I have just discovered that an "author" by the name of Emily Harrison is posting this story up on PK and passing it off as her own work. I have reported this author to PK, and I hope that they will be pulling the story down shortly. I want to thank Cheeringcharm for reporting this plagiarism to me. So that all of you know, the only site on which I do NOT post my story up under the SN "Phoenix Song" is fanfiction.net. There, I am Bethany Jean. If you see this story posted up anywhere else under a different author name, PLEASE let me know. I really did put all that I had into this story as I was writing it, and it angers me beyond reason to think there is someone out there taking credit for it. Thank you!
Thanks, again, for reading, and for responding, and for those of you supporting me in the PK readers choice award! An especially HUGE thank you to whomever nominated me. I am truly honored.
Yekwah: Of course I can't say whether or not Lily will end up finding out about Lupin, but she is noticing strange things about him, that is certain! I'm afraid James will not be asking Lily out for quite some time. At the moment, he is having entirely too much fun teasing her!
Raeclaire: Thank you for letting me know! I will fix that when I get a chance. Thank you so much for reading.
Caitlin: I certainly will be writing more. This story is finished to completion, and I've about half of the second year written. The only thing stopping me from posting more quickly is time. Thank you for reading!
Chapter 9: Gryffindor Quidditch
A few weeks later, Lily, Alice and Amelia all sat huddled under a large Gryffindor blanket that Lily had charmed to stay warm against the cold. Gryffindor was beating Ravenclaw 180 to 150 in the first Gryffindor quidditch match of the season, and three hours into the game, the snitch had been spotted a few times, but neither team's seeker had yet come close to catching it. The marauders and Frank were sitting behind the three girls, which Lily honestly wouldn't have minded, except that Potter kept jumping up to shout, "There! There it is. Don't you see it?" and Pettigrew would respond with a cheer. Every time that the seekers did see the snitch but missed it, Potter would jump up and shout something along the lines of "You should have had that you worthless-" at which point Lupin would glare at him and pull him back down. He'd then spend the next five minutes discussing why the current Gryffindor seeker should not have been allowed on the team, with Pettigrew agreeing wholeheartedly and squeaking how much better Potter would be. "No wonder he can't catch it! Look how he's sitting!"("You'd never make that mistake, Jamesy!") or "His grip is all wrong, the broom would turn tighter if he'd just correct his grip." ("Madam Alipes says your grip is perfect, Jamesy!") Lupin and Sirius were rolling their eyes and laughing. After one particularly frustrating near miss by the Gryffindor seeker, Potter shouted, "You have to lean into your dive more! LEAN IN!"
"You could have had that, Ja-"
But apparently, Black had finally had enough, because he barked, "James and Peter, if you don't shut your mouths, I'm going to have Evans put a silencing charm on the both of you!" They both sat down, looking chagrined, but Potter was laughing along with Lupin as he did so. Lily privately thanked Black for saying the threat that she had been considering for most of the match. About five minutes after Madam Alipes had blown her whistle to signal the start, she had begun regretting that she had let Alice and Amelia talk her into sitting down in front of them. She hadn't wanted to sit down by the Marauders at all, but Frank was sitting in front of them, and apparently Frank was going to explain the rules of quidditch to Alice throughout the match. Amelia also seemed to be enjoying herself, as she and Lupin were carrying on an extensive conversation whenever Potter wasn't shouting. Fortunately, both Potter and Pettigrew quieted down after Black's outburst and Lily was able to enjoy the game. About an hour later, she felt a tugging on her cloak.
She turned around to see Potter smiling goofily at her. "Yes?" she inquired.
"I just wondered if you'd found out anything about the bo-"
"SHHHH!" Lily said, putting her finger to her lips. "Don't mention it out here. We got a letter from Alice's grandpa in late November and-"
"What? And you didn't tell us?"
"You two were acting like gits the day we got it, so I didn't tell you then, and I sort of forgot until-"
"Forgot?" Potter interrupted, his voice beginning to rise. "How do you just for-"
"Can you two give it a rest, just for the game, even?" Alice interrupted. "She forgot, Potter. She was going to-" but before she could finish, the Ravenclaw seeker went into a spectacular dive and snatched the snitch out from underneath the hand of the Gryffindor seeker. Cheers erupted from the Ravenclaw section, while the Gryffindors groaned loudly. As Madam Alipes' whistle blew to signal the end of the match, a hulking shadowy figure appeared over the Slytherin spectator section. "The Dark Lord now has the tools he will need to be immortal," a strangely magnified voice said, echoing in the now silent stadium. "Choose your side carefully. You have been warned." The shadow disappeared, and was replaced by the same skull with the snake protruding from it that Lily had seen the picture of in the Daily Prophet.
Lily felt her body go cold. She didn't even notice the chaos that surrounded her. What did it mean? She noticed suddenly that Amelia was crying, and reached out to put an arm around her. Alice was talking to Frank, apparently trying to work out what the voice had meant, Pettigrew looked terrified, and the other three Marauders stood completely silent, staring at the mark hovering over the stadium. Potter's hand was now clutching her shoulder and she wondered vaguely how long it had been there. In other sections, students were shouting and pushing, while the players on the field were running toward the stands.
Another magnified voice spoke over the frantic crowd. "Prefects! Take your students back to their houses," the voice, which Lily now recognized as Dumbledore's, commanded. "Wait there for further instruction from your head of house. No student is to leave their dormitory tonight under any circumstances, unless accompanied by a professor." Professor...professor... Lily heard the words echoing hollowly as she looked around for the Gryffindor prefects.
A few rows down, she finally spotted Andromeda and Joshua, calling for the Gryffindors to follow them. Both had their wands out and were letting off sparks to attract students to them. She pulled Potter's hand off her shoulder, as he gave her a look she couldn't discern, and started walking toward the two prefects, the others closely following. Once the Gryffindors had crowded around them, they began leading the students back to Gryffindor Tower, wands still out. Lily felt nervously for hers, and kept her hand on it until they had arrived back at the common room. They all clambered in, and there was a mad dash by the younger students to grab the best chairs. The older students simply found a place to sit and conjured up a chair of their liking. It struck Lily as odd that any other day, chairs appearing out of the ends of wands would have merited a second glance, but not after what they'd just seen.
Alice, Lily and Amelia found a table off to one side of the common room and were promptly joined by Kaylie, Desdamona and Anna. Desdamona's brother, Iago, also stopped by and gave Des a reassuring hug before joining his friends. Lily could not remember the common room ever being so quiet. Even the night she had stayed up late studying for Transfiguration, there had been the snapping of the fire to break the silence. Everyone wore identical expressions of fear and confusion.
As they waited for McGonagall, chatter began to break out in the various groups. Kaylie was certain that it was just some kind of practical joke, and Lily's group began discussing who the perpetrator could be. Lily didn't participate, however. Her thoughts were elsewhere. Something was nagging at the back of Lily's mind, something about what the voice had said, but she couldn't figure out just what. She tried to get her arms around what it was she was trying to remember when Alice interrupted her thoughts. "Lily? Are you okay? Lily?"
"Are you okay Lily?" It was Amelia's voice this time, and she was shaking her arm.
Lily opened her eyes, and glanced around the room. For a moment she was confused. She wasn't in the common room, anymore. Somehow she was upstairs in her room. How had she gotten there? She was lying down, too, but she didn't remember coming upstairs. She sat up, wondering vaguely if she had fainted. Alice and Amelia were standing beside her bed, looking at her in concern. She closed her eyes, trying to clear the fog in her mind. They'd been at the quidditch match, Ravenclaw had won, and then the voice had spoken. Suddenly her mind went blank. What had the voice said? "What-what did it say?" she asked Alice and Amelia, finally opening her eyes again.
"What did what say?" Amelia asked, confused.
"The voice," Lily said, "the voice, I forgot, what did it say?"
"What voice, Lily?" Alice asked anxiously.
"At the quidditch match. The voice!" she stared at them desperately. There was something that the voice had said that was important. She had to remember what it was.
Alice and Amelia exchanged anxious looks. "There wasn't any voice at the Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff game, Lily," Amelia answered. "And the quidditch game today hasn't happened yet. It's still morning." Lily opened her mouth to protest, but suddenly realized that she was wearing her pajamas. Surely if she'd fainted, they wouldn't have changed her into her pajamas. She glanced at her watch. It was only 8 o'clock. There couldn't have been a quidditch match today. But then how…? Had it happened yesterday? Had she been passed out all night? But then why would Alice and Amelia be acting like they didn't know what she was talking about? And suddenly it dawned on her. It had been a dream. No mark had appeared over the quidditch stadium. No voice had made any sort of announcement. She had dreamt it all. But the dream had been so vivid. "It's Saturday morning?" she asked, to clarify.
Lily suddenly realized that Alice an Amelia were still watching her. "Yes…It's Saturday morning, Lil," Alice responded slowly.
"Perhaps you should go down to the hospital wing, Lily," Amelia suggested hesitantly.
Lily shook her head, trying to laugh. "No, I-I guess I was in the middle of a dream when you woke me up," she said, now standing up and stretching. "It just took me awhile to realize that it didn't actually happen."
They looked at her quizzically. "Must have been some dream," Alice commented.
Lily nodded. "It was. I'll tell you about it later. We're going to miss breakfast if we don't get moving."
Alice's and Amelia's expressions cleared immediately. "Okay," Alice said. "Hurry up, then. We'll meet you downstairs." Lily started to get dressed as her two best friends walked out of the room. Something about the dream, about the voice, was still bothering her. But that was ridiculous. It was just a dream, and that was that. She finished getting ready, shook her head one more time, trying to clear from her mind the nagging sensation that she had forgotten something important, and headed down into the common room to meet Alice and Amelia for breakfast.
At breakfast, Lily relayed most of her dream about the quidditch match back to Alice and Amelia, but she couldn't
remember what it was the voice had said at the match. Both reassured her that it had just been a dream, and that there
was nothing to worry about. After breakfast, they ran upstairs and grabbed a blanket and their cloaks, and headed down
to the pitch for the game. Kaylie and Desdamona had saved them seats in the Gryffindor section, and when the teams came
out on the field, Lily was relieved to see that the match wasn't against Ravenclaw at all. Gryffindor was playing
Slytherin, and three-fourths of the school had shown up dressed in Gryffindor colors. The Marauders showed up shortly
before the whistle blew, and Lily was annoyed to find that they chose seats behind the girls. If Potter's behavior
in real-life resembled his behavior in her dream at all, she was sure she'd have a raging headache by the time that
the match had ended.
She didn't have much time to worry about this, though, because the whistle blew, and the teams were off. She caught a brief glimpse of a tiny gold ball that resembled the one she had seen Potter playing with on Platform Nine and Three Quarters before her attention was drawn to the action taking place on the field. After a few minutes, Lupin leaned down toward Lily. "What do you think of quidditch?" he asked, looking young and full of energy for once.
Lily blushed. She was sure that the match was exciting, but she had no idea what was going on. She had never been to a quidditch match before. She had skipped the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw game out of guilt that it was her fault the Marauders were not allowed to go, although they hadn't been around all afternoon, anyway. They had arrived back at the common room shortly before the rest of the Gryffindors, cheeks red, and in high spirits, and Lily had had the sneaking suspicion that they had put Potter's invisibility cloak to use to attend the game anyway, without being noticed by McGonagall or any of the prefects. "Well, I'm afraid I don't really know what's going on," she admitted.
Lupin gave her an understanding smile, but Potter, who had been bellowing at the keeper to "Circle the posts, CIRCLE them, don't just sit there, you idiot!" paused mid-bellow with a look of mock-outrage on his face. "You don't understand quidditch?" he said in disbelief. "You can't be a proper witch without understanding quidditch! Budge up, come on, move!" he said, now climbing down beside Lily and pushing Alice and Amelia aside as he did so. "I suppose that once again, it will fall to me to educate you, then." He sighed loudly and plopped into the seat now open next to Lily.
Lily noticed with a giggle that Black and Lupin were rolling their eyes, and found to her amazement that she didn't feel annoyed. On the contrary, she was rather looking forward to learning more about the game. She nodded. "All right, then. What's the object?"
Potter's eyes lit up with excitement. "The object," he said, grinning from ear to ear, "is to catch the snitch!"
Potter launched into an explanation of the basic object of the game, and the purpose of each player position. As the game continued, he kept up a stream of chatter about fouls, formations, and techniques, occasionally jumping up to shout how worthless the Gryffindor seeker was, and how much better the team would play if he were on it (to which Pettigrew always agreed wholeheartedly). When Potter was shouting, Lily found that she was a little spooked at how accurately her dream had portrayed his behavior, but chalked it up to how well she knew him by now. Lily was enjoying the match, but still felt a little uneasy. She didn't allow herself to relax completely until they arrived back at the common room after a very disappointing loss to Slytherin. Maybe it had just been a dream, after all.
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The night before she was to go home for Christmas break, Lily found herself alone in the common room, looking through
library books once again for a language charm for ancient languages. She had lain awake in bed that night, unable to
sleep. Every time she'd closed her eyes and felt herself drifting off, the feeling that she'd forgotten
something would creep in on her, and she'd jolt awake again. Eventually, she'd given up and crept down to the
common room with her books, figuring that she could at least do something productive since she wasn't sleeping
anyway.
About an hour after she'd first settled into her favorite chair next to the fire, the portrait swung open, and Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore came hurrying in. Professor McGonagall looked as though she had been pulled out of bed in quite a hurry. Her hair was loose, rather than done up in the bun to which Lily was accustomed, she wore a terry cloth robe over her gingham dressing gown, and her glasses sat slightly askew on her face. Professor Dumbledore was fully dressed, but his hair was disheveled and he wore a look of great concern upon his face.
"Does he have to go tonight, Professor?" McGonagall was asking as they entered.
Dumbledore nodded. "His mother wants him home immediately."
McGonagall looked as though she wanted to protest, but she didn't. "Yes, I suppose she can't be blamed for that," she said. "Any idea why he was taken, Albus?"
"I've got a few, Minerva," Dumbledore answered with a sigh. "And none of them lend any real hope to the situation."
Lily sat numbly in her chair, trying to decide whether or not to let them know she was here. On the one hand, she wasn't entirely sure that she was even allowed out of bed at this hour, and she was keen to avoid trouble. She was also very curious to know what they were talking about. On the other hand, she felt guilty about eavesdropping on what was obviously meant to be a private conversation. Just as she had decided to make her presence known with a cough, McGonagall noticed her. She gasped, clearly startled to find a student in the common room at that hour, and her hand flew to her throat. "Miss Evans!" McGonagall exclaimed severely, "Just what are you doing out of bed at this hour?" They both walked quickly over to where Lily was sitting.
"I-I couldn't sleep, professor," Lily answered honestly. She looked at Dumbledore, whose eyes were glancing over the titles of the books that she had strewn around her. He gave her a quizzical look, but before he could say anything, she asked, "Please, professor. What's happened?"
McGonagall began to say something that Lily strongly suspected would have told her to stay out of it, but Dumbledore held up his hand. He smiled at Lily. "You are a friend of Frank Longbottom's, are you not, Lily?" he asked kindly.
Lily nodded, a feeling of foreboding washing over her. "I am, sir," she answered.
Dumbledore sat on the arm of the chair beside her, put his hand on her shoulder and looked at her intently, his blue eyes filled with sadness. "Frank is going to need his friends to help him through next term," he said quietly. "I know I can count on you to be there for him." He stood up. "Come, Minerva," he said, moving toward the boys' dormitory.
McGonagall stood looking at Lily. "Get to bed, Miss Evans," she said sternly, but her eyes had softened, "or I'll take five points from Gryffindor."
"Yes ma'am," Lily mumbled as McGonagall began to follow Dumbledore up the stairs. She gathered her books up slowly, pondering silently as she did so, what in the world that had been about.
***************************************
Lily was exhausted the next morning. She had lain awake most of the night, wondering which member of Frank's family
had been taken. And more importantly, why? She kept thinking of Dumbledore's response when McGonagall had asked him
if he had any idea why someone had been taken. "I've got a few, Minerva, and none of them lend any real hope
to the situation." What situation? Did Dumbledore mean that none of his ideas bode well for the safe return of
whomever had disappeared? Or was he talking about a bigger situation, one that involved the Dark Lord, and the book
that had been taken? When she finally had fallen asleep, her dreams had been filled with the shadowy image that had
appeared over the Slytherin section in her dream about the quidditch match. She had woken more than once, the cold
voice from the dream still echoing in her mind, and the feeling that she was forgetting something stronger than
ever.
When they arrived at breakfast, rumors about the Longbottom family were flying everywhere. Desdamona had heard from her cousin in Ravenclaw that Longbottom's dad had been bitten by a werewolf. Lupin, who looked as exhausted as Lily felt, assured her with a tinge of annoyance that there would have been no werewolves out that night, because the next full moon wasn't until Tuesday. Amelia's brother had told her that Longbottom's great-great-grandpa had died, but Joshua McKinnon pointed out that he'd passed away several years previous. Andromeda, who was sitting a few seats down, had tried to stay above the gossip, but when Kaylie relayed the rumor about a troll finding its way into the Longbottom house and destroying everything within it, she commented that she thought the Longbottoms did live near the mountains. Lily, Alice and Amelia, for their part, had also tried to stay out of it, but Lily had been asked to tell and re-tell what she had heard last night so many times that she was now quite sick of hearing herself talk.
Lily ate her breakfast silently, still mulling over in her mind the conversation that she had overheard. Whenever she was asked, she skipped the part about someone being taken, feeling that it was not her place to announce to the school that there had been a kidnapping. As the meal wore on, she found herself getting more and more irritated by everyone else's fascination with Frank's private tragedy. She found to her surprise that she, Alice and Amelia were not the only ones disgusted by it, however. Whenever anyone would come over and ask the Marauders what they'd heard last night, either Potter or Black would snap that it was none of their business, and if they had any decency, they wouldn't be discussing another person's tragedy like it were entertainment. Lily had just decided that the next time anyone asked what she had heard, she was going to follow Potter's and Black's example when Potter caught her eye.
"I need to talk to you before you leave for Christmas break," he said to her.
"Why?" she asked suspiciously. Potter and Black had been much nicer to her since the quidditch game, but she had not forgotten all of the jokes that they had played on her in the past. She was fairly certain that if she found herself alone with Potter, she'd end up getting her trunk transfigured into a turtle, or something equally obnoxious.
"Relax, Evans. We need to discuss the night we got detention."
Black was now looking at her, too. Both wore very serious expressions, and she felt for some reason that they really weren't joking this time. Still, you could never be sure with the two of them. "All right," she said, nodding, "but Alice and Amelia will need to come along. They've been helping me with it."
Potter smiled. "Good, meet us in the chamber off of the entrance hall in 10 minutes." Black, Potter and Lupin stood up and left the table. Pettigrew scrambled after them, squeaking at them to wait up.
Lily, Alice and Amelia finished eating, and then headed to the room that Potter had indicated. When they arrived, Potter and Black were wrestling on the floor as Pettigrew cheered them on and Lupin laughed. "Give it to me," Black was panting, reaching for something in Potter's arm. "You know I've been working on that for months!"
"Swear you won't tell her and I will!" Potter retorted, flipping Black off of him, and scrambling away. He wasn't fast enough. Black grabbed his leg and pulled him back down to the ground. Potter next tried crawling out of the way. As Black lunged at him, Potter rolled, and Black landed beside him. They both stood up quickly, and began circling each other, looking for an opportunity to pounce.
"I'm not kidding, Jamesy. If you break it you're dead!" Black hollered as Lupin looked up and smiled, motioning to the three girls to come in. "Now give it here!"
"Uh, James, Sirius?" he said, "You might want to knock it off, now."
"No way, Remmy!" Potter said, his eyes dancing mischievously. "I'm not giving it back until he promises not to tell-," Potter stopped. He had just turned to face the doorway and saw the three girls standing there. His black hair was sticking up all over the place, he was breathing heavily, and he was blushing furiously. At that moment, Black noticed that Potter was no longer paying attention to him, and took the opportunity to lunge at him. As Potter went falling to the ground, legs sprawling everywhere, Black grabbed something out of his hand.
"Got it!" he called triumphantly. Black's hair was also messy, and his face was flushed from the tangle, but he was grinning wickedly. It was obvious to Lily that both boys had been enjoying the wrestling match immensely. Black waved at the three girls, and tucked what looked like an ordinary quill into his pocket. Lily briefly wondered why he'd been so worried about getting it back; quills like those were a dime a dozen.
Potter stood up, attempted to smooth his hair and straighten his robes, and then turned to look at the three girls, his eyes still sparkling with amusement. "We've got to talk," he said, now dusting off his robes.
"What's going on?" Lily asked. The expressions on the faces of Potter, Black and Lupin turned suddenly serious. They exchanged significant glances. Pettigrew looked as though he still didn't quite understand what the big deal was. Lily felt herself grow tense.
"What is it?" Alice asked impatiently. "Does this have anything to do with Frank?"
Potter shook his head. "No, it's like I said at breakfast. I need to talk to you about the night we served detention." He was now looking intently at Lily.
"Okay," Lily said, wondering if they were going to get to the point. "What about it? What's the problem?"
Black sighed heavily. By the way they were acting, Lily suspected that they didn't really want to tell her whatever it was they had to say. "Snape."
Lily felt herself growing irritated. "If this is just a way for you to get me involved in the stupid war going on between Snape and you two, I'm not interested!"
Potter glanced at Black. "It's not, Evans, this is a serious problem, I swear."
"And I don't believe you," she said, turning toward the door.
"Will you just hear us out?" Lupin asked. Lily stopped. She liked Lupin, and as far as she knew, he didn't have a grudge against Snape like Black and Potter did. She turned around.
"Fine, let's hear it, then."
"Snape knows we were serving detention in the hallway on the third floor the night Malfoy and company went down that passage," Potter said quickly.
Lily felt herself growing impatient again. "Why in the world would Malfoy care where we were serving detention? He doesn't know we were down in that passageway!"
Black shook his head in amazement. "I thought you were one of the cleverest witches in our year, Evans," he said.
"Malfoy knows you weren't there when he arrived," Lupin explained. "And eventually, the dark wizard that Malfoy was taking the book to will notice the missing page."
"And when they figure out it's missing, they'll look for it," Black continued.
"And when they don't find it, they'll figure out that one of us must have it," Potter finished.
"And why would that be bad, again?" Pettigrew asked. All 6 of them jumped in surprise, having forgotten that Pettigrew was still there.
"We'll explain it again to you later," Black barked.
"But that's only if Snape tells him," Lupin said.
"Which he will," Potter and Black said in unison.
Lily stared at them in disbelief. "Why would Snape tell Malfoy?"
Potter, Black and Lupin stared at her like she was being deliberately obtuse. "Why?" they said again in unison.
"Because, Evans, he would like nothing better than to cause trouble," Black added.
Lily shook her head. "No," she said quietly. What they were saying didn't tally with Snape as she knew him. He was friends with people that she'd just as soon hex as say hello to, but she'd never seen him go out of his way to torment people like Bellatrix, Rodolphus and Avery did. She felt annoyed. "You're just assuming the worst of Snape!" she said finally. "He's always been perfectly polite to me." Black snorted, but didn't say anything.
"Okay, fine," Potter said, clearly frustrated. "You want to believe that he isn't a great bigot, fine. But you can't deny that he hates me. And since I was there too, why wouldn't he tell Malfoy? It'd be the perfect revenge for what we did to him at Halloween."
"No," she said again. "That's different. From the way Malfoy was talking down there, this Dark Lord will do anything to get this book. If he tells Malfoy we've got the missing page, Malfoy will come after us, and he won't just be pulling a prank. He'd hurt us. Snape wouldn't really want to hurt us!"
"You're so naïve, Evans! Would you listen to us for just a second? Snape-hates-muggle-borns," Black growled.
Lily stared at him for a moment. "Oh, this is ridiculous!" she said finally. "You're all just biased against him because you don't like him. He wouldn't do anything that would really hurt us."
Potter sighed in frustration. "All right, then. Let's assume for a moment that Snape wouldn't want to hurt us, and focus on the problem that Snape's knowledge has illuminated. Malfoy's Lord is going to want to get back the page that we've got."
"And from the looks of things, Malfoy's Lord isn't one to mess around. I'd bet my wand that he's responsible for both disappearances, and the murder," Black added.
"And now it looks like he's taken Frank's dad," Lupin said. The three girls stared at Lupin.
"It's Frank's dad that's been taken?" Alice asked numbly.
They nodded sadly. "You didn't know?" Black asked quietly. The girls shook their heads. "Oh, we thought Lily'd overhead..." Black trailed off.
"That's why Dumbledore and McGonagall came and got him last night. His mum wanted him home," Lupin explained.
Lily felt her legs go weak. Now that Frank's dad was missing, the possibility of a Dark Lord no longer seemed so abstract. And if what Potter and Black had said was accurate, he'd be looking for them next.
They were all silent for a moment. "The good news," Lupin said finally, "is that we don't know yet what that book has in it, or if Malfoy's Lord will need the page that we've got. If the book has more than one spell in it, there's a good chance that he won't even know that page has gone missing."
"Which means," Potter said, now surveying all of them, "we need to work together to figure out what in the name of Merlin that page says."
"As quickly as possible," Black agreed.