Riding horses through the forest was slow work. Lily wasn't used to riding on a horse, and every time they horse went to hop or jump over a log, her wrist would twinge as it bounced against James' chest. She was starting to think that it was actually broken.

They all stayed rather quiet as well. Eventually, Sirius rejoined them and gave them the all clear, but he didn't stick around long. Soon he was headed in the opposite direction to see if he could find Snape's party behind them.

Eventually, they cleared the forest and reached a large grassy plain. When Sirius rejoined them, saying that they were well ahead of Snapes party, they rode out into the field, the horses running fast now that they didn't have to worry about tripping over roots or fallen logs.

Lily tried to hold James more tightly with her good arm, but it didn't stop her wrist from hurting. She tucked the arm between her chest and his back and then closed her eyes, willing this leg of the journey to be over quickly.

"Not much longer now," She heard James say over the pounding of horse feet and the wind whipping past her ears. "We're almost there."

She told herself that the tears falling down her cheeks had been caused by the wind, but she could also feel her heart beating in her wrist. Heat was pouring off the injury and she couldn't move it at all anymore.

When the castle finally came into view, James called out for everyone to slow down. Lily took a shuttering breath and rested her forehead against his back.

"Is it better when we ride slower?" He asked. "We are safe to do so now."

Lily looked around at the others and then glanced up at James, though he was still looking ahead of him. "It's much better when we go slower." She'd planned to tell him that she was fine, that they should just get there as quickly as possible, but then the truth slipped out.

"Then we will go slower." He looked over at Sirius. "Lily's wrist is broken. We will travel at this speed now. I want you to circle back and see if they are still following us."

"I tried to wrap it the best I could," Charity started to apologize.

"Don't worry, Charity." Lily gave her a smile, as genuine a smile as she could muster up. "I'll be right as rain soon."

"I do not think Snape is dim enough to follow us to the castle." Sirius said. "But I do believe that Rookwood and Rosier would be dumb enough." And then he was headed away from the castle.

They continued at their leisurely pace in silence for a good ten minutes before Lily couldn't stand all the thoughts clouding her brain any longer. She needed to start speaking to get her brain to quiet down. "I've never ridden on a horse before." She said, looking at Peter's animal as she said it. "It's much more work than I would have thought."

"Yes," James nodded. "Don't be surprised if your legs are sore tomorrow."

"When did you learn to ride?"

"I think I have always known how." He shrugged. "Which is to say, I have been on horses my entire life. I do not remember learning to ride one any more than I remember learning to walk."

"James?"

"Yes?"

"My wrist really hurts."

"I know." He reached up and mused his hair. "We will be back very soon."

"James?"

"Yes?" He sounded weary.

"Am I in danger?"

This question couldn't help. This wasn't the question that she should be asking. She should ask what they were going to eat when she got back. She was quickly realizing that she hadn't had more than a few bites to eat in the last couple of days and her stomach was empty and hollow.

She should ask how long she was allowed to sleep before people would start to talk, because she was bone tired.

She should ask him why his hair looked like it was shining in the sunlight.

"I am afraid that you might be." He said quietly, sounding as though it was the last thing in the world that he wanted to say to her. But he couldn't lie.

"Me too." She bit her lip. "Going home won't help, will it? It'll just put my family and friends in danger."

He was quiet for a long moment. "If you want to go home, then I will make sure that you are able to go home. This is not your fight, this is not your home, you owe us nothing."

Lily mulled that over for a moment, wondering what James making sure she was able to go home would look like. Armed guards at her door? Or lining the forest? Protection spells? She couldn't really fathom it. Everything about this place surprised her at every turn. Every time she looked, she found a new form of magic that she hadn't been aware of before. Maybe it would be easy to protect her in the mortal world, but the weight in his voice made her think not.

"I don't know what I want," She let her forehead rest against his shoulder. "I'm so tired."

"You will rest when we get back to the castle. For as long as you need. Is there anyone we should send a message to back in the mortal world?"

"My mum," Lily said. "I told her that I was only going to be gone for a couple of days. She's probably getting worried about me." She hadn't had the chance to check her phone since before the wedding, and it was probably dead by now.

James nodded, his hair tickling her forehead. "I will make sure that it is taken care of."

The castle slowly got larger and larger until they were riding through the stone gate. A few stable hands appeared and helped Lily and Charity off the horses before James and Peter dismounted. James gave instructions for riders to go back and find Sirius and to help him look for trouble, and then he offered Lily his arm and they started toward the castle.

Lily didn't remember the garden from when she first came through this way, but she'd been so enchanted with the castle and the color of the sky that she probably hadn't glanced at where her feet had been walking.

There were flowers everywhere. Bright blue hydrangeas, soft pink mums, yellow and orange tulips and blood red roses. Lily couldn't take her eyes off the flowers, and she must have led her and James toward the flowers, because they were no longer in the center of the path when Lily's skirts got caught on the rose thorns.

It would have tripped her up had James not been holding her good arm. He looked down and then smiled at her. "I think the flowers like you."

Lily snorted. "Oh? Did they jump out and grab me?" Though even as she made the joke, she was fully aware that they might have done just that.

"No, I believe you just got to close. These flowers aren't sentient." He started to lean down at the same time Lily did, though she realized she was about to try and use her injured hand to unstick herself and stood back up. James pulled her skirts free from the bush and then frowned as he stood back up, taking a step away from the plant, and in doing so, forcing Lily to take a step back as well.

"What is it?" She asked, looking at the bush, wondering what could be causing him to look at a rose bush like that.

"Those were not there a moment ago." He said, nodding at the ground.

Lily looked again, and saw what he'd noticed. A small plant had grown just where Lily was standing. What was even stranger, was that it appeared to be growing as they looked at it.

Soon, the plant flowered and a pink lily opened.

Lily bit down on her tongue. "What does that mean?"

James looked down at her skirts for a moment. "Did you get scratched by the thorns?" He asked, his tone forcing Lily to lean over and pull up her skirt, looking at her shin and calf.

There was a small scratch. "What does that mean?" She repeated.

James looked between the lily and her leg for a moment without saying anything. Lily stood up and swatted his arm with her good hand. Hitting the fairy prince was probably at the top of the list of things that she wasn't supposed to do, but she didn't care at the moment.

"I don't know." He said.

"Did I do that somehow?"

"Yes." He nodded, nodding at another small plant that had begun sprouting next to her.

It was her blood causing it.

It should have been such a ridiculous notion, but as soon as she thought it, she was hit with a memory from when she was ten.

Her and Remus playing near the pond at the fairyland side of the forest, and she'd fallen and scrapped her knee. She'd run to get bandages from her backpack, and when she'd come back to where she'd fallen, where she'd left her shoes, there was now a patch of bright pink lilies. She'd thought it was just marvelous at the time, and now, looking at the flowers, her blood ran cold.

"Come on, let me get you to the doctor." James said, his hand back on her arm and he led her away from the flowers.

"Can the doctor fix this?" Lily laughed humorlessly.

He didn't answer her, but he trailed his hand down to hers and then brushed his thumb over her wrist. "We will figure this out."

Lily's wrist was taken care of rather quickly, and James even had them look at the scratch on her leg. And then she was given a tonic for the pain, which made her pass out almost immediately. She would have been worried, but James was with her the whole time and she saw Remus run into the room right before her eyes fell closed.

They were still heavy when she woke up hours later, and Remus and James were still in the room. So were Sirius and Peter now and they were all sitting at a table, which was covered in books and papers.

James and Remus were whispering back and forth. Lily strained to hear them, but couldn't make out more than a few words that gave her no insight into what they were talking about. She debated going back to sleep, but now she was too curious about what they were doing.

It should have been weird to find them there after waking up, but it was comforting somehow. They hadn't assumed she was safe and left her alone. They were going to make it impossible for Snape to show up and grab her again, or for him to have his people grab her again.

"She's awake," Peter said, waving awkwardly at her as she slowly sat up.

Remus jumped from his chair, dropping his book onto the table and rushing over to her.

"Are you alright? How are you feeling?" He asked, his eyes looking all over her face and then down to her wrist.

"I'm fine," She said, pushing herself into a sitting position even though her limbs felt heavy and she wasn't certain that she wanted to sit up yet.

"Don't lie to me." Remus chided, kneeling beside her and picking up her wrist. "You look like shit."

Lily snorted and she heard a chair scrape against the floor before she saw James walking toward them. "That is no way to talk to her right now." James chided.

"Remus has always been super talented at comforting people." Lily shrugged, pulling her hand away from Remus and looking over it herself. It looked perfectly normal of course, the magic that the healer had used had mostly worked before she passed out. It was remarkable, even if it wasn't really remarkable here.

"I have plenty of other talents to make up for this one misgiving of mine," Remus smiled at her, his tone playfully annoyed, but his eyes bright. She'd worried him. The baser part of her brain thought, 'good, how does he like it.' But she shook her head and pushed those thoughts away. They weren't nice thoughts and she didn't like to think about him pacing around his room waiting for James and the others to bring her back.

"Yes, yes, how about we use some of those talents then." James pulled Remus up by his arm and shoved him back toward the table. "Keep reading. You are good at that."

Remus sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, looking like he felt a lot lighter now that she was awake. "I've tried to get him to use contractions, but he refuses. Sirius and Peter aren't much better, but they'll slip up every now and then." Remus did go back to the table though and James glared after him.

Lily looked down at her hand. "It sort of makes it feel as though it might not have happened." She ran her thumb over her pulse point. "Where is Charity?"

"She is resting in another room. Though she will not be staying long. She wants to go home."

Lily nodded. "I'd want to go home if I were her too."

James looked at the table where his friends sat and then back at Lily. "I trust these three males with my life, but I understand if you only trust one of them." He started, causing Lily to narrow her brow. His hazel eyes were glimmering with something that looked near nervousness. "I think we should tell them what you told me early. About Snape being unable to glamour you. And also what happened when your blood touched the ground."

Lily looked over at Peter and Sirius, wondering how they couldn't hear what James had just said. He seemed to realize her confusion and showed a small charm bag in his hand. "No one can hear me unless I am standing near them."

"Neat trick," She reached out and ran her finger over the animal skin bag. She remembered seeing charms at Remus's house when they were kids. "If you think we should tell them, then I agree." Lily shrugged. "I want to tell Remus anyway, and Sirius and Peter did save my life. Do you think they'll have answers?"

James shook his head. "No, I think that they can help us find answers though." He smiled at her. "I also don't like keeping things from them."

Lily laughed and looked at the group of boys again. Sometimes they all just seemed so normal. None of them appeared to be able to hear her either. "Alright, let's go see what we can find out."

AN: Reviews are the greatest! Let me know what you are thinking!