Sick Day

Crisis Averted

     Potions was a nightmare. Try as she might, Lily simply could not focus. After she'd handed in both their essays and apologized profusely for being late. She sat through class only half paying attention. Remus had to stop her from adding porcupine quills and frog spleen to the potion instead of rosewood springs and coriander at least twice; by the end of the period, he'd gotten so frustrated with her wandering attention that he'd told her to sit down and let him do the work for the day. On a normal day, she'd never have even considered it, but today, she relented easily.

     When class ended, she sent Peter to get a pepper up potion from the hospital wing and hurried upstairs to check that James was, in fact, still following doctor's orders. She opened his door quietly. Seeing that he was still down for the count, she took a seat in the common room and started to plan for the prefect's meeting she now had to manage alone. She'd compiled the gist of the meeting onto a planning sheet for herself, complete with next months patrol schedule and Hogsmeade weekends, when Peter and the remaining marauders barged into the room.

    "Do you three have any setting other than loud and obnoxious?" She scolded, glanced up towards the staircase.

    "Sorry Lily, we just-" Remus held up a red vial from Madam Pomfrey, looking abashed.

    "Yeah, sorry Flower, we come bearing the cure to your misery." Sirius chipped in.

     Lily rolled her eyes and held out her hand. "He's still asleep. I got it." She made her way up the stairs to James' room, and sat on the edge of the bed. He hadn't moved from were she'd left him earlier for potions, but he certainly looked worse. A sheen of sweat glistened on his brow, and he was shivering slightly. He really did need sleep, and she felt bad having to wake him up. Lily shook his arm gently, "James."

    He whimpered and wound the blankets around himself further. "James, you gotta wake up. Okay? Just for a bit and then you can go back to sleep. James?" She brushed a piece of hair from his eyes, and smiled as his eyes fluttered open. "Hey, you. Feeling any better?"

      He struggled to a sitting position and gave her a weak grin. "Aces." His voice was hoarse. She slid her hand to his forehead again, checking his temperature, and sighed.

    "How are you really?"

     He slid further down on the bed and groaned. "I feel like I got run over by the Knight Bus." Lily reached down to run her thumb across his cheekbone, her face scrunched up with concern. He sighed as he pressed his face against her palm. Her hands were cold. 

        "Well, maybe this'll help." She unscrewed the vial of pepper up and pressed it into his hands. His hands were shaking so badly, he nearly spilled the contents of the vial all over himself. "Careful there." Lily caught onto his hands to steady them and helped guide the potion to his lips, biting back a laugh as steam spewed from his ears. He shook his head slightly, as if he was trying to shake loose a thought lodged in his head. 

      "That's the stuff!" James rubbed his eyes, "Prefect meeting?" he asked, making to get up.

       "No, we had a deal. Pepper up potion is for colds. You are sick. That makes you better, but not well. Go back to bed." James groaned and allowed himself to be pushed back down. "You still look awful-"

    "Hey!"

     "-and," she checked his forehead again, "you still have a fever. And if you don't listen, I'm taking you to the hospital wing," James paled. "Now I  am going to go the prefect meeting, and you are going to go back to sleep. Sirius and Peter are going to stay downstairs if you need anything."

     "Sirius and Peter? I'll be dead by morning." He laughed a little too loudly and winced as his head retaliated.

    "See?!" Lily glared at him pointedly.

    "Quieter," he looked at her with puppy-dog eyes.

     "Goodnight, James." She closed the door behind her and headed down the stairs to the marauders lounging on the couches below. 

    Remus looked up from the meeting agenda, "Seems like you got this covered then, without James, I mean."

     "Yeah, well, I was lucky. The meeting today, in all honesty, isn't that important. It's mostly just because a few of the prefects were abusing their power to deduct points." Lily sighed and looked at the time. "Speaking of which, we have to get going, Remus. You two," she glanced over at Sirius and Peter, "stay with James."

      "Do we have to?" Peter whined, "It's almost dinner and-"

      "And he couldn't be in more competent hands, Evans," Sirius winked

       "Now, why do I doubt that?" she muttered under her breath. Remus snorted. She grabbed the doorknob and wrenched it open. 

      "We'll be back in an hour or so," Remus turned, and followed her out the door.

________________________________________________________________________________

       The prefect meeting was going smoothly. She was just finishing a long and incredibly tedious speech about when it was and was not appropriate to take points and was just about to start handing out the patrol schedules when a white faced Peter burst through the doors. 

      "You need to come back!" He gasped breathlessly. "Please!"

       "One moment, please. I'm going to step outside." Lily pulled the door closed behind her. "What happened?"

     Peter looked up at her sheepishly, "Well, it was getting close to dinner, and, well . . ."He made a face. "Can you just come?"

      Lily bit her lip and glanced back at the door skeptically. "Is it an emergency?" After all, she was the only Head there at the moment, and someone really did need to finish it.

     "Er . . . yes, no . . . no, yes . . . I . . . one sec." He pulled out the mirror Sirius had forced into his hand as he'd hurried out the door. "Sirius! Is it an emergency?" Sirius's face appeared in it. 

     "What do you mean! Is this an emergency. You think I know how to deal with this?!" A dull thud, sounded from behind them. "You all right, Prongs?" he shouted over his shoulder.

    "Yeah," came a trembling voice from the background.

     Lily seized the mirror. "Sirius, what is going on? Do I actually need to come down there?" The sound of retching came from the background.

      Sirius grimaced, "That is what's going on. Help!" He pleaded.

      "Well, that was a tad bit dramatic. Give me a second. I'll be right there." She rolled her eyes. These boys were absolutely useless when it came to stuff like this. Come to think of it, Sirius was probably the most squeamish person she knew.

       She hurried back into the prefect meeting and handed Remus the itinerary. "Is everything okay? What happened?" he asked, concern written across his face. 

      "Everything's fine. Your friends are clueless." She replied humorlessly. "That being said, can you finish the meeting? I got to go rescue them."

      She saw Remus give a brief nod as she rushed to the Head Dormitory, grabbing Peter and mirror-Sirius as she went. 

      "Phew," Sirius sighed. "Help is on the way," he cried over his shoulder.