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As Harry had suspected it would be, the common room was jam-packed. The room fell silent as he climbed through the portrait hole. He saw Dean and Seamus sitting in a group nearby: This meant that the dormitory must be empty, or nearly so. Without speaking to anybody, without making eye contact at all, Harry walked straight across the room and through the door to the boys' dormitories.
As he had hoped, Ron was waiting for him, still fully dressed, sitting on his bed. Harry sat down on his own four-poster and for a moment, they simply stared at each other.
"They're talking about closing the school," said Harry.
"Lupin said they would," said Ron.
There was a pause.
"So." said Ron in a very low voice, as though he thought the furniture might be listening in. "Did you find one. Did you get it. A - a Horcrux." Harry shook his head. All that had taken place around that black lake seemed like an old nightmare now; had it really happened, and only hours ago.
"You didn't get it." said Ron, looking crestfallen. "It wasn't there." "No," said Harry. "Someone had already taken it and left a fake in its place." "Already taken - ." Wordlessly, Harry pulled the fake locket from his pocket, opened it, and passed it to Ron. The full story could wait. ... It did not matter tonight. . . nothing mattered except the end, the end of their pointless adventure, the end of Dumbledore's life. . . .
"R.A.B.," whispered Ron, "but who was that." "Dunno," said Harry, lying back on his bed fully clothed and staring blankly upwards.
He felt no curiosity at all about R.A.B.: He doubted that he would ever feel curious again. As he lay there, he became aware suddenly that the grounds were silent. Fawkes had stopped singing. And he knew, without knowing how he knew it, that ilie phoenix had gone, had left Hogwarts for good, just as Dumbledore had left the school, had left the world . . . had left Harry.
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