Lily woke the next morning before James with one sentence running through her head. She hasn't got much time. David had told her that while she sat beside Tanith's still body in her dreams. Lily didn't have a lot of time to figure out how to open the Seal. She hadn't even asked Alaura when Tanice's birthday was! She slipped quietly out of James' embrace and down into the common room where she had left the fairy tale book and her parchment two nights ago and, sitting at the closest table, resumed puzzling out the riddle that was the Angel's Seal. Alaura was the next up, yawning and stretching the cautiously approached Lily.
"Got a second for your best friend?" Lily smiled up at her lavender-eyed friend, those same eyes she shared with her sister.
"I do believe I can spare a few moments for you. In fact, I have a question for you," Lily answered moving slightly to allow her friend to take a seat beside her.
"Shoot."
"When is Tanice's birthday?"
"March twenty-sixth," Alaura answered facing Lily quizzically. Lily launched into the full story of her discovery two days prior. Alaura listened quietly and in awe.
"Wow," she said once Lily had finished. "Tanice certainly has been busy, hasn't she?" Alaura's voice was weak. Lily had left out the part about there only being a little bit of time left for Tanice to herself. There was no reason to give Alaura that burden to carry. Lily suspected that if the Seal was not opened by the twenty-sixth of March, Tanice wouldn't make it.
Breakfast was a sober affair, Sirius comforting Alaura. She was devastated that her little siste3r had so much to do with such a dangerous thing. James had been terribly nervous about not waking up with Lily curled up beside him – a way that James wanted to wake up to forever – and had immediately found her seating in the common room beside Alaura. The two were pouring over Lily's favourite fairy tale. Lily was now tucked comfortably against his side, his arm around her waist. The school was in an uproar as to what had gotten the best pranksters in Hogwarts sober.
"We have six weeks," Lily said softly.
"We should tell Lucy, Karissa, and Kristiina," Liandra suggested.
"I will go talk to Kristiina now. I wanted to talk to her anyway. Her Charms mark is falling again," Lily replied standing and, with James behind her, Headed off towards the Slytherin table. Whispered comments followed James and Lily all of the way across the Great Hall. Kristiina looked around at them as the prefects approached.
"What happened to Tanice?" Kristiina asked. It was the first thing and almost the only reason Lily may want to talk to her during a meal.
"Nothing… yet. Help? Please?" Lily asked. Without another word, Kristiina stood and followed Lily and James out of the Hall and to the Library. Finding a table close to the back, Lily, James and Kristiina too a seat while Lily showed the fairy tale story she had been working with over the last two days to the small Slytherin.
"Can you translate the Portuguese?"
"Roughly… We ask for the power of angels above, corresponding with the legend of the one so old. The Guardian is lost until the day of the light, but we must help in this time of ancient plight. We open the Seal and set power free to revive the One and the balance retrieve. The power is needed, and the case been pleaded. We open the Seal and free the power, once again on this fateful hour. Release. I think that's it."
"We… I guess it means us. Remus, Alaura, Liandra, Sirius, you and me," Lily sighed to James.
"And if everything that you said is correct the ritual won't take place until about midnight on March the twenty-sixth… Tanice's birthday," James agreed.
"Which means, now that we know all of this, all we can do is wait."
Waiting for March twenty-sixth was probably one of the hardest things Lily had ever had to do.
"March twenty-fifth," Alaura whispered the day before they had been set to go open the Angel's Seal. Liandra had owled her parents who in turned had passed on the request for simple locating ingredients and Lindsey had sent them as quick as she could. They had everything they needed. Now, they were waiting.
"I hate waiting," Sirius voiced. "It makes me fidget." Alaura snorted.
"We've noticed," she replied tracking Sirius as he walked back and forth in front of her.
"I'm scared," Lily whispered, voicing the emotion for the first time. "What if I'm wrong? What if one of us doesn't make it? What if it kills us all?"
"We don't know, Lils," James answered. "We can't think like that."
"Well if it doesn't work…" Alaura began, pausing with a shudder.
"…At least we tried," Liandra finished.
"Let's do something!" Sirius exclaimed.
"We could do homework," Remus suggested lamely wrapping his arm more securely around Liandra's waist.
"We won't concentrate. We could go out by the lake," Alaura countered.
"In March?" Sirius asked.
"We could play chess," Lily recommended.
"Too many people," James countered. Lily stood.
"I'm going walking on the grounds then. I can't stay here. If any one of us is lost tomorrow night, it's all my fault," she said. Leaving before any one could tell her otherwise, Lily wandered up the many flights of stairs in Hogwarts to the Astronomy Tower. She looked up to the stars and thought of Tanice.
"Why her? I could have been any body, why did you have to pick Tanice?" Lily asked the heavens.
"We didn't pick her." Lily spun. And angel was standing behind her. An angel with smokey grey eyes and dark black hair was standing behind her.
"Didn't pick her?"
"Angels are picked in large groups to be chosen to be Guardian Angels. Tanith was chosen along with nineteen other young angels. Each are asked if they are willing to possibly sacrifice themselves to being Guardian Angels."
"What? Tanith chose to be… Chosen?"
"She did. She was the best for the job and so she's here on earth now. It wasn't expected that the ancient evil would attack."
"Ancient evil?"
"There is only one thing that Angel's fear above all else."
"Evil angels?"
"No. Black angels can be dealt with. Angel's fear humans more than anything."
"Humans? Why humans?"
"Humans are easily corrupted, easily bent to the wills of evil. Humans are also power hungry. Power attracts humans faster than flies to honey."
"Makes sense."
"You have little time to revive the Guardian…"
"Angel, I know. Tomorrow at midnight."
"No, not tomorrow. Today. Tomorrow at midnight will be the twenty-seventh of March. Tonight at midnight will be the twenty-sixth." Lily looked stunned. She was right, whoever she was. Lily checked her watch. 11:30.
"Shit! I've got to go."
"I'll be here, whenever you need me." Those were her last words as she disappeared in a ball of light as Lily rushed out of the tower and down the castle's stairs back to the common room.
Lily burst through the common room doors ten minutes later. They didn't have much time and James, Sirius, Remus, Alaura and Liandra were no where in sight. Rushing up the girls' stairs, Lily pushed open the wooden door and ran to Alaura's bed. Shaking her hard, Lily whispered harshly:
"Alaura! Wake up! We have to go if we want to rescue Tanice!" That woke Alaura up instantly.
"What? That's not until tomorrow."
"No! Tonight at midnight will be the twenty-sixth not tomorrow!" Lily left Alaura to get herself out of bed and turned to Liandra waking her up as well.
"I have it on good authority that its tonight. Let's go!"
James, Sirius and Remus were all woken in the same way and the sex of them met in the common room of Gryffindor Tower. Liandra had brought a canvas bag with all of the Wiccan ingredients and other ritual paraphernalia. They made their way quietly and carefully down to the dungeons without the use of James' invisibility cloak. Moving past the entrance to the kitchen, James, and Sirius looked over at it dreamily.
"We're not stopping so don't even think about it!" Alaura hissed. They continued on in silence, down the dark, damp corridor towards the angel tapestry. The door across the hall looked pretty solid as Lily pushed it open and slipped into the pitch blackness of the room beyond. The golden circle of the Angel's Seal sat just as Lily remembered it, in the centre of the room glowing faintly; the same glow that seemed to be around the unconscious Tanice a few floors above.
"Lily? How do we set everything up?" Liandra whispered. The room was so quiet, to talk any louder would almost be deafening.
"Put the candles in a circle and leave enough room for us to sit inside. Put the stuff in the middle of the circle too," Lily instructed looking around the room. Sure enough, there were shackles and chains on the walls. She shivered involuntarily at the memory of watching James, Sirius, Remus, Alaura and Liandra dead before her eyes. That gave her an idea. She rushed to the door, closing it, locking it and magically sealing it.
"We all have to sit inside the circle of candles," she said stepping through the ring of light to sit beside the Seal. As Lily had expected, there were four animals on the Seal: a snake, a raven, a lion and a hedgehog. Watching as the others followed her lead, Lily picked up a mixture of sage and dandelion flowers.
"Okay… Liandra? Do you have the copies of the Portuguese chant?" Lily asked. Liandra nodded, pulling out six different pieces of parchment and handing them out to her five other friends. Lily cleared her throat and throwing her handful of dandelion flowers and sage onto the golden circle. It immediately began glowing brighter and Lily suspected that Tanice was doing the same thing in the Hospital Wing. As one they all began chanting as the rest threw their handfuls of sage and dandelion onto the circle too.
"Pedimos el poder de ángeles arriba, correspondiente con la leyenda del uno tan viejo. El Guardián es perdido hasta que el día de la luz, pero debido ayudar en este tiempo del apuro antiguo. Abrimos el poder del Sello y el conjunto liberta para revivir el Uno y el equilibrio recuperan. El poder se necesita, y el caso fue implorado. Abrimos el Sello y libertamos el poder, una vez más en esta hora decisiva. La liberación!" As they finished, the Seal threw out one burst of golden light in a beam that went through the ceiling. The Seal opened, the four pieces sliding into the earth around it. This was not an expected outcome to the chant and Lily gasped. The circle had been pretty wide, probably about three feet in diameter and Lily suspected that a person could fit inside of it. Looking down into the gap, Lily noticed a set of stairs winding into the bright unknown beyond.
"I think we have to go down there," Lily breathed. "There are stairs."
"What are we waiting for then?" James asked. Lily shook her head.
"No. If some one goes down there, it won't be all of us. I'm going down by myself."
"No way, Lily. You've done way too much on your own as it is," Alaura protested.
"'Laura's right. We can't let you go by yourself. You don't know what could be down there," Sirius agreed.
"There's no way you're leaving me behind," Liandra voiced, the sound being a lot stronger than she felt.
"If Lia's going, then I'm going," Remus agreed.
"And even if you wanted to go in there alone there would be no way you were leaving me to worry about what on earth could happen to you," James said, as stubborn as ever. Lily looked around at all of her friends that seemed intent on being martyred with her. There was no way she was going to win that argument.
"Fine, we'll go down together." The six friends stood and, leaving the candles burning, one by one lowered themselves into the Angel's Seal.