Chapter 21: Translating the Parchment

The Transfiguration exam came and went, and Lily had to admit that she had done better than she would have without Potter's help.  Before she knew it, she was waking up Saturday morning, and getting ready to go down to the Great Hall for a quick bite to eat before she, Alice, Amelia, Kaylie and Desdamona headed out to the quidditch pitch for the game.  The girls were walking down the stairs when something made Lily pause.  "I'll be right back," she said, turning and jogging back up the stairs.  When she got to her room, she approached her nightstand, and opened the drawer, lifting out a variety of papers and assorted items as she did so.  At the bottom of the drawer, where she had kept it since the first night they'd found it, she saw the parchment from the stolen text. 

Lily picked it up and glanced at it, then without thinking, placed it carefully in her pocket, before heading back down to the common room.  When the girls arrived in the Great Hall, they saw the Gryffindor team huddled at one end of the table, and not wanting to interrupt them, the five girls chose seats at the other end.  Lily was somewhat surprised that Kaylie was sitting with them, and not with Potter, who, along with Frank and the other Marauders, was sitting somewhere towards the middle.  "We broke up," she explained, apparently noticing Lily's curiosity.  "Last night."

"Oh," Lily said, taken aback.  "I'm sorry."


Kaylie shrugged.  "I'm not.  It was getting to be too much to pretend that I liked him all the time, and the guy that I really want barely noticed anyway…"  She trailed off and began eating her eggs.  Lily and Desdamona both rolled their eyes.

"Too complicated," Lily said, starting on her breakfast.

"I quite agree," Desdamona concurred, taking a sip of pumpkin juice. 

After breakfast, the girls headed out to the pitch, hoping to get good seats by arriving early.  Alice wanted to try-out for a chaser position next year, and she was planning to analyze the Gryffindor keeper's every move to find weaknesses that she could exploit during her try-out in the fall.  The weather, which had been sunny and warm throughout exam week, had turned windy and cold, and the skies that morning were threatening an early summer thunderstorm.  As they had done at the first Gryffindor quidditch match of the season, the girls brought along a large Gryffindor blanket, and Lily charmed it to stay warm against the cold.  They found seats next to Frank.  He had come out early to save seats for the Marauders, who were otherwise unaccounted for at the moment.

The girls sat down, huddling into the blanket to stay warm, and talking about how well they thought they'd done on their exams, the upcoming summer vacation, and, in the case of Kaylie and Amelia, who were going on about Lupin and some mystery guy that Kaylie refused to name, boys.  Before long, the team had arrived on the field.  "I wonder where the Marauders got off to?" Frank said as Madam Alipes was blowing her whistle to start the game.

The Marauders absence was explained a few minutes after Gryffindor had scored for the first time, when they arrived in the stands, pockets bulging with Honeydukes candy.  Lupin presented Amelia with some chocolate, which she happily accepted, and when Black started to tease him about it, he quickly offered some to the other four girls as well.  Potter also offered Lily some candy, but after noticing the glint in his eye, she declined politely.  Potter then offered it to Lupin, Black and Pettigrew.  "If Evans isn't daft enough to take it," Black said with a laugh, "what makes you think we are?"

Potter looked a little disappointed, but tossed the candy out.  "It was worth a try, anyway," he said with a grin.

Lily turned her attention back to the game, trying to ignore Potter.  He was once again jumping up and down and shouting at the Gryffindor keeper, chasers and seeker, apparently certain that given the chance, he could play all three positions better than the existing models.  Also as before, Pettigrew kept chirping in agreement every time Potter made a comment.  Neither team's seeker was having very much success finding or catching the snitch in the windy weather, and as the game wore into its third hour, the score was 180-150 Gryffindor.  Gryffindor's seeker went into another steep dive, a streak of gold barely visible out in front of him, but he pulled up as the gold disappeared.  "You have to lean into your dive more!" Potter shouted, standing up.  "LEAN IN!"

"You could have had that Ja—," Pettigrew began.

"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!"

Lily gasped and turned around to stare at Black, a feeling of déjà vu hitting her so forcefully that she felt like she had been punched.  "Is something wrong, Lils?" Amelia asked her.

Lily shook her head, trying to gather her thoughts.  She was being ridiculous, of course.  It was just a coincidence.  "No," she said finally, returning her attention to the game.

About an hour later, Lily felt a tug on her coat, and turned to see Potter giving her a goofy grin.  Her eyes widened in horror as she realized that she had never told Potter about Mr. Parker's response to their letter.  "Don't ask me about the parchment!"

"How did you know I—?" he started, clearly bewildered.

"Don't say it!" she said again, her voice growing louder.  All of the Gryffindor first years save Alice, who was too engrossed in watching Gryffindor's keeper to notice anything at the moment, were now staring at her, concern etched in their eyes.  She didn't care.  "Because if you say it, that will mean that it wasn't just a dream and—"

Apparently Alice had finally heard Lily, but hadn't noticed the note of panic in her voice, and just assumed that she and Potter were arguing, as usual.  "Can you two give it a rest, just for the game, even?" she snapped.

"Stop!" Lily cried, practically screaming now.  She turned to the field, watching.  "And now she dives," she said quietly.

"Lily, what are you—," but the Ravenclaw seeker had gone into a spectacular dive and snatched the snitch out from underneath the outstretched hand of Gryffindor's seeker.  As the students in the Ravenclaw section erupted in cheers, and the Gryffindors around Lily groaned loudly, their attention drawn once again to the match, she turned numbly toward the Slytherin section, her eyes scanning the stands.

 What happened next came as a complete shock to everybody but Lily.  A hulking, shadowy figure appeared over the Slytherin section.  "The Dark Lord now has the tools that he will need to be immortal," as strangely magnified voice said, echoing in the now-silent stadium.  "Choose your side carefully. You have been warned."  Something clicked in Lily's head, and her mind began racing so fast that she could hardly keep up with her thoughts.  Lily barely heard Dumbledore telling the students to follow the prefects back to their houses, and was only dimly aware of the screams and cries now echoing around her.  She turned automatically to where Andromeda and Joshua were standing, shooting off sparks to attract the attention of the Gryffindor students. 

Lily reached up and pulled Potter's hand off of her shoulder, utterly unsurprised to find it there, and barely noticing the look that he gave her as she did so.  Wishing that this time, she would wake up again and find that it was all a dream, she walked toward the prefects, her mind still working overtime.  Lily had finally realized what it was that she had been trying to remember since she'd had this very dream, and she was now busily putting the puzzle pieces together in her mind.  She reached into her robes and gripped her wand tightly, but did not draw it.  Andromeda and Joshua led the Gryffindors toward the castle, the Ravenclaws up ahead of them, and the Hufflepuffs behind.  Once they had gotten through the main entrance door, Lily slipped quietly to the back of the Gryffindor group.  When they reached the staircase, she slipped unnoticed into line with the Hufflepuffs, and headed with them toward the basement.

Apparently all of the Hufflepuffs were too shell-shocked to notice that a Gryffindor was now walking along with them, for nobody said anything to her as they descended to the basement.  They reached a divide in the hallway, and when the Huffflepuffs turned one way to head toward their common room, Lily turned the other, toward the kitchen.  Her mind continued to race.  Muggle legends of elves usually told of them being immortal…  Dumbledore's book had been written in ancient elvish…  The figure at the Slytherin match had referred to immortality…  It couldn't be a coincidence.  And Frank's dad studied ancient magic.  He'd probably learned about the ancient rituals, which was why the dark wizard would have wanted him…  Lily arrived at the portrait that was the entrance to the kitchen, and, marveling at the quirk of fate that had brought her down here one cold winter's day with Alice and Amelia, reached up and tickled the pear, feeling nervously for the piece of parchment and marveling at the instinct that had driven her to bring it with her this morning.  If she'd had to go up to Gryffindor's common room to get it before speaking with Alfie, she'd never have been able to leave.  Andromeda and Joshua were bound to be very strict about keeping students within bounds today.

As she grabbed the handle that had appeared, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and screamed.  Lily whirled around to see James Potter standing there, concern etched over his usually grinning face.  "What in the world do you think you're doing, sneaking off by yourself to the kitchens at a time like this?" he asked her.  "You're lucky that I wasn't Malfoy or someone!"

Lily inhaled deeply, trying not to get too angry that James Potter, of all people, was lecturing HER about sneaking around the castle when she ought to be in the common room.  "I just realized something about the parchment," she explained, trying to stay calm.  "I have to talk to Alfie.  If I'd gone up to the common room and waited like a good little girl, I'd never have gotten the chance.  Now go back upstairs."

"No, no way I'm leaving you alone right now.  Are you mad?"

Lily grit her teeth.  "Potter, I don't have time to argue with you right now—"

"Then stop arguing," he said firmly.  "I'm not leaving.  Remember what Dumbledore said."

Lily glared at him, but turned and pulled the door open without saying another word.  They walked into the kitchens, and were greeted very warmly by the house-elves.  Alfie approached Lily, grinning broadly and bowing politely.  "It's good to see you again, Miss Evans.  Will you be liking some more food?" 

Potter looked at her in shock.  "More food?  You've been down here before, Evans?"

Lily ignored him.  "Actually, I was hoping that I could talk to you about—," she glanced up and noticed that all of the house elves in the kitchen had stopped working and were watching her intently.  She lowered her voice.  "About something.  Is there some place that we could speak which is more…private?"

Alfie grinned.  "Alfie will take care of it, miss," he said and then turned and ambled over to the nearest elf.  He whispered something, and then the elf that he had spoken to nodded, and shouted something in a language that Lily did not understand.  The elves immediately turned and went back to work, ignoring Lily and Potter completely.  Alfie returned.  "They won't bothers us again, Miss," he said with a smile.

Lily squatted down so that she was eye-level with Alfie.  "In muggle legends, elves are immortal.  Do the muggles have this right?  Are you immortal?"

Alfie shook his head slowly.  "No, miss," Alfie said sadly.  "House-elves do live longer than most people, muggle and wizard alike, but we is not immortal."

"Oh," Lily said, trying to hide her disappointment.  She had been so certain that Alfie would be able to help her.

"According to our legends, miss, our ancestors performed magical ceremonies that would assure them of never-ending life," Alfie continued.  "It is said that the magic is written down in ancient books," Alfie laughed a high-pitched laugh.  "These are the stories we tell young house-elves before we puts them to bed, anyway, but beggin' your pardon miss, there is no truth to them."

"Are you sure about that, Alfie?" Potter asked, apparently figuring out where Lily was going with her questions.

"'Twas wood elves who is said to have that knowledge," Alfie explained.  "They's extinct now.  So if they's extinct, they wasn't immortal."

Lily had to admit that Alfie had a point.  Still, Dumbledore's book had been written in ancient Elvish, so there was a chance.  She pressed on.  "Professor Dumbledore has a book," she began, "that is written in ancient Elvish.  It's said that only he and one other wizard know how to speak it—"


She stopped as Alfie nodded.  "Yes, miss.  Professor Dumbledore and Tom Riddle is the only wizards that can speak ancient Elvish."


Lily stared at Alfie.  "Tom Riddle is the other one?" she asked.  "And how do you know?"


Alfie's chest swelled proudly.  "Professor Dippet—who is headmaster before Professor Dumbledore—asked Alfie to teach him.  Mister Riddle was very interested in learning everything he could about elves, and Hogwarts doesn't offers a class on Elvish history."

Lily and Potter exchanged a glance.  "Can you read ancient Elvish?" Lily asked, barely daring to hope.

"Yes, miss.  Alfie's mum taught him."

Potter looked over at Lily.  "Too bad that we don't have the parchment with us," he said, as Lily pulled it out of her pocket. 

Potter looked stunned.  "Where did that come from?"

Lily shrugged.  "Something told me to bring it to the game this morning," she said dismissively.  "Can you read this?"  She handed Alfie the parchment.

He began reading it, his eyes growing more and more round with each passing minute.  "Where did sir and miss get this?" he asked finally, glancing up.

"We found it," Lily said.

"Can you tell us what it says?" Potter asked.

Alfie glanced at them.  "Let Alfie read it one more time, sir."  They waited quietly while Alfie re-read the parchment.  "This is from the legendary book of life," Alfie said, his tone awed.  "It's the last step.  The last step in the ceremony.  Alfie is being sure that this book is just a myth, but here is the last step."  Alfie looked down and began reading again.  "The legend is true," he said, appearing to have forgotten that they were standing there.

Lily suddenly realized what Alfie had just said.  "This is the last step of the ceremony?" Lily asked.  Alfie nodded.  "Then they can't do it if they don't have it?"  Alfie again nodded.

"The protection from death is not being complete without it," he said.  "The whole process is taking months to do.  Dumbledore is wanting his page back if he is trying to become immortal, miss."

"No, Alfie," Lily began, "it's not Dumbledore that wants it—,"

But Potter interrupted her.  "Thanks Alfie," he said, standing up and grabbing Lily's hand.  "We have to get back to our common room.  They'll be wondering where we are."

Lily glanced at Potter, and knew that he was thinking the same thing that she was.  They had to destroy that paper, and quickly.  If this dark wizard succeeded in becoming immortal, there was nothing on this earth that could stop him from destroying the wizarding world, and it looked as though they were the only two people at the moment with the power to stop that from happening.  She and Potter practically flew to the kitchen door.  "Does sir and miss want any food?" Alfie asked as they opened the kitchen door. 

"No.  Thank you for all of your help, Alfie!" Lily called out as they walked back into the hallway.

"I just have to grab my invisibility cloak," Potter said, walking over to a nearby statue, and glancing behind it.  "Hang on, where'd it go?  I thought I left it behind this one."

"Looking for this?" a drawling voice behind them said.  Lily and Potter both turned to see Lucius Malfoy sneering at them, Potter's invisibility cloak dangling loosely in his hand.