A/N: Many, many thanks to Levins18 and Elanev91 for their support, encouragement, and beta-ing. You guys are the best!

Lily is in the Gryffindor Common Room working diligently on her Charms homework when she feels a hand on the back of her chair. She pauses and watches the shadow of a tall figure loom over her essay. Without looking up, she says, "Yes, James?"

James bends down and kisses her cheek. "How did you know it was me?"

Still focused on her essay, Lily responds, "I'm just that good." She hides a grin, knowing that her nonchalance drives James slightly crazy.

"Oi, come on, really." James moves to stand next to her, and he shifts his hand from the back of her chair to her shoulder. He squeezes gently, massaging the tense muscles under his hand.

Lily turns in her chair so her knees bump into James' shins. She looks up at him, grins widely now, and holds up her fingers to count. "One, your shadow has the same messy hair as you. Two, no one else would dare disturb the Head Girl while she's working before rounds-" James lets out a booming laugh at this "-and three, I know what day it is. You always come say goodnight before you and the boys head out."

She holds up three fingers triumphantly. "See? I really am that good."

James grabs her upheld fingers and links them with his. He sighs dramatically. "I should have known that you, Evans, really are that good. Forgive me for doubting you."

He bends to kiss her again, this time on the lips, and the hand on her shoulder slides to her jaw. Lily responds immediately. Kissing James, she thinks, is quite addicting. James tilts his head, but with tremendous willpower Lily pulls away. Her essay is still unfinished, and she has rounds in fifteen minutes.

"Didn't you come here to say goodbye?" she asks, only slightly out of breath.

James blinks a couple of times. "Yeah," he says slowly, also breathing a bit heavily. "Yeah, we're heading out in a few minutes. I think Remus has already gone on ahead, you know…" he trails off, and Lily squeezes his hand, her fingers still woven with his.

"You're a good friend, James," she says softly, "and I'm proud of you. Be careful tonight, alright?"

He leans down to kiss her once more. "I will. Love you."

Her eyes are still shut, her face still upturned when he pulls away and turns to go. As he lets go of her hand, she whispers, "Love you, too," and he ducks out through the portrait.

"Just the dungeons and then done, alright Simon?" Lily asks the Fifth Year prefect patrolling with her, and he nods. He's quiet, Simon from Ravenclaw, but he has a quick wit once he's warmed up to people, and Lily enjoys going on rounds with him. They've had a rather dull night, which is exactly the kind Lily prefers when she's still thinking about her unfinished essay. The long, darkened hallways are very conducive to working out those Charms problems that still puzzle her; Simon is always more than happy to divide and conquer for rounds, leaving Lily to her thoughts.

They head down the stairs to the dungeons and Lily thinks longingly of her bed, a bed she will not see for a few more hours at least; Flitwick's N.E.W.T. class has demanded more of her than almost any other class, and although Lily's brain enjoys it, her body enjoys sleep more.

"Er, do you hear that?" Simon's quiet voice cuts into Lily's thoughts. She blinks, shakes her head.

"I don't hear anything, sorry, Simon." Lily smiles apologetically. "Do you want to go see what it is, and I'll scope out the closet down there? Can't tell you how many times I've caught people snogging in there." She motions towards the end of the hall and chuckles. "I love Potions, but the storeroom closet does not get me in a romantic mood at all…" She trails off as Simon gives her a small wave and heads in the opposite direction. Lily shakes her head and walks to the closet. She takes a deep breath before opening it, hoping that tonight's pattern of empty closets continues.

Mercifully, the closet is empty, and Lily smiles to herself. One step closer to finishing her essay, which is one step closer to bed, thank Merlin. She shuts the door and turns down the hall. "Simon?" she calls, wondering if he has already left the chilly dungeons. There is no sound in the hallway but her footsteps as she rounds the corner to the last two classrooms. She opens her mouth to call out again, but then freezes.

In the doorway on the left stands a frozen Simon, and beyond him, on the far side of the classroom, are several students who Lily recognizes as followers of the Dark Lord. She's able to identify Rosier by his massive frame immediately, and she catches a glimpse of Severus moving between him and another student, Esther LeStrange, and there is someone else is lurking behind them, and then she slips into the room besides Simon before she can consider if this is a good idea.

As soon as she is fully inside the classroom, Lily meets Sev's eyes. He holds her gaze for the briefest of moments, then looks away. Her eyes fall to the worktable in front of him, and immediately she recognizes baneberry; its red and white berries together are quite distinctive, and their juice is one of the more delicate poisons. Lily inhales sharply, because what these students are doing is so, so wrong - not to mention illegal - and they are violating one of her favorite places, one of her sanctuaries. Rage and grief writhe together in her stomach because how fucking dare they when Sev finally looks back at her, his expression unreadable.

"What," Lily says slowly, "the fuck." She raises her chin and looks the other students in the eyes: Rosier, glaring back at her; Lestrange, sneering haughtily; Severus, frowning sullenly; Goyle, the last student, rolling his eyes at her. This irks her - Goyle thinking she can be disregarded - like her parentage affects her abilities, like she isn't Hogwarts' Head Girl, like she isn't studying for seven N.E.W.T. exams.

No one answers her. Lily turns to tell Simon to get a professor, but before she can open her mouth, there is a blur of a curse fired and Simon goes down hard, Stunned. Lily whips her head around; Lestrange stands proudly, cockily, with her wand slightly raised, teeth bared, and for a moment, Lily is too shocked to react. Then Goyle raises his wand as well, mouth opening because of course he hasn't mastered nonverbal charms yet, and Lily sends a Full-Body Bind on him before he can make a sound.

Goyle hits a desk on his way down, but neither Lestrange nor Rosier take their eyes off Lily. Out of the corner of her eye, Lily sees Sev start to bottle up the poison - that Sev had no doubt been leading, Lily realizes, because no one else in their little foursome was taking N.E.W.T. level Potions, and the thought makes her chest ache - and she focuses back on Lestrange and Rosier.

Raising her wand a bit higher, Lily takes a half-step backwards, moving closer to both Simon's Stunned form and the classroom door. She has limited options, she knows, against two of them - or three with Sev, she thinks - and with Simon vulnerable on the floor, and she can either talk or hex, and while her blood is pounding loud in her ears demanding a hex or two, a voice from the back of her mind reminds her that she is the bloody Head Girl of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and if that means anything, she needs to at least try talking first.

Sev has most of the poison bottled up now, and he's still not looking at Lily, not looking at anyone, really, just focusing on putting stoppers in the little bottles of baneberry potion, and Lily takes a breath.

"Alright, I've caught you out after curfew. I'll dock ten points from Slytherin for each of you and you go back to your Common Room, and we can all have a quiet night." She tries to sound both authoritative and understanding, a blend she's been working on since September, and Lily likes to think that by now, the second week of November, she's perfected it, but tonight her voice shakes just a bit.

Lestrange starts laughing, a high, shrieking laugh that hurts Lily's ears, and Rosier scoffs. "You think we're going to let you walk away from this?" he says incredulously, and then chuckles in a deep, menacing sound that does not sound humorous at all.

"Yes," says Lily firmly. "I'm going to release Goyle from my hex, and you are going to clean up the desk and go back to your Common Room. Simon needs to go to the Hospital Wing, and-"

She is cut off by a Stinging Hex flying at her face; Lily flings up a Shield Charm just in time, and a Silencing Charm bounces off the shield just a moment later. Glass potion bottles shatter behind Lily, and Lestrange rolls her wand between her fingers, gazing at it fondly.

"I think the Head Girl talks too much," she says in a sing-song voice. "I think the Head Girl needs to learn to respect her superiors." On her last word, Lestrange whips her wand through the air, sending several curses at Lily, who blocks and deflects and hopes to Merlin above that her Shield Charm protects Simon as well. More bottles shatters behind her, and a couple of the curses echo down the hallway as Lestrange's wild aim sends them out the door. Splinters from the door slice shallow cuts into the back of Lily's arms. Rosier laughs again, and Lestrange snaps at him that she'd like to see him do better.

Taking advantage of their momentary distraction, Lily double-checks her Shield Charm, making sure it is intact. She has a moment, only a moment, before both of them turn back to her, before Sev gets more involved, before things spiral out of control, and she wants to make sure that she has at least some defenses up, for fuck's sake. She levitates the nearest table, directs it towards her, flips it on its side so that it shields both her and Simon. Please let him be okay, Lily thinks, and then she is filled with anger, just anger this time, and she stands up from behind the table.

"I think you need to learn that I'm Head Girl for a reason, Lestrange," Lily snarls as she sends several hexes at the taller girl. One strikes Lestrange's arm as she attempts to block it, and she howls with rage. Lily darts away from the table - away from the door - and fires another series of rapid hexes, hitting potion ingredients, chairs, the chalkboard, and Lestrange. With a screech of rage, Lestrange stumbles back against Rosier and then falls to the floor. She stays down.

"Enough of this bullshit," Rosier growls, stepping over Lestrange. "Crucio!"

Lily ducks but is too slow; the pain slices through her like nothing she has ever felt before. Her bones are on fire…her tendons peel away from muscle...her fingernails ache...her teeth calcify and crumble…

...and then it is over and Lily is lying on her back, gasping for breath, shaking from head to toe. She looks up at Rosier with blurred vision; he is past grinning, past taunting now, and his face is deadly.

"You just had to get involved, didn't you," he says in a low voice. Lily blinks, trying to keep her eyes focused on him as he takes a step towards her. "You couldn't mind your own business. You just had to play the hero and get involved. You fucking Gryffindors," and he spits on the floor. "If you had walked away, you wouldn't be in this mess."

Bracing against the agony of moving, Lily forces herself to sit up. Everything hurts, but she refuses to give Rosier the satisfaction of standing over her. Tight-lipped, she kneels, then stands, reaching an arm out to balance against another classroom table. Rosier is still advancing on her; there are only ten feet between them now.

Lily raises her chin, defiant in spite of the pain, in spite of the fear now settling in her belly. "If you hadn't been brewing baneberry potion, you wouldn't be in this mess," she retorts, proud that her voice doesn't shake. "If you weren't brewing an illegal potion after curfew, there would be no mess."

"You need to watch your mouth, you filthy Mudblood," Rosier barks. "I'm sick of you mouthing off tonight. In fact," he pauses both his speech and his step, "I'm sick of you, period." He raises his arm. "Avada...

There is no time to move, no time to duck, and even if there was, her limbs are still not fully cooperating after the Cruciatus. Lily can only shut her eyes, grip the table, think of James. She wishes she had not paused in returning his "I love you" earlier this evening, wishes that she felt confident that he had heard her one last time. She thinks of their last kiss before he went out to help Remus, how his lips felt on hers, how proud she is of him, how she hopes he will be proud of her...

"...Keda-"

There is a thump and a sickening crunch of bone, a scuffle of feet and a body hitting the ground. Lily opens her eyes.

Severus stands over Rosier's limp form, his clenched fist bloodied and still raised. He turns and looks at Lily, his expression grim, his eyes searching hers.

"You hit him," Lily says dumbly. Sev stares back at her.

"You didn't use magic…" She wonders why that seems so important to her. Sev has always, always used magic, even back before Hogwarts. Lily cannot remember him throwing a single punch, even when kids back in Cokeworth taunted him with jeers and sticks.

"Someone will have heard that," she whispers. Her knees are still shaking. "You should go, Sev, before anyone gets here."

She cannot explain, exactly, why she encourages him to leave, to escape the consequences of this terrible situation. Perhaps their former friendship still means something to her. Perhaps she hopes, even against reason and logic and evidence to the contrary, that he is only here tonight because he was forced, coerced. Or maybe he just saved my life and I owe him, the thought flashing through her like the adrenaline in her veins.

He continues to stare at her.

"Go on, Sev," she urges, tilting her head slightly towards the door. "I won't...I won't mention you tonight."

He shuts his eyes, bows his head, and when he looks at her again, Lily thinks her eyes must be blurry again because she sees the glint of a tear in Sev's right eye. He regards her a moment longer, then seems to come to some sort of decision internally, and he makes for the door, carefully stepping around the sideways table and the prone Simon.

"I poured it out," he says over his shoulder, casually, not looking at her now. He leans out of the doorway to make sure no one is approaching.

"Sev," she calls softly, and he freezes, one foot hovering mid-air over the threshold. He does not turn around, and Lily does not expect him to, not after this. "I...thank you, Sev."

He nods almost curtly and then whisks himself away down the hall to the Slytherin Common Room. Lily watches him go, watches the last of his dark robes disappear around the corner, and then she heaves a breath. She needs to check on Simon, needs to get him to Madam Pomfrey, and she lets go of the table, takes a step towards the doorway Sev just crossed, and collapses.

"Lily. Lily. Lily, please wake up, come on, open your eyes, please…"

She struggles, trying to respond to the pleading voice, but her eyelids feel too heavy, her head pounds too loudly, and whatever she is lying on is far too soft for her to resist to pull of sleep. As she drifts back into unconsciousness, she feels a familiar hand in hers, and then she is gone again.

What could be minutes, hours, or days later, Lily opens her eyes slowly. Directly in front of her is another bed, not a four-poster like in her dorm, but a hard metal-framed bed with white sheets so tightly tucked in a Galleon would bounce right off. The view and the slightly antiseptic smell tells Lily that she is in the Hospital Wing. The room is dim; the only light comes from dim lamps at each end of the long hall.

Lily lies still for a moment, taking inventory of her body. Her eyes work, obviously, and have recovered from their blurriness. Her head throbs, but not as much as it did...last night? Earlier this morning? Whenever she was last awake.

Lily shifts, checking her limbs, and then she notices a weight on her right leg. She frowns, tries to lift her head to look at her body, grunts with the effort. Suddenly the weight is gone and James' face, his hair chaotic and his glasses askew, appears before her. The chair he had been sitting in totters precariously but does not fall; Lily thinks that James would not have noticed even if it had toppled, so intently is he staring at her.

"You're awake," he croaks.

She raises a hand - at least one limb still functions - and touches his cheek. He shuts his eyes, as if he cannot bear to both see and feel her at the same time.

"What happened?" she whispers - her voice, though hoarse, also works - and James opens his eyes again.

"I was going to ask you the same question," he says, and Lily tries to smile until she realizes that James is not being flippant but is actually barely holding himself together. There is a crease in his brow, and his hands, still resting on her leg, are trembling. Her smile fades and she removes her hand from his cheek and tries to sit up.

"Easy, easy." James jumps to help her up, holding her shoulders gently with one arm and Summoning another pillow with the other. Once she is settled against the headboard, she reaches for him; he grabs her hand and holds on with both of his like he is afraid she'll slip out of his grasp. She watches him scoot his chair closer to her bed without letting go of her hand. She wants to ask him again to tell her what happened, but he appears too shaken, too fragile to handle that again. The thought of a fragile James jars her.

She squeezes his hand and tries a different approach. "How did you know I was here?"

James grimaces. "Rough night for Moony. We walked him in about half three this morning, and I saw you lying here… Pomfrey was too caught up with Remus to tell me what had happened, but at least she let me stay. Didn't even have to use my Cloak," he smiles weakly at her, "but that only made me worry more, because she wouldn't put up a fight if it was really bad, would she."

He swallows, squeezes her hand, takes a deep breath. "Lil, what the hell happened? Pomfrey left a bottle of Sleeping Draught by your bed, and your face is covered in cuts, and Simon was Stunned, for fuck's sake."

He pauses, rubs a hand over his face. His shoulders are tense, like he's bracing for something. "Does this have anything to do with three Slytherins in beds down the hall?"

Lily gazes at him silently. Avada Keda- echoes loudly in her mind.

"Please tell me what happened, Lily." He's pleading now, and Lily cannot bear it.

James is clearly exhausted, first from his night with Remus, then from worry over her. If she tells him that she was almost killed by one of those Slytherins, how would he respond? James gave up his antagonizing and bullying over a year ago, but he is also highly sensitive when it comes to her. She loves him, Merlin help her, and knows that he means well, that he is pure Gryffindor and acts with his heart, but right now she needs him close to her.

"Promise you'll stay right here with me?" she asks, tugging his hands to pull him closer.

James nods and moves to sit beside her on the bed. He lets go of her hand briefly while he turns, slides under the covers, and navigates to a comfortable position next to her against the metal frame of the bed. Carefully, he adjusts a pillow behind him; once he is settled, Lily gingerly leans against him. His arm goes around her shoulders at once, and his free hand reaches for hers.

"I'm not going anywhere," he whispers into her hair, and Lily sighs and shuts her eyes. Her headache still pounds in her ears, and her arms and legs are still sore, and there is a twinge in her side when she moves, but despite all this, there is something about being wrapped in James Potter's arms that makes the pain recede. He is not just a comfort to her, she realizes, but he is her home, her place of refuge. In his arms, the world seems a little bit brighter, the darkness a little less intimidating.

James seems a bit calmer now that he is touching her from shoulder to knee, and she leans into him contentedly, suddenly able to forget why she is in the Hospital Wing in the first place.

James seems to feel the same way. "You can tell me later, Evans. You need to rest."

She nods against his chest, eyes already shutting again. James tugs the blankets up around her shoulders with one hand and smooths her hair down with the other.

Suddenly, Lily jerks upright. The thought that had crossed her mind right before Rosier had attempted the Killing Curse fills her head, and she turns urgently to James, who looks alarmed. She twists a bit to face him, and he reaches for her.

"What? Are you in pain?" he asks, his face full of concern.

Lily shakes her head, still looking at him intently. Now that she has the opportunity, words escape her. How can she say that James had filled the thought that she believed would be her last? Tears form suddenly in her eyes, and she blinks rapidly.

"I love you," she manages in a thick voice. "I love you so, so much and I want you to know...to know that," she finishes, somewhat lamely in her mind, but James is gazing at her so tenderly that she knows he understands. She moves back to his side, wraps her arm over his middle, and presses her cheek into his chest. James' arm goes around her again, and his free hand finds hers.

"I love you, too," he murmurs, and then Lily falls asleep.