J. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Bill’s voice broke.

“Of course you couldn’t have done anything,” said Lupin.

They all stood looking at each other. Harry could not quite comprehend it. Mad-Eye dead; it could not be… Mad-Eye, so tough, so brave, the consummate survivor…

At last it seemed to dawn on everyone, though nobody said it, that there was no point of waiting in the yard anymore, and in silence they followed Mr. and Mrs. Weasley back into the Burrow, and into the living room, where Fred and George were laughing together.

“What’s wrong?” said Fred, scanning their faces as they entered, “What’s happened? Who’s—?”

“Mad-Eye,” said Mr. Weasley, “Dead.”

The twins’ grins turned to grimaces of shock. Nobody seemed to know what to do. Tonks was crying silently into a handkerchief: She had been close to Mad-Eye, Harry knew, his favorite and his protégé at the Ministry of Magic. 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 fire-whisky and some glasses.

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

“Mad-Eye,” they all said, and drank.

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

The firewhisky seared Harry’s throat. It seemed to burn feeling back into him, dispelling the numbness and sense of unreality firing him with something that was like courage.

“So Mundungus disappeared?” said Lupin, who had drained his own glass in one.

The atmosphere changed at once. Everybody looked tense, watching Lupin, both wanting him to go on, it seemed to Harry, and slightly afraid of what they might hear.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Bill, “and I wondered that too, on the way back here, because they seemed to be expecting us, didn’t they? But Mundungus can’t have betrayed us. They didn’t know there would be seven Harrys, that confused them the moment we appeared, and in case you’ve forgotten, it was Mundungus who suggested that little bit of skullduggery. Why wouldn’t he have told them the essential point? I think Dung panicked, it’s as simple as that. He didn’t want to come in the first place, but Mad-Eye made him, and You-Know-Who went straight for them. It was enough to make anyone panic.”

“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 Mundungus gave them away he switched to Kingsley…”

“Yes, and zat eez all very good,” snapped Fleur, “but still eet does not explain ’ow zey know 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. The only sound to break the silence was that of Hagrid hiccupping from behind his handkerchief. Harry glanced at Hagrid, who had just risked his own life to save Harry’s—Hagrid, whom he loved, whom he trusted, who had once been tricked into giving Voldemort crucial information in exchange for a dragon’s egg…

“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.”

More silence followed his words. They were all looking at him; Harry felt a little hot again, and drank some more firewhisky for something to do. As he drank, he thought of Mad-Eye. Mad-Eye had always been scathing about Dumbledore’s willingness to trust people.

“Well said, Harry,” said Fred unexpectedly.

“Year, ’ear, ’ear,” said George, with half a glance at Fred, the corner of whose mouth twitched.

Lupin was wearing an odd expression as he looked at Harry. It was close to pitying.

“You think I’m a fool?” demanded Harry.

“No, I think you’re like James,” said Lupin, “who would have regarded it as the height of dishonor to mistrust his friends.”

Harry knew what Lupin was getting at: that his father had been betrayed by his friend Peter Pettigrew. He felt irrationally angry. He wanted to argue, but Lupin had turned away from him, set down his glass upon a side table, and addressed Bill, “There’s work to do. I can ask Kingsley whether—”

“No,” said Bill at once, “I’ll do it, I’ll come.”

“Where are you going?” said Tonks and Fleur together.

“Mad-Eye’s body,” said Lupin. “We need to recover it.”

“Can’t it—?” began Mrs. Weasley with an appealing look at Bill.

“Wait?” said Bill, “Not unless you’d rather the Death Eaters took it?”

Nobody spoke. Lupin and Bill said good-bye and left.

The rest of them now dropped into chairs, all except for Harry, who remained standing. The suddenness and completeness of death was with them like a presence.

“I’ve got to go too,” said Harry.

Ten pairs of startled eyes looked at him.

“Don’t be silly, Harry,” said Mrs. Weasley, “What are you talking about?”

“I can’t stay here.”

He rubbed his forehead; it was prickling again, he had not hurt like this for more than a year.

“You’re all in danger while I’m here. I don’t want—”

“But don’t be so silly!” said Mrs. Weasley. “The whole point of tonight was to get you here safely, and thank goodness it worked. And Fleur’s agreed to get married here rather than in France, we’ve arranged everything so that we can all stay together and look after you—”

She did not understand; she was making him feel worse, not better.

“If Voldemort finds out I’m here—”

“But why should he?” asked Mrs. Weasley.

“There are a dozen places you might be now, Harry,” said Mr. Weasley. “He’s got no way of knowing which safe house you’re in.”

“It’s not me I’m worried for!” said Harry.

“We know that,” said Mr. Weasley quietly, but it would make our efforts tonight seem rather pointless if you left.”

“Yer not goin’ anywhere,” growled Hagrid. “Blimey, Harry, after all we wen’ through ter get you here?”

“Yeah, what about my bleeding ear?” said George, hoisting himself up on his cushions.

“I know that—”

“Mad-Eye wouldn’t want—”

“I KNOW!” Harry bellowed.

He felt beleaguered and blackmailed. Did they think he did not know what they had done for him, didn’t they understand that it was for precisely that reason that he wanted to go now, before they had to suffer any more on his behalf? There was a long and awkward silence in which his scar continued to prickle and throb, and which was broken at last by Mrs. Weasley.

“Where’s Hedwig, Harry?” she said coaxingly. “We can put her up with Pidwidgeon and give her something to eat.”

His insides clenched like a fist. He could not tell her the truth. He drank the last of his firewhisky to avoid answering.

“Wait till it gets out yeh did it again, Harry,” said Hagrid. “Escaped him, fought him off when he was right on top of yeh!”

“It wasn’t me,” said Harry flatly. “It was my wand. My wand acted of its own accord.”