Now, the reason I’ve called you all here,” Voldemort murmured to the table, “is that there appears to be cause for celebration- the Weasleys. The eldest one is to be married.”
The death eaters shifted uncomfortably in their seats, confused as to where this was going.
“Unfortunately,” Voldemort sighed in mock regret, “I do believe we’ve been left off the guest list. But I can’t help but think… How rude is it, Rookwood, to neglect to attend such an important event?”
Rookwood’s smile stretched into an ugly grin as they all realized what the dark lord meant, his eyes glinting in the light. “Very, my lord.” He snickered.
Voldemort paused for a moment before slamming his wand down on the table, the loud crack of it making everyone in the room flinch. “Let me make myself clear,” he said slowly, “I want one wedding… and nine funerals. Do you understand?”
Everyone in the room nodded, but Voldemort only sneered at them.
“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that there are seven Weasley children… they have a habit of scattering like rats. If I hear that even one of them survived, you shall pay the consequences.”
The wedding was plastered all over the newspapers, bold-lettered headlines haunting Harry with every glimpse. It was historical, a monumental event that would surely go down as one of the largest assassinations in the wizarding world. Everyone was shaken by the murders, so much so that even Rita Skeeter refrained from sensationalizing it. She didn’t have to. It was a nightmare on its own. The horror of it all seemed almost too terrible to be real. Too evil to exist. Harry couldn’t even look at the title without throwing up- “influential Weasley family, generational members of the order, slaughtered during reception dubbed “bloody wedding”: death eaters responsible.”.
He felt such a flurry of emotions; grief, anger, despair, guilt… relief. He was relieved because, thanks to his lucky stars, Ron and the twins were spared. They ended up staying behind instead of attending the reception, having debated it over and over again before Bill finally told them to just stay at home, where they were continuing to help plan out the Horcrux hunt. If they had decided to go, they would’ve been dead as well.
Bill- poor Bill, who Harry barely knew, had only been married to his wife for 10 bloody minutes before they were both gone forever.
He couldn’t let himself fall down the rabbit hole of imagining what their last moments were like; if he did, he’d be lost forever.
All he needed to know was that they were gone. Mrs. Weasley would never mother her children again, and Mr. Weasley would never marvel at the muggle inventions or scold Ron about taking the car out. Bill and Fleur would never have children. Charlie, who came back to England just for that night, would never again return to his beloved dragons. Percy would never get a chance to reconcile with his family like Harry knew Ron hoped he one day would. And Ginny… Ginny, who Harry thinks he was falling in love with, smart, fiery Ginny, would never glide down the hallway in her usual beautiful way.
6 people were dead. And he couldn’t help but feel like it was because of him, him, and his stupid feud with Voldemort.
Ron and the twins didn’t get off scot-free, though. They were beyond lucky to be alive. According to Kingsley, who’d been the one to inform him and Hermione, the death eaters returned to the burrow once they realized the three were missing, and attempted to finish them off there. They had just barely managed to escape in time, having no warning of what was to come prior. It was only Fred who was able to apparate them all in time before the death eaters could cast the killing curse.
Harry dreaded having to tell them all what happened when they woke up.
“It must come from us, Harry,” Hermione sniffed tearfully as they clung to each other for comfort in the hospital wing, watching over the sleeping boys, “it just has to. A stranger can’t be the one to tell them such a thing, I couldn’t bear it.”
Harry only nodded numbly. She was right; if the boys had to hear such horrific news, then they deserved to hear it from people who loved them.
He and Hermione had both wept for a good 3 hours before they ran out of tears that night, trembling as they hugged one another, desperate for comfort. They couldn’t tear their eyes off George, Fred, and Ron, all in cots next to each other, the last surviving members of the Weasley family. Once, enormous, and now, a family of 3.
Harry knew how it felt to lose his parents, but he didn’t know if his loss could be comparable to the Weasleys. He’d never lost any siblings, and he was only a baby when his parents died. Sure, he missed them like crazy and their loss would always wound him like a knife… but he wasn’t old enough to absorb all the horror of it entirely, wasn’t conscious of it to make a concrete memory. Ron and the twins, on the other hand… they would live with this forever.
Madame Pomfrey had sedated them as soon as they apparated to Hogwarts, both to treat their injuries and because, as she informed Harry and Hermione, it would be less traumatic for them to be unconscious instead of frantically asking for their parents for hours and then receiving a horrific answer.
“What are we going to do?” Harry whispered sadly, gripping Hermione's hand as if his life depended on it.
Hermione took a deep breath, eyes red and teary yet determined. “We remind them that they’re not alone,” she said shakily, “they have a family. They have us. And Neville, and Lee, and Luna, and Professor McGonagall… they have to know.”
When they eventually began to stir, it was Ron who woke first. They were all dazed and groggy, and Fred blinked at his bandaged arm in a sling, face puzzled.
After Madame Pomfrey assessed them again and gave them potions for pain, Harry and Hermione told them. Or, they tried to. It was an anguished mix of choked speaking and then breaking off into stifled sobs, all while trying and failing to maintain their composure. They eventually managed to get it out, to tell them, and the boys’ reaction was almost worse than if they had just broken down and screamed.
The three of them went completely silent. Presumably, shock, a voice in the back of Harry’s mind supplied. They didn’t speak, simply stared ahead into nothing with a wide-eyed gaze. They didn’t move, except for a slow, robotic-like moment where the twins both got up out of their beds, only to sandwich themselves on either side of Ron, the three of them squeezing into the one cot.
Madame Pomfrey, who usually ruled her ward with no exceptions, didn’t make the boys get back into their own beds. Instead, she only quietly pushed the cots together so they would have more room.
“Ron, please, say something!” Hermione cried, scared at his silence. But Ron only continued to stare, hands gripping his brothers so tightly that they were shaking and their knuckles turned white.
“Let’s just sit here for a while, Mione, ok?” Harry stuttered, patting her back. They both awkwardly moved to sit next to the boys on the chairs, unsure of what to do next. The five of them sat in silence for the next several hours, their presence and simply being near one another the only comfort they could give.
On the second day, George was the first one to speak.
“The funerals,” he murmured in a hoarse voice despite the fact that he hadn’t cried once, “when are they?”
“They were scheduled for this Thursday,” Hermione answered gently, resting a soft hand on his shoulder, “but if you’re not ready, that’s ok, we can always take more time…”
George shook his head, still refusing to make eye contact with anyone. “No,” he said, voice barely above a whisper, “we… th-they should be… they shouldn’t be kept waiting.”
Harry nodded, eyes solemn with understanding. “Alright,” he agreed quietly, “I’ll let Kingsley know.”
George could only nod absently, his vacant look still haunting. Neither Fred nor Ron had spoken at all yet, but Ron had allowed Hermione to hold his hand and even squeezed it once in return. They still refused to make eye contact, though. Their silence was deafening, but even more frightening was the thought of what could be going through their heads.
The funeral was held on a fittingly gloomy day, the earth itself seeming to mourn the Weasley family. The sky was a slate gray, and the wind was bitterly cold.
Kingsley had arranged for a few members of the order to come out to Hogwarts and lay top-tier safety wards for the ceremony, hiding it from anyone not in attendance. They had to be on heightened alert now as if they weren’t already before. It wasn’t lost on any of them how important it was to keep the three brothers' survival a secret. No doubt Voldemort would find out soon, but Harry was sure that it wouldn’t happen right away. The death eaters would be too afraid to tell him the truth, that they had left 3 Weasleys alive. No, they would lie to him and he may believe it… but not for long.
Professor McGonagall was a calming presence in their midst, something Harry had never thought the fiery Scottish witch capable of- surely he loved his head of house, but he never thought of her as the gentle, motherly type. But she hadn’t missed a single moment of helpfulness so far, bringing him and Hermione food when dinner rolled around so they wouldn’t have to leave Ron and the twins. It only made sense that she, too, would be at the funeral.
The five coffins were laid out side by side, stretching in a horridly long row. Fleur's body had been sent back to her family in France, and everything had been so chaotic lately that Harry hadn’t even had time to pause and think about whether or not she would’ve wanted to be buried next to her husband, even if he was only a husband for 10 minutes. The gravestones were beautiful yet unassuming, simple and elegant as one could be. The names carved into the marble were almost too much for Harry to look at.
Memories of the Weasley family, the closest thing to a real family he’d ever had, flooded his mind. He remembered the very first moment he met them, at the train station when he was so very young and so very scared. He recalled the awe he felt at seeing such a large group of children, the wonder of how it must feel to have so many siblings, so many people who loved you. Mrs. Weasley was a wonderful mother, with whom Harry felt at peace just watching how she loved her children. And she had treated him as one of her own.
Now, she was dead. Forcefully separated from her remaining sons forever.
Mr. Weasley was the polar opposite of Molly, Harry had noted with amusement in his first year, so quiet and calm yet confident. He worked hard to provide for his family, and despite their dire financial state, he never failed to be there for his children. Harry remembered seeing him get home from work one day while he was staying over at the burrow, seeing how his hair was askew and his eyes were exhausted from the long day. And he remembered thinking, this must be what a father is- someone who works hard but still manages to come home and look forward to seeing his family. It filled him with hope that maybe, even though he himself never had a dad, he could be a good one to a child someday, like Mr. Weasley.
Now, he was dead.
Harry couldn’t bring himself to think about Ginny, not yet… he would, someday. But he needed to be strong for Ron and the twins now. If he let his mind wander to the red-haired girl he used to adore, he would be lost.
Fred and George were standing tense like statues under the umbrella that Harry was holding for them, all their muscles drawn taut and rigid. They were clutching Ron betwixt them like he would be swept away if they let go for even a moment, a hand on each arm. They were startlingly emotionless- at least, it appeared that way. Their faces hadn’t strayed from that horrible vacant expression in days, as if they were staring past everybody and through to somewhere else… hopefully, somewhere better than here, Harry thought.
But that illusion of apathy was quickly shattered in one of the most frightening ways Harry had ever seen. It was as though a switch had been flipped, a lever pulled and suddenly all three boys were yanked back into the present reality. It was like a missing piece to a horrific puzzle was finally found and fit back into place, and as soon as it clicked, the gravity of what had happened crushed them all at once.
Ron started screaming. Screaming in a horrible, awful way that Harry would hear in his nightmares for years to come. It was so piercing that it made Hermione nearly fall backward at its abruptness. At the same, Fred and George also began to weep and wail, crying with red faces and a mixture of snot and tears.
No one knew what to say, what to do… What could be done? The boys’ entire family was gone. So, Harry just held his friends for dear life as they tried to stay afloat.