Just Keep Breathing: Chapter Five
"So," James asked Remus two days later Quidditch tryouts, which he'd been running. "Did you find anything out from Alice or Mary? Do you know what's happening with Lily?"
"I said one word to Alice during break, and she almost cut my head off and said to tell you to stop annoying her, she's not going to tell you anything."
"Damn," he said, taking a pie from the middle of the table.
"How was tryouts?" Remus asked.
"Horrible," Sirius replied, sidling into his own seat. He was the Seeker on the House team, James was Chaser, and captain. "One of the second years didn't know how to fly the broom properly and ran into the stands. He's not getting a spot on the team, put it that way."
"Sorry," Remus said. "Well, I would try out, but you know that affliction I have which means I can't play."
"What affliction?" Alice asked, sitting down next to him. "I've never heard of any 'affliction' you have that prevents you from playing Quidditch."
"Oh, I just... can't rise above a certain altitude, or my... ears explode," Remus lied. "Yeah, it really sucks, because I really enjoy Quidditch."
"Yeah, that is a shame," Alice said knowingly. "I'm sorry about earlier today, by the way. It's just that I told James to drop it, and he obviously still hasn't."
"Don't worry about it," Remus said, shaking his head. "I was only trying to help out a friend."
At that moment, a barn owl with dark spots swooped in through the roof and up to the Headmaster's spot at the teacher's table. Out of the four of them, Alice was the only one that noticed it – but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, so she began to turn away.
Until she saw that Professor Dumbledore had taken from the owl one of two letters, which was enveloped in plain muggle stationery. The owl then flew from the teacher's table to the Slytherin table, and settled itself in front of one Severus Snape, who snatched the letter up eagerly and ripped it open.
Alice looked at him cautiously – she had a very good feeling that this was a letter from Lily, and she wasn't going to be nice to him in it. Indeed, just a minute after his elation at contact, he was furious, and stormed out of the Great Hall.
"What's wrong with him?" Sirius asked, following Alice's gaze.
"Who cares?" James shrugged. "It's Snivellus."
"Lily," Alice whispered.
"What?" the other three asked.
"Oh, he just got a letter from Lily," Alice told them.
"Wait, so why does he get one, and not us?" James objected.
"I did get a letter from her," Alice confessed. "On Thursday, just before I almost killed you."
"Oh," he said, his face falling. "I remember that... So, why did you try and kill me if you got a letter from her?"
"James, it's actually none of your business what's going on in Lily's life at the moment, okay?" Alice told him. "You're not her friend, which she made perfectly clear to you last year."
"Ouch, Prewett."
"It's true," she said. "In fact, this obsession you have with her is kind of creepy – you asked her out every single day last year."
"In the hope that one day she'd say yes," James explained.
"Well, stop it, because it's annoying. Anyway, it takes a lot for her to trust people, and especially after what happened at the end of last year, it's going to take a lot more. Until you can prove to her that you can be trusted, she's going to hate you."
"Challenge accepted," James grinned. He took one last mouthful of his pie and then skipped out of the hall.
"Lily, did you get that invitation?" Mr Dursley asked on the Monday of the next week.
"To Vernon's birthday party?" Lily clarified. "Yes, I did."
"Well? Would you like to go?"
"That would be nice," Lily said, "but I would feel awfully awkward. I mean – I wouldn't know anybody."
"Well, I suppose you can bring somebody if you like."
Lily pretended to think about it for a moment. "Yeah, okay, I'll go," she smiled.
"Excellent!" Mr Dursley beamed, dropping a stack of paper's on her desk. "I need you to file these for me, please."
"Of course," Lily said, trying not to betray any emotion but happiness – of course she was happy to file things for him, he was paying her, right?
For some reason, she didn't quite believe this.
When she arrived home that night, a parcel was waiting for her on the kitchen bench. Recognising what it was, she squealed with delight.
"Lily!" Petunia barked. "What are you so excited about?"
"Professor Dumbledore sent me all my school work!" Lily replied, jumping up and down.
"I'm sorry, you're excited about school work?" Petunia clarified. "I fail to see how one can be happy about receiving a parcel containing three weeks worth of work that they've missed."
"You are not me, obviously," Lily replied, taking it upstairs. She immediately opened it up, and started working on the earliest work. She'd already read through all her school books, which she'd bought on Saturday, so this was going to be easy.
"Write an essay on Veritaserum," she read from the first piece of paper, from Professor Slughorn. "Shoot," she said, when she realised that while she was at home, she did not have the entire school library at her disposal. "This is going to be more difficult than I thought."
"Okay, Padfoot, how does this sound?" James asked, reciting a passage from a piece of paper he had in his hand.
"Like you're trying too hard," Sirius replied. "Oh, wait..."
"Come on, I really want Lily to be able to trust me."
"Prongs, if it's meant to be, it'll happen, okay? Just keep in mind that if she doesn't come back, you're probably never going to see her again."
"Don't, say that," James said threateningly. "She's coming back, okay? I know it."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Sirius said. "Well, that is, if we're going with your theory that she's dying."
"She can't be dying!" James complained. "I refuse to believe it!"
"She's not dying," Sirius chuckled. "Honestly, James, chill out."
"How do you know she's not dying, though?" he asked.
"I – know her," Sirius replied, instantly realising he'd made a mistake.
"You're lying," James pounced. "Alice told you something, didn't she? What did she tell you?"
"Prongs, I promised I wouldn't tell," Sirius said defensively. "Alice can be scary if you piss her off."
"I'm well aware of that," James said, "and I also know that I can get pretty scary if you hide something from me!"
"Okay!" Sirius surrendered. "The other day, Alice came up to me asking me a question about a pretty nasty muggle disease -"
"Lily is dying," James wailed.
Sirius almost slapped him. "Lily is not dying," he assured his friend, holding his shoulders for emphasis. "Now, Alice asked me about this nasty muggle disease, and so I told her what I knew..."
"Why was she asking about the disease?"
"Because Lily's dad has it," Sirius answered. "Lily told Alice in her latest letter, and Alice wanted to know more about it. Basically, it doesn't look good for Lily's dad, and that's why she hasn't come back. So we were right all along – Lily had a sick family member."
"That... really sucks," James said, sitting back down in the armchair by the fire. "I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a parent."
"I wouldn't mind if I lost my parents," Sirius said indifferently. "In fact, I'd be thrilled. I'm thinking of running away. You've got a spare bedroom in your house, right, Prongs?"
"Yeah, actually," James said, grinning. "Why, thinking of moving in?"
"If you wouldn't mind," Sirius shrugged. "My house is suffocating me."
There was a soft knocking at the window, and one of the third-years opened it up to let the owl in. Once inside, it soared straight to James and held out it's leg.
"Thank you," James said to the bird, confused. After he took the letter, the bird took off, and James opened up the light pink envelope.
Potter,
Just so you know, I'm absolutely despising myself for writing to you right now. No doubt Alice has told you about my situation, and why I'm staying at home. Well, I haven't told her this bit yet, but Dumbledore's letting me continue my education at home, so he's sent me everything I've missed. My one problem is that I don't have access to the library from where I am, so it's going to be a lot harder to do the homework I've been set.
So, I was wondering, because you're the second top in the year, if I would be able to borrow your notes for all the homework you've done so far this year. I would really appreciate it.
Remember, this doesn't mean I even remotely like you. I'm asking purely because of the fact that you're actually quite good at your school work, and my best bet at getting through this.
Evans.
Also, please don't tell Alice about me continuing my studies... Something is telling me that I shouldn't tell her.
"What are you grinning about?" Sirius asked, concerned. "Padfoot?"
James looked up from the letter. "You know how I was going to try and get Evans to talk to me by sending her a letter?"
"Mmm," Sirius said, failing to see where this was going.
"Well, turns out I didn't need to. She initiated conversation!"
"Saying what? I love you, James Potter and will you marry me?"
"Ha, ha," James said, rolling his eyes. "No, she was asking for notes for all the homework we've done so far. Typical, she gets out of school, and she still wants to do the work! She's bloody nuts, I tell you."
"So, are you going to give her the notes?"
"Yeah, I guess," James said. "Maybe we'll become friends this way?"
"Keep dreaming, Prongs. Keep dreaming."
"Are you okay?" Lily asked Petunia a week later. "You look a little... peaky."
"I'm fine," Petunia said. Lily could tell she wasn't. Her sinuses were quite obviously blocked, she had a fever, and she was rugged up on the couch.
"We need to get you to the hospital," Lily told her when she'd put the back of her hand to Petunia's forehead. "This really isn't good. I'll call work."
"I'm fine," Petunia repeated.
Lily dialled Petunia's work first. "Holdsworth Industries, may I help you?"
"Oh, hi," Lily answered nervously. "My name's Lily Evans, I'm Petunia's sister."
"Oh, she's not here at the moment," the secretary said.
"I know, she's here... Um, she's not going to be able to make it in today... I think she has the flu, and I'm going to take her to the hospital... I just thought I should let you know."
"Thank you for that, Lila," the woman said.
"It's Lily, and that's fine," she said. "Bye."
"Bye!"
The secretary seemed overly cheery since Lily had mentioned Petunia wasn't coming in. Did they not like her there? As far as Lily knew, Petunia was a perfectly lovely person, despite the fact that they hadn't really gotten along in the past five years.
She rang her own work phone next.
"Grunnings, this is Mr Dursley, how may I help you?"
"Anthony, it's Lily," she answered. "I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to make it in today – my sister's really sick, and I need to take her to the hospital."
"That's a shame," her boss answered. "Well, you take the day off, and I'll see you tomorrow."
"See you then," Lily said, surprised that she hadn't been yelled at. But she knew that there was going to be a huge pile of work to catch up on tomorrow.
And then Lily realised that for the first time in a while, she was in her element: taking control when things went wrong.
Ola :)
So, I think things are going to start getting interesting soon. Do you get that feeling?
Some people asked me to continue this story - of course I will! I know you're scared that I'll just stop it suddenly without any warning - and I know the feeling. It's horrible, isn't it? Waiting for an update that never comes, and then when you finally forget about the story, there's an email saying 'hey there's a new chapter of _', and then you're like "I don't remember what happened, looks like I'll have to read it all again."
Anyway, my point is, I'll try not to do it to you guys with this one.
Thanks to my latest reviewers:
Purple Painted Toenails
Jessluvsharry
my starry eyes
weasleytwins12
And for those of you currently wondering: I do not have a mosquito bite in my belly button (that's probably too much information, sorry about that). No, my dad bought the wrong washing powder, and I'm allergic to it, so basically all of my clothes are going to drive me insane for a while. I might buy some that doesn't make me itch tomorrow when I go Christmas shopping.
What are you guys doing for Christmas? Or any other holiday that you might celebrate at this time of the year (I feel extremely uneducated, all I know of other than Christmas is Hannukah and Yule. What do you celebrate?) I'm just going to be home with my co-inhabitants, as my grandparents are going to Thailand, and my mum's sister is going to visit my mum's half-sister in Melbourne, and I think my dad's sister is going to her husband's parents...
Remember, any thoughts, comments, criticism, reviews and questions are amazingly welcome in my inbox, so please put them in there!
Love always, and Happy Holidays :), gabiellexx