Chapter One: June

To see a friend bleed to death, what for

Some kind of metaphor that I can't see?

So I'll drink until I see it.

Funeral For A Friend - 'History'

So bury me

In the memories of my friends and family

I just need to know that they were proud of me

The Wonder Years – 'I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral'

One year earlier – June 22nd, 1996

It was a beautiful summer's day in the West Country. A south-westerly breeze ruffled the treetops in the churchyard just outside the village of Ottery St Catchpole, while the June sun was hot enough that the Norman stonework of the boundary wall was warm to the touch. It was perfect weather for lazing around, but if you could get above the treeline it was also perfect Quidditch weather – balmy and breezy with just a hint of the sea on the wind.

It would, Harry thought, have been the perfect day to go flying behind the Burrow with Ron.

Instead, he was spending it burying Ron. And it was his all his fucking fault.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked around at Fred, his normally gleeful face still and drawn.

"It's time," the older boy said.

Harry nodded and followed him back out of the graveyard and onto the narrow country lane that wound its way up from the village towards the hills where the Burrow and Luna's house lay. The others were already there – Sirius, Mr Weasley, George, Bill, Charlie, Percy and Neville, clustered around a black Jaguar Sovereign that was wide enough to block the whole lane. This was one of the differences Harry had noticed between magical and Muggle funerals – wizards didn't seem to have any sort of formal system of hearses and undertakers. Funerals were organised by the family and friends of the deceased, and any vehicle from a carriage to a car could be a hearse as long as you used an Undetectable Extension Charm. In this case, the car in question was Sirius' present to himself to celebrate his pardon, bought the day after the fight in the Ministry and immediately offered to the Weasleys for the funeral.

As Harry and Fred approached, the others looked up. Mr Weasley looked like he had aged a decade in the past five days, from grief and from the stress of being unable to mourn the loss of his son in peace due to the media attention and official inquest. Sirius had a gentle hand on his shoulder. Percy still looked awkward at being reunited with his estranged family, but he was talking quietly with Charlie. Bill was staring into the middle distance, the only member of the group not to look over at the new arrivals as they walked up, while Neville was hovering awkwardly, clearly feeling like an intrusive outsider at a family moment.

Him and me both, thought Harry grimly. He moved towards his dormmate and gave the latter a reassuring smile. Neville grinned weakly back at him and the tension broke. Sirius slapped him on the back.

"Ready, kid?" he asked, looking at Harry with concern in his eyes.

Harry set his jaw and nodded.

They lined up behind the magically-expanded boot of Sirius' car – Harry and Neville at the front, then Percy and Mr Weasley, then the twins, with Bill and Charlie at the back. Sirius opened the boot with a tap of his wand, and then levitated the coffin out and into position just above their shoulders. The weight as it lowered onto the pallbearers felt almost reassuring to Harry, finally something real and tangible on a day that felt dreamlike and unreal.

They proceeded slowly into the graveyard, heading for a spot halfway down and next to the western wall, where a freshly-dug grave lay at the feet of a brand-new headstone. Across the top was the word WEASLEY in heavy gothic font, and underneath was carved In loving memory. Ronald Bilius 'Ron' Weasley. Son. Brother. Friend. Teammate. Comrade. 1/3/1980-21/5/1996. Repay evil with good, and hell will not claim you. The epitaph was apparently an old saying popular in Mrs Weasley's family. Harry thought it was a fitting tribute to Ron, but it didn't quite seem big enough to encompass everything about his best friend. Chess player, class clown, Quidditch nut, worst signing in Gryffindor's recent history to star Keeper in a season, best mate, warrior, a boy who could conjure a corporeal Patronus, and yeah, a bit of a fucking dickhead at times. Suddenly, Harry felt the perverse urge to laugh. The memory of Ron losing it at his dress robes before the Yule Ball rose unbidden to the front of his mind and he had to struggle to maintain his composure as he waited for the Ministry official overseeing the funeral to finish speaking.

"We return you now to the earth from whence you came, as ashes return to ashes and dust to dust. May you live on in the memories of your friends and family, and may those who love you find solace in the knowledge that you repose in the refuge of the everlasting arms. May you rest in peace," intoned the pale, rangy middle-aged man, black-clad and visibly perspiring in the heat.

That was the pallbearers' cue. Slowly, painfully, they lowered the coffin off their shoulders and onto the waiting straps, which they then used to lower it further into the grave. Each inch down felt like another bruise to Harry's heart. He paused for a moment when the work was done, just staring down at the final resting place of his first and best friend. Then Mr Weasley started shovelling soil onto the coffin, each load falling with a dull, final thud. Weasley boys joined in, and then George turned to Harry and Neville, offering them a shovel each, and they joined in with a will. Harry worked with a slow, burning ferocity, each shovelful of soil a promise to Ron. I'll end this, he thought, sweat pouring down his back and soaking into his robes, I swear it mate, I'll make sure they can't ever hurt people again.

As the final loads of earth fell into place, the Ministry man stepped forward to speak again, and Harry moved backwards into the crowd of mourners, finding Hermione – who was crying silently, her face streaked with tears – and putting himself next to her. As Neville came and stood on her other side, Harry looked around the churchyard properly for the first time.

All of the DA except Marietta were there, even Cho, Michael Corner and bloody Smith. The Order were out in force too, everyone from Lupin and Tonks (currently comforting Mrs Weasley) to Mundungus Fletcher. That tall, odd-looking blonde man with Luna could only be her father, and there were a number of middle-aged witches and wizards in formal robes who were presumably Ministry colleagues of Mr Weasley given that they had arrived with Perkins. Madam Bones was in attendance, her severe countenance out of place in the context of her standing in the sun with her arm around her niece instead of presiding over a trial. There were a large number of redheads – presumably the Weasleys' cousins – and a haughty-looking elderly witch who could only be the notorious Auntie Muriel. Augusta Longbottom was present, standing straight-backed and leaning on an umbrella, having declined the offer of a seat. Wood was there, and the Gryffindor Quidditch team, along with two members of the Chudley Cannons (apparently it was common practice for the team to send representatives to the funerals of members of their small but incredibly dedicated supporters' club). Fudge was there too, perspiring nervously next to a rangy, tough-looking man in plain robes. With a sudden pang of something like guilt, Harry noticed Mr and Mrs Diggory, who were standing next to Cho. Further back, he could see Krum – looking lonely, awkward and out-of-place – and near him were the Delacour sisters along with a beautiful, sophisticated-looking middle-aged witch, and a short, plump, black-bearded wizard with a jolly face, presumably their parents. Hagrid was standing in the far corner of the graveyard, looming over proceedings. The most unusual mourner of all, however, was standing next to Albus Dumbledore. The Heads of Houses had accompanied the Headmaster to the funeral. While McGonagall was an expected presence at the funeral of a Gryffindor, and Flitwick and Sprout were both friendly faces to Harry, the sight of Severus Snape, looking deeply uncomfortable amid a large crowd and – frankly – unused to this much sun, was an odd experience. Which reminded Harry, he had something to do today.

He felt someone squeeze in beside him and glanced around to see Ginny. She was staring straight ahead at the official making his final remarks with a hard, blazing look on her face. She looked like she was about to explode with some emotion, probably anger, but when she spoke her voice was calm, dull, and vaguely familiar.

"Nobody blames you except yourself, you know," she said.

He sighed, but before he could reply she spoke again in the same dull monotone.

"We all blame ourselves, but at the end of the day that's a crock of shit and Ron'd be mad at us for it. We both know who's to blame, and as soon as the inquest report comes back, he'll get his."

Harry had to suppress a small smile at her phrasing.

"Hopefully," he replied, "but there's a bigger picture here though. He might have directly killed Ron, but there are plenty of other people to blame, from Voldemort to Fudge."

And maybe even Dumbledore, for keeping secrets from me all year, was the bit he didn't voice.

Ginny nodded grimly and slapped him on the back.

"We'll figure it out," she replied, in a tone that brooked no debate.

Harry found that he couldn't quite meet her eyes, so he looked around at the assembled mourners again and spotted someone he hadn't before. A girl about his height was standing next to the gate, where she certainly hadn't been when he had walked through with the coffin just a few minutes ago. She was blonde, and wearing black dress robes styled like an old-fashioned Victorian dress, something that Muggle-raised Harry associated with period films or goth bands. Something about her was vaguely familiar to Harry, like he knew her from somewhere, but he couldn't quite put his finger on where or how. Of course, the combination of his terrible eyesight and the distance between them didn't help in that respect. He continued to observe her for a second, trying to place her, when suddenly she seemingly realised she was being watched and looked directly at him, before slowly inclining her head in his direction.

She was somebody from Hogwarts, but he couldn't remember who.

The ceremony was coming to an end, the official's droning voice fading away, and as the mourners started to mill about, Harry took off towards the gate to try to catch the girl, but she disappeared from his sight in the crowd. Looking around, he spotted the Heads of House hovering as Dumbledore conversed quietly with the tough-looking man who had accompanied Fudge, so he gritted his teeth, swallowed his pride, and marched squarely up to Snape.

He noticed McGonagall tense as he approached the Potions Master, clearly expecting a confrontation, but Snape merely raised an eyebrow slightly at the sight of him.

"Thank you, Professor," he said, working to keep his tone level.

McGonagall's eyebrows shot up, and Flitwick nudged Sprout. Snape merely nodded.

"Understood, Potter. We each have a job to do, after all."

As Harry walked away, reflecting on the fact that thanking Snape had been a lot less painful than expected, McGonagall swept after him.

"I never thought I would see the day that you and Professor Snape would be civil to each other, Mr Potter," she remarked, clearly curious as to why.

Harry sighed.

"When I was captured by Umbridge, I tried to tell Snape what I'd seen in my vision. He understood, he told the Order. Despite the fact that he hates me and Sirius, he helped. It was only fair to thank him."

McGonagall gave him an odd look of pride mingled with something else. Curiosity, perhaps?

"Very well, Mr Potter. As I said to you once before, it's just as well you listen to Miss Granger."

Harry couldn't help but grin at that statement. It had indeed been Hermione's idea to talk to Snape, albeit probably not for the reasons McGonagall thought. Speaking of which, Hermione probably needed a hug.

As he headed off to find her, he realised why Ginny's tone of voice had been so familiar. It was how she had sounded when she was under the control of Riddle's diary.


It was Luna that started the singing.

After the funeral, after the Ministry official had taken down the Muggle-repelling charms, after the more distantly-connected mourners had left, those closer to the Weasleys had returned to the Burrow, where a large magical marquee had been erected in the garden. Things had been awkward at first. The mingling of Ron's friends and family, the rebellious and angry DA members and various other hangers-on had been painful until the drink started flowing and people started telling happy stories about Ron and his life.

Krum approached Harry and Hermione as they chatted quietly. Without any preamble, he swept Hermione up into a bear hug, looking over her shoulder at Harry.

"I am sorry about Veasley," he said. "I remember him from the Tournament, he vos your prize in the Lake, no? Brotherhood like that is hard to come by."

Harry nodded sadly, and then chuckled.

"Did you know you were his favourite Quidditch player?" he asked the Bulgarian.

"No? Really? I thought he did not like me at all."

"Honestly," said Harry, "The twins even won a bet on you at the World Cup – Ireland to win but you to get the Snitch. Ron thought you were amazing. He was just a bit... intimidated by you bringing Hermione to the Ball."

Comprehension flashed across Krum's face and he chuckled, a deep bass rumble that Harry had never before heard from the normally-taciturn young man. Then his brow furrowed and his face grew serious again.

"I must talk vith you," he said, "while everyvun is busy vith the talking and the drinking. Vith you, and vith your friends who fought at your side."

Hermione looked like she wanted to ask why, but Harry decided to play along. He cast his eyes about the tent, quickly spotting Ginny, who was standing on her own starting into the middle distance, with that same hard look on her face. He beckoned her over to them and she crossed the space between them in a few strides, her eyes expressionless.

"Could you grab Neville and Luna and come back here, please?" he asked.

She nodded, a barely-perceptible tilt of her chin, and vanished into the crowd. When she returned, she had the other two in tow – Neville looking confused and curious, Luna looking amiably disinterested in proceedings. Krum gestured for everyone to follow him as he led them to a table.

As they sat down, he took a deep breath.

"In Dumstrang," he began, "ve sometimes haff problem. Some students, they want to look tough, stronk, so they act like bullies, like koravi. They... push their weight about, no?"

Harry nodded his understanding, smothering a smile at the linguistic misfire.

"So these boys, they like to use Grindlevald's sign, his mark... they put it on their books, on their robes, even on the valls. Until some of us, who lost family to him... ve showed them this vos not such a good idea. You understand."

"I know exactly what you mean," said Neville grimly.

"So... I am sorry you lost your friend. Veasley seemed like a good person to know. I think he vos your brother, yes?" said Krum, directing the final question to Ginny.

"Yes, he was," came the reply in the same flat, empty monotone as earlier.

"Vell, in that case I think you should listen to me. You vill be angry, you vill be hurt... that is nature's vay. People vill tell you 'do not show anger, do not hate, that is the vay of the Dark'. They are wrong to say this thing. Do not let the bad feelings eat you, but use them. Do you vant other people to die as Diggory did, as Veasley did?"

Everyone around the table shook their heads.

"Then you must take your anger and your hate, and you must hold them deep in your heart, and you must use all those feelings to stop the people who vould kill like that. Just as ve did in school, ve did not convince those boys to stop loving Grindlevald with some kind vords and a varm meal! You haff this team, this DA, you know how to fight. So fight."

He stopped, looking into the bottom of his tankard with a slight expression of embarrassment. Harry rather suspected that the older boy had never talked at such length about his feelings on schoolyard bigotry before. Without even knowing exactly why he was doing it, he reached out and put his left hand on Krum's shoulder.

"Thank you, Viktor," he said honestly, "I think we needed a push. We've all been fighting in our own ways for years now" – he thought of Ginny, just a child, trying to force Riddle out of her head – "and maybe it's easy to forget, in the heat of the moment, that there's more we can do than just punch Draco and do what Dumbledore tells us."

He paused and looked around the table, relieved to see four sets of eyes meet his with matching expressions of grim determination. Even Luna had decided to come back from whatever higher dimension her mind normally occupied and was completely attentive.

"Ron died, and yes, it's Malfoy's fault for killing him, and it's Voldemort's fault for plotting the ambush, but I ran right into it. That's not a mistake I'll be making again. But I don't want to give up and roll over. If I do, they've one. If I do, Ron died for nothing."

Before Harry knew what was happening, Krum had reached out and grabbed his right hand, not in a handshake but in a comradely clasp.

"I knew you vould think this vay, and you say the name unlike these other Angliĭski!" the older boy exclaimed happily. "And if you vant to fight, I vill help vhere I can. You haff my vord."

Harry was taken aback at this gesture of solidarity, and could barely splutter out his thanks, but he could tell that Krum understood just how much it meant. With that, the group began to split apart and move back to the main group, Harry finding himself walking with Hermione and Luna.

"Did you thank Snape?" asked Hermione.

"Yes," he replied, "in front of Dumbledore. Now if he's his usual self to me next year he'll really have to justify why he hates me so much."

Hermione smiled grimly.

"That'll hopefully give us a bit of leeway."

Harry noticed Luna looking at them curiously.

"We're going to have to put more work into the DA next year," he explained, verbalising something he and Hermione had been mulling over for days. "Anyone who we can trust, and who wants to be there, we need to train as hard as possible. Maybe get some help from Padfoot, learning more obscure curses and hexes. And we need to make it run like a proper secret society, like the Order or something. If we want to be ready to fight Voldemort we need to have our own communications network and plans and all that stuff."

He looked over at Hermione.

"That's really more your area than mine, the planning and organising. Are you still willing to take it on?"

She nodded once. That was all he needed.

Then Luna piped up.

"I think I can help you too, Harry. If you want to start recruiting more members, we'll need to think about promoting the DA, at least on the quiet. And maybe... maybe trying to get stories into the news about bad things the Death Eaters are doing and that sort of thing? I'm sure Daddy could help us with that."

Harry grinned his approval at that idea, and was pleasantly surprised when Luna turned to Hermione and began pitching ideas to her. The two girls were both very intelligent in their own ways, but their very different outlooks on life – especially Hermione's aggressive dismissal of Luna's more outlandish beliefs – had made things strained between them. It was good to see them working together. Deciding to leave them to it, he saw Sirius at the makeshift bar and strolled over to join his godfather.

"It's been a long day," said Sirius wryly, pouring something amber and alcoholic into two glass tumblers laden with ice. "Have this, it'll help."

He handed one of the tumblers to Harry, raised his own and clinked the two glasses together.

"To Ron," he said.

"To Ron," Harry echoed.

Harry was expecting the liquid to sting his mouth, he'd served Uncle Vernon enough scotch in his time and he had to assume from the name that Firewhiskey was stronger. However, this drink had an entirely unexpected sweetness to it. He looked at Sirius in surprise.

"It's a Muggle liqueur, from Scotland. It's made of expensive honey blended with even more expensive scotch. You like?"

Harry nodded, not entirely trusting himself to speak.

"Excellent!" his godfather exclaimed. "Another!"

As they clinked glasses again, Harry decided to take the plunge.

"I'm going to need your help this year. The DA isn't going anywhere, even if it's just the five of us who – who saw what happened. We'll need training, and advice, and support. I think you and Moony would be... helpful. If you're willing."

Sirius nodded.

"What about the rest of the Order?"

Harry considered it for a second.

"Snape's out, McGonagall is unlikely if we're risking breaking school rules. Tonks might help, maybe Moody. I want to ask Bill. Mrs Weasley will be even more overprotective now so she's no good. Other than that I have one or two ideas about people who might help outside the Order, but we'll see."

"And Dumbledore?" his godfather asked.

Harry sighed.

"I don't know. I know he's the only wizard Voldemort ever feared and all that, but he hasn't been honest with me. At all. And I'm not too sure giving evil people endless chances to redeem themselves works. I'm not trying to go against him, but the DA is separate from the Order and doesn't report to him, it reports to me."

Sirius grinned.

"Smart," he said, slapping Harry on the shoulder. "We'll make a Marauder of you yet! You might need to change the branding though, if you don't let Dumbledore run the show are you really his army?"

Harry nodded, not admitting that the thought had already crossed his mind.

They were starting on their third measures of the liqueur when a single, light, lilting voice began to sing, just loud enough to be heard over the buzz of conversation. Luna was standing on a chair, surrounded by members of the DA, and as she got through the first few words, they all joined in.

Weasley is our King,
Weasley is our King,
He didn't let the Quaffle in
Weasley is our King.

Weasley can save anything,
He never leaves a single ring,
That's why Gryffindors all sing:
Weasley is our King.

By halfway through the first verse, Harry had joined in, Sirius watching in wry amusement. By the end of the second verse, the twins were up on a table conducting a crowd of enthusiastic – albeit not uniformly-talented – singers in a roof-raising rendition of the song they had appropriated from the Slytherins. Harry spotted Mrs Weasley smiling through floods of tears, while Mr Weasley scratched his head bemusedly in the way he always did when he was appreciative but embarrassed.

Fuck it, Ron would have wanted them all to laugh. To celebrate his life instead of moping about. Harry held out his glass to Sirius for a top-up and jumped up on a chair himself to restart the singing. He could cry in the morning.


A/N: Oooof. That took a while to write. I burned through the funeral scene in two super-productive writing sessions, then dragged my heels through the party up until Sirius poured the drinks. Initially, this and the next chapter were planned as one, but it was getting waaaaaay too long, the line I ended on felt like a good place to stop, and I came up with a nice epigraph for the next chapter.

Speaking of which, I'm doing something with the chapter titles in this fic. Like in The Biter Bit, where I've been making them all alliterative, there's a pattern here.

Krum is hard to write. I may have to hook him up with somebody just to eemprove 'is Eeeenglish.

The drink Sirius gives Harry is Drambuie, it's a liqueur from the Isle of Skye made of scotch and heather honey. Delicious stuff.

The Jaguar Sovereign was one of the prestige models in the X-class range from the mid-90s.

The epitaph on Ron's tombstone is a Welsh proverb: "Gwna dda dros ddrwg, uffern ni'th ddwg" - "Repay evil with good, and hell will not claim you". Prewett is a Welsh surname, and Ginevra is the Italianised variation of the Welsh name Gwenhwyfar, a Celtic name meaning 'pale fairy' or 'pale phantom' (the terms are in some ways interchangeable in the Iron Age culture of the Western Isles) which is also available in Irish (Fiona), English (Jennifer) and Norman French (Guinivere) variations. So I figured Molly's side of the family were Welsh and ran with it.

Reviews appreciated, I'm not used to writing something like this, new chapter of The Biter Bit coming in the next few days to get myself back into my optimistic, fluffy, comfort zone.

Who was the figure at the gate? Why does Ginny sound like she did when she was being possessed? Will Harry being polite to Snape that one time matter a damn? What's the plan for the DA? Will Molly be mad at Sirius for getting a minor drunk? If Lucius Malfoy killed someone, why is he clearly running around free in the near future? Why is this fic tagged Harry/Luna when everyone is just vibing around the Burrow being sad about Ron? Stay tuned to find out...