Lily Potter and Neoma's Trance

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“The new moon’s tomorrow night,” Eli said three weeks later at breakfast. “What’s the plan, Lily? You’re the one who translated everything, so you should have some sort of plan figured out.”

Lily sighed and bit into her morning bagel, “I honestly don’t know. We have to figure out who’s casting this, but I’m not sure how to go about it afterwards. It really all depends on who it is.”

“We’ve had three weeks of thinking about this stupid trance, and we aren’t even certain on who’s casting it,” Rudolph sighed. “We need to figure something out. It’s now or never.”

“It’ll probably end up being never,” Hugo shrugged. “We haven’t done anything in the past, so why-”

“Don’t be such a pessimist, Hugo Weasley!” Lily scolded, interrupting his cynical rant. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. I know we well.”

“How?” he asked exasperatedly. “Just tell me how.”

Lily looked up and down the aisles to make sure James, Al, or Rosie wasn’t approaching, “The Map, of course. We’ll steal that and the Cloak from James’s room again and stay up in your guys’ dorm and just wait for something out of the ordinary to happen on the map. It’s the best plan we’ve got.”

“Why is it that with all of our missions that we have to be in our dorm?” Hugo sighed, letting his voice draw out in a whine. “That means we need to make it presentable. You’re a neat freak, Lil! Can’t we just use yours?”

She shook her head at this, “Unless you can figure a way to get up the stairs to the girls’ dormitory, then we’ll be using your room. Can you boys at least make it smell pleasant for me? It doesn’t even need to be clean; I just want it to smell good.”

“I’m offended!” Eli gasped theatrically. “I do not smell! It’s these two!”

Despite Hugo’s and Rudolph’s resentment to the statement, both Eli and Lily burst into laughter, and soon, Hugo and Rudolph joined in. Lily was the first to stop as she saw a panicked-looking James enter the Great Hall. His eyes flickered back and forth quickly as if he were looking for someone.

“James!” Lily called out to him as he walked briskly towards her. “What’s the matter?”

“I haven’t seen Olivia at all these past few days, Lil,” he worried. “She’s gone, and I don’t know where she is. Have any of you seen her?”

Part of Lily was slightly happy with this news as she had never liked Olivia in the slightest, but she tried to muster up sympathy for her brother, “No, we haven’t, but I’m sure she’ll turn up somewhere. She isn’t stupid enough to disappear randomly.”

“Don’t call my girlfriend stupid,” James snapped. “Anyway, don’t you get it? She’s a prefect! Prefects have been disappearing all year!”

“They always turn up and get sent to St. Mungo’s,” Rudolph pointed out, trying to lighten tense mood. “She’ll be fine, James.”

“My girlfriend’s missing,” he worried. “I’ve got to go talk to Longbottom about this or something! I don’t want something bad to happen to her.” As quick as he had come over, he sprinted away to the professor’s table, leaving Lily and her friends behind in their seats.

“As much as I hate her and despise the fact that he is now calling her his girlfriend,” Lily began, trying to keep her frustrations from building up, “I hope he finds her. I can’t believe another prefect’s gone missing.”

“Do you think they have something to do with Neoma’s Trance?” Hugo asked.

Lily shrugged, “I haven’t thought about that too much, but I suppose they might. They all go missing the day before it happens.”