It has been rumored that Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived and recently dubbed The Chosen One, has disappeared without a trace.
“We don’t know anything about Mr. Potter’s alleged disappearance,” says one harried Ministry official, who refused to give his name as he left the Ministry yesterday afternoon. Attempts to interview other Ministry employees about Potter’s disappearance had the same results.
Nevertheless, many sources have come forward and confirmed that Mr. Potter is indeed missing, and has been for nearly a month now. Sources also state that every action has been taken to find Mr. Potter, but the search has so far yielded more questions than answers. Such as, What Harry Potter was doing in the Hog’s Head the day he vanished?
“I saw him come in, but never leave,” says a patron of the Hogsmeade bar. Other witnesses also reported that a fight had taken place in an upper room, shortly after Potter was seen entering the establishment. What took place in that room, or whether Potter was involved is unclear. We do know however, that he has not been seen or heard from since.
The paper slipped out of the girl’s hands and fluttered to the floor. Tears soaked her cheeks and hair, as she rested her head against the hard glass window of the moving train. The coldness of the glass seeped into her pale cheek and traveled its way through her body. She shivered slightly, not from the cold but from the turmoil in her heart. The pain was almost more than she could handle. How could this happen? She had finally gotten him to admit his feelings for her, only to lose him again. It wasn’t fair.
Ginny numbly gazed out the window and watched the train speed forward through a forest of trees. The dense forest soon gave way to a majestic view over a valley. In the distant horizon, the sun was fading fast as it washed the dimming landscape with a colorful glow. If it had been any other time, she would have marveled at the sight. Instead she watched the light dance in the sky without much thought.
Ginny could hear excited voices and movement coming from outside her compartment. She guessed that the students were donning their school robes in anticipation of the train’s arrival. She knew the train would reach its destination within the hour, but Hogwarts was the last place she wanted to be.
Harry was out there somewhere. Somewhere she wasn’t. Somewhere that was unknown to her and to everyone else who cared about him. Even though they had searched relentlessly for Harry, a month is a long time to be missing. Most people had already given up hope of even finding him alive.
Ginny shut these thoughts out of her mind. She didn’t want to hear, or think it. All she wanted was have Harry found and for him to be all right. She wanted things to go back to the way it was before he disappeared. But deep in her heart she knew that this might never come true. As every minute slipped by it was less possible that she would ever see him again. She cringed inwardly at this thought.
Ginny’s head began to ache and she slowly lifted it from the window. She looked around the empty compartment not really seeing it, until she caught a glimpse of a familiar face smiling up at her. The newspaper she had dropped earlier lay at her feet. Harry waved at her from the front page making her flinch. They had used an old photo of Harry. It was of him winning the first task at the Triwiard Tournament. Harry wouldn’t like the fact that they had used that picture. He didn’t like being reminded of the Tournament. It held too many painful memories for him. Ginny kicked at the paper, but missed. She laid her head back on the seat in frustration and let out a long drawn out sigh.
It was out. People finally knew the truth. There was no point in hiding it any longer. The whole world now knew Harry Potter was missing. The Order had tried to keep it a secret, but somehow the news of Harry’s disappearance had made the morning news. Mad-Eye wouldn’t be happy.
Ginny let her mind wander back to the last time she had seen Harry. She remembered that day so well. She remembered waking up in his arms. Harry was not yet awake. So she just laid beside him and watched his sleeping form. The look of heavy burdens and duty he normally wore on his face was gone. A quiet peacefulness was all that was left. She remembered pulling a piece of hair that from his forehead and lightly tracing the wicked looking scar that rested there. She was so happy and content in that moment. She wished it could have lasted forever, but she knew it wouldn’t. Little did she know that her happiness would be dashed sooner than even she expected.
After waking up together that morning, Harry had quickly downed some breakfast and left with Ron and Hermione to Hogsmeade. He told her that it was important that he go, but he didn’t say why. He also said that they would talk more about things when he got back. Only he never did come back.
Once Harry, Ron and Hermione left, Ginny spent most of the day helping her mum set up Grimmuald Place as their new home. After the attack at the Burrow and on the Dursley’s, the Order thought it best that the Weasley family should stay on at Grimmuald Place for a while. Her mum had also insisted that Harry’s cousin Dudley stay as well, since he didn’t have much of a home to go back to.
After spending most of the day airing out all the bedrooms and finding a place to put all her stuff, she joined the rest of the family, Dudley, and a few Order members for dinner in the kitchen. It was half way through dinner when they got the bad news from Ron.
He came bursting into the kitchen slightly out of breath and a panicked look on his face. Ron’s sudden entrance caught the attention of everyone in the room, “Harry he’s…”
“Well it’s about time you showed up! You almost missed dinner! Where have you been all day? Where is Harry and Hermione?” Mrs. Weasley shouted out before he could finish.
Without missing a beat Ron shouted back, “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! He never showed up! Harry is gone! He’s missing! We… we don’t know where he is!”
“What do you mean Harry’s gone? Where is he?” his mum asked with a slightly confused and very concerned look on her face.
“I JUST TOLD YOU! I DON’T KNOW!” Ron yelled, now shaking visibly with emotion.
His father walked up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder, “Calm down, son. Where did you last see him?”
It took a minute, but Ron was finally able to calm down enough to speak, “We left Harry while we were walking to the Three Broomsticks. We didn’t think about it. Hermione and I were having a disagreement and we…we left him.” Ron’s voice caught and he cleared his throat before continuing, “I don’t understand how could this happen? He was right behind us. We shouldn’t have left him.”
“How long has he been missing?” Mad-Eye asked abruptly, as he limped to Ron’s side.
Ron shrugged, “I don’t know, a couple of hours.”
“Wait, are you sure he’s missing? Maybe he went off by himself?” Charlie offered, as he too got up from the table.
“Or maybe he just ditched you,” Dudley said around a mouthful of rice pudding.
Ron shook his head, “No, you don’t understand. He would have told us if he was going anywhere. We had plans.”
“Plans?” Mad-Eye asked, his magical eye focusing intently on Ron.
Ron sighed, “Yes, look can we please discuss this later. Right now we have to get back to Hogsmeade and help Hermione search for Harry. I told her I’d be right back with help.”
Charlie looked at his father with a questioning glance, “Wouldn’t we know if something was wrong? I thought…”
He was cut off abruptly by Mr. Weasley, “Ron’s right. We don’t have time for this. If Harry is in trouble…”
Mr. Weasley exchanged a glance with Mad-Eye. Mad-Eye grunted and started for the door with a rather fast limp, “Let’s go.”
Mr. Weasley, Charlie, Tonks and Ron followed Mad-Eye out the door. This left Mrs. Weasley, Dudley, and Ginny the only ones remaining at the table. The rest of the meal was very quiet. Ginny and her mum didn’t really eat much, but the disappearance of his cousin didn’t daunt Dudley’s appetite at all. He ate three more helpings before declaring himself full and then heading up to his room.
Ginny and her mother waited anxiously for some news about Harry. Several times she became too uptight to wait and wanted to head to Hogsmeade to join in the search, but her mother begged her to stay with her. Ginny did, but she wasn’t happy about it.
Hours later and late into the night the search party finally returned, but without Harry and no closer to knowing where he was. The only clue to his whereabouts was an old barman, who claimed to have seen him in the Hog's Head. A closer search revealed evidence of a struggle in one of the rooms upstairs from the bar. The room was disheveled and large black scorches marked the walls. The obvious signs of a fight left everyone with a bad feeling, but no one more so than Ginny. It was at this point when it finally started to sink in that Harry was really gone, and that something was very wrong.
The search for Harry did not stop there. They all continued the search in earnest, but without much to go and no new leads, hopes of finding Harry began to waver. Hours turned into days, days into weeks, and weeks into a month. Still there was no sign of Harry. Some people where starting to fear the worse, but Ginny dared not think it. She couldn’t. Harry was still alive out there somewhere, she knew. She didn’t know how, but he was. He had to, at least that is what she kept trying to convince herself to think.
“Ginny, are you coming or what?”
Ginny was jolted out of her thoughts and looked to see where the voice had come from. Hermione was by Ginny’s compartment door dressed in her school robes. Ron was standing behind her in the hallway.
“Oh, yeah. I’m coming,” she said absentmindedly, as she slid off the warm seat and reached for her trunk in the overhead compartment.
She fumbled with the lid trying to get it open, but it wouldn’t cooperate. She heard muffled voices and a door closed. Then someone came up behind her and lifted the heavy lid for her.
“Thanks,” she muttered as she pulled her robes from off the top of her other belongs.
“It’s okay, Ginny. He’ll be all right. You know him. He can take care of himself,” Hermione said quietly.
Ginny turned around and looked at the brown haired girl, “Tell me the truth, Hermione. If Harry was all right, don’t you think he would have gotten word to us by now?”
Hermione bowed her head, “Ginny, you can’t think that way…”
“But you are, aren’t you?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Then why won’t you look me in the eyes when you say that?”
Hermione stood not saying a word.
Ginny was starting to feel hot anger build up inside her, “And another thing. If you really thought Harry was coming back, then why are you and Ron on this train? I thought you were suppose to go off on some sort of mission, or something?”
Hermione sighed, “Nothing is what it seems Ginny.”
“And what is that suppose to mean? Do you know something I don’t?”
“No more than you.”
“I don’t believe that!” Ginny shouted, losing her patience all together. “If you know something…”
“Ginny, if I knew something, I would tell you,” Hermione said, looking pleadingly at her.
Ginny sighed and sat down. Her anger slowly ebbed away. She knew getting mad wouldn’t help anything. Hermione understood how much she cared for Harry. It would be crazy to think that Hermione would purposely keep something like that from her, “I just miss him.”
“We all do,” Hermione consoled, as she too sat down.
Ginny rested her head on the other girl’s shoulder, “Do you really think he’s okay?”
“Honestly, I don’t know, but I would like to think so.”
“But what if he’s…”
Hermione stiffened, “No, don’t even think like that.”
Ginny lifted her head, “And why not?”
“Because… Hermione sighed. “I haven’t given up hope and neither should you. He’s still out there and you think the same thing.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because you love him. Isn’t that enough to believe?” without another word Hermione got up and left Ginny alone in the compartment.
A tear fell down the girl’s cheek as she watched her friend leave, “Yes. Yes it is,” Ginny said
quietly.