In love with a Weasley (Charlie Weasley)

DH 11

"Am I too late? Has itstarted? I only just found out, so I I " Percy spluttered into silence. Evidently he had not expected
to run into most of his family. There was a long moment of astonishment, broken by Fleur turning to Moony and saying, in a
wildly transparent attempt to break the tension,

"So-'ow eez leetle Teddy?" Moony blinked at her, startled. The silence between the
Weasleys seemed to by solidifying, like ice.

"I- oh yes-he's fine!" Moony said loudly. "Yes, Tonks is with him at her mother's"
Percy and the other Weasleys were still staring at one another, frozen. I squeezed Charlie's hand slightly. "Here, I've got a picture!" Moony shouted, pulling a photograph from inside his jacket and showing it to me, Fleur and Harry, it was a tiny baby with a tuft of bright turquoise hair, waving fat fists at the camera.

"I was a fool!" Percy roared, so loudly that Moony nearly dropped his photograph. "I was an idiot, I was a pompous prat, I was a a "

"Ministry-loving, family-disowning, power-hungry moron." Fred said. Percy swallowed.

"Yes, I was!"

"Well, you can't say fairer that that," Fred said holding out his hand to Percy. Mrs. Weasley burst into tears. She ran forward, pushed Fred aside, and pulled Percy into a strangling hug, while he patted her on the back, his eyes on his father.

"I'm sorry, Dad." Percy said. Mr. Weasley blinked rather rapidly, then he too hurried to hug his son.

"What made you see sense, Perce?" inquired George.

"It's been coming on for a while," Percy said mopping his eyes under his glasses with a corner of his traveling cloak. "But I had
to find a way out and it's not so easy at the Ministry, they're imprisoning traitors all the time. I managed to make contact with
Aberforth and he tipped me off ten minutes ago that Hogwarts was going to make a fight for it, so here I am."

"Well, we do look to our prefects to take a lead at times such as these," George said in a good imitation of Percy's most pompous
manner. "Now let's get upstairs and fight, or all the good Death Eaters'll be taken."

"So, you're my sister-in-laws now?" Percy, said shaking hands with Fleur and me as we hurried off toward the staircase with Charlie, Bill, Fred, and George. Charlie had a tight grip on my hand.

The enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall was dark and scattered with stars, and below it the four long House tables were lined with disheveled students, some in traveling cloaks, others in dressing gowns. Here and
there shone the pearly white figures of the school ghosts. Every eye, living and dead, was fixed upon Professor McGonagall,
who was speaking from the raised platform at the top of the Hall. Behind her stood the remaining teachers, including the palomino
centaur, Firenze, and the members of the Order of the Phoenix who had arrived to fight.

"evacuation will be overseen by Mr. Filch and Madam Pomfrey. Prefects, when I give the word, you will organize your House
and take your charges, in an orderly fashion, to the evacuation point." Many of the students looked petrified. However Ernie Macmillan stood up at the Hufflepuff table and shouted.

"And what if we want to stay and fight?" There was a smattering of applause.

"If you are of age, you may stay," Professor McGonagall said.

"What about our things?" called a girl at the Ravenclaw table.

"Our trunks, our owls?"

"We have no time to collect possessions," Professor McGonagall said. "The important thing is to get you out of here safely."

"Where's Professor Snape?" shouted a girl from the Slytherintable.

"He has, to use the common phrase, done a bunk," replied Professor McGonagall, and a great cheer erupted from the Gryffindors,
Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws. "We have already placed protection around the castle," Professor McGonagall was saying, "but it is unlikely to hold for very long
unless we reinforce it. I must ask you, therefore, to move quickly and calmly, and do as your prefects " But her final words were drowned as a different voice echoed
throughout the Hall. It was high, cold, and clean. There was no telling from where it came; it seemed to issue from the walls
themselves. Like the monster it had once commanded, it might have lain dormant there for centuries.

"I know you are preparing to fight." There were screams amongst the students, some of whom clutched each other, looking around in terror for the source of the sound. "Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great
respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood." There was silence in the Hall now, the kind of silence that presses against the eardrums, that seems too huge to be contained by walls.
"Give me Harry Potter," Voldemort's voice said "and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school
untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you should be rewarded. You have until midnight." The silence swallowed them all again. Every head turned, every eye in the place seemed to have found Harry, to hold him frozen in the glare of thousands of invisible beams. Then a figure rose
from the Slytherin table and he recognized Pansy Parkinson as she raised a shaking arm and screamed,

"But he's there! Potter's there! Someone grab him!" There was a massive movement. The Gryffindors in front of him had risen and stood facing, not Harry, but the Slytherins. Then the Hufflepuffs stood, and almost at the
same moment, the Ravenclaws, all of them, with their backs to Harry, all of them looking toward Pansy instead, and Harry looked awestruck and overwhelmed, I saw wands emerging everywhere, pulled from beneath cloaks and under sleeves.

"Thank you, Miss Parkinson," Professor McGonagall said in a clipped voice. "You will leave the Hall first with Mr. Filch. If the
rest of your House could follow." The sound of the grinding of benches and then the sound of the Slytherins trooping out on the other side of the Hall was all that could be heard for a moment. "Ravenclaws, follow on!" cried Professor McGonagall. Slowly the four tables emptied. The Slytherin table was completely deserted, but a number of older Ravenclaws remained seated while their fellows filed out; even more Hufflepuffs stayed behind, and half of remained in their seats, necessitating Professor McGonagall's descent from the teachers' platform to chivvy the underage on their way. "Absolutely not, Creevey, go! And you, Peakes!" Harry hurried over to me and the Weasleys, we were all sitting together at the Gryffindor table.

"Where are Ron and Hermione?"
"Haven't you found?" began Mr. Weasley, looking worried. But he broke off as Kingsley had stepped forward on the raised platform to address those who had remained behind.

"We've only got half an hour until midnight, so we need to act fast! A battle plan has been agreed between the teachers of Hogwarts and the Order of the Phoenix. Professors Flitwick, Sprout, and McGonagall are going to take groups of fighters up to the three highest towers-Ravenclaw, Astronomy, and Gryffindor-where they'll have a good overview, excellent positions from which to work spells. Meanwhile Remus" he indicated Moony "Arthur" he pointed toward Mr. Weasley, sitting at the Gryffindor table "and I will take groups into the grounds. We'll need somebody to organize defense of the entrances of the passageways into the school"

"Sounds like a job for us," called Fred, indicating me, himself and George, and Kingsley nodded his approval.

"All right, leaders up here and we'll divide up the troops!"

"Potter," Professor McGonagall said, hurrying up to him, as students flooded the platform, jostling for position, receiving instructions, "Aren't you supposed to be looking for something?"

"What? Oh," Harry said, "oh yeah!"

"Then go, Potter, go!"

"Right-yeah- " He ran out of the Great Hall again, into the entrance hall still crowded with evacuating students.

"Be safe" Charlie said pulling me in for a kiss before letting me go.

"You too" I say as I walk over to the twins.