Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you might recognize from the original HP series.

A/N: Hey all! Sorry that it took me awhile to get this updated. But I started my summer job! Man, was I beat when I got home! 48 and a half hours in one week - and don't get paid overtime!! It'll take a little bit of getting used to - I'm part waitress, part bartender, part chef, part maid! (the jobs I'll take to make enough money to keep me in school! Gees!)- but I will try and keep up with my updates okay? Please review? Please, please, please, please? You know how much reviews mean!! Please? Okay, enough of that. I'll let you get on with the reading now!

Chapter 9: The First Disappearance

Elle sat up in her bed, rubbing her tired eyes for the third time in the last five minutes. She yawned unintentionally and turned her head towards the window. Rays of light came into the room, indicating to her that it was already morning. But the soft snoring sounds coming from the other beds in the room told her that it was still pretty early.

'This is nuts,' she thought to herself as she swung her feet over to the side of the bed and pushed herself up. She allowed herself a big stretch and thought about how tired she felt. 'Stupid nightmare,' she thought as she walked into the bathroom to get ready to go down to breakfast. She noticed that the floor was quite cold under her bare feet, but all in all that wasn't an entirely bad thing because she seemed to feel more awake.

She leaned on the sink as she glanced into the mirror. "Oh man, I look like death," she spoke out loud as she examined the black circles under her eyes.

She then turned on the taps and felt the cool rush of the water on her hands. She cupped them under the water and splashed it onto her face. She repeated this a couple of times before she grabbed her towel and started to pat her face dry.

But just as she was about to catch the water that was dripping down her neck, something caught her eye. At first, she thought it was just a little irritation from where she had wiped her neck with the towel. But as she leaned closer into the mirror, she could see that it was no mark of irritation. The redness went all the way across her neck - it looked like a pair of handprints; like someone had tired to strangle her and their hands had burnt a mark into her flesh. 'How is this possible?' she asked herself as she rubbed the redness gently. She knew that no one had touched her - not while she was awake anyways. Her eyes then widened in shock as the dream came back into her mind once again. "It can't be.." she said out loud this time. A sudden rush of fear rose inside of her and her mind was rushing through other possible explanations to explain the redness. Her face fell as she realized that there were no other explanations…that as impossible as the reality of the dream was…it was her only explanation.

Then, looking carefully into the mirror to make sure that it wasn't only an illusion, Elle let out an exasperated sigh as she then turned out of the bathroom and back into the sleeping chambers to get dressed, while thoughts of confusion still rushed through her mind.

Once Elle had dressed herself and had her hair pulled back, she went down to the common room and plopped herself into one of the cushioned seats.

She hadn't been there very long when she heard one of the doors opening and closing and footsteps coming down the steps. She turned to find Seamus, Harry, and Ron emerging from their dorm.

"Elle," Seamus addressed her, "Neville hasn't been down here has he?"

Elle looked up at Seamus from where she sat, her brow scrunched a tiny bit. "No, I haven't seen him. Why?"

"We can't find him," Harry replied.

"Yeah," added Ron, "he left his bed unmade, but all his books are still on top of his trunk."

"Well maybe he just beat us all down to breakfast," Elle suggested.

"Maybe," said Seamus as he started towards the portrait hole. "But it's just not like him to be up this early."

"Let's go see. Maybe Elle is right. Maybe he's just in the Great Hall." Harry and Ron started to follow Seamus before Harry turned back, "Elle, are you coming?"

"Yeah," she said as she pushed herself up and ran to catch up to the other three. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't push away the uneasy feeling that was starting to rise in the pit of her stomach.

********

There was absolutely no sign of Neville throughout the rest of the day. Elle, Harry and Ron had all spoken to the other Gryffindors and most of the other students to see if they had seen him but no one had.

It was now last class of the day and Elle had started to become very worried about her potions' partner. She looked over at the empty seat beside her and felt that uneasy feeling creep up inside of her once again. She tried hard to concentrate on the lesson that Snape was teaching the class but found her mind starting to wander instead. She started fiddling with the quill that she held in her hand and looked up again towards the front of the room where Snape had begun to write something up on the board. She went to start copying down the notes on her parchment, but found her attention drawn to something a mere few feet from where Snape himself was standing.

A grey mist had started to gather and Elle's eyes went wide with curiosity. She quickly darted her eyes around the room but no one else had seemed to notice the grey mist. Her eyes then fell back onto the mist as it just grew and grew. Snape's voice had now been drowned out by the thoughts that now flooded her head.

As Elle continued staring into the mist, she began to notice shapes forming. Her concentration did not waver whatsoever as her curiosity now held her full attention. After only a few seconds a face came into view. Elle squinted slightly trying to reason with her mind that what she was seeing couldn't be real. But the face went from looking normal to becoming twisted into painful features. And Elle was sure that the face was screaming out in pain. She let a small gasp escape her lips as she immediately recognized the face as it was now only a few feet from herself. Her eyes never left the contorted image as she felt the fear rise up inside of her. Her breathing even became somewhat faster. "No, it can't be…" she said so quietly that only she could hear.

As the face inched closer to her, she noticed that it began to change form. And then all of a sudden she felt a rush of hot air flow past her parting the smoke in front of her. She hardly had time to react to what she saw next. It was the same face from her dream and he was reaching out towards her. She could hear his voice in her head and she fell backwards from the shock of this demon face rushing towards her.

She fell with a loud clunk onto the hard floor. She had hit her head but hardly noticed the pain as she quickly looked up to see nothing but the eyes of her peers and professor looking at her like she had sprouted two other heads.

Snape calmly walked over to her and looked down with a cold stare. "It would be very humorous to uncover the reason as to why you have just interrupted my lesson Miss Carter!"

Her breathing was still fast paced as she found her voice, "It was him…" she spoke quietly from where she still sat on the hard dungeon floor.

"Who?!" demanded Snape as a hint of humour played on his face.

Elle looked up at him with more fear than he had ever seen a student show. She whispered her answer, "…Neville."