It was a Saturday. A Saturday that held a special place in the quiet life I held in 2 Privet Drive after my recent graduation from Hogwarts. I had some papers for WiZu to compete last night – These kept me awake all throughout the night. Oh no, it was almost 10:00 am in the morning! I had to get ready for the small party I called for this evening. I was just getting back in touch with some not-so-old friends and was planning to have a pleasant evening. But first, I had to make my breakfast…

It was exactly 3:30 pm in the afternoon. I had to start working for the party. I had burrowed some muggle toasters from the neighbours because I didn’t want to appear suspicious in this Muggle-filled area! I started baking some pastries in the oven and toasted some bread with a special mixture that contained some wizarding spices. Knowing my friends would love it, I started preparing some seafood and arranged them in bowls in a neat manner. After arranging brownies and other famous items in their respective bowls, I started preparing Croquettes, a Muggle treat you can find everywhere in this place. After placing some mini cheesecakes on the table, the set-up looked perfectly complete! Everything was set for an afternoon of fun.
 

 

 

 

 

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I walked towards the personal cupboard I had in my room and took the elegant tea set I had on the lowest shelf. One of the items that were very close to my heart, this Ravenclaw-themed tea set has been around since my grandmother's time. She got it as a reward from the Headmistress of Hogwarts at the time, for her extraordinary skills in Quidditch. What made this tea set special... Well, all pieces followed commands just like Wizarding chess pieces! They did whatever I told them to do, obviously not running and bathing, but things like changing their color, moving around the table and settling in front of each guest. And this party was surely going to be something dear to my heart so there was no reason why I shouldn’t use this beloved tea set.

It was almost 5.00 pm, and I heard the doorbell ringing. I quickly ran to the door and welcomed the first guest. Soon, all the guests were there and we were chatting about so many random things in the living room, seated on the cosy sofas. It was around 6.30 pm, and we had to start the food feast. "All right, ladies! Time to get into the food part", I urged them. With all the chattering, they entered the room and got seated around the table. I rushed to the kitchen and prepared tea from some special tea leaves I had from the eastern part of the world. I returned to the dining room with the tea and arranged it in the middle of the table. "Let the party begin!", I said with a smile, and we were off eating.

It was utterly delicious – I had no faith in my culinary skills before. I heard many comments from everyone at the table and we soon determined that we couldn’t wait any longer: It was time to serve the tea. I took my tea set proudly and poured tea into the cups carefully. I didn’t want to shock the audience by sending flying teacups all around, so I sent the cups to everyone hand by hand. I felt something different when I touched the handle of each cup, but didn’t want ponder over it – It was party time! I took a sip of tea and it was really good, the mint taste gave it a good flavour.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The hands on the clock were moving towards 7.30 pm, and we were already late. The guests stood from the table and started saying goodbye to everyone. Within 15 minutes, everyone was gone and I had a bunch of cards in the living room. Before going through them, I had to clean the food table. After wrapping all the remaining food up, I reached for my special tea set and ordered it to get cleaned and arrange itself into the box. I waited, but there was no response. I repeated the same commands but nothing happened. Neither the cups nor the glasses moved. Feeling some doubt, I took each into my hand and observed them very carefully.

Yes, it wasn’t my tea set. Someone had grabbed it, replacing it with one of low quality that looked pretty bad. It couldn’t move, it couldn’t change colors... It hurt me a lot because this was so close to my heart. Okay... Who did this? I had to find out.

I remembered my instinct at the food party: I felt something strange when I was pouring tea into the cups. That could mean only one thing – Whoever stole that tea set, must have done it before the commencement of the food party. Thinking back to the party, only two people left the room when we were talking in the living room: Rae and Rowena. Both had to pass the food table when they went towards the other side of the house to see the backyard pool I had. I couldn’t imagine why either of them would need to steal a tea set. Only Rae knew that the tea set was enchanted. So did that raise her curiosity when walking by the table?

And that wasn’t the only opening. I left the room to prepare the tea and anyone there had the opportunity to steal the tea set. But that had to be concealed from the eyes of others. Rei and Cynthia... They sure had good reason to steal the tea set of a Ravenclaw and they definitely excelled at Concealing Charms. I would not trust any Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs doing this, they should have no interest in this. A Ravenclaw could be the culprit too so Aeri, Kyla and Willow Maid. Kyla may have wanted to pull one of her good pranks on me, Aeri may have done it out of her love of the navy color, and Willow Maid could have thought that she could use it in her Potions classroom. I narrowed my list to Rae, Aeri, Rei, Kyla, Willow Maid and Cynthia.

I had to follow in the culprit's footsteps. But I could use some help… Does any of this ring a bell to you?