Sick Day

A Similar Train of Thought

     Sirius was backed against the wall in the bathroom looking absolutely terrified when she barged in. Lily felt the strange desire to laugh at the absurdity of the scene before her. Sirius had somehow found a long stick and was whacking James on the back, sometimes missing and hitting his head, in an attempt to be supportive. James was groaning and swatting at the stick from were he sat miserably on the ground. 

     "Sirius Black, you put that down this instant! Go!" She cried, pointing at the door. The looks of relief that spread across both his and James's faces were instantaneous, though punctuated by the returning attempts of James's stomach to exist his body. Lily crossed quickly and fell to her knees beside him, trying her best not to wrinkle her noise at the smell of sick.

     "You're a real brave lady, Lily Evans." Sirius called, whacking her shoulder with the stick for good measure. "A true Gryffindor."

      Lily snorted and, returning her attention to James, began to rub circles across his back and murmured soothingly. "Hey, it's okay. You're okay. Your friends are idiots," she smiled. "But you're okay." He doubled over again and spewed the remaining contents of his stomach into the toilet, simultaneously grateful and embarrassed to have Lily there. And she continued to sit there with him, seemingly unfazed. 

     Once he was able, James sat back, pink and shamefaced. "I'm sorry," he said, staring at the floor. "They didn't need to pull you out of the meeting or anything like that. I told them not to, but-"

      Lily laughed, "You act like me leaving a meeting I didn't want to be at is such a sacrifice. You rescued me from that meeting. I'd say I owe you one. It was dull as rocks."

     "It was probably a right spot better than what your doing now." He looked guilty as he said it, keeping his eyes firmly trained on the tile floor. 

    "Well, I'd certainly rather you be the picture of health, but if you're ill, I'd much rather be right here than in some stuffy meeting lecturing prefects." She held out her hand, and tugged him to his feet. "If you're going to apologize for anything, apologize for running yourself ragged." She said with a smile. "You're going to stop fighting me now?" He nodded mutely. "You should shower. I'll be right outside. Sirius and Peter too, if they haven't run away. You should've seen Peter's face when came to get me." He gave a snort that quickly morphed into a cough and leaned against the bathroom wall as he watched her go, a whirlwind of muddled thoughts swirling around in his brain, settling on one in particular. Bad James, he thought to himself, bad! Friends. She'd do this for any one of her friends because that's just who she is. Friends, he declared firmly, stepping into the shower, oblivious to a similar debate running about a certain redhead's mind at the same time.

________________________________________________________________________________

    Lily plopped down onto the couch and caught sight of Sirius in an armchair, half hiding behind a book he most certainly was not reading. "What'd you do?" she said wearily. "You and Peter, what'd you do?"

    "Hmm?" Sirius glanced up, with a look of mock innocence, "Whatever do you mean?"

   "What'd you do? He was fine when I left." She glared at him. "And Peter looked guilty."

     "Well, I mean, we didn't really do anything per say." He looked sheepish. "It was just, let's call it an unfortunate coincidence/lapse in judgement." He avoided her gaze.

     "Would you care to elaborate?"

      "Is no an acceptable answer?" He quailed beneath the look of death Lily shot him. "Well, er . . ." he trailed off, not wanting to James to get in trouble with fiery tempered girl. "James came downstairs to . . . catch up on the Potions classwork, and I mean, he still wasn't well, but I thought, 'well, what's the harm.'" He told her a little white lie. Lily Evans would not chew him out if he was working on school work, probably. James had really just gotten tired of looking at his bedroom walls and had wanted to talk to his best mate. "And we were talking, and he said something about feeling nauseous and going back upstairs, and well, then Pete walked in with dinner and . . ." he made a face and shrugged.

       "That's it?" she asked incredulously. "You're ridiculous. Poor Peter looked scared out of his mind earlier," she stifled a laugh his look of surprise at the reprieve.

       "Yeah, well, thy fury be known to us from years prior and it be something to fear," he declared, with a flourish of his hand. "Where's Prongs?"

     "Shower. Now, can I have that book you've got? I'd actually like to read it." Sirius threw the book across the room. She caught it with ease. 

     "Nice one, Evans." She smiled and stuck her tongue out before curling up and starting the first page of an old muggle book she'd brought from home, My Antonia. "Cute little love story you got there." Sirius said with a smirk. 

     "What's this about a love story?" James leaned heavily against the door frame, freshly cleaned and wearing a new, less vomit covered pair of pajamas. He made his way unsteadily to the couch and eased himself down.

     "It's not a love story," Lily protested, turning pink. "I have not, nor will I ever be someone who reads romance novels. This is a literary classic. And It's really more of a coming of age story anyway. They don't even end up together in the end. Antonia never really sees Jim that way, and they end up friends. Anyway," she sputtered. "It's not a love story."

     "Oi mate," Sirius looked over to James, "That one sound familiar to you? I feel almost as if we might've lived that one."

     James guffawed and doubled over as a coughing fit racked his body. "You two," he glared at them, "need to stop making me laugh."