A/N: Cheer me for updating this fast!!! oo-Bows gracefully to applause and cringes when a tomato hits her squarely on the nose-oo
Disclamier: You know this by heart now, surely?
CHAPTER 3: BLACK TIMES
Sixth year came and stayed. Life was fun for a time. We had a lovely year, as if it had been made especially for us. Or so we thought.
Once in a Transfiguration class, a note happened to pass my way. Opening it, I recognised Phil's writing – Wanna go berry picking tonight? I smiled to myself. Berry picking for Phil meant she wanted to talk confidentially. I passed it to Lily after scribbling 'Yes'. Lily did the same. Phil was right. We hadn't picked berries for such a long time.
And so evening came, and we got ready to pick berries. I think that night's talk made us a lot closer than we had ever been. Words came tumbling out of our mouths without any barrier and we were happy, happy that we were still just as close, that nothing had made us grow apart. That night passed without any of us falling asleep. We talked long into the night, at first out in the grounds, then by the table, then in the common room.
It was then that we realised that Phil didn't just fancy Sirius; she might be in love with him. Lily and I were all the more aghast. We knew that it wouldn't be like Sirius to fall in love with Phil, and we tried our best to dissuade her. But once you fall in love, you must always be in love. If it is true love. Those had been Lily's words, I remember; the words of a true and hopeless romantic. That was when I first admitted that I might be - in love with Remus. Lily and Phil weren't surprised. I rather think they had been expecting something of the sort. I couldn't imagine how. But Lily said I wasn't that good at hiding things; I was horrified; 'from us,' she added hurriedly.
And it made it easier knowing that Phil and I weren't really in love; after all, everlasting love can't be found at sixteen, can it? Or can't it?
We never knew what waited for us on the morrow. We woke up in the common room about six, went up, showered and dressed. Breakfast began at eight. So we took a walk to the Owlery to visit Gwaihir and Ungul (he was Lily's owl), and around the Lake. We were back in time for breakfast, sitting across the table from James, Sirius, Remus and Peter who were all engaged in some hushed conversation, about some prank or about their Map, no doubt. Just then, the mail arrived.
A strange owl dropped a letter onto Phil's toast. We watched Phil feed him, and he took off. Slowly, she tore off the envelope and opened the letter, as if she were dreading the contents of the letter.
She did not say anything. Her face was white, devoid of all emotion. She just dropped the letter and dashed out of the Great Hall. We none of us wanted to read a private letter of hers, but Sirius did it anyway. This was what it said:
Dear Miss Henderson,
We regret to inform you that your home, Wilwood, was attacked by Death Eaters on the night of December the 18th. Your parents and your brother were killed during the attack. The Death Eaters, though given chase, could not be captured.
Our sincere condolences.
Truly,
Genevra Holden,
Ministry of Magic.
No one spoke for a minute. Then Lily and I barged out of the Great Hall and into Gryffindor Tower. We stopped abruptly at our dormitory door. Phil would want to be left alone for now. She would come to us when she was ready. We turned, rather slowly and feeling so much older than we'd felt in years. Only fifteen minutes ago had we been worried about a Herbology essay we'd had to do.
Phil came down just before dinner. We had all been wondering when she would come. She said nothing, but just sat down beside Lily and me. We didn't need words.
Phil suffered a lot, I know, in those months. But she never let on. She never said a word. Sometimes, the only proof Lily and I would have was a pillow wet with salty tears. She leant on to us for support and I hope we helped her. Because the pain that comes when you lose a loved one is terribly hard to bear, as now I know only too well.
Sirius became an inseparable ghost who had taken it into him to haunt Phil. He helped her, I think, much more than James or Remus or Peter could have done. He understood her then. Phil began to regain some of the spirit of her saucy old self in several weeks' time. I remember the time she first smiled after that fatal day. Sirius tried to come up to our dorm when Phil was late, and predictably, he fell ("'Slid ungracefully' is more like it," said Lily) down the helter-skelter the stairs formed. We couldn't help bursting into laughter and even Phil laughed that day. Sirius considered it a great reward. Now that I think about it, he could've done it purposefully. But I do know that Phil came to depend on Sirius more than ever then, and they became closer friends than before.
James didn't give up asking Lily out. In March that year, Phil and I decided to bully Lily into accepting, because only then would we be free of his irritating presence. But then we found out, Lily doesn't take kindly to bullies. She bullied us back, and so we wheedled. She wouldn't give in. But I think we did make a mark on her that eventually prompted her to accept.
But somehow, even in the midst of these matters, a part of all of us realised that we were children no more, that the sorrow that had befallen one among us had touched all of us and made us grow older. So much older that we now thought more of the world outside that was waiting for us, to seal our fate for good, than the atmosphere of the school which was still rent with joyful yells, and disappointed moans.