It All Fell Down | A Marauder's Story

Twenty-Seven

"I am still learning how to go back and read my own chapters without feeling like I want to set all of my pages on fire." - E.V. Rogina 

     "Another auror was found dead," James said sounding very tired from the floor of the boys' dormitory, straightening the morning paper in his hands. 

     "Good morning, I guess," Peter responded with a sad look as he sipped his coffee.       

      Remus sighed deeply. "This is getting depressing." 

      "Getting?" Charlie asked incredulously, clutching her warm mug of coffee in both hands to the front of her face, leaning her head back with a thud against the stone wall.

      Lily sighed, setting her mug of tea down in disgust. "Who was it this time?"

      "Zacharias Zograf," James answered bleakly, throwing the paper to the side in aversion. He lifted his hands to rub them vigorously by over his face.  

      The group sat in silence for a moment; none of them knew the man, but he deserved their grievance. Marlene stared at the floor and the surroundings around her, her mind going to his family. It was the weekend, and the group hadn't felt like spending their morning in the great hall for some reason or another, and this dark news hung in the air as if to confirm their want to be apart from others. 

     Upon proposing skipping the morning breakfast in a crowded hall, Sirius, James, and Peter smuggled food from the kitchens, Marlene and Lily grabbed any mail that was delivered to any of the seven, and Remus and Charlie stayed behind to make a giant pallet of blankets and pillows on the floor. 

      It had been a lovely morning, but these days, darkness had a way of snaking its way into even the brightest of moments. It was beginning to take its toll on even the toughest of students. The seventh years–in all of the houses–were fearful of the world they were entering. What would be there waiting to greet them.

     "Do you guys ever get sad about what's going on?" Peter asked quietly, not lifting his eyes from the stone floor. "Seventh year is supposed to be fun and exciting and bittersweet, but sometimes, I get really sad about what our world has turned into."

     Remus took a deep breath, taking his time inhaling the air of his dormitory and expelling it from his lungs. "Yeah," he admitted. "I think about everything we're getting robbed of a lot. Seventh year is supposed to be great, but we're all petrified of what kind of world we're entering."

      "Happy graduation," Charlie mumbled bitterly, taking another sip of her coffee. 

       They fell into another silence, separately thinking of the world around them. Marlene appeared the most disturbed by the auror's death. She knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of news like that; being told that a person you cared about, who dedicated their lives to catching the purest form of evil in the world was murdered, wasn't an easy thing to stomach. She had received that news twice; she had been forced to grieve for those people twice. She blinked the tears from her eyes, forcing the memories of finding out her brothers were dead from her head, wishing she could wipe it clean from her memory. 

      Sirius noticed his girlfriend's off-putting demeanor and slid a little closer to her side, reaching for her hand, but remained silent. He had no words to offer her, and she had no words that she wanted to hear. They sat comfortably in their silence. 

      "Do you ever think about what we'll have to do?" Remus whispered, as if fearful of his own words. It was so quiet, the others could pretend not to hear it. Act as if they hadn't because maybe their mind was playing tricks on them. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe it was a lot of things. Maybe.