June 18, 1996
Gloria was very reluctant to recall that day—the day she lost Sirius. She could not hold onto him, forced to watch helplessly as the person she loved most fell through that ethereal veil, amid the murderer's triumphant laughter and Harry's heart-wrenching screams. She appeared remarkably calm: no tears, no sound, no expression, nothing at all. She was like a statue, stripped of life and vitality.
In a sense, she was alive, yet at that very moment, she had also died. Gloria lived on, but only as an empty shell.
Chapter 40