Chapter Five – Missing: One Chaser

Though Green was running from the field as fast as possible, if felt like he'd eaten an entire Rock Cake. There was a feeling in the pit of his stomach that seemed to be weighing him down… As the cheers from the field grew slowly more faint, he couldn't get to the castle quickly enough.

He stumbled through the entryway, and nearly tripped up the stairs. There was only one thing on his mind, and that was getting to the infirmary. That's where Anna would be, unless…

He tried not to think about that.

Did he actually care, though? As he rushed down the hall leading to the infirmary, he wondered if he actually cared about Anna, or if he was just feeling guilty that the hex didn't quite go as planned. At least there was no one to stand in his way… They were still all out on the Pitch, celebrating (or booing) the Slytherin victory.

As he neared the Infirmary, he slowed down, attempting to catch his breath before actually going in. He knew that Madam Pomfrey or the other nurses on duty wouldn't appreciate him barging into a wing full of sick or injured patients. At least her still had enough sense left to know that. Carefully, he pushed open the door, his lungs burning, demanding air… He was holding back his breaths though, fearful that if he was caught breathing too loudly, he'd be tossed out and wouldn't get to see if Anna was okay.

Green stopped to wait near the bed of a very young student… Possibly a second year by the looks of her. There was a chart hanging on the end of her bed, and as he awaited an escort into the wing, he flipped through it. Shortness of breath, easily fatigued… There was a note written in the margin. Something about cardio—

"Can I help you?" The voice belonged to the elderly Madam Pomfrey. Startled, Green dropped the chart back into place.

"Er… I was hoping I could see Anna. Emerson. She's a—"

"Ravenclaw, sixth year. She just came in from the Quidditch field." Pomfrey waved her arm, indicating for Green to follow her. They passed by many beds; when they finally stopped, Pomfrey held out her hand. "…She's been under some heavy trauma. I can't let you stay long," she said, and pointed to a space a couple beds down. Anna lay there on her back, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.

He offered one last look back at the nurse, though she was already heading away to tend to whatever she was doing before Green arrived. Suddenly nervous, he approached Anna's bed slowly, almost unwilling to disturb her.

"Hey, Anna…" He said softly. She turned her head a bit, wincing as she did so. Her expression wasn't tired, or pained. It was angry.

"I figured it out," she said softly.

Green's first thought was that he'd be thrown off the Quidditch team. He blinked, and his jaw dropped. "You—Are you—"

Her expression didn't change. "I'll be fine."

There was a long pause, and she continued staring at him. "…It hit me when my broom started going bonkers. You switched 'em, didn't you?" Finally, she turned away and Green was able to relax slightly. As she started at the ceiling, she continued, her voice barely above a whisper. "I knew it wasn't mine. Something felt wrong. But I didn't think you'd try to hurt me."

"It wasn't supposed to—" It was hard to get his words out. "It was only going to stop… You… That's not what was supposed to happen!" He took a desperate step forward, leaning on the banister at the foot of the bed. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

She didn't say a word. Didn't even whimper. It was unnerving.

The silence between them seemed to last forever, and then he turned, and left the infirmary. It wasn't until after the door was shut behind him that he actually thought of what he should have said to her. He headed back down to the dungeon, ignoring the others as they finally arrived from the game… There was so much on his mind…

February was perhaps the worst month of the year. If it wasn't snowing, it was raining ice... Of course, Brad had the team out on the field practicing three times a week, even though they had almost a month where they could have rested. Every day that passed, Green expected to get some sort of official letter kicking him off the team… Or even out of Hogwarts… But the day never came. The more they practiced for the Hufflepuff game, the more Green relaxed. It seemed as if he was in the clear.

But why? There were a couple times he spotted Anna, but each time he tried to talk to her, she'd hurry off and disappear into the crowd. At least she was up and about, and no permanent damage had been done. It was odd how much he wanted to speak to her, now that she was out of reach. He wanted so badly to know why she wasn't telling anyone about the hexed broom.

And he also wanted to know why he was attracted to a Mudblood.

The answers weren't coming, though, and the more he pursued them, the farther away they got.

---

"Where's Alexia?"

Brad stood on the edge of the pitch, looking toward the castle as if the Chaser would somehow miraculously appear. Cory stood next to him, looking into the sky. The sun was just setting, and there was a full moon rising. It was huge, and ghostly white… There was no way this could be a coincidence.

"A day before the game, and she's missing." Brad's voice was almost empty as he looked up at the moon as well. The others followed suit. They must have look ridiculous standing there, looking at the sky as they were, but everyone had the same thing on their mind.

Alexia.

The practice was less than fruitful, and Brad only kept them for an hour. Despite the fact that there was a game approaching on the morrow, no one had their mind on Quidditch. Ryan had missed three easy shots, and Cory failed to stop just as many. Kylee didn't even catch the Snitch without help; they had to use the compass to find it.

After everything was locked away, the others headed to the castle. Cory and Brad lagged behind, the chest of supplies carried between them. It was Cory that spoke first. "She'll be back by tomorrow, I suppose. You know… She was around the end of January. I wonder…"

"We might have just missed it," Brad said shortly, then fell back into silence.

It was true, Cory thought. If she was a werewolf, the teachers would be trying to hide it. But when she was expected…

"I was just hopeful," Cory muttered. Brad didn't respond. In fact, they walked the rest of the way back to the castle in silence; the only sound was the crunch of snow under their feet.

Cory pushed open the door, and they were hit with a welcome rush of warm from inside the comfortable confines of Hogwarts Castle. After stomping off their boots, the two boys headed in opposite directions; Brad down to Madam Hooch's office to drop off the trunk, and Cory down toward the Slytherin dormitories. There was so much going on now; so much to think about. It was almost unreal the amount of garbage they'd had to deal with already in one season. Now that they knew what Alexia was, should they tell someone? Should they risk her getting thrown off the team? She was a great chaser, but there had to have been dozens more waiting for the chance to try out…

He pushed the thoughts aside, shivering. Maybe they could keep it a secret. Maybe no one would have to know… She'd be back tomorrow. She'd be back in time for the game! It would work out just fine! No one would have to know except for the Slytherin Quidditch team.

Cory muttered the password, and the solid wall in front of him opened to reveal a door. He barely registered walking through it. The common room was full of people, all talking and chattering and excited about the upcoming game, and none of them knew that one of their own was mindlessly running around in the forest…

Sighing, he flopped down in an old leather armchair, and sank down into it. He realized how much of a mistake that was, as just after he'd settled in, Cory realized that he no longer had any desire to actually get up and climb the stairs to the seventh year dorms. At least he had a window, though… Perhaps through it, he'd be able to see Alexia returning from the forest? He was so tired, though. So out of it.

So he remained there, staring into the fire, idly tuning out the banter around him, until he heard a scream from up the stairs on the girls' side. He was on his feet in an instant, heart suddenly beating hard enough so that he could feel it. A moment passed before Mellissa McCormik appeared, skipping the last couple steps. She held a tattered book in front of her… It looked as if it had been clawed to shreds. Flecks of blood were already drying on the tattered pages.

Though no one really knew what it meant, Cory did. Alexia must have changed inside the school.

---

No one really slept well that night. There was talk here and there of monsters inside the school. Each tale began and ended leaving several key points out – such as how the monster had gotten in in the first place, and why nothing else was destroyed besides a book.

Cory didn't even try to sleep. He was sending messages to the others. Those he met in the common room he was able to tell without much trouble, though he had to send an owl around to Kylee since he couldn't go up into the girls' dorms. They met quite late in a corner of the Common room; though the Prefects disapproved, Brad insisted they were discussing Quidditch strategy for the next day, and it was of the upmost importance.

Since Quidditch was a valid excuse for nearly everything, the excuse was grudgingly accepted.

Cory had sometime during the night procured the tattered, blood-flecked book from Mellissa. It was lying on the table in the middle of their group, open to what everyone thought were the worst couple pages. Kylee was examining it.

"They're very small to be werewolf claw marks," she said.

Cory kneeled next to her. "Maybe she realized what was happening… Maybe it had just started, and she was able to get out of the school before she lost her mind. Nothing else was touched…"

"We hope she got out of the school," Ryan said. His voice was a gruff whisper. "They might have had to… You know…"

"Why didn't she get out of the school?" Lucas asked. "She must have known… I mean, I'm not a werewolf, and I've been watching the cycles of the moon, just because of her!"

"She might have just gotten too comfortable with the routine," Ryan explained. "Might have thought it was tomorrow night. It's an easy thing to miss, you know. I just hope she was able to get out before the teachers found her."

"Poor Alexia…" Kylee whispered, tracing her fingers along the tears in the pages of the book. It looked like she'd been studying the Standard Book of Spells when she'd changed. "Do you know if the window was open? Could she have gotten out that way?"

Cory shook his head. "Fifth year dorm. It didn't have windows… The door was open, though, so she would have had to go into the school to get away." He shrugged. "If she was still in her right mind, she might have gone up to the sixth-year dorm… Someone might have seen her, though. It would have been a big risk."

Someone had left a brand new ravenfeather quill on the table. Cory picked it up, twirling it between his fingers as he thought. "We could corner her and ask her what's going on. She'll be back tomorrow, you know. And she owes us an explanation. Maybe we could help her think of a cover story about why she's not in her dorm, you know?"

"You're sure she wasn't there?" Green asked.

Cory nodded. "I asked Mellissa who else was in the room when she got there. She said it was empty, which means Alexia wasn't there. And…" He indicated the common room. "I haven't seen her here, either."

They all stared down at the book for a while longer before Brad spoke. "…I don't want to sound insensitive, but it's late, and we have a game tomorrow. We can't help Alexia now anyway."

Grudgingly, they accepted that Brad was right. One by one, they left to their dormitories. Cory took the torn book with him, shutting the quill inside of it.

He lay down on the mattress, placing the book beside him on the nightstand. Across from his bunk, the other seventh years were softly snoring. He could discern at least four different breathing patterns, all of which sounded as if they were sound asleep. After several minutes of sleeplessness, he stood, heading toward the window.

It actually looked outward to just above the ground level. Cory was lucky; he'd actually had this dorm since his first year at Hogwarts, and it was almost hard to believe that when he left, he'd be passing it off to the next class of Slytherin first-years. It was nice to have a room with a view, even if it was rather boring. At least it was better than the sixth-year dorm below him; their window was directly even with the ground. He'd heard Green complain about the fact that one could see worms moving about in the dirt right before breakfast.

He looked out toward the Forbidden Forest. The trees were so dark that they almost blended right in with the sky. If not for the light of the moon, Cory wouldn't have even been able to make out their tangled branches. He wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for… Surely Alexia wouldn't leave the cover of the woods before daybreak.

Had she even made it out of the school?

---

"Cory? You awake?" Something jabbed into his shoulder. "Hey! Cory! Wake up!"

Gradually, Cory came back to consciousness, finding that he'd fallen asleep curled up in the depression around the window. As a result, everything hurt. Opening his eyes, he came face to face with one of his bunkmates. "…Dan?"

"You're due out on the Pitch, Cory. Better hurry."

Suddenly, if hit him that today was the game against Hufflepuff, and that the rest of the team was probably already out on the field. At least he was still wearing his robes from practice the night before… They were wrinkled, and he smelled terrible, but at least he was ready to go! Quickly, he brushed his teeth, then his hair… It wouldn't stay in place, but that was okay. They were going to be out playing a game anyway. Grabbing his broom, Cory skipped down the stairs.

He rushed past the others who were still milling about in the Common Room. If they weren't on the field yet, it was likely that there was still time before the game… He wasn't exactly late. Brad would want them on the field an hour early, though.

The weather was, to say the least, wet. As he finally made it outside, he wished that he'd remembered his cloak, as it was pouring down freezing rain. Usually, he'd walk to the pitch, but in this instance, Cory hopped on his broom and flew the rest of the way there. The locker rooms wouldn't be much warmer than outside, but at least it wouldn't be raining within.

As he approached the field, he could already see the Gryffindors (Who were all toting 'Go Hufflepuff!' signs) filing into the covered stands. They all looked so warm wearing their scarves and cloaks… For a moment, Cory wanted to be there with them, comfortable and dry.

Remembering Alexia, he landed, ducking into the Slytherin locker room. He hoped they hadn't gotten a chance to speak to her yet.

What greeted him were five tired faces.

Alexia was not one of them.

"…Where is she?" Cory asked as he tried to wring out his robes. Bits of ice fell to the tiled floor. It wasn't going to be a fun game to play, that much was certain.

"Well…" Brad ran his hand through his hair. "We aren't really sure. But we're going to be playing the game minus one Chaser."