Disclaimer: Again, I don't Harry Potter. Now, skip this and continue on your merry way!

Chapter 5

It was now early November and I became very good friends with everyone. It was the weekend and I was relaxing near the edge of the lake bored out of my mind. I think I just caught a glimpse of the Giant Squid! Oh wait, never mind it was just a rock, I thought to myself.

Then someone levitated a piece of parchment and it hit my head. I turned around but I found no one there. I opened the crumpled parchment and smoothed it out. It read:

Dear Ella,

Flitwick's scheduled a pop quiz on Monday. Just letting you know ahead of time!

From,

Emma

I smiled to myself. Emma was Professor Flitwick's favorite student so she could get information from him whenever she needed to, like getting the date of the surprise quiz.

"Ella!" Albus called as he ran toward me. "I'm sorry I'm late!" he panted. I looked confused. "What are you talking about?" I asked. Now it was his turn to look confused. "We were going to explore the castle today," he said with his eyebrows raised. "Maricel told me that you told her to tell me that you accept my invitation," he told me. "Wait, what invitation?" I questioned. He looked suspicious now. "The one I sent you 3 days ago."

Now I was really confused. "You never sent me an invitation, Albus," I told him. He looked at me disbelievingly. "Ella, if this is your idea of a joke, I'm telling you right now that it's wasting our time and to just drop it," he said. "Albus, I'm serious! You didn't send me one!" I exclaimed. "Yes I did!" he retorted. He started to yell, "Even Maricel saw me!"

That's when I felt a wave of electricity go through me. "Maricel?" I asked quietly. "Yes, Maricel," he said. Everything seemed to come back to Maricel. "Albus, did you notice anything weird about Maricel?" I asked. He thought for a moment and answered, "Well, does the fact that she always seems to disappear sometimes count?" I pulled him with me towards the castle. "Yes, Albus, it does count." I said.

I kept pulling him towards the castle and he suddenly said, "I thought we're going to explore the castle? It's okay if you didn't know we were going to explore, we can go now!" I rolled my eyes at him. "We will, Albus, but before that, we are going to take a moment to visit one of my close friends."

He looked at me oddly and then shrugged. I walked into the library and found Emma studying in a secluded corner of the library. I quickly walked there and Albus followed curiously.

"Good morning, Emma!" I said brightly. "Hello, Ella, shouldn't you be studying? We do have a test," she said without looking up from her book. Albus peered at the book she was studying and said curiously, "Test?" Emma replied, "Yes, the test." Albus kept looking at the papers on the table. "The test isn't until December!" he exclaimed. This time Emma looked up from the book she was reading.

"It never hurts to study early, Mr. Potter," she acknowledged. She turned to me and, "Did you need anything, Ella?" she asked frowning. "Yes, Emma but we need to talk somewhere where we won't be overheard. "Easy," Albus said taking out his wand. "C'mon, follow me!" he ordered us. Emma gathered her things and we trooped out of the library.

Albus led us to a hallway to a statue of a one-eyed witch. "A hallway?" I murmured. "Wait, before I do anything, you there," he told us pointing at Emma, "you have to swear that you won't tell anyone about this." Emma looked at him and finally said, "Alright."

"Good, everyone get under here!" he told us. He took out an invisibility cloak and draped it over us.

"An invisibility cloak?" Emma and I recited in awe. "Shh…" Albus whispered, "We may be invisible to other people but they can still hear us!" We apologized.

"Okay, umm…what's your name again?" he asked sheepishly looking at Emma. She sighed and replied, "Emma Beverly."

"Okay then, Beverly. You have to promise you won't tell a soul about this," he warned. Emma rolled her eyes. "Didn't we go through this already?" she said irritated, "Just making sure!" Albus said.

He tapped the witch's hump and muttered, "Dissendium." The hump opened and Albus pushed us in. We landed on the ground and the hump closed above us. Emma uttered a little shriek. "How will we get out?" she wailed. "Easy, just push the door open!" Albus said. Emma sighed in relief. "It's so dark," I murmured. "Let's light our wands," Albus said.

We lit our wands and light filled the tunnel illuminating our faces. "This is where we won't be overheard?" I asked. My words echoed around the tunnel.

"Yeah."

"Not bad, I wish we can make a room here though. We could use it in the future!" I yelled excitedly. Emma told me to quiet down. "Why? No one can hear us can't they?" I asked Albus. He nodded. "See?" I told Emma. "Still, I feel vulnerable. Maybe we can make a room here…" she trailed off. "How though?" we all said together. "We can blast open the wall and use the rubble to build the new room?" I suggested.

"That could work!" Albus said excitedly. "Yeah, but first, what do you need to tell us Ella?" Emma questioned curiously. Albus sat down on the ground next to us. I took a deep breath and said, "It's about Maricel."

"Maricel Lugo?" Emma asked. Albus stared at the ground. "Maricel has been acting weird lately. She always seems so remote and she won't tell me anything. She also has all these mood swings," I told them.

"How is that weird?" Albus interrogated.

"I'm getting to that part." "Remember that day you asked me to give a note to Maricel Albus? After you gave me the letter Albus, I went looking for Maricel. I saw her sitting near the edge of the lake looking really sad, but when I went running to her, you called my name and I turned around."

I continued, "When I looked at you, Maricel was with you, and she was happy. I looked back and she wasn't there anymore. Then, one day, when I was on my way to Transfiguration, I saw her disappearing through a door. I followed her and when I opened the door, it opened up to another corridor that went straight ahead. Maricel was nowhere in sight though. I decided that it was a shortcut to Transfiguration."

Emma was listening intently but Albus looked a little disturbed. I decided to stop there. "If it was a shortcut to Transfiguration though, wouldn't she have shown up in class that day?" Albus asked softly. "Exactly," I nodded.

"She's been missing a lot of her tutoring lessons with me too," Emma added.

"That day I told you to give the letter to Maricel, you saw her by the lake, are you sure that was her?" Albus asked. I nodded as I said, "Positive." He said a little shakily, "Maricel came up to me during the time you were gone. I was with her the whole time before we walked up to you."

"How can someone be in two places at the same time though?"

"I don't know, Emma. She's also been missing from our dorm room. My dorm mates and I would check up on each other during the night to make sure we were all okay. It was something we started during the second week of school," I added in when I saw Albus's questioning gaze.

"It just happened that it was my turn to check up on everyone and I found out that Maricel wasn't in bed. When she did come back though, I was never awake to see what time she came back. In the morning, I'd ask her what she was doing, and she said she was writing a letter to her parents."

Emma's eyes widened a bit. She said, "Ella, Maricel Lugo doesn't have parents, she's an orphan." She told me this so quietly that I had to lean towards her to hear. I froze.

Albus took this moment to say something. "I say we go check out that door you saw Maricel go through. It might give us some clues. In the meantime, we should keep an eye out on Maricel. Make sure nothing's out of place."

We agreed and got under the invisibility cloak. We extinguished the light from our wands and carefully climbed out of the tunnel. We walked to the grounds still under the invisibility cloak to not make it suspicious and raise questions on why we were in that hallway on a weekend.

We took off the invisibility cloak at Hagrid's front doorstep to make it look as though we've just been visiting Hagrid. When we got to the castle, we went our separate ways and made plans to meet the next day again in the library.

A/N: My first author's note. I have no idea why I never wrote one before…Anyways, tell me what you think of this chapter and story (which means to say I want you to review!). Sorry if this chapter isn't very good. I had writer's block. No flamers please by the way!