A/N: Yes, it is indeed one speedy update for those of you, who actually read Metamorphosis. After Son of Nefertum, there is just one last chapter to go, so stay tuned!
Brynn

x

Son of Nefertum

x

I hear a song sung by a single voice, but there are no words in it. It's not human, and not for people, but I know who calls the scattered dragons to him. I go on, unafraid of the lizards, unafraid of the singer.

Safe paths in the artificial swamp are marked by glowing symbols. I take care with every step, walking on, holding Bill close to me. Little dragons scuttle out of the brushwood, all running or flying towards the same melody. Leathery wings and tails hit my legs now and then, but no sign of enmity comes from these creatures. They are like children playing tag, only with a cloud of will-o-wisps dancing among them.

I find Charlie in the centre of a congregation, in the middle of the swamp that was made much larger than what could geographically fit into the area designated for it. He kneels in mud. I have a brief flashback to Halloween, when it was me on the soaked earth and Charlie… and Bill… coming for me… Less than three weeks were enough to shatter our worlds, rebuild them and shatter them again.

Tendons move under the skin of Charlie's back; it looks like a nest of snakes, and must hurt fiercely. One day, sooner rather than later in the light of Bill's death, Charlie's change will go a step further and he won't come back. I try to imagine him with wings, huge magnificent glittering green appendages growing out of his back, where the snaking tendons come to rest.

He looks over his shoulder and up into my face.

I feel numb, just waiting for the Earth to crash into the Sun. I was rebuilt separate of Bill, and I'm still standing, but I have been far from ready to lose him. The shock has rendered me cold, unfeeling, as though I'm cut off from my heart, but I can feel it beating, pumping hot red blood, like that on my fingers, and know that, once I allow myself to feel, it's going to be painful.

Charlie and Bill and I remain as carved from marble. We stand unmoving, three pale statues as an illustration to Metamorphosis, waiting for time to start again.

x

I let Charlie Apparate us to Grimmauld Place for I am unwilling to meet any other Order members today. In my numb, despair-driven state, I would not act rationally – I might kill for the smallest offence.

Abandoning Bill in that house is incredibly hard. I have to forcefully pry myself off him, separate us, and then I just stand there and can't tear my eyes from his still form. Charlie lowers Bill's eyelids, hiding the blue that glitters with emptiness. He does not cry on the outside, but inside he is worse off than I am. I have to leave him here, alone (with Bill), so that he can scream and rave, or get drunk, or…

…do whatever dragons do when their hearts bleed.

I see myself back to Hogwarts, coming through the Shrieking Shack. The corridor under it is now riddled with lethal traps, password-protected on both ends, and guarded by a ghost. Tonight the duty's fallen on the Bloody Baron, who, I find, has instructions from Snape to let me pass.

Divesting myself of things seems more of a chore than ever before. I set aside my wand, the saif I never got to use, kick off my shoes and fail to undo the fastening of my overcoat when it gets stuck, so I give up on it. By the time I get to bed, I feel dead myself.

Was really all we've achieved in Egypt for naught?

x

"Harry! Harry!" I wake up to Ron shaking me. It's painful, but I can't bring myself to care, and definitely not to tell him, especially after I've glimpsed his face. He's distraught. They've been told.

"Ron…"

My voice is hoarse, as though I've been screaming. I don't remember screaming, but I might have had a nightmare I don't recall… As though the nightmare of yesterday night wasn't enough.

Ron lets go of me and I have to catch myself on one of the bedposts; otherwise I would have fallen back onto the pillow. I'm going to have bruises on my upper arms.

"B-bill's… Bill is…" Ron chokes, unable to say it out loud.

Dead. I know. I probably look a fright, and Ron's just beginning to take in my appearance. I'm dirty. My clothes are stained with brown and brown-red blotches, my hair is full of mud, my sweat dried all over my body and my forehead and hands… my hands… Bill's blood.

I stare at my palms and then look up, eerily blank. Ron is gaping at me in horror.

"Y-you knew… You…" He sneers through tears. It's the ugliest expression I've ever seen him wearing. "You knew and didn't tell me!"

He raises his hand to punch me, but when I don't react at all, he freezes in that position. Then he sags, reaches out and pulls me into a hug. He hangs onto me; I remain stiff and motionless in his arms. Another person I cared for is gone because of me. My flippancy and ignorance murdered yet again.

Strange, how I can kill men and women with my hands and magic without remorse, but I just can't deal with this.

"Ron?"

Hermione's voice is very quiet. She stands by the door and holds Ginny's hand in hers. Ginny herself has her hair down, building a barrier between the world and her but, despite being unable to see her face, I can tell she doesn't cry. She's a little like Charlie in this; soundlessly screaming inside her head. I hate it. Little girls should cry aloud.

"Harry?" Ron asks when he notices that I have yet to make any noise or movement since the whisper of his name. I don't feel like it. I want to lie back down and wait until Bill comes to wake me up like he did it Egypt, dressed in a long white tunic, like a red-haired angel… William ibn Nefertum. Blessed by the Scarab God of Dawn.

"Harry, come here." Hermione sits on the side of my bed and stretches out a hand.

I look at her, blink, and look away. The canopy is red. Red like blood. Ginny sits next to Hermione – I feel the mattress dip – and pulls out her wand.

"Scourgify."

The spell washes over me and takes away all the dirt, all the sweat and grime and mud and blood… I look at my palms.

They are clean.

I expect another something inside me to break, but it doesn't happen. Everything is coming back into focus, everything makes sense again. The memory of Egypt becomes vivid in my mind, and I take a deep breath of the dormitory air in vain hope that I would smell incense. It's not here, but Bill was correct, straight until the very end.

I'm going to be alright.

"Come 'ere," I say like Hermione did a moment ago – my voice breaks just a little – and open my arms. Ron and Ginny cuddle up to me, each claiming one side, and both let themselves cry. They twin sobs synchronise after a moment, and I relax slightly. I don't have tears for Bill and Hermione didn't know him enough to be more than vaguely sad about his death.

I wish someone else took my place. I am not sanguine – not humane – enough to be able to provide anything but a bony chest to lean against. Hermione pets them and mumbles something incomprehensible, but I feel excluded. Their feelings are so very different from mine… I wish to be alone. I wish it was Draco here in my place.

I endure it for fifteen or twenty minutes, continually growing weary both physically and mentally. In the end I gesture towards the bedside table and look at Hermione pleadingly. She complies, although I doubt that she knows my intentions, and passes me my wand. I spell all three of them asleep, even bother to re-arrange Ginny and Mione on my bed and levitate Ron over to his, so that they wouldn't wake up sore and stiff.

x

I'm halfway down to Slytherin, looking for Draco, when I happen upon a familiar face.

We meet on a staircase, one of those that don't detach themselves and move around but stay firmly built in. It's narrow, but we both walk slowly and thus avoid collision. Charlie reaches out to me, but I shrink backwards instinctively.

He frowns.

"Stop the guilt trip, Harry. You couldn't prevent him from living his life…" I relent, step forwards and he engulfs me in a brief but warm embrace. Those perfect hands stroke my back and then let go, which I appreciate, because his knapsack has been attempting to dig a hole through my ribs. "Would you even want to?"

I shake my head. Never. Bill was Bill such as he was – to prevent him from making his choices, to force him to conform to someone else's will would mean destroying that which made him so unique – which made him Bill. The death was undesired, but, maybe, in a strange tragic way, necessary. I cannot see all ends, but in Egypt I've learnt again how to hope; I want to believe that there is enough love, goodness, beauty, and a happy end for enough people to make up for our sacrifices.

"You have to come to the memorial service, Harry. It's on Saturday at seven on the High Chiltern Meadow."

I stare into his blue, pained eyes, trying to digest the invitation. It hasn't crossed my mind before… I suppose it should have, but it seems inconsequential compared to the reality of the death itself. But… it should bring closure, shouldn't it?

I think I'm glad to be invited. Just hope that they won't make it a huge ceremony; Bill wouldn't have appreciated that. Then again, if Charlie's the one in charge, there's no worry.

"Why so late?"

I'm aware that the question seems off topic, but I am genuinely interested.

"Early, Harry. Seven in the morning. Usually it's done in the afternoon, but there are circumstances…

"Blessed by Khepri, right?"

He nods, surprised that I made the conjecture. I can hardly forget – having been gifted by the same entity myself.

"Khepri is the same as Nefertum, the God of Dawn. That's why seven in the morning, right? That's dawn."

He nods again. We both fall silent. I want to go fetch Draco, but I don't want to part from Charlie just yet. We could go together, but he must have things to do (it's hardly believable that he would have come only to tell me the date and place of the memorial service).

"I came to collect Ron and Ginny," he informs me. "Mum's in a state and dad can't leave her alone…" Gods… how reduced is the family suddenly. Because they took me in… or is it? I can't claim responsibility for their alliances, or for Percy's. I'm just a focus, and Voldemort's minions are attracted to me like moths to a flame.

"I've brought something for you," he adds surreptitiously, glancing around and upwards to make sure nobody watches. There's a portrait on the landing, but it's currently empty of residents. Charlie opens his knapsack. It must have magically enhanced cubage, because he pulls the black suitcase out of it.

"It's not officially written anywhere, but Bill wanted you to have them," he says. I hesitate less than a second. Yes, Bill wanted to give them to me, and I suspect that many of the books would have ended in my ownership even if he had remained alive. I take the luggage and hug it close, feeling a strange, not physical, sensation of warmth coming from it.

"It's… thanks." I feel a weak but happy smile forming. It might not be appropriate, but I can't help it.

"It's not so much," Charlie protests. "He left lots of things, a small treasure, actually, to the rest of us."

He doesn't understand. I don't care about the entire heritage from Sirius as much as I care about this suitcase and its contents.

"No, I… This is…"

Words fail me, and he finally sees what I'm trying to convey. He smiles back and gently pets my hair.

"Exactly what you would have wanted," he finishes for me. "I know it and Bill knew it. Hence…" He gestures to the object I'm hugging.

"Thanks," I say simply.

"Ron and Ginny are in the dorms?"

"Yeah. In our dorm, actually. I… spelled them asleep," I confess. Charlie sighs, but doesn't berate me. He has an inkling of how hard this situation is on me – perhaps not as emotional as it is to the surviving siblings, but much more confusing. I was not exactly sane three weeks ago, and right now I feel like I'm dancing on the edge of rationality.

"I'm taking them to Headquarters. We'll see you tomorrow, Harry."

There's no sense in going to find Draco anymore. Still, I continue downstairs, slinking through the shadows of the dungeons in the faux eternal night of Hogwarts underground. The Slytherins are at breakfast; it's clearly recognisable by the lack of children roaming these dank corridors. I avoid detection and manage to get to Snape's office unnoticed. I murmur the password, get inside and settle down to wait for the man to drop in before class.