'm not the ONLY one that he lied to. He is just a born liar I guess...
Lily continued to read the poem,
Susie spied an elf,
But all the magic I have known
I've had to make myself.
This poem brought many things back into her head. Before she knew she was a witch, her parents had been kind; her parents had been nice to both her AND Petunia. But the summer that she had got back from her third year at Hogwarts and James Potter started showing up all over, then they started to, well. They started to get protective of her and started beating her because she wouldn't listen to them. Then one day the protectiveness was gone and they just kept beating on her, all the time. This brought tears to Lily's eyes that she couldn't seem to wipe away.
Lily felt a brush of wind by her shoulder, when she looked up, no one was there, but she couldn't help but feel nervous. Like something was there that wasn't supposed to be.
"Lillian Evans..." hissed someone in her ear.
"W-who are you? W-what do you want?
"I know what you can become Lily, you can become a great witch –"
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Lily shouted and started to back away from him, still not seeing who this person was because he was hidden in the shadows.
"Don't move! Stay where you are!"
Lily didn't listen and kept backing up.
"Now I see that you have run into a problem Lily. You are trapped against the wall, the door out is on the opposite side of the room, and I am in the way. You have no choice now other than to listen to me. But first let me move you to a more comfortable position."
The man came over to her, picked her up and put her on the bed, tying her hands and feet together. Lily still had no idea who this man was because he hid his face with a large hood.
"W-what do y-you want! I don't even know you. W-why are you h-here?" Lily stammered.
"Oh, you know who I am. You know who I am very well! You have seen me often enough."
"SOMEONE HELP ME!" Lily screamed at the top of her lungs.
James and Sirius where running down the hall, top speed, to Sirius' old room. They were almost there when they heard someone scream.
"Sirius, that was Lily!"
"No way James. That couldn't be Lily. Lily doesn't scream like that unless she's in trouble. No one screams like that unless they are in trouble."
"No kidding Sirius, someone is in trouble. LILY is in trouble. That is why we HAVE to help her so come on!"
James and Sirius raced on down the hall towards the scream. When James opened the door, he was surprised at what he saw. There was Lily on the bed with her hands and feet tied. Someone was sitting right next to her and telling her to "Shut up" and trying to tell her something else. However they couldn't quite hear it they were too far away.
Lily's eyes darted towards the door; someone was there. She couldn't quite make out who it was but it looked like someone she knew. It looked like, "J-James, h-help me!" Lily managed to say.
James took out his wand and aimed it at the man on Lily's bed. But before he could do anything the man disapparated with a pop. James rushed over to Lily to see if she was all right.
"Lily, what happened, are you ok?"
Lily couldn't answer him, she tried, but she couldn't. It took to much energy.
"Lily, LILY, come on. Say something! Anything! Are you ok?"
James was really nervous. Lily never looked like this. He had seen her ill in the hospital wing many times. But she looked worse than he had ever seen her.
James turned to Sirius, "Sirius, go get my father. Mum is out shopping but go find my father and bring him here. He should be in his study."
When Sirius left to find Mr. Potter, James turned back to Lily. But when he looked down he saw that she was unconscious. James quickly took of the ropes and put her under the blankets. Sirius hurry up! What is taking him so long. We have got to find that man! He hurt Lily. We have got to find him!
About 5 minutes later Mr. Potter and Sirius came into the room.
"James, what happened here. What are those ropes doing here?"
"Father, someone was in here with Lily. We heard her scream and ran in here. When we got here the man disapparated and Lily fainted not soon after."
"Alright James. You two stay here. I am going to get a healer to come here right away." Mr. Potter disappeared with a pop leaving James and Sirius with an unconscious Lily.
It was now three o'clock and a teenage girl wearing only blue with blue even in her hair, was running down corridors in the Potter's mansion at top speed in search of a dark green room, Lily Evans' room.
"LILLIAN MARIE EVANS! YOU AR-"She stopped shouting. In the room that the house elf had directed her to so that she could find Lily she met a scene that she did not expect. Lily was lying in bed, James was sitting at her side stroking her hair, and a healer was talking to Mr. and Mrs. Potter. Sirius just sat sulking in a corner.
"What the h happened here! Why is Lily in bed? What is going on!?" Dani screamed as she ran over to her still unconscious best friend.
Mrs. Potter quickly came over to her, "Shh, it's ok dear. You must be Lily's friend. Lily said that she was going to be going to someone's house, - "
"What happened to her! What happened to Lily!"
"Someone came into Lily's room and hurt her really bad. He tied her hands and feet together with energy draining rope. We don't know exactly what else he did to her but she has been unconscious for almost two hours after James found her."
The healer walked calmly over to the group and told them that if Lily wasn't conscious by the next day (Thursday) noon time to contact the hospital right away. Then with a pop, she was gone.
Dani just sat there next to Lily unsure of what to do. Her father was gone, yeah sure, but she couldn't stay here until Lily woke up. That could be days. She couldn't be around him and not break. She had to go. "Umm, Mrs. Potter, I have to go home now. My dad had to go to the base and he likes to check in on me from time to time, so yeah, I should be going."
"That's ok dear. Just use the fireplace here. It's hooked up to the network, there is some powder on the desk. I brought it up for Lily to use but well obviously she can use it."
"Thank you Mrs. Potter. Let me know if she wakes up, ok?"
"Sure."
Dani quickly got up and went over to the fireplace, she threw the floo powder in, stepped in the fire and shouted "Ginther residence, 495 Blustery Drive."
The Potters and Sirius sat there in the room for a while doing the best that they could to wake Lily up but she didn't move. Finally at about 5 o'clock, Mr. Potter said "Come on, there is nothing we can do now. Why don't we go eat dinner, then after that we have that party."
"But father-" James started to protest, I can't just leave Lily like this! She is hurt, she needs someone to be there for her!
"But nothing James. If you want you can check to see if she woke up after dinner. Come on."
James glumly got up and with one last look at Lily's unconscious form left the room with the others. After downing the quickest meal he had ever had, he went back upstairs to check on Lily. But when he got to the room, he saw that she was gone!

Thank you reviewers! Green Bay, Trash Can, and Holly Evans! Sorry about the delay in updating! the next chapter should be up MUCH faster, and IT will be called The Jusketeers. Enjoy this one and the next one should be up tonight or sometime tomorrow!