Chapter 5: Up in Flames

Ha ha ha ha ha I AM EVIL!!! In case you hadn't already noticed. You'll find that fire is a recurring image of pain/evil/death in my works, not because of the biblical connection with hell and stuff but rather because my own personal nightmare/boggart is someone, anyone, being burned alive. Your skin starts to melt off, then the fat liquefies and drips off of you, and then the muscle, but you're still alive as all this happens, and you can still think and move as slowly you melt away into ooze.

"Where am I?" thought Harry out loud. It looked like the devil had finally broken through the earth's crust and unleashed the fires of hell. All around him flaming debris was strewn all over the ground. Hermione popped into the ruined, broken hearth behind him.

"Oh, crap. This is either You-Know-Who or the apocalypse."

"Or maybe both."

A broken sobbing came from one of the more intact piles of rubble. The dark mark hovered directly above. Harry and Hermione began to move slowly toward the sound, when a ragged voice shouted, "Wait!"

A tall figure in dark robes came stumbling across the ground, his face white with horror. There were dirt and blood on his robes, and he moved like a blind man across the fire-lit waste that was once the Burrow.

"Ron!" Hermione was running to him as soon as she recognized him. "Ron! Oh, what happened? You must have gotten here before us! Are you hurt? What happened?" He reeled against her, and threatened to pass out.

"Hermione! Help him sit down!" Harry, too, rushed over.

"Look what they did to him," gasped Ron, as he held up hands covered in dried blood. "I- I got here almost half an hour ago. It was already like this... I got here just in time to see him..." he shuddered violently and swayed as though he was going to fall over. Hermione leaned over and caught him.

"Who, Ron? Who?"

Ron choked on the soot in the air and the vomit that was threatening to escape. "It was Fred. They didn't even... they didn't even kill him," he finally managed to whisper, his voice hoarse. "They just... he was alive when it... the fire..." He broke off, unable to speak any longer.

Harry was in his element. "Hermione, stay here and take care of him. I'm going to investigate that noise." He scrambled over large chunks of rock into a depression that had certainly not been there before. The red glare of the fires still burning here and there illuminated two figures at the bottom. One was long, thin, and still; the other was short, plump, and quaking like an aspen. "Mrs. Weasley," he murmured to himself as he began to descend.

She was kneeling on the ground near her husband, crying her eyes out over what was left of his dead body: a brittle, crackling skin surrounding an interior of ash. As Harry watched, she reached out a hand to caress his forehead, which crumbled into dust at the touch. Then her sobs were redoubled, and it was all Harry could do to keep from crying himself. Gently he went down to her, and touched her shoulder. "Mrs. Weasley."

"I- am- going- to- KILL- THEM!" growled Mrs. Weasley through her tears, starting in a low murmur and rising to a roar. She reared up with a strength that surprised Harry, throwing him to the ground. "Incendeo Infinitum!"

A huge red phoenix, made apparently from the same type of light as the dark mark, burst from her wand and circled the place where the Burrow had once stood. It ripped through the two giant green skulls, then flew high into the sky with a rush of wind. Wings outspread, it burst apart, showering the land all about with liquid red light. The wind began to circle, faster and faster, with Mrs. Weasley at the nexus, controlling it. She opened her mouth to utter Harry knew not what dread incantation, when suddenly Ginny stepped into the circle.

The wind died, and the fires again dropped to an ember glow. Mrs. Weasley slowly lowered her wand. Now the power was in the balance; but when Ginny spoke it was in an innocent, almost tentative voice.

"Mother," she said.

This one word had more effect than any spell ever could have. The saber-toothed tiger drooped visibly, and slumped to the ground.

"Mother, we have to wait."

Harry was inwardly amazed at the role reversal. Ginny bent down to examine her father, and then her grief-stricken mother. Then she stood up, without a tear to mar her intensely pale face.

"We will watch, and we will wait. But when the time comes, we will strike those who have taken our family. And when we do, we will hit hard and we will hit fast, so that we do not make their mistake: we will annhilate them completely, so that there are none to strike back." She walked over to a small patch of flame, pulled out a pocket knife, and made a small cut on her finger. A drop of blood gathered there, and then dripped into the fire with a hiss. "On my flesh and blood."

"Flesh and blood," echoed the crackling fire.