Miss Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

"I'm not contrary! And I hate plants. You know I barely scraped an A in my Herbology OWL last year," she would pout.

Sirius hummed as he approached the common room. He hadn't seen his disagreeable girlfriend all day and he was in need of affection as her fleeting goodnight kiss from the previous day faded from his cheek.

The Gryffindor common room was littered with students, but not the familiar blonde mop he was looking for.

"Miller!" He called over to the dark-haired girl who shared a dormitory with Mary MacDonald. "Is Mary up there?" He asked with a charming smile, looking for a favor.

"Haven't seen her all day," she was shaking her head. "We thought she skived off with you."

"She wasn't in class?" Mary was younger than him - just a year - although you'd never know it. She flitted from social groups years above and below, across house lines. But that also meant they didn't share any classes.

Where had she gone off to? He was the troublemaker in this relationship, barely making it back to the common room that night when his detention (with Filch, the git) ran over. He climbed the stairs to his own dormitory, he knew he would be able to locate her with the map. His head jolted back as he was welcomed into the 7th year Gryffindor boy's dormitory with a sock thrown straight into his eye.

"Oi!"

Peter had just charged forward at Remus (who had hurled the dirty sock) and held him in a headlock, wrestling like a pair of cubs. "Padfoot! Tell Moony to stop calling my mum leggy!"

"Your mum is leggy, Wormtail, we don't know what happened with you." Remus was laughing at Sirius' biting humor through Peter's grip.

"Where's the map? I can't find MacDonald," he asked as they continued to wrestle. The room was a mess and he was filtering through laundry, sweets wrappers, and half finished Potions essays in the space between James' bed and his, kicking rubbish aside.

"Is she dodging you already?" Remus said, breaking free from Peter.

"Good for her," Peter supplied.

The three laughed as he stuck his head under the bed. "Prongs took it for rounds," Remus finally explained as their brawl fizzled out.

"It's so he can snog Evans all hours of the night and still catch a Slytherin out of bed when they manage to come up for air." Sirius barked a laugh and rolled his eyes. He was already pulling out the mirror.

"Oi Prongs," he was calling into it, "put your tongues away!"

Shadows shifted in the mirror as James fished it out of his robes. When his face appeared, he was not mirroring the jovial look Sirius had on (reckon Sirius is rather "contrary" too), because James Potter, in fact, had a more serious expression than his best friend's name.

"Not now Padfoot, we've got a prefect missing," he said, apprehensive.

"Who?" Sirius asked, curious.

"McKinnon. Lily's upset, we've been watching the map for 15 minutes but she was supposed to be here at quarter-to."


Dorcas Meadowes is the top student in sixth year. Dorcas Meadowes does not miss class. Yet, her absence from first period Charms was not glaringly obvious until second period, when Regulus Black was lacking a Potions partner.

"Is she ill?" Professor Slughorn asked, also finding her absence odd.

"I don't know, sir," he replied. He would later wander into the hospital wing after lunch, looking for his prefect counterpart. The only two occupying the first floor infirmary was the older boy he knew as Remus Lupin and another, smaller, male figure.

He paced in an empty corner of the cavernous Slytherin common room. Dorcas being absent past dinner was oddly chilling. As the threat of a civil war mounted, the tension in the atmosphere had pervaded the school. Mulciber's burnt robes, his own brother's bloodied lip, the mark on his arm. Where was Dorcas Meadowes?


"Shame about Bones," a fifth year Ravenclaw boy tutted at his house table in the Great Hall.

Amelia Bones, the athletic Hufflepuff beauty, was the first to be reported missing. She didn't show up for her early Quidditch practice in the October fog. Her friends and teammates asked Professor Sprout if she had been excused for the day. She had not.

"FOUR HOGWARTS STUDENTS MISSING FROM THEIR BEDS" read the Prophet's front page the next morning. Dumbledore was furious. What had been at best a case of teenage delinquency was now a sensationalized panic piece.

Once the portraits had finished searching the castle, the staff took to the grounds. Parents were contacted. Detectives from the Auror Office were expected that morning for a thorough sweep of the castle.

It was the best-selling edition of the Prophet to date.