“More crowded than you thought it’d be?”
Lily half-turned, grinning, as James spoke in her ear. “Much,” she said. “Look, there are even Slytherins here.”
Words of Professor Flitwick’s dueling lesson had spread like wildfire”so much that it had been moved from the Charms classroom to the Great Hall. A large number of Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws were scattered throughout the hall, and a fair amount of Slytherins were huddled together.
Lily had come down with Marlene, and James, Sirius, and Peter had arrived moments later, panting.
“We’re not late, are we?” Peter asked, as Flitwick, who looked extremely excited, began moving through the crowd, partnering them up. He was so short that Lily could frequently only see the top of his pointed hat bobbing between students.
“Almost,” she told Peter, who was red-faced and puffing.
“It makes life more exciting!” Sirius said loftily. “You’ve got to live a little on edge.”
“Which is kind of why we’re here,” Lily said dryly as Flitwick reached them.
“Splendid, splendid!” the tiny wizard squeaked upon seeing them. He eyed Sirius and James, saying, “No Mr. Lupin today?”
“No, sorry Professor, he’s sick…”
“He really wanted to come, but…”
Flitwick waved them away, and said, “No matter, no matter. Mr. Black and Mr. Potter together then, and, ah, Miss Mckinnon why don’t you partner with Miss Evans, which just leaves Mr. Pettigrew. Hmm, odd man out, I’m afraid. Well, you’ll simply have to…ah! Mr. Snape! Perfect timing, you’ll be Mr. Pettigrew’s partner.”
It was hard to say who looked more horrified”Peter twitched violently, and Severus, who had just dashed into the Great Hall, looked rather as though he wanted to dash back out again. Flitwick, seemingly oblivious to the sudden tension, glided serenely away.
James and Sirius exchanged anxious glances as Flitwick instructed the pairs to begin practicing Shield Charms. Lily shot several low-key Stinging Hexes at Marlene, who deflected them, then turned to look worriedly at Peter and Severus.
Peter, who looked extremely nervous, appeared to be doing nothing more than shooting sparks at Snape, who looked bored. As bad as she felt for Peter, Lily relaxed. What’s the worst that could happen? she thought.
After a few minutes of this, Professor Flitwick called for them to change attackers. As Lily prepared to cast a Shield Charm, she noticed that Severus was looking across the room. Following his gaze, Lily saw his friend Mulciber, on the other side of the hall, nod once, smirking.
Lily’s gut clenched, and she started to step forward”to say what, she wasn’t sure”when Snape raised his wand above his head and shouted a spell she didn’t recognize.
A huge cobra shot from his wand, landing a foot away from Peter, who recoiled in terror. Lily recalled the conversation she had had with James over a month ago”“Oh, Wormtail”you know, Peter”is deathly afraid of snakes.” She looked up, horrified, vaguely aware that, around her, most of the Great Hall had gone silent. The snake hissed dangerously.
Suddenly, Lily was jostled to the side as James pushed past her. He sprinted towards Peter, who still stood frozen, pointed his wand at Severus and cried , “Expelliarmus!”
Severus’s wand flew into the air, and he was blasted off his feet after it. The cobra twisted and vanished as he landed hard, wincing. Slowly, deliberately, James approached him, his wand arm outstretched. From flat on his back on the ground, Snape stared up at him loathingly. Lily held her breath as the two locked eyes.
After a long moment, James scowled and shook his head. “You’re not worth it,” he said quietly, tucking his wand into his sleeve. Then he turned his back and strode towards Peter, clapping him on the back.
Unlike almost everyone else in the Great Hall at that moment, Lily was still watching Severus, who was watching James venomously. She watched him scramble for his wand, getting to his feet, and just as she thought, No, he couldn’t possibly, she watched him point his wand at James’s turned back. Without thinking, she screamed, “Look out!”
James heard her and started to turn around, just as Snape, a dark, ugly look twisting his face, cried, “Sectumsempra!”
For a moment, Lily thought nothing had happened. The Great Hall was deadly silent; Severus still stood with his arm outstretched, breathing heavily. And James put a hand to his side and the dark stain that was spreading there, and he fell to his knees. Lily stopped breathing.
The Great Hall erupted; Lily was dimly aware of a cursing Sirius being restrained by Frank Longbottom, of Peter backing, horrified, into the crowd, of Professor Flitwick desperately trying to regain order, of Severus still standing, his wand now limp at his side. And without thinking, without even realizing how she had gotten there, Lily shoved through the mass of people now crowding around James, and knelt beside him.
He was on his back now, breathing shallowly, the hand that had clutched his side now slick and red. Lily grasped it, not caring that she was getting his blood all over her hands and her robes. He turned his head and their eyes locked, and after a moment she realized he was saying something. His voice was so faint that she had to lean forward to catch the words.
“I’m sorry,” he was saying, “I’m sorry, Lily, I’m sorry.”
She was suddenly aware that her eyes had filled with tears, and she blinked them away, almost laughing as she tightened her grip on his hand and said softly, “What on earth are you sorry for?”
James took a deep, painful breath and said, “For attacking Snivellus. I know I shouldn’t have…I know I…but Peter couldn’t, he was going to, he…”
“Shh,” Lily said, concerned, and she leaned closer to him. “James,” she said wonderingly, “I’m on your side. Don’t you know that? I’m on your side.”
She felt his fingers tighten in hers for a minute, and then go limp as he passed out. She looked up to see Flitwick hurrying towards then. Severus, she saw, had disappeared.
---
When James woke in the hospital wing, it took him a moment to remember what had happened. As soon as he did, he pulled up his shirt, wincing slightly as he did so. A long, thin scar ran across his ribs on his right side; it already looked several weeks old. He prodded at it curiously, and pain lanced up his side.
“Ow,” he muttered.
“Don’t touch it, Prongsy,” he heard an amused voice say, and he looked up in alarm. Sirius and Lily were both curled in chairs near his bed, and Remus was fast asleep in another.
“Oh, hi,” James said, immensely happy to see them. “Weren’t we just here?”
“Yes,” Lily said, looking exasperated, now that she knew he was all right. “You have to stop ending up in the hospital wing.”
“I know,” James said sheepishly, then looked at Sirius. “So, uh, Remus looks better,” he said pointedly.
Sirius understood. “Yeah, you’ve been in here over a day,” he said. “Moony got back this morning.”
“A day,” James said wonderingly. “It was just a cut, though. I mean, you’d think Madam Pomfrey could have fixed that up in a heartbeat…”
“It was a curse,” Lily said, and James looked at her, surprised at how dark her voice had gotten. “You’re really lucky, actually. The curse barely hit you, just glanced off to the side. You may not even have a scar, with all the Dittany Madam Pomfrey’s been giving you.”
For the first time, James looked a little frightened. “Wow,” he said quietly. “That serious, huh?” When they nodded, he cleared his throat hesitantly, and then asked, “So, what happened to Snape? And where’s Peter?”
Lily and Sirius looked at each other, and then back at him. “Well,” Sirius began, “Peter’s…not here. He took the whole thing pretty hard, you know, seems to think it was his fault. He took off awhile ago, and we let him.”
“Severus is in pretty big trouble,” Lily told him, and James noticed how upset she looked. Much as he liked to flatter himself, he knew that his injury wasn’t the only cause of her distress.
“He didn’t get expelled,” Lily continued stonily. “He should have. I don’t know, I just never…never thought he could do something like that, even after…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Anyway, I’m not sure what they’re doing with him. He said he didn’t know what that curse did, that he just read it somewhere.”
“Do you believe that?” Sirius asked her carefully.
She hesitated, then shook her head. “I think he knew exactly what it did,” she said. “Severus, he…he liked to experiment. With Potions, spells, that kind of thing. Anyway, it’s up to Dumbledore to figure that out, not us.”
Sirius looked as though he didn’t agree with this idea at all, but James caught his eye and shook his head once. “Let it go, Padfoot,” he said gently. For now.
Sirius sighed huffily and sat back in his chair. James squirmed restlessly, and winced as his side twinged again. Lily looked at him worriedly. “We should go,” she said. “We should let you rest.”
James groaned. “Don’t leave me!” he cried, throwing his hand across his forehead, mock-dramatically.
Sirius stood up. “Evans is right,” he said. “Pomfrey’s already tried to kick us out a few times today. You need to go back to sleep.”
“Following the rules, Padfoot?” James teased, but he yawned even as he was saying it”they were right, he knew.
Sirius went to wake Remus up as Lily got to her feet. She paused for a long moment, looking down at James. “So,” she said, “I talked to Marlene, and she was thinking we’d continue this dueling practice thing”only on a much smaller scale. You know, just the group of us who were talking at the beginning of term. We got a pretty good idea of where to go from Flitwick. She’s thinking about starting next week”once you’re back on your feet.”
She turned to go, but James reached out and grabbed her wrist. “I’ll be there,” he promised, and she smiled down at him, almost sadly.
“Feel better,” she said, and then surprised him by leaning forward to brush a kiss on his forehead”so softly that after she left, he would wonder if he imagined it.
---
True to his word, James was back on his feet by the time his friends met to practice Defense Against the Dark Arts. He arrived in the empty classroom they were using, still a little stiff and sore, but eager to start.
Lily was in one corner of the classroom, practicing Stunning with Marlene and Frank Longbottom. She saw James come in”late, as he had only just gotten the all-clear from Madame Pomfrey”moving gingerly but resolutely towards his friends. She watched for a moment, unsure of whether she should go greet him or not, before Marlene hit her with a Stunning spell from behind.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Marlene said to Frank as Lily dropped to the floor. “She wasn’t paying attention.” Glancing over at James, she smirked.
James himself had reached the side of the room where Sirius and Remus were. Seeing him, Sirius yelped delightedly and ran over to pound him on the back. James, though laughing, hissed slightly in pain and put a hand to his side. “Careful, Padfoot,” he said.
“Sorry, mate!” Sirius said cheerfully. “It’s just so good go see you vertical.”
Remus, who had been scrutinizing James worriedly, slid down from the desk he was sitting on and asked, “Are you sure it’s okay for you to be up and moving around like this?”
“Yeah,” James assured him. “I’m just not supposed to do anything too physical, you know. I won’t be back on a broom for days.”
Remus shook his head, looking exasperated. “And you don’t think that, oh, say, practicing upper-level Defense Against the Dark Arts counts as physical exertion?”
“No!” James said hotly. “I mean I won’t be getting Stunned anytime soon, but we could do something less…interactive.”
“Like what?” Remus asked him critically.
“Like…” James thought for a minute. “Patronuses!”
“I give up,” Remus muttered.
“You worry too much, Moony,” Sirius said.
“Well, somebody’s got to,” Remus said, shrugging.
James looked around the room. “So,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant, “Wormtail’s not here?”
James and Sirius exchanged glances. “Well,” Sirius said haltingly, “no, I don’t think he’ll be coming. He wasn’t really into it, after last time, and I think he might still blame himself.”
“It’s a self-preservation thing, James,” Remus said softly. “Just give him time.”
James nodded mutely, and then looked at Sirius. “So,” he said. “Patronuses? After you.”
“Me first?” Sirius asked, surprised, and James grinned.
“Well, yeah,” he said. “We all know that Moony doesn’t really need the practice, and I just got here.”
“You’re just scared you won’t be able to do it,” Sirius told him, but before James could protest, he pulled out his wand and cried, “Expecto Patronum!”
A great, silvery dog burst from his wand and padded across the classroom floor. “Hi,” Sirius said to it happily, beaming.
“Show-offs,” James heard someone say, and looked around to see Lily standing by his elbow, grinning at him.
“Excuse me,” he said to her, mock-stern. “We are practicing Defense Against the Dark Arts here.”
“Sure,” Lily said, peering around him at Sirius’s dog Patronus, which wagged its tail. “And you go straight for the flashy ones.”
He crossed his arms and looked at her, saying, “Let’s see you do it.”
“Oh, I can make a Patronus,” she assured him, her eyes sparkling, “but I’m not sure you can.”
“Can, too!” he said indignantly.
“Let’s see,” Lily said to him, hands on her hips.
“C’mon, Prongs,” Sirius called.
“Fine,” James said, rolling his eyes. “But I’m not letting you off the hook, Evans.” Raising his wand, he shouted the incantation, and stepped back, satisfied, as his stag cantered off to join Sirius’s dog.
“Nice,” Lily told him.
“Thanks,” James said smugly. “Your turn.”
But Lily didn’t appear to have heard him; she was looking intently at the ghostly stag still standing in the middle of the classroom.
Prongs? she thought, glancing back at James. No…no way…
But she had remembered, quite suddenly, all the arguments she used to have with Severus about Remus’s disappearances, and she stared once more at the dog and the stag, side-by-side, gazing back at her.
“I have to go,” she said vaguely, turning towards the door. “I’m sorry, I forgot about…have to check something…I’ll see you all later!” And she turned and dashed from the room.
James watched her go, slightly crestfallen, and more than a little bewildered. Sirius came and stood beside him.
“That,” he said pointedly, “is a very strange girl.”
Trickster by Willow Rosenberg
Chapter Notes: This is part two of the last chapter, so it's a little shorter than usual. But after this, there's only one or two to go! Hope you enjoy it!----------------------