Begin to Hope

As it neared the end of July, we all felt that something was going to happen. We could all feel it in the air. Summer was in full bloom by now, and Farley had relented his tough 'nobody goes anywhere!' policies, and everyday a few of us would go out for walks in the garden or just around our dingy town. We kept out of trouble and we kept to ourselves, but it was nice just to be let outside.

Nobody had talked to Farley about the necklace after that. I never even heard anybody else talk about it. Farley seemed a lot happier without it, and Farley was almost never happy. We decided to keep the peace and just ignore it.

Speaking of keeping the peace, Orlando had managed to get on everyone's good side after that. Farley started to like him one day after they went outside and Orlando taught Farley how to fix his car and keep it clean and working like new. The younger boys all liked him because he'd tease them and play games with them, and the girls all liked him because he was tall dark and handsome. The only one that refused to give him a chance was...Klaus.

"I think he's stupid, and not funny, and a waste of my breathing air." He pointed to his mouth. "Do you hear me breathing? HE'S BREATHING MY AIR! HE'S INFECTING IT! In fact, I can feel the air being choked up by him being here. Oh no. The light is getting dimmer. The air--I--I can feel it's getting colder. I'm going to a better place now, Kerry--remember me!" He fell to the floor with a hysterical sob and I started laughing at his antics.

"Oh, Klaus, get up and stop pretending. Why don't you just like him? He's really not that bad."

"He's a stupid git. I personally hope he chokes."

"Oh, stop. Everyone else likes him."

"But I'm not everyone else!" He got right up in my face, inches away from me and whispered, "I'm still convinced he's a Death Eater, Kerry! Well, that or a reincarnation of Elvis. Pretty soon he'll either whip out his wand and kill us all or do a horrible rendition of 'You Ain't Nothin` But A Hound Dog'."

I couldn't talk I was laughing so hard. When I had finally calmed down enough to speak, I managed to choke out, "Klaus, he's not a Death Eater, and he's definitely not an Elvis reincarnation."

"Whatever you say, Kerry. I can be civil to him, but I'm always watching him. Remember that."

And I did remember it, but I still never found any cause to believe him to be anything other than a good, kind-hearted honest person.

Everything was pretty much going okay until one fateful July morning.

We were all gathered around the rebuilt kitchen table, talking quaintly and enjoying some lightly buttered toast when Maverick skidded in the room and started to yell incoherently.

Farley looked up from the morning Muggle newspaper we had been getting delivered daily. "What are you going on about?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I--outside! I was talking to the nearest neighbor--this old lady--she was talking to me at first about her poor little rabid dog and it wasn't making much sense and then out of nowhere she leaned forward and whispered--she said--" He started to flail uncontrollably and yell incoherent things again.

"Snap out of it, boy!" Farley jumped out of his chair and hit Maverick over the head with his newspaper. "What did the lady say?"

Maverick looked up at us, his eyes crazed, his hands roaming through his hair and a panicked look on his face.

"She said that--she said I'd better watch myself because he will find it, no matter where we try to hide it."

"What did she mean by 'it'?" Kimberly asked, looking frightened. "Did she mean the necklace?"

Maverick nodded swiftly. "That's what I think."

Farley's face paled as he took in what Maverick was saying. "Then what happened? Where did the lady go?"

"I don't know! I turned and ran and I heard her laughing behind me but I don't think she followed..."

"We've obviously got to leave. Right now." Orlando said firmly, standing up from his chair and looked round at us. "She was probably a Death Eater. She knew you would run home and she followed you. She's probably outside with an entire gang of them right now!"

"Now, let's not get too hasty here. Perhaps she was talking about something else. Might she have been?" Klaus said calmly. "You said that she told you, 'You'd better watch yourself, because he will find it, no matter what', correct?"

Maverick nodded.

"How old was this lady?"

"Oh, I don't know. Old. Seventy, maybe?"

"And mightn't she have just been crazy? Was she well-dressed or a bum?"

"She was more bum-like, I think."

"There you have it!" Klaus threw his arms in the air and stood up, readying himself to leave the room. "It was just some bat-shit old lady, talking about nothing."

"But--what if she was serious?" Tally asked seriously, looking from Farley to Klaus and back again. "What if she was trying to scare us? I think we should leave."

"Don't be ridiculous. We're safe here; nobody should be able to get in."

"But shouldn't we pack up, just in case?"

"I don't think so. I don't think we have anything to worry about." He saluted to Farley and strolled out of the room.

We all looked to Farley for instructions.

He set his jaw firmly. "Pack only your most important stuff. Even if we don't leave, we might as well be ready."

We all hurried to gather our belongings, and surprisingly it only took us under half an hour. We put all of our stuff in three boxes and left them right inside the front door, thinking if we had to flee quickly we'd be sure to pick them up on our way out.

Packing seemed to calm us down. It got our hopes up that maybe we weren't so helpless, that we could of course always leave at any point in time.

The only one that didn't pack was Klaus. He was firmly convinced that the old lady had just been crazy.

"You know how people are these days. Stupidity runs the world."

"Yes, I suppose, but--what if Death Eaters burst in right now and kill us all?"

He shrugged. "Eh, that would suck. And it would probably be my fault for not urging us to leave."

"And no one else in the entire world would know about the entire necklace business, and maybe it'd be the only way to defeat Voldemort, and then the world would end."

He looked at me sternly. "Don't talk to me about the necklace. It was a piece of junk, nothing more. Don't speak of it."

"But it would still be all your fault."

"Yeah, it would... and that would suck, wouldn't it?"

The rest of the day left us in jitters. Everyone kept to themselves and avoided talking to the others. The younger kids were all afraid someone would burst in and kill us at any minute and Penelope kept bursting into tears the entire day and the only one who could calm her was Annabelle.

We all tiptoed around the house, hoping that every creak and small noise the house made wasn't an attack on our lives at all, but just something explainable. We all nearly shit ourselves when Greg stubbed his toe on his bedpost and screamed loudly. And it wasn't comforting at all when Princeton discovered somebody had left one of the doors leading upstairs unlocked nearly the entire day.

All in all, it was a trying day on all of us.

I approached Farley hesitantly after our meager dinner that night.

"Farley, I was thinking...well, don't you think that...uh, maybe some of us should go check up on the spot where you hid the necklace? What if somebody took it? And the woman knew it?"

"What good would checking on the necklace do?"

"Well, I don't know... but maybe if we're at least not gonna use it, we could know where it is at all times so nobody else could use it? If it got into Voldemort's hands..."

He thought about it for a second, letting his hand wander up to massage his non-existant beard.

"I suppose you're right."

My jaw dropped. I hadn't expected him to agree with me.

"Really? You mean it? We can go check on it?"

"Yeah, I think we'd better. With that scare today, we might as well." He turned back to his paper and I went to turn away, but then remembered something else.

Feeling bold, I asked, "And, while we're on the topic, could we possibly keep the necklace as well? I mean, wouldn't it be safer to just keep it here with us?"

A firm "No" resounded from his lips.

"Alright then."

"Tomorrow we'll leave to go check on it." He said, looking at me to make sure I understood.

I nodded and hastily made it back to the living room where everyone else was. At least I had tried.

"So what do you think is gonna happen?" I asked Orlando as I joined him later that night in my bedroom.

I closed the door softly and walked to the bed to sit down next to him. "Any Death Eaters coming for us?"

He scrunched up his face, thinking hard. "I don't know why they didn't try an attack. I would have bet my life that that old lady knew something, and then--nothing? It seems too weird for me to believe."

I nodded in agreement. "But maybe--it was just coincidence. The Muggles really don't know anything that's going on.. for the most part."

"Well, okay. Even if she was just an old crazy lady, that still gets me thinking. Why haven't the Death Eaters tried to attack here or anything?"

"I don't know the answer to that one either,"

"You'd think--Voldemort's followers would try to annihilate all of you, don't you think? Why would they want a few measly kids still hanging around? I think he would have done away with you by now."

I rolled my eyes and gave a shy smile. "Gee, what a wonderful thought. Thank you for bringing that up, as it really brightened up my day. What a wonderful, caring person you are. In fact--"

He laughed loudly, cutting off my next sentence of wildly brilliant sarcasm.

"I'm sorry, Kerry. But, don't you agree? Voldemort should be after all of you anytime now."

"I think so too, Orlando, but can we talk about something else? This has kind of got me spooked."

He smiled at me and moved slightly closer. "Of course."

He fell silent for a moment, looking around the room. Meanwhile, my thoughts raced about in my head, completely unstoppable; most of them were about Voldemort coming to get all of us. I shuddered at my memories of the Death Eaters storming our house and huddled closer to Orlando. Just when I thought I'd go crazy, as the silence was almost unbearable, he spoke again.

"Kerry," he said my name awkwardly and looked down at his hands as he did. "Um... well, I just wanted to say that... I'll always protect you, no matter what."

I could almost literally feel my heart soften as he looked up at me, his hair falling over his eyes and a slight smile playing on his lips.

"Well, thank you, Orlando, that's very swe--"

But before I could finish my sentence, he had leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine, quieting any other thoughts I had wanted to get out. I was surprised at first, and I almost thought of pushing him away, but the sensation of his warm lips against mine and the smell of his body were too much for me to handle. I closed my eyes and just enjoyed it, melting into his warm embrace.