Hey Freddie

The First Battle

"Heard Harry and Ginny finally got together." Fred smirked sipping a warm cuppa I fixed him.

"Really now?" I asked, cocking my eyebrow.

"Yes ma'am." Fred got into a joking salute.

"Finally." I giggled, "I better not catch you giving them too much shit for it Freddie, I mean it."

"Who, me? Never!" Fred exclaimed, nearly spilling his tea.

~~~~

Harry and Ginny burst into the hospital wing, where Ron, Hermione, Luna, Tonks, Lupin, and I were gathered around Bill Weasleys bed. Neville was sleeping on the bed next to his.

Hermione ran to Harry and hugged him; Lupin moved forward too, looking anxious.

"Are you all right, Harry?"

"I'm fine.... how's Bill?"

Nobody answered. Harry looked over Hermione's shoulder and saw an unrecognizable face lying on Bill's pillow, so badly slashed and ripped that he looked grotesque. Madam Pomfrey was dabbing at his wounds with some harsh-smelling green ointment. Harry remembered how Snape had mended Malfoy's Sectumsempra wounds so easily with his wand.

"Can't you fix them with a charm or something?" he asked the matron.

"No charm will work on these," said Madam Pomfrey. "I've tried everything I know, but there is no cure for werewolf bites."

"But he wasn't bitten at the full moon," said Ron, who was gazing down into his brother's face as though he could somehow force him to mend just by staring. "Greyback hadn't transformed, so surely Bill won't be a--a real--?"

He looked uncertainly at Lupin.

"No, I don't think that Bill will be a true werewolf," said Lupin, "but that does not mean that there won't be some contamination. Those are cursed wounds. They are unlikely ever to heal fully, and--and Bill might have some wolfish characteristics from now on."

"Dumbledore might know something that'd work, though," Ron said. "Where is he? Bill fought those maniacs on Dumbledore's orders, Dumbledore owes him, he can't leave him in this state--"

"Ron--Dumbledore's dead," said Ginny.

A wave of shock rushed over me.

"No!" Lupin looked wildly from Ginny to Harry, as though hoping the latter might contradict her, but when Harry did nor, Lupin collapsed into a chair beside Bill's bed, his hands over his face.

I too slumped onto a chair next to Lupin, feeling my body freeze with shock and horror.

"How did he die?" whispered Tonks. "How did it happen?"

"Snape killed him," said Harry. "I was there, I saw it. We arrived back on the Astronomy Tower because that's where the Mark was... Dumbledore was ill, he was weak, but I think he realized it was a trap when we heard footsteps running up the stairs. He immobilized me, I couldn't do anything, I was under the Invisibility Cloak--and then Malfoy came through the door and disarmed him--"

Hermione clapped her hands to her mouth and Ron groaned. Luna's mouth trembled. I felt my head begin to pound, every pulse hitting harder against my temples than the last.

"--more Death Eaters arrived--and then Snape--and Snape did it. The Avada Kedavra." Harry couldn't go on.

Madam Pomfrey burst into tears. Nobody paid her any attention except Ginny, who whispered, "Shh! Listen!"