The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|149| Resurrection Stone

Back under the Invisibility Cloak, we passed the Great Hall, people were moving around, trying to comfort each other, drinking, kneeling beside the dead, but I could not see any of the people I loved, no hint of Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Fred, or any of the other Weasleys, and no Luna. Walking through another corridor, Harry grabbed my arm to stop me from walking.

Looking up at what Harry had seen, I saw Ginny who was crouching over a girl who was whispering for her mother.

"It's all right," Ginny was saying. "It's okay. We're going to get you inside."

"But I want to go home," whispered the girl. "I don't want to fight anymore!"

"I know," said Ginny, and her voice broke. "It's going to be all right."

Ginny was kneeling beside the injured girl now, holding her hand. Harry grabbed my arm and pulled me past Ginny, not wanting to address her. My eyebrows knitted together, confused about the action. Ginny looked around as we passed, as almost as if she knew we had walked by her through the corridor and out the front doors.

Hagrid's hut loomed out of the darkness. There were no lights, no sound of Fang scrabbling at the door, his bark booming in welcome. All those visits to Hagrid, and the gleam of the copper kettle on the fire, and rock cakes and giant grubs, and his great bearded face, and Ron crying over spiders, and Hermione helping save Norbert...

We moved on, and now reaching the edge of the forest, and we stopped.

A swarm of dementors was gliding amongst the trees; I could feel their chill, and I was not sure Harry and I would be able to pass safely through it. I had no strength left for a Patronus and looking up at Harry, I knew he didn't either. I could no longer control my own trembling. It was not, after all, so easy to die. Every second I breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on my face, was so precious: To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged, and we were clinging to each second.

Taking a deep breath, I went to walk forward, but Harry stopped me. He opened his pouch and pulled out the Snitch. He pressed the golden metal to his lips and whispered, "I am about to die."

"Harry—"

The metal shell broke open. With shaky hands, I murmured, "Lumos."

The black stone with its jagged crack running down the center sat in the two halves of the Snitch. The Resurrection Stone had cracked down the vertical line representing the Elder Wand. The triangle and circle representing the Cloak and the stone were still discernible.

Harry grabbed my hand and closed his eyes, I followed suit. I knew that the Ressurection Stone would not bring anyone back, not that I wanted it to for Harry and I would see them soon.

I heard slight movements around us that suggested frail bodies shifting their footing on the earthy, twig-strewn ground that marked the outer edge of the forest. I snapped opened my eyes and looked around.

They were neither ghost nor truly flesh, I could see that. They resembled most closely the Riddle that had escaped from the diary so long ago, and he had been memory made nearly solid. Less substantial than living bodies, but much more than ghosts, they moved toward us, and on each face, there was the same loving smile.

James was exactly the same height as Harry. He was wearing the clothes in which he had died, and his hair was untidy and ruffled, and his glasses were a little lopsided, like Mr. Weasley's. His eyes looked so familiar as if I were looking into my own.

Sirius was tall and handsome, and younger by far than we had seen him in life. He loped with an easy grace, his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face.