Hi everyone! I actually worked on this chapter! And it's summer! Yay! And-

Jean: Shut up.

Me: Get back in the story, we're about to start.

Jean: (rolls eyes)

Chapter 11

I Get Really Confused

"Did you hear about this?" asked Emmick as she slid into a seat next to me a week later. Technically we were supposed to sit with our own Houses, but we disregarded that rule a lot. I looked at the copy of the Daily Prophet she was holding and said something real magically intelligent.

"Whoa, the pictures move!" Emmick rolled her eyes, and pointed at the cover again.

"Not the pictures, smart one, the article," she clarified, handing it to me. I scanned it.

Two Children Missing, Aurors Have No Clues, read the headline. I looked up quizzically. Emmick took back the paper and folded it up in her pocket.

"Five years and six years old. Both Muggle-borns. Third dissapearence this month, all Muggles or Muggle-borns. Dark magic suspected." she said, tapping her wand on the table. "I don't know, but they sound connected to me."

"I think you're overthinking things a little." I pointed out, but Emmick was caught up in the theory and wouldn't let it go. Oh, well. Anyway, I played along for a little while until Emma intervened by interjecting, "I like your headband!" Of course, neither one of us was wearing a headband, so this comment made little sense, but I appreciated the effort.

"So, did you guys hear a girl went home?" asked Lila. This was news to me. I guess I wasn't as informed as I thought I was. "Well, anyway, apparently this girl had a boyfriend and Amida was jealous. So, she went after this girl and it got so bad, I hear she was looking up suicide spells." I gasped in horror. "So eventually her parents just withdrew her from the school." The table was silent. Apparently we weren't the only ones at the Hufflepuff table listening to Lila.

Quietly, Emmick whispered a question. "What house was she in?"

"Hufflepuff."

The silence got deeper. I froze with a fork hafway to my mouth. It was like time stopped. I had grown to love my "Hufflepuff Homies" over the last month, and this news was shocking. I knew only one thing, and I knew everyone else had the same realization simaltaniously. We hated Amida Carrow's guts.

–

DADA was taught by Professor Tristus, a man with a face that I was sure had a spell on it to keep it in a permanent scowl. Today he was trying to teach us Sero, a spell to make plants to aid in defense, but none of the Hufflepuffs could concentrate. In addition to the knowledge that one of their own had gone home, most of them were also Muggle-borns and were fearing for their lives. I was honestly trying to learn something, but it was just so hard. I was sitting at my desk doodling, when Professor Tristus snuck up behind me.

"Miss Fitzgreald, do you find it nessicary to doze off in my class?" I sat up so fast that I knoched my pencils off the desk. Luckily, DADA wasn't a double class, so only Hufflepuffs were there, and they wouldn't laugh at me.

"I'm sorry, Professor! It's just, I-" but he didn't let me finish.

"Whatever the excuse is, you can tell it to me in detention," he ordered. About five girls and boys stood up angrily, but Professor Tristus gave them a death glare. "Four o'clock, Miss Fitzgerald, and don't be late!" I sighed and gathered my materials.

Much later, Professor Tristus plopped a pile of papers on my desk. I examined them, then looked up at him with a doubtful expression. His scowl didn't waver.

"You are to sort these files alphabetically. No talking," he ordered, and I silently wondered who I would talk to. "Get to work!" He snapped his fingers, and I picked up a file. The whole thing took a few hours, but suddenly I stopped.

I had noticed after a while that I was sorting files on Hogwarts students, but my fingers halted on a file labled "Lila Lyndon." Out of curiousity, I looked behind me. Professor Tristus had left on a break. I peeked into the file.

Name: Lila Lyndon

Year: 1

House: Hufflepuff

Personality: Eager, Energetic, sometimes shy

Ancestry: Half Blood. Muggle father. Mother a Muggle-Born, but with distant wizarding ancestors. Distant decendant of Helga Hufflepuff.

I almost dropped the file. Then, silently, I took out my wand. "Geminio," I whispered, and after a burst of light, two identical files on Lila Lyndon sat on the desk. Hurredly, I shoved one into my bag, and placed another on the sorted pile.