When I got home I found James and Remus at the kitchen table. Remus was a pale white, and he was looking around nervously; James was tapping his fingers in a repeated da-dum rhythm. They jumped at I slammed the front door.

“Oh my gosh, Lily, we were so worried,” Remus said, rushing to my side and hugging me. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah… well, all right as I can be,” I replied softly. “I went to see Dumbledore. I told him everything. He’s supposed to be taking care of it tonight and he’s going to come by tomorrow.”

“Will he tell us anything?”

“He’d better,” James said bitterly. “We’re members now. Voldemort has hit someone really close to me…”

I pushed my hair back from my face. “How’re you guys handling… it?”

“Not so well,” Remus replied. “He’s helped me in a way that no one else ever has… I didn’t even get to say thank you…”

“Trust me,” I smiled a little encouragingly. “He knew. He knew how much it meant to you… he loved you guys so much. When we were practicing, he’d refer to you as ‘his boys.’”

James’ eyes watered up a bit.

“Hey,” I whispered. “It’s all right. Mr. Orson wouldn’t want you to be sad. He’d already accepted it and-”

“What do you mean, ‘he’d already accepted it?’ Accepted what? He knew he was going to die?”

I stood up abruptly. Mr. Orson hadn’t told them. I didn’t know what to do; after following my instincts, I ran upstairs and buried my head into my pillow and began to cry.

It finally really hit me. I thought seeing his body would be enough proof; most would think touching his cold skin would show, but I hadn’t really accepted it.

I didn’t want to believe he was dead.

Suddenly, white-hot anger built up inside of me; how could he just leave us like this? Why didn’t he protect himself?

I punched my mattress hard, and I knew it wasn’t his fault.

He was dead, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I’d never felt so helpless in my life.