The Prophecy

All heads turned to face her as she knelt down in front of Merlin pleading for help.

"Calm down Lily, what on Earth's wrong?"

She soon replied, still in a terrified turn... "I don't know what to do!" Her eyes darted around the room to make sure it was safe to continue. "He's taken over control... it was awful... I tried to make him to stop... he took him... he's gone... you must save him, help me... help!"

At this point she could no longer stop herself from crying. She broke down and sobbed into Merlin's robes.

All that could be heard were snatches of words, all jumbled up amongst the tears.

"Wand... door...snapped... broken... Cruciatus curse... run.. he didn't run... help... scream... didn't see them coming... what to do... don't know... help me!" she finally managed to look up Merlin, tears rolling down her cheeks, her blood shot eyes pleading with him for the help she so desperately required.

But Merlin still didn't have a clue what had happened or what needed to be done. Who had been taken, and by whom? Where had Lily come from? She was wet through and muddy. Cuts and scrapes on her bare arms showed she had been in a fight of some sort.

Merlin looked down at her, then across to Liselle. Lily was huddled into Merlin's robes again.

At this point, about seven house elves, headed by Dobby and Winky (Winky was still carrying a tray of half finished jam and cream tarts and had icing sugar sprinkled all over her face). Some people had now got up and were walking towards Lily, all the paintings had turned round to look too; a particular portrait of a porky little wizard seemed to be enjoying the situation immensely, and had invited some friends to come in and look. Fred and George were also coming over.

Liselle got off her armchair, put down her copy of Witch Weekly, knelt down beside Lily and tried to comfort her, but nothing seemed to be working. Merlin offered Lily a bottle of elderflower wine which she gulped down quickly and which seemed to calm her down a bit. Whilst she was gaining her breath, Merlin turned round to a couple of his friends who had gathered behind him, looking down at Lily, and told a Hufflepuff to go up to Hogwarts and get a teacher. He also told a couple of Gryffindors and a Ravenclaw to go outside and see if they could get help or find out what was wrong (he would have gone himself, but Lily was holding onto his robes too tightly).

Fred and George said they were going to look too, and they followed the group out the oak doors. Some people were also gathering at the windows now, and Hannah Abbott had joined a group of about five girls all trying to comfort Lily.

Merlin took his wand out of his pocket (Mahogany, gold, platinum and emerald trimmings, engraved with his name with a core containing lunar diamond dust from a blue moon, nice), as a group of nervous and apprehensive people gathered around the large oak doors and began locking and securing it with several charms, spells and hexes, a few more elves emerged from the kitchen and the pixies in Sir Cadogan's meadow had taken the distraction as an opportunity to steal food from right in front of the old maid.

"It's ok, Lily, you're safe now. In your own time, what's wrong, what happened? You said something about the Cruciatus curse, are you alright?"

Liselle turned round to notice a few agitated people getting out their quills and pieces of parchment, ready to send an owl to the ministry if the use of the Cruciatus curse proved true.

The still jittery Lily was quick to respond...

"I'm not sure where to start, what to say, how to say it!" she began, nervously looking over her shoulder and trying to move away from the many hands on her back trying to be of some comfort. Tears still rolling down her cheeks and onto her robes she looked back up at Merlin. "It's Dumbledore..."

The sound was amazing, as though as one the whole crowd listening had inhaled in disbelief. Shock and horror were running through their minds... had Dumbledore been killed or had it been him who had performed one of the illegal curses?

"He was with Harry, Ron and Hermione. They shouldn't have been there... they should have been in Hogwarts... but they'd decided to go down to Hogsmeade, to get some fresh air and have a few butter beers. I'm not sure what happened exactly but Death Eaters were there. I arrived in time to see Dumbledore being hauled away on a rather odd looking broomstick. Harry was in the middle of a duel with one of the evil fiends. A wizard managed to bind the Death Eater and two or three others. I heard Harry calling him Sirius. I can only imagine it was Sirius Black. It did look like him. But... it doesn't make sense. But then another Death Eater lashed out with the Cruciatus curse. Harry dived in the way to save Hermione. Ron jumped on the Death Eater and knocked him out."

The crowd didn't have a clue what to make of this. Sirius Black? Fighting on their side? Lily seemed to be almost calm now, but when talking about Harry her voice had changed. Was that the end of Mr Potter?

Lavender Brown voiced everyone else's concerns. "But what happened to Harry?"

Lily bit her lip desperately trying to stop herself from crying again. "He's such a hero. I don't know whether he knew or not, but the curse didn't work on him. He, Ron, Sirius and Hermione have gone after Dumbledore. The Hogshead is totally destroyed, there is almost nothing left. What are we to do, we must help them find Dumbledore, he has to be saved, we're nothing without him. Merlin you must help. Please, what can we do?"

There was desperation in her voice now. Stunned, her audience fell into utter silence, awaiting the reply.

Liselle stood up and began to pace the room in a preoccupied way, muttering under her breath. Turning around she took a deep breath and said to Lily, "I need to see what happened for myself, I want you to use this Pensieve to allow me to see what happened, by releasing your thoughts this way, you will feel better too."

Everyone turned to stare. Liselle, as if she had known it was there, removed an old-looking Pensieve from a previously locked cabinet and held it out towards Lily for her to take.

Lily gulped and slowly nodded her head. "It's not pretty," she whispered. "Be prepared."

Wordlessly Liselle handed her the pensive and Lily bent her head to it. It filled with a frothing and misty gaseous liquid. Liselle took the Pensieve and poked it with her wand (Holly, 9 inch with a rare black phoenix feather plucked at the first full moon after the solstice and trimmed with platinum.)

Lily was still on the floor in front of Merlin. Liselle placed the Pensieve on the coffee table. Everyone seemed intrigued; Pensieves were incredibly rare, some people hadn't even known what it was.

Merlin stood up abruptly with a look of confident disbelief on his face. "Now wait a minute Lily. You're saying that three fifteen year olds were involved in a fight against a group of Death Eaters? I don't seriously think Dumbledore'd allow it, and I know Ron and Hermione well, Ron's not exactly the first person I'd put in a gang to fend off Volde.. I mean, You Know Who." Several people shuddered at this moment, one girl let out a whimper. "I mean, he's brave and everything, but he's not too great with magic, at least, not good enough to face a Death Eater."

Most people seemed to agree with this, but still looked terrified.

"Anyway, if you're right, there's not much we can do." Merlin wasn't normally the one to edge away from fear, but he seemed unusually apprehensive and very opposed to what Lily was saying. Lily seemed too frightened to listen much and instead, slowly raised her wand to her head to show the memory.

Suddenly, there was massive bang against the door and it began to rattle convulsively. The sky at the windows instantly turned an inky black, lit only by rapid lightning bolts and the eerie howl of the wind rushing the clouds became scarily apparent. Several people screamed loudly and ran towards Liselle, Lily and Merlin who were seated at the opposite end of the room to the door. The great banging at the door became louder and more urgent. The people standing right next to the door were too terrified to move and a couple of people collapsed to the floor. Even the pictures seemed frightened. A portrait of a Victorian nanny showed three little children she was caring, run behind her extensive dress in fear crying. Merlin struggled his way through the terrified crowd, wand ready, and stood in front of the door, ready to confront whoever was there. He looked frightened, but reluctantly confident. As he stood there, the door still banging and rattling heavily (quite shocking considering what a heavy, ancient thing it was), Liselle ploughed her way through the crowd with a similar expression on her face, and positioned herself behind Merlin to his left and stood ready. A couple of other Gryffindors did the same, with a few Ravenclaws positioned themselves strategically around the room and behind pieces of furniture. The Hufflepuffs composed most of the crowd still trying to comfort Lily.

With a huge clash, the doors swung open, rain and wind flowing in as if somebody had just opened Pandora's box. There was a terrifying flash of lightning, illuminating the outlines of the tall figures. The door glowed and swirled with several different colours and flashes of light as all the curses and hexes that people had put on the door flew back on their creators. Several people were flung backwards. One boy looked as if he was being brutally squeezed whilst being shook from side to side. Several people were on the floor glowing bright green. A few had been turned upside down. More had suffered unusually powerful leg-locker curses (probably stronger due to the fear with which they were placed). Some people had sprouted massive boils that were engulfing them entirely. A couple were pinned to the wall facing the door, squirming, trying to get out, as if some invisible force was pressing them there and holding them like a web, similarly, some were pinned to the ceiling. Some of the people near the door had disappeared completely, and one poor third year was running around the floor, about an inch tall, being chased by a very amused spider. Others had tight plant-like ropes that had come from no-where, binding them in mid air.

Merlin promptly shouted what sounded like a very complicated incantation, and streams of colour shot from his wand, piercing the powerful wind and rain. The two Gryffindors who had come to fight had succumbed to one of the spells guarding the door. Liselle shouted out a spell, and something smallish came flailing into the room, banged against a wall and fell to the floor. Both Merlin and Liselle turned to see what was there. Suddenly, there was an icy cold, dripping hand gripping Merlin's shoulder. He thrashed out, knocking the hand from his shoulder, and then, something very unexpected happened.

"Mr Carter!" bellowed a familiar, stern and furiously annoyed voice from the doorway. It was Professor McGonagall. She walked briskly towards Merlin, carrying an unnaturally powerful lantern that illuminated the doorway, showing several bodies piled up in it occasionally sparking various colours, still smoking. They were all Hogwarts teachers, one of them was stirring uncomfortably in an attempt to get up. Professor Snape was at Merlin's side cradling his arm that Merlin had just hit.

"I'll be taking that!" McGonagall snatched away Merlin's wand. The wand gave a little squeal and McGonagall's hand began smoking and squirming. She dropped the wand to the ground and Merlin promptly picked it up.

"You shall put that away immediately Mr Carter," said McGonagall in a surprised and annoyed tone, nursing her hand in her robes.

Several other people emerged through the door, some stopping to help up the heavily stunned teachers in the doorway. Merlin looked around McGonagall to see the people coming in. They were mostly more Hogwarts teachers. Madam Pomfrey instructed a nurse to help those still in the doorway and ran over to a very dazed professor Flitwick who had landed near a speechless crowd gathered near a large sofa, shortly joined by two other teachers.

Another person slowly clunked up behind McGonagall. An oldish man with grizzly hair, a heavily scarred face, a wooden leg and a very interesting eye that was darting around the room in a bizarre fashion. His other normal eye becoming illuminated in the glare of McGonagall's lamp, which was beginning to look less bright and turn to a normal glow now it had entered a moderately well lit room.

"And you, Miss Lafelle...." McGonagall was pointing towards Liselle, but the man who had appeared behind her (who was obviously Alastor Moody, the famed ex-auror), interrupted her.

"It's alright Minerva, they didn't mean any wrong," he said in a gruff voice.

McGonagall didn't seem satisfied. "Still, I would've expected more of you two. One of my best transfiguration students, and a descendant of Merlin."

She stopped, rather shocked, and with a stern and typically disapproving look on her face. She looked relieved however.

Most of the teachers in the doorway were still recovering from Merlin's curse, but Flitwick seemed ok. Being so small must have given him a resilience to being knocked around. As soon as McGonagall had finished, some more people came through the door; the people who Merlin had asked to get help, flanked by three more wizards (probably from Hogsmeade) and two teachers. The Hufflepuff who'd gone to get help from Hogwarts looked very satisfied with himself.

Fred came forward, closely followed by George who was carrying someone... Neville. George was having a lot of trouble. Judging from how breathless Fred was, he'd obviously been helping to carry Neville too.

Merlin, Liselle, and some other people ran forward.

"Oh no, is he.."

Merlin was interrupted by Fred, who walked forward and rather carelessly dumped Neville on a sofa. "No, he tripped up over a fallen tree."

At this point, Moody had turned round to the door, locked it, and seemed to be sealing it with his wand much more effectively than effectively than the others had.

Madam Pomfrey was still running around, caring to the fallen teachers and helping Flitwick and some other teachers Merlin hadn't been taught by, restore those who had been afflicted by their door locking curses. Pomfrey was having trouble restoring the shrunken boy's clothes to a reasonable size, and Flitwick was busy resurrecting a very frustrated-looking pool of goo that was gradually morphing back into a fourth year Ravenclaw.

McGonagall moved to the centre of the room and informed everyone that they were to be returning to Hogwarts immediately and not to panic, although McGonagall herself looked surprisedly frightened. Everyone was looking very worried now that their fears had been certified. McGonagall hadn't actually said what had happened, but by her tone of voice, everyone could tell it was bad, very bad, and the raging black storm outside certainly wasn't natural. Lily was still surrounded by about sixteen people trying to comfort her, and the house elves looked positively petrified. Winky had dropped her tray when the door opened and run screaming into Dobby. Even the gnomes didn't look quite right, six had now managed to make their way back in and were cowering in a corner.

Moody was now walking up to McGonagall with his normal cluck, shaking his head slightly.

"I'm afraid we're not going anywhere yet, professor," he said. "I can't guarantee any of the students' safety out there. It's far too dark and that storm's too bad for even all of us to keep an eye on everyone."

He vaguely gestured towards some of the teachers. "And besides, look." Moody pointed to a nearby window, which had now been well and truly sealed. There were bright flashes clearly visible outside and shouts from a variety of wizards, and terrified screams. People gathered cautiously around the window and gasped as they saw dark figures gliding in the distance, surrounded by other various outlines. They seemed to be engaged in some huge battle, but the trees (many of which had fallen over), the wind, the ridiculously torrential rain and pitch blackness that was swallowing the landscape made the details hard to make out. It looked as though some parts of Hogsmeade had been devastated, several buildings were on fire, and there were evil howls coming from everywhere. Whether that was just the wind or something more sinister was unclear.

"Very well, everyone pay attention please. We will be sheltering here for the time being. There is no need to worry, everyone remain calm."

It didn't sound like even McGonagall herself believed that. It looked like everyone in the room wanted to ask questions, but they all seemed far too terrified to want to know the answers.

"Minerva, I'm going to have to leave and help."

McGonagall didn't seem too happy at this suggestion, but nonetheless, she agreed.

"When I leave, I want you and the other professors to prevent any apparitions into this building, understood?" Moody continued.

McGonagall seemed reluctant to take orders from Moody, but again, she agreed.

"And do anything else you feel prudent to protect the students whilst I'm gone."

"Very well," she responded curtly. She began beckoning the other teachers towards her as Moody walked towards the door, got out his wand (and a couple of other interesting contraptions that must have been dark defenders), readied himself, and disappeared with a pop. The teachers separated into different areas of the room, casting spells and muttering incantations. Everybody was terrified.

Merlin approached McGonagall.

"Professor," he enquired.

"Yes, Mr Carter," McGonagall responded busily and worriedly. (McGonagall was the only person who called Merlin by his second name).

"Lily was just about to show us what happened."

McGonagall stopped suddenly and turned round. She looked very worried and thoughtful, as though she wasn't sure if she wanted to know, especially if she wanted all the students to see. She glanced over at Lily and saw her still sobbing, surrounded by people.

"I'm sure you can see that Lily isn't ready for anything of the sort at this moment."

"I am," sobbed Lily. "People need to see."

McGonagall pursed her lips before replying, "Well if you think you're ready, so be it."

The teachers and others gathered around Lily and the Pensieve. Merlin, Liselle, and the other people near the door moving in closer, as she touched her wand to her head, and began to pull out a silvery stream of wispy, fine threads. Merlin turned round to the fire to see that the pitch was now deserted and the sky around it was black. The commentary had stopped, there was a terrible storm raging, and several dark, hooded and cloaked figures had floated on to the pitch like sharks. Merlin waved his wand over the fire, disgusted and frightened by the sight. The image dissolved.

Neville had now woken up and some people were explaining what had happened. He looked terrified.

Merlin turned round to look at Lily. The crowd around her was engrossed. As she pulled the memory into the bowl, it began to form into an image.

The release of the image seemed to give Lily a new confidence. She seemed more like the strong, determined and brave character that everybody knew her as. It was comforting for those watching. If they had Lily back, they were in with a chance of not only understanding what had happened but of putting it right.

The image became clearer... soon it looked almost solid.

People re-positioned themselves so they could all see the image that was being projected. Although it was a small Pensieve, the image was large enough for all to see. It sat itself on the top of the bowl, like it had when Harry had been talking to Dumbledore about Bertha Jorkins in his office.

The watching crowd remained in total silence as the image began to clearly show them the events of earlier that evening. Even the sound of the wind and rain from outside was silenced as they watched Lily walking through Hogsmeade.

She was walking down from the direction of the Shrieking Shack into the streets of Hogsmeade. It was a clear evening and the sun had not fully gone down yet. Suddenly a huge bang erupted from somewhere nearby. She looked around wildly, seeming nervous and disorientated. Flashes appeared in the sky to her left. She suddenly picked up pace and ran through the street and right to the place where the flashes of green and red were coming from.

As she came to the door of the Hogshead she slowed down. There was a commotion inside that was sounding throughout the village. Making sure to remain unseen, she peered through one of the windows. The occupants of the Hogshead were too busy to have noticed her anyway. Inside she- and the rest of the students watching through the Pensieve- saw a large group of Death Eaters fighting tirelessly with a group of wizards, but she didn't recognise any she'd seem so far.

Lily scanned the room for Harry. He was cornered with Dumbledore. Both had been tied and Dumbledore looked unconscious. In the scuffle they couldn't quite see how but Harry managed to get free from the binds.

The crowd gasped. Harry took his wand back from one of the Death Eaters who was lying unconsciously on the floor, along with the man's own wand and threw it to someone, who most recognised as the infamous Sirius Black, who looked like he was in a little in trouble, but with a wand back in his hand he had no problem at all binding up the fallen Death Eaters. Harry was suddenly attacked from behind. Hermione, who had been trying to escape from the cords binding her was able to retrieved her wand from the floor in time to set herself free and help Harry.

All seemed to be going well for them. But at that moment four Death Eaters came in from behind the bar and blinded them all with a great white light. Everyone hit the floor. No one could see. When the light disappeared, so had all the Death Eaters, except those who had been bound. Lily turned just in time to see a rather odd looking broomstick flying away southwards with Dumbledore on the back, still unconscious by the look of it.

Most of the crowd were whimpering slightly now. The sounds of the outside world slowly entered their ears and they all seemed lost in their own thoughts.

Lily looked at McGonagall. "What are we to do, Professor? You know that Dumbledore is the most important weapon we have. Harry, Ron and Hermione went with him, but I'm not sure that was a good idea. And what about Sirius Black? Is he really on our side? We're in trouble. We knew this day night come. What is the plan? With Dumbledore and Harry both away, its up to us!"

McGonagall opened her mouth to speak, but the words had not quite formed when there was a terrible banging on the window.

Everyone screamed. The face at the window stepped back before pressing its nose against the glass and banging even harder.