Chapter 31: Peace Returns

Over the next couple of days, Daisy found herself seated on a growing chair of popularity. People, including older students she had never spoken to before, offered their congratulations and tried to weasel some small fragment of information from her. Daisy, as instructed, kept her mouth shut. In fact, they all had.

Even without any leaks of information, people still came up with their own explanations, many of which were close to the truth. People usually guessed that Malia had tried to abduct Daisy and Jonathan, just as she had the others, but in this version of the story, one of them had an extra wand up their sleeve and attacked Malia when she wasn't looking. Others hypothesized that Daisy was secretly trained in Muggle martial arts and had fought with her bare hands while Jonathan got the wands and freed the others.

In all versions of the story, Malia was the main villain, an obvious conclusion as she had left with the Aurors. Arianne was also either a sidekick, or an unwilling helper that turned good in the end, something people guessed by the fact that she was Malia's sister and no longer a prefect.

A few evenings later, McGonagall did offer an official report of events to the entire student body, but the account didn't include any reasoning behind the events and did not fully explain what the Room of Inquiry was.

"Why don't we check out the Room of Requirement since we're here?" Jonathan asked. They were just walking through the seventh-floor corridor again, and any change in subject was a welcome one to Daisy. Sophia hadn't been content with any amount of detail Daisy had told and retold her.

"You think of a place first," Daisy said. Daisy and Sophia stopped in front of the empty wall as Jonathan paced the floor three times, and stopped.

No door appeared.

"I guess I must have done something wrong," Jonathan murmured. He repeated his pacing, and again, no door.

Daisy walked past him to make her own request from the room. Show me home. I need to be back home, she thought repetitively, her eyes near shut so that only a small bit of the floor was visible between her eyelashes.

Daisy's eyes fluttered open again, and she looked at the wall confusedly. "Why isn't anything there? We are in the right corridor, right?"

"This is the same one as before," Sophia nodded. "So, what are the conditions for the room to turn up?"

No one spoke for a moment, as a few other students passed through the corridor without looking at the three first years staring at a blank wall.

"You have to walk past it three times, and think really hard about a place," Daisy said. "We did that."

Sophia nodded and continued on the path of pacing on her own just as Jonathan and Daisy had done.

"I guess you're missing something, then," she said when the door still didn't appear.

They shrugged it off and left the corridor, heading towards the Great Hall. For the first time in more than a week, Daisy's mind wasn't on the recent events of disappearance. Why hadn't the room showed up? It couldn't have been destroyed. Something with such powerful magic couldn't just fall apart.

"You lot look cheerful," came the sarcastic words. Albus seemed to be walking on his own towards the dungeon. His school bag was still slung over his shoulder, and an old piece of parchment was held folded in his hand.

Jonathan and Sophia looked at each other before turning to Daisy. Neither of them had ever really conversed with the older student for longer than was necessary to say 'hello' or 'excuse me,' or in Jonathan's case 'you don't need to thank me, we worked as a team,' when the group of them had been stuck in the hospital wing together.

Daisy shrugged. "We just came from the Room of Requirement. We couldn't get in. You wouldn't have happened to be in there, would you?"

Albus shook his head. "What did you want to go in there for?"

"Just for fun." If fun was the word for it. Daisy wasn't sure what the others had been looking for in the room, but she knew she hadn't just been going for the enjoyment. No student had been allowed into the Room of Inquiry since it was found by the staff, and no student would be allowed in until the search of the room had been completed. Somehow, Daisy had connected seeing the Room of Requirement to seeing the Room of Inquiry. It was as if she had expected the room to give her answers to the questions she hadn't asked yet.

"Well, the room can be fun, but just keep in mind that it gives you places you need, not just places you feel like going to," Albus said.

"Oh." That was what they had been missing. Daisy wasn't homesick anymore, she didn't feel lost, she wasn't so full of tension that she needed to be home. Hogwarts was her second home now. And Jonathan and Sophia? Daisy could only guess that their requests hadn't made it into the needs category either.

"So," Daisy said, realizing she hadn't really responded to Albus after drifting off into her own thoughts. "What brings you here?"

"I had to go pick up my textbook. I left it in charms earlier. Speaking of charms, I really do need to go study. Have you talked to Flitwick about your lessons yet?"

"Not yet, but he has been busy lately."

Albus nodded. "Well, I hope that goes well. And here - you probably haven't seen this yet, I got an early issue. Give it a read." He handed over a magazine labeled The Quibbler.

Daisy moved to stand between Jonathan and Sophia as they read the first story.

Student Reaches New Level of Evil - or Kindness?

By Dominique Weasley and Merlynn Swift

This past couple of weeks, parents may have gotten some alarming owls from students about the events taking place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Parents and family should be thrilled to hear that the missing student cases have indeed been solved - but not, as expected - by the castle staff or the ministry's Aurors.

Daisy Dursley (to see more about Dursley-Potter history, see page 5) and Jonathan Clavis, both age 11, solved the case on their own. Whether parents will find it an act of bravery or extreme recklessness, the two first years followed a student they found suspicious and ended up locating a Hogwarts treasure.

One would have thought that there would be some historical record of a secret library designed by Rowena Ravenclaw herself, causing some to doubt the authenticity of such a place, but it does exist. Earlier this year, the room was found by Jonas Kreifels, age 18, and Malia Carver, age 17. When Jonas refused to keep the place secret, he became the first of the abductees.

But why would a seventeen-year-old girl want to kidnap other students? Further questioning revealed that she was, in fact, searching for something even more precious - something to cure all diseases. The students were not taken at random. Both Miss Wood and Mr. Potter were chosen as likely candidates to draw out phoenix tears. As well as saving her own mother from cancer…

The article went on to debate muggle relations, wizard medicine, and ethics, bringing Daisy's own thoughts to the table. Why didn't wizards provide help in finding solutions to muggle diseases? They had a gift to help people, surely they could use it to save lives. There had to be a way of doing this without exposing the Wizarding World to the public. There just had to be.

"At last, a satisfactory description of what happened, and from people who weren't even there," Sophia sighed. "Who'd you think they got this information from?"

"It could have been anyone," Jonathan pointed out. "We had to keep the secret until McGonagall announced what happened, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone accepted an interview since then."

Having reached a conclusion, the three met each other's eyes and let out a bubble of relieved laughter.

"Second year will be so boring," Sophia said between laughs.

Jonathan shook his head. "We'll find a way to make it interesting."

~0~

Daisy knocked lightly on the door to Professor Flitwick's office. It was open, and she could see the small man pouring over some papers stacked on his desk, but she didn't think it would be polite to just step in.

Flitwick looked up. "Ah, Miss Dursley! Thank you for coming, do come in."

Daisy stepped in. The room was simply decorated, a desk at its center surrounded by stone walls upon which hung framed portraits and other painted scenery. A bookcase stood in front of one wall, and on the opposite side of the room was a door, presumably leading to Flitwick's sleeping quarters.

"Take a seat," he said. "Would you like a cupcake?" He opened a drawer to the side and lifted a vanilla cupcake out with his wand.

"Thank you -" Daisy giggled as the cupcake danced its way across the desk to her outstretched palm.

Flitwick smiled at her kindly. "As you might have guessed, I invited you here to talk about future lessons with you. As there isn't a whole term left this year, and you will soon be taking your first ever exams here, I thought that it might be best to start when school resumes in September. Do you have any thoughts on this?"

Daisy shook her head. It still seemed such a strange idea to her that Flitwick would want to take the time to give her private lessons. She had no problems with him deciding when they would start.

"Good. I thought that perhaps it would be good to inform your parents of our plan as well. I can stop by during the summer if that would be convenient for you."

Daisy nearly spat out her bite of cake. A teacher stopping by to talk to her parents? Full wizard robes and all? Yes, McGonagall had visited during the summer, but somehow that seemed such a different experience. Harry had been there to smooth everything over.

Although, after all this time, there really shouldn't be a problem with her parents and a wizard.

"I think that would be okay," she said. She crossed and uncrossed her fingers once behind the desk, hoping that she was right.

"Then, unless you have any questions, you can go."

Daisy thanked the professor and then left to go back to the Hufflepuff common room. It was her turn to water their room's plants that day, and she would need to do it before she forgot.

Daisy had, at last, passed the stage of dreading going out into the halls for fear of running into more people that wanted to congratulate her and see her try a bit of wandless magic. The response to the news article that Albus had shown her had been one more of debate than amazement. People would get together and have arguments on whether Malia's act had been forgivable or not.

"We shouldn't have to deal with Muggle problems," Bella Castle had announced at breakfast that morning, sparking a House-wide debate on medical procedures, the Statute of Secrecy, and Blood status. No one had won, and teachers had to break up arguing students to get them to class.

All in all, Daisy was glad most Hufflepuffs seemed to agree that the debate should remain outside the common room. When she reached her dormitory, it was quiet. Only Regina was there studying for exams.

"I left the watering can next to the door yesterday." She pointed, and Daisy went to fetch it.

One of the plants she had to take care of was not a single living thing, but a forest in miniature. The trees were Sophia's. Each only a couple inches high, they mimicked the natural cycle of trees. When Sophia had brought them to school after Christmas Holiday, Daisy had been at a loss as to what use a bunch of dead tiny shrubs could be, but as spring arrived, the trees grew little buds of green. Each one reflected the state of the trees outdoors, and by the time final exams came around, not one remained bare of leaves.

The final Quidditch match of the year was played, revealing Hufflepuff as the victors by only ten points. Daisy hadn't gotten to play in any of the real matches, but she was congratulated in her effort anyway.

"You did an amazing job this year, Daisy," Margo had said, wrapping her arms around Daisy. Daisy hugged her back, and at first, couldn't see who's arms wrapped around her from behind.

"I doubt you're good enough to keep Gryffindor from winning next year," Eliza teased, "But you're amazing anyway. Keep it up, girl."

Accalon Applebee reached over Margo's shoulder to give Daisy a high five. The seventh-year boy had achieved his goal of winning a Quidditch cup before he graduated and hadn't stopped beaming since.

"Don't listen to Eliza," he said. "I know you'll do a great job when you replace me as keeper next year."

Final exams arrived as well, bringing everyone back to their senses from all the wildness of Quidditch. First-year exams weren't a big deal, Daisy knew, but she came out of each one feeling proud of herself anyway. She guessed that she had aced the Charms tests, as well as Potions. Most of her other classes, she felt she did pretty well in. Her only doubts were in Defense Against the Dark arts, where she had been dismayed to find that she hadn't been able to recall most of the test answers, and Math, a subject in which she rarely did well in, even in the Muggle world.

"Do you know when we get our marks back?" Daisy had asked Lily after their Defense Against the Dark Arts Exam.

"Sometime this summer. I wouldn't worry about it. Marks as a first year don't determine anything, and you work so hard that you can't have failed.

Daisy bit her lip. "You never know. I could have missed something."

Lily only laughed and shook her head. "You underestimate your own skill. You shouldn't. After all," her voice clipped off, "It looks like you'll be the hero of our generation."

Daisy chose to ignore the ending sentence for the moment. There would be time to talk to talk to Lily about everything later. She took her cousin's hand, and they left the classroom to enjoy their last few days at Hogwarts.

Please review!

Sorry it took me a while to get this chapter up, but I think it's a good one :)

Two more chapters to go!