The Marauders: Year Six Part 2 #Wattys2017

Metamorphmagi

Metamorphmagi

Lily was sitting at the table by the window, waiting, when James returned from the bathroom. "Are you alright?" she asked, looking up as he returned. He looked rather nervous. "James?"

"Yeah, I'm alright." But he looked pale.

Lily leaned over, intending to feel his forehead, but he ducked as though he thought she might hit him. The motion surprised her. "Sorry," she said, "I just was trying to see if your forehead was warm... Are you ill? Do you need to see a mediwizard?"

"No... no, I just..." James looked about as the door jangled a witch came in, patting her palms together to warm up and looking up at the hot drinks menu over the counter. "I just need some air. Do you wanna go for a walk?"

"Um, okay." Lily stood up as James did and he headed for the door. She glanced over her shoulder, hoping to spot Jasper, but the woman was just standing at the counter without anyone helping her still. "Where did Jasper g--"

"Probably outback or something for supplies or something," James said. He pulled her out the door and onto the cold street.

There was a bit of snow on the ground, but not loads, just a dusting, really. James shoved his hands in his pockets and he walked and Lily walked uncertainly beside him. Something was really wrong with him.

While she'd been sitting and waiting for him to return, she'd started thinking about how disoriented he seemed, and how many things he didn't seem to remember... like his favorite ice cream flavor or the fact that he'd ruined her blouse last time they'd come to Florean Fortescue's. Or when he had first woken up in the infirmary he'd acted like he'd not seen her in absolute ages at first. Could the cut on his head been more severe than it seemed? Could it be that James Potter was suffering some sort of amnesia or something? She considered this a moment and decided to test him.

She slid her hand into his. It was sweatier than it had been the night of the Yule Ball, and it didn't fit quite as perfectly as it had then, either. She squeezed his fingers. "So when's the next match?" she asked. Quidditch would get him talking.

James stared straight ahead through his glasses, "Oh.. um. Sometime after we get back to Hogwarts. Late January, maybe."

Okay, true.

"Ravenclaw, we're playing, yeah?"

"Hufflepuff," James answered.

Also true. But they always played Hufflepuff around the start of the second term so that wasn't really evidence of anything. "Have you been thinking of any new plays?" she asked.

"Oh... yeah... loads."

Lily smiled. "Tell me about them?"

James stared at her.

Suddenly, there was quite a lot of commotion down the street... a woman, frantically screaming for a missing child...

"Reg, look at that little girl."

Regulus followed Maryrose's pointing finger. Down the road was a little girl outside of Eeylop's pointing at the owls in the window, her hair turning from bright yellow to hot pink to neon green to dark blue to black to orange... Her excitement had triggered her metamorphmagus capabilities.

He laughed. "She's cute."

Maryrose smiled at the girl with an understanding expression as her Mother took her by the hand and pulled her away from the creature-filled window. "Put your hair back to it's natural," commanded the mother, her hand about the girl's wrist. "You know the rules, Nymphadora."