I'm Not in Love

When Lily woke up, her head was banging mercilessly.

"Ooooh," she groaned. Her brain sluggishly registered that she was not in her bed, or even in Gryffindor Tower.

"Huh?"

She looked around her, wincing as the hammering in her head intensified.

A women in red and white robes bustled towards her, holding a bottle and a small beaker.

"Are you awake? Good. Here, drink this, it will help with your headache." Lily hesitated. Madam Pomfrey's potions were rarely enjoyable, even if they were effective.

"Drink!"

Lily drank. To her surprise, the dark orange gloop tasted like pistachio ice cream. Not exactly her favourite dessert, but certainly an improvement on usual hospital fare. Her headache immediately eased. Madam Pomfrey huffed, and gave her another beaker, the contents of which did live up to the Hospital Wing's reputation.

Whilst Lily was gagging, Madam Pomfrey said, "You've had a fever. You've been sick for four days."

"Four days?!"

"Yes, four days. Like I said, you were running a pretty high temperature."

"Why?"

"Normal reasons. You were just sick, dear."

"Couldn't you have just cured it? Like a cut, or..."

"No. Sometimes I can do that, but sometimes it's best for the patient to let the ailment run its course. In your case, it was best to let you be. Healing magic uses up the body's resources, and if the patient is running low, it can be more harmful than the illness. You were tired. You appear to be stressed for some reason, but that's no surprise. The way they drive you, I'm surprised I'm not filled up with nervous cases!"
Madam Pomfrey's voice had risen towards the end of her speech, until she ended her rant with a slightly sheepish grin.

"Anyway, get some rest and don't worry. You'll be out by tomorrow."

"Tomorrow! But I have a Herbology essay due today!"

Madam Pomfrey scowled.

"No, you don't. You have a rest and recuperation period in the Hospital Wing today." Pomfrey bustled back to her office, muttering about teachers who didn't know how much was too much.

Left on her own, Lily looked around. To her left was a table laden with gifts, from Drooble's Best Blowing Gum (Bluebell-coloured bubbles that don't pop for hours!) to what Lily assumed to be homework she had missed, obviously from Jasmine. In the middle was a vase, transparent red with gold and white enamel flowers, holding a bunch of Lily of the Valley flowers, perfuming the hospital wing air. Lily buried her nose in the flowers, breathing in their sweet fragrance. Lilies of the Valley were her favourite flowers. She wondered who had brought them. She was fairly certain that neither Jasmine or Eli had. Eli had brought the Bertie Bott's Beans, and Jasmine had brought homework that Lily had missed, as well as a sugar quill. Lily shrugged. She would ask her friends later. In the meanwhile...

Lily reached into the pile of books, dragged out her Herbology book and started outlining the dietary information of a Quverin Snaggleplant.

~~~*~~~

Lily was nearly finished her essay on The General Theory of Changing Hard Inanimate Objects into Soft Inanimate Objects for Transfiguration when Madam Pomfrey called, "Guests for Lily Evans!"

Eli and Jasmine almost ran to Lily. Almost ran, because Madam Pomfrey, like Madam Pince, did not allow running in her domain. Jasmine threw her arms around her bedridden friend.

"Oh Lily, we were so worried about you! Thank God you're well!" she cried.

"Yes, Jasmine was hysterical when you didn't wake up. She thought you were dying. 'Oh no, she's burning up, she's burning up! It's all my fault, it's all my fault, IT'S ALL MY FAULT!' She was running around like a headless chicken, wailing and waking everyone else up. And Pettigrew turned his hair orange!"

"What? Pettigrew turned his hair orange?! How? Why?"

"Dunno. He was writing some essay, and somehow his hair turned pink."

"How does he know it wasn't someone else?" inquired Jasmine.

"Because there was nobody else down there. Well, there was, but all the girls were coming into our dormitory to find out who had woken them up, Jasmine, and the boys were trying to see up the stairs. There was a great pile of them, because some had tried to go up."

"What about Black? How did he get up?"

"Sirius Black was in our dormitory?! Why did you let him in?!"

"Sorry Lily," Eli said contritely. "But Jasmine was in no state to be left alone, and the other girls were sort of edging away. I asked him to go up to help."

"And he did!" added Jasmine earnestly, not wanting her friend to lose her notorious temper. "I remember at one point I was going to throw cold water over you to wake you up and he stopped me from doing that."

"Hmm. Well, alright, then. But how did he get up? The stair is meant to turn into a slide whenever a boy sets foot on it."

"I don't know. I asked later, and nobody could remember seeing him go up either."

"Anyway," said Jasmine, who was getting bored with the current conversation. "How long have you been awake?"

"I don't know. One hour? An hour and a half? What homework have I missed?"

"We've started Cheering Charms, and your fanged geranium, you know, the one that bit Potter? It's sick. We've been trying to get Sprout to look at it, but she's been busy. And we have a test in Defence Against the Dark Arts, on jinxes. Professor Lynksic says we're finishing up. Next week we'll start on curses."

"What? A test?! Tomorrow?!"

"Lily, relax. You and Jasmine will pass at the top of the class. Again. And Jasmine brought your book and notes."

"Oh. Good. Thanks, Jazz."

"No problem."

"So, who are the pressies from?"

Lily's friends proceeded to rattle off her benefactors.

"Well, Jazz brought your books and the sugar quill,"

"and the Bertie Bott's are from Eli,"

"I think the Expanding Exploding Gobstoppers are from Arthur Weasley,"

"and Molly Jackson,"

"Dorcas Meadows sent the Chocolate Frogs,"

"dunno who the Drooble's are from,"

"probably a secret admirer of your's,"

"who doesn't want to incite the wrath of 'The Potter',"

"And these," said Eli, holding up an innocent looking packet, "are Lockjaw Lozenges, from Parkinson."

Lockjaw Lonzenges were banned in Hogwarts, because they caused lockjaw for the people who consumed them, and the symptoms were resistant to Madam Pomfrey's healing magic.

"How nice of him," drawled Lily. "We really must think of a way to thank him. Eli? Will you?'"

"As my mistress wishes," replied Eli, her customary evil grin once again in place as she thought up horrible tortures she could inflict upon the unfortunate Slytherin.

"So," said Lily, leaving Eli to her plotting. "Who brought the flowers? How did they know that Lilies of the Valley were my favourite?" Lily buried her nose in the previously mentioned flowers again.

"They're from Potter."

Lily froze in mid-sniff. From Potter? That couldn't be right. Potter regarded her as a conquest. He just wanted her to fall in love with him. As soon as she went out with him he would dump her and go and play with some other little tart.

But if that was true, why did he know what her favourite flower was? Maybe it was a lucky guess? Or based on her name? But Oriental Lilies, even Water Lilies were easier to get than Lilies of the Valley...

Had she been wrong? Did he really mean it? Did he really...?

Lily was again brought back to reality by Jasmine.

"Lily?"

"Oh, yes, sorry. I've been a bit off the planet lately. Madam Pomfrey says it's to do with stress." She sniffed her flowers again. "No point in letting an idiot spoil perfectly good flowers, is there?"

Jasmine frowned in confusion. "No, I guess not."

Lily realized why her friend was looking so bemused. Normally, Lily would have thrown anything from Potter as far away as she could. Or buried it. Or thrown it in the lake. Or burnt it. But there she was, accepting flowers, of all things.

"Oh, Lily!" Eli came out of her vengeful reverie. "Accepting flowers from James Potter? See, Jazz, she does like him."

"It certainly looks that way," Jasmine said, falsely consoling, to Lily.

"Then you're certainly blind! He is an idiot! Maybe, once upon a time, I would have gone out with him. Maybe. Before I found out what a prat he was. But the constant pestilence, irritation, idiocy and arrogance that now follows me throughout the castle is not something I would willingly associate myself with. Happy? You made me give a speech."

"All right, all right, we believe you," said Eli soothingly, in a tone that said the complete opposite, and a grin that confirmed complete disbelief.

"No you don't. Oh, I am surrounded by unbelievers, false friends and hospital bed-sheets. Leave me, oh cruel ones, that I may suffer in peace!"

Madam Pomfrey's voice rang out in agreement. "Time's up! Miss Evans needs rest! Out, out!"

Jasmine and Eli grinned at Lily, then each other. "Bye Lily. See you tomorrow," said Eli.

"Oh, wait! Jasmine, could you hand this in to Professor Sprout?"

"Hmmm..."

"Please?"

"Hmmm..."

"Pretty please?"

"Hmm... Okay then."

"OUT!!!"

"I think you'd better go. I bet she can do some nasty stuff with an anti-diaretic potion."

~~~*~~~

Lily sighed. She was bored out of her skull. Well, she thought, at least I've finished al my homework. That was the one good thing to come out of this whole being sick business. Well, that, and the lollies.

Lily looked out the window for the fiftieth time. The sky was stained red and orange. It was evening, and she was still forbidden to leave her bed.

For most of the day, she had worked on her homework, pausing only when Madam Pomfrey came with another foul-tasting substance for her to swallow. When she'd finished that, she'd eaten some of her gifts. She still had huge blue bubbles decorating her bed. When she'd finished, she'd tried to amuse herself with scribbling and drawing, but that hadn't occupied her for long. Lily wasn't a very good artist. So now she had nothing to do, except sleep. But who wanted to sleep? Lily's body clock wouldn't let her go to sleep before ten, unless she'd had a strenuous day or had read for at least one and a half hours straight beforehand. Damn body clock.

"Visitor for Lily Evans!" called Madam Pomfrey. Lily perked up. Was it Eli and Jasmine again? But Madam Pomfrey had said visitor, not guest...

A mop of scruffy black hair appeared round the corner. Lily's spirits immediately dropped.

"No, I will not go out with you. Now go away."

"Is that any way to speak to your future husband?"

Lily sighed. "What do want? If you ask me to go out with you again, I'll hex you."

"You don't have your wand."

"Potter..."

"Alright, alright! I just came to see how you were, OK?"

"To see... how I was?" Lily couldn't comprehend that the idiot before her would actually care that much about a mere conquest.

"Yeah. Last time I came to see you, you were running a high fever. You were moaning and crying out. You almost fell out of bed, you were tossing so much. It was...scary."

Lily just stared at him. He said it so quietly, she thought.

"I would have come with flowers, but I already brought them."

"Yeah, about those..."

"Yes, oh Queen of my Heart?" he said, reverting back to his normal idiotic self.

Lily's eyebrows snapped together.

"Go away."

"After I skipped class to come and see you? That's just cruel."

"Potter, go away, or I will cause permanent damage to that idiotic face of yours."

"But, but..." Potter pouted in a way that was obviously meant to look endearing.

"Potter..."

"Alright! I surrender! I'm leaving! See? I'm off! James Daniel Potter is leaving the building!"

"How is it that he gets more annoying every time I see him?" Lily muttered.

Potter poked his head around the corner again, and grinned at her.

"I notice that you haven't done anything to my flowers yet. Could it be that you're at last warming up to me?"

"Dammit, Potter! Get lost!" Lily grabbed the first thing she could reach, which happened to be her pillow, and threw it at him. He dodged, and disappeared around the corner again.

"Argh, I hate him! Now I don't even have a pillow. Pig."