A/N: Hello, my fellow readers! I know it's been so long since I've posted a new chapter on this particular story. Over the last few years, I have been focusing on my main Doctor Who series "The Odd Life of Nova Sue", and I hope you will consider reading that as well if you're a Whovian. I have been meaning to continue this one but I keep putting it off, and for that I apologize. You're all in luck though. Finally I have finished at least the first chapter of Year 2, which I'm titling overall "The Vanished Staircase". I hope you all enjoy it. Again, sorry for the super late update. I will try to update this story as often as I do with my Doctor Who series.

This is the first chapter of Year 2.

Chapter 1: The Story Continues

"Well, sweetheart," Mum said as we arrived at Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, ten minutes before 11am, which was when the train would depart for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, "here we are. Are you sure you have everything? Books? Cauldron? Quills? Jumper?"

"Yes, Mum," I sighed for the millionth time, "I have everything in my trunk, and Indi is securely locked in his cage." My beautiful owl, Indigo, squawked in response.

"Good girl," Mum nodded her approval. "I suppose you're all set then."

However, there was a twinge of doubt in her voice at the same time as she said those words. This led me to hug her and say in an assuring tone, "I'll be fine, Mum. You don't have to worry about anything."

This year was going to be just like the previous one—I would go off to Hogwarts to learn anything and everything there was to know about magic and the Wizarding World, and I would come home for the Holidays…of course, without my dear brother, Jacob, again. Ever since that fateful night, just a year before I had started at Hogwarts, when he was forced to return home after being expelled from Hogwarts (which was for the brutal death of his best friend, Duncan Ashe, and for putting all of Hogwarts in danger on his pursuit of the—at the time—fabled Cursed Vaults), and he ran away from home on that very same night, he had been missing ever since and without a single word. Not long after I had started my first year at Hogwarts, Mum had gotten in contact with the Aurors at the Ministry to search for him all through the school year and summer, but no luck. Eventually they had to quit their search, claiming that they "had other important matters to attend to than searching endlessly for a cursed delinquent," which angered us greatly, especially Mum, but she wouldn't back down. She demanded them to continue the search, and thankfully at least one Auror, the legendary Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, was considerate enough to comply, though we hadn't heard from him in quite a while.

Now, I was about to start my second year at Hogwarts, yet again without any inkling of Jake's whereabouts or even whether he was still alive or not, and it saddened me to my core and increased my worry for him, not knowing when I would ever see him again.

"But I do worry about you, sweetie," Mum sighed as she gripped my shoulder tensely. "All that talk of cursed ice in Hogwarts, and the fact that it could be connected to a Cursed Vault… And yet they still send you back to Hogwarts anyway."

I shook my head and said, "Mum, that's just a rumor. Nothing bad ever happens at Hogwarts, especially not while Dumbledore is around. He's one of the greatest and most powerful wizards of all time. Dark wizards and witches fear him because of it. We're perfectly safe as long as he's around."

Of course, this was a half-lie. Sure, Hogwarts was safe (at least for the most part) as long as Dumbledore was around, but bad things could still happen even then. Even while Jake was at school, people, including Dumbledore, were being affected by the Cursed Vaults' curses, though it was unclear as to what Dumbledore did about the Vaults aside from banning my brother from ever returning to the school again. In any case, I was sure Dumbledore and the other professors did everything they could to keep Hogwarts safe all year round, even if they seemed to be struggling with this current 'cursed ice' problem.

"Yes, but he might not always be around," Mum said, doubting my words. "Perhaps one day he'll disappear…just like your brother."

"Mum…" I sighed with a roll of my eyes, having had this conversation a million times over the summer. Ever since Jake disappeared, she had been afraid to lose me in a similar way, but I always told her she was being ridiculous and that I was smarter than my brother. Unlike him, I've done much prior research and learned ways to not get caught when implementing the techniques I read from my research—with a little help from my best friend, Rowan Khanna, of course. Jake was always the type of person that would spell-cast first and ask questions later, which was why he got into so much trouble so many times.

"I just…" Mum sighed as well, closing her eyes regretfully. "Ever since your brother's disappearance, I worry that you might disappear too. This is what started it all—your brother's obsession with these Vaults. And now that it's happening again…" She immediately paused as if remembering that the next thing she was about to let slip was something that was, in fact, forbidden to say out loud, which made me frown.

"'Again?'" I asked. "What do you mean? You mean there's been cursed ice at Hogwarts before?" Could this 'ice' curse be the same curse Jake dealt with when he was still at Hogwarts? Were there other curses as well?

"Yes," Mum confirmed, "and there was a rumor that Jacob was responsible for releasing the ice from what he believed to be a Cursed Vault."

"I don't remember that," I frowned, trying and failing to remember that particular conversation. Not that it really mattered as much to me as what my mother said about my brother to be true. I shook my head in denial at my own thoughts. No… He couldn't have… Could he?

"You were too young to understand," Mum said in an apologetic tone. "You were only six years old—almost seven—at the time."

"So why is it happening now?" I asked curiously. "Do you think Jake has something to do with it? Do you think he came back?" If he truly had come back to Hogwarts—granted, he had to have snuck back in without being noticed, since he'd been banned from ever returning again—I might be able to see him again, after all. Perhaps he'd secretly returned to help me finish what he started.

"I don't know," Mum shook her head before gripping my shoulders tightly and continuing in a stern tone. "But, Jane, listen to me. You must promise me that if this 'cursed ice' business proves to be anything but a rumor, you will not go looking for its source. You must stay away from the ice and, especially, the Cursed Vaults, if it's true what The Daily Prophet says about the ice possibly escaping from one. If the Vaults truly exist, leave them to Dumbledore and the professors. Promise me you'll only focus on your studies. Promise me you'll stay out of trouble." She said that last bit with much urgency, which automatically made me think of my equally stern Prefect, Angelica Cole.

I paused, thinking about my mother's statement. As my mother, whether I was with her or away from her, I knew she wanted me safe, regardless, but I felt I had to disappoint her, as well as my Prefect, and disagree with her, thinking my search for the Cursed Vaults will lead me to Jake's whereabouts. "Okay, Mum, I promise," I lie, hugging her. "Please, stop worrying for me. Whatever happened to Jake, it won't happen to me. I'll be fine. I swear. If it makes you feel better, I'll have Indi send you letters every week, just to show you nothing's happening." Needless to say, I was not going to include anything to do with the Cursed Vaults in my letters.

Mum sighed as the Hogwarts Express gave off a loud choo to indicate that it was going to depart shortly. "Alright, sweetie," she said as she gave me one last hug and pushed me gently toward the train. "Hurry along now, before the train leaves."

"Bye, Mum!" I called back to her as I rushed my trolly toward the train loader. "I love you!" I handed my luggage and Indigo to him before I hopped on board. "Sorry, Mum," I muttered to myself as I waved at her from out the window as the train began rolling out of Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, "but I have to take back that promise. I have to find out what happened to Jake, and the Cursed Vaults may be the only things to give me those answers. If the Aurors refuse to find him, then I will." I mentally made that as a personal Unbreakable Vow that I would be damned to break before I truly found him.

As the train was exiting London's city limits and entering the seemingly endless countryside beyond, I casually walked through the various compartments in search of familiar faces from the previous year. I recognized several former classmates, but I was more interested in finding my closest friends—Pure-Blood Gryffindor (like me) and research extraordinaire, Rowan Khanna; Half-Blood Hufflepuff and dazzling Potioneer, Penny Haywood; and Muggle-Born Gryffindor and gifted spell-caster, Ben Copper.

Thankfully, a girl with familiar long blond braids caught my eye at the end of the hallway. "Penny!" I said as I rushed to her.

"Jane!" she said as she ran over and hugged me. "It's so good to see you! How was your summer?"

"Long," I sighed. "I'm glad we're finally returning to Hogwarts. It feels like forever since we left."

"I know, right?" Penny agreed. "It feels like we're returning home rather than leaving home. I'm anxious to start our second year and brew more potions! I'm hoping to learn some more advanced potions this year. Perhaps I'll ask Snape to give me some private lessons."

"Me too," I nodded, though I kept the thought of my high reluctance to be taught by Snape again—or really ever—to myself. "Have you seen Rowan or Ben anywhere?"

She shook her head. "No, I haven't seen them yet, but I'm sure they're around here somewhere. Shall I help you look for them?"

"No, it's okay," I politely declined, "I'll look for them by myself. You stay here and catch up with your friends. We'll catch up later."

"Alright then!" she smiled. "See you later or at the Welcoming Feast!"

I continued my search for my other friends until I eventually saw Rowan sitting alone in a compartment, staring out the window at the passing trees, tall hills, and low valleys. "Rowan!" I called to her and waved.

Rowan looked up and smiled upon recognizing me. "Jane! There you are! Thank god you're still here!" She stood up and hugged me tightly, saying, "For some reason I thought you weren't coming back to Hogwarts because you've been expelled."

"Nah," I shook my head as I sat in the seat across from her. "I told you Dumbledore saw great potential in me for the coming years, this year included. Trust me, I don't intend on leaving Hogwarts anytime soon. Not while my brother still remains missing."

"He's still missing?" Rowan asked, shocked. "I'm sorry to hear that."

I sighed. "Yeah. It's been two years now, and he's still missing. During our previous year, Mum got in contact with several Aurors at the Ministry to talk them into continuing the search, and they did for a while during the summer, but lately they've quit their search and moved on. Of course, this really upset Mum, and I'm pretty upset about it too. I mean, it's my brother! He may be seventeen now, but he's still a kid. The Aurors can't give up on him like this. Mum fought them for a while, but eventually she had to stop. It's been hard without him, especially for Mum. Most nights, she can't sleep because of her constant worry for him."

"I'm sorry, Jane," Rowan nodded sympathetically. "I completely understand. Not that I've ever dealt with missing siblings since I'm an only child, but I can imagine what you're going through. I'm sure your brother is alright, wherever he is."

Even though I couldn't help but doubt her words, I agreed with a nod, "Yeah, I'm sure he is," before shaking my head and changing the subject. "Anyway, on to a more cheerful topic. How was your summer?"

Rowan sighed before sharing. "Pretty boring, actually. I've been extremely busy helping my parents with our farm. Summer has always been the busiest time of year for us, especially for me since I'm not in school during the summer, and that's when they need me the most. Because of this I haven't been able to read as much as I would've liked. Speaking of which, I've been trying to read up on the History of Hogwarts and the Cursed Vaults, but it's hard to find books about those things outside of Hogwarts. If only I could've had the ability to Apparate in and out of the Hogwarts Library at will, that would've been so much easier."

I nodded, remembering her talking a lot about this in her letters over the summer and how much I longed to do the same. For most of the summer, I believed that the reason why the Aurors hadn't had any luck in finding my brother was because they were not looking in the right places—specifically Hogwarts, or any other places where there might've been a Cursed Vault deeply hidden. Either that, or something terrible might've happened to Jake that he didn't want me or the rest of our family to know about, and he didn't want to be found for this very reason. Perhaps he didn't want to be found because he was trying to protect us from an even bigger threat, but from what, I didn't know, and I was terrified to know if I ever were to find out. There were so many possibilities, and yet not a single grain of evidence that proved where Jake was or what happened to him. That being said, I believed the evidence laid inside the Cursed Vaults, and I was equally as anxious as Rowan was to get back to Hogwarts to do further research. I couldn't stand another year without him.

"Unfortunately I had to wait until I would go back to Hogwarts," Rowan continued, "and the day is finally here. For a while I thought it would never come."

I nodded. "Same. I'm anxious to get back to Hogwarts and continue the search for the Cursed Vaults and my brother."

"Speaking of which, have you read in The Daily Prophet recently that there is cursed ice spreading around Hogwarts—the cursed ice we found in that room?" Rowan asked. "Do you think we somehow made that happen when we were there?"

I shook my head. "I don't think so. It had to have been there long before we discovered it."

"Did you see how fast it was spreading in just that room alone? Since we've been gone for the last two months, I can't imagine how far it's spread now. The ice may have spread across that entire corridor by now."

"Yeah, I've been wondering the same thing. When Mum read about it, she was surprised Dumbledore was letting us come back to school with this happening. During the entire summer, she urged me not to go looking for the cursed ice's source, especially if it's connected with a Cursed Vault."

"Which it very well might be," Rowan added.

"Exactly," I nodded. "I'm fairly certain it's connected to a Cursed Vault. Anyway, she made me promise I wouldn't go looking for the Cursed Vaults and just leave it to Dumbledore and the professors to deal with, but of course I took back my promise once she was out of earshot." I knew Mum wanted me to be safe, but I wanted by brother to be safer, what with him having been gone for so long.

"Good," Rowan nodded in approval. "I know how important it is to you to find your brother, and I want to help."

"I wouldn't expect anything less of you, Rowan," I chuckled. "I'm going to need all the help I can get from you and our other friends. Speaking of which, have you seen Ben? I saw Penny Haywood earlier, but I hadn't seen Ben, and nor has she."

Rowan shook her head. "No, I haven't seen him. Knowing him, he's probably cowering in another compartment somewhere. I don't feel like getting up and looking for him though. I'm sure we'll see him when we get to the station."

I sighed at her response. "Alright. I feel a little bad for bringing him along to that room with us. That must've terrified him. I hope he's okay. I want to talk to him about it when we see him."

A small part of me felt guilty for bringing them along and putting them into all of that danger, but at the time I felt like I was doing the right thing. I was so certain that my brother had left something for me in that room, or was even in the room himself, but, frustratingly, I was wrong. Instead, we ended up facing seemingly live ice that froze the door closed and nearly froze us to death. That must've traumatized Ben so much, and now he had to live with those horrible memories for the rest of his life.

Oh, Ben, I sighed sadly, I'm so sorry…

"I'm sure he's fine," Rowan shrugged, not seeming to worry for her friend at all, which honestly shocked me a bit. I would've thought she'd be at least a bit worried for him, but apparently I was wrong.

I sighed, feeling unsure of what to feel anymore, "Yeah, maybe he is," before shrugging. "I don't know, I just have a bad feeling about him. Like… Like the ice had somehow affected him in a really bad way."

"What, like the ice cursed him, or something?" Rowan said in a partially joking manner.

"Maybe?" I shrugged again.

"The ice encased me at one point while we were in that room," Rowan pointed out, "and I'm fine. I'm sure Ben is fine too. As you said, we'll talk to him when we see him. Speaking of 'bad feelings,' just out of curiosity, have you been having any more visions lately? Of the ice or the mysterious 'Vanished Stairs?'"

I paused, thinking about lying to her, but I ultimately decided to confess anyway. "Actually, I have. Well, sort of. They may not be 'visions,' per se, but they are strange. Ever since we discovered the cursed ice in that room that night, I've been having nightmares about it. I've been having dreams of seeing the cursed ice encase all of Hogwarts, including our friends and professors. Sometimes I would even see my brother frozen among everyone or just simply standing off to the side watching everyone else freeze to death." I refrained from explaining the moments of seeing my brother dressed as a Death Eater during these dreams, a sight that which still greatly disturbed me.

"Do you think he was the one who brought the ice to Hogwarts?" Rowan asked curiously. "Do you think he opened a Cursed Vault and released the cursed ice out of it?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. It may be a possibility, though, considering his history with them. Mum even said this had happened before, back when Jake was still at Hogwarts. She said there was a rumor that he was the one who unleashed the curse back then."

"And you think he may have done it again to get your attention?"

"I don't know. I don't think that's something he would do, but…maybe he would. Ever since he first heard about the Cursed Vaults, he changed. It was like he became another person entirely. It made me feel like I didn't know him anymore. I remember it scaring me; it even scared Mum." I remembered him becoming more secretive and even distant, which wasn't like him at all. When I was younger, he hardly ever kept any secrets from me.

What had those Cursed Vaults done to him?

Rowan sighed. "Well, whatever happened back then, I'm sure he had a good reason for opening the Vault."

"I'm not sure it was for anything good, but we'll stop this ice curse once we get back. Even though Mum made me swear I wouldn't go looking for the source, I'm going to anyway. It may be the only way to find my brother." I was going to get to the bottom of this mystery, no matter what it took.

"Whatever happens, I'll stand by you, Jane," Rowan smiled, reaching for my hand and squeezing it gently. "Every step of the way. We'll break this ice curse together."

I smiled. "Thanks, Rowan. I know I can always count on you."

I was silent for the rest of the journey, thinking nonstop about my brother and the thought of him having opened what I'd decided to dub the 'Ice Vault' and therefore putting Hogwarts in danger. If that was the case, I couldn't help but think that this could've been evidence of him having truly turned Death Eater. That just couldn't be true…could it? I seriously hoped it wasn't, for Jake's and Mum's sakes.

A/N: TO BE CONTINUED!

At least, I will try :)