the sweater ~~ jily

13.

Chapter Thirteen: Coming Back

Lily sat there for hours, her eyes heavy, tiredly closing without her realizing. She was sleepy and been waiting for what felt like forever. The full moon was high in the sky, brightening the whole sky. The Whomping Willow kept swaying back and forth.

But off in the foggy distance, there were figures moving around. There was one, no two, three? They moved back and forth strangely. This vision made Lily completely awake and realize what was going on.

The figures began to grow and have a bolder shape. Tall, human-looking, limping? Lily stood up immediately, grabbing her wand from James's sweater pocket. She hid behind a small tree, scared of the thing that was about to approach her.

"Lily..." a voice whispered. Lily's eyes widened. There was a specific looking thing around its face, something round, something...glasses.

James's glasses. It was James and the rest of them.

As they walked closer and closer to her, their faces were easier to see. Lily bursted with happiness, but was immediately popped when she saw something on James's face. Something dripping on the side of his face.

Lily cast 'Lumos' on her wand to get a better look, and when he walked closer to her, she realized the side of his face was bleeding terribly. Lily gasped, shocked.

She ran to him worriedly, James smiled at her. One of his hands gripped onto his face. 

"Oh my god," exclaimed Lily.

"H, Hey, Evans," said James, trying to distract her from the fact that he was bleeding. But that was all she could look at.

"James, what happened?!" Lily asked, almost shouting. Her heart dropped when she slowly moved away his hand. He kept that little smile on his face, but there was a huge gash on his face. It looked as if someone had cut it, or scratched it harshly. With her other hand, she smacked it onto her mouth to keep herself quiet. "Oh my god," she muttered.

"Hi..." James kept a little smile on his face to stop her from worrying. But Lily was more worried than anything.

Looking around, Remus seemed unconscious, his face scratched, but not very harshly. Sirius, holding up Remus, with the same scratches on his face, one of them barely slitting his eyebrow. Peter's lip was bleeding, but he barely had any scratches.

James, on the other hand, had it the worst way.

Lily's eyes went glassy. "A, Are you okay? James, that looks like it really hurts, what happened?!"

"Lily, it's okay, I'm okay," he lied to her, keeping his smile.

"From the look at that, it doesn't look okay. I'm getting worried, just please explain." She cupped his face in her hands. 

"Hey, it is okay. It was just a small mishap. Barely anything, believe me."

"A little mishap? You mean your idea to mess around with the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest?" blurted Peter. James gave him a look and Peter covered his mouth with his hand.

"Peter, I told you not to tell her, oh my." He smacked his other hand to his head.

Lily looked from Peter to James with a mix of anger and worry. "Was that your idea?!" Lily half-shouted. James nodded ashamed. "You're so stupid, oh my god!" Lily looked away from him, crossing her arms.

"Come here," whispered James. "Please?"

Without looking, Lily walked into his open arms, well, arm. She let him pull her closer to him and she hesitantly wrapped her arms around him. James brushed through her hair with his free hand, comforting her from being so worried.

"I'm sorry for worrying you, I just got excited. I won't do it again, Lily."

Lily sighed, staying silent and listening to his heartbeat. It was slow and that was all Lily wanted to hear. James kept stroking her hair as Lily was closing her eyes and calming down.

She took a small glance at Sirius, holding up the weak Remus and watched him smile at James teasingly, gesturing to her. James, keeping his arm around her, used his other hand to point a finger that was rather rude to him. Lily chuckled.

She backed away. "You better get that healed," muttered Lily.

"I know, I will. Then it'll be like it was never there. You won't have to worry about me anymore."

Lily sighed. "I'm always going to have to worry about you, you and your stupid ideas. You need to get that healed. I'm going back to the common room for a bit, I need to sleep." Lily turned around.

James paused. "But — " he stopped himself.

"Yeah?"

"Never mind, it was a stupid idea. You need to get some sleep." James shook his head shyly.

Lily crossed her arms. "What's your stupid idea?"

"Never mind, I'm going to head to the Hospital Wing. You need to sleep, you'll only have about two hours of sleep left. And there's still classes tomorrow. I'll see you in the common room later, okay?" James told her. Lily nodded hesitantly. "You can keep the sweater, don't worry about it."

She smiled. "Yeah, okay."

a/n

thanks for reading!
this chapter (including author's note) is 864 words

~the sweater