Traditions and Promises

Magic has been around since the dawn of the ages. Longer than that, some may argue. Whether it has been with us since the birth of the world or eons prior to it, one thing remains true. Over the years, magic - and those who find themselves able to wield its powers - has becoming deeply ingrained with a sense of tradition. It might seem strange to think of magic as something that can take on a personality trait but really it is not so at all. Magic is a living, breathing entity that lives deep within me, such as the sense of tradition that it breeds.

It was a tradition that Molly Weasley Apparated south of Ottery St. Catchpole to Plymouth every year during the third week in August. She would never stay there for very long. Rather, she would go to the cemetery and slowly walk up and down the rows of towering granite headstones until she would see the very one she was looking for. Standing at the edge of the gravesite, she would rock back on her heels, worn rubber boots digging into the moist earth slightly, for a very long moment. After a beat, she would choke low in her throat and pitch her body forward, her knees scraping against the bottom lip of the slab of granite as she settled back on her haunches. Next moisture would well up in her eyes and one hand, a hand calloused from working her fingers to the bone and yet so soft and motherly to the touch, would reach out palm flat to the stone. A single trembling digit would then trace the name carved there. B-I-L-I-U-

She could never finish it.

Just as quickly as she had thrown her body down at the head of the headstone, she would push herself back up and walk rapidly away from the cemetery. Never once would she look back. Instead, she would always hug her arms to her chest and rub the sides of her shoulders as though she were warming herself.

I had always wondered where Molly would disappear to during that third week of August. During the first two summer visits that I'd had at the Burrow I hadn't really taken notice to it. The third summer there I began to see something of a pattern. It wasn't until the Summer after our sixth year, however, that I took notice to it.

It was after tea on that day that I had pulled Ron and Harry aside in the garden, far enough away so that Fred and George, who were home visiting and had also been given de-gnoming duty, would not overhear our conversation. Ron honestly looked surprised when I asked him and mumbled something about not knowing how I had noticed a pattern when it was only a once a year occurrence. Harry had laughed and playfully punched Ron on the arm, lightly berating him about how he'd do well to remember that it was me asking such a thing and that of course I would notice something like that because I tend to be incredibly detail-oriented. Naturally, Harry didn't use those exact words but that was what he meant, regardless. Ron flushed, red showing up in the tips of his ears first in a fashion I had always found to be quite endearing. This only served to make Harry guffaw and me chuckle softly, too pleased to be spending time with my best friends away from Hogwarts, away from Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, and away (if only momentarily) from danger. Ron joined in, too, and it was so nice to have a moment free of worry and strife. I grabbed both of the boys' hands and twined my fingers with theirs, pressing palm to palm and felt as though I were glowing. And to my pleasant surprise, neither of them pulled away. I became so enthralled with how different their larger hands felt against mine and the warmth of their skin that I almost hadn't heard Ron begin to finally answer my question. It was only when Harry squeezed my digits that I looked up and shifted my gaze from one boy to the other, brown eyes locking on brown. I murmured my apology, which Ron of course accepted. He then went on to tell the two of us about his uncle Bilius and how devastated his mother had been when her brother had died. Every year on the anniversary of his death she would visit his grave on the outskirts of Plymouth to pay her respects. I asked Ron if the family ever went with her and he said that she had only allowed it once when the lot of the Weasley children were very young in age. Ron said that he had been perhaps five and that he would never forget seeing his mother in such pain over her loss.

Pain and loss. Certainly they were part of the tradition that accompanies magic. Although Muggles do have their own hefty share of such things, I believe that magic only serves to intensify such sensations, any sensations. Why would it not, when magic courses through our veins and is just as much our life force as the very blood that sustains our organs?

After the conclusion of our seventh year at Hogwarts, I had thought that Ron, Harry, and I had come to know the ultimate in pain and loss. Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, Tonks, Neville, and many others had been lost when Voldemort and his legion of Death Eaters had stormed our leaving ceremony on the grassy field of the quidditch pitch. Merlin only knew how they had managed to break through the many barriers that I knew, thanks to numerous readings of Hogwarts, A History, were set in place to protect the school and its grounds.

I don't like to think about that day. Even though Harry, with the help of Ron and myself, managed to finally defeat Voldemort, I prefer not to remember that day. It really was only because of the closeness that Harry, Ron, and I had developed during our last year of school and had come to several realizations about the way we felt for one another, that we were able to recover from the trauma of our last day at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Pain and loss.

I had thought that nothing could be worse than that day, that nothing would hurt more than the loss of those educators and friends and protectors.

I was wrong.

After Voldemort's passing, the wizarding world seemingly returned to happier times. The Dark Days, it seemed, had passed.

The Order felt otherwise as did Harry, Ron, and myself. Eventually we were indoctrinated as members of the Order of the Phoenix, all barely eighteen but aged well beyond our years. Perhaps a year after the wizarding world had been rid of Voldemort, we at the Order came across information that a new Dark Lord was stepping up to take the absent master's place. Slowly we became aware of scattered Death Eater activity throughout the United Kingdom. Their master may have been gone but his ideals and plans were certainly not forgotten. His followers had been lying low and regrouping in those months since he had expired, waiting for the opportune moment to reveal their presence to all once again.

And reveal they did. All of the attacks were extremely well-coordinated. We hadn't any idea or warning. No one did. Prior to the Big Day, a Dark Mark would be seen here or there followed by an isolated incident. Nothing, absolutely nothing had indicated to the Order that these Death Eaters were plotting to simultaneously wreak havoc on wizards and Muggles alike all throughout Britain.

If only we had known.

But we hadn't. We hadn't a clue.

That balmy late August day, Molly had set out to Plymouth as she always did each year. And, per tradition, she would walk up and down the rows of tombstones until finding her brother's, collapsing on her knees and tracing part of his name before abruptly climbing to her feet and walking away from his resting place.

How she had ever succeeded in Apparating back to the Burrow, I will never know.

Harry had been the one to find her. The three of us had been setting up for our luncheon in the back of the property, Ron and I setting the places while I sent Harry back to the kitchen to start sending out the food. When he had been inside for more than a minute or two without having banished a few dishes out the window to Ron and I out on the lawn, I began to get a niggling feeling in the pit of my stomach. I think that Ron felt it too, for he suddenly reached for my hand and squeezed it very tightly. At that precise moment Harry began shouting from inside the house and Ron and I ran hand-in-hand to the kitchen.

What waited for us there had been something that neither Ron nor I had been prepared for in the least.

Glancing up from his crouched position, Harry eyed us both grimly. "Cruciatus curse," he said grimly, his green eyes shifting back to study the woman laying crumpled on the floor beside him.

Molly's skin was damp and, once I had sat upon the floor beside her and raised my hand to her forehead, I found it to be cool to the touch. Her colour was grey, nearly ashy. Ron did nothing. He stood there rooted to the spot, a blank expression on his face. Molly's hand was clutching at her chest, speaking so low under her breath that I could scarcely make out what she was saying. Harry held one of her hands in his own, the other reaching for Ron's. I somehow did not cry, swallowing hard and following Harry's suit, one hand covering his overtop Molly's while the other sought out Ron's free hand.

He allowed us to grasp his hands for a moment before everything got to be too much. He pulled away, taking one last look at his mother before rushing out of the room.

Molly coughed and my attention was immediately brought back to her. I knew then that she would soon no longer be with us. The curse had put too much of a strain on her heart and I thought my own would burst from grief.

"Promise...me..." she gasped. Harry and I both nodded, simultaneously leaning forward to better hear her. "Take care of....him..."

"Of course I will," I replied brokenly, leaning down to lay a kiss upon the cheek of the woman who I had always though of as my second mother before I, too, had to leave the room lest I completely fall apart in front of her.

Today marked the one-year anniversary of her death. The rest of his family had gone to pay their respects that morning before Apparating off to be anywhere that wasn't the Burrow, not wanting to get caught up in memories and remorse. Harry and I traveled with Ron after noon to visit her, the two of us then returning to the Burrow while Ron left to go to Plymouth. He wanted, he had told us, to continue his mother's tradition and visit his uncle's grave.

Harry and I had gone up to wait for his return in his room. The ceiling was still sloped, the plethora of orange Cannons posters all peeling slightly at the corners, and there were still two cots in the room. These days, though, the cots were pushed together so that the three of us could lay so close against one another at night that we would forget where one ended and the other began. Times had changed since the very first time Harry and I had visited the Burrow very much indeed.

It was there on the cot that we had waited for him. He Apparated right into his room, as we somehow knew that he would. Falling into a heap on the bed, for the very first time since Molly had died, Ron allowed himself to cry in front of us. Without saying a word, Harry reached one hand out to curl around the back of Ron's neck, his fingers rubbing gently just under the hairline. On the opposite side of him, I took one of Ron's hands and pressed my lips to the back of it before Harry and I lay on the cots next to him. I don't know how long Ron cried or how long we stayed like that in his old room. All I knew of in the world that day was how traditions and promises went hand in hand.