You're looking at Act One, Scene One, of a nightmare, one not restricted to witching hours or dark, rain swept nights. Twilight Zone

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He immediately doubled back, hiding himself in the forest. In his arms, one of the jokes, a teddy bear that moved on its own, protested at the movement. Lee performed a quick muffliato around himself, unable to do more than that as he stared at the Dark Mark grinning at him from above his childhood home.

Shouts of Mobilicorpus and three bodies were hovering in the sky. Lee groped around the box of jokes until he found an old telescope, blue, old, one that he had helped the twins develop in their seventh year of Hogwarts, during the reign of Umbridge. It worked rather like a pair of Omnioculors, though in addition to being able to zoom in on sights, the user could also hear what was going on.

He focused the pocket telescope on the hovering bodies. A second after he registered his mother, his step-father, and his younger brother, either dead or dying, a shout of Incendio came up from the gang of Death Eaters, and Lee's house was on fire.

"No!" He caught himself just in time to force the cry to become a whisper. Furious with himself – why could he not will his body into action? Despite the fact that there were more than a half-dozen Death Eaters on his lawn, he knew he should be charging, fighting, anything to help his small family. Risking life and limb was something that Lee was unusally capable of doing: years with the twins had all but shattered his inborn need for self-preservation.

But further examination in the telescope revealed that any effort would be for naught. His mother's throat was ripped open and her head hung in a terrible parody of Nearly Headless Nick. His step-father was stripped of his shirt and a giant hole gaped in the place where his stomach should be. And Julian…

Lee forced his gaze away from the sight of his little brother's mutilated body. Tears couldn't even begin to form in his eyes. Rage came before grief, but even in his anger he was still Lee, still the rational part of the trio that had terrorized Hogwarts for seven years. And the words coming through the telescope spoke of even more dire doings tonight.

Stumbling in his stupor, Lee just managed to scoop up his parcels before Disapperating to a house he'd only been to once before.

Shell Cottage was eerily quiet after the chaos at the Jordan home. Lee forced his legs to move, sluggishly pulling himself up the front steps, praying that Bill would be home, that he would know the proper people to contact. "Bill!" He rapped on the door, realizing as he did that the eldest Weasley would be wary of anyone who disturbed the early morning peace. "Bill Weasley! It's Lee Jordan! There's been an attack – Death Eaters!" He was fairly certain that Death Eaters wasn't taboo, though who really knew anymore? In the past months, the various edicts and orders issued by the Ministry were too many to remember through the haze of blinding, painful grief.

A light flicked on upstairs, then another in the hallway on the other side of the door. "Please…" Lee was sure that no Death Eater, even one in disguise, would ever say 'please', and perhaps that, if nothing else, would lend credit to his story.

The door opened and a wand was pointed at his face. Lee had the sudden urge to put his hands up, even if it would send the radio and box of tricks crashing to the ground. "What's going on?" Bill growled, his scarred visage looking particularly fearsome in the moonlight. For a horrible, strange moment, Lee feared he would be killed by his best friends' oldest brother. After all, why would Bill remember the twins' friend in the wee hours of the morning? But a sudden look of comprehension flittered across Bill's gouged face and the wand lowered, if only slightly.

When Lee could breathe again, the first strangled words were, "Death Eaters." He felt embarrassed and betrayed that now was the time tears chose to invade. "Swarmed my house…my family's dead, but…" He thought, suddenly of some words the telescope had picked up, the words that had sent him flying to the house of Bill Weasley.

"There's a new order out – put the wand down, Bill, please, I can't think straight – a new order to round up…I don't know, they said half-breeds, which made me remember Umbridge." He was rambling now, because of the adrenaline rush, because the expression on Bill's face was growing more wary by the minute, because Fleur had appeared over her husband's shoulder.

"Why were they going after your family, then?" Bill's voice was still harsh, still suspicious, but there was something else behind the words. Bill was remembering that Lee Jordan was the twins' best friend, was remembering the few facts he'd picked up on the boy over the years. "Aren't they muggles?"

"Et ez a new sport, no?' Fleur's voice was shaking with outrage and, perhaps, with fear. "Zat dey torture dee muggles for pleasure?"

"Yeah." Lee said quickly. "I don't think the two are related – I certainly don't think the Death Eaters knew it was my family, that I'm a wizard. They were just saying something about this order, casually…as they burned my house down." Lee's hands shook and Bill steadied the packages in his arms. Lee smiled tightly at him, a thanks, for the trust, for the support.

"I just…you might want to improve your defenses around here. Maybe lie low for a little while." If Bill thought it odd that he was the first person Lee had thought of when hearing of his new law, he didn't show it.

"Thank you." Bill murmured, his face finally growing soft. "I'll make sure to get the word out. You probably just saved a lot of lives."

"Yeah." Just not the ones that mattered, not his mother, the saint. Not his step-father, who'd always treated him as his own son. Not little Julian.

"Do you 'ave a safe place to stay?" Fleur asked kindly. Lee just managed to meet her eyes, forced a nod. Fleur pushed past her husband and kissed Lee once on each cheek. "You saved ze life of my 'usband and my friends. I cannot zank you enough." Beside her, Bill nodded.

Lee felt as if he was crawling through the world in slow motion, like he had the time one of the Weasley products had caused acute hemophilia and he'd lost two pints of blood through a paper cut on his finger. "Just make sure everyone hears about this, okay?" He backed away from the house, trusting Bill to get the word out to all the people who were important. Hopefully, no one would be hurt by this new order. He might have just made it in time.

When he got to the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, though, he realized just how wrong he was. He realized that two people had been hurt already.

This is probably the shortest chapter we've written in a while, but it's a necessary transition. The next chapter should be up soon. Really soon. That's when we get to the good part.

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