The Visitor

Chapter 1

Ghosts of Weasleys Past

Monday, August 31, 1998

"May I have your attention, please?!" Headmistress Minerva McGonagall tapped her crystal goblet with her butter knife.

A hush fell over the crowded Great Hall of Hogwarts, which had magically expanded itself to accommodate the crowd. Late evening sunlight spilled in through the newly restored stained glass windows, and overhead, the enchanted ceiling shone with the promises of purples and oranges of a coming early autumn sunset. It reflected off the polished flagstones of the floor, many of them new, causing blinding hotspots that made many to look away from their radiance.

In fact, most of the Castle itself shone with the same luster of recently repaired or replaced parts. For the whole of the summer, hundreds of volunteers had donated their time, money, and magic into restoring what was, for many of them, a sacred place. It had also come as no surprise to most of them, that the Castle itself seemed to be 'healing', magically repairing its own war wounds here and there, when no one seemed to be looking. There were even theories proposed that Hogwarts itself might even be self-aware.

At long last, the seemingly hopeless smoldering ruin of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was again ready to receive students.

"On behalf of the Board of Governors, Caretaker Filch, the staff and students – many of whom I am sure will be lamenting your efforts by the day after tomorrow – may I offer my sincere appreciation and gratitude for your help?" Headmistress McGonagall waited for the applause to quiet a bit. "It is with some reluctance, however, that I must ask everyone to make arrangements to depart, as school takes up again tomorrow and we must prepare!"

There was a deafening cheer, as adults and children at all four tables applauded.

At the Gryffindor table, however, one exhausted lady put her head down on her folded arms and sighed.

"Merlin's dirty laundry, it's finally done!" She swore. "But do they have to be so loud?"

"Mum, are you quite all right?" Ginny Weasley asked.

Across the table, a serious young man pushed up his glasses and gave her an appraising look as he finished off his custard and the plates from the celebratory feast vanished.

"You've been working too hard, Mum," Percy commented clinically, "You don't look well at all!"

"PERCY!" Arthur snapped at him in surprise at his bluntness. "Have a bit of respect!"

"Tha's our Percy," Charlie commented to Bill.

Molly, however, waved them off. "No, no, Percy's right, dear. I think I'm just getting too old for this sort of thing. I feel like I'm about to fall over!"

"After raising all of us?" Ron laughed, continuing to sneak nervous glances at Harry, who was currently holding his infant Godson Teddy. "Not very likely, Mum! You could have fixed this mess single-handedly!"

At Ron's side, Harry snickered.

Molly looked up sharply. "You're doing that all wrong, Harry!" She suddenly snapped. "Give me that baby," she reached across the table to snatch Teddy, who didn't even bother to wake up. His hair, however, did turn shockingly red. "You have to keep the blanket folded under him too, like so," she went on, ignoring the rest of Professor McGonagall's speech as the Great Hall began to empty out. For the life of him, though, Harry didn't see what he'd been doing wrong. He'd held the baby just like Andromeda had taught him.

When Molly stood, however, she swayed a bit.

"Mum, let me take him," Ginny offered, not waiting for a reply as she took Teddy.

Molly Weasley looked at her daughter for a only a instant, standing there holding the baby with Harry at her side. She closed her eyes. Another wave of vertigo, and then it passed.

Someone was taking her arm.

"Mum, I'd like to see the memorial one more time, before we go," George whispered in her ear.

"Yes," Molly sniffed, "Yes, that's a good idea, Fred, just one more time, shall we?" She agreed, taking his offered arm in her own as he led her from the Hall.

No one had the heart to correct her as Teddy's hair turned blue and he began to cry.

"Yes, let's go," Andromeda Tonks agreed, taking Harry's arm as well.

"Ahhh, I remember all the trips we made down this way, Molly," Arthur said, after having finally taken their leave of the children, and walking down the lane towards Hogsmeade Village, well away from the new anti-Apparation zone of Hogwarts. "Are you sure we shouldn't just Apparate from here?" he added, noting how many little stumbles his wife had made after her insisting that they walk a ways. "Sometimes, I think you just don't know when to quit," he shook his head, after receiving no response.

Molly dabbed at her eyes with a dainty handkerchief. "I just need to see it all again, before we go," she finally answered flatly, as they entered the village proper.

She turned and looked back.

"It's all finished, isn't it, dear? Nothing left to do, except get the children here tomorrow." She sighed again, "I do hope that Ginny has all the things she'll need!"

"I'm sure she does, love," Arthur agreed. "In fact, she's already here! Be a bit silly to go to Kings Cross, just to ride back!"

"There's nothing left to do," Molly repeated, her eyes fixed upon the castle in the distance. It was a long while before she turned back to the village.

All around them, there were signs of homes being repaired, and businesses being reopened as villagers were returning to a normal way of life free of Death Eaters. Honeydukes was open again, as was Gladrags and even Madame Pudifoot's tearoom.

"Shall we go in?" Arthur asked, remembering how it had once been her favorite place to go on those Hogsmeade weekends so long ago.

"Oh, I don't think so," she declined in a small voice, looking all around, apparently as lost in her memories as her husband was. Now and then, one or the other would point something out, and say something like "remember when?". But it was clear that the other had been paying no attention.

Up ahead, near the square, they spotted a young lady passing out flyers to anyone who would take one. "And remember, there are still several children who need your help!" The lady was saying, "Orphans, the displaced, those too young for Hogwarts, anything you can do!" She went on, giving flyers to passersby. "We're also in need of donations – shoes, clothing, food, money, anything you can do," she was telling a young couple who had just come up. "Perhaps even foster care? We have so many children left homeless by the war."

She then turned to the Weasleys.

"Anything you can do, please?" she repeated, offering them a flyer.

With a trembling hand, Molly took it.

The header read: "The Charity Burbage Shelter for Displaced Magical Children", and the Weasleys recognized the name of the Muggle Studies professor who had been recently been lost in the war. There were a few paragraphs of text, mainly asking for donations, and even requests for temporary homes for the children. Below that were several black and white pictures of children without names, most of them sullen and having not been looking at the camera. They ranged in age from teenagers to infants, but they all shared the same lost look.

For a moment, Molly stared at the flyer as Arthur offered the lady a bit of money. For the Weasleys, it felt extremely good to be able to give something. Given the success of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, and with only one child left to support, their lives certainly had changed from their poor status of only a few years before.

"I…I have…I should clean out the old things from their rooms," Molly mumbled, as an unexpected teardrop fell onto the flyer. "Our children are all…all grown," she managed with sniff. "Ginny's in her seventh year now, Quidditch scouts for the Holyhead Harpies sniffing about this season, no doubt. I wonder if Harry might even prop-…"

"Let's not toss any babies out with the bathwater, now, love!" Arthur interrupted her, although he didn't really seem surprised. "Although I could use the extra space!"

"Yes, I…I think so," Molly nodded, gently running her hand down the flyer over the many pictures of children displaced by the war. "They're not babies any more."

Several little faces didn't look back at her; they were all looking way.

Children without parents.

Parents without children, Molly thought, realizing that after such a busy summer of staying with Andromeda and Minerva while the Castle was being repaired, or even camping on the lawn with so many other volunteers, that she knew what she'd find when they finally returned home.

The Burrow would be empty.

She made to put the flyer in a pocket, then glanced at it again as a sudden breeze nearly took it from her hand.

One little boy near the end of the row of images was looking right her with a rather comical, if not confused, expression.

Teddy's picture could have just as easily been on here, Molly realized, wondering just how many children hadn't been so lucky as her new "grandson", as Harry had deemed him. Granted, they had been close to the Lupins, but Teddy wasn't really a Weasley. And neither was Harry, she reminded herself. Molly wondered who would be the first to present her with her own grandchildren. Again, she saw Ginny standing next to Harry with Teddy in her arms.

"Oh, and how many do you have?" The eager young lady asked, thanking them for their generous donation. Arthur, it seemed, was even more surprised when Molly had snatched the coin purse and given it all to her.

"Six," Molly replied, in barely a whisper, turning to look back at the school where one could just see the tip of a marble spire stained deep orange in the sunset.

Then the couple linked arms, turning and vanishing on the spot.

The Burrow had been quiet that night, and in the morning, Arthur let his wife have a lie in as he got ready for work. It was an odd sensation, as the Ministry had pretty much been running on a skeleton crew during the refit of Hogwarts. Arthur thought he might have put in a whole week of work over the summer, having spent the rest of the time at the wrecked school. He decided to grab something for breakfast along the way, as even one of his spells for making coffee might prove disastrous and he had long since been barred from the kitchen and performing any household magic. He might have been able to charm a Muggle automobile to fly, but all the Weasleys knew not to ask him to even attempt to fry bacon!

As he slipped away, the Burrow remained quiet on the morning of September 1st. The only sound to be heard was the ticking of Molly's exceptional clock.

Upstairs in their bed some hours later, Molly bolted awake some time later and immediately began screaming out names as she realized what day it was.

She was halfway down the stairs before the quiet hit her like a rogue Bludger and she stopped.

There were no Weasley children to send off to Hogwarts this year.

"Oh, well, then…" she mumbled, unsure of what to do next as she made for the kitchen.

But she found nothing to do there, either.

The Burrow was quiet as she stared around the empty rooms.

She listened to the clock tick, lost in her thoughts with wand poised over a cup of hot water for the longest time.

Eventually, the water went cold.

But wasn't there something?

"Mummy?" A tiny voice asked.

The door burst open with a loud BANG! against the wall, waking baby Ginny from her afternoon nap. She began to wail at once, as two red-haired young boys covered in mud and worse came running in shouting at one another. One of them was carrying a busted child's broomstick.

"You took that turn too fast jus' to toss me off into the pigpen, Billy!" Charlie shouted at his older brother, shaking mud off his hands and all over the rug.

"DID NOT!" Billy protested, tracking mud on the floor to add to his brother's.

"DID TOO!"

"You tell Mum that, an' I'll tell her you're teaching the garden gnomes to say bad words, Charlie!"

"AM NOT!" Charlie shouted back.

"AM TOO!" Billy retorted.

Ginny wailed.

Before Molly could rise from the kitchen table, another little boy came panting and puffing in the door at a run. "Mummy, what does lop-eared-goat-f****r mean?" Percy asked, as the Muggle Spellotape that held his glasses at the bridge gave way. "Oh, bollocks!" He added, picking up the two pieces.

"Language!" Molly exclaimed, shocked. "Where did you hear that?!"

Percy and Charlie both pointed at Billy, who tried to look innocent. He failed miserably.

"Biw-wee sedd a bad wurt!" the Twins began the chant, pausing just long enough to sniff, and glancing over at Ron, who had decided to cut his teeth on a wooden building block from their toy set. "Mummy, Wonnie need'a new nappie!" One of the twins, Fred or George, she didn't know which, declared.

"Are you sure, Fred?" Molly asked.

"I not Fwed, he is!" George corrected her.

"AM NOT!" His twin disagreed with a grin.

Ron began to cry as if this were all news to him.

The cat then jumped on top of the stove, knocking over a pot, and scalding its tail as half-done potatoes and water went all over the floor. The cat shot out the window with a screech. Ginny continued to wail. Ron (who was in fact in need of a new nappie) cried on, too.

"Do you smell something, Mummy?" Charlie asked, and they turned to see smoke coming out of the oven.

"Oh bloody…" Molly shouted.

"Language, Mummy," Percy interrupted her.

"Never a dull moment," Molly sighed, as she triaged the disasters that were the norm of a typical day at the Burrow.

"Charlie, rock your baby sister back to sleep!" She ordered, handing off the clean baby to the filthy boy – who was soon to be filthy herself! "Billy! Change Ronnie's nappie!" She added, aiming her wand at the stove as the fire went out and the potatoes floated back into the pot. "Percy! Reparo!" She fired on Percy's specs, wondering at her husband's silly idea of fixing them himself. "Muggley'things'," she wondered. "Accio, cat!" She fired the spell out the window, "Petrificus totalis! Episky!" She fixed the frozen beast's tail, then released it. The cat shot out the window again, scattering chickens in its wake.

"Goood job, Mummy," the Twins congratulated her, having not done a thing while just taking it all in.

For the moment, peace had returned to the Burrow.

"Oh, your father will be home any moment now, and I've not even started the pudding!" Molly lamented, just as the Dutch door opened and Arthur peered in.

"Happy anniversary, dear!" He called jovially, handing her a bouquet of flowers. Molly took them, sniffed deeply, and smiled. "Thought I'd come home early, and…"

"Arthur, love, remember when you said you wanted eight children?" Molly asked sweetly.

"Yes, dear?" Arthur asked excitedly.

She then hit him over the head with the flowers.

"NOT GONNA HAPPEN!" Molly informed him.

Arthur paused for a moment, taking in the sight of the twins playing, Ginny being rocked, Ronnie getting a new nappie, and Percy sitting quietly reading a book. "So, how was your day, dear?" Arthur asked sweetly.

"Charwie taught da gnomes to say 'f*****'," one of the twins offered. "Wha's a 'f*****', daddy?" the other asked.

"Where did you hear that word?" Arthur demanded of Charlie, who pointed at Billy.

"Evan's daddy said it after school!" Billy protested. "I didn't know!"

"DINNER!" Molly interrupted, "I'm afraid it's a bit done, though," she added clinically, taking the sight of the slightly blackened roast chicken as plates and silverware wafted over to the table.

"NOOOOO!" Charlie screamed, glancing out the window at the chickens in the yard. "IT'S BERTHA! YOU COOKED BERTHA!" He wailed, which set off Ginny and Ron again. "I'm gonna be a vege-table-arian!" He then declared.

"Welcome home, dear," Molly kissed Arthur's cheek.

And then they were gone.

Just like a Pensieve that has exhausted its stored record of memory, the ghosts of Weasleys-past evaporated before Molly's eyes.

The Burrow was quiet again.

In the far corner, the clock struck eleven.

Molly glanced at the six hands. Three of them pointed at 'work'. Two pointed at 'school'. One pointed at 'mortal peril'. Then it moved back to 'work'.

"George, testing products again already," she wondered, staring at the hand with Ron's image on it – the hand that for so long the last year had read "lost".

For just a moment, she thought to pack him a lunch.

But there was a hand missing from the clock.

For the longest time, she just stared at it.

But the six hands did not move.

Tick…tock…tick…tock…tick…tock…

It was September the First, and Molly Weasley thought she heard a train whistle in the distance as she absently picked up an old copy of the Daily Prophet. The headline read:

"Harry Potter to be Hogwarts' New DADA Teacher!"
Will it be enough to break the curse on THAT job?!
Minerva McGonagall as Headmistress & Head of Gryffindor,
Horace Slughorn to remain on for Slytherin House!

It was September 1st, and Molly Weasley was not at Kings Cross Station.

"Excuse me?" The piping voice of a little boy then asked, and Molly jerked her head around. "Could you…I mean…could you tell me…how to…?" A boy with messy black hair and taped-up specs was asking her. She blinked.

"Well, of course, dear! Now…" She turned with a startled gasp.

But there was no one there.

"Teaching DADA, and he didn't even know how to catch the train then?" Molly said to no one, as she put the paper back down on the coffee table. "Silly," she chided herself.

The clock ticked.

She made herself a cup of coffee, transfigured it into tea, and then changed her mind again. As she made her way back to the sitting room, she noticed a few envelopes on the windowsill and realized that she'd missed the morning post owl. She gathered them up, turning on the radio as she sat down to read them.

"And now, for all you exhausted parents just getting back from Kings Cross, Celestina Warbeck sings the Muggle classics!" The announcer said, "Painful as that might be," he added, and Molly thought she knew that voice. "River," of course, from the Potterwatch WWN show. Lee Jordan, she recalled; George's friend.

'And it's Ginny Weasley taking the Quaffle, she's charging up the pitch like a madman! MadWOMAN, that is! She shoots…She scores!"

But she wasn't really listening to the wireless as she scanned the various advertisements, discarded the newspaper and a few greeting cards, until her eyes fell upon another flyer from The Charity Burbage Shelter for Displaced Magical Children.

Again, those sad little black and white faces that wouldn't look at her.

Except for one.

She wondered what color his messy hair was, badly in need of a trim, as he smiled a lopsided smile at her.

On the radio, Celestina's voice went into a crescendo:

"…I had a dream that life would be, so different from this hell I'm living! So different now from what it seemed, now life has killed the dream…I dreamed." The voice of Celestina Warbeck faded off.

The clock continued to tick.

She stared at the flyer until the clock struck twelve. "Well, there's no help for it," Molly decided, as she started up the stairs, wand in hand.

Bill's and Charlie's old rooms had since been converted to guest rooms, so there was no point in inspecting them. Besides, anything of Bill's would have been passed to Charlie, and the things that survived that ordeal would have ended their lifespan with Percy. Anything that somehow could have miraculously still endured would have surely not survived Fred and George, however!

Still, Molly looked inside the room.

A studious little boy was sitting on his bed, wand in hand, with a book in the other. Even from his first year, Billy had been fascinated with Charms and enchantments – and how to break though them. She'd almost expected to see him sort into Ravenclaw, really, and had complained numerous times that Arthur's clandestine concealment of the boy practicing at home was setting a bad example.

She chuckled as she remembered when Charlie, all of ten years old, had tried to sneak into his brother's room to peek at his school things and had sprouted a puffy white tail and rabbit ears when he'd fallen victim to this older brother's first successfully laid protective Ward on his bedroom door.

Really Mum, don't you think I'm a bit old for 'Billy'? 'Bill' sounds more mature.

And now her eldest was head Curse Breaker at Gringotts, and Goblin Liaison. He'd married Fleur Delacour only a few years earlier, and Molly wondered just when they were going to present her with a grandchild. She shuddered as she recalled the attack at the wedding – that awful day that Harry, Ron and Hermione had gone on the run.

The clock struck one.

But now there was nothing left in the Burrow of her two eldest sons, save for some notches carved on a doorjamb to mark their growth. She ran her hand along it, feeling melancholy, as she passed by Charlie's converted room. She wondered if that boy would ever marry, or if he were too in love with his dragons in Romania to bother with a wife? Hagrid's favorite little visitor, she recalled, remembering when he'd written home to his father inquiring about how he might procure a fresh dragon's egg as a Christmas gift for the Gamekeeper.

Mum? You'll never guess?! I've made Seeker for the Quidditch team!

Percy's room, of course, was ever orderly and clean. Percy's departure had not been on the best of terms, and he'd quickly cleaned out his room, taking only those things that (naturally) were deemed of value to himself. Ever ambitious and cunning, Molly wondered for just a moment that he'd not sorted into Slytherin. In all honesty, she'd almost expected it, really. Percy knew what he wanted, and sadly, being out of the Burrow had been one of these things.

Well, looks like I'm Head Boy! No surprise there!

She packed some old books and magazines into a bag with an Undetectable Expansion Charm. They might not be very interesting reading (Cauldron Collector, Which Broomstick? Potions Monthly), but she packed them nonetheless. There were, of course, no outgrown clothes to be found. With a sigh, she realized that all of these would have gone to the Twins – and certain destruction.

But in the closet, she found an old small jumper.

On the front was a "C".

But Mummy, my name starts with a "P"? The bespectacled little boy had wondered, upon being presented with his elder brother's hand-me-down. And then, comically for such a small boy, he'd pointed out that We mustn't waste good yarn!

"And he kept it all this time," Molly wondered, as one good Protean Charm later to restore it, into the bag it went. For some reason, this seemed to take some of the edge off of his departure, when Percy had refused to believe them and sided with the Ministry on the topic of Voldemort's return to life.

In the bureau, she found a few more old books, even some Muggle books, and two pair of old glasses. She recalled that this was about the time when their money problems had begun, with two boys at Hogwarts and the little one needing glasses. One old pair had Spellotape on them. "Oh, Arthur," she groaned, and one Reparo later, into the bag they went.

She paused at the next door.

The sign on it read "Gred'n'Forge – DANGER! KEEP OUT! GENIUSES AT WORK!"

Molly's hand hesitated on the doorknob.

"No, no," she finally decided, "That was all given to Ronald," she told herself, realizing with an irrational burst of a giggle that anything she found in the room might be far too dangerous to donate to innocent strangers!

Besides, it was, she knew, George's job – and his right – to clean out this room. It was George who had lost his brother, his twin…that other part of himself. They had been so identical, as magical twins always are, that she'd had to literally ink an "F" and a "G" on the soles of their feet to separate them!

She worried about George.

I'm NOT Fred, he is! Honestly, woman, and you call yourself our mother?!

And hadn't it been the Twins who'd figured out that they'd all just helped Harry Potter get onto the train!

Mum…it was Harry who financed our business venture.

Again, she ran her hand down the marked doorjamb. When had they stopped marking them? Had it been in their Fifth Year? The marks seemed to be far too short.

Molly didn't even open the door. She swallowed a little cry and steeled herself.

No, she would not break down again.

Not now.

Not when there were things to be done.

As she entered Ron's old room, she stopped with a gasp. To call the room, that he had so often shared with Harry, a pigpen would have been a compliment. It looked as if it had been ransacked, and Molly suddenly felt herself transported back again.

The last time the room had been opened was right before Bill and Fleur's wedding. From the looks of it, the boys had obviously dressed, gone down to the wedding, and then gone on the run after the attack at the reception. After that had come the Final Battle, and then the refit of Hogwarts. Molly realized, with some trepidation, that it had been almost a year since the room had been cleaned.

Then the smell hit her.

"Oh, holy mother of Merlin!" She swore.

With a flick of her wand, the windows flew open and she summoned a breeze. Clothes were scattered about the room, and the camp bed that Harry had been using was, like Ron's bed, unmade and littered with various items. She flicked something that might once have been a chocolate frog out the window. She immediately threw out the shoes she found, setting fire to them as they hit the ground far below.

"Oh, boys!" She groaned in disgust, wondering if she should even go through the pockets of the trousers she found: 28x30". Harry's. "He was always so small and skinny," she sighed, blasting at all the discarded clothing with powerful cleaning spells and making up the two beds. "Muggles and their chemicals," she groused. "How do they manage?"

Goodnight, boys!

Oh, Mum! Not in front of Harry!

There we are, all snug and cozy!

MUM!

Wh-what are you doing, Mrs. Weasley?
Well…Harry, I'm not going to hurt you! Haven't you ever been tucked in before?

Mum, he's twelve years old, for Merlin's sake!

Go to sleep, Ronald! Goodnight, Harry.

Goodnight, Mrs. Weasley. Th-thank you?

And Molly remembered the stifled sniffling she'd heard as she'd closed the door. Harry had cried himself to sleep that first night at the Burrow.

They put bars on his window, Mum! Honestly.

"Pray to whatever god you Muggles worship that I never find you, Dursleys!" Molly snarled, fluffing the pillows and tucking the corners of the blankets.

Once the cleaning spells had 'set', the surely outgrown clothing went into the bag, complete with whatever other 'treasures' she found. Some loose change, wizard trading cards, a Cannons hat surely too small, Marvin the Mad Muggle comics, a small toy dragon, trousers, socks, pants, shirts, hoodies, enough to clothe some older boy, she figured.

Finally, she found the floor. "EXCORIATE!" She yelled, sweeping her wand back and forth, and finally sitting down hard on Ron's bed in exhaustion.

At the foot of each bed was a pair of steamer trunks, revealed by the collection of dirty laundry. "HJP" and "RBW", respectively.

But she did not open them. No, these would be shipped to Hogwarts at once.

She smoothed the bedspread, watching as animated Snitches flew over the garish orange fabric with Chudley Cannons logos.

MUMMY! Mr. 'tuffings is a 'pider! SPIDER! MUMMY! AIIIIIGGGGGHHHHH!

You gave him an ACID POP? What WERE you thinking?! Do you SEE the HOLE in his tongue?!

"My, my, it's a wonder Ronnie didn't have a nervous collapse by the time he was six," Molly said to no one, remembering how the Twins had tormented him.

Downstairs, the clock struck three.

A tiny spider ran up the wall.

I…I don't LIKE spiders, Mummy!

And Molly Weasley laughed. She grabbed up her magical bag, now filled to near bursting, and winked at Mr. Stuffings^ the teddy bear, who now sat clean and quiet on Ron's pillow.

"Ginny will be back at Christmas for her things," she said to no one, "Such a neat girl! Such a good girl!" She was chattering away, "No mess in there! Must be off! So much to do!"

As she stepped out into the afternoon sunshine, Molly turned on the spot and vanished.

She emerged at the town square of Hogsmeade, got her bearings, and made her way to the new children's shelter. She entered the front doors to find a group of sullen children milling about the large front room. Some were playing chess, Gobstones, watching the others play, or reading books. Most of them, however, were just staring at the floor or out the windows. They were all dressed in the same plain gray tunics, and the room was unnervingly quiet. Molly was painfully aware of her own footsteps.

"Excuse me," she asked, nervously shifting her bag on her arm. "Who's in charge here?"

"That'd be Ms. Thimblebrass, Miss," an older boy, perhaps eleven or twelve, said without looking up from his game of chess. He did, however, point towards another door at the far end of the room.

"Thank you, Mr. … er?"

"Avery, Miss," the boy replied curtly, his knight demolishing his opponent's queen. "CHECKMATE!" He said flatly.

Molly waited for a moment, but no one else said a word or acknowledged her.

No one, but for one little boy sitting in the sill of a bay window.

She paused, starting at the little fellow with disheveled reddish-brown hair and brown eyes. He smiled shyly, lopsidedly, at her, and Molly recognized his face – he was the only one who'd looked at the photographer for the shelter's flyers – as the boy near the bottom of the list. He was dressed in a gray tunic as well, hugging his bare legs up against himself and rocking in the sunlight that streamed through glass, backlighting him with an almost ethereal glow.

Then he blushed and turned his head to stare out the window, rocking.

Molly shook her head, blinked, and remembered why she'd come. She knocked on the unmarked door, hearing voices.

"I don't care where they came from, or how old they are! Where's that psychologist that St. Mungo's promised me? What? I don't care how busy they are! These are children, for Merlin's sake!"

"Miss Thimblebrass, I can assure you that the Ministry and the staff of St. Mungo's are well aware of your problems," someone's voice from the Floo replied, "Madame Pomfrey from Hogwarts will down at her earliest convenience to…"

"I've got children old enough to BE in Hogwarts!" Miss Thimblebrass snapped back, "WHY hasn't anyone come for them to at least bring them their things they had to leave behind last spring, if not readmit them now that school's taken up again?!"

"Now, Miss, we've been over all that," the voice answered.

"Professor Slughorn assured me that he-…" she interrupted.

"Horace Slughorn has no authority to-…" began the reply.

"FINITE!" She flicked her wand at the Floo, and the green flames went out as the call ended.

"Eh-excuse me?" Molly offered.

"OH! I'm so sorry!" Miss Thimblebrass gasped, offering her hand. "Felicia, Thimblebrass. I'm the, erm, 'Queen' of the Shelter, I suppose," she said, her voice dripping in sarcasm. "Cook, counselor, house mum, nurse, and all around House Elf," she added with a snort. "You can call me Felicia. What can I do for you?"

"I, ah, brought some things," Molly fumbled, handing her the bag. "This and that, clothing, you see, and I…you're running this shelter alone?"

"Yes, you'd think in a village this size, I could find someone to help out," she sighed, looking in the bag and pulling out the orange Cannons cap. "Charming," she added. "Avery will like this."

"Avery?" Molly wondered. "I know that name?"

"Death Eaters' orphan. THERE, I've said it," Felicia admitted, gesturing about the room. "I suppose that's why no one wants to help out here." She conjured two glasses and filled them with cold water from her wand. "Sorry, best we can do. You know the boy?"

"I think we went to school with him," Molly pondered it. "Avery? Slytherin, friend of Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape, I wonder?"

Felicia nodded. "They're all Slytherins, or from Death Eater families. Can you believe that not one person in all of the Isles has offered to care for even one of these children?" She sat down heavily. "I'm sorry. Thank you for the donation," she added. "Aren't you the lady I saw yesterday?"

"Y-yes, Molly Weasley," Molly introduced herself.

"Your family owns the joke shoppe, yes?" Felicia seemed to brighten up a bit. She pulled out the old "C" jumper, fresh with refurbishing spells on it. "Oh, this is lovely!" She sniffed, "Handmade?"

"Y-yes. It…it belonged to my second son, once," Molly replied, her voice lower.

Felicia studied the jumper. "The heating charms here are fairly strong, you see, I'm sure you wondered why…why they're dressed so? Some of them had clothing, but, most of them lost everything when the Ministry seized their parents' holdings and such. It's getting on towards autumn now, chillier, and … and the Ministry feels that…they won't – can't – run away if they don't have wands, shoes, or warm clothing." She sniffled, reaching for a handkerchief.

"Well surely this isn't prison?" Molly gasped. "It's a shelter for children!"

"I'm glad someone sees them for what they are," Felicia replied. "I think to everyone else, they're just mini-Death Eaters."

"Who…was the little boy in the window? The one with the shaggy hair?" Molly asked.

She pointed at the flyer. "Oh, that's Jack. At least, that's what we call him. 'Jack' was the most popular name in Britain for so many years, you see, Jack can't – or won't – talk, so we don't know his real name. He…he was brought in by…Aberforth Dumbledore, he found him eating out of his trashcan the day after the Battle. Took him a week just to get close to the boy, come to find, he'd been staying in the shed with Abe's goat."

Molly's hand went to her bodice and she gasped again. "That's awful! No one knows who he is or where he came from?"

Felicia shook her head. She glanced at the clock. "I wonder how many children's lives that bloody Hat is going to ruin this year, when they arrive at Hogwarts and are sorted?" She went on. "For these children, one word, it seems, had condemned them."

There was a long silence.

Felicia called Avery to come and sort the donations. A moment later, and they heard laughter.

Peering out the door, they saw Jack sitting in his window, playing with the tiny toy dragon from Ron's room, laughing and clapping his hands as it walked around the sill snorting fake fire.

Molly's throat tightened. "Felicia, I'd like to talk to you about Jack," she finally said.

Note:^Mr. Stuffings the bear was created by the marvelous author "TenthWeasley," and he found his way here!