Chapter 31

()()()

Ginny did a twirl for her mother and had to give Fleur some prop's because her dress was the perfect design for her, even her new body her.

It had been a discussion when it came to what Ginny would look like for Fleur and Bills' wedding; whether she would just be under glamour charms again or if she would have to be a 'whole new her', meaning Polyjuice potion.

Unfortunately, the Polyjuice potion won out. The glamour charms would have had to be reapplied every few hours as well, and then they wouldn't always be an exact match to what she'd looked like before.

Ginny was in the bridal party and had been introduced to Fleur's family as her friend Matilda. The girl whose hair they had taken did look very comparable to what Ginny would generally look like when she did the glamour's on herself, but the body didn't quite feel like her own. Her shoulders were a little broader, her feet slightly larger. Ginny felt slightly clumsy walking around in this unfamiliar body.

Polyjuice potion also tasted horrible.

But it was only for a little bit, and this way she got to be in her friend and brothers wedding.

She also got to watch as Fleur's little sister fawned over her boyfriend.

Harry didn't have to use a Polyjuice potion yet. It was easy enough to explain to the Delacour family that Harry would need to be disguised tomorrow, they knew who he was and apparently they all believed they owed him a debt because he had pulled Gabrielle out of the Black Lake during the Triwizard Tournament so his secret was safe with them.

Ginny however was a harder tale to tell.

Even though she was 'Matilda' and not Harry's girlfriend right now she was still making damned sure that the little quarter Veela didn't use any of her tricks on her man and let Gabrielle know he was taken by asking Harry about his girlfriend when the little girl was around. It was rather cute how uncomfortable Harry was by it all. He completely didn't know what to do about Gabrielle, but he also didn't know what to do about Matilda either. He told Ginny he felt like he was cheating on her to even let her hold his hand.

It was adorable.

It was also comforting to know that he couldn't cheat on her, even with it was herself he was cheating with.

Ginny looked in the mirror after her mother gave her the final nod of approval, letting her know that her hair and make-up were perfect before rushing off.

"You look hot, babe," Tonks told her.

"Thanks," Ginny said, unconvinced. Matilda looked nice, sure, but it was so weird looking in the mirror and seeing someone else looking back out at you. She couldn't look at 'her' reflection any longer. "Are you okay?" Ginny asked. Tonk's didn't seem to be able to keep her hair the same color. She'd been eight different shades of green and blue since arriving that morning.

Everyone in the Order had been very on guard over the past month and a bit since Azkaban had been essentially rendered an empty fortress. Tonks was an Auror as well, so it was taking over her whole life. She'd been looking tired for a while. Hunting down Dementors and criminals alike while also doing work for the Order was wearing her thin.

Ginny hadn't seen too much of Remus, but knew that the two of them were still going strong, so Ginny knew that at least Tonks had him to turn to when she was completely worn out. She and Ginny had only been getting together with Fleur to discuss wedding stuff and the rest of the time everyone was occupied with trying to bring down Riddle.

Ron had stayed at Grimmauld Place a few nights when there were meetings, he was taking his position with the Order seriously though and not relaying any information to she or Harry directly, which pissed them both off and considering he was only a few months older than Harry, and Ginny felt she had been far more instrumental in their current situation being as far along as it was than any of her brothers could claim.

Harry was officially of age now, but there hadn't been any meetings they knew of that he could have sat in on. Everything about today had been discussed before his birthday.

There had been some progress made nabbing a few of the escaped Death Eaters by the Order and the Aurors alike. The Stable House had a few more minor level tenants and there were a few Death Eaters that were being locked up in holding cells at the Ministry that had been captured in some hostile raids. The key players in Riddles army hadn't been seen though.

"Fine, just excited and tired," Tonks assured her. "This is turning out to be a pretty fancy affair. I know that Fleur and I have bonded and such, but I was surprised to be asked to be a bridesmaid." She was adjusting her dress a bit in the mirror, and she was pulling off the style perfectly, but she could also change her body to make it fit perfectly as well.

Although, Tonks hadn't been making any slight modifications to herself in a while. She'd told Ginny that every now and then she would make herself more busty or buxom just for kicks, and Ginny had noticed a few times the slightly changes to Tonks' face as well, different style's of nose and such. It was never so much that everyone caught on, but Ginny hadn't seen her looking like anything other than her natural self for a bit. But she hadn't done any of that in the last little while.

"Well, there are a few groomsmen, so she needed to try and match it up," Ginny reasoned.

Charlie was the best man and Bill had asked two of his friends to stand up with him as well, Aiden, who had gone through Curse Breaker Training with him before changing careers to work in international trade for Egypt because of a woman he had fell in love with while living over there. And the other was Brian, his best mate from Hogwarts who was working at his parents apothecary shop in Belfast, being trained to take it over.

Ginny wondered if Bill hadn't asked any of their other brothers because Percy wouldn't have been included.

Percy knew now, everyone knew now, that Voldemort was back and Ginny couldn't figure out why it was he didn't come back to the family and just admit he was wrong. The twins might have made him feel a little bad about it for a while, but not forever. And wouldn't a bit of razzing from the twins be worth it in order to gain an invite to your own brother's wedding?

Percy had looked up to Bill as well. Bill was what Percy had aspired to be; Great in school, Head Boy, successful Curse Breaker.

Ginny had to wonder if Percy would try and gate crash at least. She might respect him a little more if he did.

"It's nearing an hour Chickie," Tonks told her, handing her a flask.

Ginny cringed and unscrewed the cap, taking a sip of the sludge. It did not start to taste better over time. Tonks was on task for making sure that she didn't accidentally wait too long before taking the potion.

"You sure you're alright?" Ginny asked her, she was looking a little green under her make-up.

"I'll be fine," she waved her off. "Just had a bit too much last night I guess. Little jittery about standing up in front of everyone." She leaned over slightly, "also worried about how smart of an idea this is."

Ginny gave her a look. "We can't put our life on hold."

There had been a discussion about having a fake wedding ahead of time, just to see if there would be an attack, particularly since there hadn't been much activity on the Death Eater front since the liberation of the Azkaban inmates. Harry hadn't even had any more episodes of Riddle discovering that his Horcruxes were destroyed. Riddle had to be planning something big soon, this would be the event to do something.

"I know," Tonks rolled her eyes.

"I guess if they do attack, then we'll merely have a more epic story about this wedding down the line," Ginny said morosely.

Tonks snorted, "don't tell Fleur that, she wants the Disney fairy tale not a Brother's Grimm one."

Ginny knew that everyone was keeping their wands at the ready regardless.

She headed downstairs where Harry and Sirius, who was sporting light brown hair and blue eyes that did not suit him, were sitting. Harry was going to be changing his appearance once the guests started showing up.

"Boys," she greeted, sitting on the arm of the sofa beside Harry. "Are we placing any bets yet about how this is going to turn out?"

"Well, we only have three more spots available at the Stable House, so anyone else that is stupid enough to show up we're going to have to find another place to stick them," Sirius told her.

"Odds?" she asked.

"I'd say a four out of five chance we're all going to see some action today," Sirius guessed.

Harry didn't seem too pleased with the prospect.

"Maybe it'll be all of them, then we'll be done with this whole business," Bill said coming into the room looking very dapper in his suit.

Ginny grinned at him, getting up to give him a hug.

"Oi, Matilda, hands off," Aiden told her jokingly. The groomsmen too had been trusted with keeping Harry's location a secret, but they didn't know who Sirius was, he'd introduced himself as Bernard, and they didn't know who Matilda was.

"Ah, no worries about that one," Charlie told him, "she's like a sister to him. Both of us, actually." He pulled her in to a hug himself.

Ginny had missed Charlie. He managed to write regularly, but he had a life and a job he loved back in Albania and she didn't begrudge him not moving back home for her or for the war effort.

"Watch the hair," she warned him. "Your mother will murder you if you ruin it." She could smell a bit of drink on their breath and looked around for the fourth. "Where did Brian get off to?"

"He's up the way," Charlie pointed to where Remus and Dumbledore were standing at the top of the hill where the guests were expected to come through. Brian was up there with them. "He's super impressed that Headmaster Dumbledore is at Bill Weasley's wedding."

Ginny gave a chuckle along with her brothers and Sirius. Under normal circumstances Dumbledore probably wouldn't have been there. But because Harry was in attendance he had basically put himself in charge of making sure the house and grounds were warded.

()()()

The ceremony, the photos and the reception, for as far along with it as they were along with it, were going fabulously. Ginny had smiled her way through the ceremony, truly happy for her eldest brother and her friend, she even needed to wipe away a few tears and make a face at George for pointing them out.

Fleur looked to be radiating her Veela powers as she walked down the aisle, her hair perfectly styled to cover up her scars along her hair line and her dress was elegantly classy with lace and embroidery, it hadn't been just Bill that was looking completely enamored with her. Bill had made his vows to her in French, which Ginny thought was incredibly sweet, and she had cheered loudly when they sealed their marriage with a kiss.

It had been odd that 'Matilda' was going to be the one in all of the group wedding photos, but they couldn't simply not ask her to be with them, there wouldn't have been a way to explain that to the others. Fleur had whispered that they were going to retake the photo's when they were allowed to have Ginny there as herself.

Dinner had been great, the speeches had been short and by the time the dancing had commenced everyone had had enough drink in them that they weren't too self-conscious about their moves. Ginny laughed as the twins picked out some of Fleur's visiting cousins to dance with and made complete fools of themselves on the dance floor.

Among the guests were Professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Hagrid, all of whom looked to be enjoying themselves as well.

Ginny took a turn dancing with each of her brothers and the other groomsmen, she even did some crazy dancing with Luna and got a chance to sit and chat with her a bit. Then 'Matilda' managed to pull 'Barry' onto the dance floor for a few turns as well, and she completely understood his reluctance to show affection to her when she was under Polyjuice, because it was quite unnerving to be holding hands with him when he wasn't himself.

"Is it almost time to take our potion again?" Harry whispered to her as they had timed their potions to line up.

"About five minutes, she told him. "I'm trying to space it out as much as possible so we don't have to drink anymore of it than necessary."

"Want to go for a bit of a walk then?" he asked hopefully.

"Looking to mess up my hair a bit?" she raised a mischievous eyebrow at him.

"Not Matilda's," he told her easily enough in that deep voice of his he only used for her.

"Let's go," she grinned. "You sneak out first, I'm just going to let Tonks know. Head for the orchard, I'll meet you there."

Harry left the dance floor after a quick word with Hermione, who nodded at him. She had been trying to coax Ron to dance with her and failing at it. Ginny shook her head at that. If Hermione had asked someone else to dance with her then Ron would step in immediately.

Ginny went over to the table where Tonks and Remus were sitting. Sirius was up on the dancefloor with Fleur's mother, twirling her around effortlessly and looking like he was having a fabulous time doing it. Tonks had her shoes kicked off and her feet up on Remus' lap, giggling and drinking something bubbly. Tonks was keeping hold of Ginny's flask, but 'Barry' had pockets in his jacket and was able to hold on to his own.

"Hey lady," Ginny greeted her quietly. "Mind if I grab that flask? I'm meeting Harry in the orchard for a few moments before I have to take another swig."

"Make sure no one see's you," Tonks told her sternly before handing it over.

"Not to worry, we always do," she winked.

"Wands at the ready," Tonks warned her before letting go on her hold of the flask.

"Wands at the ready," Ginny promised.

She slipped out of the tent and kicked off her heels as she walked through the grass towards the orchard. She couldn't be one hundred percent sure, but it looked like everyone else was back at the tent and she and Harry wouldn't be running into anyone else.

The moon light was bright enough that she could see he was back against one of the apple trees close by, leaning against it on the other side.

"Hey mister," she whispered in a deep and sultry voice that still wasn't her own. "What's a guy like you doing in a place like this?"

Harry chuckled, "what a line. Do you use that on all the poor, unsuspecting gentlemen?"

"I do," she said casually, leaning back against the tree trunk beside him. "It doesn't usually get me too far, but you see, I am usually far prettier than this." She played with her skirt in an attempt to pretend being coy.

"Well, unless you are usually a feisty redhead with these killer deep brown eyes, then I'm sorry, you just aren't my type."

She came around to stand directly in front of Barry then. "Come to think of it, I am! However, I must say I do generally prefer my men slightly taller than you. Darker hair too, bespeckled, slightly broody, but the perfect man I have in mind is a great snog so I usually just let that slide."

"As I understand it the really good relationships have each party taking the good with the bad." He gave a big sigh then, "the sacrifices one makes for a truly exceptional snog."

Ginny grinned at his unfamiliar face and she started to feel the potion giving way and her true form taking hold again. Harry too was getting his own body back and soon it was their real forms grinning at each other.

Harry pulled her to him and kissed her. She smiled against his lips and sighed as their bodies melted against one another. She could feel the bulk in his pocket that was his invisibility cloak, but she paid it no mind. There had been so much chaos in the lead up to the wedding and they had spent the last few days apart save for a few stolen moments on his birthday. She had wanted to give him something extra special for his coming of age birthday, but he wound up staying at the Burrow with Ron and Hermione.

She was thinking about that gift now, but in the orchard with her brothers wedding party carrying on in the background wasn't the ideal timing for that step.

This might have been a very bad idea, them sneaking off and letting their potions wear off just so they could get in some snogging time, but it was a wedding, there was love in the air. After passing a few dances in the arms of Barry instead of Harry she was craving some time with her boyfriend.

She had her back against the tree with Harry doing some of his best work when there was the sound of someone approaching. They quickly detangled themselves and reached for their flasks.

"Potter?" the person asked.

Harry looked behind her at the person that had just come into the orchard and squinted at him, pulling on his glasses that had been tucked into his front pocket. "Percy?!" he asked incredulously.

Ginny kept her eyes on Harry as he stared behind her. He looked unsure about what to do. Percy was there, and he hadn't come from the party area, he'd come in from the woods, he was gate crashing his brothers wedding.

The ward that Dumbledore and Bill had put up would have repelled anyone uninvited or that didn't have Weasley blood, thus Percy would have been able to get onto the property no matter where he entered from. Ginny didn't know if the rest of her family was hoping that he would make an appearance as he was still a taboo subject.

She crouched down carefully, picking up her flask off the ground and doing her best to keep out of Percy's line of sight as she took a swig, Harry was doing his best to shield her from her brother's view as well. After taking another small and disgusting swig she made a bit of a show of adjusting her outfit to let Percy come to the conclusion that there had been articles of clothing that needed proper adjusting from what they had been getting up to.

"You and your… girlfriend … were invited then?" Percy asked awkwardly.

"Matilda and Fleur are good friends," Harry said sternly.

"And Harry is basically family to the Weasleys," Ginny told Percy straight. "They believed him about Voldemort right away."

Percy looked just as uncomfortable now as he had last year when he showed up at Harry's birthday celebration with the Minister in tow. He focused his attention on her then. She found it a little interesting that he didn't flinch at the sound of Voldemort's name.

He should have. The Percy that she knew absolutely would have flinched.

"Percy?" Harry got his attention.

Percy had a twitch in his shoulder and his head was turning slightly to the side and then back again, like he was trying very hard to stay focused on them, but his body wanted to go elsewhere.

"They knew you'd be here for this," Percy said to Harry. He swallowed deeply. "Invitation was spotted. Shouldn't have sent them out. Needed to be more careful." His chin was warbling now. "I should have been here sooner. Needed to be more careful." His voice was growing louder.

Ginny exchanged a look with Harry. There was something very wrong with Percy.

Harry sucked in a breath. "Percy, are you under the Imperious?" he asked in sudden realization.

"How would you be able to tell?" Ginny asked Harry hurriedly. She hadn't seen anyone under the Imperious before, but from the way Percy was talking and his jerking movements it was as though he was trying fight off an invisible force.

"I've seen it before," Harry told her. "Stay back from him. Expecto Patronum," Harry called forth his stag and set it off towards the marquee. "I've called for help."

Percy was rocking slightly now, his head bobbing and he kept repeating himself, then stopping and blinking at them. He wasn't attempting to reach for his wand though.

Tonks and Remus were the first that found them.

"Harry!" Tonks hissed. "Why aren't you disguised?"

"Percy had already seen him," Ginny told her. "There's something wrong with him."

"I think he's under the Imperious," Harry explained.

"I just wanted to see my brother getting married," Percy stated in a calm and pleasant voice. "I did so look up to him when we were growing up."

"Percy, how did you find out the wedding was today?" Tonks asked him.

"We saw an invitation," he told her as though it was obvious.

"We?" They all asked.

Percy blinked at them before quickly slipping his wand out of his pocket and pointing it behind them in the direction of the trees then casting a blasting hex.

"No!" Remus yelled. "That was one of the rune stones! The wards will have fallen!"

Sure enough, as soon as he said that there was a blast of fire that hit the topmost floor of the Burrow and screams rang out from the marquee.

"Percy! What have you done?!" Ginny screamed at him.

"They only want him," he said evenly to her, pointing at Harry. Ginny's stomach dropped. "They said they would leave my family alone if I just gave them him." His chin was quivering as he said it, but he gave a shake and returned to his calm demeanor. "I've just come to congratulate Bill," he said brightly.

Tonks let out a growl and cast a stunning spell at Percy who immediately crumbled to the ground. "Leave him there. Come on," she reached for Harry's hand.

Harry jerked away from her. "I'm not going anywhere but back to the tent, we need to get everyone out."

"Harry!" Remus growled at him. "We have to get you out of here. You are the one He wants."

"Yeah, and he'll step over anyone in the way of getting that, won't he? We were ready for this when we went blindly charging into Malfoy Manor, everyone is here. Let's just get it over with, yeah?" He told them straight through his clenched teeth.

Ginny was frozen as she stared at Harry in horror. They had been building to this point, yes, but was this really the time? She just wanted to backtrack to five minutes ago when his hand was creeping up her leg and they were simply enjoying each other. Now her childhood home was on fire and her boyfriend was refusing to run away from the battle that was clearly about to commence.

"Harry," Remus started.

"No," Harry said to him plainly. "I'm of age now. We've discussed this." He gestured between himself an Ginny.

She was trying to keep her hand from shaking. There were more blasts of fire being shot at the Burrow from people she couldn't make out that seemed to be flying brooms around it as continuous screams were sounding out from the marquee.

This was it. She was about to see her first real battle.

A shiver ran through her and she hummed the chorus of a silent song in her head. "We're ready," she said firmly.

"Oh no you don't," Tonks pointed a finger at her.

Ginny wasn't going to let this be like it was at the Ministry though when she had made the mistake of letting Fleur get her out of there. Ginny gave Harry's hand a squeeze and then let go right before she darted away from Tonks then and started running back to the marquee, her wand drawn.

There was a noticeable drop in the number of attendees, even with the sudden appearance of uninvited guests. These Death Eaters weren't trying to hide anything though. They didn't have their hooded cloaks or masks.

Ginny knew that Tonks would make it one of her priorities to get Ginny out of there, the rest of her family too, but she was as ready to fight as the rest of them. Thanks to the amount of time she'd had to do the spell she managed to disillusion herself at the first whisper of a thought that it might be a good idea.

Circling around the outside of the tent and dodging and firing spells when and where she could would be her best way of helping anyhow.

The sides didn't appear to be uneven, but the Death Eaters were using much more harmful spells than her family and their friends. Ginny managed to stun one of the Death Eaters that was dueling with Fred who didn't give it a second thought before rushing off to assist Ron with the Death Eater that had his hands on Hermione.

Hermione forwent any use of magic making the man release her by biting him hard on the arm, slipping from his grip to the floor and both Ron and Fred took him down.

A blast of light shone behind Ginny and she looked back towards the house that now had the top level collapsed and flames working their way through the rest of it. The Death Eaters that were flying around on brooms would be a harder target for everyone on the ground, but there were a few trying to shoot them down from the lawn.

With chaos all around her Ginny stayed tucked behind the metal posts, darting from one to the other and only firing off a spell when she had a clean shot.

Tables were flipped and used as shields, but there seemed to be more Death Eaters making an appearance. Riddle must have taken every one of the Azkaban prisoners and turned them to his side, no matter what they had been in there for.

An agonized scream from behind her turned her attention to the field. She dropped to a crouch instinctively as she watched Tonks fire a successive round of spells towards a man Ginny instantly recognized as Fenrir Greyback. He was flanked by two others who kept deflecting the spells Tonks was firing at him. Greyback had his arms were wrapped around Remus.

Remus wasn't fighting back though.

The moonlight glinted off Fenrir's teeth as he dropped his arms and Remus fell lifelessly to the ground.

Ginny choked back a sob at the sight.

Remus had been her mentor. Her friend. He was the love of her best friend. She stifled back a cry and blinked the tears that were threatening to roll down her face. There would be more scene's like that if she didn't keep trying to dwindle their numbers.

The Death Eaters flanking Fenrir were firing back at Tonks now though. Ginny stood back up and was rushing towards them in an instant. She didn't even use her wand then, she barreled towards one of them and dove, taking him out at the waist and ripping his wand from his hand, gripping it between her two hands and bringing it down over his confused face and snapping it over his forehead.

She rolled quickly off of him as the other Death Eater turned and fired a spell towards were she would have been, effectively killing his friend.

That gave Tonks enough time to fire a deadly spell at that Death Eater as well and he too crumpled to the ground.

Fenrir didn't stick around though. He was gone before Tonks could manage to take him down as well.

Ginny couldn't bring herself to look at Remus. She gripped her wand again and scuttled backwards, further away from the bodies, trying to find some other vantage point where she could be of use.

She heard a song being sung that was hauntingly beautiful and turned to see that it was coming from Fleur who was fighting tooth and nail against a Death Eater just outside the light of the marquee and Ginny's eyes widened. She had never seen a Veela in their warrior form and didn't realize that Fleur was capable of using Veela power to that extent with her quarter blood. It was amazing and slightly grotesque, no doubt that the way her face had transformed was to intimidate her enemies and it was working on Ginny too.

The two that Fleur was attacking fell and Ginny watched as Fleur looked around for another adversary with the look of an insatiable hunger for the fight, still singing her mesmerizing song to pull more enemies closer.

Seeing her friend like that gave Ginny the push she needed to get back on her feet and into the thick of it again.

She ran through the clumps of people struggling with each other, firing off a few carefully aimed spells she knew that would injure the enemy as she went. Her target location was the broom shed now. There were still Death Eaters flying around, and as far as she could tell none of the Order members had gotten airborne yet.

Charlie was dueling with someone a few yards before the shed and managed to knock the Death Eater on his arse. Ginny took the opportunity to jump on the mans leg, hearing a satisfying popping sound as the knee bent the opposite way. Doing that though made her tumble to the ground from her uneven landing surface. Her side hit a small rock, but it was big enough that it knocked the wind out of her.

"Charlie," she croaked, gasping in a breath and trying to breathe through the pain.

"Gin?" he looked in her general direction.

She let out a cough and he cast a bludgeoning spell at the Death Eater who was crying out. The spell hit him square in the face and took him out. Charlie rushed to her general location.

"Brooms," she said simply as she latched on to his extended hand.

"You need to get out of here," he told her harshly.

"Fuck that!" she growled, "I'm fighting." She ripped her hand out of his and kept on her way to the shed, clutching her side. It didn't hurt too horribly, she could still do a good amount of damage.

Charlie was hurrying behind her. "Brooms you say?" he asked, clearly not willing to continue fighting with her to leave.

"We need to try and take out the airborne Death Eaters," she said, pointing up to them before she could remember that Charlie couldn't see her just then. "Here, take this," she passed him a Cleansweep 7, "and disillusion yourself. I'm willing to bet that we're better fliers than they are and we can probably just knock them off their brooms before they realize what's happening."

"Fair enough plan," he said with no argument.

She threw her arms around him for one last hug before they attempted this suicide mission. "Love you."

"Oh, kid. You've no idea," he said as he hugged her back tightly.

"This'll be a cinch compared to dragons, right?" she asked as she pulled back, attempting to lighten the mood.

"These guys will have nothing on Horntail's," he told her easily.

Ginny gave a watery chuckle as Charlie disappeared before her eyes and she watched as his broom settled into place before it darted off into the sky.

One more deep breath.

Ginny shot off into the air herself, not letting herself look down and get distracted by the number of fights that were going on below. There were too many offensive Death Eater units in the air.

It may have been only a handful of times that she had been on a broom since she had been hidden away at Grimmauld, but she was a natural at this. It came as easy to her as breathing and though the brooms were old they responded to her every request as though they were straight out of the factory. Leaning down against the wood she made a beeline directly for the closest Death Eater that was only looking down towards the ground. Gripping her wand, she cast a gagging spell at him that hit only seconds before she herself barreled into him.

There were still some below that were casting their spells upwards and it was distracting enough that the remainder of the airborne Death Eaters didn't notice what she had done to their friend, but by the second Death Eater she managed to unseat in the same way the others cottoned on to what was happening and started firing off spells in the air at random and flying around above the grounds at top speeds while they continued their attack. It was too dark now to see just her broom floating around for them to target her that way.

She was tailing her third victim when she bumped sideways into a broom holding a disillusioned rider and gave out an involuntary giggle.

"Finding this funny are you?" Charlie couldn't help chuckling back as they turned and dived at the same time as their pursuant.

"Hey, you've got to enjoy the little things," she quipped back.

"Let me enjoy this one. There's still at least three more around here."

"Alright then," she said easily enough and pulled back, moving sporadically throughout the air while she searched for where the other riders were. Her bridesmaids dress wasn't making it a very comfortable ride, but she was trying not to pay any mind to that.

A spell shot past her, the heat of it grazing her arm. She turned the direction it came from and saw one of the other riders was setting a kamikaze course towards her, clearly seeing her broom and using that as a focus point. She didn't bother evasive maneuvers, instead she simply pointed her wand at them and cast a simple Petrifying spell. The broom slowed down after her spell hit, but then the Death Eater turned upside down on the broom and simply dropped to the ground, the broom slipping from between their legs and hovering mid-air.

That left two more in the air if Charlie managed to get that other Death Eater.

Someone on the ground took a good shot into the air and Ginny watched as a bolt of what looked like lightning shot out from near the pond and hit one of the other Death Eater riders and they fell to the ground.

One left.

Her attention was pulled to the ground by the pond now though and she saw that it had been Dumbledore that fired the lightning bolt into the air. He was also dueling with a few Death Eaters with more that were hurrying to his location. A few of the other Order members were trying to rush to his aid, but that was when Ginny saw the last mounted Death Eater flying over towards the pond as well. They crossed between she and the flaming Burrow and she barreled straight for them at top speed.

When her broom connected with their body Ginny lurched forwards on it, losing control and her tail end rose, causing them both to start falling to the ground, which wasn't all that far away.

The Death Eater gave a grunt that sounded like all the air had been knocked out of them and they couldn't get any more into their lungs. Their descent wasn't fast, but it was fast enough and they were close enough that Ginny didn't have any time to try and kick away from him and correct her course. Instead she held on and used the mans body as a buffer to try and lessen any injury she was about to receive.

Bracing herself she felt the impact and rolled away from him, losing her wand in the process.

Ginny lay there for a few short breaths, feeling slightly assured knowing that she was still disillusioned. Attempting to not make too much sound she got to her hands and knees and felt around on the ground for her wand.

She found it, but before she could reach for it someone else snatched it up and pointed it directly at her.

"Finite," the holder cast. "Hello there pretty."

Ginny looked up at the man's face. He wasn't someone she recognized. Just a man in his twenties that was grinning down at her hungrily with blackened teeth. He grabbed under her arm and hoisted her up, swinging her body around so that her back was pressed against his front.

"Take a look around darling. There's far too many of us for you to really believe you can win this thing." He was running his finger down her face.

She did take a moment to look around. She could see there was less fighting going on now, but in the distance she could make out that Sirius was beside Harry and he had thrown his arm out and cast a spell at their last attacker. The man crumpled to the ground among the few other bodies that were laying there.

Sirius then quickly pulled out Harry's invisibility cloak and pulled it over him, giving him a push.

Ginny blinked as she took in that scene. She could hear Harry's protest in her mind, but the man holding her was right. As she looked around she did see more and more of the Order members being held by Death Eaters and less spells being fired. More Death Eaters were coming onto the property as well.

There was no way they could be losing though. This wasn't the end.

()()()