The oak front doors stood open ahead of Harry and Hagrid, light flooding out onto the drive and the lawn. Slowly, uncertainly, dressing-gowned people were creeping down the steps, looking around nervously for some sign of the Death Eaters who had fled into the night. Harry's eyes, however, were fixed upon the ground at the foot of the tallest tower. He imagined that he could see a black, huddled mass lying in the grass there, though he was really too far away to see anything of the sort. Even as he stared wordlessly at the place where he thought Dumbledore's body must lie, however, he saw people beginning to move toward it.
"What're they all lookin' at?" said Hagrid, as he and Harry approached the castle front, Fang keeping as close as he could to their ankles. "Wha's that lyin' on the grass?" Hagrid added sharply, heading now toward the foot of the Astronomy Tower, where a small crowd was congregating. "See it, Harry? Right at the foot of the tower? Under where the Mark...blimey...yeh don' think someone got thrown..."
Hagrid fell silent, the thought apparently too horrible to express aloud.
Harry walked alongside him, feeling the aches and pains in his face and his legs where the various hexes of the last half hour had hit him, though in an oddly detached way, as though somebody near him was suffering them. What was real and inescapable was the awful pressing feeling in his chest...
He and Hagrid moved, dreamlike, through the murmuring crowd to the very front, where the dumbstruck students and teachers had left a gap.
"Move! Get out of the way!" A voice called out.
Harry saw the form of Y/n emerging from the crowd, he had clearly been in a fight but he looked relatively alright.
He saw Y/n rush forward and fall to his knees at the sight he knew awaited him. Hagrid let out a moan of pain and shock, but he did not stop, he walked slowly forward until they reached Y/n's side.
The place where Dumbledore lay
Harry crouched down beside Y/n.
Y/n could tell it was Harry that crouched beside him but he didn't utter a word as he just stared at Dumbledore.
'How...how could Dumbledore of fallen?' He wondered.
Dumbledore's eyes were closed, but for the strange angle of his arms and legs, he might have been sleeping. Y/n reached out, and straightened the half-moon spectacles upon the crooked nose, and wiped a trickle of blood from the mouth with his own sleeve. Then he gazed down at the wise old face and tried to absorb the enormous and incomprehensible truth, that never again would Dumbledore speak to him, never again could he help...
"Goodbye sir..." Y/n respectfully said.
The crowd murmured behind Y/n and Harry. After what seemed like a long time, Harry became aware that he was kneeling upon something hard and looked down.
It was the locket he and Dumbledore had managed to steal just that very night. Harry knew, as he picked it up, that there was something wrong with it.
Y/n didn't pay attention it to as he carefully moved Dumbledore's arms and legs to look as if he was resting peacefully. It was all he could do for the man he deeply respected now.
Harry crumpled a piece of parchment he had just taken out of the locket in his hand, and his eyes burned with tears as behind him Fang began to howl.
"C'mere, Harry, Y/n..." Hagrid began.
"No." Y/n heard Harry say.
"You's can' stay here, Harry, Y/n...come on, now..." Hagrid tried again.
"No." Harry said once again not moving at all.
YOU ARE READING
Grindelwald's Burden (Books 1-7)
FanfictionY/n Grindelwald is boy born into a powerful but feared wizarding family. At the age of 11 he has received his invitation to learn magic at the famous Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. What awaits this boy in his seven school years? Uncerem...
