Here I am again... here's the second chapter I promised you. Enjoy!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CHAPTER 9
Speech
Harry was thankful that Hermione was nowhere to be seen as he wiped out his tears with rage.
The end of the afternoon seemed to stretch on forever. Ron wasn't back when Hermione and Harry sat down for dinner; there was an uneasy silence between them. Harry felt tenser than ever; the past twenty hours had been really hard. It had seemed to him that sleeping, eating, working and worrying had left him no time for relaxing a bit. He often wondered during classes what had happened to Ron, missing his friend's presence.
Harry heard all the whispers. Every student knew by now that Ron and Ginny were gone and that it was Lupin who had come to get them. They all knew something bad had happened, because the teachers were worried. They all knew they were on the verge of learning something they feared, something terrible, as if they were hanging on the border of an abyss threatening to engulf them anytime.
"Good evening," Dumbledore's voice echoes deeply around the Great Hall, making Harry and a good part of the students jump. He turned toward the Staff Table as the food was taken away from the Tables magically.
Dumbledore was standing, his arms stretched out to ensure silence, his half-moon spectacles low on his nose, and his magnificent grey beard conferring him a very serious and wise appearance. All the teachers were seated behind him. There was Hagrid, who looked, from what Harry made out from his seat, unusually ill tempered; Flitwick, Sprout, Trewlaney, Snape, all wearing equally disgruntled faces, McGonagall with severe pinched lips─ and, at last, Lupin, seating directly on Dumbledore's right, staring so intently at his dish that it seemed he was trying to see right through it.
"I am truly sorry to disrupt your delicious dinner," the Headmaster said. Harry shivered. He knew it was merely the introduction of Dumbledore's speech, but somehow, the voice sounded much chillier than usual. There was no note of hidden mischief in it, no trace of sympathy as there used to be.
"You are to listen to me until I am over with what I have to announce you. I ask you please not to interrupt me."
Just like he didn't wish to be here, the thought crossed Harry's mind as he saw McGonagall shifting rather awkwardly in her chair.
"Yesterday evening," Dumbledore stated as Harry felt everybody take a deep breath, "The Ministry of Magic was attacked."
Harry swallowed; Hermione gasped and suddenly Neville, seated near Harry, became very pale.
"This is just a confirmation that Voldemort is back," the Headmaster continued. "As for the casualties─" he paused as Harry's heart beat furiously in his chest "─as you will all learn it anyway, I feel it right to tell you that Arthur Weasley left us along with Cornelius Fudge and several other men and women dedicated to our cause."
He left us. The words had an odd ringing to them inside Harry's mind. Ron's dad had left them.
It means he's dead.
Dead. Dead.
No.
Harry looked around, anywhere, to find something─ someone telling him that it was just a nightmare, that there was a mistake, that it wasn't true.
Yet at the same time─ it fit in so perfectly with everything that had happened at Hogwarts. Ginny needing to come along with Ron, Lupin not wanting to tell them anything, the teachers avoiding speaking Ron's name…
His eyes crossed Hermione's horrified ones, and then fell on someone far away, someone who stared at him at the same time as he stared at him too.
He met Lupin's eyes and for an instant, an infinitely short instant, his shock erased everything. Arthur was dead, meaning Lupin had lost a friend too, hadn't he? They felt the same thing, they shared the same grief; for his parents, Sirius, Ron's dad…
What are you doing?
What?
HARRY!
He couldn't do it. Not now, he couldn't show his weakness.
He wasn't weak.
But god, it felt good seeing Lupin in a new light.
No.
Once again, he felt he couldn't bear it.
He broke eye-contact with Lupin again and stared back at his own dish furiously. There was no way he'd let feelings like that one infiltrate his mind, destroy the fragile stone protection over his emotions he'd been trying to built all summer. He breathed in deeply and listened to Dumbledore, still speaking.
If he understood the speech right, Dumbledore had decided that patrols would take place in the nights to ensure security at Hogwarts. Curfew would be at ten every evening. Prefects were to meet teachers in front of the staff room right after dinner.
Ronald Weasley being a prefect, he would be replaced.
And he, Harry Potter, was to replace him.
Dumbledore sat down and food reappeared on the Tables; but it took a while before anyone moved or talked or did anything else than stare blankly at each other. Finally, students and teachers alike unenthusiastically filled their plates.
The Headmaster was gone now, and with him most of the teachers.
"You finished?" Hermione finally asked gloomily when it was clear none of them were hungry. Judging from the odd glinting in her eyes, Harry knew she was close to crying.
Harry nodded quickly, not much better off. God, Mr Weasley dead... They needed to talk, so he seized the occasion to get up and follow her out of the Great Hall.
"The meeting is soon," Harry muttered to break the silence. He felt sick. "How about we walk around?"
Hermione didn't reply but didn't protest either. They slowly climbed some stairs, strolled around, not reaching anyplace in particular.
"God," she said suddenly, leaning against the wall. "Why did they have to kill him?"
Harry stopped walking too. "They don't care who they kill," he said finally, his feeling of nausea increasing. "They just kill. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's all."
"But it's so unfair," she sobbed. Harry wondered for an instant what to say.
"Gather up some courage, Hermione," he chose his words carefully. She looked up at him with tears.
"What do you mean?" she wondered.
"When Ron comes back," he said tensely "He'll want us to leave him alone."
"I know."
"He won't be easy to live with for a while."
Just like me.
"You're right," she dried up her tears. Both of them knew Ron's father was just the beginning. More assassinations were to come.
They started walking again; Harry sighed from time to time.
"What's on your mind?" she gazed at him with worry.
Else than my best mate's dad's death? Harry almost replied, but he knew now wasn't the time for misplaced humour.
"I don't want to pair up with a teacher," he whispered finally.
It wasn't exactly the truth. In fact, he didn't want to pair up with Lupin, but she understood perfectly and didn't reply immediately.
"I understand," she nodded. It seemed she was too tired to contradict him once more about Remus. "Just─ just─" she bit her lips and didn't finish.
They were reaching the Staff Room, which was well lit in contrast with the dark corridors, and the last teachers were walking in, one after the other, crossing the archway and disappearing from their sight.
Harry slowly followed her inside, noticing everybody was there, most of them seated already. The teachers he saw all wore anxious, tired expressions on their faces.
Just behave, is that it? he thought coldly, knowing Lupin was seated among them somewhere.
