Begin to Hope

I first realized something was amiss when I awoke in the middle of the night, shivering uncontrollably. The night before, I had found a gentle room with a table and a moth-eaten blanket. Klaus had come around to the rooms we were all staying in and found a way to start a small controllable fire so we would all have a little warmth. I managed to snuggle up next to my pit of fire with my blanket and rest cozily for a while.

But when I awoke, my fire had gone out. Which was strange, as Klaus said he'd bewitched them to keep lit until he himself turned them off again.

I wrapped my arms around myself and shuddered. Looking towards the doorway, I saw a shimmer of light out in the hallway. Making sure I had my wand, I slowly got up and came to the door, hesitating a second before placing my hand lightly on the doorknob and opening it without a sound.

I glanced both ways down the hall, not seeing anyone on either sides. The light, I noticed, was coming from down the left side of the hall. I closed my door behind me and wandered off toward it, wondering where it was coming from.

By the time I came to the end of the hall, I saw the light get brighter, veering off to the right, coming from the door that lead to the library.

Could Orlando still be in there, reading that damned book? I wondered. I stepped to it carefully, and then opened the door, peeking my head in the room.

There was no one inside. The glowing light was coming from a lantern burning softly on top of one of the unbroken table tops. I approached it carefully, looking around for someone hiding in the shadows. There appeared to be no one else around. As I got closer to the table, I realized there was a handwritten note laying beside the lantern. My heart started to beat faster as I picked up the badly-scrawled letter and read:

Hello, kiddies! Now that I have the necklace and the book on it, I guess I should be getting back to the Dark Lord. He has missed me so much, you know, considering I am his most prized follower. Don't try to follow me; I'll just kill you. It sure sucks to be you, doesn't it?
-O.B.

It took only a minute for this information to sink in. Everything made sense now. Klaus had been right about him all along, and now--

"He has the fucking necklace!"

I slammed the letter down on the table and listened to my voice echo through the room before turning and running back toward the rooms we had slept in.

"Klaus!" I screamed, hurrying through the hallway. "FUCK! Klaus! Where the hell are you?" I opened door after door, not finding him anywhere. Some of the rooms were occupied by the others, and some of them were completely empty. "Klaus!"

"What?" He demanded, sounding extremely irritated. I turned and there he was at the end of the hallway, both hands on his hips in a gesture of pent up anger at my outburst.

"Thank God!" I threw myself into his arms and began to whimper that Orlando was getting away.

He pushed me off him and looked at me. "What are you talking about, Kerry? You aren't making sense."

"Orlando is a fucking Death Eater; you were right all along. He took the necklace and the book and he's going back to Voldemort." I said it all in one breath, trying hard to get it all out.

I watched as his face slowly turned pale and his eyes got trancelike, as if he wasn't seeing me any longer.

"What do we do?" I whispered, fear penetrating my voice.

Before he could answer, we heard a door slam shut on a floor above us and both our eyes flashed upward.

"Could he still be here?"

Klaus looked around suddenly, feeling his pocket for his wand. "Damn. Listen, you go the back way and see if you can sneak up on him. I'll go up the front elevator way and maybe we can still catch him. Hurry!"

We parted ways, and I ran back the way I had came. As I rounded the corner I saw Tally and Kimberly poking their heads out of their door, looking at me strangely.

"Kerry -- what are--?"

"No time to explain. Stay there!" I ran past them and leapt up the back stairs two a time, trying my best to keep quiet. I made it to the top of the second floor and flung open the door leading to the main lobbies. I peeked around in the darkness, trying to see any sort of movement. Seeing nothing, I headed back to the stairs and ran upwards to the next floor.

I thought that this had to be the floor Orlando escaped from. I quietly opened the door and slipped inside, immediately being engulfed in blackness.

I tried to peer through the thick darkness that seemed to choke me but I couldn't see a damned thing.

I didn't want to call out for Klaus in fear that Orlando would hear me and be able to escape, so I hesitantly took a small step forward, my arms outstretched so I wouldn't hit anything. I blinked several times and decided it wasn't even worth it for my eyes to be open; there was no light at all and I thought that I might as well have been blind.

I continued down the hall as fast as I could with no vision, hoping that I wouldn't run blindly into Orlando and have him seize him before I could scream. Orlando...

How could he have done this? How could I have believed him? How could I have been so stupid? How could I have been so caught up in the whirlwind of things that I couldn't have seen through him? And now it was all my fault, basically, that Voldemort now would have everything he needed to kill off everyone else and make the world a living hell.

I gritted my teeth and started to run blindly down the hall, having no idea where I was going. I finally ran through a swinging door and into bright white lights. I nearly tumbled to the ground but managed to regain my balance just in time to catch a glimpse of Orlando's wide eyed expression.

He was almost halfway out the elevator shaft, seemingly try to drop to the ground, which I estimated couldn't be shorter than a hundred foot drop. I noticed he had the necklace in one hand and the book in the other.

Time slowed down as I screamed, "Orlando! No!" and flew across the room, landing on top of him in just enough time to grab his arm. We both tumbled to the ground, clawing at each other for possession of the necklace.

"Give it to me!" He screamed, kicking and punching me as hard as he could.

"NO! Orlando -- you don't know what you're doing -- give it to me! You don't--" I didn't manage to get the last sentence out, as he then brutally kicked me in the face. I felt some teeth go loose and blood started spewing out of my mouth. He stopped for a second and gasped as he realized what he had done, and I took advantage of his hesitation by grabbing the book from his hand and scuttling away from him.

He stood up, came over to me, and tried to pull it out of my hands, ripping it cleanly down the middle from where I was holding it. He scowled at me and lifted a hand as if to slap me.

"Kerry!" Klaus yelled, appearing on the far side of the room. "Get away from her!" he screamed at Orlando, raising his wand and quickly hustling over, a dark clouded expression on his face.

Orlando sneered at him before bringing his own wand up. "Avada Kedav--!"

I weakly pulled out my own wand and raised it as best I could. "Expell-expelliarmus!"

Orlando was thrown back against the wall roughly, but he somehow managed to keep his wand in his hand. He stood up shakily, wiping sweat from his brow, and, with a limp, took off down the hall.

Klaus fell to his knees and crawled over to me, breathing hard and looking terrified. "Kerry, oh God, are you alright?" He tried to help me to a sitting position but I pushed him away.

"Yes!" I hissed, spitting out blood from the corner of my mouth. "Go get him!"

"But I don't want to leave you here--!"

"Go!"

Klaus nodded and rushed off in the direction Orlando had run off in. I wiped the corner of my bleeding mouth with the back of my hand and tried to stand up, leaning against the wall for support. I felt really dizzy, like the room was spinning beneath me. I took a few steps forward and looked down. The half of the book that I had ripped was laying at my feet. I bent down slowly and picked it up, carefully feeling the weathered book binding underneath my fingertips.

It appeared we had cleanly split the book in two, leaving me with the section entitled "how to destroy". How utterly perfect was that?

I flipped through it, catching a few of the section titles inside. "What to Know", "Hints and Tips", and "Treacherous Treason" caught my eye, but I figured now was not the time for some light reading. I gently placed the book in one of the pockets inside of my robes and staggered off in the direction Orlando had run off in.

Holding my wand out in front of me for light, I put an arm up against the wall, feeling rather clumsy as I went along.

I was also mentally beating myself up for not seeing through Orlando so much sooner. How could I have been so stupid? He was right there in front of me, the entire time -- all the clues were there. The time he left and we couldn't find him, his rubbing his arm all the time, his suspiciousness all the time and his eagerness to find out about the necklace.

"But why didn't he kill us?" I wondered out loud. What a good point. Why hadn't he killed us? He had the chance, oh, yes, he had plenty of chances. He could have killed us all right after we showed him the necklace. Then why hadn't he?

I was still thinking hard and I almost didn't notice Klaus until I ran into him. He had stopped in the middle of a large open air room, just standing there with his head in his hands.

"He got away, then?" I asked sullenly, throwing myself down on a large piece of plaster that had fallen from the ceiling.

Klaus simply nodded, turning away from me.

"I'm sorry."

He seemed to understand. "It's not your fault. How could you have known?"

"I should have known. There were so many signs--everything he did--we all fell into his trap."

"I should have known. You were--distracted--by his manly physique. You didn't know what you were doing. You were infatuated with him. You were... in love." He gritted his teeth at these last words.

"I wasn't. I was just so--so stupid! I wish--"

"Just shut up. Shut up! We've got to figure out a plan now. We don't have time for your regrets." His words stung me, and I couldn't think of a reply, so he cleared his throat and continued. "We should get out of here. Another move, I know, but--he'll tell Voldemort we're here, and then there'll be more trouble. Where we'll go, I don't know, but we should leave immediately, in case he can get his armies here quickly. Let's go." He finally turned to face me and grimaced at my appearance. My hand flew to my face and I felt the arrangement of bruises that were already forming because of Orlando's brutal beating.

"Your mouth is bleeding."

My tongue moved around my mouth and I felt a hole in the bottom right corner of my mouth where I was missing a tooth. "Shit."

"Let's get moving."

He exited the room, leaving me to stand there, feeling like an idiot. I had no choice but to follow him.

"Did you get to read the necklace book at all, even?" He asked me, his back turned to me as he marched along.

"Oh, yeah. I managed to get half the book. It ripped." I hurried to catch up with him and I showed him the book hidden inside my robes. He nodded his approval.

"I'll take a look at it later tonight and see if it can help us out any."

The rest of the walk back to where the others was completely silent. I couldn't tell if Klaus was thinking or just completely angry at me, and I didn't have the courage to ask which it was.

When we returned, Tally and Kimberly had woken the rest of them up and they were huddled in the middle of the hallway, whispering softly.

"Klaus, what happened? Kerry--oh my God, your mouth!"

"I know. I know!" I was now irritated. Why bring up my tiny injury at a moment like this?

"Listen, now, and listen close." Klaus gathered them closer and spoke fervently. "Apparently Orlando was a Death Eater all along, and now he's got the necklace and the book. We expect he'll be bringing back armies of people to kill us, so we have to get out of here as quick as possible. Does anyone have any suggestions on where we could go?"

The silence ensuing assured us that everyone was too stunned to think of any places to hide out. Klaus looked around sternly at everyone. He adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat.

"Any suggestions at all?"

"Gringotts?" Princeton asked feebly, not really sure if he should be talking. Maverick pushed him and muttered something cruel, which was enough to shut him up.

"Could we stay at Hogwarts?" Humphrey suggested, looking to Klaus for approval.

"No, Humphrey, this is big people time, don't share your ideas." Annabelle replied harshly.

"No--wait--that might work. Any objections to leaving for Hogwarts? No? Then let's go."

"Wait, now? Klaus, it's not even dawn; we barely had a full night's sleep!" Annabelle called, sounding pathetically whiny.

"That's your fault. Do you want Voldemort to kill you, or not?" Klaus looked around at us grimly. "Then let's go."

"Oh, please don't tell me that we're going to walk again! We've walked everywhere. Can we please take a different mode of transportation this time?" Tally complained.

"How would you like to travel then, O Wonderful Princess Tally? Should I just wave my wand and you'll arrive there?"

Kimberly scrummaged around in her pockets and pulled out a cloth bag full of a glittering powdery substance. "Floo Powder?" She asked.

Klaus studied it. "How did you get this? I thought the Floo Network stopped working a few years ago."

Maverick piped up. "No, it still works quite well." Klaus looked at him curiously. "Um, don't ask me how I know that."

"Alright. Fine. Someone find me a fireplace."

"There was one in my room!"

"--And we'll get going."

And so the remaining nine of us trooped into one of the unused rooms of the Ministry of the Magic and said goodbye to the dusty shattering walls. One by one we threw the dust into the fireplace, uttered "Hogwarts", and were instantly transported there. And boy, weren't we surprised to find what awaited us when we arrived there.