Wingardium Jaywonsa

Pink Flamingo

"All students and teachers are asked to join the Great Hall immediately, I repeat, immediately"

"What is this?" asked Jungwon, frowning as Sunoo turned around.
"Oh boy. It has started" whispered Peeves before disappearing.

"Started?" asked Sunoo. "What has started?"

Jungwon looked at him, puzzled. How could he know what was going on?

"We better get going" simply replied Jungwon.

As they started walking, more and more students appeared, and soon a big crowd was moving together towards the Great Hall.
Everyone was whispering about the strange message they had just heard. Some were scared, others were simply surprised.

"Where's Jongho?" asked someone on Jungwon's left.

Before he could hear the answer, the crowd had arrived at destination. Immediately, the students started scattering and sat at their own table. Jungwon nodded to Sunoo and parted ways.

It took him a few seconds to notice Niki, who was sitting next to Beomgyu, their roommate.

"Won! There you are, I was worried" said Niki as the latter sat next to him.
"Since when do you get worried?" asked Jungwon, trying to bring a little humor to the heavy atmosphere.
"Since they ask us here and you're nowhere to be found!" replied Niki, not finding it funny at all.
"I was with Sunoo" replied Jungwon.

Niki seemed surprised, but before he could say anything else, they heard the Headmistress coughing to ask for silence.

The second after, silence had filled the Great Hall. No student knew what was going on and they were extremely curious to know.
As the headmistress opened her mouth to speak, the door opened. Now, as you can imagine, everyone turned around to check who had dared opening the doors like that, just as they were about to hear her talking.

"Jay" whispered Jungwon, as the prefect quickly joined his table, probably trying to ignore all the eyes on him.

The Headmistress seemed unbothered by the apparition and she finally got ready to talk again.

"Dear students, you must wonder why I gathered you all here today" she started.

A wave of nodding faces spread amongst the tables.

"I won't beat around the bush. We would like to ask you if someone has seen Choi Jongho today" she added.

Jungwon was waiting for a lot of whispers, but weirdly, everyone stayed silent. In fact, the Great Hall had never been this silent.

"I'll ask a second time" she said, a note of panic in her voice. "Has anyone seen Jongho since this morning?"

No one talked, but everyone looked at the Ravenclaw table.
Suddenly, one student stood up.

"He's my roommate and he didn't sleep in our room yesterday" he said.
"Thank you Jaemin" said the Headmistress, visibly disappointed that Jaemin hadn't revealed where Jongho was. "Well, I was afraid of this, but there is no reason to lie to you."

"Jongho had disappeared" she announced.

Silence broke instantly. Between gasp and murmurs of shock, the students were in chaos.

"Silence" she tried. "SILENCE"

It took a few seconds, but silence came back.

"The professors and the Ministry of Magic are aware of the situation. I myself will be meeting with Jongho's parents tonight. If any of you has any information regarding this tragic situation, please reach to any teacher or myself" she said. "Until further notice, please remain calm, but also vigilant, as we don't know the origin of Jongho's absence."

~

"What?" asked Jake.
"But, you said you would let it go!" added Heeseung.
"I knew you two were up to something" said Niki angrily.

"Look, I know I should stop with this obsession, but right now we have more important stuff to talk about" said Jungwon.
"We were talking to Peeves earlier and he said" started Sunoo.
"Peeves?" asked Heeseung.
"Yeah, he's the one who found me and he told Jay I was out of bed Saturday night" explained Jungwon.
"What does this have to do with anything?" asked Niki, still angry, but also a little curious.
"How do you know he called Jay?" asked Jake, trying to put the puzzle pieces together.

Sunoo took a deep breath.

"We weren't sure if Peeves had told Jay specifically, so we wanted to ask him" he started.
"But as I asked him, he didn't answer and he got scared" added Jungwon.
"Scared?" repeated Heeseung and Jake at the same time.
"Yup" confirmed Sunoo.
"So it clearly means Jay and him are up to something" said Niki. "I knew we couldn't trust him."
"Hey" said Jungwon.
"Well, gotta admit that what happened after was weird, don't you?" asked Sunoo, looking at Jungwon.

Jungwon instantly pouted. Even though there was a lot about Jay, he still wanted to believe he hadn't done anything bad.

"What happened?" asked Jake.
"Peeves wasn't answering us, and then, the headmistress called us to go to the Great Hall" explained Sunoo. "And Peeves said :It has started."

"It has started" repeated Heeseung. "Was he talking about Jongho's disappearance?"
"Well, it would be a weird coincidence if he wasn't" said Sunoo.

"So to sum up, Peeves potentially knows about what happened to Jongho?" asked Jake.
"I guess so" whispered Jungwon, who had a very bad feeling about everything.
"I bet Jay has something to do with Jongho" said Niki.

"WHAT" shouted Jungwon.
"Well, didn't you say Peeves was scared when you mentioned him?" asked Niki calmly.
"And he has been up every night" added Sunoo. "I heard Sunghoon complaining about it"

The five boys stayed in silence for a few seconds.

"Do... do you think the reason he was late today has something to do with the disappearance?" asked Jake.

The mood changed. Jake's guess made sense. At least, it was plausible.

"What are we going to do about all this?" asked Jungwon.
"We?" asked Heeseung.
"Well, don't you want to find out what happened to Jongho?" asked Sunoo, who was thinking like Jungwon.
"I want to prove that Jay is innocent" mumbled Jungwon.
"Or guilty" added Niki.

"Are you all in?" asked Sunoo. "Jongho is my friend, so I will look for him in either way. If you want to help, you're welcome."
"I'm in" said Jake, soon followed by the others.

"Okay, so this will be Operation Pink Flamingo" said Sunoo, extremely seriously.