The Last Goodbye

There was a pause in which Mrs. Weasley magicked the empty plates on to the side, and served apple tart.

"We must decide 'ow you will be disguised, 'Arry." Fleur said once everyone had pudding. "For ze wedding." She added when Harry's face became confused. "Of course, none of our guests are death eaters, but we cannot guarantee zat zey will not let something slip after zey 'ave 'ad champagne." I gathered that she suspected Hagrid after the death eaters knew we were moving Harry two night ago.

"Yes, good point." Mrs. Weasley said from the top of the table, scanning the immense list of jobs she had scribbled on a very long piece of parchment. "Now, Ron, have you cleaned out your room yet?"

"Why?" Ron exclaimed, slamming his spoon down. "Why does my room need to be cleaned out? Harry and I are fine with it the way it is!"

"We are holding your brother's wedding here in a few days time, young man-"

"And are they getting married in my bedroom?" Ron asked furiously. "No! So why in the name of Merlin's saggy left-"

"Don't talk to your mother like that." Mr. Weasley said firmly. "And do as you're told." Ron scowled at both his parents, then picked up his spoon and attacked the last few mouthfuls of his apple tart.

"I can help, some of it's my mess." Harry told Ron, but Mrs. Weasley cut across his.

"No, Harry, dear. I'd rather you helped Arthur muck out the chickens, and Hermione, I'd be ever so grateful if you and Hayley could change the sheets for Monsieur and Madame Delacour, you know they're arriving at eleven tomorrow morning."

It turned out, there wasn't much to do with the chickens and Hermione and I already changed the sheets yesterday.

"Do you think we should sneak into Ron and Harry's room? You three haven't been able to talk properly the entire time you've been here. You need to plan." I told Hermione.

"I suppose we'd better. Let's go." She said and we quietly sneaked down a set of creaky stairs.

"Muffliato." I whispered behind me as we got to the door.

"Hi." I said and sat down on Harry's camp bed.

"And how did you two manage to get away?" Harry asked us.

"Oh, Ron's mum forgot she asked us to change the sheets yesterday." Hermione said. She threw numerology and Grammatica on to one pile of books and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts on the other.

"That's a good book! Very informative." I said excitedly and flipped it open, scanning the pages.

"We were just talking about Mad-Eye." Ron told us. "I reckon he might have survived."

"But Bill saw him hit by the Killing Curse." Harry said.

"Yeah, but Bill was under attack too." Ron said. "How can he be sure what he saw?"

"Even if the killing curse missed, he still fell about a thousand feet." I said, flicking past another page.

"He could have used a Shield Charm-" Ron started.

"Fleur said his wand was blasted out of his hand." Harry said.

"Well, all right, if you want him to be dead." Ron said grumpily, punching his pillow into a more comfortable shape.

"Of course we don't want him to be dead!" I said, dropping the book back into the pile. "It's dreadful that he's dead! We're just being realistic!"

"The death eaters probably tidied up after themselves, that's why no one's found him." Ron said.

"Yeah, like Barty Crouch, turned into a bone and buried outside Hagrid's hut. They probably transfigured Moody and stuffed him-"

"Don't!" I shouted, looking at Hermione's hurt face. Harry turned to look at me just as Hermione burst into tears.