"If your whole life turns out to be a lie, what will you do then?"
"If everything you knew turns out to be a hoax, what will you do then?"
Graciana Duerre Weasley, twin sister of Ron Weasley, is a troublemaker. Mischievous but a little introvert, bo...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
***
IN A MOMENT LIFE can change.
In the blink of any eye, empires can fall, and water can turn into ice, and light can turn dark. Cities can crumble in a moment; life can cease to exist in a moment.
For Freya Black, life had changed many times. Everything she knew had turned a lie at one point in her life. Her world had turned upside down.
Now, as she turned her face to stare at the sky, the green swirling light, like the northern lights illuminating her face, her anger, her panic; she could feel her life changing again. The glow of the dark mark was catalyst in the event that will change everything, yet again. She knew it, as did Dumbledore, and as did Harry, as they stood on the crumbling street in the middle of Hogsmeade.
Harry summoned Madam Rosemerta's broom, and the three clambered onto them.
"Rosmerta, please send a message to the Ministry," said Dumbledore, as he mounted the broom nearest him. "It might be that nobody within Hogwarts has yet realized anything is wrong. . . . Grace, Harry, put on your Invisibility Cloak."
Harry pulled his Cloak out of his pocket and threw it over himself and Grace, who sat on the broom behind him, holding him tightly. Madam Rosmerta was already tottering back toward her pub as Harry and Dumbledore kicked off from the ground and rose up into the air.
As Grace started ahead at the skull, fear swelled inside her like a venomous bubble, compressing her lungs, driving all other discomfort from her mind.
The Astronomy Tower loomed in the sight, and they landed on the top. The ramparts were deserted. The door to the spiral staircase that led back into the castle was closed. There was no sign of a struggle, of a fight to the death, of a body.
"What does it mean?" Harry asked Dumbledore, looking up at the green skull with its serpent's tongue glinting evilly above them. "Is it the real Mark? Has someone definitely been — "
"Professor?" said Grace.
In the dim green glow from the Mark, Grace saw Dumbledore clutching at his chest with his blackened hand.
"Go and wake Severus," said Dumbledore faintly but clearly. "Tell him what has happened and bring him to me. Do nothing else, speak to nobody else, and do not remove your cloak. I shall wait here."
"But —"
"You both swore to obey me — go!"
Grace and Harry hurried over to the door leading to the spiral staircase, but Grace's hand had only just closed upon the iron ring of the door when she heard running footsteps on the other side. She looked around at Dumbledore, who gestured her and Harry to retreat. They backed away, drawing their wand as they did so.
