Chapter 4
“I know where Malfoy is,” Harry finally blurted out, sitting across from Ron and Hermione in the common room. It was late at night on a friday and, other than a few Hufflepuffs across the other side of the room, it was completely empty. The rest had gone out to Hogsmeade for drinks.
Ron blinked and Hermione tilted her head. “Oh?” She prompted cautiously, thumbing the page marker in her book.
“Azkaban?” Ron asked grimly, his grip around Hermione’s waist tightening.
Harry shook his head. “No, he’s… He’s at the school. I actually… I need you guys’ help.”
Ron looked pained and Hermione sighed softly. “Harry, I’m sure whatever he’s doing, he’s well within his rights. He would risk anything to get sent to Azkaban- the first few months really messed him up. You saw him at his trials.”
“Hermione, you don’t understand,” Harry urged, “I really do need your help-”
“Harry, I told you I wanted to study this year,” Hermione spoke firmly, but not unkindly. “I want nothing to do with Malfoy or whatever you think he’s up to this year, I just want-”
“He’s dead,” Harry blurted out. Hermione immediately stopped talking and Ron paled. Harry took their silence as his opportunity to talk. “Well, kind of, not really. We don’t know. But he’s a ghost, but a weird one, and he can’t really go far from where he’s supposed to be and he says his body is still alive and… Yeah. I don’t understand it and he can’t do research on his own because… You know… Obviously. Ghost.”
“He’s dead? Here? Does McGonagall know?” Hermione asked, eyes wide and looking a bit shaken.
“Err. I don’t know, actually. I told him I’d get you down to talk to him this weekend. I know you wanted to study, I’m sorry, but he’s… I think he’s on a timer and he might actually die soon.”
“And how do you know he’s not actually dead and just in denial? You know ninety-”
“Ninety-three percent of ghosts, I know, but Mione, he’s different. I can’t really explain it, you’ll have to come see.”
“Harry,” Ron spoke up for the first time, sounding cautious, “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? I know you’ve been a bit weird the last few weeks, but-”
“I can prove it to you guys this time,” Harry huffed out, standing. “Follow me if you want proof. I’ll check the castle on the map and if he’s not there then we’ll go out to the lake.”
Hermione shot a mournful glance at her book before sighing. “It’s rather cold. I’ll get bundled up.”
“But- But- Mione-” Ron tried to protest but quickly gave in under both Harry and Hermione’s stares. “Fine. I will too.”
“Thanks, guys. Really.”
Hermione looked a bit pained but nodded, patting Harry on the head, and Ron grimaced. “Right. We’ll be back, mate.”
After checking the map to make sure Malfoy wasn’t anywhere in the castle, he stashed it under his pillow and joined Ron and Hermione at the bottom of the tower, leading them out towards the front doors and then the lake.
It took a minute to find him, but he was laying in the grass not far from the lake, arms crossed behind his head and staring up at the stars.
“Malfoy!” Harry called, watching as Malfoy lazily looked over and frowned, sitting up.
“I do believe I allowed you to elect for Granger’s help, not the Weasley’s.”
Ron and Hermione, however, seemed too shocked to be offended. Ron even stuck his hand through Malfoy’s shoulder, to which the blond recoiled with a sneer, brushing off his arm with a shudder. “Take me out to dinner first, would you?”
“You’re… Really here? Really a ghost?” Ron stammered out, looking around as if looking for strings or someone hiding in the bushes.
“No, I’m a carefully placed charm to make Potter go mad. Yes, I’m a ghost, you bumbling idiot!”
“Prove it. Float.”
Malfoy rolled his eyes and made a show of levitating a few feet off the ground before dropping back down. Ron looked faint.
“How did this happen, Malfoy?” Hermione asked, brows furrowed. “Harry told us you think you’re still alive?”
“I am still alive. In part, at least. I don’t remember how I died. I just…” Malfoy glanced at Harry. “I was just standing, not doing anything and then I blacked out. When I woke up I was looking at my body and the… Second me, this body, was transparent. But my heart is still beating- I can feel it beating, and I’ve not shown any signs of…” Malfoy hesitated, looking a bit paler than usual. “Decay. And it’s been a while.”
“How long?” Hermione asked, straight to business as usual. “And where’s your body? Magic or the cold could be preserving you, and it could be a placebo that’s causing you to… You know. Feel your heart beat. Sorry, I just… No one dies and stays alive. No one except, well, you know. Voldemort and Harry. It would help if we could look at your body-”
“Mione, he’s not like a normal ghost,” Harry insisted, cutting her off. “Ghosts don’t have normal reflections, right? He does. He’s not grayscale in the water. And his voice isn’t normal, nor the way his ghost body acts. If he goes too far from the lake, his voice disappears, and then his visibility. The further from the lake he is, the less of himself he is.”
Hermione frowned but shook her head. “Ghosts have a range of operability, Harry. You know this- that’s why Hogwarts ghosts can’t leave Hogwarts. You think they just hit a magical, invisible wall? No, they just fade out of existence and stop being. The horror of simply no longer existing stops them from leaving, not an actual boundary. He could just be pushing his boundaries without fading- and I’m sure the transparency is something that can be explained. I’m sorry, Malfoy, I’m just not seeing a way you could be alive and be a ghost. If I could see your body-”
“No! You might kill me!” Malfoy hissed, looking panicked.
“Where is it, Malfoy?” Hermione asked impatiently. “The only way I’m going to believe you is if I can see your body and prove it’s alive. I’m sorry, but it just sounds like more death denial. I’m not going to waste my time investigating something if it’s nothing.”
Malfoy crossed his arms over his chest. “I knew she wouldn’t believe me, Potter. It doesn’t matter.”
“I’ll go look at it,” Harry finally said, his voice coming out a lot bolder than he felt. “Hermione, you know those warming charms? Malfoy, are you sure you know where it is? I won’t have long to find it and get back to the surface, both.”
“You’re in the lake?” Hermione asked, brows furrowing.
Malfoy looked stunned. “You can’t possibly go looking for it now. It’s freezing. Plus, It’s not far, but certainly further than you can hold your breath for since you need to get there, check for a pulse, and swim back.”
“Then I’ll get gillyweed,” Harry started firmly. “Like I did for the tournament.”
“Harry,” Ron groaned softly, “Is it really… I mean… What if he is dead but the death denial stops him from being able to see it? Can you…” He glanced away nervously, biting his lip. “Can you handle that right now?”
“I’m fine, Ron,” Harry grumbled, feeling both angry and touched. Angry because his friends didn’t think he could take care of himself, but somewhat touched they still considered his feelings in everything. “I’m… I’m gonna go get the cloak and sneak some Gillyweed from Slughorn’s supply. I’ll be right back.”
—
The water was cold. Colder than he’d expected- but he was already up to his knees, a bundle of gillyweed in his palm and an emergency bit of extra with Ron and Hermione.
“Harry, please,” Hermione urged, glancing nervously between Malfoy, who was standing next to Harry, and Harry himself. “Be careful. I’m going to cast the warming charm, but you might be out of reach, and it’ll only last a few minutes.”
“I’m sure I’ll be back by then,” Harry assured, stuffing the gillyweed into his mouth and grimacing at the taste- Salty, slimy and very, very hard to swallow.
No more pleasant than he remembered.
Then he waited. Waited until he felt like he was suffocating, a bubble of something preventing air from entering his lungs, and dove into the water.
Malfoy didn’t have to swim- he merely walked on the bottom of the lake, looking nervous. “Don’t bring it- me- to the surface. I worry something in the water is keeping me alive, and if you remove me, I’ll die.”
Harry had to strain to hear his voice but nodded. The warming charm didn’t keep the biting cold out from the surface of his skin, but it did prevent him from going numb, which was very important at the moment. The water was dark, but the soft glow of Malfoy’s ethereal ghost form lead him along the bottom of the lake, through weeds and algae. He couldn’t see anything beyond Malfoy. He could hardly tell which direction was what, and he vaguely realized how dangerous this was. His sworn enemy promising to lead him somewhere that Harry couldn’t breathe in, couldn’t talk, and likely never be found, unable to find his way to the surface. He shuddered, a section of bubbles pooling from his mouth. Malfoy glanced back but otherwise didn’t say another word, simply leading him forward.
Forward, and forward, and then a bit to the left- and then they both stopped at a large pile of sand and slimy, off-green, mostly brown weeds. Malfoy moved forward and gestured. “Dig.”
Hesitant, Harry followed the instructions, carefully digging his fingertips into the slimy green and pulling back. It only took a few moments for Harry to press into something solid, and cold.
He flinched, pulling back some more green from the area.
A jumper.
Fuck.
Harry dug more frantically now, pushing the muck and plants- which Harry realized were growing off of Malfoy’s clothes and body- off him. He didn’t dare touch Malfoy’s skin- he felt faint just being near the body. He wasn’t moving at all, and the amount of growth around him… Maybe Hermione was right. Maybe he was dead. Maybe both Malfoy and Harry were delusional and he'd been dead for months. Maybe his eyes would be glazed over and sunken and his skin would fall apart when Harry touched him, spilling bloated entrails-
Harry forced himself to stop thinking before he somehow managed to throw up underwater.
The frantic digging around Malfoy’s shoulders and jumper had rid some of Malfoy’s face of sediment. He couldn’t touch Malfoy- he couldn’t bring himself too, not yet, and so he fumbled for his wand. Eternally grateful for being pretty efficient with wordless magic, he cast a few expulsion spells that in a few short moments rid Malfoy of all debris from the waist up, only faintly dirtied with pollutants that rested on the hollows of his face. Malfoy’s throat all the way up to his face was pale skin, far too pale, lined with red scratch marks, like Malfoy had tried to claw the water out of his throat.
It made Harry feel sick.
Sick, like how Malfoy looked- but Harry was just glad he didn’t look dead. His eyes weren’t open, but they weren’t sunken like the dead. His lips were ever so lightly pressed together in a frown, like he was somewhat discontented, and tinged with blue and purple from the lack of oxygen.
“My pulse, Potter,” ghost Malfoy insisted urgently, and Harry jumped, forgetting that he was there. Malfoy’s hair, floating around his head and once white-blond, now looked somewhat green. Harry wasn’t sure if it was just the color of the water or just algae literally growing off of Malfoy.
He still had plants clinging to his hands, seemingly growing from between pale fingers, fragile root systems webbed across pale skin.
He was going to run out of time soon, if he didn’t hurry up.
Frantically, he found his arm, pressing his fingers into his wrist and simultaneously his throat.
A shot of electric pain shot up both his arms and he jerked away, eyes wide as he let out a muffled shout that released a cloud of bubbles in front of his face.
“Potter? What? What’s wrong?”
Harry swallowed thickly, his arms still thrumming with panicked energy. His nerves felt fried, and the pain, so familiar and yet somehow unplaceable, still echoed around his head.
Shaking his head, he tried again- but this time, he didn’t let go. The pain was excruciating- his entire body seized, and his hands tightened around Malfoy’s throat and wrist, but he didn’t let go. He needed a pulse, and then he could figure out why Malfoy, despite being so cold, hurt like a hot iron, searing against his flesh.
He felt faint. The edges of his vision started to close in- and just at the last second, he felt it. He heard it- the slow, deep but faint echo of a beating heart. He could feel it under his fingertips, under every nerve and inch of flesh under his palms, hear it pounding in his head.
Fucking hell. It was there. There was a pulse. Faint, barely there, but there.
Something was missing. Something was incomplete.
Malfoy wasn’t breathing- his lungs weren’t moving, and even the blood flowing through his veins was sluggish.
No, Malfoy wasn’t dead, but he was certainly on the verge of death, or at least dying.
“Potter! Potter!”
It was too late to let go now, despite Malfoy's panic and his own pain that had left him in a paralyzed, tense state of shock. His body was frozen around Malfoy’s, finger tips curling into the pale, bluish skin covering Malfoy’s body in a way that must have looked deceitful. The pain was overbearing now- and then the edges of his vision closed in further. He could only see pale-green hair and a sunken face before he felt himself go limp.
—
June, 1998
The breeze across the fields relieved Harry of some of the sweat beading on his brow. It was midsummer, and the heat was indescribable in the Scottish Highlands. Maybe not so much hot, but certainly humid, which was worse, if you asked him.
He walked up through the gates, looking around. The path that led up to Hogwarts, the gravel underfoot. Hagrid’s cabin, the fields growing various fresh fruits and vegetables. The lake, the docks, the large bridged podium stretching atop the lake for a short ways. The high mountains, the cliffs. The smell of grass; water; the tingling of magic. It had always been his home.
Now, large bits of crumbled stone lay along the castle walls. The metal gates were bent at jagged angles, making some of the gaps look like mouths lined with vicious teeth. But it was better. Far better than it’d been when they’d left those months ago. The doors were now back on their hinges. Windows were repaired; blood scrubbed away from the stone walkways. The smell of black magic lingered, but not nearly as potent.
Harry continued walking up the path. Someone was standing at the edge of the dock. It didn’t take long for Harry to realize who it was- only two people had such bright, vibrant hair, and only one of them was a male.
Harry wasn't sure if he thought Draco Malfoy's trial judgement from two months prior was fair. Sometimes he thought they were a bit lenient on him, and then he'd remember how Malfoy had saved his life at the manor, how he'd said 'I can't' as he spoke to Dumbledore- how to cried into the sink last year, and then bled out on the tiled floor.
Then, just as he'd think they were too harsh on him, he remembered his sneering face- calling Hermione a mudblood, Katie Bell's comatose body, him stomping on Harry's nose and leaving him petrified on the train- the Death Eaters, pouring into the school and torturing innocent students.
Malfoy's sentence had multiple parts. He had to both work on the repairs of Hogwarts during the summer and during his free weekends during the school year, where he was required to pass all of his classes with an Acceptable or higher. During all this, his wand would be heavily supervised, and a single spell that could be determined hostile would land Draco in front of the judge again. If his reason for casting the spell wasn't enough, it was an immediate one year sentence in Azkaban.
Hermione said it was a bit harsh while Ron said he'd earned it, which left him no further in his internal moral dilemma.
Without really realizing what he was doing, he took several steps towards the lake, until he was standing on the ground where the grass met the knobbly wood. Malfoy sat on the very end of the dock, looking down into the water. His shoes and socks sat next to him, though he still wore his robes. Harry couldn’t help but think that it was far too hot for that.
He cleared his throat. Malfoy half-turned, looking only somewhat surprised to see Harry there. “Need something?”
Harry took a few steps forward before stopping again with a shrug. “I… I suppose not.”
Malfoy turned, then, without another word, back towards the lake. Harry continued forward, standing to the left of Malfoy, careful not to kick or step on the Slytherin’s socks and shoes. Malfoy’s trousers were rolled up to his knees, ankle-deep in the dark water. Only the slightest glinting of blurry white, reflecting through the surface of the water, showed that his feet were in there at all.
“What are you doing here?” Malfoy asked finally, leaning back onto his hands and revealing a flash of a brown jumper, kicking one foot outward and sending drops of water across the surface in front of him, dozens of ripples suddenly erupting at the disruption.
“McGonagall asked me to. Check up on the castle’s reparations.”
“It’s going well. Hogwarts wants to stay alive. Basically sucking itself back together, once you get the proper pieces of magic and stone near it. I suspect it’ll be back to normal well before the time you lot get back for your eighth year.”
“That’s… That’s good to hear,” Harry admitted. Malfoy nodded, and Harry added, “Aren’t you supposed to be coming back for your eighth year, too? I'll see you then, right?”
Malfoy stared down at the water, his expression far away. “Supposed to, yes.”
“So you are, right?”
Malfoy sighed. “I don’t suppose I have many other choices, unless I fancy going back to Azkaban.”
Harry nodded, checking the watch Ron and Hermione had given him over the summer. It was almost ten.
He shifted backwards somewhat. The surface of the lake was smooth again, Malfoy’s feet unmoving under the surface. “I’ve got to…”
Malfoy nodded, and Harry felt stupid for ever walking up and starting the conversation. Malfoy clearly had no interest in talking with him.
“Potter?”
Harry startled, looking down at Malfoy. “Yeah?”
“Goodbye.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll be back to work by the time McGonagall is finished with the tour,” Malfoy explained. “So goodbye.”
“Oh. Right. Uh, goodbye, Malfoy.”
Malfoy waved him off, never looking up, and Harry walked uneasily all the way up to the castle. McGonagall was waiting for him by the front doors, looking bright and eager to show him around- at all the repairs that had been made, and Harry was so excited with her he’d actually forgotten all about Malfoy, until he slipped out the front doors again and his gaze automatically slipped towards the lake.
He walked down towards it, but a searing pain in his temples stopped him in his tracks. He gasped, feeling like something was forcefully cramming itself in between his eyes, and promptly panicked, taking deep gasping breaths as he brought his hand up to his scar- but his scar didn’t hurt. He blinked, rubbing at it, but still nothing. It felt just like everything else, and as soon as it had started, the feeling was gone.
He took one final deep breath, looking around. No students, no dangerous looking plants…
Harry exhaled heavily. He must have just panicked upon leaving the school, thinking about the horrible things and now being forced to depart his home for several months more.
He checked the time on his watch. 11:04.
He glanced towards the dock. Malfoy had left his outer robe and shoes on the dock, but the boy himself was nowhere to be seen. Harry forced his gaze away, shuddering as his head throbbed dully, but not painfully, and made his way towards the gate. He didn’t have time to worry about Malfoy. He needed a long, long nap.
—
October, 1998
Harry’s eyes jolted open. He was on his back, Ron and Hermione arguing above him and Malfoy looking absolutely terrified.
“-how you expect him to be able to hurt Harry! He can’t even touch anything!”
“Well maybe his body was covered in poison! I don’t know!”
Harry sat up, bringing their attention back to him. Every inch of his body ached in way he’d never felt before.
“Harry!” Hermione cried, crushing him in a hug. “Oh, Merlin, we were so worried!”
“What happened?” Harry groaned, wincing as she squeezed his sore muscles and aching bones.
“Oh, what do you remember?” Hermione asked, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.
“I remember… I remember grabbing Malfoy, to feel for a pulse,” Harry spoke slowly, wincing as a wave of pain throbbed through his head. “His body. We found it. And it just… It hurt. So bad. But I had to get a pulse, so I didn’t let go, and then I blacked out and… I don’t know. I dreamt about the last time I saw Malfoy. It was like watching a pensieve of myself.” Hermione frowned deeply.
“Malfoy came up in a panic saying the same thing,” Ron spoke this time, throwing an arm around Harry. The act was casual, but he was pale, and his hands were shaking, his grip on Harry a little bit too tight. “He said it looked like you were trying to kill him and then you passed out. It’s a good thing you got that extra gilly weed. I had to dive in after you, mate- you know how easy it is to swim with an entire Harry worth of dead-weight? Not easy, mate, not easy.”
Harry winced. “I’m so sorry, Ron. Thank you, for getting me. And thanks, Malfoy, for telling them.”
Malfoy just nodded, his gaze somewhat vacant as he stared in the vague location of where his body was half-buried under the sediment of the lake, plants growing off his hands and hair.
“Are you okay?” Hermione pestered, poking his shoulder and frowning when he winced. “Should we get you to Madam Pomfrey? I’d hate for you to be coming down with something or cursed. If someone killed Malfoy, they could have placed a nasty jinx on the body for whoever found it to try to encourage them to leave him to rot. We don’t know what it could do, or already has done.”
Harry sat up fully, shaking his head, suddenly remembering the monumental discovery he’d made. “Mione, he’s not dead. I felt his pulse. And he’s not… He’s not decomposing or anything. Just looks a bit. . . sick.”
“What?” “Huh?” “Really?” Hermione, Ron and Malfoy all exclaimed at once, making Harry wince. Ron and Hermione immediately whispered apologies.
“Yeah, I could feel it- and after a second, I could hear it, like it was amplified. Something weird is going on, Mione, I don’t understand what it is, but it’s weird. The pain, the heartbeat, the memory… Something’s off.”
Hermione chewed her bottom lip. “Oh, Harry, I’m not sure this is safe. You could have drowned if Ron didn’t have the gillyweed and Malfoy didn’t come to get us! His body could be trapped by whoever put him down there. I think we should get McGonagall-”
“No!” Malfoy cut in now, sounding panicked. “You can’t tell McGonagall. She thinks I’ve just gone missing. If she finds out my body is at the bottom of the lake, and I’m a ghost, she’ll have my body taken away for death rites, and now we all know I’m not dead!”
Hermione frowned deeply. “Malfoy, McGonagall might know what to do.”
“No,” Malfoy said firmly. “It’s my body, and I say we don’t involve McGonagall.”
Harry looked out at the lake. The moon was high in the sky, now, casting a white light like a beacon down atop the water, warped only by the soft waves, pushed into place by the small breeze that washed over them.
The pain. The sudden ability to hear Malfoy’s heartbeat. The sudden attunement, once he’d touched Malfoy’s skin. The flashback of the last time he’d seen Malfoy, feeling so similar to the visions he’d get during the war.
“Malfoy,” Harry spoke cautiously, “When… When Voldemort died.”
Malfoy turned to him, incredulously. “You want to talk about that now?”
“This is serious, Malfoy. When he died, did you feel any pain? Did your… Oh, I don’t know, head hurt? Did you feel crowded? Heavier?”
Malfoy scowled at him. “The Dark Mark burned. That’s it. Why in the world are you asking me such inane things?”
Harry swallowed thickly. “Malfoy, I think you’re a horcrux.”
Ron’s arm around him seized, the force of it nearly toppling Harry over onto his side. Hermione paled aggressively, looking ill. Malfoy looked stunned.
“What?”
“Horcruxes… They… They can’t be killed by ordinary means,” Harry spoke slowly. “And I always had volatile reactions to horcruxes. To Voldemort. The excruciating pain, the visions… I wonder if he managed to make another horcrux just before he died, or maybe even sooner.”
“That’s… That’s absurd,” Malfoy interjected, shaking his head. “Impossible. People can’t be horcruxes. He’s dead, and he’s certainly not bloody camping out in my body!”
“People can be horcruxes,” Hermione corrected, almost absently, as he turned to Harry. “But, Harry, you could only sense the horcrux because you…” She bit her lip, glancing at Malfoy nervously.
“I was one,” Harry finished, not really caring if Malfoy knew. Who was he going to tell? The press? “I know. But my mother’s love… It protected me from Voldemort in general. When I touched Malfoy, it didn’t hurt my scar. It just hurt… Everywhere. My scar was a direct tie because of the horcruxes, but the protective magic could still be active and-”
“It could be warning you that he’s still around!” Hermione gasped, looking over at Malfoy in horror. The blond looked equally terrified. “It would explain why Malfoy is in some sort of coma, too! His body can’t die for as long as the horcrux resides inside of him!”
“Can we stop talking about V-Voldemort being inside my body please?”
Hermione turned to face Malfoy with a stoic expression. “Malfoy, this is serious. Voldemort could still be alive and using you as a vessel for an eighth fragment of his soul. We have to get you out of the lake and alert McGonagall as soon as possible.”
Malfoy seemed to hunch in on himself and looked quite apt to start wailing like Myrtle.
“Well? How did you survive, oh Chosen One? You said you were a horcrux. How did you destroy it without dying?”
Harry winced. “Well, about that. I did die. I just… Came back.”
Malfoy stared at him. “That’s not possible. Resurrection from complete death is impossible. It’s been proven time and time again, you can’t just come back-”
Harry shrugged helplessly. “Well, I did. Voldemort didn’t own the elder wand, there was blood and love magic, a prophecy…”
Malfoy curled in on himself further. “But I didn’t… I never… It’s over then?”
“What?”
“My life. It’s over. I have to die to destroy the horcrux. I’m not stupid, I did my bloody research on them. The vessel has to be destroyed. And my still living body, sitting at the bottom of the lake, is the vessel.”
Harry didn’t realize how much hope Malfoy had placed on his own distant heartbeat, still thrumming through an inanimate body, until just now. He really did look like he was going to cry. His feet were half-sunken into the Earth, like he couldn’t care to pretend to be alive anymore. “I’m sorry, Malfoy.”
Malfoy sniffed, turning to the side. “Go fetch McGonagall. I’ll be here- not that you need me to trudge up my body from the bottom of the lake.”
“Malfoy-”
“Just go, Potter.” Even with his back to, Harry could see Malfoy’s arms reach up to wrap around his own somewhat transparent form. “I understand. Just go.”
Harry stared helplessly until Ron and Hermione nudged him into movement. “McGonagall should still be up if we move soon,” Ron murmured. “C’mon mate.”
Harry, begrudgingly, followed them up to the castle. This time, he couldn’t stop himself from looking back at the lonely ghost, sitting at the end of the dock just like he had months ago.
Hermione squeezed his shoulder. “Come on, Harry. Let’s go.”
Harry figured he felt more dead than Malfoy had, in that very moment, listening to the doors close behind him, cutting off the breeze and the sounds of nature and leaving him in horrible, oppressive silence.
None of them spoke a word all the way up to the headmistress’ office.