Lily Potter and Neoma's Trance

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Still in a too-large shirt and a pair of baggy sweatpants that she had gone to bed in, Lily slipped on a pair of sneakers and grabbed her wand from her nightstand before creeping down the staircase to the bottom of the stairs. She saw that Lucy was the only one left in the common room, and she was curled up into a ball on a puffy arm chair asleep, much like a cat. It was then when Lily knew her plan would work. Treading lightly, she snuck up the steps to the boys’ dormitories and slipped inside of the one that belonged to her three friends.

“Get up!” Lily said. “All of you! It’s me! We’re going into the Forbidden Forest.”

There were a few moans and groans as the three boys woke up, but after much coaxing, Lily was able to get them out the door.

Quietly, the four of them tiptoed down the stairs and into the common room, which was empty, excluding the still sleeping Lucy Weasley. The four first years weren’t even halfway across the common room when a voice scared the life out of them.

“Where do you all think you’re going?” it asked.

Lily had to cover her own mouth to keep from yelling out in surprise. Looking over to where the voice had come from, she saw James had popped up from behind the sofa with the classic smirk plastered on his face.

“James, you scared-”

“Where do you all think you’re going?” another voice repeated, not startling Lily nearly as much as James had. It was Al this time who had made her jump.

“Bathroom,” Lily answered all too quickly. She knew that they knew that she was lying as soon as it came out of her mouth. She had never been a talented liar.

James smirked harder at this; he could detect her lie from a mile away, “You’re all sneaking out. Did you hear that, Al? Our baby sister’s a rebel. She’s a leader of a gang consisting of four twelve year olds, including herself.”

“I am not a rebel,” Lily whispered harshly at him. “And so what if we are sneaking out? You have never been too crazy about sticking to the rules, James.”

“Where are you going?” Al asked, repeating James’s earlier question. “After what happened with Molly, I don’t think that you should be leaving the common room, and that goes for all four of you.”  

“This is none of your business, Al; we know what we’re doing,” Lily snapped.

James shook his messy head of hair, “Al and I are coming with you all, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us, Lily.”

“I told you,” Lily began, ready to continue her pathetic lie, “We’re just going to the bathroom.”Al scoffed at this, “We all know you’re lying, Lily. We’re coming with you. And even if all of you do just have to go to the bathroom, we’ll wait outside the door for you. We’re coming with you.”

“No, you aren’t,” Lily retorted.

“Yes, we are,” James said, standing up from the sofa.

“Stop trying to stall us,” Lily said, crossing her arms. “We are just wasting precious time. We’re leaving without you two.”

“Fine,” Al smirked.

James’s mouth hung open, “You can’t be serious. We are not letting them wander around the castle alone past eleven o’clock at night.”

“Let the four of them get in trouble,” Al shrugged. “Then, we’ll say I told you so.”

James and Al began to argue with one another, and Lily took that opportunity to sneak out of the portrait hole with her friends. They had to get down to the Forbidden Forest. Neoma’s Trance was starting, and they had to stop it.