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( the motel )
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━━ Mila Lovett had been missing for four weeks. It was already the last week of the term, well into June.
Her friends and teachers knew she was okay from the most unlikely source. Blaise Zabini had received a single letter every week, the same four words on each of them.
❛ Tell them I'm okay. ❜
He didn't know the reason for the letters, but he did his duty and reported when each one came in.
No matter how much Harry pleaded, Dumbledore would not inform the Ministry that she was missing. How could he when their records held no information of her existence? Too many questions would be raised. Far too many.
Harry was angry.
He spent those four weeks barely speaking to Hermione, and Ron by association. Hermione Granger had been lying to her friends for a very long time. The only thing they would talk about was the most pressing issue: where Mila was. Other than that, he avoided her. They seemed to be living in a vacuum: unable to move forward or do anything else but wonder when she was coming back.
He didn't speak to Draco either. Occasionally, they would glance at each other from their opposing tables. Neither knew what to say. Neither knew where she was.
He didn't even know who she was. Not really. She'd lived a whole life before him. Lupin and Sirius had been tight on the details. They thought Mila should know first. All they'd told Harry was that she'd been their friend. His dad's friend too.
But Harry found it nearly impossible to think of her that way. Not when he had watched her grow up right before his eyes.
He wanted so badly to be mad at Sirius and Lupin. And he was, though more for Mila's sake than his own. Perhaps he would have been more mad if he didn't see what her absence was doing to them.
He'd always known there was something. He'd seen Sirius and Mila's connection and chalked it up to their similar personalities. He'd known Lupin and Mila were close and chalked that up to the new relationship they'd shared as guardian and kid.
He hadn't pictured this.
It seemed that those close to him were in a state of limbo. Whether Mila wanted the details or not, there was nothing they could do if she wasn't here.
