The day that Lily would be returning to Hogwarts was a chaotic affair. The whole family was scrambling around trying to get everything packed. Lily was usually good about packing the night before, but she'd had so much on her mind the night before that it had slipped her mind. She found herself packing her robes while brushing her teeth. Yells and rushed sprints across the hall indicated that her brothers hadn't packed either.

Lily heard the horn honk on the Potter's car.

"Lily we have to go now or we're going to miss the train!" her mother called.

"Just a minute, mom!" she yelled down.

She was in the midst of looking for her wand. She had searched every corner of her room. She overturned a pillow but it wasn't there either. She thought desperately where it could be. She couldn't go to Hogwarts without a wand. She kneeled and peered under her bed. She sighed in relief as she saw her familiar, old, willow wand. She grabbed it and headed to the car with her owl and suitcase. James and Albus were already in the backseat. James gave her a smirk.

"Did you have to get your makeup on sis?" James asked wryly.

"Shut up James," she said.

Lily's father was driving since he was the only one who'd bothered to get a muggle driving license. The drive was quick. Lily knew that her father was going faster than usual to make up for the time they had lost. Even with this boost the Hogwarts Express was almost leaving when they reached Platform 9 ¾. The potters rushed onto the train. Lily had to catch her breath before finding a seat. The train started leaving the platform almost immediately. Lily kept walking until she found Jane sitting in a compartment alone, reading a copy of Quidditch Monthly.

"What's going on, Jane?" she asked after opening up the door to the compartment.

Jane brushed her black hair out of her eyes, looked up and grinned.

"Lily! I thought you had missed the train," Jane said.

"Well I came pretty close," Lily responded. "I didn't even get a chance to eat breakfast, do you know where the food trolley went?" she asked.

"The woman running it just went that way," Jane said pointing to the left and looking back to her magazine.

Lily left the compartment to look for the snack lady, but she ran into a different person.

"Seth!" she said. "How've you been?" she asked awkwardly.

"Oh fine," Seth said. "I was just looking for you," he said.

"Why?" Lily asked, feigning ignorance even though she had a pretty good idea.

"Well I thought I'd apologize to you for being such an idiot these last few months," he said. "I'd really like to hang out like we used to," he finished.

"You're not too busy hanging out with Hugo?" Lily asked with a bitterness that she didn't really mean.

"No, to be honest he's nice and all but… you and Jane are my best friends," he said.

"I'm sorry too," said Lily. "I shouldn't have been rude to you, you're my best friend too," she said.

"Cool," Seth said. "Can I come sit with you and Jane?" he asked.

"Sure, but first I really need something to eat," Lily said.

After purchasing several treats from the trolley they went back to Jane. Jane seemed a bit cold to Seth at first but gradually they started to converse and it was almost like the previous two months had never happened. After a brief discussion about Christmas presents (Jane had nearly cheered when she found out Lily had gotten Loudmouths) Seth wanted to know what they had found out about the Dark Lady.

It took a pretty good amount of time for Lily to explain everything that she had learned about Eve Sage, her theories about the Dark Lady and her suspicions that the Dark Lady was connected to what had been going on at Hogwarts.

"So you think Morgan Le Fay is the Dark Lady and she traveled a thousand years in the future to get here?" Seth asked.

"Yes," Lily said.

"It's not very plausible but definitely possible," he said.

Lily couldn't help thinking that Seth was being civil because it was something that Seth would normally shoot down immediately. Seth seemed more interested in the Eve Sage situation.

"I think that she knows more than she's letting on," Seth theorized.

"Why is that?" Lily asked.

"She's a former Auror who's smart enough to have been hired by Sinistra, and all she knows is there's something powerful enough to break the castle's enchantments? It doesn't make sense," Seth explained.

"Well her problem could be that she might not be able to navigate the building," said Lily. "I mean the castle is almost like a labyrinth and for a person who's only seen the place for a few months…" she let the sentence hang open.

"Maybe, we should start looking for ourselves," Jane suggested.

Before anyone could agree or object they heard the train come to a halt. They had reached Hogsmeade Station. They boarded the carriages to the castle, and before they could finish their topic of discussion, they stumbled into a discussion with Ethan Jordan about Hufflepuff's next Quidditch match against Gryffindor.

Soon the carriages pulled up to the castle. As they walked into the castle Lily was met by Eve Sage.

"Hello Miss Sage," she said. She was surprised to see Sage here.

"Hello, Lily," she said. "Did you have a good break?" she asked.

"Yes it was great," she said.

Her voice cracked slightly at the word "great". Her mind had inadvertently wandered to her lie to her father. Eve didn't seem to notice.

"Well I asked a friend of mine from the Muggle Liaison office of the Ministry about genetic engineering," she said.

"What did he say?" Lily asked.

"He started talking about 'DNA splicing' or something like that but the main thing I got is that it had been used on magical creatures but it's a lost art," she said.

"When was the last time it was used?" Lily asked, hoping she didn't hear the answer she expected.

"Oh, not since medieval times. You mustn't let it worry you," she said.

Lily's heart sank.

"Thank you for telling me," she said before turning around to go to the Hufflepuff basement.

It seemed more and more like her theory about Morgan Le Fay having traveled in time was true. But Lily realized that she hadn't totally thought about what this could mean. She knew Morgan was planning something here at Hogwarts but what else might she be planning to do. Start a war? Overthrow the Ministry? Lily had no way of knowing what she was planning and no way of stopping it.

She decided to go to sleep early today, so she would be rested during classes the next day. She fell asleep quickly, but woke up again in the middle of the night. After a good half hour of not being able to sleep, she groaned. Then Lily heard something. It was the buzzing sound again. This time she did something about it. She grabbed her wand and an Extendable Ear and went upstairs to the hall by the kitchens. She followed the sound until she was just outside the great hall. She heard the buzzing loud and clear. She also heard tiny voices. She put the Extendable Ear up to the door.

"Can't we skip it this month," said one voice.

"No, our instructions are clear, every month we have to renew the charm," said another voice. "The island could go under at any time," it said.

"Yes but we could just wait a few days," said the other one.

"The island could go under tomorrow, now shut up and renew the charm," said the first voice.

"Fine, Portus!" the other voice said. "Now let's go before someone finds us," it said.

Lily immediately sprinted back to her dormitory. She didn't want to face the things she'd heard until she knew exactly what the creatures were. She now knew two things for sure. The thing that was wrong with Hogwarts had something to do with Avalon and involved a Portkey.

"A portkey! What's the use of a Portkey," said Seth at breakfast the next morning.

"Well I don't know," Lily said.

"You said that they mentioned Avalon," said Jane.

"Yeah," Lily said.

"Well Morgan's kingdom was Avalon, maybe she wants to save it," said Jane.

"That wouldn't explain why it's at Hogwarts. Whatever she's doing I know it's so she can destroy Hogwarts," said Lily.

"Well then how could a Portkey destroy Hogwarts?" asked Jane.

Then a look of stunned realization passed Seth's face.

"It could if it was big enough to transport a castle and not just a person. It would transport us all to Avalon and Hogwarts would go down with the island," he said.

"But how could you hide something that big in the middle of the Great Hall?" Lily asked.

Seth just pointed behind her, and she looked to see the giant blue jewel mounted on the wall.