Chapter 7
Flight of the Gods
Lily, Emmeline, Dorcas, and Marlene were all sitting in the Great Hall, discussing the conversation that Lily had overheard. It was Saturday morning, and they were quite literally the only students in the hall for breakfast. In fact, the only other people were Dumbledore and McGonagoll, who were sitting at the Head table, not eating, but discussing something in low voices. The girls had noticed this, and were discussing in low voices what it was that the two professors were discussing.
It was then that two strangers entered the Great Hall and approached Professor Dumbledore. The first stranger was a man, very tall, with light grey hair, and bright blue eyes. The second was a woman, with the darkest hair Lily had ever seen, which flowed off her shoulders like water. They walked quickly and purposefully toward Dumbledore, although the woman kept looking over her shoulder, as if afraid she was being followed.
As soon as Dumbledore saw the two, he immediately got up, and led them out of the Great Hall. As they were leaving, the woman glanced at the girls suspiciously, and Lily noticed that she was holding a bundle under her arm protectively.
As she walked, a fold of the material came loose, and Lily could see that something very shiny was inside. Whatever it was gave her the sudden and intense urge to reach out and take it, but before Lily could see what it was, the woman suddenly sped up, and followed the two men out of the hall.
*
James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter had just pulled the greatest prank ever. Well, maybe not the greatest, but it was pretty damn great. They had seen Severus Snape walking down the hallway, and they had sought to do him a favor. There was nothing cruel about simply requesting that he wash his hair, in the interest of his own hygiene, of course.
Well, Snape had gone crazy, and tried to hit James with a Jelly Legs jinx. But that wouldn't do, so James simply washed his hair for him. He shot pink soap bubbles at Snape's hair, in the interest of public sanitation, and Snape had run away crying.
And the four boys had took off running the other way. When they were finally sure that they were far enough away, they stopped and sat on the floor, leaning their heads against the wall, panting.
"Did you see his face? And when he started crying?" Sirius asked between sobs of laughter.
"His mother really was quite wrong when she named him," James added. "She should have called him Snivellus, not Severus!"
The boys continued laughing, but were soon silenced when they heard voices from around the corner. They seemed to be coming closer, so the boys immediately fell silent, and crawled behind a statue.
They recognized the first voice as Dumbledore's. "I understand your misgivings, but I assure you, it is in your own best interests to tell me anything about this threat that you can."
James whispered, "They're talking about the thing that's threatening the gods!"
The three people came into view, and Peter whispered excitedly, "Do you think that's them? The gods?"
The man next to Dumbledore began, in a booming voice, "He has kept much hidden from us, which was wise for his part. All we can be sure of is what he wants from us."
The man gave a meaningful glance at the woman, who stopped walking and gasped. "Zeus, how can we be sure this man can be trusted with the information we have?" she whispered, with a hissing voice, like a snake. The woman was wearing all black, and James couldn't help thinking that, had she been a Hogwarts student, she would have been a Slytherin.
"Calm yourself, Eris. I would trust Albus with my life."
"Only because you can never die," she murmured so that the two men couldn't hear.
They walked further down the hallway, stopping at the ugliest stone gargoyle any of the boys had ever seen. Dumbledore whispered something to it, and it sprung aside as the wall behind it opened. Zeus and Dumbledore walked right through and stepped onto a staircase just beyond where the wall should have been. Eris gave one more look over her shoulder and followed after them.
*
After eavesdropping on another one of Professor Dumbledore's private conversations, James was really starting to feel guilty. Of course, he had mostly forgotton it as he ran top speed to the Gryffindor common room with Sirius, Remus, and Peter. They were completely silent-all thinking about what they had overheard.
When they got to the common room, they quickly discovered they were not alone. There were four girls sitting in the corner, huddled together, and speaking in low voices.
*
"So who do you think they were?" Dorcas asked.
"Oh, I have a few guesses…" Marlene replied.
"Oh… who, then?"
Emmeline sighed. "Just think for a moment, Dorcas. Lily overheard the teachers speaking of the gods and their trouble. So who do you think the two strangers in the Great Hall were?"
Dorcas thought for a moment. "Look, you know how much I hate riddles. Just tell me!"
Lily, Emmeline, Marlene just stopped and looked at her for a moment.
Suddenly Dorcas' eyes lit up. "Wait! I got it! Those two strangers in the Great Hall had information for Dumbledore about the gods!"
Emmeline smiled patiently. "Darling, those people were the gods."
Dorcas began laughing uncontrollably, which confused the other girls greatly, but Lily hushed her when she saw the four boys come in. Everyone was silent and still for a moment, before James sauntered over to where the girls were sitting.
Without wasting any time, James said simply, "We know something you don't know."
"Oh, I'm so glad you're not being ambiguous and immature, because we would really hate that," Lily replied sarcastically.
"Well if you tell us what you know, maybe we'll tell you what we know…" Marlene said deviously.
Suspicious looks were exchanged, and the groups split up and began talking amongst themselves.
"I don't know if that's such a good idea… I mean, should we really be telling them anything? Can we trust them?" Emmeline asked.
"I don't think it's really a matter of trust," Marlene whispered. "It's more that we just want to know what they know. And anyway, if it turns out their information isn't as good as ours, we could always just say that ours was the same…"
"Sneaky!" Lily murmured. "I like it."
*
"Do you really think it's a good idea to tell these girls what we know?" Peter asked shakily.
"I think so," Remus replied quietly. "It's not like they're going to spread it around. They're being quiet and sneaky about this whole thing just like we are. Plus, they did say they knew something."
"Yea, but they could just be saying that to hear what we know!" Sirius hissed.
"I say we tell them. And if theirs isn't as good, then we can always say we made it up," James said, and the other boys agreed.
The boys rejoined the girls' group, and they all sat around the fire, waiting for someone else to start.
"Ok, we've decided to tell you what we know, but you have to swear that you really do know something, and that you'll tell us when we're done," Sirius began.
"Fine," Lily said, "Get on with it."
James took a deep breath, and began their story. "We were just running down the hallway after, umm, helping a fellow student (skeptical looks from the girls) and we heard voices, so we hid behind a statue, and we saw Dumbledore with two strangers."
"Oh, we know this already!" Dorcas interrupted. "The two strangers are…"
But Dorcas was elbowed hard in the ribs by Marlene, and stopped immediately.
James looked puzzled. "So, anyway. The man is Zeus, and the woman is someone called Eris or something. They were talking to Dumbledore about the evil that was threatening them. I think it's some kind of man-a wizard, probably. Anyway, they said that he wants something from them. It seemed really important. Eris didn't think they could trust Dumbledore with the imformation."
"Well, she was right, wasn't she! I mean, with you four listening, and all," Marlene joked. "Anyway, our turn now."
Lily began, "Well, we saw them leaving the Great Hall with Dumbledore, and I don't know if you noticed, but the woman-Eris, was it?-she had a bundle under her arm. She was holding it protectively, and while she was walking, the material slipped, and I got a look at it."
The boys were all hanging off the edge of their seats, staring at her intently, as if she was telling ghost stories around a campfire, and they were all eager to hear what happened next.
"I couldn't really see, but it was shiny. It looked like gold, and as soon as I saw it, it was like I wanted it-badly. Like I wanted it more than I've ever wanted anything in my whole life. I felt like just reaching out and taking it, and then running off as fast as I could. It was the strangest feeling I've ever had," she finished.
"Well, you know what this means, don't you?" James asked.
"There's an evil wizard out there that wants whatever that woman has, and if he gets it, it could mean the destruction of, well, everything…" Lily said, smiling at him.
"Well, yea, exactly," James said, looking a little shocked.
"But, uh, why does whoever it is want it?" Peter asked quietly.
"Who knows," Lily murmured. "But whatever it is, we're going to find out, and if that means more late night eavesdropping encounters (she gave James a meaningful look) then so be it.
*
The next few days were very difficult. James and Lily had assigned jobs to the members of their own "groups" so that if there was a conversation going on, it would definitely be heard.
Dorcas and Peter were in charge of the teachers, so they spent most of the day (when they didn't have classes) walking back and forth on front of the staff room, hoping to overhear snippets of important conversation. Occasionally, Professor McGonagoll would leave, and then it was Dorcas' responsibility to tail her (inconspicuously), since, out of all the teachers, she seemed to know the most of the situation. But mostly they just walked back and forth, and on the rare occasion that they did hear anything at all, it wasn't anything important anyway.
Emmeline and Remus were assigned to Professor Dumbledore, but since he spent most of his time in his office, they spent most of their time pacing around outside his office, waiting for him to come out. Very rarely did he ever speak to anyone while they were, for lack of a better word, spying on him, and when he did, it wasn't anything to do with the present state of affairs.
Marlene and Sirius's responsibility was to follow Eris around, and hope to hear something from her, but since she was constantly looking over her shoulder, they found this very difficult. They had to constantly be doing something, like reading a book while walking, or having a loud, staged conversation about Quidditch, or their classes, but even then, she seemed to be getting suspicious. Marlene was a little freaked out by her, because, truth be told, she was a bit sinister-looking, like something you would find in a cemetery of a Muggle town on Halloween. Sirius said she looked a bit like his younger cousin, Bellatrix, and Marlene wasn't quite keen to meet her.
And, of course, Lily and James shadowed Zeus, which was a bit intimidating at first, but after following him for a few hours, they learned that he was very friendly. He walked around the school clapping students on the back, and shouting friendly comments, but nothing that would help them in the least.
All in all, the plan was a complete and utter disaster. They each came back each night bored with blisters on their feet, but with no information that would in any way help them figure out what was going on.
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