Harry lay in the white hospital bed staring at the ceiling. The room was bright and quiet as morning light filtered in from the windows at the far end of the ward. Harry didn't know where Madam Pomfrey was, but she wasn't there. His friends hadn't been up to see him either. It didn't matter he thought. Cedric died, that was what mattered. Voldemort was back, that mattered. With a sigh he sat up. This was the day he was dreading. The world had been turned upside down and now he had to go out into it, deal with it, and try to come out of it alive in the end. Maybe it would be better if Voldemort just attacked the castle right now, he thought. Get it over with. It would certainly save him from the rollercoaster of emotions he'd been riding since last night and wanted desperately to get off of.

He reached down and tied his worn sneakers, put his glasses on and stood up. Since Madam Pomfrey wasn't there, he left. He was still fairly dirty from the maze and the graveyard the night before, and his clothes were torn, so he went back to his common room to shower and change. He had expected to find Ron and Hermione there waiting for him, but they weren't. There were a few students, but they were sitting on couches with their arms around each other very silent. A few looked at him but nobody said anything to him. After a quiet shower Harry sat on his four poster bed for long moments. It was almost too quiet. It was eerie really.

‘Best get on with it then,' Cedric's voice replayed in his mind from the night before. ‘Bright futures await.' Maybe not so bright, Harry thought as he stood up.

He made his way back through the quiet common room and down through the too quiet castle. He encountered very few students, and they all seemed sad. On the first floor near the Transfiguration classroom, Harry ran into Ginny.

"Hey," he said quietly, and she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and crying quietly.

"I was so worried," she said, almost in a whisper. Her face was buried in his neck.

"I'm sorry." He held her, but he found no happiness in doing so. "Where is everybody?"

"It's horrible," Ginny said, still not letting go of him. "While you were sleeping a lot of parents came last night to take people out of school. The Patil twins are gone, Seamus left this morning, half of Ravenclaw and a lot of the first year Gryffindors are all gone. I heard a lot of the Hufflepuffs will be going too, but they've mostly gotten their parents to let them stay for the next few days to honor Cedric."

"Why are they all gone?" Harry asked, and Ginny finally pulled back just enough so Harry could see her shining wet eyes.

"Because he's back. Because Cedric died. It's too dangerous to be here right now."

"What about you and Ron and the twins?"

She shook her head. "I don't know but I think we'll be staying. I've heard mum and dad say that Hogwarts is the safest place you could be before. They trust Dumbledore."

"Too bad others don't," Harry mumbled, but he himself wasn't feeling so great about his decisions to trust Dumbledore up to this point. Moody had been a death eater, Cedric had died, and the Dursleys had apparently been paid to come, why he really didn't know.

"Where are Ron and Hermione?"

"Everyone's down in the Great Hall. Classes have been canceled and they're all just sitting down there quietly. Even most of Slytherin has gone quiet. The Hufflepuffs are all down in their common room with Cedric's dad."

Harry swallowed then. He remembered hearing the man wailing after his son last night. He bit his lip to keep himself from crying.

"Are you going to the Great Hall?" Ginny asked. Harry nodded.

"I'm just going up to the common room for a few minutes. I'll be right down."

"Ok," Harry said, swallowing hard again to get around the lump in his throat. She squeezed him hard and then let go and hurried to the common room. Harry's legs felt like lead as he walked down the grand staircase and into the Entrance Hall. He'd just reached the bottom when Uncle Vernon's voice called out from across the hall.

"Boy!"

Harry looked up, eyes wide to see his puce face. He was definitely angry. Harry stayed where he was but Vernon stormed up to him and grabbed the front of his shirt.

"This is your fault!" he shouted. It echoed around the empty hall and high ceilings and Harry was sure the people inside the Great Hall were hearing every word. He wondered if any teachers would come out to help him. He didn't get a chance to say anything before Vernon was backing him up against a wall and putting his face inches from Harry's.

"It's your doing that we've been brought to this freaky place and been put in all kinds of danger! Now that old fool that runs this place is refusing to pay us for coming! They told us that you won a bag of gold boy, now give it up!"

"I can't," Harry said. "It's gone."

"What do you mean gone boy?" His voice had lowered into a growl.

"I wizard willed it away. The money was spent before I won it. The contract was binding. I can't get it back."

Suddenly his uncle pulled him away from the wall and shoved him hard back into it and before Harry could shield himself, he'd raised his fist twice and hit Harry in the jaw and the eye. Harry's bottom lip trembled then, to have this happening there in the castle in front of everybody, to have it happening right after Cedric died...

"Get away from him!"

Vernon shoved Harry hard into the wall again and turned to find Amos Diggory striding across the hall. Snape was standing there by the entrance to the Great Hall looking on along with a handful of students including Malfoy and Ron and Hermione. Harry's lip trembled again. No one knew what it was like at Privet Drive, but now everybody knew, and somehow that made it all the worse.

"What's wrong with you?" Amos Diggory demanded. "Our children are precious! Every minute of every day we have with them is precious!"

Vernon smirked and realized too late that it was the wrong thing to do. Amos, being much shorter and slighter than Vernon, didn't hesitate to punch Vernon in the gut. He doubled over but stood straight again. He seemed unable to move though and Harry realized now that it was because Snape was striding across the Entrance Hall with his wand out and aimed at him. His face was impassive compared to Amos Diggory's livid one.

"Go to the Dungeons now Potter," Snape said, and with tears welling in his eyes, Harry did as he was told before they tattled down his cheeks in front of everybody. He was out of sight and through the entrance to the Dungeons running down the stairs. Figuring he was meant to go to Snape's office, that's where he went, and when he was finally there, he sank down to the floor in the corridor and sobbed once. He was unable to control his emotions any longer and felt like he couldn't take anything that was happening, or had happened. He didn't know how much time had passed before Snape finally came down and found him, he only knew that he felt like he could barely breath and he struggled to get breath as the tears fell.

Snape didn't say anything as he lifted Harry from under one arm and lead him into his office. Harry wiped furiously at his tears as he continued to struggle for breath, but the tears continued to fall. After a moment Snape handed something to him in a cup and told him to drink it down. Harry obeyed and it was only a few moments before he could breathe properly again. He wondered what it was before thinking it had probably been a calming draught of some sort.

"Your family have been escorted out of the castle. I believe the Headmaster will be having words with the Muggle authorities." Harry knew the man was giving him a hard looking over, but he didn't look up. His shoes seemed rather interesting right now.

"Is he always like that?"

Harry didn't look up and didn't answer. The question wasn't ‘is he always like that' it should have been, ‘are they always like that', and the answer was yes, they are. He bit his bottom lip to keep it from trembling.

"It wasn't your fault Potter," Snape said, "none of it was." Harry thought the words sounded strange coming from Snape's lips. They weren't friendly, but they weren't downright venomous as they usually were either. Maybe it was just strain Harry was detecting.

"Other... arrangements will have to be made for you this summer," he said then, and though Harry still didn't look up, he was listening. A summer without the Dursleys? He thought that might be nice, but then he thought, oh no, Cedric's dad will be having a summer without Cedric, and that wasn't nice at all. He took in a breath again and Severus mistook Harry's start as crying over what his uncle had done.

Snape sighed after long moments of Harry still not answering and then said, "You'd best go back to the Hospital Wing to let Madam Pomfrey have a look at your face."

"Yes sir," Harry said, and he stood up, aware he must look a real mess. He felt like he hadn't slept at all and was still completely exhausted.

"School is ending early," his professor said before Harry could get his office door open. "Do not worry yourself over where you will go. You will stay in the castle until somewhere can be found."

Harry listened and when no more was forthcoming, he opened the door and headed for the Hospital Wing. No, so far his future didn't look so bright at all.