34[@more@]"You did?" said Hermione, gazing up at Ron with her arms still around his neck. "Always the tone of surprise," he said a little grumpily, breaking free. "Are we the last back?"
"No," said Ginny, "we're still waiting for Bill and Fleur and Mad-Eye and
Mundungus. I'm going to tell Mum and Dad you're okay, Ron –"
She ran back inside.
"So what kept you? What happened?" Lupin sounded almost angry at Tonks.
"Bellatrix," said Tonks. "She wants me quite as much as she wants Harry, Remus, She tried very hard to kill me. I just wish I'd got her, I owe Bellatrix. But we definitely injured Rodolphus . . . . Then we got to Ron's Auntie Muriel's and we missed our Portkey and she was fussing over us –"
A muscle was jumping in Lupin's jaw. He nodded, but seemed unable to say
anything else.
"So what happened to you lot?" Tonks asked, turning to Harry, Hermione, and Kingsley.
They recounted the stories of their own journeys, but all the time the continued absence of Bill, Fleur, Mad-Eye, and Mundungus seemed to lie upon them like a frost, its icy bite harder and harder to ignore.
"I'm going to have to get back to Downing Street, I should have been there an hour ago," said Kingsley finally, after a last sweeping gaze at the sky. "Let me know when they're back,."
Lupin nodded. With a wave to the others, Kingsley walked away into the darkness toward the gate. Harry thought he heard the faintest pop as Kingsley Disapparated just beyond the Burrow's boundaries.
Mr. And Mrs. Weasley came racing down the back steps, Ginny behind them.
Both parents hugged Ron before turning to Lupin and Tonks.
"Thank you," said Mrs. Weasley, "for our sons."
"Don't be silly, Molly," said Tonks at once.
"How's George?" asked Lupin.
"What's wrong with him?" piped up Ron.
"He's lost –"
But the end of Mrs. Weasley's sentence was drowned in a general outcry. A
thestral had just soared into sight and landed a few feet from them. Bill and Fleur slid from its back, windswept but unhurt.
"Bill! Thank God, thank God –"
Mrs. Weasley ran forward, but the hug Bill bestowed upon her was perfunctory. Looking directly at his father, he said, "Mad-Eye's dead."
Nobody spoke, nobody moved. Harry felt as though something inside him was
falling, falling through the earth, leaving him forever.
"We saw it," said Bill; Fleur nodded, tear tracks glittering on her cheeks in the light from the kitchen window. "It happened just after we broke out of the circle: Mad- Eye and Dung were close by us, they were heading north too. Voldemort – he can fly – went straight for them. Dung panicked, I heard him cry out, Mad-Eye tried to stop him, but he Disapparated. Voldemort's curse hit Mad-Eye full in the face, he fell backward off his broom and – there was nothing we could do, nothing, we had half a dozen of them on our own tail –"
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 . . .