Rose Weasley had never been kissed. And now she never would be.
She stood in a graveyard spattered with white headstones and brilliantly colored flowers. Every which way she looked she saw names she recognized. The graveyard was full of children, full of her classmates, full of death. It was suffocating, terrifying, unfair. She tried not to look at the name on the grave in front of her as she bent down and placed a single rose on the freshly turned earth, but it was of little use. She already knew the name and had memorized what the headstone read. When she bent, the image exploded into her mind with unneeded ferocity. She ignored it.
The grave did not belong only to one person. Below him, Rose knew, her countless others were buried. The nameless, faceless children who had no parents or loved ones to give them headstones and proper farewells. They’d been thrown into quickly buried graves in the hope that, once they were under ground, the disease would stop spreading. Many like them had filled the graveyard before the named and protected began to die.
Unconsciously, as she straightened up, she looked at the headstone. Her eyes automatically read the inscription:
Beloved Son
May He Rest in Eternal Peace.
To the right, another headstone, with another familiar name:
Forever Missed, Forever Loved
Son, Brother, Friend
A tear slipped down Rose’s cheek as she tried, and failed, to push down the lump that had suddenly grown in her throat.
She didn’t go home immediately. She knew what would be waiting there – her mother and father were still grieving, and Rose didn’t want to start crying again. It would happen if she went home. Hugo had been with them a week ago, a month ago, and a year ago. How could he not be waiting for her at home, ready to tease her until she screamed? Everything was happening so quickly.
As she left the graveyard, she pulled out her wand and cast the Bubble Head Charm on herself. If her mother found out that she’d let the spell fade, even for one second, Rose would be dead. Of course, it was possible that she’d be dead before her mother even got to her, but it was a risk Rose was willing to take. She wanted to taste fresh air when she could.
She walked down a road that looked slightly familiar, keeping her eyes on her feet, wishing she could raise her hands to her ears to block out all sounds. She walked faster as she approached the children, almost running. Poor, beggar children were scattered around the street, begging for help, screaming, crying. A little girl caught up with Rose. She was sickly pale and so skinny that Rose felt nauseous just looking at her. The girl tried to grab Rose’s sleeve, but Rose jumped out of the way with a little moan.
‘Please, I’m sorry, I can’t help you!’ she cried out, trying to convince the little girl. It was no use. The girl collapsed at Rose’s feet, sobbing for her mother. Her screams made Rose’s eyes begin to stream again and she turned and ran as fast as she could.
She needed to get away. She needed to get away.
And then, she realized why the street looked so familiar. She turned left at the end of it, and then took the second right and then found herself at Grimmauld Place. She slowed to a walk now, clutching a stitch in her side. This street was quiet. The disease that was spreading across Britain and the rest of the Wizarding World didn't affect Muggles and though they saw the effects of the disease in millions of street children, all young witches and wizards, they could not understand what caused the disease and why it was only affecting a minority of the world's children.
Rose couldn’t remember when it had begun, but she knew that it had not been long. When she’d graduated from Hogwarts last summer, everything had been fine. Now, in November, nothing was. It had started silently, with stealth that was shocking. Overnight, thirteen children had died in their beds – not their hospital beds at St. Mungo’s, but their beds at home. And just like that, everything was thrown into turmoil. Everywhere, children began coming down with the disease. What it was, was unknown and the Healers had tried every cure they could think of – every potion, charm, spell – and yet nothing worked. As the disease spread, it became more and more powerful. Fewer people just slipped away in their sleep. Children suffered – from their incoherent words, the Healers deduced that the pain was merciless and as far as they knew, perhaps, it was simply the pain that killed them. And with the disease spread fear. Rose had never felt fear like it before. It stopped her sleeping – what if she never woke up? It stopped her eating – what if the food was contaminated? It stopped her wanting to hug her surviving friends and her cousins – what if they had it already and had no idea? The fear was just as bad as the disease. Sometimes, deep in the night when she no longer had the energy to cry, she prayed that the sickness would simply take her while she slept so that she’d no longer have to be afraid.
Rose stopped in front Number 12, Grimmauld Place and walked up the steps cautiously. The house no longer had any of the protective charms and spells that her parents and Uncle Harry had told her about around it and was clearly visible to all. It was also clearly derelict, and Rose wondered how dangerous it would be to enter.
No more dangerous that living in a city facing a deadly epidemic, she decided and, using her wand to unlock the door, walked in.
The air was thick and dusty and had Rose not been using the Bubble Head charm, she would have choked. She lit her wand and held it over her head so that she could see better – the gray light entering the window was hardly sufficient. Perhaps if it had been a sunny day, but today, as most of the recent days, was cloudy and gloomy.
Everything was a mess. Rose found herself wondering if the last people to enter the house had been her parents and Uncle Harry – it sure looked like it. There was a layer of dust caking the floor, the wooden boards of which creaked ominously as she strode over them. Pieces of paper also littered some areas of the floor, along with a few old picture frames and what looked like a broken porcelain pot.
Without really knowing why, Rose stepped into the first room she came across. It was the library, and it looked worse than the hallways she had just been haunting. The curtains looked diseased, one of the wooden bookshelves seemed to have rotted and its occupants lay scattered pathetically on the floor.
Suddenly, a desk near the door rocked loudly on its legs, scaring the living daylights out of Rose. She let out a shriek and stumbled away from the desk, but lost her footing. Her ankle twisted underneath her and she landed hard on one of the books scattered on the floor.
She tried not to cry out as pain spread up her leg from her ankle. She decided to take her anger out on the book she had landed on, which was now poking her hard in the back. She yanked it out from underneath her and threw it across the floor.
It was in worse condition than it looked – a sheet of paper flew out from it and fluttered down onto Rose’s chest. She lifted it up, along with her wand, and her eyes fell on the words written on it: