BOTH ALIKE IN DIGNITY
By: geekinthepink
Rating: T
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing; everything you recognize belongs to either JK Rowling or William Shakespeare.

Really, I'm not funny. Lily comes off as slightly humorous but of course, that's in my opinion so if you think she sounds completely mad and all together off her rocker. That's my fault, and I am sincerely sorry.

Chapter Nine: Act Three – Scene Five through Act Four – Scene One
Also Known As: Lily goes slightly mad as she might care for James and find Paris disgusting

The sunlight filtered in through the windows, much in the same way that it had just days ago when Lily found herself in this strange Shakespearian world. The sudden light in the darkness that had so long encompassed her here was lifted by the bright morning sun and the clutches of sleep escaped her grasp. James, however, appeared to be unfazed as he slumbered on.

In the course of night, his arm had somehow wound itself around Lily's waist and she lay with her head resting atop his shoulder. Having him so close was comforting and yet she had to fight off the automated urge to bolt from the sheets and disinfect herself. In the past couple of days James Potter became someone that she didn't recognize. No, that was a lie. She knew who he had become. He had become his character, he had become Romeo. He was selfless and kind and everything that she had come to respect. Her only fear was that once they returned to their normal lives that this fantasy would end as well.

She could hear his heartbeat in his chest, a steady melody that soothed the leftover worries of their trip home. She brought her hand to his chest to feel the rhythm of his heart in her hand, to be sure that this wasn't some sort of sick illusion that too much Italian sun had brought upon. He stirred from her touch, obviously not as deeply asleep as she had thought. He squinted at the sunlight fanning across the room and reached to the bedside table for his glasses, something she hadn't noticed that he was without.

He smiled down at her, hardly believing this himself before a frown touched his lips. The memory of yesterday's actions and misfortunes resounded and he wished that sleep would have just enveloped him forever.

Lily noted the frown and remained impassive, "Are you leaving then?"

"I have to, don't I? If I stay we won't get another batch of the potion and I could potentially be killed." The latter was said so nonchalantly that a laugh emitted from Lily's lips. He smiled at her again and smoothed her hair away from her face. She was slightly bothered by the action but said nothing to stop him from doing it again if he wished.

"You don't have to go yet." She amended. "There is still some time before anyone would come looking for me. And besides, we haven't worked out a plan. The end of the play is coming so quickly." Which, for them, meant death if they couldn't get home fast enough. Lily had begun to realize that even the addition of a potion to the story hadn't changed the play. She and James still had to fear for their lives.

A coy grin crossed James's features at her words. "Let me be killed then, I will gladly stay here forever." Or for however long forever turned out to be. It could be mere moments before everything was thrown into action. "Let's plan then, figure out what we're supposed to do."

Lily moved off of his chest and propped herself up on her elbow as her previous stance had proven to be too awkward for conversation. "Obviously we need to restore our supply of the potion. In the mean time, I suppose we just need to follow whatever comes in the play. I can get the potion from Friar Lawrence instead of the sleeping draft, take it and then you can follow me. That's really the best that I can come up with." She told him.

James nodded his agreement, "I suppose that's our best bet."

"I almost wish we didn't have to leave," she admitted to him. "The plotline and everything that we're stuck in is heading in a bad direction, but it's been almost fun."

James had no choice but to stare blankly at her. "Fun?" His questioning tone was really asking her if she was absolutely mad. "Which part was fun? The murder? The potion making? The potion dropping?"

"I get the point, James. You weren't having the time of your life but you have to admit, you're not going to forget this." She knew that she wouldn't be able to rid of these memories for a long while.

"No, that's for certain. I'm definitely going to remember some things." A smile crossed his lips as he recalled not one, but a pair of kisses delivered to him by Lily Evans. If this adventure had given him nothing more than that exchange, then the chance of having to risk his life later was well worth it.

She shook her head, inwardly congratulating him on making this a very awkward moment. A knock sounded at the door and without waiting for Lily to admit her, Nurse bustled into the room with a curt greeting.

"Your mother is coming to your bedroom." She announced, eyeing James. It was no surprise to her that he was in her charge's room; after all she was still certain that they were in love. "Be careful," she warned cheekily before making a swift exit.

"That woman really disturbs me." James announced once she had left.

"You have no idea." Lily agreed, getting up from the bed hesitantly. It was always a chore to rise from the comfortable sheets of any bed, but especially this one. For more reasons than she was ever willing to admit.

"So I guess I'll see you later?" James asked, following her lead and rising from the bed. Lily nodded and he crossed back to the balcony. He looked below where the ivy was decorating the house and providing makeshift ladders for him to use. He shook his head, cursing Mr. William Shakespeare for not living in a time where actual ladders or brooms were commonly used in plays.

He began his decent down the ivy trellis before Lily hurried over to the balcony. "I'll try and find some way to let you know that I have the potion and that things are on course. I'll leave a note or something with Friar Lawrence." She was determined to make sure that everything worked out for them; she didn't know how much longer they could stretch out the plotline until Shakespeare took over and plunged a dagger through her heart.

"Don't worry so much, everything will work out." He nodded, which was one of the few movements he wasn't terrified to make while clinging on to a plant. "Farewell my lady," he called out to her in a typical overdramatic scene. "We will meet again."

"Oh will we?" she questioned him. "Is that a threat?" She couldn't help but tease him, though sans the venom usually tainting her words. There hadn't been much venom in their conversations in a while.

"Of course. I have no doubts that we will meet again. Preferably at school and with many stories to tell our disbelieving friends." A good point, actually, how would you describe to your friends an adventure in which you crossed dimensions? Let alone an adventure where you lived out a play of all things.

"Will you just leave already?" she questioned him exasperatedly. "You are far too dramatic for your own good." And like the cheeky person he was, he merely smiled and descended the makeshift ladder. By time he had reached the ground Lily had already ducked back into her room, the unfamiliar sound of Lady Capulet calling to her ringing in her ears.

Lady Capulet entered the room in the same manner Nurse had, unannounced and quite unwelcome. "What is going on, Juliet?" Suspicion clouded her features but Lily knew that the woman could not be, and wasn't, that smart.

"I'm not feeling too well." She lied.

"Will you mourn Tybalt forever? Are you trying to wash him out of his grave with your tears, child? Stop the incessant river of tears, you look foolish." She hardly noticed that Lily's face was not in the slightest tearstained.

"You must let me continue to weep for such a great loss." Perhaps it wasn't right to press the woman's buttons, but as far as Lily knew she would never see her again and it was far too hard not to press just one little button.

"You're not weeping for his death but for the fact that the villain who murdered him is still alive." The commanding mother figure replied. It was apparent that she was harnessing her own bitterness towards Tybalt's death.

"What villain, Madam?" It was too easy; James was no longer the villain in her opinion. At least not in this case.

"Romeo. But do not worry, Juliet. We will have vengeance for it, if I have to send someone to Mantua to poison him I will." Lily chose not to respond to a useless empty threat. The woman would do no such thing, and even on the off chance she did, James would be so far gone that it would all be for naught. "Ah, but Juliet, your father had chosen to end your sadness if no one else's. At Saint Peter's Church early Thursday morning you will become Paris's bride."

The refusal that Juliet would have sprouted out was hesitant on Lily's lips. The news was no surprise to her and she knew that she would not be around long enough for the nuptials to occur. Her mind had begun to wander, to map out her steps in fulfilling her plans when Juliet's father entered the scene. He spouted some lines about the sun and the rain and how such things would never again grace the life of Tybalt and Lily didn't care. She wanted nothing more than to hold the vial of potion in her hand and pour it down her throat.

She could see now why James had disagreed with her wish to stay here a little longer. These people just didn't compare with her family, her friends or even her teachers. Perhaps it was the sudden lack of James for company that had made her long for home.

Somehow Lily had managed to miss the fight between Lady Capulet and her husband in which it was decided that she would marry Paris on Thursday, whether she liked it or not. They had left her with Nurse in the room and they had both fallen silent, neither one of them willing to talk about what was on their mind. It wasn't until Lily was dragged from her room and to Friar Lawrence's. It was a place that she had become increasingly familiar with and incredibly fond of. However, it was present company she wished to change as Paris proved to be a complete snot.

"It is very nice to meet you, my lady and my wife." Paris said. He kept saying it, actually. It was like a broken record that played the same obnoxious line over and over until it cracked.

"That may be, sir, but only after we are married." Pleasantries were forced between the pair and Lily itched to hex the boy, to ruin whatever good looks he felt he had.

"And we shall be come Thursday." And phrases such as that caused the redhead to want to hex him in ways that she had learned from James. Painful and disgusting ways that she wished she didn't know but was secretly thankful for. "Have you come to make confession?" he inquired, though they both knew that the question was unnecessary. It wasn't by chance that she was here; she was sent to accidentally come upon her "future husband".

"If I answered that question I would be making confession to you instead of him, would I?" Wit and cleverness beat prissy boys named Paris any day.

"Do not be ashamed to confess that you love me." Oh for Merlin's sake.

"I will confess to you that I love him." The retort was so open ended that Lily couldn't be certain of whom she was speaking of. Was it Friar Lawrence? Merlin himself? James?

"You will also confess that you love me." He was a persistent little bugger; Lily had to give him that.

"If I do, I am certain that it will mean much more if I say it behind your back than to your face." After all, she added inwardly, your pretty little face would be tarnished with the venom of my words. "Do you have time to speak to me now Father, or shall I come at evening mass?" Of course he had time for her, the question was whether or not he had enough potion left to return James and herself to their own lives.

The friar obviously had gotten the hint as he nodded and informed her that he had all the time in the day if she needed it and then proceeded to ask Paris to leave. The latter being of utmost importance as one more remark from him was sure to send Lily past the point of no return. He was pretentious and she couldn't stand it. It was her pet peeve, and something oddly reminiscent of a James Potter that had disintegrated in Shakespearian Italy.

"I have made a mess of things," she admitted to Friar Lawrence. With a complete disregard for details involving the actions which led up to her dropping the vial of potion, she explained the situation she found herself in.

"And now this marriage to Paris arrives." He was filling in the blanks of her story though his remark was open-ended enough to allude to the mere action and not whatever emotion had been forged between herself and her dimension traveling companion. It was something that he had assumed would come and the older man was pleased to see that it had.

"Do you have any potion left?" She inquired. For all she knew he could have gotten rid of it, afraid that the mark of a witch would scar his name in the church despite how crooked he already appeared.

"Yes, but only a little. I feared that something like this would happen." He left her side and turned to a desk off in the corner of the room. With a large key kept on a cord around his neck he was able to unlock one of the drawers and retrieve a small vial. Had Lily not known that it would only take a drop to work she would have thought it impossible to return herself and James to their homes.

"Don't talk about fear," she nearly pleaded, butterflies fluttering rapidly in her stomach. She felt as though bile would rise up into her throat and taint her senses at any moment. Now that the time had come, the time to either face death or return to a life she loved, she felt everything had finally caught up with her and she hated the feeling.

She took the vial from him, examining the familiar liquid. This was their last chance; there would be no more do overs. If it didn't work, then they were stuck here. Lily would become Juliet Capulet and marry Paris and James would forever be banished to a completely different city. That fact nearly broke her heart. She had become attached to him and couldn't imagine having to go on in a world where being with him would have her banished, or killed. It was too ironic, really.

"I need to send a letter to James, but I can't just give it to him myself. Is there anyway that you can get it to him?" To Lily the next part of the play must have become a blur as she sincerely thought that Friar Lawrence would be able to deliver the letter to him.

"I can send a friar to him." He told her. Lily took a sheet of parchment off of the man's desk and a quill as well before sitting down to pen her letter. Never in her life had she thought that she would be writing to James, and never did she think that she would be concerned about him.

It was a completely different world here.