Lily Potter and Neoma's Trance

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Today was the day, Lily thought as soon as she woke up. She didn’t even have that blissful moment of thinking that today would be a normal day. No, her mind went straight to the task at hand, sneaking out of Hogwarts and getting to Dovetown by way of Hogsmeade.

Throwing off her blankets, she hopped off of her bed and got into her newest Weasley sweater and a pair of jeans. Quickly, she threw her long, orange hair back into a ponytail, pulled on a pair of boots, and went downstairs to meet her three accomplices for the day’s rule breaking. She found them sitting on a sofa, trading Chocolate Frog Cards. How annoyingly unnecessary!

“You’re doing something as frivolous as that on a day like this?” Lily questioned as she made her way over to them. Once she got over to them, she snatched them, much to her friends’ displeasure. “You’ll get these back after the mission.”

“Do you ever have fun?” Hugo joked, earning a hard stare from Lily. “Fire, sorry. Now, what are we going to do before our plan falls into place?”

“We’ll go down to breakfast like we do every day,” Lily whispered, sitting down on the arm of the sofa. “After that, we’ll come back up here, and we’ll leave a bit after everyone else does.”

“That makes enough sense,” Eli shrugged. “I’m ready to get this over with!”

“Are you all still sure that you want to go through with this?” Lily asked. Despite all of her hours researching, she was still very nervous about the plan going smoothly. She also didn’t want to be caught.

“Absolutely,” Hugo nodded. “This is going to be the quickest way to get the page translated. Permitting that Rudolph knows what he’s talking about when it comes to this Muggle technology.”

“Of course, I do,” Rudolph scoffed. “I’ve been using computers since I was little. I know that we’ll be able to do this.”

“Then, it’s settled,” Eli nodded. “We’ll leave a few minutes after everyone else has.”

“Well,” Lily said, surveying the room, “it looks like everyone is heading down to breakfast. We best be off as well. When we get come back up here, I’ll pack everything, and we’ll wait everyone out up in your dorm room. Sound good?”

“Perfect,” Hugo nodded, standing up from the sofa. “Let’s get going then.”

Following the confident Hugo out of the portrait hole, the four Gryffindor first years walked through the corridors and down the stairs to the massive doors of the Great Hall.

“Act natural; we don’t want anyone to think anything’s up,” Lily instructed, leading them all down the aisle to the Gryffindor table.

“Hey, Lil!” James greeted, causing Lily to jump a foot in the air. She was so focused on the task at hand that any unexpected greeting would probably give her a heart attack. “Everything okay?”

“Wonderful,” Lily said. “Brilliant, actually. Just brilliant!” She gave him an uneasy and unconvincing laugh.

“Okay,” James said, furrowing his brow. Lily could practically read his mind; he knew something was up. “I’ll see you when I get back from Hogsmeade. We need to talk.”

“Why?” Lily asked.

“Vic told me something…interesting last night,” he answered before walking away to catch up with Olivia. Had Victoire told him about Malfoy, Lily thought with fear.

“Act natural, she says,” Hugo mocked when James was out of earshot. “We don’t want anyone to think anything’s up, she says.”

“Shut up,” Lily snapped, plopping down beside him.