Begin to Hope

The cold air chilled me to the bone and I wondered for a brief second why it was so cold; it was only late August, after all.

Orlando placed an arm around my waist and we ducked around the house, heading away from town, to where we thought Klaus might have led the others.

"The others..." I whispered.

"What?" Orlando asked, not really paying any attention.

"There used to be twelve of us. Twelve... dwindled down to ten. It makes you think. How many more..." I let my speech falter and die, and Orlando didn't reply.

We walked along the empty streets for quite some time, and just as I was about to remark how odd it was that they had gotten so far ahead of us, we heard a noise. We both immediately whipped out our wands and looked around, judging every shadow in every direction to be the enemy.

"What was that?" I whispered to him over my shoulder. We had our backs to each other, circling around to get every angle.

"I dunno." He swallowed hard.

"Who's there?" he called out, putting on a rough, fake voice.

Suddenly we heard a slight sob and we were bombarded by everyone.

"Kerry! Orlando!" A few of them shouted, quickly asking questions and overwhelming us.

"Quiet!" Orlando shouted, shutting everyone up. "We need to get farther away from them. Keep moving!"

Dutifully the entire group kept moving forward, the Invisibility cloak still draped over a few of the younger ones.

The dark of the night was our only cover; there was enough light by the moon to see by. We were walking along a deserted backroad which led away from Bristol. It was a half-paved road, only finished on the left side of the street, but it had long since been abandoned. One could tell it was never to be finished. We walked along it quietly in the dark, our gentle whispers carried through the light breeze.

"Kerry!" Humphrey sought me out from the group to talk to me as we moved along. Orlando, seeing I needed a moment alone with my brother, moved up to talk to Maverick.

"Where are we going?" he asked, looking up at me.

"I don't know, Humphrey. We just have to get away."

He was silent for a moment, thinking that over, when he asked, "Did you find Greg's body?"

I shook my head, my hair falling in my eyes.

"Where did his body go, then?"

I sighed, hating to have to explain this to him.

"I'm guessing that the Death Eaters took his body. Same with Farley's. One minute he would be there, I'd move away for just a second, and then he'd be gone." I shuddered, wondering what the Death Eaters could possibly want with their bodies.

He made a face, as if he was thinking the exact same thing.

"How long are we going to have to do this? Keep running away? Scrambling for our lives?"

"I don't know, Humphrey!" I begin to feel irritated by his endless questions, but one glance at him and the look on his face just about broke my heart.

"I didn't--I didn't mean to say that so--Humphrey, no!" Before I could call him back, he rushed up to the front of the group to Annabelle's open arms.

I am a terrible older sister. I am a terrible friend. I let Farley die, I neglect and abuse my younger brother, Klaus is constantly mad at me. I rambled on to myself, wallowing in self-pity at the very back of group as we walked on and on, forgetting everything that had happened behind us.

By the time the sun has just started to peak over the horizon, we were all exhausted. We had been trudging along for nearly four hours, with not much sleep under our belts. All talking had ceased hours ago. We were simply trying to make it as far as we could without getting caught.

I noticed out of the corner of my eye Klaus slowly walking backward to avoid everyone's notice, trying to catch up to where I was walking alone, head down, trying to ignore everyone else.

He made it to where I was walking by myself and muttered a greeting.

I didn't respond.

"We've decided we're going into London. We're going to stake out the Ministry of Magic Headquarters, where the Minster of Magic and such used to keep everything under control. Orlando says it's been empty for years, ever since the Ministry Massacre, but they used to have an extensive library, and maybe they'll be information about the necklace there."

"I thought you didn't like Orlando..." I muttered under my breath.

"What?" Klaus asked sharply, leaning in to hear me better.

"I thought you didn't like Orlando!" Raising my voice louder than I meant to, I stopped and looked at Klaus's surprised expression.

"Well, I don't. But--that doesn't mean I shouldn't listen to him, if what he says makes sense."

I pursed my lips tightly together, willing myself not to say anything, lest I should let my tongue slip and blurt out something unpleasant.

He turned to leave, but I called him back.

"How much farther til we stop? We can't possibly walk there the entire night, we should take some time to find shelther. None of us save for Orlando and myself are wearing Muggle clothing; you're all dressed in capes and cloaks!"

Klaus shrugged. "We'll stop now, if you want."

I looked at him, mystified, wondering how this change could have come over him so suddenly. He was catering to me? Thinking about what was best for us? Who was this enigmatic young man standing in front of me now?

I shook my head and continued walking. I watched as he made his way up to Orlando and quietly talked to him. Orlando nodded and stopped. He motioned for the rest of us to gather around him.

"Alright, this is the deal. Seeing as it's right about dawn--" he glanced upward at the sky, "--we're going to take a break for the day. We should probably only travel at night, anyway, because we don't want to be seen. Let's just head off the side of this road, and into the forest."

I glanced around the dirt road we were walking on and for the first time saw where we were. There was basically nothing on either side, and all I could see for miles on either side was trees. Trees, everywhere.

"Where do you plan to stop and rest? All I see are trees."

He smiled brightly. "Why would that stop us? We'll take a nap under a willow!"

I rolled my eyes and wathed as he motioned for the rest of them to follow him into the shade of the trees. Annabelle snapped at Princeton to be quiet as we walked into the grove of trees, but Klaus turned to look at her strangely.

"There is no one around for miles. Why should he have to be quiet?"

Annabelle gasped at Klaus, taken aback. She furrowed her brow and headed forward, ahead of Klaus and Princeton, to talk to Kimberly.

Once we had gotten to a spot deep enough in the woods that Orlando was convinced we wouldn't be caught, he told us all to lie down for a nap while he stood guard.

He nestled down into a huge root of an oak tree and held his wand out at the ready, urging the rest of us to try to get some rest.

I laid down on my back, staring up at the blue sky. Or what I could see of it, anyway; the treetops blocked most of my view.

I was thinking about how my life could have gotten this way, so quickly. Just a few short months ago I had been preparing for my birthday, when all of a sudden everything went to hell so quickly. The death of the adult members of the New Order, the death of Farley, and then Greg, the arrival of Orlando, the necklace, the fleeing and the running from random Death Eaters... none of it made sense.

I fell into a restless sleep, tossing and turning the entire time everyone else was seemingly sleeping peacefully. I had wild nightmares, visions of my parents, and of Greg and Farley. I woke up shaking several times, the terrifying pictures haunting me from attempting to sleep again.

I awoke for the very last time, shaking violently, almost screaming as images of Farley's death played over and over in my mind. I looked around at everyone's calm expressions as they slept, completely oblivious to the fact that I was horrified out of my mind.

"Kerry?" I heard Orlando's voice behind me, a hand landing on my left shoulder. I casually brushed it off and turned to face him.

"Oh. You're awake."

"I couldn't fall asleep." I shifted my eyes away from him, instead finding a particularly attractive root to look at. "Do you want to get some sleep? I figure that I'll stay awake and watch, if you want to get some rest."

His eyes lit up and I noticed for the first time that he looked pale and rather sickly. "That would be great. Thanks, Kerry." He grabbed my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. I made a face and again pulled out of his grasp. I pretended not to notice his disappointed expression.

I watched as he settled down on the ground close to Maverick, wrapping his arms around himself and closing his eyes. His breathing slowed and within a minute he was asleep.

I whirled around so I didn't have to face the rest of them, peering off through the forest at the slowly setting sun. As soon as the sun went down I realized we could start off, traveling toward the Ministry of Magic. The sooner we got there, the better.

The rest of them slept peacefully until the sun had fallen down behind the treetops and it was once again pitch black. Nobody had stirred in the slightest, and at one time I grew so frightened of being alone, my mind racing, thinking that maybe they had all been killed while my back was turned, that I made a racket and woke Maverick and Klaus up. They simply snapped at me for being so foolish and quickly fell back asleep.

By 10 o'clock I figured they had had enough time to rest, and took it upon myself to wake them all up. A few of them grumbled upon being woken, but I scolded them for arguing. I reminded them we still had many miles to go before we got to London, that once we lost ourselves in the crowded streets we'd be safe, and not until then.

Once we started moving we were fine, hidden in the dark forest we came across nothing but a few wild animals, nothing we couldn't handle. Our energy and rigor had returned, for the most part, and we proceeded on at a fast pace, hoping to make it to London before morning.

I managed to avoid all conversation with everyone else for the rest of the trip, ignoring and shrugging of all attempts of the others to engage me in some sort of social activity. I just wanted to be alone and think, and I was afraid I might have been rude to them, but I was trying to stave off everyone else.

I had been thinking over everything for quite some time, walking along slowly at the back of the group, not noticing how far we went, but concentrating hard on making my body move forward one step at a time. I didn't even notice Kimberly had stopped walking until I ran into her.

I looked up and glared at her back. "Why did you stop?"

She pointed forward, spellbinded by what she saw.

I peered through the darkness of the forest, trying to see anything between the thousands of trees on all sides of us.

"What is it?" I asked, squinting forward. But before she could respond, I saw what she was pointing to. Up ahead, over on the other side of a mountain was a bunch of lights. Millions of lights. The lights of--

"London."