The Big Dipper

Alternate Ending 1

Fred's heart pounded more and more furiously as each successive piece of rubble was moved. His relief that Lee was alive had been all too soon replaced by fear, terror even, at what fate befell Ursula. As her house elf moved the last chunk of stone, a puddle of blood seeped across the dusty floor and into Fred's shoes.

"Ursula, my love," he whispered, his voice trembling, as he knelt beside her. "I'm here."

But Ursula did not stir.

Her eyes, her stormy grey eyes, so full of life and passion, stared at a fixed point over his shoulder.

Unmoving.

Glazed over.

Unseeing.

"No."

The word was torn from Fred's lips with a hollow gasp, as the horrible scenario he had so many times prayed to avoid was suddenly stretched out before him.

A trickle of blood ran down Ursula's cheek.

Her lips were slightly parted, as if about to speak, as if about to say his name.

"No."

Fred's hands shook as he gently brushed a loose black curl out of her face, cupping Ursula's bruised jaw as he leaned down to press his forehead against hers.

She couldn't — she just couldn't —

Fred reached for her hand, scarred and cut and bloodied, grasping her stiff fingers in desperation. Her hand was cold.

"NO!"

The scream that ran through him echoed through the damaged hall, spilling skyward towards the heavens, every bellow full of fury and anger and sadness and pain, raw pain. Fred screamed until his voice went hoarse, until the crowd in the Great Hall was drawn to this point of utter despair, until he could not scream — but still he did, for no expression of pain could ever be worth the loss of Ursula Black.

He did not register Hadrian screaming and crying and pleading beside him, begging Ursula and Cassius, who too was gone from the world. Fred was still screaming when George and Percy pulled him off of Ursula's body, when they carried him away, as he fought every step.

"NO! NO! I WON'T LEAVE HER! NO!"

Still Fred cried, even when he had no tears left, still he screamed, even without a voice to do so, and still he grieved, even when his heart had been carved out, his chest left hollow, by this loss.

Ursula was dead.

His worst nightmare had become his horrifying reality.

It took the combined strength of Percy, George, and Bill to hold Fred back as Ursula's body was moved. She and Cassius lay beside each other, covered in blood and dust, their heads facing each other for the last time. They could've been lying on the front lawn or relaxing side by side in the Slytherin common room, but their limbs lay at odd angles, their blood dried as the nauseating stench rose in the air, and they lay there, cold and lifeless.

Fred was not the only person dying of pain, but he could not comprehend anyone or anything else. He did not care who won or lost or if the battle went on, not when its greatest combatant, the love of his life, wasn't there to finish it.

Rue was huddled nearby, Lee's arms around her, trying to muffle her sobs in her sleeves. Charlie sobbed into the shoulder of a grizzled man, who cried silent tears along with the other dragonologists. Hadrian's screams matched Fred, but he screamed too for Cassius and Casper, his loss tripled. Lilian was so overcome by grief that she puked, while a sobbing Tonks was comforted by a haunted Remus. Draco Malfoy, his pale face whiter than a ghost, had to be restrained by some of the deserters as he cried.