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Fred's Legacies | ||||||
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Category: Post-DH/AB Characters:Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood, Minerva McGonagall, Neville Longbottom, Ron Weasley Genres: Drama Warnings: Death, Disturbing Imagery, Mild Sexual Situations, Negative Alcohol Use Story is Complete Rating: PG-13 Reviews: 109 Summary: It's the summer after the battle, but victory is not sweet. Old enemies are still causing trouble. Harry and the Weasley's are having trouble moving on. To complicate matters, Fred left something behind. Hitcount: Story Total: 75525; Chapter Total: 3208 |
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The next few days were quiet Hermione slept. She had called her dad from a pay phone to assure him that she was safe. He hadn’t asked her to return and she hadn’t offered. On Sunday, Ginny and Harry visited Teddy. They trying to make it a weekly tradition. Monday morning, Ginny sent an owl off with a note before going back to the shop to help George with the till. If Hermione was going to help them with the alert system, she would need a wand. Ollivander had not re-opened yet. He was staying in the country somewhere. Monday evening, Hermione was half asleep again when Ginny came home from working at the shop. Ron and Harry had both arrived home on time and were playing a game of chess in the kitchen. Percy’s owl returned after most of the family had excused themselves and Ron and Ginny were working through seconds on dessert. “Ooh!” Ginny squealed, “Dean replied.” “You wrote to Dean?” Harry’s face switched from content to brooding in the half a second that Dean’s name had been said. “Yep,” Ginny answered, eagerly scanning the letter, her face lighting up as she went through it. “He says the best place to get wands now is in Edinburgh. There’s a wand maker by the name of Geribold Larch, has a shop at Cobbledywynde near the Castle. We’ll have to take a Portkey to get there. How soon do you think Hermione would be up for it?” Harry cracked his neck from one side to the other. “Why did you write to Dean?” he asked again. Ginny rolled her eyes, “Because he’s currently interning with Ollivander, you dunce. They aren’t producing enough wands yet for Hermione to have her pick. They’ve been having difficulty getting supplies.” “You seem to hear from him a lot,” her boyfriend suggested. “Honestly!” Ginny shouted. “He’s dating LUNA!” “Oh.” Harry suddenly became very interested in the ends of his fork. “Oh, that’s nice.” Ginny rolled her eyes and turn away. “So, Ronald, when do YOU think Hermione would be up for a trip?” “I don’t know. You’d have to clear it with the Healers. She’s not doing well. Bellatrix’s curse compounded over time, apparently. But she might do better if she had a proper wand. She’d worry less anyways. If you go with her to St. Mungo’s tomorrow you could ask. Her appointment is at two.” Ron looked nervously between Ginny and Harry. “I think I’m gonna bring her a supper tray. See if she’ll wake up to eat.” He left Ginny and Harry to themselves and scurried out of the room. Ginny slid the note from Dean under Harry’s nose and waited for him to read it. “Happy?” she asked at last. “Yeah.” Harry had the decency to look sheepish. “Seriously, Harry. You can’t be getting jealous about me talking to other blokes. I let you go camping with Hermione for a whole year. And Ron wasn’t with you the whole time either. You don’t see me getting snappy about Hermione, do you?” “You get snappy about Cho,” Harry countered. Ginny grunted, “Well, how about this? I stop snapping about Cho if you stop snapping about Dean, or Michael either.” “Ok, deal,” Harry mumbled. Ginny moved over behind him and pulled his head back. Bending over, she planted a soft kiss on his lips and ran her hands down his chest. Harry groaned and pulled her around onto his lap. “We don’t get much time to do this,” he whispered as he ran kisses along her neck. “Yeah. You’re still with Ron every bloody minute. He’s not here now, though.” Her eyes sparkled as she said it. She settled into snogging him comfortably. They only pulled apart when George arrived home in the Floo and wolf whistled at them. Ginny thought longingly of the private corners they had found at Hogwarts. She and Harry needed to find somewhere private again. --- Ginny received permission from the Healers to travel with Hermione on Thursday. Her mum insisted on escorting them, so the three travelled together by Portkey. It dropped them in a dark hall of the castle, from which they walked to the milliner’s shop that hid the entrance of Cobbledywynde. Ginny bought her mum a new wool witch’s hat before they went on into the alley. The alley appeared in far better shape than Diagon Alley. It held a similar collection of shops. Mr. Larch’s shop was narrow and dark. A few stools with blue velvet cushions were clustered around a counter in the front. “Ravenclaw?” Molly hazarded a guess as she rang the bell on the counter. “Yes, of course.” Mr. Larch answered genially, emerging from the back. He was a tall man with a bushy, mostly white beard. “I am Geribold Larch. And which of you lovely ladies seeks a wand today?” He surveyed the group, nodding carefully to Hermione. “Yes, me. My last was, uh, well... long story, really.” Hermione finished lamely. “Then how about you start by telling me about the last wand that chose you.” His emphasis was subtle, but Ginny didn’t miss it, nor did Hermione. “It was ten and three-quarter inches. Vine wood. Dragon heartstring.” Hermione’s hands were twitching. “Hmmm,” Mr. Larch replied enigmatically. He strode back to the shop and tapped a variety of boxes while stroking his beard. “I do not think that will be your wand again Miss Granger. You have changed.” He pulled out half a dozen boxes at length and set them on the counter. Hermione tried them in order. The fourth responded to her touch instantly. Ginny watched as her friend fully relaxed for the first time that summer. She twirled the wand thoughtfully in her fingers. “Avis,” she declared boldly. Three yellow birds flew out of the wand and circled Molly and Ginny. “Perfect,” Mr. Larch clapped. “Eleven inches. Rowan wood and unicorn hair. Very reliable and loyal. This one, I think, will not be stolen from you.” “Thank you,” Hermione rolled the wand carefully in her hands. “It’s beautiful work.” --- When the girls arrived home that evening, George was there bouncing up and down. He had finished the alarm system and eagerly showed it to Hermione. After Ginny had recounted Amanda’s assumption that she would be getting a radio, George had gone out and purchased a walkie talkie. He had removed most of the original technology and set it back up to alert the badges he had developed for family members. Hermione tested the product and declared that they would work, but she worried that it would be impractical for anyone to carry a walkie talkie everywhere they went. Also, she noted, there was no way of carrying the device without accidentally setting it off. A lively debate regarding what item could be used, but George didn’t seem too put out. He had figured the charms out before Hermione Granger. In the end, Hermione had stopped by a Muggle pet supply and picked up a dog training clicker. It was small enough to carry around on your keychain, she explained to Ginny, and hard to set off by accident. George finagled it such that clicking the button would activate the system, and charmed the button to remain silent. All of the siblings had insisted on being included in the alert system except for Charlie. He was too far away to Apparate. Fleur and Hermione were not about to be left out either. In an emergency, there would be plenty of people to respond. Ginny took Hermione with her the next day to deliver and explain the system. She found Mary at the shop with Amanda. They went through introductions and pleasantries while a few customers finished up their business. Once the store had emptied, Ginny pulled both her badge and Amanda’s clicker out of her pocket. “Did Amanda tell you about our suspect?” Ginny asked Mary as she put the objects down on the counter. “Yes. She said you were making an alert system.” “This is it. The clicker is for you, Amanda. Don’t click it now. Put it on your keychain, or something you always have with you. The badge is something that will alert us. George, Ron, and Harry all have one. My brothers Bill and Percy do too. Hermione and I also do. Dad doesn’t know about it so he doesn’t get into trouble at work.” “This is proprietary technology,” Hermione explained. “It’s not licensed to be used by the public. Once you click it, it will send out a distress signal, and also your location. The head of the investigation doesn’t know you have this.” “He won’t know if I use it?” “It just alerts family. Neville is insisting we set up a badge for him too though, so he might get added,” Ginny said. “We’ll pass the alert on, but the boss won’t know where it came from.” “Is Neville in the Order. too?” Mary asked. “Just a friend from school,” Hermione tried to brush it off. Ginny rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Hermione, that’s very reassuring. Some kid from Ginny’s school will pop up if you are in a life threatening emergency. Neville is at least as good in a fight as, well, anyone I know. He’s had loads of practice, unfortunately. He wasn’t in the Order of the Phoenix though. He was part of another group.” “I take it he wasn’t at school either last year then?” Mary questioned. “Your lot doesn’t seem to do well with finishing school.” “Well, I’m going back next year.” Hermione defended. “I just had to take a year off. Ginny will be going back too.” Ginny decided now was not the time to contradict Hermione’s assumption or mention that Hogwarts was the place where Neville had become experienced in duelling. Somehow she doubted the information would comfort Mary or Amanda. She didn’t want them to have doubts about sending their kids to Hogwarts one day, even if she had doubts of her own. In fact, the more they spoke the more worried she became about introducing Amanda to magic. Every time they talked about her life it came out sounding so traumatic. She was sure they wouldn’t want the same for their own kids. Hermione had successfully distracted Mary from the riskiness of the last year by going on a long rant about how difficult it was to study once you were out of the habit and how much she had to catch up on. Mary surprised Ginny by responding with a story of her own time finishing a degree at night school after she’d had Amanda. Amanda slipped the panic button onto her key chain and dropped it out of sight. Ginny dropped her badge out of sight in her pocket just as another group of customers came through. When they cleared out, Amanda left the shop with Hermione to see if they could locate Crookshanks. Mary stayed behind to tend the counter and asked Ginny to stay with her. “Ginny, Amanda showed me the posters last week. I was wondering, did Fred have one like that?” Ginny’s stomach lurched as she thought about Fred’s face on a WANTED poster. There had been one. The Carrows had been sure to taunt her with it before she left for Easter holidays. Ginny shut the memory out and stared at Mary for a minute before she realized she was joking. Mary had no clue. She was still talking. Ginny jolted herself back into listening. “…..more respectable photos than any we have of Fred. All the ones I have found in Amanda’s stuff so far are of him at the pub, absolutely sloshed. Amanda’s going to move back in with me so we have two adults around, and we are getting a nursery ready. I thought it would be good to have a picture of the dad there, but maybe there was one that showed him as a better role model.” As Mary explained it to Ginny, her stomach slowly untangled itself from its knot. “I’ve upset you bringing it up,” Mary concluded as Ginny stood silently, her face arranged in a careful, expressionless mask, the one she had always worn last year during interrogations about her family’s and Harry’s business. “What? Sorry. No. I just... I hadn’t thought of photos,” Ginny blustered lamely. “Goodness. I’m sure we have–well, someone has....” but she trailed off, her mind trying to lock into gear. The best defence for interrogation was to not think about anything, that way even Legilimency didn’t have much of an effect. Photos. Ginny tried to concentrate on that--photos of Fred. They’d all burned. She found her eyes were suddenly hot and wet, and Mary had caught her in a hug. It took a minute to compose herself. She felt so silly. “I’m sure Aunt Muriel has some family photos,” she managed at last, stepping out of Mary’s hug. “There might be some school photos too. I can see about copies. Mum would probably like them as well.” Mary nodded. She was still watching Ginny with concern. “Do you ever get a chance to talk about everything you’ve been through, dear?” Ginny gave a watery chuckle, “I’d really rather not, Mary. They aren’t great stories.” The older woman patted Ginny’s arm. “All the same, if you talk more, you might find it gets easier. Why don’t you go wash your face before the other girls come back.” She indicated the restroom in the back. Hermione came back in disappointed a few minutes later. Crookshanks was nowhere to be found. Amanda assured her that the cat did turn up every few days and promised to keep plying him with tuna. “When is George finally going to come by here again?” Amanda demanded. “We still need to tell him about the ultrasound. You haven’t given up the secret yet, have you?” “Of course not,” Ginny reassured. “I’ll tell him to come down this weekend. Do you want the rest of the family there too? I think Bill still needs to talk to you about the accounts.” The next weekend, it turned out, was not convenient, but they did plan a time. Ginny left with a new errand on her mind. Somewhere in this world there were photos of Fred. She hadn’t thought of them before, but now she needed them. She needed them desperately. |
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