Look After You

June in London is hot. The air sticks to your skin and makes you sweat in ways most unappealing. Though I consider myself a complete prude, I was quite tempted to go through the days without a stitch of clothing on my body because anything with any sort of texture felt like a million little pins. I resisted the urge.

I woke up one morning to a sort of din coming through the open window. It sounded so familiar, but with my brain still full of sleepiness and summer heat, I couldn’t remember what it was. I rolled off the couch, pulling my pajamas away from my body in places they had become glued to with sweat. I stumbled my way down the spiral staircase, wanting simply to glance out the street-level window to see what the noise was, but when I got downstairs, the shop was completely empty aside from Fred and George. I ventured into the front room and went to stand beside them at the front window.

The din was actually a rush of voices. Hundreds of people, most clutching newspapers and wearing dark robes, scurried about on the cobbled streets outside. I hadn’t recognized the sound of them because it had been a while since Diagon Alley was so crowded, and usually when it was crowded, there was a bit more animation among the throng. Now, it was just a solid wall of black robes and muttering voices. The difference was mind-boggling.

The Twins had identical stony-faced expressions. They stared out the window and didn’t even glance at me when I moved to stand between them.

"What's going on?" I asked, speaking in a muted voice myself because anything more would have carried.

George finally glanced at me, his eyes heavy and sad. He sighed and said, "Dumbledore's dead."

I couldn’t really think at first. The statement seemed so ridiculous, I almost wanted to laugh. Dumbledore was fucking invincible. He had to be somewhere around one hundred years old and, the last time I'd seen him, he had looked like he could’ve gone another hundred. He'd scared Voldemort away, for Christ's sake. Dumbledore couldn’t be dead, it had to be an impossibility.

"What?" I managed to choke out between my frenzied thoughts.

"Snape killed him, according to Harry." Fred said, and I saw his fist clench against his thigh, "The bloody bastard was a Death Eater all along. He killed Dumbledore and ran like a coward."

"I don't believe it," I said quietly. "Dumbledore trusted him." As I spoke, a man holding a copy of the Daily Prophet passed close enough to the window that I could read the headlines.

Dumbledore Dead.

There was something about Harry in there, too, but I couldn’t catch it before the man disappeared out of sight.

"Dad says the funeral's tomorrow." Said Fred, "We're going, if you wanted to come."

I nodded, still shocked into silence.



Hogwarts looked the same. The grounds were the same kind of warm that they had been the last June I'd spent there. The difference was massive, regardless. Instead of milling about with a plate of buttered toast like I was usually given to doing, I followed an enormous procession of people across the grass and toward dozens of rows of white chairs. Fred, George and I took three empty seats near the banks of the Black Lake, not saying anything because no one else was.

There were a few familiar faces in the gathering. Oliver Wood was seated with his family a row behind us. Alicia Spinnet, Katie Bell, and Angelina Johnson were sitting together a few rows in front of us. It took me a moment, but I eventually (barely) recognized Cedric Diggory's father, sitting only a few chairs to our left. He looked pale and drawn, and I could only imagine how horrible it must have been to come back and linger not so far from where he'd last seen his son. I couldn’t believe two years had passed. Glancing around, I realized that the situation was very similar to Cedric's death. So many people were present, and there didn’t seem to be many dry eyes around. I sat perfectly still, then, my attention focused on the white marble table in front of us all, and the little wizard standing beside it.

Hagrid moved slowly up the center aisle, holding in his arms what looked like a roll of dark blue fabric. Enormous tears rolled down his face as he drew closer to the marble table, then set the fabric down on it. It settled in three dimensions, and I realized that it was actually Dumbledore's body that Hagrid had been carrying. My breath caught in my throat.

The tiny wizard that stood beside Dumbledore began to speak, going on and on about what a wonderful person the Headmaster had been. He called out a list of accomplishments, and I couldn’t help but think that the ceremony was a bit inappropriate. Dumbledore had been such a light-hearted man, I was pretty sure that he would have much rather had been laid to rest without much fuss. Still, the little wizard droned on.

Out of nowhere, huge, white flames engulfed the table Dumbledore's body was lying on. I gasped, staring around to see who had caused this sick turn of events. Everyone else seemed to be doing the same thing I was. By the time I had looked again, the table was gone and, in its place, there was a large, marble tomb. I relaxed a bit.

The funeral was over as quickly as it had began, and people began to leave. I lingered by the Lake with the Twins, staring solemnly out over the grounds.

"This sort of makes me glad I don’t go here anymore," I muttered.

"Yeah," George agreed half-heartedly. He slipped an arm around my shoulders, and Fred slipped one around my waist. We leaned against each other there in the sunshine, all thinking things along the lines of how Hogwarts would never be the same.

Mrs. Weasley came and found us, her eyes bloodshot and her hands shaking. Mr. Weasley was beside her, and a gaggle of red-headed children followed them, all in various states of disarray. Bill was badly disfigured – a result of an encounter with Fenrir Greyback, the werewolf. He leaned heavily against Fleur, who had her nose in the air. Charlie looked a bit frazzled and worn out, having traveled from Romania just that morning, according to Fred. Ginny and Ron straggled behind, both looking downtrodden, and I was pretty sure their gloom was result of something aside from Dumbledore's death.

"Awful," Mrs. Weasley cried, throwing her arms around both the Twins and I at once, "Simply awful." Her shoulders shook with quiet sobs. "Things will never be the same again." She squeezed the three of us and stepped away, tugging a handkerchief out of her sleeve and blowing her nose.

"They won't," Mr. Weasley agreed, "Dumbledore was the only man You-Know-Who feared. With him gone, who knows what the world will come to." He shook his head sadly, "There are dark times ahead of us all."

A shudder ran down my spine, and Fred and George both tightened their arms slightly, enough so that I knew they felt the same thing I did: complete, unbridled dread.



After the funeral, I walked with the Weasleys into Hogsmeade to disapparate back to the Burrow. As usual, I joined hands with Fred and George, and we stumbled onto the front lawn together. We unlinked, but still stood close together, watching everyone else arrive. More people than I expected popped into sight at different points across the yard, and I stared openly as they all trudged in through the kitchen door. Remus and Tonks, followed by Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Next came Ginny with Charlie, then Bill and Fleur. Kingsley Shacklebolt appeared in the garden, followed by Mad-Eye Moody and 'Dung Fletcher. Out near the chicken coop, Professor McGonagall appeared alongside a woman I'd never seen before. More and more people I didn't know kept showing up, and they all filed into the kitchen. I stared in astonishment, half expecting the walls of the house to bow outward to accommodate everyone.

"Let's go to the orchard." Fred said quietly. I nodded and the three of us strolled away, picking our way across the yard to the stand of knobbly old apple trees. We sat in the shade and didn’t say anything for a while.

George kept glancing at me from the corner of his eye, though I barely noticed. After we'd kissed that night in March, he seemed to glance at me a lot. It wasn’t that things had been awkward between us. Quite the opposite, really. We'd kissed a few times after that and, without the shock of oh-shit-I'm-kissing-George-for-the-first-time et cetera, I was able to concentrate on the experience a bit more. It was quite enjoyable, actually. We were far from 'together', but stolen kisses in the storeroom and secret nighttime snoggings were nice.

"Dad's right." Fred said suddenly, effectively snapping me out of my trance-like state of contemplation, "Things are going to start heading down the john, soon. I mean, of course we were too young to remember what happened the last time," He pointed first to himself, then to George, "But I remember mum and dad talking about it. They always talked about people disappearing all over the place and muggles dying in weird accidents…" His voice trailed off and he shook his head.

"That's what's happening now," George nodded, "And who knows how long it'll be before it gets worse. With Dumbledore gone... Bloody hell."

"Well, we're fighting, right? I mean, the Order and everything. You-Know-Who won't be unopposed, will he? He'll have a hell of a time trying to come to power like last time." I said, glancing from one to the other. I'd expected them both to grin at the mention of the Order, of resistance and rebellion. They didn't. Their faces were stony and it didn't look like they even considered what I'd said.

"Lacey," George said slowly, clearly trying to decide how to phrase himself, "the Order was around last time. You-Know-Who has so many followers, we're lucky Harry came into the picture. A group of ten or twenty wizards doesn't really stand a chance against an entire army of dark wizards and all sorts of dark creatures. Resistance might not have really done much, last time. And there's a chance it won't do much this time, either." His face had taken on a dark sort of honesty and Fred nodded his agreement.

"But we can't think that way!" I said stubbornly, "There's got to be a way to get under You-Know-Who's skin! The Order's bound to find out what it is."

They shrugged in unison, and I crossed my arms in frustration. I'd said that I would fight. I'd given up my ideal "normal" (non-magic, that is) life to help the resistance. I'd committed myself to this way of life so that I could stand alongside my friends and help keep the Wizarding World from shambles. Gauging Fred and George's reactions, then, I was feeling pretty stupid about it all. Well, maybe not stupid. Just uneducated, I guess, because I actually thought we all stood a chance. It was starting to look like no one else thought the same.

Well, I thought, if there's going to be a war where everyone fighting for the greater good is going to be totally and completely annihilated, then I might as well go home and tell everyone the news. Hi-Mum-this-is-probably-the-last-time-you'll-see-me-alive-because-I'm-going-into-a-war-that-you-wouldn't-understand. Lovely.

"I'm going to go home, then." I said, voicing the less-negative focus of my thoughts, "Just to explain things to my parents, you know? If there's a chance I could be killed," I thought I saw George wince, but it happened so fast, I couldn’t be sure. I probably imagined it. "they deserve to understand why, I guess, right?"

"Sure," Fred said jovially, leaving me totally and completely bewildered, "We'll come, too."

"Sorry, Fred, but you two aren't exactly welcome after last time." I said, remembering the slew of electronic devices throughout my home, rendered useless because of the Twins rampant curiosity (inherited from their father, no doubt).

"Right, well," George said, standing beside me, "I'm sure your mother could make an exception this once. You're bullocks at understanding all this You-Know-Who business. I'd hate to see you try to explain it." He made a face, and Fred nodded vigorously in agreement.

"I'm going to go tell Mum, and then we'll go." He dashed off, leaving George and I alone in the orchard.

"Regretting not snapping your wand, at all?" He asked after a little while, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. I wondered for a moment if I had voiced my thoughts aloud, then decided that I hadn’t and that George just knew me better than I liked to give him credit for.

"A bit. But not enough to go and do it, mind you." I replied, watching Fred dash back out of the house.

He arrived at my other side and said, "I couldn't find her, but I told Ginny to relay the message. Do you have any idea how many people are here right now?" His eyes widened at the thought.

George chuckled and linked his arm through mine. Fred did the same, and the two of them said "Lead the way, Lacey."

Bloody barmy twin-connection. I love it.

I concentrated hard on the sitting room in my house. Bolton wasn't terribly far away, but splinching was painful and I hadn't apparated by myself in a while. It took me a few moments to remember what color the walls were, which was something I'd discovered was essential in the Destination and Determination part of the Three D's. I took a step forward, dragging Fred and George with me through the crushing, blinding dark.

The suffocating sensation passed in a moment, and I opened my eyes to find myself staring at my mother's grand piano (which she didn't actually know how to play) and our family portrait which had been taken before I started at Hogwarts.

"Mum!" I called out, letting go of the Twins, "Dad!"

I strolled into the kitchen and, sure enough, they were seated at the little, wooden kitchen table with cups of coffee clutched in their hands and petrified looks on their faces. I felt a bit horrible not warning them about my arrival. I'd never apparated into the house before. Usually, I stopped at the front lawn.

"Lacey," My mother gasped, pressing her hand to her chest, "You could have warned us!"

"Sorry." I said sheepishly, watching her eyes travel over my shoulder to where Fred and George were standing, gazing about with grins on their faces. My father looked like he would jump up at any moment and mark the kitchen with his urine. Sorry, Dad, I doubt primal territory-marking would keep this particular pair of gingers away. George was already eyeing mum's new coffee machine.

"You remember Fred and George?" I said, pulling the two of them forward by the sleeves of their robes. Damn, should have changed out of those before coming. They'd be altogether less imposing if they wore their corduroys and hand-knitted sweaters. Bad planning, Lacey. I tugged uncomfortably at the collar of my own plain black robes.

The Twins each offered a polite smile and shook my parents' hands before either had had a chance to reply.

"It's a pleasure, Mr. and Mrs. James," Fred said.

"Excellent to see you again," George added.

"We're really sorry about the, er, trouble we caused the last time we were here," Fred continued.

"We don't have these sorts of things in our world, and we sort of got our rabid curiosity from our Dad." George concluded regretfully, his eyes sweeping around the room.

I stood there, mouth open slightly, ridiculously impressed with their manners. From the look on my mother's face, I could tell she, at the very least, hadn't been expecting it. My father, who had always a stickler for decorum, sort of had an air of smug delight at the obvious change in the Twins' behavior.

"Why don't you all sit down?" Dad said, motioning to the three, conveniently empty, chairs around the table.

We did, and my mother turned to speak to me. I'd almost forgotten what her American accent sounded like. The harshness of her vowels made me wrinkle my nose in distaste, the same way it had when I was small.

"So, what brings you here?" She swirled her coffee around in her mug.

"You're my parents," I said flatly, staring at her with a blank expression, slightly taken aback by the impersonal delivery of her question.

"Oh, we know that, Lacey," She waved her hand impatiently as if to say 'We're not having this argument now', "I'm just wondering why you decided to come home now, after months of no contact or visits."

I ignored the double meaning to her words and responded, "Well, I have something I need to tell you both. It's sort of why Fred and George are here, too."

A horrified expression crossed her face, and I imagined all sorts of awful thoughts running through her head, ranging from pregnancy to marriage to grand theft. I think my mother thinks I'm a criminal.

"It's sort of important," I added, wracking my brain for ways to begin.