Lily Potter and Neoma's Trance

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Learning the Greek language and alphabet proved to be more difficult than any of them could've imagined. Despite long hours of trying to teach themselves, none of them could grasp the language.

"What does this even mean?" Rudolph groaned, slamming a book close out of frustration.

Eli shook his head and gave a hollow laugh, "You say that like one of us actually knows what we're doing."

"How are we supposed to learn Greek on top of all of our other classes?" Hugo pondered aloud, following Rudolph's lead and closing his book shut.

"Do you think the Ancient Runes teacher would be able to help us decipher this?" Lily asked, still focused on the sheet of paper in front of her. "I can't think of what else to do; we've been trying to learn this for so long."

It had been two months since they had found Neoma's Trance in the Greek spell book, and they weren't any closer to translating it than they were on day one. Lucky for them, the "revolution" hadn't been brought up again although a sixth year Slytherin prefect had gone missing.

"I don't think so," Eli sighed, answered Lily's question. "This alphabet isn't related to magic at all, so I doubt that Professor Babbling would be of any assistance. She's supposed to be a really nasty teacher anyway."

"We'll just have to keep chugging through it then," Rudolph sighed, flipping the pages of a newly opened book.

"And besides, do we want to let old Babbly in on this?" Hugo asked, leaning back on his chair. "What if she's behind all of this?"

"Hugo," Lily began, closing another musty-smelling book about learning Greek, "I highly doubt that a professor would have anything to do with whatever is going on here. Especially her! She was hired by Dumbledore!"

"You never know," Hugo laughed with a shrug. "Can we leave now? I'm getting hungry."

"Fine," Lily agreed, closing the book. "We'll go down for dinner now, and we can pick right back up tomorrow after classes again."

"And get nowhere, as always," Eli chuckled, standing up from the table. "But seriously, how are we going to try and translate that page about the spell if we can't even figure out the Greek alphabet?"

"Is there a language changing spell or something?" Rudolph asked as he began to collect the rest of the spell books. "I would've just used Google Translate back at home; we would have had it translated by now."

"What?" Eli, Hugo, and Lily asked, all turned to look over to him.

"Google Translate," Rudolph responded, shrugging his shoulders. "You've never heard of it?"

The other three shared a confused look. "Is it a Muggle thing?" Lily asked, beginning to shelve some of the Greek language books.

"Yeah, it's on the internet," he said, sounding shocked that none of them new of the magnificent Google Translate. "You guys haven't even heard of the internet? What about a computer?"

"Wizards brought up in our world aren't well versed in Muggle technologies, Rudolph," Lily said. "I've never heard of any of that stuff. Have you?"

Eli and Hugo shook their heads, showing Lily that they were as equally confused as she.

"Well, what you do," Rudolph began to explain, "is type what you want translate into the box, and click whatever language you want it to be translated into. Boom! You've gotten a translation."

"Just like that?" Hugo asked incredulously. "What's the catch?"

"That must take hours," Lily said, gaining an agreed nod from both Eli and Hugo.

Rudolph shook his head, "Not really. It happens instantaneously although it could take a minute if you've got a slow computer."

"Do you think we could get a hold of one of these computers?" Eli asked. "We wouldn't even have to learn the language then; we could just put it into this computer you're talking about."

"I highly doubt that a wizarding school would have a computer. If we could get out of here and to a Muggle town or something, we'd have no problem coming across a computer," Rudolph said.

"What's the closest Muggle town?" Hugo asked quickly.

"Wait," Lily said before anyone could answer, "are you proposing what I think you are?"

"I thought it would be within your code of conduct," Hugo smirked.

"No," Lily began, shaking her head violently. "No! No! Do you really think that we could sneak out of school to some random Muggle town?"

"Please, how hard could it be?" Hugo retorted. "There's a Hogsmeade trip in two weeks, so we could just sneak out unnoticed that day. Easy as that."

"Easy?" Lily asked, flabbergasted. "Hugo Weasley, there is no way that we are sneaking out of Hogwarts and going to a Muggle town. It's very much against the rules and very dangerous."

"You don't have to go," he pointed out. "Rudolph? Eli? Are you two up for it?"

"Sounds exciting," Eli shrugged. "I'd be up for it. What about you, Rudolph?"

Rudolph sighed, "Someone's going to have work the computer for you two."

"So are you going to stay up at Hogwarts while we go out and adventure, or are you going to come with us to a Muggle town?" Hugo asked with a smirk, knowing that he had made his point.

"Fine," Lily sighed. "I'll go, but if we get caught, it's on your conscience, not mine."

"That a girl," Hugo chuckled, slinging his arm around Lily's thin shoulders. "Now, let's head on down to dinner before they clean up."

Once they finished with their dinner, the four headed up to the common room where they stayed up past most everyone else in order to have a minute or so to plan a bit for their little "adventure" that would happen in two weeks.

"How do you think we'll get out of Hogwarts to begin with, Hugo?" Lily asked. She still wasn't sure about their little escapade, so she decided she'd let Hugo lead it.

"Under the Cloak, of course," he shrugged.

"What if it's snowing?" Lily asked. "They'll see our footprints."

Eli and Rudolph shared a confused look, "What Cloak?"

"The Potter Invisibility Cloak," Lily answered. "If we're under it, then no one can see us."

Rudolph laughed, "Yes, we grasp the concept of invisibility."

"Shut up," Lily laughed. "Anyway, how do you plan that we get out of here, Hugo? What town are we going to?"

"I don't know yet," he groaned. "This is why you're normally the one that heads these great missions, even when we were little kids you were the one in charge."

Lily rolled her eyes, "Do you guys really want to do this? Wouldn't it just be easier and safer to learn Greek at our tremendously slow pace back here than to run out to some Muggle town?"

"It'll be much quicker with the computer that Rudolph was talking about," Hugo said. "And all three of us want to do this. Can you please look into this? Please, Lil?"

"Fine," she sighed. "But you are all going to have to listen to my direction; we aren't going to go all rogue with this. We are getting in and getting out under my orders, understood?"

All three of the boys nodded, and Lily sighed again, "Fine. After class tomorrow, I'll start my researching about anything close enough to Hogsmeade that wouldn't take us too far away from school grounds."

"You're the best, Lil," Hugo smiled. "Where would we be without you?"

"You'd still be failing Charms," Lily giggled. "Now, I'll see you all in the morning."

-+-

Uh-Oh! Looks like these four might be getting themselves into some trouble!!

Anyway, yeah...this was a really, really short chapter, but fear not! I'll upload another twenty-eight tonight!

Thanks for all of your reads, votes, comments, and follows!!!

-aquaseahorse