Xenith
"Where can a person be better than in the bosom of their family?"
~~~Marmontel Gretry
Chapter Thirty-eight
Bill Weasley stepped out of his small, dusty, Egyptian home with a yawn, wincing in the bright sunlight. Bill loved Egypt---everything about it was simply fascinating. He had never really enjoyed England. It was always raining and desolately cold there. He reveled in the heat of the noon sky as the sun beat down on his unusually tanned muscled limbs as he made his way to the local Gringotts, Egyptian branch. He tipped his fedora slightly to shadow his eyes as he made his way down the grimy sun-filled street full of vendors as he worked his way up the stairs and into the white marbled building.
"Grimle." He nodded cheekily as he handed his identification tag to the gray goblin standing guard over the entrance to the Gringotts offices. (The goblin had to stand on a fairly large pedestal to be at eye level with the rest of the wizarding population.)
"Mr Weasley." The goblin took the badge in one warty hand and held it over Bill's right eye. The badge flashed green and Bill was allowed within.
An immediate right and a short dimly lit corridor away were the only things that stood in the way of his office and a well-deserved nap before a week long escapade at Death's Corner, the worst corner in Satan's Square (a geometric gathering of ancient Egyptian wizarding tombs).
He had just settled onto a small love seat (his long legs dangling over the end of it) when Palmer Thomas, the tall, rough-and-tumble treasure hunter from the cramped office next door, burst in. "You've had an owl, Bill." He tossed the letter onto his chest.
"I get loads of owls." Bill replied, not even bothering to open his eyes.
"Read it, Bill."
"I will later."
"If you won't then, I will." And he snatched up the letter with one, quick, dark hand.
"Be my guest, you nosy git," Bill replied lazily. "But read it aloud, will you?"
"`Dear Bill,'" Palmer began, slouching into a chair opposite him. "`You must come home immediately.'" Bill's eyes snapped open, but he remained, otherwise, completely immobile. "`Fred and Ron have been taken from the school by two Death Eaters and we need you at home. Dumbledore has some instructions for you and he wishes to speak with you through a secure fireplace and the Gringotts offices and banks are being monitored by the Ministry. Apparate to the porch at home as soon as you receive this letter. Bring Palmer Thomas too, if he is available, this matter greatly concerns him also. Burn this when you're finished with it, love from your father.'"
Bill was pale, sitting bolt up-right on the love seat. "You're sure that's what it said?"
"Yes," Palmer breathed.
"Go tell Anders we can't go to Devil's Corner, and meet me on the steps outside. I have to burn that letter."
---
"Charlie?" Nathan Andrews, from California, popped his head into the dimly lit bed chambers in which Charlie Weasley, Katie Farren, Mat, Chris Jameson, and Charles Wallace (a tall mousy haired boy of seventeen) were bent over a large stack of maps.
"Yes?"
"There's a kid from Dumbledore here to see you. I told him you were busy but he said it was urgent. Say's his name is Gyro Swardson."
"Send'em in." Charlie tossed down his quill and leant against the slightly moist wall behind him as a young man---boy, no older than sixteen entered the room cautiously, Nathan only a foot behind. The boy's olive skin was pale and burnt from the winds above; he was pitifully exhausted but determined nonetheless. All of Dumbledore's messengers were determined.
"Charles Weasley?" He asked, liquid turquoise eyes roaming over the assembled before landing on the brilliant red head of Charlie. The kid was Greek.
"That's me."
"I have a message for you from Albus Dumbledore."
"Well, hand it over."
"It's to be recited sir. No paper trails . . ."
"Then get on with it. We have important matters to discuss," Charlie interrupted.
"Yes, sir," Swardson nodded, straightened his shoulders and began to recite:
"'Dear Mr Weasley, This will come as a terrible shock to you but you must agree to stay where you are no matter what.'" The messenger looked at Charlie inquiringly. "Do you agree? I am not to continue if you do not."
"I agree."
"'Charlie, there has been an attack at Hogwarts. Nothing of monumental proportions or I would have summoned you all. But two of your brothers were taken and one boy is dead.'" Every keeper had jumped to their feet.
"Who was taken?" Charlie thundered.
"That's coming, sir."
"I don't care about the bloody message!" Charlie jumped him, knocking Swardson's wand out of his hand as he pinned him to the wall by the front of his fleece jumper. "Who!?" He shook him savagely.
"Ronald and Fredrick Weasley." He choked out.
"No . . ." Charlie let him slip out of his grasp and slumped forward against the wall. "No."
"Are you all right Mr Weasley?" Swardson said after he had gathered his wand.
Charlie flushed red with anger and torment as he spun on the boy, just registering Chris collapse onto the camp bed, white as a sheet, and to have Mat rush to her aid.
"How?" Charlie ran his hand over his face.
"I am not authorized sir."
"In private?"
"Possibly, sir, I do not know how much I can tell you though."
"This way then," Charlie was shaking as he motioned out the doorway.
"Charlie," Nathan grabbed his arm. "You okay?"
"We'll talk later. Keep Katie here for me?" She was already making her way across the cave to him.
"Yeah, man, no problem." He said quietly and went to intercept her.
---
"Tell me what happened." Charlie said when they'd seated themselves around the smoldering embers of a fire they'd all been huddling round earlier.
"Mr Weasley---"
"Charlie."
"Charlie, I ca not tell you that much."
"Please."
"I do not know that much."
"Anything," his voice quavered, and his hands began to shake violently as Gyro Swardson began to tell him, what seemed to be, absolutely everything.
---
Percy slumped behind his Ministry desk and began to pick through the day's post. On the very top of the unusually small pile was a letter addressed to him in, what he easily recognised as, his brother's untidy scrawl. He tore open the parchment:
Percy,
If you had any sense at all you'd come home immediately. Fred and Ron have been abducted by You-Know-Who and mum and dad are devastated. If you cared about them in the slightest you'd be here. And even though you don't want to hear this I'm going to say it anyway. Your precious Ministry is screwing everything up and leaving the entire wizarding world completely open for attack after attack. We don't know where Fred and Ron are and the Ministry sure as hell isn't going to help find them and the mountain full of other witches and wizards that have been taken. The death rate is catastrophic, and not just our world but the Muggle one too. And _ your_ 'Minister for Magic' isn't intelligent enough to realise it.
If you don't come back Percy, I guess it really means that you've left our family.
For good.
~Bill
Percy read the letter a second, and then a third, time to make sure his eyes weren't tricking him. There was no way that You-Know-Who could have gotten to his brothers. They were protected. At Hogwarts---they were safe . . weren't they?
Percy leapt from his chair throwing his cloak over his shoulders and taking up his wand, dashing out of the office before he could change his mind.
"Mr Weasley!" His secretary jumped as his office door slammed shut behind him. "What's wrong? Where are you going?"
"I am a busy man, Lisa. I have places to be." He stormed down the rows of oak desks that lined the walls of the Ministry.
"But there's nothing on your time-table!" He heard her call vainly after him, waving a piece of parchment in the air. He ignored her, nodded to the M.o.M official guarding the entrance to the Ministry offices and passed through the imence arched doorway.
He couldn't Floo to the Burrow; he knew that Dumbledore had placed protection spells over the homes of all of the wizards and witches that made up the Order.
Percy gathered his composure, took a deep breath, and apperated into the woods surrounding his parents house. His home.
He could just make out the house through the trees. It was the place he'd grown up in, played in . . . was loved in. He ran up to the front door but paused before his fingers touched the door knob. What was he going to say to them? Cornelius Fudge had approached him after the desertion of his father at the end of last year. He'd wanted Percy as his right-hand man. Percy took the job---it was the position he'd dreamed of, how could he not take it? His family had disagreed with his new position, but they'd always loved him; were there for him. He knew that. Even though the twins had tortured him mercilessly for nearly eighteen years he knew they loved him. A pang shot though his heart as he thought of Fred.
He turned the knob.
The protection spells sent a shock of magic up his arm as the house strived to recognise his magical signature before the door swung open before him.
Percy walked silently into the house, letting the door click back into its frame behind him. He could hear talking emanating from the kitchen. A muddled mixture of indefinable, argumentative, voices. He followed them.
He wasn't noticed at first but when he was the talkative kitchen turned suddenly tomblike.
"Told you he'd come, mum." Bill finally broke the eerie silence, letting the smallest trace of a smile creep over his otherwise stony features.
"Percy---" his mum sighed though she made no advance towards him. His father just nodded. No-one else said anything but they did make room for him at the small table.
The eight wizards and witches that littered the kitchen all watched his every movement carefully.
"I---I'm sorry, mum," he finally managed out. "What happened?"
"There was an attack at Hogwarts." His father began in low tones. "Another student died, Dean Thomas." At this point a witch Percy recognized as Jannie Thomas, Dean's mother, just managed to stifle a fairly audible dry sob. "A curse was sent through the fireplace I believe. Two Death Eaters emerged and tried to take Harry. Thankfully, they failed. I'm not exactly sure as to what happened after that but Ron and Fred ended up jumping the two. They all fell into the fireplace and were immediately transported away. We don't know where . . ." he trailed off.
"Arthur," his dad looked up. "We really need to get on with this." Atillius Howard, an Auror who'd left the ranks of Fudge for Dumbledore, shoved a ragged hand through his cropped hair as he paced the tiny kitchen.
"Yes, Arthur, really," an older woman, Arabella Figg, said from her perch across the room. "I have to be somewhere."
"As do we all," Howard shot again.
"This was the second attack aimed directly at Hogwarts," Arthur took charge, pushing away from the table and going to wash his hands at the sink. "And we mustn't expect it to be the last. It's currently the Christmas holiday, so none of the students have classes---"
"Arthur?" Noah Thomas, Dean's father, interrupted. "I mean, we kept Dean there, most of the parents kept their children there because we thought they were safe, protected, with Dumbledore."
"They are safe there," Arabella insisted. "There's no safer place---"
"_He's_ managed to get into that school no less than four times. Not to mention his invasion of Hogsmeade!"
"None on these attacks have been---"
"All of them have been meticulously planned and carried out! Yes, Harry Potter has managed to foil His plans in the end, but not this time. My SON died this time, my youngest, and you did nothing to prevent it." Noah finished with a death glare.
"Measures are being taken---"
"`Measures'? What kind of measures? How many people are even in your 'Order'? Your army?"
"Eighty-two wizards and witches round the world," Arabella answered, tired of trying to argue with the angry father.
"And of those eighty-two, how many are over twenty-five?" Noah demanded.
"Twenty-two," Arabella replied, not sure where he was headed.
"Twenty-two," Noah mused, running a hand over his chin.
"So, you're telling me you're having children fight you're war?"
"They aren't---"
"Oh, but they are. From what I've gathered your one and only hope lies in a fifteen year-old _boy_." That managed to silence the others.
"How many have left?" Arthur finally broke in.
"What?" Arabella asked, turning her attention to Arthur.
"How many of the students aren't returning when classes start up again?"
"Not too many have left Gryffindor; possibly fifteen, more likely less." Arabella answered.
"And the other houses?"
"Maybe thirty in Slytherin, mostly older students---"
"Death Eater recruits."
"Bill!"
"Sorry, mum."
"---nineteen from Hufflepuff, and twenty-two from Ravenclaw."
"Are they safe though?"
"Their safety was never a question.'
"Well, make it one!" Noah smashed his fist into the table, causing more then one tea cup to topple over. "We may not have any more children there but if one more of them is taken---"
"The children are our number ONE priority, Noah." The elder woman calmed. "But we do want them to be happy. They have to try to live normal lives in these times of war! But the fact of the matter is that they are not PERFECTly safe anywhere. However unfortunate, they will always be safer at Hogwarts then in their own homes. I'm sorry to say it, but those parents have made the wrong decision in taking their children from the school."
"And Hogsmeade visits?"
"All cancelled."
"Quidditch?"
"We will continue with Quidditch matches and practices for the time being."
"What?!" More then one adult in the kitchen shouted in surprise.
"They want to go. The students want, need, some semblance of a normal life."
"But Quidditch matches, out in the open in such numbers? Are you sure that's wise?" Molly said softly from her seat.
"There have been no attacks thus far, Molly, on the school grounds. And we're upping the security."
Molly let out a ragged sigh. "How?"
"Arch Angels, full sized dragons, gargoyles."
There was silence as the wizards processed and filed this newest bit of information.
"And what of the two captured riders?" Howard broke in. "What of them?"
"No news yet," another voice came in; Percy hadn't noticed the man at first, he stood in the furthest, most shadow filled, corner of the room. The man was still wearing his long, black, traveling cloak over a dark tunic and pants. He had managed to blend in perfectly with the cupboards surrounding him.
"Are you sure, Hayde?" Arthur rubbed a worn hand towel over his stubbly face. "Nothing of any bodies?"
"They've changed tactics, Arthur." He stepped out of his corner revealing a tall, large man with, what would be, delightfully handsome, well cut, distinguished, features were it not for the scowl he wore and the death that lurked in his eyes. "The Death Eaters send up the Dark Mark but no longer leave any bodies. We don't know who is dead anymore. There have been some cases where a witness has heard, or seen, the mark being cast, but those who see it are then killed, days later, in their sleep. You were lucky," he added to the Thomas' as an after thought. "At least, when all of this is over, you'll have a body to put in the ground. Some of us won't have that privilege."
An even longer silence followed this proclamation.
"And my brothers?" Percy finally put in, unable to sit in the nothingness any longer. "I mean, what's Professor Dumbledore doing for them---and George and Ginny at the school?"
"At the moment nothing." Arabella answered, immediately regretting her bluntness as the face of every Weasley present went ghostly white.
"What?! How can you be doing nothing?"
"Percy, you must realise that there is very little that we can do for Fred and Ron at the moment. We don't know where they're being kept."
"And George & Ginny?"
"They will keep attending classes, Percy." His father sat back by his mother, taking her shaking hands in his own. "Hogwarts will _always_ be the safest place for them.
---
¸..· ´¨¨)) -:¦:-
¸.·´ ·´¨¨))
((¸¸.·´ ..·´ -:¦:- tbc -:¦:-
-:¦:- ((¸¸.·´*
"Where can a person be better than in the bosom of their family?"
~~~Marmontel Gretry
Chapter Thirty-eight
Bill Weasley stepped out of his small, dusty, Egyptian home with a yawn, wincing in the bright sunlight. Bill loved Egypt---everything about it was simply fascinating. He had never really enjoyed England. It was always raining and desolately cold there. He reveled in the heat of the noon sky as the sun beat down on his unusually tanned muscled limbs as he made his way to the local Gringotts, Egyptian branch. He tipped his fedora slightly to shadow his eyes as he made his way down the grimy sun-filled street full of vendors as he worked his way up the stairs and into the white marbled building.
"Grimle." He nodded cheekily as he handed his identification tag to the gray goblin standing guard over the entrance to the Gringotts offices. (The goblin had to stand on a fairly large pedestal to be at eye level with the rest of the wizarding population.)
"Mr Weasley." The goblin took the badge in one warty hand and held it over Bill's right eye. The badge flashed green and Bill was allowed within.
An immediate right and a short dimly lit corridor away were the only things that stood in the way of his office and a well-deserved nap before a week long escapade at Death's Corner, the worst corner in Satan's Square (a geometric gathering of ancient Egyptian wizarding tombs).
He had just settled onto a small love seat (his long legs dangling over the end of it) when Palmer Thomas, the tall, rough-and-tumble treasure hunter from the cramped office next door, burst in. "You've had an owl, Bill." He tossed the letter onto his chest.
"I get loads of owls." Bill replied, not even bothering to open his eyes.
"Read it, Bill."
"I will later."
"If you won't then, I will." And he snatched up the letter with one, quick, dark hand.
"Be my guest, you nosy git," Bill replied lazily. "But read it aloud, will you?"
"`Dear Bill,'" Palmer began, slouching into a chair opposite him. "`You must come home immediately.'" Bill's eyes snapped open, but he remained, otherwise, completely immobile. "`Fred and Ron have been taken from the school by two Death Eaters and we need you at home. Dumbledore has some instructions for you and he wishes to speak with you through a secure fireplace and the Gringotts offices and banks are being monitored by the Ministry. Apparate to the porch at home as soon as you receive this letter. Bring Palmer Thomas too, if he is available, this matter greatly concerns him also. Burn this when you're finished with it, love from your father.'"
Bill was pale, sitting bolt up-right on the love seat. "You're sure that's what it said?"
"Yes," Palmer breathed.
"Go tell Anders we can't go to Devil's Corner, and meet me on the steps outside. I have to burn that letter."
---
"Charlie?" Nathan Andrews, from California, popped his head into the dimly lit bed chambers in which Charlie Weasley, Katie Farren, Mat, Chris Jameson, and Charles Wallace (a tall mousy haired boy of seventeen) were bent over a large stack of maps.
"Yes?"
"There's a kid from Dumbledore here to see you. I told him you were busy but he said it was urgent. Say's his name is Gyro Swardson."
"Send'em in." Charlie tossed down his quill and leant against the slightly moist wall behind him as a young man---boy, no older than sixteen entered the room cautiously, Nathan only a foot behind. The boy's olive skin was pale and burnt from the winds above; he was pitifully exhausted but determined nonetheless. All of Dumbledore's messengers were determined.
"Charles Weasley?" He asked, liquid turquoise eyes roaming over the assembled before landing on the brilliant red head of Charlie. The kid was Greek.
"That's me."
"I have a message for you from Albus Dumbledore."
"Well, hand it over."
"It's to be recited sir. No paper trails . . ."
"Then get on with it. We have important matters to discuss," Charlie interrupted.
"Yes, sir," Swardson nodded, straightened his shoulders and began to recite:
"'Dear Mr Weasley, This will come as a terrible shock to you but you must agree to stay where you are no matter what.'" The messenger looked at Charlie inquiringly. "Do you agree? I am not to continue if you do not."
"I agree."
"'Charlie, there has been an attack at Hogwarts. Nothing of monumental proportions or I would have summoned you all. But two of your brothers were taken and one boy is dead.'" Every keeper had jumped to their feet.
"Who was taken?" Charlie thundered.
"That's coming, sir."
"I don't care about the bloody message!" Charlie jumped him, knocking Swardson's wand out of his hand as he pinned him to the wall by the front of his fleece jumper. "Who!?" He shook him savagely.
"Ronald and Fredrick Weasley." He choked out.
"No . . ." Charlie let him slip out of his grasp and slumped forward against the wall. "No."
"Are you all right Mr Weasley?" Swardson said after he had gathered his wand.
Charlie flushed red with anger and torment as he spun on the boy, just registering Chris collapse onto the camp bed, white as a sheet, and to have Mat rush to her aid.
"How?" Charlie ran his hand over his face.
"I am not authorized sir."
"In private?"
"Possibly, sir, I do not know how much I can tell you though."
"This way then," Charlie was shaking as he motioned out the doorway.
"Charlie," Nathan grabbed his arm. "You okay?"
"We'll talk later. Keep Katie here for me?" She was already making her way across the cave to him.
"Yeah, man, no problem." He said quietly and went to intercept her.
---
"Tell me what happened." Charlie said when they'd seated themselves around the smoldering embers of a fire they'd all been huddling round earlier.
"Mr Weasley---"
"Charlie."
"Charlie, I ca not tell you that much."
"Please."
"I do not know that much."
"Anything," his voice quavered, and his hands began to shake violently as Gyro Swardson began to tell him, what seemed to be, absolutely everything.
---
Percy slumped behind his Ministry desk and began to pick through the day's post. On the very top of the unusually small pile was a letter addressed to him in, what he easily recognised as, his brother's untidy scrawl. He tore open the parchment:
Percy,
If you had any sense at all you'd come home immediately. Fred and Ron have been abducted by You-Know-Who and mum and dad are devastated. If you cared about them in the slightest you'd be here. And even though you don't want to hear this I'm going to say it anyway. Your precious Ministry is screwing everything up and leaving the entire wizarding world completely open for attack after attack. We don't know where Fred and Ron are and the Ministry sure as hell isn't going to help find them and the mountain full of other witches and wizards that have been taken. The death rate is catastrophic, and not just our world but the Muggle one too. And _ your_ 'Minister for Magic' isn't intelligent enough to realise it.
If you don't come back Percy, I guess it really means that you've left our family.
For good.
~Bill
Percy read the letter a second, and then a third, time to make sure his eyes weren't tricking him. There was no way that You-Know-Who could have gotten to his brothers. They were protected. At Hogwarts---they were safe . . weren't they?
Percy leapt from his chair throwing his cloak over his shoulders and taking up his wand, dashing out of the office before he could change his mind.
"Mr Weasley!" His secretary jumped as his office door slammed shut behind him. "What's wrong? Where are you going?"
"I am a busy man, Lisa. I have places to be." He stormed down the rows of oak desks that lined the walls of the Ministry.
"But there's nothing on your time-table!" He heard her call vainly after him, waving a piece of parchment in the air. He ignored her, nodded to the M.o.M official guarding the entrance to the Ministry offices and passed through the imence arched doorway.
He couldn't Floo to the Burrow; he knew that Dumbledore had placed protection spells over the homes of all of the wizards and witches that made up the Order.
Percy gathered his composure, took a deep breath, and apperated into the woods surrounding his parents house. His home.
He could just make out the house through the trees. It was the place he'd grown up in, played in . . . was loved in. He ran up to the front door but paused before his fingers touched the door knob. What was he going to say to them? Cornelius Fudge had approached him after the desertion of his father at the end of last year. He'd wanted Percy as his right-hand man. Percy took the job---it was the position he'd dreamed of, how could he not take it? His family had disagreed with his new position, but they'd always loved him; were there for him. He knew that. Even though the twins had tortured him mercilessly for nearly eighteen years he knew they loved him. A pang shot though his heart as he thought of Fred.
He turned the knob.
The protection spells sent a shock of magic up his arm as the house strived to recognise his magical signature before the door swung open before him.
Percy walked silently into the house, letting the door click back into its frame behind him. He could hear talking emanating from the kitchen. A muddled mixture of indefinable, argumentative, voices. He followed them.
He wasn't noticed at first but when he was the talkative kitchen turned suddenly tomblike.
"Told you he'd come, mum." Bill finally broke the eerie silence, letting the smallest trace of a smile creep over his otherwise stony features.
"Percy---" his mum sighed though she made no advance towards him. His father just nodded. No-one else said anything but they did make room for him at the small table.
The eight wizards and witches that littered the kitchen all watched his every movement carefully.
"I---I'm sorry, mum," he finally managed out. "What happened?"
"There was an attack at Hogwarts." His father began in low tones. "Another student died, Dean Thomas." At this point a witch Percy recognized as Jannie Thomas, Dean's mother, just managed to stifle a fairly audible dry sob. "A curse was sent through the fireplace I believe. Two Death Eaters emerged and tried to take Harry. Thankfully, they failed. I'm not exactly sure as to what happened after that but Ron and Fred ended up jumping the two. They all fell into the fireplace and were immediately transported away. We don't know where . . ." he trailed off.
"Arthur," his dad looked up. "We really need to get on with this." Atillius Howard, an Auror who'd left the ranks of Fudge for Dumbledore, shoved a ragged hand through his cropped hair as he paced the tiny kitchen.
"Yes, Arthur, really," an older woman, Arabella Figg, said from her perch across the room. "I have to be somewhere."
"As do we all," Howard shot again.
"This was the second attack aimed directly at Hogwarts," Arthur took charge, pushing away from the table and going to wash his hands at the sink. "And we mustn't expect it to be the last. It's currently the Christmas holiday, so none of the students have classes---"
"Arthur?" Noah Thomas, Dean's father, interrupted. "I mean, we kept Dean there, most of the parents kept their children there because we thought they were safe, protected, with Dumbledore."
"They are safe there," Arabella insisted. "There's no safer place---"
"_He's_ managed to get into that school no less than four times. Not to mention his invasion of Hogsmeade!"
"None on these attacks have been---"
"All of them have been meticulously planned and carried out! Yes, Harry Potter has managed to foil His plans in the end, but not this time. My SON died this time, my youngest, and you did nothing to prevent it." Noah finished with a death glare.
"Measures are being taken---"
"`Measures'? What kind of measures? How many people are even in your 'Order'? Your army?"
"Eighty-two wizards and witches round the world," Arabella answered, tired of trying to argue with the angry father.
"And of those eighty-two, how many are over twenty-five?" Noah demanded.
"Twenty-two," Arabella replied, not sure where he was headed.
"Twenty-two," Noah mused, running a hand over his chin.
"So, you're telling me you're having children fight you're war?"
"They aren't---"
"Oh, but they are. From what I've gathered your one and only hope lies in a fifteen year-old _boy_." That managed to silence the others.
"How many have left?" Arthur finally broke in.
"What?" Arabella asked, turning her attention to Arthur.
"How many of the students aren't returning when classes start up again?"
"Not too many have left Gryffindor; possibly fifteen, more likely less." Arabella answered.
"And the other houses?"
"Maybe thirty in Slytherin, mostly older students---"
"Death Eater recruits."
"Bill!"
"Sorry, mum."
"---nineteen from Hufflepuff, and twenty-two from Ravenclaw."
"Are they safe though?"
"Their safety was never a question.'
"Well, make it one!" Noah smashed his fist into the table, causing more then one tea cup to topple over. "We may not have any more children there but if one more of them is taken---"
"The children are our number ONE priority, Noah." The elder woman calmed. "But we do want them to be happy. They have to try to live normal lives in these times of war! But the fact of the matter is that they are not PERFECTly safe anywhere. However unfortunate, they will always be safer at Hogwarts then in their own homes. I'm sorry to say it, but those parents have made the wrong decision in taking their children from the school."
"And Hogsmeade visits?"
"All cancelled."
"Quidditch?"
"We will continue with Quidditch matches and practices for the time being."
"What?!" More then one adult in the kitchen shouted in surprise.
"They want to go. The students want, need, some semblance of a normal life."
"But Quidditch matches, out in the open in such numbers? Are you sure that's wise?" Molly said softly from her seat.
"There have been no attacks thus far, Molly, on the school grounds. And we're upping the security."
Molly let out a ragged sigh. "How?"
"Arch Angels, full sized dragons, gargoyles."
There was silence as the wizards processed and filed this newest bit of information.
"And what of the two captured riders?" Howard broke in. "What of them?"
"No news yet," another voice came in; Percy hadn't noticed the man at first, he stood in the furthest, most shadow filled, corner of the room. The man was still wearing his long, black, traveling cloak over a dark tunic and pants. He had managed to blend in perfectly with the cupboards surrounding him.
"Are you sure, Hayde?" Arthur rubbed a worn hand towel over his stubbly face. "Nothing of any bodies?"
"They've changed tactics, Arthur." He stepped out of his corner revealing a tall, large man with, what would be, delightfully handsome, well cut, distinguished, features were it not for the scowl he wore and the death that lurked in his eyes. "The Death Eaters send up the Dark Mark but no longer leave any bodies. We don't know who is dead anymore. There have been some cases where a witness has heard, or seen, the mark being cast, but those who see it are then killed, days later, in their sleep. You were lucky," he added to the Thomas' as an after thought. "At least, when all of this is over, you'll have a body to put in the ground. Some of us won't have that privilege."
An even longer silence followed this proclamation.
"And my brothers?" Percy finally put in, unable to sit in the nothingness any longer. "I mean, what's Professor Dumbledore doing for them---and George and Ginny at the school?"
"At the moment nothing." Arabella answered, immediately regretting her bluntness as the face of every Weasley present went ghostly white.
"What?! How can you be doing nothing?"
"Percy, you must realise that there is very little that we can do for Fred and Ron at the moment. We don't know where they're being kept."
"And George & Ginny?"
"They will keep attending classes, Percy." His father sat back by his mother, taking her shaking hands in his own. "Hogwarts will _always_ be the safest place for them.
---
¸..· ´¨¨)) -:¦:-
¸.·´ ·´¨¨))
((¸¸.·´ ..·´ -:¦:- tbc -:¦:-
-:¦:- ((¸¸.·´*