He got up and returned to the castle, wiping his face on his sleeve as he went. The sun had set before he realised he was cold.
He sat there for a long time, gazing out at the water, trying not to think about his godfather or to remember that it was directl't across from here, on the opposite bank, that Sirius had once collapsed trying to fend off a hundred Dementors…
It was sunny, and the grounds around him were full of laughing people, and even though he felt as distant from them as though he belonged to a different race, it was still very hard to believe as he sat here that his life must include, or end in, murder… It was just that he had never really understood what that meant…Īnd yet sitting here on the edge of the lake, with the terriblc weight of grief dragging at him, with the loss of Sirius so raw and fresh inside, he could not muster any great sense of fear. He was - he had always been - a marked man. An invisible barrier separated him from the rest of the world. Perhaps the reason he wanted to be alone was because he had felt isolated from everybody since his talk with Dumbledore. He walked a short way around the lake, sat down on its bank, sheltered from the gaze of passers-by behind a tangle of shrubs, and stared out over the gleaming water, thinking… The vision Voldemort had planted in his mind, he would have given almost anything for the wizarding world to know he had been telling the truth, for them to believe that Voldemort was back, and to know that he was neither a liar nor mad. He closed his eyes for a few moments, wishing they would all vanish, that he could open his eyes and find himself alone in the grounds…Ī few days ago, before his exams had finished and he had seenħ54 HARRY PO-1-1 ER THE SECOND WAR BEGINS 75: Once again, people called out to him as he passed. Harry crossed to the door as fast as he could and pulled it open he was out in the sunshine again before Hagrid had finished saying goodbye, and walking away across the lawn. `Oh… all righ' then, Harry… take care o' yerself then, an' drop back in if yeh've got a `I've got to go and visit Ron and Hermione in the hospital wing,' he said mechanically. He couldn've lived with himself if he hadn' gone ter help = `But still, Harry… he was never one ter sit aroun' at home an' let other people do the fightin'. `Nah, I don' reckon he did,' he said quietly. `He didn't want to go at all!' said Harry angrily. `Look…' Hagrid leaned towards him across the table, `I knew Sirius longer 'n yeh did… he died in battle, an' tha's the way he'd've wanted ter go =
`Ev'ryone knows yeh've bin tellin' the truth now, Harry,' said Hagrid softly and unexpectedly. He was starting to wish he was alone again, and with the idea of hastening his departure he took several large gulps of his dandelion juice, half-emptying his glass. Harry would normally have tried to persuade Hagrid out of this idea at once the prospect of a second giant taking up residence in the Forest, possibly even wilder and more brutal than Grawp, was positively alarming, but somehow Harry could not muster the energy necessary to argue the point. He's a good lad, really… I've bin thinkin' abou' tryin' ter find him a lady friend, actually…' Seemed right pleased ter see me when I got back, ter tell yeh the Well, Grawpy's loads better behaved now, loads. `Wha'?' said Hagrid, raising a massive hand and feeling his face. `You -you look better,' said Harry, who was determined to keep the conversation moving away from Sirius. Hagrid broke off, cleared his throat gruffly, looked at Harry, and took a long draught of juice. `Up in a ca`°e, like Sirius did when he = 'Bin hidin' out in the mountains,' said Hagrid. `I'm fine,' Harry said quickly, because he could not bear to discuss the thing that he knew was in Hagrid's mind. Harry knew from the look of concern on Hagrid's face that he was not referring to Harry's physical well-being. `How's things?' Hagrid asked him, as they settled down at his wooden table with a glass apiece of iced juice. `Come in, come in, we'll have a cup o' dandelion juice… `All righ', Harry!' he said, beaming, when Harry approached the fence. Hagrid, it transpired, was picking runner beans in his back garden. He thought at first when he knocked on Hagrid's cabin door that he was out, but then Fang came charging around the corner and almost bowled him over with the enthusiasm of his welcome.