Dorcas checked the contents of her trunk, determinedly avoiding looking at her friends, who she was sure were staring at her. Her books were stacked on one side, and clothes on the other, with various assortment of other objects scattered around the middle. She gave them a fleeting look and closed the lid of the trunk before clasping it shut. She sighed, realising she could avoid her friends no longer and turned around to face them.

Maeve was on her bed, gazing intently at her, her eyes dangerously glossy. Silver was staring too, although she had a more understanding look on her face. Even Heidi was here to say goodbye.

Dorcas had been released from the Hospital Wing only yesterday. She had wanted to leave that very night, but Maeve had convinced her to stay one more day after she had failed to convince her to stay for their graduation ceremony. Dorcas vaguely remembered having signed up to sing at her graduation, and had the sudden urge to laugh. It seemed so long ago.

"Couldn't you at least stay until the end of term?" Maeve asked for the umpteenth time.

Dorcas didn't bother to reply this time, but fell back on her bed. Her friends had tried various means to make her stay - coaxed her, bribed her - but they simply did not understand that Dorcas didn't care about any of this anymore. Once upon a time, she had been very excited about her graduation, about singing with the choir, about leaving Hogwarts on those little boats that have brought them here seven years ago. It all seemed like a distant dream to her now, like she was reborn into a different world where the only thing that mattered was fighting for the Order to bring Voldemort down.

Silver said something to Maeve in a hushed voice. She couldn't make it out, but she didn't want to. The two had drifted apart from each other, but Silver usually revised for the exams with Maeve even though she still hung around with her new friends. Maeve acted oddly around her, but Dorcas knew that they had tried to make things normal between them for her sake. She was grateful for it but she couldn't tell them.

Dorcas looked at her watch. It was six thirty. Exactly half an hour later, she would be departing Hogwarts for the last time. She would no longer return to this room with its four four-poster beds, where she had spent a huge chunk of her time with her friends, studying, playing Exploding Snap, or simply just lazing around. She wouldn't walk the corridors anymore, nor would she sit at the Great Hall having her meals, gossiping and chatting with her friends.

Dorcas closed her eyes. She wished the three of them would stop staring at her and leave her alone, but she could find no way to let them know without sounding rude. Silver, however, understood for she seized Maeve's arm and pulled her to her feet.

"Let's go wait in the common room. Come on, Heidi."

She watched as they disappeared through the door, feeling thankful to Silver. She needed these last moments with herself.

She was dressed in plain muggle clothes - a red flowery top and a pair of her old jeans. From the pocket of her jeans she pulled out a crumpled bit of parchment, light blue in colour and faded. It was the letter from RadioRoll she had received, so very long ago, offering her a job in their team. She stared at the neat writings on the paper, her heart giving an odd little twitch as she read the letter for the hundredth time.

She had returned her answer last night using one of the school owls. She had rejected their offer, but thanked them for thinking of her. Neither of her friends knew about it; they still assumed that she would join them as soon as she left. Dorcas didn't have the heart to tell them - they had been far more excited about it than herself.

Before the words in the parchment could make her change her mind, she crumpled it into a ball, rather more furiously than she had intended, before tossing it into the wastepaper basket standing in the corner of the room. Deciding that she had nothing more to do here, she got to her feet, threw her school bag over her shoulders and hoisted the trunk onto its wheels. And, without looking back, she left the dormitories and climbed down the stairs, the trunk lifted a few inches above the ground using a simple hover charm to avoid collision.

Maeve and Silver, who had been waiting in the common room, stood up hastily. Heidi came over and hugged her. "Good luck with your life, Dorcas," she said with a smile. "Hope to see you around."

She smiled a little. "Yeah, maybe. Goodbye."

As Heidi left, she turned to her friends. Maeve looked close to tears, but Silver pressed her hand reassuringly. "Shall we go then?"

She nodded, and the three of them left the common room. With the trunk levitating behind them, they walked out of the portrait hole, strolled along the corridors, descended a hundred staircases, none of them speaking a word. Dorcas was grateful for the silence.

Finally, she reached the Entrance Hall where Professor McGonagall was waiting for them, and so were Leigh and Juliet.

Leigh gave her a wide smile and a wave, which she returned happily. But she avoided looking at Juliet. She wished she hadn't come to see her off, and she immediately felt guilty as the thought crossed her mind, for it was Juliet who had seen her, Juliet who had worried about her, Juliet who had informed Leigh and thus ensured that she wasn't in any trouble when she had so stupidly walked into the dungeons.

Dorcas was grateful, but a part of her didn't want to meet Juliet now. She had come to terms with her feelings for the Ravenclaw girl, had accepted the fact that she was never going to be with her. She had built up a strong wall to keep herself protected from those feelings, and she was afraid that if she spoke to Juliet now the wall might crumble and all her resolve to leave Juliet alone would die with it.

But Juliet was here now, and there was nothing she could do.

Professor McGonagall bustled towards her. "Leave the trunk here, I'll take care of it. Follow me."

The five of them silently followed the professor out through the large oak doors and stepped into the grounds. They were immediately doused in darkness as the lights inside the castle remained behind, and only the little squares of light from all the windows of the castle shone palely on the grass before them. There was no moon in the sky, which was a pale indigo colour.

Dorcas instinctively turned towards the path that led to Hogsmeade, but McGonagall was taking them another way. "Where are we going, Professor?" she asked, confused. "I thought I was going to disapparate from Hogsmeade."

"When I told your father that you wanted to leave, he requested me to set up a boat for you to cross the lake." She looked over her shoulder towards Dorcas, though she didn't slow down in the slightest. "He thought you shouldn't miss the experience of leaving Hogwarts the traditional way."

Surprised but touched, she followed her silently towards the Black Lake, where sure enough, a tiny boat bobbed near the bank. The sounds of her friends' footsteps sounded very close behind her.

"Well, here we are," announced McGonagall, rather pointlessly Dorcas thought, for they could all see that they have reached the edge of the lake. She remembered this was the exact spot where several boats had stopped seven years ago, and she had scrambled out and climbed out from her boat, scared and exhilarated at the same time. She suddenly felt a tight knot in her throat.

Dorcas turned to her friends, who all smiled widely at her. She had the sudden urge to laugh. Leigh was closest to her and she slowly walked towards him.

"I'm sorry you couldn't come over for summer like I had promised," she told him regretfully. But he was already shaking his head.

"Hey, don't apologise. I understand. And I'll take good care of Lucas. I'm sure we'll be great friends."

She laughed and hugged him, holding him tight. "Take good care of yourself."

"Will you write to me?"

For reasons unknown to herself, she hesitated, but quickly added, "Of course," and moved to Juliet, who was standing next to Leigh.

Dorcas gave a small smile, lowering her eyes to the ground. She didn't know what to say to her, but was saved the trouble when Juliet stepped towards her and hugged her. Momentarily stunned, she remained motionless, hands hanging by her side. But she recovered a few seconds later and hugged her back.

"Goodbye," she said in a small voice as they pulled away from each other. "I'm glad we became friends."

"Me too. Thanks for teaching me Potions. And thanks for - well, everything."

Dorcas nodded. "Good luck with your NEWTs."

"I really wish you had stayed for the graduation," Juliet said anxiously. "You would've been great, I know that."

She suppressed a sigh. Of course, she couldn't blame Juliet, she didn't know how many arguments she has had with Maeve and Silver about this very topic. To keep herself from saying something rude, she wished her luck again and said, "Goodbye."

Finally she turned to her best friends.

Dorcas had no idea what to say to them. She didn't think there existed any word or phrase in the English language that could express the enormous amount of affection and gratitude she felt towards her best friends, any expression that would let them know how much they meant to her. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. No word formed in her mind.

Of course, this wasn't their last goodbye. They would be seeing each other soon, very soon hopefully. But the setting of the Hogwarts grounds, leaving Hogwarts for the last time marked the end of a chapter of their lives, and Dorcas felt that the next time they met, they wouldn't be the same people anymore. She wanted to do justice to this meeting, she wanted to let her friends know how much she loved them and she wanted to say sorry for all the times she has treated them badly, and thank them for everything they've done for her. But when she opened her mouth and spoke again, the only word that left her was, "Bye."

Maeve and Silver pulled her into a hug, holding her tightly between them. They didn't seem to care that she's said more words to Juliet and Leigh; they knew what she wanted to say and they didn't need to hear it. Of course they didn't. They were best friends after all. Not all words needed to be spoken between them.

They broke away from the hug after a long time, but when Dorcas stepped into the tiny boat which swayed dangerously under her feet, she felt like she hadn't hugged them at all. Not looking at them, she settled down carefully on the boat, which seemed too small for her but which held her all the same. She took off her bag from her shoulders and shoved it under her knees and checked for her wand inside her pockets for no real reason. With a small jerk, the boat began to move.

It was dark around her, and she was able to see the silhouettes of her friends and of Professor McGonagall, who had stepped back to give them their privacy, with the lights of the Hogwarts castle shining down upon them. Soon she wasn't even able to make out their faces; they stood, motionless, like ghosts looking over her as she crossed the Black Lake. The boat moved of its own accord, the dark water rippling softly beneath her, and a short distance away from her, something splashed in the water and a long tentacle swept across, disturbing the stagnant surface. The Giant Squid. She smiled as she imagined the creature wishing her a goodbye.

She turned around again. They were now nothing but little dots standing there near the water's edge. Dorcas half raised her hand to wave a goodbye, but realised that they probably wouldn't be able to see her and dropped it. The boat hobbled on and the castle began to vanish from sight. Dorcas remembered at the beginning of her first year, how the castle had appeared slowly as she made her first trip through the lake. She felt like she was going back in time. It became steadily darker, and soon, the Hogwarts castle was nowhere in her line of vision and she was plunged into darkness with only the moonlight giving off its pale translucent glow over the dark surface of the lake.

She did not light her wand.