Here Be Dragon - Part 3.
Fred landed, flinging his broom aside and raced to where his brother lay tended by his mother. Numb with shock, Molly was cradling George's lifeless body, rocking backwards and forwards, keening with grief.
A moment later, Bill touched down with a soft thud, and strode over. He was shaking like a leaf as he put his hand on Fred's shoulder, and his voice sounded strangled.
"Fred. Is he...?" But of course he was. No one could have survived that fall.
Fred looked up at Bill through a mist of tears. His lips moved, but no sound came.
Bill went very pale. He felt the salt warmth as a sob began to fill his throat, and swallowed. The call of the harpy, far off, broke the silence, and that galvanised Bill into action. "Fred, we have to get out of here. Now." If the harpy came back...
Fred stared at Bill, horror-struck. Somehow he found his voice. "We are NOT leaving without George!" he wailed, his voice making eerie harmonics with Molly's keening.
Arthur pushed past the two young men to reach his wife and lifeless son. He swallowed, hard. "Molly. Molly, love. It's time to go." He squeezed her shoulders and rubbed his cheek against hers before reaching between her arms to take George's body. "Help him up, would you?"
It's like carrying him up to bed, when he'd been playing long and hard.. never, never again.
"Come on, Molly, I'm not so young as I used to be."
Bill stood beside Fred, his broom in one hand, and held out an arm. "Mum and Dad've got him, we should -"
A loud scream to the north, and above.
Bill's blood froze. The harpy was coming, Charlie was way up there, and here they were, like unkeepered hoops on a Quidditch pitch...
Quidditch.
"Come on. Fred. Fred.. Delaney's Draw."
Charlie and Maggie were turning, but too far away to protect the party on the ground. Despair like a lump of lead in the pit of his stomach, but with the words "Delaney's Draw" running over and over in his mind, Fred picked up his broom and took off.
With a gasp of relief, Bill sped after Fred, and grabbed in his pockets for his floo-stick. Behind him, his parents slowly lifted George's broken body onto Arthur's broom and rose in tandem to safety, Molly cradling George's wand in her arms as if it were an infant.
Charlie watched, in disbelief, Bill and Fred flying towards him as he urged Maggie round and downwards in pursuit of the harpy. "What the..."
With that, his floo-stick crackled into life.
"Runes to BF - Delaney's Draw."
Charlie held Maggie on course as the harpy pursued his brothers, waiting for them to begin the Quidditch move that would - hopefully - bring her into his range...
Fred flew alongside Bill. Delaney's Draw was a move that...that he and George had executed many times over the Quidditch field. Never again... He clung grimly to the handle of his broom. Adjusting his speed to allow the harpy to close on them, he looked across at Bill and nodded. "NOW!" he yelled, and the brothers went into a near vertical zoom, looping over and behind Maggie to give her a clear line of fire on the approaching harpy.
For a while, Maggie had been waiting patiently. Flamehair's pack had found a Birdbeast and were playing with it. Did this mean she wasn't going to win the game? Flamehair had been very clear that trying to take the Birdbeast once it had been claimed meant no deer. Now the pack had flown off, and Flamehair was shouting but Maggie needed no command. She arched her neck, muscles bulging beneath the gleaming scales, and a huge belch of flame engulfed the Birdbeast, sending it spinning to the ground. Maggie gave a triumphant bellow, and snorted, scenting the air. Now she was satisfied that there were no more Birdbeasts.
The foul creature's carcass lay quite still.
Charlie, his jaw set, his face deathly pale, choked back the tears as he turned Maggie round and headed her towards Thorne. As he caught up with the family he stared straight ahead, not daring to make eye contact, fearful of breaking down totally.
Nobody spoke a word as they left the castle behind, but over the heavy, rhythmic beats of Maggie's wings the sound of sobbing could be heard before the wind snatched it away.
Once again, many thanks to the amazing talents of dragonesk/www_fg and mum_of_hearts.