Chapter 29 :

On their way to join Harry and Luna after leaving the Library, Ron and Hermione were -like always- arguing with each other.

"I swear it on Morgana's tits, Mione !" Assured the Weasley boy. "Your Hair fed me a Chocolate Frog ! It saved my life !"

"Ronald Bilius Weasley, leave Morgana's perfect tits out of this !" Scolded the Granger girl in return. "And stop saying nonsense ! My hair is absolutely normal !"

"With a capital « H », Hermione !" He reprimanded insistently. "What will you do if you upset It and It decides to leave your head ?!"

"Honestly, Ron," She sighed. "if you have something against my hair you should say it directly instead of making up stupid stories like that. I can take a remark or two without breaking down, you know !"
"I love your Hair, Mione." Solemnly answered the red haired boy. "Especially now that It's alive."
"Urh !" Inarticulately shouted the frustrated girl, raising her arms up to the ceiling. "You insufferable nincompoop ! My. Hair. Isn't. Alive !"

Luckily, before she could strangle him, a white owl arrived with a letter in its beak. It was Hedwig, looking no worse for wear despite the epic -unfair- battle she just won against the Weasley's owl. Preening, she proudly gave her spoils of war to Ronald before leaving.

"Since when does Hedwig deliver you your mail ?" Asked Hermione a little weirded out by the blood dripping from the claws of the bird. "Isn't she usually a hardcore Harry extremist ?"

"Actually, since I'm more often than not with Harry, she seems to use my mail as an excuse to see him and mother him to death. She keeps bullying our family's owls to steal it from them too. Poor Pigwidgeon is only getting crazier and crazier lately because of that, and I'm pretty sure she's responsible for Errol's tragic end last year."

"Sounds awful... Have you tried telling Harry about it ?" She queried again with a concerned frown.

"Are you crazy ?" Retorted Ron bewildered. "Hedwig is Harry's little darling, he will never believe me !"

The girl rolled her eyes in exasperation. Boys could be so dramatic sometimes...

"What is the letter about anyway ? It must be pretty important if it couldn't wait for the morning owl's delivery..."

"Lets see..." Mumbled the red haired boy, opening the letter. "It seems that my brother Charlie will be home for a few weeks because of work... Something about the tourna... ment..."

Growing paler by the second, Ron raised eyes full of horror toward his best friend.

"Wait," suddenly realized Hermione. "doesn't your brother Charlie work with drag-"

The full brunt of the revelation hit her savagely, taking her breath away before she could finish her sentence. Her Hair puffed out in alarm as she turned toward Ron, wanting him to deny her suspicion only to find the despair marring his face.

"Shite !" They swore unanimously. "We need to warn Harry !"

Draco had searched the whole Hogwart for Pucey, but he found nothing. No clue about a possible accident, nor any about him leaving or even disappearing. It was like the older boy had vanished without traces. In other words : it was the Perks case all over again. He wouldn't be surprised if a new unmarked grave had appeared in the cemetery and nobody ever noticed.

But he couldn't understand : he had stopped Pucey from doing anything to Potter, so why was the older boy the first collateral damage ? Many others who actually had bullied the Gryffindor, didn't pay such a dire price. What the heck was going on ? There was something fishy about this situation but he didn't know what...

Passing by the culprit when going back to his dormitory, the young Malfoy asked :

"Nott, do you know what happened to Pucey... ?"

"Why would I ever know ?" Answered the other Slytherin blandly, amused by the question.

Draco let out an angry growl, unable to hold in his frustration :

"You fucker," he cursed out. "why did you even go after him ? The guy may have been a jerk, but he didn't even have time to do anything to Potter !"

Nott stared at him in curiosity before smiling.

"Admitting that I did go after him," he said, full of care. "it would have been because he was a jerk. With the ongoing patterns around here lately, one can never be too careful."

Chuckling lightly, the so called Shadow King left, not paying any attention to the collapsed form of his best friend convulsing on the ground.

AN : Yosh ! I still made it in time ! Bad naws : my computer died. Good news : I was caught unaware by such a thing once so I hade all my data saved up on an usb thingy ! So we still keeping up with the schedule of one chapter a week for five weeks, YAY !