I Loved You More

Chapter #21

Unforgiving Marks

Lily's curses mingled with the numerous others that were being shot back and forth like a raging lightning storm. The two Quidditch teams were getting more and more vicious. People were falling and flying and growing horns left and right. Many other students had joined in, while others circled around to watch and cheer.

Lily dodged a blast of light sent by Rab and straightened up immediately to throw a hex back at him. She was about to aim when she saw that he still had his wand trained on her. His mouth shouted an incantation but the noise of all the chaos drowned out his voice. A jet of silver light blasted from the tip of his wand, rocketing toward her.

She braced but had no time to react.

All of sudden, somebody blocked her from view. All Lily could see was a whirl of red robes as the spell struck and they came tumbling backward on top of Lily.

She squirmed out from underneath and crawled onto her knees. Lying there on the floor was James. He gasped and clutched at his neck as though an invisible rope was wound around it. His eyes were clenched shut in pain as he writhed helplessly.

Lily's head was screaming. She didn't know what to do. James was going to strangle to death if she didn't find a way to get the curse off him.

Panicking, she wrapped arm around him and hoisted him up. She dragged him across the floor and away from the heated commotion and the danger of the spells.

"Hang in there, James!" she said, shakily leaning him against the wall. "I'll be right back!"

Lily flew through the doors of the Great Hall and dashed up to the head table as fast as her legs could move.

"Professor!" she screamed to Professor McGonagall, who looked at her worriedly and stood up, reacting instinctively to the urgency in Lily's voice.

"What is it, Ms. Evans?" she asked, alarmed.

The other teachers were standing also and looking at Lily attentively.

"Hurry!" squeaked Lily. "I need your help!" She waved hurriedly for them to follow. "There's a big fight...and...."

"Lead the way, Ms. Evans," said Professor Dumbledore in a reassuringly calm tone.

Lily ran back through the doors, heedless to all the attention she had drawn from the students eating breakfast, as the teachers followed closely behind.

They burst through the doors to behold the havoc. It had grown to a massive size.

"A spell hit him...and he just started...he's...he stopped breathing!" Lily explained feverishly as she led Dumbledore to James.

Then she saw how limply motionless he was lying and nearly collapsed to her knees.

Dumbledore touched her shoulder briefly. "He's unconscious."

Lily exhaled, feeling as though all these new emotions were whipping her along a river of perilous rapids, down one waterfall after another.

The other teachers rushed to tend to the battle, where the firing of spells was beginning to die down as the students realized who had entered the Hall but Lily was only aware of James. There were large blue bruises forming on his neck and his face was frighteningly red, gradually advancing to purple.

Dumbledore bent over him and flicked his wand. Lily watched anxiously in sickening anticipation.

James' eyes sprung open and he took a long, hoarse gulp of air. Lily was finding it difficult to breathe herself as she kneeled next him, overwhelmed with relief. His entire body jumped rigidly as he coughed and gagged violently.

"Take deep, slow breaths, James," instructed Dumbledore gently, taking hold of his shoulders and sitting him back up against the wall. James struggled to take control of his ragged gasping. Dumbledore beamed at him. "That's the ticket. Yes...you were never going to be stopped so easily, were you? But you had Ms. Evans quite worried. I'll trust her to take care of you from here."

He winked at Lily before sweeping away.

James heaved a long, shaky breath through his gaping mouth. Then another series of coughs erupted from his throat.

Lily put a hand on his moist forehead and pushed back the torrent of wild hair. She didn't realize what she was doing until James looked up at her, looking a little dazed and bewildered. But she didn't pull away. It would have been her with the ring of bruises around her neck if James hadn't stepped in the path of the spell.

Lily smiled at him. Slowly, he grinned back.

* * *

The damage was greater than anyone expected.

The teachers had had to conjure over a dozen stretchers for the wounded and other students had followed them to the hospital wing with weird deformities or injuries that hadn't affected their ability to walk. The rest, including Lily, were sent to their common rooms.

Lily sat with Summer, Di, and Remus, who had also managed to escape unharmed, around a table playing a very dull game of Exploding Snap. James was in the hospital wing with Sirius, who had a long, deep gash along the length of his arm. Peter, his face splotched with green dots and his eyebrow hairs growing at an alarming rate, Tara, whose limbs were sprouting leaves, were also in the crowded infirmary with Frank, Anna, Andrew, and many other impaired Gryffindors.

For hours, Lily, Summer, Di, and Remus sat in the common room, waiting for news of the rescheduling of the match. It was obvious that they wouldn't be able to play since most of the players were casualties of the pre-match battle. They were also anxious about what their punishment would be. They had never known such a big combat to take place at Hogwarts and they weren't sure how Dumbledore would decide to discipline them in such a mass number.

"This is just brilliant," groaned Summer, lazily flicking a card with her index finger.

"I wonder what they're plotting to do to us," mused Remus.

Lily sighed and rested her head on her arm.

"Lil, you're really clever and all but you do not have good taste in guys," declared Di, shaking her head.

Remus tipped his head, giving her a mildly offended look.

"Thanks, Di," he said, nodding matter-of-factly.

Di shrugged innocently. "It's true."

Midway through their chuckling, James stomped into the common room.

Lily stared at him closely, not quite grasping the fact that he was walking toward her, making his usual crashing entrance into the quiet common room. His neck was still black and blue but he didn't seem to notice any pain in his apparent fury.

"Guess what they're doing as punishment!" he yelled, gesturing bitterly at them as he approached their table. Lily instantly noticed the hoarse quality of his voice, subtle though it was. "Guess!"

The other students in the room turned to look at the disturbance.

Lily had an idea of what they might do but she didn't dare say it out loud.

"What?" asked Remus impatiently.

"They've cancelled the match!" cried James. "And neither Gryffindor nor Slytherin can play for the rest of the season! We're disqualified from the final!"

Summer, Di, and Remus exclaimed in horror and disappointment. The other students joined in also, having been eavesdropping...Not that James had made it difficult for them with his unrestrained rampage. He was outraged.

Lily, however, wasn't surprised; she had predicted this.

"Yeah! Can you believe it?" continued James. "Instead Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff will automatically play for the cup! And we could have beaten them so easily!"

The other Gryffindors stood up and moved closer to their table to listen.

"They can't do that!" shouted Jamal. "Gryffindor and Slytherin fight all the time! It's no big deal!"

"It's never been this big, though," sighed Remus resignedly.

"But still!" Jamal moaned sulkily. "They can't do this."

Lily looked cautiously around at everyone crowded around the table. They weren't glaring at her or making a point to ignore her existence like they'd been doing all week long. All their anger was focused on the Slytherins, just like hers and they seemed to forget her betrayal. They didn't even seem to care about how the fight had started in the first place.

"Is that all?" asked Sylvia. "They didn't take any house points away?"

"They took twenty," said James. Some people breathed a sigh of relief. "For each person involved in the fight."

"What?" yelped Edmus shrilly. "Twenty points for each..." He couldn't seem to repeat it.

"Oh, no. How many do we have now?" asked Andy.

"Dunno," answered James dolefully, ruffling his hair. "But we're definitely in the negatives. There were at least fifty people from both Gryffindor and Slytherin fighting by the time the teachers came. At least Slytherin isn't going to win the house cup either."

"Are they crazy? We were in the lead!"

"Yeah...McGonagall seemed to think she was being generous," snorted James sardonically.

"Well, it was a serious fight," reasoned Lily, rather tentatively. 'You almost died, James,' she added silently to herself.

"Yeah, just look how many people got hurt," agreed Summer.

Several people shook their heads stubbornly.

"What else could they do?" added Remus. "There were so many people and they couldn't just forget it happened."

"Come on, think about it," said Lily. "We got off pretty easy."

"...If you hadn't been kissing that thick sod..." mumbled James incoherently under his breath.

Lily's head snapped around to stare at him. He had turned his back to her and begun pacing distractedly. Her stomach turned over at the sight of the bruised skin on the back of his neck.

No one else seemed to have heard him. They were too busy complaining about the injustice of the consequences elicited by the mini war.

After awhile of ranting, they all settled back down rather sulkily around the common room. Many others returned from the hospital wing after James, including Sirius and Tara, now fully healed, while the rest had to spend the night under the watchful eye of Madam Pomfrey.

Late that night, as the students started heading up to bed, Lily lounged with her feet kicked up on a chair in front of her, absently doodling on her homework. Summer was sitting across from her, playing chess with Tara. Di was immersed in writing an essay, trying to make up for all the work she had missed while she was away from school.

For the hundredth time that night, Lily glanced up to gaze at the three boys working by the fireplace. They had their books out but from what Lily could tell, not much work was being done. Remus was laughing at something Sirius had said and was consequently hit with a wad of parchment that James chucked at his head. In no time, all three boys were engaged in throwing balls of parchment and flinging ink off their quills at each other, taunting and cackling gleefully.

"What are you smiling at?"

Lily jumped in her chair and looked across the table at Tara, who was watching her with a smirk. The smile that had snuck onto Lily's face slid right off.

"Nothing," she replied quietly.

"Uh huh..." said Summer shrewdly, as she moved her knight.

Lily tried to be ignorant.

"Have you talked to him yet?" asked Di.

"Who?"

Di rolled her eyes and waved her quill in the direction of the riotous Marauders.

"No..." said Lily weakly.

"No?" repeated Tara. "Well, you better get to it! Now he deserves an apology and a thank you from you. You can't afford to put it off anymore."

"Yeah," nodded Summer, grimacing as she watched Tara's queen destroy her knight. "He practically saved your life. You can't hate him anymore."

"Aww..." cooed Tara. "He's so in love with our wittle Lily blossom."

"Okay!" barked Lily loudly. "I'll talk to him." She let her hair drop in front of her face as she returned her attention to her homework.

"When?"

"Soon."

"When?"

"Soon!"

"Tonight?"

"Fine!"

Tara grinned in satisfaction.

Lily did her homework busily for awhile until the sound of Summer groaning interfered with her concentration.

"Checkmate," pronounced Tara happily. "I think it's about time for bed, eh, ladies?" We'll leave you to do your apologizing and thanking, Liloo." She nodded toward the fireplace.

James and Sirius were still there, though they were calmly relaxing now. It looked like Remus had gone to bed.

"Good luck," said Di and she, Summer, and Tara, who patted Lily's head as she passed, went off to the dormitories.

"Goodnight, Lily!" called Summer.

Lily watched them go with a slight feeling of longing. She looked toward the Marauders. She was dreading the moment when she had to walk over there and apologize to James.

When he had smiled at her as he recovered from the strangling spell, she had thought that he understood what had gone on with Clive. But from what he had said earlier, it was clear that waking from his state of unconsciousness had confused him.

"Blimey, Prongs, that looks painful," she heard Sirius say, indicating James' neck.

"Yeah..." said James, gingerly touching it. "Because it is."

Lily stood up so suddenly, her chair tipped over and clattered to the floor. James and Sirius stared at her. She took a deep breath. It was as though she had been struck with a sudden feeling of courage and she couldn't let it go to waste.

"James, I want to talk to you."

James continued to stare at her and Sirius grinned. Lily crossed the floor in a few long strides.

"Uh..." She shot Sirius a meaningful look.

Sirius nodded. "I know when I'm not wanted." He stood up and perched himself on the arm of James' chair. "But that doesn't mean I'll leave."

"Fine," she said. She knew James wasn't going to tell Sirius to leave and he also deserved an apology. She fell into the chair that Sirius had been occupying.

She cast her eyes down as she folded her hands in her lap. Their staring was making her uncomfortable and she couldn't stand to look at James' neck.

"I think it's important that you know this," Lily began. She paused, looking intently at a hangnail on her thumb. "You've been right all along about Clive. He's really...er...not my type. So today I went to tell him out in the Entrance Hall and he just...grabbed me. I didn't want to..." She trailed off.

"That bloody creep," snarled Sirius.

"He grabbed you? I thought...He's sick," spat James.

Lily looked up at them and was a bit startled at how angry they both appeared. But underneath that, she felt glad. They were willing to stand up for her, knowing she needed it even when she couldn't realize it herself. Whether their motives weren't out of real affection for her and simply driven by competitiveness, pride, or their need to feel strong, they made her feel valued, cared for.

"Yeah, so...Sorry for giving you such a hard time about this whole thing. I was being an idiot," she said hurriedly, quietly returning to her hangnail.

"Glad you finally came to your senses, Ev." Without any notice, Sirius was bent over her, squashing her into an overwhelming, brotherly hug. Lily grinned into his shoulder, warmth saturating her. "Any more problems with that worthless rat's ass, you know who to call."

He straightened and yawned hugely, stretching his arms to their full extent. "Always...remember..." he said through the yawn, "this moment and know...Padfoot and Prongs are always right."

"Got it," replied Lily smilingly. "So, Mr. All-Knowing, don't you know when you should go to bed? I've never seen a bigger yawn."

"I think I'll do just that," he said, heading leisurely for the boys' staircase. "Long day, you know? Risking my life to save you from Pritchard...I know I make it look easy but-"

"Just go to bed, Padfoot!" barked James, smiling in an exasperated way.

"All right then," retorted Sirius indignantly. "Bonne nuit!"

He waved his hand with a flourish and disappeared up the staircase. James rolled his eyes.

Lily laughed. Suddenly it dawned on her how long it had been since she had really laughed. She liked how it felt so she laughed again. Then she couldn't stop, giddiness swelling inside her. James' face crinkled into a smile as he watched her before he threw his head back, his laughter fusing with hers.

When they calmed down at last, they both emitted a loud sigh simultaneously. Their mirthful eyes met and they hurled into another cascade of giggles.

"What are we laughing about?" asked James after he could gather enough composure to talk coherently.

Lily snorted. "I don't even know!"

"That seems to happen with you a lot," remarked James, the dimple in his cheek setting his face off-balance.

"No, it really doesn'tt. It's actually quite weird. When I'm with you, I just..." Lily cut her rambling short as she realized, with some embarrassment, how her words would sound.

James' smile lingered on his face but a hint of deep interest had crept into it. Lily thought she detected a trace of hope, too.

"I mean...uh...you know..." Lily stared back down at her lap as she stumbled through her mind for a way to explain but the connection between laughing and James loomed there, shutting everything else out.

"Yeah?"

"Never mind."

She struggled to recall why she was with him in the first place; a safe subject. Then she remembered. Images of James lying deathly still on the floor shattered the warmth that had enveloped her with irrational laughter. Her physical temperature seemed to drop. Desperately, she lifted her head to let the sight of James living and smiling shine through the dreadfully clear memories. Instead the smears of bluish skin glared at her with blinding force. She shuddered.

"You all right?" asked James with a sincere concern that jolted Lily's stomach. "You're looking a bit peaky."

"Yeah...no," said Lily uncertainly. "It's bloody freezing in here." She folded her arms across her chest, trying to suppress her shivering.

"You're cold? That's odd...I'm really warm." He squinted at her. "Are you feeling okay? Do you need anything?"

"No. I'm fine. I'm just gonna go to bed," Lily said firmly.

She stood and rushed up the staircase without another word.