Lisa: I am so ready to see OotP, and I am even more ready to read DH. I am so ready I'm writing HP fics like THAT!

Heather: I know...

Lisa: But anyway I must say, whew, I did not get as many flames as I was expecting jeez, but then again I'm typin' this like two or three days after I posted the chap.

Heather: I'm sad! You killed me!

Lisa: (shrug)

Heather: Whore.

Lisa: Slut.

Heather: Bitch.

Lisa: Sentimental Polyester Monkey.

Heather: ...

Lisa: ... yeah... you know what I'm sayin'...

What's Real Anymore?

James couldn't feel much, but he knew he was lying in a soft bed. He heard voices around him they were female and they all sounded worried. Who were they though? Was it Lily or Laura? It couldn't be Andy or Heather they... they were... he couldn't bring himself to think it. He wanted to open his eyes and see who these people were but he felt too tired and weak, like he as hit by one thousand bricks but then again he probably was. So he just listened as closely to the conversation as he could.

"Do you think he's going to be okay?" Asked the first woman, she sounded on the verge of tears.

"I'm sure he'll be fine, he pulls though, he always does." Said the second girl in a comforting tone, he heard footsteps accompanied with the talking, they sounded like they were coming closer.

The first girl began crying and he heard another set of footprints walk over. "Oh c'mon, it'll be fine, he ain't one to give up, you know that." Said a third.

"Merlin, look at me, here I am crying my eyes out when the guys are just as bad." She said sniffing.

"No, they're fine." A door closed and another girl walked in. "Peter's up and walking around he just had a few scratches, Sirius is up and so is Remus, they woke up just a few minutes ago. Both stable they're going to get moved into this room ASAP. But I'm kind of worried about you guys though. How'd you get out of your bed? You shouldn't be allowed to yet."

"Snuck out," said a voice that James placed as the second girl. "Besides I'm fine, my arms are the ones hurt not my legs."

"You should be sleeping though." Said the first.

"Like you shouldn't, your beds even in the room now get in it!" The girl that just walked in said.

"Laura's right, Lils, ya got pretty banged up." Said the third, James could place the voice but it couldn't be...

"But what about you?"

"What about me? I'm fine. Hit to the head that's it." The third said.

"Come on Andy... you know its worse then that." The second said.

"Shut up, Heather..."

James then lost his consciousness once again and fell into the oblivion of blackness. When he gained his consciousness once more things were different there were no girls talking around his bed. There was only silence which gave him no reason to open his eyes again until a soft rustle was heard next to his bed. He opened his eyes slowly letting them adjust to the sunned light before turning his head to find a familiar black haired boy next to him.

"Sirius?" He asked in a voice he hardly recognized as his own.

Sirius turned his head around and gave him a weak smile, his dark eyes were dull and his face was covered in bruises. "Hey, Prongs, you woke up finally." He joked but James could tell his heart was not in it.

"So, where's Remus, Pads? I thought you guys were both coming in here." He said referring to the eaves dropping he did earlier.

"What? No, Remus is in another care unit for constant watch... He's not doing so hot." Sirius replied sadly.

"I thought he just woke up..."

"No... He's bad; they say he might not make it, the gash on his stomach was worse then we thought..."

James then took a deep breath as he realized what happened before must have just been a dream. "So then the girls really are..." He couldn't say it.

"Yeah, they are James." Sirius said hardly above a whisper, he took a deep breath and looked down, reaching up to rub his head he watched out of his eye regret wash over James's face. "Hey, mate, you didn't do anything, it wasn't your fault, you know that right?" He asked looking back up trying to gain his composure.

"I know... they told me."

"What?"

"Nothing, so where're Lily and Laura?"

"Lily is sleeping in her room with Laura, I'm supposed to wake her the second you get up but I can't exactly get up at the moment." Sirius managed another soft humorless chuckle.

"Why? You're legs broken or something? Can't they heal that real fast?" James asked.

"N – no, James... You, you know what happened. When you were awake you saw them explain it to me." Sirius stuttered confused.

"Explain it again please."

"When we were fighting I was hit by a curse, it damaged my legs. When we reached St. Mungos yesterday the curse started to take effect, it was cast wrong so it took longer to work. But my legs... James... they got infected too quickly before they knew what was wrong... I collapsed when I was standing in the waiting room they rushed me too a room but it was too late... James they amputated them... there was nothing they could do before it spread to my whole body, and it would have within minutes... there is no spell that could fix it before it spread..." Sirius said looking down.

James was shocked he looked down and saw that indeed where Sirius's legs should have been there was a flat bed. "Oh my God... Oh man, Sirius I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Sirius said flatly. "Wasn't your fault."

"So... Did... did anyone else... ya know... d – die?"

"A few other order members yeah, and a good group of muggles."

James buried his head in his pulled up knees, how could all this be happening. Less then three days ago they were all having fun and they were all together and in one horrible night it was all taken away. Andy and Heather were dead, Remus was pretty much on his death bed, Sirius lost his legs and the rest he had no idea...

"How could this be happening?" he said.

"Dumbledore said it was the biggest attack he had ever seen by Voldemort. More death eaters arrived then we thought; there was no way of knowing what could have happened." Sirius said looking down at the place starting a little above the knees where his legs should be.

"I want to see everybody." James said sadly.

"Sorry, not gonna happen for at least another day." Sirius said. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm pumped full of all sorts of potions, I need some shut eye. Sorry to go to sleep so soon."

"Don't be, go and sleep. You need a break."

"Thanks mate." Sirius breathed right before he shut his eyes and he was sleeping peacefully.

James watched him as he slept for a couple minutes before he looked back up and almost yelled as he saw the two familiar figures floating above him. "Jeez! Don't scare me like that! I could have woken Sirius up."

"Ha, please, he's out cold." Heather said smirking.

"Why are you here?" James asked desperately.

"To haunt your ass." Andy said still sitting with her legs folded.

"How come you're not coming when Sirius is up, I'm sure he'd love to see you." James said rubbing his head which was beginning to hurt.

"Because Sirius isn't going crazy, you are! You're mad as a hatter now!" Andy replied brightly.

"Besides, Sirius is good or you know, as good as he could possibly get at the moment being kind of missing legs and all but you're not doing so hot." Heather said, "And we're a little worried."

"I'm fine, why are you two so convinced I'm not? Look, you could be doing so many better things, Andy you could be with Remus now, Heather you could haunt some old Victorian house with little children in it and scare the crap out of them." He said.

"Oh I am, that's on my list to do after this." She said.

"And James I hate to say it but I won't have to go and visit Remus, not only is he unconscious, but I'll be seeing him up here real soon." Andy said looking down and playing with her pants.

"No, no he's not gonna... no." James said feeling the tears start to come again. "He's survived worse; he can't go, not yet."

"I'm sorry, James, but he's not doing well. As much as I wish for him to live out his life and be happy…he can't, he's going to die." Andy said her voice getting low and rough.

"This isn't happening." James said and put his head down again.

"I know it's hard but James, you can live through this. You can't give up." Heather said.

"So that's why you're here? To tell me not to give up when all is lost?"

"Pretty much." Heather replied leaning back into the air.

James silently started to cry as he kept his head in his knees and the two girls exchanged looks. They wished they could go over and touch him, comfort him but not being corporeal had disadvantages. They exchanged looks one last time before fading away into nothing as James kept his head down and eyes closed.

When he was done he looked up and saw that they were gone, he silently cursed to himself. Pushing the blankets away he swung his legs out of the bed. Why was it that everyone seemed to be injured but him? He seemed fine, except for a pounding headache.

His bare feet hit the cold hard white floor of the hospital room and he forced himself up, making muscles work that were far form ready yet. He moaned as he pushed himself up and began walking out of the room. He pushed the door open and ignored all the medi-witches and wizards as they rushed past him to care for other patients.

He had no idea where anyone was so he grabbed the arm of a passing wizard in scrubs. "Excuse me, could you tell me the rooms of Lily Evans or Remus Lupin? Peter Pettigrew, maybe? Or Laura Avalon?"

"I'm sorry, Sir, I can't tell you that informa –"

"My name is James Potter, I came in with them. See?" James said holding up his wrist to show the man his hospital bracelet with his name on it.

"Mr. Potter, I don't think you should be out of bed."

"Well I'm not going back until I see my friends, now what rooms are they in?"

The man sighed. "They could fire me if they knew I told you this but, Ms. Evans is in room 267 with Ms. Avalon, Mr. Pettigrew is next door in room 268 and Mr. Lupin is one floor up in room 309."

"Thank you, really." James said and rushed past him looking at the room numbers. He passed room after room, why did they have to spread them all so far apart? 265, 266... Finally 267. He looked through the small window and then opened the door slowly and quietly. He looked down at the two girls and bit his bottom lip.

Lily had a bandage around her head and one around her arm. That was the extent of the damage he saw on her physically. Laura had a couple small cuts on her face, her leg was elevated and her eye was black and blue, they didn't look too bad. Probably just sleeping off some potions at the moment. He didn't want to disturb them so he bent down over Lily and lightly gave her a kiss before whispering 'I love you' and leaving the room shutting the door behind him quietly.

He walked to the next room where Peter was and looked inside, he appeared to be awake. James opened the door, and got a better look at him. He was playing with the fraying edge of the starched white sheet on his bed. One hand, James noticed was heavily bandaged and so was part of that arm.

"Peter?" He asked quietly not to startle the young man in the bed.

"James! How are you? Is Sirius alright? Do you know where Remus is? Or what about the girls are they okay? They won't tell me anything!" Peter exclaimed sitting up in the bed.

"Whoa, whoa slow down, Wormtail. I'm fine, Sirius on the other hand... he uh, he lost both his legs..." James said and Peter gasped but before he could say anything back James continued on. "I just saw Lily and Laura... they're sleeping so I wasn't able to talk to them about... you know... about... it." James said whipping his eyes as he felt tears well up in them.

Peter looked down. "I can't believe it... I just can't, of all of us... them? I could expect them... last... you know?" He asked.

"I know what you mean, Pete. You kinda get that invincible feeling, they can't die, we can't die, we're too young... it doesn't happen to people like us." James said sitting down on the chair next to the bed.

"But it does, we put ourselves out there to try and help other people but... we should have expected deaths... we should have expected someone had a chance of dying..."

"We did help, we saved that whole town, a lot of them may have died but we saved several dozen of them. They died for a good reason..." James looked up as tears started falling down his cheeks. "Oh man... this isn't happening."

"But it is... and I don't know how to deal." Peter said.

"Me neither." James said and the two old friends sat in silence for the remainder of James's visit before he said he had to go find Remus before they found out he was missing fro his room and came looking for them.

"Bye James." Peter said as James started to leave. "If he's conscious give him my best."

"I will." James said and started to leave. He was pretty sure that Remus wouldn't be conscious though.

He walked over to the elevator and pushed the button, it opened right away and he met with a healer. Luckily it wasn't one assigned to James so he didn't know him and make him go back to his room. James walked past the healer as he entered the elevator and pushed the button for one floor up. It took only seconds to arrive there before the doors opened, only visitors were walking in.

The first room he saw was room 190, so he wasn't too far away. He walked down the hall and saw the sign that said room's 300 – 320 with an arrow pointing down another hall. He walked won it and watched as the numbers next to the doors rose.

306

307

308

310

Wait... James turned around and saw as the rooms skipped number 309, it just had to be his friends room didn't it? He looked around and walked down the hall further, but he could find it, he went back and looked around some more, he finally found it on the opposite side of the hall. Now, why was it there? That didn't make sense. He walked over to it and looked in, no healers, thank Merlin.

He reached down for the knob and opened it slowly, he took an intake of breath as he saw his friend. He was lying on the bed. No visible injuries he guess that the gash on his stomach was being covered by the blanket, the worst he saw was a few bruises on his face.

James walked over and sat down on the chair, Remus looked terrible. He had dark circles under his eyes, not only from a bruise, his face was pale and he was sweating. His breathing was sharp and short, James looked around, Remus was not in a good room, it was of course up to standards but it wasn't nearly as good as his room, or the girls or Peters. James had a sinking feeling why, they must have known Remus was a werewolf.

He cursed under his breath at the prejudices people held toward them. It wasn't there fault; they didn't ask for it, they weren't bad people! Well some were but they couldn't generalize a while group of people for the acts of one person!

"James..." Said a weak voice and he looked down to see Remus lying there.

"Remus, your up, you shouldn't be, why are you up?" James asked frantically.

Remus smiled slightly but kept his eyes closed and took a deep breath before he spoke. "It was always hard to sleep with you stomping around, even in school. I remember when you had the invisibility cloak on you'd scare the crap outta me... thought we had our own ghost in the dorm." He said in a hoarse, slow voice.

"You can't be up; you should be sleeping, resting so you can get all better." James said.

"James, you know as well as I... I'm not getting better; lucky for me I have a very rude and blunt healer. He made it clear he doesn't give two shits about me..." Remus sighed leaning his head to the side.

"Why, because of what you..." Remus nodded slightly. "How did they find out?"

"It's on my record, Prongs, and besides with my body being weak and all... I'm sure you noticed..."

James furrowed his brow and then it clicked, he had always been so used to looking past Remus when he got a little wolfy he never noticed that now his canines were sharper and when he cracked open his eyes they were yellow and animalistic.

"Kinda scares people..." Remus sighed and he closed his eyes again.

"But no... no, Moony... you're gonna pull through, you can't die on me." James said feeling himself start to cry again.

"Oh James, what kind of life could I live anyway? I'm a werewolf; I've been fired and out of work my whole life... I've always been scared and desperate for everything... "

"No, Remus shut the hell up right now, so what? You've just got a little furry problem, that's all, no big deal."

Remus laughed dryly. "I know, James, I know..."

"So do you want to know about everyone else...?"

"What's the point? James, I'm dying, I'm on my bloody death bed... I won't make it... and when I die I'll know how everyone is and I'll be with Andy forever and it'll all be fine." Remus smiled weakly.

"Is that why you want to die? To see Andy?"

"I don't want to die, James, but I do want to see her... I love her Prongs, as much as you love Lily... and I don't think I could live a life without her." He said.

"She loves you too, you know."

"I know she does," Remus said. "And I can't wait to see her again, I'll bet her and Heather are playing poker in heaven and drinking beer."

"Is that allowed in heaven?"

"Probably not but they'll find a way to sneak it in."

James smiled just as the door opened and a man walked in, he looked gruff and did not have a clean shave. "What are you doing in here?" he asked harshly.

"I'm visiting, Remus." James said smugly.

"Why?" The man asked pushing James out of the way so he could check on Remus, James assumed this must have been the healer assigned to Remus.

"Because he's my friend and I have to make sure he's okay."

The man scoffed and turned around to face James. "Go back to your room, boy, you don't look like you should be up and I don't need two deaths on my shoulders."

James knew there was nothing he could do and he didn't want to cause a scene in Remus's room. "Okay... bye Remus... get better."

Remus smirked and cracked his eyes open revealing the yellow shinning eyes. "You know I won't, Prongs, goodbye." He breathed.

James nodded his bottom lip quivering and his vision blurring. "Yeah..."

"Don't cry James this isn't a final goodbye, now go see Lily, I'm sure she misses you."

"I will... I love you, Moony." James said as he opened the door behind his back.

"I love you too, Prongs, see you soon." Remus said closing his eyes.

James left the room at that moment and leaning his back up against it feeling hot tears run down his cheeks. He cried all the way back to his room, he didn't even bother stopping by to see Laura or Lily, he could let them see him like this. When he walked in the room he saw Sirius was still sleeping peacefully, when he looked down to his friends legs he started to cry harder. Noting was going right. This should be the best time of their lives and now it just all around sucked.

He cried himself to sleep that night that was when it happened again. He was sleeping in his bed when he heard voices, he couldn't open his yes, couldn't move at all, so he just listened. They weren't all girl voices this time.

"Not awake yet?" Asked a voice walking into the room that James recognized right away as Sirius, but wait the voice was accompanied by footsteps, which meant he was walking in.

"No, not yet, the healers are getting worried too." Said another male voice which was defiantly Remus, how could he be up? He could hardly open his eyes last time James saw him so he couldn't possibly be up walking around. "They said he should be up by now. How's Lily fairing?"

"We sent her home, said we'd keep and eye on him tonight, she's gotten zero sleep since the battle, same with Mrs. Potter we sent her back to the hotel, Mr. Potter's in the cafeteria getting some coffee though." A woman said which sounded like Laura.

"How's your stomach, Rem? You just get released?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah, just a few minutes ago, ya know some of the people in this hospital can be real pricks." Remus complained.

"They bugged ya 'bout Mr. Glowly eyes?" An accented voice that could only belong to Andy said.

"And Mr. Pointy teeth and nails." Remus confirmed.

"Aw, s'okay they bugged me too." Andy said. "Since all my wounds were minor I only got minor wolfy."

"Yeah well I got full blown wolfy." Remus said.

"Well now you're out and fine, no more hospital pricks to bug you anymore." Another girl that sounded like Heather said. "How about you, Sirius?"

"Legs are still sore, healer said they'd get better in a couple days but in the mean time I have to walk around on these stupid muggle things. I look like an idiot." Sirius said.

"Crutches." He heard Laura inform.

"Sirius, you don't need the crutches to look like an idiot." Heather said and the dream sequence faded away into sleep.

Watching James rest peacefully were two transparent spirits, or ghosts or which ever you preferred to call them. They both had sad expressions as they realized the extent of Sirius's injury and the toll everything was having on James. They had just saw Lily and Laura, both were up and talking, both teary eyed about all that was happening. It bought down the moods of the two perky ghosts exponentially. Then they visited Peter, he was awake but he couldn't see them, and finally Remus. They only stayed for a moment, they both knew what would happen.

The two girls gave one another looks before turning their heads back down and looking at the sad sight before them. Something caught Heather's eye and she looked up, Andy still had hers down. Heather nudged her arm and she looked up as well.

Andy gave a small, sad smile. "Hey, baby." She said and floated over to the figure that just entered, through the wall.

"Hello, love." Said a familiar tawny haired man who ran his hand through his hair out of old habit.

Lisa: Whoa this was long, but it was good. I'm assuming...

Heather: It was.

Lisa: Well of course you have to say that.

Heather: No, I could be mean.

Lisa: No, you can't... you wouldn't let yourself. But anyway, c'mon guys review. I know you read it; I see the hits for this story and its pretty darn good so c'mon send the reviews in.