Dark Come Soon

Ramona skipped down the hallway to meet the students of her year. Eleven years old, finally! She was going to attend classes, and she was going to make friends, more friends. She already knew a few of them. Her friend Ron Weasley was going to start. She knew him since she was six years old. She also knew all of his family. She rushed to the stairs. She walked up to them and right up front was her redheaded friend, Ron. He grinned at her direction, and she stood next to him.

“Hey, mate, glad to finally be here?” she giggled, and then drifted her gaze to the boy next to him. “I’m Ramona, you are?” she asked.

“Harry,” he said quietly and then he shook her head.

“Nice to meet you, Harry.”

“She’s Dumbledore’s granddaughter,” Ron told Harry.

“Great-granddaughter,” she corrected him, “but to say all of that is too much. What house do you want to be in, Harry? We all know Ron is going with the rest of his family.”

Ron’s face turned red. “I could go into Ravenclaw.”

“Ha, fat chance, mate,” she laughed. “I’m definitely going into Gryffindor. My granddad was a Gryffindor. My mum was too.”

Harry smiled at her. Ramona was more than stoked to finally be sorted. She’s witnessed so many sortings over her years in Hogwarts, her home. She waited so long and now the time has finally arrived.

“Are you still practicing that muggle instrument?” Ron asked.

“You mean the guitar?” she chuckled. “I am. I just finished learning a song. I’m quite good. I think I’ll be an expert by the time Christmas comes around.”

“You are a weird witch,” Ron chuckled.

“Do love to stand out,” she ruffled his head, and he smacked her hand away. She laughed and Harry did too. Ron’s face was the shade of red. She stopped when she heard someone clear their throat behind her. She turned around and saw Professor McGonagall, though she called her Aunt Minerva but not in public.

“Get in with the others,” she told Ramona.

“All right, Aunt—I mean Professor,” she giggled and then stood next to Harry. Professor McGonagall began to explain what was going to happen. Ramona was too excited and she was shaking a bit. She was nervous. She dreamt of this day for so long. Her heart leapt when they started to move into the Grand Hall.

She heard the gasps about the Grand Hall. A girl with big curly hair explained to someone else how the ceiling worked. Ramona smiled. She knew since she was five years old. She looked ahead to the table with the professors and the headmaster, her grandfather. He smiled at her, and she waved eagerly at him.

The sorting hat was on a stool and Professor McGonagall got out the parchment that had the list of names. Ramona held on to Harry’s hand. He seemed caught off guard by it, but she just held it. She turned to the side and she caught the eye of a boy her age with silver blonde hair. His gray eyes looked at her. She narrowed them because she didn’t like the way he looked at her.

“Ramona Dumbledore,” the room went quiet and Ramona’s heart dropped. Several had gone already before her. She looked at her grandfather, and she noticed something in his eyes. Maybe a bit of sadness. She walked up to Minerva, and she grinned. She sat on the stool and got herself comfortable. Her heart beat like a drum. All eyes were on her. Like Harry Potter, who she knew she had been holding hands with, she was famous. She was the granddaughter of the most powerful wizard at the moment. She was going to be a Gryffindor. There was no doubt in her mind that was where she belonged.

The hat was placed on her head, and it came alive.

“Ah! How long I’ve waited for you, Ramona Dumbledore. Hmm,” the hat mused. He sensed a great deal of bravery inside of her, but there was also a side that craved power. A sense to prove herself. It overdrove everything else in her life. She wanted to make sure she was her own person. “Where to put you, sweetie?”

She giggled. “Where else? Gryffindor, of course.” She whispered a little worried that the sorting hat was taking so long.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk that is not where you truly belong though. You have the blood of something else. Ah, ha, SLYTHERIN!”

Ramona felt like she was in a bad dream. No, the sorting hat had to be wrong, absolutely wrong. No one clapped at first. They were all shocked as she was, but she was just frozen. Her mind couldn’t process what just happened. The hat was taken away, but she didn’t move. The Slytherin was the furthest to the left. She didn’t belong there.

“Now, Mona,” Professor McGonagall said kindly, “go on. We have other students to sort.”

Ramona got off the stool. Her hands clenched into tights fists. She didn’t dare look at Ron or anyone else. She always praised how she was going to be in Gryffindor. She somehow got to the Slytherin table. She sat down on the far corner at the end. Some of them whispered to each other and snickered.

The great granddaughter of Albus Dumbledore was sorted into Slytherin; the rivalry house of Gryffindor. Slytherin was known for having produced many Death Eaters and where Voldemort had been at. This was all wrong. She had to be sorted again. It just couldn’t be right.

Why did the hat say it was in her blood? It clearly wasn’t. Her mum had been a Gryffindor and her dad a Ravenclaw. There was no way she had Slytherin in her blood. A few minutes later, a boy sat next to her. She finally recognized him. Draco Malfoy. She couldn’t remember who he was earlier. He had a smirk on his lips and she wanted to slap it off. She was so pissed off.

Her eyes watered in anger, and she turned away. She met her grandfather’s eyes, and he held the same sadness she saw earlier. Did he know this would happen? No, he would have told her. He didn’t keep secrets from her. Harry Potter was sorted into Gryffindor and the whole table went uproar.

She smiled at him and waved. He waved back.

Ramona was pulled back from her memory of being sorted. She was sitting in the common room of Slytherin. There were some other students around. She had her guitar with her. Something she didn’t do often, not much. She didn’t like the looks people gave her, but she didn’t care at the moment. Having her future read had been a mistake. She was told she was falling in love or close to it. Her mind went straight to Draco.

She strummed the guitar randomly. Her head was back at what she heard Snape and her grandfather discuss. She didn’t know what was going on anymore. There was no denying it anymore. Her grandfather was dying. Her last family member was going to die.

She got up from the couch. She needed to confront him. She had to see the truth be told from him.

She stopped at the Gargoyle. Did she want to know the truth? She already knew it. He was going to die. His hand was black, and that had to be the reason why he and Snape were spending so much time together. She said the password to the Gargoyle, and then the staircase appeared. She went inside of the office, and found it empty. Perfect, she could sneak around and try to find clues as to whatever he was up to as well. He was leaving Hogwarts more and more often. Last year, he didn’t do it as much, but now he would be gone for days. She was constantly asked by students where he was, and she didn’t have an answer for them.

She spotted Fawkes. She smiled at the large bird. He tilted his head the side and followed her every move. She sat on her grandfather’s large chair. She had memories of running around this office as a very small child, and then sitting on his lap while he read her a story or told her what he was doing. Her eyes watered. She didn’t want him to be gone. Sure, she had the Weasley family, but it wasn’t the same. He was her flesh and blood, and the only one she had left.

Fawkes called her. She went over to him, and then she told him to be quiet softly. She searched through the desk. She didn’t find anything useful. Some of the drawers were open, but she didn’t find anything in there either. But at the last drawer, she did find a bottle. She took it out and opened it. She smelled it, and then gagged at the smell of it. It was a potion. She didn’t know what it was for, but she was sure it was a potion. She placed it back.

Ramona leaned back on the chair and she started to cry. Everything was turning to shit. Voldemort was back, and the only one who could defeat him was Harry. No one else. She felt so useless, and her dream of starting a band was starting to sound insane. She wiped away the tears that fell. She hated how things were right now. She hated that she knew she was going to lose her grandfather.

Fawkes flew over to her. She petted him for a while, and then her grandfather apparated in the office. He was alone, and he wobbled just a bit. She noticed it right away. He turned around and was surprised to see her there. He gave her a soft smile, and his half-moon glasses were gone. He took them out of his pocket and placed them on.

“Mona, are you all right? You’ve been crying,” he said gently and walked towards her. Fawkes flew towards him. Ramona stood up from the chair. Her eyes drifted down to his hand which he tried to hide with his robe.

“Are you dying?” she croaked. Her voice was almost gone. She brushed her dark hair behind her ears. “I think you are. It’s why your hand is black. Where are you going all these days? Why aren’t you honest with me? I want to know what is going on. I can take it. I can handle whatever is happening, just tell me.” She was sobbing by the end of it.

He embraced her tightly. “I didn’t want you to worry, but it seems I have failed. Yes… I’m dying.”

She sobbed harder, and held on tighter to him. “I fucking knew it. Why? How? What did you do?”

“I was too… proud. I put something on I shouldn’t have. It’s turned my hand black and by the end of the year, it’ll kill me.”

“Please don’t go,” she wailed. “You can’t leave me.”

“Professor Snape is doing anything in his power to stop it or delay the process, Mona. I have faith in him.”

“He’s a death eater! He can’t be trusted!” she hissed.

“Yes, he can,” he insisted. “When I’m gone, I want you to trust him, Mona. Believe me when I tell you that.”

She shook her head. “No, no, no.”

“Ramona,” he said more sternly. She pulled away from her and he tilted her chin up with his fingers. “Trust me when I say to trust Professor Snape. He will keep you safe, and that is all I want.”

“Ugh, you were there when the dark times happened. Why do you trust him so much?!”

“I just do, and you know my trust does not come easily. Be patient, Mona. He will help me defeat this curse.”

They both knew that was a lie. She could see it in his eyes, but she had nothing else to hold on to. He made her promise not to tell a soul, not even Alexandra. She was barely aware of his words, but she understood. She used the sleeve of her jacket to remove the snot.

She didn’t want to go back to the common room. Dumbledore could sense that. He knew her so well. He offered her a hot cup of tea. She accepted it. They sat down in his little area for tea. She got control back of her emotion. He asked her how she was doing in school. He acted as though it was just another tea time.

Ramona thought back to what Alexandra read in her tea. She frowned a bit at the thought. Danger was obvious because of Voldemort’s return. She wondered what kind of danger. Would she be directly in it? She was friends with Harry, of course that meant danger.