The End

Chapter 25: There We Were All in One Place

"Are you alright?" someone asked, shaking Harry's shoulder.

Harry looked up and discovered himself face to face with a teary eyed Ron, then looked away, unable to maintain eye contact with his friend for more than a few seconds, and said, "I should be the one asking you that, mate."

"Well, I'm not, I guess," Ron replied.

Harry was completely unsure of what to say. All he could think of was meaningless lines about how Fred was "in a better place," that he, Harry, was sorry, and that Ron would be alright again eventually. "Listen, it...I...um...I'm here...if you...you know...need anything," he finally stammered.

"Thanks," Ron agreed, a few fresh tears leaking down his cheeks. "Listen, Dad's invited you, Hermione, Sydney, and Michael back to the Burrow. The Ministry's going to...to take care of the Death Eaters, so we were just about to go."

Feeling like he ought to be chucked in Azkaban instead, Harry nevertheless nodded and pulled himself to his feet, supposing that this would at least give him a chance to explain how he was responsible for Fred's death. The Weasleys deserved that.

Harry looked around and found at least twenty Ministry officials identifying the Death Eaters and wrapping them in permanent restraints. A few others were busying themselves with Fred's body. As he watched numbly, a healer bustled forward and mended the wound on his arm with a flick of her wand.

Unable to look any longer, Harry turned and followed the others downstairs and outside, where a Ministry car was waiting. Harry wasn't sure if he was able to Apparate in his current state of mind, but by the time they reached the Burrow he wished he'd given it a try, the silence in the car was torture.

Before they had a chance to disappear to their respective bedrooms, or, in Ron and Michael's case, the kitchen, Harry apologized for his timing and asked if he could say something to them. The group convened in the living room, Ron and Michael had sandwiches in tow, and Harry took a deep breath and did something he had always avoided unless forced: retold his experience in Malfoy Manor that night, hoping to give the Weasley's as much information as he could about the circumstances surrounding Fred's death. He deliberately glossed over anything that would give Fred and George the blame for anything. Instead, he took all the guilt upon himself.

No one spoke for a full minute after Harry finished his monologue, and Harry finally said, "I should probably go, then."

Harry had no idea where he would go, but knew that the Weasleys had extended their hospitality under false pretences, and he wasn't about to impose himself on them.

However, Harry had only taken two steps towards the door when George suddenly stood up. At first Harry thought he was going to be reminded of what it was like to be a human punching bag, then George said, "Harry is giving himself too much credit." From there he went on to explain what he and Fred had done, including the fact that it had been his own suggestion that sent away the Death Eaters, they hadn't known that Harry was nearby at the time, and neither of them had considered that the wayward Death Eaters might find their restrained companions either.

Further admissions of guilt followed, Sydney for not stressing the importance of preventing the Death Eaters from finding each other, Hermione for not figuring out how to get past the barrier fast enough, Ron for making the mission necessary in the first place, and Ginny for being unable to heal Sydney's hands properly so she couldn't help.

"Alright," Mr. Weasley said, trying to sound jovial but failing miserably. "If we're all through blaming ourselves then I think we ought to get to bed. And Harry, you are forbidden from going anywhere except for up to Ron's room for some sleep."

Everyone made their way up the stairs, except George, who said, "We've...I've got stuff to do at the shop, see you lot later."

Harry, who had recently used a similar excuse himself, didn't believe George for a second and was about to say something about it, but Mr. Weasley beat him to it.

"I'd like you to stay here tonight, son."

However, George ignored him and turned to leave anyway. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Mr. Weasley tried to restrain him, but that ended when he threatened to blast them away. He looked sufficiently close to the edge to do it.

Mr. Weasley looked over at Mrs. Weasley, who nodded slowly, then he Disapparated, clearly intending to follow George.

The rest of the group trudged up the stairs, separating themselves when they reached the appropriate level (Sydney and Michael were invited to take Fred and George's room), until only Ron and Harry were left. They reached Ron's attic room and negotiated their sleeping arrangement in silence. Harry's stomach was sinking with every passing second, for he'd realized there was something he'd forgotten to do. On top of everything else, Ron must be starving, Michael had devoured his sandwich within a minute of making it, but Ron's was still intact in his hand, as though he'd forgotten about it, or what he'd intended to do with it. Harry couldn't think of a worse time to bring this up, but he suspected that if he didn't do it now he'd never be able to do it again, and he'd made a promise.

"Ron?" Harry asked timidly.

"Yeah," Ron sniffed.

"Before all of this I was talking to Hermione, and she said she'd erased all her memory of the battle in Hogwarts against Voldemort," Harry said, trying to get it all out as quickly as possible.

"She wiped her memory?" Ron asked disbelievingly.

Harry nodded.

"Why?" Ron pressed. Harry wasn't sure if he'd ever seen his friend look so tired before

"She doesn't remember," Harry replied gently.

"I should go talk to her," Ron said, but then he tossed himself down on his bed.

"She's waited for four months," Harry replied consolingly, "another night won't hurt anything."

"Thanks," Ron mumbled into his pillow.

***************

The next morning Wizards everywhere woke to find themselves celebrating a victory they hadn't known they needed. The front page of the Daily Prophet carried a detailed story about the previous night's escapade, leaving out nothing except the fact that Sydney and Michael were Muggles. Thus, all involved were asked to a number of parties that day, but they turned them all down until they were forcibly invited to a feast at Hogwarts by a fleet of letters that worked out to be portkeys.

It was a rather strange experience for everyone, especially Harry, Ron, Hermione, Michael, and Sydney, who had to make the dramatic transition from snacking on trail mix or slurping mush from a bowl to wondering which fork to use first. The group of heroes stood up and smiled when it was asked of them, but it was obvious that their hearts weren't really in it, a sentiment shared by the students, most of whom had been present when Fred and George made legends of themselves by letting off fireworks and a portable swamp, then left the school in open defiance of Professor Umbridge.

After the feast, the original group of five asked Professor McGonagall if they might stay on at Hogwarts for a time, since they felt that they had unfinished business there. Though they didn't want to say it, they were also hopeful for an excuse to keep clear of the Burrow. The Headmistress didn't take much convincing and invited them to live in the substitute teachers' quarters once more. When they trudged up there, they discovered that the trunks and bags that Harry and Hermione left in the Forbidden Forest had been retrieved, transfigured back into their original form, and arranged neatly outside the rooms, just like when they'd arrived at Hogwarts a month and a half ago.

Contrary to Ron's predictions, he was never called before the Ministry to answer for his role in the death of Peter Pettigrew. Instead, the day after the mission he received a short letter thanking him for putting an end to the wizard. Bemused, he showed it to Harry and Hermione, but neither ever saw it again, and Harry suspected that he might have thrown it in the fire.

Harry, on the other hand, did have to stand before the Ministry, but only long enough to refuse another first class Order of Merlin, and recommend that it be given to the Weasleys instead. He was dismissed before he had the chance to ask if they would take back his first one.

Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, once the only cheerful shop in all of Diagon Alley, was now the only sorrowful one. The items sold and decorations remained as exciting as ever, but the atmosphere was subdued as friends and frequent customers came to pay their respects to Fred.

Two days after Fred's death, shoppers found a large mirror lying smashed in front of the shop, looking suspiciously as though it had been dropped from a window in the loft above the shop where George lived. A few sympathetic passers by cleaned up the mess without asking any questions. The death of a sibling was difficult enough without seeing him alive and well whenever the survivor looked in a mirror.

That same morning, George released a new pranking device, the Wet Wonder, which would give whoever touched it directly the feeling that they had just fallen victim to an extremely messy wet willie by turning most of the subject's ear wax into water. It promised to be the first in an entire line of projects concerning ear wax.

***************

"When...um...when we were about five, Dad brought home a toy. It was this thin piece of metal, except for it was all coiled up, something that Muggles play with. Hermione tells me those are called slinkies, right?" George asked suddenly, turning to Hermione, who was sitting between Harry and Ron in the front row of the group of black robed mourners. She nodded tearfully.

"Slinkies," George confirmed before continuing on. "Anyway, what you do with a slinky is you put it at the top of a staircase and you tip if off and it walks down the stairs. The trouble with this slinky and the reason that Dad got a hold of it was that someone had enchanted it and it was confusing all the Muggles who saw it because when it got to the bottom of those stairs it would turn around and walk right back up them again. So, Dad caught up with this slinky, and he was supposed to destroy stuff like that, but he saw that there wasn't really anything sinister about it as long as Muggles didn't find it again so he brought it home and gave it to us.

"I didn't understand why, but Fred was absolutely fascinated by the thing, spent half the next day chasing it up and down the stairs. Eventually he got bored with that, though and decided that the slinky would be much more fun if it could walk other places than just the stairs, so he picks up the slinky, and sneaks into Bill's room. Bill was home from Hogwarts for the summer, so Fred nicks his wand, then brings them both back to our room, where he starts poking at the slinky with the wand.

"Even though he'd borrowed wands before, Fred didn't really know what the hell he was doing, but sure enough, a few minutes later that slinky tips itself over and starts walking all around the room. A few pokes later and it's figured out how to stick to the walls and ceiling and its walking all over those too, so Fred figures that's good enough and opens the door to see where it goes. So the slinky marches straight out the door and down the stairs, and we both follow it to the living room. It seems especially interested in the fireplace and I can see Fred itching to find out if he can send it someplace with Floo powder, but before he gets the chance Bill comes along looking positively terrified and asks if we've seen his wand, which is, of course, in Fred's pocket. If I hadn't known better, though, I would have thought that Fred didn't realize Bill owned a wand because he just gives him this blank look, makes some quip about how wands are supposed to vanish other things and not themselves, then suggests that he go get it back from Ron before it gets chewed in half. Bill apparently hadn't thought of that and he runs off and as soon as he's gone Fred passes me the wand and I go put it back in Bill's room. When I get back, Fred's lying on the floor on his back with his head in the fireplace and when I ask him what he's doing he points up into the chimney and says that the slinky's up there.

"After a minute it's obvious that the slinky is not going to come back down through the fireplace, we both run outside and manage to find it scaling the outside wall. Before long, it gets back to the ground and starts creeping through the grass like the world's strangest snake. By now Fred and I have realized that we have a problem because Ottery St. Catchpole is a Muggle place and the Burrow is outside of town, but not that far outside, and we know if we lose track of the slinky some Muggle's going to find it. So we start chasing it and it starts running, but what we didn't expect it to do was run up a tree. For about five seconds we thought we were set, because we could catch the slinky as soon as it tried to get back down the tree, but then it occurred to us that it could wait around much longer than we could. Now Fred knows that someone could come along at any second and ask us what we're doing and we couldn't very well say that we were waiting for a charmed slinky to come out of the tree and we couldn't let it get away, so he follow it up the tree and..."

George paused a second to shake off a bout of laughter.

"...and the next thing anyone knows the slinky's attacking him. It remains to this day one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. There Fred was, about a third of a way up the tree and completely tangled up in this slinky. It's got an arm and a leg pinned and Fred is trying to fight it off with his free arm, but all he really manages to do is knock himself off the branch. Fortunately, the slinky also looped itself around the branch, so Fred is just hanging there, almost upside down, still flailing around and trying to pull it off. Now this slinky, for all its ferocity, isn't very strong and after about thirty seconds of this it couldn't hold Fred up any longer so it drops him. We yank it down and start stomping on it and hitting it with rocks and anything else we can find until it's so bent out of shape that it couldn't have walked anywhere if it wanted to.

"We were still having a laugh at our victory over the slinky by the time Mum called us to dinner. The very first thing she asks when we get there is what happened, because between the tree and the slinky Fred was pretty beaten up. Without missing a beat, Fred says that he and I had decided to try and help out and de gnome the garden, because she was always pestering Bill and Charlie to do it, and that he hadn't reckoned on the gnomes having teeth. Mum takes one look out the window at the garden and the first thing she sees is a gnome, so she turns back to the table and says that she appreciates the effort but we're a bit young for the job, although if we really want to learn how, Bill could be convinced to give us a lesson. Then she turns to Bill and asks if he's found his wand yet and Bill pulls on this guilty look and says he's not sure how he missed it in the first place because it was on his night stand all along. I take a glance over at Ron and see that he's sitting about as far away from Bill as he can get and looking a bit worried, which was strange because Ron worshipped Bill. Fred must have noticed too and realized that Bill must have accused Ron of taking his wand, because a second later he grabbed Ron's plate and started piling it with food and when he gave it back there was a smiling face there, made out of Ron's dinner. He cheered up quite a bit after that. Finally, about half way through the meal, Dad asks about the slinky and Fred holds up the mangled mess we turned it into and says it missed a stair near the very top of the staircase and fell all the way down. So Dad takes it, and luckily, by then all of Fred's experiments have worn off, so Dad has no reason to suspect that things happened any different than Fred said they did. That must have been before he learned not to trust anything we say. We never told anybody what happened that day. In fact, I think this is the first time anyone besides us has ever known what actually happened with the slinky and Bill's wand."

George paused and took a deep breath.

"Fred was the sort of person who could make a joke out of almost anything. He was the only person I've ever met who could laugh when Binns assigned a five foot essay and laugh even harder when he realized that he'd forgotten about it until the night before it was due. To him, rules were made to be broken. He was always the one with a plan. Like in the story about the slinky, he didn't care that he wasn't allowed to do magic, he didn't even care that he didn't know how to do magic, he just wanted to try something new. And, at the same time, he always cleaned up his tracks; he had an excuse at hand and a way to pacify anyone he might have wronged along the way.

"If it wasn't for Fred, I wouldn't be the person I am. I don't know who I would be, but I think I'm better off having known him."

George paused again and ran a hand through his hair, trying to collect himself.

"The world needs people who can laugh at anything, but its short one now. Fred died fighting a war that refused to end, the last in a long list of casualties, but with his help, we won, and now people can laugh freely again. I might have Fred's face, but I'm not him. When Fred died he took a piece of me with him, a big piece that I didn't know how to live without at first, but he left a piece of himself in me too. I never used to be able to think of myself without him, but he's still here, in his jokes, and his legends, and that swamp in Hogwarts, and in m-"

George broke off suddenly and turned away from the crowd. He spent several minutes gazing at the rows upon rows of headstones before finally turning back.

"Sod it," George said suddenly, pulling the rest of them from their quiet contemplation. "Listen, Fred wouldn't want us to sit around crying over him, he'd want us to have a celebration, so that's what we're going to do. Someone go get some mead or something and I'll let off some fireworks. Does anyone want to hear about the class that gave us the idea for the Puking Pastille?"