The Last Goodbye

Mrs. Weasley kept us all busy with wedding preparations for the days to come. She was quite obviously keeping Harry, Ron and Hermione away from each other so they couldn't plan. When any of them had jobs to do with me, they always asked about horcruxes, I was surprised they didn't know so much, when this was their mission.

After two days of non-stop cutlery cleaning, of colour-matching favours, ribbons and flowers, of de-gnoming the garden and helping Mrs. Weasley cook vast batches of canapes, I was almost as exhausted as I was after fighting You-Know-Who.

We were often joined by other Order members for dinner now, because The Burrow had replaced number twelve, Grimmauld Place as Headquarters. Mr. Weasley had explained that after the death of Dumbledore, their secret keeper, each of the people whom Dumbledore had confided Grimmauld Place's location had become a Secret Keeper in turn.

"And as there are around twenty of us, that greatly dilutes the power of the Fidelius Charm. Twenty times as many oppportunities for the death eaters to get the secret out of somebody. We can't expect it to hold much longer." Mr. Weasley said.

"But surely Snape will have told the death eaters the address by now?" I asked.

"Well, Mad-Eye set up a couple of curses against Snape in case he turns up there again. We hope they'll be strong enough both to keep him out and to bind his tongue if he tries to talk about the place, but we can't be sure. It would have been insane to keep using the placce as Headquarters now that its protection has become so shaky." Mr Weasley explained.

The kitchen was so crowded that evening, it was difficult to manoeuvre knives and forks. I found myself crammed in between Fred and George. I had to work hard not to brush their arms when I could barely cut my chicken.

"No news about Mad-Eye?" Harry asked Bill, my heart still twinging when I heard his name.

"Nothing." Bill replied. We hadn't been able to hold a funeral for Moody because Bill and Lupin had failed to recover his body. It had been difficult to know where he might have fallen, given the darkness and the confusion of the battle. "The Daily Prophet hasn't said a word about him dying, or about finding the body." Bill went on. "But that doesn't mean much. It's keeping a lot quiet these days."

"So they're just sweeping him under the rug?" I growled. Bill nodded.

"And all the under-age magic I was doing to escape death eaters?" Harry asked.

"They seem to be sweeping everything under the rug. Scrimgeour doesn't want to admit that You-Know-Who is as powerful as he is, nor that Azkaban's seen a mass breakout." Bill said.

"Yeah, why tell the public the truth?" Harry said.

"Isn't anyone in the Ministry prepared to stand up to him?" Ron said angrily.

"Of course, Ron, but people are terrified." Mr. Weasley replied. "Terrified that they will be the next to disappear, their children the next to be attacked! There are nasty rumours going around, I, for one, don't believe the Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts resigned. She hasn't been seen for weeks now. Meanwhile, Scrimgeour remains shut up in his office all day. I just hope he's working on a plan."