"Oh, my," Madam Pomfrey tutted when she caught sight of James Potter carrying Lily Evans into her ward. "What do we have here?"
James grumbled something under his breath regarding Lily not taking care of herself again, but since it would appear that he was chastising herself, he couldn't voice these thoughts loud enough for the matron to hear.
"Excuse hi… her, Madam Pomfrey," Lily stumbled over her words, almost giving themselves away. Then mirthfully added: "Evans gets grumpy when she is not feeling well."
"I would have thought after last year's ordeal you've learned your lesson, Ms Evans," the school nurse tutted. "Even more so with our private lessons at the end of last semester."
Fortunately, she was already turning her back to them as she motioned towards a bed to put Lily's body down on, otherwise, she would have found it quite odd that it was apparently James Potter going red with the blush of embarrassment at those words.
Yes, she should have known better to come to the Hospital Wing at once if she started feeling unwell, for it was that first potion, the anti-contagion one, that was crucial in preventing illnesses from sweeping over the whole student body, overwhelming their care system in a matter of days.
It was James that answered, surprisingly.
"I honestly felt fine last night," he murmured apologetically in Lily's voice as Madam Pomfrey cast her diagnostic charms over him. "Must have overworked myself in the last couple of days."
The real Lily glanced at him appreciatively.
"Oh well, no matter," the matron sighed, bustling away to get her tray full of potions.
"Thanks," she mouthed at Potter.
"Off with you Mr Potter," the medi-witch instructed as she returned in no time at all, laden with three potions. "Ms Evans needs her rest. If we caught this early enough she should be back to Head Girl duties by tonight."
"Actually Madam Pomfrey," Lily spoke up, remembering Sirius's request. "May I have a private word with you?"
The matron beckoned who she believed to be Potter to her office and Lily followed.
"Yes, Mr Potter?" she asked once the door closed behind them.
"Well, you see the full moon is coming up… and," she started but the medi-witch seemed to catch on to her train of thought instantly.
"And you are worried about Mr Lupin whom you share a dorm with given your exposure to Ms Evans's illness," she stated rather than asking. "I'm sorry but there's nothing I could give you to prevent the onset of symptoms, the potions only work to enhance healing once your own body recognised the intruders to fight against."
"In any case, could I take some with me, you know to take at once if I feel ill, to minimise the risk to Remus?" Lily pleaded. "Also some of the ones he would need if anything happened?"
Madam Pomfrey sighed contemplatively.
"I'd prefer you notify me at once if Mr Lupin is getting ill given the circumstances," she began. "But I suppose you know the drill well enough that I can entrust you with the initial care?" she mused, appraising the boy in front of her whether he could be trusted with such important tasks. If it were two years ago the matron would have refused on the spot, but Mr Potter has come a long way in the past year in showing maturity and responsibility.
"You can count on me," Lily replied earnestly. "I'll follow every instruction you give me regarding these."
Madam Pomfrey pulled out a satchel with little compartments for phials from the cupboard and began filling it up with the necessary potions, explaining each as she stashed them.
"And under no circumstances are these to be mixed up, you understand?" the matron emphasised.
"Yes, the ones with aconite could be deadly to Remus, I know. I'll be really careful," the girl in Potter's body supplied, nodding along with the instructions.
"You know your potion ingredients," she quipped with a hint of surprise. "Although if you are going for the Auror career route, no wonder I suppose. You are in Professor Slughorn's N.E.W.T. class after all."
That was news to Lily. She didn't know Potter wanted to become an Auror. That very much explained why he had kept up with Potions, even though he didn't have much inclination for the subject. He was never bad at it, in fact in most of his subjects he was effortlessly brilliant, it's just that it didn't seem like he was interested much in it beyond the basics.
She must have spaced out as she contemplated that bit of news because the next thing she knew was the matron ushering her out impatiently.
"Now, if that is all, let me get back to my patient."
The girl scurried out, making a quick detour to Potter's bed who had been craning his neck towards the office door inquisitively, turning his gaze at her once he noticed them coming out, eyeing her new side bag with amazement though didn't say a word about it.
"I'll take care of everything, all right?" she said with a pat on his leg through the covers. "I'll check back on you after tryouts, then hopefully you'll be out by the evening and we can discuss everything else then."
He nodded with unspoken agreement. They had their plan set before arriving here anyway. At that she hurried out, having so much to take care of for the day in both of their stead.
Neither noticed the fond little smile dancing at the corner of Madam Pomfrey's mouth. That was probably the most amicable she had seen those two behave towards each other since coming to Hogwarts. Apparently, Dumbledore did in fact know what he was doing when he decided this year's Head Girl and Head Boy appointments.
Glancing at Potter's wristwatch, she noticed that she barely had 45 minutes left before having to be back in the prefect's office to conduct the meeting and she hadn't even eaten breakfast yet. Lily headed for the Gryffindor Tower with long strides, almost giggling to herself about how fast she could walk in this body.
Just as she reached the entrance to the common room, the Fat Lady's portrait swung open, revealing one Remus Lupin clambering out through the hole.
"Oh good, Prongs," he said with a small smile. "I was just heading out to find you. Do you know if Lily finished the patrol schedule? If not, I can help you with it."
Lily smiled to herself, this had been exactly the Head Boy's suggestion last night when he wanted to get her to rest a bit, to leave it to them. Maybe she ought to rely a bit more on her friends when the need arose.
"Yeah, she did. That's why she ended up falling asleep in the office. Took her till midnight," the girl explained, waiving off the offered help.
"How is she?" Remus asked, finding the level of nonchalance a bit weird coming from his stag animagus friend.
"She is okay," Lily replied, feeling kind of weird talking about herself in the third person, but was getting better at it with each interaction. "Madam Pomfrey reckons she might be out by tonight. Though you might want to keep your distance from me before the full moon, I might have caught her cold since I had to carry her down to the Hospital Wing."
Remus just rolled his eyes at the keeping his distance part.
"I'm not that fragile you know," the werewolf groused at the overprotectiveness, but inside he relished that he had such good friends who cared about his well-being.
"Better be safe than sorry," she insisted. "We don't want a repeat of last year. Speaking of which, I persuaded Madam Pomfrey to give me some potions to have on hand just in case."
Moony stared at the satchel with eyes wide.
"Madam Pomfrey… entrusted… you… with my potions?" Remus asked incredulously.
This gave Lily pause. Sirius's request made it seem like it wouldn't be out of character for James to get the potions. Or did he mean she was supposed to nick them? Just didn't want to say it out loud in front of the supposed Lily in her arms, but assumed James would get the hint?
She glanced at the Marauder but her hesitancy seemed to have spun a whole different train of thought in his mind. Remus was regarding her suspiciously, mulling things over, all the oddities he had noticed since morning about the behaviour of his friend, then suddenly he was leaning in closer to her neck, sniffing, taking a whiff of her scent.
"Wh.. what are you doing?" Lily took a step back, stammering. So he really could tell people apart by scent. And apparently, your natural scent was not just a physical characteristic. "I told you to keep your distance, I don't want to get you sick."
"Yes, and as noble as that sounds, James wouldn't be such a worrywart. Sirius maybe, but James would just shrug and say that we would deal with it if it came to that," the werewolf summarised. "On the other hand, I know this lovely witch, whom we have been prefects with since their fifth year, and who has this exact same scent of lilies about her. Now, she would definitely worry."
"I just had to carry her through half of the castle, of course, you can smell Lily's scent on me," the girl tried to salvage the situation, knowing that James absolutely did not want the Marauders to find out.
"Scent at the pulse point is unique," he shook his head as he tapped to fingers on his neck below his ears, indicating that he wasn't buying that explanation. "And you currently lack a certain… how should I say this? Smell of game that Prongs has."
The jig was up, Lily knew, but she didn't know how to respond. Seeing her hesitancy, and torn facial expression, Remus took pity on her. Though what he meant by smell of game? Lily wondered. Sure, Potter was playful and downright silly many times but how does that translate to a body scent?
"I gather whatever magic caused you guys to switch bodies wasn't intentional. How long has it been going on? Since this morning…? I'm pretty sure James was himself when he went to sleep," he asked, having astutely deduced the gist of the predicament.
"I'm not entirely sure," Lily sighed, might as well admit the whole thing. "Sometime during the night. I was also still myself when I fell asleep around midnight in the prefect's office. James doesn't want Sirius to find out though. Not looking forward to the teasing."
"Your secret is safe with me," Lupin assured her, making a zipping motion in front of his mouth. Then chuckled, as something amusing occurred to him.
"What?" the girl asked apprehensively.
"So James is currently in your body, down in the Hospital Wing, suffering through your cold, while you are in his body free to go about your business, free as a bird," he laughed again. "That's just brilliant. Last night he was going on and on about how to go get you to unload a bit on him… Well, you surely did now."
"I mean, I'm supposed to hold Quidditch tryouts in the afternoon in his stead," Lily confessed in trepidation. She was definitely not looking forward to that.
"Oh," the werewolf understood the predicament instantly. Lily's ineptitude on a broomstick was common knowledge.
"I was thinking of stringing Marlene along, then just conduct the whole thing from the ground," she explained, because what else she could do?
"Probably a good idea," he agreed, though not convinced this would work, at least not without getting Marlene in the know.
"Shoot," she glanced at her watch again. "I have like fifteen minutes to grab a bite to eat before we have to start heading to the meeting. I'll just drop this bag off real quick."
"I'll come with," Remus said, supplying the password to the portrait, casting a mischievous look to Lily. "Carpe Diem."
"Seize the day, how apt," she murmured under her breath, returning the smile.
Once inside she automatically headed for the dorm stairs, not really looking or thinking of where she was going, but before Lupin could even warn her, there was a wailing alarm sound, the steps flattening and melting together to make a long, smooth stone slide, depositing her at the bottom.
The few people milling around the common room sniggered. Then a blond witch from the seventh-year girl's dorm stuck her head out over the railing to check what was going on.
"Lily's not here Potter," she tittered.
"I know," the words irately escaped her before she could even think. How come the Marauder's Map could tell who she was, but the damned security charm on the girl's dormitory stairs acted according to the body she was currently occupying?
"Then what gives?" McKinnon inquired, she couldn't fathom who else Potter could be looking for.
"Actually I was just looking for you," Lily decided to redirect, having no other plausible explanation besides the truth that she wasn't about to share. "I need your help with the tryouts this afternoon."
"Sure…" the blond witch agreed hesitantly. "By the way, if you know Lily's not here, do you know where she is? I swear she didn't come back to the dorm last night."
"Uh, Hospital Wing," she admitted, already wincing, because she knew how Marlene would react.
"What?" she shrieked. "Hold that thought, I'm coming down."
"I'm not getting to breakfast, am I?" Lily commented with a side glance to Remus, knowing Marlene all too well.
"Here," he handed her a bar of chocolate from his stash in his bag.
"No, no," she protested. "You need this more than me."
"James would take it," he whispered in her ear subtly pointing out that people were giving quizzical looks at her already.
"Fine," she groused in a forceful sigh, but couldn't get into it more as her friend arrived from the girl's dorms.
"What happened to Lily? Is she okay?" she bounded to their side in a hurry, her voice panicky.
"Calm down, Marlene…" the girl in Potter's body tried to reassure her friend in a low voice, drawing their trio towards the corner to avoid all the attention from the people in the room. At the same time acting once again very out of character for James, earning an elbow to the ribs from Remus to get her to shut up.
"Calm down? Calm down? How are you so calm? It's Lily we are talking about!" McKinnon hissed, regarding Potter with narrowed eyes. It was as if she didn't even know this man before her. "And since when are we on a first-name basis, Captain?"
"Lily slept in the prefect's office, and was feverish in the morning, James had to carry her to the infirmary," Lupin decided to step in and explain.
"Exactly! How is he so calm about all this?" Marlene switched focus to Remus.
"Madam Pomfrey said it's just a cold, she should be right as rain by the evening," Lily internally rolled her eyes, not having the penchant for all this unnecessary drama. Remus kicked her ankle this time trying to get her to act more like James. At this, she added: "At least I hope Madam Pomfrey is right. Merlin, what if she gets worse? How will I get through the day not knowing?"
It sounded all wrong and lacklustre to her, but apparently this satisfied Marlene.
"I better check on her. You have a prefect's meeting, right? You better go handle that in Lily's stead, but don't worry about tryouts. I'll make sure it goes without a hitch if you are distracted. I know how useless you can be when you are worried about Lily," and with that, she was off.
"You are a terrible actor," Remus sniggered beside her.
"Shut up," Lily punched him lightly in the arm. Or it would have been light in her own body.
"Ow," he rubbed the aching spot. "But that's more like it."
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hit you that hard," the girl backtracked, her hand flying to her mouth in apology, a bit horrified that the boys would pound on each other just for the fun of it.
"I'm still not that fragile, and you're blundering it again," the werewolf chuckled, enjoying coaching Lily into acting like James a bit way too much for her liking.
She shot him an annoyed look, then started for the stairs a second time, still not thinking or looking where she was going, heading for the wrong one again, but this time Remus was able to steer her towards the boy's dorm in time.