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The Clocks


Lily was helping to keep Remus standing… “Faster…” he begged, even as he tripped over roots in the tunnel leading back to Hogwarts. “We’ve got to go faster…”

“You’re barely going to speed that you’re going,” Lily argued.

“We have to get to Mopsus’s clocks - quick - before anything bad happens to Peter and the others…”

“I still don’t understand how the clocks are going to help.”

“They will. You will. I just --” and Remus tripped, his knees hitting the dirt. He struggled back up. Usually, at this time after a full moon, he was still asleep, the strength still returning to him. He felt so dizzy... Lily pulled him up to his feet.

She stared at him imploringly, “Remus, we can’t go faster.”

“Then you need to do it.”

“Do what?”

Remus tugged out of her grasp and he dropped himself into the dirt packed floor of the cave, wincing as his joints folded and his aching back touched the wall. He looked up at her, “You’ve got to go and destroy those clocks. All the clocks. Every bloody last one of the clocks in Mopsus’s classroom. Especially the ones in that little room. Smash them to absolutely irreparable pieces.”

Lily stared at him, “But why? Why does destroying an old man’s clock collection have anything at all to do with what’s happening?”

“I haven’t fully worked it out yet but I have the idea that those clocks are somehow a part of Mopsus,” Remus said.

“What?”

“Yeah, think about it. When Sirius touched the clock, adjusting the time on it, the clocks all freaked out. He messed with one and it affected them all. They started chiming and - and making that horrible screaming sound, like they were in pain, like they’d been injured. Like they were alive…” Remus started, “And then, Mopsus, the seer who’s proven time and again he sees everything, he must’ve known where we were - he goes to his clocks first. We saw him on the Marauder’s Map at his clocks. Not only that but he must’ve sent Filch to us. How would Filch have known where we were hiding down the hall like that otherwise? Filch had to have heard the clocks going off when he came up those stairs - it was loud enough we could hear them in the classroom - but instead of going to investigate that, Filch comes for us in the empty classroom down the hallway? He never would’ve thought of it on his own! Mopsus knew where we were and he was busy with his clocks so when Filch came to check - he sent him after us.”

“That makes sense,” Lily ceeded, “But… but why would he send Filch after us just to come down and get us out of trouble like he did?”

“Because when he sent Filch, he was distracted by the clocks. By the time Filch got us down to his office and all that, Mopsus had investigated the clocks, seen we hadn’t done much by way of damage to them, and come after us…” Remus took a deep breath, “Lily, you said when he came in the office there, Mopsus looked a lot older than usual. Well maybe he was older than usual. Sirius turned the hand on the clock, see? If the clocks are a part of Mopsus… Sirius could’ve… could’ve aged him… with the clock.”

Lily blinked in confusion, “But… Is that even possible?”

Remus shrugged, “Magic, Lily. And Mopsus is a really old man, Merlin knows what sort of insane dark magic he’s encountered in his lifetime.”

“You think it’s dark magic, these clocks, then?”

“I can’t imagine that storing life time in a clock could possibly be anything but dark.”

Lily shivered. The darkness of the tunnel, only broken by the glowing of their two wands, only made the words more creepy feeling.

“And - and here’s what I think was the meaning of Mopsus getting us off like that in Filch’s office - we’d seen the impact that messing with the clocks had on him. You said you were shocked by the the age in his face, yeah? And you nudged James and James was shocked by it also? Mopsus knew you knew he’d been affected -- affected by messing with the clocks. It’s a weakness, and to keep us distracted from it, he needed to get us out before we had time to put two and two together. The clocks are a part of him and anything that hurts the clocks hurts Mopsus. If the clocks stop… Mopsus stops.”

“You’re saying… you’re saying destroying the clocks will… will kill Mopsus?” Lily gasped.

“I dunno. But it’ll certainly affect him. And I don’t know what’s going on wherever Sirius, Peter, James, Frank, and Ali are, but I’m willing to bet that stopping Mopsus from being involved will help.”

The tunnel suddenly seemed quite freezing and Lily rubbed her arms. Remus stared up her. “We have to hurry, Lil, and if I can’t do it, then you’ve got to. For our friends.”

“But… what if it does kill him? Won’t I be a murderer?” Lily’s voice shook.

Remus replied, “If he’s relying on a wall full of clocks to keep him alive… he’s not truly alive to begin with.”

Lily nodded slowly, then, “Oh.. maybe we should just go to Dumbledore…” She reached out a hand for Remus’s but he shook his head, “C’mon, Rey. I’m not leaving you here in the dark.”

“Whatever we do needs doing fast, Lily. I’m too weak to go fast night now… You’ve got to leave me here. I’ll make my way back to the castle slowly… but in the meantime, you go. If you decide to go to Dumbledore, his office is on the fifth floor, by the gargoyles. The password is watermelon lollies.”

“Watermelon lollies?” Lily looked confused, then snapped back to Remus thinking she was about to leave him alone there, “But Sirius said to --”

Remus laughed, “Lily Evans. Sirius Black is not the final authority. Whatever silly promise he made you make about helping me… don’t worry about it, alright? The others are more important. I’ll be fine. I made it in and out of a full moon night dozens and dozens of times before he ever helped me, before anyone ever helped me… I’ve done it since I was just a toddler, Lily… I can do it again tonight. Go save our friends.”

There was strength in Remus’s eyes, if not in his body.

“Alright. Alright I’ll go.” Lily nodded.

“Good, go,” Remus said, smirking, “Get out of here.”

Lily bent down and kissed his forehead. “You may just be the bravest of all the Marauders, Remus Lupin,” she whispered.

He smiled clumsily. “Nawh,” he said, his cheeks turning red as she pulled away and smoothed a bit of his hair over from his forehead. “After all, I’m about to lie about here underground while I send a girl in to do all the dirty work.”

Lily laughed, “Don’t you be a sexist, too.”

“Too?”

“Potter tried to give me that tosh about not helping because I’m a girl, said I couldn’t be a help against You-Know-Who because I’m a girl.”

Remus said, “I think James’s hesitation to include you has less to do with you being a girl and more to do with you being the girl.”

Lily furrowed her eyebrows.

“I’m just saying.”

“And I’m just ignoring that you tried to make excuses for him,” Lily answered.

But as she ran toward the castle, moments later, leaving Remus sitting alone… the light of his wand fading away in the dark behind her… Lily couldn’t help but think about the way James’s eyes had looked when he’d said it, a glimmer of fear in them… that same glimmer that had been there when he’d carried her away from the giant spiders in the Forbidden Forest the year before… the same glimmer that he’d worn when he had jumped between her and the Dark Lord in the clearing in their first year…

She reached the Whomping Willow and yanked the lever, pulling herself out of the ground. The sun was up, the world wakening. She crawled out and ran across the snow toward the castle. Far off across the grounds, she could see Hagrid’s hut puffing smoke from the chimney… life going on as though nothing harrowing and horrible were happening… She pressed open the doors of the castle and ran, passing breakfasters on their way to the Great Hall. She went up the stairs, her heart racing as she went…

“Lily, what’s going on?” Marlene McKinnon was coming downstairs from the sixth floor with Emmaline Vance, and Marlene caught Lily’s arm as she ran by, stopping her, looking over her dirty lavender pyjamas and jacket, “Were you outside?” she asked, confused.

Lily realized this was her one chance to do both things she’d come to do at once. “Yes. Listen, I have no time to explain, but I need you to do something for me. It’s very important….”

“Okay?” Marlene and Emmaline both turned to Lily with interest, “What is it? Anything.”

Lily reached into her pocket and withdrew the note from the Fat Lady’s portrait. “Take this to Dumbledore.”

Emmaline took it and turned it over in her hand, her eyes roving the words on the page.

“Take it to Dumbledore and tell him Frank Longbottom, Ali Prewitt, Sirius Black, and James Potter are gone, too. Tell him they need his help,” she was talking speedily, “His office is on the fifth floor, by the gargoyle statues. The password is - it’s - bloody hell! It’s some sort of candy…. Watermelon Lollies!! That’s it!”

Marlene’s eyes widened, “What? But- wait, where are you going?”

“I have something I have to do. Quick. Go give that to Dumbledore!” She turned and bolted up the stairs, “Hurry!”

Marlene and Emmaline ran down the stairs and turned quickly on the fifth floor landing, headed for the stone gargoyles with the letter.

Lily continued up…

The Divination classroom was dark and eerie, the shutters closed, and she lit her wand as she trotted down to the front of the room, hurrying ‘round the desk to where the clocks hung on the wall. She pushed aside the cloth that blocked off the room of clocks… Inside, they were all ticking at different times, the sound like a heartbeat, and she closed her eyes, listening to it thump...thump...thump… for a moment, and she clutched her wand, her own heart racing about in her chest, much faster than any of the ticks in the room were going.

Dissilio!” she finally cried, aiming the blow at a clock with a cartoon of Mickey Mouse in the center of it, his hands spinning about. “Dissilio!” She aimed this one at a small gold clock with a spinning mechanism in the base of a small bell jar… and then at a pocket watch with a train etched into the lid… a black cat with rolling eyes… a horrible clocks with real human hands as hands… a clock with spoons for hands… a silver watch on a chain… a cuckoo with a bird that was just jutting out of the little door… and the clocks were screaming, bonging, chiming, chirping, squealing… springs flew about the air like confetti…




And hundreds of miles away, in the parlor, sitting across from Peter Pettigrew as the Dark Lord stretched out his arm to create the Dark Mark… Kostos Mopsus clutched his heart… and fell forward… striking the carpet, breathless, feeling every smash, every snap, every break…

“WHAT IS HAPPENING?!!” screamed the Dark Lord, looming over Mopsus as he lay on the floor of the parlor, having just wrenched the old man about to face him. Voldemort’s bone white wand pressing deeply into his throat. “TELL ME WHAT IS HAPPENING!”

Mopsus laughed - he could feel the springs and gears and cogs showering down, could feel the shattering faces and the stopping mechanisms - “You’ll never know!” he choked the words, “You’ll never know! It dies with me!”

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT OLD MAN?”

Mopsus laughed… “The Chosen One will be born… The Chosen One will come for you… The Chosen One will destroy you! ALL of you!” he cackled insanely… and he felt more pieces falling… more pieces shattering apart, raining in his little room of clocks back at Hogwarts as he watched Lily cried dissilio over and over again with the Inner Eye... He laughed… and laughed… feeling the release of his time coming to an end...

And Lord Voldemort lost his patience.

AVADA KEDAVRA!




Lily stood in the center of the room of clocks… breathless… the pieces littering the floor around her… all of the clocks silent.