Red Rum
27th December 2001
"Who are you and what are you doing in our forest?" said one of the figures standing behind them. In his arms he held Helena, with a knife pressed to her neck. The others were in the same predicament, each with a man standing behind them, a knife pressed to their throats.
"Please let us go! We only came here to see the Gypsies of Cephius about the Danira!" Lily said, almost crying.
Immediately, the grip on her arm was loosened.
"Did you say the Danira?" he asked roughly.
"Yes! We came to find out about that and a place called Auriga!" Lily said. This time the man let go of her completely.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Lily Evans. Can you let my friends go now?"
"Yes." He signalled to the other three men and they too released their grips on them.
They too turned to face the men. The men had tan coloured skin, and dark brown hair. They were wearing beige deerskin trousers and rough brown leather waistcoats over bare chests.
"Lily Evans. Welcome." They bowed to her. She glanced at Helena in surprise. They were treating her as some sort of Royalty.
"Who are you?" she asked warily.
"My name is John LeSavine. These are my brothers Samuel, Zachariah and Alberto. We belong to the Gypsy Tribe of Cepheus."
"Oh! You're the people we've been looking for! Can you take us to the rest of your tribe?" Lily asked, "we need to speak with them."
"Of course Custode del Ciondolo Bambino Perdonato." John said.
"Pardon, I didn't quite catch that." Lily said.
"I said, of course Custode del Ciondolo Bambino Perdonato." John repeated.
"That's what the lady in my dream said! What does that mean though?" she said.
"It's your name. What we call you. It means Keeper of the Necklace, the Forgiven Child. It has been handed down through many generations. One day we knew you would come to us." John said. They had now begun to walk.
"Why am I called the Forgiven Child?" Lily asked.
"I'm not sure. Questions like that are best to be asked of Queen Rona."
"She's the one Dumbledore mentioned." Helena said joining in the conversation. Behind them, James and Sirius were talking with Samuel, Zachariah and Alberto about something or other.
Presently, they reached the Gypsies camp. The Queen hadn't awoken from her "Siesta" yet, so John and his brothers introduced them to the tribe.
"This is Carina Rigel, and her husband Orion Crux." He indicated a couple to their left, "and this is Cassiopeia Lacerta and her husband Caelum Volans."
"Hey, you all have names that are the same as stars!" Sirius said.
"Yes, they were born when the names of stars were fashionable." Alberto said.
"And what about you?" Samuel asked of Sirius, "why are you named after a star?"
"I don't know, all my family are. My brothers are called Leo and Perseus, and my sisters are called Andromeda and Auriga. My Mum is called Gemini and my Dad is called Pavo. I guess it's kind of a tradition in our family."
The other Gypsies nodded, and went back to what they were doing.
The four friends sat down on rough logs and ate the food that Alberto handed them. Just then, the door of one of the brightly coloured caravans was flung open. At the top of the steps stood the oldest looking woman Lily had ever seen. Her face was lined with wrinkles, and the long plait that lay down her back was a dark grey colour. She had a scarf over her head, and in her ears wore huge golden hoops. Her eyes were dark and piercing as she looked at Lily, Helena, James and Sirius. She walked slowly down the steps, not once taking her eyes off the four strangers. She then spoke to Samuel in a rough, cracked harsh voice.
"Samuel! Fetch me my crystal. I want to read the girl."
Samuel hurried off into another of the gaily coloured caravans, and the Gypsy Queen spoke again in her acient cracked voice.
"Zachariah! Set up the table."
Zachariah began to set up a table that consisted of three logs. He then threw a heavy red velvet cloth over it. Lily, Helena, Sirius and James watched with curiosity. Just then, Samuel returned with a beautiful jewelled box. He set it down on the table, bowed to Queen Rona, and retreated to the outside of the clearing.
The Gypsy Queen sat down on one side of the table, and motioned for Lily to sit opposite her. Lily did hesitantly.
The Queen looked down into the swirling mist of the Crystal Ball, Lily looked too, but she couldn't see anything. The Queen, though, evidently could.
"I see danger. I see a boy burning, and a girl dead. That is the near future. In the distant future I see an evil power. You are dead, and so is your lover. But a baby survives. A hero." She paused, "I am finished. I will read the other girl. Bring me my cards."
Alberto hurried off into the caravan while Helena sat down across from Queen Rona. Alberto soon returned holding a pack of cards in his hands. He placed them on the table in front of queen Rona, and he bowed, and walked back to his place on a log.
The Queen shuffled the cards and began dealing them out.
"The fool," she said putting the first card down, then she dealt out two more cards, "the fool's friend, the oaf, and the oaf's brother, the Village Idiot. It is obvious what you are. You're stupid, that's you."
Helena looked indignant, but then the Queen began to deal out the cards again.
"A princess," she said in her clipped, cracked voice, "how unusual. And the last card is," she paused and dealt out the final card, "the devil."
The Gypsies sitting on the logs around the edge of the clearing gasped. An unusual outcome: The Princess followed by The Devil.
The Queen pursed her lips, and began gathering her cards up.
"I am done. You will stay here tonight, yes? Friends must stick together. Especially in troubled times" She then stood up and slowly walked back into her caravan.
Zachariah, and two other Gypsies sombrely packed away the table and red velvet cloth. Helena was having a whispered conversation with Lily, James and Sirius.
"What's wrong?" Helena asked, "why are they all looking like that?"
"I don't know, I think it's something to do with the cards." James replied.
"Yeah, Lily, you do Divination, what does The Princess followed by The Devil mean in a pack of Gypsy Fortune Cards?" Sirius asked.
"Well, The Princess means good fortune, and luck, but The Devil means bad fortune and bad luck. I guess it's unusual to have both come up in one person's reading."
Their conversation was stopped there because John came over and showed them a place on the forest floor where they could sleep. They thanked him and he went to fetch them blankets. By now, all the Gypsies had retired to their caravans.
Helena and Sirius fell asleep immediately, but Lily and James stayed awake for a long time.
Lily lay looking up at the stars, she could just make out a few of the constellations. She sighed.
"Are you alright?" James asked.
"Yeah, I'm just thinking about what Queen Rona said. You know all that stuff about a boy burning, and a girl dead? What if-" she paused, "what if, the boy she was talking about was you, and the girl was Helena? I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to either of you."
"Don't think like that. Nothing's going to happen to us." James said, "and anyway, I thought that you didn't believe in all that Divination stuff?"
"Well, I don't, not usually, but what the Queen was doing seemed genuine. I mean, all the stuff Trelawney does is obviously fake, but, I don't know, I believed the stuff the Queen was telling me." She paused, and James could see tears glistening on her face. "I'm just so scared! What's going to happen to us?"
"Shh! Come here." James said, holding his arms out for her. She gratefully settled herself in his arms, and he kissed the top of her head.
They fell asleep that way, completely unaware of what lay ahead of them.
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A/N: That chapter was completely pointless. Got a bit mushy at the end there. Oh well. Please review, because now that Hit Recording has been disabled, I have no other way of knowing how many people have read this. Thanks ~ Little Witch.