The Epilogue : Part I - The Shadow Army

CHAPTER TWELVE

Awkward Christmas Dinner

    A death silence flowed upon the whole the castle. Immediately after the attack, all students were gathered in the Great Hall in order to have the castle walls and grounds fully search for hours. In his sleeping bag close the doors, James was still awake and carefully listening to any information he could get. He suddenly heard Zabini's barely recognisable voice talking to a person he quickly identified as McGonagall's. According to the volume he could hear them talking, he understood they were pacing along the room.

    "Any sign of something suspicious, Blaise?" asked McGonagall, worried.

    "No, that's what worries me..."

    "What do you mean? What do you think happened?"

    "I think that a group of persons, from inside and outside, joined force to weaken the castle's defence at least enough to make an attack possible."

    There was a moment a silence that seemed to last forever.

    "... Are you saying that there're treaters inside Hogwarts as we speak?" McGonagall whispered in a voice so low James barely heard her.

    "What is going to happen now? What about the school?"

    "I don't know," she answered. "That's a matter I need to discuss with the Ministry — James heard him make an impatient grunt from Zabini — but I can assure you that there will be no definitive closing as long as I am Headmistress of this school."

    Shortly after it, a teacher informed her that Minister of Magic had just arrived and James understood that she had left.

    Most of the students were still awake, quietly thinking in their sleeping bags. About an hour later, students were sent off to their dormitories.

    The breakfast was very quiet the next morning, as nobody had really slept much, and most of them weren't even hungry. Nobody thought about the match opposing Gryffindor and Slytherin; and James had totally forgotten about the detention Zabini choose to give him for keeping him from playing the game. McGonagall had spoken to the school during that breakfast, offering words of consolation she perfectly knew they wouldn't be enough to appease the grief and sorrow. James was only half listening, and was rather focused on Andrew front of him and who changed so dramatically he turned almost scary: it seemed like his face was more bony and his skin had turned pale, giving the impression he had prematurely aged ten years overnight. He bore an awfully grotesque and neutral expression but, for once in his life, making fun of him was the last thing James had in mind: it was probably the saddest thing he had ever seen.

    James then looked at the room and noticed another thing that worried him: when he thought about this, James hasn't seen Cassiopeia since the attack.

    When the breakfast reached its end, McGonagall announced, heartbroken, the school would be temporally closed, and the Hogwarts Express would leave later this morning, bringing them back to London.

    Even if students were left about an hour to pack, it took less than ten minutes for James to fill his trunk. Nobody spoke much in the dormitories as students gathered their clothes. James and Andrew walked silently to the crowded entrance hall where students waited for the carriages which would take them to the Hogsmeade station.

    The journey back to King's Cross was probably the worse journey James ever had on the Hogwarts Express; not only because it could be the last ride he would have on this train, but also because he was lost in his thoughts, like trapped in his own mind: how things can change so drastically so fast? Everything was so normal only a week ago, but now James felt like his life had ended already, and even if he tried to appease Andrew's sorrow, and to look strong because he hated to show his emotions, James was as depressingly shocked as his best friend was.