(Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Chapter 32: The Elder Wand)
"Verity. Wake up. Please wake up!" Her eyes flickered open in the dim light. Fred knelt over her. Anxiety showed its strain in his face. She tried to remember what happened, but everything came back like icy water dumped on her head. Bellatrix had...and Draco...and Fred was...
She tried to sit, but her arms gave out, and Fred caught her. The noises and smell of the fight were fainter here, wherever here was, but it hadn't ended.
"Oh," she grumbled. "We're still in a battle? Bother."
Despite himself, Fred's dirty face twisted into a grin, and he rested his forehead against hers. "Don't do that. You scared me."
"Don't do what? Save your life or pass out?"
Fred didn't answer. "What happened to you?" He had torn another strip from her dressing gown and re-bandaged her leg. The old bandage lay in a wet black pile nearby.
"Bellatrix—" The rest of her sentence was lost in a coughing fit from the battle dust, but that explained well enough.
Fred's brow furrowed again. "I'm staying with you."
They were in a tunnel, blocked by a solid wall of debris. She'd never seen it before. Perhaps it was one of those passages Fred told her about long ago, when his and George's biggest adventures ended in detention and thirty points from Gryffindor. "Are you mad?" she said hoarsely. "You're not being useless. Go help Harry Potter save the world."
"I can't leave you here."
"I have my wand and potions. And I can do a proper Shield Charm. Took long enough." She half-smiled. "Don't worry. I'll start planning. We have to work on invitations. None for my side of the family. If this works out," she went into another spasm of coughs, "they'll be in Azkaban or...hopefully dead. I hate to bother your mother about using your house, but Malfoy Manor is out of the question, and do you really think the shop... Speaking of which," she coughed hard, "we need to put our flats together or we won't have room for our kids."
"You're rambling. Hey. Tell me you're not dying on me."
"Stupid," she said. "I'm planning our wedding. I can't off it now, after all this. Now go, or there won't be any good Death Eaters left to kill." She ran her fingers through his hair. "My Freddie darling. I love you."
He leaned toward her, and they kissed, a long, passionate kiss that ignored the blood and dust on their faces and the war raging around them, one that became the whole world for those far too few seconds.
Finally, reluctantly, they broke apart. Fred carefully set Verity down and moved toward the door. There he paused, as if in two minds. He returned to her side, shrugging off his jacket. He laid it over her and, without another word, ran back into the fray.
Alone, Verity wondered what she was going to do. She couldn't very well go into battle; it took all her strength to sit. Nor was she in any condition to duel: if anyone discovered her, they had a sitting duck. The only thing of any use right now was Blood-Replenishing Potion; she swore at herself for forgetting to refill her supply.
She had a tiny bit of Draught of Living Death, enough to knock her out for a few days. If she took it, any Death Eater who found her would think she was dead and leave her be. On the other hand, anyone on their side would think she was dead. She couldn't chance that.
She remembered one lesson with Snape fifth year, when they first talked about the Draught of Living Death. "If taken in a matter of drops," he said, "the draught will render the drinker unconscious for a few minutes only, with the length of time increasing with the amount taken." If she only took a little when she saw people coming, she could avoid trouble from either side.
Settling in under Fred's jacket and taking out her almost-empty potion box, she waited for someone to come, ready for the worst. Within minutes, the warm air and darkness did their jobs, and she fell into a restless sleep.
(Chapter 36: The Flaw in the Plan)
When Verity next awoke, she was lying in the Great Hall, near the dais where the staff table used to be. The battle was over. She stumbled to her feet. The pain in her leg had greatly decreased. It had been properly bandaged, her ruined shoes and socks removed, and the blood washed away.
"Verity!" Fred extracted himself from a clump of people in the middle of the Hall and rushed to her. She broke into a smile and threw her arms around his neck in time for her legs to give out again.
"We won," he whispered, his nose buried in her singed hair. "Harry did it. Voldemort's dead." Her heart leapt.
Two years of waking up screaming to find the nightmare wasn't over, culminating in a night of pure terror. All erased by his simple words. She laughed, breathless laughter of relief. "We won," she repeated weakly. "We won. And the others? Bellatrix?" she asked.
"Mum killed her," Fred said proudly. "Housewife and mother of seven, and she single-handedly kills Lord Voldemort's right-hand lady. Didn't come out with a scratch." He paused. "I'm sorry; she was your mum."
Verity scoffed. "Not in anything except blood, and neither of us wanted that. I'm just sorry I didn't see that duel."
"It was mental." He recounted it with a note of awe in his voice. "Bellatrix almost killed Ginny, and Mum went ballistic and dueled her herself. Called her a..." There were first years walking by in a huddle, so he whispered in Verity's ear. Her jaw dropped.
"She didn't!"
"She did," he said. "No one but Mum's ever had the guts to call it to her face before. D'you know Mum hasn't dueled since before George and I were born? Not bad for that out of practice."
He smiled, but it was only for her benefit. Something deeper haunted his face. He had been crying. "Freddie," she murmured, "what happened?" Her attention was drawn again to the knot of people. That was no celebrating throng; they were silent, huddled close with slumped shoulders. "What happened?" she demanded again, terribly frightened.
Fred's jaw clenched. Favoring her injured leg, Verity hurried to the others. They were huddled around a cot, one of a row on which the bodies of the dead were lying. The dead...
"Percy. No." She ran away as her knees weakened, and she slid to the ground. "Oh no. It's my fault."
"What do you mean?" Fred asked, kneeling beside her.
"If I'd made the shield stronger, bigger, he was right there...It's my fault." She gasped and looked up, gripping Fred's arm. "Freddie...Oh, Merlin—in the corridor," she spoke faster and faster, her voice dropping to a hysterical whisper, "the wall fell, and it hit him. It hit his head, and he fell, and he never got up—I didn't know, I'd never seen anyone die!"
"It's not your fault," he said again.
"It is," she sobbed. "It is."
Warm hands enclosed her cold ones and pulled her to her feet. Verity found herself in a soft embrace that smelled of blood and smoke, but also of sugar cookies. "It is not your fault," Molly Weasley whispered. "Don't you say that." She held Verity at arm's length. "If it wasn't for you, I'd have lost two sons tonight."
Verity cried harder than ever, but no longer solely of grief. She was exhausted, physically, mentally, however many ways one could be exhausted. She was starving, she'd been tortured, she'd run on pure, wild adrenaline for hours and hours, and now all she wanted was to go back to sleep. "Don't worry, dear," Mrs. Weasley said. "I've got you." Verity gave another shuddering sob.
After five minutes, or perhaps five hours, a gentle hand tapped her shoulder. "Not now, Ron," Mrs. Weasley said quietly, but Verity turned anyway.
Ron's face was red and tear-streaked, and he looked like he might collapse before Verity, which was saying something. Still, he offered her his hand. "Could I have a word?" he asked awkwardly. "In private?" she nodded. He put her arm over his shoulder, and they walked a ways from the group.
Finally, he turned to face her. "Look," he said, "I've been a git, and you saved Fred's life—I'm trying to say sorry I thought you were messing with him." He took a deep breath and stuck his hand out.
Verity swallowed and shook his hand. "Forget it. Forget it."
Fred found them again. "Hermione wants to see you," he told Ron. "She's back with Ginny." Ron nodded and hurried away, leaving Fred and Verity alone.
Verity sat carefully on the ground. She didn't want to talk about what happened between her and Bellatrix, about the battle, about what she'd just seen. She didn't even want to hear him talk. "I need to be alone, Freddie."
He didn't walk away. "I don't believe you," he said, and he sat beside her. Verity curled up and laid her head in his lap. He was right. As long as no one spoke, she needed someone to be with her. Perhaps he needed someone to be with him too. After a few minutes, George joined them, and there they sat, the three of them. She lay with her eyes closed, Fred played with her hair, George put his arm around his twin's shoulders, and no one spoke.