CW: Murder of minor character, verbal and physical bullying

Students had gone missing at Hogwarts before. Heck, students had even died, but it had always been in masses, and we had always known the reason.

But now, years after any student had gone missing or died, a student had gone missing completely out of the blue.

The fact that the poster had stated her blood status was making all the people who were self-entitled purebloods to start saying things like, "The mudbloods better watch out!"

Some people even painted messages threatening the muggle-borns on the walls of the school, and some were targeting certain people. I noticed Mulciber alone with Mary in the dungeons at one point, and I had to hex him because no way was I letting him get away with hurting her again.

This all happened less than twenty-four hours after we'd gotten back to school after the break and seen the posters about Amelia Hughes, and the night after the first day of classes, all the prefects had to watch the kids in detention scrub the messages off the walls by hand.

"What do you think happened to that girl?" Lily asked me, crossing her arms.

"I have no clue," I said, looking at a third-year who was throwing his sponge at the wall instead of using it to scrub.

"Do you think... do you think her disappearance has anything to do with her blood status?" Lily asked, and I saw her gesturing to the painted message on the wall that the kids were cleaning. This one read, ALL MUDBLOODS END UP DEAD AND IN HELL.

"I have no clue," I said again. "If it is, it seems like the people writing and saying things like that know what happened to her."

"You don't think another student would have done something to her, do you?"

"No. I don't know, really," I said, fiddling with my thumbs. "The sorts of kids who've been saying stuff... their parents are all Death Eaters, aren't they? They might know if their parents did something."

"So, you think she was taken by Death Eaters?" Lily asked.

"I mean, maybe...?" I said. "What else could have happened to make her not come back to school?"

"I don't know, maybe she just pulled out of school? And her parents didn't think to unenroll her, they just pulled her out without saying anything?" Lily suggested.

"There was a Daily Prophet article this morning about her," I said. "Her parents were interviewed, and they don't know where she is."

"Oh, I'm just trying to be positive. I don't even read the Daily Prophet," said Lily, sighing.

"Well, according to her parents in the article, they were in a rush to get to work so they dropped her off at King's Cross Station to go through to Platform nine and three-quarters on her own," I said.

"Oh, they must feel awful now..." said Lily.

"They're muggles. They wouldn't understand how dangerous the wizarding world can be," I said.

"I suppose," said Lily. "My parents don't really get it either."

I noticed something in her tone was different. She sounded scared, talking about how she was a muggle-born, just like Amelia Hughes, who had now been kidnapped or killed or who knows what.

"Do you think they'll target other muggle-born students?" I asked, looking at Lily. Her not responding was enough of an answer for me. She was scared, and I didn't blame her. "I'm sure you'll be OK, Lily."

"You can't be sure," said Lily dryly, looking straight ahead at the students scrubbing the wall. But then, after almost thirty seconds of silence, she looked at me. "Sorry. I'm being a pessimist. We should think positively. I'm sure Amelia Hughes is fine and she's sitting on a beach somewhere peacefully, and no muggle-borns are going to get hurt, and the war is going to end within the next week."

I didn't respond, and she didn't say anything else, because we both knew her statement was very much not true.

Amelia Hughe's body was found on the last day of April, less than a week after she was discovered missing. Her body was found in Northern Wales, and it looked like she'd been killed within the last twenty-four hours by the time the Aurors found it.

According to the article that was posted on the first of May, she'd been found the previous afternoon and it was clear that she'd been hit by the killing curse within the last twenty-four hours, meaning she'd spent a week missing before being killed.

The Aurors believed she'd been taken by Death Eaters while at King's Cross Station, and they must have tortured her for a week before finally killing her. The news set everyone in Hogwarts in a strange mood, and the self-entitled purebloods were telling all the muggle-borns that they'd die next.

During my patrol with Lily on the first night of May, I could tell she was nervous, because what muggle-born wouldn't be when someone of their blood status had been murdered, and now she was being told she'd die next?

I wanted to let her know that she would be safe while at Hogwarts, and even though she was safe at school, her friends would do anything to protect her, but I didn't know how to word that, so I just walked through the halls of the castle with her in silence.

I noticed over the first week of May that Mary seemed scared as well. The torment towards her, Lily, and all the other muggle-borns in the school became violent during that week. They couldn't walk from one class to another without getting hexed by a Slytherin, and on Tuesday afternoon, Sirius and I were trying to find somewhere in the dungeons to be alone, but we caught a Slytherin seventh-year in the middle of shoving Lily against the wall, her wand and his own wand in his hand, leaving her defenceless.

I disarmed him while Sirius performed a binding curse on him. I gave Lily's wand back to her and threw his across the hall, then we left him lying there as we walked away with Lily.

"Are you OK?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah, god, I seem so weak right now," said Lily, pocketing her wand, but keeping her hand on it. "I hate being muggle-born."

"It's not a bad thing to be muggle-born, but I get why you must hate it," I said.

"Well, thanks for... saving me, I guess... I'm off to the library," said Lily, and she walked up the stairs, leaving Sirius and I alone in the dungeons, apart from the seventh-year whose entire body was bound together.

"Do you reckon he can hear us?" Sirius asked.

"Maybe," I said, drawing my wand again. "Muffliato."

Sirius peered round the corner to where the guy was, and I followed his gaze. The way he had fallen, his face was facing away from us. When I turned back to Sirius, he immediately kissed me, which is exactly what I'd been dying for him to do for over a week.

It had been a hard week for all the prefects. All the first years looked up to us, and Amelia's friends expected us to know where she was. Every day of the past week leading up to the day it was announced that Amelia was dead, a different first year had approached and asked me where their friend was, and every time I had to say I didn't know, and watch their face split into a frown, and often, thick tears to stream down their face.

I'd been so busy, patrolling with every other prefect almost every night, to make sure the school was safe, and I'd barely slept three hours since the Easter Break, so I was exhausted, and being kissed by Sirius wasn't something I'd experienced since before the break.

Without pulling away from each other, we slipped underneath the stairs that Lily had just gone up. We made out for a while before either of us spoke, and it was just me breathing, "I've really missed this", as if the way I was kissing him didn't already scream that.

"I have too," said Sirius, kissing me again before either of us could respond.

It was like that for a long time until I finally pulled away and said, "It's getting late, and I'm only halfway through that massive essay for Transfiguration that's due tomorrow."

"Surely she'll be soft on us... we can say we've been busy grieving Amelia," said Sirius.

"Sirius!" I cried. "We can't use the death of a girl we didn't even know as an excuse for not doing our homework! Plus, it's a really important essay. I really have to do it. You should do it, too."

"Ugh, I don't care though," Sirius sighed. "I honestly want to drop Transfiguration..."

"Still, you should try your hardest," I said, as we slipped out from underneath the staircase and began to walk up it.

Sirius sighed. "I guess..."

Sirius and I both had our essays done by ten that night, and both managed to get a peaceful night of sleep. James had done the essay over the break like we'd expected to, but Peter had completely slacked off, and the next morning, was just starting it at the breakfast table.

"Ugh, is Transfiguration first?" he asked, desperately writing down abnormally large letters on his parchment.

"Yes, it is," said Sirius, looking across the table at Peter's parchment. "And formula is spelt with an f, not a ph."

"Ugh, I give up," said Peter, scribbling over half his essay. "What's a good excuse?"

"Don't give up," said James. "Here, let me help you..."

Even with James's help, Peter's essay was nowhere near finished by the time we entered the Transfiguration classroom, and Professor McGonagall was not happy.

"Mr. Pettigrew," she said coldly when Peter turned in his parchment. "At the rate you're going, you are going to fail your O.W.L.s. They're only a month away now, you know. You're not putting in enough effort."

"I'm sorry, Professor," said Peter, looking at his shoes.

"Don't apologise to me," said McGonagall, her tone sharp. "Apologise to yourself, when it's the summer and you've received your results from your O.W.L.s and you're trying to pick the classes you want to do for N.E.W.T level, but you can't get into the classes you want to do for the career you want because you didn't get good enough results in your O.W.L.s!"

"OK... sorry..." said Peter. "I mean, OK. Thank you, Professor."

"On that note, you're all aware that your Careers Advice meetings are this weekend?" Professor McGonagall said, addressing the class as we all sat down.

I'd completely forgotten about the Careers Advice. They were supposed to be straight after the Easter Break, but they'd been postponed because of Amelia's disappearance. Now that everyone knew what had happened to her, the news had died down a lot and school was running as normal.

Over the break, however, I'd made a plan for my meeting. It would be good to talk to a teacher about becoming a teacher.