Louis landed with an unceremonious thud in the grassy field a few miles outside of Ottery St Catchpole, just past a very familiar patch of apple trees. Quickly, he looked himself over to make sure he hadn’t Splinched himself, and when he was satisfied that he was in one piece, he picked up his trunk and started to walk. The search had to start somewhere.
It was about a half mile before Louis felt up to another round of Apparition, and besides that, he wasn’t entirely sure where he was actually going to go. He was going to need a place to sleep at night, a way to keep the Aurors off his tail, and moreover, a strategy.
Briefly, his mind wandered to his extended family’s heart and home, The Burrow, which lay only a few miles behind him. He wondered how long it would take someone to figure out that Louis was no longer on the train, and how much more time would pass before his parents found out. Guilt followed as he hoped that no one would find the note he had left before he got a chance to make a proper break for it.
Nowhere in his plans had there been someone in the distance, shouting his name.
Turning to look, Louis could barely discern the outline of a figure, but he knew that silhouette anywhere. His father was the last person he wanted to talk to, so he began to run as fast as he could as he tried to focus on somewhere — anywhere — to go. However, just as he decided on a grassy knoll near Shell Cottage, he sprinted head-on into his father’s frame.
They both landed with a dull thud in the grass, but as soon as he could, Louis struggled to regain his feet. A strong arm halted his progress and eventually clamped down across his midriff. Louis flailed his limbs in a juvenile effort to free himself, but Bill didn’t give an inch.
–Where you go, I go,†Bill said breathlessly, –so don’t even think about trying to Apparate.â€
–Let me go!†Louis shouted, barely cognisant of his trunk digging into his chest as he was pushed face-first into the dirt. Only one thought reigned in his head. –I have to find her.â€
–Louis,†Bill ground out as his son’s elbow made sharp contact with his ribcage. –Louis, you need to stop.â€
The mere idea sending a flare of anger through him, Louis screeched, –No!†However, Bill’s grip only maintained its strength, and soon, Louis couldn’t muster up the strength to keep struggling. Panting heavily, he sagged against Bill and repeated a half-hearted, –No.â€
All he had to do was get away, and he couldn’t even do that. He had failed Lucy, and now no one was looking for her. That thought wrought a howl of despair from his lungs, and he allowed his misery to drain the last vestiges of resistance from him. Bill’s grip loosened around him as he began stroking Louis’s hair like a small child.
–I can’t leave her, Dad,†Louis sniffed into Bill’s shoulder. –I have to bring her back.â€
–I know, son,†Bill murmured into Louis’s hair. –I know you do.â€
Shell Cottage was quiet, despite its three occupants. Louis stared at a warm cup of tea that his mother had offered as both his parents sat across the kitchen table, looking at him intently. They seemed to be waiting for him to speak first, but Louis had nothing to say. If he told them why it was so important for him to find Lucy and bring her back, they would think he was stupid for believing he could do it by himself, or even for falling in love with her in the first place.
Finally, the silence was broken when Fleur sighed. In her slow but clear English, she said, –Louis, we understand why you did what you did. We are not angry with you. We only want to help you accept that Lucy has left.â€
–She didn’t leave!†Louis shouted, hardly noticing when Bill flinched at his tone. –Someone took her, and no one else seems to care!â€
Bill shook his head. –There’s something I need to tell you. I was going to wait until I thought you were ready to hear it, but had I known you’d try to escape the bloody train, I would’ve done last night.†At Louis’s expectant look, he continued. –The reason Harry called off the search is because your Uncle Percy told him to do it.â€
–Wh-what . . . but, why?†Louis blinked in confusion. Either Bill was lying, or his uncle was affected in the head, which didn’t bode well for all of wizarding Britain. –She’s his daughter; he can’t give up on her.â€
Fleur reached across the table to take Louis’s hand. –He did not give up on her. Not for a minute. He cannot ask the Ministry to use so much of its resources to find someone who does not want to be found.â€
When Louis opened his mouth to object, Bill held up his hand and said, –Here me out.†Louis gave him a short nod. –The crime scene boys have been telling Harry for months that they didn’t think Lucy was abducted, but he wanted to find her so badly that he didn’t care. Finally, they submitted a complaint to the review board that stated Harry wasn’t acting objectively, which ended up on Percy’s desk. He looked it over for a month before he made the decision.â€
–That’s why no one would talk to me,†Louis said under his breath.
Nodding, Bill said, –And you didn’t make it easy on them, either. None of them wanted to quit looking, not when you were willing to fight so hard to bring her back. Harry couldn’t even bring himself to see you, knowing he was lying to you. He tried, son. Believe me, he tried.â€
Louis gaped. –You mean to tell me that they’ve known for over a year that Lucy just left the party? That she just fucked off somewhere?â€
–Language,†Bill warned.
–I don’t care!†Louis plunged his fingers into his hair, pulling on the strands until the accompanying pain reminded him that this was really happening, that it was not just some sick joke. –How could she do that — just leave her family thinking she was kidnapped or dead?â€
Fleur left her seat to wrap an arm around Louis’s shoulders. –It is difficult for her to see all of her family able to do magic and have no magic of her own. That is a very lonely way to live, and a soiree for her father, the Minister for Magic, will only make that feeling worse.†She leant her cheek against his. –Mon chou, I know it hurts, but Lucy was not happy and chose to leave.â€
Pushing his mother away, Louis crossed his arms. –Then what about the broken glass, the beads on the floor?â€
Bill exhaled heavily. –The scan of the scene revealed that there was no one there. No traces of another human being at all. Though it’s strange that she broke the window or the necklace, all the evidence points to her doing it herself. Now she’s not the Minister’s kidnapped daughter anymore; she’s just another teenage runaway. They can’t keep spending hundreds of man-hours finding someone who doesn’t want to be found, no matter how much we want them to.â€
Louis said nothing. Nowhere in his conscious mind could he conjure words to describe his feelings at that moment. Lucy had left him, scared and worried and desperately hoping that she was all right. There was no note, no explanation, no indication that she had thought twice before breaking his heart.
He had almost thrown away his future for her, and she didn’t even care enough to tell him she was leaving.
With a scrape, he sent his chair flying backwards and stomped in the direction of his bedroom. –I’m going to have a kip.†He was not remotely tired at the moment, but he could not bear the thought of being conscious right then, his mind dwelling on Lucy and her abandonment.
Burying his face into his pillows, Louis hoped darkness would bring sleep and eventually some peace.
Later, Louis awoke from a dreamless sleep. It had been easier than he had thought to shut off his brain and forget everything for a while, and as he looked out the window at the sun sinking over the horizon, he judged that it had been a long while. He absently thought about Hogwarts and the first-years who were probably funnelling out of the Express and into the boats at that very moment and could not manage to care at all.
Hogwarts felt so young to him. It was the place where he was a child; that was something that was flattened into non-existence the moment he learned that Lucy had run away. The Head Boy badge, stagnating in the careless pile of school robes a mere few feet away, was a stark reminder of that. He could not even fathom caring about patrol timetables or fifth-years snogging in darkened alcoves.
He hoisted himself out of bed and looked around his room. A child lived there. The walls were covered with posters of musicians and athletes, and the floor with dirty clothes and scraps of rubbish. All of it was a cacophony of adolescence, and with more resolve than he’d felt for anything outside of Lucy in months, he pulled out his wand and began Vanishing it all, piece by piece. Soon, nothing remained in the room but the furniture, bedclothes, and a small basket of dirty laundry. No books, no Hogwarts robes, no badge.
The smell of food cooking met his nostrils, and Louis noticed the rumble of his belly, as he had not eaten since that morning. However, instead of giving in to the scent of sustenance, he crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over his head. He was too tired to eat.
At last, when Louis physically could not force himself to sleep any longer, he rose. It was well into the night, and the clock on the wall told him it was half past one in the morning. He turned on the overhead light, and the Lighting Charm washed through the room like sunshine. His trunk, he noticed, had made its way back into his room and was restored to its original size.
Louis decided that his purge wasn’t complete until every last inch of that trunk was inspected. He absently threw the clothing aside, as well as the sack of coins and his bedroll, and didn’t quit digging until he found a small box at the very bottom. It was an old jewellery box that had belonged to Audrey, Lucy’s mother, when she was a teenager. Audrey had given it to Lucy when she turned ten, along with a few childish accessories.
As he had suspected, Lucy’s prized butterfly hairclips were still fluttering limply inside, as well as a few other things that she had included the day she had trusted Louis with the safety of that box. It was her Forget-Me-Not box — her way of making sure that Louis never forgot that he was her first and best friend. And with a snarl, he hurled it at the naked wall.
The cascade of girly detritus sat untouched for an hour as Louis stared at it. He knew every bit and bob in that mess and could not bring himself to touch them, let alone relive the memories, yet they repeated themselves on a loop and held him captive. The one he couldn’t get out of his mind was a slip of paper, which had been folded and folded again so many times over the course of the past ten years. Lucy had told him that she’d read every word of it over and over until she could recite it from memory. And then in the previous year that she’d been gone, so had he.
I like you more than biscuits
And fancy you more than shooting stars.
No one else knows you like I do
Except this apple tree of ours.
You’re my best friend forever,
Who has been from the very start.
Never let me go, Lucy Mae,
And we’ll never be apart.
The awful poem he had penned at the ripe old age of ten still paraded about in his head. He had repeated it like a prayer since the day Lucy had disappeared, the words reminding him of how acutely he had cared for her.
Still unable to look away, Louis began to regret smashing the box and gathered its contents and shattered shell. It took several tries, but soon, the proper shape and colour was restored and its contents replaced. Even if a promise seemed not to mean all that much to Lucy, his vow to her to keep it safe was not something he was going to take lightly. He remembered the day he made it, because it had also been that day.
On their way back to The Burrow, the girl slipped her hand into the boy’s grasp and squeezed. He looked up at her, surprised, and she gave him a wide smile.
–I want to show you something,†she said conspiratorially. Without waiting for a response, she tugged him along after her until they reached the cider press shed. There were a couple of cushions situated around a small, decorated box. In flowing, purple script, it read ‘Audrey’, and at the bottom, in pink, ‘Lucy’ was written in a straighter, more uniform style. He would recognise her penmanship anywhere.
The girl opened the box, and two butterflies swirled out, twisting through the air in a large, elegant spiral before coming to rest in her outstretched palm. Next to come out were some small trinkets the boy had seen her wear from time to time, but at the bottom, there lay a piece of parchment. She pulled it out.
–Bet you forgot you gave that to me.â€
He looked over the few lines of verse, recognising his own blocking writing, and cringed. –No, but I’ll keep trying.â€
She frowned. –I thought it was beautiful. I remember every word of it.â€
Deciding not to say anything, he set the parchment back into the box. She carefully replaced all of the items and closed it. Then she handed it to him and he raised a brow.
–I want you to keep this for me. It’s my Forget-Me-Not.†Smiling warmly at the object in his hand, she said, –We’re all going to change, and since I’m never going to be a witch, both of us will go in opposite directions. I want you to give this back to me when you think I need to remember where I came from and the people I care about.â€
The boy was stunned at her words. His mind outside of school was on Quidditch and Chocolate Frog cards; she was thinking about forever. Who had time for the future with all that going on? With a gulp, he said, –I will.â€
With a grin, she leant forward and brushed her lips over his. –Now swear it to me.â€
–I swear.â€
–I swear,†he mimicked from the distant memory.
Louis didn’t know much at the moment. He wasn’t sure who he was, where he was going, or what he wanted, now that Lucy had left that hole in his heart. But one thing was clear. He would give her back that damned box, whether she wanted it or not, even if he had to wait a decade to do it.
He returned to Hogwarts two days later, after an owl from his father explained that he needed some time to sort some things out. Louis also owled a request for a new Head Boy badge, stating that his had ‘been irreparably damaged due to a luggage handling catastrophe’. He did not expect to keep the position after what he had done, but he thought it prudent to address the issue rather than wait for the shoe to drop.
Bill had made him use his savings to purchase new school supplies, both as a form of punishment and a lesson in responsibility, as well as deal with using his sisters’ old robes. Louis didn’t mind and was surprised that his parents had not been angrier when they found the destruction in his room the next day, and maybe they understood how he felt after all.
A carriage met him at Hogsmeade, and he rode to the castle in quiet contemplation. Headmaster Flitwick wanted a word with him upon his arrival, as did his Head of House, Professor Longbottom. Louis couldn’t imagine he had much to say to either of them, but if he were to have a chance at all to salvage a decent NEWT year from such a terrible start — apparently, it had been a hundred years or so since a student successfully escaped the Hogwarts Express — he needed to save face.
The sounds of breakfast echoed through the entrance from the Great Hall as Louis proceeded directly to the Grand Staircase. He had no desire at all to eat, let alone deal with the inevitable slew of ‘where have you been?’ queries. Soon, he found himself at the door of the Headmaster’s office, which he had only visited once and just to deliver an errant student. He had never actually been inside.
–Flish and swick,†Louis said to the gargoyle guarding the entrance, patiently waiting as it stepped aside to reveal the spiral staircase. He was mildly jolted as the steps began to ascend on their own, depositing him onto a platform at the top in front of a massive oak door. With little hesitance, he reached up and rapped the large brass knocker and entered when the door swung open.
Headmaster Flitwick sat at his desk, examining a small, silver contraption with an absurdly large monocle, mumbling under his breath as he prodded it with his wand. It took him some time before he set down the object and gestured for Louis to sit down.
–Mr Weasley,†Flitwick started as he sat back in his own chair, –I suppose you have a good idea why you’re here right now.â€
Louis nodded, and Flitwick’s chin bobbed in approval. –I don’t need to tell you that a stunt like the one you pulled on the Express doesn’t come without consequences. Not only did you cause quite a bit of damage to the train, you could’ve killed yourself.†Louis shrank down into his seat just a little. –Such actions are most unbecoming of our Head Boy, who, I might add, has been missing in action for three days.â€
–Yes, sir,†Louis agreed. –I understand.â€
–Good.†Flitwick leant forward. –That being said, after a long talk with all four Heads of House, we have decided to let you remain at your post, should you agree to keep your nose clean and not try anything foolish again.†The Headmaster pushed a small, polished box across the desk. –Professor Longbottom, in particular, had a lot to say on your behalf. Apparently, there has been a loss in your family?â€
Trying not to shudder at the mention of Lucy, Louis explained, –My cousin, Lucy, disappeared over a year ago. They called off the search a few days ago because they determined she was a runaway and wasn’t worth the manpower. I was going to go look for her because she’s my best friend.â€
–I see,†Flitwick murmured as he scratched his temple. –Well, we’ve all done foolish things for family and friends. Let’s try to keep such things to a minimum and be a good example for the younger students, yes?â€
–Of course,†Louis agreed with a surprising degree of veracity. –Thank you for the second chance, and I promise I will live up to at least half of Professor Longbottom’s high praises.â€
Flitwick chuckled. –Still a tall order, my boy. I’m afraid I’ve never been much good at those, at least not in the literal sense.â€
Louis couldn’t help but chortle at the smaller man’s jab at his own lack of height, and as he was dismissed to see Professor Longbottom straight away, he felt unexpectedly good after speaking with Flitwick. A detention, or at least a scolding, was what he had expected; forgiveness and compassion had not been on the list of foreseeable outcomes.
Longbottom was where he always was: roving around Greenhouse One with a watering pot in one hand and his wand poised and ready in the other. Being in NEWT-level Herbology, Louis recognised most of the plants in Greenhouse One and knew better than to distract Longbottom while caring for the more troublesome plants. Instead, he waited outside the door for the professor to emerge on his own.
Ten minutes and dangerously close to the first lesson period of the day, Longbottom came out of the greenhouse, sweating, dirty, and sporting a small gash on his left arm.
–Razor roses or the sticulas?†Louis asked.
With a jump, Longbottom sighed in relief when he saw that it was Louis. –Merlin, you scared me. It’s like war in there, I tell you.†He looked dolefully at the ripped fabric of his robes and touched the spot with his wand, healing the wound. A second tap repaired the robe, and with a triumphant smile, Longbottom added, –And it was the sticulas. The razor roses got me yesterday.â€
–They do like their human flesh,†Louis observed, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the banter that both distracted them from the purpose of the visit and further delayed Louis starting his first lesson of the day. Deciding to steer the conversation to point, he said, –Thank you, by the way, for putting in a good word for me with Headmaster Flitwick. You didn’t have to do that, but I appreciate it.â€
Sighing, Longbottom started walking towards Greenhouse Four, where his office was located, and began mouthing words to himself as if rehearsing what he wanted to say. Finally, when they were inside, Longbottom pulled Louis into an awkward embrace. –Harry told me what happened with Lucy. I’m so, so sorry.â€
Louis shook his head. –Don’t be,†he said bitterly. –She left us because she wanted to, and if it’s proven anything, it’s that if she wanted us to hear from her, she would’ve done.â€
–Louis, it’s not that easy to communicate sometimes,†Longbottom said as he gestured towards the chair opposite his own. –Just because someone wants to tell you something, it doesn’t mean they have the means or opportunity. It took me ages to understand that my mum and dad loved me a lot, even though they never got the chance to say it.
–When I was young, I resented having to go see them sometimes because I thought they were in St Mungo’s because they didn’t want to be with me. Looking back on it, it’s a ridiculous thing to think, but sometimes, we can’t help how we feel. It’s just how we act on it that makes us good or bad people.†He gave Louis a tight smile. –Just think before you do next time, and we will never have to have this incredibly weird conversation ever again.â€
A genuine laugh escaped Louis of its own accord, and with an inordinate amount of relief, he extended his hand across the desk and said, –Thank you, sir. I will.â€
They shook hands, and Longbottom handed Louis both his timetable and a note for Professor Zabini to excuse his tardiness. The potions master was displeased by the interruption of his lesson but allowed Louis to take his seat and work double-time to finish the assigned potion by the end of the lesson. Pink sludge wasn’t what Louis had aimed for, but it was close enough to earn an Acceptable.
Relieved to have a free period between his double Potions block and lunch, Louis retreated to his dormitory to unpack. One of his roommates, Jamie Chattenham, was also in the room, glaring at his Charms book when Louis entered. The other boy could only stare at Louis as he methodically tucked his things away in their proper spaces.
Finally, Jamie spoke. –Where the hell were you?â€
Louis shrugged. –I had family stuff.â€
With a snort, Jamie said, –Some ‘stuff’. The Scamanders were talking about someone named Lucy, being gone and whatnot. She dead or something.â€
–Family stuff, Chatterbox,†Louis bit at the short blond boy, unhappy that his least pleasant and most talkative roommate had decided to ask questions. –As in none of your business.â€
–Sheesh,†Jamie said with a roll of his eyes. –Saw my head off, why don’t you. I was just asking.â€
Swallowing a retort, Louis hurriedly finished his unpacking and fled the room while making a personal vow to never be in within ten feet of Jamie Chattenham without at least three people between them. He’d revise outside if he had to.
The rest of the week was a mesh of lectures from professors for missing classes, loads of make-up assignments, and curt excuses for his absence, but Louis admitted that being in a familiar routine felt good compared to the perpetual state of misery and sleep he had been in at home. Even Willie Cox was an improvement over staring at a blank wall and not showering for three days.
More quickly than he would have imagined, Louis found himself striving in his lessons, spending less time brooding by himself and more time complaining about monstrous essays with his classmates. He still wasn’t sure what was normal anymore, but if he had to choose something, that might have been it.