Boot Camp.

I Promise

It had been two days since I last saw Lily, two more nights of nightmares, two more mornings of waking up fearing that Lily was dead.

Remus, as he had said, had not bothered me, however everyone now knew about what happened, Mum had tried to coax me out of my room, but to no avail; I only came out when I needed to, when Mum had told Jenny not to bring food up to me I was forced to wander down to the kitchen about once or twice a day to get food for myself.

Mum was worried, everyone else knew not to be, it wasn't as if I was going to kill myself or anything as drastic as that.

It was about three days before the New Year and I was sitting in my room, spinning a ring around on the floor to pass the time.

The ring had been my mother's, she'd gotten it from her mother to pass onto me, Mum had given it to me around the summer of fifth year to take care of.

It wasn't fancy, just a simple gold band with some knot on it, Mum told me it was a love knot if I recalled the memory correctly.

I had found it in my trunk yesterday, right at the bottom, inside an old pair of balled socks from what felt like years ago, way back in first year in fact.

I'm not sure why I decided an old pair of socks would be a great place to keep it, but apparently my fifteen-year-old self thought it was a brilliant hiding place.

I had not ventured out today, and it was already late in the afternoon, I knew everyone was probably talking in the lounge or doing something else together, playing chess maybe, who knew, certainly not I.

My eyes drifted away from the spinning ring to my watch.

Five-thirty.

I should probably leave my room, I was getting tired of staring at the room I had all but completely memorised, but I didn't want to talk to anyone, all I wanted was to be alone.

After a few minutes of weak deliberation I decided it would be nice to go outside.

I stumbled around my room, pulling on sweaters, pants, jackets, anything remotely warm I could find, slipping the ring into my back pocket, as I could not find a good place to place it at the moment.

But with the amount of effort I put into everything these days, I only ended up with jeans and a jumper on, though I did find a beanie, but I put that in my back pocket, along with the ring, which I had been playing with absentmindedly the whole time.

Lastly I managed to find my Invisibility Cloak, which was the only thing I thought I actually needed.

...

As I collapsed on the ground under a leafless oak tree in the empty and snow covered gardens I began to look around.

It was the first time I had ever stopped to take in how beautiful the gardens could be in winter.

Everything was still, frozen, as if it was in a Muggle photograph or painting; but it was beautiful none-the-less.

But as I admired the natural beauty around me my thoughts were helplessly drawn back to another.

~ * ~

"Potter!"

I spun around quickly, no one else could make being angry sound that good.

And there she was, in all her blazing glory.

Her vibrant red hair flew out behind her as she stormed towards where we, Sirius, Remus, Peter and I, were sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room, her eyes were alight with rage and judging by the redness of her cheeks, her reaction to what ever I had done was going to be brutal.