I have never studied the sound of silence. Fancy, the brain of Gryffindor has actually failed to study something. Rita Skeeter would have a field day with this.
The dictionary definition states
Silence n 1. absence of sound 2. Avoidance or absence of speaking or of making a sound
Silence v to make a person or thing silent.
The book is wrong! I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd ever say such a thing. I mean books are my solace, the fount of all knowledge, the one surety in this world of chaos.
But the book is wrong!
An absence of sound would imply a quiet calm void, as if the noise just up and walked away leaving nothing in its wake. That is not what silence sounds like! Never, not even in the heat of battle, when we ran and scrambled through the wreckage of rubble and fallen friends and foes did I hear a sound as loud as the wall of silence that met me at the door of the shack!
As for avoidance, even now in the after math of the storm it is not entirely possible to remain without a sound. How do you avoid the sounds of grief and confusion?
I suppose in a way it is still partly right, after all the person within these walls was made silent.
I don't know why I came back. I had watched the man die in a pool of his own blood. Nothing could be accomplished with my presence. Yet here I stood, afraid to go in but too quilt ridden to leave.
So. I gather my Gryffindor courage about me like a cloak, square my shoulders and start to walk.