Phoenix

News in the Garden

I arrived with a pop and fell to my knees in the garden. Voices grew louder as people flooded out of the house. Someone helped my to my feet.

"Kendra, What happened?" asked Hermione. I was roughly grabbed my Lupin and he held a wand to my throat.

"Point to the first two battle scars you ever received."

I raised my wand which was still clutched in my hand and took down the glamours I normally wore to cover all my scars. I rolled up the shirt sleeves and pointed to the two scars I had received on my forearm during the Battle of New York.

"It's really her," said Lupin. "We must get inside."

We all went inside. I saw George on a cot. Mrs. Weasley was cleaning blood from the side of his head. I vaguely wondered what had happened to him. Everyone was here, except Moody.

"Kendra," repeated Hermione. "What happened?"

"Mad-Eye Moody's dead."

Someone gasped.

Bill nodded. "We saw the whole thing."

"After we left the boundary," I began, my voice sounded as if I was in a dream. "Something happened and the Death Eaters retreated. Then Voldemort flew at us with a few Death Eaters. He hit Moody with the killing curse and he fell off his broom. I dove after him and caught him... but he was already dead. Then Voldemort showed up... and I fled here."

By this point Tonks was crying silently. She had been close to Mad Eye. I didn't know what to feel. I had seen so many people die, and I barely knew Moody.

Hagrid, who had sat down on the floor in the corner where he had most space, was dabbing at his eyes with his tablecloth-sized handkerchief.

Bill walked over to the sideboard and pulled out a bottle of firewhisky and some glasses.

"Here," he said, and with a wave of his wand he sent twelve full glasses soaring through the room to each of them, holding the thirteenth aloft. "Mad-Eye."

"Mad-Eye," we all said, and drank.

"Mad-Eye," echoed Hagrid, a little late, with a hiccup.

The firewhisky burned my throat, but it made the numbness go away.

"You-Know-Who acted exactly as Mad-Eye expected him to," sniffed Tonks. "Mad-Eye said he'd expect the real Harry to be with the toughest, most skilled Aurors. He chased Mad-Eye first, and when he was killed, he switched to Kingsley. . . ."

"Yes, and zat eez all very good," snapped Fleur, "but still eet does not explain 'ow zey knew we were moving 'Arry tonight, does eet? Somebody must 'ave been careless. Somebody let slip ze date to an outsider. It is ze only explanation for zem knowing ze date but not ze 'ole plan."

She glared around at them all, tear tracks still etched on her beautiful face, silently daring any of them to contradict her. Nobody did.

"No," Harry said aloud, and they all looked at him, surprised: The firewhisky seemed to have amplified his voice. "I mean . . . if somebody made a mistake," Harry went on, "and let something slip, I know they didn't mean to do it. It's not their fault," he repeated, again a little louder than he would usually have spoken. "We've got to trust each other. I trust all of you, I don't think anyone in this room would ever sell me to Voldemort."