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

Notes: This is not my favorite chapter but it's so hard for me to write an ending that I think I'll be happy with. This is the closest that I could come. I'm sorry it took so long to get it out.

Chapter Eleven: The End
Also Known As: Both Alike In Dignity

How long had it been? Weeks? Months? A year? The latter seemed impossible but perhaps time between dimensions didn't matter. Lily was terrified to open her eyes and see where her body lay. Would she still be between the stone slabs of the tomb, would she find herself in Juliet's bed or would it be somewhere else entirely? She wiggled a little in her spot, clamping her eyes tightly shut. It certainly wasn't stone beneath her.

Bracing herself for her own personal unveiling she allowed one eye to flutter open, followed by the other. Her eyes adjusted to the light filtering in through the windows and she slowly sat up in bed, recognizing this place immediately. It was neither the Capulet home nor her own bed in Gryffindor tower. It was the hospital wing.

Her hand darted to her head to check for bandages, a fever or some sort of wound but she found nothing. She looked down at her own body and checked for all of the customary appendages. All ten fingers, all ten toes, two arms, two legs. They were all accounted for. She had a head, two eyes, a nose and lips. Lips that at the brush of her fingers recalled exactly what she had been missing during her slumber and her fears.

James.

She looked around the hospital wing for another body lying beneath the sheets of a bed and to her dismay, found nothing. She was about to give up hope completely, succumbing to the panic that threatened to hit her when she spotted a bed at the far side of the wing whose curtains were drawn. Maybe James had come back after all.

She rose from the bed, abandoning the starched sheets and placing her feet on the cold tiles. She let out a hiss of discomfort and tried to dart across the stone floors before the coldness could seep too deeply into her skin but it was like her feet had forgotten how to walk. She stumbled with her first couple of steps, gripping on to the footrest of the nearest bed so she wouldn't loose her ground. Perhaps she had been lying here longer than she initially thought.

Discovering the pattern of one foot followed by the other, she managed to make it across the room in a hurried pace, racing against the cold that had now reached her arms, drawing out goose pimples across her pale skin. She slowly pulled back the curtains on the bed, careful not to disturb the boy sleeping inside. At least, she assumed he would be sleeping.

She was right.

His glasses were on the bedside table and his hair was just as much of a mess as it had ever been. He didn't appear to have gone through any life changing torment in her absence in Verona. She watched him sleep for a few minutes, content with the fact that they were both safe and both home. He shifted in his sleep, turning away from her gaze subserviently.

His body appeared not to have found comfort in his new position as he shifted back to his original position before abandoning it all together and allowing a large sigh to pass his lips. Lily smiled at how fidgety he was, even in his sleep. His eyes opened slowly, in the same manner as her own had. He looked around for the source of his discomfort and spotted a blurred mess of red amidst the otherwise white room.

She handed him his glasses and once they were back in their familiar place resting on top of the bridge of his nose, James could identify the red blob with much certainty. At first he thought that perhaps it was someone else with that unique color of hair, or even someone with a grossly colored outfit, but he had hoped that it would be Lily, and now that he realized that she was sitting in front of him he wanted nothing more than to fling himself out of the hospital bed and wrap his limbs around her body.

"You're not dead," he pointed out needlessly.

Lily shook her head, "No such luck, Potter."

He frowned at the use of his surname but at the appearance of a smile tugging at her lips he found himself unable to believe that she had forgotten everything. He certainly hadn't.

"So, do you…" she trailed off for a second, fearing that she'd just sound ridiculous, "You remember everything, don't you?"

He grinned happily at her question before nodding his head slowly, "Everything."

"How long have we been gone, do you think?"

"I don't know," James shrugged. "A couple of days? A week at the most." But in all honesty, he didn't know. Time had escaped them both. For all they knew the rest of their class could have already graduated and they were lingering behind like a pair of forgotten socks.

Lily could only nod at his estimate of time, feeling now as though she wanted to be captured within his arms feeling what it would be like to be blanketed around him once more. She hadn't been able to feel that since they had left that Shakespearian hellhole and she wondered if things would be the same here or if things would go back to the way that they were before. She didn't think that she could handle that -- no, she knew that she couldn't, it would crush her, partly because, until now, she hadn't realized how vital James Potter was to her happiness. She hated saying that, it was utterly absurd, but she couldn't help but think it. Thinking a thought couldn't possibly be harmful.

But she was wrong, as always it seemed.

"What are you thinking?" The soft tones of James's voice asked, breaking the fragile barriers of her thoughts.

"Nothing," she said automatically, shaking her head also softly. It didn't seem like the time to speak or even think above a whisper. Perhaps that had a lot to do with the fact that they were in the hospital wing still.

"How can you think about nothing?" He asked in response and Lily had to admit that the boy made a strong argument, but she wasn't up to the battle.

"I was thinking about what happened." She justified as though she had answered that simply before. "And wondering if things have changed." By not giving specifics she hoped that he would be able to understand what she was talking about without her having to say it. Somehow she didn't think the words 'Are we allowed to snog now?' would go over fantastically well. Actually, she knew they would, but she wasn't in the mood for raucous yelling.

"Probably not," James told her simply. "It's only been a week. We probably just have some notes and gossip to catch up on or something." He didn't seem to want to bring up their relationship now either.

Was it even a relationship? They were both starting to hope so.

"Right," she nodded, the red of her hair startling against the crisp whiteness of the hospital gown. "But…" she trailed off, unable to bring herself to say the words.

"But?" he prompted.

"What about the other things? What about… you and I?" It was the most painful sentence she had ever had to utter.

James grinned broadly and she wished she could take back her questioning just to wipe the smirk off of his face. "Well, I believe that after that whole romance thing we had to go through, there's nothing more to do than see if romantic tragedies can exist at Hogwarts."

"Tragedy?" She questioned, offence lining her tone. If she knew where her wand was she probably would have pulled it out and used it to forcefully poke him, or hex him, or something.

"Lily, it's you and I, there's bound to be bloodshed at some point." And once more, he made a good point.

Their fights was something that she had grown to, dare she think it, love about him. It was so much easier to feel comfortable with him knowing that things hadn't changed. She still had ample amounts of ammunition to throw at him when he decided to be a pompous prat and he could still call her a wet blanket. But as long as they were fighting, there showed that there was still enough passion between them for their relationship to thrive.

It was absolutely ridiculous and hardly made any sense, but Lily loved it.

"So… I guess this means that I'll go out with you."

Those words were the ones that James had been waiting for since he was fifteen years old and hearing them now was better than he could have expected. He leaned over and caught her lips in his own softly, feeling that nothing between them had changed since that night that they had poured themselves over ancient books and dozens of leaves. Sceneries may have changed, circumstances may have changed, but they hadn't.

Just as they had broken apart, the door to the hospital wing was thrust open. The school mediwitch walked in at her rather curt pace with Dumbledore trailing not too far behind her. She smiled at the two teenagers as a way of letting them know not only that they were completely busted for kissing, but also that she was glad to see them both awake. It was sort of hard to interpret things that different, however.

"Mr. Potter, Miss Evans, I'm pleased to see that you're both fully conscious." Dumbledore said, smiling at the pair in the same manner as the mediwitch which caused Lily's cheeks to flush red.

"Thank you, sir." James replied almost smugly.

"Now, could one of you please explain to me what happened in the common room this evening?" The elder man's words caused Lily's attention to snap to the boy beside her.

"This evening?" She questioned curiously. Had it just been hours that they had been gone from school while it had been days in Verona?

"Yes, in the common room. Your friends said that Mr. Potter and yourself got into yet another heated argument, some spells were thrown and both of you were knocked out onto the floor." Dumbledore seemed to think nothing of the fact that both of the teenagers were looking at him as though he had missed a punch line to a joke.

"Yes, that's true." James agreed with him. "Except for that last part –" He would have gone on to explain but Lily dug her knee rather forcefully into the side of his leg.

"It was just me throwing the spells, sir. Thankfully a book deflected my hex from hitting James, otherwise things would have been a lot worse, I'm sure." Lily didn't think that it was necessary to tell the Headmaster all of their exploits inside of a play. It was hard for her to digest and she had been there.

"Much worse indeed. We moved you both to the hospital wing because we weren't sure when you would awake and we couldn't be sure of the damage done to your bodies until then. You both appear to be fine, however, so you mustn't worry. That must have been some book, Miss Evans."

Lily nodded once more, "Some book indeed."

The Headmaster smiled once again and nodded. "You are both free to go. Goodnight Miss Evans, Mr. Potter." He walked away from the two, stopping when he reached the heavy wooden doors. "And if you're curious to know, I much prefer this version of the story."

Before either Lily or James could ask what he meant, the man was gone and James began to laugh.

"I don't know how he always seems to know everything." There was a slight rueful tone to James's voice and Lily was certain that he was somehow alluding to the many detentions that he had been handed during his course of schooling here.

"I have to agree though," Lily interjected. "I like this version of the story better too."

"Me too," a smile crossed his lips as he kissed Lily once more. "Two households in Verona… Both alike in dignity." He muttered softly in between kisses.