Whom the Gods Would Destroy...

Title: Whom the Gods Would Destroy…
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Angst, Horror, Mystery
Warnings: Character Death, Graphic Violence, Adult Situations, Dark!fic
Summary: DH-EWE: The end of the world has come. Millions dead, magic waning, Hermione Granger and Charlie Weasley are the last people left in Britain—left to pick up the pieces of their once great civilization. Why were they spared? Who is responsible for the death of a nation? These are the mysteries left as a legacy for two lost and lonely people.
Author's Notes: This is my first attempt at a Charlie/Hermione pairing, so please be gentle. This fic is very much inspired by my morbid obsession with ‘end of the world’ scenarios. There are few OCs in this fic, and I have tried to keep much in ‘canon’ as possible. WGWD is unbeta’d, so pardon the mistakes, please?




Whom the Gods Would Destroy…

Part 3




‘quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.’ –A Roman proverb







Charlie Weasley was running, running for his very life down a country road. The sun was setting and already the screams hounded his every footfall.

“Idiot, Charlie…you…are…a…bloody…idiot!” he gasped as he ran.

The sound of the soles of his dragon skin boots against the pavement made a hard tapping noise, and Charlie knew that if he wanted to survive another night, he would have to either slow to take the boots off, or kick them off as he ran.

Glancing over his shoulder, the black figures of the Inferi were still far behind. Slowing his sprint to a jog, Charlie grunted as he lifted a booted foot up and with a wrench pulled the boot off. Moving to the other, Charlie tucked his boots under his arms and took off again, putting more and more distance between himself and certain death.

He was on a road in Herefordshire, on the way to Thruxton. Charlie wondered if he could still find Thomas Cadwallader’s house. Cadwallader had worked with him in Romania, and Charlie knew from Cadwallader’s many stories, that his father was fond of racing brooms. As Charlie ran up the road, he wondered if Cadwallader was still alive in Romania.

As darkness fell, Charlie stopped running; the Inferi’s shrieks could no longer be heard behind him, and ahead of him, the road stretched on. Somehow, he had managed to live another day, and he hoped, through another night. Cadwallader’s house could not be too much farther, he thought, and perhaps someone magical might be alive.

Charlie rubbed his forehead against the sleeve of his flannel shirt and sighed. All he had were his boots under his left arm, his wand in a holster across his chest under the flannel shirt, and a few Sickles in his jean pocket. He had lost his pack a few days before, and all his clean clothes, his canteen, his food, and his favourite pair of dragon hide trousers.

Now walking at a gentle pace, Charlie knew that he should count himself lucky. He was alive.

The night was chilly, but Charlie did not mind the cold pavement under his bare feet. The moon was rising over the countryside, and the stars seemed to pop through the dark canvas of the sky. Charlie usually relished the quiet, no automobiles, no noise of people, and no Inferi shrieking. It was the outdoors and Charlie inhaled deeply.

He was used to not seeing people, he was used to solitude, but as Charlie Weasley walked, he knew that his preference for quiet had been marked—if he wanted he could go home, if he wanted he could go to London, he had had that option. However, that alternative was lost to him and even if he wanted to live among people, it would never happen. ‘People’ consisted of more than a few guys working with dragons on a reserve in Wales or Romania. ‘People’ consisted of family, friends, or strangers walking on the street. ‘People’ no longer existed, and Charlie felt that loss despite the fact that he did not care for ‘people.’

Civilization, he figured, was over, at least in Britain. This thought also pained Charlie. As far as he knew, he was the last man in Britain, and that thought made him sick.





February 21, 2010, Charlie Weasley, thirty-eight years old, lay on a cot in a modest, non-magical tent in Snowdonia National Park, Wales. Eryri Dragon Preserve was what Wizarding folk called the area near the Rhinogydd, a desolate area of rugged mountains and moorland. Well-constructed wards kept the Muggles out and the dragons in.

Charlie woke slowly, staring up at the roof of his tent, scratching his unshaven chin with three weeks growth. Charlie rose and went about his morning routine, which consisted of stepping out the tent in nothing but his skin and doing his stretches. It was bitterly cold at the edge of Coed-y-Brenin forest, and frost lay upon the ground. Charlie did not mind, he was used to the cold it being far more severe in Romania.

He dressed in a pair of jeans, white sleeveless undershirt with a green plaid flannel shirt overtop. Slipping into his boots, he sighed. He was due to go back to London and then to Ottery St. Catchpole to make his apologies for missing his father’s birthday party which he had promised to attend.

Charlie ran his fingers through his long crimson hair. He knew his mother would surely want to cut his hair. Charlie smiled to himself, letting his hair fall about his face. It had been far too long since he was home.

After the War, Charlie had acquiesced to his parent’s requests that he not stay so long in Romania. Charlie went one step better by transferring to Wales, the reserve he had started working on out of Hogwarts. The Eryri Dragon Reserve protected the Common Welsh Green, some Hebridean Blacks, and a couple Swedish Short-Snouts. Keeping the species apart was what Charlie did, as well as cataloguing the beasts, and some basic scientific observations of habits for Ministry records. However, Charlie loved the job because he could pitch his tent in the most desolate places—moors, mountains, forests, and bogs. He was in his element, the great outdoors, and he was closer to home and family.

Charlie began packing his tent, shrinking everything, cot, cook gear, the tent itself, into his backpack. He would Apparate to the “Lodge” and submit his report. The Welsh Green nesting on Y Garn had laid three brown speckled eggs. It was not going to be an exciting report for anyone else but a dragon keeper. Three eggs was encouraging, the Welsh Greens had not been laying more than one egg for the past five years.

Charlie used his wand to Vanish any lasting remnants of his camp, and slipped his ash and unicorn hair wand into his chest holster. Instead of immediately Apparating back to the “Lodge” or the main office of the reserve, he decided to walk toward the base of Y Garn. It was a grey day, and Charlie knew it would begin to rain at any moment, but he walked, his medium sized pack on his back, his unshaven face pointed to the mountain.
The air felt strange as it blew off the mountain, and Charlie repressed an internal shiver. He inhaled and found that even the air smelled strange. He could not associate the smell with anything he could remember, but the scent unsettled him.

Drawing his wand again, Charlie began to Apparate. He felt his body move, but a bone-jarring jerk slammed him back to where he had been standing. Charlie frowned and tried again, this time falling to his knees, as his insides seemed to jerk inside his body.

Anti-Apparition wards.

Charlie’s jade green eyes moved to the clouded sky again, it had begun to rain.

Something was wrong, the wards protecting the Reserve must be off, he thought. The wards protected against people from Apparating into the Reserve, but not out of it. However, Charlie’s unique magical signature was known to the wards, he could Apparate in or out whenever he pleased.

Charlie tried one more time, ending up face first into the cold ground, his teeth hurting for some odd reason. He had not splinched himself, he had not moved at all. He could not Apparate.

With an irritated grunt, Charlie pushed off the ground and shrugged off his pack. Digging into the pack, he procured a shrunken metal cup, and resizing it, immediately cast ‘Portus.’ The cup, which would normally glow blue for a moment, was just a cup. The Portkey spell was not working.

Charlie sent a Blasting Hex at the cup after taking a few steps back, and the cup ripped into slivers of metal. He tried simpler spells, all of which worked. Finally, Charlie sat on the damp ground, leaning back on his palms.

The Lodge was at least two days walk from his camp, but there were trails through the forest, Muggle bicycle trails, and a few Muggle structures outside some wards set in the forest. From there, Charlie knew he could walk along a road to the Lodge at Ganllwyd from Dolgellau.

Kicking up to his feet, Charlie began walking.

He knew something had happened, but what and why would have to wait.




March 2, 2010, Charlie’s back was pressed into the front doors of Shrewsbury Abbey. They had chased him through the dead town, but for some odd reason, did not cross the Abbey Foregate after him.

The sun had barely set when the Inferi came. Charlie gasped for his breath as he slid down the doors to the stone floor. The interior of the church was dimly lit, the remaining daylight making the high windows glow. Outside, the shrieks continued and the sound of breaking glass and whining metal made Charlie scramble away from the doors along the aisle.

It was as he was regaining his breath that the odour hit him, causing him to gag, the sound echoing through the church. Death, sweet and bitter, assaulted his nose and Charlie pushed his sleeved arm against his face. Rising to his feet, Charlie saw that all around him, in every pew, were bodies.

As he moved down the aisle toward the crossing arm and apsidal end, he saw that there were what seemed to be hundreds of bodies, all in various stages of decay. However, he could not see any visible means or causes of death. Even dead, the bodies appeared to have died peacefully. It was unnerving to Charlie as he moved down the aisle back stepping.

Charlie turned toward the large triptych at the far end. He passed under the crossing, past the choir, and stumbled over a step up toward the altar. He felt as if he were trespassing and turned away from the gilt triptych. Instead, Charlie found a space between the stone wall and the tombs of people who had died long ago. In that space, the odour of overwhelming death did not seem as poignant.

He lay on the floor as darkness overtook the church. He had lost his pack running, and all he had was his wand, the clothes on his back, and no food.

Charlie took refuge in the church with the unmoving dead. After he had calmed himself, he knew that he had made a mistaken in coming into Shrewsbury. It was a city compared to the small villages in Wales, and in Wales, the Inferi were not so many.

Travelling had been difficult and tiring. Days of walking made his legs ache, his feet blister, and he was still so far away from home. Home, it was the place he needed to get to, so far away from Shrewsbury to East Devon, Charlie knew that travelling so far south might be impossible. He had seen the devastation, he had seen the dead, he had seen the Inferi, but what he had not seen was anything or anyone alive.

As he lay on the cold stone floor, staring into the wall near his face, he knew that there was a real possibility that his family was dead. Perhaps Bill, Fleur, and the children were safe, they were not in Britain, but had the devastation spread outside to other countries?

It had taken Charlie a day of walking in Snowdonia National Park to realize that the Seal had been set. The Seal—a powerful brand of magic that effectively trapped him on the island with the walking dead—what had been a brilliant idea over ten years before was the end of life in Britain. Charlie wondered if even the officials in the Ministry were dead. He ground his teeth at the thought that perhaps the officials in the Ministry were somehow protected and everyone else dead.

Charlie closed his eyes in the darkness and stifled a moan as his stomach growled. He was having a hard time thinking as hungry as he was, and he knew that he needed to think. How was he going to be able to make it to Ottery St. Catchpole? He could not Apparate, could not Portkey, he could not drive a Muggle automobile, and walking would take ages. Even on the way east, through the countryside, Charlie had not seen one animal, cow or horse, deer or dog. Even riding a horse was out of the question.

The distance, by road, was roughly two hundred miles, Charlie figured. Before he had lost his pack, he had scavenged a Muggle road map out of an abandoned automobile. It was just a bit shorter distance to London, the M54 to the M1. Charlie cursed himself, with Apparition one did not have to know road routes, names of towns along the way from one place to another.

He needed a broom. That was the only way he could think of being able to easily make it to East Devon. But where to get a broom? Charlie’s mind began casting about for names and places. He was in Shropshire, had he known anyone who lived to far west?

It was then that Charlie remembered Thomas Cadwallader. Thomas had been the closest thing Charlie had had to a chum in Romania. Thomas was younger, had been in Hufflepuff, but was a natural when it came to handling dragons. Charlie had taken the boy under his wing when Thomas first arrived in Romania and from that point on Charlie had a protégé.

Charlie smiled into the darkness, remembering Thomas. He was a large man, arms as thick as tree trunks, with a friendly flat face, corn silk blond hair, and pleasant blue eyes. Thomas talked about his father often in the cold nights in their camp in the Carpathians. Charlie remembered that Thomas’ father lived on a small farm in Herefordshire, a place called Thruxton.

‘My da collects brooms, ya know, like old racing brooms. We didn’ have much money, but my da, he loved to collect old brooms—restore ‘em, sell some. He sold a restored an Oakshaft 79 and sold it to a bloke in Aberdeen—it bought me my Nimbus I had at school…’

Thomas’ voice was so clear in Charlie’s head, as if the man were speaking just next to his ear. Charlie clapped a hand over his exposed ear and curled his body in on itself. His nerves could not allow him to listen long to ghosts.

Thruxton, he had visited the farmhouse once at Thomas’ behest. It had been a night of laughing and drinking in Bernie Cadwallader’s kitchen, talking about Charlie’s days as a Seeker at Hogwarts. Bernie Cadwallader was an older version of Thomas, his skin tanned, his hair grey, he was a man who worked hard and long hours keeping up a farm. Charlie assumed that old Bernie was dead.

A sharp shriek penetrated the dead silence of the church, but Charlie did not move. The Inferi had not come into the church, but seemed to wander about outside along the Abbey Foregate. Charlie wondered why. Was there something different about the Abbey Church that repelled the undead? Surely it had nothing to do with the church being sanctified ground, Charlie had seen other churches used as dens for Inferi during the day. Charlie gritted his teeth, pushing back all the other things he had seen during his travel out of Wales.

Instead, Charlie thought about Thomas’ home in Thruxton and the fields around the small house. Fields of green and gold stretched out all around, the pristine colour only dotted with occasional trees, umbrellas for the cattle to congregate when it rained too hard or the sun was too hot. He thought about how the air smelled there, fresh and clean. It was thinking of Thomas Cadawallader that Charlie slowly slipped into a dreamless sleep.






Thruxton was nearly due south of Shrewsbury, and over fifty miles away. Charlie rose as soon as it was light, opening the doors of the Abbey Church wide. On the street were only a few Inferi, lumbering blindly away from the rising sunlight and into the shadows. Charlie stood on the front steps and watched, curiously. Whatever natural instinct there was in an Inferius made them shy away from sunlight.

Charlie did not know enough, it seemed, about Inferi. The DADA classes at Hogwarts were a blur in his memory. He knew that he could disable an Inferius by blasting away the head, or setting it on fire. Inferi burned easily, like kindling.

He ran again, ran as fast as he could. Self-preservation fueled his running, but hunger burned holes into his gut, or so it felt. South, Charlie ran, south out of the city until the concentration of buildings became less and less. By midday, he was out of Shrewsbury, sitting outside a petrol station, devouring a stale sweet roll in plastic wrapping, drinking warm water out of a plastic bottle.

When he had come upon civilization again outside of the Reserve, Charlie knew that Muggle electricity was not working. He knew that fresher foods were wasting and that if he were to scavenge, it would be only for canned foods. Coming upon a Muggle petrol station along the road, Charlie ransacked the inside for as much as he could salvage. He lamented the lack of wholesome foods, but was too hungry to lament long. Sweets were most of what he could find. It would have to do until he found a safer place to forage.

He had learned early to be careful about going into larger structures like a market, pub, or home. Charlie, only a few days before, had sought refuge in a pub in some small town he could not remember the name, and came upon a nest of Inferi hiding in a windowless back room. Charlie backed out as quietly as he could, but kicking an empty pint glass had set the Inferi upon him no matter the hour of the day.

Inferi did not sleep, did not eat, but they shunned sunlight and fire as if some lingering living instinct remained in their dead brains. Charlie knew that even puppets could not always move the way a puppeteer wanted.

Charlie continued south, a plastic bag hanging off his left wrist with bottles of water and some sort of packaged jerky inside.

As he walked along the motorway, he occasionally pulled out his wand. He sent out a tracking spell, one that he used often to track down dragon young, to detect life, magical life. All life had a unique signature, and Charlie’s spell was attuned to detect magical signatures. The spell came from his wand like a spark, but a wave of magic went out, all around him for at least two miles. Then, balancing the wand on his right palm, he waited. If there were life, the wand tip would spark again and move, much like a Point Me Charm.

There was nothing.

Of the number of witches and wizards living in Britain, none seemed to be, or to live in Wales or Shropshire. To Charlie, this fact was not surprising, but it was disheartening. Slipping his wand back into his chest holster, Charlie continued on, picking up speed to jog along the congested motorway lined with dead.




March 7, 2010, Charlie stood outside the childhood home of Thomas Cadawallader, his booted feet shuffling upon the muddy yard. He had half a mind to call out, but thought better of it. The day was growing late and although he had seen no signs of Inferi, he was not going to risk rousing any to his location with a shout for old Bernie.

He had cast his tracking spell, and again, there was nothing. Perhaps Bernie had left the farmhouse or perhaps Bernie was dead inside. Charlie would have to move soon, the sun moving west to set against Charlie’s back.

Charlie ran a hand through his hair and groaned softly. He had to go in, he had to find a broom, and he had to go on.

There were household wards upon the farmhouse, but nothing that deterred Charlie from entering the house. In through a mudroom, Charlie slipped out of his boots. When his bare feet fell upon the worn wooden floor of the kitchen, it made no noise.

Warm sunlight streamed in through the windows, casting colour onto the kitchen counter below the window and the kitchen table in the middle of the small room. Charlie’s eyes moved over the room, seeing nothing out of the ordinary from he remembered of the room before.

Charlie remembered that there was a pantry across the room, behind a shelf of canned food, next to the door leading into the parlour. To Charlie’s right were the steep stairs leading up into the upstairs of the house with a lavatory and two bedrooms, one Thomas’, the other Bernie’s. Thomas’ mother had died when he was toddler, Charlie remembered, but still the household Charms on the house seemed to have a woman’s touch. Thomas’ mother must have Charmed the house to keep dust free.

Charlie crossed the kitchen and opened the door to the small parlour, finding it empty, but cheery. He moved quietly back into the kitchen and opened the hidden door to the pantry filled with food. Charlie rubbed his unshaven chin. Stalking across the kitchen to the stairs, Charlie silently ascended. Along a narrow hallway, Charlie opened the doors to the bedrooms, then the lavatory. Again, empty.

Charlie moved to the lavatory window and gazed out to the back of the house to the shed under a bare sheltering oak tree. Bernie had showed Charlie the shed, the inside magicked to house his collection of brooms. The sun was set, and Charlie moved from the window.

The Cadwallader house seemed safe enough for the night, but Charlie moved about the house, securing the windows and doors, not with magic, but with barricades. Charlie did not light the candles and lamps as the darkness descended. He sat at the kitchen table and ate, opening cans, casting warming Charms on tins of meat, canceling a Stasis Charm on a loaf of bread, and made sandwiches to dinner.

Charlie bathed for the first time in weeks, in cold water.

By midnight, Charlie had found a clean set of clothes, too small for Thomas as Charlie remembered him, but fit Charlie well enough. Navy blue corduroy trousers and black knit sweater kept Charlie warm as he curled up on the parlour floor with a quilt over his recumbent form. He clutched his wand as he tried to sleep, but sleep did not come.

The silence, or the lack of Inferi shrieks, allowed Charlie to think for the first time for what seemed a long while. Charlie moved from the floor to sit in the Cadwallader’s couch, worn and comfortable. He thought about his situation, his mind moving better after having the closest thing to a true meal.

The Seal had been set. Inferi roamed the countryside. Muggles were dead. Witches and wizards were missing.

Charlie rubbed his clean-shaven face in frustration. He had been too far removed from everything to know the truth of his own situation. Then again, perhaps he was still alive because he had been so removed from the world, in a manner. He knew he could not perform some magicks, but did not know that the world had seemed to end until he came upon the village of Llanuwchllyn. He had walked to the Lodge and found no one, so he walked farther. The small village of approximately 850 people should have been alive, Muggles moving about. Charlie walked into the village as the sun burning through the grey clouds. He knew he would have a hard time explaining to the Muggles his muddy clothes, filthy hair and beard. He hoped to find someone who would not mind giving him a lift out of Wales, as far as he could go.

Llanuwchllyn was dead. Charlie stood in the middle of Main Street, staring down at a body. It was an old woman, lying on the ground as if asleep. There were others, in their homes, in the pub, on the street, in their cars, dead. As if they had decided to lie down and die, not one body seemed unnatural, there was no struggle, no obvious cause of death. Babies, children, teenagers, adult, and the elderly, death had not discriminated.

It was the same everywhere, from the smallest village to a city like Shrewsbury. On the streets, on the motorway, the dead were around. The moving and unmoving dead…

Who was pulling the strings? Had this someone managed to kill millions of innocents? Why? Why was he still alive? Where was old Bernie Cadwallader?

Charlie closed his eyes, leaning back into the couch. Maybe when he got home, he would know more.




Bernie Cadwallader’s shed was empty of any farm equipment, but was filled to capacity with brooms hanging from the rafters in various states of repair. Charlie’s jade green eyes moved over the brooms—Cleansweeps, Shooting Stars, Silver Arrows, there were hundreds, all with tags hanging from the twigs with notes in old Bernie’s hand.

However, on the worktables below were newer brooms, and resting just under one of the windows was a refurbished Nimbus 2000.

Charlie moved to the broom and laid a hand upon the handle. At his touch the broom moved, acknowledging his magical signature. Charlie studied the handle, the tail twigs, the brackets, and could not tell what been repaired. Even the golden embossed ‘Nimbus 2000’ on the end of the handle seemed brand new.

As Charlie lifted the broom, a tag fluttered to the floor, resting against the toe of Charlie’s boot.

‘Refurbishment completed February 18, 2010. Refer to Page 193 of Journal for catalogue of repairs.’

Then, on the opposite side, Charlie read: ‘Aiden Lynch’s Nimbus 2000.’ Charlie smiled. Aiden Lynch, the Irish Nation Team’s Seeker, former Ravenclaw Seeker who could never quite edge Charlie out of the Snitch.

Charlie carried the broom out of the shed and dropped it toward the muddy yard, pleased that it did not simply fall, but hovered just at his hip. The morning sun made the handle shine and Charlie smirked. It had been far too long since he had flown. Mounting, Charlie was soon over the roof of the farmhouse, still climbing up and over the fields.

The wind was cold around his head as it whipped his hair behind his face. However, as Charlie braked, hovering high over the farmhouse, all he could see were fields. Hands on his hips, Charlie’s eyes scanned the ground, searching. Lifting his hand to shield his eyes, Charlie looked east. Far away, almost lost in the sunlight, Charlie could see smoke just faintly. His heart sank. Smoke did not mean life; he could not afford to be so hopeful.

Charlie flew back down to the farmhouse, sliding in the muddy yard until he came to the kitchen door. Already he had packed a Transfigured knapsack with his old clothes, washed, several days worth of food, and an old refilling canteen. Folded next to the pack was an old travelling cloak, the hem frayed. Charlie shrugged the pack on first, then the cloak before closing the kitchen door tight making the tacked note he had written earlier that morning sway.

It was a thank you note, but Charlie felt that no one would ever read it.




Flying over 120 mph, Charlie made it to East Devon within an hour and was walking up the two-rut track toward the Burrow at midday. He had circled over Ottery St. Catchpole twice, seeing the dead in the village just as he had seen the dead in every other village.

As he had flown, there was no sign of life, no sign of magic. Even as he walked the track toward his childhood home, he could not feel the wards that kept the house protected. Fear propelled him faster up the track. Charlie dropped the Nimbus, not caring where the broom went as he rounded the bend.

Sunlight streamed down upon the house, and Charlie slid in the rain-dampened yard past the garage and empty chicken coop. The Burrow, his home, stood before him, but not as he remembered it. Though the Wellington boots and the rusty cauldron were in the lawn, the chickens were missing. Charlie’s eyes moved up the ramshackle house. The first, second and third floors were intact, but the upper floors were charred.

“Mum! Dad!” Charlie called, running to the kitchen door, bursting inside.

The household Charms were working, the kitchen was spotless, and this fact disturbed Charlie. He stalked into the sitting room, knowing that his mother would scold him for tracking mud into the house.

Charlie called again, up the stairs. He climbed, his voice becoming a roar as he called. When he reached the fourth floor landing, he could go no further. The house seemed to have burned from the attic down, and on the fourth floor landing, all Charlie saw was blue sky with approaching rain clouds. His parent’s bedroom was gone, Ron’s room, and the attic. All that remained of the fourth floor was the ceiling of the third floor.

“Mum? Dad?” he asked in a whisper.

Charlie trembled as a rain-laden breeze blew under his travelling cloak. The trembling became worse as he turned and slowly descended the stairs. He opened every door, looked into every room. Nothing had changed, and when he stood outside again, moving to the empty garage, to the lonely orchard, there was no clue as to the whereabouts of Arthur and Molly Weasley.

Rain began soaking his hair as he stood like a statue in the paddock around the orchard, listening. He could hear the rain and the distant River Otter. He could hear his breath and his heartbeat. With his eyes closed, his face pointed to the sky, Charlie listened. Faintly, he could hear the hum of magic. He knew it was the ancient sound of magic laid long before the Weasleys had built the Burrow. Before the Burrow was a smaller house of his ancestors and their magic had been laid like a mark upon the land. Charlie stood on the land of his ancestors and their magic remained. Further, beyond the Burrow, the land of the Lovegoods, the Diggorys, the Fawcetts, the old magic hummed in unison with that cast by the Weasleys.

The sound was a small comfort, more like an echo of something long sounded and slowly fading. Still, Charlie listened as the wind began to rise and rain was pelting against his face. Below the hum of magic was another sound, a strange sound. The sound ebbed and flowed on the wind and rain, and Charlie licked his lips, unable to hear the strange sound clearly.

It sounded like a chord of music.

Charlie growled and opened his eyes. He turned on his heel and jogged back to the Burrow. The Charms holding the house together prevented the rain from dripping down into the intact portion of the house, and for that, Charlie was thankful. He had retrieved his Nimbus from the road and began laying wards, renewing the old wards that had protected the Burrow of ages. The spell casting took little time and Charlie was surprised at how easily his spells seemed to come. As a boy, he remembered his father showing him how the wards were laid, the spells that protected the family, and Charlie moved, as his father would have, laying protection.

Charlie stared at the damage to the Burrow for a long while before going back into the house. As with the dead he had seen, there was no obvious cause to the fire damage to the house, or any clue as to where his parents had gone.

He took stock of the pantries, finding them nearly full. Charlie moved about the house as the day began to fail, adding extra protection to the doors and window lest the Inferi somehow make it through the wards designed to assuage anything, living or dead, that came near.

Charlie lit one small lamp, placed it on the kitchen table, and cast his eyes about the kitchen. He could almost see his mother at the sink, wand in one hand, scrub brush in the other, scolding Charlie for letting his hair grow so long. He could almost see his father sitting in his chair at the head of the table, nearest the door, his mouth twisted into a sideways grin.

‘You are lucky, Charlie, you aren’t going bald,’ Arthur Weasley would usually whisper to Charlie.

Charlie smiled to himself and lowered his eyes to the table. Slowly, he rose, lifting the lamp to carry it by the handle as he moved into the sitting room. The light caught the golden face of the grandfather clock. Charlie’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the eight hands. Fred’s hand had been taken away not long after the Battle of Hogwarts.

All hands but two pointed to ‘Lost.’

“All but me and Bill,” he muttered darkly, his own clock hand pointing to ‘Home’ and Bill’s to ‘Abroad.’

Hope sparked, Bill was ‘Abroad.’ His older brother was alive.

Charlie set his jaw and moved back into the kitchen, setting the lamp on the table, went to the fireplace, grabbing Floo Powder. Throwing the powder, Charlie expected a flash of green, but nothing happened. He tried again, but the powder fell into the hearth like sand.

Charlie sighed. He had tried. He then wondered about owls, he had not seen any around the Burrow, none over Ottery St. Catchpole. Sitting down at the kitchen table again, Charlie wondered if he could cast a Patronus to send a message—obviously not outside of Britain, but to someone in Britain. The Floo was out, owls were gone with every other animal, and Charlie had a nagging suspicion that finding anyone else would be difficult.

He knew he could not give up the hope that there was someone else who knew what was happening to their world. Whoever had activated the Seal—were they not alive?

Charlie tugged on his hair out of frustration. An empty Burrow was more disturbing than the millions of dead, and Charlie feared that his parents, his family, might be among the lost outside the Burrow’s confines.



TBC...