Gone


A/N: The title is describing these author notes more than the actual story...


"Charlie! Charles! Chuck! Chaz! Yo, stupid!" Luiz hissed. He was trying desperately to get my attention without attracting that of the rest of the crowd of third years headed for the greenhouses.

I lagged behind, then ran over to where he was hiding, behind a tree on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. "What are you doing here man?" I looked around nervously, hoping Prof. Sprout didn't show up early. The teachers always seemed to know when we were up to something.

"Never mind that, we're going right now."

"What? I missed Herbiology yesterday, Sprout will definitely know something's up if I miss two days in a row."

"Oh, gee, sorry, Percy, I thought you were someone cooler." Luiz mocked, standing and pretending to walk away.

I stood still for a few seconds, debating with myself. Finally, I ran after Luiz. "Fine, fine, how are we going to get back up to the castle now?"

"There's the beauty of it, we don't have to!" Luiz grinned like the cat that ate the canary. "Hagrid's out doing something, he'll never know, we just need to sneak into his hut, we hang out all day, then, even more beauty, we sneak in at like, two in the morning, no one will notice if we're not at dinner, there's a Quidditch match tonight. I could introduce you to the London club scene!"

"Uh, Luiz, problem: I'm thirteen. Even the under-21 clubs are usually 14-19."

He laughed. "You are such a third year. Due to the wonders of twenty-four hour copy shops, you no longer have a problem, Samson Laurence."

He produced two small cards and handed them to me. One had a picture of a very ugly muggle woman with very fake red hair; the other was of an African-American man in his early thirties. Neither one looked like either of us.

"Jacob Anderson?" I asked skeptically.

"Hey, that's Dr. Anderson to you. Let's go!"

He started dragging me towards Hagrid's hut. "I-I'm not sure, Luiz, I mean, what if Hagrid get's in trouble because of us?"

"How's he going to get in trouble?"

"I don't know, maybe they have, like, Floo powder records or something."

"Charlie." Luiz was suddenly Mr. Sarcastic. "Do you want to come, or not? If you don't, that's all right. Maybe Jamie could teach you some Quidditch moves after the game. Bill would be so proud."

I sneered at him. "Pick on Bill all you want, I can get away with anything I want because of him."

"Then you can get away with this. Come on."

I was still trying to figure out what had just happened when I found myself being pushed into the fire.

I stumbled out into the Leaky Cauldron. It was empty, thankfully, devoid of even the most devoted patrons at 8:00 on a Friday morning.

"Come on, follow me." Luiz sounded more excited than I'd ever heard him before. He was practically bouncing.

"Where are we going?" I asked, partly out of interest, partly out of fear. I'd never been to London before, except to get to Diagon Alley.

"Corinth street. There's an alley halfway down, and they're always there." (A/N: If there really is a Corinth street, I'm very sorry to everyone who lives there for this story.)

We walked in silence for a few seconds, then I asked, "So, pretend you're Prof. Binns. Give me a history lesson. Who are they, how did you meet them?"

"It'll probably be Ant, Buzzy, SOS, Noodle-"

"Are those real people?"

"No duh. They just have a lot of nicknames. I'm Boo. Which reminds me, you need a-"

"Dragonmaster."

"Dragonmaster? You've thought about this before, haven't you?"

"A little. How'd you get the name Boo?

Luiz hesitated for a second, but shook off whatever was bothering him. "Well, I was friend's with Ant's little brother, Jesse. I was over at his house for a birthday party. We were playing hide and seek, and I decided to hide in Ant's closet, since he wasn't home.

"After a while, no one's found me, so I get out and start looking around Ant's room. I opened a drawer, and there were little bags of white powder. It looked a lot like sugar, and I'd just picked one up when someone behind me goes-"

"Boo!." A voice behind me said. I jumped, but Luiz spun around, grinning at the half-dozen guys standing behind us in what seemed like a cloud of smoke in an alley. I hadn't even realized where we were going.

(A/N: Okay, I've never done drugs, or known anyone who has (and admitted it to me), so the next few chapters are purely fictional, and based on the experiences I've read about on websites. I'm deeply sorry if I offend anyone in anyway, I was not trying to. And if it sounds stereotypical, I'm sorry too.)

"Yo." He said back, trying to wipe the smile off his face.

"Hey, it's Boo. Long time no see." One of them muttered. It took me a minute to figure out that was his regular voice. The whole lot of them seemed to be a few decibels quieter than the rest of the street, which was filled with yappy kids and shrill mothers yelling at them. I figured out later there was a Muggle elementary school just down the street.

"I told you, my mom shipped me off to some boarding school up north. This is my friend Dragonmaster, the only reason I haven't gone crazy yet."

"Hi-er, yo." They just nodded at me and went on doing whatever they had been doing. I saw one guy behind the rest with a needle in his arm. Another was sucking on a little piece of paper lit at one end.

"Er, Luiz? I mean, Boo? What're they doing?" I whispered, trying not to be too obvious.

Unfortunately, one of the guys heard me, and started laughing. Kind of. It sounded more like he was choking.

"Boo boy, you brought a soap here?" He laughed/choked again.

"Soap?" I figured if I was going to sound like an idiot, I might as well get my questions answered.

"Fresh. Clean. That lovely new smell of a kid who hasn't had their first joint."

"Joint of what?"

They all laughed again. "I love this kid." A guy in a hooded sweatshirt cackled. "Here." He handed me one of the rolled pieces of paper. "First one. On me." When I just stared at it, they all laughed again.

Luiz nudged me. "Here," He said, holding up a lighter. Once it was lit, I tried to imitate what Luiz was doing.

(Flashforward! Yldood-Yldood-Ood!)

"...Thus began my descent into the worst time I ever had." Charlie lamented.

"Charlie! How could you have been so stupid?" Ginny cried. "You yourself told me all about that stuff the summer before I started Hogwarts!"

"Why do you think I was so insistent that all of you learn about this stuff?" Charlie shot back.

While Ginny mulled over that silently, Hermione spoke up.

"What happened after that?" She asked.

"I really don't remember, that's how much the stuff messed with my head. The next part of the story I only remember because Bill told me about it afterwards..."