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The Sneeze (Lily)


“That wasn't funny,” Lily said, the moment she'd stepped through the portrait hole and found Peter, Sirius, Remus, and James in the common room. James and Sirius were sitting on the floor with Peter, showing him how to do the sticking charm like they'd done on the paper airplanes. Remus was already settled at a desk with his text book open, about to study. Lily put her hands on her hips as Sirius and James both looked up.

James smiled that charming way that he had, “Oh come off it, Evans,” he drawled, “It was only a laugh. And I really do need some help with that potion, and I said to Sirius – didn't I, mate? - 'who better to teach me it than Lily Evans'? And there you were, right there in front of me. Besides, being stuck in Snivelly's grease trap – that's a real concern, you know. You've seen the photos of ducks and fish and whatever, haven't you? Don't they teach about those things in Muggle School?” He grinned evilly. “I'm only looking out for your safety.”

Lily was angry, yet had to fight off the teensiest bit of desire to giggle at the ridiculousness of what he was saying. She glowered at him, mentally counting to ten to keep herself in check. When she was sure that a laugh would not escape her mouth when she opened it, she said, “James Potter, you are absolutely horrible and I hope you fail that class.” She turned her nose up and walked primly towards the stairs that went up to the dorms.

Even from her room, she could hear Sirius Black's laughter and James Potter shouting stupid, unheartfelt apologies. She laid flat on her back on the bed and rolled her eyes at the muffled sound of it.

A bit later, there came a knock on the bedroom door and Lily sat up, “Yeah?” she called.

The door opened and there was Alice Bell, one eyebrow raised, an amused expression on her face. “Lily Evans, what have you done to that boy?” From behind Alice came a warbling, half-sung-half-shouted rendition of some sappy Broomstick Boys song and Lily smacked her hand to her forehead. “Remus Lupin says he's been at it all evening?”

Lily told Alice about the events that had led up to James Potter acting like a complete git in the common room, all the while his voice carrying up the steps, blending now and then with a harmony from Sirius Black, who seemed to only join in on more amusing lines. “You need to go down there and forgive him,” Alice said.

“He needs to just go away,” Lily replied.

Alice shook her head. “That doesn't sound like a boy that's going away, Lily,” she said.

But Lily refused, so Alice went up to her own dormitory and, eventually, James gave up and silence fell over the common room and Lily sighed in relief. She rolled over and grabbed her textbooks from her bag beside the bed and started working on some homework. She hadn't got too far along with it, though, before she heard something going on down in the common room.

Curious, Lily pushed her books aside and got out of bed. She walked out to the stair well and peered down at the common room… but she didn't see anybody there. Her eyebrows stitched together, and she turned to go back to her room when she heard a sneeze from behind her. She turned 'round again and squinted into the dark. “Oi, who's there?” she demanded, looking around.

But no answer came.

“I know somebody's down there, I heard you sneeze!” she said, starting down the steps. “It's after midnight, you know, you could get in an awful lot of trouble for being out of your dormitory! You'll lose points for Gryffindor!”

Lily looked around the common room, certain she'd find somebody – probably Potter – crouched behind one of the chairs or else under the coffee table by the fire, but there was nobody around. She stood in the middle of the room, looking around at the emptiness and wrapped her arms around herself to protect against the cold. She'd heard a sneeze, she had and she knew it, but there truly wasn't anyone around… She looked up at the portrait of Godric Gryffindor over the mantle, but he was asleep, and not just faking being asleep like he sometimes liked to do, either. After several long moments of waiting for someone to come out of hiding, and feeling a mixture of foolish and frustrated, Lily made her way back up the stairs to her bedroom and climbed back into her warm bed.

Maybe it'd been a house elf she'd heard, she told herself, and she pulled the blankets up to her chin.

”Invisible? Sev, come off it, invisible?” the words she'd spoken to Severus Snape that day in the abandoned classroom, when he'd been caught by Filch and claimed Sirius Black and James Potter had been in the office with them, came flooding back into her mind…

”It's possible,” Severus had said, ”There's spells to do it...”

And then, when she'd asked James how, he hadn't denied it – hadn't at all. She recalled his casual, smooth tone, “Lilly, Lilly… does it really matter how?”

Lily threw the blankets off her once more and rushed back out of the bedroom and to the stairs as quickly as her legs would carry her. “James Potter,” she announced to the common room as a whole as she raced down the steps, “I know you're down here and I demand you show yourself right this instant!” She looked around, nervous of what sort of awful prank he might pull in his invisible state. But nothing changed. “I know you're invisible, James!” she accused.

Still nothing.

And then her eyes landed on the portrait hole properly for the first time. It was ajar. Barely, but still.

Lily walked over to the portrait hole and pulled it opened, staring out into the darkness of the hallway beyond. She had no way to know which way they'd gone, no way to know where they were going… So instead, she backed into the common room and closed the portrait hole tightly behind herself. She went upstairs only long enough to get the textbook she'd fallen asleep studying and settled herself down on the cushiest chair she could find by the fireplace, where she would wait for James Potter to return.





“Why, Lily Evans… did you sleep down here?”

Lily twitched. She'd been dreaming – a most lovely one, too, where she'd followed a bright light through a dark forest in the night – when she was shaken awake. Her eyes took a moment to focus, seeing quadruple… then double… and finally she blinked and there was James. “Potter?” she croaked thickly.

James's smile crossed over his mouth. “Evans?”

She tried to sit up, but she'd fallen asleep slouched in such an awful position that she heard her neck crack loudly and she winced. “Ouch!” she whimpered, a hand going to rub the spot that hurt.

“That's why you shouldn't sleep sitting up in arm chairs,” James accused. “At least not overnight,” he added, “Don't get me wrong, I've certainly fallen asleep before in that very chair.”

Lily looked around, “Wait, I – I stayed here overnight?” Sure enough, sunlight was coming in the tall windows high up in the tower. “But… But I heard – I was trying – you --” Her eyes returned to James's, a hundred questions bouncing off the inside of her brains like one of those silver balls in a muggle pinball machine.

James smiled, “Me?” he asked, “What did you hear, Lily?” he asked.

“A sneeze,” she said, thoroughly confused.

James's smile only grew larger at this. “A sneeze?”

“Y-yes,” Lily stammered. But even as she confirmed it, she realized how stupid she sounded. “I heard a – a sound and I thought – there was - but no...” She stared down at the desk, eyebrows stitched together in the center as she puzzled over what happened...

James shrugged, but his eyes danced playfully, like a dare. “I don't know what you heard, Lily,” he said, “But it wasn't my sneeze you heard last night…” She knew, beyond a doubt, by the way his eyes glittered that he wasn't telling the whole truth, but had found a rather clever way around having to. “Just ask Remus or Sirius or Pettigrew, if you like,” James suggested. “They were with me the whole night.”