And here we are; the penultimate chapter. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has made some sort of contribution/suggestion/review or anything to the story. (I will be making a full thank you list on the next chapter) I can also officially announce that I have begun the planning for my next story and it will be posted after Sister's Of Magic is completed. I am still looking for a name though so any suggestions are still more than welcome.
Chapter 24
Severus awoke quickly, his eyes wide and gasping for breath. 'What a horrible nightmare.' He thought to himself. It was almost as if he had seen a scene from a horror film played out in front of his eyes. He dreamt that Rachel had been in a fight with another wizard. The said wizard had an accomplice who had quickly disarmed Rachel, before the other had fired a spell right in her direction. The bolt of green light hit her body square in the chest and as it bounced off her body and back towards the wizard who fired the spell, she fell to the ground. Her wand flew away from her body, but all Severus could look at was the body of his true love lying almost dead on the floor. That was when he woke up.
His sudden rise had alerted Frank who was sleeping in the bed next to him, and being the light sleeper Frank was, he also woke up.
"Sev mate, you ok?" Frank asked in the almost darkened room.
"Really bad dream." Severus said still trying to catch his breath. Frank reached out for his wand and quickly muttered the 'Lumos' spell to light the room. Severus had sweat running down his face, his skin was deathly white, and his eyes were huge.
"Mate you look like you just seen a ghost."
"I thought…" Severus tried to say, but the light from Frank's wand caused the others to also awaken and begin to moan.
"Turn it off!" James mumbled into his pillow. Sirius just grunted, and Remus sat up rubbing his eyes. He saw Severus and quickly got out of bed. Hearing Remus's footsteps James turned over in his bed and switched on the light by his bed, this now meant that all the boys could see Sev's deathly complexion and were instantly awake.
"Mate you ok?" They all asked.
"Nightmare…Rachel… Seemed real." Was all Severus managed to utter. His arm felt really warm as he looked down. His mark was clearly visible and it seemed to have become ever so slightly faded in colour.
"What's that?" James asked. The others looked at where James was now pointing. Frank and Remus knew instantly what it was and turned to look at Sev in amazement.
"I thought they were a myth." Frank mumbled.
"I need to see if Rachel's ok." Severus said and quickly clambered out of bed and rushed out of the room. The boys quickly followed trying to catch their friend before he did something silly.
"Sev!" Sirius called out as Severus ran towards the stairs leading up to the girl's dorms, before the stairs turned into a slide and he fell back into the common room.
"Damn, I forgot about that." Severus said as Remus helped him up.
"Look mate, she'll be fast asleep. It was a dream." Sirius added.
Suddenly the main door to the common room flew open and in stepped Professor McGonagall.
"Why are you all out of bed?" She asked her eyes transfixed on the boys.
"We're sorry Professor; Sev had a bad dream and just wanted to check Rachel was ok." James said.
"Miss Evans is fine, now all of you back to bed."
"Professor you don't understand." Sev quickly rushed to her and held out his arm. She took one look before something clicked in her mind.
"Wait here, I will check on Miss Evans."
McGonagall quickly hurried up the stairs to the dorm room she was interested in. Hoping and praying that what she was thinking hadn't happened; she pushed open the door to the room and went inside. Her hurrying and cause some noise which awoke Alice and Maddy. Both were confused as to why their teacher would be coming into their room so early in the morning. McGonagall took one look around the room, before her eyes fell on Rachel's bed; her empty bed.
"Miss Francis, Miss Cross, wake you fellow room mates immediately." She said before hurrying into the bathroom, to check on one was in there. It too was empty. By the time she emerged Lily and Tonks were awake and rubbing their eyes.
"What?" Tonks mumbled. McGonagall wasted no time.
"Have any of you seen Miss Evans?" Lily looked confused.
"I'm here."
"Your sister."
"She's there." Lily said pointing to Rachel's bed, when she too noticed it was empty. In that second she was wide awake.
"Where's my sister?"
"That is what we need to find out. Grab your wands and follow me." She said before rushing out the room again. The girls did as they were told, and hurried after their teacher.
They found the boys standing in the common room, waiting and watching the stair case. When they saw the girls coming down, minus Rachel, they began to panic.
"Where is she?" Sirius asked.
"She's not with you?!" Lily asked horrified as James hugged her.
"When was the time any of you saw Rachel Evans?" McGonagall demanded. The group all began to talk at once.
"One at a time!"
"It was after the ball." James said.
"We were chatting in here, when we decided to go to bed." Alice added.
"Rachel and the girls went to their rooms after we said goodnight." Frank said.
"We talked for a bit." Maddy said.
"And we had a pillow fight." Tonks added.
"Before we all went to sleep." Lily said.
"Did anyone hear anything, anything at all?" McGonagall said with a hint of desperation in her voice. The all shook their heads.
"Wait!" Alice said suddenly. The group stared at her. "I did hear something. I went to go to the loo earlier, and just as I was drifting back to sleep, I thought I heard someone get up. I opened my eyes, but I couldn't see anything, so I thought nothing of it and went to sleep."
"What time saw this?"
"About 4 I think?"
"I know Rach get's up early, but I think 4 is a little too early for her." Maddy added.
McGonagall stood thinking for a second.
"Come with me all of you, we need to find Professor Dumbledore."
The group quickly left the tower with McGonagall sending her patronus of a cat ahead to awaken Dumbledore. By the time they reached his office the said wizard was standing outside waiting for them. He too looked worried.
"Minerva, I got your message. You say Miss Evans is missing?"
"Well I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but she's not in her dorm." Dumbledore looked around and noticed that the light was beginning to creep over the sky to signal the start of the new day.
"Children, we will split into groups and search the castle. Then once we can see better and ore of the staff are awake, we will search the grounds of the castle." Dumbledore saw the worry in the group's eyes.
"Don't worry, we will find her." He said.
By the time the rest of the students awoke the Maurders had search most of the inside of the castle. Dumbledore had alerted the portraits and they too were searching for Rachel. The portraits that he seen her that morning helped all they could to aid in search, and the ghosts and house elves had taken it upon themselves to search many parts of the castle which inaccessible to others. By breakfast there was still no sign of Rachel anywhere. Dumbledore told the group to and change into something warm and report to the Great Hall for breakfast. He would an announcement to the students and staff then, and then they would continue the search. Lily and Severus were very reluctant to stop searching, it took the rest of the group to convince them that they couldn't function on an empty stomach, and as the day was evolving, it was turning out to be a cold day.
The group were silent as they entered the Great Hall. Dumbledore and McGonagall had alerted the staff, and as they entered the room, the students saw that something was wrong instantly. The chatter stopped and all heads turned to headmaster as he rose to his podium.
"I will keep this announcement short. During the night one of students went missing." Whispers began to circulate around the room, and heads turned trying to see who was missing.
"I do understand that you all will probably have plan for today, but it would be greatly appreciated if any of you would be able to help in the search." Clara, the seventh year Hufflepuff prefect, raised her hand.
"We in Hufflepuff will all help to find the missing student." She said her voice ringing clear.
"As will the Ravenclaws." Another prefect stated.
"Who's missing?" Asked one of the Slytherin's.
"Miss Rachel Evans, of Gryffindor house." Came McGonagall's short reply. The room stared at the Maurders. Lily buried her face into James jumper, whilst the others just looked blank. A few of the Slytherin's refused to join the search, but surprisingly most of them volunteered to search, including Narcissa and Lucius.
"All those who wish to join the search, will you please return to your dorms and change into something warm, and report back here in 20 minutes."
20 minutes later, the Great Hall was filled student, all from different years and houses. Each head of house took control of their students.
The first through to the fourth year Hufflepuff's and Ravenclaws, were to search the castle again from top to bottom. Professor's Flitwick, Sprout and Slughorn volunteered to stay behind along with the Librarian Miss Pince and the Caretaker Argus Filch.
Professor Hooch took all of the students involved in the Quidditch teams out on brooms to search from the sky, along with Professor Siniatra, the astronomy professor who herself had once been an excellent flyer.
Professor James, the current DADA professor and the rest of the first through to fourth year students began to search the grounds of the castle along with Professor Vector, the Arithmancy teacher, and some of the house elves.
Hagrid took the seventh years into the forbidden forest along with Professor Burbage, the Muggle studies teacher, and they began to search. Fang and Buckbeak came too and helped as much as they could.
McGonagall took the rest of the students down to Hogsmead.
The ghosts and portraits also took to searching wherever they could, along with the other House elves acting as messengers running and disapperating between the groups.
Dumbledore stayed with the Marauders in his office.
Through out the day patronus'es came in and out of the office, along with house elves, ghosts, students and teachers. But still no word came about Rachel. Dumbledore had alerted the ministry when lunch time came around and there was still no word. William, Elizabeth and Petunia Evans had been gotten and they currently sat in the headmaster's office hugging Lily and her friends. For the whole day Severus wouldn't say a word. Dumbledore had explained to the group about the Soul Marks, and although they were shocked that they had been kept in the dark, they understood why.
By night fall there was still no sign of Rachel anywhere and the students had begun returning to the castle.
"We can't give up!" Elizabeth Evans cried. "My baby is out there somewhere." William held his wife.
"Darling they are doing everything they can." The auror's had arrived and had begun searching the air for any magical trace, when Mad Eye Moody entered the room. His face looked grim.
"What have you found?" William asked.
"We have located a weak trace which suggests Rachel made have moved over to another location."
"What do you mean? I thought you couldn't apperate out of Hogwarts." Maddy said.
"Not apperated, but was moved. It appears there was a trans-dimensional vortex opened which Rachel has more than likely crossed over into."
"So she could be anywhere?" Petunia asked, her voice quivering. Lily just burst into tears, and James just took his girlfriend into his arms. The group crowded around her, Sev and Rachel's family. Together they cried for the friend and sister they had lost.
Over the summer the group stayed at the castle along with their respective family members and spent day after day searching for Rachel. The graduation ceremony was covered by a cloud of darkness and sadness over their fallen friend. Dumbledore had promised to keep Rachel's graduation certificate in his office until the day she would return. Sybil Trelawney the divination professor kept repeating a prophecy she had had, stating that like Potens, Rachel would one day return and all would be right again.
And there we go. I hope I haven't upset any of my readers. So one more chapter to go and then that's it. My reviews currently stand at 77 and I would love to get to 80 reviews by the time I begin my next story. For those of you waiting to get another chapter of my NCIS story, I am trying to update, but I have a serious case of writer's block. Anyway please please please please read and review and I will update with the final chapter very soon.
Thank you, Beth xx