Memories Of Them

Chapter 10- The Great Journey North

The departure date for the Beauxbatons delegation was only 2 weeks away and the group of 6 best friends were tirelessly rifling through the storage cupboard of the library trying to find any mention of the mysterious Kiera Lighthand. They knew they were up against a strict deadline and wanted to be sure they had completed their search before they left.

On the first day of the search they had all piled into the tiny storage cupboard assuming that the search would only take them a couple of hours. The room was filled from floor to ceiling with overflowing cardboard boxes, there appeared to be no organisation to the room whatsoever. It had effectively been used as a junk room for the last 70 years at least. They utilised some old rickety desks that had been pushed up against the far wall as work benches. It soon became apparent that the task was a lot bigger than they had anticipated and the room was much too small and stuffy for them all. It had been Bonnie's idea that they split off into groups of three, coming to do research in their free time; she had also mentioned that this gave everyone plenty of time to complete their homework (Hugo had rolled his eyes at that).

That was how Cassie, Fabian and Odette found themselves wedged between hundreds of cardboard boxes, with papers scattered all around them the night before they left for Hogwarts. Cassie's eyes were red and irritated and her nose was stuffy from all of the dust. Huffing she threw the folder she had been reading from across the room, it hit the wall opposite and exploded in a flurry of paper. Fabian lifted his head, looking at her over the newspaper he had been flicking through and gave her a questioning look.

"We're not getting anywhere!" she groaned, "I don't care that Kiera was top of the class for Herbology and brewed a brilliant acne eradication potion. It doesn't help us!"

"Cassie, we can't expect the answer just to fall straight into our laps," he huffed, "there will be something in here that will help us we just need to keep looking. We know she was a halfblood wizard from the biography we found in her class yearbook, we know she was intelligent from all of the awards and commendations she got. We are constantly finding out little snippets of information that help us build the bigger picture," Fabian said sympathetically.

"I've also been thinking, she was arrested and sentenced to Azkaban in England. We might be able to find something out in the Hogwarts library," Odette piped up.

"Genius, Odd!" Fabian cheered. Odette just simply shook her head a bit bashfully and began to blush.

"How many boxes have we got left?" Cassie sighed looking around the tiny room that looked as though a tornado had ripped through it.

"Just those three in the corner," replied Odette.

"I'm nearly finished with these old newspapers, I'll take one," Fabian said.

"We'll take one each, then we really must go and finish packing," Odette said, reaching for the top box and placing it on the ancient desk in front of her. Fabian grabbed the middle box, opening the lid and shaking the contents onto the floor in front of him. That left Cassie with the last box.

Sitting crossed legged on the floor in front of the box Cassie took the lid off the box and haphazardly threw it over her shoulder. This box appeared to be full of yellowing parchment, the musty smell was so overwhelming it made Cassie's eye water. Cautiously reaching into the box she pulled out a folder spotted with black mould and began to leaf through it. It appeared to be some kind of report dated 18th April 1976. Reading through it Cassie couldn't hide her dismay, it detailed the slaughter of a wizard family in the Dordogne region of France. Apparently a group of armed Death Eaters had stormed the home, setting it ablaze; the family of 7 were all trapped inside and perished. Flicking back to the front of the folder Cassie read the handwritten note pinned to it- 'I understand that the children involved in this case were students at Beauxbatons, I am very sorry for your loss.' Continuing to look through the box she found 9 other reports, all detailing the murder or injury of a family who once attended Beauxbatons. The details in some of these reports were so horrific that it turned Cassie's stomach.