Mrs. Weasley looked around and said

Mrs. Weasley looked around and said, “I can’t make it grow back, not when it’s been removed by Dark Magic. But it could’ve been so much worse…. He’s alive.”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “Thank God.”

“Did I hear someone else in the yard?” Ginny asked.

“Hermione and Kingsley,” said Harry.

“Thank goodness,” Ginny whispered. They looked at each other; Harry wanted to hug her, hold on to her; he did not even care much that Mrs. Weasley was there, but before he could act on the impulse, there was a great crash from the kitchen.

“I’ll prove who I am, Kingsley, after I’ve seen my son, now back off if you know what’s good for you!”

Harry had never heard Mr. Weasley shout like that before. He burst into the living room, his bald patch gleaming with sweat, his spectacles askew, Fred right behind him, both pale but uninjured.

“Arthur!” sobbed Mrs. Weasley. “Oh thank goodness!”

“How is he?”

Mr. Weasley dropped to his knees beside George. For the first time since Harry had known him, Fred seemed to be lost for words. He gaped over the back of the sofa at his twin’s wound as if he could not believe what he was seeing.

Perhaps roused by the sound of Fred and their father’s arrival, George stirred.

“How do you feel, Georgie?” whispered Mrs. Weasley.

George’s fingers groped for the side of his head.

“Saintlike,” he murmured.

“What’s wrong with him?” croaked Fred, looking terrified. “Is his mind affected?”

“Saintlike,” repeated George, opening his eyes and looking up at his brother. “You see… I’m holy. Holey, Fred, geddit?”

Mrs. Weasley sobbed harder than ever. Color flooded Fred’s pale face.

“Pathetic,” he told George. “Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related humor before you, you go for holey?”

“Ah well,” said George, grinning at his tear-soaked mother. “You’ll be able to tell us apart now, anyway, Mum.”

He looked around.

“Hi, Harry – you are Harry, right?”

“Yeah, I am,” said Harry, moving closer to the sofa.

“Well, at least we got you back okay,” said George. “Why aren’t Ron and Bill huddled round my sickbed?”

“They’re not back yet, George,” said Mrs. Weasley. George’s grin faded. Harry glanced at Ginny and motioned to her to accompany him back outside. As they walked through the kitchen she said in a low voice.

“Ron and Tonks should be back by now. They didn’t have a long journey; Auntie Muriel’s not that far from here.”

Harry said nothing. He had been trying to keep fear at bay ever since reaching the Burrow, but now it enveloped him, seeming to crawl over his skin, throbbing in his chest, clogging his throat. As they walked down the back steps into the dark yard, Ginny took his hand.

Kingsley was striding backward and forward, glancing up at the sky every time he turned. Harry was reminded of Uncle Vernon pacing the living room a million years ago.

Hagrid, Hermione, and Lupin stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing upward in silence. None of them looked around when Harry and Ginny joined their silent vigil.

The minutes stretched into what might as well have been years. The slightest breath of wind made them all jump and turn toward the whispering bush or tree in the hope that one of the missing Order members might leap unscathed from its leaves –

And then a broom materialized directly above them and streaked toward the ground –

“It’s them!” screamed Hermione.

Tonks landed in a long skid that sent earth and pebbles everywhere.

“Remus!” Tonks cried as she staggered off the broom into Lupin’s arms. His face was set and white: He seemed unable to speak, Ron tripped dazedly toward Harry and Hermione.

“You’re okay,” he mumbled, before Hermione flew at him and hugged him tightly.

“I thought – I thought – ”

“‘M all right,” said Ron, patting her on the back. “‘M fine.”

“Ron was great,” said Tonks warmly, relinquishing her hold on Lupin. “Wonderful. Stunned one of the Death Eaters, straight to the head, and when you’re aiming at a moving target from a flying broom – ”

“You did?” said Hermione, gazing up at Ron with her arms still around his neck.

“Always the tone of surprise,” he said a little grumpily, breaking free. “Are we the last back?”

“No,” said Ginny, “we’re still waiting for Bill and Fleur and Mad-Eye and Mundungus. I’m going to tell Mum and Dad you’re okay, Ron – ”

She ran back inside.

“So what kept you? What happened?” Lupin sounded almost angry at Tonks.

“Bellatrix,” said Tonks. “She wants me quite as much as she wants Harry, Remus, She tried very hard to kill me. I just wish I’d got her, I owe Bellatrix. But we definitely injured Rodolphus…. Then we got to Ron’s Auntie Muriel’s and we missed our Portkey and she was fussing over us – ”

A muscle was jumping in Lupin’s jaw. He nodded, but seemed unable to say anything else.

“So what happened to you lot?” Tonks asked, turning to Harry, Hermione, and Kingsley.

They recounted the stories of their own journeys, but all the time the continued absence of Bill, Fleur, Mad-Eye, and Mundungus seemed to lie upon them like a frost, its icy bite harder and harder to ignore.

“I’m going to have to get back to Downing Street, I should have been there an hour ago,” said Kingsley finally, after a last sweeping gaze at the sky. “Let me know when they’re back.”

Lupin nodded. With a wave to the others, Kingsley walked away into the darkness toward the gate. Harry thought he heard the faintest pop as Kingsley Disapparated just beyond the Burrow’s boundaries.

Mr. And Mrs. Weasley came racing down the back steps, Ginny behind them. Both parents hugged Ron before turning to Lupin and Tonks.

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Weasley, “for our sons.”

“Don’t be silly, Molly,” said Tonks at once.

“How’s George?” asked Lupin.

“What’s wrong with him?” piped up Ron.

“He’s lost – ”

But the end of Mrs. Weasley’s sentence was drowned in a general outcry. A thestral had just soared into sight and landed a few feet from them. Bill and Fleur slid from its back, windswept but unhurt.
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