Screams

Thirty

Natalie looked around the Great Hall with a frown on her face, she had been sure that she would find Calliope at the Hufflepuff table eating her breakfast. But the banshee was nowhere to be seen.

She had been acting rather oddly lately, Natalie thought, disappearing for random amounts of time without offering any excuse, not doing her school work, not to mention that fact that her hand-eye coordination had vastly improved, as she had caught the orange that Natalie threw at her from a few meters away, when normally passing Calliope anything was a struggle.

Natalie still found it strange that Calliope refused to talk about what she had done that summer. Calliope wasn't one to keep secrets from her best friend. Ever since Calliope had confessed that she was a banshee to Natalie, Calliope had told Natalie everything, and now she was suddenly being very secretive again. All of that, on top of Calliope's disappearance that morning, was making Natalie feel as though something was wrong.

This was why Natalie found herself walking straight up to the teacher's table, making a beeline towards the headmaster, who was in discussion with Professor McGonagall, whilst eating a bowl of cornflakes™.

Natalie was so lost in her thoughts that she walked straight into the back of one of the Weasley twins.

"Watch it!" The twin rubbed his arm, where they had collided.

"Sorry!" Natalie said hastily, "I was just so lost in my thoughts, you see my-"

"Can I just get past please, I need to speak to Professor Dumbledore," the twin said, Natalie noted the slightly distressed look on his face.

"No way me too!" Natalie walked alongside the twin, who sped up his walking in an attempt to lose her, but Natalie simply walked faster.

"Professor!" They said together as they neared the teacher's table.

"Fred is missing!" The twin said.

"Calliope is missing!" Natalie said at the exact same time.

They turned to go look at each other, frowns on their faces, "what?" They both said.

"Miss Hughes, Mr Weasley, I think we should move this discussion into my office for the sake of privacy," Dumbledore got to his feet, and herded the two confused teenagers out of the hall, earning the trio some confused stares from other students.

"Professor!" Natalie looked over her shoulder at Dumbledore as they climbed up the marble stairs, "she was just gone, I can't find her-"

"Miss Hughes, please refrain until we reach my office," Dumbledore said quietly.

"But Professor-" George started.

"No buts," said Dumbledore. Natalie and George exchanged confused looks but did as the headmaster told them. The tone in his voice made it very clear that it was important that they do as he said.

Not one of them said a word (apart from a single, "lemon drops!" from Dumbledore when he was asked for the password to his office), Natalie didn't even begin a rant about moving staircases like she normally did whenever she encountered one. They didn't speak until they sat down in chairs that Dumbledore conjured for them across his desk.

Almost the moment that they sat down both Natalie and George began yammering.

"I was with him last night, we came in from the forest and Professor Moody wanted to talk to Fred, so he sent me away. Fred didn't show up in the dorm again, so I went back downstairs and found Professor Moody unconscious, he told me that he was taken by surprise and didn't see what attacked him, or what took Fred. He said that he'd tell you as soon as he could, but then you didn't say anything, and Fred still hasn't shown up!"

"She's just gone, Professor! She's been acting weird since the beginning of the year, disappearing all of the time, and she caught an orange that I threw at her! I know it doesn't sound like much Professor, but Callie has the worst hand-eye coordination in the entire world like she can't even take something out of your hand if you pass it right to her, there was this one time where I asked her to throw me the ketchup, so she picked it up and tried to throw it at me, but it actually hit this little blond Slytherin kid, anyway, the bottle smashed and he got covered in ketchup, it was hilarious. Sorry! I'm getting off track, my point is that Calliope is gone."

I honestly put way too much of myself into Natalie... oops.
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~Em xx