𝑡𝘩𝑒 𝑠𝘩𝑎𝑑𝑒'𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝗁.𝗉. 𝗇𝖾𝗑𝗍 𝗀𝖾𝗇.

.thirteen.

Huffing, Ophelia slammed the thick, dusty book down on the common room table. Dusting off the leather bound cover, she looked to Cas exasperatedly and saw that the redhead's expression matched hers exactly.

How the hell were they going to do this?

She suddenly realized that they must look pretty weird. The two of them, sat on the floor, huddled around the gleaming ebony table that was piled with several centuries old books, random quills and pots of ink, and a piece of crumpled parchment paper that the two girls knew to be Parseltongue.

Oh well, Ophelia thought, At least being judged by literally everyone in the room is better than what we're about to do.

She flinched when Cas heaved the book open to the table of contents, quickly searched it, and flipped to whatever page she had decided on. Resigning herself to her fate, Ophelia leaned forward and picked up a quill resting near her. Looking the page up and down, she quickly realized it was some type of translation. It showed an odd alphabet, with arrows pointing so some incoherent english letters, and some more arrows that guided Ophelia's eyes to some words and letters that actually made sense to her.

She smiled to herself as Cas passed the ink and her piece of nearly torn parchment. "This shouldn't be too hard, right?"

Cas raised an uncertain eyebrow. "You sure?" Ophelia nodded uncertainly.

"...Yes?"

Cas slid the book closer, grabbing a fistfull of pages and flipping through them all with her thumb. Ophelia groaned as she saw all the pages fly by, almost identical to the one she had just laid her eyes on. "Great."

Cas sighed. "Sure is."

The two girls shared one last we're so screwed look before turning to the book and leafing through it's pages, hoping that they would find an answer somewhere in the dusty leather bound volume.
<>

Ophelia sighed heavily as she flipped back and forth between the few pages she was holding in her fingers. It had been determined that all books but one were a bust, and Cas and Ophelia had managed to translate the first few words by now. However, the end of the line was giving them both trouble. Cas had disappeared to the other side of the table around ten minutes ago, the book's pages completely hidden by her curtain of red hair as she leaned over the page. She had mumbled something about 'being on a roll', and Ophelia knew better than to try to take it back at this point. The process was going much quicker now that they had found the right book, but Ophelia was seriously starting to wonder if maybe Cas had copied part of the message wrong.

She was brought out of her reverie by a squeal that expressed something between pain and pure joy. "I got it," Cas choked out breathlessly.

Her attempt at seeming awake abandoned, Ophelia let her now very heavy head fall to rest on her arms, which were folded on the table. "If you're joking, I'm going to cry."

"No, no, I actually got it, look!" Cas practically threw the paper to Ophelia, who caught it clumsily and turned it right side up.

She wasn't wrong. It made sense. Actually, considering this message came from a creepy thing hiding in the woods, it made a lot of sense.

"30 years ago, the Dark Lord fell," Ophelia read out in a hushed voice.

Then, everything went black.

Ophelia was surprised when she found the feeling somewhat familiar. The feeling that she was seeing, but her eyes were still closed. She couldn't open them, she couldn't move, she could barely even breathe.