It had just been a dream.

Deep in her slumber, tucked warmly in her Gryffindor bed, 17 year old Ginny had been sleeping peacefully when she had heard it. A cry. A shout. A scream that was past anguished and horrifyingly close to blood-curling.

But it had just been a dream.

The scream pierced through Ginny's slumber, shooting through her brain and traveling sharply throughout her body, making her suddenly snap up. She shuddered violently, her breathing labored and her skin chilled, even with her blankets still curled around her. Sweat had built on the brim of her forehead, soaking the roots of her red hair, and panic had also reflected in her eyes, Ginny's gaze darting around the girl's dormitory.

It had just been a dream.

What stared back at her was darkness. No light was apart of the room, not even a glow from the moon outside, and it took Ginny a moment to focus on her surroundings. All was still. Nothing seemed to be disturbed, not one of the girls awake, each of them sleeping deeply. There was even a small sound of a snore from across the way, and that was the only fragment of noise in the room. Everything appeared to be normal. Everything seemed to be all right.

And, it had just been a dream.

Just as Ginny was finishing with calming herself down, slowly descending back into her bed, she heard it again. It felt as though the scream shook every wall of Hogwarts, startling the very air of the school while a thick blanket of tension seized the atmosphere. It jolted Ginny once more, snapping straight up for a second time, and she peered stonily at the exit to the girl's dormitories, wondering for a brief instant whether she was imagining things or not.

But, then Ginny heard the scream for a third time.

And, it hadn't just been a dream.

On an urgent impulse, one that took her over in the blink of an eye, Ginny was out of bed and out the door, racing down the steps and shooting out of the Gryffindor common room. She began to tour the hallways of the castle, feet barely hitting the ground as she went up and down stairwells and skidded around corners. The girl had no idea where she was going, what had happened to make her suddenly so panicked. All she knew that something was leading her, something was pushing her from behind, and things didn't come to a dead halt until she reached the hallway that led to Dumbledore's office.

The eagle statue was just in the works of rotating, slowly ascending, carrying along two people with it. They both stood on the first step, one of them being Headmaster Dumbledore, the elderly man tired but understanding as he placed a hand on the shoulder of the person next to him, it being a woman with strikingly familiar red hair. From the distance she was at, Ginny didn't catch her face, but when the eagle staircase was about to take both her and Dumbledore out of sight, Ginny caught a glimpse at who she was.

Molly Weasley. Her mother.

Something cracked painfully inside of Ginny, memories of all those times when Dumbledore announced the death of Charlie, the death of Bill, the death of Percy, the death of Fred, and the death of George most recently washing over her and reminding her too much of what was happening just then. Stubbornly, though, she uprooted herself from her spot and walked down to the opposite end of the corridor, pausing in her quiet footsteps next to someone she was glad to see, but also hated for being there.

Hermione's body was straightened like a board, her muscles flexed and veins tense that pulsed against her skin. Her hands were gripped into tight fists, knuckles ghost white, with her face drained of color, lips pale and taut into a straight line. She was trembling; shaking ever so slightly not from cold, but from something else, her body so rigid that it seemed nothing could try and break her down. And, her eyes, the eyes that didn't bother to glance at Ginny but merely stayed straight ahead, unblinking and cold, were suddenly a color of shocking gold, glowing vehemently without any traces of emotion or feeling whatsoever.

The realization from taking in her presence crashed over Ginny much too soon.

In less than thirty seconds, Hermione Granger had become a mere skeleton of the girl Ginny had gotten to know from even before her first year up until now. If anything, Hermione was gone; the spark that had once always been apart of her, even during the worst of times, had vanished, like hope itself had been snatched away from her and had been replaced with something ugly. The breath had been sucked out of her and in return, poison had been injected, and now all that remained of the girl was an empty body, one that looked unbreakable but contained a shattered heart, and a frozen, harsh stare.

Again, Ginny felt her insides crack, something crumbling from deep within. Desperately, though, she kept her composure, reaching a hand out to Hermione's forearm and wrapping her fingers around the ice-cold, pale skin.

"Hermione..." Ginny began, swallowing hard. "Hermione... what happened... why... why is mum here? Did something happen to... to... someone?" she faltered.

Hope took in a sharp breath, her body hardening even more than it already was. And, after a few seconds of bitter silence, she looked over to Ginny, her penetrating eyes locking with hers.

"He's dead, Ginny," Hermione said, cold and emotionless. "Ron is dead."

Just say goodbye. I live and I'll die, hooked on a star, enraptured by the sky,
In
love with a satellite