Black and Yellow.

Chapter 23 - Ruby, No!

It was three days away from the day Ruby was dreading. The day when the Hogwarts express would gather her up and spit her back out into the Muggle world again. Trapped I the hospital, away from her friends, for two whole months. She sat, alone, having woken up early, at the Hufflepuff table, picking at her breakfast unenthusiastically.

The great hall was how Ruby liked it best, mostly empty. There were a couple of groups here and there, but not many people wanted to be awake this early after finals, giving themselves some time to sleep in. But Ruby was an early bird, and had been up and ready to go at seven that morning.

She flipped through the newspaper, the Daily prophet, glancing her way over any articles that caught her eyes. One of those was displayed across the front page, huge letters saying, “Werewolf Leader Unmasked?” and below it, was a slightly blurry picture of man, with torn and bloodied robes, scowling at the camera.

It was about the werewolf attacks that ad bee spreading across the country side, like the ones that she had experienced as a little kid, Ruby thought with a shiver. Apparently they were happened more and more often lately. Ruby thought it was all kind of silly, really. They were mad at the ministry, the ministry hated them. They were acting like kids.

As Ruby skimmed the article, something about the first picture arising of the werewolf leader, ministry officials were hoping to identify him, to help with their search. Apparently he was the guy running all of these attacks. Ruby didn’t find the article very interesting, but as she was reading, there was a funny tickling sensation along her back, the tickle that she was missing something. She read the article again, and found nothing.

What was she missing, her eyes passed over the photograph, and she stopped. She shook her head, slowly, and looked at it again, closer. Then her mouth dropped open, her breath stopping, her muscles freezing, because, no matter how hard she tried to deny it, she recognized the man in the photo. But it couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible, because he was dead.

In the midst of the great hall, voices and movement floating around her, Ruby, completely frozen, whispered “Dad?” the paper slipped from her fingers, landing lightly on the table below her. She couldn’t breathe, her throat closing up so tight she felt almost sick.

She stood on shaking legs, and made her way back to her room, on stiff feet, her mind racing. It couldn’t be, it couldn’t be it couldn’t be… But there was one way she could find out. She made it back to her dormitory, slipping into the room silently. Three sleeping girls still lay in their beds, their frames small under their duvets. Ruby crept towards Jade.

On her bedside table, sat the stone, well, the necklace, quietly laying there, looking unimportant. Jade, Ruby knew, took it off to sleep; the thick string irritated her neck. Ruby reached out, and, with shaking fingers, took the necklace, and slipped back out of her dormitory. She felt a little bit guilty. But surly Jade wouldn’t mind, it was for an important cause! Because if he didn’t come back, if he couldn’t come back, that would mean he was alive…

Jade woke with a start, filled the uncomfortable feeling that something was very wrong. She rubbed at her eyes, looked around her dormitory, and saw that Ruby was missing. There was a swoop of worry in her chest, before she told herself to calm down, she had probably just gotten up too early again and gone down to breakfast.

But not matter how many times she told herself to calm down, there was a nagging feeling in her stomach as she got dressed into her school robes, trying to be quiet, because her other two roommates were asleep. She looked over at Mally, stroking her head a affectionately, before reaching over to her side table for the necklace, and not finding it.

Her heart dropped like a stone, and she turned her head fast as lightening to see the top of her side table empty, the necklace and the stone gone. He rebreathing stopped he heartbeat racing in her ears, she turned and sprinted out of her dormitory, not knowing where she going, but only who she was looking for.