"What's comin' will come, an' we'll meet it when it does." Hagrid
Ron peered over the top of the stack of boxes to peer at a customer. "Can I help you?" He asked, his arms shaking just enough to make one of the containers of Nosebleed Nougat to fall off the precariously stacked pile. The witch caught it deftly and handed it back to him with a smile before exiting the shop, not buying a single thing.
"Weird." Ron muttered to himself, pushing a box onto one of the shelves. He could hear Fred and George chattering in the back room but no other sounds and knew that, once again, the shop was deserted. The middle of the day was always a slow period for Diagon Alley, and it was the time Ron liked the most.
He had memorized all the aisles years ago, and now went over to the hangman, his favorite contraption. In five years he hadn't beat the game once, though Bill had once told him, laughing, that the twins taught his model particularly difficult and exotic words. It was their favorite way of teasing the youngest brother.
Just as he was settling down in front of the man, who Ron liked to call Filch, somebody apparated onto his legs.
"Oy! George, I thought you installed that…" The words died in his throat as he took in the scene before him. Springing to his feet, he yelled loud enough to bring George running.
"Harry…oh, blimey mate…" Harry had already sunk to the ground, his arms wrapped around two other people. All three were injured, bleeding so bad that the red had already nearly washed Filch away.
Behind him, Ron was aware of Fred dashing off, most likely to his other portraits in the old Zonko's shop, the Burrow, the Leaky Cauldron… was aware of George, more adept at triage than Ron, kneeling in front of Harry, disentangling the bodies to reveal Seamus Finnegan and Justin-Finch-Fletchly, the two men that formed Harry's small team in the Auror department.
It was Justin who was hurt the worst, with gaping holes in his chest and stomach and more, slightly smaller ones on his head, legs, and back. Seamus had similar wounds on his legs, but Ron had to lean close to hear his breathing. Unlike Justin, who was screaming loudly until George put him into a deep sleep, and Harry, who was coughing up blood, Seamus didn't move at all.
"What happened?" Ron asked Harry, pulling his best friend close to him. He knew that of the three, Harry had gotten out the most intact, but it was him that Ron instinctively reached for. He had to know that Harry was alright.
Blood ended up on Ron's purple robes, and he quickly stripped out of them, ripping them to make bandages that did nothing to staunch he blood. George had already used his own set as a blanket, coving Justin up while he muttered spells to try to stop the bleeding.
"Harry, what happened?" His voice was sharper now, higher, Ron's mind already going in a hundred different directions. They had taken down most of the protective charms around the shop, because they kept going off whenever a new product was exhibited. If a new Dark group had sprung up, and was heading to the shop, they would be unprotected.
Harry opened his mouth again, and Ron noticed that his lips and teeth were stained red. They needed a hospital, or at least somebody with more medical experience. "Justin…hurt bad…okay?"
Ron glanced over, able to see only one side of George's head and none of Justin. He stared at his brother, looking directly at the hole where the ear used to be, before turning back to Harry. "He'll be fine." Ron assured his friend, his lie coming out wobbly.
"Seamus…Crucio'd….minutes…." Which explained why he was so unresponsive. A leap of terror, and Ron's heart was in his throat. He had roomed with Seamus for seven years, and the two remained on excellent terms, both having an easy-going personality and no charms with women. There was no cure for the Cruciartus Curse.
Ron leaned closer to Harry and noticed that his friend had lost his glasses, which could explain why his eyes didn't fixate of Ron, and seemed so unfocused. They'd have to find another pair. "Who?" Ron asked, the one word coming out soft. He didn't really want to hear an answer.
Harry's response was a breath, a whisper, before the younger man became limp in Ron's arms, but Ron managed to catch the name, and felt himself bristle and become hot with anger. "Goyle."
Charlie was the first to arrive, and took over care of Justin while George moved to Harry, much to Ron's dismay, and Ron scooted over towards Seamus. Within ten minutes, more had arrived because of Fred's frantic race through portraits, chief among them Hermione and Kingsley Shacklebolt, who added their first aid skills. Ginny, Dean, and Hannah Abbot all arrived in a rush, hurrying over to their loved ones.
It was Hannah who cried first and loudest, her wail arching over the small crowd that had arrived in the disarrayed shop. She was beating her fists into Charlie's chest, and the older red-head did nothing to stop her, instead putting his arms around her and drawing her close, murmuring into her hair as a baby wailed between them. Justin was dead, leaving behind his wife and son. He was the first battle casualty since the war.
Harry was stabilized quickly and hovered anxiously near Hannah, trying to console while still gaining his strength after a collapsed lung, several broken bones. In the end, he took the baby, named Perseus, from his mother and nestled him in his broken arm gazing vaguely around until Ginny brought him an extra pair of glasses.
Dean crouched next to Seamus, rocking back and forth on his heels. No one could get Seamus to wake up, though he still had a pulse, was still breathing. Ron remembered Mrs. Longbottom, Neville's mother, in the closed ward, and shook his head, willing Seamus not to be lost to them. Neville himself showed up unexpectedly, having fled Hogwarts at sound of the news, bringing the Gryffindor boys together again.
"Who did it, Ron? You know who did it?" Dean's whisper came twenty minutes into his watch. By then they had brought Seamus into a back room and set him on a couch, leaving the chaos of the people behind. Bringing the boys to the wizarding hospital had been suggested, but after the war no one seriously went to St. Mungose. The place had been infiltrated at such a level that there were still Death Eaters working there, disguised.
An internal debate lasted a fraction of a second, but Ron knew he had to tell the black boy. Dean and Seamus were as close as he and Harry. Closer, as Ron knew that the two boys lived with Luna in a strange symbiotic relationship that seemed to work for the three involved. He would want to know, if it had been Harry. "Goyle."
This revelation surprised everyone. Later that night, with Seamus in the back room with Dean, and Justin spirited away by Hannah for the mandatory three-day vigil, Perseus left with the girls at the shop, Harry spoke in a dead, hollow voice to a group of men in the flat above the shop, a steaming glass of firewhisky in front of him.
All the Weasley men were there, plus Ben, Lee, Kingsley, and Neville, when Harry told them the events. "I had just put in for leave, for when the baby is due, when Kingsley gave me the memo. We've been getting a lot of reports of strange sightings around the old Marvolo house, and he wanted someone to take a look.
"So I took Seamus and Justin, my little team, around to the house, expecting to find nothing. Maybe a few kids. Maybe, just maybe, a left over Death Eater." Quite a few had been rounded up in the past few years, making the entire Ministry on edge. Exactly how many people had Vodemort recruited before his death?
"There were…a dozen people, at least. I was dueling with someone from the minute I got in, and they weren't new at fighting, either. It took me ten minutes just to have time to look around for Seamus and Justin." Harry froze there, until Kingsley prodded him on, his voice calming and gentle. They needed an official report. Ron squeezed Harry's hand, feeling at a loss and wishing Ginny or Hermione were with him and not baby Perseus.
"Seamus…Seamus had gone right after Goyle. Did him a good number, too, except he always fights fair. Those Death Eaters had no trouble with using the Unforgivables or a few Sectumsempras on us, and that's exactly what they did. Seamus must have been pinned for…six minutes, maybe seven, by the time I got to him, and Goyle does a pretty strong Cruicio, right, Nev?"
Neville nodded sagely, remembering the many times he'd gotten detention with Crabbe and Goyle. Their favorite was the Cruciartus Curse, and they were good at it, but even the Carrows only allowed the curse for a minute or less. Six minutes would surely cause you to go mad...the best reports on his parents revealed that they had been under the effects of the spell for a little under ten minutes.
"I hit Goyle from behind with an Expelliarmus. Oh, here's his wand." Harry handed Kingsley an ugly stump of a wand, which the man pocketed. "And grabbed Seamus. Everyone had Disapperated by now, so I could see Justin…" here Harry's voice took on an old, bitter tone that Ron remembered from years ago. "They had been torturing him, only they used Sectumsempra and others I don't recognize…I knew as soon as I grabbed him that he was bad. I was already covered in blood, but I could barely hold on to Justin…"
Through this, no one had made a sound, though Ron noticed all his brothers tightening their fists in anger and frustration and, probably, grief. They had all thought, like Ron and Harry had, that the war was behind them.
"I'm sorry." Harry murmured, as an afterthought, "For coming to the shop. I didn't even think that they might be following me. It was the first place I thought of." Which was odd, to Ron, though fitting. People tended to congregate around the shop, and every one of their friends stopped in more than a few times just to check up on everyone else. Other than the Leaky Cauldron, it was the best place for gossip.
George barely acknowledged the apology, so meaningless it was. "It's fine, Harry, we're just glad you're alright." He said, voicing the sentiment of all present. Though they were all surprised and saddened by the sudden death of Justin Finch-Fletchly, a boy, Ron knew, that was no older than the Golden Trio, it was with Harry that their loyalties lied, and it was Harry that they would congregate around during this second wave of Death Eaters. And, Ron imagined, they still believed that Harry was "the Chosen One," that he was fighting for something, even after Voldemort's death.
From across the table, Ben spoke, his words carrying more meaning by the very fact that he usually uttered so few. "I've been keeping this a secret…for too long, it seems." They all stared at him as he turned a few shades whiter, his paleness reminding Harry of another, more familiar, pale face. Charlie Weasley's hand tightened on Ben's arm and he shook his head minutely, though the warning went unheeded, or perhaps unseen, as Ben continued, his voice surprisingly calm, "I'm Draco Malfoy. I want to help."
So there wasn't the Ring, though I'm sure you can imagine that the next few chapters will see it be used by very different people, Seamus being among them.
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