And Then There Were Three

Chapter 16 - Promises

"What to we do with all the Death Eaters?" Draco asked as he pulled Pansy and Blaise away from the crowd of Weasleys surrounding Ron's limp, dead body.
"Take them to the Manor." Pansy suggested.
Blaise nodded in agreement.
"Levicorpus!" They said as they pointed their wand at Lucius. His body rose into the air and hovered behind the trio of Slytherins. They repeated this until there was a line of unconscious Death Eaters floating midair in a line.
Narcissa stood watching the scene, she was biting her fingernails and her face looked white with horror.
"Mother, come." Draco whispered. "Mother give them peace to grieve."
"I could have stopped this Draco." Narcissa sobbed quietly. "I could have stopped his death, I could have stopped Lucius."
"Mother this isn't your fault." Draco pleaded.
"Yes, yes it is. I could have stopped Molly from loosing her son, stopped Ginny loosing her brother. I could have stopped all of this. Lucius killed him Draco, I should have stopped him." Narcissa cried, slightly louder.
"There's nothing you could have done, he's a monster, Dad would have killed you if you got in his way." Draco said as he held his mothers hand.
"He would never hurt us Draco, were his family." Narcissa sobbed.
"Family means nothing to him, don't you know what he did to me?" Draco asked.
"What did he do?" Narcissa replied.
"He spent countless nights torturing me because I couldn't perfect the killing curse." Draco answered.
"Draco," Narcissa looked horrified. "Draco I'm sorry, this is all my fault."
"No it's not." Draco said firmly.
"Where do we go now Dray?" Pansy asked.
"And what do we do with these?" Blaise added, pointing towards the floating Death Eaters.
"Dump them in the manor for now, make sure to stupefy them again before we leave so they stay out for a while so we can make a plan. And then meet me at the motel in the city." Draco told them as he led his mother away.

"Draco, wait." Harry called as he ran after Draco.
"Harry, we can talk tomorrow, be with your family." Draco told him as he wiped a tear from Harry's cheek.
"My family are dead." Harry said, looking at the ground.
"Family isn't defined by blood Harry." Narcissa interrupted. "I've learned that the hard way."
She then smiled softly at Harry, who smiled back. "You have my blessing." Narcissa told him. "Not that you need it or anything, I just thought you should know that any friend to Draco is a friend to me."
"Mother he's not my friend, he's my family." Draco said as he looked at Harry, his heart full of love.
"Harry when this is all over," Draco began.
"Tell me later, give me something to look forward to." Harry interrupted him.
"Just promise me one thing?" Draco asked.
"Anything." Harry replied.
"Love me forever." Draco said, taking Harry's hands into his.
"Always." Harry said, as he looked Draco in the eyes.

********

Molly was still in hysterics, even hours after the battle. She was rocking back and forward, hugging her knees as she clutched Ron's half knitted jumper she had intended to give him for Christmas. Everyone else gathered around the kitchen table, at a loss for words. There was silence for a good few hours, until the sound of knitting needles clattering together echoed through the house.
"Molly what are you doing." Arthur asked.
"I'm knitting Ron's jumper." She sniffed. "So he can be buried in it."
"Love," Arthur began.
"Let me do this please, let me do this one last thing for my son." Molly begged.
Arthur smiled before going to the sofa and sitting beside his wife. "How about I go upstairs and pick a nice pair of jeans to go with that jumper?" Arthur asked.
Molly nodded as more tears began to stream violently down her face.

As soon as Arthur entered Ron's room he broke down completely. He had to hold it together for Molly, he just had to. But everything in Ron's bedroom was so familiar, it all had a joy filled memory connected to it. These memories flashed through Arthur's head and made it even harder to accept that was all the memories he could ever make with Ron. His son was gone, and he wasn't coming back.

Harry slumped on the grass outside the burrow as Draco and his mother walked away. As soon as he was alone, he began to cry. He sobbed into his jacket. He couldn't believe Ron was gone, he just couldn't believe it. His bestfriend was gone. All the train rides to Hogwarts and the late nights in the dormitory had died along with him. Moments later Hermione came outside and joined him.
"I can't believe he's really gone." She said as she lay her head on Harry's shoulder.
Harry couldn't even muster up a reply as he was crying so aggressively. Him and Hermione both had an unspoken agreement they would just sit and cry in each other's company.

"What about Bill?" Ginny asked her siblings when she finally managed to choke back her tears.
"He doesn't know." Fred replied.
"He never got to say goodbye." George muttered.
The Weasley siblings had sat around the table sobbing and recalling memories they shared with Ron for hours.
"We need to owl everyone." Percy said as he pushed his chair back. "I can handle that."
"You don't need to now Percy." Charlie said sympathetically.
"I do, I need to let everyone know so they can grieve." Percy said, trying his best to hold back his tears.
"What about your time to grieve." Charlie continued.
Everyone dealt with loss differently, Percy filled his mind with things to do to distract himself.
With that Percy went off to draft letters to anyone Ron had been close with.

As Harry lay in his bed later that night, the room felt empty. Ron's loud snores were missing from the blissful night air. He sobbed silently into his pillow, he was alone, and he missed Ron more than ever.

// Thanks for reading! New chapter tomorrow!//