The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

Poetry, Evans

Poetry, Evans

James woke to find he was lying in the hospital wing by himself. Madam Pomfrey was by her desk, mixing a potion for him and came rushing over as he sat himself up, glancing toward the window with anxiousness. "Who won? Did we lose?"

"The match has been rescheduled," she replied. Madam Pomfrey leaned over and pressed her palm to James's face, her hand cool against his skin as she patted first his cheeks and then his forehead. "Burning up. Should've come to me first thing this morning... Trying to play quidditch with a fever! I never." She shook her head and pulled a large bottle of red potion out of her deep apron pocket and poured a helping of it into a small shot glass that she put on the table beside him along with two pills and a blue vial of sleeping draught. "Here you are. Those will --" She paused as the door to the ward creaked open behind her. "Yes? Who's there?" She leaned to see, but there didn't appear to be a soul there. "Peeves, if that's you -- I'll tell the Bloody Baron you were messing about in here again and he'll have your head!" She paused.

When no further noises followed, she turned back to James. "Those will help and get you the rest you need. I've seen far too much of you and your little friends in here this month already... Bad month for the Marauders, January's been! Regrowing bones, patching together skin, falling, feverish from broomsticks..." she shook her head, and waved her wand, producing a small glass of water beside the pills.

James reached first for the red potion, knocking it back into his throat. It was hot and he could feel it burning all the way down his throat and stomach. It hurt going down but once it passed, the inside of his throat felt less raw, as though the heat was coating and healing it as it went. When James reached over for the pills, his hand hit something solid, though there didn't appear to be anything there. He paused, then reached out to feel what he'd hit, but his hand sliced through the air without hitting anything that time. He grabbed the pills, water, and draught and within minutes he was asleep once again.

Madam Pomfrey returned and took the empty glass and vial, tucked James in again beneath the blankets carefully, and put his glasses onto the nightstand before waving her wand to close the blinds that covered the windows and closed the ward behind her as she went to her desk to work.

There was a long pause as the ward got quiet and dark and then...

"Lumos."

Sirius tugged the invisibility cloak off and glanced over his shoulder at the ward doors, making sure Pomfrey wasn't coming. "It's clear," he said to the space behind him. A moment later and Remus pulled the cloak over his head as well. He folded it neatly over his arm and glanced back at the ward doors.

Sirius turned to look at James again and pulled the stool up, leaning over to get a good look at his friend.

"He's asleep, you'll have to talk to him later."

"I'm not here to talk to him... I'm not speaking with him, remember?" Sirius said, making a face at Remus. "I just want to make sure that idiot Hufflepunk didn't hurt him with all those stupid muscley biceps of his." Sirius leaned over the bed, looking James's face over for a moment.

"Oh so you're noticing Jasper Odair's muscles, are you?" Remus asked, raising his eyebrows at Sirius in mock jealousy.

"You'd be blind not to," Sirius said, and he poked at the fleshy bit of James's cheek to be sure it was still squashy, and lifted one arm up to flop his hand about. He nodded in approval, "Alright, everything's in order, I reckon he's going to live. Let's go."

"That's it?" Remus asked, blinking in surprise. "For real? All the work it took to sneak in here we've done for you to flap about an arm and call it quits?"