EFA Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Dispite what you may think, I dont own Harry Potter or any characters, places, names, etc.

Previously: She did not know how long she had waited, but suddenly the flames in the fireplace turned green again, and Bill walked up to her with a strange look on his face.

"Ginny" he said, she could feel a lump rise in her throat, "they aren't there, the house was empty"

--------------------------------

She couldn't speak. She couldn't think. She was vaguely aware of someone, maybe Bill, helping her to her seat. She was handed a cup of tea, but was unable to do anything except stare at it.

"Ginny" Bill called, but it sounded distant she felt him shake her shoulder. "Ginny!" his voice was louder, and she was able to take in her surroundings.

"What-" she croaked. She had tried to ask "what happened" but her voice wouldn't let her. Bill understood though.

"Let me tell you what happened…."

----------------------------------

Bills POV

Bill was in the kitchen, sat at the table in the sunlight, enjoying his day off work and listening to the sounds of his children playing noisily up stairs. He gazed out the window, you could just about see the sea. Suddenly he saw the whole kitchen light up in emerald green, in the reflection of the glass.

He turned around cheerfully to see Teddy, pulling up his niece Lily, from the floor. His expression quickly turned to shock as he saw the look on their faces. The kitchen lit up green again, and Albus and James joined them, with the same expression. It was a mixture of confusion and fear. Then he saw Ginny come through, with the same blank, panicked face.

Without thinking, he pulled her into a giant bear hug. He felt her arms weakly hug him back. After a few moments he felt her tap him on the back, "Bill I cant breathe"

He let her go, but couldn't hold the flow of questions. With the mess they all looked they were in, it was difficult not to be concerned, especially knowing that there was an escaped convict on the loose.

"What happened? Are you alright? Where's Harry? Wh-" he couldn't hold back, he was about to say "What's going on?" before he was cut off by Ginny answering the very question he was about to ask.

"I can answer your questions later, but right now Harry is in the middle of being attacked by Greyback and he needs help." She stuttered her answer out, almost as if she was forced to say it, or not really wanting to think about it.

He thought about it for a second. He was a target. He was the one that got away. This could be all a trap to set him up. Or to draw him away from his family. He asked her a question only she would know the answer to. After all, he sent her that pyramid because she was on her own while the others were at Hogwarts. He had told her to keep it to herself because he hadn't sent the others anything and they were bound to get jealous.

"Hang on, what did I send you when I first went over to Egypt?" he asked her.

"It was a … a miniature pyramid. wasn't it?" she asked.

Bill also caught the fact that she was asking him to verify it, which was the security question he had to answer. Both knew the answer quite clearly, they were the only ones who did, and if either got it wrong then they knew something was off.

He smiled at their subtlety, "sorry just had to check. I'm going over right now. Don't follow." she nodded, and he knew she understood. He didn't want her to follow because of a couple of reasons. 1. He still saw her as his baby sister and didn't want her to get hurt, 2. He thought that if she followed, then the children, particularly Lily, (who, being still young, was quite attached to her mother) would follow her and he didn't want them in danger. The third reason, was horrible to think about, the reason was that he didn't know what he would find when he got there.

He strode over to the fireplace, took some floo powder, and shouted "Grimmauld Place."

The green flames flickered around him at full speed, but did burn. He closed his eyes as he spun around and around, and, with an abrupt halt, he stopped. He shoved his hands up towards the top of the fireplace to prevent himself from falling, and, once the green flames died down, looked around.

At first he thought that something had gone wrong with the floo network. It was so dark, and barely recognisable, that he had to light his wand. Whispering "Lumos" the end of his wand lit up, and he stepped quietly further out and looked around. Dust was flying everywhere, it was like a demolition zone, or something along those lines. He recognised the table, knocked over to one side and pushed against the corner of the room, and he instantly knew that he was in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place.

He stood and listened out for the sound of any kind of movement in the house. He lifted his wand and whispered "Homonum Revelio!"

Nothing happened. He did not feel relived though. The spell only told him if there was anybody in the house, it did not reveal things such as, he dared think the word, bodies. He shuddered. He hated to think of Harry like that. He had seen it once before, or so he had thought, but back then, Harry had only been pretending.

He went through the whole kitchen, then continued upstairs to the main hallway. He looked up the stairs, and could see that doors were swinging off hinges, broken pieces of goodness knows what scattered the floor. The worst part was when he got onto the main landing. A huge dark pool of liquid was saturating into the carpet. The smell and sight of it made him feel sick to the stomach.

Well whoever it was, was no longer there. So he decided to search the rest of the house. He examined every room on every floor. At first, some of the rooms were worse, as badly trashed about as the kitchen was, but as he got further away from the kitchen, there was less and less damage.

He felt strange as he looked in one of the spare bedrooms. It was the exact room that he had stayed in, all those years ago, when the house still belonged to Sirius. The bed had been over turned, feathers littered the floor.

He did not find Harry, or Greyback, or any kind of life in the house at all, but continued his search. He did not know how long he had searched for, but he looked in every nook and cranny for some sign or clue that would tell him exactly what went on in the house, and what happened to his brother.

He had tipped the house upside down and back again, cast every revealing spell and charm he knew, and still found no trace, other than the blood, of Harry. He could not even be sure that that was Harry's blood on the floor. With his track record, it could quite as easily be Greybacks.

He thought about what to do next. Harry nor Greyback was in the house, and he felt horrible to be the one to have to break the news to Ginny. And to the kids. Especially Teddy. Harry was like a father to him, he had already lost his real parents, did he have to be the one to tell him he'd lost another?

Bill knew that it wasn't clear what had happened, Harry could quite easily be perfectly ok. But at this moment, there was no way of knowing for sure, and he'd rather it be him to break it, than some ministry official. That would be so much worse.

He didn't know what to do. Harry was his brother, his mum had took him in every summer, and sometimes over Christmas, treated him like another son. When he and Ginny began dating, he did not get the 'protective-older-brother-syndrome'.

He went into the nearest undamaged room, and grabbed the floo powder off the mantelpiece. He lit a fire with his wand, and shouted "Shell Cottage!" as he threw the powder into the flames.

He had less control this time, and tumbled out of the fireplace into the kitchen. He saw Ginny, and composed his expression. "Ginny" he said gently, she looked like she was about to cry. But he had to tell her. She had to know. "They aren't there. The house was empty"

-----------------------------------

"That's what happened." he hadn't of course, told her all of his thoughts and feelings, to spare hers, but had described what he had seen.

He hugged her close and allowed the reality of the situation to settle in. "I have to go and report this, but I don't want you on your own. Can you go to mum's with the kids? She would really love that you know."

She nodded, just as Teddy bounded in from outside. "is everything alright?" he asked, genuinely concerned.

Ginny cleared her throat, "no its not at the moment, but I'm sure it will be. Could you go back outside and get the others in? we are going to The Burrow for a while."

He nodded in reply and bounded back out the door to bring the others in.

Ginny had told him a bit of the truth, because she knew what it was like, being told that everything was perfectly fine when it quite obviously wasn't. she just didn't spare him any details.

----

As Bill predicted, Molly was ecstatic about having lots of children in the house again. "now you lot have all moved out the place is way too quiet. I don't like it. It reminds me of when Fred and George were planning something."

Ginny smiled weakly as Molly went to go and make some tea. Teddy was sitting next to Ginny, as "he didn't feel like playing games anymore" She could see it in his face, he was worried and scared.

She put an arm around him. "you don't have to be scared honey, Greyback won't get you while you're here"

He looked at her "that's what you said about Grimmauld place, but he got there didn't he? that's not what I was worried about anyway."

"What were you worried about? You can tell me anything."

"I was worried about Harry. He's not at home. And you don't know where he is."

Ginny looked at him oddly and slightly disapprovingly.

"I wasn't eavesdropping!" he explained quickly "I saw Bill leave, and guessed he had gone to Grimmauld Place. When I saw him come back alone, I didn't really think anything of it until you brought us here."

"Why did bringing you here make you think something was wrong?" Ginny asked, genuinely curious.

"People feel safer when they are at home. And this is your home, because you had some good times here and this is where you grew up." he said, looking down at his hands.

Ginny was stumped. It was a grown up, well reasoned and true answer, and also, he looked like Remus so much when he said it, she really didn't know what to say. She put her hand on his shoulder.

At that moment, a large tawny owl appeared at the window, and she instinctively knew that this was no ordinary delivery.

She walked over to the window, and let the owl in, which dropped a letter on the table. With shaking hands, she picked it up, opened the envelope, unfolded the letter and began to read.

Dear Mrs Potter, ……..

A/N: so what do you think? worth updating again?

I'll review a story of your choice if you review mine. promise?

Please let me know what you think. REVIEWS ARE FOOD FOR IMAGINATION! please dont let it starve! :(