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A faint plea echoed out across the beach, barely audible over the crashing waves. Dobby stood away from the others, clutching his chest, his eyes wide with sad realisation.
"Dobby!" Harry gasped, racing over to the small elf, catching him as he fell to the wet sand. Laboured gasps fell from his lips, a bloodied dagger pulled from his flesh and laid on the beach, "Dobby. No, just... hold on. Hold on. Look, just hold on, okay?"
Bill, who had come running out of the cottage with Luna, picked up his sister, both of them sadly watching the scene before them.
"We'll fix you," Harry continued, unable to keep the desperation from his shaky voice, "Hermione will have something. In your bag? Hermione?"
"Such a beautiful place," Dobby murmured, "to be with friends. Dobby is happy to be with his friend."
Harry, tears brimming in his eyes, hugged the elf tighter to his chest, as if he could keep him alive with wishful thinking.
"Harry Potter..." he smiled, before his eyes went glassy, his hands falling from his blood-soaked rag.
Luna gently kneeled beside them, her hair wild and eyes with dark bags under them, "We should close his eyes. Don't you think?" She gently moved his eyelids, "There. Now he could be sleeping.
"I want to bury him," Harry exclaimed, "properly. Without magic."
Bill linked an arm under Lori's leg, carefully bearing her back across the sand to the house. Fleur smiled sadly as she saw her, gently tucking her into one of the guest rooms and stroking her hair.
"I didn't think the next time I saw my Maid of Honour she would like quite like this." Fleur mused, casting a spell that eased the pain in her injured leg.
Lori chuckled dryly, "Didn't think I would either."
Bill reappeared, a steaming mug of tea in his hand, as he perched on the bed and handed the drink to his sister, "Mum's cure for everything."
Straining to take a sip, Lori pressed her lips into a thin line, "There are some things even mum can't fix."
Fleur and Bill shared a sad look, before the former turned to her sister-in-law, "Cedric told me to tell you that he's gone to ground and that he misses you."
"Good," Lori took another pained drink, "if he's dead, I'll kill him."
They all chuckled lightly, Lori dissolving into a coughing fit as her ribs burned, wincing and sinking deeper into the covers.
Bill frowned, "You didn't just hurt your leg, did you?"
Trying her utmost to sit up straighter, before Fleur lightly pushed her back down, Lori replied, "No, Bellatrix tortured me and Hermione."
Her hand tentatively lifted her sleeve, revealing the words scored into her skin, engraved in red so bright and so deep.
"And, that's not all," she sighed, averting her gaze from both of them, "she used the Cruciatus Curse on me."
While Fleur sobbed, wrapping her arms around the younger girl, Bill fumed with rage, "She won't survive this!"
"Bill..." Lori choked out as coughs wracked her body, "please..."
*
Still slightly supported by a pair of crutches, Lori helped Bill and Fleur prepare their dinner, handing bowls and spoons to her brother, before his wife ladled in some soup.
"It's beautiful here." Luna smiled, gazing at a shell wind chime.
Bill looked at her, "It was our aunts, we used to come here as kids. The Order uses it now as a safe house. What's left of us at least."
"Muggles think these keep evil away," she mused, "but they're wrong."
Harry strode to her side, looking to the couple, "I need to talk to the goblin."
After getting a nod from Fleur, Bill led Harry upstairs to the room Griphook was staying in, Ron and Hermione also joining him.
Leaning into her supports, Lori sighed, "All this happened on my watch, it's all my fault."
Fleur tentatively wrapped her arms around her, "None of this is your fault. This is war."
"And right now, we're on the losing side."
"That may be," she admitted, "but personally, I've always favoured the underdog."
Smiling, she stiffly slid into the chair next to Luna, moving slowly whenever she took a spoon from her soup. Hot tomato burned her tongue, but she wolfed it down all the same, before carefully taking the stairs up to her room.
"Are you sure that's hers?" she heard Ron ask.
"Positive." Hermione replied.
*
Dawn had crept up on Shell Cottage, the morning sun sliding across Lori's pillow as she slowly stirred. Abandoning her crutches, she picked up Fawkes's cage and tiptoed out of the house, hobbling up the hill where four blurry figures were stood.
She nearly screamed, pulling out her wand when she was faced with Bellatrix Lestrange, standing perfectly normal next to Harry, Ron and Griphook.
"Wait!" Ron yelled, pushing the witch behind him, "It's Hermione, Polyjuice Potion."
Sighing, Lori stumbled closer and gestured to the beaded bag in her grasp, "Can I put Fawkes in?"
Ron looked at his sister incredulously, "You're not coming!"
Rolling her eyes, she quipped, "I'm injured, not bloody crippled. And besides, someone has to keep you lot on a leash."
Hermione smiled slightly, gently lowering the bird cage into the bag, before the four of them connected their hands.
"We're relying on you, Griphook," Harry told the goblin as he moved closer, "if you can get us past the guards and into the vault, the sword's yours."
Grinning, a fifth hand latched on. Sand blurred to a darkened back alley of Diagon Alley, Gringotts standing as resolute as ever in front of them.
Lori, slipping under the Invisibility Cloak when Harry offered it to her, chuckled darkly, "This is where the fun begins."
