I'll Take it Shaken, Not Stirred

Chapter 26: Eleven and Everything

History: After 26 chapters, 25 disclaimers. I refuse to restate the obvious :-P

Recap: Lily and James escape their desperate situation. That's pretty much the sole prerequisite for reading this chap.

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"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." (You only think it's from "Closing Time") –Seneca

Everything isn't ever okay," Mr. Evans always said. "You can only hope that some things are okay some of the time."

For as long as Lily could remember, that had been her father's response to the question that inevitably frequented the house when he stayed up late, usually staring at his typewriter and thinking. The phrase had become so ingrained in Lily's brain that she had never really thought about what it meant before. It was just the automatic reply that—though Lily herself never used it—played in her head whenever anyone asked: "Is everything okay?"

No, everything wasn't okay.

Some things were okay, but not everything.

This was a fact of which Lily was acutely aware as she walked to the Hospital Wing late Monday morning. She was not in her school uniform, and she honestly she thought it quite likely she would not make it to classes today. Her shoulder was hurting again, and if the pain was not quite so bad as it had been before Beatrice's treatment, it certainly still felt slept-on.

In addition, the fingernail on her left ring finger had broken much too close to the skin, a cut on her forehead had scabbed over and itched something terrible, her brain was positively throbbing, she was exhausted, and Redival Shelley had sent her a funny look when they had passed in the Common Room a few minutes earlier. Lily was not one to complain, but really: enough was enough.

It was not so much that Lily actually cared that Redival Shelley had sent her a funny look or what Redival Shelley thought at all, but rather that the Head Girl could not for the life of her figure out what the look meant, and that did not help her headache.

In the time it took Lily to walk from the Fat Lady's portrait to the prefect's bathroom on the fifth floor, she entertained the idea that Redival might be jealous of the apparent "connection" Lily held with Redival's boyfriend through the occurrences of the night before. By the time Lily reached the statue of the Boris the Bewildered, she had dismissed this idea as sheer idiocy. As she walked passed the Library, it occurred to Lily that perhaps Redival's funny look had meant to be one of inquiry, and in the space between Madame Pince's suspicious gaze and the fourth floor bathroom (some five steps away) Lily felt guilty for not having responded to the look. Between the bathroom and the large wooden door of the armor gallery, it was speculated that Redival had not actually intended to send her a funny look at all; perhaps she had merely been about to sneeze. As Lily reached the doubled doors of the infirmary, she was certain that this was not the case. There was definitely a funny look. It had been a full-fledged, indisputable, one-hundred percent intentional funny look. No debate.

Lily pulled open one of the intimidating doors and entered the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey was attending to someone in one of the beds in the far corner, so Lily stepped off to the side to wait her turn. The nurse glanced over her shoulder and straightened up, as if intentionally trying to obscure her patient from view, though this was entirely unnecessary as it was already accomplished.