Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments): DADA (Assignment 6)

Prompt: For this task, I want you to write about loss. This can be loss in any sense, such as losing a loved one to death or disease, or even losing them to another person, or they leave on their own terms. It doesn't matter how the loved one is lost, so long as loss is the key theme.

Also written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments: Scavenger Hunt (Parvati Patil)

Lost.

Can't see them, don't know where I am, heart racing, panic rising.

Lost.

That one word can't possibly describe the emotion, the pure fear and adrenaline that rushes through me as I realise that I have been separated from my family in an unfamiliar location.

Rails filled with clothes tower above my head as I try and work out where exactly I am. The grown-ups, tall and menacing, walk by with great strides, not noticing my forlorn form toddling through the department store.

I can't think properly, my panic coming through in staccato bursts that gasp through my small body. There's only one person who can help me when I get like this and she's not here.

I'm hardly ever separated from my twin. She's the sensible one, the one who keeps my frivolous head on my shoulders and now I don't know where Padma is. I don't know how to find her, don't know how long it's been since I last saw them.

I know I shouldn't have wandered off but the dresses were so pretty I couldn't help it. I just wanted to look at the sequins that sparkled in the light and feel the soft velvety fabric that cascaded from ornate hangers. Padma would never wandered off, and if she had she would have had a plan. She would have arranged a meeting place, she would know how to talk to an adult, how to find me. She is so organised and I am so hopeless. I have to plan, to try and think like her.

I set off, not sure where I'm going, but sure that Padma would be proud of me. I check every nook and cranny. As long as I don't let myself remember that I am lost I'm okay. It's like a giant game of hide-and-seek.

As I walk I try and concentrate on my mission but there are many distractions. A lady scoops me up onto a tall tall chair and brushes powder onto my face and says I look beautiful. Then a man offers me a plate of food, bending down from way above my head.

Every time I get distracted though I come crashing down to earth, terrified once more that I will never see my family again.

I know roughly where I am. We went to a muggle shopping centre to look for dresses for my aunt's wedding. Padma and I are going to be bridesmaids and have beautiful dresses and look like princesses. Mother thought it was extravagant but I liked trying on the sparkly dresses. I wish Padma tried to look pretty more often. She's beautiful but she says she's to busy to bother with trying to look good.

The thought of Padma drags me back to my painful ordeal. It feels like I've been walking for hours but I'm sure that in reality it has been only a few minutes. Nevertheless I have blisters and my scarf has come undone and my hair is a mess. I decide that they've probably gone upstairs because that's where the cakes are and Padma likes cakes so I get on the moving stairs and I go up. It's fun so I go down on the stairs as well and then I go up in the lift which is a bit like going to space in a rocket and it's made of glass so I look for Padma all the way up.

There's still no sign of her though, and I'm sure that I've looked in every shop in the whole building. A sudden thought strikes me with fear and I'm suddenly dizzyingly afraid. What if they left without me? Maybe they looked for me and they couldn't find me and they went home? Will I be forced to live here for ever and ever, all alone? The thought has me running to the main entrance. I know how to get on a bus so maybe I should just try and go home by myself?

I stand and watch the front door. The great glass structure spins around and around and I wonder whether I'm really brave enough to step into it. Everyone else manages though and I'm swept along in a crowd of tall people. The door spits me out on the other side and I'm free.

But suddenly I realise that outside is even busier and noisier and I'm even smaller and I don't know which bus to take and I don't have any money and yet again, I'm lost.