Chapter 2
"Do you know where we're going?" Harry asked after they had cried their fill. Neither Rebecca nor Harry had voiced the very real possibility of the others, any of the others, having met the same fate as Hedwig.
Rebecca used the shoulder of her jumper to wipe her cheek, trying to find any sort of meaning to the dials on the motorbike. "Vaguely."
Harry sat back in the sidecar and pulled his knees up to his chest. "She-"
"I can't, Harry." Rebecca's breath hitched in her throat. "Not yet."
Harry opted to sit in silence.
Later, after they had continued in the direction they had been in for the better part of what seemed like ages, the motorcycle dropped in the air before sputtering back to life far weaker than it had been before.
It scared Rebecca and Harry to startle and Hagrid was roused from his stupor. Shaking the grogginess from him and then moving Rebecca back into the sidecar, Hagrid kicked the bike to a higher power to get them back on track. The gauges that meant nothing to Rebecca told Hagrid that they had veered too far eastward.
The sky ahead had a sheen to it, a shielded bubbly look. Their transport passed through it as if it were nothing but a thick fog. Once their visibility cleared, the Burrow was ahead with its lights on to act as a beacon for those who were on their way.
Hagrid wrangled the bike into a lower gear as a compromise when it tried to cut out again. The bike cooperated, but only barely. "Hold on, you two!" Hagrid shouted. "She's not gonna behave!"
Hagrid tried to ease their landing, but slammed into one of the ponds along the outskirts of the hill near the house. The water poured up over the edge, drenching Harry and Rebecca as they held onto each other tightly. The bike revved and bounced along that pond before skidding to a sinking stop in the middle.
Hagrid swung his massive leg off and held a hand out to Harry. The water only reached up to the half-giant's thighs. Rebecca knew the water would be deeper for them compared to Hagrid, but she didn't expect it to go up to Harry's shoulders. Harry put her arm over his shoulders to keep her head well above where the water went for him until they made it to dry land.
"Rebecca?" Molly shouted as she and Ginny ran off the porch where they had been anxiously waiting the return of anyone. "Harry?" She stopped in front of them and wiped off Rebecca's face and then Harry's. "What happened? Where are the others?" Molly looked up to Hagrid for answers with fear not-yet masked.
"No one else is back?" Rebecca asked softly, looking behind Ginny as if the others were hiding.
"They were on us right from the start, Molly." Hagrid shook his head. "We didn't stand a chance. The Death Eaters were waiting for us."
Molly cupped the cheeks of the soaked twins. "At least you two are alright, yeah? Come, get warm up here."
"It was an ambush..." Hagrid's retelling railed away as he and Molly began to walk back towards the house. The three others stayed where they were, Rebecca's eyes scanning the sky in the direction they and Hagrid had come from.
Ginny had run back to the house only for towels, and she offered one to Harry and Rebecca both. Rebecca didn't notice, too focused, but Harry took it gratefully. "Ron and Tonks should've already been back." Ginny's eyes flickered to Rebecca and then back to Harry nervously. "Fred and dad, too."
There was a crack of someone apparating to their right and Remus' voice called out for help. Out from the tall grass came Remus stumbling with a bleeding Harry-copy hung over his shoulder. Sirius was close behind him with an equally unconscious Rebecca-copy over his shoulder.
"Here!" Remus shouted. "Into the house!"
Hagrid helped Remus settled the bleeding body onto the couch while Rebecca took the other half of the body Sirius dragged nearby.
"Who is it?" Rebecca asked again. Sirius hadn't answered the first time she asked and it was sending her heart racing. The second they had settled her copy onto the chair near the bleeding Harry, Rebecca held onto Sirius tightly and shouted over the chaos breaking out. "WHO IS IT?"
Molly gasped as the potions wore off. The sound was distraction enough for Remus to grab Rebecca and shove her back into the wall beside the fireplace next to Harry, his wand held at the two of them.
Remus shushed Ginny's interjection and pushed his wand closer to Harry's neck.
Rebecca ignored this, watching as the image of her body on the chair turned back into Cedric. The Harry who had been bleeding so heavily turned back into George. There was a gaping, jagged wound on the side of his head. Where his ear had been was nothing but gore.
"What creature sat in the corner the first time Harry visited my office in Hogwarts?" Remus demanded of Harry.
"Are you mad?" Harry shouted, reaching up to force the wand out of his face.
"What creature?!" Remus shouted over him.
Rebecca tried to step forward. It sounded like they were underwater, or maybe just she was. All she knew was that she needed to be at George's side and she wasn't. Remus slammed her back besides Harry, but kept his attention on him.
"A-a grindylow!" Harry answered, but not before pushing Remus' hand off Rebecca.
Remus turned away from Harry and narrowed his sights on Rebecca. Sirius stepped forward and shook his head. There was an absence behind Rebecca's eyes, one that frightened Sirius where Harry's anger reassured him.
"We've been betrayed." Remus said forcefully.
"Not by them." Sirius laid a hand on Rebecca's shoulder gently. "Hey, can you hear me?"
Rebecca's eyes slid over to him, the man in front of her, but all she couldn't see him. All she could see was Molly trying to wash away enough blood to see the extent of the damage.
"Rebecca?" Sirius brought his hand to her cheek. "You asked me once how to say something in French. Do you remember?" Rebecca nodded. "What was it?"
"What I wanted or what you told me?"
Sirius took his hand from her face and released her from Remus' inspection. Rebecca fell forward, kneeling next to Molly. The women worked together to clean him up so that Molly could identify where the bleeding was the worst.
Remus and Sirius spoke heatedly until Cedric stirred. Before he could see his surroundings, before he even knew he was back in his own body, Cedric was on his feet with his fists up to fight in the battle he had already been taken from.
Ginny tried to step closer to him, but Harry put himself between the two of them in case Cedric swung. Harry grabbed Cedric by the shoulders and waited for him to realise that he was safe.
Cedric looked around wildly for George. He had been hit before Cedric was and Cedric's darkness had only been broken up by images of George's bloodied look of fear back to him. When Cedric saw the state of his love, he fell to his knees and only moved when Rebecca motioned for him to put the pile of clean rags closer.
Cedric took over Rebecca's contribution, able to help despite the tears he couldn't keep away. George had looked to him because Cedric was supposed to have been able to save him, to keep him safe. Cedric's failure nearly cost George his life.
Remus addressed the room from beside Sirius. "Voldemort knew they were being moved tonight. I had to make sure they weren't imposters."
The sound of more apparation arrivals were all that could bring Rebecca from the end of the couch George was across.
Sirius held her back, even when she fought against him to see who had made it. When she saw that it was Kingsley, the fight drained out of her so thoroughly, she wasn't sure how she stayed on her feet.
Remus and Kingsley held their wands up at each other and Kingsley initiated the identity check. "What were the last words Albus Dumbledore spoke to the pair of us?"
"They are our best hope. Trust in that." Remus sighed in relief. The source of the leak wasn't here.
Kingsley lowered his wand and looked at the Potter twins. He had seen Death Eaters trailing after Hagrid and the motorbike, but he had been too enveloped in the fighting to assist. "What gave you away?"
"Hedwig, I think." Harry answered. "She was trying-she protected us."
Rebecca watched as Hermione went through a similar, albeit calmer, check to theirs.
Another appearance, two sets of thestrals. One had Bill and Fleur sliding off and the other had Tonks and Ron. At his return, Hermione wrapped her arm around Ron's neck tightly. Their groups had been separated.
"He deserves that!" Tonks called out, wiping the blood dripping down from a cut on her forehead. Sirius reached up to put the pressure on it that Tonks should have been already. "Brilliant, he was. I wouldn't be standing here without him."
Ron blushed at the compliment and Hermione looked him up and down. "Really?"
"Always the tone of surprise." Ron remarked cheekily. The absence of Rebecca's joining of his laughter made him look her over, made Ron notice the withdrawal of her self. "Fred back? George?"
"Not Fred." Rebecca's face crumpled only for a second, then she was back in control. "He's coming. I know it." Rebecca stepped away from Harry's attempt at comforting her, shaking her head once. "They're coming!"
Rebecca not needing him hurt Harry far deeper than he could ever voice, but Hermione and Ron knew that their friends needed different things when facing emotions such as these. Both accepted Harry's desperate hug happily while they gave Rebecca space for her to make the first move.
Hardly a minute had passed before two more appeared in the far side of the clearing. Time enough had passed that the potions had worn off for all administerances and Fred was trailing behind Arthur.
"Are we the last ones back?" Fred called, his eyes already having settled on Rebecca. With them, his heart settled too. She ran through the space between them, flew almost, and she held him with a need he reciprocated entirely. "Where's George?"
Rebecca let go of him and tried to find the words she needed, tried to find any words. Her silence said more than she ever could have and Fred grabbed her hand and ran into the house where everyone was congregating.
Cedric was still kneeling at the side of the couch, holding his hands around one of George's. Molly was sitting precariously alongside George's legs, rubbing Cedric's back and speaking to him gently.
Fred took the open space by George's head and brushed the hair off his forehead gently. The wound was covered but underneath George's ear was gone entirely. Fred lowered his forehead to George's chest and tried to console himself with the fact that his brother was alive. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes all the same. His brother was alive, but hurt.
The room took a collective breath as George stirred for the first time.
Fred lifted his head instantly, looking to George. "Georgie? How are you feeling?"
Cedric leaned closer to hear, hoping that hearing George's voice would pull him away from the abyss his mind hovered near.
"Saint-like."
Fred ran his eyes over George's face and felt his stomach fall. He had not expected, considered, or prepared himself for brain damage. "Come again?"
"Saint-like." George repeated. He looked from Fred to Cedric and back again. "I'm holy." For the punchline, he found Rebecca. "I'm holey, get it?"
A hysterical laugh escaped Fred before he could contain it. "The whole wide world of ear-related humour and you go with 'I'm holy?' That's pathetic."
Rebecca turned away from the couch and its inhabitants. Their calmness and relief was not contagious. Harry looked up from a short distance down the room and nodded, though Rebecca was moving towards him before he had even agreed. He held the back of her head as she buried her face into his neck and Harry began to whisper comforts.
Rebecca couldn't understand anything over the panic washing up over her like a tidal wave.
"I reckon I'm still better looking than you." George whispered. His eyes were growing heavier and heavier. Cedric kissed the back of George's hand and squeezed it gently.
Fred went up to one knee and paused, patting George's arm. "You always were." All the way to his feet, Fred found Rebecca in the room behind him so easily, it was like she was illuminated.
Harry would never have admitted it, but he was almost relieved that Fred stepped up behind Rebecca. The strength in which she was holding onto Harry scared him, made him feel like he was all that was keeping her rooted to the ground. Harry wanted to be there for her, but then he was afraid that he wasn't enough.
Fred wrapped his arms entirely around Rebecca and let her hold herself against his chest a moment before speaking. "Do you remember what you told me after you scared the hell out of me saving someone?"
Rebecca shook her head.
Fred held her all the tighter and directed her ear towards his heart. "It beats, I'm here, I'm alive. We can't worry about the what-ifs when we're together."
"That sounds like something I'd say." Rebecca murmured after his words healed parts inside of her that had been wounded. "It's smart."
Fred chuckled and went to respond, but Bill cleared his throat for the room's attention.
"Mad-Eye's dead." He said. "Mundungus got one look of Voldemort and disapparated, but I saw Mad-Eye fall."
The room muttered amongst themselves quietly at the news, shifting around in their groupings for the most part. Fred and Rebecca stayed where they were on the outskirts of Ginny, Harry, Hermione, and Ron, and the adults. The other was all that they needed at the moment.
The downfall, Rebecca and Fred discovered hours later, to having the attic as a room was a long day. The stairs seemed so much taller and so many more in number than at the day's beginning.
Downstairs the clock, the clock with each Weasley child photographed and charmed onto a spoon, chimed. It was twelve o'clock. Harry and Rebecca's birthday had arrived and they were now of legal age to perform magic outside of Hogwarts.
Rebecca apparated up the stairs after Fred did and laid out her things for the next day--the wedding. The dress Molly had finished the week before was hung on the back of the door, and Rebecca couldn't help but remember the conversation Molly and Arthur had had when Fred questioned their being able to have a room all to themselves.
"You're going to sleep in each other's beds one way or the other," Molly had said with a little smile, a knowing smile. "This way takes out the extra room."
Fred sighed and hung his trousers in front of his shirt for the morning. "You know what has to happen now, right?"
Rebecca looked at him curiously through the mirror over the drawers they shared and continued to brush her hair. "We go to sleep because it's midnight and we have-"
"Oh," Fred tutted and shook his head, moving so he stood behind her. "My sweet, empty-headed love-"
"Hey!"
Fred bent down and kissed her cheek before scooping her up into his arms and carrying her to their bed. "You need birthday kisses."
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Harry had a frightening dream. He had to watch as Ron was murdered, as Hermione was tortured, as Rebecca was dragged away from him. It sent him sitting straight up in his bed with a decision solidified in his mind. He was seventeen now, he was an adult and could make his own decisions.
That's what he told himself as he slipped his clothes and shoes on and found the backpack he had brought from the Dursleys. The Burrow was still asleep in the early hours of the morning and although he was usually a heavy sleeper, Ron woke up at the feeling of something being off in his room. Discovering Harry to be missing, he ran out of the house and saw that Harry had barely made it down the drive.
"Going somewhere?" Ron called without lowering his voice, jogging after him.
Harry stopped and stared ahead a moment before turning to face Ron. "No one else is going to die. No one else is going to get hurt. Not for me."
"For you?" Ron asked incredulously as Harry turned and took another step away from the Burrow. "You think Mad-Eye died for you? You think George took that curse for you?" Ron grabbed Harry by the straps of his backpack and held him at arm's length away. "I'd die for you in a second, a heartbeat. Rebecca, too. But I'm not doing this for you. No one is doing for either of you."
"Come with me." Harry offered. "We can go right now. Leave the girls and go."
"Leave Hermione?" Ron shuddered. "I don't even want to know how they'd react. Rebecca...bloody hell, Harry. She'd hunt us down and with Hermione's help? They would find us!" Ron shook his head, thinking about it a second longer. "You're mad anyway. We wouldn't last two days without her--without either of them." He glanced back at the house. "And, we've still got the wedding-"
"I don't care about the wedding. I don't care. We have to start finding these horcruxes. They are our only chance to beat him and the longer we stay, the stronger he gets!"
"Don't act like that's why you're leaving." Ron released Harry and crossed his arms. "You're scared."
Harry didn't refute or deny the accusation.
"You're scared of something happening to Rebecca like what did to George and I'll tell you what mate, that's fucked up." Ron wanted to shake Harry by the neck, but he kept his hands to himself. "Everyone is scared. But tonight's not the night. No one is going anywhere yet."
Harry's resolve was crushed as the first sob broke from him. He put his arms around Ron and cried. Cried because he was too weak to leave on his own. Cried because he didn't see any possible way for him to do their mission without the people most important people to him putting their lives at risk. Cried for his owl.
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Rebecca made her way down the stairs the next morning as she every day, fairly early. A banner hung over the archway leading into the kitchen that had been knitted to say "Bill and Fleur" in cursive and she smiled a little smile as she remembered the important role she had had in helping Molly with it: yarn holder.
Behind the Burrow, in the expanse outside of the fenced garden, were the sounds of Arthur shouting for Fred, Bill, and Ron to raise their points of the tent evenly. Harry came down the stairs a few minutes later with his tie untied in his hand.
Rebecca set her tea down to take it from him. She slid it under his collar and had it tied in seconds.
"Why did you give Hermione such a storm if you're so good at it?" Harry questioned as he sipped from her tea.
Rebecca shrugged and took her cup back from him before it was emptied. "I guess because she made such a storm."
Harry looked at Rebecca more closely and complimented her. The dress had originally been an old one of Molly's, but it had undergone heavy tailoring. Molly had brought the hem up so that it danced across Rebecca's knees when she walked and the sleeves, which had been longer, had been shortened to billow out at her elbows.
Rebecca looked down at herself and thanked him before tugging on his tie with a cheeky smile. Harry's revenge was stopped by the entrance of Sirius and Remus who had arrived early to help set up.
"I actually need some of your help upstairs, Sirius." Rebecca put her cup near the sink and went towards the stairs she brought Sirius up.
"What can I assist with, favourite goddaughter." Sirius looked around the bathroom she had stopped in. "I must admit, I am a little lost and that is a rare occurrence."
Rebecca reached into a drawer and pulled out Molly's scissors.
Sirius jumped back and held his hands in front of his face. "No! Don't come any closer!"
Rebecca's hands went to her sides, the scissors held tightly at the outburst. "They're not for you?"
"Oh," Sirius sighed in relief. "Okay."
"Why would I tell you to cut your hair?"
"Moony's been begging me to get it trimmed, but I think it's all a front." Sirius laughed softly as Rebecca put a towel over her shoulders and sat on the stool she had put in the tub before he had even arrived. "The man knows how to braid, I tell you that."
Rebecca reached up for the bottom of her hair and raised her fingers up to a line that went above her shoulders. "Just hack it off."
Sirius ran his fingers through it and frowned. "I don't know...shouldn't Molly be here?"
"It'll be harder to grab, if it's short." Rebecca said softly. "We'll be leaving anytime now and I would have asked Fred to, but...I don't know."
Sirius couldn't argue with her reasoning and began to cut her hair without haste. He was well aware of the labour Molly had planned for the morning and Sirius was more than happy to get out of as much as possible. "Why didn't you?" He asked curiously.
"Because I care what he thinks." Rebecca sighed after hearing her own answer aloud. "Though, I guess that's not really it. He tells me what he thinks of me every day."
Sirius leaned forward with a raised eyebrow.
"It's always good." Rebecca reassured.
"Good." Sirius nodded once. He knew that that would have been what Fred had for Rebecca anyway, what Fred would always have for her. "That's important, you know. I have Remus on a strict compliment regimen, four times a day."
Rebecca laughed. As the hair at the bottom of the tub increased, she grew more serious. "We don't really talk about how we'll be leaving. If we don't talk about it, I think we can pretend it's not happening."
Sirius worked in silence a few minutes, locks continuing to fall. "I'm so sorry this is happening again."
Rebecca turned to see him. "A haircut?"
Sirius smacked the back of her head lightly.
"Yeah, yeah." Rebecca closed her eyes. "I am, too."
Sirius asked a few questions about how things had been going and then about what they had packed. The subject of the mirror came up.
"I'm not bringing it." Rebecca said as she stood up. Sirius waved his wand so that the hair formed a pile and put itself into the trash can while she continued to answer. "If they find out there's a way to see us, even as small as a compact, they'll kill to find it to use it."
Sirius gave her a sad smile. "Smart as your mother."
Rebecca looked at herself in the mirror and was shocked at the image staring back at her. "And as good looking as my godfather." Her hair was inches shorter than it had been, just long enough to tuck behind her ears. Before, it wouldn't have been hard for someone to have grabbed her hair if she were running. Now, it would have been far harder to do so.
Sirius grinned and put the scissors back into the drawer he had seen her take them out of, nodding at his handiwork. "That is correct!"
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Downstairs, Harry looked up from the paper he had been flipping through at the sound of footsteps hurrying down the stairs. Expecting Rebecca, Harry leaned forward to try and see what it was that she had needed Sirius' help for.
The person was, in fact, not Rebecca. Ginny held her hair over her shoulder and smiled at it being Harry downstairs and not someone else. "Will you?" She turned her back to him and revealed that the dress she was wearing needed zipping.
Harry dropped the paper back onto the counter and realised that if this was an option, he suddenly didn't care about the different accounts of people who had known 'the real Dumbledore.'
Ginny glanced over her shoulder at Harry as his hands brushed against the smooth skin at the bottom of her back and he looked down sheepishly but continued to 'fumble' for the zipper's handle.
"It seems silly, a wedding, doesn't it?" Ginny asked. "Given everything that's going on?"
Harry had said the same thing hours earlier, but he found a change of heart if it meant getting to see Ginny in the dress she was in. "Maybe that's the best reason to have it. Everything that's going on."
Ginny, now zipped to the top, turned to face Harry and laid one hand on his chest. With the other, she pulled him into a deep kiss by his tie.
George and Cedric crept in to not interrupt them. George, who had been brushing his teeth and accidentally brought his toothbrush downstairs, stuck it into the numb hole still bandaged. Cedric poured their tea and George tapped their cups together.
"Morning." George intoned slowly as he gave Ginny a wink. Cedric raised his eyebrows over the edge of his cup as he drank, but said nothing.
Rebecca and Sirius made their way back down the stairs just as Harry ducked around the corner with flaming cheeks. He would rather help than be put under a microscope after a snog.
"You do something different?" George tilted his head at Rebecca, smiling at her haircut.
Rebecca, just as Harry had done to her, took the tea cup out of George's hand and drank some. "Funny new hat you've got on, isn't it?" She traced her hand around her head like his bandage.
George bowed his head to accept the stalemate and pointed out the back door after his tea was returned to him. "He's out there, if you were looking."
"Who?" Rebecca asked over her shoulder. The jest was meaningless as she was already halfway out the door on her way to find Fred.
"All together now!" Arthur directed the last minute adjustments before the tent was raised officially. "One...two...three!"
Rebecca stood out of the way and watched Fred focus on the task at hand. His arm extended out in front of him and proved that his time away from the Quidditch pitch had not affected him at all. The sun cast a shadow across his face and made the bridge of his nose the boundary of a perfect silhouette. Rebecca's heart beat a little faster thinking about him.
"How's it looking down your end, boys?" Arthur called to Bill and Fred's end of the tent.
"Brilliant!" Bill answered before nudging Fred to turn his attention towards where Rebecca stood.
"Oh!" Fred gasped, walking to her the second the tent had been charmed in place. He had already seen her in her dress that morning, but he was breathless all the same. "You..."
"Yeah, just a little."
"A little?" Fred brushed his hands against the tops of her now uncovered shoulders.
"Too much?" Rebecca asked carefully.
Fred looked her over one last time before pulling her into a fierce kiss. "You are stunning." He added, as if his physical answer wasn't clear enough. "Always have been, always will be."
Rebecca pulled him back into their kiss and brought her arms up around the back of his neck.
Fred stammered when he pulled back, still in awe of her. "Bloody hell, you-I can't even-" He kissed her again, tilting her to the side slightly with a hand firmly at the base of her spine and one behind her shoulders. Her haircut was almost dangerously appealing to him.
"What's the Minister of Magic doing here?" Ron asked, coming up beside them entirely oblivious to what he was interrupting.
Rebecca leaned away from Fred's lips. "Fudge?" Fred let her back onto her feet, but kept her in his arms.
"The current Minister." Rufus Scrimgeour corrected. "I'm looking for a Miss Granger, Mister Potter, Miss Potter Weasley, and Mister Weasley?" An array of heads looked up at the last called-for name. "Mister Ronald Weasley?" Scrimgeour corrected.
Ron stayed where he was as Hermione and Ron had joined he, Fred, and Rebecca.
"To what do we owe the pleasure, Minister?" Harry asked with a coldness to his tone that was uncharacteristic.
Scrimgeour had been persistent in his attempts at getting Rebecca and Harry to side with the Ministry in the investigations taking place around Dumbledore and the goodness of his character. Rebecca had refused so emphatically and with such an extensive choice of vocabulary at being a puppet for them, she hadn't been asked again. Harry, who hadn't been as wordy, was the Potter twin that Scrimgeour looked in the eye.
"I think we both know the answer to that." The Minister answered, though no one knew.
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Bill and Fred were sat at one of the tables that had already been set up under the tent outside while the Minister took over the living room for his private business with the seventeen year olds. Bill looked from the little box Fred had opened towards him to his brother. "You've really done it now." He warned.
"Really?" Fred let out a sigh of relief. "I'm so nervous I think I'm going to drop."
Bill laughed loudly. "Why?"
Fred closed the box and returned it to his pocket. "I don't know. She could always say no."
"She could." Bill nodded. "She could ask you to wait, too."
Fred considered that. "Whatever happens, I want it to be us together. Forever."
Bill clasped his hand to Fred's shoulder tightly. "And it will be no matter the answer. Don't let a formality be all that you hinge that on, let it be something more important. Do you know what I'm saying?"
Fred stared at his older brother and was suddenly overwhelmingly aware how long it had been since he had been the adolescent who had slipped he and George the acid pop to give to toddler-Ron so many years ago. "Yeah, I do."
And that was how Fred found himself cornering both Remus and Sirius, and Arthur minutes later--while the other four were still inside. "So...I-erm, I wanted to...I need to-I should ask you all, I guess-"
"Rebecca was right." Sirius spoke up as Fred's stammering continued. "No wonder she had to say yes before he asked."
"What was that for again, dear?" Remus played along.
"Let's see, there was the ball, dating, kissi-"
"Rebecca told you all that?" Fred's voice jumped, not sure what else Sirius would have listed.
"Yes." Sirius smiled and put his arm around Remus' waist. "Which is why there's no argument from us. She has never been anything but honest and in that honesty, is love. Arthur?"
Arthur wiped a tear from his cheek where it had run down without permission. "My kids are so old."
Fred was brought into a tight hug from his father for a long, long time.
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Rufus Scrimgeour had asked them all to take a seat on the opposite side of the table in the living room and then proceeded to not look at any of them until the velvet parcel he carried in was unwrapped.
"And you're here because..." Rebecca caught a thrill when he gave her a dirty look. Annoying someone as high up as the Minister of Magic had such a strange appeal.
Scrimgeour reached into his bag and took out a scroll he unfolded and began to read from. "Herein is set forth the last will and testament of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. First, to Ronald Bilius Weasley, I leave my deluminator. A device of my own making in the hope that when things seem most dark, it will show him the light."
Ron reached out for the little mechanism held out to him and inspected it carefully. "Dumbledore left this for me?"
Scrimgeour moved on without answering. "To Hermione Jean Granger, I leave my copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard in the hope she find it entertaining and instructive."
Ron smiled at the book Hermione took fondly. "Mum used to read me those. 'The Wizard and the Hopping Pot.' 'Babbity Rabbity and the Cackling Stump.'"
Rebecca looked to Harry to see if he recognised them, but he didn't either.
"Babbity Rabbity?" Ron gasped. "Come on!"
Scrimgeour sighed in disbelief. How was it that this was where he, the Minister of Magic, was to spend his morning. "To Harry James Potter, I leave the snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match at Hogwarts, as a reminder of the rewards of perseverance and skill."
Harry took the snitch and remembered the match, how he had dove for it off of his broom.
"And, finally, Rebecca Potter Weasley." Scrimgeour glanced up as she whispered to Hermione.
"Did he seriously not know my middle name?"
Scrimgeour cleared his throat for their attention. "I leave you a rendering of my own, after your successes with the charm. May the memory remind you of how far you have come, and how far you have to go."
Rebecca took the sheet of tile warily, not sure what memory Dumbledore would have found so important he had to give it to her in its physical form. She frowned and felt the pull of the past try to bring her back to the night in the image.
"Is that-"
"It was the night I slipped and got caught." Rebecca answered Harry's question with a flatness to her voice that they all could hear, no matter how slight it was. "This was the first night."
Dumbledore had projected the memory outside of himself so that he was in the image, a younger but still old version of himself was seated at Weasley's table alongside Arthur and Molly. With chairs between them, Rebecca sat as gaunt, frightened, and dirty as she had been nearly eight years earlier.
"Why did he-" Rebecca tried to ask why Dumbledore would leave this for her, but Scrimgeour took advantage of the opportunity to cut off the thorn in his side.
"I am only allowed to read what is on the paper, girl."
Rebecca rolled her eyes and moved to stand up. There was more to do before the guests started to arrive and she would have rather been nearly anywhere else at the moment. "That's it then?"
"Not quite." A flash of irritation crossed Scrimgeour's face. "Dumbledore left a second bequest--the sword of Godric Gryffindor. Unfortunately, the sword of Godric Gryffindor was not Dumbledore's to give away. As an important historical artifact, it belongs-"
"To whom it was given." Hermione interrupted. "It came to Harry when he most needed it in the Chamber of Secrets."
"The sword may present itself to any worthy Gryffindor, Miss Granger." Scrimgeour corrected snootily. "That does not make it that wizard's property. And, in any event, the current whereabouts of the sword ar unknown."
"Excuse me?" Ron demanded.
"How the hell did you manage to lose a bloody bejeweled sword?" Rebecca asked with a laugh.
Scrimgeour glared at Rebecca as he spoke. The origin of his headache had surely come from such a foul mouthed pain. "I don't know what you're up to, Potter, but you can't fight this war on your own. He's too strong. You should rely on the Ministry."
Rebecca leaned forward and put her hands on the table. She had spent too much time with this tosser on a day such as that. "It's Potter Weasley and fuck you."
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