Isolation

43. Amort

.

Draco thought it was bizarre how a room full of screaming people could seem so quiet and empty.

All the noise just seemed to glide over him in muffled waves, like vibrations rather than noise, tingling his ears, but never quite reaching them. Never quite registering. He frantically scanned the room, searching for Granger, pausing at a couple of girls with wild hair similar to hers, but he couldn't see her. As his eyes darted from one person to the next, he absorbed it all speechlessly, taking in the familiar faces of the people crowding the room.

Many were bleeding, pressing their palms into their wounds, or casting Healing Charms. Most were standing in groups, mumbling to each other or trying to help a companion, but there were several people wandering around the room alone, staring blankly at nothing or crying. Some people were standing, some sitting, and the rest were lying down, separated into two lines on opposite sides of the Hall. It took Draco a few moments, but he realised that one line was for those injured too severely to stand, and the other line was for the dead.

Pomfrey rushed past his line of sight to aid a screaming victim, but all he could focus on were her red hands; gloves of blood fumbling with potions. She pushed her hair out of her eyes, smearing the red across her forehead, and Draco averted his eyes as she bent down to attend to a large wound slicing across Ernie Macmillan's chest.

The noise hit him then, and he gritted his teeth against the shrill, bellowing roar of it.

His eyes swept the room again; perhaps Granger had been crouched down and he'd missed her, or perhaps the sweat in his eyes had compromised his vision. He lingered on a mane of ginger hair, thinking it might be Weasley, but it was the other twin, George, calling out to his brothers, who had walked into the room ahead of Draco, Blaise, and Luna.

Carefully placing Boot in the line of the fallen, Fred and Percy made their way to the corner of the room with George, joining the other Weasleys. Except for Ron, and Draco never thought he would be disappointed to not see Ronald Sodding Weasley with Granger nearby, but today was apparently a day of firsts.

And lasts for some people.

He was momentarily fixated on Professor Sprout fixing Stephen Cornfoot's fractured collarbone when Blaise and Luna stepped forward, entering the Great Hall, hand in hand. Numbly following them, his eyes shifted from one gory scene to the next, staring at a girl with a mangled, battered face, her Hufflepuff tie hanging loosely around her neck. He didn't recognise her; her face was so damaged that it didn't look like a face at all. His attention drifted over to the Patil twins, one of whom had a broken arm and a shard of bone poking out of her skin. Her sister held her hand as Trelawney cast Healing Charms. He turned his head to the line of the dead then, but a loud voice stopped him before he could glance at one pale body.

"Hey! What the hell are you two doing in here?"

Draco's groan rattled around his dry mouth. "For fuck's sake, what now?"

He didn't need to look to know that whoever had yelled was shouting at Blaise and himself, but he did anyway, meeting the aggressive glare of Seamus Finnegan. Others in the room lifted their heads, their expressions tightening with anger when they spotted the Slytherins, and an odd sense of shame crept in, settling heavily on Draco's shoulders. Beneath the hot and uninhibited hatred in their eyes, he felt very much ostracized. Where was Tonks when he needed her?

"I asked what the hell you two are doing here!" Finnegan shouted again, his accent harsh and spitting. "You don't belong here!"

"They do belong here," said Lovegood, like it was obvious. "They're with us."