7-May-98

Chapter 16

May 7, 1998

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The dead lay in a row in the middle of the Hall. ...Harry had a clear view of the bodies lying next to Fred: Remus and Tonks, pale and still and peaceful-looking... – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 33

* * *

Charlie sat in the Burrow's kitchen on a sunny, blustery afternoon in early May, watching his mother cook. Her bustling, efficient busyness echoed the energetic thrashing of the laundry hung on the line but in a more tempered way. The clothing snapped in a random, chaotic manner, at the mercy of the wind, whereas Molly harnessed her energy, putting it to work for her in a measured, more even rhythm. She darted to and fro, but always with purpose. Knives chopped, whisks stirred, pots simmered, and kettles boiled under her supervision. Dough rose and was pounded flat. Pies and loaves were set in the oven, baked, then removed, only to be replaced by the next tin or tray full of raw sustenance.

It had been four days since she'd left the kitchen for more than a few hours at a stretch, just long enough to take a little kip. As a result, there were piles of food everywhere in the kitchen: meat pies and roasts and stews and scones and jams and six kinds of potatoes and ten varieties of biscuits. Anyone who passed through the room risked getting an overloaded plate foisted upon them, and if they didn't accept a gentle invitation to sit and fill their bellies, they eventually succumbed to a tongue-lashing for neglecting their health so wantonly.

And still, Molly cooked more. She sent her husband and sons delivering it to other grieving families all over Britain. Charlie reckoned he'd Flooed the length and breadth of the realm over the past three days with armloads of ham and mutton feasts met by astonished survivors. She thanked Clan MacFusty with enough Lancashire hotpot to feed a Hebridean Black, and Ddraig Cymry was showered with her gratitude in the form of a deluge of Dublin coddle. Hogwarts staff members were each gifted with huge Battenbergs in their respective House colors. Mrs. Puddifoot and Madam Rosmerta were now in possession of enough crumpets, madeleines, and Victoria sponges to serve the entirety of Hogsmeade a high tea they'd not soon forget.

Molly had most recently focused her efforts on singlehandedly feeding the entire Ministry (skeletal organization as it was at the moment). Kingsley, Arthur, and a handful of trusted Aurors were beginning to tackle the mess left behind in the vacuum of power now that You-Know-Who and his lackeys had been toppled. Twice a day – at elevenses and tea – all available Weasleys were summoned to the Burrow's kitchen to collect hampers of cakes and scones or sandwiches and pasties and little crocks of baked beans, then sent off to roam the corridors of the Ministry, shoving it onto whoever could be found and made to eat.

Absently, Charlie wondered what she was conjuring all the extra crockery out of, for none of it looked familiar, nor had a single item been returned to the house. It occurred to him that every pebble and stick within Accio range had probably been summoned to the back door and transfigured into plates and spoons. The thought of all those bits of servingware eventually reverting back into heaps of stones and twigs in the Ministry offices made him smile a little.

It didn't take a genius to understand what was going on: Molly was exhibiting classic avoidance behavior. By throwing all her energy into the production of food – a creative activity to counteract the destructive recent history – she managed to hold her crushing grief at bay. She eased her own pain by attempting to ease that of others in a manner at which she excelled. And who could blame Mum for trying to forget the load of shite all around us right now? Charlie argued with himself. Better to see her baking biscuits than crying her eyes out.

Molly began assembling a tray full of tempting little treats: bite-size pastries and little sandwiches all cleverly designed to maximize caloric intake while minimizing the effort required to consume it. "This morning's tray hardly picked at," she mumbled to herself worriedly. "Got to keep her energy up for the baby."

The baby. Charlie puzzled again about the surprising news he'd gotten two days ago: he was due to become an uncle this autumn. According to the story he'd sussed out of his father, George had secretly married the little Muggle woman he'd brought to Bill's wedding, and they were expecting now. The situation truly boggled the mind; of all his brothers, he wouldn't ever have bet on George becoming a father first.

After all that trouble at Bill's wedding... After months of government-sponsored Muggle torture and blood-cleansing campaigns... How could they have been so reckless? To take a risk like that in the middle of a bloody war...

"What were they thinking?" he murmured under his breath.

"What was that, dear?" Molly asked.

"Nothing, Mum," Charlie replied, unwilling to broach the topic and risk the possibility of upsetting her. He couldn't exactly say what he was thinking: What if something had happened to George and Annie like it did to Tonks and Lupin? Their poor baby's only a few weeks old and an orphan already. At least Bill had sense enough to avoid that mess.

"Oh, fiddle. You said something. Now what was it?"

Charlie reckoned his mother didn't sound particularly out of sorts. In fact, she sounded like perhaps she might like a spot of conversation. It was certainly plausible she'd been a bit lonely for company while she worked in the kitchen, mostly alone.

"It just seems a little... reckless of them, don't you think?"

"Reckless of who to do what, love?" Molly asked patiently, setting a teapot to steep.

"George and Annie, Mum," Charlie said a little sheepishly. "Getting married and having a baby like nothing else was going on. Doesn't it strike you as a little... irresponsible... considering?"

Molly paused, a thoughtful, sad look on her face. Then she gave a little snort. "You know, Fred thought the same thing. They had quite a row about it, him and George. But he came around eventually, and they were all friends again before..." She let the rest of the sentence drop.

Ah, shit, Charlie groaned to himself. He hadn't wanted to bring Fred to mind for her. "Sorry, Mum."

"Don't be sorry, Charlie. We don't have to agree on everything," she said, mistaking (or possibly deliberately misinterpreting) his comment. "And it's a good thing, too, considering none of you would exist if your father and I hadn't been just as reckless and irresponsible during the other war." She surprised him by managing a mildly impish wink.

"Good point," he conceded weakly, not at all sure he agreed.

"Trust me, there's never a perfect time to fall in love or have a baby," Molly continued. "There're always ten reasons to wait, and another ten why it's too late to start. But you can't let the rest of the world dictate those decisions for you. You marry whom you love. You start a family borne of that love. Some matters are better left up to the heart than the mind, dear."

Charlie thought about his mother's argument. She was certainly right about the falling in love bit: he could personally testify to the inconvenience of timing and individual selection. Before he'd met Sasha, he'd never in a million years have predicted that he'd meet the love of his life on a Romanian mountaintop at the age of nineteen. Or that it'd be a bloke. And it had taken a while for his mind to really hear what his heart had been telling him all along: he loved Sasha, body and soul.

When he didn't say anything, Molly patted his hand. "You'll understand some day, Charlie. Some girl will catch your heart, and you'll know just what I'm talking about."

And just like that, his thoughts skidded to a standstill. His mother smiled at him so knowingly, so lovingly, so wrong-headedly. The moment hung between them, and Charlie balanced on the razor's edge. Tell her now, this instant. Tell her you're gay. Tell her you love Sasha. But his mouth refused to move, burdened with the mountain of grief and stress of the final battle and their family's loss.

Molly sighed and looked away, and the moment was gone. With a flick of her wand, she began organizing two new plates full of food. "The baby will bring them both round soon. I just know it." She sounded so desperately hopeful, so intent on converting her wish into fact by saying it aloud often enough and with sufficient confidence.

His mother collected the tray in her hands, then nodded with her chin toward the now heaping plates coming to rest on the table before him. "Do me a favor and take one of those out to Ginny while I deliver this upstairs. That's a good boy, Charlie." And with that, she swept out of the kitchen.

Charlie dutifully set out across the back garden leading two levitating plates of sandwiches. As a particularly strong gust of wind buffeted him, he wondered once again how much longer he would be required to stay at the Burrow for propriety's sake. Sasha returned to Romania along with all the other keepers the day after the battle – how he wished he was home with him now! Instead, he was stuck in the Burrow with Percy, Ron, and Ginny, who did little besides lazing around all day until bidden to do some trivial task (primarily delivering food or eating it) by their mother.

But as much as their sloth and self-indulgence irritated Charlie, much worse were the depressing glimpses of George and his wife. On the three occasions he'd run into one or the other of them on their way to the loo, the hollow, haggard look in their eyes had given him chills. And then there were the agonized screams at any time of day or night, whenever George had another nightmare. It wasn't so much that Charlie begrudged them their grief – he just didn't want to see or hear it anymore. Bill was so lucky he had Shell Cottage to escape to!

He paused for a moment when, in the distance, he caught sight of the fresh mound of dirt and gleaming white headstone that marked Fred's grave in the family plot, only four days old. Unable to fight off the recollection, the memories rushed back to mind.

The family had purposefully kept Fred's service small – there were far too many bodies to bury at once for any sort of proper occasion to be planned. Even so, George and his wife hung back several paces behind everyone else, clinging to each other, refusing to look anyone in the eye. They hadn't spoken a word, nor wept, either – they just shuddered, huddling together looking shell-shocked. When the ceremony was over and Charlie finally turned to leave, the two of them were already well on their way back to the house. He'd watched as George staggered, and Annie caught him every time, unsure whether his wife was driving or hauling him back to the Burrow.

As painful as Charlie's own grief was over losing his brother, as heart-wrenching as it was to witness his parents' agony upon burying their child, the horrible empty, haunted look in George's eyes was more gutting than all the rest. Unlike Fedir, he wasn't even trying to work through it, much less hold himself together – almost like he'd just given himself up for dead as well.

Charlie bodily shook off the gloomy thoughts and started walking again, picking up the pace this time, eager to put some distance between him and the awful memories.

The day after Fred's burial, as their mother persisted in pouring her grief into her cooking and their father responded to Kingsley's call to help reform the Ministry, Charlie, Bill, and Fleur had attended Tonks' and Lupin's joint funeral as representatives of the Weasley family as well as the Order. It, too, had been sparsely attended. Lupin had no one left to mourn him, and not a single Black relative had bothered showing up – Charlie reasoned that if they'd somehow miraculously changed their minds about blood traitors upon the outcome of the war, they likely still didn't feel safe enough to show their faces in public. A few Aurors were there to pay their respects to a fellow fallen agent; that was it. Poor Andromeda Tonks, no young thing herself, had resolutely stood throughout the service while holding her infant grandson, who obliviously slept through the entire thing.

Tonks' baby – barely a month old, at most. He'll never know his mum, never remember her outside of other people's stories and a few snaps.

Charlie was relieved to find Ginny lying on a blanket by the frog pond, sunning herself. Such a bright and cheery scene, so peaceful and beautiful, helped to dispel the dark thoughts that had been plaguing him along his walk. He plopped down ungracefully next to her and directed the plates to settle in their laps.

"Ugh," Ginny groaned half-heartedly before taking a bite. "Is Mum trying to fatten us all up?"

"You could stand a little more meat on your bones, squirt," Charlie teased her. Though the sentiment was no joke – none of the adorable pudginess he remembered of her girlhood lingered on his little sister's frame, replaced now by a womanly yet wiry figure.

Ginny smirked. "Thank Merlin I'm not as fat as Annie," she joked morbidly.

Some of the gloom began to drift back into his mood to be reminded of his conversation with their mum. "You'd better not have her valid excuse for packing on the pounds," Charlie warned her, matching her morbid tone.

Ginny proceeded to stick her tongue out at him. "Mum says she's too big for as far along as she's supposed to be. She says it's twins. Most likely because she doesn't want to think George knocked her up before they got married." Then she took another bite of sandwich.

"What does it matter either way?" Charlie insisted, a little shocked to hear such things from his baby sister. "They're married now."

"That they are," Ginny agreed.

After Charlie chewed a bite of his own sandwich, he asked, "You really think they had to get married?"

Ginny smiled smugly, pleased to discover she was better informed about the situation than her elder brother. "Not a chance. Annie's got a bit of a chip on her shoulder about that." After a quiet moment of consideration, she added, "George is mad for her, anyway. Come hell or high water, they'd've ended up together."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, eating their sandwiches and gazing out across the frog pond. Charlie thought again about Sasha, how they'd gone through a period of infatuation early on in their relationship. He remembered those long days of working apart, only to rush back to the hut, so eager to spend the night together. How it had practically been impossible to be in the same room without touching each other, kissing each other.

It was different between them now, of course. At first he'd mistakenly lamented the passion had waned, that the fire had cooled and feared it would eventually die out. Later, he realized the heat had instead transformed into something substantive and enduring: love.

"She's really nice, you know. Before–" Ginny paused, unwilling or unable to directly refer to the tragedy yet "–she was loads of fun to be around. Always having a laugh, giving as good as she got. They both were."

Charlie nodded in acknowledgement. He'd never really met Annie; George hadn't gotten around to introducing them at Bill's wedding – an understandable oversight, considering they'd been ambushed by Death Eaters before the night was out. But the rest of the family had echoed similar sentiments: Annie had the same sense of humor and generally anti-serious worldview that the twins shared. Or had shared.

"Speaking of sisters-in-law..." Charlie prompted.

Ginny wrinkled her nose. "Do we have to?"

Charlie chuckled. "I see your affection for Fleur hasn't wavered."

"I honestly don't understand what Bill sees in her!" Ginny exclaimed with surprising ferocity.

"She's beautiful," Charlie pointed out helpfully. And young. And veela...

"And snobby and critical and a general all-around bitch," Ginny sneered. "Bill is too good for her! He's nothing but kind and clever... How did he ever come to think he loved her?" After a very pregnant pause, she added softly, earnestly, "You think... you think she's got him in some sort of Thrall?"

Only the same Thrall that every attractive woman holds over a straight man, Charlie thought. Ginny's confusion sounded suspiciously like a case of elder brother idolization. And while Fleur surely had her faults, her loyalty and bravery ought to count for something, too. She'd been in the thick of the battle at Hogwarts and comported herself courageously and capably. "Bill is as human as the rest of us," he reminded her gently. "He's got his faults, you know."

Charlie was answered by a skeptical look from Ginny that said, If you say so.

"What are your plans for the rest of the day, oh Princess of the Frog Spawn?" he teased her softly.

A fond smile broke over her face, and she weakly punched his arm. "Luna Lovegood's invited Neville Longbottom and me for dinner tonight. It's been ages since the three of us've gotten together. I just hope we can talk about something other than war stories."

"Neville Longbottom? Why does that name sound familiar?" Charlie wondered aloud.

"Because he's a hero," Ginny replied, her tone half-teasing, half-serious. "He's only the bloke who whacked off the head of that nasty snake that bit Dad."

"He's a friend of yours?" Charlie asked, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. Along with the rest of Wizarding Britain, he'd read the preliminary accounts about the young man brandishing the Sword of Gryffindor, pulled quite astoundingly from the Sorting Hat in the heat of battle, and killing You-Know-Who's familiar (which had also been a living Horcrux, interestingly enough).

"A very dear friend," Ginny answered, soft and serious. "When I first met him, everyone in school thought he was nothing more than a bumbling tosspot, myself included. But I soon learned Neville's got the most loyal heart of anyone on the planet. And it's amazing the kind of courage that comes from his sort of loyalty. When I think of all he did for the cause, standing up to Snape and the Carrows last year..."

Charlie was pleased and impressed by her astute observation about looking beyond first impressions of people, but her tone also piqued his curiosity. Just what had gone on at Hogwarts last year? "So, this Neville bloke... did you and he ever...?

Ginny smirked. "Not hardly!" she snorted. Then, after a thoughtful pause, she added, "Don't get me wrong – Neville's a dear, and I love him to death. Whoever he winds up with is one hell of a lucky bint. But... he's not who I belong with."

"It's still Harry, then?" Charlie ventured his best guess.

Ginny sighed and nodded, gazing out across the pond.

"So... what are you doing here? Why aren't you with him?" Nobody'd heard much of anything from Harry Potter since the battle. Rumors abounded regarding his whereabouts, but no public appearances had been made nor statements issued. In the face of the spotlight, under the weight of the adulation of Wizarding Britain, Harry had gone to ground. But Charlie reckoned that if anyone knew where the boy hero might be, it would be Ron.

Ginny scowled. "We broke up, don't you remember? Or, I should say, he dumped me."

Charlie quirked a scolding eyebrow at her petulance. "According to my sources, the split was not due to lack of affection."

"Your sources are accurate," she snapped bitingly. "He loved me so much he couldn't bear to risk me."

"Has something happened to make you question his sincerity?" Charlie pressed, puzzled by her bitter tone. He supposed it was possible Harry'd had a change of heart over the past few months. Had Ron informed her of such?

Ginny ground her jaw a few moments, possibly working to bring her legendary and somewhat Molly-esque temper under control. When she did finally speak, her tone was less acidic, though still indignant. "Even though I understand his motivation, I'm still quite angry about how he left me behind. He took Ron and Hermione with him – they were too important to be kept safe, obviously – but not me."

Ginny twisted around to face him, and her fists clenched. "I could've helped, too!" she cried. "I know a thing or three about You-Know-Who! But he never remembers that. He never thinks of me as an equal, no matter what I do to try and prove otherwise."

Charlie heard her hurt, loud and clear. "You could argue it proves how much he loved you, sacrificing his happiness in order to protect you. He knew you'd be safer away from him," he offered.

"Hogwarts hardly proved itself a haven last year," she sneered.

"He didn't know that," he argued. Though he probably should have predicted it, Charlie mused to himself.

"Perhaps," Ginny conceded. "But when the going got tough, George didn't dump Annie. They fought against it together."

"Some might say that makes George the weaker man," Charlie argued, playing devil's advocate, for he wasn't convinced either fellow had made a wrong choice, just a different one. "The more selfish for risking Annie's safety."

But Ginny was having none of it. "You might just as easily argue it means their love is stronger than Harry's and mine. They stayed together through it all, weathering everything the world had to throw at them."

And they're together still, mucking through this latest round of shit. Charlie found himself inclined to agree with her. He could've insisted Sasha stay safely in Romania while he left to fight in the battle, but he hadn't. Truth was, he felt so much stronger with Sasha by his side, even in spite of his worry about him.

"What are you going to do about Harry, then?" he asked.

Ginny winced. "Nothing much, for the time being."

"Where is he, anyway?" Charlie asked, fishing.

Ginny dropped her eyes, and he knew he'd only be getting a half-truth from her at best. "If I know him, he's holed up somewhere Unplottable and inaccessible to anyone else, hiding from the world while he licks his wounds. He's got a lot to sort out, but he's not one to do so publically."

"Sounds like he could use a friend. Someone who knows him really well..." he suggested leadingly.

Ginny picked up on it and smirked. "Trust me, he's the kind of guy who insists on working it all out on his own," she said somewhat exasperatedly. "Asking for help really isn't his forte." She squinted, looking out across the pond again before continuing in a tender tone. "No, he'll wallow and fester for a while in all that guilt and regret – because he never lives up to his own inhuman expectations – blaming himself for absolutely everything that went wrong. He'll work himself into a nice funk of self-pity. Eventually one of us will go round and kick his arse out of it."

"Meaning you?" Charlie chuckled.

Sullen, she muttered an obstinate, "We'll see."

Charlie expressed his disbelief with his eyebrows.

Ginny began picking at a loose quilting thread on the blanket. "I admit that part of me quite delights in his misery after what he put me through," she uttered a little reluctantly. "I was worried sick about him for nearly a year, not a bloody owl the whole time," she added, her umbrage rising. "I watched him fake his own death, for Merlin's sake!" she finally spat, fully furious. "Laying there at that monster's feet! Not a word of warning!"

Charlie pretended not to notice her wiping a traitorous tear from her cheek, or the loud sniff that followed. He looked away, feigning interest in some cattails waving in the wind, and gave her a moment to collect herself.

"But you've already forgiven him," he said once she'd calmed down.

Ginny blinked once, then sighed and nodded, caught bang to rights. "When he finally gets round to stewing about me... And it'll take a while before he gets to that point – I know where I rank in his priorities... Knowing him, he'll tell himself I've moved on. Or convince himself he's not worthy of me because of all his faults and mistakes, never mind my own overabundance of the same."

"Then why not march over to wherever he is and set him straight?" Charlie urged her, disapproving of her bitter tone. "Save yourselves both a load of heartache?"

But Ginny just shook her head. "If I've learned anything over the past seven years, it's that Harry's got a process. His own way of dealing with things. Merlin knows I wish it wasn't so, but he can't be rushed. He'll get there in his own time."

Feeling sorry for the romantic tribulations of his baby sister, Charlie threw a supportive arm around her shoulders and gave her a sideways hug. Ginny gave him a flash of a grateful smile, then slid her own slender arms around his waist, resting her head against his shoulder.

"And when he does, I'll be there waiting for him," she added with a soft sigh.