A Ballad of Snakes and Shadows // A Dark Sebastian Sallow Romance

Chapter Seven: Sharks // The Devil's Playground

Sharks - Imagine Dragons

The Devil's Playground - The Rigs

  

Putting my faith in the Headmaster's return made me feel like an utter fool.

It was taking what felt like half a fucking century for him to return to the school from Merlin only knew where. I felt terrible as I waited anxiously for any news from Weasley, who had promised to send word the moment she'd spoken to Black or heard back from the Ministry.

A week had passed since the incident with the dark wizard trio and there hadn't yet been a single message from the Ministry, nor an estimate on when Black would return to the school.

Then another week went by, and it was more of the same.

Except, as that time ticked by, more students had gone missing.

With every day that passed there seemed to be one or two students picked off. There was no pattern to it. It didn't make any sense why they were taking more and more students - children, of all things.

Why not take full grown adults? What could they hope to gain from inexperienced students?

What were they doing with them? Murdering them? Torturing them?

Ominis, Natty, and I had been holding onto the hope that our classmates were still very much alive, no matter how doubtful that seemed.

It had been difficult to hold onto that wish, given that we hadn't had much luck in the way of finding clues. Those asshats had been very good at covering their tracks and seemed to be operating much further away from the hamlets than we'd originally anticipated.

"They could be underground," Natty took a bite out of her apple as she spoke. We were sitting at the Slytherin House table in the Great Hall, towards the back near the exit. An announcement was going to be given to the whole school that afternoon.

Most of my fellow housemates sneered at Natty given that Gryffindors didn't belong at our table. I shot each of them a threatening look and they quickly returned to minding their own business and finding their seats.

Seats that were far away from us, I noticed with a smile.

"Perhaps." Ominis muttered his agreement but he only seemed vaguely interested in the conversation. He was too occupied with holding his wand over a text book, using it to "read" the words on the pages.

It was interesting to see how Ominis went about his day without sight. I wanted to know how the fuck he did it.

Ominis and Natty seemed far more invested in whatever was going on in their own mind and I knew I was losing them. The hunt for the missing students and the dark wizards who'd taken them had become just another class in their busy schedules.

They'd grown lazy with it, and if I was their professor for that class, I would have harshly failed them.

Admittedly, there was nothing new to go off to keep up the search. That irritated the hell out of me given that Poppy could be in mortal danger if we did not find her soon.

Those dark, masked bastards weren't resting - so why were we?

There were dark circles around Ominis' eyes again. Perhaps it wasn't fair for me to be upset with them - they were risking a lot by being a part of this, even though it was not their fight. I should be grateful they'd help me at all.

It was disheartening that nothing had turned up. I could find empathy in their quiet surrender. The only things we had to go off were new disappearances, more unanswered questions, and another handful of rose petals.