Lost Memories

lvi. forever friends

People tried to get Harry to move from the front steps, but he refused and I refused to leave him. Only when Ginny came to collect him did he actually listen. Incomprehensible voices battered us, sobs and shouts and wails stabbed the night, but Harry, Ginny, and I walked on, back up the steps into the entrance hall.

"We're going to the hospital wing," said Ginny.

"I'm not hurt," said Harry.

"Lottie is. And It's McGonagall's orders," said Ginny. "Everyone's up there, Ron and Hermione and Lupin and Sirius and everyone —"

Draco's voice echoed in my head.

"Ginny, who died?" I asked not being able to recall anything I should have known.

"Don't worry, none of us," she gave me a small smile.

"But the Dark Mark — Malfoy said he stepped over a body —" Harry started.

"He stepped over Bill, but it's all right, he's alive."

"B-Bill?" I breathed.

"Of course I'm sure.. he's a — a bit of a mess, that's all. Greyback attacked him. Madam Pomfrey says he won't — won't look the same anymore..."

Ginny explained how Bill had gotten bitten by Fenrir. But apparently, Remus had said he won't turn into a werewolf because he was bitten while Fenrir was in his human form.

"And the others?"

"Neville and Professor Flitwick are both hurt, but Madam Pomfrey says they'll be all right. And a Death Eater's dead, he got hit by a Killing Curse that huge blond one was firing off everywhere — Lottie, if we hadn't had your Felix potion, I think we'd all have been killed, but everything seemed to just miss us —"

"I thought it had worn off—"

We had reached the hospital wing. Pushing open the doors, I saw Neville lying, apparently asleep, in a bed near the door. Ron, Hermione, Luna, Tonks, Remus, and Sirius were gathered around another bed near the far end of the ward. At the sound of the doors opening, they all looked up. Sirius ran to Harry and hugged him; Hermione ran to me and hugged me.

"How's Bill?" I asked.

No one answered me, but Hermione dragged me over to the cot where Bill laid. His face was slashed and ripped to the point of being unidentifiable. Madam Pomfrey had been dabbing at his wounds with some harsh-smelling green ointment.

I haven't even changed anything... Everything I had hoped I could change. . . I haven't.

"Dumbledore might know something that'd work, though," Ron said. "Where is he? Bill fought those maniacs on Dumbledore's orders, Dumbledore owes him, he can't leave him in this state —"

"Ron," I cut him off, "Dumbledore's dead."

"No!" Remus looked wildly from me to Harry, as though hoping the latter might contradict me, but when Harry did not, Remus collapsed into a chair beside Bill's bed, his hands over his face. The sight unnerved me, I'd never seen a grown man cry like this before.

"How did he die?" whispered Sirius. "How did it happen?"

"Snape killed him," said Harry. "I was there, so was Lottie. We saw it. Dumbledore and I had arrived back on the Astronomy Tower because that's where the Mark was... Dumbledore was ill, he was weak, but I think he realized it was a trap when we heard footsteps running up the stairs after Lottie had come in. I was under the Invisibility Cloak with her— and then Malfoy came through the door and disarmed him —"

Hermione clapped her hands to her mouth and Ron groaned. Luna's mouth trembled.

"Lottie tried to convince him to not do it— more Death Eaters arrived — and then Snape — and Snape did it. The Avada Kedavra." Harry couldn't go on.