Proving Me Wrong

Proving Me Wrong

Chapter 4

*****

CHAPTER 3: She then carefully crawled onto her bed, lying on her stomach, and turned her head to the side. She concentrated on the music as a means to block out the infinite pain as she silently cried herself to sleep...

*****

Lily woke up the next morning at 8 o' clock to be greeted with a fresh bout of pain across her back. She got dressed as quickly as her wounds would allow, grabbed her bag and walked gingerly downstairs without stopping in the common room.

She trudged down to the Great Hall to find that she was not the only one up. Bellatrix Black and Severus Snape were at the Slytherin table in deep discussion. Lily prayed that Bellatrix didn't notice her, that girl had it in for Lily, and she knew it. It was the fact that she was a muggle born... but there was something more as well that Lily couldn't understand. I mean, you can only hate someone to a certain extent because of his or her parentage, right? Just then, Bellatrix looked up through her dark eyes, glaring at the new Head Girl.

Ignoring the girl's look, Lily sat down at her usual seat and found a stack of timetables sitting in front of her. There was a note on top:

Mr. Potter & Miss Evans,

Please distribute these timetables to each of the houses during breakfast this morning,

Prof. M. Mc Gonagall

Lily wondered why Mc Gonagall couldn't hand out the timetables herself, but this thought was swept aside as she eyed the Slytherin table warily.

Maybe... if she took her time with the other houses, Potter would be down by then and could do Slytherin for her.

What am I saying? Lily asked herself, am I actually hoping Potter will help me? Yeah right!

With strengthened resolve, Lily stood up quickly... a bit too quickly if you asked her, and at once another searing pain went across her back.

It felt like she was getting lashed all over again. But knowing that Bellatrix's heavy lidded eyes were trained on her, Lily didn't show the agony she was in.

She walked purposefully to the top of each bench and sorted the timetables into 7 piles, one for each year. Lily sorted the Slytherin timetables at the Hufflepuff side, so she had to spend less time with Black and Snape.

The Head Girl was in such pain this morning that she couldn't be held responsible for any murders she may commit if anyone started with her.

That second, Lily had an idea. The redhead returned the sneer on Black's face with a pleasant smile as she used the Banishing charm to send the timetables over to Slytherin. Quite pleased with herself for avoiding that particular situation and delighted at the look on Bellatrix's face, Lily thought today wouldn't be so bad after all.

The rest of the day passed quickly for Lily, nothing out of the ordinary happened, except for the fact that the Marauders kept on staring at her back as if they were waiting for something. James Potter especially, had an almost hungry look in his eyes.

Did they know about her dad, her home life? The thought of it made Lily feel ill. No, she told herself firmly, they are a bunch of stupid boys, they wouldn't notice abuse if it was a neon sign stuck over their eyes.

Abuse, she had never thought of that word before, let alone spoken it aloud. Lily didn't want to label what her father did to her; she knew she would fear the name of her punishment, which would only make it more unbearable.

Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself.

Lily knew this, and didn't think she could handle anymore fear in her life...

Lily decided that the Marauders were just trying to make her uncomfortable.

Well, Lily thought bitterly, its working!

At breakfast the boys' stares were rather unsettling, but by 3 o' clock Lily was quite sick of their expectant gazing.

So in Charms, she turned sharply round in her seat to face the four of them and hissed, "Black, I know you have the brain the size of an Every Flavour Bean, but Flitwick's up there, " jerked her thumb over her shoulder, "you stupid git. Even Potter could tell you that," and turned back to face the teacher.

James opened his mouth to say something, but she never what was coming next and was too fast for him.

Lily rolled her eyes and still facing the front, added with extra spite, "And no Potter, that was not a compliment."

*****

James Potter sat beside his best friend in Charms class, looking dumbfounded at the girl in front of him.

Sirius leaned over and spoke out of the side of his mouth in a low urgent voice, "Prongs, why hasn't it worked?"

James was very confused; he had never cast a curse that didn't work before. Why isn't she scratching her back or screaming at me, or something?

James then remembered that Sirius had asked him a question, so he whispered back, "I- I don't know."

At this reply three pairs of eyebrows next to him shot up.

James Potter always knew, James Potter never made mistakes, not with pranks at least.

After classes James skipped dinner to find out what went wrong with the curse. He wouldn't be seen dead in the library, unless it was to annoy Evans, so he decided that he would look through the books in his new common room.

*****

Lily was extremely satisfied that she had rendered the Marauders silent but it didn't help the fact that her back still felt like it was on fire. After classes she skipped dinner to find some sort of cleaning spell for infected wounds. She could never go to Madam Pomfrey, Lily was sure she would die of shame. People would pity her, and that's the last thing she wanted or needed. She couldn't go to the library, because if the boys found their voices soon that is the first place they'd look for her. So there was only one option.

Lily got in to find the common room empty; she searched through the bookshelf for a good fifteen minutes before declaring defeat. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by teetering piles of medical journals and whatnot. There would definitely be some books about healing cuts in the hospital wing, she could sneak in and- Lily stopped herself, what was she thinking? 'Stealing books from the hospital wing? Are you mad? You could lose your badge over that!' she told herself sternly.

Just then James Potter sauntered through the portrait hole, how you can saunter through a hole Lily did not know, but James Potter managed it.

"Talking to yourself again, Evans? You're crazier than I thought," said James with a smirk on his face, but his heart wasn't in it. He just wanted to chase her out of the room so he could look through the books, which she happened to be sitting in front of.

"Sod off, Potter," Lily retorted sharply.

"Now, now Evans," replied James mockingly, "It's my common room too you know, didn't your parents ever teach you how to share?"

James didn't know about Lily's parents, nor did he emphasise the word when he spoke it, but to Lily it felt like he did.

"What are you doing here anyway?" spat Lily, willing to change the subject. "Shouldn't you be meeting some bimbo in the Astronomy Tower? Or plotting more ways to ruin my life?"

"Evans," said James nonchalantly, "you think too highly of yourself, and speaking of the Astronomy Tower... shouldn't you be meeting some- oh wait, I forgot!" he cried in mock embarrassment, "you have no friends."

In response to this comment, she slammed the book in front of her shut, cast him a look of pure venom and stomped upstairs to her room.

'Crap, crap, crap," cursed James under his breath. She wasn't supposed to go to her room, she was supposed to leave altogether, why didn't she go to the library?

She sure picked a good time to start changing her habits, thought James.

He decided to go on to dinner, hopefully it wasn't over yet, and then later on that night when Evans was in bed, he would get a chance to look through the books.

That is if she hasn't gone nocturnal on me as well, James added spitefully before heading towards the great hall.

*****

Lily stayed in her room for the rest of the evening, not wanting to go to dinner despite her stomach's protests. She spent a few hours reading the assigned pages in her Transfiguration textbook; they were now learning human transfiguration, about animagi and such, and Lily couldn't wait to get started.

She had noticed over the years that James Potter was very talented with transfiguration, gifted even, though she would never admit it. Lily wouldn't be surprised if he became an animagus one day. He would probably become a peacock, Lily snorted.

At 1 o'clock in the morning, Lily got out of bed and crept down to the bathroom, she would finally be able to check her back. But first she had a bath and washed her hair; she kept the water lukewarm so it didn't irritate her cuts further.

She got out of the bath and wrung the excess water out of her fiery red hair, which was beginning to dry in soft waves. She got changed in the bathroom, putting on a pair of green boxers and a large shirt. She only fasten a few buttons on the shirt so she could slide it off her shoulders to examine her back but still hold it up to cover her front. She pulled all of her over to one shoulder and turned to face the mirror and inspect the damage.

It was worse than she had expected, every inch of her back was covered in long thin gashes that went deep into her flesh. There were many areas of tore skin where the belt buckle had caught.

But surprisingly, there was no sign of infection, yet the itching remained. This puzzled Lily; there was no other explanation for the sudden inflammation... unless someone had hexed her when she wasn't looking...

But who would do such a thing?

Potter, she thought savagely.

Inexpressible anger built up inside of Lily, she wanted revenge, but that could wait until later. Right now, she had more important things to worry about.

She pulled the shirt up around her again and checked her reflection in the mirror.

She was disgusted with what she saw.

No wonder she had no friends, Potter was right. They were all right. She was a worthless little freak who had nobody and never would.

After all, Lily thought emotionlessly, who would want me? I'm nothing.

Without warning, tears rolled silently down her cheeks, and Lily was powerless to stop them. Crying was for the weak, and Lily was strong, at least she used to think so.

There was a blinding pain across her back. She bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes in anguish; she was experiencing pure agony.

She felt very weak, and Lily realised she hadn't eaten much breakfast and had skipped lunch and dinner. Her knees gave way and the tiled floor came up to meet her.

A cool rush of air on her back told her the shirt had lifted up again, and that's when she heard it...

*****

James came back after dinner and went straight to his room to polish his broomstick. His parents had bought him the new Cleansweep 2 for his birthday in May and it was his most prized possession.

At one o' clock in the morning, James crept down to the common room and started looking through the books that still littered the floor. None of them were very helpful and James decided to return to bed.

He was about to go up the stairs when he noticed a sliver of light coming from underneath the bathroom door. James went up to the door and listened, there was no sound. He expected that Evans had forgotten to turn off the light when she was in there last. James pushed the door to find that it opened easily and he opened his mouth to whisper, "Nox," when he saw her standing there.

To put it simply, Lily Evans was stunning.

She was easily the prettiest girl in school, probably the most beautiful girl James had ever seen, and James Potter had seen a lot of beautiful girls. Why hadn't he noticed before? How had he not noticed?

She had a porcelain face, and eyes which burned like emeralds against her pale skin.

Beautiful she may be, thought James, but she is still Evans, little Miss Perfect.

James realised Evans was crying and wondered why. He took a 'wild' guess, and thought me.

Maybe my curse did work! He thought, feeling triumphant, but looking at her face again, that feeling soon disappeared.

Her startling green eyes were filled with suffering. The look on her face made James shudder, the haunted look.

As the tears rolled down her pale cheeks, she bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes in anguish; she seemed to be experiencing pure agony.

Before he could get her attention, her knees gave way and she fell to the floor, exposing her back, or in his opinion...what was left of it.

James's eyes went wide with shock and he managed to breathe two words,

"Holy fuck."