Brothers in Arms

a post-Voldemort song-fic

Are a home now for me

We never thought, when we retreated into the mountains, that the war would last this long. None of us expected to stay the winter here, let alone two years. We thought it was secure, safer, but we always meant to return to Hogwarts and Godric's Hollow when we could. Hagrid had brought some of the giants to our side, and they had constructed a crude fortress in a place they called Glen Famhair, which Hermione was quick to explain meant Giant Glen. The fortress they called Dun Famhair.

They put us Ministry Rebels and Phoenicians in a line of not-quite-sturdy shacks along the cliff wall behind the fortress. We were supposed to set wards around Dun Famhair, and then proceed out to the boundaries of the glen. But we only had a few days to work on it, and without Lupin to coordinate us, we were a little clumsy.

And always will be

Lupin, Lupeni, Moony--he had sent us to Glen Famhair while he traveled to Romania, looking for someone he once knew. He said he could send us help, said he'd send Charlie up with his dragons, in fact, before he went looking for his friend. It would be good to have Charlie with us again, especially since Bill, Gin, and the twins were all in the glen with us. Not Percy, though. Never Percy. I missed my family, the way it had been before You-Know--Voldemort's return. I missed the Burrow. Most of all I missed Hogwarts. Funny how I never appreciated school until I left it and went on to fight in the war as an Unspeakable.

Your valleys and your farms

We kept our spirits up by promising ourselves we could go home after the war. We could always go home again.

To be brothers in arm

But for those of us who had spent the last six years fighting against You-Know--Voldemort, home seemed a dream that was growing more distant all the time; yet it shone all the brighter for its distance, like a star whose glimmering light grows stronger as it is enveloped by the night sky.

Harry would laugh if he saw what I just wrote. Hermione has made me read poetry recently. It's embarrassing, but I actually like some of it. It's like a lot of the things I would have hated, before the war. Some of those things seem so much more precious after what we've been through.

Baptism of fire

The first years of the war, the years we were finishing at Hogwarts, didn't seem so bad. I mean, sure, we knew the war was going on--Harry didn't hear from Sirius for months at a time, and even though Lupin was back teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, he and Snape would both vanish for days or even a week. Dumbledore left the school more often than usual, too, and the letters I got from Charlie and Dad were terrible; they had just enough detail to make me worry, without enough detail to get them killed if the owls were intercepted.

Every summer, Harry, Hermione, and I would go to the Burrow, and usually Sirius would stay with us there for the summer, giving the protection Harry needed. When Malfoy killed the Dursleys--we all knew it was Lucius Malfoy who did it, even though they never proved it, of course--it was the best solution Dumbledore could come up with. It was great to have Harry there, for me and for Ginny both. Hermione usually went home to her parents for the first month or so, but she was always hard at work, researching things for the Order.

It wasn't until we graduated that the war became truly real to us.

As the battles raged higher

We lost Cho Chang and the Patil twins early on. Cho was killed in an "accident" during the summer hols. I thought Harry would go crazy, but he accepted it with some weird kind of calm. Of course, they never dated--he always felt too guilty about Cedric, the silly git--but he had loved her anyway, and I think she really did love him back. Parvati and Padma and their parents were on their way to some kind of conference when they were ambushed by Death Eaters. They fought back, but they were totally outnumbered. And Professor Moody (the real one) was found (most of him) dead in Knockturn Alley, the summer after graduation.

Even then, we weren't really devastated by our losses. They hurt, but we knew we'd recover from them; there were loads of reasons we were called the Order of the Phoenix. It was when Professor McGonagall was captured by Malfoy's people that our world started to go mad. She disappeared on an important spying mission, and a few days later Dumbledore was sent the tip of a cat's tail. I've never seen him so horribly angry and afraid--it scared me, just because he was scared. For three weeks, we didn't hear anything, and then she was returned to us, broken. I mean, she remembered who she was, she remembered what we were trying to do, but she simply didn't have the strength to care anymore. You could always see the grief in her eyes. Dumbledore cried when he took her to Madame Pomfrey. Hermione went a bit mad, in my opinion, and took the oaths to become an Unspeakable.

That really scared me.

In the fear and alarm

Snape died trying to save another Phoenician, after she was captured. That was when Draco came over to our side. That was weird, really weird. Looking at him, with those steely eyes and his determined mouth, the hatred written on his face--I could tell he still didn't like Harry much, but he treated all of us, even Hermione, with a new respect. He had really looked up to Snape, I guess, and he'd finally broken with his father.

He was the one who saved my life in the Battle of Diagon Alley.

My brothers in arms

The report came in that Death Eaters had thrown up barricades at the entrance to Knockturn Alley, and they were pouring out into Diagon Alley. Poor Mundungus Fletcher managed to get the owl off before Eeylops burned. Dumbledore gathered the Phoenicians who were bunking at Hogwarts, sent messages out to the others, and assembled the Order for an attack. The battle lasted into the next day, and late in the second afternoon, things were looking pretty grim for us Phoenicians.

Harry and Sirius had taken off after Pettigrew, and Hermione, Draco, Hagrid, and I were left trying to hold the vaults at Gringotts. It helped that Hagrid's rumours about dragons in the vaults were true, and the goblins had them fighting on our side. Dumbledore had been injured, but he and Lupin were still holding their own against You-Know--against Voldemort. Still, things were going badly, and we knew we couldn't hold it much longer. It was Malfoy leading his stupid Death Eaters against Gringotts, trying to seize the gold that we were having trouble with.

His goons got in through a cursed window--some of them, chopped in half, but inside--and managed to open the main door for him. When he came in, he went straight for me. After all, us Weasleys are pretty noticeable, and the Death Eaters knew by then that I was an Unspeakable. And as Malfoy prepared to curse me, Draco darted in front of me and shouted "Avada Kedavra!"

He killed his own father. For a Weasley.

So many different suns

It was like time had stopped. We saw him fall, saw his goons fall back, Crabbe and Goyle leading the retreat, great bullying cowards that they were. Hagrid roared and chased after them, cursing them with all the ferocity a half-giant could muster--that's a lot. But in the meantime, Draco was falling over. I managed to catch him before his head bounced (more than once) on the marble floor of the bank. He seemed even paler than usual, and his hands were like ice. "I k-killed him," he stuttered. "I k-killed my f-father." I didn't know what to do with him. He sounded a bit daft, but I reckoned I would be, too, if I'd killed my dad. I couldn't just leave him. There were still Death Eaters about, even if Draco and Hagrid had chased them out of Gringotts. I owed him that much.

But we live in different ones

We pulled through the Diagon Alley attack, but that was when we retreated to Glen Famhair. Good old Hagrid pulled through for us again. A couple days after the battle, Dumbledore called some of us together, just the inner circle, really, and presented Hagrid with an honorary diploma from Hogwarts. Mr Ollivander was there, with the few wands he had been able to save from his burning shop. He ceremoniously had Hagrid try some out, and we were all proud when a seventeen-inch yew wand with a dragon heartstring shot red and gold sparks all over us.

Draco was pretty sick for a couple of weeks, but eventually he rallied and was promoted to Colonel in the ranks. Not that that was all that great, because after all, I made it to Lieutenant Colonel, and Harry was one of our Brigadiers, but the real significance to me was that Dumbledore trusted him. And since--much as I hate to admit it--he had been right about Snape, I pretty much had to trust Draco, too.

Draco was one ruthless son of a bitch.

And the moon's riding high

We lost him, of course. I never expected it to affect me the way it did. Then again, I never expected to love him like he was one of my own brothers.

I still don't know who got him. We were on another raid against the Death Eaters. Just because they'd driven us out of Godric's Hollow didn't mean we were defeated. We had retreated to the mountains, but Draco was leading us out two or three times a week to hit them in small groups, guerrilla-style. Some people didn't like it, but since we'd already authorized the use of the Unforgivable Curses against Death Eaters, it didn't seem so bad to kill from the shadows anymore. Makes me wonder what we've turned ourselves into, fighting fire with fire.

Every man has to die

I found him in a puddle of his own blood. Stabbed in the back, so he couldn't even tell me who it was. He was so white I thought he was dead already. But he opened his eyes and looked back at me, and for the first time, I saw peace in those silver eyes. He nodded and gripped my hand. Whispered for me to tell Ginny that he loved her--which surprised me, since I hadn't known they had anything, and I knew for certain that Harry didn't know--and then apologized to me.

"What for?" I asked, feeling my throat get all thick and certain I was about to cry. Weasley the Wimp, I thought in Draco-style, but it didn't work; it just made the tears come a little faster.

"All the times I gave you a hard time," he whispered back. "You've been a real mate, Weasley...Ron. A real mate."

And every line on your palm

And then it was over, and I was the one who had to go back and tell everyone, face my sister with that knowledge, take Hermione in my arms as she cried. And we all knew that he'd been a real mate himself.

On our brothers in arms