Disclaimer: Alas, 'tis true. All characters belong to J.K. Rowling, not I. dramatic sigh
Warning: This story is SLASH…If you don't like it, don't read it. Also, this is a Dark Harry fic. There will be several secondary character deaths, starting with this chapter.
Pairing: Harry/Draco, eventually.
Spoilers: Probably for all books 1-4, and a wee bit for book 5
Author's Note: I decided that the last chapter needed more "umph" shall we say, so I went back and added more.
The winter here's cold, and bitterIt's chilled us to the boneWe haven't seen the sun for weeks To long too far from home- Sarah McLachlan, Full of Grace
Chapter 3: The Aftermath"Fred and George Weasley! Get down here, right this instant!"
Ron groaned, pulling his pillow down over his ears in an attempt to block out his mother's typical early morning scolding of the twins. He briefly wondered what they'd done this time to warrant the dressing down they were currently receiving, but given that they did something "unbefitting of a Weasley" nearly every morning, he soon dismissed his thoughts in favor of a few minutes extra sleep.
However, his rest was soon disrupted again, this time by the weight of a body plopping itself down on his bed. He feigned sleep in the hopes that the figure would get the hint and leave, but all his efforts were in vain. It appeared that the interloper was not to be dissuaded.
His suspicions were soon confirmed when the intruder leaned over and began to shake him vigorously.
"Oi! Cut that out!" Ron yelped sharply. He was quite sure he'd felt his brain knocking against the inside of his skull. "You're going to give me brain damage if you keep that up."
"Oh good. You're awake." Hermione ceased her shaking, releasing her grip on his shoulders.
Prying the pillow off of his face, Ron rolled over, eying his girlfriend warily. "Was there something you wanted?" he enquired wryly.
"Actually, yes, there was one thing." Hermione sat back down on the edge of Ron's bed.
Realizing that he was not going to be getting any more sleep that morning, Ron hauled himself out of bed and began to search for a clean shirt. After finding one draped over the back of a chair, he pulled the faded blue fabric over his head and turned to face the anxious girl sitting on his bed.
Seeing that she finally had the redhead's attention, Hermione began to explain herself in a hurried, and rather indignant, manner. "Do you remember those caps I've been knitting for the house elves?"
Ron opened his mouth to respond, but shut it quickly when Hermione continued without waiting for a reply.
"Well, they're missing. Missing! Every last cap!" Hermione ranted. "So I'm saying to myself, 'who would want fifty hand-knitted miniature woolen caps?' so I begin to look around…to see if, by some chance, I may have perhaps mislaid them."
Ron cringed as Hermione paused in her tirade, anticipating the explosion that his girlfriend was clearly working up to.
And what do I find? I'll tell you!"
By this time Hermione was perfectly livid. She'd risen to her feet, fists clenched, and glared at Ron. He eyed her fearfully, pausing for a moment to wonder at the glorious shade of purple she was turning. "Fifty garden gnomes…all with brand new hand-knitted woolen caps! Your brothers took it upon themselves to distribute my caps – the result of weeks of hard work – to the bloody gnomes! They thought it would be funny to see a bunch of gnomes wearing caps! Now I have to start all over."
Ron bit his bottom lip, trying not to laugh. He secretly thought that seeing fifty garden gnomes wearing badly-knitted pink caps would be rather funny, but seeing that Hermione was fit to kill, he wisely decided not to share this perspective with her.
He walked over to her and, wearing his most sympathetic expression, carefully wrapped his arms around her. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I'll help you knit some more. Alright?"
Somewhat placated, Hermione nodded and allowed herself to be hugged. Ron released her and bent over to place a light kiss on the tip of her nose.
"Come on," he said gently. "Let's go get some breakfast."
Taking her hand in his, Ron led Hermione down to the kitchen where the rest of the Weasley family was already gathered. He absently noted that Fred and George were not at the table, before spotting them in the corner washing dishes by hand with very sullen expressions on their faces.
Arthur Weasley put down the Daily Prophet and smiled warmly as they sat down at the table beside a rather sleepy-looking Ginny.
"Good morning, you two," he said cheerfully, passing Ron the bacon and orange juice.
Completely ignoring the clean plate in front of him, Ron immediately began shoveling the bacon from the serving dish into his mouth.
"Mrmmingh," Ron mumbled around a mouthful of bacon before taking a large gulp of orange juice. He looked over and saw Hermione looking at him. He attempted a loving smile, but it ended up making him look rather like a demented squirrel due to the large amount of partially-chewed food that was still in his mouth, causing his cheeks to puff out.
Hermione wrinkled her nose in disgust as his antics. She opened her mouth to chastise him for his abysmal table manners, but was cut short when an owl flew in the open window and landed in front of Mr. Weasley.
"Who's owl is that, dear?" Mrs. Weasley inquired from her position at the opposite end of the table where she had been trying to convince Bill to cut his hair.
Mr. Weasley shrugged, untying the letter from the owl's leg. The bird accepted a few bits of bacon off his plate before flying off again.
Mr. Weasley opened the letter and started to read it. Ron saw his father's typically jovial expression grow severe.
"What is it, Dad?" he asked, worried.
Mr. Weasley hurriedly folded up the letter and shoved it in the pocket of his robes. He looked up at his son with a forced smile on his face.
"Nothing to worry about. Just some ministry business I need to attend to." He rose from his seat, completely forgetting about his mostly uneaten breakfast. Shoving an old green hat on his head and grabbing his wand off the counter he bustled over, gave his wife a quick peck on the cheek, and then dashed out the front door.
The Weasleys looked at each other in bewilderment, looking from their father's retreated form heading down the front walk to his recently vacated seat.
"Well that was odd," Ron stated matter-of-factly.
Almost not hearing Ron's slightly off-hand comment, Hermione continued to look out the window into the garden where Mr. Weasley could no longer be seen.
She spoke quietly, so no one in the noisy room even knew she had said anything at all. "I hope everything's alright."
Arthur Weasley arrived at the scene absolutely frantic. On the journey over from the apparition point he had managed to worry himself into a frenzy.
Remus Lupin was waiting for him at the door when he arrived. Arthur noted absently that Remus was looking particularly bedraggled. His normally ragged robes hung in near-tatters off of his worn, too-thin frame. The man looked up and noticed Arthur's arrival. He attempted a weak smile, but it faded quickly.
"I'm glad you're here," Remus said gratefully, leading Arthur into the house. "We're not sure what to make of all this. Dumbledore can't come, for obvious reasons, and we can't have all the Aurors here because we don't want this leaking to the press, so it is up to us to figure this out. I just don't know what to do."
Arthur patted him on the shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting manner. He looked around, recognizing the boarded up fireplace in the still slightly charred sitting room. He was not really looking where he was going and almost ran into Remus when he stopped short in what Arthur assumed was the kitchen.
The first thing Arthur noticed was the overwhelming sickly-sweet scent of blood accompanied by the smell of rotting flesh.
Then Remus stepped aside and what Arthur saw made him gag. Propped up in chairs at the kitchen table, in a clear mockery of a happy family meal, were the bodies of Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley Dursley. At first glance one would not notice they were even dead, if it weren't for the excessive amounts of blood splattered all over the floor, walls, and counters.
Forcing himself to move closer, Arthur carefully maneuvered his way around the blood splatters and what appeared to be a larynx on the kitchen floor. He leaned over and his suspicions were confirmed when he saw that Dudley Dursley's throat had been completely ripped out. His eyes were wide open in terror and his mouth gaped slackly, revealing that his tongue had been cut out.
Arthur stumbled back in horror, covering his mouth with his hand in an attempt to prevent himself from throwing up. He felt a hand rest lightly on his back.
"I know," a female voice said. "It's terrible. We think that perhaps he screamed, which is why his tongue was removed and his death was so much more brutal than the others."
Arthur turned to see Nymphadora Tonks standing behind him. Her hair was black and she wore a somewhat comforting expression. He nodded numbly then returned his gaze to the scene before him.
The two elder Dursleys were almost entirely unmarked, save for the set of twin puncture wounds that marred both their necks. Petunia Dursley was propped up in such a way that she was holding her son's hand across the table, while Vernon Dursley was posed with his chubby fingers loosely grasping the handle of a coffee mug that had the words, "Happy Father's Day!" painted on the side in bold black letters.
What caused Arthur the most shock, though, was what decorated all three victim's left cheek. Each was marked with a lightening bolt carved into the skin.
"Oh my god," Arthur muttered. He reached up to touch Vernon Dursley's cheek and some fragments of dried blood flaked off. "They were alive."
"What?" Arthur hadn't even noticed the small group who'd gathered around him. The question had come from Remus, but everyone's faces held the same amount of confusion.
Wiping the blood off on his robes he turned to face them. "There's blood around the wound. It means that they must have been alive when they were marked, because the dead don't bleed. What I don't understand is why they were marked."
At this, Tonks piped up. "Well, Moody and I were talking, and we think that it's probably meant as a warning to Harry. After all, the lightening bolt is sort of his symbol."
Suddenly, Arthur's face took on a panicked look. "Where is Harry?"
Everyone reacted instantly, looking at each other in panic and confusion. It seemed they'd all been so caught up in trying to figure out who it was that had murdered the Dursleys that somehow, Harry had been completely forgotten.
"Oh my god," Tonks breathed. "What if they've got him? The Death Eaters…Harry could be being tortured as we speak. This could be there way of telling us that they've got him. We have to save him!"
"If he isn't dead already."
The group suddenly quieted, turning to stare at Mad-Eye Moody. Remus was the first to respond, and when he did, his voice was cold and unflinching. "Don't say that. Harry is not dead."
Moody scowled at Remus. "Don't speak to me like that. And don't you tell me that you don't think it is a possibility. A probability, even. Especially since no one seems to have seen or heard from Harry since the incident."
They heard someone in the back let out a choked sob. Most of the other Order members were more composed, but everyone was distraught at the thought of Harry being dead or in the clutches of Death Eaters.
Arthur himself was on the verge of tears. Harry was like a son to him, and the thought of anything having happened to the boy made him feel as if a knife had been stabbed into his gut. Heaving in a shuddering breath, he pulled himself together enough so that he could continue.
"We cannot let that happen," Arthur announced determinedly. "We'll set up search parties. Remus, can you alert Dumbledore? The rest of you, gather everyone you know and think you can trust. Then we will split up and search this entire damn country if we have to. We will find Harry."
Six weeks had passed since the Dursley's murder. It had been six weeks since anyone had last seen or heard from Harry.
Arthur Weasley had returned from the crime scene to break the news of the murder and Harry's disappearance to his family. He had then gathered Charlie, Bill, and Molly and left again before he'd been home more than two hours.
Ron and Hermione were left alone to deal with the loss of their friend together. They feared the worst, that Harry had been killed by the same maniac who'd slaughtered his last remaining family members. Hermione cried herself to sleep nearly every night, and Ron was plagued by nightmares of Harry dying in various gruesome situations. In each dream Harry cried to him for help, and in every dream Ron was unable to reach him in time.
Ginny remained convinced that the search parties would succeed and bring Harry home immediately. No one could convince her of any other possibility. And no one really wanted to try. In some ways, it was easier to believe that Harry was alright and hiding in a cave somewhere than to accept the possibility that he might be gone forever.
However, as one week became two, and two became three, it became clear that they were not going to find Harry safe and sound.
Then, after four weeks of searching, the elder Weasleys returned. They had entered the house wordlessly. None of them would make eye contact with anyone else. Ron and Hermione had sat in the living room and watched the defeated searchers disperse into various parts of the house.
Molly Weasley came into the living room and sat down next to Hermione, placing her arms around the girl drawing her close in a comforting, motherly hug.
Hermione started crying, and it was as if the floodgates had been opened and they wouldn't stop. She just kept sobbing and crying, "No. It can't be true. He's fine."
Ron placed a hand on her back and rubbed soothing circles, while wrapping his other arm around his younger sister. Ron and Ginny sat watching Hermione cry with silent tears running down their own faces.
Now school was about to start up again, and they had all had to resign themselves to what seemed to be the truth: Harry was gone, and he was not coming back.
A/N: Sorry, it was a bit of a long chapter. I promise, Draco will be in the next chapter…Honest.