D/C: I don’t own Harry Potter and other characters. Drusilla Wayne, Jillian Matthews and Selena Cortez belong to me though

Chapter eight: Mad Life

Its a mad life that we know
still inside is beauty all around
its a mad life that we know
will we give it all away-

Dishwalla “Mad Life”

I wake in the hospital wing; the smell of sterilized objects fills my nose. Slowly I open my eyes. The marauders, Jill, Selena, and Dru are above me. Suddenly James’s sent fills my nostrils as he wraps me in the tightest hug I’ve ever been a part of including the Lily Sandwich.

            “Oxygen, need air!” I choke out; he releases me quickly and tosses his hair.

            “Sorry.” He mumbles. “I was just afraid that I had hurt you.” His voice is so unsure. My head stays down but my eyes wander to his and I smile.

            “Nice little romantic moment, sorry to disturb, but did any of you see the Ravenclaw?” Sirius states. Dru nods and opens her mouth for an explanation:

            “According to the book Visions, it says that when the first vision takes place. You know like a premonition, the seer does do all the things that she did. Including the muttering” Dru’s voice is very serious.

            “Muttering?” Selena asks. Remus being the only smart one of the entire mob spoke up.

            “This isn’t the best place to discuss this.” He warns in a weary voice. The others and I agree and Selena goes to fetch Madam Pomphrey and tell her that I’m well again. I sit up in the uncomfortable bed the plastic and paper crumple beneath my body.

            Selena returns with news that I may return. I rise and clutch my head, I must’ve hit the floor when I got stunned “Bloody Hell” I groan. James looks at me and asks if I’m ok. I nod and continue walking.

            Jill says the password and we enter. “Come on we’ll go to the boys dorm, it’ll be easier to talk there, most fear to tread in our room.” Peter says. We head to the 6th year boy’s dormitories.

            The room is as expected a mess. Dirty socks and under shirts thrown about. That feeling that you get when you’re in a messy room other than your own came over the four of us began to tidy up the room.

            “Stop it!” Sirius cries in protest. All of us glance up at him and obey. Selena sits on Sirius’ bed; Dru joins her on the opposite side of him. Jillian sits on Remus’ bed, Peter shuts the door and I join James on his bed. It’s squishy; Peter sits on his own bed.

            “There was muttering?” I ask in a tone that resembles Sirius’ on a normal day (confusion).

            “She was saying something about darkness, and if I heard right something about a child of the light.” Dru’s voice is filled with uncertainty.

            “Why do I have a feeling that this means all night study session?” Selena asks. She is right this does mean study session, even if the holiday is two days away. I pull a piece of paper from my pocket and take a quill from James’ nightstand.

            “Here’s our schedule,” I write out the lessons we have on the two days we have left. “We have a break between history of magic and charms,” I draw a little black dot next to the two lessons.

            “What exactly are we looking for?” Peter asks.

            “Books on prophesy, prophets, seers or anything of that sort. Something that will give us a clue on what’s going on.” I explain. I continue marking up the paper and explaining until the paper is covered in black ink marks but still barely legible.

            “Do you guys think you can scrounge up food so that we can eat in the Library?”  Jillian asks.

            “Is my name Sirius Black?” Sirius asks.

            “Unless you’re an undercover agent from Russia then, yes.” Dru replies sarcastically. He sticks his tongue out and faces the rest of us.

            As we walk down the stairs James’ younger brother Jess runs over “James tell me what happened! The older kids are talking about it and I wanna know!” he whined. James looked down at his shortest brother.

            “Can’t,” he stated. Jess is upset; he’s only in his fourth year. That’s old enough to rely on an older sibling, but old enough to need to know what’s going on in the world around him.

            “Why?”

            I look up a tiny bit at the 5” 6’ Potter, “Jess, we can’t tell you right now, just because we’re still unsure of what happened.” James gives me a look that says: we shouldn’t get his hopes up.

            He storms off angrily. I close my eyes and declare: “I’m going to bed.”

            “You’ve been asleep for two hours.” Sirius whines. James gives him a look that demands silence. I thank James and retire to my room. The window’s open, our cat; Sunday must have pawed it open.

            The cool air attacks me from all angles, I jump back, this isn’t natural. I squint into the distance and see a green shape. “Oh my God” I can feel my heart race. I stumble down the steps. They look up at me. “There was an attack.”

            I see Remus’ gray eyes grow, as he wraps his arm protectively around Jill, Sirius jumps up I think he’s trying to act macho, and James asks: “Are you all right?”

            My jaw falls open, “I wasn’t the one who was attacked! There are people in Hogsmede who are suffering. We have to help them.”

            “Lily, calm down. Christ I’ve never seen you this way! Sit and take some deep breaths.” Dru demands. I reluctantly sit down in between James and Sirius.

            “We can’t do anything to help them,” James’ hand grazes my back sending a tingling sensation through my spine. “All we can do is wait.” His voice is something that calms me down.

            “We have to though, peoples parents are in trouble!” I declare. He puts his arm around my shoulder and murmurs:

            “Meet me here at midnight.” I look into his hazel eyes and nod. The clock above the entrance reads nine fifty. I have two hours to occupy myself somehow. I can tell Selena is shooting me a questioning look.

            I pull back, “I need to change into my pajamas.” Dru states standing up, Jill, Selena and I follow suit.

            “What is it with you girls and doing things in groups?” Peter shouts after us. All of us giggle and get to the room.

            “What the hell was that?” Selena asks as soon as the door is shut.

            “What was what?” I ask

            “That thing down in the common room. You, and James. If he pulled that at the beginning of the year he would be in a puddle of blood on the floor.” She laughed.

            “He did try, and he isn’t dead.” I tell her. “He’s just trying to be a good friend.” I explain pulling my tee shirt over my head, and then I pull a pair of my older cousin’s boxers over my underwear.

            “If you say so, but the two of you looked pretty happy in that position.” Jill declared from the bathroom.

            “I don’t need to take this I’m going to bed!” I joke. “Actually” I add; “I probably would’ve slept better down there, because he’s a lot more warm than these blankets.”

            “Stop talking about James Potter like that ok?” Dru shouts.

            I look at the clock ten ten. Crap this is going to be a long night, I think. The black ball of fuzz we call Sunday jumps on my bed. “Hey baby, are you tired?” I coo at the cat for a bit. It stares at me with enormous eyes.

            “Lily go to bed!” I get a pillow in the face from Selena at ten till midnight. The door creaks open two minutes after that, James’ head is floating in thin air. I quickly throw on a pair of flannel pants and get out of the room.

            The hallway is empty; “James Harry Potter if you don’t come out this instant I’m leaving, and I’m never speaking to you again.” His face appears again.

            “Come on, there’s something I want to show you.” He looks like a child at Christmas. Quickly I walk over to him, “You’re going to have to stand close to me, we’ll move faster.”

            “James this is an invisibility cloak.” I breathe. I move closer to him. “How did you get one of these?”

            “Family heirloom,” He tells me as we walk out to the hallway.

            “Where are we going?” I ask.

            “Somewhere.” He pulls a piece of parchment out and taps it with his wand, “good, it’s clear.”

            “What?”

            “You have a lot of questions, just have faith that I won’t get us caught” I remain silent until we get to the humpbacked witch.

            “Why are we here?” I ask, he tells me to be quiet; I smack him on the shoulder. The humped witch jumps to the side. I gasp, he pushes me into the little gap. He comes too.

            “You can talk now.” He whispers. I jump, he laughs. “I guess you want to know where we’re going.” I give him a look that says that’s obvious. “Well seeing as you wanted to help those people, I figured that you should see them.”

            “How is going through this tunnel going to help?” I whisper.

            “We’re going to Hogsmede.”

            “This tunnel leads to Hogsmede?” I ask this can’t be possible.

            “Yep, to Honeydukes actually.”

            Not long after he says this we end up in the basement of the candy shop. The room is dark; I feel a giant hand that could easily be mistaken for a badminton racket grasp mine. His hand is cold and rough. Oh Gods not the cheeks, I think for I feel my face gaining blood.

            Then we escape the darkness, to find the streets. The very cold streets of the little village. I can feel his arm wrap around my shoulders, and I know he has his wand out. I look around, there are people everywhere feeling the same thing sadness.

            “James, we shouldn’t have come here. These people they’re terrified, a lot have lost children and” I’m cut off by a woman sobbing.

            “Have you seen my daughter? She’s about this tall (she makes a gesture) with brown eyes and brown hair.” She begins to cry again.

            I look up into James’ hazel eyes, full of concern as they stare into mine. We mutually agree to help anyone who asks for it. Seeing as it’s a school night though we had better get back around three.

            By three we had helped at least twenty people find their loved ones. I nearly forgot the cold, and then when we began our journey back I could feel the chill hit me like a thousand knives.

            “We’re in deep crap if we’re caught.” I mutter as I climb into the tunnel.

            “We won’t” he reassures me in a lazy voice. We take another way back to the castle, as soon as we arrive at the exit he stares at the map and curses. “Filch is on the prowl by the tower.”

            “We’re screwed!” I hit my head on the cold brick. I look at him, there’s a glint in his eyes.

            “Not quite, at least you aren’t.” I can tell there’s a plan going through his head. “All right, we’re gonna get out of here. I’ll go the opposite way of the tower, when you hear me singing; go towards the tower, when Filch goes by you run back.” He directs.

            I nod and he takes off. I’m hidden under his cloak waiting to hear his voice. I hear it; “White riot, I want a riot. White riot, a riot of my own.” He’s yelling it at the top of his lungs. I see Filch run by, and then run.

            I hold the cloak so I don’t lose it. I arrive at the tower and say the password. The Fat Lady swings open. I wait until James comes in. He has a pink slip of paper in his hand. “I’m sorry you got a detention.” I tell him.

            “It wouldn’t be a week without me getting one Lily, you know that.” I look him in the eye, “by the way, why aren’t you in bed?”

            “I had to wait up, I’m just that kind of person you know?”  I shrug.

            “Well Lily, it’s late, we should get to bed.” He concludes. I’m amazed that his responsible side is peeking out. “So, goodnight.” He leans down and kisses my cheek. I blush.

            “Yeah, goodnight.” I reply, we go our separate ways. Oh gods he kissed me! Yes! We still have a chance brain. I do a victory dance up to the dorm and realize that I’m not tired, I decide to break out my journal, I write in it about once or twice a year.

            My journal is pink, unfortunately, and decorated with black flowers. I have entries that date as far back as age six. I open to a blank page and begin to write.

A/N: the end of this chapter, two updates in a close range. That’s pretty good for me, but schools back in tomorrow (Jan. 4, 2004) so updates will slow down again. Reviews are always welcome

J.E.A.R Potter: Honestly who would stand in the middle of their relationship, thanx for the review