Oh dear… I'm having one of those days- you know those days? The sort of one where your getting ready to go out and you're wondering where you've put your ipod before realising (after half and hours fruitless searching) that you are in fact already listening to it and it's clipped to your trousers! Good God, I am truly a menace to society!

Anyway, onwards, I apologise deeply for the cliffy, I am slightly evil…. :D

So here are al the presents I promised you faithful reviewers- can't remember quite what they are but I hope you enjoy them all the same. Foot-long Mars Bars for all those who remember the 'r' word.

mmm… foot long mars bars… Happy Easter one and all!

R xxx

Remus had watched the whole spectacle before him, as though in slow motion. With the first gasps from the crowd, he had looked up to where Nick and James had begun their rapid descent to the ground. He marvelled at the speed and control of his two friends, before realising something wasn't quite right. Nick's face had twisted slightly, and for a second he moved his gaze down to his broom handle. 'The thing about seekers,' James had said, 'is that we have to be so focussed. Once you've seen the snitch, you cannot take your eye off it, because then you've lost…'

Then, thirty feet from the ground, the unthinkable had happened- Nick's broom had given a jolt, just enough to upset his balance.

Remus had started towards him but stopped when he felt a pain in his head and tasted a bitter tang in his mouth. He had never experienced anything like it before, but it was so vile that it made him retch, completely forgetting about the drama on the rest of the pitch. When the pain had subsided slightly, he looked up he saw Nick falling through the void above the pitch, his broom having given a huge lurch, launching him into the air. He hit the ground before Remus could even react. Above the shocked silence and the pounding of the rain, he heard a scream from the commentator's box. He whirled around, his brain telling him what must have happened but his body not responding. He saw the red hair before anything else, and it most definitely was not in the stalls. Anymore.

Even as James' long fingers closed around the cold metal of the Snitch, he knew something was wrong. The cheers had been replaced by an ominous silence, the faces of those he could see were not looking at him, and then he heard the scream from almost directly in front of him. His broom was the fastest model made yet- the Nimbus 1800. He pushed it forward, laying flat against its handle. He reached Lily in time to grab her hand from the air, a little more tricky than it sounds considering she was soaking from the rain. He ground to a halt, stopping himself from crashing through the stand's supports and managed to haul Lily onto the broom in front of him. She was unconscious, her breathing laboured but otherwise unharmed.

Sirius and Remus were the first to fly over.

'Damn, is she okay?' asked Remus, even paler than usual.

'I think so,' panted James, out of breath from the whole ordeal, the adrenaline still pumping hard through his veins.

'Fucking impressive catch mate,' Sirius said, putting a hand on his shoulder. 'But I think we'd better get her down to the ground.'

'Good idea,' muttered Remus, checking she balanced okay on James' broom.

James descended slowly, the others flanking him. 'I don't understand, she never goes that close to the barrier,' he said, casting a glance to where she had fallen from, horrible pictures forming in his head over what could have happened if she had hit the ground from that height. 'Did you see how she fell.'

'Yeah,' they both muttered solemnly.

'I think I'll go and see-' Remus started. Then he closed his eyes, shook his head, and broke away from Sirius and James to the centre of the pitch. In doing so, he revealed the ground he had been screening from James view.

'Shit,' said James, seeing the body splayed out on the ground. 'Is he-?'

'Dunno,' said Sirius quietly. 'We'll find out soon enough I guess…'

'That's why she fell?' Sirius nodded.

'There's just one thing wrong with all this?' Sirius mused quietly.

'One!' James said in disbelief.

'Prongs, she screamed.'

'So?'

'I silenced her.'

Hospital Wing- 3 hours later

Lily woke up and screamed. She screamed and screamed until James fetched Madam Ingram who had administered an emergency dose of the calming draught. Usually, more than one dose in a day was dangerous but there was no other option other than stunning her.

Sirius and Peter held on to her the entire time- she tried to fight them off but together, they were a lot bigger and stronger than she was so she really didn't stand a chance. Once the potion was in her system, she stopped screaming and relaxed a little, enough for James to take her hands and help her back into the bed and replace the covers over her.

Lily started to shake violently whimpering, not an uncommon reaction for someone who has suffered trauma.

'Can't you do anything for this?' he asked the nurse.

'If I could, I wouldn't. It's best for her to get it out of her system. It should help her recover with more haste.'

James nodded grudgingly and pulled Lily closer to him, wrapping his arms around her fragile form. A year ago, this would have fulfilled his wildest dreams but in this situation, it was breaking his heart to see her like this. After a few minutes with no change, Sirius left them to go and find Peter and Remus.

'Shhh, Lils it's okay. It's okay.' He continued to hold her, gently rocking from side to side as you would for a small child who has just fallen over and grazed their knee. If only it was just a grazed knee thought James. After about half an hour, Lily's breathing started to regulate, her shaking ceased slightly and when James pulled back to look at her face, she was only just awake.

'James?' she murmured, breathing into his chest.

'The one and only,' he said, sitting her upright and checking her over.

'Acting nurse, hmm?' Lily said, trying to smile but no quite managing. 'Where is everyone? Where's… where's Nick?' She looked around wildly at the empty beds, the panic constrained by the potion in her body. 'Is he… is he okay?'

'I'm really not the one to ask,' James said quietly. 'I think he's still alive, if that's any help.'

'Still? Where-'

'London,' James replied. 'St Mungo's. Madam Ingram told us it was beyond her help.' Lily looked up at him, the eyes that were like two emeralds embedded in her face glistened up at James. Tears brimmed at the corners and started to leak from her eyes, leaving trails down her pale cheeks. James wiped them away with his thumbs, barely able to keep the tears back himself.

'But, it's okay,' she whispered, lying back onto her pillows. Her eyes started to glaze slightly, although tears continued to stream from them. 'He'll be back. He always comes back. So does Remus in fact,' she giggled. It was a strange mix, to see tears pouring from someone's face while they laughed.

'Lily, what-?'

'But you're always here Jamesie, aren't you?' Jamesie?

'And when we're all back together, we can have a nice party, can't we?' James simply stared at her in shock.

'Can't we?' she began to sob now, gazing at him with unfocussed eyes. 'I want a party. I want a party. I want a-'

The potion. 'Madam Ingram!' yelled James down the ward towards her office. 'Madam Ingram!' No response. 'Shit.' James tried probing her mind, to find out what on earth was going on in there. However, when he reached it all he found was a jumbled confusion of memories and sounds. Just static, and loud static at that. Lily started screaming again, whether from the legilimency or something else, it didn't really matter. James stood up and began to lift Lily out of her bed. If she, the most sensible person he knew, was suffering from deliria within the first hour of overdosing on a potion, Merlin only knew what the next side-effects would be.

'J-James,' Lily stammered. 'I, I want mummy. I want her Jamesie.'

'Then we'll go and find her,' he said as he hoisted her off the bed.

'This is a dream, isn't it? Isn't it, isn't it? A horrible dream where I'll wake up and see that there was no Qudditch, no none at all. Not at all. None. And then, and then I'll be happy, happy happy happy happy hap-'

Having someone clapping when you're trying to carry them is not the most easy of tasks, but James was handling it valiantly. 'Lily, try and fight this potion okay? Fight it, you're a strong person, fight it.'

'Fight, fight fight fight fight fi-' Lily began kicking her legs in addition to the hand clapping. James dropped her legs to the floor, unable to support them while she was doing it.

'Merlin and Agrippa Lils!' He hoisted her towards the fireplace in the hospital wing, opposite the nurse's office. Peering through the glass, James could see she was not around, probably off to help someone who'd met Peeves near the bust of Paracelsus (believe it or not, that was the number one reason why students found themselves in the hospital wing, whether it was true or not!). But James didn't have time to search the whole castle for her, and the green tinge that was starting to appear on Lily's hands and neck did nothing to improve his predicament.

Lily tried supporting herself but crumpled to the floor in a heap, hitting her head it the process. Well, that's not going to help situations…

She rolled over, her eyes even less focussed than before, trying to concentrate on James' face.

'James, you know I love you, right?'

Even in James' hurried and flustered state, despite the fact that Lily was being slowly poisoned from the inside out, he paused. 'What?' he whispered.

'Mmm-hmm. Sometime I think you're all annoying, so sometimes I don't like you very much-' she was starting to talk like a little girl- 'but sometimes you do look yummy on your broom. And I think I love you then.' There was a pause. 'And you're being very nice to me now too. So I love you now too.' James didn't quite know how to react. 'So you see, I'd like it very much if you would kiss me.' She paused again. 'Please,' she added as an afterthought.

James was stunned. After years of patience, of girls who were only stand-ins for the one he really wanted, after years of asking and persuading her, James did the only thing he felt able to do.

'No,' he said, his voice heavy and wooden. 'Not now Lils. Not like this.'

Lily hiccoughed, then hiccoughed again. Then it became more violent. Her green tinged skin drained to white, almost pure white, as though someone had frosted her face. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and when she brought them down again, her irises had turned blood red. She looked like someone posessed. She was getting worse.

'Shit,' James said, hoisting her up and doing the only thing he could think of. He grabbed a fistful of powder from the pot on the mantelpiece and thrust it into the fire grate. Immediately the emerald green flames sprang up.

'St Mungo's Hospital,' James shouted as he stepped into the familiar fire, and they were lost in a thousand grates, spinning them hundreds of miles to their destination.

'I tried my Lord, I did try.'

'But you failed me.'

'But I tried.'

'Yes yes, you are very trying. How many times must I tell you that trying is not enough. Time and again I drill it into every one of your pathetic minds and still you disappoint me.'

'I am so sor-'

'Quiet. If I hear the word 'sorry' one more time, I will kill you and let it be. You do not join me for failure or a nice comfortable time. You join to work or die. I refuse to lead an organisation that results in failure over and over again.' A long, drawn-out sigh.

'May I speak?'

'Quite clearly you have just done so.'

''

'Speak then, if you must. It had better be worth my time.'

'My Lord, it may still succeed. The outcome is as yet unclear. I can return in perhaps a day and bring more news.'

'More news? I do not need 'more news' I need solutions and positive outcomes.'

'My Lord? What would you wish of me?'

'To crawl into a hole and die. Or better yet…'

Sorry it's a little short. Am starting the next chapter as we speak so all is not lost and it will be up soon- I promise!

I love you all, my lovely lovely reviewer-type people (still haven't found a good enough word to replace 'lovely'! Any ideas!)

R xxx