THE ATMOSPHERE IS A CALM, comfortable one, the kind that Seamus likes. With a pale blue sky hanging over him, and a warm sun casting its radiant glow over the people mingling across King's Cross Station, the weather can be called desirable enough.

But Seamus doesn't feel it. His mind isn't in his surroundings, nor is it anywhere he can reach out to. With each step he takes across the cobblestoned pathway with his trunk dragging along behind him, a part of his soul breaks away from his body and remains behind, sinking into the solid ground.

He feels a hand place itself over his shoulder, and he halts in his steps momentarily to acknowledge its presence. His mother comes up to stand in front of him, and Seamus drops his eyes so as not to see the terrified look that has taken a permanent residence over her face. Neither does he want to see the tears that he is certain are gathering in her eyes.

"See you at Christmas, Mum" he mutters quietly, before giving her a brief hug. She holds on to him tightly, and he hears choking sobs, but he hastily pulls away and scuttles over toward one of the doors of the Hogwarts Express and pushes his trunk inside.

The start of another term at Hogwarts. His last term. But the first one without Dean.

A tight constriction finds its way to his chest, and Seamus willfully ignores it. Walking hastily across the narrow corridor, he finds the compartment where Neville is sitting, and enters it. He looks up at Seamus upon his entrance, and gives a halfhearted smile, which Seamus returns. Trevor the toad lies morosely in his hands.

Several minutes of silence passes between them. There is nothing they can talk about. No joyful summer to ask about, no adventurous last year to look forward to. With the rise of You-Know-Who, the simple pleasures of life are dwindling into nothingness, and the days are shadowed by constant fear and uncertainty of the future. Their lives are at stake, and their safety questionable.

They are no longer children walking into a new term of school, with new things to learn and with happiness bubbling in their chests. They are soldiers who have been forced into a war, and there is no way out.

«»

The first month of his last term at Hogwarts passes with sullenness. The liveliness has evaporated, there is no enthusiasm, and even the Professors seem to have given up.

Except, of course, the Carrow siblings - the newly appointed Hogwarts teachers wearing the Dark Mark on their forearms, who are assigned with the task to keep the children suppressed with immense pressure that would cause them to crumble into defeat. And Seamus feels that they are succeeding. All hope is gone, and it is clearly shown on the exhausted faces of everyone in the castle, whether they are returning from a class, or walking out of a detention, sporting angry red marks on their bodies.

Hogwarts is no longer what it used to be. It is a prison, and Seamus feels suffocated. He hopes, as he goes to bed each night - covering himself up tightly with his blanket despite the high temperature in a futile attempt to protect himself from the never ending nightmares - he hopes that Dean, wherever he is, is safe. He misses him terribly - Neville, though good company, just isn't like him.

But he is also glad that Dean wasn't here at Hogwarts, where the hopes and joys and laughter are slowly seeping out through the cracks in the walls and the draughts in the windows like air from a balloon.