GEORGE:

"Look, boys, I'm just as worried about her as you are," Professor Lupin said, massaging his forehead. "Believe me. But that doesn't mean we can just show up on her doorstep. It's entirely possible her family is grieving privately, and we can't intrude upon that, as concerning as the silence is."

Fred and I exchanged a heavy look. It had been the same conversation all week. Everybody was worried, but nobody wanted to risk making a bad situation worse. Mad-Eye had warned us all, too, that apparating to the Diggory doorstep could very well kill us — according to him, Susan Diggory would probably fire spells first and ask questions later, especially after the article in the Daily Prophet had proven to be so controversial.

"If Harry tells us she doesn't say anything for his birthday, George and I are going ourselves." Fred crossed his arms over his chest. "We know Lucy. While it's incredibly out of character not to reply to letters for nearly a month now, forgetting or ignoring Harry's birthday is a sure sign something is seriously wrong. His birthday is today, so if he responds to our letter saying he didn't hear from her at all, we're going to go find out why."

Dad cleared his throat, and I glanced over, fearing a protest. Instead, he nodded, staring down at the floor. "That's fair. But I'll go with you, just so-"

Dad was interrupted by a loud crack. Percy was suddenly standing in the middle of the kitchen.

He looked thoroughly distraught. It was the most emotional I had ever seen him. "Dad! Professor Lupin! I went home to get one of my old schoolbooks for reference, and the Dark Mark was over the Diggorys' house, I could see it from the Burrow, and I would have gone myself, but I knew better than to go alone and-"

"Say no more," Professor Lupin said, disappearing with a crack. Dad followed suit, and Percy followed half a second later.

Fred and I didn't think twice before disapparating too.

We landed with a thud on the dirt road just outside the property line.

Fear like I had never known before filled my chest at the sign of the Dark Mark hovering above the house. I couldn't breathe.

Before my brain could even comprehend the sight before us, instinct shouted at me to move. The five of us sprinted forward at the same time, wands drawn.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

Completely silent, I realized.

We were too late.

Professor Lupin and Dad fired two "Homenum revelio"s ahead of us.

There were no people in the house.

The front door was wide open, so we entered without difficulty.

We saw Mr. Diggory's body first, at the base of the stairs.

I remembered learning in DADA with Moody — well, with Fake Moody — that being killed by the Killing Curse stops the body from decaying, ironically enough. I learned that day that it was true. He could have been asleep if not for the way his eyes stared at the ceiling and his face was frozen in a shocked expression.

"He was trying to guard someone," Professor Lupin muttered, hurrying up the stairs.

I refused to let myself consider the possibility that Lucy was dead. I followed him next, everyone else on my heels.

Mrs. Diggory was in the hallway, surrounded by broken glass. Her wand was still clutched within her grasp. She had tried to fight back.

"Oh Merlin," Percy choked out behind me. I could barely hear him over the blood roaring in my ears.

I opened the door to my left. It was the bathroom, and it was empty.

I then darted forward and opened the next door, on the right.

It was Lucy's room.

She wasn't there, dead or alive.

But her dog was.

Fred jumped in front of me as the dog charged at us, whimpering with relief. I stepped around and entered Lucy's room.

"We'll check the other rooms," Dad said, rushing down the hall with Percy.

Though the hallway had been a mess of broken glass and scorch marks, Lucy's room seemed untouched. The journal that had been mentioned in the Daily Prophet article poked out from under her pillow, and her bed hadn't been made. It looked like she hadn't unpacked her school trunk — all of the books on her bookshelf were third year level and lower.

"Where are our letters?" Fred asked, still trying to simultaneously comfort the dog and keep him away from me.

I looked around the room again, expecting a stack of at least a dozen letters, opened or unopened or some combination thereof. But her room was relatively bare, with her bed in one corner, a wardrobe in another, a bookshelf separating the two, and a dog bed off to one side. But, based on the fur-covered blanket at the foot of Lucy's bed, it looked as if he'd been sleeping with her every night.

"She's not here!" came a call from Percy that sounded like it was exactly halfway between relief and panic.

"Could she have run away?" Dad wondered aloud, his voice carrying in the eerie stillness of the house.

"Check and see if anything is missing, boys, or for any sign she left voluntarily," Professor Lupin said before anyone could reply, poking his head in the doorway. His face was pale and drawn. I reckoned mine was, too. "I'm going to find Alastor and bring him here. I don't want to alert the Ministry yet."

"But Lucy's still out there somewhere!" Percy said, his voice shaking. "Shouldn't the Ministry immediately begin investigating so we find her as soon as possible?"

Professor Lupin shook his head solemnly. "Not yet, Percy. I know a place she could have been taken, a place the Ministry wouldn't think to check. I will go there with Arthur as soon as Alastor arrives."

He disappeared with a crack.

"Dad," Percy persisted, "I should go back to the Ministry and raise the highest level of alarm I can-"

"Perce, Perce." Dad's voice was tight. The last conversation between the two of them had been... disastrous, to say the least. "Trust Professor Lupin. Come on, let's go downstairs and look for any signs she left of her own volition."

"What're we looking for, Dad?" Fred asked. "What do you mean by signs?"

"Anything that she would have taken with her if she planned to leave," Dad answered. "Missing clothes, missing suitcases, a note. You two comb her room, since you know her best, while Percy and I check downstairs for anything."

We nodded as the pair of them left, then exchanged a quick but meaningful look before dividing up the room.

"Anything you could offer us, Tuck?" Fred asked quietly. "What happened to her?"

Tuck merely whimpered quietly in response.

My heart was still pounding. My hands shook, my right still gripping my wand, as I opened the trunk at the foot of her bed.

I was right — she hadn't unpacked. Her schoolbooks were still in there, along with her school robes, Quidditch robes, and a number of other odd and ends that made sense to bring with her to Hogwarts.

Fred closed her wardrobe door gently. "No notes. Not very many empty hangers. A teddy bear buried in the back, a couple of photo albums that looked like they'd been intentionally placed at the very back, but who could blame her?" He glanced around the room. "The reminders of him would have been everywhere. I'm surprised she didn't paint her walls something other than yellow."

"Nothing unusual in her trunk. She just never unpacked." I sighed. "Again, who could blame her? The article made it sound like she's barely left this room." I froze. "Wait a second, Fred, did you see her wand?"

"Oh. Merlin. No. I didn't. Did you?"

"No. I didn't." I stepped out into the hallway and hurried down the stairs two at a time.

Percy glanced up with a worried expression. "What is it? What did you find?"

"Nothing. But that's just it," I said.

Dad entered the room. "Go on, George."

"Her wand isn't in her room, meaning she still has it, wherever she is. Unless..." I froze. "We should check outside. It's possible that if there was a fight, it happened outside."

"If?" Fred asked. "George, you know damn well Lucy wouldn't go down without a fight, there must have been a fight."

"Unless whoever took her knew that about her and intentionally caught her off-guard so she couldn't fight back." I glanced up at Percy. "Do you have access to individual records of violations of the Trace?"

Percy rubbed the back of his neck. "I can see what I can do. Y-You know I'd do anything for Lucy. She's family at this point."

And for a moment, the tension between the three of us and Percy vanished.

He seemed to notice this and panicked. "I'm going to go check now. Just... just owl me if something comes up, and I'll do the same."

With a final glance, he disapparated.

"I'm going to see if I can find any sign of a fight," Fred piped up after a moment. He grabbed me by the shoulder. "Let's go. Dad? You coming, too?"

"I'll stay and greet Remus when he returns." The look Dad gave us was heavy. "Be careful, boys."

We nodded and left the house at a jog, Tuck at our heels.

The sun was beginning to sink. It was getting late. Fred and I lit our wands as we entered the forest, and, oddly, we were aided somewhat by the green glow of the Dark Mark still hovering over the house.

After five minutes of careful searching, Tuck let out a small, excited, desperate bark. I dropped to a knee to examine the site closer.

There was a glitter in the middle of a clearly-defined footprint, about Lucy's size.

"What is it?" Fred asked. "Wait, no, don't touch it, it might be cursed if someone wanted us to find it."

I froze. "You're right." I pointed my wand at it. "Wingardium leviosa!"

A small silver circle rose from the earth. I recognized it immediately and snatched it out of the air.

"It's Lucy's," I said, jumping to my feet and sprinting back toward the house, Fred hot on my heels, Tuck following behind him.

Professor Lupin had returned with Professor Moody. (Er, the real one.)

I held the charm bracelet out as we skidded to a stop in front of the three men.

"This is Lucy's," I panted. "She never takes it off. It was in the forest in the middle of a clear footprint. She dropped this on purpose, in the hopes that someone would find it."

"There was no sign of a fight," Fred added, "but maybe she didn't have time to draw her wand, or maybe she knew she'd lose if she tried. She's brave, but she's not quite as reckless as we are."

Dad nodded. "You've done beautifully, boys, you've done so very well. But now we need you to go back and tell your mother and Sirius and any other adults — and I mean only any adults around, her friends should not know yet — about what's happened, and you are not to come back." He held his hands up to stop our protest. "I didn't send you back initially because I know how much you care for her. And now you've done all you can for the time being. Go back and stay there. We need to figure out what to do next."

I slipped Lucy's bracelet into my pocket and swallowed past the lump in my throat. Everything was beginning to sink in.

Fred disapparated first. I followed half a second later.

We landed just outside the kitchen door. It seemed a meeting was about to begin. Tonks and Kingsley were there, as were Mum and Sirius. Mum's head snapped up.

"Where have you been? And where's your father? And wasn't Remus here too?"

I opened my mouth to explain, but the lump in my throat had grown.

"We need to talk to you," Fred managed. He cleared his throat and stuck his hands in his pockets. "George and I need to speak to you. Alone."

Sirius immediately nodded. "Looks important, come on in."

"Why do they get to sit in on meetings now?" came a call from Ginny. She was standing behind us, arms crossed over her chest.

"Give it a rest for now, Ginny," Fred said as gently as he could manage.

"Why?" she pressed.

"That's so unfair," Ron spat from the other room, rising to his feet as he heard the debate.

"Don't ask," Fred snapped back at him, his patience gone. "Now go. And don't you even think about listening in. Dad said adults only."

With that, Fred pulled me into the kitchen after him and slammed the door. My brain was starting to work in circles, there was no clear black and white or up and down. I just kept seeing the footprint in the dirt, and the bracelet in my pocket felt far heavier than it should have been.

Mum could tell something was seriously wrong, because she conjured up two more chairs and pushed us down into them as Tonks cast a couple of charms on the door to stop the others from listening in.

"What is the matter?" Kingsley asked. "Where are the others?"

Fred glanced at me.

I shook my head. I can't do it.

"At the Diggorys'," he replied. He straightened up. "Percy apparated here while we were talking to our dad and Professor Lupin saying he'd seen the Dark Mark over their house."

A collective gasp went around the table.

Mum pressed a hand to her chest. "And you went with them?"

"It was alright, Mum, no one was there," Fred said as reassuringly as he could. He shifted in his seat and started bouncing his leg up and down in time with mine. I hadn't even realized I was doing it until he started, too. "Dad and Professor Lupin made sure it was safe before we charged in." He swallowed hard. "There were no living humans in the house. Lucy's parents are dead."

Another gasp.

"And Lucy?" Tonks asked, as if she were afraid of the answer.

"So far undetermined," I said, finding my voice for the first time. "We don't think she ran away, Fred and I searched her room for a note or anything like that. I found a bracelet of hers in the woods nearby, and I think she dropped it on purpose. Some sort of clue." My fingers tightened around it in my pocket, so tight one of the charms nearly punctured my skin before I released my grip. "Professor Lupin said he has an idea of where she's been taken. He's going there with Dad while Professor Moody inspects the house. I remember Lucy saying once that her mum worked with him as an Auror."

After a couple moments of silence, Mum suggested we head up to our room to clear our heads, even letting us apparate up there so we didn't have to face Ron and Hermione and Ginny, who would surely still be pissed at us for getting to participate in the meeting. We locked the door with magic so the younger kids couldn't enter before sitting on our own respective beds.

"She'll be fine," Fred said under his breath after a couple minutes. "I mean, think about all the spells we taught her. We know she has her wand, or else we would have seen it in the forest. I reckon she'll fight her way out as soon as she gets the chance."

I nodded. "She will."

If she ever gets that chance, I thought to myself half a second later.

I laid back and stared at the ceiling.

When it came to Quidditch, I was always there to try to beat the Bludger away when it went her direction, and sometimes I wasn't quite fast enough, but I always tried, there was always something I could do. Whenever she turned to us asking for help learning a new spell, I always made sure I practiced with her until it was perfect, there was always something I could do. When Harry was absolutely blind when it came to the Yule Ball, I had been there to do the best I could in his stead, and I liked to think I had done a decent job of it, there was always something I could do.

But in that moment, there was nothing I could do.

The only thing tethering me to her was the little bracelet clenched in my fist, and it wasn't even me who had given it to her.

I didn't fancy her, not really, not the way she fancied Harry, but I'd always done everything I could to keep her safe. She mattered to me, to us. She was our Cub, after all.

I would have given anything in that moment to switch places with her. To have her be safe and me the one in danger.

She was our Cub, after all.

In my mind's eye that night, as I tried to fall asleep, I saw the bodies of Cedric, her dad, her mum. I buried my face in my pillow and released a shuddering sigh.

Lucy can't be dead, too.