Lily Potter and Neoma's Trance

Chapter Twenty-Four

“He should be here tonight,” Lily told her friends as she pulled her robes over her clothes for dinner. The train had arrived at Hogsmeade the previous night, and ever since Al told her about Rudolph’s condition and circumstances, she had been counting the seconds until Rudolph would show up in the Great Hall; Lily knew that Eli and Hugo were excited to finally see him again as well.

Hugo grinned and shoved his Charms book away; Lily had been tutoring him, “I can’t wait to see how he’s doing.”

“Are we going down to dinner or not?” Eli laughed, running over to them from the portrait hole. “Do you guys think he’ll be there when we get down to the Great Hall, or do you think he’ll make a grand entrance during dinner?”

“As long as we get to see him tonight, I really don’t care at all,” Lily giggled, closing her Charms book and putting it into her bag and slinging the bag over her shoulder. “Let’s go now! This wait is absolutely killing me!”

Running wildly, the colors of Hogwarts blurred past them in their determined sprint towards the Great Hall. They blew past Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Slytherins as they jumped on and off the staircases, nearly falling once or twice a piece in their rush. As they reached the two magnificent doors of the Great Hall, they all were quick to spot their friend sitting at the sparsely populated Gryffindor table. With their robes billowing behind them, Lily, Hugo, and Eli took off down the aisle between the Ravenclaw and the Gryffindor tables, right to him.

“Rudolph,” Lily smiled out of breath, pulling her friend into a tight hug. “I’m so glad that you’re okay; you have no idea how worried the three of us were over the holiday.”

He laughed at this, “There was no reason to worry; I was fine the entire time after I woke up. The Healers just monitored me and questioned me like crazy that’s why they kept me at St. Mungo’s for so long.”

“Questioning?” Hugo asked as he hugged him.

“Yeah,” Rudolph shrugged. “They wanted to know everything about the “revolution” thing and had a Healer watch over me at all times to see if it would happen again. It was kind of sick; it was as though I was a science experiment to them or something.”

“It didn’t happen again though, did it?” Lily asked, sitting down next to the spot where Rudolph had been waiting for them.

“Nope,” he shook his head as he got out of Eli’s hug. “I’m glad that it didn’t; I wanted to come back to Hogwarts like nothing else.”

“I believe it,” Eli nodded, heading over with Hugo to the other side of the table.

“I know I asked you this on Christmas, but are you sure that you don’t remember anything about being possessed or whatever it was that happened?” Lily questioned.

“Positive,” Rudolph responded with a nod. “I remember picking up an ornament that had fallen off of our tree, and the next thing I know, I’m waking up to you and your dad at my house.”

“Interesting,” she said, putting a piece of bread on her plate while Eli and Hugo plopped down across from them. “We have to get to the bottom of this weird “revolution” thing; if we don’t, then I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Do you think someone’s using a spell to do this? Or maybe a potion?” Hugo asked.

Eli answered for Lily, “It’s definitely a spell; I know I didn’t drink anything suspicious before it happened to me.”

“You said you got a spell dictionary for Christmas,” Rudolph said, turning to Lily. “Did you check that for anything yet? An answer could be in there.”