CHAPTER 7

Bill and Charlie carried Percy out of the cellar.

They had arrived – sent for by Tonks – just moments after Molly's anguished cry flooded out of the cellar. A woman was on her knees in the grass, clutching at Fred's jacket as he sat on the ground with his arms wrapped around her. George stood next to them, a single hand on her shoulder. The boys looked at them with wide-eyed, twin expressions of shock, like they were begging for one one of them to shake their head no. To tell them this wasn't real. It was a sick trick. But it wasn't.

Bill nodded and watched as tears filled George's eyes and his breaths became rapid before he sank to the ground and was pulled into his brother's embrace.

Lupin had told them what to expect. Bill felt a pang of guilt for arriving with that knowledge in hand instead of running with a glimmer of hope in the back of his mind. He tapped Charlie's elbow, urging him forward. As the eldest children – fully grown men in their own right – they felt a sense of duty. A responsibility to their younger siblings and their aging parents, and it was that which carried them into the darkness.

They found Arthur and Molly, huddled together in grief. Bill reached for his mother's shoulder.

"Mum."

She turned to him, her eyes bright with tears and gasped.

"Oh, Bill," she cried as she lurched forward, rose to her feet and enveloped him. "Charlie-" she pulled him close, too, and if there were more words, they were muffled in the thick fabric of his cloak. Arthur stood as well.

"Boys," he said. But it was a choked word surrounded by a sadness greater than they could comprehend. "Oh, my boys." Arthur took Bil's face in his hands, kissed his forehead and then held him, as wracking sobs shook his body and hot tears streamed against Bill's neck. Bill held tight, rocking ever so slightly, with one hand on the back of his father's head.

His parents, who had always been so strong and hardy, had never seemed more fragile than this moment.

Charlie spoke next.

"Why don't you go back up," he said, gently leading them to the stairs and sunlight, almost as if they were a pair of dragons needing coaxed from a cave. They followed, and Bill was struck with the thought that indeed Charlie must be very good at his job. When he returned, they approached Percy. Charlie swallowed and let out a shuddered breath.

"All right, Charlie?" Bill asked. Charlie nodded, and reached a hand out, a mumbled "mmhmm," barely audible, as he gently pulled off Percy's glasses. One lens had a crack down the middle that spiderwebbed out to the edges.

"He always took such good care of these." They both blinked back tears as Charlie folded the spectacles and placed them in his breast pocket for safekeeping. "How are we going to do this?"

Bill circled the table, biting slightly on the edge of his thumb as the thought.

"I think if one of us levitates the table, the other can vanish the legs, and then we can both take -" Bill paused. He didn't want to say it. He could see his brother lying there. He could feel his family's pain. But saying the word would make it real. But it was real, and his brother deserved to be referred to like the person he was, not the furniture he was atop. "We can both move him."

Charlie shook his head, and when he spoke, his voice was thick with unshed tears.

"Bill, I don't think I can hold a spell that long. Not right now. Not for the whole trip back to The Burrow."

Bill returned to Charlie's side and put an arm across his shoulders and gave a comforting squeeze.

"Then we'll carry him home.

By the time Bill and Charlie reached The Burrow, their arms ached. Lupin and Tonks met them at the fence, each taking a corner of the table, sharing their burden. Entering the house, Lupin led them to the sitting room, where he'd erected a chilled, invisible barrier for Percy until decisions could be made and services held.

Arthur, Molly, Fred George, Fleur and Audrey – Tonks had told them all about her –stood at attention as they brought him in and laid him down. His wasn't the only body in the house. One of his father's oldest friends from work was on the couch, a thin sheet pulled over him. He had lived just long enough to explain what happened.

Davis hadn't known how the death eaters had...acquired...Percy. No doubt he had been plucked out of the remains of the research wing, but if he had been alive then, he wasn't by the time they nabbed Davis off the street and taken him to the root cellar. At first, they just used imperius to make him do things, but it had a habit of wearing off. That's when they moved to the more permanent solution. The tattoos.

"I don't understand," Arthur said. "What was the point of it all?"

"Divide and conquer," Lupin said. "With Dumbledore gone, it's no secret among You Know Who's followers that the two of you are the de facto leaders.

"What?!" Molly exclaimed. "We're not the leaders of anything! We don't plan things or coordinate missions; we've always just followed Dumbledore, and look what that's gotten us."

"Molly, look around you," Lupin said. "More than half the order is made of your family. Your children. They follow the two of you."

"Percy never followed us," Molly said. "He always went his own way, why go after him? Why not us, if we're such great leaders?"

"Because killing you wouldn't stop them," Lupin said, gesturing around the room. "Your deaths would galvanize them. It would bring them – to say nothing of Harry – together to be more than a thorn in the side of You Know Who."

"But why Percy?"

"To tear you apart. The loss of a child is one of the worst things a parent can experience, and to lose him without reconciliation..." Lupin took a deep breath. "They knew that if your bond crumbled, the entire operation would, like a chicken without its head. That's why Davis' orders were to keep you apart. To cultivate seeds of mistrust and discontent and hasten the end."

"Nudge me toward leaving," Arthur said quietly, as he absently twisted his ring around his finger.

"Preposterous," Molly said. "We're fine here."

"No, you're not, Mum," George said. "We know you've tried to make it look like you are, but you're not. We know Dad's been sleeping at the office, and you've only been cooking for one-"

"We look for leftovers to nick every time we're home, you know," Fred added, eliciting a small stutter of an almost laugh from those in the room.

"We've felt it, too," Bill said as he pulled Fleur close to him.

"No," Molly said as she shook her head and wiped tears from her eyes. "No more. This stops now. Whatever plot they had..." she let the thought trail off as she reached for Arthur's hand, holding it tight in her own. "Arthur, would you be a darling and get the wine glasses, please."

"The what?"

"The wine glasses. Top shelf in the kitchen."

"Erm, all right," Arthur stepped into the kitchen, tossing a curious glance – mirrored by the rest of the household – Molly's way as she dug into an old chest. When he returned, she emerged with a bottle of pumpkin wine.

"I'm sorry, darlings," she said to Bill and Fleur, "we meant this to be a wedding gift, but with everything-"

"It's all right, Mum," Bill said as she poured and moved around the room until everyone's glass was full. When she got to Audrey, she waved her wand, and the dark burnt orange of the wine faded to the light shade of pumpkin juice.

Molly held her glass in one hand and Arthur's hand in the other. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, almost as if he could feel the wounds between them mending before Molly turned to address the room.

"They tried to kill us," Molly said. "And indeed they cut us deeply..." she paused and gave a pained look in Percy's direction. "But from that wound we grow stronger. You see, now – in this moment – we're not just colleagues in The Order. We're not just friends or new acquaintances," she said with a nod to Lupin, Tonks and Audrey. "We're more than that," she continued. "Now, we're family. Each and every one of us. You Know Who did that, and it's something he and his followers will live just long enough to regret."

"Hear, hear," Fred said as he raised his glass higher.

The rest of the room followed suit as they made a toast. They toasted Davis, who used his last breaths to bring them closure, and they toasted Percy – a beloved son, brother, lover and father – and the family he left standing, stronger than ever in his wake.