The sound of James roughly sliding open her window and dragging himself through it disturbed Lily from where she was, just a few seconds earlier, peacefully studying at her desk, soft lofi music playing in the background. She turned around in shock, already on her feet as a reaction.
“James!” She exclaimed. She rushed over to him. He groaned softly, pushing himself up with shaking arms and collapsing with his back against the wall of the window he had just unceremoniously dumped himself through. Lily quickly crossed the few steps of her room and knelt down beside him, trying to catch a glimpse of his face.
His mask was off, meaning that even if she wasn’t already aware of the vigilante Prong's secret identity, she definitely would be now. Now that she had a couple seconds to process the situation she focused on the matter of the mask. His suit with its bright red and gold colour scheme seemed to scream attention, something she knew James had chosen on purpose. Not for any selfish reasons, no matter how much she’d previously like to have thought so or could try to say. No, James’ suit was those bright flashy colours for the reasons he explained to her all those weeks ago, as they sat together on the rooftop talking quietly. He liked knowing that he could draw the painful blows away from his fellow vigilantes, Padfoot and Wormtail, and that it was a bright symbol to look for in the darkness, for the civilians. “I know it probably sounds stupid, shit, I’m sure you of all people probably won’t hesitate to tell me I’m acting like a naive idiot but…” His voice, while not wavering, absolutely was not his normal overflowing with confidence tone. “I feel like it signifies hope, in a way. For the people I look out for. I’m not a hero anymore, thank god, but without that title I feel like I need something to show that, hey, I’m still here. I’m still fighting for justice! You know?” Lily did not. This world of heroes, villains, and vigilantes was one she had only just barely begun to dip her toes into. “And, even if the civilians don’t see it that way, and truly do only see me as a flashy asshole,” She couldn’t help but let out a chuckle at this, and he gave her a small smile, “I feel like it helps me believe in myself. Like I can do it. Knowing that, that I got out, and I’m still me. They didn’t change me, they didn’t break me. I can do what I love and what I know I’m meant to do and I can do it happily.” He finished this explanation with a rush of his words all at once, and Lily found herself momentarily captivated by the sparkle of passion she could see in his dark eyes. She nodded softly, “I like it, James.”
Now, those same colours seemed to be a curse, as her eyes zeroed in on his mask. It was clenched tightly in his hand, and that same hand was pressed against his stomach. Lily’s own stomach seemed to drop in response. Gingerly, she moved his hand slightly, attempting to see what he was covering. It was almost nothing. That damn bright red seemed to blend in, making everything just seem the same red, red, red. She moved his hand a little more, and grazed her other hand over the area, trying to figure out a little more. This drew a pained whine from the dark-haired boy on her floor, his normally deep brown skin a significant few shades lighter. Lily withdrew her hands immediately with panic. Oh, god. This was so out of her depth. She blew out a deep breath. Focus Lily. Unbeknownst to James, in his pain-riddled mind he had somehow managed to crawl through the window of someone who could, in theory, heal him. A secret she had kept well hidden for many years, even from her own family. Even from Sev. Guess now was the time for people to find out.
She tapped James’ shoulder, gently, at first, then rougher and a tad bit more frantic as he was slow to respond. “James. James. James! James, come on, please don’t fall asleep!”
His head, that had been dropped up slowly lifted as he punctuated his confusion with a “Huh? Lily? Whas- wa-?” He settled for just making a noise of confusion at her as his eyes blinked slowly. Lily scooted a bit further away from him, eyes flicking up and down, analysing the situation critically.
“James, I need you to take your suit off.”
“Woahhh, ask me out to dinner first, why don’t you?” He somehow managed to mumble
Despite the fact that her anxiety was at an all-time high Lily felt a deep blush climb and her face and she huffed. “Prongs! Just the top half you idiot, I need to see what’s wrong.” Her words were confident, and without really stopping to think about realistically what could ‘power-less Lily’ do to help him right now, he did as she said.
Lily was very pointedly looking at anywhere other than the damaged area. Upon seeing it, she instantly had to fight the feeling of nausea that threatened to arise. Now was absolutely not the time for that. James, the idiot, had somehow managed to drag himself across probably half the city, through her window, and still making quips while he was currently missing a large part of his flesh in a vicious wound that clung to the bottom left side of his stomach, just above his waist. And Lily was right in her suspicion of the costume’s colours hiding the true effects, because the wound really was grotesque, and oozing blood at a rate that judging by James’ face and all round floppy behaviour, he could not afford to lose.
She swallowed nervously, rising to her feet. “Stay there Jamie, I’ll grab something that can help and I’ll be back in two seconds.”
“Yepp, don’t worry Lils’, I won’t wriggle around too much.” Clearly the blood loss was getting to him, James would never be caught dead making such a weak joke. Lily returned with a first aid kit. Dropping down to her knees again beside James’ side she met his eyes.
“James, this will sting a lot. I need to clean your wound. Please try your best not to move, okay?”
“I have a wound? Where!” James groaned, letting his head fall back against the wall and squeezing his eyes shut. Lily rolled her eyes and then quickly moved in with the disinfectant. She had to be quick about this. James was already losing blood, and if she didn’t move soon her powers would be useless. She can’t replace his blood cells, as much as she could try. But she couldn’t just rush this either, healing the wound with bacteria still clinging to him from whatever caused this could lead to an infection. So she methodically cleaned it as efficiently as she could. Once finished, she placed it on the ground and nudged the first aid kit away. She noticed James had squinted open one eye to peek at her during this, and his eyebrows furrowed a little in confusion. She ignored him, and placed her hand on either side of the gaping wound. James yelped in pain, and Lily had to fight down her feelings to let go instantly.
“I need you to trust me, Jamie.” She looked up and stared into his eyes. Her hands were getting stained with blood as they held firm on his stomach and side near the injury. He looked straight back at her, although his eyes were slightly cloudy from the pain. His eyes darted all over her face for a couple seconds, even once looking down at where she made contact with his bare skin and then back up again, settling on just her. He Looked at her, with such emotion and trust Lily nearly crumbled under the feeling. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. He gave her a small but firm nod. Lily steadied her breathing. Now to not fail.
She focused on the sparks that seemed to light up in the pit of her stomach when she reached deep inside herself to summon her power. She grabbed on to the feeling, pushing it up, up, up, where it split in two and began to travel down her arms. Lily directed it into her palms, focusing intently on where she touched James’ skin. At once, she began to feel all the molecules and cells begin to vibrate with energy. Only at a level she could discern, for James it just left him with a slight tingling sensation as opposed to the previous blinding pain. Sharpening her attention to just the output of her power she began to urge the energy filled cells to move.
She pushed deeper, sending waves of her power at a molecular level through James’ body, urging out the platelets and epithelial cells from where they were hiding and to the source of the pain. From a non-cellular perspective, the sides of James’ injury seemed to grow over, knitting together in the way the muscular tissue usually does. It’s followed by the soft skin, albeit adorned with scar tissue, but skin nonetheless. The power that she was pushing out starts having an uncomfortable sparking sensation in her hands and just as her chest was beginning to feel tight she deemed that James’ injury was sealed to the best of her and his body’s ability. She stopped the surge of power but kept her hands there as she felt herself tip forward, head softly hitting his chest. Lily just stayed there for a moment, breathing heavily. James had, perhaps in reflex, put his arm that wasn’t on his ‘bad side’ up and cradled the back of her head comfortingly.
“Hey, hey, you did so good, Lils. Wow.” His voice was very soothing, and Lily found herself blinking away a few tears before finally lifting herself up again. Her hands were shaking slightly as she withdrew them. James reached out and took them in his. They were both a little bloody, but Lily found she didn’t care.
“Did it work? Does it still hurt?” She questioned
“No, not at all. You did it, Lils.” James smiled at her. “It’s feeling a little tender right now though, I won’t lie.” His powers must have already gotten to work replacing his energy and lost blood now that the wound was sealed and almost fully healed, as he now seemed to be able to speak coherently.
“Oh, yes, that’d be because it’s not actually fully healed, I guess.” Lily chewed on her lip nervously, eyes flicking down to the carpet they were on.
“So… am I allowed to ask what this is then?” He gestured at his almost normal looking skin, confusion on his face yet his eyes were open in soft understanding as he looked at her. Lily met his eyes once more. May as well bite the bullet, she’d have to tell someone eventually. And James seemed like a good place to start, with his stupid unending loyalty.
She shuffled herself around so that she was now sitting beside him, her back against the same wall, their shoulders not quite pressed against each other but definitely touching. Drawing her legs up so she could hug them and rest her head on her knees she began to speak;
“It’s not really classified as a healing power. I should know, I’ve tried to study it for years.” She huffed out a slight laugh, the images of hours spent pouring over books, articles, and studies in any attempt to understand more what was going on with her. She came from a non-powered family, she wasn’t as involved in the basic knowledge one might expect a powered individual to have. No, she had to find that on her own. “It works at a much smaller, more intricate scale, I’ve discovered. It’s like…” She trailed off here for a second, trying to find the right words. James just kept looking over at her encouragingly. “It’s like I can see all the individual cells. And they respond to me. Not as if I can control them or anything, but like they’ll listen if I urge them to do something or move somewhere. Nothing that they wouldn’t be able to do naturally. So when I send my power into an area of living matter - it has to be living - I can communicate with them, and I start to see the area at a cellular level. And If I push more energy and power in the area, the more I can see and the more influence I have.”
At this point, Lily glanced over to James to see if he was getting, well, any of this really. He was nodding slowly, albeit with a confused smile on his face. Lily decided to cut to the healing part. “So basically, I just gathered the cells on the edge of where the injury was and urged them to begin closing, faster than you would’ve healed independently, obviously. I also reached further in to try and find the cells in the rest of your bloodstream that can be used for healing, and urged them to focus on this area, as fast as they can physically move. I also have a theory that maybe the energy I send speeds up the movement as well, but I haven’t finished conducting research on that yet. And that’s why it’s scar tissue, sorry. I can’t just fully erase the injury, but I can persuade it to heal as fast as I can think. Sorry.” Lily winced, unable to keep her gaze from trailing down to the new thick scar that stained James’ smooth skin. She felt almost like she’d failed him, a sensation which previously wouldn’t have bothered her too much, she probably wouldn’t have put herself in the position of offering her help in the first place, but now it weighed on her immensely.
James straightened up from where he had previously slipped down a bit, and turned from leaning on the wall to face Lily, his knees knocking against hers. He reached out to hold both her hands in his and made sure to lock eyes with her before he began to talk.
“Lils,” he said, “don’t apologise. You’ve done so well. You saved me. You didn’t have to do anything, but you did, and I’m okay now. I’m sorry if I scared you.” His eyes were big and overflowing with honesty. It helped chase away the swirling negative feelings in her gut and she allowed herself a small smile.
“Yeah,” she huffed, “but you should count yourself lucky it was my window you dragged your sorry arse through, not some poor old lady’s”. James laughed at that.
“Please, I’ll have you know my journey here was incredibly strategic! I already knew!”
“As if, idiot.” Lily removed one of her hands from his to lightly flick his forehead before going back to how they were originally.
“Ok, ok, you caught me. I didn’t know. You hid it super well, I had no idea. But I am a little serious, I just had a gut feeling. I didn’t know where to go, and I think I was getting quite woozy quite fast and then I thought of you and it all made sense.” A loaded silence followed this statement.
“Oh.”
Lily’s tongue darted out to wet her lips as they sat in the silence following this. The weight of so many things she could say were heavy on her mind, and it seemed to her that James was sitting with the same unsaid words. But she also saw how exhausted he looked. Really, truly, bone-deep exhaustion. Lily definitely did not envy the job of the vigilante, but now she could say she held a lot of respect for it. They did a lot of good, covering the areas where the heroes lacked, mainly the poorer neighbourhoods and ‘lower-level’ crimes. And it was clear to anybody who looked that James wasn’t in it for the glory, but for his heart.
Deciding to break the silence, Lily stands up and offers her hand to James. He accepts and she helps him up with a bit more force necessary than usual. James stands in place, unsteady and blinking for a bit as he adjusts to the movement. Then he begins to look around and his eyes settle on the window again and he begins to prepare his mask that was still clenched in his hand.
“Stay.” Lily blurts out.
“What?”
“Stay. You should stay. Here.”
James looked at her, confused.
“It’s just…” Lily looked around the room, as though the words she was searching for would show up on the walls. “It’s really late. And- and I know you’re a vigilante Prongs so don’t even try that joke, but I really don’t think you should go home right now. I mean, you live all the way across town, and you’ve just been healed from a pretty sizeable injury, I don’t think I’ve healed one that big and what if it doesn’t hold up, or what if you see someone and decided you need to do some stupid self-sacrificing heroic act and-” Lily’s fretting rapidly turned into a sea of worries that spilled out.
“-Okay, Lils! Don’t worry, hey, it’s okay.” He took a shaky step closer to her and dropped his mask on the ground. “I can stay the night.”
Relief flooded through Lily’s chest, so much so that she couldn’t even bother feeling embarrassed as she normally would at this vulnerability. Moving on quickly she walked and got some spare clothes out of her closet, her favourite oversized t-shirt and baggy pyjama pants. She turned and threw them at James, rolling her eyes when his lightning-fast reflexes allowed him to catch them one handed even while half-asleep as he stood. She also grabbed a towel and shoved it into his hands.
“Now, you go shower, because there is no way I’m sharing a bed with a sweaty, dirty, vigilante.” She nudged him slightly in the direction of the shower, before realising his slowness and offering her hand to walk him there. Lily didn’t notice the way his face instantly flushed hot, and he shot a glance behind him as they walked to the bathroom.
“We’re going to be shar- Oh! Oh wow- Um- Of course-” He swallowed his nervous stammers and tried to look cool and collected as they reached the showers. Lily showed him how to work the taps. She left to go sit outside, back against the closed door as she waited to make sure her healing didn’t suddenly combust and send James collapsing to the floor to drown in the shower. That just wouldn’t do at all, especially now that she cares about him. A blush spread over her cheeks and Lily groaned loudly, a noise that was luckily covered by the shower turning on, and buried her head in her hands. Why her! Why James Potter, of all people?