[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
The Cogs


CRACK!

Lily was on a rock-coated shore, made up of hundreds of thousands of tiny stones of all different colors. The stones were all around her, slippery and moving beneath her feet the way sand upon a beach might. She held out her arms to gain her balance as Kostos Mopsus released her hand.

She looked around and found herself on a peninsula of the stones, water surrounding them - beautiful, bright blue, and so clear she could see the stones and sand beneath the water for some distance. The air was warm and humid and her wool coat was far too heavy for it. She turned around to look behind her and saw Mopsus was already walking away, several steps over the slippery stone with his cane feeling the way, headed toward what looked like a cluster of stone buildings, cylindrical in shape.

Struggling to remove her coat as she followed after him, slipping on the stone, she called, “Where are we? What is this place?”

Mopsus’s voice shivered with age, “A safe place. Come.”

Lily frowned. Again, against her better judgement, she obeyed, following after the hunched old man. Although he was quite nimble for the age and shape of him, she was still much faster moving than Mopsus was and she caught up with him easily, looking about as she went. The sky was endlessly blue, not a cloud in it, and sunlight, warm and clear, warmed her skin as she carried the wool coat and her Christmas dress swished about her thighs. It was hard to believe she’d left the icy evening air outside of the Lupin house just seconds before.

“I know I already asked this, but - where are we?” She questioned.

“Greece,” he answered simply.

“Greece!” Lily echoed. “I have never been.” She paused, looking around, then back to Mopsus. “Sir, I beg your pardon but… what are we doing in Greece, sir? I was trying to see my friends, you know Remus and Sirius - because James seems really - I don’t know, just - wrong - and I was trying to help him and ---”

“We are going to save your husband, do not worry, Lily.”

Lily blinked. “Come again?”

Mopsus had reached the door of the nearest tower and he paused, holding onto the handle with both his bands. “Ah, yes. And I told myself not to make that mistake this time around.” He shook his head and pushed through.

“James and I are just --”

“Friends, yes, you’ve assured me.” Mopsus muttered.

Lily flushed.

She’d been going to say James and I are just seventeen, she realized.

Then -

“How does being in Greece with you help James Potter?” Lily asked, deciding that was the more pressing matter. She’d deal with this other thing later.

Mopsus’s cane shuffled over the stones. “It helps a great deal, Lily.” He misstepped then, his cane catching on the stone and Lily instinctively abandoned the reservations she had and caught his elbow to straighten him up and he nodded graciously to her. “You are very loving. A trait you shall pay heavily with in time, but whose benefit shall impact the course of time.”

Lily guided him over the stones, “There are two stone towers before us,” she said, “Which are we going to?”

“The closer,” Mopsus answered.

“Thank Merlin,” Lily said.

Mopsus said, “Bright lad, Merlin.”

Lily laughed, “Oh. Was he now.”

“Extremely,” Mopsus replied. “A real charmer - both with his wand and his personality. He used his time wisely.”

Lily was discomforted by the way Mopsus so flippantly suggested that he was old enough to have ever met Merlin in the flesh. His hand was frail in hers, the bones as light as though they were filled with air, like a bird’s bone. She let a couple beats pass and then pressed, “How does this help James Potter at feeling better?”

Mopsus said, “Your Precious Seconds, Lily.”

“My precious seconds?”

“The ones you paid over the summer?” Mopsus replied, “In exchange for the ability to comfort James Potter in his time of tumult, you gave me Precious Seconds. Do you recall?”

The words from her dream echoed in her mind:

”It’ll cost you, Lily Evans.”

”Any cost, she answered boldly. “I’ll give anything I have.”

”Precious seconds, my dear,” Mopsus said. “It’ll cost you precious seconds.”

”What do you need them for?” Lily asked.

Mopsus replied, “It is not I who has need of them, but another who will use them well.”

”Take them,” she’d answered boldly, “Take as many as you need.”

“I recall,” she answered him now.

They’d reached the first stone tower and Lily helped Mopsus up a couple of short steps to a wall with no door and he reached into his cloak and withdrew his gnarled old wand, which he pressed to the heart of the stone before them, and, with some wordless magic, a door appeared before them, gold cutting through the stone wall to form the door the way it did for the Secret Meeting Room that James had shown her.

She stared at the door in awe as it came to and when it was finished, Mopsus said, “Now we enter.

They stepped inside and Lily looked around. The space within was much larger than one would have known from the outside. Shafts of light came down from seemingly endless air above them, and the walls were covered with clocks. Hundred and thousands of them, all ticking away, reading different times, stretching off into the sky like the shafts of light.

And to think she had been naive enough to believe that she had destroyed all of the clocks he owned back in forth year.

Stupid girl, she thought.

And then:

“How are you alive?”

Mopsus had taken back arm and he now stood at a stout counter - like an island in the room. Upon the counter, he laid the clock on the chain that he had shown Lily Evans back at the Lupin House.

“That is information that you do not need at this time,” he answered. “Come. The clock ticks slowly now already.”

Lily walked over to where he stood and watched as he lifted a little tool and gently lifted the face of the clock from it’s body, his old fingers trembling as they felt their way along over the clock. Lily felt as though she were seeing something private and exposed, like watching in on a delicate How he was doing it blindly, she did not know. The cogs and wheels were so delicate in size and nature, it felt as though even one wrong slip. She wondered what would happen if his hand did slip - but Despite his milky blindness, Lily could tell by the way his fingers slid across the tiny cogs and wheels that, in some way, he was seeing it.

“How can you --”

“Mopsus sees all,” he replied.

Lily watched as he carefully nudged one of the cogs that had nearly stopped moving, pushing it with his finger. “Not yet,” he whispered, and his voice was… almost gentle, coaxing, “Go on. Move along…” and he guided it with his long fingernail. “We are only just in time.”

“In time for what?”

Instead of answering, Mopsus said, “Over there, on the table there stands a gold clock beneath a bell jar. Bring it here.”

Lily frowned, frustrated by his lack of answers, and she turned about and went to the table. There were a great deal of clock and watches on a myriad of tables, but she spotted the gold one that he had requested fairly easily. The bell jar was lovely, and inside the gold clock had a component at the bottom that spun… twirling first one way as far as it could go and then back the other way as far as it could go. She watched it for a moment before collecting it and bringing it back to Mopsus.

Lily put the clock on the table.

Mopsus reached up and removed the bell jar carefully, placing it beside the clock. He lifted the little tool from the table and gently caressed the gold of the clock, and at his touch, Lily’s heart shivered in her chest and she saw the spinning component spin even more wildly quickly as well. Mopsus used the tool to pry open the face of the clock, exposing it’s cogs and wheels just as he’d done to the other.

His wand waved over the clocks and there was a golden light and seemed to slowly glow from them, blindingly bright, and Lily turned her face from it, in pain of the glaring light, though she peeked because she wanted to see what happened next.

The light seemed to hum, and there was a funny chill to the air… and the power coming from Mopsus’s wand seemed to hold onto the cog in the clock on the chain, white light wrapping about it’s notches, and the light curled and snaked through the air until it held onto the cog in the golden clock and she let out a gasp at the feeling of it. She could feel it in her chest as well as she could see it on the table.

Lily clutched the edge of the counter, her knees weak, and Mopsus murmured, “Have a seat.”

Lily sat, her heart feeling as though it were on fire. “Oh my gods,” she choked.

The cog in the golden clock stopped moving as the light wrapped itself about the notches the same as it had done to the chained one and the light glowed even brighter white and Lily squeezed her eyes shut tight against it and the pain in her chest.

“What are you doing?” she sobbed, feeling tears welling up inside her eyes.

“Taking precious seconds,” he answered, “And giving them to James Potter so that he has the time to live so that you can save his life.”

The light turned the cogs together, syncing their movements, until finally, the light’s brilliance died away and the two cogs moved, their ticking unanimous, each beat matched beat for beat, and the clenched feeling in her chest released and she caught her breath, staring at Mopsus, her eyes wet.

“Explain,” she whispered. “Explain what you’ve done.”

He said, “I have been pushing this cog for days, keeping it ticking when it ought to have stopped.”

Lily watched the cog ticking.

Mopsus looked up. “James Potter lies dying at the foot of the Dark Lord. Tortured day in and out, his life would have expired before you, or any of his rescuers, could have arrived. Even with my help, there was no hope. Your precious seconds have given him more time. Time enough for you to save him.”

Lily’s eyes were wide. “D - dying? At the hands of -- where? Where is he?”

Mopsus replied, “You shall seek him and you shall find him, and though he is shattered now you will find the power within yourself to mend him in his broken places.” He paused, then, “We will meet again, Lily.”

She stared at hm, “Where is James?”

“Go. And you will find him. Hurry. No time to waste. Your precious seconds keep him alive, but only for so long.”

“Will you tell me nothing more? You can see him, can you not? You see all… where is he?” Lily begged. “So that I can get to him in time.”

Mopsus stared at her. “Go north, my dear.” And he held out his hand and before she could ask another thing - CRACK - and the towers were gone and the warmth was gone and LIly found herself alone in the yard of the Lupin house, her breath coming out in great gasping clouds before her face as she spun, looking for the old man… but he was gone already.

Her heart beat wildly in her chest.

She imagined the cog turning in the clock just as fast...