Runaway Bride ━ James Potter

004: GONE WITH THE WIND

CHAPTER FOUR: GONE WITH THE WIND
song of the chapter: man's world, marina

Anastasia is well and truly gone with the wind.

Her wedding day passes before she realises it, and soon enough it is four days past, and Anastasia keeps breathing. She is tucked away into a small room in a place she now knows as Hogwarts, and even as she has nothing but these four walls to live for, she keeps living.

Every day, a newspaper is slipped under her door, and Anastasia grabs it before it even makes its way under the door completely. She scans the page like the words are going to disappear before her, looking for any and all mentions of herself.

McGonagall, or Professor McGonagall as Anastasia has now been instructed to call her, has taken great care to make sure that Anastasia has been receiving both magical and muggle news. Wizards may not bow down to the crown in the same way that muggles do, but they are just as intrigued to figure out what happened to the princess as everyone else is.

Not that Anastasia knows what the different between magic and muggle is, but she knows that Professor McGonagall is going out of her way to provide her with this, so she is grateful nonetheless.

To absolutely no surprise, Anastasia is still front page news. Her face is printed so large she wonders if it's a caricature, with the words THE PRINCESS BRIDE: ONE WEEK MISSING printed in black, bold letters across the top of the paper. The picture beneath it is one from her engagement photoshoot, with Hamilton ever so kindly cropped out of it.

In the summary, Anastasia reads a statement from the Prime Minister.

"The entire country as a whole is worried about Princess Anastasia's whereabouts. We are all concerned, and as much as I would like to say we are close to finding her, I have a duty as your leader to tell you the truth. We do not have the exact location of the Princess at this moment in time, but we have the best investigators in the world on the case and we will bring her home. We urge anyone with any relevant information to the case to contact Metropolitan Police with haste."

The police reference number and all helpline information is printed underneath the statement, and Anastasia swallows the hard lump in her throat as she continues reading down the page. She gets a shock, there, when she finds a statement from Melanie directly underneath it.

"I have had the pleasure of knowing Princess Anastasia since she was an infant. If there is one thing I can tell you about her, it is that Princess Anastasia not a rash person, and she does not do anything without thinking of the consequences. Anastasia is well aware of her duty to this country and crown, and she would not abandon it. If the Princess was to leave, I do not believe it would be of her own accord. She loves this country, and she loves the people in it, and I do not believe that she left by her own volition."

The statements don't stop there, continuing down the page and across onto the next one. There's several from other government officials, one from someone who claimed to have worked in the royal household (but they had no proof to back it up), and then Anastasia hits the jackpot.

Or the opposite, really, because the minute that Anastasia reads Millie's name she feels tears spring to her eyes.

"I love my sister, and I want her to come back. I miss her terribly, and every breath I take without her near aches. Please, if anybody has any information about where my sister is, you have to help us. Help us bring Anastasia back home, where she belongs- with me."