Chapter 13: It Begins
“Are you dizzy? What? What?” Charlie was beside herself. When Lily just curled up into a ball on her side, she said, “I’m going to go get Kettleburn. I’ll be right back.”
Charlie turned and dashed down the dirt path. She saw the Care of Magical Creatures professor discussing something with Hagrid, Hogwart’s half-giant keeper of keys. She started calling to them when she was still yards away.
“What is it?” Kettleburn asked when the brunette reached them. “What’s happened?”
“Lily”hurt”needs”help”“ Charlie managed to puff out. She pointed up to where Lily still lay on the ground.
The professor and Hagrid were already hurrying forward. “Dumbledore said something was afoot,” Kettleburn muttered to Hagrid. Then to Charlie, he instructed, “Miss Simmons, you must go collect the headmaster and Professor McGonagall. Warn Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing that we are coming, and then gather Miss Evans’s friends. She’s going to need support.”
Charlie, fearing for her best friend, tapped into her energy stores and sprinted ahead. When she came to Lily, she quickly knelt beside her said, “Help is coming, Lily. I’m going to go get James.”
Lily managed to peek through her eyelids, and the eyes that locked on Charlie’s were glazed with pain, dilated with shock, and so, so scared. Without further ado, Charlie leapt to her feet and ran into the castle.
Moments later Professor Kettleburn and Hagrid reached her. “Miss Evans, what happened? What’s wrong?” Kettleburn tried asking, but all he got in reply were moans. He leaned back, nodded to Hagrid. The gigantic man bent over, scooped Lily into his arms where he cradled her like a doll, and he and the professor started for the school.
Charlie whipped through corridor after corridor. Managing to glance at a clock as she passed one, she headed for Gryffindor Tower. To early for dinner, she thought, and classes just ended. They have to be in the common room.
When she reached the portrait hole, her calves felt like they were on fire, as did her lungs with each breath she took. Doubled over, she placed her hands on her knees as she gasped out the password. “Destiny’s decision.”
She didn’t hear anything, no portrait sliding open, no annoyed muttering from the Fat Lady. “Destiny’s decision,” she repeated. Still nothing. With her brows furrowed, Charlie looked up to find that the Fat Lady had left her post.
The corridor echoed Charlie’s vicious but creative stream of curses.
“Damn it, of all times”“ Figuring she might as well go get Dumbledore and McGonagall, Charlie turned around and started to walk away.
Just as the portrait hole slid open. “Maybe their class went long,” suggested the very person Charlie had sought out to find.
Spinning around, catching the Marauders by surprise, Charlie crossed to them in two strides. Grabbing the first hand she came in contact with, which happened to be Sirius’s, she tugged forcefully. “You have to come and you have to come now.”
James was baffled. “Charlie, what’s going on? We were just coming to find you”“
Charlie cut him off as they rounded the corner leading to the headmaster’s office. “I don’t even understand it myself. One minute Lily and I are walking back up to the castle after class”“
James noticed his girlfriend was missing. His cheeks paled a bit and his stomach clenched.
“”And the next Lily’s collapsing on the path. Lemon drop,” she guessed, coming to stand before the stone gargoyle that guarded the headmaster’s office. It didn’t move. “Fizzing Whizbees, Cockroach Cluster, Acid Pop, Peppermint Imps, Sugar Quills, Droobles Best Blowing Gum, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans”argh! Just open up you stupid stone thingy!” Charlie kicked the gargoyle with all her might and ended up jamming her big toe.
“I’ve always been partial to cinnamon buns myself,” spoke a calm, sage voice.
Hopping on one foot, Charlie bounced as fast as she could to the headmaster. “Sir, please, you must come to the hospital at once!” With that she toppled over.
As Sirius helped her to her feet, Charlie put a clinging arm around his neck for balance and looked at Dumbledore imploringly. She noted the amused sparkle had left his eyes.
“What are you talking about, Miss Simmons?”
Charlie took a deep breath. Get a grip on yourself, Simmons, she scolded herself. Panic won’t help Lily much.
“Sir, something happened to Lily Evans. She and I were walking back up to the castle after Care of Magical Creatures when she just collapsed. Professor Kettleburn and Hagrid are bringing her to the hospital wing now, and Professor Kettleburn sent me to get you, Professor McGonagall, and James.”
The headmaster turned around and started walking hastily. James, Remus, Peter, and Charlie, supported by Sirius, followed him.
“How was Miss Evans behaving, Miss Simmons?” Dumbledore asked as they came to the hospital wing.
“Well.” Furrowing her eyebrows, Charlie tried to find the words. “Well, she was”“
“Headmaster!” Professor Kettleburn and Hagrid rounded the corner. Kettleburn was jogging in order to keep up with Hagrid’s large steps. Lily was as limp as a rag doll, buried in Hagrid’s arms.
Dumbledore held open the hospital’s doors. “Miss Simmons has just reported to me. Fetch Professor McGonagall,” he told Peter. The boy jumped with a squeak, then dashed off to comply.
Madam Pomfrey had turned down the sheets on one of the hospital beds, and was currently muttering instructions to herself as she brewed a potion. Hagrid enter the wing with Lily, followed by the headmaster, Professor Kettleburn and Charlie, James, Remus, and Sirius. The nurse flicked a glance over her shoulder. “I saw you coming up the path. One moment.”
As Hagrid set Lily down on the prepared bed, James hurried forward. She curled into a ball as much as she possibly could, trying to find some sort of comfort. Her eyes were narrowed into slits of agony. James took her hand, kissed the back of it, and tried to rub warmth into it. “Lily, can you hear me? It’s James.”
Lily’s fully dilated eyes moved to his face.
“You’re in the hospital. Everyone’s here. We’re going to find out what’s wrong.”
Madam Pomfrey came to sit on the edge of Lily’s bed opposite James. “Actually, we already know the problem. Here, dear, let’s see if this will help.” The nurse held a flask of potion up the redhead’s lips, but Lily shook her head and moaned.
Madam Pomfrey pursed her lips, but handed the flask to James. “You try. She needs to take it.”
James took the flask but kept it out of Lily’s view. Cupping her chin, he leaned forward to lightly touch his lips to hers. “Lily, I want you to feel better. Please take this potion, love.”
Again Lily shook her head. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, but one tear managed to leak out, to drip down her nose. James, feeling helpless, set the flask on the bedside table and stood. Picking her up, he sat on the bed and placed her in his lap, cradling her like a child. Madam Pomfrey stepped forward and was about to protest, but was cut off by a sharp look from Dumbledore.
Lily, recognizing the scent and feel of him, buried her head in the side of his neck. James smoothed her hair and rocked her, whispering and murmuring support in her ear. Very slowly, he reached for the potion flask. “Please, Lily. I don’t like to see you hurting. Just a sip at a time.”
This time, Lily trusted him enough, and after she had taken one gulp, she shuddered and he reset the flask on the table. Glancing up, he saw the nurse and the headmaster nod at him.
Suddenly, Professor McGonagall, Professor Slughorn, and Peter burst forth into the room.
“I was speaking with Horace when Mr. Pettigrew told me about Lily,” Professor McGonagall announced. “We came at once.”
“Are the tests correct, Dumbledore?” Slughorn asked.
“I fear they are.”
As James persuaded Lily to drink a little more of the potion, Charlie asked, “What tests? What’s wrong with Lily?”
Dumbledore sighed and conjured several chairs around Lily’s bed. Once they were all settled, Dumbledore began, “I took the goblet Miss Pierce had given to Lily and gave a sample to Professor Slughorn. He ran tests, and the same conclusion came from all of them. Excrutio Venenum.”
“What’s Excrutio Venenum?” Charlie asked impatiently when the headmaster let the silence hang for a moment.
Dumbledore took a breath. “It’s a potion that works much like poison. It was very popular centuries ago when heirs wanted to clear their path to the throne.”
He nodded at Slughorn and the professor picked it up. “It’s a very fine liquid. Besides a rather stale taste, it’s virtually undetectable, for it gives off no foul odor and is clear as water. As Dumbledore said, it’s much like poison. It seeps into the drinkers blood, and usually comes into significance nearly eight hours after being drunk.”
When he sighed the headmaster continued. “Excrutio in Latin means to torment, torture, or cause great pain. Venenum stands for drug, poison, or potion.” He looked at Lily with soft sympathy as she took another gulp of the potion James was feeding her. “What the potion does, exactly, is gives the drinker great, unbearable pain for forty-eight hours straight. She’ll feel it everywhere mercilessly.”
Slughorn, McGonagall, Kettleburn, and Pomfrey had their heads bowed. Hagrid, Charlie, and the Marauders were gaping at their headmaster in shock, their faces bloodless.
Charlie found her voice when Lily gave a short scream. “Isn’t there anything we can give her to help lessen it?”
“There are many different pain-killing potions in the wizarding world, Miss Simmons,” Madam Pomfrey told her in an uncharacteristically gentle tone. “We can try to give her some, even all of them, but they won’t give much relief, if any at all. And after she would take them for so long, her body would become somewhat immune to them, anyway.”
“So she just has to grit her teeth and live with it?” Charlie demanded angrily of all her superiors. Her voice shook slightly, however, because behind the anger and frustration was great fear for her friend. Sirius put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she turned her head and glared at the floor.
“As much guilt as I feel saying so, Charlize,” Dumbledore said, “that is precisely the only thing she can do.”
“You said this potion was given to clear the path to the throne,” Remus spoke up suddenly. “How would it do that?”
“The pain inflicted on the drinker will reach a peak after the twenty-four hours,” Dumbledore answered. “The pain becomes to much for the body and the mind to handle, and the victims are either driven mentally insane, or they are killed.”
“Oh God.” Charlie’s legs gave out. Luckily Sirius was behind her, and caught her before she hit the floor. She turned her face into his chest and wept quietly, murmuring, “Oh God, not Lily. Why is it always Lily?”
“Won’t she eventually go unconscious, Professor?” asked Remus. “Because the pain will become so great?”
Dumbledore sighed. “That’s what makes this potion so cruel. The victim has no source of relief whatsoever. No, Remus, the potion will not allow her to escape it.” He conjured five chairs to be placed around Lily’s bed.
He said, “As the pain grows worse, Lily’s struggle against it will become more, for lack of better word, ugly. I strongly suggest that you five,” he looked at the Marauders and Charlie, “as her friends, stay and give her your encouragement. If the scene becomes to much for you to watch, then you are welcome to step out.”
He turned to Professor McGonagall. “Please inform the rest of the staff.” As she bustled out, he told Slughorn and Kettleburn, “Would you two kindly escort Hagrid to my office? Thank you, I’ll be there shortly.”
When the two professors managed to drag a howling Hagrid out of the infirmary, Dumbledore said to Madam Pomfrey sternly, “Poppy, the only people I want coming through those doors, with the exception of an injury, are Professors and these five.” He gestured to the group of seventh years. “Please be sure to keep Peeping Toms outside.”
“Of course, Headmaster.”
Remus, Peter, and Sirius, who held Charlie cradled in his lap, had seat themselves in the chairs Dumbledore had conjured. The headmaster walked over to the side of Lily’s bed, and smoothed his hand down her hair as she moaned.
“Professor.” Charlie sniffled and peered at him out of red-rimmed eyes. “You said pain-killers were useless, so what was that potion you had James give her?”
“It was a potion that is supposed to help protect her mind. Such a brilliant mind she has; it’d be terrible to ruin it.” He sighed once again. “I don’t think it’ll be very effective, but it was worth a try.”
Dropping his hand to his side, he announced, “I’m going to talk with Miss Pierce and see if I can discover where she got a hold of such a potion. Then I will contact St. Mungo’s and ask if they have any suggestions.” He stroked his long white beard in consideration. “Perhaps I should see if I could reach Lily’s sister, Mrs. Dursley, I believe.”
“No,” Lily moaned, startling everyone in the room.
“Why ever not, Lily?” Dumbledore asked.
“She,” Lily gasped, “she won’t care.”
He was about to question her further, but a sharp look from James cut him off. The young wizard just shook his head, and Dumbledore nodded. He began to walk toward the door. “I’ll be back.”
When he was gone, James looked down at his girlfriend. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her breath was shaky and gasping, and her flesh was chilled and white. His throat tightened with unshed tears. He stooped to press a kiss to her temple, whispering helplessly, “I love you, Lily. Hang on. I won’t leave.”
Her only response was a shrill, high-pitched scream as a new wave of pain slashed through her.