Disclaimer: I do not own any Harry Potter or Harry Potter related copyrights.
"Sitting next to you and putting food on your plate and convincing you to eat it on those days that you would rather starve yourself and hexing all those creeps you hate when they come too close, and pulling you in from crazy wind storms," said James earnestly. "Please give us a try."
Lily pondered the fact for a moment; then she made a decision that would ultimately change her life as she knew it.
"You know what James, I would love to go out with you," said Lily as a huge smile lit up her entire face.
"Really?" asked James. "Are you sure? Cause I have like 5 million more reasons to try and convince you to date me and Remus, in place of Sirius, is pouring out shot glasses of firewhiskey back at the dorm for when you say no again."
"I really am sure James," said Lily softly as she reached over and took his hand and squeezed it. "You're right; I was scared, but I don't want to be afraid anymore. After all, it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, right?"
"Yeah," said James as he savored the feeling of her hand in his. "But I don't intend on losing you anytime soon."
"Good," said Lily. Then she yawned.
"Way to break the mood," James teased.
"I'm sorry, but it's just after one in the morning and I have to get up early so that Madame Pomfrey can give me an exam to make sure that I really can go to London tomorrow."
"Do you think you can go? I mean, I guess Dumbledore wants you to go, but you don't really have to. It's more of a gesture than anything else," said James.
"Believe me, I'm perfectly fine. The cut on my head wasn't bad at all and it's totally healed now."
James paused a moment before asking her about what had been bothering him, as well as Lily's other friends since the incident, "What exactly happened? And why were only you, Snape and Professor Gills affected by it?"
Lily's smile faded a bit when she answered, "Someday I'll tell you James, I promise, just not right now, okay?"
James was going to protest, but Lily, guessing this, continued, "Please don't push this. Someday I will tell you."
"Okay," agreed James. "I'm going to go now. I'll see you later."
As James was about to stand up, Lily leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. "Night James."
Grinning like the mad fool he was, James stood up and said, "Night Lily."
-----
After being checked over by Madame Pomfrey, Lily left the Hospital Wing and set out for the front hall, where all of the exchange students were supposed to be assembled. As soon as she walked in, she saw Remus, but James was no where in sight.
"Morning Remus," said Lily cheerfully.
"Morning Lily, how are you feeling?" asked Remus.
"Wonderful," Lily answered honestly. "Do you know where James is? We're supposed to round up all of the students and get them into the carriages and onto the train."
"Right," said Remus sarcastically. "I'm sure that's the only reason you want to find your boyfriend."
Lily immediately blushed a little and said, "So he told you then?"
"He hasn't shut up about it since he got back late last night," said Remus with a smile.
Lily grinned and then changed the subject. "Who are you here saying good-bye to?"
"The guys from the dorm and a few other people I hung out with a bit over the last month," said Remus, trying to act casually.
"A few other people being Vicky, the girl you were always studying with at the library?" teased Lily.
Now it was Remus' turn to blush. "Her and some other people."
Just then said girl came bounding up to Remus and hugged him. Lily watched in amusement.
After the pair broke apart, Remus turned to introduce Lily to his friend, but she had already disappeared to go find James.
"I'm going to miss you so much Remus!" exclaimed the girl.
"I'm going to miss you too Vicky," responded Remus.
"You'll write, right?" demanded Vicky.
"Of course," said Remus smiling.
"I thought this whole exchange thing was going to be awful, but I really liked meeting you."
"I'm glad I could be of service."
"I wish I could stay and explore more of this castle. It's so much cooler than my school. You can't really have any awesome adventures back at Merlin's Academy," she said wistfully. "But all of those secret passages you showed me! So wicked!"
Remus agreed, "It is pretty exciting around here."
Then Lily's magically loud voice interrupted them. "Two minutes everyone! Say your last good-byes!"
"I have to go say good-bye to a couple of other guys," said Vicky sadly. "But I had a crazy idea; I'm going to apply to the Auror Academy here in Britain! I really loved what I saw of London, and I've met so many amazing people here… I really think that I want to spend more time here."
Remus' grin was so big you would have thought he was James. "I think that is an excellent idea," he said honestly. "It's a really good program and I'm sure you could get in. Also, we need some more aurors at a time like this."
"Well I've got to go!" exclaimed the exuberant teenager as she hugged Remus again. "I'll see you in a few months hopefully! Bye!"
Then she dashed off and Remus lost sight of her in the crowd. As people swirled all around him, Remus reflected back on the past month.
A few days after the exchange students had been sorted and had settled into the daily life of Hogwarts, Remus had been researching for a Defense Against the Dark Arts essay in the library when Vicky, her hair then bright blue with bronze tips, asked him, "Can I sit here?"
Remus looked up, and said, "Sure."
She sat down and said, "What are you studying?"
"I looking up stuff for that essay Gills assigned yesterday," he said, remembering that the girl was in his class.
The girl sighed dramatically. "I go to the school he really teaches at. He's pretty cool but he always assigns so much work! And then he grades really hard too, but he's brilliant."
And so they were off. The girl, whom he soon found out was named Vicky, and Remus traded stories for hours. First they started with school, but soon they moved onto friends, families and memories. Neither of them got any work done that night or the many nights they spent together afterward. Though eventually they did have to catch up on their schoolwork, so they started actually working and studying during their time in the library. It should be noted however, that completing any assignment took twice as long when they were together as when they were apart. Perhaps it was because they kept sneaking glances at one another or because they took almost constant breaks to talk, but neither of those hypotheses have been clinically proven.
Remus had never felt so instantly attracted to anyone before and truth be told, he was frightened. He was scared that the vibrant, totally awesome girl he fancied so much would reject him for being a werewolf and never talk to him again. And he didn't think he could bear that burden. She was everything he had never imagined for himself; she was so nonconformist, she didn't care what other people thought, she was extremely intelligent and talented, outspoken, friendly and so kind. As far as he was concerned, he was a changed man and he liked it.
As Lily started herding people towards the doors, James walked over to Remus with the huge smile that hadn't left his face since Lily had kissed him on the cheek.
"So how's Vicky?" he teased.
In a dreamy voice, a voice much like the one he had often teased James for using when talking about Lily, Remus replied, "She wants to go to the Auror Academy in London after she graduates. I'm going to see her again!"
"I'd say she likes you mate," said James happily.
"Potter!" shouted Lily from the doorway. "Get a move on!"
"And I'd say that that one right there likes you, though I don't know why," returned Remus.
James just grinned at him and started walking across the hall towards his girlfriend.
"See you in a few hours mate when the Marauders reunite!" called James with a wave.
"I'll have the stuff ready and waiting!" Remus answered.
When James reached Lily and they started walking down towards the carriages together, he asked, "Aren't you going to tell me off for being Head Boy and pulling pranks?"
"I trust your judgment," answered Lily simply.
"What does that mean?"
Lily looked up to James' face. "I trust that you won't do anything that would put anyone in danger. I think that whatever you do, like putting everyone's underwear on the outside of their clothes, is going to be harmless and a nice welcome back for the students. I'm sure that they missed your unique antics this past month. I know I did."
Then Lily grinned coyly at James as she hoisted herself into the first carriage.
"Oh!" said James victoriously as he followed her. "You admitted that you like my pranks!"
"I've never hated your pranks as long as they only caused embarrassment and not pain. And for the record, I prefer the pranks where everyone is affected equally, not just the Slytherin house or certain Slytherins," she finished with a pointed look.
"When was the last time I specifically targeted Snape and only Snape for a prank?" challenged James.
Lily contemplated the matter for a moment and then said, "I don't remember."
"Exactly! See I'm not the awful person you thought I was!" he said as he looked down at the red head sitting next to him.
Lily looked back up at him and honestly admitted, "I haven't thought you were a bad person in a really long time."
Then she slipped her hand into his, squeezed it gently and changed the subject. James kept looking down at Lily and contributed to the conversation, but all he could really think about was how long he had waited to feel her hand in his like this.
All too soon, the carriages had arrived at the train station, Lily had jumped out to organize the troops exchange students like the responsible and all-powerful Head Girl she was. James followed right after her to help and make sure that everyone boarded the train. After everyone was on the train, James walked over to Lily and said, "What teacher is coming with us?"
"Gills," Lily said as evenly as she could manage. "And he's late."
Just then Richard sauntered onto the platform. "Oh darn, it looks like all the students were already organized, and I had so hurried to get here so that I could help."
James was a bit taken aback. So this was the evil, caustic Richard Lily had been talking about. There was no trace of the easy-going, friendly teacher that James had thought he knew.
"Go to hell Richard," said Lily after checking to see that no one was still on the platform.
"I'll save you a seat," he said with an evil grin as he sauntered by the two of them and onto the train.
"It's amazing how fast I could go from dating him to despising him," Lily muttered to James as she made her way onto the train.
"You went exactly the other way with me," James mumbled.
"What?" asked Lily curiously.
"Nothing," James covered. "I was just surprised; Gills seems more evil than I thought."
Lily nodded, satisfied, and continued onto the train.
For the whole trip, James and Lily visited the students on the train and asked them how they liked Hogwarts, what their favorite memory was, and if they would consider applying to any universities in Great Britain. The only one of these conversations that was really interesting was when James and Lily came across Vicky sitting alone in a compartment.
"Hullo Vicky," said James with a wide grin.
"Potter," the girl with neon green hair plaited in two pigtails acknowledged. Then she turned her attention to Lily and said, "You're Lily, right?"
Lily nodded and said, "You're Remus' study buddy, right?"
"You're the girl Potter has naughty dreams about, right?"
It was a good thing Lily had learned how to think under adverse conditions, otherwise she never would have been able to come up with anything to say after that comment. "You're the girl that shaved off Sandra's eyebrows when she insulted your favorite Marauder, right?"
"You're the girl that Sandra is about to kick out of her prestigious study group full of her air-headed minions because you're friends with her most hated Marauder, yes that's you Potter, right?" continued the bold girl, whose hair was neon green this morning.
"You're the girl that broke Sirius' record of the most spitballs in McGonagall's class, right?" said Lily, who wasn't really surprised that Sandra was plotting kicking her out of the Outstanding Witches League study group.
"You're the girl that-" began Vicky.
"Okay! You two can do this until we reach London, but how about we stop now? Lily this is Vicky, Vicky this is Lily and I have no idea why you haven't met each other before because you were both in the same classes for the super-smart people," James interrupted.
"Can it Potter! No one asked for your opinion!" shouted Vicky.
"Leave him alone!" the fiery red head shouted back.
James couldn't help but think of a time not so long ago when she had said that same thing to him, but now it was in defense of him. He decided it was so much better hearing it this way.
"You gonna make me?" challenged Vicky as she got up out of her seat and right up in Lily's face.
"You don't want to test me; you have no idea what I'm capable of," hissed Lily as she drew her wand.
Vicky drew her wand as well and said, "That's what all the cowards say hoping that somehow they'll intimidate their opponent so they won't have to fight and lose."
Lily grinned evilly and said, "I will not lose."
"We'll see about that," responded the equally confident American.
"Now at this point," James cut in before the first spell could be cast. "Sirius would say something ridiculous and possibly life-threatening such as 'cat fight!', but since I am not stupid like my best mate, I would never dream of yelling such a thing, or egg the two of you on. So, I think…"
"Potter!" yelled Vicky, her attention temporarily diverted. "When will you learn that no one cares what comes out of your mouth?!"
"Why are you such a jerk?" asked Lily. "I always thought that Remus had good taste, but I guess not."
"You are so going down!" yelled Vicky as she lunged for Lily.
Luckily, James intervened and caught the spirited teenager in mid-pounce.
"Lily, I think we had better just go now," said James as he held back the viciously struggling girl. "Ow! She bit me!"
"Make her leave!" was Lily's stubborn response.
"It's my compartment!" protested Vicky.
"And I don't really wonder why you're all alone in it!"
"Lily!" yelled James before Vicky could retort and they would be in another cycle of insults. "Just leave! Please."
"Fine!" huffed Lily and she walked out.
After the door slid shut behind Lily, James released Vicky and said, "What was up with that?"
"I think both you and your girlfriend are arrogant, pompous, as you Brits say it, gits!" said Vicky.
Tired of all the conflict, James backed down and said, "Okay, fine. I'm just going to go now. Bye."
Then he left and met up with Lily in the hallway, made her laugh a bit and smoothed things over. They then continued on their rounds none the worse for wear.
Vicky, on the other hand, was left to brood over the fact that she never seemed to be able to make female friends. It always seemed as if she was too sarcastic, too blunt, and too loud to "bond" with any other girls, although those same traits seemed to help her to make male friends pretty easily.
However, she had observed Lily over the last month and thought that in all likelihood, Lily was the best candidate for a female friend. Like herself, Lily was very bright, witty and sarcastic. But at first, because she was sorted into Ravenclaw, Vicky had hung around with Sandra and the OWLs gang, who had filled her head with awful things about Lily, so she didn't make any attempts at friendship. Soon, however, Vicky got really tired of the superficial Ravenclaw girls and how they always made fun of Remus (though she enjoyed it when they made fun of James).
So she stopped hanging out with them, but more than two weeks had passed since her arrival and it seemed as if everyone had already settled into their little cliques and niches and there didn't seem to be any easy way to approach Lily, who was usually surrounded by Alice and Marlene at the very least. Often she was trailed by students who needed something, wanted to complain about something, or were asking something. Vicky just never tried to get to know Lily during the month and then when she had finally gotten the opportunity, she had let her temper get the better of her.
Well least she had Remus. That was a comforting thought that Vicky clung to as the English countryside sped by outside her window.
-----
Once the train arrived in London much later that day, the students grabbed all of their luggage and assembled on Platform 9 ¾. For a few minutes they all just milled about making last minute exchanges of contact information and such things, but then they began to wonder what was going on and why they weren't going anywhere.
"Have you seen Professor Gills anywhere?" Lily was frantically asking each group of students she came across.
By the time she had asked all of the students, James had searched the entire train and reported his failure.
"We could just walk everyone over to the Ministry cars and tell the drivers and Professor Aligne that Gills is M.I.A.. It's not like we're not capable of walking a few meters," suggested James.
"You're right," said Lily. "Let's just get these students over to the cars and collect the Hogwarts students, should be a piece of cake."
James went through the barrier first and then Lily let the students out a few at a time. Then, with one last scan of the platform to see if Richard was going to show up, Lily joined the group.
All was going well until suddenly they reached the Hogwarts students. One minute James and Lily were greeting the returning students and explaining why they didn't have a teacher with them to Professor Aligne and then the next minute, people started screaming.
James and Lily looked up and saw their worst nightmares coming true. Death Eaters were swarming the station, coming towards their group, torturing and killing the innocent muggles as they went.
"Everyone run!" ordered the not-so-brave DADA teacher, Professor Aligne.
The students immediately scattered, abandoning their possessions and trying to find places to hide. James, Lily, Sirius and Peter joined the terrified students by hiding in a nearby loo, fear taking over their movements.
"We need to alert Dumbledore!" Lily yelled over the screams of the dying, which were audible even in the bathroom. "James, Sirius apparate to Hogsmeade and James you run to school! Peter and I will try and find the students and get them to apparate to Hogsmeade! Sirius wait in Hogsmeade and find a safe place to hide all of the students!"
"We can stay and help!" yelled Sirius and James in unison.
"Don't be idiots! In your animagus form, James, you can get to Hogwarts the fastest! And Sirius, you know Hogsmeade better than most; you'll be able to guide everyone and keep them safe. Go now or we'll all die!" Lily shouted. "Hurry up!"
James and Sirius looked at each other and then nodded. Sirius disapparated and James was right behind him, but first he leaned over to Lily and gave her a kiss on the lips. "Be careful," he whispered in her ear before he too disapparated.
"Come on Peter!" ordered Lily, who did not allow herself to bask in the warm, tingly feeling that James' kiss had left her.
Although, he was frightened out of his mind, Peter knew he wouldn't be able to disapparate without splinching himself and he would rather stick with Lily, a very skilled witch, than stay by himself, so he followed her out of the loo and into the war zone.
It was worse that either of the teenagers could have ever imagined. Even though the attack had only started minutes ago, blood was already spattered everywhere and bodies lay haphazardly on the ground. Death Eaters in black cloaks and masks were everywhere. Spells of all colors flashed through the air. A few of the trains were burning and as Lily and Peter looked on, one train exploded, killing a countless number of people. Also, the Death Eaters who weren't busy torturing people on the ground or levitating them into the air to torment them, were occupied with destroying the train station.
"Come on," said Lily as she pulled on Peter's sleeve.
She and Peter kept to the edge of the wall and tried not to draw attention to themselves. Whenever they could they ducked behind pieces of the debris from the destruction of the walls and other structures. Behind these clumps of stone and brick, they found many cowering students, whom Lily often had to side-along apparate to Hogsmeade while Peter tried to calm down those who were waiting their turn. In this manner, Lily and Peter were able to save twelve students.
However, while they were trying to dart from one soda machine that had been levitated purposefully to land on a muggle, Lily was hit with a particularly nasty cutting hex that sliced her abdomen causing her to scream out in agony as she fell and slid across the floor.
Peter had watched helplessly as the spell hit Lily and saw her fall to the ground. Then the courage that the Sorting Hat had seen in him reared up inside of him and instead of running off and leaving Lily to her death, he altered his course and ran to her side. Then he put his hands under her arms and dragged her over to the next pile of rubble.
Once they had reached relative safety, Lily's eyes flickered open and coughing up some blood, she said, "That was very brave of you Peter. Thank you."
Then she gingerly pulled back her sweatshirt and shirt, which were both already soaked with blood and tried to see how bad the damage was. Although her wand hand was shaky, after she quickly summed up her injury, Lily began some complicated healing charms on herself.
Peter watched, fascinated, as the wound closed up and the skin knitted itself back together, only leaving a thick red scar that stretched across her stomach.
Then Lily closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply and evenly.
"Don't leave me alone!" cried Peter as he grasped Lily's hand trying to keep her from becoming unconscious.
"Don't leave me alone!" mimicked a deep male's voice. "How touching. I suppose I'll just have to kill you at the same time then…"
The Death Eater was half-way through the killing curse when an amplified voice called, "The aurors are here! Take prisoners!"
"All the better," the man grinned. "I hate killing under pressure. I much prefer the long drawn-out executions."
He bound both Peter and Lily with thick cords and grabbing Peter roughly, apparated away. This was because he was skilled enough to grab and disapparate with both prisoners. After hearing the tell-tale crack of disapparition, Lily opened her eyes and saw the aurors trying to round up the Death Eaters. Hope fluttered in her chest, hope that someone would notice her before the Death Eater came back for her, but no one glanced her way and the ropes were too tight across her body to allow her to force enough air out of her lungs to shout.
But then she saw Dumbledore, who was stunning Death Eaters as he ran down the train station, apparently looking for something or someone. Surely he would find her. Surely he would know how important it was that she did not get captured. Dumbledore's gaze had finally met hers, and she felt relief wash over her, when the Death Eater apparated next to her, grabbed her arm and disapparated. Having lost all hope, Lily allowed herself to fall into an unconscious state, which was brought about by blood loss, paralyzing fear, overwhelming pain, and crushing disappointment.
If only Lily had waited a second longer before darting out into the open. If only James had remembered the password to Dumbledore's office a minute sooner. If only Dumbledore had run faster.
If Only.