Study Date | James Potter

Chapter 32 - "Better Than Before"

As the returning students filed into the Great Hall, Rose couldn't help but search for the head of bright blonde hair, hoping against all hope... until she was shattered once more.

It had been just over a week since the news, and school was about to start again the next day. Rose, Tina and Lily had been offered a few weeks longer before they returned to classes, but they had all decided to carry on as normal. For Rose, she hoped lessons would be a distraction from the all-consuming grief that still followed her relentlessly.

The Christmas decorations had been removed from the castle much sooner than they usually would have, and in the Great Hall, black drapes now hung from the ceiling and on the wall behind the teachers' table.

When everybody had settled in, Dumbledore rose from his seat.

"Just over four months ago I stood before you all and spoke of the dark forces becoming stronger in our world. I was talking, of course, about the man known as Lord Voldemort."

Mutters erupted throughout the hall. Many people flinched, and there were some gasps of shock at the name.

"I stand before you now at the start of a new term, a new year. However, I do not stand before you all."

There were a few confused faces, but most already knew of the attacks over Christmas. A number of heads turned towards Tina and Rose at the Slytherin table, who stared stonily back.

"I would like you please, to stand with me and raise your glasses to Alicia Fawley."

They did. The whole hall, students and teachers stood to honour Alicia, even Rabastan Lestrange and his cronies. Rose supposed it was partially because Alicia had still been a Slytherin and a Pureblood, and partially because of her own warning to him. He shot a glance down the table towards Rose, and with immense satisfaction, she noted the slight fear in his eyes.

Rose spoke Alicia's name quietly, almost a whisper, her voice disappearing among the rest.

She wondered, not for the first time, what might have happened if she had gone home for Christmas too, or Lily, or both of them.

She wondered if Lestrange would have stood for her.

They sat, and Dumbledore continued.

"Alicia Fawley was a student here at Hogwarts, and she was murdered by Lord Voldemort."

Rose felt a hand clutch hers beneath the table, and she focused on the sensation, squeezing back tightly as she watched Dumbledore speak. His words were drowned out by the rush of blood in her ears.

Alicia would never again sit in this Hall, would never again walk through those grand doors, would never again travel on the Hogwarts Express - all those things Lily and James and the other seventh years had begun to count down.

Last start of year feast, last first Quidditch match of the year, last Halloween feast - the start of the end of their time at Hogwarts.

It was inevitable that one year would be the last - there were lasts that could be counted and ones only reflected on months or years later - but endings always came.

They were meant to be in seventh year.

Alicia's hadn't been in seventh year.

Alicia's lasts had slipped by unnoticed, unexpected, because who could predict the murder of a twelve year old? How could the lasts be anticipated, welcomed with a tinge of nostalgia, when they weren't known to be lasts at all?

Food appeared across the tables when Dumbledore sat. A low murmur spread across the room as people began to eat.

Rose stood, a little lightheaded, and released Tina's hand. Her friend looked up with a familiar expression: concern.