Have We Had Enough, Children?

    Stepping out from behind the corner, Harry opened his tightly closed eyes. A shaky gasp escaped him as he saw the pale white hand half hidden in darkness. Another one. He couldn’t’t believe it.

    He stepped forward, so afraid he felt like he was going to collapse. Who had it been this time? Someone he knew? Probably.

    He could make out the shape of a crumpled body behind the tall chair. The shadow of the crackling fire hid the person’s face, and in a way Harry was grateful. Except that now he had to venture into the darkness before he could return to the safety of a teacher.

    Crouching down, Harry reached into the shadow with a shaking hand. He touched the black robes of the person, and pulled.

    Whoever it was, they were extremely lightweight. Probably a first or second year. The face slowly slid into the light, and Harry moaned in horror.

    It was a tiny black haired girl. She was a Gryffindor, and was obviously a first year. Her brown eyes stayed open, staring at Harry.

    He choked and shakily let go of her robes, backing away across the floor. He felt the door knob behind him, and spun around, opening the door. He lunged out of the shadowy room and ran all the way to the Gryffindor common room.

    He reached the fat lady portrait and stammered the password out as best he could. The door swung open and he leaped inside. He landed at Professor McGonagall’s feet.

    “Potter!” she said in surprise.

    He staggered to his feet and stood trembling before her. Her usually severe eyes looked extremely sympathetic.

    “Who is it, Potter?”

    He tried to control his breathing. “I don’t know her name, but I think she was a first year. She was in Gryffindor.”

    McGonagall’s shoulders slumped. She took off her small glasses and wiped them on the sleeve of her robes.

    “Another Gryffindor… of course…” she muttered to herself. She pushed her glasses back onto her face and looked at Harry briskly. “Now, go up to bed. Your dorm mates will be there already.”

    Harry nodded and she swished out of the common room, the door slamming behind her.

    Harry trudged up the stairs to his dormitory, finding each step to be more difficult than the last. He reached them at last and pushed it open to find Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville all sitting awake on their beds.

    “Harry!” Ron said in surprise as he closed the door behind him.

    “Hi,” Harry muttered.

    The four boys watched Harry nervously as he went to his bed and collapsed down on it.

    “Well,” Ron began hesitantly. “Who… who was it, this time?”

    “Dunno,” Harry mumbled into his pillow. “Some first year girl.”

    “A Gryffindor?” Neville asked weakly.

    “Course it was…” came the muffled reply.

    Ron looked at the other boys and sighed deeply. “G’night, Harry.”

    A week later, the staff at Hogwarts sent Harry Potter out again to look for murdered students.

    As he headed out of the common room for his search, Hermione met him at the portrait hole doorway.

    “Harry…” she said softly, her eyes red. “I’ll come with you, if you’d like… it must be awful going alone.”

    Harry shook his head. “You can’t. It doesn’t work that way. I’ll never find anyone if someone’s with me.”

    She reached out and grabbed his sleeve. “Harry… please… you don’t have to go. If you just leave-”

    “I can’t!” he said vehemently and ripped his arm from her grip. “Don’t you understand? I have- I have to do this!”

    He turned from her and stepped through the door. A moment before he closed the door, he heard Hermione squeak, “I’ll wait in the common room for you, Harry.”

    Harry slammed the door unnecessarily hard and shoved his hands into his pockets.

    Hermione didn’t understand. He doubted she could. She didn’t have to go up to Professor Dumbledore’s office and face all the staff, all of them looking shaken and cheerless. She didn’t have to go into all the dark, hidden places of the school all alone, searching for dead children…

    Harry shuddered as he reached a staircase. He walked dejectedly down, avoiding eye contact with any of the other students scurrying out of his path.

    He decided to go tonight to the dungeons. Voldemort seemed to like murdering people down there in the darkness.

    For several hours, Harry wandered around the school, every corner flinching as he expected to see someone else lying dead on the floor. But to his astonishment, he found no one.

    He doubled back a few times back to the dungeons and third floor (he’d found several people there so far), and was intensely relieved to find no one else.

    He finally went back to the Gryffindor common room, feeling for once light hearted, and nearly- happy.

    Harry said the password and the portrait door swung open. He jumped inside, the warmth of the deep red walls and couches comforting after being in the cold places of the school for so long.

    He breathed deeply, taking in the smell of the fire and of just peace in general. He stretched his arms and headed towards his dormitory,

     “Ron!” he called up the staircase, a smile breaking across his face for the first time in weeks. “Ron, guess what!”

    Halfway up the stairs, Harry stopped. Wait. Hadn’t Hermione said that she was going t wait up for him in the common room? He turned around, his smile fading.

    “Hermione?” he asked hesitantly.

    He went to the bottom of the stairs and peered around the warm common room. His heart froze as he saw someone lying sprawled across one of the cushy chairs.

    “No!” he gasped and ran to the chair. He stifled a scream as he recognized who lay across the chair.

    “Hermione!” he cried, grabbing his head I his hands. He could no longer hide the horror. He collapsed onto his knees and screamed, his terror and despair pouring out.

    “Harry? Harry?” Harry was vaguely aware of someone grabbing him by the shoulders. He assumed it was Ron.

    “Harry, what- oh my go- Hermione!!”

    Harry’s eyes finally focused and he found Ron kneeling over the chair, clutching his flaming hair in white fists.

    It was too much for him. Harry slumped onto the floor, locked away tears streaming down the side of his head as his best friend mourned and his other best friend lay dead.

    

    Ron Weasley said nothing for three weeks. Though he could be often found sitting in the corner of the common room, he was utterly silent, sitting beside the chair that Hermione had been found in, staring at nothing.

    Harry skulked off to classes, keeping his head bowed, never cracking a smile, rarely making eye contact. Both boys suffered so intensely it caused an even deeper despair to fill the hearts of all the Gryffindors.

    So far, thirteen Gryffindor students, ranging from first to seventh year had been found throughout the school. Two Hufflepuffs and four Ravenclaws were dead. No Slytherins had been killed.

    Draco Malfoy was in heaven. He strutted down the hallways, smirking at despairing students and laughing plainly whenever Harry Potter came to view.

    “So heroic, that Harry Potter!” he scoffed one day. “He has just the look of a hero, doesn’t he?” A sneer crossed his pale face as Harry walked past, shoulders hunched, his hair unwashed and messier then usual.

    The other students of the school began to notice other changes in the brave noble Harry Potter. His bright green eyes seemed to be getting duller everyday, his face becoming more and more pallid. Most noticeable about him, though, was the fact that his bright red scar seemed to grow more livid every day, shining through his scraggly black hair plainly.

    The next week after Hermione’s death, Harry was told to go searching again.

    This time, he didn’t care. He walked dazedly throughout the dungeons, finding three Gryffindors side by side, one of them being Seamus Finnigan.

    But he didn’t care. His life soon became pointless, and at last, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry closed after Ginny Weasley had been found in her dormitory, with a message written in her blood scrawled on the floor; ‘Have we had enough, children?’.

    Harry went back to live with the Dursley’s, spending his days sitting up in his cupboard.

    A month after the closing of Hogwarts, he received an owl from the Ministry of Magic that Ron Weasley had committed suicide, and that Voldemort’s supporters had grown immensely.

    Harry Potter tossed the letter under his bed and curled up facing the wall.