Losing Faith

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"And after that, I don't remember much, but once it was known that Faith... had disappeared, Astoria didn't leave her room, which was suspicious." Nicole came back from her thoughts about the fight between the two friends, and slowly began to get to the other things that they had managed to find out in five days.

"She is, of course, as broken as we are, despite what happened between them that night, and when Draco checked her memories, he found nothing there but their exchange and a couple of seconds of images of Faith's back moving away from her in the hallway."

"Draco checked her memories?" The professor's voice sounded shocked for a second, and his brow furrowed, "Is that how you guys decided to act? Digging into the memories of everyone who was there?" His hand rested on his broad jaw, rubbing the skin, and then he chuckled at some thought of his own, shaking his head.

"Have your thoughts already been—"

"No, not yet," Nicole said, lowering her gaze, her finger nervously twirling strands of copper-gold hair, "Maybe tomorrow, or the day after. Draco can't check everyone at the same time, so we decided to start with the most suspicious ones first."

"I see," The professor said thoughtfully, falling back into his thoughts.

He moved to the window, and Nicole could see the tension in his shoulders, which now seemed even wider, the deep furrow between his brows, the heavy sigh he took as he looked out at the landscape, and Nicole wondered if he felt any pity for Faith, any desire to find her safe, or if he still didn't care.

Maybe he wanted this case to be resolved, so that the whole oppressive and tense atmosphere in the school would settle down, because most of all, he seemed to value his calmness.

Nicole chuckled silently, remembering how Faith had always managed to undermine his composure by getting into fights with him, or expressing doubts about his explanations of potions, how she had raised her hands in defeat when he gave her the heaviest and most menacing look Nicole had ever seen, how Faith had smiled triumphantly when he raised his voice, not always at her, but she seemed to enjoy finding him vulnerable to things like childish pampering.

Faith was not a bully, she had no problems with her studies, teachers, or other students, she just didn't like this gloomy man from day one, and when he had first given her detention for laughing at someone's joke too loudly, she had declared war on him.

"What else did you find?" He caught her off guard while she was still in her head, and she had to clear her throat and blink a couple of times to focus on Faith's disappearance.

"So far, this is the picture: after the fight with Astoria, Faith went to the party as if nothing had happened, and for the first part of that night she was with me, encouraging me to have fun, because there was too much going on that night for me to get away from it so quickly. That's what I remember." Nicole took a deep breath, lacing her fingers together.

"Then came the part where I decided to listen to her and have fun, and then Faith wasn't around and I didn't remember anything. We checked the minds of several people. And we get the impression that Faith was following her own advice, too — she was drinking, dancing, laughing, talking to someone, she was fine, you know?" Nicole's voice now sounded desperate, looking at Anderson with a look filled with pain and a glint of tears.

He nodded curtly, knowing that it was hard for her to remember her best friend in this way. After a few seconds of silence, when she could control the trembling of her lower lip, she continued.

"And then, she just disappeared. Everyone saw the same thing, how she had fun, and what happened after that, where she went after that, what she did or who she was with — no one seemed to see it, as if it was erased from everyone's memory." She bit her lip again, and this time one small tear rolled out of her eye, and she immediately wiped it away with her knuckles.

"They dived into the lake, and there was nothing there either. There's nothing in the forbidden forest either, not all the territory has been explored yet, but I'm afraid we won't be able to find anything."

"Could it be that she decided to... go home, for example? Have you contacted her family?" The man suggested as he sat back down on the edge of his desk. His words made Nicole frown.

"Go home? In the middle of the night, in the middle of a party? When she drank a ton of alcohol and had fun? Why would she go home? It's November, we're in the middle of our study, after all."

"Okay, calm down, I just assumed," He raised his hands in defeat, then his fingers began to twist the ring on his finger — his wedding ring. It occurred to Nicole, out of place, that she would like to get a glimpse of his wife.

"But maybe it's reasonable to contact her family?"

Nicole shook her head sadly, a hint of a doomed smile on her bitten lips.

"I don't know, I don't know anything anymore," She whispered, her eyes filling with tears again, "I don't know anything and this is the worst part of it. Do you have any idea how much I fear for her? How terrible it is for me to even think about the most terrible things, how hard it is for me to be in an empty room where she is supposed to live with me, how difficult it is to look at her bed, at her place at the table in the great hall, at her seats in the classroom, and not see her there?" She took a deep breath, not even caring about the stream of tears that dripped onto the wooden surface of the desk.

"I'm her best friend, and I'm so hurt by all these horrible thoughts, all the warm thoughts associated with her, and I can't even imagine how her family would feel. I don't know what to do, I'm just at a loss, I'm losing faith." The last word came out in a whisper, and she squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head. She was losing faith that they could find her — they were losing Faith.

Nicole had been holding back all her emotions for five days, not allowing herself to be weak, because she knew that it wasn't just her — Draco, Blaise, Pansy, Astoria, and even Theodore, they were all broken, they were all feel bad about it, and Nicole couldn't bring her tears out on any of them, so now, her shoulders were shaking with sobs in the potion room, in front of Keegan Anderson, the coldest and most heartless person she knew, who was now standing in front of her with a glass of water outstretched.

He was silent, his face still showing no emotion, and Nicole suddenly felt ridiculous.

"I think I have to go." She said in a weak voice, getting up from her desk as soon as the last drop of water touched her throat.

She coughed a couple of times, not looking up at the professor, and walked to the door without another word, but before her hand could wrap around the doorknob, Draco appeared in front of her, out of breath but excited.

"I have something."