~
Darkness. It was everywhere, pressing painfully into his lungs, mercilessly pushing the air out of his body. He slowly became more and more aware of this as his senses crept back into his body.
Sirius frowned. He remembered the werewolf digging into his side, but nothing had injured his chest area. He blinked his bleary eyes and smiled. He recognized the golden head sleeping on his chest. He brushed some hair away from Alex’s face, then jumped as she stirred.
“Sirius?” She asked sleepily, rising from slumber. She turned to face him, blinking the sleep from her eyes.
“How long have I been out?” Sirius asked, wincing as the effort rustled the bandages on his side painfully.
Alex rubbed the side of her face that she had been resting on. “Two and a half days,” she muttered. “A long two and a half days. Are you in pain?”
“Er, not really, I guess.”
Alex’s eyes flashed. “Then would you mind telling what EXACTLY you were thinking? You snuck out onto the grounds WAY after curfew, went too close to the forbidden forest, and got attacked by a BLOODY MONSTER! What in Merlin’s beard possessed you?”
Not for the first time that day, Sirius winced. So that was the story Dumbledore was telling the school.
“AND now James hasn’t woken up or showed any reaction to any of Madam Pomfrey’s treatments! Remus is slowly sinking into depression, Peter can’t sleep, Lily’s been walking around like a zombie, and the Potters are frantic!”
Sirius felt as though the wind was kicked violently out of him. “What happened to James?”
“He and Remus ‘rushed to save you as soon as they saw you were missing,’ according to Dumbledore, and his leg was totally mutilated. But don’t you think I buy that for a minute! Something’s going on, and no one will tell me what it is, so you’d better start talking, Sirius Black!” She was standing up now, leaning over a cowering Sirius.
“He was helping me,” a voice said from the corner of the room. They both turned to face Remus, who began walking towards them. “When I was a child, my father upset some very powerful and nasty people. They turned to Fenrir Greyback, who willingly obliged and bit my father’s only son, me. He was a werewolf, as am I.”
Alex gaped at him, but he continued dully, staring at a spot above Sirius’s bed. “Dumbledore still let me attend Hogwarts, after certain precautions had been… implanted. When my three best friends found out in third year, they did everything they could to ease my pain, eventually learning to… transform… every full moon, as I did.”
Alex whirled to face Sirius. “You’re an Animagi!” she whispered.
He nodded glumly. “Everything went well, until that day in Potions. I was so angry at Snape, and I snapped. I told him how to get to the place of Remus’s transformations on a full moon.”
Remus stared at him impassively, as Alex gasped. “Sirius! How could you! Don’t you know what could have happened!”
Sirius looked away in shame. “I only meant to let him stay long enough to be terrified, only so he would stop. But then James followed Snape, and I had to fight a werewolf to protect them. Obviously, it didn’t turn out so well for me,” he said with a crooked grin.
Alex glanced quickly between the two now silent boys. “But, does that mean- will you- are you-”
Sirius forced himself to look Remus in the eyes. “I don’t know how I got hurt. I guess we’ll find out next month, eh?” He squirmed uncomfortably in his bed. “Remus, mate, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking- you know how I get when I’m mad. Are we- I mean-”
Remus strode over to Sirius, and gazed at him intently. A moment later, his fist popped out and cracked against Sirius’s jaw. “I forgive you.”
“Then what was that for!” Sirius exclaimed.
“It made me feel better.” Remus said as he walked away.
Sirius rubbed his jaw and turned back to Alex, who was smirking. “Now what?” he asked irritably.
“You deserved it,” she said, walking back to his side. She leaned over and kissed his cheek, “But I still love you anyway.”
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She stood nervously in the shadows of night, wringing her hands. Why had she come here? Silly question. She needed someone to talk to. Someone who wouldn’t hear her. She needed to talk to him. At the moment, the two were one and the same. Still, it couldn’t hurt to be sure.
“James?” Lily whispered softly, hesitantly. As she expected, the only answer was slow, almost mechanical breathing. She breathed a sigh of relief and moved in closer, and sat in one of the hard chairs clustered around the bed.
“I- well- I suppose this is silly of me, but I think it would be even sillier to think aloud to myself. Oh no, I already started to sound silly. Oh, I shouldn’t have come. But I did, so here it goes.” She took a deep breath. “Alex and Remus told us about what happened- well, what they know. Peter filled in the rest. So, I have to ask- What did you save Snape for? Wait, that’s not what I mean!” she panicked slightly. “I meant to say, why did you do it. Why not Peter, or Sirius?” Lily pulled her knees into her chest. “That would have made things a lot less complicated. For me, at least. All these years, I’ve been telling myself that you were a selfish, egotistical prick. And I must say, you didn’t do much to change my opinion. So I was… safe, I guess, from whatever spell you put on all the other girls. You had a good side; I’m sure, which was what everyone else saw. But the Slytherins and I, we saw the bad side. And for me, that bad side overshadowed all the good. But now, you’re… changing. And I don’t know how to deal with that. The bad James Potter wouldn’t have even thought about helping Snape, but you did. So now, I don’t know what to think.”
She drew a shaky breath and pulled her knees in closer, and forced herself to look at him. “You’ve changed, James Potter, and you’re changing me with you. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but you’ve messed my life up in more ways than I know. But I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing. And I don’t know whether to cry or cheer, or hug you or slap you, but just thinking about doing anything, anything at all, makes me panic and feel like jumping off a tower, simply because it would involve you. So I don’t know if it’s just in my mind or not, I just know that it’s not normal.”
She looked at him, taking it all in. Under her breath, she whispered, almost pleading for an answer, “James Potter, what have you done to me?”
Lily rested her chin on her knee in silence. Minutes passed, but she didn’t move her eyes. Unconsciously, she was breathing along with him. In, out. In, out. In, out, out…
James’s chest deflated. Lily stared in terrifying awe, not breathing. Suddenly, James started coughing and sat halfway upright.
Lily’s natural reaction was to jump in shock, and she did. Unfortunately, from her awkward position in the chair, this action caused her to tumble out into a sprawled position on her back against the cold floor, gasping for breath. The hacking on the cot above came to a stop. After a slight pause, squinting hazel eyes peeked over the edge of the bed.
“Lily? What are you doing on the floor?”
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Author’s Notes:
So there! That was amusing to write. So that’s my Christmas present to you. Please don’t hate me for taking forever to update! Just a random comment: I love my friends! So I had a pretty awesome Christmas? What about you? Poll, umm, poll, I got it! If you could be any character in this story, who would it be? (boy, girl, doesn’t matter).
I feel random today.
I need a new story summary. Any help?
As usual, Question, Comments, Concerns? (about the story)
And what’s your favorite scene/chapter/character/couple/quote/and title? Heehee I love you guys.