(A/N: Sorry for the delay, here's the next chapter folks! This contains minor romance, but I think you all can handle it! Enjoy!)
"I don't know," said Harry.
The centaurs glared at Audrey and their grips tightened on their weapons. Suddenly, without any warning, they shot their arrows to the ground nearby their own hooves. "Leave us," said Audrey. The strongest centaur gave a low bow and said, Yes, Your Highness." The centaurs cleared out, leaving Audrey, Jason and a group of shocked and bewildered teenage Hogwarts students.
"What the bloody hell was that about?" asked Ron from behind Harry. Jason looked at Ron. "Audrey's father is the Chief Centaur, which makes her sort of, royalty," he said. They looked at Audrey. "What?" she said. "Can't I keep a secret? Anyway, let's go, we have a long journey ahead of us." Audrey turned around and tugged at Jason's arm, signalling him to follow her.
"Princess?" whispered Lily. "No wonder he dares not confess."
"Confess what?" asked James.
"His feelings for her," said Lily.
"Wow, it's like one of those fairytales," said Hermione.
James shrugged and kept on walking as Lily and Hermione had a girl-to-girl talk. "Girls," he muttered.
Soon, they were out of the forest and they found themselves in front of a dark swamp. Jason motioned them to a small pathway, but the path was blocked by huge boulders. "Sorry," said Jason. "But the path around the Spider's Cave is blocked. We will need to go into the Spider's Cave. Ron whimpered. "What's wrong with Ron?" James asked.
"Childhood memories," said Harry as they made their way to a big cave covered in spider webs. Lily walked along James, holding his arm tightly. "What's wrong, Evans?" said James looking at her pale face. "Phobia," said Lily as she saw a spider go by and tightened her grip. Harry looked at them and then at Ron. "I think I should help Ron," he said as he walked towards the whimpering Ron.
Jason and Audrey stopped in front of the cave. "Come on," Jason said. Harry was holding Ron's right arm as Hermione held his left. Sirius and Remus were looking confident and Lily was still holding James arm tightly. They went in. They saw colourful spiders walking along the walls and spider webs were hanging from the ceiling, almost touching Harry's head. "Interesting," Remus said as he saw a yellow spider. "These spiders are not normal," Ron squealed. That seemed to interest Remus even more and he picked up an acid green spider.
"Be careful," said Hermione. "It might be dangerous or even poisonous." Remus dropped the spider which immediately scurried away, nearly touching Ron's foot. "Don't do that!" Ron said, but his voice wasn't his own but high pitched, like a girl's. Sirius sniggered but a red glowing spider dropped on his head the next second. "Get it off! Get it off!" he screamed.
Remus grabbed Sirius's head and tried to shake the spider off. "D-d-d-d-don't d-d-d-do t-t-t-t-that!" Sirius yelled while Remus continued to shake him more vigorously. The spider dropped off and landed on Lily's jeans. Lily screamed. Suddenly, the red spider bit her. Lily stopped screaming and fainted. Hermione took a glove and slapped the spider away. "Lily? Lily?" James said, frantically trying to wake Lily up.
"We're almost out," Jason said. "We need to get out quickly before the other spiders get us." All of them ran towards the exit of the cave and ran for their lives as they heard a sound of scurrying spiders following them. All of them ran out and saw the light of the Sun. Ron fell to the ground and hugged it. James was still holding Lily tightly. Lily was shivering and her lips were turning blue. "Hermione, we need an antidote. Check the bag," James said frantically.
Hermione opened the bag and saw a small bottle of pink potion and a piece of parchment. She took it out and read it, "Medicine for the red spider bite. Drink whole bottle and keep the patient warm. Let the patient rest overnight."
James took the medicine and shook Lily gently. Lily's eyes fluttered open, but closed again. James opened the bottle and emptied its contents into Lily's mouth. Lily's lips changed back to red but she was still shivering. "We need to keep her warm," James said. He took his jacket and covered Lily with it. Lily's shivering stopped.
"I guess we need to sleep here for the night," Jason said "The Sun's setting and it's dangerous to journey through the dark." He was right; the Sun was slowly starting to disappear into the horizon. All of them each took out a sleeping bag from Hermione's bag and lied down. They were left in total darkness and went to sleep.
James was still holding Lily tightly. Lily began shivering again. James looked around but he couldn't see anything. He took off the jacket that was covering Lily and he hugged her tightly. Lily stopped shivering after a few minutes and James, relieved, fell asleep. Not caring that Lily would probably slap him in the morning.
Lily stirred in her sleep and opened her eyes. Everything was dark and the only thing she could see was James's face. She didn't push him away or scream in his ear which she would normally do but instead, she stroked his hair, hugged him and went back to sleep.
In the morning…
Lily woke up, the sun was shining brightly and she saw the upside-down image of James head. "Good morning," he said. "Sleep well?" Lily, for the first time in her life, smiled at James. "What happened?" she asked looking around.
"You were bitten by a spider and passed out, but its okay, we gave you the antidote," said James stroking her hair. Lily was suddenly aware that her head was resting on James's lap. She sat up and stretched her arms. Everyone was sitting in a circle, a few feet away, eating the food from Hermione's bag, but Sirius wasn't shoving the food down his throat next to Ron. Lily couldn't see Sirius anywhere.
"Where's Sirius?" Lily asked. James hesitated to answer.
"He's shitting at that tree over there," James pointed at a tree which suddenly, started screaming and yelling.
Sirius jumped from the tree, thankfully wearing his pants but he was scratching his butt. Lily raised an eyebrow and so did Hermione. "What's wrong, mate?" James asked.
Sirius turned around. "What's wrong?" he asked looking like a madman. "What's wrong is that poison ivy has been wrongfully used as toilet paper! What's wrong is that my butt itches like hell! What's wrong is that a leaf of poison ivy is stuck in my ass! That's what's wrong!" Everyone looked at Sirius and looked at each other and started laughing.
"Well, keep on laughing cause someone needs to put cream on my ass and take out the leaf," Sirius said. Everyone stopped laughing and looked at each other.
"You can't be serious, mate," said Ron.
"I am Sirius. Sirius Black," said Sirius. "At least that's what it says on my birth cert."
"That joke's getting old, mate," Harry said.
"Yeah and so am I," said Sirius. "Now who's gonna take the leaf out?"
"Let's go on with the journey, shall we?" said Hermione throwing a cream to Sirius who caught it. "Rub your own butt or we're going on with the journey without you," Hermione said.
Sirius took the cream and went behind a tree. He came from it five minutes later, his face red. Let's get going," he said. All of them packed up the sleeping bags and got up. "We will need to walk through Sleepy Valley which is a six hour walk from here," James said looking at the map. Everyone groaned. "Well, isn't this a wonderful opportunity to get to know each other," said Sirius. "Who wants to play Truth or Dare?"
Everyone raised an eyebrow. "What?" asked Sirius. "Or do you all want to hear me sing One Thousand Bottles of Milk on the Wall?"
"Truth or Dare, Hermione?" asked James instantly as Sirius opened his mouth to sing.
"Dare," Hermione said quickly.
"I dare you to," James paused and an evil grin came to his face. "I dare you to kiss Remus on the lips."
"What?" Remus and Ron yelled out as Hermione blushed a deep scarlet red.
"You can't be serious," said Hermione. "And not a word from you, Sirius." Sirius closed his mouth.
"Once you say, dare," said James. "You've gotta do it."
Hermione groaned and looked at Ron. Ron took out his handkerchief and covered his eyes with it. "Go on," he said as he turned around. Hermione looked at Remus who shrugged and walked over to her. "I'm going to kill you for this, Potter," he said.
James looked at Hermione, Harry looked bewildered, Sirius hummed the wedding march which made things worse. Hermione looked at the rest and kissed Remus lightly. Sirius broke out into a chorus, "Here comes the bride! Here comes the oww!" Everyone looked at Sirius who was hopping on one foot and Ron, still blind folded, smiling broadly. "Did I get the target?" he asked.
"You most certainly did," said Harry, grinning broadly.
"First, my butt, then my foot," Sirius said rubbing his foot.
"Excuse me," Jason said. "But what is an oww?" He asked smiling.
"Here comes the oww! Here comes the oww!" Ron sang.
Hermione and Remus were still blushing but they were smiling at each other.
"Truth or dare, Lily," said James.
"Dare," said Lily, still smiling about Sirius's painful foot.
"I dare you to kiss me," James said smiling.
"Excuse me, but I thought we were playing Truth or Dare, not Seven Minutes in Heaven," Lily said.
"Is that a suggestion, Evans?" James asked cheekily.
But Lily didn't slap him; instead, she kissed him softly on the cheek. "Never thought you'd do that," James said smiling.
"Miracles happen, Potter," Lily said. There was a loud yell from the back. They looked around. Ron was yelling, because apparently, a gigantic spider had cast a web around his legs and was attempting to pull him away from the rest.
"Hold on, Ron," Hermione said. "Expelliarmus!" The tip of her wand sparked but nothing happened. "Shit! Magic doesn't work here," she said and ran over to Ron and grabbed his waist. Lily grabbed Hermione's waist and pulled. James grabbed Lily's waist, Remus grabbed James's left leg and Harry grabbed James's right leg. They pulled, and James was lifted off the ground.
"My legs are attached, you know!" James yelled.
"Speak for yourself!" Harry yelled as Sirius grabbed both of Harry's legs and lifted him off the ground.
The spider pulled harder and so did the rest, resulting to the yelling and screaming of James and Harry. "That hurts!" they yelled in unison.
"Unless you two want Ron to be this spider's dinner, you two should better shut up and hold on!" Remus yelled as he pulled harder. This time, James just winced and said nothing. Jason and Audrey were kicking the spider with their hind legs.
Soon, after a few suppressed yells, the spider gave up, and let go of the web and left the seven exhausted teenage wizards and two evenly exhausted teenage centaurs, all of them were thickly tied up in layers of spider's web.
"Well, wasn't that an unforgettable experience," James said, struggling to get off the spider's web which was unexpectedly very strong.
"Since all of us are a little tied up," Sirius said. "Let's all have a game of Truth or Dare!"
"You can't possibly-, " Ron said but was cut off as Sirius was yelling out the words, "One thousand bottle's of milk on the wall! One thousand..."
"Truth or Dare, Sirius?" Harry asked loudly.
"Truth," Sirius said smiling.
"Who was your first crush?" Harry asked.
Sirius grinned and looked at Harry. "Rita Skeeter," he mumbled.
Harry looked at Ron and Hermione and all of them burst out laughing. "Rita Skeeter?" Ron asked laughing.
"I'm not proud of it," Sirius said, his face going red.
They laughed louder and continued their forced game of Truth or Dare until…
"Guys," Ron said. "My nose itches!"
"And so does my ass, but I'm not complaining," said Sirius smiling.
"If I wasn't still, blindfolded," Ron began, but then, it started to rain.
"Faith is cruel, Ron," Remus said, shaking his head. "And so is Mother Nature."
(A/N: Thanks for reading, and can you all do me a favour? Click on that button over there, the one that says "Submit Review" and type! Thank you for your cooperation.)