A missing girl
It took half a day for the news of Alice Axman’s disappearance to reach the Slytherin common room. Abraxas laughed when he heard it. “Oh noooo? A little muddy disappeared? How sad! I hope next time it’s more then one.” Gordian too laughed at that. Tom cracked his knuckles, but said nothing. He was too shocked by the news. He had known Alice, well, he had seen Alice regularly. She was on the top of class in charms and she had cheered for him at his boxing match against Augusta.
The rest of the day Hogwarts was in high alert. Everybody had to stay in their common rooms, while the teachers either searched the corridors or the grounds for Alice. The head of houses stayed with their respective students and made sure no one else went missing. Professor Burke, who was quite fond of Alice, questioned his Slytherins, hoping that one of them had seen the girl, but everybody had been too distracted by the Quidditch match. Only Constance remembered Alice walking towards the Quidditch pitch with a bright yellow scarf before the game.
Abraxas and Gordian were questioned on weather they had pranked Alice, but the suspicion was quickly dropped. Burke was convinced that someone, who was as useless at charms as Malfoy, could not have harmed a prodigy like Axman. In a chair by the fire Fran looked even paler then usual. According to Alphard he feared that Wanda, who was also a black haired, muggleborn Hufflepuff, would disappear too. And even though most of the Slytherins were glad that the student who had disappeared had muggle parents, almost nobody was in the mood to celebrate anymore.
The next morning, they were allowed to return to their classes. Alice stayed missing. It felt like somebody had draped a heavy, black cloth over the school. Everybody looked scared or sad. Wanda Messina started to walk around with a revolver, an emergency gift from her mobster father. Tom, Minerva, Constance, Lance and Alphard spent their free time practicing shield charms and cutting spells instead of reading about Merope and her family. In defense against the dark arts the learned about more sinister creatures. The kind that was controlled by Grindelwald. Fran Lestrange, most likely to hide his worry for Messina, became even meaner.
During potions Professor Slughorn dropped his ingredients two times and their flying teacher Professor Sinclair made them practice stomach torturing evasive maneuvers. In charms Professor Burke went paler, every time his eyes wandered over Alice’s empty seat and he called Tom “Miss Axman” two times by accident, when he managed to levitate his feather on the first try. Even Professor Dumbledore had changed. He was way stricter and did not draw a single smiling fruit onto the black board. His robe, a dark red velvet thing, neither sparkled nor jingled, and Tom wondered weather he had known Alice very well.
After Transfiguration, Dumbledore asked Tom to stay behind. “Tell me, Tom, what did you think of Miss Axman.”, he asked with a sad smile and his blue eyes seemed to bore into Tom’s. Tom felt the blood leaving his face. Did. Dumbledore had said “did”. He gulped. “She... Alice is not... I mean, you have not found her, right? She is just missing. She could still be alive, right?”, he stammered. “No, we did not find her yet. Why do you assume she passed away?”, the teacher wanted to know and his eyes got even colder. “You... you said did, sir. You asked what I did think of her.”, Tom answered, feeling very uncomfortable. This was how a frog must feel during a science lesson.
Dumbledore nodded. “Well, what do you think of Miss Axman?” Tom played with the sleeve of his robe. He was nervous. What did Dumbledore want? He had maybe talked to Alice ten times! “She seems nice. She came to cheer for me, when I spared with Augusta and she once helped my friend Constance with her charms homework. She is really good at charms.”, Tom mumbled. Dumbledore nodded. Even though Tom did not look at him, he could feel the gaze of those bright blued eyes on burning on his skin. “She is the only one who is better then you in charms, right?”, asked Dumbledor calmly. Tom nodded confused. “Yes, I guess she is”, he mumbled. What was the teacher trying to imply?
“Well, if you have any idea what happened to Miss Axman, please tell me, will you Tom? Anything suspicious could help us”, Dumbledore said with a sad smile, “Do you have any ideas?” Tom thought about the pile of Gaunt research, hidden behind a bunch of dusty books in a shelf in the library. He shook his head. “No, there is nothing”, Tom siad, “May I leave now?” Dumbledore nodded, but his eyes did not leave Tom, as he left.