George Weasley's name had been splashed over the fronts of newspapers for days following his death. Always, it was accompanied by pictures of him, always smiling or laughing, much as he had been remembered in life; pictures of the shop destroyed under the light of the Dark Mark, and details about the pureblood family that had lost so many members during this dark time. Mention was always made of Molly and Arthur, who had been murdered in their home some six years earlier just after pushing their two youngest children, still students at Hogwarts, through the Floo connection. Nearly as often, Charlie's name was found in the articles, fresh with new suspicions that his death in the dragon fields of Romania had not been as accidental as was reported nearly four years ago.

But in a few weeks, as was wont to happen, the Weasley name faded from print once more, as more grotesque crimes were reported, families were murdered, buildings destroyed. In a twisted sense, living continued, though there was very little life left in wizarding London. In fact, fear had come to control the lives of the Magical all over Britain. Distrust prevailed, and suspicion was the rule.

And so it was, eight and a half months after the explosion in Diagon Alley, that when a bundle of black robes had appeared in the street there as though dropped from the sky, that none came forward to investigate. They stood fearfully within the protective shops watching and whispering of what they had seen, where it had come from, and who it could be, for few had missed that it was a body. A hand, a foot, and a mass of dirty brown hair could be seen peeking from beneath the robes. They watched in solemn silence as a pair of Aurors neared the arrivee and bent down beside the body.

Christopher Alden had joined the Ministry seven years ago, had been sought out by the Department of Mysteries, as had his younger sister, but unlike the bookish sibling, he had yearned for adventure and a chance to help. The Aurors was his calling and he loved it, but it was missions like this, investigating and identifying random bodies left to rot in plain view by the Death Eaters, that turned his stomach. It was worse than entering homes and finding entire families struck down by the Killing Curse, for these people had been tortured mercilessly, and the bodies always showed it.

He squatted next to the body, wrinkling his nose at the stench of unwashed hair and skin, and, aware of the morbid onlookers watching behind the protection of glass storefronts, began lifting the thick cloth away from the face.

At first, the features were difficult to make out. The light of his wand gave little help in the growing darkness, and the face too swollen to make out clearly who this person had once been, but slowly, as he focused in on the whole of the face, he began to get a picture. It was a man, probably in his late forties. The damage was horrendous.

"Alden? You all right?"

James Hauten, his partner, was walking toward him from where he had been taking a statement from the owner of The Golden Oracle.

Chris could only motion toward the body. He could feel his partner's gaze on him as he crouched down beside him, pulling back the rest of the cloak, exposing the ragged shirt barely clinging to the thin frame except where blood had soaked through the fabric. The pants were torn in the knees and tattered at the ankles. A large black wound in his left thigh gave off the stench of rotting flesh. Hauten covered his nose and mouth as he leaned closer.

"Heilige Hölle," Hauten swore softly. "He was tortured to death." He covered the face again and leaned back. "We should take the body back to be identified. His family will need to be identified." He dug into his pocket for what appeared to be a copper bracelet. "You coming?"

"Yeah."

With one quick movement, Hauten snapped the bracelet around the man's wrist, let go, and counted down from five. The number had barely left his lips when the body disappeared from the road, having been port-keyed directly to St. Mungo's. "I'll see you there."

Hauten disapparated. Chris took a moment to look around at the faces peeking out at him, watching curiously as they dealt with 'just another body.' This man was someone's son, possibly a husband or a father, but no one had come forward to even check if he was alive. None had even come near him. An innocent person was allowed to lie in the middle of a busy street, and no one would had moved. Why? It wasn't callousness. The looks on their faces told him they were not so emotionless. They were hoping it wasn't their family member, their friend. It was fear.

A year ago, Fred knew exactly what he would have seen when he opened that cabinet. The drawer would've slid open and out would step one enormous shoe, curled in on itself like an oversized party favor to unfurl slowly as it stuck straight out at him, then bent impossibly to the floor, drawing with it a great lanky leg wrapped in bright blue overalls that went up and up over a striped shirt with every damned color of the rainbow and a polka-dot tie. But the worst came last. Always last, and he would nearly wet himself when the face appeared, leaving it to George to rid him of the white face, the ruby lips frozen in a smile that curled around his very eyes, smiling and laughing amid the orange hair, like some sick caricature of himself.

Fred hated clowns. They terrified him. Why muggles would choose to dress up as these monsters to entertain children was completely beyond him. Were they so cruel? Or did they feel a healthy fear was good for everyone, kicking those survival instincts into high gear at an early age?

But lately, even these perverse purveyors of panic would have been welcome to replace his current fear. Curled in on himself in the library of Number 12 Grimmauld Place, Fred tried to cover his face, an vain attempt to hide from his sight the broken body of his twin, blood soaking slowly into the thick carpet, as hazel eyes stared blankly out at him from a head twisted in an impossible fashion.

It wasn't real. He knew that. He knew the counterspell to stop it, but his fingers could not grip his wand. It had fallen from his hand long ago and remained untouched. Afterall, what could he do? How could he fight this? How could he make his twin's death humorous? How could he combat that with laughter? It simply was not in him.

"Fred, did you find that-?" The voice had come through the door, but cut off when it entered. Footsteps padded through the carpet to stand in front of him, blocking him from the Boggart and forcing it to take on a new form. He heard the slight whoosh of air as it changed, but could not uncover his face. "Fred, it's all right," Hermione was saying to him, wrapping her arms around him. "Tonks got rid of it. It's gone."

He tried to pull his hands down, but realized he had been crying, and hastily wiped his face dry on the sleeve of his shirt, but even with that, he was unready to face the room again as an irrational fear seized him that perhaps the body was still there, or worse, would be again soon. Instead, he sat still, staring straight down into the carpet where he sat ignoring all other stimuli in the room.

"Is he okay?" he heard Tonks ask uncertainly.

"I'm fine," he bit out. How could he be fine?

"Tonks, go let Harry and Bill know we'll be there in a second."

"Go with her, Hermione. I just need a few minutes."

"It wasn't your fault, Fred," she responded softly. "He wouldn't want you to act this way."

"Please, Hermione." He did not want to hear this right now. He'd been hearing this, or some variation of it for nearly nine months. He did not want to hear her say-.

"He wouldn't want you to blame yourself like this."

"Just go." How short and simple a request, yet it barely escaped his lips. He did not need to look up at her to know he had hurt her. She was, afterall, practically a sister to him. She retreated silently, and he was secretly glad for it, for her words of comfort had brought fat, hot tears again to his eyes, and though she had seen them all before since George's death, each time they were more difficult for himself to bear.

"I'm sorry, George."

Completely exhausted from the day's events, Chris strode purposefully across the darkened lot, tried to put his thoughts in order. He hated body drops, hated trying to identify bodies and contact families. The idea of ever having to do one more only made him redouble his efforts with the Order. Even at this hour, he knew someone would be at the Headquarters. Lately, Harry had been staying in Grimmauld Place with Fred, who couldn't bring himself to sleep above the rebuilt shop where his twin had died. In fact, he had spent much less time there than before the attack, often only going when he absolutely had to and leaving the day to day work to a pair of employees he had hired.

He'd been worried about Fred. Since George had died, he'd turned into a shadow of himself. Once in a while, Chris or Harry or one of his brothers could get him to smile or even laugh, but then it would quickly disappear with a look of guilt, as though he was not meant to enjoy himself in any way. It was depressing.

This thought was foremost on his mind as he quietly slipped into the house which few knew even existed. He was completely silent as he made his way past the foyer where a crazed woman's portrait, the Black matriarch, he had heard, hung. Spotting light seeping from beneath the kitchen door, he pushed it open to find exactly who thought he would.

Harry Potter sat at the scrubbed wood table with Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. Their heads leaned close together as though in deep conversation. Harry glanced up at him as he entered and waved him over silently.

"What's wrong?"

While Chris and Harry had never been good friends at school (he was two years ahead of Potter and in Ravenclaw), they had become friends as Aurors. From a distance, they looked like bizarro-world caricatures of each other, both with black hair, though Chris's was every bit as tidy as Harry's was not. While Harry's piercing green eyes drew attention to him wherever he went, Chris's pale blue seemed to deflect attention. The Boy Who Lived was slightly shorter and leaner, while Chris stretched just above six feet. They were as opposite as could be while still giving the vague appearance of being alike. In fact, it had been Harry who had invited him into the Order, taking him out for drinks late one night and talking to him with uncharacteristic seriousness about where the war was going and how the Ministry was faring. Chris had been completely serious with this young savior whom he had seen perform miracles even when he was just another kid at the school.

Now, they stared at each other like funhouse images, Chris's gaze in question, Harry's in concern. Harry shook his head.

"We're worried about Fred."

"What happened?"

"Hermione found him in the library a few hours ago. He completely fell apart when that Boggart came out of the desk."

Chris sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair, then automatically flattened his hair back into place.

"Does he still refuse to go to counseling?"

"Yeah."

"We think it might be best if he got away for a while," Hermione piped in. "The only places he goes are to his shop and here. He's not letting himself get away from George's ghost."

All three men winced at Hermione's phrasing, though they understood her meaning.

"To where?"

"That's the problem." It was Ron who spoke up this time. "You and Harry can't take time from work, I'm in the middle of a term, and Bill won't leave Fleur when she's pregnant."

"And we can't let him go alone," Hermione finished.

"What about Ginny?" Chris offered. He didn't really know the youngest Weasley very well, had actually only met her twice, but she always seemed more like the twins than anyone else in the family.

"She's at the Bulgarian Embassy," Harry said, then glanced up, feeling their eyes on him. "We do still talk."

With a frustrated sigh, Ron rubbed hard on the rip of his nose, then rubbed his hand over his face.

"Alright, guys, I have an early class tomorrow, and I have to be on my toes for the third years." At his friends' questioning looks, he answered with a touch of annoyance, "They know just enough to be dangerous and not quite enough to make it through class without sending one to the Hospital Wing, bloody tadpoles." He swung his feet around to stand up from the bench, Hermione rising with him to talk to the door for their goodnight. As soon as they were out the door, Harry turned back to Chris.

"So what's with you?"

"Huh?"

"That look on your face when you came in. You get sent on another drop?"

"Forrest Denninger," he answered. "He was thirty years old, but the body looked almost fifty." Exhaustion suddenly weighing him down, Chris dropped his head in his hand. "So either Forrest has been time traveling for nearly twenty years, or he was held prisoner and tortured so severely that he aged prematurely." When the other man didn't reply, he continued. "What the hell is he doing, Harry? Every day, more and more people are disappearing, but there's no way he has enough prisons to hold all of them. A few bodies get dropped to keep the populous in fear, but most of them are never seen again. Why? What's the purpose?"

"We don't know yet."

"Nobody's heard anything?"

"No, but then, Draco's been out of contact lately."

Two cloaked figures leaned over a thin wooden table, flipping down cards idly, going through the motions of a game. Their masks were also on the table near their elbows, but it was no concern. They and the man stretched out in front of the fire had known each other since they were children, so they had nothing to hide from one another. There were no secrets in this room.

"You been down to the dungeons, Goyle?"

"I went down yesterday with my dad."

"Did you see him?"

"Who?"

"One of the prisoners is from the Order."

"Which one?"

"Potter's Order."

"I mean which prisoner?"

"Dunno. Haven't seen him myself. Just heard he was down there."

"Then how do you know he's there?"

"I just heard it. People talk."

"It's gossip," came the bored voice from the chair closest to the fire. "You know better than to listen to gossip, Crabbe. Besides, if the Dark Lord thought we should know who his prisoners were, he would have told us."

"It's just talk," Crabbe said, by way of defense. "We're just talking."

"You should know better. You both should." The figure turned his face toward them so his pale, pointed profile was visible in the light of the fire. "Even idle talk can land you in trouble."

"It's just us, though."

"The Dark Lord suspects a spy in his midst. Do not give out information so freely." Draco Malfoy leaned back in his chair, staring again into the flames. "You never know who could be listening."