Lily Potter and Neoma's Trance

Chapter Thirty-One

“What happened?” Lily asked when Hugo, Eli, and Rudolph finally entered the common room; she had been waiting for them for two hours. Lucky for her, the older students had yet to arrive back from their trip, so she got some quiet time to stew about everything. “I saw you guys come in in front of Filch from the Great Hall. Just please tell me that you three gits didn’t get caught. Please just tell me that, and I will be able to sleep soundly tonight.”

“Then I guess we have nothing to tell you if you want to sleep,” Hugo commented with an uneasy grin, inching over the stairs up to the boys’ dormitories. “Let’s go upstairs, guys. We’ve got some unfinished homework to get to, Lil. You should-”

“Not so fast, Hugo Weasley” Lily said, standing up from the sofa. “How on earth did you three get caught? How did you manage to screw this up? My plan was infallible! I didn’t think I needed to idiot-proof it!”

“We can’t say that much for Hugo’s coordination,” Eli said, shooting an annoyed glare at Hugo.

“Please tell me you didn’t do something stupid, Hugo,” Lily said, burying her hands in her face. “Please tell me that this isn’t your fault.”

Hugo scoffed uneasily, “You say that like it’s a regular thing.”

“Hugo,” Rudolph began before Lily could spit out her steaming retort in a yell, “thought you said to go through the alley on the right of Zonko’s. He wouldn’t listen to Eli and me and took two unannounced steps towards the wrong alley. The next thing we know, we were taken to the ground by his clumsiness.”

“Hugo Weasley,” Lily began scolding once more; her voice was rising as was the redness of her face, “did we not have this exact same conversation the night we snuck out to see James? You can’t move randomly when you’re under the Cloak with others!”

“We all can’t be as perfect as you, Lil,” he snarled, leaning up against the wall. “You’re so perfect, Lily. I’m so sorry that I ruined your perfect plan.”

Lily wanted to shout a few colorful things at Hugo but bit her tongue and turned to Rudolph, “What happened after that? Why didn’t you just throw the Cloak back over yourselves?”

“Well,” he said, forcing his mouth into a tight smile, “as soon as it was thrown off of us, we were caught by none other than our old pal, Scorpius Malfoy, who promptly reported us to Smithers.”

“What a git!” Lily exclaimed, flopping back on the sofa. “I hate Malfoy so much.”

“He’s such a prat!” Eli said with disgust. “I can’t believe him; he’s ruined everything today! First, you can’t come, and then, he turns us in.”

“Not to mention that we’ve got detentions for a month,” Rudolph interjected. “I can’t believe it. Smithers also took one hundred points for each of us. Can you believe it, Lil?”

“One hundred points! EACH?!” Lily shouted, not believing what she was hearing. “That totals to three hundred. Do you realize how far that puts us behind Ravenclaw? They were dead last, and we were in first place! You just made Gryffindor lose the House Cup!”

“You’re concerned about the points and the House Cup?!” Hugo exclaimed. “Didn’t you hear Eli? We’ve got detentions for an entire month, Lil. How are we supposed to do anything with that? We can’t go to the library, and we certainly won’t have much time to hang out in the common room.”

“How are we going to figure out what Neoma’s Trance means?” Eli asked, slumping beside Lily on the sofa. “This is just going to complicate things even more.”