Red Rum
Thursday 23rd December 1973
"Christmas time! Mistletoe and wine, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!" sang a sixteen year old Gryffindor named Helena Poole in a very out of tune voice. Helena had fair hair and big blue eyes. To a stranger, she would be described as 'a dumb blonde'.
She waltzed into the common room after greeting the Fat Lady with a hearty "Merry Christmas and may all your children prosper!"
She continued dancing around the common room, and changed carols halfway through.
"We three kings of orient are, wearing knickers and a pink bra!" she sang, then she hiccuped.
Lily Evans, her friend, was sitting in an armchair by the fire looking at her with a bemused expression on her face.
Helena was now walking around dizzily, then she sat down in an armchair near Lily's, and began shouting out random pieces of information.
"The grass is green! The sky is blue! Lily's an idiot!" she spouted out.
"Helena," Lily said," have you been drinking again?"
"Only the odd"-hiccup, "glass or"-hiccup, "two."-hiccup. Helena replied.
"Yeah sure," Lily said, then waved her wand at Helena, "sobressa!"
Immediately, Helena perked up and became sane, well more sane than usual anyway!
"Lily, did you know that if you wear a pineapple upside down on your head, the juice will run into your eyes?" Helena asked.
"Helena, you're weird," Lily said, half laughing, "almost as weird as Sirius!"
"I beg to differ!" Helena said standing up on the chair, and promptly falling down again, "I am the weirdest! I am more weird than Sirius!"
Sirius, who happened to have come into the common room to hear this last statement, had something to say about it as usual.
"Helena! How dare you say that you are more weird than me?" Sirius said, "Have you ever tried to eat an entire three course meal with your feet?" he demanded.
"No, but I bet you've never eaten jelly with a straw through your nose!" Helena shouted back.
"Well, I haven't done that, but I can play five recorders at a time!" he shouted, "one in my mouth, two in my nose and one in each ear!" Sirius said.
"Sirius," Helena said disgusted, "that's not weird that's freakish! That's the sort of thing that Suzanne would do!" (Suzanne is a very weird girl who wears banana's for hair clips.)
"Oh shut up!" Sirius said, not able to think of a good comeback.
"It's Christmas in two days time!" Helena screamed, forgetting their little 'who is the weirdest' match.
"Yeah I can't wait!" Sirius enthused, "I've got a feeling that this is going to be the best Christmas ever."
"Yeah!" Helena said.
She sank down in her chair, and Sirius sank down in his. As it was the Christmas Holiday's, nearly everyone had gone home. The only Gryffindors left were a couple of first years, a third year and Lily, Helena, Sirius and James, who were all sixth years.
Helena was Lily's best friend, James was Lily's boyfriend, and Sirius was Lily's boyfriend's best friend. So they were all connected in some way.
At this moment in time, as you know, Sirius, Helena and Lily were in the common room feeling very bored, and James was in the Library, trying to finish an essay for History of Magic, so that his Christmas wouldn't be ruined by homework.
The next day, snow was falling thick and fast, and the lake was frozen solid. Lily, being Muggle Born, had had skating lessons when she was younger, and decided that today was as good as any to practice her skills.
To their dismay, Lily dragged James, Sirius and Helena with her telling them that Ice Skating was the most normal thing in the world. They looked at her in disbelief before she pushed them onto the ice.
They slipped and slid on the frozen water, as Lily zoomed off doing all sorts of funny leaps in the air, well that was what it looked like to her friends. Helena tried to copy what Lily was doing and promptly fell over. Lily skated over to them, and showed them how to skate properly. An hour and a half later, they still hadn't grasped the concept. By now the snow was swirling around them in torrents, and they decided that they should go in. As Lily skated gracefully off the ice, through the soft, swirling flakes, she could have sworn that she saw a pair of red eyes staring at her from behind a tree.
She dismissed the eyes from her thoughts putting them down to a magical creature that had escaped from the forest.
* * *
"Wakey wakey!" a very hyper Helena shouted into a very sleepy Lily's ear.
"I'm up!" Lily said, sitting bolt upright in her bed.
"Merry Christmas!" Helena said.
"Merry Crimbo, Hel," Lily said, "now let me catch a few more Z's." she said turning over.
"I've never known anyone like you in my whole entire life!" Helena said looking amazed, "who would choose going back to sleep over opening Christmas presents?"
"Me, that's who!" Lily said, she really wasn't a morning person.
"No you don't, you're getting up." Helena pulled Lily's quilt off her bed, and was about to pull off her sheet, when Lily reluctantly agreed to get up, as long as Helena didn't wreck her bed anymore.
Helena told her that they would open their presents in the common room with James and Sirius. So she pulled a dressing gown over her pyjamas, picked up her pile of presents and followed Helena out of the dorm.
They found Sirius and James in the common room with their presents, each looking longingly at their gifts.
"It's about time!" Sirius said when he saw them, "we've been here for about half an hour already."
"Blame Lily." Helena said as she settled down in an armchair and began to open her presents. The others took this as a cue to get started so they each got to work on their separate piles.
There were the usual ooh's and aah's and thankyou's every now and then. Lily had received presents from Helena, Sirius, Remus, James, Peter and Jessica (her other best friend). She had also received a present or two from members of her family, and finally she had only one unwrapped present to open. The present had no tag, and before opening it she sat and thought of who could have sent it to her. Helena, having unwrapped all of her presents in the blink of an eye, was watching Lily now.
"Lily, what are you doing?" she asked.
"Wondering who sent me this," she said, "it hasn't got a label on it."
Helena couldn't believe her friends stupidity. She rolled her eyes.
"Why don't you open it? It probably says who it's from on the inside."
"Lily tore off the red paper quickly. Out of it fell a wooden box, beautifully carved by hand. On the lid there was an intricate picture painted. The picture showed a beautiful woman with dark hair dressed in red standing next to a pit of swirling waters. Lily looked at the picture curiously, and snapped open the little box. She gasped. Inside was the most beautiful piece of jewellery she had ever seen. On a red velvet lining lay a necklace made of gold. From the chain, a pendant hung. The pendant was that of a golden sun and sunk in the middle there was a blood red stone, shining in the light. Below each of the suns rays, a small symbol was carved. Lily gazed at it in wonder. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. She held it closer to her eyes so she could see the small symbols carved under each of the rays. They were little pictures. What looked like a lion, an eagle, two knives, two rectangles, a zigzag, two rectangles and another eagle.
The others noticed her staring intensely into the box, and asked what was inside it. Lily carefully lifted the necklace out of the box and held it up for the others to see.
Helena squealed.
"That's gorgeous! Who sent it to you?"
Lily looked at her sardonically.
"Helena. You know just as well as I do, that there is no label." Lily replied.
"Can I see?" Helena asked, "what were you looking at, you know when you were holding it really close to your eyes?"
"Yes you can see, and I was looking at those funny little symbols beneath the sun rays." Lily said and passed it to Helena who looked at it in wonder.
"Whoever sent you that must be bloody rich!" James said, looking at the necklace over Helena's shoulder, "It must have cost a fortune!"
"Hey, these pictures are hieroglyphics." Helena said studying them.
"Bless you!" Sirius said.
Helena glared at him.
"Have you never heard of hieroglyphics? You know, egyptian writing?" Helena asked them.
Lily and James nodded, but Sirius shook his head vigorously.
"Well the egyptians use pictures instead of letters when they write stuff." Helena explained to Sirius.
"Do you know what it says?" Lily asked. The necklace was puzzling her. Who'd send her such an expensive gift, without even saying who it was from?
"Well, not off by heart, but I have a book!" Helena said.
"Well go get it then." James said.
As Helena hurried off up the stairs, Sirius could be heard saying "why would Helena have a book about higlyphics? I mean it's not as if she's clever."
And Helena shouted back down, "I heard that!"
A few minutes later, she hurried back down the stairs, carrying a heavy old book. She set the book down on the table and opened it to the section about hieroglyphics.
"Okay, here, look: Ancient Egyptians used the pictures to represent letters of the alphabet. Use the table below to help you when deciphering hieroglyphics." she read out.
Lily picked up the necklace and told Helena what the symbols were.
"Okay, the first one's a lion, I think." she said.
Helena consulted the book, and soon found the one Lily was describing.
"That's not a lion! That's a sphynx. And the letter it represents is L." Helena said.
"Okay, the next one's an eagle."
Again, Helena consulted the book, and they found that the eagle represented the letter A. They repeated this process five more times, and the word that they came up with in the end was Lavinia.
"Lavinia?" said James puzzled, "that's a girls name, isn't it?"
"Yes, I think so," Lily replied, "I guess it's just the name of the person who owned it."
"Hey! What are we all doing sitting around like this?" Sirius exclaimed, "I'm hungry! Let's go down for breakfast." Sirius began heading for the portrait hole, and was about to step out when he realised that he still had his pyjama's on. Lily looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, um, I'll just go now." he said blushing, he turned and hurried up the boys staircase.
Lily and Helena also went to get dressed. Lily put on the necklace and was surprised at the weight of it. She supposed that the gigantic ruby was what made it heavy.
When they were dressed they went down to the Great Hall and ate breakfast. Christmas Day was spent like any other, and Lily insisted on them going skating again.
Though the snow was beginning to thaw, the ice on the lake was still solid, but they were wary, and didn't go too near the middle.
They stepped gingerly onto the ice, and were pleased to find that it was indeed frozen solid. James, Sirius and Helena still hadn't got the hang of it yet so they slipped and slid and fell over while Lily skated off around the edge of the huge lake. Aftera while, Helena got fed up of falling over so she went and sat on a log near the edge of the ice. She watched as Lily skated around gracefully and as Sirius and James fell over clumsily. She laughed as Sirius fell over and slid on his bottom into the centre of the ice. But she stopped laughing when the sound of cracking ice resounded around the grounds and Sirius began to slide into the water.
Helena stood up, wanting to help, but she knew that she wouldn't make it to the centre of the ice without falling over and making the situation worse. She could see Lily skating slowly over the ice where it was thin. The nearer she got to the hole where Sirius had fallen in, the thinner the ice got. Lily held her breath as she knelt down next to the hole. The ice was going to break, she knew it. She coud see Sirius a little way below the surface. His hand was outstretched as if trying to reach out of the water. Lily plunged her hand down into the freezing water, and tried to grasp his. Finally she found it and pulled upwards as hard as she could, but Sirius was heavy, and his now waterlogged clothes were not helping. She put her other hand into the water and grasped his wrist with it. She pulled upwards with all her might, and he came up! She pulled him over the edge, and dragged him onto a thicker part of ice. Then all her energy used up, she fainted.
Lily woke up to find herself staring into dark brown eyes.
She sat up, and tried to remember what had happened. Then it all came back to her, Sirius under the water, she had pulled him out.
"Sirius! Where's Sirius, is he okay?" she asked James, who's eyes she had been looking into.
"Yeah, Sirius is fine, he was out cold for a while but he's fine now." James reassured her.
Lily could see that they were still outside sitting by the lake. Someone had conjured up a thick blanket and covered her with it.
"How long was I asleep for?" she asked.
"Only a couple of minutes. When you'd pulled Sirius out of the water, you just sort of fainted, and me and Helena came and dragged both of you off the ice." James said.
Lily looked around her and saw Sirius and Helena sitting a few metres away. She stood up, and walked shakily over to them. James followed her.
"Hey Sirius, how you feeling?" Lily asked him.
"I'm fine. You?" he replied.
"Yeah I'm alright." she told him.
"Lily, thanks, for saving me." Sirius said.
Lily smiled at him.
"That's alright." she said, but as Helena's had a few minutes earlier, her smile vanished, and instead was replaced by a scream. Approaching the, from out of the forest was a huge bear.
The others turned to look at what she was screaming at.
"Oh. My. God." was Helena's reaction.
They stood there, mouths opening and closing like goldfish for a few seconds, and then James brought them back to reality.
"You girls, go, run, go back up to the castle, we'll be alright!" James said.
"But! You're no match for a bear like that!" Lily said, as the bear came ever closer.
"We're not, I know, but we will be." James said, "now go!" he pushed the girls in the direction of the castle and they ran.
When they were gone, James and Sirius transformed into their animal counterparts.
As a stag and dog, the bear saw them as a threat and began to advance quicker.
As they ran back up to the castle, Lily glanced back, and saw that James and Sirius were no longer there, and that a creamy white stag and a large black dog were fighting the bear. Where were the boys! was her first thought, then what if the stag and dog were the boys?
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, the two boys joined Lily and Helena in the common room. They each had a fair share of cuts and bruises, but apart from that they were fine. When they sauntered into the common room, Lily stood up and rushed over to them, engulfing them both in a bear hug. (no pun intended!)
"How did you fight it off?" Helena asked.
"When it saw what it was up against, it ran away, as tame as a cat." Sirius said.
"Yeah right," Lily said, "you know what I saw?"
They shook their heads.
"I saw a stag and a dog fighting the bear, and you two were nowhere to be seen. How d'you explain that then?"
"Um, I don't know? Maybe it was just your imagination?" James said.
"Yeah of course it was," Lily said sarcastically, "if I didn't know better, I'd say you were animagi."
She watched them shrewdly as they exchanged a glance.
"Where would you get an idea like that!" Sirius said, a worried look on his face.
"You are, aren't you!" Lily said, "you're animagi!"
"Shh! Yes we are, but keep your voice down! It is illegal you know!" James said.
"Oh sorry," Lily said, then added, "are Remus and Peter Animagi too?"
She saw them exchange another worried glance.
"Yeah, they're both Animagi too." Sirius said.
"Ooh, let me guess, Peter is a rat!" Helena said.
They looked at her in surprise.
"How did you know?" James asked incredilously.
"Well I've always thought of him as a rat." Helena said.
The rest of Christmas day passed quite quickly. There was of course a sumptuous dinner, and large wizard crackers to pull. When Lily pulled her first cracker, it exploded with such a force that it singed the end of her hair. Her second cracker was filled with white rats, that bit her, until she found her wand and transfigured them into buttons. Her third and final cracker was filled with wasps which circled the table and stung the four friends.
Lily couldn't believe her bad luck. Three crackers in a row had had bad things come out of them. She didn't dare pull a third one, just in case.
Much later on, Lily lay on her bed playing with the little box. She kept opening and closing it as if this would tell her who it was from. She thought back to when she had read 'Five on a Treasure Island' by Enid Blyton. The mysterious box in that had had a false bottom. Perhaps this box had one too.
She began feeling around the edges inside the little box. To her surprise and delight, she found a little catch in a corner. She pushed it and nothing happened. She tried teisting it and as she had thought, the box had a flase bottom. It sprang up, so she inserted her fingers into the gap that had formed. She pulled the false bottom upwards and it came away in her hand. In the box there were three objects: a ring and two pieces of very old parchment .
She looked at the ring. It was made from gold, and had the same blood coloured stone in the centre as the necklace. It also had the same symbols on it, hieroglyphics, in the same order of those on the necklace. She put it aside and picked up the pieces of parchment.
The pieces of parchment were nearly falling apart with age, and were very yellow in colour. Very gently Lily opened the first piece. Luckily, the writing wasn't in hieroglyphics, but in a cursive calligraphy. The words were hard to make out, but she managed to read them. This is what it said on the parchment :
Wear this necklace always,
Not to do so would be a sin.
Keep it close to you,
Even when lights are dim
This necklace holds a power,
A power in your heart.
For this necklace is a bad luck charm.
While you continue wearing it,
Bad luck will bestow you and your friends,
And as you will find, Bad Luck never ends.
A charm like this is good for some,
For this is the pendant of Red Rum.
Lily looked at the parchment in horror. A bad luck necklace! But who could have sent it?
She picked up the second piece of parchment and read it.
21st January 1927
My Darling Lavinia,
Troubled times are near, and I fear for your safety, especially in your condition. I promise you that I shall be back in time for the birth, and death. I haven't got long to explain things, but I'll try the best I can. A man in the 'real world' is planning to come to the Auriga, and overtake it. He is a very well known physician, going by the name of Dr John Miles. Other names he may use are Mr Robert Williams and Professor Samuel Jones. He has found out from the Gypsies of Cepheus about the Danira and how it can be used to pass through to Auriga. The gypsies won't tell him what they know about how to use the Danira, but he will find out. He says that it will take him many years to figure it out, but he knows that he will. He has predicted that he will have found a way in to Auriga in the next fifty years. He is a young man, so this is quite possible. I beg you to warn your people of the danger that will arise sometime in the next century. I have to leave now. Remember that I will always love you.
Yours forever
Charles