The moonlight shimmered and rippled off the waves lapping at the shore of the Black Lake. In the North side of Gryffindor tower, three sixteen-year-old girls attempted to smother their giggles as they tiptoed down the stairs to the common room as quietly as they could. One carried a large blanket, borrowed from one of their beds, the other hauled a basket full of little snacks they had been stashing for weeks in anticipation, and the last cradled bottles of ginger beer (although Marlene had suggested they opt for real beer or something a little stronger). They were also all armed to the teeth with warm clothing, like they always had to be when they carried out their tradition in the colder months in the dead of night, and also because Alice had outright refused to come if any of them almost got frostbite again.
It had been a tradition for Lily, Marlene and Alice, whenever they were needing to slow down, heal and regroup, to sneak out for a midnight picnic on the full moon. After the events of the previous week, and everything that had happened since the beginning of term, the girls felt they were long overdue for one.
These nights were for the girls to dance under the light of the moon, fill their souls with laughter and joy and their mouths with good food. Tonight was no different. Once they reached their usual spot on the edge of the lake, the girls arranged their spread between them and took their seats.
Considering it was the beginning of November in Scotland, the night air had a sharp bite, and a slight winter breeze nipped at their exposed skin from under their many layers and scarves and gloves. Their cackling laughter bounced off the stillness of the lake, and the bond of friendship and love between them was palpable in the air.
Lily called all the girls to raise their glasses in toast to "Strong women, both those surrounding us and those who have passed on. To unbreakable female friendships and the healing power of a moonlight picnic." The girls clinked their glasses and fell back onto the cold ground, watching their breath turn to mist as they stared up at the stars and the full moon above them, finding both solace and strength in the silence of each others' company until the early hours of the morning.
The boys, on the other hand, were returning from a particularly stressful full moon. Remus had been more agitated than usual, and James and Sirius had both sustained a couple of rather nasty gashes attempting to placate him. Peter, the lucky bastard, had escaped unscathed as usual. Though Remus had few physical injuries, he was plagued by the familiar queasiness of guilt that always accompanied a full moon and persisted for days afterwards.
Sirius, with the worse injuries of the two, was supported by Peter and James on either side underneath his shoulders, as Remus was too physically and emotionally drained to be of much help.
As they rounded the corner to enter the castle, James heard a laugh he was certain belonged to Lily. He whipped his head around in search of the source of the noise but was unable to even catch a glimpse of red hair.
"What is it Prongs?" Peter asked, nerves creeping into his voice with the strain of supporting his friend on the walk back.
"Nothing, I just thought I heard something." James shook his head, chastising himself for being so gone over the girl her laughter was even haunting his full moon nights.
The boys all but stumbled back up to their dorm, using the map to avoid running into any undesirable parties.
Now James, in his discomfort from his own injuries, compounded by the extra weight of hauling Sirius through the castle, and attempting to buck up Remus in the manner he always did after a full moon, knowing the guilt was already beginning to fester, somehow missed the three dots labelled Lily Evans, Marlene McKinnon and Alice Fortescue that were gathered beside the lake.
As the firsts beams of sunlight began to crest over the mountains surrounding the Black Lake, Lily began to rouse her friends around her who had just falling into the soft embrace of sleep. Lily herself had found herself unable to quiet the constant whirring of her mind, and so resigned herself to appreciating the night for what it was.
"Time to head back" she whispered to each of them as she gently shook their shoulders and began gathering their things. Surprisingly, Alice and Marlene woke without complaint, and groggily began to pick up the odds and ends strewn around their picnic site, and the girls ambled slowly back to the dorms.
Immediately as the girls stepped through the doorway of the Gryffindor Common Room Alice and Marlene made a beeline for the staircase up to their bedroom, and Lily followed, almost reaching the threshold to the stairs before noticing a figure laying on the couch at what looked like an incredibly awkward angle.
Never one to leave a person in need, and hoping to gently shift their limbs to make for a more comfortable night's sleep, Lily approached the figure, and almost gasped in surprise when she saw who lay there, a line of blood seeping through his shirt on his left side.
A million questions swirled around in Lily's mind as she debated waking James, but he was clearly exhausted, and injured, yet would it be wise to leave him here for anyone to find when they woke up? How did he get the injury? Probably something inane and needlessly dangerous. Would he be angry if she woke him up? Probably just annoyed she disturbed his beauty sleep.
Lily's moral quandary continued for a couple of minutes as she simply frowned down at the sleeping boy in front of her. She considered what she would want James to do if she was in a similar situation, not that she would ever find herself practically bleeding out on the couch in the common room at all hours of the morning, but all the same she would prefer if he woke her to see if she was alright and needed her wounds dressed (though she would not appreciate the interrogation she was about to give James).
"James" she whispered, with all the gentleness and care she had woken her friends up with not half an hour earlier.
He did not stir. Merlin, that boy slept like the dead.
"James" she said again, tapping his chest, loath to move him too much in case it damaged his already clearly quite serious injury.
He stirred a little, blinking twice before opening his eyes and staring at Lily. He groaned as he attempted to sit up, clearly forgetting that his side had been sliced by something or other.
He smiled as her face came into focus, despite the stabbing pain down his left side.
"Hey Lil," he said sleepily, "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing" Lily replied, traces of both concern and reproach in her voice.
"Just fell asleep on the couch"
"Did you also land on a knife in your sleep?" she gestured to his left side which had been resting against the back of the couch.
James at last seemed to notice his blood starting to seep into the fabric of the couch and darted off it.
"Argh fuck," he said once, annoyed at himself for staining the couch in such a public area and not wanting to draw further attention to himself or, by extension, Remus, after what had happened the night before.
"Fuck…" he exclaimed again, groaning at the intense pain he had only just noticed. The sudden movement jostled the carefully placed stitches he had magically applied earlier as Peter and Remus had taken Sirius upstairs to treat him, James wanting to rest for a moment before following them. Clearly the moment had become a bit too long.
Lily, understanding the meaning behind both renditions of the word, reassured him.
"Oh, that's an easy fix" she said, pulling out her wand to quietly remove the stain he had left there. Then she turned towards him, eyeing his injured side with suspicion.
"Do you want me to take a look at that?" she said, the comforting tone in her voice not matching the promise of inquest that lay in her eyes.
"Umm" James said nervously, beginning to think that he should have just pretended to be asleep or dead when he felt her tapping him awake earlier. He was not prepared for a Lily Evans interrogation about how he had acquired such an injury.
"James, come on, it looks serious" she said, that promise still there in her eyes.
"Listen Evans, if it really matters to you that much you can take a look under my shirt." He said with a wink and a smirk.
Lily, although satisfied that she had gotten what she wanted, rolled her eyes and began to move towards him.
"BUT-" James exclaimed, holding his hands out in front of him to stop her coming any closer. "I can't tell you how I got it, so don't bother asking"
"Why not?"
"I just can't, Evans, and this is one thing I am not going to budge on so suck it up or go on up to your room because my lips are sealed." he said with finality, crossing his arms like a petulant child but quickly backtracking because of the sharp pain it caused.
Lily caught the flash of pain in his eyes and reluctantly agreed, her concern overriding her curiosity and compulsion to know. Additionally, she caught a glimpse of something she couldn't quite name in his eyes, something that told her that he couldn't be persuaded to tell her, however annoying she planned to be until she got it out of him.
"Fine" she sighed, as they both sat down on the couch.
She carefully peeled of his shirt to reveal a wound about four inches long grazing his left side. She winced as he hissed in pain as he lifted his arms above his head for the shirt to come entirely off.
A haphazard stitching job, as if someone had done it in a rush, whilst half asleep, was staring back at her.
She looked up at him with nothing but concern in her eyes. No questions or chastising opinions lay there, just pure concern, and James' heart swelled a little for it.
They sat in utter silence as Lily worked on the wound. Stopping the bleeding with her clean handkerchief that she always carried in her pocket first, she removed the original stitches and replaced them with her own, carefully and methodically.
Every time James winced or had to bite his knuckle to keep from groaning in pain as Lily's magical needle went back and forth along the wound, Lily would let a wave of pain relief wash over him, though she wasn't yet familiar enough with pain relief spells to cast a long-lasting one to stop the impression of his pain altogether.
When she was satisfied, she replaced James' shirt and stood up, gathering her things to finally head up to bed.
As she neared the stairs, she turned back to James and said "I don't mind not knowing; I understand that you can't tell me how you got that, but please don't let it happen again."
James, of course, couldn't promise Lily that, because he knew nothing would stop him from being out there with his friend again the next time the full moon rolled around, so he simply said:
"Thanks Evans, I mean it, I don't know what I'd do without you.", genuine appreciation shining in his eyes.
"Don't mention it, I'm sure you would do the same for me." She all but whispered as she turned towards her dorm and made her way up the stairs.
James sat in the Common Room for a little while longer, contemplating what on earth he would tell the boys, and how Lily Evans always seemed to show up at the most inopportune (or opportune, depending on how you looked at it), moments.
Meanwhile, Peter was lying in bed, rather pleased with himself. He had long been accused of being a tag-along in their little group (not by Remus, Sirius or James of course, and no one had ever said it to his face, but he heard things), but tonight he felt he had held his own.
He had successfully helped transport a very injured Sirius up to the Common Room (with the help of James), but when James had very nearly collapsed onto the couch by the fire, Peter had offered to take Sirius upstairs all by himself. James, not usually one to delegate, had looked so terribly exhausted that Peter had insisted, knowing he could push through his stinging grazes to help his friend upstairs. James reluctantly agreed, mumbling about how he would join them in a minute or two.
Remus had mindlessly changed out of his soiled clothes and into his pyjamas, barely noticing the filth and scratches littering his body. He'd swallowed his self-brewed sleeping tonic, which, in all honesty, was sub-par at best and tasted absolutely vile, but it had helped lull him to sleep, however restless it was.
Sirius had seemed nearly out of it from pain, sporting two major gashes, one across his left thigh and the other across his stomach. He'd lain on his bed, gritting his teeth and breathing heavily, trying to forget about the pain slicing through him, before everything went black as he succumbed to the feeling.
Peter had watched his friends around him, feeling dreadfully helpless, and had decided he would do something about it. He pulled a piece of parchment from the desk in the corner of the room that had been covered in everything from clothes, to quidditch gloves, to a mammoth stash of chocolate, and had begun wracking his brain for anything that might help with Sirius' predicament. He vaguely recalled a charm James had once cast to repair a broken rib or ankle or something, and after writing it out a few times, he had gotten it just right.
Usually, James was the one tasked with the healing of rogue injuries, but Peter practiced on his own scratches a couple of times before feeling content with his knowledge and execution, and had tried it on Sirius' gashes.
Peter had been very careful, and before he knew it, Sirius' gashes had begun to seal themselves and he could see his sleeping friend's breathing relax and his chest rise and fall a little more deeply.
And so now, Peter was lying in his bed, drifting softly to sleep, his heart warm from time spent helping his friends, and his bed warm from the hot water bottle he'd stashed underneath his sheets earlier. After the exertion of the day, he was grateful when sleep finally pulled him under.