"MOODY! WATCH OUT!"
"MAEVE HOLD ON!"
Harry and Hagrid arrived at the burrow first. Molly, Ginny, Julia, Sirius and Emmeline ran out of the house when they heard them arrive.
"Harry, Hagrid?! What happened, where are the others?" Sirius said
"No-one else is back?" Harry said
"No." Ginny said.
"The death eaters were on to us at the start, Molly" Hagrid said
"Well at least you're safe" Molly said.
"They got Hedwig." He told them, Ginny pulled him into a hug he did not feel he deserved.
"Thank goodness you're all right," she said.
"Haven't go' any brandy, have yeh, Molly?" asked Hagrid a little shakily, "Fer medicinal purposes?"
She could have summoned it by magic, but as she hurried back toward the crooked house, Harry knew that she wanted to hide her face. He turned to Ginny and she answered his unspoken plea for information at once.
"Ron and Tonks should have been back first, but they missed their Portkey, it came back without them," Ginny said, pointing at a rusty oil can lying on the ground nearby. "And that one," she pointed at an ancient sneaker, "should have been Dad and Fred's, they were supposed to be second. You and Hagrid were third and," she checked her watch, "if they made it, George and Lupin ought to be back in about a minute."
"What about Maeve?" He asked in a panic
"No. Not yet." She told him
Mrs. Weasley reappeared carrying a bottle of brandy, which she handed to Hagrid. He uncorked it and drank it straight down in one.
"Mum!" shouted Ginny pointing to a spot several feet away.
A blue light had appeared in the darkness: It grew larger and brighter, and Lupin and George appeared, spinning and then falling. Harry knew immediately that there was something wrong: Lupin was supporting George, who was unconscious and whose face was covered in blood.
Harry ran forward and seized George's legs. Together, he and Lupin carried George into the house and through the kitchen to the living room, where they laid him on the sofa. As the lamplight fell across George's head, Ginny gasped and Harry's stomach lurched: One of George's ears was missing. The side of his head and neck were drenched in wet, shockingly scarlet blood.
"Oh my boy!" Molly yelled.
No sooner had Mrs. Weasley bent over her son that Lupin grabbed Harry by the upper arm and dragged him, none too gently, back into the kitchen and pushed Harry against the wall violently.
"Oi!" said Hagrid indignantly, "Le' go of him! Le' go of Harry!"
Lupin ignored him.
"What creature sat in the corner the first time that Harry Potter visited my office at Hogwarts?" he said, giving Harry a small shake. "Answer me!"
"A-- a grindylow in a tank, wasn't it?"
Lupin released Harry and fell back against a kitchen cupboard.
"What was that about?" roared Hagrid.
"I'm sorry, Harry, but I had to check," said Lupin tersely. "We've been betrayed. Voldemort knew that you were being moved tonight and the only people who could have told him were directly involved in the plan. You might have been an impostor."
"So why aren't you checkin' me?" panted Hagrid.
"You're half-giant," said Lupin, looking up at Hagrid. "The Polyjuice Potion is designed for human use only." He took a deep breath. "We've been betrayed, I had to make sure you weren't an imposter" Remus said apologetically.
"None of the Order would have told Voldemort we were moving tonight," said Harry. The idea was dreadful to him, he could not believe it of any of them. "Voldemort only caught up with me toward the end, he didn't know which one I was in the beginning. If he'd been in on the plan he'd have known from the start I was the one with Hagrid."
"Voldemort caught up with you?" said Sirius sharply. "What happened? How did you escape?"
Harry explained how the Death Eaters pursuing them had seemed to recognize him as the true Harry, how they had abandoned the chase, how they must have summoned Voldemort, who had appeared just before he and Hagrid had reached the sanctuary of Tonks's parents.
"Does anyone know, if he saw Maeve?" Sirius asked.
"I.. I dont know." Harry told them "Will George be okay?"
All Lupin's frustration with Harry seemed to drain away at the question.
"I think so, although there's no chance of replacing his ear, not when it's been cursed off--"
There was a scuffling from outside. Lupin dived for the back door; Harry leapt over Hagrid's legs and sprinted into the yard.
Two figures had appeared in the yard, and as Harry ran toward them he realized they were Hermione, now returning to her normal appearance, and Kingsley, both clutching a bent coat hanger, Hermione flung herself into Harry's arms, but Kingsley showed no pleasure at the sight of any of them. Over Hermione's shoulder Harry saw him raise his wand and point it at Lupin's chest.
"The last words Albus Dumbledore spoke to the pair of us!"
"'Harry is the best hope we have. Trust him,'" said Lupin calmly.
Kingsley turned his wand on Harry, but Lupin said, "It's him, I've checked!"
"All right, all right!" said Kingsley, stowing his wand back beneath his cloak, "But somebody betrayed us! They knew, they knew it was tonight!"
"So it seems," replied Lupin, "but apparently they did not realize that there would be seven Harrys."
"Small comfort!" snarled Kingsley. "Who else is back?"
"Only Harry, Hagrid, George, and me."
"What happened out there?" Emmeline asked checking Hermione over.
"Followed by five, injured two, might've killed one," Kingsley reeled off, "and we saw You-Know-Who as well, he joined the chase halfway through but vanished pretty quickly. Remus, he can--"
"Fly," supplied Harry. "I saw him too, he came after Hagrid and me."
"So that's why he left, to follow you!" said Kingsley, "I couldn't understand why he'd vanished. But what made him change targets?"
"I don't know." Lupin said, "who was his first target?"
Kingsley looked over to Remus and pulled him away from the group, "I think something might have happened to Maeve or Moody. He was with them the last time I saw, and then he disappeared." Kingsley whispered to Remus. Remus took a deep breath and only nodded. Ginny ran out from the living room to the kitchen bumping into Harry.
"Did I hear someone else in the yard?" Ginny asked.
"Hermione and Kingsley," said Harry.
"Thank goodness," Ginny whispered. They looked at each other; Harry wanted to hug her, hold on to her; he did not even care much that Mrs. Weasley was there, but before he could act on the impulse, there was a great crash from outside the kitchen.
"I'll prove who I am, Kingsley, after I've seen my son, now back off if you know what's good for you!"
Harry had never heard Mr. Weasley shout like that before. He burst into the room, his bald patch gleaming with sweat, his spectacles askew, Fred right behind him, both pale but uninjured.
"Arthur!" sobbed Mrs. Weasley. "Oh thank goodness!"
"How is he?"
Mr. Weasley dropped to his knees beside George. For the first time since Harry had known him, Fred seemed to be lost for words. He gaped over the back of the sofa at his twin's wound as if he could not believe what he was seeing.
"How do you feel, Georgie?" whispered Mrs. Weasley.
George's fingers groped for the side of his head.
"Saintlike," he murmured.
"What's wrong with him?" croaked Fred, looking terrified. "Is his mind affected?"
"Saintlike," repeated George, opening his eyes and looking up at his brother. "You see... I'm holy. Holey, Fred, geddit?"
Mrs. Weasley sobbed harder than ever. Color flooded Fred's pale face.
"Pathetic," he told George. "Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related humor before you, you go for holey?"
"Ah well, reckon i still look better than you" chuckled George, grinning at his tear-soaked mother. "You'll be able to tell us apart now, anyway, Mum."
He looked around.
"Hi, Harry-- you are Harry, right?"
"Yeah, I am," said Harry, moving closer to the sofa.
"Well, at least we got you back okay," said George, finally Ron and Tonks arrived after Bill and Fleur,
"Ron was great," said Tonks warmly, relinquishing her hold on Lupin. "Wonderful. Stunned one of the Death Eaters, straight to the head, and when you're aiming at a moving target from a flying broom--"
"You did?" said Hermione, gazing up at Ron with her arms still around his neck.
"Always the tone of surprise," he said a little grumpily, breaking free. "Are we the last back?"
"No," said Ginny, "we're still waiting for Maeve and Moody..."
"She's with Moody, the man is a legend, that man has tackled more Death Eaters than anyone." Bill told them, looking at his brother who was radiating anxiety. "She'll be okay. We are also talking about the girl who went and trained dragons right out of school." He chuckled.
They recounted the stories of their own journeys, but all the time the continued absence of, Mad-Eye, and Maeve seemed to lie upon them like a frost, its icy bite harder and harder to ignore. George was trying to distract Fred as much as possible, and the two just tried to joke about.
"Did anyone see them?" Emmeline asked, "Where were they?"
"They were in the back." Fleet told them, "When we got ambushed.." He paused "I took my eyes off of them for a second. There were so many of them, I just couldn't spot them again."
"Maybe we can go look for them." Melvin said, as he held Julia. She was freaking out, they all were. Moody and Maeve were missing. Everyone left Fred and George in the other room while they discussed what to do next about the missing. They really didn't want the boys to freak out, especially Fred. But then the front door swung open and Maeve stumbled in. Everyone's head snap to the door, and they all froze in shock. Maeve was holding her arm, and she had a gash on her head and she was soaking wet. Nobody spoke, nobody moved. Harry felt as though something inside him was falling, falling through the earth, leaving him forever, just looking at her so beaten up and broken.
"Moody is dead." She told them, "he was hit with a spell and then we lost control of the broom. I fell into a river." Then out of nowhere and to everyone's surprise she started to hysterically laugh. Like uncontrollable laughing. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing. But I watched Moody die. He died in front of my eyes, like right there. I was less than a 4 inches from him, and he died. He looked back at me to tell me to hold on, and then I watched the life get taken out of his eyes. And the bastard could fly, he fucking flew next to our broom." She laughed some more, "and then I fell like hundred feet into a river, A RIVER!" She then looked around her feet, "sorry for the mess Molly, I can mop this all up." and then like before, she began to hysterically laugh, as everyone stared at her in horror. They knew she was in shock, because she was bleeding profusely out of her head, and her arm was definitely broken and she watched a man die. "I'm sorry for laughing i really am, I think I'm just in shock, and my arm is really fucked up. I think hit a rock on my way into the water." Then all of a sudden she stopped laughing.
"Moody died." A tear fell, "right in front of my eyes." Then it hit her all at once, and she let out a sob. Emmeline ran to her, holding her up incase her knees would give out. The twins had heard her laugh from the other room, and as fast as George could stumble in with Fred holding him up, they were smiling at the sound of her laugh, but they were welcomed with a sobbing Maeve.
"What's wrong?" said Fred, scanning their faces as they entered, setting George down in a chair and then running to Maeve's side, "What's happened? Where's--?"
"Mad-Eye," said Mr. Weasley, "Died."
The twins' grins turned to grimaces of shock. Nobody seemed to know what to do. Tonks was crying silently into a handkerchief; she had been close to Mad-Eye. Hagrid, who had sat down on the floor in the corner where he had most space, was dabbing at his eyes with his tablecloth-sized handkerchief.
She looked up to look at everyone in the face for the first time, taking a mental note that everyone was back when saw George, "Merlin! Georgie!" She ran up to him looking at his wrapped up head, completely forgetting the fact that she was holding her broken arm, and her bleeding head.
"Are you okay!?"
"Looks like we're twins now."
"What?" She asked, furrowing her brows
"I lost my ear too. Like when you lost half of yours when you splinched." He laughed, "look." He pulled back the gauze wrapped around his head, to show her his missing ear.
"Thats disgusting." She laughed.
"Says the girl with the mangled arm and bleeding head." He laughed, pointing at her. She lifted her good arm, and flinched when she touched her head. "I guess I am bleeding." Julia jumped up and rushed to Maeve.
"I'll clean you up. Come on." She ushered Maeve to a seat next to George. Fred, Sirius, Emmeline and Remus rushed to her.
"Im fine guys." she groaned, as Julia took her broken arm in her hold.
"Who did it?"
"Good ol' Voldie." She looked up at them with a face of defeat.
"You-know-who?!" Emmeline squealed, "that could of been you, oh my." She became faint, and Molly rushed to her, pushing her into a seat.
"Yeah, he hit him with the killing curse." Maeve told them, "I don't know how, but he could tell I wasn't Harry. I think he saw my wand I guess. He knows what my wand looks like, so he just shot the spell at us and it hit Moody and then we lost control. But he can fly. Voldemort flies, like a fucking bird." She flinched when her bone was reset in her arm. "Sorry for the language, I think it's the shock.."
"Drink this." Julia pushed a potion in her hand.
"I can take you guys to his body." She told them as she drank the potion, "I was able to get him out of the water and bring him to shore. I would of brought him back, I just wasn't strong enough."
"That's okay, Maeve." Remus reminded her.
"How did that happen?" She pointed at George's ear.
"That is the work of Snape." Remus informed them
"He's the one who betrayed us?" Maeve asked in disbelief, looking at her heartbroken mom. She knew her mom was friends with Snape. She also felt a tug in hers, she actually really liked Snape. He was one of her favorite teachers. "He told Voldemort, where we would be?"
"Looks like it..." Everyone took a deep breath.
Bill walked over to the sideboard and pulled out a bottle of fire-whisky and some glasses.
"Here," he said, and with a wave of his wand, he sent twelve full glasses soaring through the room to each of them, holding the thirteenth aloft. "Mad-Eye."
"Mad-Eye," they all said, and drank.
"Mad-Eye," echoed Hagrid, a little late, with a hiccup.
"I think I might need a bit more, Bill." Maeve lifted her empty cup. Everyone let out a weak chuckle.