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Dobby: Oh, yeah, in our last chapter, we mentioned a friend of ours.
Winky: Molly Roxhand, you know who you are!
Dobby: -----cough----- Ronsluva -----cough-----
Winky: Anyway, onto the next chapter!
Dobby: Read and review, folks!
Disclaimer:
Dobby: For the last time, we is not owning Hogwarts or Quidditch or anything! They all belong to J.K. Rowling.
Winky: And Miss Lily Evans belongs to Mr. James Potter sir.
Lily: What the -----BEEP-----!
James: You know you love me, Lil!
Lily: -----SLAP-----
James: Ow! Hey, what was that for?
Winky: Sorry about those guys, anyway, onto the next chapter!
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Chapter Two – Searching for the CureAs Lily walked into the Great Hall for breakfast, she looked around quickly for James. Seeing he was nowhere in sight, she heaved a sigh of relief. Maybe she would get through breakfast without him asking her out.
Just as she was about to sit down, the owls with the morning post came flying in. Lily closed her eyes and cringed as a tawny owl flew towards her. After a minute, when nothing had happened, she slowly opened one eye. Everything seemed normal. She opened the other eye and looked at what the owl brought her.
She sighed in relief again. It was only her subscription to the Daily Prophet. 'Hmmm…' thought Lily. 'That's weird. James has sent me an awful singing Valentine regardless of whether it's February or not everyday for years now.'
She shrugged and sat down and began to eat breakfast.
A few minutes later, James walked in holding his Nimbus One Thousand in an awkward sort of way. To her extreme astonishment, he completely ignored her and sat at the other end of the table.
As if this wasn't strange enough, he began talking to his broomstick while trying to feed it porridge. What was even stranger were the things he was saying to it, as if it were responding to him. He kept saying things like:
"Why thank you, Lily, I'm glad you like my hair this way!" and "What's that? Oh, I knew you were in denial all this time, honey!"
These remarks, added to the fact that they were made to his broomstick was attracting some very strange looks for James.
Just then, he exclaimed, with genuine happiness on his face, "Oh, I love you too, Lil!" He then leaned forward and…Lily blinked and rubbed her eyes. When she opened them, James was still…snogging his broomstick.
James was acting weird. Weirder than usual, that was. Which was VERY weird. At least in Lily's opinion.
Just as she thought things couldn't get any weirder, James looked straight at her and exclaimed, "So THAT'S where it went!"
'It?' thought Lily. 'Since when did I become an 'it'?'
James strode over to her and grabbed her arm. On reflex, Lily slapped him on the cheek.
Hard.
Then ran.
Fast.
Very fast.
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"Ow!" cried James, clutching his cheek.
That was odd. His broomstick had never whacked him over the face before. He watched it fly out of the Great Hall.
"Let me kiss it better, James," cooed Lily from beside him.
"Your wish is my command," replied James, grinning in spite of his stinging cheek.
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Lily tumbled through the corridors, her mind racing. Before breakfast that day, she had seen Remus and Sirius looking unusually grave and whispering to each other. Also, even Remus who was the most patient of the Marauders had snapped at Peter.
She had a sneaking suspicion that whatever the hell was going on with James had something to do with them.
Sure enough, after she burst into the common room, they were still there.
It was then that she knew the situation, whatever it was, was serious. Sirius seriously NEVER skipped meals. Seriously, he didn't. Skipping breakfast was a seriously un-Sirius thing for him to do. We're dead serious.
Anyway, as Lily went towards them, they immediately stopped talking and gave her strained smiles.
"Hi, Lils," said Sirius in a falsely cheery voice.
"How was breakfast?" added Remus, giving her a plastic smile.
"Stow it," said Lily impatiently. "What did you do to James? He's acting weird. Weirder than usual, I mean."
Sirius and Remus quickly exchanged looks and slumped.
"Lily, he…"
"Yes?" prompted Lily.
"He's hallucinating," said Remus in a rush. "He thinks you're his broomstick."
Lily burst out laughing. "Is that all? Well, at least he'll leave me alone until it wears off. You should've seen him. He was snogging his broomstick and saying things like: 'Oh, I love you too, Lily!' Honestly, you should've been there!"
To her mild surprise, neither of them laughed. They still had that grave expression on their faces.
"What?" she asked slowly, getting the sinking feeling that there was more to it.
Sirius said desperately, "Lily, if we don't find the antidote in a week, James'll…"
"…die," finished Remus in a whisper.
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Remus dimly registered that the blood drain out of Lily's face as soon as he had spoken.
Suddenly, a brilliant idea occurred to him. "Lily, you can help us! You're really good at Potions and researching and to be honest…well, Potions isn't my strongest subject. So d'you want to help?"
Without hesitating, Lily nodded.
Sirius looked at her incredulously. "What? But you hate James!"
Some colour had come back into her cheeks now; angry patches of red. "Sirius Black, I do not HATE James, I just happen to think he's a completely immature idiot!" She angrily tossed her long red hair out of her face. "Just because I happen to dislike him doesn't mean I want him dead! I'm helping, now let's go to the library!" She dragged a stunned Sirius and a worried-looking Remus to the library.
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"Nothing," said Lily in a hollow voice. "Nothing."
Remus stared miserably at the enormous pile of books they had been skimming through as though he hoped the cure would jump out at them.
Sirius looked as if he was struggling with a painful internal battle, then got up abruptly and started to pace. "This is all my fault," he declared, angry at himself. "If I hadn't given him that dodgy Felix…" he trailed off, and suddenly sank down into a chair as if his knees couldn't hold him.
"We're – we're like brothers," he whispered, staring at his hands. "And now…now he's going to – to die."
Lily forced him to look up at her and said in a hard, bitter voice, "Sirius, it wasn't your fault at all. It – it was mine. If I hadn't turned James down so many times, you would never've given him the potion and this would never've happened…"
Remus gave Sirius and Lily a tired smile: a smile that told them that the fault was nobody's and that there was still hope.
Just then, they heard a slight rustling behind them. Lily stiffened, her wand drawn out.
Madam Pince stepped out from behind the bookshelves and shooed them out of the library, not giving them a chance to take out any books.
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Severus Snape slunk quietly out of the library, smirking. So Potter was going to die, was he?
For the many times Potter had tormented him, Snape felt that he deserved the fate awaiting him.
Then a nagging thought occurred to him. He knew what could counter the addled Felix and which book it was in; it was a book that seemed unrelated to the topic and not many people would even think to look in it, but that Evans was one smart cookie for a Mudblood. What if it occurred to her? Severus Snape decided that he couldn't allow that at any cost.
For now, he had some work to do.
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Though it was a Hogmeade Saturday, Lily, Sirius and Remus had spent most of the day in the library looking for a cure without results. They had sent Peter to Hogsmeade to keep an eye on James and 'Lily' aka the Nimbus One Thousand.
Suddenly, Remus had a brainwave. "Hey, what if it's in our Potions textbook? I know there was a recipe for Felix in there!" They eagerly got out their books and opened it to the correct page.
Lily began to read aloud. "'Felix Felicis is one of many potions extremely popular among all witches and wizards. It was first discovered in 1892 when Madam Matilda Cragg, while trying to find the Elixir of Life, produced a potion of similar colour and texture. She was ecstatic about her discovery and wrote down her findings. Her diary now resides in the Gringotts vault of a private collector.
"'However, once she had sampled some of her invention, it became clear that it was not, in fact, the legendary Elixir of Life, but a potion that brought extremely good luck to the drinker. Because the potion brought luck, Madam Cragg aptly named it 'Felix Felicis' which means 'lucky' in Latin. Depending on the amount taken, the newly christened Felix Felicis brought luck to the drinker for a set period of time.'" Lily's eyes skimmed over the rest of the page; there was a list of ingredients and the method for making the potion.
Finally, her eyes stopped at the bottom of the page and what little colour was left in her face drained out of it.
"What is it?" asked Remus worriedly.
"'WARNING: When taken regularly or in large quantities, Felix Felicis is highly toxic and can cause hallucinations and dizziness. Victim can die in a week to two weeks time.'"
"Keep going," urged Sirius anxiously.
"That's it," said Lily in a strangled voice. "There isn't anything else. No counter curse, no antidote, nothing. It doesn't even say if there is one."
After fruitlessly looking through some more books that Remus had borrowed earlier, they decided to call it a night and sleep on the problem.
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Severus Snape wondered where he could keep the object. It had to be somewhere the Marauders or Evans would stumble upon it before anyone else.
Deciding that the best way to avoid suspicion was to plant it in Gryffindor Tower itself, he had hidden behind a rusty suit of armour until he heard some first years say the password and scramble in.
Much later around midnight, when the ghosts of Hogwarts were gliding around and Filch was wheezing and spluttering up and the down the castle looking for mischief makers, Snape crept to the portrait hole, pulled up the hood to the Gryffindor robes he had borrowed from the laundry, and whispered the password to an annoyed Fat Lady who called out after him, "Next time I'll stay shut, young man, that'll teach you to wake me up in the middle of the night!"
He crept towards the girls' dormitories, and so as not to set off the klaxon-like wailing and the stone helter-skelter that appeared, he walked slowly like a crab, placing his feet in the gaps between the banisters.
He crept into the seventh year girls' dorms and deposited his item where he was sure Lily Evans would find it.
As he was about to creep out, he heard a mumble from behind him. Freezing and pulling out his wand instinctively, Snape turned and saw Lily Evans standing behind him.
He was about to mutter a Stunning Spell and get the hell out of there and fast when she said, "Oh, no, Molly, James is so childish, I don't like him at all!"
He kept staring, bewildered, as she continued, "What? You think Sirius' dark hair will set off your blonde? What? James' hair will not suit mine at all! No, it won't! I do not like him!"
"Do too!" squeaked Snape in a high voice.
"I so do not!" said Lily, outraged.
Thinking he had heard enough, and smirking slightly, Severus Snape crept back the way he came.
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Dobby: How was that?
Winky: I think it was stoopid.
Dobby: Of course it was stoopid, it's L/J!
Winky: Yeah, well, here's a note specially for brunettesrule and softlove91:
Dobby: They're the Dobby/Winky shippers! Anyway, Winky and I are just FRIENDS!
Winky: Yeah, so read and review, folks!
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