Hi, so here is another chapter and it's the last of 2020! So i take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy new year, and hopefully 2021 will be a better year than the one before.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine other than Tommy and Grace who will pop up throughout this story because i apparently cannot help myself in writing OCs with backstories. Please do not confuse this Tommy and Grace with the ones mentioned in my story Beat Your Heart Out (if you have read that, if you haven't then you can ignore this) because they are different characters that just share the same name born out of my love for Peaky Blinders.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine, anything in italics is French.

Warnings for Character Deaths and the death of children.

Please Read and Review.

Swan Song

Chapter 11-After, Before.

Part Three of the Three Part Handler—Bill loses a brother, the wizarding world fights back and Fleur names her daughter as a new dawn hits the wizarding community all over the world. Any italics from Fleur's point of view are due to the writing being in French.

The sound his mother made when she saw her son's body lying there on the ground next to Colin Creevey and a couple of other kids who had been brave enough or stupid enough to come back. Bill looked at them and thought that they looked tiny even in death.

Tonks had been taken to the medical unit where Madam Pomfrey tears in her eyes had managed to use a good amount of the underage students to help. Finn's brothers, a seventh year called Arthur who had come in swearing like a sailor and a younger sixteen year old called Tommy who nodded his soot covered head at Ginny as he passed had gone straight to their younger brothers who were covered from head to toe in soot. Finn still had his bat and there appeared to be a great deal of mud covering Arthur. Either way they seemed to be standing and the younger students who had stayed were limping in helping friends, making sure that tea was being served to each and every person who wasn't bleeding all over the floor, ripping up bandages and also the hardest part which was making sure that the dead that was coming in had some level of dignity by covering them up. What would happen when his baby brother was covered up in a sheet Bill didn't know. He didn't want to think about the look on his father's face when Percy had told him, he didn't want to think about Ginny's face when she had come in limping looking triumphant only for Bill to catch her as she screamed in agony.

His mother…

George.

George had come in with Angelina Johnson. He'd known. Bill had known he'd known and he'd said nothing because nothing could be said. He had been sitting by his twin's head for the better part of half an hour and still there was nothing he had said or done. He did not even seem to be crying. Instead he had his hand wrapped around a clump of Fred's hair and he was staring into space. Angelina directing the first years with tears streaming down his face shot him many looks but carried on and at one paint Harry, Ron and Hermione came staggering in. Ron coming to where they were standing and leaning heavily on Percy and Bill passing Ginny over to Hermione found himself sitting on the edge of a house table feeling utterly physically and emotionally spent. He ran a hand through his hair and leaned back staring at the ceiling and trying to pretend that he was at dinner ten years ago and the stars in the sky were above a group of chattering students and Fred was still toddling around waving a toy broomstick about. His family was still whole and intact and Harry Potter was just a legend and not a seventeen year old boy who was looking ancient before his time.

He felt a hand touch him on his shoulder and he forced his eyes open to see Remus with an expression that spoke of a grief that Bill was only know beginning to realise how powerful it was. He sat up his back and his left side groaning at the process and he ran his fingers under his eyes. Remus pretended not to notice and then he passed a mug of tea to Bill who took a sip and felt the firewhiskey mixed in with a copious amount of sugar hit the back of his throat. It kept him grounded and he looked around.

"Tonks?"

"Alive" Remus said grimly. "Half her ribs are shattered but it could have been worse. So much worse. I don't know what the hell she was thinking—

"She was thinking she had to do her bit" Bill said. He had known Tonks when she had been Charlie's best friend. Andromeda had known his mother and Tonks's Dad and his had been friends due to Bill's father having a complete and utter fascination for all things muggle had come over with a bottle of firewhiskey and had talked his Dad through what a doorbell was. Andromeda and his mother had knitted or embroidered and chatted as Charlie and Tonks had been upstairs giggling and gossiping rather than doing homework.

"I know" Remus said finally. "But…anyway it doesn't matter know I suppose. She's going to have to recuperate, certainly she wont fight in the second wave. I don't know how anyone can" he looked around and Bill took in the expression on his face. "I taught half of the dead" he said finally.

There was nothing that Bill could say to that. There was nothing he could say anymore.

He looked around blindly seeing but not seeing and he thought about Tonks and Lupin who had gone through hell to be together and he felt like a fraud. Because it did not matter how much he was pretending, the woman he was still head over heels in love with was not there with him and he found that the burden of surviving this far might be easier shared.

And yet was this not the reason why he had done what he had done in the first place? Was this not the exact reason why he had broken things with Fleur in the cruellest way possible. Hadn't been because it was the perfect solution to avoid being here, sat here watching others break their hearts over the dead. And yet something that as he had laid there knowing the price of war, he had been committed to doing now seemed so false. Like a false coin.

God he was tired. He was so tired.

"Er…Mr Weasley?" he forced himself pay attention as the kid talked to him. It was one of Finn's brothers but which one he had no idea.

"Yes?" he asked trying to keep the bite out of his tone.

"Is there anyway I can get my brother's out of here? Arthur and I…were prepared to fight but…John and Finn are young enough to be killed by accident"

Bill watched him for a second.

"Tommy is it?"

"Yeah…is the…is the door open? The one I came through?"

Bill looked at him and then—"No"

"There is nothing. Look keep your brothers in the Great Hall. This will be the last stand. One way or another it will be over by dawn. If we lose, try and get out, keep your head down and your brother's close by and for Merlin's sake say your Slytherin's get rid of anything that says your not. Don't look anyone in the eye, don't look left or right because chances are you will be killed. Get through the process quickly and if you cannot get out then stick together"

The boy…Tommy nodded. "But were going to win" he said finally.

"Sure" Bill said grinning though he knew it was not a cheery grin. "But we could also lose. So make sure you keep your calm and your temper" he forced himself to his feet and stretched out his legs feeling the muscles burn with the aftermath of the adrenaline and the running and the never constant stopping and dodging curses.

"And don't get killed. Cause if we win you need to pass your OWLS"

Tommy did not look remotely thrilled with that assessment.

"And if we lose?"

"Your still need to pass your OWLS"

"And you?"

"It wont matter to me if we lose"

"Why?"

Bill turned around and smiled and he knew from the step back that Tommy took that it was a feral smile that promised death and destruction.

"Because if we lose I'll be fucking dead"

At that moment there was a scream and for a moment Bill swayed because he thought for a moment that it was McGonagall screaming.

"Fuck is that Professor—" but Bill was shaking his head because only one thing would make Minerva McGonagall scream like that. Only one thing would make her sound like that, only one thing was so terrible that the indomitable, undefeatable, strong, dependable, solid, Professor McGonagall would make a sound like that.

He knew it the second Tommy gasped and Ginny screamed rocketing to her feet. She ran before Bill could see beyond the red hair and then Ron and Hermione were following and he grabbed Tommy by the arm despite the fact that he was trying to keep the kid out of danger and shoving past students desperate to catch his sister because he knew…he knew…what had caused her to make such a sound.

Hagrid was surrounded by Death Eaters and he was carrying a body.

And Bill did not have to look at it to know who it was.

He grabbed Ginny by the arms and dragged her backwards and she went the fight going out of her which had his mind not been so fogged with grief he would have worried about. He cast his eyes around desperately, he saw Tommy with his brothers, the four of them together, the elder one with his arms around the younger two and Tommy with his arms around a blonde fourteen year old covered in ash sobbing into her hands. He thought about what would happen to them now that they had lost for surely they had lost?

There was a pause as he stood there taking it in and he thought in that moment that all he wanted to be with was Fleur. Fleur with her blonde hair and her smile and her gentle touch. And he wanted her. He wanted to be with her as much as he was so glad that she was safe.

She was away from here.

She would live.

He took a deep breath as Neville took a step forwards. He had to clear his head and think. He looked around. Personally he would like to take Greyback but he also knew that the last Lestrange brother was a problem. Dolohov was also still alive as was Avery, Yaxely, the ones who liked pain and flesh and screaming. For the children still fighting, for the ones who had gotten away, for all the Tommy's and Arthur's, Finn's, John's, Archie's and all the others in the world, these Death Eaters had to die.

Looking back Bill was not sure how it happened. One moment they were watching Neville, then Neville was on fire, and then the snake was dead and Neville was not on fire but he was clutching a sword as Voldemort reared backwards. Bill swore shoving Ginny behind him back to the castle and then grabbing Tommy and the girl and shoving them in front of him. They were pushed and pulled back into the castle for what he knew was the last stand and the Death Eaters were following.

It was a battle like never before and Bill lost sight of his family amidst the chaos. Half of the Great Hall was caved in suddenly and the scream from Tommy told Bill that his brothers had been on that side but there was no time to care or think or feel. Avery came forwards a snarl on his face but Tommy had shoved past Bill a snarl of fury on his face and had started duelling. The girl he was with her blonde hair singed her cardigan up her arms swore and blasted a spider backwards with such a fury it went halfway across the room. Bill turned and blasted Nott Snr who joined the fight with fury. But nothing matched Bill's own and his curse blasted the man backwards into the wave of an oncoming curse and he was dead before he hit the ground. Avery followed and Bill turned wiping his brow on the back of his hand to see the girl standing amongst the carcass of about ten spiders.

"Bloody hell Grace" Tommy said. And Bill turned to see heart in his mouth his mother her face alive with a vicious triumph that Bill had never seen before waved her wand and hit Bellatrix Lestrange in the chest. She was dead before she hit the ground next to her husband who was choking on his own blood as Augusta Longbottom stood there her face wild with the emotion that only a mother would feel and Bill moved forwards but there was another set of screams and Bill grabbed them both and shoved them forwards as a circle was made, at one end Voldemort and the other…

"Fucking hell" Grace said wiping her eyes as tears steadily leaked from them. "He's alive"

And there was Harry alive.

He started talking and Bill listened amazed beyond anything. He had considered Severus Snape to be many things but a spy within a spy was not one of them. One of the things he had not considered was the fact that the man had been in love. The more he heard about his Potions Master the more he felt like the world was turning upside down.

"Never thought the fucker had that in him" Tommy muttered and Bill shushed him.

Harry talked more about wands but Bill didn't get that part and Horcruxes. He shushed both Tommy and Grace at that because he knew what they were and he was not having that conversation with a couple of fourteen year olds.

And then he knew it was going to come because two wands were raised, two spells shouted, red light met green and as dawn hit them blinding them there was one body left standing and the great rivalry between Voldemort and the boy he had singled out since birth was over and Bill was looking at Harry Potter standing alive and Voldemort dead on the floor.

For one second everyone was standing there and then the screaming started, the shouting, the sobbing and the celebration. Bill surged forwards but he didn't get near Harry as Ron, Hermione and Ginny had surged forwards. His mother and his father were in each other's arms. George with Angelina sobbing into her shoulder as she rocked him back and forth, Percy and Charlie embracing, Lupin and Tonks so intertwined with each other it was practically indecent, Augusta Longbottom wiping her eyes on her handkerchief as her grandson hugged her his hand wrapped around the waist of a girl that he was sure was called Hannah something. Seamus, Dean, Luna, the rest of the DA laughing and crying. Slughorn leaning heavily on Kingsley swigging copious amounts of firewhiskey from his flask. McGonagall sobbing on the arms of a sobbing Trelawney and Bill felt like he would collapse with the emotions.

He turned to see Tommy the boy he had not known existed until a hour ago on his knees sobbing at the loss of his brothers caught in the cave in. Grace was next to him holding him as she cried herself and Bill wiped his own eyes because so much life had been lost.

Fred.

Oh Merlin Fred.

He wiped his eyes on the back of his hand and breathed in the scent of a new day. Bending down he helped the boy to his feet even as he kept sobbing. Grace followed as the house tables returned her face ashen with exhaustion and Bill knew that though they had won the great war moments ago the biggest battles were yet to come.

He had no idea where they were supposed to go from here.

She had been sat there staring at her baby for a long time when her mother came in. Her little girl, Bill's little girl had been asleep for a long time too and Fleur wished that she could sleep as well but she couldn't. She was waiting.

"You have news from England?" she asked not taking her eyes of the perfect little face.

"I do"

Fleur nodded and wondered for a second if she was about to enter her own agony.

"We won. Well they won. You-Know-Who is dead. The world it would seem has been saved. Before he heads to the Council to see if he is needed—and he will be no doubt—your Papa wants to know if this angel has a name"

Fleur closed her eyes against the tears.

"Victoire" she said thinking of the victory that had been a long time coming for the world, for Bill and for her.

"Her name is Victoire"

And there you go. I hope you enjoy this chapter and i look forwards to seeing you for the next one.

Next Chapter-Fleur spends the first few weeks with her baby and her family, Bill spends time with two fourteen year olds with nowhere to go-and is relived for the distraction. Tonks and Lupin survive and the world is anew once more.