Chapter 24: Disappearances

To: Jem1

From: mylifesprotagonist

I need to meet you at the doorway tomorrow, we have a lot of research to do. I tried to ask you when you were getting of the train, but I couldn't catch you on your own. See you tomorrow at lunch?

-MC

To: mylifesprotagonist

From: Jem1

Of course, I was hoping to talk to you too. How are we going to reveal this surprise? This is an amazing discovery. We could probably get a ton of house points from all of the teachers - and we'd be set in terms of grades. Not to mention we'd be doing everyone a favor. I can't wait to hear your reveal Ideas. I don't think I'll be able to resist telling someone for much longer. Also, what do you mean by research? I thought we were done. The project is over, there's nothing left to do, is there?

-Jonas

To: Jem1

From: mylifesprotagonist

There's always more to learn my friend. I'll explain it to you when we meet, I promise. We'll have a lot of time to talk. Don't worry about the reveal, we'll talk about that too.

-MC

To: mylifesprotagonist

From: asilentwhisper

Again, using your unnecessary fake email to talk to you when I just saw you yesterday. What's your plan with Jonas? You can't keep him in the dark much longer. I'm not sure he'll agree with what we're doing. I'm not sure I agree with what we're doing, even though I'm a central part of it. Just, please don't do anything too bad. Checked on the subject though, he seems to be okay, although not happy.

Love you.

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Daisy had not been expecting to be relieved to be back at Hogwarts. After being homesick for so long, why would she be? But even after most of her family had expressed their support, Daisy knew that things would never be the same, all because of her. Her grandmother had gone to retrieve some of her belongings from her shared house with Vernon Dursley, who had convinced her to stay - although Petunia still ended up spending most nights away from home in order to spend time with Poppy and Daisy.

Before, she had truly wanted Poppy to be able to join her at Hogwarts, but now she wasn't so sure. Would it be better for Poppy to be separated from her family and muggle friends, or her one sister in the magical world?

It seemed like Jonathan had the best of both worlds. His family all knew and were okay with his magic. He hadn't had many muggle friends to begin with, having been homeschooled most of his life before Hogwarts. His best friend would be arriving only the next year. In response to questions about break, he had an enthusiastic answer.

"We went skiing! It was great, I'd never been before. I was pretty good at it too, I think. I was better than my mum, at least," He said. "What'd you do, Sophie?"

"Nothing as great as that. I just relaxed with my, uh, siblings I guess. Daisy?"

Daisy explained how she had spent part of her time at her grandparents', part of her time at home, part of her time at a friend's house (Emma's house), and the last day at the Potter's House. Here Lily would have interjected to talk about her vacation, but the morning math class only included first years from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.

"And what about Jasper?," Daisy asked, swivelling around in her seat to search for him.

"Back table, get back to your studies!" Professor Finch scolded.

Daisy ducked down and started to try and focus on finding the area of the box, but looked at her friends for an answer.

"He's with Hugo, over there," Jonathan said, jerking his head to his left. "They met up over break, and it seems like they're really good friends now."

"Oh," murmured Daisy, remembering how Jasper had seemed to gradually fade into the distance the past semester. It made sense.

"Did you three manage to get anything done during class?" Mr. Finch asked sternly. It was only by luck he hadn't already passed by their table. A student on the opposite side of the room had been brought to tears by frustration, and he had spent most of the practice part of the class helping her.

"I'm finished," Sophia told him, handing him her paper. "A bit time consuming, but it wasn't too difficult."

Jonathan followed suit and turned in his paper, but Daisy requested time to complete it as homework. Math wasn't a strength of hers, and she hadn't exactly been focusing on her work during this particular class.

On the way out she tripped over another student's foot.

"Sorry," Daisy yelped. When she looked up she realized it was the same Ravenclaw students she had run into at one of the quidditch matches. A rather short girl with brown hair, and a slim boy with dark hair, both appearing to be sixth or seventh year. This time, they seemed to be in a heated argument, and hadn't even noticed Daisy as she bent over to pick up her dropped math homework.

"I told you before, Jonas, I just want a little bit more time! Isn't it kind of fun knowing something no one else does?" The girl said.

"Not really, not when we've known for so long. It's time to share! It's a great discovery. If you don't tell someone this week, I will, with or without you, Mal," growled the boy.

Daisy scampered off to catch up with Sophia. Whatever was going on with them, it didn't relate to her.

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"And they really didn't seem to notice me!" whispered Daisy. "They just kept on talking, I mean - Merlin's beard, were they blind?"

The girls giggled at Daisy's short tale. Everyone was back in the dorm now, and the first year girls of Hufflepuff house had decided to have a sleepover. That is, to have some fun and talk as a group before they went to bed.

It had been Regina's idea to push all the beds together. The girls had soon found that the beds weren't moveable, although whether they were magically held in place, or if they were just to heavy for five first years to move was unknown. In the end, they had pulled four of the mattresses off of the beds, and now sat in a close circle together on the floor. Golden pillows were thrown across the mattresses, leaving no one sure which way they were supposed to lay down, but no seemed to care.

"What do you think they were talking about?" Sophia asked.

"Probably hidden treasure," said Emily sarcastically. The oldest of the girls, having been twelve since October, had her face buried in one of the pillows, and kept saying she was trying to sleep. But Emily never failed to say something when the conversation got interesting.

"Maybe there's actually two giant squid, and nobody's seen both except them. Or maybe, they found a crumple-horned snorkack," suggested Laura.

"Laura, nobody even knows if that creature exists," Sophia told her.

"Exactly. Maybe they found proof."

Everyone laughed, even Laura. None of the other girls were entirely sure Laura believed the stuff she told them, only that she lived near the Scamanders' place, and they certainly did.

Daisy took the opportunity to change the subject. She hadn't thought that anyone would actually take interest in her story - she had meant for only Sophia to hear, but when she noticed the others listening, she had added a lot more drama than there had actually been. She couldn't help feeling a little guilty about sharing this information that wasn't hers.

"I heard you went to the Christmas Dance, Regina," Daisy said. The other girls turned to look at Regina, who smiled. The Christmas Dance was an unofficial school dance held every Christmas Holiday in the Great Hall. The event was student organized, but given permission once students had pointed out that not everyone would ever get the chance to go to the official Yule Ball which was only held during the Triwizard Tournament. You had to be a fourth year or above to go, unless you were invited by someone eligible. First years rarely got the chance.

"Yeah, my brother invited me after his date had to go home for the Holidays," Regina told them. She showed them a picture of her in brilliant green dress robes, apparently inherited from an 'Aunt Maisie'*, and holding the arm of an older boy that looked like he could be her brother. "It was fun," she said, "But there weren't any other first years I knew."

From there the conversation went to who everyone would have wanted to go to the dance with (the prefect Tobias was a popular option) to what kind of magical creature they would all like to meet (a tie between nifflers and unicorns). Eventually the conversation slowed, and everyone fell asleep.

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"You look tired," Jonathan told Sophia and Daisy at breakfast the next morning. The girls shared a look before Sophia answered.

"Yeah, I suppose we didn't get as much sleep as we should have."

"You definitely didn't," Jonathan snickered. "Sophie has nearly run into at least three people since entering the Great Hall, and Daisy, did you even try to brush your hair? There's a piece of paper tied up in it."

Daisy blushed as he reached over to pull something out of her hair, but was quickly distracted by someone else. Margo Wood was rushing around the Hufflepuff table with an anxious look on her face.

"Margo!" Daisy waved. Her voice wasn't loud, but the older girl heard her and came over. She looked just as untidy as Daisy did. Her brown hair, usually braided down to her waist, hung loosely around her, and it looked as if some of the jam from her toast had gotten caught in it. "What's wrong?" Daisy asked.

"I can't find Eliza," she said. "You haven't happened to see her, have you? She was supposed to meet with me last night before curfew, but she never turned up, and I can't find her now either!"

Daisy frowned. "Sorry, I haven't seen her." Jonathan and Sophia shook their heads as well when they were asked.

"Thanks anyway." Margo dashed away from them and was joined by Albus and a few of Eliza's Gryffindor friends.

"Well, I hope there's a good explanation for this," Daisy told her friends. None of them knew Eliza or Margo particularly well, but the disappearance of a student was concerning.

Unfortunately, it did look like something had gone wrong. The news that Eliza was missing spread through the school faster than any normal rumor, and soon another one joined it. A seventh year Ravenclaw boy, Jonas, had also gone missing. At first some people seemed to be under the impression that they had just run off somewhere, but they would be fine, and were surely together, but as the day passed on and neither one made an appearance, that seemed less and less likely. There was also the fact that no one could remember ever seeing the two together - they might not even have known each other.

Coming out of her last class for the day, Daisy was surprised to see all of the students heading in the same direction.

"What do you thinks going on?" one of the other first years asked.

One of the Slytherin prefects turned up and started to shepherd them in the direction of the crowd. "No one knows, but we're all supposed to go to the Great Hall for an announcement."

When they arrived in the Hall, everyone was required to sit at their House table, like they were at dinners. Daisy found herself squished into a seat between Sophia and Jasper, just like old times. Except no one was chattering and laughing. People all around them spoke in whispers, and even the older students seemed to be confused.

"If I could have your attention please!" Professor McGonagall stood at the head table looking stern-faced and confident, but Daisy thought she could see a hint of worry in her face. "As many of you have heard, two students went missing sometime yesterday evening."

Daisy looked down the table at Margo who had her head down trying to hide her puffy eyes from the glances.

"We do not believe that any of you are in danger," McGonagall continued, " But we'd like to get this cleared up as soon as possible. The best way to do this is to search the castle, without the intervention of students. We have already had the heads of houses check the dormitories for the students, so at the end of this speech, if prefects would please lead their Houses to their common rooms. In the meantime, students should remember that on ordinary evenings they are not to wander the grounds without teacher permission! Going into the Forbidden Forest is as it has always been - forbidden. If this whole event turns out to have been an orchestrated stunt, or a result of rule breaking, punishment will follow. Innocent pranks are -" McGonagall inhaled, searching for a word, "tolerable, but bringing the whole school into the matter is not. But rest assured, if there truly is a danger to any of you, we will take care of it immediately. Dinner will be served in the common rooms, thank you for cooperating!"

The Headmistress had to yell the last words, as students were already getting up to leave. The silence instilled at the beginning had disappeared and been replaced with nervous chatter. Some people were downright terrified - Daisy walked past a first-year Slytherin who was practically shaking in fear. Others looked irritated or bored, such as th Castle sisters. Daisy spotted Chloe complaining about missing choir practice and dragging Bella behind her. Most people just tried to act normally, but were betrayed by wary expressions or nervous laughter.

When the bubble of Hufflepuff students reached the entrance to their common room, there appeared to be a hold up, and at first Daisy was worried that something else had happened. As they slowly approached the door, however, they could see that it was just Professor Sawyer, their head of house, taking attendance as students went past her. The middle-aged witch looked seriously at each student, seeming to look for signs that anything was out of the ordinary, and apparently was failing to find any.

After passing through the entrance, Daisy was surprised at what she saw. All of the common room's normal tables and chairs had been pushed to the sides of the rooms, and students everywhere were bringing in pillows and blankets from their dorm rooms.

"What - what is this?" She whispered, too softly for anyone to hear her over all of the other voices. Daisy watched as the room was transformed into a massive bedroom with room for everyone to sleep. She maneuvered her way over to where the rest of the first years had put their stuff, and lay down next to Sophia.

"It's amazing, isn't it?"

Daisy knew exactly what she meant. In the midst of what some people would consider scary, members of the Hufflepuff house had managed to make the most of it, creating a room where fun was expected, not fear. Even Arianne Carver, who had looked incredibly distressed at the news that people were missing was joining in. Daisy spotted her laughing as she passed out pillows with Tobias. Daisy felt her worry slip away for the most part as she listened to stories older students told to them as they sat doing their homework before nightfall. It was Hogwarts after all, what could go wrong in a place as magical as this one?

*Daughter of Mary and Reginald Cattermole from DH. Maisie isn't actually her aunt, as the ages wouldn't match up, but she is a cousin.

Hello! If you liked that chapter, please do write a review, I love hearing your thoughts and predictions!

To people that do this, I'm so sorry I'm ridiculously lazy about getting back to people. Not sure if any of you have the app, but I can't seem to send messages on it to anyone that doesn't also have the app, and I just never go open up the website in my browser. So here's a few short replies to people who reviewed previous chapters.

JayBat: Thank you for your approval :). Petunia/Dudley/Harry reconciliations are some of my favorite too, there's just so much potential in those relationships. Emma becoming friends with a Potter or Weasley has definitely passed my mind a few times, though I'm not sure that would happen in Daisy's first year. Who knows though, you might just get your Albus/Emma friendship!

Moxie333: It would be interesting if Dudley played a sort of 'JK Rowling' and wrote everything down, but he never seemed the 'lets sit down and write a book' type to me. I can definitely picture him retelling the stories though.

lucybredeson: Aww thanks! I always love fanfiction that I just can't put down, and I'm glad you felt this way about my story! Unfortunately, I don't have immediate plans for bringing the Potter boys more into the story, but I'll definitely think about your request.

Lisa Cooper: I really do appreciate your feedback. You're one of my most consistent reviewers, and always have good information on what you liked and didn't like, which is great!

And to the guests that reviewed: Thank you so much! Although I can't reply to you directly, I see you there and your comments are just as much encouragement. One of you asked if there would be a mystery to solve, and I hope this chapter answered that question for you. To RS who suggested Hermione teach muggle studies, thanks for your input! I don't think I will have Hermione in this position, but I appreciate the suggestion.