Lily Evans and the Marauder's Secrets

Awake

Author's Note: Hello! I am back, you can expect a new chapter every night this week :)

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The next time I wake up, bright sunlight streams in from the windows, and it blinds me when I first try to open my eyes.

"Ahh," I groan, throwing an arm over my face.

"Morning, sunshine," someone snorts.

I pry my arm away to squint at the person.

Or persons. There are three dark silhouettes backlit by the sun.

"Not morning, though, is it?" The second one says, and then I recognize them.

"Hey you guys," I mumble, slumping back on my pillow.

"Hey," chorus Alice and Marlene. Emmeline gives me a tentative smile.

"What, James couldn't be bothered to stick around for a few hours?" I ask grumpily.

The girls giggle.

"Oh, he stuck around," Alice says. "But there's only so long he could stay. He does have to eat sometime. We're just taking a shift so he doesn't starve himself at your bedside. Sirius practically had to drag him out."

"You all are so dramatic. I think he'd be fine to skip a meal or two," I say, and they laugh again.

"Yeah, but not five or six," Marlene says. "Even you couldn't manage that many."

"Five or six –? Hold up, what time is it?" I say, scrambling for my watch, which someone had removed from my wrist and set on the table next to my bed.
"12:30 in the afternoon," Alice says.

"On Friday," Marlene supplies.

"Friday?" I repeat disbelievingly. "I slept through a whole day?"

"Yep," Marlene says.

Alice shakes her head. "James has been a right mess worrying about you that you hadn't woken up yet. Been skipping classes just in case you came to during any of them."

"Fat lot of good that did," Marlene says. "He missed you waking up anyways." She sniffs. "I just hope you waking up means he'll still hold Quidditch practice this evening before dinner."

I push back the bed covers. "I'm fine, I'll go tell him myself right now." Plus, if I was starving last night – ah, Merlin, two nights ago, I now feel like my stomach was going to consume itself if I didn't get something to eat right now.

"Um, no," Marlene says. She tugs me back down. "You're not free to go until Madame Pomfrey checks you out. She's out for lunch too."

"I feel fine," I say again, but allow myself to settle back down. And it's true. I remember how bloody sore I'd been the last time I was conscious, and compared to that my legs feel amazingly capable. Tender if I stretch them out, but certainly not the agony they had been. Definitely capable of strolling down the corridor to lunch.

"I'm glad you're alright, Lily," Emmeline says quietly, and Marlene and Alice tense, looking between her and me.

"Thank you," I say, also quietly. I hesitate, then say, "I'm glad you're here, Em."

She bites her lip and nods. "I couldn't not come. I was so worried..."

Marlene, ever without tact, breaks in. "What happened, Lil?"

"I..." Looking at all of them, eyes anxious and confused, I fully appreciate for the first time how hard it must have been for James not to tell me anything this last year. I love these girls, and yet...