the last verse ; harry potter [2]

eleven ; soon

She had seen hopelessness. Nestled in shadowed alleyways, huddled in tattered masses before a crackling fire. She saw it on the streets of London, the red noses of a cold winter, their heads held down against the cloudy sky and the windy lanes. Hopelessness was a sickness, infesting minds like a parasitic evil until they were nothing but bitter souls, feeding on others until there was no light left to eat. She felt it often, seeping into her bones like cold water, spreading across her eyes like a pair of lenses. Hopelessness was something she felt when she watched Dumbledore topple off of the Astronomy Tower, his hair floating with him as if he drifted in water, his eyes blindly set on the skull in the sky. It made her ache until her muscles strained. It made her head spin until all she ever thought about was her everlasting numbness.

One thing, though, she had very rarely ever felt was the spark of hope buried inside a deadened soul. Like a spark creating a flame, a match ripped against stone, she felt it inside of her. This feeling was not a cancer: this was a cure. The only cure there had ever been. The only cure that there will ever be.

When she felt the ink spilling from her mother's diary the morning of her odd dream, black contrasting against her paled skin, the tar felt like it cleansed her. That morning, she rubbed it between her fingers as Ron frantically fetched a towel, the slick liquid thinning between them, it looked more like a drink of fresh water than the mess it made out to be.

This is hope, she thought that morning. This is hope.

So, sworn on her mother's chapel, she vowed to set out soon. For my mother, she thought as the four discussed their strategy.

Soon, she thought the next morning when Kreacher appeared along with Dobby, both clinging to the thief they had been ordered to find. Mundungus, his eyes wide and hands trembling, told them that they would have to snatch it from the neck of the woman they all hated most.

Soon, she thought the next week as she aided them with their planning. They all sat at the kitchen table, the wooden surface cluttered with maps and papers and blue prints, all detailing the Ministry of Magic until they had no stone left unturned.

The week after that, they researched the staff. A pair of them would Apparate to a secluded alley where they'd detail the route of their Ministry disguises, learning their names and private life until they knew them better than they knew themselves.

"You don't have to help us, you know," said Harry one morning, the two of them settled casually near a dumpster. A large, dark haired man entered the alley, and they quieted, watching him pass. Harry studied the mans hair and eyes, mentally preparing himself for when he was to become the man they just saw. "You should go find her. I know how important it is to you."

The biting cold of early winter nipped at her nose.

"I need to be sure you're ready for what you're trying to do," Diana told him. "I can't let myself leave you before I know you're ready."

And that's what she did. The biting wind turned to light snowfall, covering the fallen leaves in a sparkling blanket. Now, they were forced to wear mittens whenever they ventured out of Grimmauld Place. She helped them as well as she could before she knew she had to go. She told them what she knew, about those under the Imperius Curse and the etiquette she had memorized from her trial so many years ago. She told them that she had been strapped to a chair in a chamber of only the Minister and only three members of the Wizengamot, her secret much too important to allow her to have a full trial. She told them how incredibly secured the entire structure is, how incredibly secured it would be now with the force of the Dementors and the wicked Death Eaters backing it.