7. Erised

Our arrival at the Burrow in the middle of the night woke up the whole house. Everyone ran downstairs in their nightclothes. Ginny hurried straight to me and held me tightly, her eyes wide and frightened. Molly appeared a second later in her dressing gown, Arthur behind her in his cap. George appeared at the top of the stairs, his face in shadow, and the sight of him brought a fresh wave of stinging tears to my eyes.

Remus was breathing hard, looking from face to face as everyone shouted their questions over one another. In shock, I looked at him with a deep confusion in my heart. Earlier in the cottage, when I'd broken down, he had been more tender than I'd ever known him. But now he was back to being stony, distant and cold. Molly looked between us with deep concern. I would have to assure her later that, in our time alone, Remus hadn't harmed me.

Arthur raised his voice. "Let the man explain!"

And Remus finally spoke. He told how he'd woken up to me screaming Fred's name outside, and had gone to the door to see me pursuing a figure into the woods. He ran after me, but once he was in the woods, he also saw something. "Another one, or the same one, I don't know." He almost followed it, but ran after me instead. "It was likely a spy, or a ghost, or… something bad."

His own fear seemed to catch up to him then, and Molly made him sit down.

Ginny gave voice to the general confusion. "What could it have been? What is there to be afraid of?"

Everyone in the room was still wired for war, and everyone's eyes took on an anxious shine.

"There may be dark forces still on the loose," said Hermione. "People who supported Voldemort who still haven't been rounded up, dark creatures who did his bidding that slipped away and went into hiding."

"And now they're coming out," said Remus.

"Are you sure of this, Remus?" Arthur said, a deep fear in his voice. "What was it that you saw?"

Remus looked at me, as though apologising. "I didn't see Fred."

"What, Remus?" whispered Molly. "What did you see?"

He drew a trembling breath. "I saw Tonks."

It took me a few hours to get over the belief that it really had been Fred I'd seen. I'd been waiting to hear his voice again, convinced that, until I did, what I'd seen had really been him. But after my second cup of tea, when the sun was coming up over the woods outside the Burrow, I finally allowed myself to believe what Remus had said.

He had been pacing back and forth through the rooms of the downstairs since we'd arrived, muttering to himself, and sometimes writing things down. He rarely looked at me, and when he did, his gaze was sharp and remorseful. "I have to go," he'd said, in the first hour. "I won't be a burden."

But Molly and Arthur had convinced him to stay. "If there really is something to be feared, then you had better stay here until we know what's out there."

Owls were sent to the Order members at Hogwarts to see if they had experienced anything similar, and a report was also sent to the Ministry.

It was nine in the morning when I finally allowed myself to be led upstairs to my bedroom. Ginny sat next to me in silence, and stroked my hair until I fell asleep.

The Ministry's reply was unhelpful as usual, but a couple of people at Hogwarts reported that they had also seen their loved ones. They'd dismissed them as imaginary, and no-one was known to have been lost or harmed by these "ghosts."

Severus wrote a letter of his own to Remus and me, saying that he doubted the beings were harmful, though he certainly agreed that they were not simple spectres. He promised to utilise what remained of the Hogwarts library to research similar occurrences from before the war. In a postscript, he invited Remus to come to Hogwarts for the full moon, saying that "the old place" was secure if he was in need of somewhere to go. "I would recommend that you come, in the event that these entities bear you ill will; seeing as, in your other form, you are more suggestible."

I thought Remus saw unkindness in the letter where there was none. He looked anything but thrilled by Severus's offer, and stormed outside when he first read it, leaving me alone with the creased parchment. The moon was a week away, and it showed blatantly in his temper and his moods. I took it upon myself to reply to Severus, thanking him for his solidarity and promising to try to convince Remus to accept his offer.

Two days went by, and I grew more concerned about the mysterious creatures. I remembered the perfect imitation of Fred's face, his movements, and knew that if the beings really did bear ill will, then they could prove unstoppable. In that case, I would have been destroyed if Remus hadn't followed me. Few would have the strength to turn away from the vision of their dead loved one, as he had done.

Xenophilius Lovegood was told the news, and wrote an article on the mystery creatures in the Quibbler, in an effort to spread awareness. We kept all eyes on the more notable papers, watching for reports of suspicious disappearances or deaths. But there were none.

The danger we had all suffered had a longer shadow than we'd wanted to see before. October was nearing its end. The world was growing colder.