This is the longest of all, but I guess that was predictable, given both my love for Bill and the things I needed to tie in from previous chapters. (There's a fair amount of word-for-word repetition here. which I hope works.)

I think I've done Bill justice. This was the first chapter that made me cry.

Molly is next, and will be the final chapter.

As always. please read and review.

Aftermath – Before the Funeral

Bill

He desperately wants to go home. He wants to be at Shell Cottage, just him and Fleur, no uninvited houseguests, no one but the two of them.

That will not happen of course. He won't – can't - leave his family, and he is grateful that Fleur won't – can't – leave him, despite his suggestion that she should go home for a couple of days on her own, and her parents' letter urging her to go to stay with them in France. He does not know how he would do this without her.

He is trying to be strong for everyone else, and he thinks that he is probably fooling them most of the time. Someone has to be strong. Someone has to take care of the practical arrangements – the funeral, the gravestone, the death announcement in the 'Prophet', notifying everyone who needs to know. He cannot blame his father for not taking care of these things himself. It is bad enough to do it for a brother. To do it for a son would be unbearable. Parents are not supposed to outlive their children.

But it is exhausting.

More exhausting still is having to shelve his own feelings so he can deal with everyone else's. To be the one who sorts out disputes – does it really matter what it says on Fred's gravestone? Fred is dead. The words on a lump of stone won't alter that. But it is important to his mother and to George, so he negotiates between them – they are neither of them in any state to reach an agreement on their own – until a compromise is reached.

Dealing with other people's guilt is hard too. Percy and Harry both blame themselves, and neither of them have reason to. He has told them so, but after several times of saying the same thing and it not getting through, it is tempting just to give up and let them blame themselves. He does give up with Harry – perhaps Ginny or Ron or Hermione will finally get through to him – but he cannot do so with Percy. Percy was an idiot, blinded by pride and ambition. He hurt his family – particularly his mother - terribly. But he was brave enough in the end to admit he was wrong, to come back when it mattered, to say sorry. Bill cannot give up on him. Fred's death was not his fault, and he has to see that eventually.

It is hard to shelve his own grief for his brother to cope with everyone else's. To see his father cry for the first time he can remember. To see the look on his mother's face when she looks at George, or when she emerges from the dining room, where Fred's coffin has been placed. To see Ron trying to be brave, and pushing Hermione away because he does not want to cry in front of her. To see Ginny crying. (Ginny doesn't cry. She is the only one of them who doesn't. Having six big brothers makes a girl tough.) To see George, who is so broken that he is scarcely recognisable. How can he bear this? He is frightened for George. He does not want to lose him too.

Hardest of all to deal with is Charlie. He and Charlie have always been allies, partners, nearly as close as the twins. He needs Charlie's help to cope with all this, but Charlie is so angry – chiefly with himself, but he is taking it out on everyone else – that he is no help to anyone. Bill deals with the fallout from his brother's fury, and tries not to let his own anger show.

The pain from his reopened scars is bad, but he is almost grateful for it. It is an old, familiar pain, that he knows how to deal with. It distracts him from the pain of Fred's death, that he cannot deal with. The pain he cannot show, because he has to be strong for the rest of them.

He could not do this without Fleur. Sometimes his eyes seek hers across the room, just for the reassurance that she is there, that she is there for him. The look in her eyes when he does this keeps him going. Sometimes he will feel her hand on his arm or on his shoulder when he does not expect it, and see the love in her eyes as she smiles at him sadly, letting him know that she is there, that she loves him, that she will keep him together when he cannot do it himself. She holds him at night, when he finally lets go and cries for Fred, or on the nights when he is too exhausted even to cry. She is warm and loving and blessedly alive. He can go on as long as Fleur is there for him.

It is Fleur who is the trigger for him finally losing patience with Charlie. Charlie had already made both his mother and Percy cry that morning, but when he shouts at Fleur that she has no business to be upset because Fred was not her brother, and reduces her to tears as well, Bill loses his temper. He tells Charlie that enough is enough, that if he wants to be so fucking self-indulgent in his feelings, he can go elsewhere, because they do not need him here right now. He comes closer to hitting Charlie than he has since he was seventeen. Charlie looks at him for a long minute, and Bill thinks he is going to punch him, but then he sees something in Charlie's eyes that makes him pull his brother close as Charlie finally gives in and cries. Things are marginally easier after that.

But dealing with George does not – cannot – get easier. There is nothing at all any of them can do to help him. Just looking at him hurts – partly because he looks like Fred (though Fred never looked like this – so lost, so broken) – but also because he no longer looks like himself (George never looked like this either). One day, George stands up abruptly and goes upstairs, and Bill knows that he has no choice but to follow him and make him let him into his room.

George is sitting on Fred's bed, pointing his wand at his own face. Bill has never been so frightened in his life. He has his own wand out, but doubts he will be quick enough to disarm George if he does go ahead and try to kill himself. He asks Bill – almost as if it doesn't matter - whether Avada Kadevra will work on yourself. Bill lies, and says he doesn't know. (He knows it will. Someone he knew in Egypt did it for a dare once when he was very drunk. He died.)

He knows he is crying, but he cannot stop himself. He cannot lose George too, but he does not know how to save him. When George asks him if he is going to try to stop him, inspiration strikes. He says he won't, if George tells their mother first what he is planning to do. It is cruel, but it is all he can think of.

George lets out a long breath. "That's not fair, Bill."

"None of this is fair, Georgie." He is biting his lip, trying to speak evenly, but failing. There are tears on his face now.

George hands him his wand and tells him to go. He is at the door before he realises Fred's wand is probably still in the room too, and he turns and asks George for it. George hands it over, and he leaves the room and closes the door behind him. He stands on the landing for a minute, looking at the two wands in his hand,very alike, but not completely identical. Like Fred and George. His little brothers.

He descends the stairs two at a time and goes out through the seldom-used front door. He runs across the yard and the garden to the orchard where he can hide until he stops shaking. Harry finds him there a few minutes later, and looks scared at the state he is in. He asks him if he is okay, but he cannot answer – he can barely breathe, let alone talk. Harry mutters something about finding Fleur, and runs off. Fleur is there beside him in a blessedly short time, and he holds her tightly – so tightly that he knows he is hurting her, but he cannot help himself. She is warm and loving and blessedly alive. He holds her until the shaking stops and he can breathe again, but he cannot tell her what has happened. If he does, he will start crying and not be able to stop.

He could not do this without Fleur.

He is the person keeping the family together, and she is the one stopping him from falling apart.

He can go on as long as Fleur is there for him.