Luck of Nines

66

       Ansel Rowle was one of these people, fondly dubbed, between the prefects as the year's wallflower, and they did their best to pay special attention to make sure that he was creating new relationships with his peers and not getting pushed to the side amongst all of the social and chatty Hufflpuffs.

      He was also one of their hardest cases yet.

      Perhaps  it was because he had been sorted so late into the year, or more likely it was because of the death of his friend Phineas who Susan had said he had been particularly close with- practically his shadow had been her words in fact- but the more they tried to draw him into the fold, the more withdrawn he had become.

       And now, out of all the possible times, he had gone missing.

        "I'll search his dorm."  Marvin offered. 

        "Er, uh, h-he wasn't there when I left. You don't think he went outside do you?" Martin Beccles, a fellow first year asked, looking terrified at the thought.

         "I'm sure he didn't do something like that, he was here earlier, so he's well aware of the potential danger of doing so." Linda reassured. Over their heads she nodded to a fellow prefect to send another message to Professor Sprout with this new update. He couldn't have been missing for more than thirty minutes at this point, so he couldn't have gotten far.

       "I can take a look outside just to make sure." Cedric offered, a response met with fond looks and rolled eyes from the prefects.

      As much as there were wallflowers there were also sunflowers like Cedric who seemed to leap headfirst into Hufflepuff culture.  Cedric especially came across as a born leader, already as a third year he seemed to be trying to take on an equal role as a prefect and most of them were hesitant to discourage that because he really was skilled, talented enough to keep up with some of the fourth and even fifth years already.

      Admittedly, they gave him a little bit of slack because of that, but he was modest enough that it wasn't doing anyone any harm and seemed to always be striving to do his best to support both his fellow Hufflepuffs and the other students, despite the latter often rejecting these attempts. This year had been especially hard as the Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry reached new heights and it seemed as if every house aside from Hufflepuff had experienced a death or two.

Linda didn't want to dampen his helpful spirit anymore, so instead she sighed, only chiding lightly,  "Not without a buddy you aren't."  The statues had the hallway outside of the dorm on lockdown anyway.

      "I'll go." Tonks offered, the wild child of the Hufflepuffs, she had gotten along well with many of the Gryffindors before this year, but the metamorphmagus had taken issue the second the upper years had started after first years, they were all proud of her for that; it wasn't easy to realize when your friends were going down a bad path, and it was even harder to tell them when enough was enough. She'd even hexed a few to rescue some of the lower year Slytherins despite not being fond of the house of snakes herself. As likely the second best defense student in the whole school, there wasn't anyone better to go.

      Linda nodded agreement, under the condition that they were only to peek outside, they weren't to even turn one corner before returning, and then restarting the role call before panic could start to set in too much. Tonks might be tempted to continue the search 'just a little further', but at least Cedric she could trust to listen and not do anything dangerous.

The door swinging shut with a soft thump behind the two. She fought back a shiver at the familiar yet strangely ominous sound. She hoped Marvin returned from scouting the boy's dorms soon with news he'd found Ansel off in some dark corner writing in that diary again.