Honorary Slytherin

Chapter Two: Haunting Great Hall

"... and that means, as most of you already know, that the Forbidden Forest in off limits. Venturing into the forest assures anyone a most certain death. As for the third corridor..." Headmistress McGonagall was making Dumbledore's usual, had he been alive, welcoming speech, as was procedure for the starting of a new school year. Harry, Ron and Hermione sat around and looked at the half-empty hall. Numerous students had withdrawn form Hogwarts since the Death Eater attack at the end of last year. The Patil Twins were gone, Justin Finch-Fletchley was gone, even Seamus had had an argument with his mother about coming back to school.

And the faces that were left, the faces that surrounded the Golden Trio, were almost depressing as the faces of those who had left. Every single face, small or sharp or slightly rounded, was pale and bony and sick looking. This war, this never-ending battle was draining, sucking, pulling the life out of those who could survive it. There was the look on the faces of some- the look that was screaming out, wishing to die. Harry had that look. His usually bright green eyes were dull and sunken in to his thin, pointy face. He hadn't been eating. He felt as if he couldn't, as if by eating he was wasting precious time that could be spent on destroying the Dark Lord. Even as McGonagall finished her speech and the glorious feast appeared on the table, Harry wouldn't eat a bit of it. He couldn't.

Not even Ron, who had the largest appetite of anyone Hermione had ever met, would eat. He stared at his food with disgust, as if by being there it had offended Harry. Ron was sickly thin, too, from the wear that he had gone through, what with trying to keep Harry from offing himself. Hermione looked up from her untouched plate and glanced into the saddened eyes of those around her. Dean Thomas, who had lost his family in the last month, had tears forming in the bottom of his glassy red-rimmed eyes. He had been crying. Across the Hall, Hermione looked at Adrian Pucey, a usually haughty, playboy of a wizard, silent tears streaking down his face, as he tried his best to conceal them. A boy wasn't supposed to cry, Adrian had always been told. But his mother and baby sister had been tortured in front of his own withering self as he was chained to the wall of a Death Eater's personal dungeon. Being an unfaithful pureblood got you nowhere, as Adrian had learned.

Hermione saw the school as it was. Truly ravaged. Her brief stint with the Slytherins on the Express had been enough to make her forget that she would be forced to go through this once she arrived at the school. But now that she was there, she wanted nothing more than to touch those who needed comfort and cry for those who needed sympathy. Though, she wouldn't let herself. Although the rest of the school, sobbing third years and frightened first years included, was depressed, Hermione wouldn't let herself be. If one person had to hold strong for Hogwarts it was Hermione. She willed her own salty tears back down and banished the pain of a pent-up sob from her throat. She was strong. She had to be.