Epilogue

The Gray Lady sat in the Great Hall, not really here, not really there either. She was nowhere; lost in the middle. She watched her house's students, thinking all the time that none of them were even remotely intelligent enough to be a Ravenclaw.

She felt the stare of someone boring into her back. She turned towards the Slytherin table and saw the house ghost jangling his chains and watching her. She turned forward once more.

It was his punishment to carry those chains around for the rest of his existence. It was his penance for murdering her.

But it was no comparison to the burden of heavy guilt she was doomed to carry for all of eternity.