I don’t own it.

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Lily opened her eyes and stared up at the dark ceiling. She was awake, she knew that, but part of her was still dreaming. Not enough so that she knew what she was dreaming about, but enough to sufficiently confuse her.

A steady pain formed in her stomach and seemed to grow. If felt as though a balloon was being blown up, not with air but with knives. She drew her knees up to her chest, it felt like the right thing to do. That laying on her side, curled up in a ball would make the pain stop.

After a few moments the pain did leave, just as it came, slowly decreasing.

Glancing at the clock she read 2:06. She’d only been in bed an hour, but she could’ve sworn she’d been sleeping for ages. She didn’t feel as refreshed as she though she should have, but she felt she should be done sleeping.

The only thing that kept Lily in bed was another growing pain in her stomach. She didn’t like the pain dictating what she did, she didn’t like feeling out of control.

She drifted in and out of sleep, with waves of pain coming over her and subsiding. If she had looked at the clock again it would have read 3:24.

She was now feeling rather dizzy and the darkness that had started moving around her made her even more confused than before.

The dream that had been going on all night felt more real than ever. She knew now that something was making her feel like this, and it needed to stop.

Suddenly Lily felt she was about to be violently ill. She, rather uncoordinatedly, made her way to the shared bathroom in the Heads Dorm.

Standing in front of the toilet she felt her body try and throw up, but nothing was there. After a few more times the pain in her stomach returned, reminding her that she needed to curl up again.

She knelt on the floor, resting her head on the ground until the wave faded. Not entirely this time, but to a steady, dull ache, that seemed worse than her other situation. She lifted her head and sat back, leaning against the tub with her knees drawn to her chest. Holding her head in her hands she could feel herself sweating.

She was shaking uncontrollably but was sweating in anxiety.

She wanted it all to stop. Lilt knew she needed to fight these people, but she couldn’t remember who they were. All she could fight was to keep her teeth from chattering together.

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James hadn’t gotten in until around 2:30 from an interesting late night expedition with Sirius. He had gotten his charms homework from his room and then went back downstairs to work by the fire.

As he started the last 5 inches of his essay he heard Lily open her door and walk into the bathroom. He hadn’t however, heard the click of the bathroom door closing.

After finishing and proofing his essay some 10 minuets later, he had yet to hear her return to her rooms an decided to see what was up.

As he climbed the stairs and entered the dark bathroom he was surprised to see Lily sitting on the floor wearing mis-matched socks, red gym shorts and a black tank top. He noticed then that she was shaking.

“Evans?” he questioned, “You okay?”

Lily heard him and was slightly embarrassed, but at the same time relieved. She didn’t like that anyone would see her when she was like this, but she was oddly reassured that James would help.

She nodded yes, then changed her mind and shook her head no in response.

James smiled slightly through his concern; she was kind of cute when she was at odds like this.

Lily was approaching hysteria now. She was starting to become aware of what was going on and was realizing that she wasn’t physically fighting anything. This thought left her feeling more helpless than before.

Her head was still spinning, she was still very confused, she couldn’t stop shaking and that dull ache in her stomach had such a presence she could’ve sworn you could feel and hear it. Silent tears began to fall down her cheeks as she looked up at him through her bangs.

Now James was really concerned. In a second he was kneeling beside her, one hand on her shoulder to steady her.

This was not the Lily James knew. He didn’t think anyone had ever seen or even heard of Lily Evans crying. It just didn’t happen. But here she was sitting on their bathroom floor crying, and shivering like mad.

“Hey Lily, what’s wrong?” he asked quietly searching her face.

“I don’t know…” She muttered into her hands that had come to recover her face.

“I can’t remember,” she said now rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet.

James raised his eyebrows; it appeared that Lily was having a complete and utter mental breakdown. He felt her forehead, it was very warm and damp with sweat despite the fact that she was shivering. ‘So she has a fever, that’s probably the cause of her delusion.’ He thought.

Lily rocked back and forth, slowly realizing that most of the confusion around her, was in fact, in her head.

“I’m going to go see Madame Pomfrey,” James said, rising.

“She’ll want to come see you.”

That did it for her. She understood that James was leaving and that was a bad thing.

“No!” she said, lurching to her feet, “Doctors are bad.”

Lily had never been a fan of doctors and in her 7 years at Hogwarts, not once had she been to the infirmary to visit a healer. She was unfortunately still quite dizzy and standing up that quickly added to her lack of coordination.

James saw Lily stumble as he turned back to her. He took two quick steps forward and steadied her, one arm around her waist and the other around her shoulders.

Lily squeezed her eyes shut to make the bathroom stop spinning.

James pulled her to him as she leaned her forehead against his chest. Wrapping his arms around her he could feel her whole body shaking. Then he felt her control that shaking. After each deep breath her body would be still for a moment but start to shiver again until she finally stopped it all together.

“I still think we should see Madame Pomfrey about this,” he said again.

“No, I’m fine.” Lily said, not looking up from the comfort of his shirt.

James raised his eyebrows yet again.

“Really?” he asked, stepping away from her.

The absence of James’ body for support left her disoriented. The flood fell away from her when she opened her eyes. She swayed slightly on her feet and her knees buckled.

James picked her up by the waist and set her on the sink counter top.

“Okay, I’m not so fine,” she admitted reluctantly while massaging her temples.

James reached behind her and grabbed a bottle from the medicine cabinet.

“Here, drink this,” he said opening the bottle and handing it to her.

“What is it?” she asked eyeing the red substance warily.

James grinned, “It’s just a potion to cure dizziness,” he explained, “When you’re friends with Peter and Sirius a lot of spells go wrong so I’ve borrowed some things from the infirmary.”

Still slightly apprehensive Lily took a drink from the bottle. To her surprise a warm choc lately liquid ran down her throat.

“Mmm, it’s good.” Lily said in quiet surprise.

James smiled again, “I was never a fan of the taste of medicine, so I modified it slightly,” he explained, “It still works though.”

Lily nodded in appreciation as she looked around, her dizziness fading. She raised her shoulder, stretching her back slightly as it had become cramped from being curled up for so long.

James noticed and stepped towards her placing his hands on her shoulders. She looked at him in surprise as he began to massage her neck and back.

“You’re too tense Lily,” he said amused, “It’s not good for you.”

This time Lily raised an eyebrow at him, making him laugh.

“Mum says that tense muscles mean your whole life is tense, you need to be relaxed in all aspects of life. Or something life that.” He said smiling ruefully.

“Well if your mum says…” Lily relented, letting her eyes close. James was really good at that relaxing thing.

James let his own eyes look over her face. Her bangs that fell into her eyes were still damp with sweat. The rest of her hair had been messily pulled up into a clip at the back of her head where pieces were falling out. Her eyes and cheeks were slightly red from the crying she had done earlier and was a contrast to her light skin and freckles on her nose. She was a mess but still managed to look beautiful.

Lily opened her eyes as he finished, still having to look up at him, despite sitting on the counter. His hands fell from her shoulders to rest on her waist and she suddenly became aware of how close he was to her, a jolt went down her spine.

He felt the tremor run through her body and lifted his hand to feel her forehead again.

“Your fever’s gone.” He said in response to her much cooler skin.

“Are you cold?” He asked, grinning to himself.

Lily blushed and looked down, not having heard the amusement in his voice. She shook her head and he heard her mumble something about getting back to bed.

“Thanks,” she whispered, sliding off the counter and turning to go.

After a few steps he called out, “Lily, wait for a sec,” causing her to stop.

Before she turned around he had closed the space between them, startling her by being much nearer than she expected. Before she knew what was happening he kissed her.

Lily froze at first but then melted into him, instinctively putting her arms around his neck as his hands went to her back and waist. He pulled away after what seemed like forever. It was a good thing he was still holding her because her heart was racing faster than she imagined possible and her legs had turned to mush.

“Now you can sleep,” he said smiling down at her.

She nodded her head slowly, still uncertain as to what just happened, then a small smile formed on her lips.

James watched as she turned and entered her room across the hall.

Lily flopped on her bed still smiling. James Potter had just seen her cry, he had sat with her during the night when she was delirious, he gave her medicine that tasted like chocolate, he’d given her a massage and then kissed her.

Thinking about it almost made her want to laugh, the whole night left her confused, but she was clear about one thing. She liked James Potter and she was pretty sure James Potter liked her.

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A/N- True story. Well not quite, there was not James Potter when it actually happened. No, my dad was away for the weekend, my brother was asleep in his room and I was sitting on my bathroom floor crying, good times. Yeah, that was a weird night. Everything before James entered is true, it was hard to write down ‘cause nothing made sense when it happened so rewriting it was definitely interesting. The night would’ve been way better if James had shown up, but I lived. And felt kind of stupid because all the crazy stuff that ‘happened’ that night was all in my head. Anyway, do review, this was a different style of writing for me and I’d love to hear what you have to say about it.