The entire castle waited with baited breath during the days following
the news of Dumbledore's death. Harry knew that the majority of them were
waiting for Voldemort to burst through the door any second. But nothing of
the sort happened. June came in with rainy weather, which much suited the
moods of the students inside the castle.
Professor McGonagall managed to upkeep the school running smoothly, but under somewhat strain and pressure. She could often be found in the corridors, sobbing quietly into a handkerchief. Exams were cancelled for the year, leaving the students with nothing but their common rooms to keep them occupied.
There was a memorial service to be held for Dumbledore in the Great Hall on the third day of June. The last day of school was scheduled for June 27th, but with classes being cancelled, many students were planning early departures. "I'm not forcing anyone to stay," Professor McGonagall had told them, "but I think it's highly necessary that we be together at this time."
Harry, in no hurry to leave the school that had become his home, planned on staying all summer if he could. He, Ron and Hermione sat solemnly in the Great Hall as Professor McGonagall began the memorial service with kind words.
"Albus Dumbledore often said that this school was his life," she began. "And indeed, he gave his life for the fight against the Dark Lord. He was found in a cave in the mountains days ago, apparently dead from a battle with someone or something. He will be greatly missed," she ended abruptly, tears overcoming her speech. She sat down, dabbing at her eyes as each of the teachers took their turns in saying something nice about Dumbledore. Professor Sprout began sobbing heavily on several occasions and Professor Flitwick maintained that the entire school should remain until the official end of the term.
"We need each other," he said, laying a hand on McGonagall's shoulder. "As only each of us knew Albus Dumbledore as well as we did."
There wasn't a dry eye in the room by the time the memorial was over. Harry left the Great Hall feeling drained and empty. There was almost nothing else to keep him here, yet he felt a strong bond with the very walls that had sheltered him from so much the past seven years that he couldn't bring himself to leave just yet. "I could stay here all summer and next year," he told Hermione and Ron back in the common room. "It wouldn't bother me."
"I think we all feel that way," Hermione replied, looking around the common room. "No one's exactly sure when to leave and no one wants to be the first." She took a deep steadying breath. "It's the end of an era, that's for sure."
Ron remained fairly silent throughout the entire day. Losing Percy and Dumbledore within practically the same week was too much for him and Harry felt incredibly sorry that he couldn't be of more support to his friend. But he was having trouble dealing with all the sudden changes on his own. And the incessant throbbing his scar was providing did not help matters; it only made them worse. He had the horrible feeling that time was closing in on him, no matter how silly Hermione made it seem.
Four days after Dumbledore's memorial service, Harry had a dream so frightening and so realistic that he woke up nearly in tears. As he gulped down a glass of water, his mind replayed the dream over and over repeatedly. He was in the mountains somewhere, surrounded by trees. There was a dark cavern up ahead and Harry knew that something in there was important to him. He needed to be in that cave. But every time he tried to make a move for it, an unknown, powerful force would pull him back.
Then there was the haunting voice calling him from the cave. "Run, Harry, while you still can! There's still time! Get out now! Just remember, nothing is as important as running right now! Just get out!"
Even after he woke up, he could still hear the voice in the cave. It reminded him so strongly of someone he knew, but he couldn't quite say whom. It almost sounded like Dumbledore's voice, but that would be too uncanny, wouldn't it?
Noticing that the other four beds in the room were silent, Harry crawled back under his covers, feeling slightly chilly in the warm room. He took great care in putting his mind at ease, yet in great defence, for he knew what secrets his dreams could hold. He didn't need any more prophetic dreams; he had had enough to last him a lifetime.
When he awoke next, the mood in the room wasn't much calmer than it had been when Harry had awoken hours ago. Great thunderous claps were being announced outside the tower window and Harry saw that Ron, Neville, Dean and Seamus were gathered around it in horror.
"What is it?" Harry asked groggily, tugging at his hair to stay flat on his head. He didn't feel like getting out from under the covers because of the dropping temperature of the room, so he sat up in bed, shivering from the cold. "What's happening?"
Ron was silhouetted against the dark sky outside and his hushed voice gave Harry chills not due to the temperature. "Outside, Harry. It's happening. Just like we feared." When he turned to face his friend, his cheeks were streaked with tears. "It's You-Know-Who."
"What?" Not caring about the cold in the room, Harry jumped out of bed and headed for the window. "You must be insane, Ron, there's no way Voldemort's going to come traipsing into Hogwarts in the middle of the night." But as he approached the window, an excruciating pain in his forehead seized him, causing him to drop to the floor, just short of screaming.
"Should someone go get Madam Pomfrey?" he heard Seamus ask, his voice trembling with fright.
"Do you want to?" Dean shot back, his voice as equally shaky. "I'm not going anywhere."
Harry stood up, ignoring the bursts of agony exploding in his forehead. "Forget it," he muttered, half-crawling to the window. Outside, the horror unfolded before his eyes. There were jets of green light flying every which way, creating such a blur that Harry had to close his eyes for several seconds to clear them. Masked, hooded figures were rushing across the grounds and whoops of joy and laughter could be heard from all over.
Harry distinctly saw Professor McGonagall crumple to the ground when a flash of green light illuminated the sky. He gasped as her lifeless body was ignored by the running figures behind her. More hooded figures, but these ones weren't masked. Harry knew at once that they were Dementors. He watched in terror as several more members of the Hogwarts staff were tossed about, many obviously dead, including tiny Professor Flitwick, whose small body lay forgotten on a sullen part of grass.
"So where is he?" Harry asked, his mind still wracked with grief. "Where's Voldemort? If his Death Eaters and the Dementors are fighting his battles for him, where is he?" Hysterically, he got to his feet and stumbled towards the door.
"Harry, no!" Neville cried, but Harry ignored him and flung the door open, entering the hallway. He looked over the railing into the common room at the frightened group of students that had gathered there. Many were crying already, with the belief that they would not walk out of Hogwarts alive.
"Where are you?" he screamed, waving his arms frantically. "Where the hell are you? You want me? Come get me yourself, you lazy moron! Fight your own damn battles!"
A hand on his shoulder made him spin around as he prepared to stare into those red slits of eyes, but instead he saw Hermione's tearful ones. "Stop yelling," she hissed at him. Her eyes were red and swollen and she looked tired. She had obviously been up for hours. "Do you want to draw him here?"
"Maybe I do," Harry replied in a voice of such nonchalant that he surprised himself. "Maybe I want him to come and kill me and be done with it. That way he doesn't raid the entire school, killing innocent people, looking for me!" Flitwick's lifeless body flashed across his mind and he felt the tears begin to leak out of the corners of his eyes. "It's just not fair!"
"Harry, he's going to raid the school whether you're dead or alive," Hermione argued, rising to the dispute. "Don't give him the satisfaction of handing him something that he's worked so hard for, not after seventeen years."
Harry stared at her a moment. It was as if he had never seen her before. Hermione looked truly defiant, something she had never done in the entire time Harry had known her. Ron came up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder.
"She's right you know," he said softly, wiping away his own frightened tears. "He's going to take over the school, like it or not. Don't give in to him."
"What am I supposed to do?" Harry wailed, crumpling beneath the heaviness of the situation. "I can't fight him. I'm not that strong!"
"Yes, you are," Hermione argued again, kneeling beside him. "You've done it many times before, come face to face with him and won. You can do it again."
"That was when Dumbledore was alive," Harry answered, tears sliding silently down his cheeks. "That was when I had faith. Now I just don't care."
A loud bang emitted from the common room beneath them and several people screamed. That bang was followed by a series of loud bangs until a flash of red light followed by purple sparks blinded everyone. When their eyes adjusted again, they witnessed two of the masked, hooded figures enter the common room. Harry felt himself go faint and prayed that he wouldn't pass out.
Two girls were screaming hysterically in the common room, clutching each other for comfort. "Kill them," wheedled one voice, the voice that Harry knew belonged to Lucius Malfoy. The other figure nodded and in a maniacal laughter that Harry knew all too well, shot a jet of green light at the two girls, killing them instantly.
"I'll search down here," Malfoy said, "and you search upstairs, Bella." The two figures split up and began hunting around the common room while several students downstairs managed to escape through the hole that had been blasted in the wall by the intruders.
Upstairs, Hermione was whimpering and Ron was cowering in the corner. Harry, however, sat rather still, afraid to move, yet really not caring what happened to him anymore. "Kill me and spare the others," he pictured himself saying to Malfoy. Yet giving him the satisfaction of taking his life just wasn't the way he wanted to leave this world. So he remained quiet in the shadows.
Bellatrix's footsteps lurked ever closer until Harry saw her masked face appear around the corner where he was hiding. She moved to take off her mask and grinned wildly. "Found him!" she called in a singsong voice. "And some friends, too!" Her gleeful tone angered Harry as he remembered how she taunted Sirius before he died.
"Leave them alone," he warned menacingly, stepping forward out of the shadows. Her eyes drank him in and how he had grown since she had seen him last.
"Little Potter isn't so little anymore," she cooed. "It looks like you grew up. You're not a baby anymore."
"Nothing gets past you."
She shot him a dirty look. "Mind your mouth, Potter, and come with me. I'm taking you to the Dark Lord so he can take care of you. But what shall I do with the others?" she mused.
Malfoy appeared around the corner. "Oh, let me take care of those two," he said, pulling off his own mask. "I've waited years to finish off a Weasley and now I'll have been able to finish off two in one month! What a treat!"
Suddenly, Hermione began to scream, high pitched and loud. She continued for several long seconds before both Malfoy and Bellatrix made a move to silence her. When they moved out of the way, Harry and Ron dove towards the open dorm room door on the other side of the hallway.
"Move, Hermione!" Ron cried desperately, pausing at the doorway. "Now!"
She stopped screaming and darted for the door but the scene began to slow down and play in slow motion. Bellatrix shouted, "Avada Kedavra!" and a stream of brilliant green hit Hermione in the back. Her eyes frozen, she fell to the ground in a lifeless heap.
Rooted to the spot, Harry felt like screaming himself. He could tell by the way Hermione's eyes had rolled back in her head that she was dead. Sorrow and grief entranced him, but he managed to pull Ron in and shut the door before Bellatrix and Malfoy got in.
"What the hell just happened?" Dean swore coming up behind them. He motioned to open the door, but Harry stopped him.
"Don't," he warned, his voice shaking rather violently. He sat on his bed before trying to recall the entire story to his fellow dorm mates. When he broke it to them that Hermione Granger was dead, Neville's eyes filled with tears.
"No!" he fought. "She can't be!" He stood up and went to the door.
"Neville, no!" Harry shouted, standing and hurrying to Neville's side. Neville already had his hand on the door, but Harry's prevented him from turning the knob. "I know it's sad, Neville; she was one of my best friends. But whatever you do, don't open the door." Quietly, he put his ear to the window and listened to the silence. "I wonder where they went."
"I hope they die and rot in hell," Ron said, his first words since he had returned to the room. He was sitting on his bed beside Dean with his head in his hands. It was obvious he cared a lot about Hermione, maybe more than he originally let on.
Harry nodded. "I hope they do, too." He took a deep steadying breath. His concern wasn't so much where they had gone, but where they were going to turn up next.
Professor McGonagall managed to upkeep the school running smoothly, but under somewhat strain and pressure. She could often be found in the corridors, sobbing quietly into a handkerchief. Exams were cancelled for the year, leaving the students with nothing but their common rooms to keep them occupied.
There was a memorial service to be held for Dumbledore in the Great Hall on the third day of June. The last day of school was scheduled for June 27th, but with classes being cancelled, many students were planning early departures. "I'm not forcing anyone to stay," Professor McGonagall had told them, "but I think it's highly necessary that we be together at this time."
Harry, in no hurry to leave the school that had become his home, planned on staying all summer if he could. He, Ron and Hermione sat solemnly in the Great Hall as Professor McGonagall began the memorial service with kind words.
"Albus Dumbledore often said that this school was his life," she began. "And indeed, he gave his life for the fight against the Dark Lord. He was found in a cave in the mountains days ago, apparently dead from a battle with someone or something. He will be greatly missed," she ended abruptly, tears overcoming her speech. She sat down, dabbing at her eyes as each of the teachers took their turns in saying something nice about Dumbledore. Professor Sprout began sobbing heavily on several occasions and Professor Flitwick maintained that the entire school should remain until the official end of the term.
"We need each other," he said, laying a hand on McGonagall's shoulder. "As only each of us knew Albus Dumbledore as well as we did."
There wasn't a dry eye in the room by the time the memorial was over. Harry left the Great Hall feeling drained and empty. There was almost nothing else to keep him here, yet he felt a strong bond with the very walls that had sheltered him from so much the past seven years that he couldn't bring himself to leave just yet. "I could stay here all summer and next year," he told Hermione and Ron back in the common room. "It wouldn't bother me."
"I think we all feel that way," Hermione replied, looking around the common room. "No one's exactly sure when to leave and no one wants to be the first." She took a deep steadying breath. "It's the end of an era, that's for sure."
Ron remained fairly silent throughout the entire day. Losing Percy and Dumbledore within practically the same week was too much for him and Harry felt incredibly sorry that he couldn't be of more support to his friend. But he was having trouble dealing with all the sudden changes on his own. And the incessant throbbing his scar was providing did not help matters; it only made them worse. He had the horrible feeling that time was closing in on him, no matter how silly Hermione made it seem.
Four days after Dumbledore's memorial service, Harry had a dream so frightening and so realistic that he woke up nearly in tears. As he gulped down a glass of water, his mind replayed the dream over and over repeatedly. He was in the mountains somewhere, surrounded by trees. There was a dark cavern up ahead and Harry knew that something in there was important to him. He needed to be in that cave. But every time he tried to make a move for it, an unknown, powerful force would pull him back.
Then there was the haunting voice calling him from the cave. "Run, Harry, while you still can! There's still time! Get out now! Just remember, nothing is as important as running right now! Just get out!"
Even after he woke up, he could still hear the voice in the cave. It reminded him so strongly of someone he knew, but he couldn't quite say whom. It almost sounded like Dumbledore's voice, but that would be too uncanny, wouldn't it?
Noticing that the other four beds in the room were silent, Harry crawled back under his covers, feeling slightly chilly in the warm room. He took great care in putting his mind at ease, yet in great defence, for he knew what secrets his dreams could hold. He didn't need any more prophetic dreams; he had had enough to last him a lifetime.
When he awoke next, the mood in the room wasn't much calmer than it had been when Harry had awoken hours ago. Great thunderous claps were being announced outside the tower window and Harry saw that Ron, Neville, Dean and Seamus were gathered around it in horror.
"What is it?" Harry asked groggily, tugging at his hair to stay flat on his head. He didn't feel like getting out from under the covers because of the dropping temperature of the room, so he sat up in bed, shivering from the cold. "What's happening?"
Ron was silhouetted against the dark sky outside and his hushed voice gave Harry chills not due to the temperature. "Outside, Harry. It's happening. Just like we feared." When he turned to face his friend, his cheeks were streaked with tears. "It's You-Know-Who."
"What?" Not caring about the cold in the room, Harry jumped out of bed and headed for the window. "You must be insane, Ron, there's no way Voldemort's going to come traipsing into Hogwarts in the middle of the night." But as he approached the window, an excruciating pain in his forehead seized him, causing him to drop to the floor, just short of screaming.
"Should someone go get Madam Pomfrey?" he heard Seamus ask, his voice trembling with fright.
"Do you want to?" Dean shot back, his voice as equally shaky. "I'm not going anywhere."
Harry stood up, ignoring the bursts of agony exploding in his forehead. "Forget it," he muttered, half-crawling to the window. Outside, the horror unfolded before his eyes. There were jets of green light flying every which way, creating such a blur that Harry had to close his eyes for several seconds to clear them. Masked, hooded figures were rushing across the grounds and whoops of joy and laughter could be heard from all over.
Harry distinctly saw Professor McGonagall crumple to the ground when a flash of green light illuminated the sky. He gasped as her lifeless body was ignored by the running figures behind her. More hooded figures, but these ones weren't masked. Harry knew at once that they were Dementors. He watched in terror as several more members of the Hogwarts staff were tossed about, many obviously dead, including tiny Professor Flitwick, whose small body lay forgotten on a sullen part of grass.
"So where is he?" Harry asked, his mind still wracked with grief. "Where's Voldemort? If his Death Eaters and the Dementors are fighting his battles for him, where is he?" Hysterically, he got to his feet and stumbled towards the door.
"Harry, no!" Neville cried, but Harry ignored him and flung the door open, entering the hallway. He looked over the railing into the common room at the frightened group of students that had gathered there. Many were crying already, with the belief that they would not walk out of Hogwarts alive.
"Where are you?" he screamed, waving his arms frantically. "Where the hell are you? You want me? Come get me yourself, you lazy moron! Fight your own damn battles!"
A hand on his shoulder made him spin around as he prepared to stare into those red slits of eyes, but instead he saw Hermione's tearful ones. "Stop yelling," she hissed at him. Her eyes were red and swollen and she looked tired. She had obviously been up for hours. "Do you want to draw him here?"
"Maybe I do," Harry replied in a voice of such nonchalant that he surprised himself. "Maybe I want him to come and kill me and be done with it. That way he doesn't raid the entire school, killing innocent people, looking for me!" Flitwick's lifeless body flashed across his mind and he felt the tears begin to leak out of the corners of his eyes. "It's just not fair!"
"Harry, he's going to raid the school whether you're dead or alive," Hermione argued, rising to the dispute. "Don't give him the satisfaction of handing him something that he's worked so hard for, not after seventeen years."
Harry stared at her a moment. It was as if he had never seen her before. Hermione looked truly defiant, something she had never done in the entire time Harry had known her. Ron came up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder.
"She's right you know," he said softly, wiping away his own frightened tears. "He's going to take over the school, like it or not. Don't give in to him."
"What am I supposed to do?" Harry wailed, crumpling beneath the heaviness of the situation. "I can't fight him. I'm not that strong!"
"Yes, you are," Hermione argued again, kneeling beside him. "You've done it many times before, come face to face with him and won. You can do it again."
"That was when Dumbledore was alive," Harry answered, tears sliding silently down his cheeks. "That was when I had faith. Now I just don't care."
A loud bang emitted from the common room beneath them and several people screamed. That bang was followed by a series of loud bangs until a flash of red light followed by purple sparks blinded everyone. When their eyes adjusted again, they witnessed two of the masked, hooded figures enter the common room. Harry felt himself go faint and prayed that he wouldn't pass out.
Two girls were screaming hysterically in the common room, clutching each other for comfort. "Kill them," wheedled one voice, the voice that Harry knew belonged to Lucius Malfoy. The other figure nodded and in a maniacal laughter that Harry knew all too well, shot a jet of green light at the two girls, killing them instantly.
"I'll search down here," Malfoy said, "and you search upstairs, Bella." The two figures split up and began hunting around the common room while several students downstairs managed to escape through the hole that had been blasted in the wall by the intruders.
Upstairs, Hermione was whimpering and Ron was cowering in the corner. Harry, however, sat rather still, afraid to move, yet really not caring what happened to him anymore. "Kill me and spare the others," he pictured himself saying to Malfoy. Yet giving him the satisfaction of taking his life just wasn't the way he wanted to leave this world. So he remained quiet in the shadows.
Bellatrix's footsteps lurked ever closer until Harry saw her masked face appear around the corner where he was hiding. She moved to take off her mask and grinned wildly. "Found him!" she called in a singsong voice. "And some friends, too!" Her gleeful tone angered Harry as he remembered how she taunted Sirius before he died.
"Leave them alone," he warned menacingly, stepping forward out of the shadows. Her eyes drank him in and how he had grown since she had seen him last.
"Little Potter isn't so little anymore," she cooed. "It looks like you grew up. You're not a baby anymore."
"Nothing gets past you."
She shot him a dirty look. "Mind your mouth, Potter, and come with me. I'm taking you to the Dark Lord so he can take care of you. But what shall I do with the others?" she mused.
Malfoy appeared around the corner. "Oh, let me take care of those two," he said, pulling off his own mask. "I've waited years to finish off a Weasley and now I'll have been able to finish off two in one month! What a treat!"
Suddenly, Hermione began to scream, high pitched and loud. She continued for several long seconds before both Malfoy and Bellatrix made a move to silence her. When they moved out of the way, Harry and Ron dove towards the open dorm room door on the other side of the hallway.
"Move, Hermione!" Ron cried desperately, pausing at the doorway. "Now!"
She stopped screaming and darted for the door but the scene began to slow down and play in slow motion. Bellatrix shouted, "Avada Kedavra!" and a stream of brilliant green hit Hermione in the back. Her eyes frozen, she fell to the ground in a lifeless heap.
Rooted to the spot, Harry felt like screaming himself. He could tell by the way Hermione's eyes had rolled back in her head that she was dead. Sorrow and grief entranced him, but he managed to pull Ron in and shut the door before Bellatrix and Malfoy got in.
"What the hell just happened?" Dean swore coming up behind them. He motioned to open the door, but Harry stopped him.
"Don't," he warned, his voice shaking rather violently. He sat on his bed before trying to recall the entire story to his fellow dorm mates. When he broke it to them that Hermione Granger was dead, Neville's eyes filled with tears.
"No!" he fought. "She can't be!" He stood up and went to the door.
"Neville, no!" Harry shouted, standing and hurrying to Neville's side. Neville already had his hand on the door, but Harry's prevented him from turning the knob. "I know it's sad, Neville; she was one of my best friends. But whatever you do, don't open the door." Quietly, he put his ear to the window and listened to the silence. "I wonder where they went."
"I hope they die and rot in hell," Ron said, his first words since he had returned to the room. He was sitting on his bed beside Dean with his head in his hands. It was obvious he cared a lot about Hermione, maybe more than he originally let on.
Harry nodded. "I hope they do, too." He took a deep steadying breath. His concern wasn't so much where they had gone, but where they were going to turn up next.