Hateful Love

Chapter Sixty-Four

“Harry Potter, I now speak directly to you. Join me in the Forbidden Forest alone. If you do not do this, I will kill every single man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me.

“You have one hour.”

Voldemort’s voice slowly fades away, hissing and echoing into nothing. A dead silence falls over the castle, and I realize there’s no more screams, no more cries of pain or explosions. The fighting’s stopped.
          “Shouldn’t you be leaving?” Arthur snaps, still pointing his wand at Draco—who hasn’t made any attempt to get up. “Get out and find your father, Malfoy.”

“Mr. Weasley, he isn’t fighting for the Death Eaters,” I say, my voice sounding quiet and strained from all the crying. “He wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“But—“ Arthur hesitates, looking back and forth between the two of us. “He was—“

“I wasn’t hurting her,” Draco interrupts in a raspy voice. “I would never—“

“But then why were you crying?” Arthur asks me, turning to look at my tear-stained face and starting to seem flustered.

I set my jaw and choke out, “My…my best friend just died.”

It kills me just to say it out loud. Arthur Weasley falls silent, taking a careful step back and slowly lowering his wand. Draco cautiously gets to his feet, still trying to stay a few feet away just in case. Arthur runs his hand over a face lined with worry and says quietly, “Oh. I am—I’m very sorry. I just thought—“

“It’s okay,” I interrupt, looking down at the ground with blurry vision and trying hard not to start crying again. “Please, we just—we need to be alone right now.”

“Of—of course,” Arthur stammers in a quiet voice, “I’ll just…I’ll just go, then.” He opens his mouth as though to say something more, looking between the two of us carefully, but he just shakes his head and abruptly hurries off down the hallway towards the Great Hall.

Almost as soon as Arthur’s gone, Draco and I stumble over the rubble towards each other. I throw my arms around his neck and he wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me flush against him. The two of us stay there for a long minute, holding onto each other desperately in the deserted hallway.

I pull away only a little, just enough so that I can look at him. My voice shakes only a little as I ask quietly, “Are you okay?”

Draco reaches down and gently brushes my hair away from my face, looking at me seriously. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

He pulls me in close again, hugging me tightly as more tears spill down my cheeks. Doing everything I can not to completely fall apart again, I choke out, “I—I have to go find Cho. And…and find K—Katherine.”

He holds me for moment longer, while I manage to somehow pull myself together. Then Draco slowly pulls away, still clutching one of my hands with his own. “Okay.”

I allow him to lead me back down the hallway, heading in the same direction Arthur Weasley had gone. Wiping my cheeks to try and erase the tear-tracks, I finally manage to get myself to stop crying. I push all the images of Katherine’s body from my mind as Draco helps me step over the stone rubble and broken glass, knowing I have to keep myself together. There’s still a war going on, even if the fighting has stopped for now.

 We reach the Great Hall without seeing anyone, but as soon as we step inside, we’re met with crowds of people—sitting along the walls, finding space to sit on some benches, and a few are even lying down.

Then I look again and realize the people lying down aren’t moving.

Draco and I automatically stop holding hands as we walk inside, a habit of pretending not to be together for so long. I step further inside with Draco close behind me, passing students from different Houses and seeing all my professors—Flitwick even gives me a tired wave as I walk past. My heart sinks as I see how worn out everyone looks, how completely exhausted they all seem.