Ronald Weasley was not having a good day. Not having a good day probably would have been an understatement given his current situation. Standing naked in the middle of the Quidditch pitch while it was filled with laughing and cheering fans was one thing, but on the side of the field was a very happy and triumphant Harry Potter holding up the World cup in all its glory.
He had no idea how he had gotten here, but he seemed to remember something about a game and loosing his clothes somewhere in the middle of it, but that was it. Anger rose into his cheeks as he raised his wand to hex Harry, only to watch the end of it fizzle and die with the curse still on his lips. Using his hands to cover his body it was hard to try and curse someone and protect your modesty at the same time.
Ron raised his wand again, this time not caring if people saw him naked and shouted out the vilest curse he could think of, but his wand just fizzled and fell limp in his hand. Shaking the wand violently only caused people around him to laugh harder at his misfortune, but still did not produce anything. Looking up he saw Professor Dumbledore striding over the grass towards him.
"Mr. Weasley, it would appear that you are no longer a wizard. As such your mind will be altered and you will be placed in a muggle orphanage to live out the rest of your life as a muggle." Dumbledore raised his wand as the memory charm was about to be cast. Ron fell to his knees and sobbed gently falling into the coolness of the grass that changed into the warmth of his sheets.
Lurching forward he fell off the bed and awoke, shaking as he stared around the room. He was safe in his bedroom at the Burrow, but the memory of the dream still remained. It was the same nightmare that he relived every night for the past several days, and it was taking a toll on his body. He was feeling weak, his face pale and even his hair had lost some of the vibrant color.
XoXo
Ginny sat on the cold flagstones, the cold slicing up through her bare feet and legs. She kept her head low, the tangled matted curtain of hair obscuring her face from those that were passing near her. She heard the scoffs, exclaims of people and those that would never come near her. She was determined to keep her eyes closed; it wouldn't happen if she couldn't see it. Wrapping her arms around her body she felt her ribs through the cloth that she had worn as a dress for so long.
Her body was smaller than normal from being malnourished and her bones stuck out of her arms, but she didn't notice nor care about this. All she cared about was keeping her eyes closed and the tears out of her eyes.
"It must have been fifteen feet long by the time I got to it. Poor chap couldn't even control the beast." The masculine kind voice floated over the air and into her ears. Clapping her hands over her ears she tried to block out all sound, they couldn't see her if she couldn't see them.
"Oh Harry, you're so brave, how do you do it all?" A feminine voice cooed nearby and Ginny could tell they were getting closer.
"You two really need to get a life, I'm married, you know." He responded a little harsh to the other two voices, but it was at this point that a bump into Ginny's body came and the voice turned towards her. "Ginny? Is that you?" She was bound and determined to keep her eyes shut and her head down, but she felt the people getting closer to her.
"Oh, leave that vagabond alone, Harry. She deserved what she got." She opened her eyes quickly and met emerald green orbs attached to a much more mature face of Harry Potter. She started to cry silently.
"Ginny, you turned your back on your true friends. You gave up during the war and your family lost everything; you even gave yourself to Draco Malfoy to stop the torturing, but that didn't work, did it?" He was compassionate as always and it sliced through her heart as she cried silently. He reached out and gently moved some hair away from her face to show an ugly scar that ran from the base of her hairline down to her neck on her left side.
"Ugh, how can you touch such a thing?" Harry's beautiful companion scoffed at it and then quickly moved away. Harry himself scowled after the woman but slowly stood and handed Ginny a stack of galleons.
"I'll see you again later, Ginny. Take care of yourself." As the more mature young man trotted up the alley, Ginny found herself screaming into the cold night.
"Harry, please don't leave me, I'm sorry!!" Ginny was staring around at the empty bedroom at the Burrow.
Looking down at herself she saw her usual nightgown plastered to her body from the sweat of the nightmare. Collapsing back into the bed she sobbed gently into the pillow. It came, every night, no matter what she tried; she couldn't avoid seeing those older more mature eyes, to hear the insults to her family and her body. What hurt her most from the nightmare was that Harry still cared; he always gave her money, and always promised to help her, even after what had happened. Ginny Weasley cried into her pillow as she heard the telltale thump of her brother again falling out of bed from his own nightmare.
XoXo
The force of the spell slashed against the weak shield and pushed back the pair of redheads until they were kneeling and gasping for breath on the ground. A new tactic needed to be tried. They both raised their wands and cast a powerful bludgeoning curse that pushed back their attackers, but they continued to come. Black robes billowing behind them and their white masks concealing the sneers on their faces.
A battleground spread out around the eldest pair of Weasleys. Dead bodies littered the ground and at their feet was the lithe form of their daughter, her eyes still open in surprise but cold and lifeless. Far away they could still hear the battle between the small teenage boy and the much older and snake-like man that he was destined to face.
Molly supported her husband as they stumbled through the battleground towards a small thatch of trees that would offer them cover, they always did. As they stumbled around they saw bodies of Death Eaters and of their children, Ron lay next to Luna Lovegood, their hands clasped as they had died fighting next to each other. Off in the darkened forest there were sounds of the crashing giants, the coldness of the dementors and the screams of the dying. Closing her eyes didn't prevent the sounds from coming to her ears, but it was what happened next that frightened her the most.
"Mum." The strangled voice of her eldest, Bill, came from the mist curtained around the ground. He was still alive, but only just. "Please, help us, you have to realize now that money means nothing." He stumbled and fell.
She tried to turn her eyes away from the scene, but it was too much. Her husband and her watched as a robed figure appeared before them and bent down to touch the fallen Weasley. The bony hand touched the man's face and it went blank as the mist slowly parted for the robed figure.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM." Arthur screamed next to his wife, but it was no use. His wand emitted silver smoke as the figure laughed high and cold.
"I am not a thing of the darkness, but that which you fear above all else. I am that which you can never defeat." The figure threw back his hood to show a sickly white skull that laughed high and cruel. "I am Death, destroyer of all things." Raising his hand there was a flash of light as the Weasley's tumbled into the darkness.
Falling through the darkness they both jumped out of their bed with their wands raised to face the unseen and the dark around them. The moon was still high in the sky above the Burrow, but neither felt like going back to sleep. Hearing the thump of the floor nearby they knew that it was going to be a long night in the Weasley household.
"Have it again, Arthur?" Molly asked with little emotion as she stood and straightened the sheets around her husband.
"Yes, I did, I guess I can assume that you did too. Sounds like our children are up as well. Why is this happening to us?" He stood and pulled on his dressing robe over the long night shirt that he wore.
"Perhaps we made the wrong decision with Harry, maybe we should apologize. I'll go start the tea and get the chocolate out, you round up Ron and Ginny." She sighed and moved down towards the kitchen, but once she was alone she started to cry. "Why is this happening to our family?"
XoXo
Even as the night progressed at the Burrow with trepidation and nightmares, it was a much different scene a few hundred miles, and several hours later, away in London. At the ancient house of the Black family there were several Order members, two ex-Death Eaters, one witch turned cat, and the two most famous light wizards that ever lived (although that last part could be debatable by a few at the Ministry, but we'll not concentrate on that right now).
Seated in the living room, Harry looked up from the book he was reading to see Lupin and Bella engaged in a chess game, it was the middle of the afternoon just before lunch and he had just gotten Hermione to ask Dumbledore if she could bring Luna to headquarters. He smiled a little as he saw the old rivals and the hatred gone. The conversation under truth serum had gone a long way in forging a friendship, but he still sensed that his surrogate uncle wanted to beat the woman out of spite.
"Are you sure you want to do that?" The old Marauder asked his opponent as she moved one of her knights up the board towards his pieces.
"Just play, fluffy." Bella concentrated on the chess board that she didn't see the smirk pass between the two men in the room at the comment. They had taken up the practice of friendly banter, but both knew that it was just that.
"I told you so." Lupin moved one of his pieces to intercept the knight and put the king in check. "Three moves, fifteen galleons, deal?"
"Fine." Was the curt answer as she moved another piece. Of course it was a forgone conclusion that she would end up paying, but it still looked great and she went out with a bang. The bang of course was a literal bang as she used her wand to blow apart the chess board, the pieces flying apart or cowering behind the broken pieces of the board.
"You really should stop doing that, you know. The pieces aren't ever going to trust you if you blow them up every time you loose." Harry spoke up from the chair setting the book aside as he smiled. Lupin chuckled as he waved his wand to repair the damage done, once again setting it up for a game.
"Oh, and pay up." Taking the galleons from the witch the wizard got up and left the room, leaving his opponent to stew on the couch.
Sitting on the couch Bella stuck her head in her hands as she stared at the floor. Her once famous beauty was starting to come back to her, but her face was still sallow from the time in prison and it got Harry thinking about the prison itself. Moving to sit near her he gave her time to think to herself before he spoke up.
"Bella, if I might be able to ask something a little personal?" She raised her head a little and gave a small nod before turning her eyes to him. "What is it that you experience when you were at Azkaban?"
She shuddered a little from the mention of the prison, and clutched at the calming white tattoo that had replaced her Dark Mark. Leaning back against the cushions she considered the question before slowly answering. "The night that Rodollphus first came to my bed, he was slimy, rough and hurt me after he had finished." She shuddered a little and as if on impulse Harry reached out to touch her hand that was resting on the couch.
"I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have asked. I know that it's a little personal and different for everyone."
"What do you see?" Bella peeked out of one eye towards him, still not moving her hand from his.
"I can hear my mother and father screaming at each other." At the look from Bella he laughed a little and shook his head. "No, nothing like that, it's the night they died. I can hear him yelling for her to get me away, her pleading with Voldemort." Bella flinched slightly at the name being mentioned. "I can hear his voice, her dying, and a flash of green light, the same that I used to have nightmares about when I was little."
"It's horrible for someone to grow up without their family. You should know that I left the Longbottoms alone when we arrived at their house. It was my husband, brother in law, and the kid that did most of the damage to them."
"Why were you screaming then at your trial?" Harry bit his lip as he remembered he wasn't supposed to have seen that, but Bella didn't seem to notice or at least didn't care.
"Oh, I was upset at being caught, no doubt and I blamed you for the downfall of the Dark Lord, for sure, but I never harmed them. To be honest…." Her voice trailed off a little as she shed gentle tears, Harry squeezed her hand and she held it tighter in her own. "I…I can't have children, at least not with him. When I saw their baby I was so captured by how small he was, little Neville was so tiny and cute. I spent my time there making sure that he was ok and it was because of that we were caught." She sobbed a little and closed her eyes tightly against the tears.
"Bella, you're a good person both now and then. Your soul has been cleansed from Moldyshorts' influence." She giggled slightly at the name. "You can start picking up the pieces of your life and if you wanted we can talk to the Ministry about getting your name cleared. I hadn't thought about it before, but I suppose we can help to reform others that would want it in the same way that you and your sister were helped."
"Thank you, Harry. You don't know how much this really means to me to be freed from their influence. Cissy and I wanted to ask you something." Gathering up her long unused courage she stared at him in the eyes and held his hand in hers tightly. "She's too much of a scardy cat and I know that we're old enough to be your mother, but would you…"
She was interrupted by Lupin who came barreling around the corner leading into the living room. He was panting slightly as if he had run a long distance and his robes were torn in a few places. Ignoring what he might have walked in on he looked quickly and grabbed Harry by the collar of his robes. Dragging him off the couch and away from Bella, he was able to shout over his shoulder.
"I'll bring him right back." Neither men saw the sadness in the witch's face before they disappeared down towards the kitchens. Already the sounds of a battle were coming from the closed door and as it swung open a stray spell blasted out some of the wood of the door frame.