Chapter 5: In Which Ally Wants Some Sleep

Five days later, the group was no closer to getting back to Hogwarts then we were on Day 1. Lily and Remus were having a breakdown because they were missing so many classes right before N.E.W.T.s (Lily was considerably worse then Remus), James and Sirius were constantly either sugar high or drunk (Personally, I couldn't decide which was worse), and Peter…well, Peter was just being Peter, and either trying to inhale Sugar Quills and Chocolate Frogs like James and Sirius, or trying to practice spells on trees whilst muttering definitions under his breath like Lily and Remus.

I thought he was terrible at both, so I didn't really see any point in him trying so hard.

And me? Well, as the 'designated leader,' which I had recently re-titled 'the Devil's Job,' I had been hiding wands, Firewhiskey, and Sugar Quills constantly. Unfortunately, there were only so many places one could hide these objects in case the Forest shifted again, so the morons kept on finding their hidden things.

Damn it all. How was it that I was the youngest, yet I was the only one who hadn't completely hit the wall yet? I was mostly worried. It had only been six days, yet I was afraid that by the time we got out of here, I would be the only one who wouldn't be sentenced to the Hospital Wing for the remainder of the year.

I walked over to James and Sirius, both of whom I was still furious at, and watched them drink to the health of a bush that was obviously decaying, if not already dead. "Ally!" they cried happily as I walked over. "Sit down, have a drink!"

"I'm underage," I told them shortly, realizing that both must be drunk off their arses. "Can you please pull yourselves together?"

"We are together!" said Sirius happily. "Oh, wait…Are we? James, do I have any limbs…are they gone? Merlin, Ally…I've lost my limbs, haven't I?" By now he was close to sobbing. James was patting him on the back, telling him drunkenly that he was still handsome, even with some limbs missing.

"The only thing missing here is your brain," I snapped at him. By this point, I'd welcome a Killer Couple, who hadn't shown up since the first day. A centaur, a hippogriff, a thestral…although, a million thestrals might have passed through and I wouldn't know because I couldn't see them. There had to be something around that could gouge my brain out and make me as stupid as the five of them.

I got up in depression and slouched over to Lily, Remus, and Peter, who was taking his turn with them today. "Lily!" I shouted.

"What is it, Ally? I'm currently a bit busy," said Lily impatiently. She might sound normal, but Lily was as insane as the rest of them.

"Would you please stop practicing and help me?" I nearly snarled at her.

"Ally, if I don't practice, then I'll fail my N.E.W.T.s and that just can't happen!" She was nearly hysterical by this point. And you thought I was lying, didn't you?

"Lily, if you don't help me, we will never get out of here and then you'll definitely fail!" I snapped, losing my temper all over again.

"Shut up, Ally! It won't happen, it won't!" She stopped and took a deep breath. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to studying."

That was it. That was the last straw. I had been dealing with this for five effing days and I was sick and tired of listening to them and watching them. I hadn't slept for four days. Four! Sirius and I weren't on speaking terms (except for when he was drunk), Lily and James either couldn't or wouldn't look at each other, and Remus and Peter were of no help whatsoever unless I found myself in one of those emotional moods where I need yet another example of how badly I had failed as a leader, which, very thankfully, hadn't happened yet. Not only were we in danger from outside forces, we were also killing ourselves, and in the back of my mind I couldn't help but cross off days until Remus became a werewolf again, and while I was sure we would be out by then…

But honestly, I reminded myself, we might not be. I was making patrols every day to see if we were close to the border, but we weren't moving very far. And I couldn't go out and leave them alone together.

That was it. I was done playing the understanding leader. I walked to the center of the camp, pulled out my wand and said, "Expelliarmus!"

James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Lily's wands flew out of their hands (or pockets) and into my hand. Lily and Remus looked at me with expressions that promised torture. James, Sirius, and Peter just looked confused.

Of course, I wasn't done. "Accio Firewhiskey! Accio sweets!" Now James and Sirius looked murderous too.

I glared at them. "I am done. I am done with watching you drown youselves in Firewhiskey and acting like idiots and I am done with watching you two work yourselves into the ground and being anorexic in preparation for a test that you five might not even be there for." Lily let out a wail.

"Incendio," I said, pointing my wand at the Firewhiskey and Honeydukes things. Sirius looked appalled as he watched his pride and joy go up in smoke (the idiot) and James looked deadly seriously angry, which was impressive for a drunk. Obviously, James held his alcohol better than Sirius. How odd. I thought it would've been the other way around.

"What are you doing?" Sirius screeched. Yep, James held it better than Sirius.

"Saving your life," I ground out. "Stupefy!" They were blasted backward and knocked out cold. "Now, you three. Help me move them into a tent." They nodded their assent quickly and moved Sirius and James into a tent and onto sleeping bags. Obviously, they had realized that a sleep-deprived, mature, angry Ally Godrey was not the type of person you messed with. "Peter, I want you to stay with them and wait for them to wake up. If they don't wake up in an hour, wake them up with 'Ennervate' and give them a Sobering Potion which Sirius probably has lying around. Here is your wand," I added, throwing it to him. "Use it for any reason but self-defense and I will dis-assemble you piece by piece. Do you understand me?" He gulped, which I took as a yes.

"You two, come with me," I said. Lily and Remus nodded and walked out of the tent with me.

As soon as we were all, Lily burst into, "Ally, are you feeling all right? I didn't know you could actually do that!"

"I can't," I said to her. "I'm just too tired to follow my own personality laws. Now, we are getting out of here today or we're going to die trying. You guys have been great…well, no actually, you've been awful and I can't stand this anymore, but the point is that what I need is for you to go back to normal, James and Sirius to become sober again, and for me to go to bed and sleep. Sleep, do you understand me?" Dear Merlin, I'd finally done it. I'd lost my mind. It had been shattered to a million pieces and I was functioning on muscle memory and sugar from some chocolate I'd stolen from James.

"Er…yes," said Remus carefully. I was a ticking time-bomb to them who could explode and wash them with blood and guts and sweat and tears and any moment. I cackled evilly inside my head.

Oh, gross, would that actually be possible? I'd have to look that up when we got back to…

"Hogwarts!" I cried, reaching out in midair for the savior of my soul, the end-all be-all, the place where I could die happy—

I wonder if James and Sirius spiked the chocolate.

After a few hours of searching for something, for anything, Lily cried out, "Hey! Look!"

Crashing through the trees, Lupin and I ran to her side, panting. At the sight I saw, I nearly cried for relief. There ahead of us, off in the distance, was Hagrid and Professor McGonagall.

"Oh, thank Merlin," I shrieked, running towards them at top speed, Remus and Lily right behind me. "Oi! Professor! Hagrid! Profess—AGH!" Suddenly, the ground below me gave way and I crumpled, almost comically, before falling into a pit. Lily and Remus, who were too close and were going too fast to stop, landed on top of me. "Ouch!"

"Sorry," said Remus, quickly getting off.

"Lily," I groaned, forcing myself to roll over, "you are so skinny. You can't really be that heavy."

"Oh, shut up," snapped Lily, sitting up on her knees and looking up at the trees. "What happened?"

"We fell," I said, still in pain.

"Obviously. I meant—Professor McGonagall and Hagrid were right there—what could have possibly—?"

Professor McGonagall and Hagrid appeared over the side of the pit, looking down at the three of us. "Professor!" Lily cried "Could you help us—Oh my God…" They had morphed. Now they looked like Sirius and Peter. Then they morphed again to look like…Lily and James…

"Oh no!" I moaned, my ankle throbbing like hell. "Killer Couples!"

Lily looked at me. "What are you talking about?"

"On the first day, Sirius and I saw you two walking and laughing together before snogging. We realized you were fake and so we dubbed the imposters 'Killer Couples' because we thought they might be dangerous."

Lily's eyes widened. "They're Segarim*!"

"Sega-what?" I asked.

"Segarim, also known as Illusion Demons. They lure their prey in with appealing illusions then trap them and leave them to die," moaned Lily. "How could I have been so stupid?"

I scratched my head. "Wow, Sirius and I were way off." My ankle throbbed again and I moaned.

The two illusions left, letting out a low chuckle as they did so.

"Ally?" said Lily in concern. "Are you all right?"

"No," I said carefully, moving my leg. "My ankle's all swelled. I think it's broken."

"Where're your Healer things?" asked Remus.

"Back at camp," I said miserably. "I'm going to try to numb it and wrap it up with magic. I can't do much more than that yet."

"At your age, that's pretty impressive," said Remus, who was obviously trying to cheer me up.

"Right," I told him, wincing as my ankle throbbed again. "Thanks. Can you Apparate us out of here?" I asked. I already knew the answer, but it felt good to have a question to ask.

"No, you can't Apparate or Disapparate on Hogwarts grounds," said Remus in a sing-song voice, as if he'd said it before a million times before. Which, knowing James and Sirius, he probably had.

I sighed in relief as the pain faded to be replaced by an uncomfortable but bearable buzzing. Of course, my relief was short-lived as I stared up into the night sky, not knowing if James and Sirius were even awake, if they were sober, if anyone in Hogwarts was even aware we were gone or where we might possibly be.

Could this really be the end-all be-all?

"Maybe James and Sirius will find us, if they wake up and aren't lazy," murmured Lily quietly. "Until then, I really don't see how we can get out."

"Maybe we could Transfigure something into a broom?" I inquired half-heartedly.

"Transfiguring a branch into a broom would be easy, but it won't go anywhere," said Remus.

"Wingardium Leviosa?" I suggested.

"It's too high and the spell isn't powerful enough to lift a human being."

"Thank you Captain Sunshine," I snapped at Remus angrily. "Your optimism and never-ending string of ideas are always welcome."

"Don't take it out on him, Ally," said Lily. "We're just going to have to wait for Sirius and James and Peter to save us."

I looked down at the floor, leaned my head back against the wall and summed up the situation quite nicely with three descriptive words. "Then we're dead."

A/N: *Segarim. In case you hadn't realized, they don't actually exist. I kind of just made them up. If you look closely, you'll realize that I stole the 'Mirror of Erised' idea and wrote the word 'mirages' backwards.

Yup.

Disclaimer: I don't think I've put this on here yet, so I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters. Except Ally. She's simply too cool to be owned by anyone but me.

Also, the whole story with the Healer thing is that during the war against Voldemort, Madam Pompfrey took some of the brightest students and gave them Healer lessons as opposed to, say, Arithmancy or Ancient Runes or Divination. Ally just happened to be one of those students. Then, after Voldemort was defeated, Madam Pomfrey stopped giving the lessons, which is why they are not included in the books.

That probably isn't actually the case, but it works for the plot of the story.