I come now to the end of my notebook. The pages left are few and far between, the spine bent, the edges crumpled with anxiety and dog-eared from being hidden continually; in pockets, drawers, in doors. I flip back to the beginning pages of the book, to my hurried penmanship and fading ink. Since that day so much has changed. I have been swept along on fast currents, unaware of the boulders ahead that dash me to pieces, the swift turns leaving me stranded and marooned alone.

END OF VOLUME II

Volume III

"Myrtle, please take this message to Draco."

She pouts and glides indignantly through a sink.

"Why can't you take it yourself. Oh, don't tell me! I'm used to being everybody's servant: "Do this Myrtle, do that Myrtle oh you are useless Myrtle you can't do anything right!" She sniffs and begins to float away.

"I would deliver it myself, but I shan't. It's not me he wants to see."

"Then why'd you think he'd listen to me? Who ever listens to miserable, moping, moaning-"

"Because you know the meaning of death. You can communicate with him far better than a living person." I do not add to this the undercurrent of my thoughts: because you are a victim of Voldemort's and I want to remind Draco of what he is. Not that he needs reminding, but you are the best evidence as to why he must remain on my side.

Feeling slightly better, Myrtle promises to talk to him.

Barely an hour passes until her shrill cries send me in a fit of hysterics.

"MURDER! MURDER IN THE BATHROOM!"

I almost tumble head over heels as I hurtle back towards the bathroom. Who is it? Who have I lost? Who has left my life and joined my catalogue of nightmares?

I peer briefly through the door, which has been left ajar after an obvious conflict.

And it's Draco. I shake my head in disbelief. Not this. Not this again. I said never again.

And then it's no longer him I see, but Tom. Tom bleeding out his life, beyond saving. Then it is Joan, defeated and broken on the pavement. Everyone pays a price for their sin; and mine is paid in blood. Blood that isn't mine, though it is as dear to me as my own.

It feels as if the floor has been ripped out from underneath my feet. I want to run to him, I want to hold him together even as he falls apart in my hands, but I don't. I can't. I turn away from him and seek out Severus, because it is him I need, whatever my screaming conscience may have to say.

I turn around the corner and walk straight into him. Recognising his purpose, I promptly step away and let him pass, knowing the urgency in those cold alert eyes.

He knows the risk as well as I do. We cannot afford to let this fall apart.

"Marion?"

I start, but the kind hand on my shoulder belongs to Madam Pomfrey.

"Visiting hours are over. You should go."

"Five minutes more?"

Her brow creases in doubt.

"You've been waiting six hours, Marion. I don't think five minutes will make much difference."

"Just a little longer, please?"

She relents. "Fine. Five minutes; and then you will have to leave."

She returns to her office. I lean my head against the cold window and feel the rain pattering against it. Draco has barely made a sound in the last six hours, let alone woken up. I really need to be getting along, but I can't drag myself away. I can't stifle the fear that the moment I go will be the moment his heart gives out, or his potion fails, or he just falls into an even deeper sleep and never wakes up.

My time is up in the hospital wing, so I whisper my goodbyes and get up to go. But then he opens his eyes a fraction; and says my name.

I turn back to him, eager to make amends.

"So you're on my side, then?" He says dryly.

"I never left." Is all I have to say.

29th June

"So this is it, then."

"Yes." Dumbledore looks up from his contemplation. "This is, as you plainly put it, it. By tomorrow, I shall most surely be dead. And it is often customary for friends to sit together on their last night of company, though they may be destined never to sit together again."

"We shall sit together again, Albus. But not in this life."

"Indeed, though with any luck that shall not be for a long time," he smiles kindly at me. "I have to do some resting in peace, my dear girl. And though I am done with this world, you most certainly are not."

"But what am I to do without you?"

"Do. You cannot always follow my orders, you have not. From now on, you shall have to lead yourself. But watch that moral compass my dear, it has a tendency to point away from north."

"I'm worried. Without you, Voldemort will be fearless. What's to stop him from taking everything I have, everything that is dear to me?"

"You. I cannot truly know what will happen after I die, but know this: I did not raise you to be a stranger in another's home, I did not raise you to end your life with your own hands in your despair. Nor did I raise you to live blind to the troubles around you, to live deaf to the cries of others. I raised you like I raised all the students of Hogwarts over the years."

"How so?"

"I raised you to be the best that you could be."

30th June

"You ready for this?"

"Nope."

He grins at me. "Neither am I."

"You do realise that I cannot watch you kill him. I will not be there to urge you on. I cannot stand the idea of Dumbledore knowing the truth. You mustn't tell him, you understand? Feel free to have your moment, go ahead and tell him of the genius of the plan. But do not name names. I am not even to be mentioned, yes?"

"Of course."

I squeeze his arm; and I hope that says what I can't.

Don't go. Don't join them. Stay here. Stay in hope.

I cannot keep my hands steady. I gnaw at my fingers in my anxiety. I cannot shake off the feeling that everything is going to go terribly wrong.

Of course, that's partly what I hope is going to happen. In the eyes of the wizarding world, tonight is a terrible night in history: Dumbledore will die, but there is flaw in every plan. Stepping back and allowing everything to descend into chaos is fine, sometimes it can be quite an effective tactic however once you let go of a situation you cannot regain control of it. The consequences of that may be very different from what anyone expects.

I hide myself in the corner of the Room of Requirement. With any luck, nobody will know I am here. I've put a charm on the door so that people can still use the Room, not to do so would arouse suspicion. I shall just sit and wait it out, bolt my door against the gale and wait out the storm.