Without Wand or Wire

When Draco arrived at The Burrow, he stumbled over Ginny. Hermione whirled, but relaxed (A little, anyway) when she saw that it was only Malfoy.

She moved forward awkwardly through the wreckage, hands and legs shaking. "R-Ron?" she managed to croak after a few soundless tries. "Harry?" It was suddenly hard to breath.

Nothing could have survived devastation like this. Nothing. It was a bloody miracle the enough of the fireplace had remained intact enough for them to Floo in in the first place!

Hermione drew her wand and pointed it at a sizable piece of fallen wall. "Wingaurdium Leviosa!" The large bit of debris flew up into the air, and she whipped it aside, out of the area that had once been The Burrow.

Draco scrambled to his feet and glanced around. Merlin, had this been the Weasleys' home? He didn't need to wonder what had happened to it: the Dark Lord's hand was in this, somehow. Ginny sobbed at Draco's feet, much as he had done at hers just hours past. Draco fought his rising gorge. He had no love for Potter or Weasley, but ... he knew them. They were just children, really, like himself. Were they really ... dead?

[Devastation at The Burrow ...]

He suddenly had a fervent wish to go back in time and beat the living daylights out of his younger self, the self that had joked about killing his enemies, like it was all a lark. Now that they were actually gone, he felt no satisfaction, but ... what was this? Guilt, perhaps, for having been so callous in the past about the thought of their deaths, but something else as well. He felt ... sad. Sad for the girl who was crying at her feet, having lost a home, a friend, a brother. Sad for Hermione, who, if he understood the discussion back at the House of Black, had just come to realise her feelings for one of the boys. Whichever it had been, now he was gone to her. Just like Pansy.

More murders to lie at the feet of the Dark Lord, more reasons to find a way to destroy the monster.

Draco didn't even notice the tears that were falling freely down his face, as he helped the girls poke though the rubble. Before long, he found a strange sort of clock: in lieu of the hours, it said things like "work", "school", and "home", and it had many hands, each of them bearing the visage of a red-head. Several of the heads, including two he recognised as the twins, pointed towards "work". Two others, which Draco thought he recognised as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, just kept going around and around; Draco remembered that the house of Black was supposed to be Unplottable, and figured that was why. Or else the clock didn't know what to call their location. Ginny's hand pointed towards "home".

And Ronald Weasley's clock hand, rather than pointing to "mortal peril" or "dead", pointed towards "shopping."

* * *

Back at his hideaway, Voldemort screamed in frustration and threw a vase against the wall, giving a terrible fright to his familiar, Nagina. Not only had Potter not been where Voldemort had thought he was, but the Dark Lord had foolishly expended a great deal of magic in his anger at being cheated of his prey. He'd almost not had enough magical strength left to Apparate back. He was even weaker than he had been the night before!

He should have just stuck to his original plan.

One thing was certain: now that so many of his followers had been either killed or captured, he was going to have to play his trump card. If only the Lestranges weren't so damn unpredictable. ...

* * *

"Weasley?" Draco called out to Ginny.

Ginny turned to him, her face a battleground of grief and anger. Granger aimed a similar visage his way.

He bit back the urge retreat, and asked, "What is this thing?"

Recognizing the Weasley Family clock, the girls scrambled up from their respective patches of rubble and hurried over. Sad tears became glad ones as they realised what the clock was telling them: that their friends were indeed alive and well (for wherever Ron was, Harry was likely to be with him). Ginny hugged the clock, while Hermione actually threw her arms around Draco. Ginny expected him to be thoroughly disgusted by the manuever, and was pleasantly surprised to find he was only profoundly embarrased.

"You two head back to Grimmauld Place and tell the Order about all this," Hermione told them when she finally remembered to let Malfoy breathe. "I think I know where the boys have gone, so I'll go track them down and warn them not to come back here."

"You know where they are?" Ginny asked, scowling. "Where's that?"

Rather than ruining Ginny's birthday surprise (or lying to her friend), Hermione simply cast the Full Body-Bind on the younger girl. Draco caught the youngest Weasley and held her upright.

"Turnabout's fair play, 'ey Ginny?" Hermione remarked with a sly smile as Ginny sputtered various profanities at her. "Take her back," the bushy-haired girl then ordered Draco.

"But what are they going to think, if I walk in with her like this?"

Hermione shrugged. "Fleur's probably still there, she'll remember that Ginny did it to me first. Besides," she smiled, a little too sweetly, "if you won't go, I can always do that to you, too, then shrink you both and send you back there in a box, via owl post or something."

Draco swallowed hard; Granger seemed just mad enough at the moment to follow through with her threat -- and he still didn't have his wand on him. ...

In their haste to be off, none of the three noted the movement in the rubble behind them.

* * *

"Are you sure you don't want to look around a little more?" Ron asked Harry with a frown.

They were on their way back to the Leaky Cauldron from Muggle London. Ron had found a few CDs for Ginny, but Harry hadn't bought anything for her.

What Ron didn't know was that, every time Harry had even considered an item as a gift for Ginny, the pendant in The Boy's pocket had grown so cold it burned, and didn't stop until he'd put the item in question down. Harry got the feeling the pendant was playing a game of hot/cold with him -- he'd yet to find the right present. The only time it had grown hot that day were the times he'd thought of Ginny herself, and the one moment he'd thought, fleetingly, of how the pendant might look around her neck. The heat hadn't stayed in his pendant-bearing pocket that time, but had momentarily swept over him, like a warm blanket.

Afraid of drawing the Dark Lord's attention again at that point, he didn't let himself ponder the meaning of it all, however obvious it might have been. He'd pushed all thoughts of Ginny or her birthday out of his mind, and had barely paid attention as Ron asked his opinion on this item or that.

"Don't worry, Ron, your Snackboxes are safe," Harry told him now with a wry smile.

Ron raised a brow. "You found her something then?"

"Don't worry about it," Harry repeated vaguely, his gaze distant.

"You all right, mate? You're not having another fit, are you?" Ron asked him in low tones.

"I don't think we need to worry about ... him, for the moment. But I could use a lie-down," Harry added, and Ron thought he did indeed look tired.

"Let's go back to the Burrow," Ron suggested, "That's where Mum said the party was going to be when I asked her about it at breakfast. I can get some more guitar practice in before everyone else get there, maybe play something with Bill later. ..."

"Sounds good to me," Harry replied, and they continued on their way through the Muggle streets.

* * *

"I'm telling you, Remus, there's something important I'm supposed to be remembering, and it has to do with you! But all that comes to mind is that bloody music that was playing when I woke up last night!"

"Come on now, Tonks, whatever it is, it can wait," Lupin told her, Sarah and Shacklebolt nodding their agreement. "It was just a dream! Besides, if it's really so important, maybe you'll dream it again if you go back to sleep," he added with a smile.

She wrinkled her nose at the cup he'd handed her moments before. "Hate this stuff. Tastes the way sewers smell."

"And how would you know that? Been drinking raw sewage, have you?" Kingsley teased.

Tonks stuck her pierced tongue out at him. "Only that sewage you call coffee," she teased back.

She'd been afraid of how he might react once he learned her secret -- or worse, learned that she'd kept it a secret -- but he'd been very understanding, to her relief. He'd said he understood that her not telling him had nothing to do with him and everything to do with her own insecurities. It was what made them such great partners -- they knew how one another ticked. Case in point? He'd apparently already known about her "orientation"!

Pomfrey and Molly, too, hadn't batted a single eyelash between them. Tonks may as well have announced she was a member of the International Wizarding Chess League for all their interest -- although they were very pleased to meet Sarah.

Tonks hadn't gotten to see Moody's reaction as yet -- they'd had other things on their minds when she made her airborne revelation the previous night. He was a bit "old-school", but with any luck, he'd treat the news like he treated Tonks in general -- with somewhat grouchy ambivalence.

The kids, products of their generation that they were, had been very understanding, of course -- even if Ron couldn’t stop blushing every time he looked at either her or Sarah. He was a teenage boy, after all -- doubtless for a while he was going to be seeing them together in his head every time he looked at either one of them. Hermione, knowing him well enough to know what he was thinking, looked ready to smack him, but as he'd wisely kept his mouth shut, she'd had no real excuse to do so. Harry, on the other hand, while he smiled and was perfectly friendly, seemed a bit distant -- and not because of her news, Tonks wagered. She chalked it up to Sirius' death; doubtless he was still grieving.

Lupin ... Remus had a look of pride in his eyes, as well as a hint of the conspiratorial. She had the feeling she wasn't the only one who'd turned confessional. She imagined that he wanted to compare notes on the subject, but still wanted some privacy in which to talk with her. Unfortunately, Poppy wasn't going to let them have that, as she'd placed Tonks on strict bed rest in the infirmary.

Tonks hoped this didn't mean she was going to be stuck at a desk again for another lengthy period of time.

While Tonks was busy staring at the cup, deep in thought, Sarah took the opportunity to snag it from her. "Whew, you aren't kidding, Nym, this does smell rancid. I tell you what, when you wake up again, you better brush your pearlies for an hour at least before I'll snog you again!"

Tonks opened her eyes wide in mock-alarm. "That's it, I'm not touching that stuff!"

* * *

Draco stumbled, coughing, into the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, an indignant Ginny squirming in his arms. "You do realise I could have dropped you, with you wriggling about like that, don't you?" he rasped at her as he set her gently on her feet. He looked up, expecting to find Fleur; she was there, sure enough, but so were Ginny's parents, Madam Pomfrey, some strange woman, and a not-too-well-rested Snape.

"What the hell do you think you were doing, running off like that after the stunt you pulled this morning?" Snape barked, while Pomfrey simultaneously pointed out, "Mr. Malfoy, I believe I told you to get something to eat and come right back to bed!!"

Fae looked amused, but remained silent, in the back of the crowd. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley both expressed concern about the state their daughter had arrived in, although Arthur was considerably more hostile about it:

"What did you do to my daughter, Malfoy? If you've harmed a hair on her head, you'll be vomiting slugs for a year, so help me!"

Well, that explains a lot Draco thought to himself, reminded of the curse Ron had tried to cast in their second year. Somehow, Draco thought the elder Weasley wouldn't be any better at casting it -- he didn't believe for a minute that Ron's broken wand was solely at fault for the mishap -- but he wasn't keen on confirming his suspicions. Luckily Ginny, while perhaps cross with him for his having obeyed Hermione, also knew who was really to blame for her current predicament. ...

"Relax, Dad, will you? I'd be fine, if someone would take this jinx Hermione cast off me!"

Arthur quickly complied with his daughter's demand.

Snape had been about to demand an answer from Draco when he caught Ginny's words. "Wait, Granger did this to you?"

Draco scowled. "What, you think I did it? I don't even have my bloody wand! You might have made Potter give it back to me, you know!"

"Young man! How dare you talk to a professor that way!" Pomfrey and Molly each demanded.

"In light of what Potter asked you when I found you both in the street this morning, you're lucky I didn't put you in a Body-Bind," Snape drawled. "In fact ... Immobilus!"

It was Ginny's turn to catch Draco. Well, sort of: she caught him, but then she just leaned him against the fireplace. She turned to the gathered adults, fists on her hips and angry tears brimming in her eyes. "If everyone would just shut it for five bloody seconds, you'd realise there's more important things to worry about than who jinxed who, namely that THE SODDING BURROW'S BEEN BLOWN UP!!!!"

* * *

Upon stepping out of the fireplace, Hermione banged a knee on a box. Stifling a mild expletive, she looked around the twins' flat in disgust. There were vials, cauldrons, boxes, papers, and unidentifiable spills everywhere. Maybe I should come through the Leaky Cauldron's Floo after all, she thought as she carefully picked her way to the door and the stairs that led down into the twins' shop. Well, it was too late for such musings -- she was already there. She'd come to the joke shop in the first place because she figured the twins would want to know what had happened, and if she needed to gop through Diagon Alley anyway, it only made sense to stop there on the way. Then maybe the twins would accompany her on the search for her best friends -- she sure as hell didn't want to be wandering around alone, after seeing what had happened to the Weasley home! And the faster they found Ron and Harry, the better.

* * *

A boggart, having finally freed itself from a wardrobe that had gotten buried in debris, wailed in disappointment as its would-be victims, three young humans, disappeared through a fireplace. It could'nt blame them for leaving, though; this was a dangerous place to be, and the boggart wasn't too keen on staying any long itself! But it was so weak from hunger ... should it leave and look elsewhere for sustenance? Did it have the strength?

Happily, it had barely begun to consider departing when another pair of young ones stumbled out of the fireplace.

* * *

"Ginny, what have I told you about using that kind of la--" Molly stopped short as her daughter's words finally got past her sense of motherly outrage.

The other adults in the room, lacking that fierce parental drive to reprimand, had been immediately struck dumb. Of course, that meant they were also quicker than Molly to start talking again -- all save Fleur, who helped the now-wobbly Molly settle onto one of the benches.

Ginny waited for the usual rounds of "What do you means?!"s and "Are you all right?!"s to subside, then explained how she and Hermione had gone looking for the boys (without going into detail as to why the boys had gone to The Burrow without them in the first place). She told them how Draco had found the clock, which in turn had told them that Ron was fine. Ginny's voice grew a bit heated when she got to the part where Hermione, after cryptically revealing that she might know where the errant boys had wandered to, had actually turned her wand on them. Ginny was practically spitting like a cat when she finished the tale, telling how Draco had whisked her back to Grimmauld Place, on Hermione's order.

"I mean, if Hermione knew where they went, why did she get all upset and think they'd been killed in the first place? And why should where they went be such a secret? You are going to yell at her for not telling us, right?" Ginny asked her mother. Then she noticed what was sitting on the table next to Molly.

Brightly-coloured boxes, stacks of plates and cutlery, parcels of groceries ...

"Merlin's beard ..." she breathed. "It's ... it's my birthday!"

* * *

George looked up at the sound of someone coming down the stairs, and scowled. The only people who had a right to be up there were already down in the store with him! His scowl turned to puzzlement when Hermione came into view. He was half annoyed, half amused when he asked her "Hermione, what the bloody hell were you doing in our flat?"

Fred and the others looked up from their assorted tasks, more than a little startled. Hermione certainly wasn't the type to barge into other people's homes unannounced! At the grim look she bore, though. their surprise turned to worry. As she reached the shop proper and beckoned the twins to the stockroom, they knew whatever the reason for her impromptu visit, it couldn't be good.

* * *

In the boredom of a lonely summer, the passage of days had come to have little meaning to Ginny; the worries of the night before (not to mention their morning) had only compounded her distraction from the calender. "It is my birthday, isn't it?" she asked, turning back to her mum. Her hands drew into fists again, and her eyes burned. Some bloody birthday surprise!

"Oh, sweetie!" Molly gathered Ginny into her arms and held the girl close, smoothing her daughter's hair soothingly even as her own heart was breaking.

"So that's why the clock said Weasley was shopping!" Draco said to no one in particular, except maybe Snape and Fleur, not really feeling comfortable with any other adult. "He and Potter were probably looking for a present for his sister, and Granger had probably told them something specific to get! And they had gone to the Weasley home first, like Fleur told us. ..." He looked to Fleur, for confirmation.

She shrugged apologetically. "All I know eez zat Ron said 'Ze Burrow' before steppeeng eento ze fireplace, and when 'Arry went, 'ee said ze same."

"That still doesn't explain why you went," Snape pointed out to Draco, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

* * *

Hermione cast a privacy spell, then told the twins about the morning's events, omitting the part about why Ron had left for The Burrow, only saying that Fluer had witnessed his depature, and Harry's. She also claimed to have some inkling of where the errant Weasley, along with Harry, might have wandered off to.

The twins looked deeply shaken by the news, but were composed enough for George to rise to his feet, ready to leave at once in search of Ron and their friend.

Fred, ever the more contemplative of the twins, grabbed George's arm, but trained his cunning gaze on Hermione. "And just what was Malfoy doing there? How do we know he didn't sneak over there before you and do the damage himself? Maybe this is all some sort of elaborate trap. In fact ... how do we even know you're you?"

Hermione's eyes flashed with outraged indignation for a moment, before she grinned somewhat evil-ly. "Would anyone else know about the time Ron and I found you and Angelina in that empty classroom on the third floor, when we were on our Prefect rounds?" she asked with an air of mock innocence.

Fred flushed -- if the remark hadn't been aimed at him, he might even have been proud of Hermione for it -- while George complained to his twin, "Heeeeey! You never told me about that!"

"It's not like anyone couldn't guess an encounter like that might have happened at some point," Fred sputtered in protested, ignoring his twin and addressing Hermione, "what with me being such a cad and you being such an overachiever!"

"All right, fair enough" Hermione said evenly, not sure whether to be offended or flattered. "But I saw something in particular that night. Is anyone likely to guess that you have a snitch tattoo on your--"

Fred clamped an unnecessary hand over Hermione's mouth, while George barked a laugh -- George of course knew about the tattoo, and no one else could hear through the privacy spell.

"Angelina could have told you that!" Fred hissed.

Hermione pursed her lips, thinking a moment. "When we stayed at Grimmauld Place last Christmas, Sirius went about the place singing 'God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs' and putting Father Christmas hats on those horrid dead house-elf heads. I was supposed to go skiing, but came to stay with all of you instead, and we had to coax Harry downstairs because he blamed himself for your father having been bitten by that snake."

Fred sat back, relaxing a little.

"And how precisely," Hermione continued, "would Draco have gone to The Burrow -- assuming he even knew where your house was, before Ginny and I went there -- and blown it up? As if he had that amount of power anyway! Even if he figured on using a Floo in one of the other rooms, not all of them are hooked up to the Network, so he would have had to hunt for one, and I doubt he would want to risk discovery that way anyway!"

It was Fred's turn to purse his lips. "He could have stepped out of the hall and Apparated illegally. Even if someone had noticed the sound, they couldn't know it was him. Or he could have had a Portkey. ... But you're right about him not having enough power to level the place, much less any reason to have known where it was. ... And if he's gotten outside help in that regard, the outsider could have blown up The Burrow themselves anyway, rather than have him do it. ... But I still don't trust him! I don't even understand what he was doing at number twelve in the first place, really. ..."

"I'm not exactly fond of him either," Hermione reminded them with a wry smile. "But Dumbledore and Crookshanks trust him, and that's good enough for me. Besides, you haven't actually seen him since the battle at Robert's Grove, have you?" She went on to tell them, quickly, about how she, Ron, and Ginny had found the boy, a complete wreck, in the attic the night before, how he had fought with the ghost of his father, how his mother had died, how he'd had to kill his own father. How he'd learned of the supposed death of his girlfriend that morning. She could see the twins struggle with their sense of pity; they were far more compassionate than they liked to let on.

"I still don't like him. ..." George finally said, with unspoken resignation hanging at the end of his words. He and Fred would accept Draco's presence in the Order as they did Snape's: with a great amount of reluctance.

Hermione patted his shoulder. "No one said we had to. Now will you help me go track down Ron? By now he might already be back at The Burrow!"

Fred nodded. "In fact, George, why don't you go with Hermione, and I'll go to The Burrow, check it out myself."

George nodded.

"Are you sure it's wise to go back there alone?" Hermione asked.

Fred shrugged. "Whoever attacked our house seems to have left, else you and Ginny and Draco would probably have been annihilated the moment you got there. Besides, Mum and Dad are likely there by now. If not, I'll just wait till someone does get there. If Ron and Harry show up, I'll contact George via our mirrors and let you know, all right?"

Hermione nodded, wishing she and her other friends had their own Communication Glasses. She was going to have to talk to someone about that. ...

* * *

Ron had already fallen to his knees when Harry stumbled through the Floo. Harry had laid his hands on Ron's shoulders when he'd started to trip; now he kept them there to keep himself upright, as his legs trembled with shock. Neither boys' mind could seem to register what their eyes were telling them. For long moments they just stayed as they were, mouths agape. Reality made one ineffectual attempt after another to impress it's new state upon them: this place, the permanence of which they had long taken for granted, was now gone.

The sound of stirring rubble revived Ron, if only a little. Rising to his feet, he was drawn to the sound. Harry had regained his own footing by then, but followed Ron almost unconsciously, as if still using him mentally for support.

It wasn't long before Ron found the spot the sound had come from, although what he found there, to his mind, couldn't possibly have been the source of it. The dead didn't make sounds, and there was no doubt that the object of the gruesome scene before him was dead.

Outside of splinching, a person couldn't live with their upper torso separated from their lower.

* * *

Draco couldn't meet his godfather's eyes as he tried to answer the man's question. "To be honest, I-I'm not really sure why I followed them. I mean, I felt the Mark burning just before they left, but ... it's not like I knew that the house had been blown up, or even that they might be in danger -- I had no idea that the Mark's burning had anything to do with them at all. It's just that ... well, you were asleep, and the Weasleys and Granger helped me last night; I guess I just ..." He couldn't complete the thought. Just what? Would rather hang about with the Gryffindors, with whom he'd borne a mutual hatred for five years, than be alone?

Snape seemed to understand, his face softening (at least to the Slytherin boy, who knew him best). He looked thoughtfully at the white-blond youth, while rubbing his arm, where his own Mark was, in commiseration. "The Mark woke me up," Snape admitted. "It could very well be that you got an impression of where the Dark Lord was -- or at least had been -- unconciously. ... Well, we can think it out later. For now, I'm going with Mr. Weasley and the others to assess the damage. You'll be all right here?"

Draco managed a lopsided smile, glancing down to his stiffened body, then back at his godfather. "Not like I have a choice."

"I'll stay wiz 'eem and Ginny," Fleur offered, and Snape nodded tersely.

Pomfery put a hand on Molly's shoulder. "I have to go back up to the ward ..." Which meant that she would be there at Grimmauld Place to keep an eye on the kids as well. Molly nodded gratefully, patting Poppy's hand. Poppy gave her a sympathetic smile before heading up the stairs.

"I do wish Hermione had told us where the boys were going," Arthur sighed. "She usually has a much better head on her shoulders than that! I don't like this at all."

"Maybe I should look for the children instead of going with you to The Burrow, then," Snape suggested.

"Aye, and I'll go with yeh," Fae offered. "Chances are good that they either went to Diagon Alley or nearby Muggle London, and I'm pretty familiar with both."

Snape nodded, and this time his gratitide was much more palpable. Draco noted it with curiosity, grateful for any distraction from his own thoughts.

Arthur, meanwhile, seemed ready to step through the fire. "Wait!" Snape warned. "For all we know, there could be some sort of trap waiting there still. We know that Potter and your son aren't there, at least -- it might be best to call in a squad from the Ministry, have them fly over on broom and check it out."

Arthur nodded.

"And we should call the boys, while we're at it," Molly added, and he nodded again, before they headed out to the Ministry together.