No Laughing Matter

Chapter Twenty-eight

George woke to the not unwelcome sight of Rowan's face hanging over his own. She had just shaken him awake and was now saying quietly, "Hey, sleepy head. I'm getting ready to leave for work."

"C'mere," he said sleepily. Tugging her hand until she sat on the bed beside him. He sat up and put his arms around her and gave her a proper 'good morning' until Fred's scratchy voice interrupted, "That had better not be my girl."

"Nope," George answered, smiling into Rowan's eyes. "This one's mine."

"I'm going in to work now; Bill has to go into the bank, and so he's going to walk me to the Prophet on the way. I should be able to finish there and meet you all at the Burrow around lunchtime," She said. "Nearly everyone else is awake and having breakfast. I got to meet Ron, Ginny and Harry, too."

She stood up and leaned in for one last kiss before she headed for the door. "Oh, and Fred," she said by way of parting. "Carly was just making up some sort of nasty looking red potion in the kitchen. You might consider making a run for it."

Fred groaned and tried half-heartedly to smother himself with one of his pillows. George chuckled and got out of bed, intent on getting a shower while everyone else was occupied with breakfast. His muscles were a bit achy, and it was going to be a long day. He stood under the steamy spray until his fingers began to wrinkle, and then reluctantly dried himself off. A look in the mirror above the sink told him that the spot where he had hit his head was almost healed; only a slight bruise remained where the goose egg and gash had been on the night of the attacks. He picked up his wand and performed the charm to remove the stubble from his chin, and then brushed his teeth. By the time he finished and got back to his room, he could found Ginny standing outside his door, watching with a grimace as Carly bullied Fred into letter her clean out his wound and re-dress it. The stream of swearing that was coming from inside was evidence that it didn't hurt him much less than it had yesterday afternoon.

"His shoulder looks bad," Ginny murmured as George came up behind her.

"He'll be okay," George said, seeing the concern in her eyes. "Is everyone just about ready to go?"

"We've got some time. Carly said something about Fred needing a sponge bath, and then Mum is insisting that everyone eat their weight in porridge for breakfast." Ginny said. "I actually came here to look for you and tell you that your breakfast is ready."

"Okay, I'll be there in a minute," George said. "I need to torment Fred a bit first."

Ginny smiled at him as he winked and disappeared into the bedroom saying, "Gods, that shower felt great! There's nothing like a steaming hot shower to work out the kinks in your muscles."

Fred suggested something rude and physically impossible in response, and Ginny chuckled as she went to get the dragon hide gloves that Charlie insisted she'd need for the day's work ahead.

"Are you coming with us today, Carly?" George asked as she helped Fred to his feet.

"I'll have to meet you out there around lunchtime. I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on and drop off at the hospital first. I'll bring lunch for everyone with me." She answered, sighing when Fred shrugged off her helping hand churlishly.

George didn't really blame his brother for being cranky, but decided to tease him just the same. "Don't forget to bring that red stuff with you - Fred might get his wound dirty while we're working out there."

A hint of mischievousness came into Carly's eyes as Fred's narrowed to slits. "You're going to have to pay for that later."

"Relax," George grinned. "Carly's about to make you a very happy man. I ran into Ginny in the hall, and she said you're getting a sponge bath now." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and laughed outright when Carly blushed. "I'm going to go grab some breakfast. We're going to be leaving soon, so don't get too carried away."

George just chuckled and said, "I'm going to go grab some breakfast. We're going to be leaving soon, so don't take too long getting ready."

In the kitchen Harry and Ron were sitting with huge bowls of porridge in front of them, and Molly and Toolah frowning at each other.

"What's up with them?" George asked.

"Mum doesn't know what to do," Ron said quietly. "Toolah won't let her lift a finger."

The subjects of their conversation looked over at them suspiciously, and Harry hurriedly picked up his spoon and began eating porridge again. Molly glared as Toolah began preparing another bowl and placing it in front of George.

"What are you going to be doing today, Mum?" George asked her, in hopes of distracting her.

"I wanted to come and help you kids, but with your father starting his new job, I'm going to have to finalize things for tomorrow without him. Suzette has kindly offered to go with me." Molly answered, trying to keep the sadness from her voice..

George nodded. Charlie came into the room with Ginny on his heels, and Molly said, "And I wanted to say, boys, that your father looked very smart in his new robes this morning. Thank you."

Charlie grinned his crooked grin and kissed Molly on the cheek; compliments and thanks had always made him blush. "Can't have dad showing up starkers," he said. "No one would take him seriously."

Fred came into the room shortly after that, wearing clean robes. His hair was still damp from its recent washing, and his arm was in a sling across his middle, but he was wearing a smile. "Morning!" he said cheerfully sitting at the table and snagging the bowl of porridge from in front of his twin. George smirked at his brother's grin, in no doubt of what had put it there. Lucky bastard.

Toolah placed another bowl in front of George, and filled their glasses with milk. Suzette came to collect Molly, and so the six others finished their meal.

"How are we getting to the Burrow?" Ginny asked. "Harry, Ron and I can't Apparate, and the Floo won't work if the fireplace is wrecked."

"Dad made a couple of portkeys before he left. One will take you all there, and the other will bring you home. The rest of us will Apparate." Charlie explained. "Does everyone have gloves? Cloaks? Good! Let's get going, then."

They all walked out of the house and to the border of the property, where it was safe to Apparate. Fred and George went ahead, and Charlie pulled an ordinary wooden spoon from the pocket of his robes. He handed it to Ron, and Harry and Ginny each reached out to grasp each end.

"One, two, three," Charlie counted, and then tapped the spoon with his wand to activate the portkey. The three of them disappeared with slight suctioning sound, and then a pop as air rushed it to occupy the place where they had just been standing. Once satisfied that nothing had gone awry, Charlie Apparated as well.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Fred looked around him with a dazed feeling of having a surrealistic nightmare that he couldn't' wake from. As he surveyed the damage done to his childhood home, he felt his blood begin to boil, and wanted nothing more than to just scream out his fury to the heavens. He choked back the burning hatred for those who had caused this, along with the tears that were threatening. He needed to keep calm in front of the others.

George stood beside him, taking in the sight that looked so much worse in daylight than it had in the pre-morning darkness of the night before last. Where his brother was feeling rage, though, George only felt sadness and guilt. Things should never have come to this. Would his family home be standing today if he had somehow been a better brother to Percy? Would Percy still be alive? He was distracted from these thoughts by the almost simultaneous arrival of the others.

Ginny, Ron and Harry managed to stay on their feet as they came to a halt in the yard. Charlie appeared with a pop only a moment later, and then everyone fell silent as they looked around at the demolition that had been wrought. The house was, to put it simply, leveled. It now resembled nothing so much as huge pile of broken wood, glass and stone, tossed together in a jumbled chaos for no apparent reason. There were chickens scattered here and there over the garden, which was littered with debris, and a small group of garden gnomes stood clustered beneath the trunk of a large tree that had seemingly been snapped in half, and was laying across the chicken coop. A large scorch mark and cold ashes on the ground was all that remained of the small shed that Mr. Weasley had used for a workshop for his Muggle treasures.

Fred noticed that Ginny was biting her lip almost hard enough to draw blood, and her fingernails were digging into her palms as she worked to master herself. Ron's eyes were shining with unshed tears as he swallowed down the lump in his throat, and Harry had tears on his cheeks, though his jaw was clenched tight. Charlie looked at the others, ready to comfort anyone who needed it, a look of calm acceptance hiding whatever he was feeling under the surface.

"Right," Harry was the first to speak. "What do we do first?"

Everyone else seemed to snap out of their stupor at these words, and Charlie took charge. Since half of the group was not permitted to use their wands, Ron, Harry and Ginny were delegated the task of searching through the debris for anything salvageable and putting things they found in one area of the yard. Fred would be given the job of repairing anything that could be repaired with magic, and George was to help Charlie divide up the rubble between magical and non-magical items. The non-magical, non-salvageable pile could be vanished to a Muggle garbage dump, and the magical items would have to be dealt with separately. They had to be careful in this respect, because magical items in a Muggle dump could cause problems later on. Reusable building materials would be saved in case they could be used later in the rebuilding process. Everyone accepted their assignments and donned their gloves, then waded into the mess with determination.

They spoke little as Charlie and George levitated broken boards over toward Fred, who tried a simple 'reparo!' spell on them before assigning each piece to the designated piles. It was slow going. Harry, Ginny and Ron had decided to separate and approach the wreckage from different directions, which would eventually have them meeting somewhere in the middle. Because they really couldn't see much in the jumble of broken boards and bricks, they began to collect bricks and stones and put them into piles. Charlie stopped periodically to vanish the unusable and unsalvageable non-magical items away, and within a couple of hours, they began to see progress.

Ron, Ginny and Harry could now sift through some of the things that had been actual contents of the house, and were each making a small collection of items. Charlie had found them each a crate to gather their findings in, and before long, Ron, who had started in at the back of the house, had a collection of shoes, and a small basket of laundry that had been waiting to be done. Ginny, who had started by the kitchen, had a kettle, several pots and pans and assorted flatware. She had also pulled out a single chair that appeared to have survived the onslaught of destructive curses thrown at the house. Harry had started at the side opposite Ginny, and had been working industriously, uncovering books and knitting needles and even a small side table.

It took George a while to notice that Harry was kneeling in the rubble, his cloak cast aside, staring at something big in his hands.

"What's up, Harry?" he called.

Everyone paused and looked over to Harry, shocked to find that he had tears streaming down his face. They hurried to his side, and looked down at what he was holding. It was the remnant of the clock that had always hung in the living room, and the hands were frozen in place over the descriptions of each person's whereabouts when it had been destroyed. Ron and Ginny's hands pointed to 'School' and Charlie's pointed to 'work'. Fred, George, Bill, Molly and Arthur's hands were all pointing to 'Mortal Peril'; Percy's pointed to 'Lost'. Tears filled Ginny's eyes as well, and she knelt down beside Harry and drew him into an embrace. Fred laid a hand on his shoulder, and Ron just kept staring at the face of the clock as if he couldn't comprehend what it was; Charlie looked away with a wet sounding sniff, and hurriedly wiped at his face with his sleeve. George tried to take the piece of clock from Harry, but he held tight to it, and said, "I want to take this. I want to find someone who can make another one. I want to do that for the family."

Charlie nodded, understanding better than Harry knew, and said, "I'll help find out who made this one, and I'll let you know."