Their Seventh Year

Right, so when I posted this chapter elsewhere the first time I posted this story, I had a mixed reaction to it.  Some people thought it was boring, some thought it was profound.  Personally, I think it belongs at this place in the story (Well, of course I do, I wrote it….)

Chapter 36- Recovery and Realizations

Lily could appreciate irony. For example, it was ironic that she had been the top student in her year all the way through school, been prefect and head girl, gotten accepted to several prestigious Ministry jobs, and gotten within three months of graduation, only to be expelled. That was ironic. Of course, they hadn’t been officially expelled yet, but she assumed Dumbledore was waiting until he was sure they weren’t going to die to tell them.

That didn’t feel like a sure thing either, she felt like she was going to die. It felt as though someone had used her head as a bludger, and every bone in her body ached. Every time she moved pain made her nauseous. Dying was starting to look like a pretty good alternative.

There was some sort of curtain pulled around her bed, and as she wavered in and out of sleep, she heard raised voices coming from beyond it.

“That’s enough Mr. Potter! You may see Miss Evans when I say so and not a minute sooner, so you can either sit over there, quietly, or go back to your common room, it’s up to you.” Madam Pomfrey snapped, followed by James’s contrite mumbling. Through her haze, she wished she could make James listen to her like that.

Madam Pomfrey bustled through the curtain, muttering disapprovingly, but then smiled when she saw Lily was awake.

“How are you feeling Dear?”

Lily attempted to answer, but all that came out was a sort of strangled mumble. Her throat felt dry and unfamiliar.

“Yes, I know you must be feeling dreadful. Honestly, I don’t know what you children were thinking! Sneaking out of school while there was a battle going on. Why, you all could have been killed! My blood runs cold just thinking about it. You should consider yourself very lucky young lady, this could have been much worse! But you’re going to need a good bit of healing as it is.”

Since Lily couldn’t exactly talk, she simply had to listen to this lecture, while Madam Pomfrey held what she assumed was a painkilling potion tantalizingly out of reach. Lily fixed her eyes on the clear liquid and Madam Pomfrey sighed.

“You’d better take this before Mr. Potter has a heart attack.”

The potion, thankfully, allowed her to drift back to sleep.

###

When she woke up again, the pounding in her head had ceased, and the light in the room no longer seemed so unbearably bright. And sleeping awkwardly on a wooden chair, his feet propped on the end of her bed, was James.

“James?”

She tried out her voice again, and found that this time it worked. James tried to jump up at the sound of her voice, forgot that his feet were propped on the bed, and ended up tumbling backwards onto the floor with a crash. Lily wanted to laugh, but that just made her head hurt, and besides it was a little mean to laugh at your boyfriend when he’s just been sleeping at your side in a very uncomfortable chair. James popped up immediately though, unhurt, and fixed her with a very serious look.

“How do you feel?”

She considered this. She felt…better. Score another one to the magic of Madam Pomfrey, she thought. She might be a bit too fond of lecturing, but you couldn’t argue with her skill. She slowly tried to sit up, and James helpfully propped a pillow behind her before fixing her with that concerned look again.

“Did Madam Pomfrey let you stay here?”

Her voice sounded hoarse, but normal.

“She…uh…doesn’t know.” He indicated the silvery mass of the invisibility cloak on a table next to the bed. “Lily, be serious, are you okay?”

That was an interesting turn of events, James telling her to be serious. He seemed so tense, so worried, she wanted to reassure him.

“Yes, I feel better, really.”

He collapsed back into the chair, but his eyes were still on her with an intensity that was unusual for him.

“That was so close. Too close. Gods Lily, I thought you were dead. What were you thinking?”

“James, it was your idea!”

“Not trying to disarm you-know-who himself! That wasn’t my idea!”

Then Lily remembered, you should remember little girl, magic is not all about a wand. She shivered.

“I panicked, I had to do something.”

He was shaking his head slowly. “I shouldn’t have let you come.”

“Let me come? Let’s clear something up right now James, you don’t control me. I don’t ask your permission to do anything. This macho caveman thing might be cute when you’re kidding, but if you’re kidding now it’s a pretty tasteless time to make a joke.”

“I’m not kidding at all. It’s not that I don’t think you’re capable, but if anything happened to you, I really don’t know what I’d do.”

She looked down, making little pleats in the blanket over her lap while she gathered her thoughts. “Well, I don’t particularly want anything to happen to me either.” She said in a lame attempt at humor, and then went on seriously. “James, look at me. If we’re going to be in this, and I think we’ve made that choice now, we’re involved, we have to be in it together. If this is your fight then it’s my fight too. I know you’re trying to protect me, but that’s not what I want. I’m not going to sit around and worry about you while you’re off saving the world. I want to save it too.”

He started to reply but was cut off when Madam Pomfrey came through the curtain.

“Mr. Potter! What are you doing here? Miss Evans is supposed to be resting. She’s very sick!”

“She looks much better to me Poppy.”

Albus Dumbledore stood in the doorway.

The only person who James wanted to face less than an angry Madam Pomfrey was Dumbledore. Nothing had been said about the fact that they had walked out of school in the middle of a crisis, broken a million school rules, and almost gotten themselves killed. They had been patched up and then hurried off to bed, Lily was the only one who had required any real medical attention. James had assumed that when she was recovered was when the axe would fall, and now she was. He was sure they were going to be expelled. What would his parents say? He had managed to push this aside when he was so worried about Lily, but now it was suddenly very real.

“Headmaster, I must insist…” Madam Pomfrey began, but Dumbledore raised a hand and silenced her.

“Poppy, Miss Evans looks much better to me, I think she’s out of danger, and it is very important I talk to her. And since Mr. Potter is here, he may as well stay.”

She gave a little sniff and a disapproving look, but then went into another room off the hospital wing and closed the door. Dumbledore conjured a chair out of nowhere and sat down slowly, indicating that James should do the same.

“I suppose you realize how serious this is.” He said gravely. “You snuck out of school when you had been told to remain in the Great Hall. I will pretend I do not know how you found out about the attack on Hogsmeade…” his eyes strayed to the invisibility cloak on the table. “But you put yourselves in a great deal of danger. You were reckless.” He paused to let them consider this and James waited for the final blow to fall, but then it didn’t. Instead, the Headmaster’s voice softened. “But you’re not in trouble. I’m certainly not going to punish you. I doubt you want to spend you last weeks at school in detention.”

They stared. He smiled at their shock.

“You saved innocent lives. That is worth far more than something as silly as sneaking out of school. You’re young. And while that can be frustrating to those of us with a bit more life experience, it’s hardly a punishable offense. Young people always go rushing into a fight. Reckless idealism is wonderful, but it’s dangerous.” He paused, but James felt again, though he was just sitting quietly, the power that Dumbledore was capable of. “It might surprise both of you to know how closely I have watched you over the years you’ve been at this school. I know your potential. I know you are both strong. You have nothing to prove, you’ve earned your right to be a part of this fight. But I will ask this of you. You have only a few weeks left at Hogwarts. Live them. You’re only young once, and it goes so quickly. For a few weeks, forget about the rest of the world and just have fun.” He winked at them, and then rose slowly. “Lily, I think by this evening you will be able to go back to your common room, but in the meantime I think we’d better appease Madam Pomfrey. And I happen to know as well that Mr. Potter has not slept in over twenty-four hours. I think some rest is in order for both of you.”

When Lily got back to the common room that night, Flora and Alice descended on her, crying, while James and Sirius looked at each other, mystified that they cried now that Lily was fine.

They all stayed up late that night, not really intentionally, but simply because they had realized how little time they actually had left at Hogwarts, how little time they had left in a world that was so much more simple than what they would find when they left school. They had gotten a taste of it the night before in Hogsmeade, and even though they seemed exactly the same, and looked the same, something had changed.

Lily sat tucked in James’s arms, feeling quiet, but content. She had seen another side of him the night before and she was still coming to terms with it. She had not seen the Quidditch-obsessed prankster she thought of her boyfriend as, but the steely determination of a man who took seriously a responsibility he felt to the wizarding world. In a way that scared her, she wasn’t sure that she knew that James, but then it was also reassuring. She knew he was going to keep trying to protect her, that argument was not over, but she also knew they had faced Voldemort once, and lived. It wasn’t impossible, they would be all right.