Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 4

"It's a big wound," someone was saying as I regained consciousness. "I'm not surprised that she lost so much blood."

"I just narrowly missed the hit myself," a man, who I assumed to be Mr. Weasley, said. "I'm just glad that the thestral moved fast enough to catch her when she was falling."

When I opened my eyes, I saw Mrs. Weasley kneeling next to me as she looked at my side. It didn't take me too long to figure out that she was examining the wound that was the source of my pain.

"Oh, here she comes," Mr. Weasley said. "Emily, can you hear me?"

I wasn't even sure what the words were that came out of my mouth – or even if they were words at all – but I somehow managed to form something that told them I wasn't dead. Through my blurred vision that continuously went from total blackness to the world around me, I noticed that Mrs. Weasley was attempting to mend me.

"The others…"I mumbled. "Are…they…okay?"

"They aren't all here," Mr. Weasley said. "Just hold still, Emily – Molly is nearly finished here and you'll be all better."

"Go get me the…" Mrs. Weasley said as I started to drift off again.

It didn't seem like I was out too long because the next thing I remember was a vial being held up to my lips and a demand for me to drink the potion that was inside of it. Honestly, I could have just ingested poison for all I knew, but I was in not state to figure that out for myself.

Only a moment later, I felt warmth flow through my body that made me jerk awake and gain full consciousness again. As soon as I sat up, too quickly judging by the stretching feeling in my side that made me want to scream, I looked everywhere I could.

"Harry – where is he?" I blurted out. "Where is everyone – why are we here alone – WHY ISN'T ANYONE ANSWERING ME?"

"Calm down!" Mrs. Weasley demanded. "Harry is just in the other room with Hagrid! I had to get them out of here because Harry wouldn't calm down about you getting hurt."

"Well, I am fine," I said despite my side feeling like it had been ripped off. "Where are the others?"

"No one else has arrived," Mr. Weasley said. "Molly said that they missed their Portkeys."

"Who was supposed to be here before us?" I asked.

"Fred and Charlie were supposed to come before you," Mrs. Weasley said nervously. "And Ron and Tonks should have been first."

There was a loud sound outside and a yell for help that interrupted the conversation we were having. Both Mr. and Mrs. Weasley raced out of the room at once and left me sitting on the ground alone.

It wasn't until after they left that I noticed the large amount of blood-soaked towels that was just a small distance away from my side and the blood-replenishing potion that sat close to me. When I looked down at my side, I noticed that there was now a large white bandage attached to where I was hit. Even though I knew that it had only been there for a few minutes, I noticed that it was already starting to turn red with the blood that was still coming out of my body.

"Harry?" I called to the other room.

Two sets of footsteps immediately raced into the room. Following closely behind my brother, I saw Ginny looking down at me with concern.

"Help me up, would you?" I asked them.

"I don't know if you should be moving…" Ginny started.

"Just help me up!" I demanded.

Both of them grabbed my arms and helped to slowly lift me up. I only grimaced for a moment, but tried to hide my pain once I was on my feet once again.

"Who just got here?" I asked them.

"We aren't sure," Ginny said. "Mum and Dad told us to wait here for them."

The mystery didn't last much longer after the door burst open to reveal Lupin carting a blood-soaked person into the room. It took me a moment to realize who it was because of the amount of blood that was covering their face, but my entire body seemed to shut down as soon as I recognized him.

"George?" Ginny gasped next to me.

My entire head seemed to be clogged with panic, but I wasn't able to utter a sound as I stared wide-eyed at George. The carried him just past me and I followed right behind them. Honestly, I wasn't even sure how I was able to move my legs, but I somehow managed to get into the other room where they set him down on the couch.

"What happened?" Harry asked as his eyes flickered over to me.

When I finally got a good look at him, I completely froze. George's ear was missing – that's where all of the blood was coming from. I began to feel light headed again and I had to grab onto Harry's shoulder for support, but my eyes did not leave the unconscious body of George.

"Harry – come with me," Lupin ordered as he grabbed my brother and walked into the other room.

Standing alone, I watched as Mrs. Weasley grabbed her spell book and started conjuring everything she could to help mend her son. Despite the clear panic on her face, she worked quickly and with determination.

"Emily – go get the blood-replenishing potion I gave to you earlier," Mrs. Weasley ordered.

Without hesitation, I ran into the room that I had been lying in only a few moments ago to grab the large vial that sat on the ground. When I got back to the room with George, I raced over to his side.

"I'm going to revive him for a moment," Mrs. Weasley said to me. "You need to get him to drink that potion as quickly as possible, is that understood?"

"Y-yes," I nodded quickly.

She said a spell under her breath and George began coughing up some of the blood that got into his mouth.

"George, you're going to need to drink this," I told him as I held the potion up to his lips. "It'll help with the bleeding."

Just as I had done when I was made to drink the potion, George drank it without asking any questions. Although he was still in a lot of pain, he began to regain some color on his face where the blood was now replenishing itself.

"George, honey," Mrs. Weasley spoke to her son as she tried to clean off the blood. "You're going to need to keep still, okay? Just for a bit…"

There was a small grunt from him that told us that her message got across. Grabbing another rag for myself, I began to get some of the blood off of the rest of his face as Mrs. Weasley worked through the area where his ear had been before.

"Is there any chance that we'll be able to repair his ear?" I asked her.

"I don't think so," Mrs. Weasley murmured. "It was blown off with Dark Magic – much like that wound of yours. It's impossible to mend wounds with magic like that."

I nodded, but did not worry. George may not have an ear anymore, but he it was just as likely that he could have lost his life the way he was hit. In a sense, we were lucky.

"Here, keep cleaning him," Mrs. Weasley said. "I'll go find a potion for his pain."

I nodded and then moved over to the other side where a giant, gaping hole remained where his ear belonged. Mrs. Weasley had already gotten a good majority of the blood, but there was still plenty more that remained.

When I began to feel lightheaded again, I began to wonder if it was from seeing all of this blood. It only took me a minute later to realize that the bandage that was on my side was completely covered in my own blood. Not wanting to waste any of the potions on myself, I tried my best to ignore the pain and control my breathing.

"E-Emily?" George murmured as he looked toward me lazily. "I think I might need a Band-Aid for this…"

"I'm not sure if that'll cover it," I said, as the blood seemed to be cleared up for the most part. "But I think you're finished bleeding…"

He mumbled something else incoherently as Mrs. Weasley came back into the room with another vial in her hand. Just as he drank some of it, I heard hurried footsteps in the doorway. When I turned around, I saw that the room was no longer as empty as it had been before. Maybe it was that I was preoccupied, but I didn't notice that there had already been others in the room while I was cleaning George up.

The two people that had just arrived, Charlie and Fred, were both looking down at their brother in horror when they saw the reddened hole where his ear had once been. Fred, who was now the color of a sheet of paper, seemed to be frozen on the spot as he stared at his twin brother.

"Mum…is he going to be all right?" Charlie asked as Mr. Weasley returned to the room.

"He should be fine, darling," Mrs. Weasley said nervously as she stroked her injured son's face. "He won't be able to reform that ear, but it could have been much worse…he's just resting for now…"

During the moment of silence that was shared, my head suddenly felt like it was swimming and I found it difficult to sit up straight and focus on anything in particular. I began to blink rapidly as I attempted to keep myself from falling backward.

Through the muffled sounds that I heard around me, I heard a man's voice say my name and ask me if everything was okay, or something like that anyway. I tried to respond saying that everything was fine, but the words that came out seemed like the furthest thing from it. The last thing that I remembered was my eyes rolling back and my head smacking against the wall behind me.

Blinking my eyes quickly, I gained focus of the room after a minute. It took me a moment to realize that I must have gone unconscious again. If that wasn't embarrassing, then I don't know what is.

I knew that I wasn't in the exact spot that I was in before, but I was clearly in the same room. Instead of the ground that I was kneeling on earlier next to George, I was now propped up on a smaller couch on the side of the same room.

"Emily, you need to lie still," Mrs. Weasley said. "You tore open your wound when you were moving around earlier and it started bleeding again. I've done what I can to stop it, but you've got to stay still until it heals properly."

She gave me more of the potion and I drank it without complaints. At this point, it seemed like everyone had arrived at the house. Except something felt off – almost as if I had missed some sort of news that everyone was focusing on.

Hermione was sitting in the chair next to me and her eyes looked swollen and red like she had been crying. As I looked around at the others, they all looked as though they were in some sort of internal pain.

"What's happened?" I asked Hermione.

She jumped at the sound of my voice, almost as though she didn't expect me to be conscious again. Some others passed into the other room as she began to answer, and I had a sinking feeling in my stomach because of the unanimous silence that was being held between everyone.

"It's Mad-Eye…" Hermione said slowly. "He…he didn't make it…"

"Did he get caught by the Death Eaters?" I asked, thinking about how angry he would be as a captive.

"Um…no," she answered. "Mad-Eye was killed."

It took me a moment to process what she said to me. It seemed like I must have heard something wrong at first, because there was no way that Alastor Moody was dead. I couldn't imagine him like that.

Then something occurred to me. A man had fallen through the sky earlier when I was flying on the thestral with Mr. Weasley. I wanted to go after him to make sure he was okay, but Mr. Weasley insisted that there was nothing that we could do. That falling man must have been Mad-Eye…but where was Mundungus?

"Was Mundungus killed too?" I asked in a hallow voice, still trying to come to the realization that the retired Auror was dead.

"No, he escaped," Hermione said.

Just as she said it, Harry walked over when he saw that I was awake again. I moved myself up so I was sitting properly so that he could sit at my feet. Harry gave me a weak smile and then looked at the ground. Not long after, Ron joined us and looked just as worried as everyone else.

"Voldemort was there," Harry told me. "He was looking for both of us…and he found out which one I was."

"W-what?" I asked. "How did he know – there were so many of us?"

"He didn't go directly to him," Lupin said as he approached us. "He checked the others first. He must have assumed that he would be with the tougher Aurors – that's why he went for Mad-Eye first."

"I guess that Mundungus's escape gave away that it wasn't him," Hermione said.

"Exactly what we were thinking," Lupin nodded.

"But how did he figure out that Harry was the real one?" I asked.

"It was the spell he used against Stan Shunpike," Lupin said.

"Wait, the Knight Bus conductor?" I asked.

"We figure that he's under the Imperius Curse," Lupin said. "But what was important was that Harry used Expelliarmus against him – it was a dead give away."

There was a brief pause where I tried to figure out why this would give away that he was the real Harry Potter. Anyone could have used that spell, why would it indicate that it was the real one just by that one little thing?

"It's considered his signature spell," Lupin explained as though he could read my mind. "He uses it far too often and the Death Eaters recognize that. It must have gotten back to Voldemort in time for him to start chasing Hagrid and him."

"Why don't you think he found Emily?" Ron asked everyone.

"Probably had something to do with me not being conscious," I said. "You can't really give much away when you're like that."

That seemed to be unanimously agreed on because no one put up a counterargument. It wasn't likely that Voldemort would suspect the person he was looking for to be knocked out cold because of lack of blood in their system. I suppose that he had higher expectations for someone like me.

The crowd of people that had gathered around me didn't stick around too much longer after Mrs. Weasley walked into the room and shooed them off. Despite the fact that I was feeling much better, she insisted that I remain as still as possible and get as much sleep as I could so I could heal faster.

To appease her, I did my best to go back to sleep. After a while, this task proved to be difficult because of the information that I just heard. I didn't speak a word of it to Mrs. Weasley, but I didn't have to. She already knew that I was bothered to begin with and practically forced me to drink a Dreamless Sleep potion to ease my mind.

"I think I'll be okay," I told her. "I'm not really that tired – I've already passed out a couple of times."

"Either you're going to take this potion, or I'm going to knock you unconscious," she said with a smirk on her face. "It's your decision really."

"I suggest the potion," I heard George murmur sleepily from his couch. "It's some great stuff."

"I have a feeling that you've had more than that," I said.

"Just take it," Mrs. Weasley said as she handed it over.

It didn't take very long to go to sleep after that. Before I knew it, my eyelids grew heavy and I found it really hard to keep myself awake. Giving up on fighting with the urge to keep myself awake, I gave in to the peacefulness of darkness that was my sleep.

The next time I woke up, the light from outside was lighting up the room and everything was completely silent aside from George's nearby snores. When I moved to sit up, I noticed that a blanket had been draped over me and I started to wonder who it was that put it there.

Due to the lack of other activity in the room, my tired eyes found themselves pointed toward the only other person in the room.

From the angle I could see him, and despite the new loss of his ear, George appeared to be at peace as he twitched in his sleep. His long body stretched across the couch and his one leg drooped off of the side, which gave the appearance that he was just lounging around. If it hadn't been for the large bandage that was wrapped around his whole head, I wouldn't have thought there was anything wrong with him.

"They must have given him the good stuff," Fred laughed as he walked toward me and looked at his twin brother. "He is knocked out cold."

"Have you slept at all?" I asked him.

"Er…sort of," Fred said. "Maybe an hour."

"Do you need some of that potion that your mum's been giving us?" I asked.

"No, I think I'll be okay," he said. "It isn't like this is the first time I've gone without much sleep."

After taking one other strange look at the bandage on his brother's head, he moved over to sit in the chair that was placed right next to the couch that I was propped up on. It took a moment before Fred turned to face me.

"How are you doing?" Fred asked. "Not going to faint on me again, are you?"

"No, I don't think so," I said while pulling my shirt up enough to look at the bandage. "I think I'll live."

While there were still some spots of blood on it, it looked like Mrs. Weasley managed to mend it well enough that it would now be able to heal properly. It was aggravating not being able to move around, but it hurt a lot less too. Now that the shock of everything had died down, I was now able to feel the ache of it all.

"I saw Mad-Eye get hit," I told him. "I didn't know it was him, but I saw him fall…maybe we could have – "

"Don't try to say that you two could have saved him," Fred said. "It would have been impossible – you have to remember that we were all under attack and it was you that they were looking for."

"Well if it wasn't for all of this, then he still would have been alive," I muttered.

"It wasn't your fault that the information got out," Fred said. "You didn't even know what the plan was until we got to your aunt and uncle's house."

"I guess," I sighed. "I just wish…I just wish that things would have gone differently."

"I feel like it would be strange if you liked the way things went," Fred said as he nudged me.

"I just can't believe that Snape knocked his ear completely off," Fred said.

As soon as he said it, I felt all of the blood drain from my face. The word mortified hardly even begins to describe how I was feeling knowing that it was him that did this to George. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that Snape actually knew which one of them was the real Harry, but it didn't matter.

Fred must have picked up that this wasn't something that he was supposed to say because he went about as white as I was.

"No one told you?" Fred asked quietly. "Emily, I'm sorry – I shouldn't have said anything."

"I would have found out anyway," I said. "I just can't believe…I can't believe that he would do this…"

"He might not have been aiming for him in particular," Fred said. "It might have just been an accident – "

"It doesn't matter that he wasn't aiming directly for George," I snapped. "It's that he was attacking any of us! How could he do this? Wasn't killing off Dumbledore enough?"

Fred just looked at me and then at the ground. He had no response, but I didn't expect him too. No one else could truly understand the anger I had toward Snape because I was the only one that trusted him before it all happened.

"Listen, I'm sorry," I said to him. "I didn't mean to snap on you – it isn't your fault."

"I know," he said truthfully. "Despite what everyone said, I thought that Snape might not have been so bad after all…I don't know, maybe I just thought he was a bitter, old man. Don't try and act like you were the only one that didn't expect this."

"But it isn't like anyone actually cared that he turned on us," I said back to him. "None of you trusted him like I did."

"And you think we don't know that?" Fred asked. "We know that it effected you more and I'm sorry for that, but having a pity party for yourself isn't going to change anything."

"I'm not having a pity party," I retorted.

"Listen, you aren't the only one that trusted Snape," Fred said. "Sure, none of us did, but Dumbledore trusted him long before you even knew who he was and look where that got him. You're right, maybe we didn't care for Snape as a person like you did, but we all cared about Dumbledore and he was the one that got killed. So don't sit here and preach like you're the only one that was hurt by this."

Fred was right. I was dwelling on this too much and it wasn't like I was alone in the situation. It took me a moment to actually respond because I suddenly began to feel shame for what I had done to everyone else. I was acting like a child – this wasn't all about me.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean that no one else was hurt…"

Fred let out a sigh and leaned back in his chair.

"I know you're upset," Fred said. "I know that you blame yourself for basically 90% of everything bad that happens, but you need to know that you aren't alone in this."

We were quiet for a minute and I let everything sink in. Seeing that it was coming from Fred, the last person that I would have expected to put me in my place, I took it to heart. It wasn't often that he would throw his honest opinion out there about things that didn't involve some sort of laugh, but he knew what he was talking about. I should have known that he was just as concerned as everyone else about what was to come, but he always put on such a façade that he was fine through the constant jokes that he would tell. I guess that some people just deal with things in a different way.

"Are you two finally finished over there?" George grunted from the other couch. "Because it's getting way too real for me."

"Oh, shut it," Fred retorted as he playfully threw a pillow at his brother. "I thought your holiness was sleeping!"

"I would be if you two weren't discussing your feelings over there," George said. "Some people are trying to sleep."

"Oh, why don't you just cover your ear and pretend we aren't here," Fred said.

The two continued their back-and-forth banter for a little while longer before we heard some footsteps on the other side of the door signaling that someone was coming. Only a few seconds after I heard them, the door to the room opened and Mrs. Weasley was looking around to see what was going on.

"Are you bothering the injured, Fred?" Mrs. Weasley scolded.

"I was just here to raise their spirits," Fred told her. "The best cure to any wound is seeing my bright, smiling face."

Mrs. Weasley rolled her eyes and tried to resist the urge to smile at her son's remarks. Instead of kicking him out like she usually did, she just stepped into the room and checked to make sure that we didn't need any more help with our wounds. She changed the bandaging on each of us, something that nearly sent Fred out of the room in disgust – though I do believe that it was her plan from the start.

"That's disgusting, Emily," Fred said. "Why didn't you tell me it was that bad?"

"You didn't ask," I shrugged.

"Why can't you fix it, Mum?" Fred asked.

"Because it was hit with the same sort of Dark Magic that they used on George," Mrs. Weasley said as she finished up with the bandaging. "Don't you think I would have tried that already?"

"I don't know how your mind works," Fred said.

George's bandage didn't take that long to finish up, but the wound seemed to be doing as well as it could. From what I could tell, it was a clear shot that had blown off his ear and the bleeding hadn't started to continue anymore. So, in a sense, he was doing as well as he could. After she finished up our bandaging, she gave us some potions for our pain and told us that we could try to move around today.

Now we couldn't make an excuse to lie around for the rest of the day and we would be forced to face the reality that we were dealing with. I tried my best to put on a brave face as I stepped out of the room to meet with everyone that had helped us on our journey here.

There was a part of me that hoped that this was the worst it was going to get, but I knew that I was just lying to myself. This was only the beginning.

Thanks for reading! So I have added a poll to my profile page (I don't know how long it'll take to show up, but it should be showing up on my profile shortly) that asks you all to select which person you want Emily to end up in a relationship with by the end of the series. I've created it to see what you all wish to happen because I've been getting a lot of questions about it and I was wondering what you all were thinking. So, please vote if you want to have a say in it!

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