A/N: And in the end...
Well, welcome to our last and final drop of chapters. Seven chapters to wrap this story up—most of them direct aftermath; a couple at the end jumping a year ahead. It was the type of ending I wanted more of after Deathly Hallows—just more of what happened right after. So, I wrote my interpretation. Here's hoping I touched on a few things you were hoping to see as well.
Post War Summer of 1998
It was late when Bill and his family arrived back at the Burrow after the battle. He didn't actually know what time it was; time seemed unimportant anymore. The shock of the last twenty-four hours was still too great for him to properly process anything, even something as simple as time. In a way, his shock seemed to be protecting him. It allowed him to push forward and go through the motions of his day.
It wouldn't last long—he would learn that in the days to come—but directly after the battle, he was managing to put up a brave face and function like a normal human being. Or at least as close to normal as he could remember. He'd forgotten what normal was.
He arrived at the Burrow with Fleur, his parents, Charlie, Percy and Ginny. He hadn't been there even a minute before the overwhelming need to inspect his childhood home came over it, almost as if he had to check to see if it was still real. No one had been in it for weeks; it had a slight, uninhabited feeling about it that he wasn't familiar with.
And while he didn't quite know it then, things feeling unfamiliar and strange in his life were now things he was going to need to get used to.
Charlie had a similar demeanor about him, acting much like Bill and scanning surfaces and entryways straight away. Bill noticed he was also picking up flower pots and knick-knacks just as he was, checking underneath them for no reason other than it felt like something they should be doing; maybe just to keep busy.
Everyone was walking around in silence and inspecting, whether with their hands or just their eyes. It was likely the quietest the Burrow had ever been with this many people in it.
"I'm going to check upstairs," Charlie muttered, excusing himself. It was likely because it was impossible not to feel the suffocating weight of the varying emotions in the room. Bill felt it too, but unlike his brother, he tended to run right into this sort of situation instead of fleeing it. He couldn't have moved if he tried.
Percy was standing there, looking like a guest in the house he grew up in; searching everywhere with his gaze. He didn't seem sure of where to stand. Fleur had a similar vibe about her, though hers seemed to stem more from exhaustion and shock, rather than Percy's confusion and awkwardness. Ginny just looked blank, leaning against the counter, lost in thought. His parents had walked into the sitting room together, almost as if giving the place a cursory once over; checking that this all still existed.
The Burrow was perfectly fine. The garden was horribly overgrown with weeds and there was a horrible gnome infestation, but inside it was the same place they had always known. Dustier and dirtier looking than in the past, but nothing a bit of cleaning wouldn't fix. The Fidelius Charm that his father had put up before evacuating to Muriel's had protected it from harm and destruction, though there were certainly signs on the property that people had been looking for it. The telltale signs were burn marks in the grass and several of the trees having been blasted and destroyed in the orchard.
Physically, the house was the same house it had always been, but things definitely were different now. Everything was different. It was almost as if they weren't allowed to feel normal right now. He felt that from everyone. From his parents, who'd come back into the kitchen without a word; to his siblings, who—like Bill—clearly recognized their home, but felt out-of-sorts in it at the moment.
If they were like him, it wasn't that they felt like strangers at the Burrow, but rather strangers in this post-Voldemort, post-war life. And no one knew what to say or do about it.
Bill stopped dead in his tracks during his inspection, right in front of his mother's cookbook shelf in the kitchen. Upon examining it, he found himself especially fixated on how dusty it was. It needed to be cleaned.
He should clean it. Right now, he should clean it.
"This needs to be dusted," he muttered to no one in particular. Only Fleur had even bothered to look over at him as he proceeded to walk over to a drawer and pull out a cleaning cloth. He walked back over to the shelf and—by hand, not magic—started dusting.
He'd never, not a day in life, given a shit about this shelf or if it was dusty. But on that evening, and for a few minutes, it was all he could think about. An odd desire to just do it and get the place back to normal. It felt like something he could control.
He'd dusted all three shelves and was about to fetch the broom when Fleur reached out to take his arm. "You do not need to do zat , sweet'eart."
"If not now, when?" he asked.
She'd stared at him, and he swore he saw pity and concern in her gaze—he saw all the love she had for him—but it didn't particularly do anything or comfort him at the moment. The only thing that made him feel normal right now was moving and doing something. It seemed better to be doing something rather than nothing.
When he turned away to get the broom, Fleur didn't say anything. His mother, however, reiterated the same sentiment, cutting through the silence in a faraway tone.
"Fleur's right, Bill. You don't..."
"I know," Bill said, sounding rather hollow, still sweeping.
Again one spoke for a long moment, not until his mother said, "I'll think I'll have a lie down." Without waiting for anyone to respond, she turned and walked up the stairs and out of the kitchen; her footsteps carried on the stairs.
More silence. The heaviest silence in the world. It wasn't broken until Ginny asked, her voice barely above a whisper, "Where do you think George went?"
No one answered. George hadn't been seen since the end of the battle. A couple of people had claimed to have seen him passing, but he hadn't been accounted for in hours. He'd disappeared without a word. No one seemed to have any idea where he may have gone. Bill didn't want to say it aloud, but he was worried.
"Someone safe, I hope," Arthur finally said.
"Should we check the shop?" Percy asked. "Make sure he's—?"
"George will turn up when he's ready," their father said, though there was a slight hesitation in his voice before he more purposefully added, "I'm going to lie down as well."
He turned then to also disappear upstairs, leaving more silence and uncertain looks in his wake. No one moved for a moment, not until Bill started sweeping again. That seemed to prompt Ginny to exhale heavily and suddenly move toward the cupboards to check what was inside. She seemed to be inspecting the food—both of the edible and expired variety—and now silently sorting through them.
Fleur decided to sit at the kitchen table, prompting Percy to do the same across from her. Everyone had a glazed over, exhausted, empty feeling about them. There was so much to say, but no one seemed to want to say it.
Charlie returned not long after. He declared rather flatly, "Everything looks fine upstairs."
"Why wouldn't it?" Ginny said, examining a jar or some sort of pickled vegetable. "The charm worked and protected the house."
Charlie shrugged, sitting down beside Fleur and resting his head on his hand. "It was less about intruders and more about…I don't know. Mice, gnomes, insects …" He trailed off, finally mumbling, "Just wanted to check."
There was more heavy silence for a moment, until Charlie—who'd hated a silent room for as long as Bill could remember—suddenly looked straight at Percy and said, "Where do you live now?"
"I have a flat near the Ministry."
Charlie stared at him. "You planning to go back to the Ministry, then? After everything?"
Percy didn't seem to know what to say to that, so he shrugged. "I suppose we'll see."
Bill had half expected a snarky quip from Charlie in response to that, considering that was his and Percy's usual rapport, but none came. Apparently, it took surviving a war for Percy and Charlie to learn to sit quietly in a room together.
"Charlie, where are you going to stay?" Ginny asked, her arms up in a cupboard still moving cans and canisters around. "Here or with Bill and Fleur?"
Charlie caught Bill's eye, as if silently to ask, "Can I?" to which Bill muttered, "If you'd like."
"I suppose with Bill and Fleur," he said. "If Ron brings Harry and Hermione back here, as he tends to, this place may start to feel crowded."
"Why should that matter?" Percy asked. "When is this house ever not crowded? It's the Burrow."
That actually garnered a small chuckle around the room, which sounded almost foreign. It also prompted Charlie to remind Percy, "Yeah, well, I see how you wouldn't mind so much since it was always easier to deal with the crowds when you always had your own room. Some of us didn't have that luxury, so the crowds always felt more pressing. You weren't here for Bill's wedding, or else you'd know—"
Percy pulled a face. "Really, Charlie? You had your own room nearly your entire childhood. Until Ginny was born, and you were…nine?"
"I was eight," Charlie countered, and immediately, Bill sensed that familiar rapport building back up between his brothers again.
"Nearly nine," Percy said, not buying Charlie's attempt to downplay this. "And Ginny spent the first year of her life in a cot in mum and dad's room, which means you were practically ten when they moved you and Bill in together."
Charlie was rolling his eyes, "Yes, but I still had to get moved in with Bill, while you…"
"Bill was off to Hogwarts by the time they moved you, so you had the room to yourself almost the entire time!" Percy rolled his eyes. "I swear Charlie, the way you tell this story, you always make it seem like you never had your own space a day in your life, as if we put you in the chicken coop. In reality, you spent more time in this house on your own than you ever did with Bill."
"For the love of…" Charlie muttered. "Does it change the fact that you always had your own space?"
"It doesn't, but you didn't have it bad as you seem to think—"
Bill stopped sweeping to watch his two brothers—not fighting, exactly, but they were…well, they were Charlie and Percy, which should have its own classification of conversing. The pair of them could easily let themselves get to the point of a row, at least they could back when they were younger, but they also often let themselves get into these pointless back and forths for ages, almost as if it were a game. One they both had to play for no reason other than a need to prove themselves right.
That's where they seemed to be now—ready to debate until the end of time. It honestly felt so familiar to watch, yet so odd at the exact same time. People were dying six hours ago right in front of them, including their own brother, but here were Percy and Charlie disputing each other over childhood bedrooms like it was any old typical Sunday dinner.
Bill looked over at Fleur, who was watching the display as if she was confused, but also rather relieved for the dumb distraction. He then looked at Ginny, who'd also stopped to watch those two dolts and their stupid conversation, looking as if she wanted to ask why this was happening, but knowing better than to question it because it just…was. You had to grow up here to understand it but this was life at the Burrow. This was as close to normal as they were going to get right now.
And that was…oddly comforting. For Bill, it strangely gave him hope that there really was some normalcy still to be had in life.
They'd been home roughly an hour before Ron turned up, just after the sun had set. He'd also disappeared after the battle, but Bill hadn't been concerned about him. It was easy to assume he'd gone off somewhere with Harry and Hermione, who had also now turned up alongside him They all looked worse for the wear physically, but oddly enough seemed rather composed given everything they'd been through. Harry especially looked collected—either still riding the high from his accomplishment or simply processing shock better than the rest of them did. Who could tell?
It seemed almost disingenuous to sit there and thank Harry again—and given the look on his face after Percy brought it up, he didn't seem to want to hear it. Still, he politely accepted his accolades before giving off the distinct vibe of a person who wanted to be treated the same as he always had been. It may have been why he'd come back to the Burrow that night like the rest of them had—to find some sort of normalcy amongst the chaos.
But not acknowledging everything also felt like a big ask since…he'd literally just change their entire lives. Their entire world. It was hard to not want to address that gratitude they had for everything he'd done.
"No more thanking Harry," Ron muttered, sitting down at the table with his friends as Ginny proceeded to put the kettle on for tea. "He's exhausted under the weight of everyone's appreciation."
"I didn't say that…" Harry said quickly, looking around the room as if he didn't want people to think he was ungrateful. "It's only..."
"He's got no more 'you're welcomes' to give," Ron said plainly, earning him a look from both Hermione and Harry, though neither of them corrected him. "I think it goes without saying how much he's done and how we're all thankful, but can we all just treat him like regular Harry again? He's too polite to ask you himself."
Harry let his gaze drop to the table, which Bill took to mean Ron had hit the nail on the head.
"I think that's fair," Bill offered, walking over to pat him on the shoulder before he proceeded to help Ginny with the tea cups. Before he could though, Ginny had started charming them to the table one by one.
"Look at you doing magic underage," he half joked.
Ginny threw him a look. "Let them send me a bloody letter today. I dare them."
That was fair.
At the same time, Charlie had stood up from the table, declaring then that he was going to need something a little stronger than milk and sugar to put in his tea. He left the room and returned with some Firewhiskey from the sitting room, displaying it for all to see as he conjured separate glasses. The first person he offered it to was Harry, who nodded as Charlie poured him some. He then poured himself a very large glass.
Their father had wandered back downstairs at the sounds of the new visitors—joining them at the table for a drink that they decided to toast to…everyone. Literally everyone. Everyone who had fought, everyone who had died, everyone who had tried. Each of them gulped that first glass down, and Charlie didn't hesitate to pour more around the table.
They all seemed to be avoiding the elephant in the room given there truly was so much left unsaid. With drinks being poured now, it was only a matter of time before one of them brought up Fred or the others and someone would fall to pieces. Bill was hoping to avoid that as long as possible—to make himself numb to the pain before it decided to rear its ugly head and force him to deal with it. After all, there were still months of secrets, lies, confusion, and mystery to confront. It had been driving everyone mad, and now that things were over and answers available, there were things eating Bill alive to not know.
Still, it felt wrong to ask outright so soon given how fresh the wounds were—
"I 'ave questions," Fleur said bluntly after her second glass of Firewhiskey—a drink that tended to go to her head more quickly than wine. "Several." She gestured around the room. "I zink we all do."
"I'd be shocked if you didn't," Harry said with a lazy sort of smile, as if he'd accepted, and perhaps anticipated, this occurring. "I can't promise I have an answer for everything, but…you can ask."
And so it began. Harry, along with Ron and Hermione filling them in on so much; patching holes in stories Bill hadn't even realized were incomplete until he heard them. Some of it was so mad, it felt impossible to swallow; other parts were truly extraordinary. They really had been on the most wild adventure anyone could possibly imagine.
As they suspected, Dumbledore had a plan all along. It was one that none of them could have properly anticipated, but it seemed Harry had been informed—well, sort of—of the details before Dumbledore's death. Given some of the frustration in he, Ron, and Hermione's tones, it was clear that Dumbledore had left some very important parts quite unsaid before he died.
And speaking of his death, it turns out Dumbledore had been dying well before his actual murder…which, wasn't really murder after all? Snape had performed the act on orders from Dumbledore himself? He wasn't actually a traitor? He'd been helping their side all along? He was a double agent who'd been murdered in the end by Voldemort?
"What the fuck?" Charlie said bluntly, his expression screaming that he—like Bill—had never seen that coming.
As Harry, Ron, and Hermione took turns speaking, strange words like horcruxes and hallows were peppered throughout their stories. If Bill was following correctly, they'd needed to essentially solve a puzzle to the theme of Voldemort's past, destroying relics he valued important? There was something about parts of his soul; it was all some obscure dark magic that...what?
Bill considered himself an intelligent person, but even he was having a hard time following what this was exactly. That or Harry, Ron, and Hermione were glossing over the finer points on purpose; perhaps leaving some things left unsaid because they didn't want to give out the details.
Either way, Harry had destroyed his first relic at only twelve. The diary that had possessed Ginny during her first year. In time, Dumbledore had discovered the secret of these things, teaching Harry that the path to vanquished Voldemort would come with the destruction of each one he had. Dumbledore had managed to destroy the second—a ring—and they'd retrieved what they felt was another—a locket—on the very night Dumbledore died.
"Ze night you were mauled," Fleur said quietly to Bill, as if he didn't remember. Did she really think he could forget? Though, to be fair, none of them were really thinking properly at the moment. He couldn't fault her for making the connection.
"Well," Bill muttered, "at least something good came out of that night if you found what your were looking for."
"It wasn't a real one," Ron said. "It was a fake."
Bill stared at him. Oh. Well. Good to officially know that nothing good came out of his mauling then. Right. Terrific.
"But it did give us a clue to finding the real one," Hermione offered. "A clue we desperately needed."
The search for the real locket is what had taken them to the fateful day at the Ministry that they'd all read about in the papers. They'd sneaked in and stolen it from the one and only Dolores Umbridge, who—
"Had Mad-Eye's enchanted eyeball tacked to her office door," Harry said with a purpose—as if he needed everyone to know how fucked that was.
Bill gaped, feeling ill at the thought. He wasn't the only one. Around the room, there was recoiling and obvious disgust. Percy was frowning solemnly, nodding as if he was aware of this already. He did offer, "It went missing that day. After the break-in." He looked at Harry. "Presumably…you took it?"
Harry nodded. "I took it and properly buried it. In a forest. The one near where the Quidditch World Cup was held." He paused. "I thought Mad-Eye deserved a proper burial."
Everyone seemed to be in agreement with that. Arthur raised his Firewhiskey glass and said, "Hear, hear," to which everyone followed suit and sipped their drinks. For a brief moment, Mad-Eye was given a respectful moment of silence. That or everyone was simply digesting the immense amount of information being told to them.
And they weren't even halfway through.
"Ron left at this point after he and Harry had an argument," Hermione said, looking over at Ron before attempting to continue on with a story about how she and Harry had to fight Voldemort's snake after visiting Godric's Hollow and his parents' grave.
But she didn't quite get that far before Ginny interjected. "Where'd you go if you left?"
Ron glanced at Bill and Fleur. If Bill was honest, he had actually forgotten that he hadn't told the rest of his family about Ron turning up for those several weeks. It seemed it wasn't just Harry and the others' secrets coming out that evening.
"'E stayed wiz us," Fleur said, sitting up straighter.
"I stayed with them…" Ron mumbled.
Ginny threw Bill a rather sharp look; even their father stared at him as if surprised.
"For how long?" Arthur asked.
"Month or so…" Ron mumbled again, avoiding eye contact with father.
"You had Ron with you for weeks," their father said, turning to Bill. "And you didn't say anything? You knew how worried sick your mother was—"
"He didn't want me to!" Bill argued.
"And we chose not to say anyzing for your protection," Fleur said. "If you 'ad been questioned, you cannot give information you do not 'ave! It was better for as few people to know as possible."
"I did ask them not to say anything," Ron said, looking over at their father. "I was embarrassed for running off and I didn't want you," he gestured to Ginny. "Or George and Fr—"
He stopped mid sentence at the mention of Fred; he visibly shifted rather awkwardly in his seat now.
It had been a bit since someone had brought him up. They all seemed to keep pushing reality away for minutes and moments, only for it to come back with a vengeance in an instance like this and smack them in the face with the truth. All around the room, people were either avoiding eye contact or staring at their glasses.
"I…didn't want them to give me a hard time," Ron finally finished, rubbing his eyes. "Call me a coward or whatever." He lowered his hand. "Don't be angry with Bill and Fleur. They only did what I asked."
Their father didn't seem as miffed as he had moments before. Instead he was nodding rather absently, looking at an empty spot on the table and blinking more. He didn't say anything—no one did—for a good ten seconds. Not until Hermione politely asked if they should continue.
Bill's eyes fell on his father to let him make that decision. As it turned out, so did everyone else.
He cleared his throat—sounding as if he was trying to force something out of it. "Hermione, you said you and Harry went to Godric's Hollow?"
The story continued. They'd been presented with a problem of how to destroy these Voldemort relics, which is where the sword of Gryffindor that Bill had grown quite familiar with these last few weeks had apparently come into play. It apparently could destroy them, and when Ginny asked how they'd even acquired the sword in the first place when it had been at Hogwarts—she'd seen it and attempted to steal it at one point—the answer was even more bizarre than anything else they'd spoken of thus far.
"Wait, you're saying mysterious Patronus in the shape of a doe visited you in the woods and just…led you to it?" Bill asked. "And you didn't find that strange?"
"No, I did," Harry said, "but what choice did I have?"
"You still shouldn't have followed it alone," Hermione muttered more to herself than the group.
"Whose Patronus was it?" Ginny asked. "Did you ever discover who sent it?"
"Snape," Harry said plainly. "It was Snape."
They all stared at him—the whole Snape 'not being a traitor' thing was still rather difficult to comprehend.
"So, Snape's Patronus is a doe?" Bill asked.
"Did you mean a stag?" Percy asked. "A doe is a female—"
"I'm well aware of the difference," Harry said matter-of-factly. "It was a doe."
He then sighed, looking tired for the first time. "That's an entirely different part of the story altogether. But we're talking about the doe that led me to the lake…."
Snape had helped them discover the sword in a freezing lake; Harry had nearly drowned trying to retrieve it. Ron had turned up and saved him after leaving Bill and Fleur's; he'd also destroyed the locket with the sword. From there, they'd pivoted to learning about the Deathly Hallows—an old urban legend Bill remembered reading about once—though apparently it wasn't a legend? They were real? And at some point, Harry had possessed them all?
His head hurt.
At one point, Fleur looked at Bill as if Harry, Ron, and Hermione were speaking an entirely different language. He had to admit, while he understood the words coming out of their mouths, they were challenging so much of what he'd been led to believe his entire life. The Hallows being real felt like the real life equivalent of Babbity Rabbity from his favorite nursery story as a child walking into the kitchen right now and sitting for tea.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione had gone to see Xeno Lovegood for more information on the Hallows, believing he could help them. That part actually did make sense to Bill, because up until this moment, Xeno Lovegood was the only type of person he expected to believe in something like the Hallows.
However, old Xeno apparently tried to turn them over to the Death Eaters in exchange for Luna's release from her kidnappers. That part filled in some holes, since Bill could remember hearing about the day the Lovegood's place had exploded. He and Fleur had been told about it from his folks—who'd heard the explosion from the Burrow. They'd gone to investigate after the fact, finding only ruins and no answers; certainly no Xeno.
"We couldn't be sure if the house had been damaged because of Death Eaters," Arthur said, "or due to something of Xeno's own doing."
"Turns out it was both," said Ron.
"Who keeps Erumpent horn laying around the house?" Charlie said, sounding as if he'd never heard something so stupid in his life and he wasn't afraid to vocalize it. This was likely in part to the very strong pours of Firewhiskey he'd been drinking.
"The man's an absolute nutter," he mumbled, his words slurred a bit. "Reckless…"
"The incident at Malfoy Manor happened not long after that," Hermione continued, glancing over at Bill and Fleur as if they should find this part familiar. They'd obviously heard bits and pieces of the story when everyone had turned up at Shell Cottage, but it was nice to get more context this go around.
It came to light that Griphook had, in fact, wanted the sword, and had agreed to help them break into Gringotts in exchange for them giving him it. He also double crossed them, which—Harry caught Bill's eye—"You did warn me about."
Bill felt a bit inclined to have a 'told you so' moment, but didn't. He bit his tongue and instead said, "I'm not surprised."
"We didn't come to you because we knew you would have tried to talk us out of it," Ron said to Bill, as if trying to explain why they'd gone to Griphook instead.
"I would have," Bill said, not even pretending to think he'd entertain any other options. "I still think you're all barking for even having attempted—"
"We knew we were," said Hermione. "But desperate times call for desperate measures."
"Are you behind those protective charms at the bank?" Ron asked him. "The horrifying ones that nearly killed us?"
"I mean, there's a group of us. I'm not the only one..."
"Well," Ron muttered, frowning, "you're all very good at your jobs."
"Clearly not good enough," Bill joked. "You got past all of them."
Fleur threw him a look; Ginny, who was sitting on his opposite side, swatted him and said, "Are you listening to yourself? You seem annoyed that they didn't succumb to some death trap you helped work on."
"That's not…" Bill said, pulling a face. "It's…"
He sighed, realizing he'd never articulate this properly. "The part of me whose brother and his friends survived that torture chamber is happy that the other part of me—the one whose entire career hinges on keeping people out of Gringotts—isn't better at my job. Alright? Let's just say that."
"I mean, I got cut up and burned," Ron offered, gesturing to Harry and Hermione. "We all did. We're lucky to be alive. We nearly died several times."
Harry and Hermione were nodding, which caused Charlie to glance over at Bill and say, "There you go. Happy that you did some damage? You almost got them."
Bill threw him a look, not entirely pleased with his tone, but knowing his brother was well on his way to drunk at this point and ignored him. He instead just said, "Look, I'm happy they made it out, alright? Don't twist this."
Charlie smirked, though it felt passive aggressive as he raised his empty glass to the table. "Cheers for Bill not being good at his job."
Bill continued to stare at him, his now eyebrow cocked. What the hell was that? Charlie seemed to be going full on arsehole all of the sudden.
But Ron and Ginny half-joked, "Hear, hear," cracking weak smiles as Harry laughed a little—the first trace of a laugh Bill had seen him muster since arriving. He wasn't a fan at it being at his expense, but he supposed given the circumstances, he'd take the hit.
"And fuck Gringotts," Charlie added, gesturing to Harry. "Glad you got the better of them."
Bill sighed. "Maybe lay off the Firewhiskey, mate."
"Maybe don't tell me what to do," Charlie said right back without skipping a beat, turning back to Ron and his friends. "Now let's talk about the Ironbelly. I want to know everything that happened with that."
He looked at Bill, though continued to address Ron. "What sort of conditions did they have it kept under?"
Bill immediately looked away and up at the ceiling, silently swearing to himself. Now it made sense. Sober Charlie was enough of a pain in the ass when it came to dragons, but drunk Charlie? He was going to be a huge dick about it.
"Awful," Hermione said indignantly. "Absolutely barbaric the way they were treating it."
"You don't say," Charlie said, and Bill could still feel his eyes on him.
"I only knew they had a dragon down there!" Bill argued. "I had no idea, beyond that, what happened to it."
"Because you've been so truthful about this in the past," Charlie said.
"I swear to Merlin, Charlie," Bill said, feeling himself getting annoyed. He genuinely did not have it in him to do this right now. "Don't start. Not today."
"Sorry if I don't appreciate being lied to," Charlie muttered.
"I was protecting you since I knew you'd go and get yourself killed trying to save it!"
"Or not killed, seeing as it's apparently not that difficult to get a dragon out of that place," Charlie said rather sarcastically. "Which begs the question, what exactly do you do if it's that easy to break into Gringotts—?"
"Hold on, it was definitely difficult," Ron offered, almost as if trying to play referee. "Let's not pretend otherwise. Again, we nearly died several times."
"Save your breath, Ron," Bill said, waving his hand dismissively in Charlie's direction. "We all know Charlie refuses to hear anything else being said the second someone says the word dragon." He looked at Charlie. "And it's obnoxious."
"Not as obnoxious as holding dragons prisoner in a bank to—"
"I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT," Bill snapped, feeling Fleur's hand on leg in an attempt to calm him down. She even whispered, "'E 'as been drinking…"
"Why do you think I have any real authority at Gringotts?" Bill continued to shout. "It's goblin run. I work for them!"
"No, right, nothing's ever Bill's fault," Charlie mumbled. "Sorry, I forgot the number one lesson in 'Growing up Weasley.'"
"What the fuck…?" Bill muttered, wondering where the hell this was even coming from? He looked from Charlie over to Fleur, who seemed desperate for him to not escalate this. Even Ginny and Ron were both saying variations of, "Let's stop…" while their father looked on with a confused sort of expression as if he wasn't sure what to make of this.
"You know it's bad if Bill and Charlie are rowing…" Percy muttered under his breath.
"Fuck off, Percy," Charlie said, rolling his eyes. "You have no right to say anything right now—"
"You won't stop until you've picked a fight with everyone, will you?" Bill interrupted, reaching over then to grab what little was left in the Firewhiskey bottle, mumbling, "You can be a real prick when you're drunk, you know that?"
Charlie made a lunge for it, which Bill managed to avoid. It did prompt Bill to snap, "What's your problem?"
"My problem?" Charlie said, laughing hollowly. "You're seriously going to ask that? Gee, fuck, I don't know? Maybe it's that I watched a lot of people die today. Oh, or maybe it's the part where I got to see my little brother's corpse. That might be my problem."
"We all had to see that!" Bill snapped back, feeling oddly confrontational which was likely due to his own influence of Firewhiskey. "We're all dealing with that! Doesn't give you a right to be a dick!"
"Stop fighting!" Ginny said, sounding upset.
"Yeah, well, maybe it should," Charlie said, ignoring her and standing then; he pushed his chair back. "Because I'm sick of sitting around here pretending nothing's happened."
"No one's pretending nothing's happened," their father said calmly. "Far from it, Charlie."
"Yes, they are!" Charlie said. "No one's even saying Fred's name! That's fucked up!"
"Fred is all ll I can think about," their father snapped back, a rare fierceness that they didn't see often in his voice. "Trust me, no one here is pretending nothing's happened—least of all your mother and me."
The room grew dead silent at that. It was also then that Bill saw it—Charlie's eyes welling with tears as he glared back at their father—but he didn't say anything more. This was so much deeper than Charlie being a drunk prick. This was reality slapping him—and everyone else—in face again and sneaking up out of nowhere. It had chosen then to fuck with them.
It was the grief that Bill would soon realize in the days to come that would come in waves. One minute manageable; the next, you felt as if you were drowning. And while they would all deal with it differently, for someone like Charlie, who was always on the run from heavy emotions, it seemed to be manifesting in anger and rage.
"It's all a load of…" Charlie muttered to himself as he turned and left the room, heading straight for the front door. Bill could hear it slam loudly after a few seconds.
"I think we should…" their father began to say. "This has been a lot. We should…stop."
There was a slow nodding around the table, with chairs scraping and people standing. Ron said something about wanting some air, to which Harry, Hermione and Ginny all agreed and followed him out the kitchen door. Percy had gone over to sit beside their father, saying something in a quiet voice that prompted their father to reach out and grab his shoulder affectionately—a sad smile on his face.
Fleur had remained sitting beside Bill, looking reassuringly over at him and immediately saying, "Charlie iz not…grief takes many forms. 'E doesn't—"
"Fuck him," Bill said, not looking at her." He paused for a long moment. "I also lost my brother today, so why is he on me—?"
His voice cracked as he spoke. He closed his eyes. Fuck, he could practically feel this wave hitting him.
"I know," Fleur said, putting her chin on his shoulder and rubbing his back. "And I cannot speak for 'im, but my guess is zat you are safe. Because you are always safe."
Bill sniffled. "What does that even mean?"
"Zat he can fight wiz you and nozing bad will 'appen," she said, still rubbing. "You will not hurt him. You will not be cruel. You will forgive." She met his gaze. "You are safe to unleash 'is grief on."
Bill laughed doubtfully. "That's fucked up. How is that fair to me? I have to deal with his shit, and my own, and everyone else's."
He looked over and caught Percy and his dad both crying quietly. Something had been said to make them both breakdown because they were embracing now. Bill could hear the strain in Percy's low voice; see the tears streaming down his father's face.
He let out another sniffle himself, trying his damndest to hold it in. Fleur meanwhile, had put her arm around him and was squeezing.
"It iz not fair to you. But I do not zink it iz a conscious decision 'e is making eizer. Everyone iz just…."
She didn't finish the sentence, but she didn't have to. He knew what she meant. No one could control how they felt right now. Charlie was being a dick, but it wasn't as if he didn't have a reason to want to watch the world burn right now. They all did. It wasn't fair Bill had got caught in the crossfire of his anger, but if life had taught him anything today, it was that shit would never be fair.
Life was not fair.
"Do you want to go 'ome?" Fleur asked.
He nodded. He desperately needed time and space to himself right now. They all did, which was apparent once Charlie was nowhere to be found, Percy and his father both made excuses to retreat upstairs, and Ron, Ginny and their friends all now appeared to be either stoic or fighting off weepiness outside. As he and Fleur emerged into the front garden where they were standing, both Ginny, Ron, and Hermione all had tears in their eyes, while Harry looked as if he'd just shut down entirely.
Bill had to imagine Harry had become quite good at switching off and shutting trauma out over the years. He was actually rather envious of his abilities at the moment.
They said weak and empty goodbyes; Bill telling his siblings they'd be back tomorrow because…what else could he do? He didn't want to be around people at the moment, but he also felt strange being anywhere else but with his family.
Fleur Apparated them home, which Bill didn't even realize until he was standing in the front of their cottage—the sound of waves crashing behind him. He took an immensely heavy breath as looked up at the house, a place where life was so different when he'd been here last.
Fleur, however, was suddenly on full alert. She'd pulled out her wand and was staring at the house.
"Someone iz zere," she said.
Bill looked as well, not seeing what she was seeing. "Where?"
"On ze porch," she said, stepping forward rather bravely as Bill could just make out—what looked like—a human form sitting in a chair on their front porch. "Someone is sitting zere."
"Someone can't be there," he said, pulling out his own wand. "I never took the charm down. No one can find us."
She turned back to look at him, her singed, ash-filled, blood-stained hair fluttering in the sea breeze. "They can if they knew the secret."
But everyone who knew the secret was either back at the Burrow, dead, or wouldn't be loitering around the cottage's porch in the dark. Dean or Luna had the capability to let themselves inside if they'd needed to return for some reason, so they wouldn't just be sitting there…
And then it hit him. He knew exactly who it was.
"Put your wand away," Bill said, pocketing his and immediately picking up the pace toward the house. Perhaps he was stupid not to go in armed after today—not all of Voldemort's supporters were likely rounded up; many were still probably out there and angry—but his gut was telling him to approach this situation delicately and not with a wand in hand.
He reached the house and climbed up the short front steps to find George sitting there with his chair pointed toward the sea. Bill could tell just by looking at him that he'd been crying at some point, though he wasn't now. He was just staring at the sea, as if it was the only thing that existed in the world. He didn't even turn when he and Fleur approached.
"Hey, Georgie," Bill said, moving forward so that he was next to him, leaning on the railing. "Been wondering where you were."
George didn't react immediately, though did eventually mumble, "I've been here." He paused. "The sea is peaceful."
Bill looked over at Fleur, who forced a smile, before looking back at his brother. "Yeah, I agree." He cleared his throat. "You want some company or want us to leave you alone?"
George shrugged as if to say it didn't matter. He never took his eyes off the sea.
Bill nodded, honestly not sure whether he mentally had it in him to be the support George needed right now, despite knowing that was what he should do. He rubbed his eyes and said, "Well, you're welcome to sit here for as long as you like. Don't feel the need to go because—"
"Can I stay with you?" George said, finally looking away and up at Bill. He even turned in his seat slightly to take in Fleur, but quickly looked back.
Bill nodded, looking over at Fleur, who also nodded. "Of course you can. As long as you need."
George now nodded and looked away. He was quiet for a minute before saying, "It's the only place I know where everywhere I look doesn't make me think of Fred." He swallowed. "I can't even catch my fucking reflection without…"
He trailed off, and Bill could hear Fleur exhale shakily.
He wasn't having as much luck fighting it off, however. He looked out at the sea himself now, that wave of grief ready to hit him and drag him under again as real as anything in that ocean would. He sniffled and nodded, reaching out to rub the top of George's head. "Whatever you need, mate. I'm here for you. Just let me know."
George looked back at him. "Let you know what I need? You lost him, too."
Bill forced a watery smile. "Yeah, I know, but…it's different."
George looked away, tears in his eyes. "I don't want to believe he's gone. I keep telling myself he's just popped out, but…" He looked back at Bill. "He's not coming back, is he?"
Bill shook his head.
George stared at him for a long moment, his expression empty, before turning back to the sea. Bill saw Fleur turn away out of the corner of his eyes, her shoulders moving in a way that indicated she was likely crying again.
"The sea is peaceful," George muttered.