Chapter 18
"Come forth, Rebecca. The Hallows accept you."
The woman was tall, taller than anyone Rebecca had ever met not descended from giant's. Rebecca had to crane her neck to see her face. She was beautiful. Her skin was darker than a night without stars, her hair darker yet.
The ceremonial tone left her voice. "I thought I would wait much longer to meet you." She mused.
"I-I don't know if that's a compliment." Rebecca left her frozen friends and walked towards the stranger. "Who are you?"
The woman waver her hand in front of them and produced a bench from the rubble. She sat and motioned beside her for Rebecca to join. "It is a compliment of the highest order, my dear. I have not given it to many. And believe you me, I have met many." The woman looked to Rebecca's eyes, showing a knowledge inside that spanned millenia. "I am Death."
Rebecca had always thought Death would be cloaked in black, carrying a scythe, creeping around and appearing when most unwanted. This Death just seemed sad and alone. "What can Master of Death do?" Rebecca cut to the chase.
This was a once in a lifetime--or deathtime--opportunity, but she didn't want to hear the ruminations of a spirit. She wanted time to resume. It was terrifyingly quiet with the world not moving around her.
Death did not answer at first, prompting Rebecca to speak again.
"That's the end of the story, I remember. 'One who possesses the Death Hallows becomes Master of Death.' What can I do?" Her voice was heavy and frail. A lot rested on Death's answer.
"Master of Death is a bit of a misnomer." Death spoke carefully. "Nothing can truly master the inevitable end."
"I don't want to play games!" Rebecca cried out, holding out the stone and the cloak. "I want..." She took a breath. "I offer you two of the Hallows. I offer you two of the means in which you have been cheated for centuries."
"Only two?" Death sat back. "I imagine there's a reasoning for not offering me three."
"This," Rebecca held the Elder Wand tighter. "This will not be returned to you. I will not be returned to anyone. I-I'll destroy it when I'm through. It has too much power. Too much for the world. It's caused enough pain and loss already."
"I knew that when I made it." Death stared ahead, her voice growing solemn. Rebecca studied the profile of the woman beside her, not expecting grief to be a feeling for Death. "I told Ignotus Peverell that no good comes from being the most powerful, from being the strongest. He did not listen. He paid his price." Death reached out for the stone and the cloak.
"They don't come freely." Rebecca pulled the items back. "You've taken too many, too much has been lost during this battle. Bring back all those who died for this school, for the good of our world. Put them back in their bodies and return them as they were."
Death turned her gaze to Rebecca, her face revealing nothing. "It is impossible, I-"
"It is not impossible!" Rebecca shouted, standing up. "I've done it with my bare hands! You can bloody well do it for two Hallows!"
Death stood and rest her hands on Rebecca's upper arms, looking down to her. Death's hands were cold, colder than anything Rebecca had ever felt in her life. It was as if ice flowed through Death's veins. "Let me finish, child." Her voice was not sharp, it was endlessly calm. "It is impossible, I cannot bring them back. I can only take life--my curse to bare."
Rebecca's eyes fluttered closed. The grief inside her expanded and grew. If Death could not return the fallen...
"You can return them." Death brought her face to Rebecca's cheek and left a frozen kiss on it. "You can bring them back. You know the way. You know what to do."
"What?" Rebecca tried to reach out, tried to hold onto the woman in front of her who was slowly starting to fade away. "Stay, please! You can have these! Ju-just help me! Tell me what I need to do!"
Death left as quickly as she had come, leaving Rebecca in the moment she had taken hold of the Deathly Hallows. Time did not resume, which was a momentary blessing. She fell to the ground and held the Deathly Hallows close as she sobbed, as she broke. The hope that had filled her at Draco's proposal waned.
The pain welled up inside of her like she had been stabbed with the cursed blade again, this time in her heart. The feeling twisted and left her empty of everything else. She felt as if she could feel something inside of her dying with every breath. The depths of her loss threatened to take over.
"Come..."
Rebecca looked up as a presence brushed against her mind.
"You must hurry...come..."
The voice stilled her crying, quieted her anguish and agony.
Rebecca stood quickly, turning towards the Forbidden Forest and pushing herself into a stumbling run until she had her footing.
She knew that voice. She knew that presence.
Rebecca ran past Tom Riddle's body without a glance as she passed by it. He died as any human would, despite the inhumanity he had subjected his soul to. Through all his efforts to the contrary, Death had taken him too.
The exhaustion Rebecca felt, the weakness from battle and fighting, washed away with the heat that grew inside of her.
The Hallows wanted her to continue on. Her legs moved as if the ground underneath her was propelling her along. The very air seemed to push her forward.
The path Rebecca had taken to Wilhomena's tree appeared as it always did, a faint glowing pathway through the forest she now knew only she could see. The path had been revealed to other witches and wizards over the years, Regulus included among them, but she was the only one to have come as far as she had with the prophecy.
The clearing with the ancient, knotted-roots tree was empty. The areas of the forest that had been ravaged by battle were much closer to the castle. The strengthening of the magic in the air, the heat of it and the warning of it, kept all inhabitants of the forest away.
Mostly. A single unicorn circled the clearing unable to penetrate the thick shield that surrounded the heart of the forest.
Rebecca breathed in the warm air of the clearing; it was warm and charged with electricity--like a summer storm making its way towards the Burrow. She was the only person who would be granted clearance and faced no resistance. The air seemed to crackle wherever she moved.
"I'm here." Rebecca spoke aloud, her voice cutting through the tree's semi-consciousness and the emptiness all those she held in her branches had been subjected to. Their souls were kept, invisibly, under her leafy cover. "Wilhomena? I'm here."
"There isn't time. Lay your hands on my roots and-" Wilhomena's voice cut out before it returned weaker than it had been before. "You were right. I will not fail you as I have the rest."
Rebecca put the Resurrection Stone in her pocket and wrapped her hands around the roots of the tree tightly. She funnelled power into Wilhomena as she had before, imagining she was sliding something tangible across a great table and into the spirit's lap.
Wilhomena's eyes opened within the tree bark, feeling the immense power soar through her.
Those who had perished fighting, those who had died in the wreckage, they felt the jolt of power. Their dark, lonely consciousnesses began to tumble through time and space, their souls moving in the land of in between they had remained in from the moment of their death towards the realm of the living.
Rebecca's hair whipped around as a wind picked up through the clearing. The trees of the forest whistled with the force of the gusts.
"When you let go, I must too." Wilhomena's voice echoed in Rebecca's head, the loudest it had ever been. "It is my time. I wish to be with my son once more. My mission is through, the hero of the forest has won, you have brought about the end of ends. Their ends."
"Was that-" Rebecca bowed her head. "Is-if those are-"
"You will not get this chance again, not ever." Wilhomena's voice was permeated with sadness. "That is the cost. Your gift will leave as I do."
"I would have given it up." Rebecca spoke urgently, not caring or even realising that the souls of the lost would hear her speak. She only knew that she needed Wilhomena to understand before the woman was gone. "I would have given anything up. I would give my life, if it meant-if it brought him back." Rebecca paused, understanding the prophecy in a moment of clarity. "'The cost one cannot comprehend?' I know what it means now. There isn't anything I wouldn't give, there isn't a cost I wouldn't pay. What I would do for him, for them all, is incomprehensible."
"Go." Wilhomena's eyes closed a long moment before opening once more. "I can hear him." Her voice was thick with emotion. Relief, happiness, epace. Wilhomena was ready to enter eternity as her friends, as her people had centuries before. "My son--I can hear him calling for me. I have not heard him in so long..."
Rebecca waited until the last trace of the Woman in the Wood left the clearing. The tree with markings strangely resembling a face, was now just that. A tree with a face.
The magic keeping the unicorn out of the clearing dissipated and he stormed in, prancing and raising up on his hind feet. Rebecca recognised him, her first returned-soul.
The unicorn touched his horn to her arm. "Two-legs! What has happened? The unicorns, we sense great movements within the spirit world."
"I have to get back to the castle, my friend." Rebecca laid her hand on his face, her hand matching with the print she had left eight years earlier. "As quickly as possible."
"I have said before--for you gave me my life back--I will serve you in anyway that I can for as long as we both shall live."
"No more. You will serve no one. I only ask that you bring me to the castle. Then we are equals."
"I will never understand the workings of the two-legs." The unicorn lowered his head and let her climb onto his back. "Hold on. You did say as quickly as possible."
*******************************************
Time resumed at the exact moment the shield around Wilhomena's tree vanished.
The dead sat up from their piles, their bodies healed to the point of holding life inside once more. The living circled around those they thought they had lost and held them close, confused beyond comprehension but daring not question anything.
Screams filled the Great Hall, first in fear, then relief.
Molly had been sitting next to her Fred, her eyes stuck on her lost child. Her baby boy who wrote to her every week while he was at school. Her baby boy who always had such a mischievous look on his face. Her baby boy who would never grow into the entirety of the man he was becoming. She stroked his hair and let her tears fall. She was mourning everything that had been and everything that would never be.
When his eyes opened and looked into hers, her heart danced a dangerous beat. When he spoke, her hands flew to her mouth.
"Mum?"
*******************************************
Harry, looking where Rebecca had been, turned in a panic. To them, Rebecca seemed to disappear in a single second. Draco whirled around too, finding Ron and Hermione joining them as confused as they were. Both had seen what had been going on, and seen Rebecca blip out of existence.
"Wher-where did she go?" Ron demanded. "She was right there!"
"She-" Nigel's hands held the side of his head, backing up slowly with sheer panic written across his face. "I killed Rebecca."
"No, you didn't!" Draco countered sharply, the same thought having just passed through his mind.
Louis' mouth hung open and his face had lost all colour. "We just killed Rebecca."
"No one killed her!" Draco shouted, running a hand over his face. The first screams sounded out from inside, screams that quickly turned to celebration. "She did it." He whispered, a breathy laugh following his exclamation as he stepped towards the Great Hall. "She did it!" Draco broke into a run, needing to see for his own eyes.
Harry followed after him, Hermione and Ron alongside Louis, Yara, and Nigel.
"She did what?" Ron demanded, grabbing Harry's arm to make him explain. "What's he going on about? Where did Rebecca-" Ron froze in his tracks, his hands trembling at who was in front of him. "Fr-"
"Where is she?"
*******************************************
"May your tribe find the sweetest fruit." Rebecca wished, the saying bubbling up from their mental merging as he had taken her to the castle.
"May your tribe never be short of foals." The unicorn turned away, not finding anything wrong with exchanging a unicorn-tradition with a two-legs. With that particular two-legs.
Rebecca ran down the bridge that joined Hogwarts to the Forbidden Forest. She could already hear the uproar from inside.
Sirius and Remus had their arms around Harry's shoulders the second he had stepped foot inside the Great Hall. Percy supported Fred's weak body. He refused to lie down until his eyes had rested on Rebecca again.
All stood inside the Great Hall, waiting. For those who had returned, they had the scars of their injuries and the pain of resurrection, but life was theirs once more. Nothing could distract them from that gift.
Rebecca's feet caught on the step into the Great Hall and she crashed into Draco, who had been lingering near the door for her return. He couldn't believe that she was gone, he wouldn't. If Fred had returned, Draco knew that Rebecca would too.
Draco caught her by the arm, not surprised to find her entirely distracted. "I knew you could do it. Are you okay? What did-"
"Is he here?" Rebecca breathed, searching the crowd madly. "Did he come back?"
Draco directed her to the left. Rebecca could just barely see through the people standing and milling about, but she caught sight of Percy helping someone taller than he up. George stayed near Fred, but allowed him to stand on his own. They had made their reacquaintance while Rebecca was speeding through the forest on unicorn back.
Rebecca pushed through the crowd, stopping only when she was close enough for them to hear her over the conversations happening around them. "Fred?"
Fred turned away from Percy and found his wife behind him. She was filthy. Dirt, soot, and spatters of blood--both her own and others--covered her from head to toe. She was cut, bruised, bleeding.
Rebecca was the most beautiful Fred had ever seen her.
They collided and held each other tightly, both weeping in relief.
Fred fell forward due to both the loss of Percy's support but also the sheer emotion coursing through him. Rebecca stood strong under him, holding him up. His hands cradled the sides of her face, kissing every inch he could while she spoke through her tears too quickly to be understood.
"...it was Death and then she said no but I heard a voice, and I knew who it was. Wilhomena from the forest was there but she was so weak. I told Death she could have-"
Fred crashed his lips to hers, his hand holding the back of her neck.
Rebecca closed her eyes and stopped talking. She filled their kiss with as much love as she could muster. When they needed to breathe, they left their foreheads against one anothers. They could feel their souls, their entire worlds, returning to how they should be. They were whole because they were together again.
Lavender, prompted forward by some of the others who had been brought back, was the only person who interrupted their reuniting. She cleared her throat to get their attention. "You..." Lavender reached her hand up to her neck, her fingers brushing against the scars that she would have for the rest of her life. Fenrir Greyback had given her the very affliction in which she had mistreated and misspoken about others for. But that was a Lavender of the past, not the present. "You brought us back? You brought me back?"
Rebecca put her arm around Fred's waist, unable to consider anymore space between them. She smiled. "My sapphic social club isn't going to make itself, now is it?" There was no malice in her voice, only high spirits. It was good to see Lavender alive.
Lavender let out a braying laugh. Rebecca's response was so typical, so normal, it made everything they had gone through fade for a single moment. "No, no it won't." Lavender left with those who had forced her to ask following close behind her.
Nigel stepped forward in Lavender's absence and wiped his cheeks, though more tears fell instantly. "I thought I'd killed you. I thought we were wrong and that I'd lost both of you."
"You weren't." Rebecca squeezed him tighter. "You didn't and you won't." She glanced behind her to where the Invisibility Cloak had fallen to the ground and felt the weight in her pocket of the Resurrection Stone. She still had the Elder Wand in hand, but it's time was running out. "It's going to take a little more to keep us down, I think."
Louis pulled Nigel away, bringing him to where Dennis and Colin Creevey were sitting. Colin had Dennis cradled in his lap, and Dennis had his head to Colin's chest. Dennis had fought in Colin's name in the second battle, fighting for the brother he had lost hours earlier. To be together again...it was an emotional, taxing experience many throughout the Great Hall were going through.
Fred and Rebecca stood where they were and took in their surroundings. Voldemort was dead. Their friends were back. The world was brighter than it had been that morning.
Rebecca could tell that Fred hurt, though he didn't say anything. She moved them to a nearby bed and helped him sit on to it. Rebecca put her arms around him and listened to his heart, letting its sound soothe her fears that this wasn't real, that he was still gone.
Fred brought his hands to the chain around his neck, unfastening it and speaking softly. "I think I have something of yours."
Rebecca lifted her head and broke as he took her hand and replaced her ring. It was too much. Too much to see him in front of her, too much to be so close to him, too much when she thought she had lost him forever.
"Don't cry, love." It was like Fred pulled a lever. Rebecca couldn't stop until she had released the emotion at the front of her mind. He wiped her face as quickly as the tears fell, skin peeking out from under the grime washing away.
"I have yours too." Rebecca tried to undo the chain to her locket and couldn't, her hands trembled too badly.
Fred undid hers and slid his ring off the end, returning her locket to her neck as it always was. He held it up, letting Rebecca put it back on him. "What's it say?" He gave her a crooked smile.
Rebecca slipped it onto his finger and kissed him. "All's well."
"And so it is." Fred stayed seated as Rebecca stood in front of him. He wanted nothing more than for them to find a free bed and sleep for many, many hours. But he had a feeling that whatever Rebecca was going to do couldn't wait.
"If you're here, then all is well, darling." Rebecca kissed his forehead and weaved through the crowd, pausing only when she was in the middle of the Great Hall. Eyes landed on her from all corners of the hall, but she knew what she wanted to do.
It needed to be done before the Elder Wand was destroyed. It was a simple spell, but it encompassed what she wanted done perfectly. Filch was the last to look up at her, a broom already in his hand as he swept dust into a pile.
"Reparo." Rebecca cast.
The castle seemed to quiver a moment. The rubble slid on the stone floor making it seem like the Earth itself growled under them. Glass twinkled as it slid across the floor. Portraits were mended and their occupants sighed in relief. Rebecca closed her eyes and focused only on the task at hand.
The castle's structural damage repaired itself first. The holes in the roof, the beams that had fallen, the cracks in walls.
McGonagall and the other staff members stood where they were interspersed in the hall and raised their wands, joining the efforts the best they could. Their magic were small ponds compared to the ocean of the Elder Wand, but they added the technical finesse of experience.
Hermione watched in awe while Ron could only laugh. Piece by piece, section by section, the castle began to look as it always had. Hermione reached for her bag and took out the bundle that Rebecca had entrusted to her. Rebecca had asked Hermione to hold onto it until she thought it was time, and Hermione knew it was.
Rebecca had closed her eyes as she concentrated on the spell and when she opened them, Hogwarts was closer to what it had been. There were still things to be fixed, corners of the castle that had escaped repairs, but they would not need the extensive power Rebecca held momentarily.
The Elder Wand was running out of time.
Harry approached Rebecca with the scarf-wrapped parcel Hermione had passed to him. Unfurling the familiar patterns of Molly's knitting, Harry found the fragments of his wand. "You don't happen to have time for a promise, do you?" He said.
Fred and Harry embraced each other tightly, both happy to see the other alive.
"Nope." Rebecca put her arm around both men and kissed the back of Harry's head. "But for you? Of course."
Percy stepped out of the side where he had been watching Fred, ready to help him once more. Fred spoke quickly, not wanting to hear Percy's blame-fueled apologies. "Come Harry, I do think we're about to see the impossible."
This brought a grin to Rebecca's face and she tapped the end of the Elder Wand to Harry's. The wand stitched itself back together, the holly and phoenix feather wand repaired in seconds. Harry's wand floated to his hand and he held it, beaming all the while. He held out Draco's wand to Rebecca, knowing she'd return it and desperately wanting to get back to Sirius and Remus.
"Looking for me?" Draco spoke softly, not having found a place in the hall. Without active fighting or defending, he was largely left to his own devices. The consequences of joining the other side were made all too clear as he was surrounded by reunifications he would never, could never have.
"Well, I do have something of yours." Rebecca held his wand out to him and hugged him tightly. "Do you know why this wand came to me? Why any of this worked at all?"
"Not exactly." Draco rested his chin on her shoulder. "But I figure it has something to with what I chose. I chose to trust you, that you'd use my wand for good."
"That's it exactly." Rebecca stepped back and held onto Draco's wrist. "I'm not keeping this wand," She raised the Elder Wand slightly. "I have a wand that has always worked for me and this one...it's dangerous. Too much power for anyone to have." Rebecca paused. "With it though, I can try something for you."
Draco glanced at his forearm, at the mark that spread across his skin. "You think you could get rid of it?"
"I can try." She repeated
Draco held his arm higher, telling her the spell he had used on Hermione's arm. Rebecca repeated it carefully. "Cicatricem habens deleo."
The Elder Wand did as she asked it to. The mark on Draco's arm moved one last time before fading from view. His arm returned to how it had been before, untouched by evil and unscathed by his decisions of the past.
"I never thought I'd see it like this again." Draco muttered, mostly to himself.
"What can I say?" Rebecca nudged him. "It's the least I can do."
Draco meandered away, not watching where he was going to continue studying his arm.
"You alright, Fred?" Rebecca asked, he was gawking at her and not in his usual way.
"You're asking me...if I'm alright..." Fred laughed, a true, full-body laugh that startled those around them and then instantly drew them into his joy. He leaned down and laid a kiss on her forehead, hugging her and turning in a slow circle. "I-Yo-Look at what you've done! I'm more than alright!"
That was what Draco needed in the moment, to see someone as happy for him at his freedom as he was. The celebrations around the Great Hall continued with groups mixing, sharing experiences, stories.
Sirius paused Rebecca as she and Fred mingled by, Remus tightly at his side. "Rebecca..."
"I'm so happy to see you both." Rebecca's breath caught in her throat. "I heard-during the, you-"
"Both of us." Remus spoke solemnly. "All of us."
Sirius grabbed her hand, trying to link their minds. Their consciousnesses brushed against one another, but there was a layer between them--a change in their connection. "What's this?" He said out loud.
"It was the price." Rebecca tightened her hand in his. "I can't do it again. That for all this life."
"I'm sorry." Remus' hand brushed against her cheek as Sirius pulled her into a hug. Remus still couldn't believe he was alive, that he could feel once more. "That you had to give it up."
"I'm not." Rebecca looked over her shoulder at Fred, who was waving at those calling his name around the room. "There was so much more that could have been taken, more lost. Much more than something like that."
"Go on then." Sirius sighed, shooing her back towards the queue of people wanting her. "It's not like I'm your...oh Moony! She's gone already!" He turned his face into Remus' arm and let out a fake sniffle. "They grow up so fast."
Remus laughed, not just at Sirius but at how good it felt to be alive. "Not even death can keep you from being a pain in my arse." He steered Sirius by the chin and kissed him deeply. "Thank Merlin."
"I'd just never want you to be bored." Sirius murmured against Remus' lips.
Further away, Percy approached Fred once again. "You really should-"
"Perce, if you tell me to sit down one more time I swear I'm going to-"
"Listen to him?" Rebecca butted in, rejoining Fred after Hermione pulled her aside.
"Finally, sense." Percy sighed with a smile. "It's good to see you, Rebecca."
"You too, Percy." Rebecca looked Fred up and down and motioned him to sit down on the window's edge behind. "Sit down. You're white as a sheet."
"Or what?" Fred snickered. "You going to make me?"
Rebecca nudged him backwards by poking his stomach. "Looks like I did." She kissed his forehead.
"That will be enough of that." Madam Pomfrey scolded, seeing how Rebecca had pushed him to sit down. "Injuries?"
"Nothing that can't wait." Rebecca said calmly, turning down any healing. There were still others in the room that were teetering, that were in far worse shape. "But he's been wobbly, said something about dizziness, too."
Madam Pomfrey tutted and put a vial into Rebecca's hand, largely pretending Fred wasn't able to hear them just to antagonise the culprit for so many of the illnesses she had had to thwart from their snackboxes. "Half now, second half in ten minutes."
"Does she know that it's George who lost an ear and not me?" Fred grumbled.
"Now, now." Rebecca unstoppered the vial. "Don't be cheeky. Are you going to be a good boy and drink this as she said?"
Fred's face turned a bright shade of red. "Are you going to keep calling me that? I might if you do."
*******************************************
"Professor?" Rebecca called, wiggling out of Fred's arms. He had fallen asleep with his head leaning back and Rebecca had used the time she was in his embrace to look, truly look, around at the Great Hall.
Kreacher and the house elves were bringing platter after platter of food out from the kitchens for the hungry victors.
Rebecca laid Fred's hands down into his lap and hurried to McGonagall's side before walking alongside the woman. "Are you okay?"
"As well as can be." Minerva nodded. "Potter-Weasley, hmm?"
Rebecca fiddled with her locket. "As officially as we need to be, yes."
Both women walked along quietly, listening to the students reflecting over the events of the hours passed, how they all acknowledged the future that could have been.
"Things are good, aren't they." Rebecca did not ask, she stated.
"September first." McGonagall said, turning on her heel and going off in a different direction.
"Profes-" Rebecca's head shot up as she trailed after McGonagall. "Or is it headmaster? Headmistress? Professor, why didn't you say-I mean, head-"
"Maybe we should start with Minerva, Rebecca." McGonagall stopped in front of the staff dais, Ron and Hermione climbing to their feet from where they had been sat on the steps. "At least until term starts on September first. Then headmistress would be more appropriate."
"Term?" Hermione breathed. "We get to come back?"
"Get to?" Ron groaned.
"You are offered the choice. You are all adults, I cannot force you to return." McGonagall shook her head at Ron. "Though, I do recommend it wholeheartedly."
Hermione nodded instantly. "I'll be there, headmistress."
Rebecca looked over Hermione's shoulder, catching sight of Fred who was still--for lack of a better term--dead to the world. "I will need to think about it."
"Think hard." McGonagall surveyed the students, teachers, and families that made up the Great Hall. "Hogwarts owes you more than can ever be repaid, but a full education would do well enough to start." She left them to ponder over her words.
Ron put an arm around both Hermione and Rebecca, steering them in the direction of the food. "Bloody hell, I'm absolutely starving."
Hermione and Rebecca glanced at each other before bursting into laughter.
"What? What's so funny?"
Their laughter took hold of them so strongly, they couldn't explain at first and when they finally could, they had to wipe tears from their eyes. "You say that at every meal."
Ron pursed his lips and put his hand on Rebecca's forehead to force her behind him in the line quickly forming. "And I'm starving at every meal!"
Rebecca managed to still her residual giggles as the table with food grew nearer, and she took two plates for the elves to serve onto. She greeted Dobby warmly, relieved to see him. "I saw you and Kreacher in the courtyard, I'll never upset you two when you're holding a spoon!"
Dobby smiled and his eares reddened. "Dobby would never harm Rebecca."
"I know, Dobby." Rebecca took scoops of everything offered, not caring what it was. She chatted with the familiar faces she found down the table, and once her plates were laden, she wove her way through the clusters of people to get back to Fred.
Harry held his plate on his knees and shoveled food into his mouth quickly. He offered her a grin as she passed, though he didn't move from his spot tucked between Remus and Sirius.
Nigel, Louis, and Yara had their legs against each others, eating and talking loudly. Seamus and Dean ate facing each other on a cot. Luna and Neville had their backs turned to the Hall's noise and looked out into the courtyard.
Wherever Rebecca went, greetings, thanks, and apologies followed. One voice cut through the rest, and she paused to locate it and detour her path.
"Rebecca!" Draco called again, waving from his seat between Pansy and Blaise. They were as family-less as he was, as were all the Slytherins who hadn't returned to the Death Eaters. It was a problem to be solved in the near future, as most of their parents had either died fighting or run away, fugitives of the law.
Scores of Slytherins would need help, shelter, guardianship. But for that very second, Draco, Blaise, and Pansy were satisfied with each other.
Pansy looked up at Rebecca with a careful expression, waiting to speak until Draco bumped her with his elbow. "I just wanted to thank you." She looked down. "I was-I came back, too."
"Threw herself in front of me." Blaise added on, ignoring the glare Pansy sent him. "She died for me. But now she's back."
"I said I'm not that easy to get rid of." Pansy muttered, turning her attention back to her plate with the shadow of a smile teasing.
"I wouldn't expect you to be." Rebecca's bright green eyes were met with the dark, wary eyes of Pansy.
Pansy saw something different in her, the girl in front of her. Something that prompted her to be honest. "I never hated you because you're a half-blood."
"Really?" Rebecca grinned. "What else could it possibly have been? I'm bloody brilliant!"
"Ah yes, how dull of me. How could I have disliked someone so humble?" Pansy's face softened as she laughed, not at Rebecca but with her. Pansy turned her gaze to the movement across the room, still smiling as their laughter faded. "It seems someone is looking for you."
Rebecca peeked over in the direction Pansy had looked and saw Fred standing and stretching, rolling his shoulders as he searched for Rebecca. His face lit up when he saw her, his body instantly moving to join her. "I'll chat later, guys."
"Rebecca?" Pansy's voice made Rebecca stop and turn back. "Thank you, again."
"Any time." Rebecca bit her lip. "But maybe next time without the death."
"That works for me." Pansy finished, turning back to her boys.
Draco and Rebecca shared a final look that said all they needed to. They were thankful for all that the other had done, all that the other had been there for. Both of them knew that the other knew, and that they weren't going anywhere.
"Everything good?" Fred asked, looking at the plates of food. "One of those for me?"
"You're hungry? I didn't know. I got both for me." Rebecca handed him one with only a little more teasing and followed him to where Molly and Arthur ate between a collection of Weasley children.
George looked up from Cedric's side, amazed to see Fred alive. Fred's return still hadn't fully set in. George had felt half of himself die seeing Fred die; he had briefly felt what it meant to not be whole. George wasn't sure how he was going to exist without Fred, and he was glad that now he didn't need to.
Ginny stood as Harry joined them, sliding closer to Charlie so that he could sit beside her. Harry did, letting his head fall onto her shoulder as she ate.
That's how they were, one large, extended, many-background including family.
Fred took Rebecca's hand and held it tightly. He smiled at her, realising that their time had come. All the fighting and the traveling and the hunting...it was over. Now they had the rest of their lives for each other. "Love?"
Rebecca smiled up at him, "Yes, darling?"
"Let's go home."
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Author's Note:
That's it. That's the canonical story (with a few additions of my own, obviously.) I cannot believe this. I've got a few more ideas, this isn't the end, end.
We need a school decision, for one. Two, I think it would be nice to read a bit about the life they've been fighting to have together.
For those of you who have been here since the very beginning to those of you who have spent the last 24 hours reading both books, thank you. Thank you for your reads, thank you for your comments, thank you for your votes.
As much as I have enjoyed this project, as much as I have enjoyed this story and the characters, they're nothing compared to how much I have enjoyed you all, the readers.
<3
Author's note for the update:
I think I summed it up pretty well there :)
I'll be making a new book for the after chapters and hope you have enjoyed these edits as I've been publishing them.
<3