100 Ways to Kill a Weasley

Author\'s Note: I just can\'t help it: Ron annoys the life out of me. This is my salute to the beloved methods that remove Ron from the Wizarding world\'s (and more importantly, Hermione Granger\'s) Better Tomorrow. It was originally going to be a grand collection of many cliches ("Piling On"), then turned into this. Bon voyage, Ron! ~Swythyv

---

As the line of mourners passed through the garden, Hermione watched Molly Weasley impassively from her carefully chosen spot at, but not too near, the head of the bier. Molly was being amazingly discreet, but Hermione had found that if she moved just within the periphery of the older woman\'s sight, Molly\'s thin-drawn lips could not quite close over her teeth. It was amusing. Slowly rock forward: Snarl. Slowly rock away: Clamp. Slowly rock forward...



"He looks just like himself."



Hermione glanced over. They\'d given up trying to close his mouth, so Ron\'s slightly purpled features still gaped in his usual expression of offended incomprehension.



"Yes," she said and returned to her slow game. Slowly rock away...



"It\'s so sad," snuffled several tastelessly bedecked witches. "We\'ll miss him. We\'re all so sorry."



Hermione gave this latest delegation from the Sisterhood of the Green Mark an apparently vague look.



"Yes," she said.



The one on the right cocked her head as though to think, catching the purple glass finial with a practiced grab as it fell from her mottled tiara. "Ooo-eee!" she squeaked as she popped it back in, any thought forgotten as she moved away, rubbing at her viridian fingers.



"It\'s a wizarding tradition!" came the latest hissed salvo.



"Not mine."



Molly\'s complexion darkened noticeably, just at the temples. "No, none of yours, you – you—"



Hermione inclined her head politely as though to hear and caught "childless" before Molly recovered herself. She silently rocked back and began to count the stars emerging in the twilight. At fifty, she slowly rocked forward...



"A kiss farewell would at least show you had affection for him!" was the next volley.



"I don\'t think that would be prudent."



Hermione rocked gently back and admired the effect for some time.



"\'E were t\'best a\'t\'Qddtch," burbled a bleary-eyed fellow in the familiar purple coat. "At\'s, at\'s what—"



He manfully suppressed an eructation and then patted at his front. "Weuzall playin\' Qddtch," he got out solemnly and waited owlishly for her response.



"Yes," she said gravely for the Designated Beard.



There was almost a trace of voice in Molly\'s hissed "There! See?"



He nodded with drunken gravitas and rejoined the group under the tree. They reverently toasted the coat and then began to move toward Harry.



Hermione rocked gently forward, watching.



Harry looked dubious as several began to speak at once, and then a bit upset as one began to gesticulate. He joined the tail of the line of mourners as she slowly rocked back...



She\'d insisted that Harry maintain some ties with Ron for Ginny\'s sake. And yesterday, Ron had somehow inveigled the happily-married Harry into going with him to a "pick-up Quidditch game" that had proved to be at the lavishly catered Drunken Philanderers\' Annual Picnic. The professional entertainment had arrived during an extended beverage break, and a panicked Harry, somewhat the worse for drink himself, had unfortunately attempted to escape the situation by betting Ron a shiny Galleon that he could not eat an entire shepherd\'s pie while flying upside down on a broom – and had soared up to safety upon his own broom to watch him do it.



Ron had made an excellent start toward winning the bet when, catching sight of developments on the ground involving a particularly well-received artiste, his attention became fatally divided. Harry distinctly saw him inhale the entire remainder of the shepherd\'s pie (which was at the time still larger than his head), almost certainly in drawing breath for one of his enraged bellows. But whether in reaction to this or to his desire to rejoin activities on the ground, he abruptly hurtled fifty feet down to land upon his head.



The experts at St. Mungo\'s agreed that, while Ron could have rubbed along without much fuss in spite of the extensive cranial injuries, the fall-compacted food had met the rising bellow on impact in a classic immovable object- irresistible force problem. The resulting magical conversion had produced a very loud report and a creditable crater quite consistent with his short-lived career as a human cherry-bomb, during which he perished instantly and without a mark on him.



The end of the line reached the bier. Harry lingered.



Behind her, Arthur murmured, "Molly, it\'s time to—"



"I\'ve been reminded that I owe a debt of honor to the dead that is karmically dangerous not to pay," Harry said gravely. "Hermione, would you please—"



Molly had gone purple from neck to hairline. She snatched the Galleon from Harry\'s hand and rounded on Hermione.



"You don\'t touch anything that\'s Ron\'s!"



Disgust vied with resignation on Arthur\'s face. "Now, Molly," he soothed.



"No!" she shrieked. "Our boy sat by a cold hearth and starved waiting for that, that, that to come home and give him a family—"



Arthur flinched upright, his hand closing on his wife\'s shoulder. Suddenly, one could remember that Arthur Weasley had fought a war and faced terrible things.



"Molly, stop that now." He shook her a little. "Hermione\'s our bounden daughter and we swore the—"



"Always flaunting her money and her big job and her uppity Muggle tricks—"



"Molly!" he warned as the cracks malice had worn in his wife\'s mind gaped for them all to see.



She twisted out of his grasp and made to shove Hermione toward the bier, roaring, "You respect my son, you worthless—"



Hermione eyed the suspicious ripple in the air near it and made a command decision: she sat down hard on the ground.



Molly lunged past and stepped into it.



Hermione ducked and rolled away as a brilliant blue-white gout of flame turned a circle around the bier and exploded into a firestorm that filled it completely.



"Oooh!" chorused the guests. "Ahhh!"



The three of them hastily scrambled back; Harry helped Hermione up and dusted her off. Arthur stared up at the glare in shock, his lips forming the word "Fiendfyre." Ginny joined them in time to read it and began digging into her purse.



Something was moving among the flames. It assumed a vaguely reptilian shape and began whistling like a teakettle.



Ginny wrestled with a packet, got something out of it, and handed the bag to Harry. He looked at it in surprise as she levitated several marshmallows high over the circle and let them drop. The fiery lizard lunged upward and snapped them out of the air.



Harry caught on quickly, transfiguring an extended supply, and soon the fire-fiend was whistling catchy tunes and dancing as the guests joined in, and the wake began in earnest.



Hours later, the garden was a large, pure white circle of ash. The center was drifted in a graceful yin-yang design, each half traced with an unpropitious rune.



Hermione rested a hand on Arthur\'s shoulder as they gazed at it.



"I\'m sorry, Arthur."



"It\'s not your fault, dear."



They lapsed into another thoughtful silence.



"I don\'t think you\'ll be getting any more vegetables just there."



"No, probably not."



The guests seemed to be finding their own way out, so the two ignored them.



After a while came, "Though it might give you some rest from the hedge-wrangling."



"I\'ll still miss her."



"Oh, Arthur, I\'m sorry. I meant about the gnomes."



"I know, dear. But you\'re right that life will improve."



"I love you, Arthur-dad."



"I love you too, Hermione-girl." He smiled down at her. "Run along now, it\'s late."



"\'kay."



~*~*~



Hermione Apparated into her office-studio to find Severus dozing in her easy chair by the fire. He looked up without startling. "I rather thought you wouldn\'t be going home."



"Mmm? No. What with one thing and another, I hadn\'t got round to cleaning after Ron had company the day before last, and that was never a job safe to do half asleep."



"No more break-through papers on the management of communicable diseases, then?" he snarked as she drew up the other chair to the cold meal he\'d set out on the low table.



"Nope. The charms-or-potions debate is officially abandoned."



"I suppose you were ahead on points, too. Pity." He uncorked the wine. "But a trifle compared to the opportunity for me finally to pay you court."



"Indeed."



"What\'s that you have there, then?" he asked, as she began to open out a little wire-basket apparatus.



"Possibly the finest toasted cheese sandwich I shall ever taste. Would you like half?"



~fin~