Disclaimer: See first chapter

The Curse

James and the rest had talked all afternoon about how to get Lily to own up to being herself and after many ridiculous ideas from the Marauders, Dani said that she would just simply talk to her. They were best friends after all. And you don't lie to best friends. It's an unspoken rule. They had settle it over dinner and it was now 7:30, time for Dani and Sarah to leave them and go back to their room.

Dani and Sarah talked for a long time (three hours) on strategy for Lily. She didn't want to just walk up to her and say, hey are you Lily? She wanted Lily to let it sink in that it was her but she didn't want to bust out, 'YOUR LILY AND I WANT YOU TO FESS UP!' There was no way. They finally went to bed at 10:30 with a good strategy in their minds.

Peter and Remus left James and Sirius's rooms for bed at 10:00, falling asleep not to long after, but James couldn't fall asleep. All he could think about was Lily, of course that was all he ever though about anyway but well, yeah.

Lily and the Jusketeers went up to their rooms at quarter after ten. They had had an uneventful evening except for when Lily accused Isaac of trying to put some charm on her when she felt something come over her. Isaac told her that it wasn't him! He said he swore it! So Lily let it drop, what had come over her wasn't all that bad. She just felt free of all her troubles, and that is bad, is it?

Late into the night Lily woke up. She had heard a voice inside her head, it was blurry but still it was there. It was really hard to concentrate though, the feeling of all her troubles being gone was really strong now. She soon forgot about what woke her up, her eyes glazed over and she stood up.

Go down to the main room.

Lily complied. What else was she supposed to do?

Go outside and talk to a man wearing a hooded cloak who is right outside the door.

Lily started to go but stopped. Another voice had entered her head.

Why should I do that? I don't even know who it is!

Yes you do! GO OUTSIDE!
No, I don't want to.

Lily was getting a major headache. She wasn't sure what was going on inside her head anymore. One told her to do one thing and another the exact opposite!

GO OUTSIDE NOW!

No. Now go and leave me alone. I don't want to talk to some stranger.

All of a sudden the voices were gone. The pain was to great for Lily to bear, and she passed out.

James woke up. He thought that he had heard some footsteps on the stairs. He quickly glanced over at the clock. 2:16 in the morning. Way to early for someone to go down for a drink, the place was closed. He got up and opened the door. He saw a flash of red go around the corner. Lily, it has to be Lily.

He crept down the stairs and looked around the corner. He couldn't see who was there, all he saw was a figure in the middle of the room who seemed to be, wait no. The person seemed to be debating with herself. One moment she would look towards the door and almost start walking to it but the next she would have her feet firmly planted on the ground, refusing to move. He was about to go down to her and ask her what she was thinking about when she collapsed.

Lily woke up in a large green room. NOT the room that she had fallen asleep in either at the Leaky Cauldron. It wasn't even the room that she had stayed in at Isaac's. But she knew where she was, but she was unsure of HOW she got there. Potter had done something. She was sure of it. How else could she get back there. Unless it was all a dream… but no. She had looked down to see what she was wearing. It was the new pajamas that she had gotten from Isaac's mom, the blue ones with small bears on it and the white spaghetti strap shirt with a single bear in the center that said underneath it "Beary Cute". It wasn't a dream, it had been real, but she was still at Potter's. How could she be at Potter's! She wanted to burst out crying. She had been having a great summer. She had made some new friends and had managed to actually have fun. Now though, she was back to almost where she had started. She couldn't ponder long though because James had run over to greet her.

"You're awake! Lily, you're awake! You just collapsed in the Leaky Cauldron last night and I was kind of scared as to what had happened to you. We-"

James stopped suddenly, because Lily had started crying. "Lily, what's wrong?"

"James Potter, why did you have to ruin the perfect summer. My perfect summer with my new friends, my first EVER boyfriend… my best summer was this year, until now."

"Lily? I-I'm sorry, I never wanted to hurt you. It's just well, when you disappeared over a month ago we all were scared. Dani and Sarah hadn't heard from you, we hadn't either. We did everything we could to find you and it just felt like you had dropped off the face of the planet. Then when we saw you yesterday, we were extremely excited. The ministry had told us to face the inevitable. To try to come to terms to that you were dead. We didn't believe that and were well, ecstatic! Then when you said that you weren't Lily, I had to prove you wrong in order to get my sanity back. I didn't care when I found out that you had a boyfriend," Lily looked at him with piercing eyes as if to not believe a word he was saying, "oh alright, I was extremely jealous. But we just wanted to know that you were alive. Then when you collapsed last night, I thought that you had died. I just couldn't stand that. I had missed you so much Lily."

Lily didn't know what to say, but she found the words rather quickly. "James Potter, I am sorry for saying that I was someone who I was not. I just didn't want you to ruin a perfect summer of mine. Also, I DID write to Dani. I told that I was all right and was staying at someplace with a beach. So you can't use that as an excuse for saying that I didn't contact you. But, I collapsed last night? When? The last thing that I remember is erm, saying goodnight to Kevin and the rest and I went to bed."

"Well, I guess that you woke up then. You were down in the main floor of the Leaky Cauldron and you just collapsed. I don't know why but you seemed to be trying to make up your mind about something."

Lily suddenly remembered. "Wait, I think I remember something. I had walked downstairs and almost left but, well…"

"What? What happened?"

"There were voices, inside my head. One was telling me to leave but the other just kept saying no, not to do it."

"That explains what you were 'making you mind up' on. But why did you collapse?"

"I had gotten a really big headache, then I was really weak. I couldn't think or even stand so I just fell."

"Hmm, that is weird. I don't know any spell that acts like that. My dad might know though, he is an Auror.

Lily looked at him with a bit of respect. She hadn't realized that James' father was an Auror! That would mean that James and his mom must worry all the time if he would come back alive. She felt a bit of sadness come over her because of that. She couldn't stand Potter yet, well, she'd have to see if there was a layer of actually true kindness to him. She was kind of shocked. "Um yeah, sure." She finally responded.

"I'll be back later to check to see how you are doing ok Lily?"

"Yeah, sure. Whatever." Lily mumbled, rather embarrassed that she needed someone to look after her. After all. She WAS more than capable, she was just a little tired.

James hurried down the hall to talk to his dad. He knew that he would be leaving soon so he wanted to catch him first before he did. He simply had no idea of any spell that could try and force someone to do what they wanted them to do and he had to ask.

When he got to his study door, he knocked quickly.

"Come in."

James went in barely able to contain himself, he knew not to speak unless his dad spoke to him first.

"Yes James, what is it? I am very busy right now."

"Dad, Lily just woke up and well, she told me about this spell or charm or something that someone cast on her. She said that voices were telling her what to do, one told her to do something and the other said no, and then she just collapsed. Dad, I don't know anything that could do that? Do you? I really want to know so that I can help her."

Mr. Potter looked shocked, James had no idea why though. "James, have they taught you nothing by now at Hogwarts about unforgivables?" James shook his head. "There are three curses that are known as the unforgivables. I will not be going into detail, however I will suggest to Dumbledore that you be taught them. The one that appears to have been cast on your friend causes someone to follow orders without question and quickly. One could be told to kill another and be forced to do it. It is very popular right now with You-Know-Who. However, it seems that Lily managed to throw it off if there were two voices and she collapsed unconscious because of it. The only way for Lily to heal is just rest, but make sure that there is someone in the room with her often. We don't want any chances of the same thing happening again."

James nodded and headed back to Lily's room, millions of things going through his mind.

When James opened the door and looked at Lily, she was already asleep. He also noticed that she had changed into her original pajamas that she had worn while at the Potter's that one when he had sneaked into her room through the passageway. She looked so peaceful when she was asleep, like an angel. He didn't want to disturb her, after all, it was almost 8:00, so he just left through the passageway at the back of the room, careful to leave it a crack open so that if Lily woke up and saw it, maybe she would find out where it lead…

Thanks for the wonderful reviewers: Diffen Doofer, Titanic-HarryPotter-lvr-2, HolleyEvans (see answer to question below), xxxGreenBayxxx (yes, he is VERY protective right now LOL), trashcan (see answer to question below), Elfobsession2931, Monkeygirl1 (yes, that is an AWFUL name LOL i hated it when i wrote it too LOL :D )

HolleyEvans: Lily didn't want James to bug her, but he did anyways. In chapter 8 this was mentioned. "Lily decided that they should call her something different. If James and his friends came, she didn't want him to bug her. She just wanted to be left alone with her new friends. Of course if Dani came she would tell her what happened. It's not like she would tell Potter, they were all sworn enemies." sorry i confused you!

trashcan: see previous answer. She didn't really 'ditch' her friends as much as wanting to aviod James and the Marauders, as said before. She would have told Dani and Sarah but she saw the Marauders first and didn't want them to bug her so she told them a lie.