The long night of the battle is slowly coming to an end.

A dawn, livid and without sun, begins to illuminate with a gray light Hogwarts and its surroundings. The humidity of the night has left dew droplets on the yellowing leaves of the trees and on the grass of the lawn in front of the Castle. Only a few animals make their voices heard to greet the new morning: it seems that they also are participating, by their silence, to the struggle for life that Ellemir is fighting in the infirmary bed.

In her laboratory, Madam Pomfrey handles with extreme care the ampoules containing the valuable items delivered to Hagrid from Centaurs. She knows she has no time to prepare the potion, but she also knows she can not make any mistakes: there is no time for a second attempt.

Following indications that the Centaurs have given, Madame Pomfrey puts the exact doses of ingredients in the cauldron and then waits, controlling that the color of the liquid inside changes from milky white to mauve opalescent, because exactly at that time she will have to turn off the heat, transfer the potion in a glass cup, bring it right away to Ellemir and try to make her drink the potion before it gets cold. And before that, as the Centaurs said, Ellemir has surpassed the No Return Point.

How many "ifs" and how many "but" ... in her long life Madame Pomfrey has never been so uncertain on the success of a cure as now. And now more than ever she would like everything will be fine. The headmistress told her roughly what happened and what Ellemir has done to shrink in that state ... 'No! It should not end like this! ' She thinks angrily as she checks the cauldron. She raises for a moment her eyes and sees her own anger in the eyes of Minerva McGonagall, that remained by her side during the whole preparation.

"It will work." Madame Pomfrey says simply, knowing that the other woman knows exactly what she's talking about.

"It will work." Confirming the headmistress.

They look again each other for a moment and then look both back to the liquid inside the cauldron.

In the room full of ampoules and stills cove an expectant silence, broken only by the faint noise of bubbles that break as soon as they arrive in contact with the air.

Neither of the two old witches move a muscle while they wait. They lose track of time, being concentrated to the maximum to capture the exact moment when the color of the liquid is changed. Later, they will never know how long they have been waiting in silence.

Finally, at the same time they realize that the change has occurred.

"Now!" Says Professor McGonagall. Instantly, Madame Pomfrey extinguishes the fire, then she takes a ladle and carefully collects a bit of opalescent liquid and pours it into the cup that is giving the headmistress.

A last exchange of glances passes between the two women.

"Done. Let's go!" They say in unison.

Doing as quickly as possible consistent with the need not to drop the precious contents of the glass, they come out from the lab towards the Infirmary.