A/N: Thanks to all my reviewers ! I just saw that I have had 133 reviews and I'm very excited :) Anyway, here's chapter 14, and don't forgetto review!

Old Friends

Her eye lids felt so heavy. Lily refused to open then at first. She was so comfortable, so warm, she wanted to fall back asleep. Then she remembered what happened before she lost consciousness: Voldemort, torturing her until she thought she would die. Maybe I'm dead, she thought. She flung her eyes open, but the light was so bright, she promptly shut them. Hmm, bright light, feeling of comfort...I must be dead. But this time she slowly opened her eyes and blinked. Once her eyes focused, she realized that she was in one of the wards of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

"You were just starting to worry us," said a relieved voice somewhere to the left of Lily. She turned her head to she James smiling as her. Slowly her senses were coming back to her. Just as she could feel James holding her hand, she could feel the aches of last night's battle finally setting in, and they hurt like hell.

"How are you feeling?" he asked her sounding serious.

"A little sore, but I'm alright. Are you okay? Last I saw you, you were thrown against a brick wall. What happened?"

"I just had a few broken ribs" he said with a casual wave of his hand, as if this were an everyday thing. "Sirius said that Dumbledore showed up while I was unconscious and you were being tortured by Voldemort. Apparently they dueled for a while before Voldemort and his Death Eaters fled."

"And you didn't see it?"

"No, like I said, I was unconscious. I woke up right over there," James gestured to an empty bed to the left of Lily's, "about five o'clock this morning. Sirius and Remus were here and they filled me in."

Lily was silent of a few moments before she asked, "What time is it?"

James glanced at his watch before replying, "Nearly noon"

"Have you been here all this time?"

"They nearly kicked me out of the ward at around six thirty, so Sirius, Remus, and I went back to our apartment, I took a shower, and we came right back a little after seven."

"And the other two?" she asked, wondering where Sirius and Remus were.

"They went up to the tearoom a few minutes before you woke up."

Suddenly, as if on cue, Sirius and Remus walked into the ward and, once seeing that Lily was awake, broke their serious expressions and smiled.

"How are you doin'?" asked Sirius as he and Remus drew up chairs out of thin air on Lily's right.

"I've got a headache and my back hurts, but other than that, I'm okay," she smiled at them.

They were all quite for a few minutes before Lily started asking Sirius and Remus for their own first-hand accounts of what happened, which turned out to be nearly identical to the one that James told her. Sirius and Remus had just finished when a Healer came in and made James, Sirius and Remus go out into the hall while she performed an exam on Lily.

The Healer wanted Lily to stay until the next morning for observations, but Lily flat out refused. And after much debate, they compromised that she would only stay in the ward for the rest of the day and be discharged that night.

000

Two Weeks Later (August 1st)

Lily awoke with a start. That damn alarm clock, she thought. She somehow managed to fling her arm out from under the covers and hit the button that stopped that annoying buzzing noise (after a few tries anyway). Sun light was streaming through the open window, reminding her to wake her ass up. She turned onto her stomach and crammed the pillow over her head as she gave a small groan. This was about the time that her brain finally kicked on; she suddenly became aware that James was not lying next to her. They had stayed up pretty late the night before planning the wedding (which they had set for November 2nd)...well, that's what they were suppose to be doing, anyway.

She tossed her pillow on the floor so she could see the other side of the bed properly, the paranoid side of her brain kicking in. Sure enough, it was empty.

"It's about time you woke up" said a voice from somewhere near the door.

Lily couldn't help but grin as she turned over to see a (surprisingly) fully dressed James leaning on the frame of the door. He walked over, sat on the edge of Lily's bed and kissed her forehead.

"Are you ready for you first day of Healer training?" he asked in an overly bright voice.

"You bet cha" she replied sarcastically as she propped herself on her elbows, making sure that the sheets were covering her.

"Hey, now, I don't wanna hear it. I've been training damn near all summer."

"Speaking of which, don't you have to leave soon?" Lily glanced at the clock: it was just after seven.

"Yeah, I gotta be there by seven-thirty. What about you?"

"Marlene's letter said to be in the conference room at eight o'clock sharp." Marlene McKinnon, a fellow Order member, was the Healer that would be training Lily and the other trainees.

"I should get going, I wanted to stop by my place before I go into the Ministry."

"Alright. You want me to come by when I get done?"

"Sure," He leaned down to kiss her again, this time, on her lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close. He could feel her breasts pressed against his chest. It took all of the strength he possessed to not crawl back into her bed.

"I love you," said Lily after she and James broke apart.

"I love you, too. I'll see you later. Have fun." he added sarcastically. After Lily threw her other pillow at him, he quickly left.

Somehow, Lily dragged herself out of bed, into the shower, got dressed, ate a quick breakfast, and was at St. Mungo's by seven forty-five.

She asked the witch at the front desk were the conference room was, who told her to go straight down the hall and it was the fifth door on the right. Just outside the conference room, Lily glanced at her watch. Eight fifty-five. Perfect timing, she smiled to herself as she opened the door.

But her smile soon faded when she saw who the other trainee was.

Simone Lyn, one of the few people that Lily could honestly say that she hated with a passion, was sitting towards the end of a long, rectangular table in front of her.

Lily slowly moved closer to the table and sat directly across from Simone, who looked as shocked as Lily felt. But luckily, Marlene, a tall, kind looking brunette, came in, carrying three rather large books, before either Lily or Simone could say anything.

"Hello Lily, Simone," said Marlene warmly as she shook each of their hands in turn before she sat at the head of the table. "As you probably know, my name is Marlene McKinnon, and I am Head of the Healer Training Program. This year is going to be a lot different than in the past. Usually, we start out with twenty or so students and dwindle down to ten or less, and it would take nearly two years to complete the program. But, because there are only two of you, you will basically follow me during the course of the day, and help me perform certain tasks. You'll slowly start to do things on you own and by July, you'll have your Healer's License. On Mondays, we will be in this room, and this is when we will do the boring book stuff. The rest of the week we will meet here, then go around to different departments of the hospital so you can get the hands on experience. But, for this week, we'll be in here, doing all of the really boring stuff, and practicing some very basic healing charms that, based on your Hogwarts transcripts, you two should have no problem with.

"Now, it says here," Marlene continued as she pulled a piece of parchment from inside her robes. "That you were both in the same year at Hogwarts, Lily in Gryffindor and Simone in Ravenclaw, so you already know each other, right?"

Simone and Lily briefly caught each other's eyes before they nodded at Marlene. Yeah, they knew each other, all right...

"Good," said Marlene as she gave Lily and Simone each one of the books she had. "Well, lets go ahead and get started."

000

Hours, but what felt days, later, Lily flung the door open of apartment 221 to find James, Remus and Elizabeth sitting around the living room discussing something. They looked up when Lily tossed her huge book on the floor (something that she normally would never have done) and were surprised by the look on her face.

"Are you alright?" asked James from the couch.

"Oh, I'm fine. Just bloody fantastic!" she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she walked towards her friends. Lily flopped on the couch next to James and buried her head in her hands.

Elizabeth, who had been sitting on the floor, leaning against Remus' legs, walked over to sit by her distressed friend and asked, "What happened Lils?"

"Well, lets start at the beginning: There is only one other trainee, besides me. Anyone wanna guess who it is?"

"Will Logan," said Remus.

Lily gave a small laugh. "I wish,"

Everyone looked at her in surprise. Who could be worse than her ex-boyfriend? But they didn't have to wait long for the response.

"Simone" said Lily tonelessly.

James, Remus and Elizabeth stared at Lily as though she were crazy.

"You have got to be kidding!" exclaimed Elizabeth.

"If only I was,"

"Did she say anything to you?"

"Yeah, she did: she said that we'll be seeing a lot of each other just before we left. At first I thought she was talking about our training together, but there was something about the way she said it... I don't know...like we'd be seeing each other outside of the hospital..."

The girls went into a discussion about what Simone could have meant, but couldn't think of anything. But after a while, their talk had to come to an end, because tonight was the night that Remus was going to meet Elizabeth's family, and they were both terrified by the very thought. After a lot of reassurance, and good luck, from James and Lily, Remus and Elizabeth left for her parents' home.

Once they had left, Lily glanced around the nearly empty apartment, and then it hit her. She turned to James and asked, "Where's Sirius?"

"He had a date tonight"

"With who?"

"I don't know; he didn't say and I didn't ask."

Switching gears, she asked, "Do you think everything will go alright? With Remus, I mean."

"I think so. He's nearly the perfect gentlemen, so I doubt he'll have any problems winning her parents over."

"Does Elizabeth know that Remus is a werewolf?"

"Yeah, they had a nice, long talk a few weeks ago, and then they...well, I'm sure you can guess what happened next," he added suggestively.

"Ohhh," Lily smiled, "See, I heard about the sex, but she just never got around to the whole werewolf thing,"

They were quiet for a few minutes before James asked, "You wanna go eat somewhere?"

"Sure, were do you wanna go?"

000

After they ate dinner, James went over to Lily's apartment so they could finish a few more of the wedding details. So far they had the best man (Sirius), groomsmen (Remus and Peter), maid of honor (Alice), and the bride's maids, (Dorcas and Elizabeth). Lily had chosen hunter green dress robes for the bride's maids, but she hadn't decided if she wanted to wear white dress robes or a Muggle bridal grown. They had also decided where the wedding was going to take place (an old restored mansion just outside of Lily's home town), but only had an idea where they wanted the reception to be.

At around ten, he had gone back to his own apartment. Remus wasn't there, and Sirius...well, Sirius had turned his doorknob from gold to silver...the guys' sign for Do Not Disturb.

The next morning, James was sitting at the table, trying to wake up by drinking a cup of coffee, when he heard Sirius and his date from last night, come out of his bedroom. He could hear them talking, and his date's voice sounded slightly familiar.

Sirius walked is date to the door as James tried get a glimpse at her, trying to place her voice to a face. Who he saw nearly made his jaw crash on the floor.

000

Lily woke up in a slightly good mood. She and James had been talking last night, and she had decided that she would take the whole Simone situation one day at a time, be polite but not too friendly. That was until about seven o'clock, shortly after Lily had dragged herself out of bed.

James apparated into Lily's kitchen. Lily was sitting at her table, looking shocked to see James.

Without preamble, James sat down next to Lily and said, "It was Simone"

"What?" Lily asked, she was totally lost.

James took a deep breath before he continued. "Simone was Sirius' date"

Lily's jaw fell. After a while, she somehow asked, "D-did you see her last night or-" she really hated to ask the next part "or did you see her this morning"

James wouldn't meet her eyes when she answered, "This morning"

Lily felt as though the room were spinning.

"I talked to him this morning, he said that it was more of a one night stand than anything else." James thought that this would calm Lily, but it seemed to make things worse: Lily shook her head and rolled her eyes at James.

"Don't you get it, James?" When he continued to look blankly at her, she continued, "We started out as a one night stand! And look at us now, we're getting married in...three months. What if the same thing happens and we're stuck with Simone forever?"

He gave a small laugh. "Don't you think you're over reacting just a bit?"

Lily glared at him. "Well excuse me, but you and Sirius were the ones that nearly freaked out because Peter had the audacity to date a Slytherin."

"That is not the same thing"

"Your right; yours was worse because you didn't even know Josefine. At least I know what a manipulative bitch Simone is,"

"That's not the point," said James as he waved off Lily's last remark, "I don't think that'll happen in Sirius's case"

"And why not?"

"Because I know Sirius, and, not to sound like a girl, but he's not the serious boyfriend type."

Lily narrowed her eyes slightly, "And before me, neither were you." she said in a low voice, though she knew James got every word. "Look," she began again with a kinder tone, "I need to take a shower...Are you gonna stay?"

"No," James said as he stood up. "I need to get going. So I'll see you at the meeting tonight?"

"Yeah" said Lily right before James gave her a quick kiss and left. Lily shook her head after he was gone. He just doesn't get it, she thought as she headed for her bathroom.

With the prospect of having to face a gloating Simone and an Order meeting (which probably meant more death and destruction) all in one day, Lily got into her hot shower hoping that the day wouldn't be as bad as she thought.