Lily woke staring up at the pure white ceiling of St. Mungo's, and felt a spur of confusion and panic rise up in her. The panic and confusion were dulled nearly immediately when she became conscious of the weight of James beside her, curled against her like a tea spoon. He was asleep, his face pinched a wee bit as though in pain or worry, and his dark hair hung over his forehead, messier than ever.

"Potter?" she whispered quietly.

"Evans?" he murmured without moving.

"Why are you still here at the hospital?" She asked, "It's past visiting hours."

There was a long pause and then his eyes opened and he looked at her, and she could see now the dark bags beneath his eyes from lack of sleep and the lines of lingering worry that crisscrossed his brow. "You were hurt," he said, "And I had to know you were alright."

Lily smiled a bit sadly, "Oh James." She reached over and ran her hand through his hair and tried to pull him into a hug, but he winced and took a sharp intake of breath. "James -"she said, concerned, "What's the matter? Are you hurt?"

"Tis but a scratch, my love," he answered. He steeled himself silently, gritting his teeth a bit, and leaned forward to kiss her. "See? Just caught me at a funny angle."

Lily eyed him suspiciously.

"Truly, Evans. I'm alright. Like a million galleons. I can get up and do a tap dance for you if you like? A babushka, perhaps?"

She laughed at the idea of it, "Well go on then," she commanded, "Let's see this babushka of yours."

James started to get up, rather hating himself for volunteering for this, but Lily caught his arm and pulled him back. "Oh stop you git," she said, and she kissed him.

Sirius and Remus arrived through the door at that moment, Sirius a flurry of energy and Remus visibly tired from following after him. Sirius flung himself at James and Lily, landing directly between them on the bed so that James had to catch the bed rail to keep from falling out onto the floor. "Evans darling," Sirius said, laying his head on her shoulder, "How I've worried for you."

Lily laughed, "I'm doing quite fine, Sirius."

"Moon-Moon says there was a battle."

Lily looked at Sirius with questioning eyes. "Yes, and you were there."

"Was I?" Sirius waved his palm, "Pish-posh. Well I'm not the one in hospital, am I, Lilith? Silly ginger." He rifled with her hair.

"Sure, but put your best mate in hospital in the process of leaping about like a mad dog," James said, having slid off the bed and dusted himself off now.

Sirius turned, "Hark, my harem is jealous."

"Your harem has something wrong with his ribs," Remus injected, and James looked at Remus in surprise. "I'm not blind."

"James Potter," Lily said, craning to look over Sirius. "Whatever is the matter with your ribs?"

"Just a bit bruised up, nothing horrid," he replied, "Honest."

Remus raised an eyebrow, "Bruised ribs is quite painful, they've got spells and potions that could heal you right up, Prongs."

Sirius said, "Yes, you'll want those ribs in good shape for Tuesday." He winked.

James rolled his eyes, "Honestly I'm --"

"You're going to be looked at," Lily demanded. "And so aren't you, Mr. Black."

"Aw comeoffit, who do you think you are? Minnie?" Sirius whined. Lily gave him a stern look and he sighed and slithered off the bed. "Mean," he murmured.

"Go on now, the lot of you," Lily commanded, pointing at the door. "Remus, watch over these two, make sure they don't go getting into any trouble."

"That's like asking for a miracle," he said. But obediently he followed Sirius toward the door, just thankful that someone had managed to make him go to be looked at.

James hung back. "I don't want to leave you alone."

"Potter," Lily said, rolling her eyes, "I'm perfectly alright. I'm a big girl and I will be alright for the couple minutes it takes you to go downstairs and get looked at and healed."

James sighed. "Alright, Evans." He kissed her on her cheek softly, then stared in her eyes for a moment. "I love you."

"I love you, Potter. Now go get healed."

"Yes ma'm!" he saluted with a smirk, then turned to follow Remus and Sirius out and into the hallway. Sirius was pirouetting down the corridor ahead of James and Remus, who trotted shoulder-to-shoulder along. "He's mental," James commented, nodding toward Sirius.

"He got hit with a funny spell last night, during the fight," Remus reminded James.

"Bellatrix?"

"Somebody else, I didn't see who... He was goading Bella, but this one hit him in the back and his eyes went all unfocused and he fell on his knees and acted rather stunned for a time. Then when he started to sort himself out, he came to like this." Remus gestured as Sirius bumped into a small, blonde mediwitch, nearly tipping her right over as she walked past.

"Sorry," James apologized to her as she walked by him. "We think he has Tourettes." He smirked, but instead of smiling, the mediwitch's eyes went wide open and she stared at him, a transfixed sort of look in her eyes. The mediwitch continued to give James the funny look, even as she scurried away, as though she'd been spooked by a ghost. James watched her dash 'round the corner they'd just come past. He looked at Remus. "What the devil d'ya think...?"

"Dunno," Remus replied, brows stitched together. "Odd."

"Yeah. Very. Suspicious, even..." James stopped walking, hesitating, considering going back. Something twinged in his stomach and he didn't think it was anything to do with his bruised ribs. He started to take a step back toward Lily.

Remus stared after Sirius a moment, then stopped too. "James?"

James looked at Remus.

"She wants you to get checked. C'mon."

James hesitated a moment longer, then nodded and turned, following after Remus and the echoing voice of Sirius as he wandered on ahead, singing as he went.

Lily was pleased that James and Sirius were so quick to listen to when it was clear Remus had been pestering at least Sirius for some time to be looked at by a mediwitch. She smirked to herself as she remembered how James had saluted and sauntered off to be checked. She'd see to it that he heard it from her later, though, for having covered it up so long before admitting finally he had something wrong in the first place, though. Git, she thought lovingly.

That was when she shifted her weight just right and caught her reflection in a small mirror across the room, which hung over a low shelf with a pitcher and glass and several potions bottles upon it. She looked positively atrocious. Her hair stuck out all funny and her face was a mess.

"Oh bloody hell," she murmured and she started battering at her hair, trying to fix the terrible rat-nest that covered her head, and to wash her face by doing a quick aguamenti charm on the corner of her bedsheet.

The door suddenly slammed closed and Lily jumped at the unexpected sound, looking over to see who had shut the door so loudly. A thin, blonde mediwitch stood just inside the door, staring at Lily, her face pale and her eyes bright with excitement. She wore the traditional violently green uniform of St. Mungo's healers, her wand sticking up from a pocket at her hip, and a small cap pinned into her hair, which hung in a long plait down her back.

"Oh - hello," Lily said, her heart slowing after having shot to a race after the slamming of the door. "You startled me," she laughed uneasily.

The mediwitch came closer, "So sorry," she said quietly. "Didn't mean to startle you." Her voice was a wee bit pinched and her eyes were disturbingly large, considering the proportion of them to the rest of her face. She rather looked like a painting Lily had seen once.

Lily looked her over, a strange feeling coming over her. She quickly tied her hair up into a knot that felt certain to be even worse than the ratty mess she'd been fighting to undo. "Are you here for a check-up on me? I'm doing quite fine, really... James just stepped out to get a cup of tea... He's my fiance." She didn't know why she felt she needed to mention James, but it felt as though announcing his fictional imminent return was very important.

"Is he now?" The mediwitch was stepping closer. "Can't just conjure one up with his wand, could he?"

"I suppose he fancied a stretch," Lily muttered.

The mediwitch smiled in a off-putting way and Lily found herself feeling a bit ill. She inched a bit toward the opposite side of the bed as the mediwitch came closer. "What's your name? Most of the healers introduce themselves first thing. I'm very sorry if I've met you before and just don't recall. I'm told I got a knock on the head..."

"Oh indeed you did," the mediwitch nodded, "Indeed. Quite a bump. And it's such a shame, too, how quickly a person can go from being just fine to dyin' to dead when they've had a wee bump, innit?" She smiled, her lips curling quite maliciously. "Its the most dangerous injury you can get. But also the most useful." She raised her wand.

Lily leaped from the bed, knocking her own wand to the floor and quickly ducked to pick it up. It was lucky she had ducked, too, because a spell flew across the room from the mediwitch's wand and it hit the magic window, shattering the spell and revealing a bunch of ruddy old bricks behind what had moments ago looked like a lovely view of London's skyline. Lily shrieked and rolled under the bed, clutching her wand to her chest as the mediwitch took another shot, aiming to richotte the spell off the bricks this time. The spell blasted from the bricks into the floor where Lily had been a moment before, cracking the tiles and sending blue chips from the broken squares in every which way.

"Expelliarmus," Lily tried from where she lay on her stomach beneath the bed, aiming for the mediwitch, who took the spell, stumbled backward and dropped her wand. "Accio!" Lily cried, reaching out her hand as the mediwitch's wand shot across the floor.

The witch had gotten up and although she were too late to block the summoning charm, she hurriedly regained her wand by stamping ruthlessly on Lily's fingers, a terrific cracking sound as at least one of them snapped, and Lily let out a wail and released the wand. The witch grabbed it up and Lily rolled back under the bed, narrowly missing the witch's first curse. More cracked tiles. Lily gasped and got out from under on the other side, springing to her feet, coddling her broken hand against her chest.

With a flick of her wand, she sent the basin and pitcher flying toward the mediwitch, who pushed them away with a wave of her own wand. The witch glared evilly at Lily, her face filled with rage. Lily dodged a couple more spells, begging James silently to come back, but of course he wasn't going to so soon. This was Lily's fight, and she had to win it.

She jabbed her wand - a pugnus split the delicate lip of the mediwitch and Lily dodged 'round a second one aimed for her own face. Blood dripped from the witch's lip, seeping over her mouth, and Lily grabbed hold of a tea tray from the shelf below the mirror, using it like a shield, though she wasn't sure it would even work against magic. Suddenly it seemed foolish not to have ever asked how muggle shields worked against magic spells, but she knew one spell that no tea tray could ever block...

"Avada kedavra!" the witch cried and green sparks flew so close to Lily's cheek that she could feel the heat of them as they passed. She threw herself down, hoping to distract the witch a moment, an idea forming in her mind as the mediwitch stepped closer 'round the bed frame.

Lily waited until the witch was nearly upon her, and sent a stinging spell up at the mirror and it bounced back, catching the umprepared mediwitch square in the back. She yelped and dropped her wand again. This time, Lily summoned it before the witch could dream of stopping it, grabbing it with her good hand and tucking it gently into her broken one. She scooted out from under the bed and scrambled to her feet, jumping out at the mediwitch and pressing ber against the wall, her wand pressed to the woman's neck.

"WHO ARE YOU?" Lily demanded.

The witch stared at Lily's wand, her eyes twitching away from meeting Lily's glare. She seemed much less powerful now, captured as she was, and the confidence she had before has dissipated. Lily could now see the girl was frightened, and she was likely to be about the same age as Lily, possibly younger.

"Please," she begged, "Don't kill me. Please."

Lily did not lower her wand. "Tell me your name."

"I don't want to die," the mediwitch answered.

"Then tell me who you are."

"He'll kill me."

"Who? Voldemort?"

The witch twinged at the name.

"Did he send you here?"

"Not personally..."

"A death eater then? Are you one? Show me your arm."

"I haven't been given the mark yet. Very few get it before they are of age."

So the witch wasn't even seventeen yet! Lily's heart ached suddenly for her, for her situation, for the twitchy fear in this girl's eyes. "Please tell me your name," she requested.

The witch hesitated.

Suddenly the door opened again, and there was Ali and Marlene, carrying balloons and flowers and a stuffed rabbit. They took one look at the state of the room, of Lily standing with her wand pressed to the mediwitch's throat, and their jaws dropped. Ali released the balloons she held and they bopped against the ceiling as she drew her wand.

The witch took her opportunity, though. Lily was momentarily distracted by the newcomers and the witch quickly reached out, punching at Lily's broken hand. Pain shot up Lily's arm and she cried out, released the witch's wand. The witch caught it and twisted away from Lily, and with a flick she shouted "NOX!"

The room went pitch black and in the seconds it took Ali to cry "LUMOS!", the witch had disappeared.