𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐲 | 𝐝.𝐦.

sixty eight

The air in the great hall floats with disquieting silence as occupied stretchers hover past Betty and Draco, settling on scarce empty spaces at the pile of lifeless bodies.

Benches are scattered around the vast hall, several students coddled into one another, barely able to comprehend the moment's events.

Many of them let out squeaks of muted sobs and whimpers as they recount the people they have lost.

Teachers are infiltrating some of the students, counselling them with dull expressions, clearly haunted with the amount of deaths they have collected, but still putting on a brave front of the younger generation.

In a corner of the great hall, she sees Madam Pomfrey, the school's healer, aiding to the wounds of her Arithmacy professor, wrapping a clean bandage around his forehead that is trickling with blood.

In the other corner, she sees a huddle of younger Ravenclaws, lying on one another's shoulders, eyes open but not seeing as they soundlessly soak in the events that have just happened.

Betty's heart races as she breezes past the stretchers, afraid to look at whom she has lost.

Draco strolls behind her languidly, with his hands in his pocket, shame disguised in his poise. His gaze is on the floor, knowing he might not be welcomed here.

But nobody shoos him away. In fact, very few people look up to recognise his presence, and if they do, they will only look away, weary to pick a row with him.

Amongst the crowd of exhausted students, very few wears a green tie beneath their grey sweater. But once Draco has spotted the minimal number of students he knew, he pats the shoulder of the girl.

She turns around tentatively.

"I'm heading there where Blaise is," he says, indicating the end of the hallway with an incant of his head, where a couple of Slytherins are sharing a lone hospital bed.

Betty nods sombrely, keeping her head down. "Sure. I'll find people I know."

The boy steps forward to her, hand leaving his pocket and skimming the top of her head. But he halts just there and dismisses the yearning to kiss her on her forehead.

His eyes swirl with diffidence before he is off, giving her only a small smile as though they were strangers.

She supposes there might be a flurry of reasons for that; not only that he is ashamed to be seen with her. He must have thought she was still furious at him for hiding the secret about her sister's defiance.

Her stomach sinks low the moment they part ways and she is alone, walking gingerly through the benches of the hall, afraid of who she might recognise, lying limberly on a bed.

To her horror, precisely next to her, are two figures she recognises. All the air in her lungs gushes out with a deep gasp.

Lying on a stretcher is Tonks. Her blonde hair is sprawled all over her face, tainted with dirt. Her eyes have been closed forcefully and her hand lies out of the stretcher, pinky winding around another which belonged to...

Remus, who lies on his side, eyes peacefully shut and mouth agape. As though he might be sleeping. A wide gash separates the skin on his forehead, painted with dry blood.

A sick feeling travels through her gut and she finds weakness again. Her legs lose its strength, buckling beneath her so that she is kneeling before the two.

Her eyes regain tears of sorrow from before, but this time, she finds it justifiable. "No..." she whispers, muffling her words into her palms so she wouldn't pierce the solace in the hall.