All characters are property of JK Rowling and I do not make a profit from this story.
Beta: Roman's Sundial
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Another Funeral
Draco Malfoy – Present Day
January 6, 2000
Draco paced back and forth in his new wing. He knew that Hermione was dating Krum, and he wasn't naïve enough to think that they weren't being intimate together, but Hermione had always been adamant about not sleeping with anyone until she knew she was going to marry them. So why then, was she sleeping with Krum? Surely, he hadn't proposed? But what if he had, and what if she had accepted? Anger and frustration was building inside of him as he considered all the options. There was no way someone like Krum would be living with a girl and not sleeping with her. It did not matter which way he looked at it, his worst fears had been confirmed: he had lost Hermione forever. He heard the door to the wing open, and he went to turn on the lights. It hadn't occurred to him earlier that he had been pacing in the dark. "Hermione, thank goodness you're back! Can we please talk about this?!"
"It is not Hermione," came the deep voice of the man that Malfoy now loathed.
"What are you doing here, Krum?" Draco said, gritting his teeth.
"It is my estate, I can do as I vish."
"This wing is mine while I'm here though, so get out."
"This ving is vere you are imprisoned, until Hermione no longer has to babysit you, but it is not yours."
"Get out," Draco spat.
Krum laughed. "I do not vish to be here vith you, and I vill not return again. Afterall, I haff plenty of things to do wiff my vitch," he said smirking. "I am only here to inform you of the rules."
"The rules?" It was Draco's turn to laugh. "This may be your house, Krum, but I am here because of Hermione and I do NOT answer to you."
Krum smiled. "Jealously looks horrible on you, Malfoy. Now, ven you are here, you are my guest. You break any rule and I vill report you to your Ministry. You are not to be alone vith Hermione and you are not to leave this ving. Not that you can, anyway, the charms don't allow you to. But if you somehow manage to convince her, I vill put a stop to it."
"Look who's jealous now!" Draco responded. "Why are you so worried about your girlfriend? Surely if she loved you she wouldn't want to be with me."
"She is living vith me, Malfoy, I haff nothing to worry about. I do not, however, trust you. So, you haff heard my terms, stick to them or off to Azkaban you vill go."
"You realize, Krum, that by implicating me you also send her to Azkaban?"
"Then do not screw up," he answered.
"You're supposed to care about her!" Draco yelled. "And you would risk her going to Azkaban? You really think Hermione is going to stay with you after hearing that?"
"She is not going to believe you, her ex-boyfriend who only sees her as a mudblood, over me, her boyfriend that she sleeps next to every night. Goodbye, Malfoy."
"Aargh!" Draco grabbed the nearest candelabra and threw it at Krum, but he had closed the door to the wing before it could hit him. Infuriated, Draco grabbed his galleon and sent Hermione probably the fifteenth message that evening. "Why aren't you responding?" he yelled, aloud. An idea suddenly popped into his head. "Rango!" he called out. At once, a small house-elf appeared out of thin air.
"Is visitor Malfoy hungry?" asked the little elf, as if Draco summoning him was a constant thing.
"No, I need you to find Hermione and bring her here."
Rango started to twist his bat-like ears. "Visitor Malfoy is only allowed to request meals. Master Krum has specifically instructed Rango to only provide meals to visitor Malfoy."
"Urgh, fine! Kreacher!" Draco yelled.
Rango twisted his ears again. "Visitor Malfoy does not have the power to summon an elf that is not his own. Master Krum has ensured that visitor Malfoy can only request meals."
"Tell your master that he is going to pay!" Draco screamed. He began trashing the wing and did not notice Rango disappear. After about a quarter of an hour, Draco sat down, defeated. When he had finally given up hope, he received a message from Hermione on his galleon:
There's been a murder, one of the Order members. I'll get to you when I can.
Draco thought long and hard of the Order members that he knew. Who could it have been? Why couldn't it have been Krum? he thought, bitterly. He received a little satisfaction when he remembered that Krum was not part of the Order. Sighing, he looked at the galleon again. It was a new war, a much different war, but a war nonetheless. This time, however, he was not safe. Hosting the Dark Lord at his family home had provided him and his mother safety; what could he possibly do now to ensure safety for them with Grindelwald?
Ron Weasley – Present Day
January 9, 2000
Ron walked out of the fireplace at The Burrow, after just coming back from Grimmauld Place. He entered the kitchen and saw Jessica making a sandwich. "Hey, can I join you?" he asked her.
"Sure." The pair made their sandwiches in silence.
"Where is Amelia?" he asked her.
"Upstairs playing with Teddy, they've been getting along great."
"Awesome," Ron replied, not knowing what else to say.
"How is Andromeda?" Jessica asked him.
"Still unconscious," Ron answered sadly. "She'll probably be at St. Mungo's for quite awhile, but they're optimistic that she will make a full recovery."
"Wonderful," Jessica said, sincerely happy.
"Mum said you'll be watching Teddy when we go to the funeral today?"
"Yeah, since I can't travel magically like you guys, I'll be staying behind with the kids. It's not like I really have a reason to go, anyway."
Ron nodded. "Can we talk about it, Jessica?" he asked her.
"Talk about what? Molly explained what happened, I'm really sorry to hear."
"Jessica, when everything first happened with Amelia and I contacted my mum, well, I told her you were my girlfriend." He waited for her to reply, but continued when she did not. "Er, are you my girlfriend?" he asked, blatantly.
"Everyone here seems to think so," she said, not really giving him an answer.
"Do you think you want to be?" he asked her again.
Jessica shrugged. "There was definitely something going on between us before everything happened with Amelia," she said. "I'm okay with continuing it."
"Yeah, okay, great," Ron replied. "So, in terms of my girlfriend…?"
Jessica laughed. "A lot has happened since we first started seeing each other. It's just a lot to take in right now and I'm not ready to put titles on anything just yet. But, yes Ron, we are together."
Relief washed over Ron's face, but then anxiety began to set in. "There's something I need to tell you," he said. "Essa was my ex, as you know, but what you don't know is that I was seeing her when I met you, and I, uh, kind of left her for you."
"I see," Jessica said, catching on. "So, your break-up was pretty recent, then."
"Yeah, and I caused her a lot of pain, and I was the last person that she dated, and I feel responsible, and-"
"Ron, do what you need to do at the funeral," she said, cutting off his stumble.
"Really?"
"Really. She seemed nice from what everyone is saying, and she didn't deserve to die the way she did. Go ahead and give her a good send off."
"Thank you so much, Jessica!" he said, kissing her.
She kissed him back, then got up to go check on the kids. "Besides," she added, as she headed for the staircase, "what I don't know can't hurt me, right?"
Before Ron could process what she had meant, he heard someone stumble out of the fireplace. "Ready?" came the voice of his best friend, Harry.
"Yeah, let's go." The pair arrived at a very small graveyard, where grape vines hung all around the premises. "This place is protected?" Ron asked him.
"Yeah, Fleur's Dad is secret-keeper, that's whose hand-writing was on the note I gave you."
"If this place is under the fidelius charm, then how can other people visit their families' graves?"
"This is a private cemetery. Fleur told me that only Delacour's are buried here, and since all the Delacour's will be here for the funeral, everyone who visits here has already been let in by Mr. Delacour."
"Oh," said Ron, not knowing what else to say. Together, they took their seats next to Hermione, and the service began. Heart-filled, sad, words were heard by many people, including Essa's broken-hearted parents, and Fleur herself. Finally, when all the members of the Delacour family said what they had to say, Ron stood up and made his way to the front, where the closed casket laid with Essa's body. "H-Hello," Ron stammered, more nervous than he had ever been before. "My name is Ron Weasley, and I was Essa's boyfriend. Falling in love with Essa was easy. She had come up to me, a complete stranger, seeing that I was having a rough day, and she completely turned it around. That was the kind of person Essa was. Happy, gorgeous, brilliant, and she never let anything bother her or anyone around her." Ron paused before continuing on with his eulogy, terrified to say what he had planned to say next, but felt that he had to, regardless. "I left Essa not too long ago, because I thought I wasn't good enough for her. Someone like her deserved a strong, handsome, wizard that was just as loving as she was. Someone brilliant and talented, someone who could light up a room like she did, someone not like me. I am an average wizard and she of course was far from average. I broke her heart and now she is gone." Ron turned towards the coffin, speaking only to Essa. "I'm so sorry, Essa. I do love you and I always will, and you deserved so much better than me." Ron took his seat again and somewhat paid attention to the conclusion of the service. It took Harry patting him on the shoulder, for Ron to realize that it was over.
"Come on," Harry had said to him quietly. "The funeral is over, it's time to get to the Order meeting."
Harry Potter – Present Day
January 9, 2000
Everyone had slowly started to file into Grimmauld Place after Essa's funeral, mostly all still in their dress robes. Harry saw Hermione hovering over in a corner, and he made his way to her. "Are you okay?" he asked her.
"Better than most, I guess," she said, looking over at Fleur who was crying into Bill's shoulder. "I can't believe she's gone, she was so young!"
"That's war," Harry said bitterly. "How are things with Krum and Malfoy?" he asked her, trying to change the subject.
Hermione laughed. "As horrible as expected, of course. I left Draco back in his wing at Krum's estate, but I never said a word to him and I still haven't. He is so mad, Harry, but what else was I to do? Viktor is my boyfriend; it makes sense for me to live with him."
Harry nodded, wondering if Hermione was trying to convince herself as well as Harry. "And how are things with Krum?"
"Well, he knows what's going on with Essa, of course, so I haven't been there yet and he completely understands. But everything is finally out of Hogwarts now, I can officially say that it's no longer my home." There was some sadness in her voice that Harry knew all too well. He would soon be leaving Hogwarts as well, with only one NEWT left to do, and it was a bittersweet feeling. "So, I'll being going to Viktor's tonight," she continued. "For good. Everything is already there except for my minivan full of stuff, but I've checked the Burrow and it's gone and I don't have the heart to bring it up to anybody. Perhaps Ron got rid of it out of spite, or Arthur or Molly did, not realizing what it was. Either way, it's gone, and I have to come to terms with that."
"It's going to be alright with them once everything settles in," Harry comforted her. "Hopefully soon, Malfoy can go back to his mother's and then it will all be over." He patted her on the shoulder, then walked to the front of the group, where Kingsley stood waiting to start the meeting. Everyone went silent when they saw Harry and Kingsley standing there, and the meeting officially began.
"It is unfortunate that we must meet after what we had to do just now," Kingsley began, "but we are meeting to bring down the people who did this, and I assure you that we will not let Essa's death be in vain."
After a round of applause and a few whistles, Neville stood up and began to speak. "Grindelwald told Luna and I that Harry was to send Gloria to him the next day, or more people would suffer, but that would have been two days ago."
"He hasn't done anything yet, but that could be because he hasn't found any of us yet. Let's act as though we know he will kill any of us the moment he sees us," responded Harry.
"Who is Gloria?" asked Angelina.
"Ginny, that's what he calls her."
"And what does he want with her?" Molly asked. Harry turned to his friends for help, as Grindelwald's spell still prevented Harry from talking.
"He's looking for the Deathly Hallows," Hermione said. "They are real and we know where they are, but we aren't handing them over, of course."
"We know that he is still in that mansion, but he has a way of getting in and out of it, so we know he can do whatever it is that he wants to do," Kingsley said. "We need to conduct a plan that will-" but his sentence was cut short when an owl swooped in and dropped a letter in his hands. He quickly read the letter to himself, but then gasped. "They are attacking St. Mungo's!" he said.
"Andromeda!" Minerva McGonagall cried. Everyone made to head to the hospital, but Harry shouted for them to stop.
"The Weasley's need to stay here, the rest of us will conduct a plan."
"Harry, we are all in danger now, Weasley or not," Arthur said.
"And there is no time to make a plan, people are going to die!" Charlie said. Without another word, the Order headed out of Grimmauld Place by floo and apparition from the front steps, and headed towards St. Mungo's.
Harry Potter – The Past
May 4, 1998
Harry looked out at everyone in front of him, took a deep breath, and began to say his eulogy from the top of his head, as he had not intended on doing one. "I first met Fred at King's Cross when I was eleven. It was my first time going to Hogwarts and I was alone and didn't know how to get onto the platform. Mrs. Weasley and her children showed me how to do it, and then Fred and George were kind enough to help me carry my trunk onto the train." Harry paused for a moment, then continued. "It's hard to talk about Fred without mentioning George; there really wasn't one without the other. Both brilliant, both hilarious, and both skilled quidditch players. I had the honor of playing alongside Fred on the Gryffindor quidditch team and I can honestly say that he had the ability to go far with his quidditch career if he wanted to. There are no better beaters out there than Fred and George Weasley. It was Fred and George who helped me enjoy Hogwarts to its fullest," Harry said, thinking about when they gave him the Marauder's map, but not elaborating. "And no Hogwarts student can ever forget Fred and George's exit from school!" Harry heard a few laughs throughout the crowd and he joined in. "There was never a party in the common room that was not started by the Weasley twins, and never a party that didn't end with them, either." Many Gryffindors in the crowd nodded in agreement. "And they are bloody brilliant! For those of you who haven't visited Weasley's Wizard Wheezies yet, you must! Not only do they have the absolute biggest supply of joke related merchandise, they also have a large number of items that could save your life. I personally used two of their own creations to help escape skilled dark wizards, and I wouldn't be standing here today if it wasn't for them." Harry took a deep breath, and continued. "Fred and George's skills and intelligence saved my life, and in turn, I took Fred's. Fred, just like almost everyone here, put their lives on the line for a good cause. I did not ask for the war with Voldemort, but it happened, and I was a large part of that. Fred fought for me, and he lost for me, and there are truly no other words I can say except for sorry. To Fred's parents, Arthur and Molly Weasley, I am sorry that you lost a son. To Bill, Charlie, Percy, Ron, and Ginny, I am sorry that you lost a brother. To George, I am sorry that you lost a brother, twin, business partner, and best friend. To everyone here who had known and loved Fred, I am sorry that I took him from your life." Harry walked away from the podium and choked out his last few words, "I'm sorry," before taking off towards a nearby forest and not returning for the remainder of the service.
Author's Notes: My apologies in the delay in posting; my baby is teething so the last couple of days all he wants is Mommy cuddles and between the teething, fever, and nastiness in the diaper, it's been hard to get to my computer! (And of course my husband has to work overtime when I need him the most!)
So, the funeral. I wanted Ron to open up a little bit because I find that he's a brick wall sometimes and it bugs me. (Here's a little foreshadowing for you: the Jessica-Ron establishing what they are thing is going to be really important at some point!)
To answer a review: first off, thanks for the wonderful words! I will definitely add a chapter or two on wandlore for you! (Since that review, I've already decided when and how to incorporate it in my story!)
The next chapter is a big one: The fight at St. Mungo's. That's all I will say here!
As always, thanks, and please send your questions and comments via reviews or inbox; I love reading them =)