Scorpius
The conversation that happened in McGonagall’s office was possibly one of the scariest, most urgent conversations that I’ve heard.
““ disappeared, without a trace “”
““ possibly since last night “”
““ absent from classes this morning “”
““ she’s gone “”
The four of us just watched in fear as Professors Longbottom and McGonagall had this hurried discussion. McGonagall asked us to recount our morning, which we did. After we’d finished, she moaned and rubbed her eyes tiredly.
“Neville, can you fetch Arana, Blaise, Padma and Ernie? Tell them that it’s a matter of urgency that they come to my office at once.” Longbottom nodded his head briefly at his superior’s words and exited the room swiftly, his dirt-covered robes swishing at his feet.
“As for you four, I suggest you return to class,” McGonagall said firmly. “Professor Binns will be wondering where you’ve gone. Class started five minutes ago, but give him this note “” she wrote something on a piece of parchment with her quill and handed it to Rose “ “and you’ll be excused.”
““ but “”
"“ Professor, you can’t simply expect us to “”
“Now!” she said harshly, silencing us. In a kinder voice, she added, “I know that this must be hard on you, but there’s nothing you can do right now.” In a very quick, fluid motion for someone her age, she stood up and ushered us out the door, slamming it close behind us.
“Perfect,” Adam muttered. “How are we going to know what happens now?” He looked at the three of us, searching for answers, but Rose and I just shrugged our shoulders.
However, Al had a gleam in his eyes, something that could only mean that he had a good idea. “I know what to do. Follow me!”
He bolted off, leaving us no choice but to hurry after him, confused and anxious. He led us straight through the empty corridors, up the many staircases and through many different doors before we finally reached our destination “ the Gryffindor tower.
“Quadpot!” Al said to the Fat Lady urgently, and she had no choice but to let us into the Common Room, her puzzled expression clear upon her painted face. He rushed up to our dormitory, threw open his trunk and started digging madly to find something.
“What on earth are you looking for?” Rose asked him impatiently.
“I know I shouldn’t have taken it… but it was just sitting there… I didn’t think that anyone would notice it was missing…”
“Spit it out!” I sighed.
“This,” he said dramatically, brandishing a shimmery piece of cloth from the realms of his trunk.
Adam let out a long whistle. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Language, Adam!” Rose scolded, but she herself looked impressed. “I can’t believe you stole Uncle Harry’s Invisibility Cloak!”
“You did what? I said incredulously. “When?”
“During Christmas break,” he replied, slightly ashamed.
“I was staying with you! How come you never told me about this?”
“I was going to… can we talk about this later? We need to get going!” We all rushed out of the dormitory.
“We can use this to listen to the Professors!” Adam said excitedly as we ran out of the portrait hole, heading in the direction that we came in minutes ago.
“Can we all fit under it?” Rose said worriedly. That stumped us. However, being the bright little witch she is, she whipped out her wand.
“Engorgio!” she chanted, swishing and flicking her wand at the cloak in Al’s hands. It expanded to almost double its size.
“Merlin, Rosie, you’re a genius!” Al said, giving his cousin a huge smile. Rose beamed back.
We were a corner away from the Headmistress’ office when Al stopped us.
“We’ll put this on now,” he said quietly. We all huddled together tightly and Adam and Al covered us all in the cloak.
“Alright, we’ll wait until a teacher goes in and sneak in behind them before the door closes.” This sound extremely risky, but we rounded the corner pretty confidently anyway.
“Ouch, that was my foot, Scorpius!” Rose whispered.
“Sorry.”
“Shh!” That was Adam; he’d spotted Professor Morgan hurrying towards the Head’s office, and nodded his head in her direction to alert us. She stopped at an ugly stone gargoyle.
“Cockroach cluster!” she said clearly, admitting the same password that Neville had done. The gargoyle moved aside as the wall behind him split in two. Behind the wall was a spiral staircase, which Morgan headed towards. The four of us crept up the stairs behind her, letting a gap of about eight or so feet hover between us. We didn’t want to accidentally step on her toes or something.
The steps ran out to a small, stone foyer, boasting nothing but a gleaming oak door. Morgan rapped on the door with the brass knocker, which was in the shape of a griffon. A few seconds passed before someone opened it. It was Professor Macmillan.
“Come in,” he said shortly, fortunately opening the door wide enough to admit us four as well. He shut the door behind us.
The scene looked very serious. Professors Longbottom, Patil and Zabini were sitting in various types of armchairs, crowded around McGonagall’s desk, who looked very worried, indeed. Nobody was smiling. Professor Patil conjured up another chair for the newcomer, and Ernie sank back down into his own.
“Arana, I’m glad you could come at such short notice,” McGonagall said, nodding at Professor Morgan. “I was just explaining the situation to the others.”
“What situation, Minerva?” she asked, frowning.
“We have a missing student,” she said sombrely.
Morgan gasped in shock. “Who?”
“Claudia Kelaney,” Professor Patil replied.
“I was supposed to have her for Charms this morning!” Morgan exclaimed. “She was absent. Albus Potter, Scorpius Malfoy, Rose Weasley and Adam Finnigan all came into class late, claiming to have stopped to talk to Albus’ dad. It struck me as odd that she wasn’t with them. They’re normally inseparable!”
“Hang on a second,” Zabini said. “Are we sure that it’s only Miss Kelaney missing? Is it possible that we’re searching for two missing students?”
Morgan’s face paled. “Now that you mention it… Nina Jordan was absent, too.”
McGonagall looked ready to pass out. “It’s highly possible that she’s gone as well,” she said shakily.
“So, what are we to do?” Patil asked in a small voice.
“Firstly, we need to alert the Auror team. Get Harry Potter in my office at once.” Patil nodded, and stood up to leave. However, McGonagall stopped her. “I’ll get Arana to do it, Padma. As Head of Ravenclaw, you need to do a head count of your students.” Morgan swept out of the office, her footsteps sounding urgent.
“As you just heard me say,” the Headmistress continued to the four staff members remaining, “I will need you four to do a head check of your students at lunch. You are not to disclose the reason behind it, but assure the students that there’s no danger to worry about.” She paused, her thoughts consuming her. “And we need to start searching for Claudia, and possibly Nina.”
“What on earth could have caused such a thing?” Macmillan wondered out loud, sinking back into his chair.
“The question, Ernie, is not what, but who,” Zabini replied curtly. “And I’m fairly sure that we all know who is capable of this.”
Beside me, Rose muffled a sharp cry. Although Longbottom had already mentioned how this was a possibility, it made it sound even realer when a highly intelligent, albeit prejudiced, man like Zabini confirmed this theory.
“The Illuminati,” Patil sighed.
“Yes.”
Suddenly, an owl flew into the office and landed on a golden perch, carrying a letter in its claws. This was singlehandedly the strangest, most coincidental moments that I have had and will witness. Why is that? Oh, no reason. Just that the letter turned out to be a ransom note. From the Illuminati, that arrived just as our Professors were discussing it.
McGonagall gasped in shock once she untied the letter and had read the contents. To answer the confused looks of her staff, she read it out loud in a shaky voice.
The Mudbloods are safe. If you want to keep it that way, give me the Elder Wand. Give me it and they are released. Do not try to come after us. As you know, the Illuminati have no hesitation in disposing of filth, magical or not. You have 24 hours.
McGonagall finished with an edge of panic in her voice.
Longbottom started to speak, but he was cut off abruptly by McGonagall’s hand instructing him not to speak.
“Give me a moment to think,” she said quietly.
And so she did. She took a long moment to think. A minute or two must have passed before she voiced her plan of action.
“Firstly, we need to make sure that nobody finds out unless absolutely necessary. At lunch,” she said, checking her watch, “which should be very soon, I want you to do a head count of your students.” As if on cue, the bell rang, signalling the beginning of lunch. I heard Adam’s stomach rumble softly, and I momentarily panicked “ what if the teachers heard us? Fortunately, they were too preoccupied.
“We better go do those head counts,” Longbottom sighed, getting to his feet. Patil, Macmillan and Zabini rose to theirs as well.
“Leave the door open on your way out,” said the Headmistress after them.
McGonagall sighed and went off into another room of her office, presumably her private quarters. I heard Albus sigh in relief, and start to head to the door. However, Rose held him back.
“Your dad’s coming, remember?” she whispered.
“So?”
“We’ll be able to find out what’s exactly happening.”
“Good idea,” I muttered.
Suddenly, we heard noise below us as the stone gargoyle was once again admitting someone up. We heard a murmur of voices coming up the staircase, and the unmistakeable looks of Harry Potter came into view, who was deep in conversation with Professor Morgan.
“Anyone here?” he called as they entered the empty office.
“Coming!” McGonagall called, and seconds later, she re-entered the office. “Sit down,” she said gesturing towards the recently vacated armchairs.
“Thank you, Minerva,” Harry said, and he and Morgan sank into one each.
“Would you like a Ginger Newt?” she said, offering a tin of biscuits to them.
“Just like old times,” he sighed reminiscently, giving a small chuckle. She smiled grimly.
“So, Arana told me that a girl, possibly two, has mysteriously disappeared,” he said, his voice business-like.
“It’s not so mysterious now, I’m afraid,” she sighed wearily. “They’ve been abducted by the Illuminati.” McGonagall gestured towards the ransom note that had been tossed carelessly down on her desk.
“May I?” he asked, holding out his hand to the letter.
“Of course,” McGonagall replied.
I watched Harry’s jaw drop as he read the brief note. After he finished, he groaned. “I can’t believe her. Actually, I can. That evil bitch!”
I was quite impressed “ I didn’t know that the famous Harry Potter could swear! I’d never heard him do that, and I stayed at his house for two weeks, for Merlin’s sake! You’d think I would have heard him utter a profanity by now.
“Who are the girls?” he asked.
“Claudia Kelaney and Nina Jordan,” replied McGonagall.
Harry looked pained by that news. “Claudia is one of my son’s best friends… how am I going to break this to him?”
“No need,” she said. “Albus and his friends were the ones who reported her missing.”
“Where is he now?” Harry asked.
“At lunch, I presume.”
Harry reread the note. “It says here ‘the Mudbloods.’ Not ‘Mudblood’, but the plural form. I knew that Claudia was Muggleborn, but I know Nina’s father and he’s certainly not a Muggle.” He seemed confused.
“Actually,” she replied, “it’s not a well-known fact, but Nina Jordan is, in fact, adopted.”
If my jaw wasn’t already on the floor, it was now. Nina was adopted?
“Yes, she is,” McGonagall said, noticing Harry’s stunned expression. “Nina’s biological parents, who were Italian Muggles, gave her up for adoption once her magical skills were displayed. They didn’t understand, and dumped her at an orphanage when she was three years old. Lee was in Italy at the time with his new wife, and they didn’t think they could have kids. So… they adopted her as their own. And now Nina has two sisters, both the biological daughters of Lee and Isabella Jordan. But technically, she’s Muggleborn.”
“That’s terrible!” Harry said, shaking his head. “How Nina must feel to know that her parents gave her up because they thought she was a freak… I can sympathise.” His expression turned sad.
“Harry, what exactly is the Elder Wand? And why is Bellatrix Lestrange so interested in it?”
Al’s dad sighed. “This is a ridiculously long story, so I’m just going to keep it brief. Do you remember, a month or two before the Battle of Hogwarts, when Voldemort broke into Dumbledore’s tomb?”
McGonagall looked confused. “How do you know about that? Severus Snape hushed that up very nicely.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he replied quickly, “but do you know what Voldemort stole from him?”
“The Elder Wand?” she guessed.
“Correct.”
“So… the Elder Wand… was Albus’ wand?” she said, trying to understand.
“Yes. It wasn’t just an ordinary wand, though. It had special magical powers that only you and I could dream of. It basically makes the carrier… unbeatable.”
“But Albus… he was killed?”
“Dumbledore died of his own free will. It just happens that Snape was the person who physically did it.”
“And the Elder Wand has this immense power that can basically do anything?”
“Yes.”
“Let me get this straight. Bellatrix wants this Elder Wand to strengthen her powers, and she’ll give us back the girls, presumably unharmed, if we give it to her?”
“Yes.”
“But if we give her the Elder Wand, she’ll grow even more stronger?”
“Yes.”
“And if we don’t, she’ll… kill the girls.” McGonagall choked on her words.
“It sounds like it,” Harry replied with a nervous sigh. “She’s literally insane, and will have no qualms in doing the unthinkable.”
“Where is the Elder Wand, anyway?” she asked.
Harry looked sheepish. “Well… it’s in Dumbledore’s tomb.”
“But “ ”
“I put it back in there after the battle.”
“Oh.”
The pair sat in silence for a while. “So… what do we do now?”
Harry replied, “Give me a while to think. I need to consult with Ron and the other Aurors, and Kingsley needs to be debriefed about the situation. However, I assure you, Minerva, this will be kept as secretive as possible.”
“Thank you, Harry,” McGonagall replied, and stood up to usher Harry out the office.
I was jolted back into reality when Adam tapped me on the shoulder, and pointed to the door. We tiptoed out as quickly as we could and waited in the foyer. We waited there until Harry came out and exited directly behind him. When we were back in the corridor, we waited until Harry had rounded the corner before we took off the Invisibility Cloak at last.
“Oh my Godric,” was all Rose was able to utter.
Rose
Whispers circulated the castle all afternoon. Why did the Professors do a head count? Why do they look so anxious? Why is Harry Potter in the castle?
There was nothing else that we could do. The lessons for the rest of the day were long and strenuous. For the first time in my life, I did not give my full, undivided attention to the teacher. I sat there and moped. The empty seat next to me in Transfiguration brought too many thoughts in my head.
Although I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, I wasn’t hungry at dinner and I barely touched my food. For once, the boys didn’t eat. It just goes to show how serious the situation was.
This was like a horrible repeat of Halloween. Claudia had gone missing, again.
The Gryffindor Gang by U-No-Poo
Chapter Notes: HEY! I'm back! I'm so sorry about leaving you guys in the lurch! Hopefully I still have readers. Anyway here's Chapter 10, enjoy!
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