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Gyrari Tooth


The commotion had died down in the hospital wing - Madam Pomfrey had ejected anyone who wasn’t injured and spending the night out of the ward. As a result, the beds were nearly empty again - the occupied ones down to Bilius Weasley, Frank Longbottom, Lily, and James. Honey Pettigrew had been sent to St. Mungo’s and the others were all healed before her evening but off. James lay awake in the dark, one hand up behind his head, moonlight pouring from the windows across the beds, painting the room silver.

From across the room, Bilius whimpered in his sleep, and then sat up, sputtering -- “Black dog! Black dog -- the grim -- the grim!” he clutched his pillow, eyes wildy looking about. “Saw it… I saw it…”

Madam Pomfrey came running from her office, hearing the commotion and James quickly closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep so that he wouldn’t be caught awake. He didn’t want any sleeping potion to put him out of it - he didn’t want nightmares of the battle to come to him. He just wanted to stay awake.

“Hussssh, Mr. Weasley,” whispered Madam Pomfrey - and, in the air beside her, magic was measuring out the sleeping potion into a little cup with a wave of her wand, as she used her hand to feel Bilius’s forehead and wrist carefully. “The grim is but superstition. I tell you, boy, you are perfectly healthy.”

“No, no, I dreamed of it - of the grim - I’ve seen it - in Hogsmeade! Nearly killed me then! Narrow escape… let me go… dunno why…” he trembled. “He’ll come back for me, the grim will. I’m living on borrowed time, Pomfrey.”

Madam Pomfrey took the cup of potion from the air, “Aren’t we all, Mr. Weasley?” she asked and she brought the potion to his lips. “Drink.”

Bilius drank. “But the grim will come for me,” he whispered, “I’ll die, too, just as Derek and Alex have done. Oh Alex…” Bilius choked up. “He didn’t wanna come… he was afraid… said he’d die if he came along and… I… I talked him into it. You-Know-Who hit him with the killin’ curse ‘fore he’d even finished apprarating. He was my friend… my best after Derek… both of’em gone...”

Pomfrey’s voice shook, “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Weasley.”

James throat ached hearing this.

Bilius mumbled on about the grim then until he fell asleep minutes later and James heard Madam Pomfrey fix his blankets and take a deep breath. A moment later, he felt his glasses lifted from his nose and heard her fold them and put them on the nightstand. She adjusted his blankets carefully and the moved on to Lily Evans and Frank Longbottom, checking on each in succession. When she’d finished, she went back to her room and the door closed behind her.

James opened his eyes again and reached for the glasses, jamming them back onto his nose and resuming his position, staring up at the ceiling in the silence.

“You’re awake, too, then, Potter?” came a whisper.

James looked over - Lily was in the very next bed, rolled onto her side, facing him. Her ginger hair looked violet in the moonlight. James rolled onto his side, too, facing her. “Yeah,” he said. “Have you been this whole time?”

Lily nodded, “I can’t sleep.”

“Pomfrey will give you sleeping potion if you want her to,” James suggested.

“I don’t want to sleep,” Lily replied.

“Nor do I,” James admitted.

They lay there staring at each other from across the gap between their beds.

Somewhere, far off in the castle, a clock chimed - sounding out the hour. Midnight. The sound of the clock gave Lily a chill, remembering that horrible room in Mopsus’s classroom, how loud all of the ticking had been…

“Happy Birthday, Evans,” James whispered.

Lily blinked in surprise. “You remembered my birthday?”

“Of course,” James replied, “Should be a national holiday, shouldn’t it? Evans’s Birthday - Gringott’s will close and everything. There’ll be fireworks and parades…”

Lily laughed.

“I have a present for you, even. I don’t have it with me, though. It’s back at the dormitory. Didn’t expect we’d be in the hospital wing, so you’ll forgive me for not carrying it with me. These pants don’t have pockets anyway,” he laughed, referring to his golden-snitch-covered pyjamas.

Lily’s voice was thick, “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“That’s what friends do,” James said. “I’ll make Sirius fetch it later.” He smirked to himself at the word fetch.

Lily frowned at the sight of his changed smile.

“Evans?” he asked, seeing the look on her face.

She sat up. “Let me fix it.”

“What?”

“Your smile. Let me fix it. Please. It’s not right and it’s - it’s bothering me.”

James laughed and sat up, too, sitting cross-legged on his bed, “How is it not right, Evans?”

“Your lip doesn’t…” she tried to replicate what it usually did, but couldn’t quite bend her mouth that way. James laughed again, and she said, “It’s not funny, it’s very much a part of you and everyone’s going to notice. You might not be recognized, seeing as you make that stupid face a lot.”

James’s eyes sparkled, “So get over here and fix it then.”

Lily quickly pushed her blankets aside and moved across the gap, sitting on the end of the bed opposite James, crossing her legs, too, and she reached up and put her hands on his face, tilting his chin just so. “Alright, open your lips up so I can see your teeth, then,” she commanded.

James bared his teeth.

“You ought to floss more,” she said.

“Sorry I didn’t pause to floss while facing You-Know-Who,” James muttered ‘round his bared teeth, “I should’ve done.”

Lily rolled her eyes.

“Excuse me, Mr. Voldemort, but Evans says I need to floss my gums. Do you happen to have a spare pack? I’ve left mine at the castle… That’s what I should’ve said, yeah?” James asked. “What flavor do you reckon he uses?”

“Wintergreen because his mouth should be as cold as his heart,” Lily joked.

James smirked, “I was thinking cinnamon to match his eyes, but I like yours better.”

“Stop talking, Potter,” Lily said.

“Alright.”

“Potter.”
br> “Evans.”

“For real, shut up. Keep your teeth bared. Good. Now hold still.” She raised her wand and tapped the tooth with the very tip of it. “Gyrari tooth,” she whispered, and used her wand to rotate the tooth on it’s axis and James winced feeling it move in his gum, but carefully keeping his mouth open while she shifted it carefully in microscopic increments, until she’d perfectly positioned it. She lowered her wand, inspecting her handy work.

James’s face was still contorted with the pain of it.

“Alright,” she said, “You can close your mouth now.”

James closed it and stared at her for a moment.

“Smile, you bloody idiot, I need to make sure I’ve done it right,” Lily commanded.

“Well I can’t just smile on command, bloody hell, Evans, you’ll have to make me smile, won’t you?” he asked, doing absolutely everything to keep his mouth from turning at the edges, struggling with it because really all he needed was to be looking at her to want to smile.

Lily asked, “And how do you propose I do that, then?”

James stared at her for a long moment, his eyes burning into hers. “Say you’ll go out with me.”

“Potter, I’ve told you a hundred times if I’ve told you once --”

“Just one time.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“I’m a very good date. That trip to the cinema was not a good example of how bloody good a date I’ll be. For Valentine’s Day. Come to me to that shoddy little tea in the Great Hall. We’ll spend it making fun of all the other couples and I’ll charm some tea cups dance and drive the others mad.” He looked at her with a begging, pleading expression.

Lily shook her head no.

“Why?” he asked.

Lily sighed, “I don’t want you to go getting your hopes up, Potter.”

“My hopes have been up since I first saw you crying on the Hogwarts Express, Evans. You were the most bewildering thing I’d ever set eyes upon - all snot faced and sobbing like you were.”

Lily rolled her eyes and slid to the edge of the bed, making to get out, but he gently caught her arm, “Don’t go.”

“I’m going all of two feet away,” she said, waving her hand at the bed.

James shook his head, “Too far.”

She did it anyway.

He looked down at his hands in his lap and stretched his legs out again now that he could, and his feet found the warm spot where she’d been sitting and he kept them there to feel her presence a little bit longer…

Lily tucked herself in carefully, and leaned back into the pillows again.

“Evans.”

She looked over.

“Thanks for taking that spell.”

“It was just a stunner,” she replied.

“But you didn’t know that when you did it,” he answered. “Could’ve been anything. Could’ve been the killing curse, even.”

“It couldn’t have - the sparks were red, not green.”

“Oh. Yeah. Right.” James said.

“I would’ve let you take that one,” she said, smirking.

“You would’ve missed me once I was gone,” he reprimanded her.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Potter.”

“You couldn’t even handle one little tooth being out of place, Evans, how are you going to handle it when all of this” - he waved his hand the length of himself - “is gone?”

Lily rolled her eyes, “I’ll manage.”

He smiled - and his lip hung up on the tooth.

Lily sighed in relief.

All was right with the world.