Chapter 3: One Of Our Own

Harry and Ginny had only found a few stones that were salvageable, which was strangely fortunate in that a few stones were all they could manage to carry back up to the castle. After dropping off these stones to Hagrid, the couple headed up the changing staircase to the Hospital Wing.

They found the Weasley clan gathered in the back of the ward, surrounding a sickbed that had the curtains currently drawn. Ron and Hermione, entering hand in hand just a few ticks behind them, also slowed to a halt as they neared a despondent Molly and Arthur.

Behind his parents, George had to be all but propped up between his elder brothers Bill and Charlie; the one surviving Weasley twin with the missing ear looked as though he had not slept since the day before yesterday.

Just offset to the curtained partition itself were two chairs. A disconsolate Percy Weasley was seated in one, head buried in his hands while soft sobs emanated from him. Occupying the other seat was a young woman Harry had never seen before. Dark midnight tresses cascaded down like a curtain, partially obscuring her face as it was turned towards the ginger man, speaking in soft, comforting tones that the Chosen One couldn't make out. Behind Percy and the mystery girl, Bill's wife, Fleur, was hovering, biting her lip in concern.

Harry swayed almost imperceptibly into Ron, still staring at the dark-haired stranger and whispering on the edge of his breath. "Who in Merlin's blooming name is she?"

"Don't ruddy know. She just showed up with Perce when he arrived at the castle." His best mate shrugged.

Playing absently with her boyfriend's fingers that were intertwined with hers, Hermione studied the seated pair with a hum of curiosity. "Well, I can already tell that she's a damn sight nicer than that Penelope Clearwater."

Her musing, completely untethered from context, caused Harry and Ron both to jerk. For himself, Harry had never had cause to think about Penelope Clearwater in years. The most thought he had spared had been when the Ravenclaw prefect had been dating Percy around second or third year, and he and Ron would share a laugh with Fred and George at Percy's expense.

The memory seemed tainted with an odd awareness of cruelty now. Perhaps that was because this accompanied a pang of….. incompleteness. A pang at the knowledge that behind that curtained partition lay the body of too young a man. A man who had never harmed anyone, and indeed had made it his mission in life to bring laughter and joy to others.

Fred Weasley was gone, and he wasn't coming back. Now all that was left to do was to pick up the pieces.

Locking eyes with their parents, Ron and Ginny dropped the hands of their respective lovers and rushed into Arthur and Molly's arms, the sniffles coming hard and fast and loud, even in danger of crescendoing into wails. Glancing at each other, Harry and Hermione communicated with no words, making a conscious and collective decision to not insert themselves into such a private moment unnecessarily. They could – they would – wait out in the hall if they needed to, if that was what Ron and Ginny needed. They started to back away from the emotional family reunion towards the opposite end of the ward.

It was Molly's voice that called them back, with an emphatic authoritativeness that belied her anguish. "Children – stay here, please."

Hermione stared to utter a weak protest about not wanting to impose. Molly cut her off with firm tenderness.

"Nonsense, my dear. You and Harry are family." She glanced down to where Ron and Ginny were clutching at her as though they, her two youngest, were little ones once more. "No doubt you will be in all ways one day soon."

Harry and Hermione shared another look. If that was Molly's way of conveying her blessing to the partners her two youngest had found, then it was hard – indeed, would be inappropriate – to ask for better, except perhaps at a less emotionally fraught time. The pair of best mates drifted back towards the clan, circling the periphery to stand beside Fleur. If Molly seemed so certain that Harry and Hermione would marry into the family one day, then self-grouping themselves alongside the other in-laws seemed the most appropriate course.

"What's going to happen to Fred, Dad?" Bill lifted his head from where he was rubbing George's back.

Even without the fluorescent lighting, Harry would have been hard pressed not to notice how much Arthur had seemed to age in just a day or two. The shine to his auburn locks – which had already been receding along his hairline – now seemed to have faded dangerously. Even so, the patriarch made his best attempt at stoicism, holding court with the solemnity commensurate as the head of the family. "We will take him home with us," he stated firmly. "We will bury him in the family plot, next to Uncle Gideon and Uncle Fabian."

Ginny winced. "Are….. are we sure that's what he would have wanted?"

"None of us expected him to die, Gin Gin – we don't know what Fred would have wanted!" Charlie snapped, tiredly yet still a little too harshly.

"Exactly! We don't. Maybe he wanted to be cremated. Maybe he wanted to be inurned!"

"Interred," Hermione corrected. At everybody suddenly turning to take her in, she curled into herself meekly. "The proper term is interred, not inurned."

"Actually, inurned is a real word, love," Ron pointed out gently, to which Hermione looked offended.

"I never said it wasn't a real word….!"

"I know. But interred is just another word for burial. An inurnment is when you take the urn in which you have placed a person's ashes after cremation and set it in a special place, usually a niche."

Everyone was now gawping at Ron. For her part, Hermione looked stunned, and even a little proud. "Of…. of course, that's right, Ronald!"

Ginny surreptitiously elbowed Harry in the ribs. "Are we sure she didn't transfer some of her intelligence to him when she put her mouth on his? Must have been some snog! Imagine how ruddy smart he'll get when she shags the bloke!"

"Shut it, Gin," Harry grunted, though it lacked any bite. "Not the time." For once, she listened to him.

"Ginny does raise a good point, though." Everyone now swiveled to take in Percy, speaking up for the first time since they had all gathered. The mystery woman at his side was rubbing his arm, her face turned in such a way that Harry now could get a good look at her. Her dark hair framed a high forehead which capped a round, altogether lovely face. She had full lips and hazel eyes, which – though softer in color than Harry's – were nonetheless piercing.

"Fred didn't have a will," Percy continued. "I know because I would go through the family records back when the…. the Ministry was under occupation. There was never one on file for Fred and the ones that were on file – Mum and Dad's – had never been removed, so that was one way I could keep tabs on if you two at least were still alive." He raised his blue eyes meekly towards his parents. Molly's own were welling up with tears, much as they had when he had proclaimed his mea culpa in the Room of Requirement.

Passing off George – the only member of the family other than Fleur who had yet to speak – to Bill, Charlie moved between the group. "Debating round and round on what Fred would have wanted isn't going to do us any good. The only way we could be certain that we were carrying out his exact wishes would be to ask him if he were here. He's…. he's not." After a brief pause to gather his composure, he pressed forward. "How we honor him should be irrelevant. The fact that we will honor him in some form – whatever that takes – should be all that matters. And it's what Fred would have appreciated anyway."

Molly nodded at her second-born's words. "We shall proceed with the burial. It is family tradition." She glanced about at her surviving children. "You all will have your own final wishes, of course, though I hope they won't have to be carried out for many years. My hope is that you would all consider the family plot, so that one day we may all be together."

Bill had everyone put it to a vote. No one wanted to go against what was clearly family tradition, so the vote was unanimous, even from Harry, Hermione and the dark-haired woman, though it wasn't certain even after Molly's blessing whether or not these three should have a vote.

As Arthur and Molly were slipping behind the partition to visit with their son's body privately, Madame Pomfrey came up to the Golden Trio.

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Ms. Granger, if you are currently unoccupied, there are casualties that need comfort care by their sickbeds." She ushered them to another curtained cot. "The best thing would be to sit with them, talk to them, even if they are unresponsive at present…."

Upon entering the partition, Ron took one look down at the person occupying the bed and nearly hurled.

"Lavender…..!"

The face of their Gryffindor classmate and Ron's erstwhile girlfriend was almost unrecognizable. Flesh hung like strands of ribbon, particularly from her face and neck. Her eyes were closed and she was attached to an IV strip – were it not for the apparatus, Harry would have assumed she was already dead.

"Mauled by that monster Greyback," Madame Pomfrey's voice shook in revulsion and outrage.

"We know," Harry echoed dully. "We were there, at least for the last of it."

Next to him, Hermione was biting her lip. "Is she going to live?" Ron started to rasp out something that sounded like 'Not bloody likely,' but then stopped.

"There's an outside chance yet. If she does make it through the night, some reconstructive surgery would almost certainly be in the cards."

That prognosis seemed like the cruelest thing of all, Harry noted, especially as he considered how much care and value Lavender had placed in looking pretty. She may not have been the prettiest on the inside, especially in the civil war and estrangement her relationship with Ron had caused between his two best friends, but even so – no one deserved this.

All the same, Harry had to think it was big of her, as he watched Hermione pull up a chair next to her former rival and even hold the other girl's hand. Ron circled behind his girlfriend and placed his hands lovingly on her shoulders.

The Trio stayed with Lavender until Mrs. Weasley gently called them away.

Three days later, Fred Weasley was laid to rest in the Weasley family plot, a small little piece of land marked by a meager chain-link fence on the far edge of the Burrow property.

The Boy Who Lived had never ventured out this far to know the cemetery was even here - it was out way past the apple orchards where Harry and his friends had once played two-to-a-side Quidditch lo those many summers ago.

It felt like the farthest thing from summer now, on this rainy and overcast morning. The Devon countryside was deluged, making black umbrellas ubiquitous.

Luna and Xenophilius Lovegood had come down from the Rook just over the hill to pay their respects. On the quirky Ravenclaw's arm was Neville, her new boyfriend. The now-slimmed down Gryffindor general had actually been quite instrumental in putting a proper send-off together.

As Fred Weasley had been a member of Dumbledore's Army in good standing, the guerilla group had agreed that a funeral with proper military honors was called for. The only problem was that the DA had never even been classified as an official school club, not during Umbridge's despotic reign and certainly not during the Death Eater occupation. Let alone been recognized with rank as a military organization. The DA had never marched into battle under any banner, so there wasn't even a flag or colors to drape over the casket.

Here, the Ministry Aurors and the Order of the Phoenix had stepped in by allowing Fred to lie in honor under their respective flags. As for Dumbledore's Army, Neville ordered that Fred's DA galleon be buried with him, and he posted an honor guard of DA veterans around the gravesite in the hours leading up to the service.

All five of the surviving Weasley brothers and Harry served as pallbearers, even George, though Harry suspected the latter's participation had been managed with some coercion from the likes of Bill and Charlie. Rising up out of his stoop from lowering Fred into the ground, Harry glanced up to see Percy melting back into the gathered congregation, the dark haired woman leaning against him with an intimacy that suggested lovers.

"Her name's Audrey." Hermione's whisper from where she was holding Ron made Harry turn his head. "She's Muggle born. I spoke with her, back at the house. She's nice."

Harry nodded absently. The minster finished his prayer and the crowd began to move away. Tucking Ginny into his side, Harry watched Hermione droop her head against Ron's shoulder ahead of him as the family began a somber and heavy funeral march back to the Burrow.