On the run from everything that had become normal to witch Aurora Malfoy, she is accompanied by long-time best friend Harry Potter and newer friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger as they carry out Dumbledore's last wishes to search for and destro...
Aurora stepped out of the tent. She didn't do it to be with Harry, although she sat down beside him. She did it because she wanted to watch the sunrise.
The pure, colorless vastness of the sky stretched over the two of them, indifferent to them and their suffering, much as it had when Aurora had gone out to find berries in the middle of winter. Aurora knew that to simply be alive to watch the sun rise over the sparkling snowy hillside ought to have been the greatest treasure on earth after what they had just experienced, yet she could not appreciate it; she felt that same hollow void again... the one that returned every time she found out someone she knew died... the same emptiness she felt every time she woke up and another Muggle or Muggleborn was dead. She looked out over a valley blanketed in snow, distant church bells chiming through the glittering silence.
Aurora sat there, just staring into what would've been a beautiful painting, taking in none of the sun's cold warmth... Harry put his broken wand into Hagrid's pouch. Aurora didn't say a word. Hermione stepped out, saying Harry's name, and Aurora barely reacted.
"Do you mind if I talk to you?" Hermione's voice sounded timid.
"No," Harry said
"Harry, you wanted to know who that man in the picture was. Well . . . I've got the book."
"Where --- how --- ?"
"It was in Bathilda's sitting room, just lying there. . . . This note was sticking out of the top of it. 'Dear Bally, Thanks for your help. Here's a copy of the book, hope you like it. You said everything, even if you don't remember it. Rita.' I think it must have arrived while the real Bathilda was alive, but perhaps she wasn't in any fit state to read it?"
"No, she probably wasn't."
"You're still really angry at me, aren't you?" said Hermione.
"No," he said quietly. "No, Hermione, I know it was an accident. You were trying to get us out of there alive, and you were incredible. I'd be dead if you hadn't been there to help me."
"It was Aurora really," Hermione said. "I probably would've realized something was off, but I don't know when I would've gone up to check. But Aura... She just ran up there. She figured out... something."
They were talking about her, as if she wasn't there. Is that how she appeared? Is that how she acted? Did they not see her or was she just that... out of it?
Aurora heard the rustle of pages, and then...
"Grindelwald!"
It was that word, that name, that drew Aurora out of her silence and looked over at the book. It was Rita Skeeter's book, flipped open to the page she and Harry had seen in Umbridge's office, depicting Dumbledore and the merry-faced boy that Harry claimed was the thief Voldemort was searching for.
Harry flipped through pages and together he, Hermione, and Aurora all read:
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