Albus Potter and the Prophesied Year

Ch 66 The Aftermath of the Battle

I do not give Deb enough credit. She was immensely helpful with this chapter, and I want to acknowledge it. Thank you, Deb.

*

Every adult at the New Burrow was terrified. They did their best to hide it from the children, but all of the adults were aware that a major battle was taking place, and there was no news. A large kettle of tea was sitting on the table, cups were poured, and people sat down as those left behind stared idly into the air or stirred endless cups of now cold tea.

Victoire was worried, but she knew Teddy was going to be at the headquarters with Uncle Harry, and she thought Teddy would be safe. She could at least hope that Teddy would be safe. Her fingers alternated between stirring her tea or destroying a piece of short bread on her plate.

A nervously pacing Roxanne Longbottom was more than terrified, however. She felt that her chances of being a widow at the end of the day were all too real. No one could give her any realistic hope; they all knew how dangerous the Honor Guard job was going to be.

Ginny brought Minerva and Gregory to the New Burrow. "I'm going to be going to see Harry in a bit," she told the group when everyone crowded around her.

"Let me know about Frank, please," Roxanne told Ginny, the young woman grabbing Ginny's hand.

"I will," Ginny responded, squeezing her hand and nodding the rest of the group before she left.

*

Neville Longbottom announced to the Hogwarts class, "We have several teachers missing today. They are on a dangerous mission, helping the Peverells. If your teacher is missing you are excused from class."

The students, knowing what was going on, didn't cheer about missing the classes. They just huddled together and whispered as they left for their classroom, anxious to see who was here and who had left to do battle.

Neville waited for some news, but when there was no news by noon he began to get worried. He stayed away from the greenhouse knowing that he would probably kill any plant that he tried to work with today.

Eventually he received a text message from Harry. "Assume all Hogwarts professors are not coming back. We won, but at a terrible cost. Harry."

Neville sat down in the great hall and looked at who he had left, and tried to figure out how they were going to handle classes for the rest of the term. He tried not to think too much about his son Frank; if the professors were dead or disabled what chance did his son have? Harry had been worried that the Honor Guard would take the most casualties, and Neville could not forget that his oldest son was one of the Honor Guard.

*

Harry looked at the list of people he was going to have to notify. Ginny came over to him and asked, "What can I do to help you, what do you know about casualties?"

"Horrendous," Harry replied.

A grief stricken Teddy added, "Andromeda was one of the first. You might ask Bill. He is outside helping with the dead and wounded."

Ginny moved outside as quickly as her feet would take her and found Bill, tears streaking down his face. "What can you tell me?" she asked.

"Percy is wounded but not seriously. Fleur has a very serious facial wound, and I'm not sure if they can save the eye. We will match, both with scarred faces. There is no way I'm ever going to be pretty enough for both of us, though.

"Mum will recover, but dad ... and Ron, he was supposed to be in with Harry, but they found him outside dead. Plus Andromeda. That is all the losses from our family."