Lily Potter and the Shadows' Misfortune

Chapter Nineteen

Lily hummed a Weird Sisters song to herself as she did her Charms essay in her dorm room with her curtains drawn around her bed. As much as she loved her friends, she enjoyed her privacy when working on a serious piece of schoolwork. Because of the buzzing in the Gryffindor common room, there was no better place for Lily to get her work done than her bedroom. Sure, she could have gone to the library, but Lily wasn't in the mood for an intense study session on a Friday night. She just wanted to make some progress on her essay, so she wouldn't have to spend her Sunday night cramming much like Hugo, Eli, and Rudy would have to.

    "Lily?"

    At the sound of her name, Lily looked through the part in her bed's curtains to see Cecily, who peaked through the dorm room's door.

    "Yes?" Lily said, looking back down at her parchment to finish a sentence.

    "Eli wants to see you downstairs," she said.

    Lily sighed, in the middle of having an epiphany about her essay, and kept writing instead of getting out of bed "Cecily, just tell him-"

    "It seems pretty urgent," she interrupted. "He just got back from detention with Hagrid. I think he ran all the way back."

    Wondering what exactly could be so urgent, Lily put aside her essay and hopped off of her bed. What could be so urgent that he had to disturb her essay-writing? He was only at detention. Surely nothing could have happened to him with Hagrid monitoring his detention. Detentions were led to any excitement.

    "I'll be down in a moment," Lily said. "Just let me put a pair of socks on."

    Cecily went back downstairs, and following her promise, Lily pulled on a pair of red socks and left her room, going downstairs in her gray t-shirt and plaid pajama pants.

    She spotted Eli sitting with Rudy on the floor underneath a window in an empty corner of the common room.

    "What do you need?" she asked, sitting cross-legged by her friends.

    "You were right," Eli said breathlessly.

    Lily didn't listen to the affirmation of whatever he was referring to but was alarmed at her friend's heavy breathing. Cecily was right; it did sound like he ran all the way back up to the common room, "Eli, what's wrong?"

    "I ran up here...from the Forbidden...Forest," he said, still laboring his breathing.

    "Okay, breathe, Eli, breathe," Lily said, worried that he might pass out if he didn't get himself under control. "Why? Does Hagrid know you left?"

    He shook his head of curls, "I had to help...him collect things, potion...ingredients, and I turned around...and he was gone."

    "Why'd you come back up here then?" Lily asked, pressing on and wondering what exactly she had been right about. "You'll get in even more trouble for leaving."

    Eli held up his hand and coughed through his labored breathing.

    "Is he alright?" Lily asked, looking to Rudy.

    Eli nodded fiercely, and Rudy responded for him, "Just listen to him, Lil. He told me everything, and it's positively mad."

    "The twins were there," Eli said finally, letting out a deep exhale. "Talking to something...in a hood-cloak thing. I don't know what it was."

    Lily's mind flashed back to about a month ago when she and her friends were walking Cassie up to the castle from Hagrid's Hut. She remembered a figure lurking in the forest.