In The Tower
Chapter Four: On His Lonesome
Summary: See Chapter One.
Disclaimer: See Chapter One.
Author's Note: This is their seventh year, if you already didn't figure out by the fact that James and Lily are head's… but I'm going to pretend that Peter turned into a Death Eater later okay? So... let's try this baby huh?
Previously: "Ah, every few days or so. But it seems that they wanted to keep the room this way. I don't know. Good night, Ms. Lily."
"Ah... Good night too Godric," They then fell into a lapse of silence where she fell asleep listening contently to Godric's snores from the wall to her far left.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds. Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Sirius woke up early the morning after Remus had gotten Lily into the tower. He didn't know why he would wake so early, because he is usually a late sleeper. The room had an odd vibe that engulfed him. The rest of the guys were still the same as usual. He laughed as he heard James mumbling, he was too weak to get to his dormitory last night so he just slept on the floor, about Quidditch and then whipped cream and Lily, which together didn't make sense at all. And Remus was tossing and turning restlessly in his bed, fighting all the demons inside his head. His cat, Milkshake, slept on Sirius' bed whenever that point in the month came, and the cat was currently at the foot of Sirius' bed, sleeping contently. Peter was mumbling something about a salad dressing. Okay, so these things aren't that normal, but being here, things never are.
Stepping out of bed carefully, Remus shot up and howled in some pain that none of the boys could even comprehend. Sirius just sat back on his bed and watched the private torture that Remus was enduring. His fit left him, and Remus faded into another restless sleep. Sirius got up again cautiously and skipped stupidly to the shower. He looked at both the shampoo bottles and soap that there was no itching powder and/ or hair removal gel in them before their usage. Clean, but it isn't always that way... gr. Lily Evans! Then Sirius enjoyed a shower full of nothingness, just thinking time.
Wrapping a towel around his narrow waist as he stepped out of the shower, he got the weird vibe again. That something was somewhat wrong; he just didn't know what yet. "Oh yeah! Evans isn't here!" That made the mood much jollier for Sirius... until James woke anyway.
"Guys..." He said to Peter and Sirius, when he came down to breakfast. "Where's Evans!" Peter and Sirius tried to look innocent but it really just wasn't working for Peter. Poor bloke couldn't lie for a block of cheese.
"How should we know Jamie? She doesn't even like us. Well, okay, she likes Remus, but not the rest of us."
"Yeah, yeah guess you're right." He said distractedly, while scratching the nape of his neck.
"Well c'mon James. Got to eat don't you?" He nodded and plopped down while grabbing the grits right off Peter's plate.
"Hey!" Peter shouted at him, "Give me my food!" James snapped his head around and looked at Peter. James looked at him stupidly, then down to his plate where the grits laid, to Peter's where you could see the smear of the grits running off the plate.
"Oh, sorry," He switched plates with Peter, and grabbed a banana. He peeled it and set the banana down, and bit into the skin, but didn't seem to notice and started chewing it roughly.
"Um James you know what you're doing don't you?" No answer. "James, JAMES?" Sirius shouted at him, and he stared at him.
"What?" He asked annoyed.
"You just ate your banana peel you know." Sirius looked pointedly at his left hand, where James held what was left of it. He threw it down and just whirled around looking confused.
"I... I got to go." He jumped from the table and almost ran into the doors of the Great Hall, before Sirius called to him to open them. Pete and Sirius ate as quickly and quietly as they could.
"You know Quidditch Practice is going to go all day, since James is Captain and all, right?" Peter asked him as they hiked their way out of the hall and to the Quidditch Pitch. Sirius glared darkly at him. He shrank away from him.
"Pete, I'm not that stupid! I mean come on! I've known him since the first ride on the Hogwarts Express! We told each other everything about each other then, even if we barley knew each other. And I'm going to be there all day if I have too. I don't care what happens.
"But I need you to ask the House Elves to put a sleeping potion in one of the chocolate muffins that they are giving Lily. Please? I have the hard part of this. I have to get him there! He needs to be like, sleepwalking when I bring him there! And Lily has to be sleeping in the bed, or this whole thing will go wrong. You do realize that for Remie's transfiguration you will be the only one there for a tad, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah I knew that. What time should I ask the elves?" They were at the pitch now, and Peter was currently huffing and puffing his way to the top of the Gryffindor stands. Sirius, on the other hand, wasn't even breaking a sweat.
"Probably at three or so," Sirius looked at his watch and sighed. It was only ten thirty. "It's going to be a long day." They reached the top of the stands, and Sirius waltzed to his seat, while Peter was still at the top of the stairs, heaving his guts out trying to get some air. "Now come on Peter! Practice is about to start!" He came and sat in his seat at least five minutes later, and he stank of sweat. "Peter, you stink."
"Oh shut up you!" He said obviously annoyed. But he knew Sirius was right, and he charmed a spell on himself, getting rid of the sweat, and the stench. As soon as he was done, James came flying up to them on his Comet 360. He came to a screeching stop not even a foot in front of Sirius' nose, yet Sirius didn't flinch. Was far to use to it now.
"Yellow! Didn't know you would be here!" He said cheekily. Sirius rolled his eyes while Peter huffed a sigh.
"You feel any better?" Peter asked, looking at James with bright eyes.
James glanced at him. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said cockily. He'll never admit that he was sick.
"James, you're such a dork." Sirius said, returning to the previous conversation.
He smiled stupidly. "But I'm a hot dork right?"
"Oh yeah, you're a hot dork all right." Sirius said sarcastically. James didn't seem to notice the sarcasm.
"Yeah, I know I am." He swept a hand through his uncontrollable black hair, and it made it all the messier. Sirius rolled his eyes again.
"James, think you're team is waiting." Peter pointed out. James just stared at him dumbly. Then it hit him.
"Oh yeah," He said. "Forgot I was captain again." He slapped himself on the forehead. "Well, have fun watching me flying!" And he raced off, yelling commands to his team.
"Oh yes," Peter said recurring to his conversation with Sirius earlier, "A very long day." Five hours later Sirius made Peter leave to get the muffins ready. Sirius had finished four homework assignments believe it or not; he couldn't really believe he had done them either. No one came up to bother them, but the beaters joked and hit the bludgers in their direction every half-hour or so. Peter came back an hour later, telling Sirius it was all set.
"Great. Part two shall commence in," he looked at his watch and it said five, "In three hours." He tapped his watch. "Weren't you only gone an hour?" He asked Peter.
"Yeah," Peter said uncomprehending.
"Stupid watch," Sirius grumbled tapping his watch face angrily and not noticing anything else. Peter watched him carefully. They didn't notice until it was almost too late.
A sudden whistling sound was heard and Sirius turned his head to see a bludger coming right toward Peter. Peter stood there, shocked. Sirius pushed him out of the way just to get hit in the stomach. The impact threw him up into the air, backward. He fell, one hundred feet down. The freaking bludger knocked him off the stands!
He kept falling. He felt someone grab him, but they lost their hold, maybe because he was going at least fifty miles per hour faster than them, and they only grabbed him by the tips of his fingers. It did slow him down, but for only a mere second. He plummeted to the ground, and landed with a sickening crack. Pain whipped through his body like fire, shooting through all of his veins. He couldn't move unless he wanted to have instant excruciating pain. He heard in a distant part of his mind someone calling out his name, but it was swept away into the roaring oceans of pain and the loud pumping blood in his ears. It would forever be lost at sea.
PETER'S POV
Peter lay there on the top of the stands, petrified with fear, just watching Sirius fall farther and farther. Sirius had no expression on his face, like he knew that this was coming, and come what may, he would see to it that it did. James was racing trying to get to him and catch him, just like the rest of the team. But no one got close to him.
Sirius slowed down at one point, twenty feet from the ground, and his arm was reaching up and trying to grasp something, but in a second, he's falling faster and faster again. It must have been Peter's imagination. He heard Allison Jones calling out "Sirius!" Right before he hit the ground. A crack echoed through the air all around them.
Everything went quiet. No one moved. And then, everything was in a commotion. Peter was galloping down the stairs fast as his chubby legs would carry him, and James was zooming around yelling, commanding again. But this time it wasn't for just a simple game. This was real. Allison Jones was speeding away to the windows of the Hospital Wing, and you could hear her screaming at her broom to go faster.
Peter jumped the last ten steps on the staircase, and landed tumbling into the soft dirt. He picked himself up in a daze, and sprinted to where most the team was crowded around Sirius' body. It was mangled, and blood had sprayed around the ground when James tried to pick him up. Allison was coming back now, and Madam Pomfrey was hugging her close on the back off her broom, her wand and her medical case in hand.
They landed heavily and Pomfrey stumbled off the broom and walked quickly to them. "Get out of the way, get out of the way!" She shouted at them all, and they all backed off, except for James. He was holding tight to Sirius' hand, and all ready you could see such sadness in his eyes. He looked like he could never live again. "I said move!" She shouted at him.
He sent her a death glare, and shouted more ferociously then her, "NO!" She sighed but couldn't do a damn thing about it. She started checking over Sirius' body. It was very bloody, and both his arms and legs were bent in haphazardly ways. "He's going to be in the Hospital for a while, but you have to let go of him so I can bring him there. Please let go?" She asked James incredibly nicely.
"James, let him go." Peter whispered pleadingly to him. James just stared at him dumbfounded before he mounted his broom and sped off into the red and orange flavored sky. He went over the Forbidden Forest, before dipping down into a clearing until Peter could see him no more. They all watched him go sadly.
Peter scrambled up out of his thoughts, and tore up and through the castle, ignoring all the strange looks he received. He kept running until he reached the kitchens. He asked the Head Elf politely if he could have one of the muffins, they were saving for Lily. The elf gave one to him, and told him in a stern high pitched voice, "These are very powerful, and sir! As soon as you bite into one you will be sleeping for at least four or five hours."
"You gave all the other ones to Lily, did you not?"
"Of course I did sir! You told me to sir! I just sent them up a few minutes ago sir! Please leave though sir, we are making dinner and I don't want to show you what we're making sir!" All the elves crowed around him and shoved him with their tiny hands until he toppled out of the portrait and into the hall. Peter shoved the muffin determinedly into his robes, and hurried to the broom closet out on the grounds. Prefects were roaming the halls and teachers were all breezing by without even looking in his direction.
He ran fast as he could to the brooms and pulled out the closest one to him. Yanking it out, he saw sadly the broom he was holding he knew very well. It was Sirius' broom, a top of the line Comet 3000. Yea, it was one deadly fast broom, and it would get him to James in no time at all. Peter hopped onto it, trying to remember his first Quidditch lesson in first year, and it all came back to him, watching Longbottom rising into the air, then the broom dumping him on the ground as it bucked and flew away.
It was shaky at first, but Peter got the hang of it as he went over the start of the trees. He found the clearing that James dipped into, and saw him just staring up into the sky. Peter lowered himself farther into the clearing, before finally falling to the ground five feet from it. Still, James didn't move. "James?" He didn't even look like he heard Peter at all. "Look, if you kept him there even more, he could have died. And we don't want him dead, do we not?" Peter saw his eyes shift over to him, and they clearly looked like they said no, but all emotions were conflicting to win the main emotion in his eyes.
"You look hungry." Peter continued on. "Want my muffin?" He grabbed it out of his robes and held it up for James to look at. He shrugged his shoulders, but reached out and grabbed the muffin anyway. "Don't worry, it's clean." He shrugged again and bit into it. He ate it all down. He looked at Peter, and the conflicts in his eyes were dying down until his eyes looked dead, numb. His eyelids drooped down, and he was asleep within the minute.
Peter had to lug his body over to his broom, not even a yard away. He then had to tie him to his broom so he would go anywhere. Almost lastly, Peter then cast a spell so where ever his broom went James' went to. Peter, exhausted then mounted his broom, and flew to the stars. He rode silently, and could hear James' snores slowly fill the air behind him. He landed right at the seventh floor corridor and had to halt the broom so he could open the window and let them in. They flew in, and Peter only stopped when he was right in front of Godric.
"Evening Godric, I got the second one here." Peter pointed to James, who was drooling a tad. He looked back at the portrait. "Is she still sleeping?" He nodded. "Frakanoplic," He said to Godric, and his portrait swung open. Inside Peter could hear Lily shifting on the bed. He untied James from his broom.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" He said with his wand pointing at James. He slowly rose, and his floating body followed Peter into the room where Peter carefully laid him down next to Lily. He shifted until he was more comfortable. His face was inches from hers. Peter turned back to go. "Thank you Godric!" He nodded, before he himself went to sleep. Peter flew the brooms back out the window and shut it. He then flew to the boys' dormitories, and dumped the brooms there. He grabbed James' invisibility cloak, and clamored down the stairs and outside until he reached the Whomping Willow. He transformed, feeling his body become smaller, his senses keener, until he was speeding into the tunnel through the Willow. He heard Remus' scream, and Peter knew this was going to be a rough night.
JAMES'S POV
James woke up slightly when he heard the door close. He opened his eyes, and he didn't believe what he saw. Lily Evans was right in front of him, sleeping! She looked comfortable, and he was just too sleepy to really notice she was rolling over to him, even closer than she was. She found him and wrapped an arm around his stomach and snuggled closer. "Very good dream," He mumbled incoherently. He then feel asleep again, feeling her heart beat in synch with his, her soft breath blowing his hair up and down, as he breathed her hair flew back only a little, then went back in place. The last thing he remember before going back to sleep was wrapping an arm around her as she whispered, "love you,"
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