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One moment her mother was discussing Muggle money with Arthur and the next Ron's hands were on her shoulders shaking her awake with a distraught look on his face and two wands in his hand. For a split second she thought he had just woken up from a nightmare and then she realised she was in one. Ron ripped the blankets back and pushed Hermione's wand, a pair of jeans and a jumper into her hands before pulling on his jeans himself, slipping on his shoes and running to Ginny's room.
Smacking the door against the wall when he barged in, Ginny and Harry were already dressed, with Harry tying on his shoes as Ginny pulled her hair up into a quick ponytail, knowing that it getting in her face could cost her a second of view that she didn't have to lose. Ron had sent an ear splitting warning into their and his parents room barely a minute ago. A warning that only the four of them would hear, and those outside of the Burrow wouldn't be able to, they still had the element of surprise, which the outsiders were still under the pretence that they had. With a flick of her wand, Hermione made sure that none of the lights in the house would be turned on as Arthur sent a patronus to his other sons and also to Kingsley, they needed to find out what was going on and fast. Arthur somehow knew that the attack on the Burrow would not be a stand-alone attack, there would be others, how many he had no idea, but he knew that the remaining death eaters wouldn't remain idle for long, it was only a matter of time.
Harry opened his mouth to ask Ron something when he disapparated in front of his eyes. Having no time to ask where he was going he stood up and grabbed his wand before he followed Ginny out of the room, and down the staircase, with Hermione following closely behind them. None of them were going to leave, this was their home and they wouldn't let it be destroyed, not again. They had all lost enough, they weren't going to lose anything else, or anybody else.
As the three of them reached the kitchen, they found Arthur with his head in the fire and Molly standing firm as she peaked out of the window, her face like stone. Outside the deatheaters encircled their home, breaking through the defences that had been put up. It didn't really matter why they were here, it didn't matter what they wanted, it just mattered that they were here, and Harry wasn't going to disarm them that's for sure, he was long past disarming. After Remus and Tonks and Fred, after Sirius and his parents, the days of disarming were behind him. He wasn't prepared to lose anybody else he loved, he had lost enough, he was going to fight for them and their home, enough was enough.
Crack!
Beside them George and Ron appeared, both of their faces set as they looked around the room, waiting, waiting for their defences to break, knowing that it would be soon. It wasn't until Harry noticed the mud of Ron's shoes and the blood on his bruised fist, that he realised George must not have been up in his room asleep. Ron would have had to apparate to the border of the defensive charms, step across and disapparate. Following Harry's gaze Ron pulled his jumper sleeve down, and gave Harry a small smile, Harry knew he would have done the same thing. Hermione and Ginny looked over at Harry as he started to laugh.
A grin covered his face and he had eyes for Ron only when he said, "The advice you gave me about duelling with Malfoy in first year." Ron grinned back at him as he remembered telling Harry that if his wand didn't work he could just chuck it away and punch him, which is the option he had opted for tonight, knowing that flying curses in the dark would be a bit of a giveaway.
When Ron arrived in George's living room he hesitated for a moment, George looked so peaceful as he lay sound asleep. Part of Ron wanted to leave him there, let him sleep, but he knew he would regret it if he did. He considered for a moment that he would regret waking him up, but somehow he knew that he wouldn't. So here they were, all seven of them in the kitchen, wands in hand, and Arthur's head in the fire. The light bleeding through the window told them that the defences were almost broken which meant that people would be piling in soon enough. Well not people, death eaters, out for some revenge before they were rounded up and stuffed into Azkaban.
Not a single word was uttered when Arthur pulled his head out of the fire and nodded at Molly, people were coming, they would be apparating all around them, but the look on Arthur's face told them that they weren't the only ones.
"You were one of the only people awake Ron. Wizarding households are waking up all over the place now to half broken defensive charms, thanks to your restless sleeping." Arthur said in a quiet voice. At least 13 homes that he knew of were under attack, this was the death eaters last stand it seemed. They were fighting back while they still had the chance, and what better way to hit over a dozen homes at 2am, when only a few people were awake in them. Ron nodded as he listened, glad that for once his nightmares were actually a benefit not a burden.
"Whats the plan then?" Ginny asked as her hand tightened on Harry's. She was used to this by now but that didn't mean she liked it, although part of her missed it. The action, the running, the constant threat of death kept her alive. It kept her thinking, not about Fred, not about the others, but about surviving the immediate threats surrounding her. It kept her distracted and kept her alert.
"We fight." George said in a low voice, his voice still hoarse from screaming only hours before. Those few hours of sleep were hopefully enough. He knew that he would discover new realms of exhaustion before he was able to sleep again, but now his anger was bubbling at the surface. There were death eaters outside, and he was ready to kill, he wanted to kill.
"Obviously." Ginny answered. Harry and Ron kept their eyes on the window, aware that they had two minutes left at best. Closing his eyes Harry took a deep breath and tightened his grip on his wand as he prepared himself. The last two weeks he had been less reliant on magic, and he only dreamt about fighting, he desperately hoped it wouldn't take long to get back into the swing of things, he couldn't afford to be anything but fast, it wasn't just his life on the line, it was all of theirs.
"Apparate to my apartment if you get into trouble." George said as he flicked his wand, and waved it over each of them, making sure that all of them would be able to apparate in. It would be safer to go there to go to somewhere exposed, at least his place had four walls, three exits and protective charms. The others nodded and Ron signalled to his father that there wasn't long until it was broken. Molly didn't even bother telling them to leave, she knew that they wouldn't and she was ready to give them hell herself. She had killed Bellatrix, she could kill again, and she would kill again.
"Go to the window and pick a person now." Ron said, as the idea suddenly occurred to him. If they could get in, they could apparate out, they just had to be fast, very fast. "Soon as it breaks you apparate out and get them, but don't apparate again, we don't want another Dobby."
"That's brilliant." Hermione said, not with a tone of surprise, but with a genuine smile, wondering why she hadn't thought of it herself.
"That has been known to happen." Ginny answered with a grin as Ron's ears turned slightly red before he looked out the window again, and cleared his mind of all emotion, even anger. He couldn't be distracted, he had to be determined.
"If or perhaps when you apparate to George's stay there, don't come back." Harry instructed. They only had a few seconds left, each of them were staring out of the windows, their eyes focussed on their death eater, the first seven to be captured or killed, it could go either way.
"Three." Ron whispered as Harry's stomach tightened.
"Two." Hermione breathed as George stretched out his fingers before wrapping them around his wand.
"GO!" Ginny screamed as the defences broke with a flash of purple light.
Four death eaters attempted to apparate into the house, not aware that it was under a separate charm, one that would be far more easily broken but separate all the same.
Those four remained where they were for a second before two of them were blasted off their feet as a Weasley apparated in front of them, both death eaters wore sneers on their mouths, until George flicked his wand quickly, the words Avada Kedavra screaming loudly in his head, as the death eater took a final breath.
Curses flashed all around the Burrow as bodies dropped, and people screamed. Flesh was torn open and blood spilled onto the ground, as Harry thought sectumsempra, as he noticed a familiar face in the ground. As Harry fired another curse, and a young mans screams filled the air, he couldn't help but think of Bellatrix, wishing she could see him master this spell, he sure as hell meant it now.
There was no mercy here.
On either side.
Hermione wasn't ready to kill, but she took no issue with seriously maiming people before she knocked them out. In death, the suffering would be quick, rotting in Azkaban would be long and torturous. Just as she had lifted the feather in first year, she uprooted a tree with a single flick and dropped it onto two unsuspecting death eaters, whose screams promptly filled the air as their bones snapped and their wands flew out of their grasps.
With each flick of his wand, Ron thought of Fred, he thought of his laughter as he made a death eater scream, he thought of his smile when he broke a jaw, he thought of his fireworks when he lit the tree Hermione had dropped on fire. He had no issue killing them, but he wanted them to suffer, and to suffer he would make their bodies convulse as they hovered in the air, snap their bones and knock them out, tied up and hanging from a tree, ready to be taken to Azkaban.
Molly's lips pursed as she duelled with a death eater she hadn't seen before. His face was quickly replaced with Bellatrix's and Molly sent curse after curse, deflecting each one that came her way. His screams filled the air when her killing curse cut off his hand, his voice shattering the illusion that he was Bellatrix. Molly smiled sweetly at him before she knocked him out and turned to her next victim, wanting to send as many as she could to Azkaban.
Still outnumbered the Weasleys wasted no time in reducing the number of conscious death eaters. Catching Ginny's movements out of the corner of his eye, Ron couldn't be more pleased that she was on their side, and laughed when the first death eater that Ginny killed had told her only moments ago that he didn't want to hurt such a pretty little girl. Ginny had no trouble fighting two full grown men at the same time, killing one, severing the leg off another before she knocked him out. There was no stopping her, she was alight with rage, her precision and power making her invulnerable.
The tears that had ran down George's face only a few hours ago was long forgotten as he threw two death eaters against the burrow, parting their legs from their bodies before he showed some mercy and killed them. Another death eater tried to catch George off guard but found his skin slitting open as George hit him with sectumsempra with a subtle flick of his wand before moving onto a black haired sinister looking woman, who grinned at George. As she started to comment on how he felt to be the surviving twin, she didn't get to finish as George removed her tongue from her mouth before causing her to convulse on the floor, letting her silent screams fill the air.
Re-enforcements for the death eaters were apparating all around them, but so were re-enforcements for the Weasley's. Charlie gave a nod to Bill and they went at putting the protective charms back up, nobody else could apparate in and nobody could apparate out. Sure, the next wave of death eaters would be able to knock it down in a matter of minutes but even a second could save a life. Seven of them become eleven and then just as Charlie was putting the finishing touches on the charm, Hagrid made it twelve. He may have had a wand in hand but there wasn't much he could do with it, so instead he knocked a brown haired man out by hitting him with considerable force against a tree. Hagrid wasn't exactly there to fight, he had news for Arthur, news that couldn't wait.
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AN: I would love to know your thoughts on this chapter, I spent awhile weighing this scene but hopefully I got it right in the end. Thanks for the reviews on last the chapter and the chapters before, and to 'Nerddtastic' I hope this chapter lives up to expectations and that your pain isn't so bad. Next chapter won't be far away I promise.