Out of the Books

Chapter 25 - Back to the Burrow

The message of Percy's death impacted like a bomb into the kitchen of Grimmauld Place No. 12. Mrs. Weasley made a move to stand up from her chair but didn't find the strength, so that she let herself collapse into the seat again.

"Percy," she whispered. "No, he lives. You must have misunderstood something. Percy didn't die." She registered barely how Mr. Weasley sat next to her, clutching her hand tightly, as tears were silently running down her pale cheeks.

"What happened?" Mr. Weasley asked softly.

Kingsley Shacklebolt sighed heavily, pulled a chair towards him and sat down. "Voldemort and a group of Death Eaters have stormed the Ministry of Magic in the early hours of the morning. They had split up in two groups. While the group with Voldemort raided the Department of Mysteries, around a dozen were attacking the Auror Department. Minister Scrimgeour and Percy where down there at the moment in a meeting with me and Robards. The Death Eaters were aiming to kill the Minister, but Percy threw himself in the way, so that some other Aurors had time to get the Minister into safety."

"But why?" Mrs. Weasley sobbed.

"We have no idea so far what they wanted. They were not prepared well and after our first surprise we were able to kill four Death Eaters and catch another six. Only two escaped us. I'm sure they only attacked us as a distraction. However, we don't know yet what Voldemort's group wanted down in the Department of Mysteries. They wrecked havoc at the place and we have yet to see if anything is missing." Kingsley ended his report and leaned back in his chair looking thoroughly exhausted.

Amy saw her brother and Hermione looking at each other significantly and noticed how her parents exchanged similar glances with Sirius and Remus.

"Where is Percy now?" asked Mrs. Weasley softly into the silence after Kingsley's words.

"Still at the Ministry," he answered flatly.

"I want to see him." Mrs. Weasley stood up and stepped resolutely towards the fireplace. Mr. Weasley, who had not let go of her hand, was following her.

Kingsley hesitated for a second, before he nodded. "Of course. We can go now."

It was as though Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had taken all the air out of the kitchen when they left together with Kingsley Shacklebolt. Everyone looked surreptiously at Fred, George and Ron who absently stared into nothingness.

Hermione cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Someone should tell Ginny," she murmured to no one in particular. Then she turned carefully towards Ron, who sat next to her.

"Ron? Is everything... I mean, are you okay?"

Ron shook his head. "That brat! Why did he have to go and get himself killed? Why did he have to be so god-damn brave, when he was such an opportunistic coward all the time before?"

Patting Ron's shoulder gently, Hermione looked helplessly at Harry, asking him with her eyes what to do now.

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. Not knowing, what else to do, he moved closer to his two best friends, saying nothing. From the corner of his eyes he noticed, how his parents led Amy and Leo out of the kitchen.

"I'll go and get Ginny," offered Remus softly, before he also left the kitchen feeling apparently lost.

Fred and George were sitting at the corner of the table, brooding with dark faces. Once in a while they exchanged bitter glances. "What an egoistic asshole," grumbled George.

Fred nodded. "Brave, loyal, heroic... towards the stupid Ministry. Did he ever think of Mum and Dad, when he jumped in front of the bloody Minister?"

The time seemed to have stopped as they all sat in the kitchen, everyone in their own thoughts, waiting for something - nobody knew what for. Sometime after Remus had left the room, Ginny entered, her eyes red-rimmed, and joined Ron, Hermione and Harry. She didn't say a word, so Harry guessed that Remus had told her everything already.

After what seemed like an eternity, Harry couldn't stand the depressive silence and immobility any more and excused himself, mumbling something about the bathroom. The Weasleys have always been like a family to Harry and it hurt him to see how they were hurt. But at the same time he felt like an intruder, watching them grieve without being able to help in any way. And Voldemort having managed to retrieve the Hufflepuff Cup from the Ministry made him want to act. In a flash of anger he thought that the whole fiasco could have been avoided, if the others would have acted immediately after they read about the cup - or if he himself hadn't been so weak to go to bed, when he knew exactly that Voldemort would be doing everything to bring his other Horcruxes into safety.

Harry shook his head. It was no use to blame anyone for the attack at the Ministry. Even if they had known beforehand, there was too little time to get the cup before Voldemort and warn everyone about a possible attack. Voldemort had just been too fast. It made it seem almost impossible to win this stupid war, when their enemy was always a step ahead of them.

In hope to find Sirius, Remus or his parents, Harry went upstairs. The four of them and Leo and Amy were in the sitting room, talking in hushed voices. Harry knocked quietly on the open door to draw the attention to himself before he took a seat between Remus and Leo. James and Lily were looking at their son intensively.

"So, you have a connection to Voldemort through that scar?" James asked, throwing an uncertain glance at Harry's forehead.

Harry nodded, looking at the floor. "Yes, it hurts when he gets angry or happy, and sometimes, when his emotions are especially strong I have visions. I can see through his eyes."

Sirius sat up in his armchair and hit the table with the journal of his brother. "Now, Voldemort is probably not resting, while we are sitting here. Our task of destroying his Horcruxes won't become easier with Voldemort knowing about us. That's, what we still have to do: Firstly, find out how to destroy the locket, secondly, get back the cup from Voldemort, thirdly, find out what the last Horcrux is and finally kill that stupid snake of his."

"That's right, Padfoot," said James with a grin. "Let's see, if we can take the afternoon off, so we get everything done."

"James!" Lily reprimanded her husband while rolling her eyes. "Not the right time for funny remarks."

Despite the situation Harry had to grin. His parents reminded him of his two best friends.

"I think we should start on the locket, as we have it here anyway and when we find a way to destroy it, we can use it on all the other Horcruxes too - and it might be possible that we have to act quickly then." Remus brought the attention back to the topic at hand.

"Right," agreed James. "But I think it makes sense to split up. We don't know what Voldemort will do next and I'd rather be working on all Horcruxes at once."

"We can leave the cup for now. As Voldemort has it anyway, it's not so urgent to get it. The priority should be on the locket and on the unknown last Horcrux," Lily said.

During the next half hour the seven of them were making up to-do-lists on these two main goals and assigning the single tasks.

Harry nodded, looking at the list with the assignments. He felt slightly better now that they were starting to develop a plan. "But what about the Weasleys and... and Percy?"

The atmosphere in the sitting room became grim and gloomy once more. "I'll go downstairs and see how they are doing," said Remus. Harry stood up as well and followed the werewolf into the kitchen.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had returned from the Ministry. When Remus and Harry entered the kitchen, Mr. Weasley looked up with empty eyes.

"We are going back to the Burrow." He had the voice of an old man.

"I think we should stay together," said Tonks. "It's not safe to split up now."

Mrs. Weasley nodded automatically. "Sure, the house is big enough."

The same evening Remus, Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt went to the Burrow to prepare the return of the Weasley family and to make sure all the wards were still in place. Furthermore they were turning the now empty henhouse into another bedroom, as not everyone would fit into the house. Sirius and Lily were working on a stable and secure floo-connection between Grimmauld Place and the Burrow, so that everyone could travel between these two houses but nobody had access to either of their fireplaces from the outside.

The Weasleys, Potters and Hermione followed after the next day. Percy's funeral was scheduled to take place two days later in Ottery St. Catchpole.

While Mrs. Weasley busied herself with the preparation of the funeral, the other members of the Weasley family were determined to put all their energy in the Horcrux hunt. Now that Voldemort had struck so close to home, the anger and the fear for the rest of the family made them feel restless and eager to bring down the dark wizard.

Remus, Lily and Hermione were sorting through the ancient dusty folios in Grimmauld Place library to find a clue about valuables in connection to any of the four Hogwarts founders. Leo and Amy were helping them by comparing newspaper clippings from the last twenty years. Now knowing that the Weasley family descended from Godric Gryffindor himself, Mr. Weasley, Ron and Ginny were looking through the cellars of the Burrow in hope to find some family secret. Tonks had managed to get into the team, which investigated the break-in in the Department of Mysteries. Fred and George were working day and night on developing new objects, which could help them in the practical part of their Horcrux hunt. James, Sirius and Harry were researching ways to destroy the locket.

The last two groups were making the fastest progress. Fred and George were already testing a spray that made you see everything in a mirror image. A quite simple effect with stunning results. When they tried it on each other, the twins were hardly able to find their way around the house they have lived in for 19 years.

James, Sirius and Harry had decided not to put too much time into researching new ways of destroying Horcruxes. They knew that basilisk venom would do the job and they knew where they could find a basilisk's body. Therefore the three of them were now planning how to get into Hogwarts, into the Chamber of Secrets and steal some teeth. As the school was empty during the summer, it should not be too difficult to enter it. The problem was mainly to get there without being seen.

In the end they decided to travel to Scotland by Muggle means, James using a glamour charm to slightly change his appearance. Sirius could transform into a dog and Harry would accompany them, hidden beneath the invisibility cloak. They would do it right after the funeral - if they could persuade Lily and Molly that it was not too dangerous and Ron and Hermione that five people were too many for this mission.

The evening before the funeral everyone was sitting in the kitchen of the Burrow, discussing the results of the last two days of work and research. The place was quite cramped but the atmosphere was more relaxed than anyone could have imagined two days before.

"Look here!" Lily held up a newspaper clipping from 1728. "The Museum of Ancient Artefacts in Garrigill had a dagger and a lyre, which were the last items which could be assigned to Rowena Ravenclaw. Unfortunately these two objects were destroyed together with the whole museum when a cursed Egyptian amulet exploded and turned everything within a radius of 30 metres into dust."

"I mean, it's really a pity that such valuable objects were destroyed," added Hermione hastily. "But for us it's good to know that we are not looking for anything that belonged to Ravenclaw. So the last Horcrux must have something to do with Gryffindor."

The others in the kitchen nodded thoughtfully. "We might find a clue about Gryffindor's belongings somewhere in the house," said Mr. Weasley. "But Ron, Ginny and I can't do it by ourselves. Nobody has been in the cellars for decades and we could use a hand to help us clean the place up before we have any chance of finding something there."

"We could help!" cried Leo and Amy eagerly. Even if they had quite enough of cleaning and searching, as it was only a week ago that they were basically taking Grimmauld Place apart in search for the silver Slytherin Locket. But still, this task was much better than sitting over thousands of pages of century-old paper and parchment all day long.

Suddenly everyone in the kitchen went quite, listening to the knocking the front door. Mr. Weasley stood up and walked noiselessly up the corridor, while the others at the table stood up as well, pulling out their wands.

"Who is there?" Mr. Weasley shouted tersely.

"Hi, I'm back!" came Tonks' voice tiredly from the other side of the door.

Feeling relieved, they still left their wands out. "What is my favourite, when you transform your face?" asked Remus through the closed door.

"A black and white tigered cat," came the prompt response.

Mr. Weasley opened the door and Tonks entered, sporting exactly the cat-face she had just been talking of. Remus smiled at her and took her into his arms, while Ron grinned broadly at Hermione, who blushed bright red. Harry smiled. He too remembered that Hermione had looked almost like Tonks looked now, when she drank Polyjuice Potion with cat hair in their second year.

"How was it at the Ministry?" asked Remus as they all went back into the now even more crowded kitchen.

"Chaotic." Tonks sighed and was glad to take a seat. Her face was back to normal, her hair short and bright pink again. "They know now that it was indeed the Hufflepuff Cup, which was stolen by Voldemort. Nothing else is missing. However they have no clue, what he wants with the cup. The Auror department has made it their priority to figure out, where Voldemort has his hiding place and so far they have narrowed it down to the Cumbrian Mountains."

"Okay," murmured Lily as she was taking notes on all the information they had gathered and all the plans they had made. Four pages of parchment documented the results of their work today.

Tonks yawned widely and Mr. Weasley looked at his watch. "I think we should call it a day," he said in a carefully controlled voice. "Tomorrow will be exhausting." He stood up and started clearing the table, Molly jumping to his side to help him.

One after the other they all went to their bedrooms. The twins had offered their room to Tonks and Remus, so that they were now sharing the henhouse with Leo, Harry and Ron. Lily and James were sleeping in Ron's room, while Sirius took the couch in the living room.

The five boys and Sirius were the last ones in the kitchen, when everyone else was going to bed and the house became quiet. Ron was taking Butterbeer out of the cupboard for every one.

"You know, we are fighting You-Know-Who and the Ministry is fighting him too," said Ron, playing absentmindedly with his bottle of butter beer. Not knowing, what his friend was on about, Harry looked up at him, waiting for him to continue.

"I can't just be angry with Percy for sacrificing himself for the Minister. If one of us dies... isn't it more or less for the same cause - to bring You-Know-Who down? It's not fair of us to be so self-righteous, only because he decided to fight at another front. He's still our brother, isn't he?" Ron still didn't look up, as he spilled out his thoughts, his face glowing red.

Fred and George were staring at their brother with strange looks. Hesitantly they nodded. "Yeah, somehow you are right," said George.

"I mean, he was a prat most of the time," Fred continued. "But it's wrong to call him a coward. He had decided differently than the rest of the family, but he pulled his decision through to the end."

Silence fell upon the kitchen once more, only broken by the occasional knocking noise when someone brought down his bottle to the table.

Leo looked around a bit uncomfortably. It was obvious that the others were lost in their memories of Percy. But Leo hadn't known Percy and felt left out. He cleared his throat uneasily and stood up. "Er...well, I'm going to bed now," he said and left the Burrow to walk over the short distance to the henhouse.

Only a few seconds later he was back into the kitchen, his face flushed in excitement and a bit of fear.

"Look, what I've found!" he shouted. "It was caught in the wards; obviously it was looking for a way to get in."

Harry, Ron, Sirius, Fred and George were staring at Leo, who was holding a struggling rat in his hand - a rat with a silver paw.