𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐲 | 𝐝.𝐦.

sixty four

When her feet finds ground, Betty is greeted with the sound of multiple alarms buzzing through the air, startling her. She is amongst streets of shophouses, a great many of them familiar to Betty. It is the ambience that is foreign to her.

Hogsmeade used to be a warm and mellow getaway for her and her friends. They used to look forward to weekends when they could finally have a break from the myriads of homework and examinations plaguing them.

This is not the village it once was, and that is not the fault of it being night when she arrives. A wind the chilliest she has felt even though winter had passed, brushes through her, blowing the trim of her dress's fabric.

Scanning her surroundings, she realises it is not the work of the weather; but rather the dark shadows in cloaks, floating in the air and inconspicuously blending into the blanket of grey above.

It has been a long few months since her last day at Hogwarts, she hadn't realised the few changes implemented upon the school's security.

It comes to her as no surprise, however, that dementors are marshalled around the school grounds, ostensibly on the look out for her friends.

She takes a moment to gather herself.

A piece of her finds it quite bizarre that she is here. Out of everywhere that is safe, she finds herself in the sanctuary of danger, as always. Then a voice reverberates in her head, reminding her of what she has to do.

Amidst the alarms that are blaring from every shop surrounding her, she hears screams from actual people, targeting her as an intruder.

Her frozen legs begin to kick in mindlessly and she is running from the middle of the street where she had appeared from, racing through the narrow spaces between shophouses.

A few yards away, are death eaters absently roaming the place, in search of the intruder. She is positive that even if she were caught, the Dark Lord would only push her out of the manor again, but that doesn't cure much of her fear of these death eaters.

Her magic still feels quite weak. Since the anti-magic shackles have been off, she hasn't found the chance amongst all her fretting, to practice her magic.

After those weeks without magic, she is not sure she is still as skilful as before to put up a resisting fight with these snatchers.

Her brain doesn't know where her legs are taking her, but she finds herself in a dingy alley in the backyards of the shophouses, hiding her silhouette from the passing death eaters.

"You've got to be joking me. Another one?" a voice speaks from behind her and she startles, spinning around on her heels.

At the threshold of a splintered wooden door, stands a rather girthy man. She cannot quite see his face as most of it is sheltered beneath grey hair and a long beard. He looks explicitly like her old headmaster, she catches herself thinking, which only unravels a twinge of guilt in her chest remembering last year's events.

The man bends his head to pass through the roof of the door and beckons her closer with a wave of his hand. "What are you waiting for? Christmas?"

She is taken aback by the sound of his needled, throaty voice. This certainly separates Dumbledore from him - it was as if this man might be the grudging parallel of her old head master.

Despite her wariness, she decides to follow him wordlessly. Surely nothing can be as risky as being caught by those death eaters.