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chapter seventy-four. ( leaving me bereft and reeling )
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HARRY POTTER WAS AT A LOSS. Albus Dumbledore was his mentor, someone he could turn to in a moment of need, and he was dead. He didn't want to leave his side, to abandon him when all Dumbledore had done during Harry's time at Hogwarts was be there for him.
"C'mere, Harry," Hagrid encouraged.
"No," Harry refused.
"Yeh can' stay here, Harry . . . Come on, now . . ."
"No."
"Harry," another voice spoke up, and Harry was surprised to see the face of Seraphina Laurent, Ascella's mother. "Come on, darling. Let's go to the Hospital Wing."
Her comforting presence of jasmine and vanilla felt like home to Harry, and he obeyed without pressure. Incomprehensible voices battered him, sobs and shouts and wails stabbed the night, but Harry and Seraphina walked on, back up the steps into the entrance hall. Faces swam on the edges of Harry's vision, people were peering at him, whispering, wondering, and Gryffindor rubies glistened on the floor like drops of blood as they made their way toward the marble staircase.
"I don't need the Hospital Wing," Harry mumbled. "I'm not hurt."
"You are," Seraphina rebutted instantly. "But it's also McGonagall's orders. Everyone's up there, Ron and Hermione and Sirius and everyone —"
Fear stirred in Harry's chest again: He had forgotten the inert figures he had left behind.
"Seraphina, who else is dead?"
"Don't worry, none of us."
"But the Dark Mark — Malfoy said he stepped over a body —"
"He stepped over Bill, but it's all right, he's alive."
