Chapter 21

"Why would you leave him alone?" Chef Busy shouted.

"I didn't think anything would happen!" I yelled back.

"He could be dead by now!"

"I didn't mean for this to happen!"

"She doesn't always think of the consequences of her actions," my uncle butted in.

I glared at him. "What actions? I went back to the carriage!"

"You left my son alone!" Chef Busy roared. "He is missing now, and it's all your fault!"

"It is not my fault!"

"Yes, it is!"

"It is no one's fault," Chef Eleanor said quietly from her seat across from the headmaster's desk. She stood up and continued. "Rory thought Daniel was going back to the carriage right behind her. Do you expect the child to be a psychic? She had no idea what would happen to him. She saw nothing. Neither did any of the other students. Are you going to blame all of them for not eating their dinner quickly enough and leaving at the exact time that Daniel went missing? Are you going to blame Headmaster McGonagall for not trying to make Hogwarts even safer? That is probably not possible. And are you going to blame us for telling Daniel he was done with his work and telling him to go have fun? It was a chain of misfortunate events, and no one person's fault."

With that Chef Eleanor nodded to me and walked out of the room. Chef Busy, looking rather stunned, followed behind her. My uncle walked out of the room, too, leaving me alone with Headmaster McGonagall. She began responding to a letter without saying anything to me. After a few minutes I decided she did not want to talk so I started for the door to leave the office.

"The Order has made a decision," Headmaster McGonagall said. I turned to face her, even though she was still looking down at the parchment in front of her. "We would like you to focus on the final challenge and schoolwork until the end of the term. Giovanna will not make any major moves over the next four months, we're sure of it. We will keep an eye on her and do what we have been, but we do not want you helping us until the summer break."

I paused for a second to make sure she had nothing else to say before leaving. I walked through the empty halls of Hogwarts, my shoes clicking against the floor. I knew the people in their first classes of the day could hear my shoes. They either knew that it was me or could guess, especially since heads were already turned to look out some of the open doors to watch me as I walked by. I realized I was making quite an impression on some of the Hogwarts students during this tournament after some of the stuff that had happened that involved me.

Back in Potions I found Ursula had already started our assignment, and she was already her usual two steps ahead of everyone in the class. I helped her as we finished the potion. She is very picky so she would not let me do too much. We were the first to finish, which was not very shocking. We sat at our table in the back of the Potions classroom.

"Do they have any idea where Daniel is?" Ursula asked me in a very quiet voice I could hardly hear.

"No," I replied just as quietly.

She nodded. "I was going to say we should focus on the final challenge but that might be hard for you right now."

"No, a distraction would be good right now."

More like a distraction would be perfect. I could hardly bare to think of what could have happened to Daniel. What if he was not alive? What if they had killed him? And who could they be? Was it Giovanna's doing or someone else, maybe someone even worse? And what if he was still alive? Were they torturing him, or was he under an Imperius Curse?

"Really, really good," I breathed as the bell rang for us to go to our next class.

At lunch all anyone could talk about was the trip to Hogsmeade the next day. Headmaster McGonagall had considered canceling it but then decided to have more chaperones and changed the minimum grade level to fourth year instead of third year. I wished I could become more excited for the trip. Ursula was in the library looking up anything that could help with the final challenge or at least help us figure out what the final challenge could possibly be. I ate with James, Trudy, and Collin. Trudy and Collin were talking nonstop, practically completing each others sentences.

"Thank God you and Ursula aren't like that," I said to James.

"We're just friends," James said a little gloomily. I remembered he and Daniel had seemed to be pretty good friends.

"I feel horrible about it. I was with him. I thought he was going back to the carriage behind me, or into the castle, or-"

"But what difference would that have made?" James stabbed his fork into his meat crossly. "He would have made sure you were safe, then tried to fight whatever it was that took him." After biting the piece of meat he chewed it thoughtfully for a few seconds. "But…"

"But what?"

"Now, some smart-asses would try to tell you Daniel is stupid because he's never had proper schooling but they're the real idiots because he knew spells that sixth-years struggle with. If someone tried to kidnap him, they would have a pretty hard time doing so."

"What are you getting at, Magnia?" I felt now was a proper time to call him by his last name. It seemed like a pretty common thing to do at Hogwarts…

"What if someone didn't kidnap him?"

"Are you insisting that Daniel deliberately left, knowing perfectly well what a conundrum it would cause?"

"Yes, I think it is a possibility."

"Why would he do that?"

James shrugged, picking up another piece of meat. "I would be expecting you to know."

"Who, besides me, would you be expecting to know?"

"No one, I suppose."

I set my fork down, done with my meal. "I guess I would rather have had him run away than have him kidnapped. Where would he go, though?"

"I have absolutely no clue. What about you?"

I shook my head ruefully. "I have no clue, either, no clue at all."

Ursula, Trudy, and I squeezed through the door to get into Zonko's Joke Shop. Trudy immediately went to where there was a supply of the Puking Pastels. Ursula and I walked around for a little while as Trudy stocked up. Ursula stopped at a large barrel full of chocolate frogs. She filled a bag with some before moving into the next aisle where there was another barrel of jelly beans. I got a bag to fill up with some of the chocolate frogs. The huge crowd that had been around the barrel was moving on to the next one. As I began to fill the bag I looked around, surprised to see no one was in the aisle. I could still hear people screaming and talking all over the store, but there was an eerie feel to the emptiness in the aisle.

I tried to fill the bag quickly, afraid something bad might happen if I did not. I had just picked up a random chocolate frog when I noticed something where it had been. I paused for a second to take a closer look at the thing. It looked like the corner of a piece of parchment. I pushed aside a few other chocolate frogs until the entire corner of the parchment was revealed. I grabbed hold of it and pulled it out, looking at it intently. It was just a large, blank, folded up piece of parchment.

I heard someone rounding the corner. I quickly stuffed the paper into my canvas bag and carried my plastic bag of chocolate frogs up to the register. I paid for them before hurrying out of the store. Ursula caught up with me when I was halfway down the street. Trudy came running up on my other side a few minutes later. She fixed her glasses and braid before asking why I was in such a hurry.

"I'm just really hungry," I replied.

"Me, too," she said. "But it looks like the Three Broomsticks is closed."

The three of us looked at the pub to see that it was packed with people. We walked by about five other pubs, cafés, and restaurants to find they were all full of students, people, or teachers. We ended up going all the way into a shabbier part of Hogsmeade. The buildings were all old with peeling paint and crooked or broken signs, if they even had signs. Ursula seemed really scared as we walked into a small pub we found called Hog's Head. There was no one else in the pub except for the old man behind the counter. We took a seat in a booth near the door. The old man took his time cleaning out the glasses with a dirty rag before walking over to our booth.

"What can I get you ladies?" he asked without looking up from the glass he was cleaning.

"Three butterbeers," Trudy replied.

He walked away silently again. Something about him seemed kind of familiar but I could not quite put my finger on what it was. Trudy and I talked about Transfiguration and other trivial things as we waited for our butterbeers to arrive. Ursula was still silent, looking down at the table and glancing out the window nervously every now and then. The old man came over with our three butterbeers. He handed Ursula and Trudy theirs before giving me mine.

The man looked at me and almost dropped the butterbeer. I grabbed it swiftly before it could spill over. The old man quickly straightened up, scratching his beard as he looked at me again. "You look just like…" he trailed off, still looking at me. His blue eyes reminded me of someone else's.

"Who?" I asked quickly.

He shook his head. "You just look like a young person who used to come in here every now and then."

"Esmeralda Lynx?"

He started then thought for a second. "Yes, I suppose you do look like her. Actually, very much so, now that I think about it."

"She's my mother, that's why."
He nodded. "But your face…I could have sworn you looked like…"

My stomach flip-flopped. "Could have sworn I looked like who?"

He shook his head again. "No one, never mind. What would you ladies like to eat?"

We all ordered what we wanted. Trudy had to order for Ursula because she still did not look up or say anything. After we were done eating we decided to go to the nearby clothing store just to check out what they had. I needed a new sweatshirt and jeans anyway. As we were walking out of Hog's Head I looked back at the old owner. He was cleaning off the counter with the same dirty rag he had used to clean the glasses. He did not look up as we left to watch us go. I wanted to ask him to tell me honestly who he had thought I looked like. I knew there was no way he was going to tell me honestly who it was, though.

Coming so close to finding out who my father was only to be disappointed was a frequent happening in my life that I hated. Why was it so hard to tell me who my father really was? It was not like telling me who he was would hurt me. I wanted to know. That was when I realized why I probably had never been told who my father was. Maybe it was possible that it could hurt me if I knew. Was not telling me who my dad was my uncle's way of protecting me?