Chapter 22: The Road to Recovery
James was only half aware of the nightmares that came to haunt him that night. They were like fever-dreams, ones you experience when caught by a bad illness. They seemed to him to be more like real life. Yet no matter how he tired to wake himself from his slumber, he was too tired and had endured too much to drag himself into wakefulness.
His dreams were filled with men with red eyes wearing dark capes who surrounded him until he could no longer breathe. At one point he remembered escaping from their torment, only to fall hopelessly into churning water, and slowly begin to drown. He struggled to reach the surface, but the current pulled him down and down and-
“James!” Someone was shaking him. He didn’t know whether it was still in his dream or not. “James! Wake up!” He pulled himself out of his dream and into full consciousness, and opened his eyes.
He knew a moment’s confusion as he tried to recall where he was. This wasn’t his dormitory. Then he remembered the events of the previous night. He looked around.
“Lily.” His voice was croaky and his throat was still sore.
“Yes, I’m here. Are you all right? You looked like you were having a fit or something.” She looked worried.
“Nightmare,” James said, rubbing his eyes. He sat up, and a headache immediately pumped its way around his head. “How are you?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m fine, never mind me. Tell me what happened! I thought you were all going to die…” she trailed off as if remembering something painful.
“So did I,” James said, chuckling despite himself. “But we’re all alive. I think.” He looked around hastily for the others. Sirius and Remus were still unconscious. Peter wasn’t in his bed.
“Where’s Peter?” he asked.
“He left yesterday. He wasn’t badly hurt, just a bump to the head that knocked him out.”
“Yesterday?” He had thought he was only asleep for the night. “How long have I been out?”
“A day and a bit. Today is Saturday. Not too long, considering what you went through. Dumbledore said you were strangled!”
“Yeah…” he didn’t really want to think about it, his nightmare was still fresh in his mind. “How are the others?”
“Madame Pomfrey says they’ll both be fine. Sirius keeps waking up every few hours, but his body is still recovering from the curse. And Remus hasn’t regained consciousness yet. But he should be ok once he does.”
Once he does? James thought. That doesn’t sound too promising.
Lily put her hand over James’. “I thought I was going to lose you,” she said. There wasn’t any sadness in her voice, but more relief that James was ok. She smiled. “But now that I’m not…” she finished her sentence with her lips, as she leant in to kiss James gently. He put his hand behind her neck and pulled her in for a more intimate kiss. It felt good to have someone care about him, to be worried that he had been in danger. Footsteps brought him back to earth.
“I see you are recovering well,” Madame Pomfrey said with one eyebrow raised, as James and Lily parted hastily. She approached the bed on the other side of Lily and raised James’s chin to inspect his neck. She frowned. “Still puffy. Does it hurt to swallow?” James tried. “Yes.” He began coughing and had to sit up until it passed. “Here, drink this. It will help, but it might be painful to get it down. Try not to cough it all up again, though,” Madame Pomfrey said, handing James a goblet that she had brought with her. It was smoking.
James took it warily and pinched his nose with one hand. He raised the goblet to his lips and took in a mouthful of the steaming liquid. It burnt his throat as he swallowed it down, but he finished the whole thing off before he let himself cough again.
“Well done,” Madame Pomfrey said, as she took the goblet from him. “You should feel better in no time at all.”
“What about the others?” James asked.
“It’s taking longer than we thought, but they are improving,” she replied. “Do you by any chance remember what curse you hit the Death Eater with? Because Professor Dumbledore says his condition looked the same as Mr Black’s.”
Lily frowned. “You hit Sirius, too?”
“I suppose I must have,” James said, trying to remember. “Sirius was fighting him when I sent the curse. But it was dark and I was hurt…I must have hit them both…”
“But you don’t remember what with?” Madame Pomfrey repeated, returning to the point.
“No, I’m sorry.”
She sighed. “Never mind, then. We will work with what we have got.” She then bustled over to Remus’ bed and gently removed his blanket to inspect the calluses on his chest. They were very red and looked very unpleasant.
James turned back to Lily. “Thanks for being here. It’s nice to have someone to fuss over me.”
“Yeah, well don’t get used to it. As soon as you’re better, you can go back to adoring me!” She grinned widely.
"So what have you been up to?" James asked.
"Not much. Oh, but I passed my Apparition Test yesterday!" She grinned widely.
"I completely forgot about that! Well done! Come here." He pulled her towards him and they continued from where Madame Pomfrey had interupted them.
***
The rest of that day passed in boredom for James. Only two interesting things happened. The first was when Sirius awoke groggily, casting his eyes around until he saw James sitting up in his bed. Lily had left to eat lunch, and James had been doodling on a spare bit of parchment he had got off Madame Pomfrey.
“James?” Sirius queried.
James looked around. “Sirius! You’re awake! How do you feel?”
“Pretty rough. How are you holding up?”
“Oh, I’m alright really…” He told Sirius all that had happened since they had come back to the castle, and much that had happened to him during the fight. Sirius looked as if he was having trouble concentrating, but listened intently anyway, desperate to know all the details. They were interrupted by Madame Pomfrey, back from lunch.
“Mr Black!” she exclaimed happily. “You have come to again, I see. How do you feel?” She put a hand to his forehead and then the back of his neck. “Rotten,” he replied. “And very tired.”
“Well that’s to be expected, although you have been asleep for a very long time these last days. But you seem to be in a much better way than the last time you came around. I suggest you get some more sleep, and hopefully the next time you wake up, you will be feeling a lot better. Eat this first though.”
She pulled out a large chocolate bar from her bag and handed it to Sirius. “It will help. And then drink the rest of that medicine next to you. It’s to help your body mend itself.”
She bustled away, checking on James as she went past. Sirius did as he had been directed, and then closed his eyes and was lost to sleep again.
The next interesting thing to happen occurred when Dumbledore came to the Hospital Wing. It was around six in the afternoon, and James was thoroughly bored. Lily had come to see him since lunch but had three essays to finish and so left a few hours before Dumbledore arrived.
He approached James’s bed. “How are you feeling today, James?”
“Bored,” James replied.
“That’s good,” Dumbledore said, nodding. “I always feel I must be on the road to recovery once I become bored of bed rest.”
James smiled.
“Now, have you seen Madame Pomfrey recently?”
“Yes sir, I think she’s in her office.”
“Thank you,” Dumbledore said, inclining his head and striding off towards the office at the other end of the Hospital Wing. He returned five minutes later with Madame Pomfrey in tow. They strode past James’s bed and Dumbledore halted where Remus lay. Madame Pomfrey, however, continued to the other end of the room and turned the corner to the other section of the Wing. Dumbledore, meanwhile, was moving Remus’ unconscious body. He lifted him into a sitting position, and then turned him over so that he was lying on his side with his knees up almost under his chin.
James was confused. Were they taking him away? Just then, Madame Pomfrey appeared again with bed screens. She placed them around the perimeter of the bed, so that James could no longer see Remus or Dumbledore. She then disappeared behind the screens herself. James could faintly hear them talking quietly to each other, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying.
They re-emerged a few minutes later, and Madame Pomfrey returned to her office. “Poppy,” Dumbledore called after her. She halted at the door and turned around. “Would you alert me if anything goes wrong, please?”
“Of course,” Madame Pomfrey replied, before entering her office and shutting the door.
Dumbledore looked as if he was about to leave. “Sir?” James asked before he could go.
“Yes James?”
“What are you, I mean, what’s all… what’s going on?”
Dumbledore looked from Remus’ hidden bed to James. He walked over. “I would have thought you would have known,” he said, sitting down by James’s bedside. “Tonight is the full moon.”
“Oh!” James said, knowing full well what that meant.
“So,” Dumbledore continued, “as we cannot move him to the Whomping Willow in the state he is in, we are going to have to leave him to the effects of the full moon where he is.”
“But, won’t he transform?”
“Yes, he will. But seeing as he is unconscious, he won’t be a threat to anyone. Madame Pomfrey assures me that he is in no way ready to regain consciousness yet, so in theory this should run smoothly tonight. However, there is a small chance that he may wake up during the course of the night.”
“Then what?”
“Then, we play it by ear.” He rose. “I must excuse myself, James. Do forgive me.”
“No problem.”
“I shall come to see you tomorrow at some point. Sleep well tonight.”
“Yes sir, thanks.”
***
James couldn’t sleep. Now, not only was he afraid of his nightmares returning to him, but he feared that Remus would wake up while he was sleeping and run amok around the school, killing all the students. He knew it wouldn’t really happen, but he couldn’t get the idea out of his head.
So he drifted between sleep and wakefulness. At one point, he heard footsteps coming towards him in the dark.
“James?” It was Lily. “Are you awake?”
“I think so. What are you doing here? It’s late.”
“Not really, it’s only ten o’clock. I just finished my prefect rounds.”
“Oh.” He had thought it was later. “Did you get your work done?”
“Just about. How are you feeling now?”
“Better. I hate lying in bed all day. I’m ready to go but Madame Pomfrey insists that I stay longer.”
“She’s probably right. Besides, you get time off school.”
“It’s the weekend!”
Lily raised her eyebrows. “You know what I mean.” She pulled her chair closer to James’s bed and pushed the hair away from his eyes. “It’s quiet without the Marauders.”
“I bet. The school won’t know what’s hit them.”
“There’s one Marauder in particular that I miss,” Lily said suggestively.
“I know, but it doesn’t look as if Remus will regain consciousness for a few more days yet,” James replied, smiling.
Lily laughed and pushed James playfully.
“Tell me something,” James said.
“Like what?”
“Anything.”
“Ok…” Lily said, thinking. “Well, when I was four, I painted my cat green because I wanted him to be camouflaged in the garden so my sister wouldn’t be able to see him.”
James chuckled sleepily. “Yes,” he said, yawning. “Tell me about that.” He sank back into his pillows and listened to Lily tell him stories of her childhood…
***
He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he must have, for he awoke while the sun was beginning to break through above the horizon, casting strange dark shadows across the Hospital Wing. The room was still with slumber, and only a single flame flickered in the lone lamp by the door. James lay huddled in a heap, his knees drawn up under his chin. Lily was still beside him, fallen sideways over the edge of his bed under a spare blanket. She slept, her head on his pillow, and one hand resting gently on the covers. James withdrew his own hand from under his blanket and placed it gingerly on her palm, closing his fingers around hers. She didn’t stir, but sighed contently and continued to dream. He felt at peace, and closed his eyes again, letting himself fall back into that space of unconscious sleep, where his nightmares didn’t follow.
Love Conquers by dumbly_dorr
Chapter Notes: James still remains in the Hospital Wing, and becomes increasingly bored. But some of the others aren't doing as well as he he is ... Hope you like it, tell me what you think!