Part 2

Some die, others...well not just yet

For a couple of minutes they were all just standing there in the middle of the living room watching Mr. Weasley watch the old clock.

He was thinking.

Each of them were ready to do whatever he planned on doing.

After those minutes of silence he turned and let his eyes wander over their strained faces.

Percy, who was standing in the corner the furthest away was the last on whom their fathers scrutiny lingered and what it appeared to him as well, the longest.

" You're coming with me!"

Percy nodded.

" You too, Charlie."

"Hogwarts?"

Mr Weasley nodded.

" We'll try to figure out what's going on over there..."

He turned to the others.

" Tell your mother we'll be back in time, if not, we'll come straight to Andromeda's for the ceremony...try to make clear to her that there's no need to worry...you might as well try to feed her some of those "Calming Mumgums" (Mr Weasley's eye twitched at the mention of WWW's previous Mother's day special.)

He took a deep breath and continued.

" Fred's body is going to be burried over at the little birch tree near the creek. We'll need a hole...

And if your mother wants anything else prepared...but we'll be back shortly, I hope."

After they all nodded in agreement he beckoned Percy and Charlie to move on.

They made their way to the corridor, but before Mr Weasley trod over the treshold he suddenly came back towards Bill.

" Could you check on Fred's body?...you know, if it's still there i mean..."

Bill looked puzzled.

" Just check, and let me know if you find anything...well, particular..."

With that he patted his oldest son's shoulder and hurried away.

"...anything particular?"

Ron, Bill and Harry had their eyebrows raised and exchanged uneasy looks before dashing off to check on the corpse.

wWw
He agreed that those, who embrace their fates and move straight on with what ever happens after they died should happily do so.

George could perfectly imagine that once beyond that veilthingy...none would be so keen on returning to the old dirty earth and hang around among all those shallow-brained livings any longer than necessary.

They probably would suffer from imense bordom and THAT, George thought, was certainly a good reason not to mess around with anything beyond the curtain.

He shook off the image of a constantly sighing, melancholic bunch of thin air, complaining to be brought back to life and dragging itself through life on Diagon Alley.

No,if he'd thought that Fred already had left the stage for good...he'd somehow have to cope with it...sooner or later.

He might as well would've fired his ashes into the sky or something...brrrr...his crimping guts stopped him from going any further on this track of thoughts...he shivered.

"Oi drop it lugless! "

" Ooow!"

Something hit his head.

" Serves ya right that does! "

His twin lurched in beside him, whistled at the new bruise on George's head and hurried ahead with a spring in his step.

" Get on with it."

Fred vanished into the dark once more and George accelerated his pace.

Here's the main difference, George picked up his thoughts, but made sure to neatly forgo any " What if-branch-offs " which apparently scared the shit out of himself AND his twin.

First of all, his Fred had not yet entered the great wit-spoiling backstage area from which there was no real life-integrating return.

So far so good.

Secondly, he didn't seem to plan on coming back as a gohst either, whereas this mental image appeared quite plausible, it still wasn't yet really satisfying.

Thirdly, there had to be a way for those souls who're ready to return for good, to get a second chance.

Why bother to have divers options in the first place, if there's supposed to be no such chance for life to win some points itself and keep them...for good.

And dear good old life, so much he was certain, was on their side and would not simply abdicate one of its liveliest offsprings just yet if they'd put their...lets say heart and souls into it.

After he arrived in the dungeons he changed over to the next secret passageway which would lead him directly where he wanted to go:

The library and its Restricted section, in fact it's restricted Restricted section, which was absolutely unaccessible to any Hogwart's students, for they were deliberately not even told about its existence.

Fred and George discovered it only because they had to suddenly hide from Snape after nicking some Billywig sting and sloth brains from his office some night during their sixth year.

Since they remembered that the passageway had been marked as unfinished and therefore impassable on their map, they never had bothered to explore it, for they blindly trusted Padfoot and co. for their mischievousness.

However as a hideout they thought it suitable.

Suitable it was, but quite passable as well.

A secret passageway that even managed to prevent itself of such a genius piece of magic as the Marauder's map, must lead somwhere utterly exciting.

Finding themselves surrounded by thick old books was for the two 15yearold certainly everything but utter excitement.

Even the fact that each of those huge tomes must contain very valuable, dangerous and probably forbidden knowledge, couldn't make amends for their disappointment.

As if that hadn't been enough frustration for one night, Snape had poked his conk into the room as well.

Knowing of course of its existence and because he believed to have heard the familiar rustling of the Arras tapestry on the wall, he made sure to check the passage.

After Snape had dragged them to the headmaster's office, Dumbledore made them vow that they wouldn't tell ANYONE of their new discovery.

George remembered, wondering at that point why he wouldn't make them vow to never ever step foot into the secret library again, as well...it would've been the simpliest way to prevent them from returning.

" Probably knew we wouldn't go there again anyway...I mean it's BOOKS...yuks..." Fred had made a face as if every book in the world would actually contain pornographic photographs of Snape or even worse...Aunt Muriel.

Once in the little chamber, whereas little was relative, narrow might be a more appropriate description for a room that apparently only consisted of height and this without a chance to glimpse the ceiling, George had to regularize his breath once more.

Alright where do we start? He looked up.

wWw
" What the...?"

Bill looked up at his brother and Harry.

If it wouldn't have been for his job to detect and reveal hidden magic, they probably would've closed the coffin again and left without noticing anything unusual about Fred's body.

But now..they stared at the corpse of an old garden Gnome.

" How?...I'm mean how did he do it?"

Ron goggled at the ugly face of the Gnome upon which just a few seconds before Fred's calm expression had rested.

" To transform a gnome's into a human's body...man...that's one big piece of transfiguration."

Harry had never thought it possible or at least way too difficult due to the big difference in size.

" He didn't transfigure it...he used a very strong confundus charm, that made us believe and would've made anybody believe it was Fred."

Now THIS made slightly more sense to them.

Everyone who knew Fred and George rarely had seen anyone producing better confundus charms...it was considered and might as well be, as one says between wizards, their signature spell.

" What on earth is he up to?"

Bill slammed the coffin close.

" He wouldn't have taken it with him...to Hogwarts would he?" Ron looked alarmed.

" If your clock only shows the whereabouts of your bodies, he might as well have." Harry tried to combine the recent order of events.

Bill somewhat looked wolfish ,which nowadays indicated any sign of anger or nervousness on his face.

wWw
"Sheesh!"

Charlie whistled at the beautiful, silvery female wolf who had just delivered Bill's message of Fred's bodie's disappearance.

" No offence, I reckoned that Fred's death might crack George's remaining sanity big-time..but this is-"

"-just sick...purely insane..." Percy finished off Charlie's sentence, looking shocked and utterly disgusted.

" Alright, let's get on with it! " Mr Weasley led them on towards the gate.

" He wouldn't have been afraid we'd avoid his protests concerning Fred's buriel now would he?" Percy gaspped under their fast pace " we wouldn't do anything without his approval...he ought to know that!"

" I doubt that's what concerns him, Perce!" Charlie pushed his weight against the great door and held it open for his father and Percy to enter the castle.

After they had passed,he followed them inside the Entrance hall while the door fell heavily back into its squeaking hinges.

" Arthur?" Minerva McGonagall stopped in her tracks and looked at the early guests in surprise.

And so did Mr Weasley, but it wasn't the Professor who let his jaw drop in astonishment, it was the hall itself.

It looked as if nothing had happend, the walls had been reconstructed, the marple staircase was intact...nothing resembled the great mess it had been just a few days ago.

"Not too shabby ey?" Carlie noticed his fathers facial expression.

Charlie, Bill and Percy had felt the need to keep themselves busy for the last two days and therefore had joined in with hundreds of other volunteers from all over the country to fix the state in which their beloved castle had been left after the great battle.

Mr Weasley was overwhelmed...impressed by just how easy a huge building like Hogwarts could be restored, its great thick walls back in place in no time, swallowing up the memories of the disasters they had caused...

" Yes, not bad ey?" McGonagall came in from behind and salutatory squeezed Charlie und Percy's schoulders " and all thanks to our strong, busy workmen!"

Percy and Charlie couldn't help their ears blushing by their former teacher's praise.

But their faces immediatley fell apart as they looked at their father.

" Dad? "

" Oh Arthur.."

Mr Weasley was crying.

Sobbing violently he sunk to his knees.

" I...m...ssssrry!" He tried to apologize and burried his face in his hands, but he couldn't help it.

Percy was the first to kneel down beside him and grabbed his shoulder.

" I know." he said.

And he knew...

...Bill and Charlie had made him restore the wall that had broken Fred's neck.

It was terrible.

He wanted to kick it, punch it, blast each of the stupid bricks in even smaller pieces...he wanted to do anything but to have to put it together.

He swore, cried and screamed at it, after a while he did so at his brothers as well, for he couldn't understand why they had to punish him this way.

In his fury he finally believed that they wanted to torture him because they secretly blamed him as well.

A little scared it really could be too much for him, Charlie had sat down in front of the wreck of his brother, who refused to face his task, and told him a little story.

Charlie had always told stories.

Ever since he could remember, Percy had found himself carried away into some distant fairyland, involved in some pretty messed up adventures, that not rarely had made him wet his pants ( those being the very first he remembered, of course...and a few who he refused to.. ) but in the end always made him feel proud and happy to have been part of.

So, there he had sat, his sobs calming down with every word of Charlie's Tale.

The story itself was not at all important, it was the way he told it, that mattered.

It told it all...it assured him that none of them even wasted a single thought on regreting that it wasn't him who'd stood at Fred's unfortunate place.

Once more he saw the glint in Fred's eyes, that honest sparkle of pure joy and pride while his lips performed the warmest whimsical smile around his last spoken words before everything around them had trembled and not even a second later Percy had found himself falling to the ground a few feet further down the floor after two strong hands had pushed him aside with all their possible might...

It was all up to Percy to forgive himself his less impulsive nature, that didn't manage to react without a second thought to haul his brother into safety, like Fred's had done.

Nobody was blaming him for it, except himself and suddenly he felt utterly embarrassed for being such a big stinking cissy, complaining to be still alive.

They had all forgiven him his stupidity so why did he still wallow in self-pity and prevented himself from self-acceptance.

Here he was, lucky to be still alive, he might as well start to honour it and do something useful.

Finally he had stood up and pulled out his wand, while Charlie kept babbling about the old Gypsy lady who finally managed to grab hold of her golden Goat's hind leg.

Percy had started waving his wand and put the corridor back into its old shape.

With a weird sensation of something finally slipping back into place and utter sadness at the same time he had finished it off.