The Prophesy: Silent Shells

Chapter 6

'I'm Sorry.'

Dumbledore's voice was weary and his shoulders slumped defeated.

Hermione let out a noise between a scream of anguish and a howl of despair.

'No!'

Ron slumped down in his chair with tears running down his face. Dean and Seamus tried to comfort him, but he pushed them away.

Malfoy slid down the wall and put his head between his knees.

Professor McGonagall dissolved into tears and wrapped her head in her hands as her shoulders shook.

Hagrid was crying loudly his voice echoing around the room.

The black dogs tail drooped between its legs and it started howling. Lupin had his arms around it and was staring unseeingly and the wall.

Snape got up so quickly that his chair fell backwards and the back of it cracked. He strode out of the room with his robes billowing out behind him.

Fred and George had their arms around Ginny and were looking at each other, their expressions mirroring the others disbelief.

Nearly every girl in the room was crying while the boys tried to comfort them.

Cho had fainted dead away.

Dumbledore looked around at his students and colleagues. The whole room was a hysterical mess.

'Why Harry?' he muttered. 'Don't you realise what you have done?'

He sunk down into the nearest chair buried his face in his hands.

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The next few days were the grimmest that Hogwarts had ever seen.

While classes were still held, barely anyone turned up. The few who did only attended to keep their minds off what was happening around them, but it hardly helped.

The Professors hadn't set any work so all that the students could do was copy from a text book.

No one in the school smiled for a week. Not even Peeves had the heart to play any tricks.

Hermione had gone into a form of depression. She simply sat in a stupor all day.

She had tried to study but every time she picked up a book all she could see was Harry, berating her for studying to hard. She tried practising spells, but they only reminded her of the times when she had had to tutor Harry so that he could pass a test, or for the Tri-wizard contest.

Every thing that she did reminded her of Harry so she stopped doing anything at all. She just sat, staring at a wall trying to make her mind as blank as the stone she was facing.

Ron spent the time on his hands trying to comfort those around him. While some found it strange, he felt it was helping him to accept it.

What it was actually doing, however, was suppressing his feelings and directing his energy else where so that he didn't have to feel it himself.

Dumbledore spent all of his time in his office. Sitting with Fawkes on his shoulder he sat in silence.

The twinkle had finally left his eyes and all that was left was a cold void.

Professor Snape, however was working. He worked harder than he ever had before.

From the time he had left the hall on that fateful evening he had only left the dungeons once. He had locked himself up and only admitted the house elves who had brought him food.

He had left just this once to ask Dumbledore to freeze Harry's body and post pone the funeral for a month. Dumbledore had looked at him like he was mad.

'But, why Severus?'

'I daren't tell you, Albus, for fear of disappointing you but I am begging you, don't do anything with the body. Please Albus.'

Dumbledore looked at him for what seemed like eternity before nodding his head, looking defeated.

'Alright, one month but no longer. Now leave, I have to write a letter to his muggle relatives, informing them.'

'Don't do that just yet, Albus. Wait until my month is up. Then let them know.'

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For two weeks Severus Snape did not leave his dungeons. All potions classes had been cancelled until further notice. When eventually he did appear, he had dark circles under his eyes and his skin was even more sallow than any one had ever seen it. He disappeared for a day and returned with all different, suspicious looking parcels. He then wasn't seen out of his dungeons for another week. The school had privately declared him mad.

All lessons, excepting potions, had resumed and only those closest to Harry still found it difficult to attend classes.

Hermione flat out refused to leave Gryffindor Tower for any reason and when Ron did make it to class he left, nearly in tears before it had progressed very far.

The rest of the Weasley family rallied around trying to cheer up the duo, but they all failed.

The rest of the school was also trying to help, including the Slytherins. When ever Ron was seen in the hallways - Hermione was never seen anywhere - people smiled at him sympathetically and muttered words of comfort to him as they passed.

The teachers had almost given up trying to persuade Hermione down from the Tower and turned their attention to helping Ron through the day.

Hagrid was still teaching Care of Magical Creature but mainly gave them easy tasks, such as feeding Puffskeins, and sat on the silently on the ground until the lesson was over or until a student needed help.

Draco Malfoy still went to his classes but he had abandoned Crabbe and Goyle for the Gryffindor 5^th years. He sat with Ron in class, and always followed him out when his emotions got the better of him, he felt guilty for causing Harry's death and was trying to up for his tactless stupidity.

He sat with Hermione in the Tower and read her favourite book 'Pride and Prejudice' to her for hours on end.

Professor Lupin had continued teaching classes, but he lacked the enthusiasm that he used to have. His new pet, whom he called Snuffles, was always in the room with him just sitting or lying with his tail between his legs. Although there was plenty of food for it to eat, it remained untouched and the dog was steadily growing thinner.

Divination was the only lesson that had been thoroughly abandoned by students and Professor Trelawney had been fired.

One of Ron first classes when he began taking lessons again was a double Divination. To the horror of every person in the room, Trelawney had started gloating about how she had known all along that this was Harry's fate.

'My dears, I tried to warn him, every lesson I did but some people who do not possess the power to see past the mundane refuse to believe. They think that they know everything and will not see that a person, with a greater knowledge of what is coming to pass, is trying to help them.

I did try to warn him, Merlin knows I did.' Here she had paused and dabbed at her eyes dramatically. 'But he would not see. Well, I have been consulting with the fates and have foreseen that I am going to write my memoirs on this event, and they will be a best seller. I do believe that a lot of good will come out of this tragedy. Alas I have also foreseen that Harry, may he rest on peace, will come out of all this looking like the, if I may be so bold as to use the word, fool. He will be known by every person in the world, not as the Boy Who Lived Only to Suffer Terrible Tragedy, but as the foolish young man who would not listen to his teachers' warnings. He will be used as an example to all children of what happens when a person gets too egotistical and lets their - '

'You fucking sadistic cow,' shouted Ron furiously as he leapt off his seat. 'of all the callous, unfeeling, cowardly, shitty things to say about Harry...'

The remainder of the class were all on their feet as well shouting at their Professor.

Lavender and Parvati, who had been her two most devoted students were mouthing wordlessly.

Every student froze however when Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore walked in to the room. They all ran to their seats and waited for the thunderbolt to fall upon their heads.

Dumbledore opened his mouth and the students flinched before he said 'please return to your respective common rooms where a teacher will be with you shortly.'

No one ever found out what happened after the trapdoor closed above the last student to leave but Trelawney was never again seen at the castle.

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While all had been happening Professor Severus Snape had been standing over a cauldron, stirring feverishly, adding ingredients and muttering incantations. Now, with a week to go before the funeral he had one last task to do.

Students were in the corridors on their was to their next class when the magically magnified voice of their eccentric potions professor asked every student and teacher in the in the castle who had loved Harry in one way or another to assemble outside the dungeons.

When he looked out of the door, the corridor was jam packed. He smiled anxiously and clapped his hands for their attention.

'Now, I am not about to tell you what I am doing, but if you will participate you might be part of the most revolutionary event of all time. I would like every person here to come in to this room and place a strand of their hair and a drop of their blood in this cauldron. When you do that you will stir it once and tell the potion what you loved most about Harry. Then you will have to cry so that 3 of your tears will fall into the cauldron. Then you may leave.'

Bewildered, students and teachers alike began muttering about insane potions professors but they all did what he asked. As each person did what they had been instructed to he ticked them off a list. When the last person came in he counted the list and then banged his head on the wall with tears trickling down his face.

'One bloody person short. Four hundred and ninety nine shitty people who loved the Boy and I need five hundred! Damn and fuck it all.'

Then he lifted his head and began to smile. He rechecked the list and a grin lit up his tearstained face.

He raced off down the hall leaving a startled Neville Longbottom to cry his last tear into the potion before leaving.