Dedalus Diggle burst into the great room, gasping for breath as though he had just run a mile. Everyone looked up, roused from whatever they'd been working on.
"Dedalus?" Lily asked, getting worriedly to her feet.
Dedalus gripped the back of the couch for support, shaking from head to toe. "What's wrong?" Sirius asked.
"What's happened?" asked Claire, closing her book and standing.
Stell came to stand beside Dedalus, peering at him concernedly, "Are you alright?"
Dedalus bit his lip and shook his head. Everyone glanced around apprehensively; the atmosphere was rigid with unease. Finally Dedalus looked up, his terrified eyes darting around the room at them all.
"There's been another attack," he managed.
There was a unanimous intake of breath from the occupants of the room.
"Oh…" Stell whispered, "Oh, Merlin… What's happened?"
Dedalus gulped several times before he croaked, "We've just found her body in a deserted field, with the dark mark…"
"Who?" Emmeline asked urgently.
"Dorcas." The room was silent for several seconds.
"This is awful," Claire said at last, tears welling in her eyes "I've done enough sobbing in the last month to last a lifetime," she said hysterically, her voice coming out in a high-pitched sqeak.
"We all have," Lily gasped, as though she was suddenly not fully capable of breathing properly. She sat down rigidly beside James on the couch, leaning against him for support and gently taking Harry from him. She squeezed his tiny body to her like it was the only thing she had to hold onto.
Stell, who had been staring at Dedalus with a blank, uncomprehending look, now closed her eyes silently. She drifted into Sirius's arms, hiding her wet face against his chest as if he could save her from the horror of Voldemort's power. Oh, how he wished he could.
"Was there a struggle? Or did they attack suddenly?" Emmeline interrogated in a stiff voice as though she might distract herself by knowing the details of the killing.
"It seems it was done by Voldemort himself. Great witch… Dorcas wasn't one to go without a fight…" Dedalus said, collapsing onto the nearest armchair.
Everyone nodded in silent affirmation and remembrance of the great witch Dorcas had been. The stood in the room together, noislessly sharing their sorrow. The pain was almost tangible, the tenseness of the room dulled the senses. After a few moments of hushed stillness, Emmeline broke the quiet angrily.
"It's terrible! All of this killing!" she exclaimed indignantly. Everyone was surprised, it was rare that they saw Emmeline angry and she never broke her stately, composed air. "And there is a word for it, this meaningless slaughtering of all those without 'good blood'! It is genocide. Nothing more, nothing less. Genocide."
The word hovered between everyone for a few moments like some repulsive creature that had stumbled into their midst.
No one said anything. It was too frightening to discuss. But even as they dared not speak of the label which had just been put on Voldemort's bloody supremacy, it was even more terrifying, because every person in the room knew it was the truth.
