In the Tower
Chapter Eighteen: Possessing Her
Summary: …I don't want to, my back hurts.
Disclaimer: According to my blood tests, I am not, and never will be J.K. Rowling.
Author's Note: There's something in here that none of you guys expected, or would have expected.
Previously: "I think the time fits to talk about it with the people who are here that might cause it." The other four stared at them, one peeking out of another through his hair.
"Fine." She said coldly, before looking directly at James and Lily. She took a deep breath, and said to them loudly, "I saw your son."
Lily Evans and James Potter, his third time in two days, fainted dead away on the floor.
"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what." Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
Katie snorted and looked at James and Lily's unconscious forms between Sirius' arms. "Okay, I would like to say I have never seen him do that before." She then looked up at Lily and cocked an eyebrow. "Does he faint a lot when I'm not with you guys?"
"Uh… no." Remus and Sirius both answered. Somailia laughed and stumbled out of the bathtub, trying in vain to get out, for Remus was clinging on to her leg.
"Remus, let go. We gotta lug them somewhere!" Remus instantly let go of her leg and she yelped in surprise, before falling flat on the floor, her hands under her head protectively.
She pushed herself off from the ground and looked at Remus, who was smiling helplessly at her. She rolled her eyes and got up, walking bow-legged over to the closest one, which was James. She lifted his arm as she squatted down and tried to lift him, before letting out a big puff of air and falling on her back. "Well," Katie called cheerfully, disengaged herself from Sirius' arms, and getting up to help Somailia, "at least you moved him a few inches!"
"Shut up and give me a hand." Somailia said, gritting her teeth and tried to move James again. He slid a few reluctant inches, and she puffed from the exertion. "How much does the damn boy weight?" She grunted out, panting.
"One fifty, just like me!" Sirius said, and Remus rolled his eyes at him, before picking James up around the waist, and his arms straining, lifted James and dragged him out of the room. Sirius got up and walked over to the girls, looking at them and grinning. "Don't worry, I can do this." He said, and bent down before picking Lily up easily, sending them a cheeky grin that made Somailia scowl and Katie half swoon, and walked out of the bathroom easily.
Somailia turned and looked at Katie, who was staring off grinning at the door shutting them in the bathroom. "Your boyfriend," Somailia started, "is a show off."
"I know," Katie sighed out, obliviously. "Isn't he just the greatest?" And then she walked out of the bathroom joyfully.
Somailia gapped at the closed door. "What the hell did Sirius do with my best friend?" Then she too, left the bathroom.
She looked squinting in the darkness of the dormitory. James was sleeping deeply in Remus' bed, and Lily was snoring slightly in Sirius'. Remus and Sirius both raised their eyebrows at each other. They were about to set about the next task, but Somailia and Katie interrupted. "We can at least do that." Katie said, coming out of her little dreamland with Sirius the star of it. "It's not like we've never seen that kind of things before." Somailia blushed against her will. "Shoo!" Katie said, swatting Remus and Sirius in the back until they left howling and running out of the dormitory. Katie shut the door firmly. "You can get Lily, I'll be fine with James."
Somailia shrugged. "Whatever," she sighed out, getting to the annoyingly hard task of getting the unconscious comfortable. Katie set about the task untying James' shoelaces while… Somailia did the same. They both finished at the same time and looked over at each other. "Um?" Somailia said, looking at Katie's face.
"Feet. Smell." Was all she said, and Somailia laughed quietly. Katie slowly peeled his socks from his feet and tickled his toes, but he didn't do anything. Somailia raised an eyebrow at this; she hadn't done Lily's. That would mean that she would have had to take off Lily's stockings, and Somailia isn't that kind of girl.
"Can we just go?" Somailia whispered, huffing as she watched Katie tickle James' ankles now.
"Okay," Katie said, getting up from her squatting position next to James. "He just never let me tickle him before, so now I can hold that against him." She snickered evilly and grabbed Somailia, pulling both of them out of the room. "Don't want to disrupt their beauty rest!" She said in a singsong voice and shut the door to the dormitory quietly.
They bounded down the stairs holding each other's hands and singing, "Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high!" Katie's voice cracked on the high note in somewhere and Somailia was very off-tune.
Remus and Sirius were cringing in the common room, and all the other students that were there had their eyes widened to saucers, and their hands clamped over their ears. Remus looked over at Sirius, and yelled, "Do you think we can charm them to make them sing better?"
"What?" Sirius yelled back at him.
"Do you think we can charm them to make them sing better!" Remus yelled louder.
Sirius pulled a face. "Nothing could make that sound better!"
Katie smacked him in the back of his head hard, and Sirius cried out, "Ow!"
Somailia did the same thing to Remus at the same time, but instead of him crying out like Sirius did, he yelled, "Hey! Those could have been important brain cells!"
"Of course they were," she retorted sarcastically, plopping herself on his lap after arraying herself over the arm of his chair. He let out a puff of breath as she landed heavily and draped her arms around his neck and stared him right in the eye. Katie snorted and rolled her eyes and sat next to Sirius, who was staring intently at the fireplace.
"They are such turd bombers." Katie said heavily, trying to grasp Sirius' attention. He wasn't blinking. Katie looked at the still staring couple, along with everyone else in the common room, besides those two and Sirius. "Oh just kiss already!" Katie yelled getting up and forcing their heads together. And that they did.
Katie grunted and sat next to the idle Sirius again, before shoving him toward the fireplace and at the same time pulling him back. "Saved your life!" She called out happily, and then looked at Sirius. He had swiveled his head to look at her, and he smiled a bit, but didn't pay attention to her. "NO, not you too!" She whined. "I need someone to talk, and make out, with!"
"If only," he said, and she nudged him in the arm.
"If only what?" She asked, and he shook his head.
"Just thinking about something," he said, putting his head into his palm. Damn thinking.
It wasn't good when you put it in the same sentence with Sirius Black in it.
"Please!" She begged, tugging him closer by his sleeve, making him not even budge. She tugged harder, and he fell on top of her with a yelp. Everyone in the common room snickered at that. She looked at them from around Sirius, who was right now mumbling nonsense to her neck. "GO AWAY!" She barked at the other occupants, and they all stood, knocking their chairs to the floor in their haste.
"There," he said into her neck, and that one word she understood. She groaned and closed her eyes with a sigh.
"I want to go do something," she said, wiggling uncomfortably after a few minutes.
"Do something then," he said lusciously, and she moaned again at the sound of his voice.
She uncoiled from his arms like smoke even when he tried quickly to hold her, and she was already storming out of the room. "There's something wrong in here," she whispered, and Sirius, confused, jumped back away from her as she left the room mechanically, her eyes blazing oddly.
"Katie?" He bellowed after her, and there was no answer. "Katie!" Sirius called desperately, trying to get up and stumbling around the common room, raising an eyebrow quickly at the other couple before trying to sprint out of the common room. When he tumbled out of the hall, all he could hear were footsteps slamming hard against the stone floor, but the sound was reverberating around him and confusing him.
Sirius groaned and slammed his head on the wall before saying the password dejectedly to the Fat Lady who gave him a sympathetic look, and then he ran into the common room and up the stairs, giving all the boys who poked their heads out dark looks. They quickly shut the doors, and he bounded into his dormitory, slamming the door and searching through the far too black darkness. He slammed and bumped into a few things, hear someone groan out someone else's name at least seven times, before he finally found his trunk. He flung it open and felt around for the precious paper.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." He recited, and then slammed his trunk shut and stormed out of the dormitory once again.
When he reached the common room again he sat down on the couch and let his eyes roam over the Marauders' Map, trying to find her name. There were so many names and letters crammed into the ink walls of Hogwarts and moving so rapidly that his eyes burned and watered, making him blink twenty times quickly before he could look at it again. He stared hard at the grounds, and then stood mechanically and started running out of the common room again, looking after that stupidly annoying dot that was Katie Ah Bleu. And when he found it, he slammed his head against the wall again. Severus Snape was tailing her.
James grunted and rolled slightly, and fell off the bed obliviously. That was until, of course, half his body hit Remus' trunk and the other half kept falling, making James feel oddly half and half.
"That was stupid," Lily snorted, and swung the rest of her body down from the bed across from his and surveyed him with hawk eyes. "You look like you died and spent two years in hell," she said, dryly, quirking a grin at him.
"Bugger off," he grunted, trying to get up.
"I can't," she said simply, shrugging, "because I simply have no idea how everything is organized, if it's even organized, in here." But she got up and stretched. "Dammit, are you always sore like this after the act?"
"I wouldn't know," James said, finally getting up and lying haphazardly on the floor.
Lily made a disbelieving sound. "Are you saying before me you were still a… full flower?" She said, trying to look at him in the dark.
"Of course, my darling Lily." He said, twisting so he was looking at least toward her bed. "I was saving myself for you, and only you."
Lily guffawed. "You sound so cheesy."
"I aim to please," he said cheekily, grinning.
"You're a dork." She said to him.
He grinned, remembering this conversation that he had with Sirius before he went into the tower. "But I'm a hot dork, right?"
"Sure." She said, obliviously, falling back onto Remus' bed again. She looked down at her legs and feet. "I don't remember taking my shoes off." She said, trying to look around the room. Her shoes were placed neatly at the end of the bed, but she didn't know that yet.
James wiggled his toes. "I didn't take off my shoes, and I definitely didn't take off my socks."
"Okay," Lily said, trying to stand up and tripping over James' waist, "who took off our shoes and who took off your socks?"
He didn't answer her question. Rather, he stated, "…My feet itch."
"Scratch them."
"Isn't it supposed to be itch them?"
"No, it's scratch."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, James, I'm sure."
"Really?"
"Why would you want to itch an itch? Doesn't that sound stupid? Wouldn't you rather say that you should scratch your itch?" Then she cocked her head to the side. "Why are we arguing about grammar?"
"I Dunno."
Katie marched through the halls, not paying attention to what was happening around her or inside her. And neither did she know that Snape was following her. He snuck up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. She stopped and turned around, and he hit her hard across the cheek. She reeled back, and lifted her hand to her face, wiping the blood on her hand that was starting to drip out of her mouth.
She got up and looked him straight in the eye, and they fought her offense and him defense. She kicked out at him suddenly but he caught her. He tugged on her leg and she fell toward him, and he grinned while leering at her. She jumped and kicked him in the shin, and he fell forward onto her. He looked at her with that grin on his oleaginous face, and she spat on him.
He let go of her leg to choke her, and she gagged, and his grin grew bigger. He got up, still choking her, and lifted her so her feet were dangling in the air. "He's been expecting you," Snape sneered, and dropped her, so she fell in a puddle at the floor. He stooped and picked her up by the back of the collar, "I see you're trying to be a stupid Gryffindor," he said, his lip curling, and he dragged her, kicking and screaming, down the hall and out of sight.
"Right… wanna, go?" Lily said uncomfortably.
James shrugged his broad shoulders and stood easily bare foot, and held his hand out to her, which she took casually, as if this was a natural occurrence that happened every day with her. He led her through the dark of the room and flung the door open, squinting in the dull light of the stone stairwell. He looked over his shoulder at her. "Are we going…?"
"I assume so," she said, and gave his arm a hearty tug as she walked down to the common room, with him still on the top of the stair. When they reached the bottom stair, James grinned crookedly and covered Lily's eyes with his hand and walked around the still, somehow, kissing couple, and tapped Remus on the shoulder.
They separated and looked at him, Somailia starry eyed and grinned big, stupidly. Remus had to swivel his neck to see James, and James bit back his laugh at seeing Remus' swollen, bruised and puffy lips and the dazed look in his eyes. "What…" Remus said sluggishly, trying to morph his tongue around the word.
"Do you know where Sirius or Katie are?" James asked slowly, as a teacher trying to teach some five-year-olds the alphabet.
"Um…" Remus said in the same voice, thinking.
"So, how do you think about this baby you're having?" Somailia said to Lily, trying to look at Lily from every possible angel she could see from where she was sitting.
Lily froze and stiffened. "There's no baby," she said quietly.
"How ya know?" Somailia said happily.
"Still bleeding."
"Oh," Somailia said, still cheerful, but not as cheerful as before. "I'm… I'm sorry." She stammered out, and Lily shrugged, James' hand still over her eyes, and the boys were not paying any attention to their chat.
"It must be for the best," Lily said, swaying nervously, accidentally bumping hips with James.
"Well!" Remus and Somailia said cheerfully, "We don't have any idea where Sirius and Katie are, trust us. All I remember was Katie shoving us toward each other. Then… black out."
"That's very informative," James said. "Thank you for that input, and since I bet you six galleons that Sirius took the map, Lily and I will just walk aimlessly through the halls trying to find them." His eyes shifted between Somailia and Remus. "Good day," he said hurriedly, and pulled Lily out of the room quickly. But not quickly enough for the other two to start… kissing again.
When Lily and James walked quickly out of the common room, and James looked back at the Fat Lady swinging shut with a quirky smile on his face, staring at the painting, his eyes shining, as he pulled Lily along. "That was kind of… weird." Lily said, slowly, trying to figure out a word to describe it.
"He's usually not like that," James assured her, and Lily snorted.
"I know him well too, James." Lily said, tugging on her hand, throwing James back a step. He stumbled back and she put her fist in her mouth, stifling her giggles.
He shot her a look and pulled her around a corner, slamming her against a wall and looking around warily. She raised an eyebrow at him, and said, "Really, James, I thought you were pushing me against the wall to do something," she raised her eyebrow higher and gave him a seductive smirk, "else."
He looked back at her, straightening his glasses nervously. "Would you want me to do that?" He whispered, and looked around the hall nervously. "We won't get caught, we're Heady Boy and Girl after all."
"I was joking, James." Lily said, rolling her eyes at him. "We're looking for someone, remember?"
"Oh," he said shiftily, pulling away from her. "Right." He cleared his throat. "C'mon, coast is clear."
She raised an eyebrow but followed him into the darkness.
"Well that's pleasant," Sirius remarked to himself from watching the process from around the corner. A bunch of Slytherins were ganging around Katie and all she did was standing there looking dazed and impatient at the same time. Her bottom lip was bruised, and blood was dripping down from her lip, but it didn't look like she even noticed it.
"Get over here, you stupid fool!" She barked, and Sirius recoiled in surprise. The voice that came out of her mouth didn't sound like her at all.
Well, really, if what you're thinking is, oh gods, she's done it. Someone got possessed, that's not what's happening.
"Get over here!" She barked again, and then someone stood out from behind her. Again, Sirius recoiled farther in surprise. How did he get in? "Dispose of the filth," he said, he said, sneering, looking at the group that congregated around him.
Severus "Snivellus" Snape picked up Katie with a heave and threw her, not very far, I might add, to the outer hall, but no one moved away from their spots, so everyone would see if Sirius ran in and picked her up. Katie was light, very light, Sirius knew, so nothing would be truly holding him back from sprinting like a bat out of Hell.
Sirius took a deep breath and tiptoed to the hall, and looked around at its occupants. He then let out his breath and walked quickly to Katie and lifted her up easily. As he started to jog lightly away, a voice stopped him. "Hello, Mr. Black. Pleasure seeing you here."
Sirius stopped dead, but didn't look around; instead he shifted Katie uncomfortably in his arms. "Tom, hello!" Sirius replied with fake cheerfulness. "How are you?" He didn't await for his response. "We really need to be going, I'm sure my girlfriend needs to sleep," Sirius said putting heavy emphasis on girlfriend, "and it takes me a while to go down to Ravenclaw Common room, you know. And please, please, don't make my girlfriend a puppet for you anymore, I would greatly appreciate. Thanks." And then Sirius scurried off.
"Should we follow him, master?" all the voices chorused around Tom Riddle, and he shook his lovely head at them.
"No, my servants, you need not do that. It would be a waste of the meager time that we have together during your… school careers." His lip curled into a sneer. "It doesn't matter, he won't realize what happened until it's far too late." He let out an evil laugh, and they all laughed haltingly after him. He stopped abruptly, and a few students didn't realize. "SILENCE!" He shouted.
His lip curled again, and the short and fat boy squeaked. Severus laughed raucously, "Mister proud Gryffindor pissed his pants!" Peter's face morphed at the mortification, and he indeed created a puddle at the bottom of his feet. He moved uncomfortably in it.
"Clean up your mess," Tom ordered Peter casually, and he did nervously what he was told.
Remus pulled back and surveyed Somailia with hazy eyes. "I think I should take you back to the Ravenclaw common room," he told her seriously.
She nodded, "good idea." She got up and wobbled around the common room, and Remus got up and stretched, hissing as his backbones popped. He grabbed her hand and pulled them out drunkenly off the common room, ignoring the Fat Lady's warnings of they shouldn't be drinking at their age.
He brought her to the Ravenclaw common room and kissed her goodnight. "Do you know where Katie is?" She asked, not remembering that her and Remus had this conversation earlier with James and Lily.
"Nope," Remus said, holding her hand while looking all around the hall.
"Oh," Somailia said, put out. "I'll wait up for her." Somailia said, before saying the password to the statue and smiled happily as she walked sideways into the common room. He grinned and stood there stupidly for a few minutes before he realized that that would look suspicious to any teachers, ghosts, or prefects who went by, so he went back to the common room, fell into his bed, and slept peacefully, unawares of what was going on around him.
James and Lily found this the perfect time to collide right with Sirius and Katie. They slammed right into each other, making Sirius fall hard on his back, Katie landing heavier on his chest then he would of thought. James got up first, and lifted Lily to her feet, before reaching down and getting Katie off Sirius' chest, and he frowned slightly. "She's cold."
"She's been standing near cold people," Sirius said apathetically, dusting himself off, and looking over at them and smiling blindly.
"What were you guys doing out in the halls so late?" Sirius asked, grinning suspiciously.
"Looking for you," Lily said sternly, erasing Sirius' happy mood.
"Oh," was all he could say, before shifting uncomfortably. James still held Katie, and was looking over her carefully. He was mumbling to himself now. "Whatcha say?" Sirius asked him.
"She's too pale." James said, louder. He bent his head forward and brought her up closer to him. He placed his head over her chest and listened carefully for a minute. His eyes widened and he took off running.
Lily and Sirius watched him go with raised eyebrows for a second. "What's he doing?" They both asked each other and they both replied, "I don't know. Should we go run after him?" And then they both said, starting off running quickly, "I think we should."
James had already disappeared around the corner, and they couldn't hear his heavy footfalls on the stone anymore, so Sirius stopped Lily and pulled out the map again, looking for James and Katie's dots.
"They're heading to the hospital wing. I wonder why…" he said to himself, and he shrugged it off. He grabbed her wrist and started pulling her along quickly looking at the map every moment, not realizing that he was trying to lead he and Lily through walls.
"Sirius!" Lily cried out painfully after the nineteenth time. "That hurts!" She said, rubbing her nose, shooting him dark looks he wasn't paying attention to.
He pulled Lily through a tapestry and three little corridors she was sure she had never been down before and then through two other tapestries and they came out right next to the Hospital Wing.
He burst in, and ran over to James, who was sitting in a stiff hard chair that was next to Katie's bed. James had his head in his hands and when he looked up, Sirius and Lily both melted. James had tears streaking down his cheeks, and he looked lost and confused.
"What happened, James?" Sirius cried, pulling up a chair and sitting right next to James, trying to make him answer.
James mumbled to himself, rocking backwards and forwards in his chair. Lily slid her hand comfortably along his shoulders, and he cried harder, reaching out for her blindly. She knelt down on her knees and leant forward, and James wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and cried harder, pitifully.
He mumbled into her neck and Lily shivered as she felt his hot salty tears hit her skin through the fabric of her clothes.
"What are you saying, James?" Lily murmured.
"D-." James said, before cutting himself off, throwing himself out of Lily's arms and onto the bed, wrapping Katie into his arms and crying pitifully into her hair, holding her tightly to him, almost too tightly.
"You're going to hurt her," Sirius told James, concerned.
"There's no possible way," James wailed, shaking his head.
"What…what are you saying James?" Sirius stuttered out, nervous for the first time in a long time.
"She's…" James trailed off.
"Say it," Lily and Sirius said slowly, softly, comfortingly at the same time.
James choked on the word and said it so low and so softly, that they barley heard it. But they had, and Sirius sat back in shock, and Lily fell to her behind from her knees, putting her head in her hands and muttering to herself.
What did James say?
She's dead.
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