Almost a week after being given the task of killing Ron, Alecto and Amycus watched the redhead as he left his family home and made the small trip down to the nearby lake. After they'd found out Voldemort's daughter had been hospitalised following Ron's attack on her, they did wonder if The Dark Lord would want to handle things himself, but he'd still entrusted the task to the pair. Both of them suspected he'd handed the task over to them as if he handled things himself there would be very little of the redhead left to identify, and such a brutal murder would change how the wizarding world saw him and his supporters.

Over the last several days the siblings had been watching the family of redheads, looking for the opportune time to strike. Fortunately for them, Ron had developed a habit of leaving the safety of the family home and heading down to the nearby lake to sulk. By now the pair knew his routine, and they also knew that aside from his mother, Molly, the rest of his family were all at work. Even so, they used a quick spell to detect any presence inside The Burrow just in case someone else was in there aside from Molly.

"Just the old woman," Alecto told her brother.

"She's no bother," Amycus replied.

"Today?" Alecto questioned.

"Today," Amycus confirmed with a nod. Neither of them had wanted to rush in to deal with Ron as they knew The Dark Lord expected perfection, but now they were confident they could move and pull off what he wanted without a fuss.

The pair had been watching The Burrow under disillusionment charms, and they kept the charms in place as they followed Ron down to the lake. As usual, he settled himself down on the banks of the small body of water, muttering to himself. The siblings suspected he was trying to think of some way in which to gain revenge on Harry, Hermione and the dark, but sadly for Ron his revenge would never come about.

Just as the siblings were about to drop their charms and approach Ron, they heard someone calling his name. When his mother came into view they cursed their luck, thinking that their perfect time to get rid of Ron had vanished. However, it turned out that luck was on their side after all as Molly was just informing her son that she had to pop out and that she wouldn't be back for a couple of hours.

"Maybe you should go inside," Molly said, glancing around warily, even though she couldn't see any threat to her youngest son in the vicinity.

"I'm fine here," Ron snapped.

The Carrows struggled to hide their amusement as Molly scowled at her son before issuing him with a warning to be careful as she turned and left. Once the older witch had left, the siblings waited nearly twenty minutes before deciding to move. Splitting up, they arranged themselves so they were approaching from each side of Ron and slightly behind him. This way when Ron spotted them approaching him, he had nowhere to run. In front of him was the lake, they were approaching from either side and to run backwards he'd have to get past the pair of them. Of course he could just apparate away, but as far as the Carrows knew he hadn't taken his apparition test, or even started lessons at Hogwarts as they didn't usually start until later in the year.

Once they were in position, the Carrows dropped their disillusionment charms and slowly began their advance. Moving quietly and with purpose the pair were almost upon Ron before he caught sight of Amycus out of the corner of his eye. Ron's eyes almost popped out of his head at the sight of the deathly wizard approaching him, and things just got worse when he scrambled to his feet and spotted Alecto approaching from his other side.

"What do you want?" Ron stuttered as he pulled out his wand.

"Take a wild guess," Alecto purred silkily, distracting Ron as her brother easily disarmed him.

"Wow you really are useless," Amycus cackled as he caught Ron's wand in his left hand. "I can see why you needed the element of surprise to get one over Harry and Hermione."

"I did get one over on them, didn't I?" Ron taunted, even though his voice was shaking slightly and his eyes were flicking from side to side to see if there was any escape in sight. "I hear Hermione is on her death bed."

"You heard wrong," Alecto snarled. "Hermione will be just fine. Unlike you, I might add."

"You won't do anything to me," Ron said, not sounding too sure. "If you kill me, you'll turn everyone against your precious Dark Lord. My death would bring people flocking to our side."

"That is where you're wrong," Amycus replied. "Your death will be put down as an accident."

"Not if I fight back," Ron retorted, before he suddenly sprinted forward, darting past the two Death Eaters.

Alecto shot her brother an amused look, before casually whipping her wand out and freezing Ron as he attempted to flee. Ron swore loudly as he was frozen to the spot, one of his feet not quite on the ground. While Alecto waited beside the lake, Amycus trotted over to Ron and grabbing a tight hold of him he released his sister's spell on the redhead. He then dragged Ron back towards the lake and practically threw him at Alecto's feet.

"We can hurt you without leaving marks," Alecto warned Ron in a low, deadly voice. "Run again and you'll regret it."

"I'm not just going to stand here and let you kill me," Ron spat, rolling over so he was looking up at the pair of siblings.

"Stand, sit, we're not really fussed either way," Amycus replied with a casual shrug.

"You won't get away with this," Ron hissed as he once again began to look around for an escape route. "Even if you kill me, everyone will know. No-one will believe my death was an accident."

"They will," Amycus replied. "People will be looking for the killing curse, and we're not going to use that. People will look for the Cruciatius curse, and again we're not going to use that."

"We have other ways of hurting you," Alecto added as she twirled her wand in her fingers. "Do you want an example?"

Without waiting for an answer, Alecto pointed her wand at Ron and hit him with a jet of purple light. Instantly Ron felt as though he was on fire, and crying out in agony he rolled around on the ground as though he was trying to put out flames. However, the spell were merely a mental spell and even though Ron felt the pain, there was no physical damage to be seen.

"See, no marks," Amycus said as Alecto ended the spell, leaving Ron a blubbing mess on the floor. "No-one will ever be able to tell we've done anything to you."

"Sadistic bastards," Ron spat, still breathing heavily as he tried to recover from whatever spell Alecto had thrown at him.

"You haven't seen anything yet," Amycus replied with a chuckle, as he raised his wand and hit Ron with another silent spell.

Like the spell his sister had cast, Amycus's spell was a mind control one. To Ron it felt as though his skin was being torn into by hundreds of small knives, but it was all in his mind. His skin remained untouched and all the pain was mental. When Amycus released the spell, Alecto didn't even give Ron time to recover before she shot another similar spell at the redhead.

All in all the Carrows tortured Ron for nearly an hour, and in all that time he wasn't physically hurt in any way. However, mentally Ron was broken and by the time the last spell was released, he didn't have the facalties to try and save himself. Instead, all he could do was lie on the ground sobbing helplessly as the Carrows congratulated each other on breaking the redhead and causing him an immense amount of pain.

"Imperius?" Alecto checked with her brother.

"Easier than manhandling him into the water," Amycus replied as he waved his wand and placed Ron under the Imperius curse. Unlike the other unforgivable curses the Imperius curse left behind no traces so there was no way of establishing if someone had been cursed by it.

Under the influence of the Imperius curse a sobbing Ron got to his feet. Slowly he walked towards the edge of the lake and without removing his shoes he began to walk into the water. Before he reached the middle of the lake, he lost his footing and slipped under the water. Whether it was the jolt of being submerged into the water, or Amycus losing sight of Ron, the Imperius curse lifted as the redhead slid under the water. When he resurfaced he was spluttering and struggling for air, but because of the abuse he'd suffered, he wasn't in any state to save himself. Instead he struggled meaninglessly in the water, and as he kept losing his footing he kept slipping under the water. Every time he slid under the water it took him longer to resurface, until finally he didn't resurface.

"Where is he?" Alecto asked with a frown. "He can't have been swept away, it's a bloody lake."

"Just wait," Amycus replied in a calm voice as he continued to stare at the water.

Sure enough a few minutes later, the water began to ripple and Ron's body floated to the surface. Since they wanted to be sure he was really dead, Amycus got as near to the edge as he could and reached forward and pulled Ron's body towards him. Once he was satisfied that the redhead was gone, he pushed his body back out onto the lake. Leaving Ron floating face down in the lake, the Carrows headed off to give Voldemort the news that they'd done as he asked. Ron was gone, and before he'd died, he'd suffered.


C.O.T.D.


Dropping the shopping off in the kitchen, Molly decided she would go and check on Ron. Since his suspension from Hogwarts her son had been withdrawn, and he spent most days down at the lake brooding. Of course it didn't help that only that morning they'd gotten a date for Ron's expulsion hearing, and they all knew that try as they might to fight his exclusion it was a losing cause. Ron's days at Hogwarts were gone, all the family knew that.

Although more worryingly were the legal charges hanging over Ron's head. He'd been taken into the Ministry for questioning the day after the incident at Hogwarts, and although he'd yet to be formally charged, the entire family knew it was coming. They just had to wait and see just what the charged would be, and what penalties they would incur. The worst case scenario would end with Ron in Azkaban, but they were all praying that it wouldn't come to that and Ron would end up with a slap on the wrist, and possible community service.

The lake where Ron had been spending his days was visible from the bottom of the Weasleys back garden, and from the back gate Molly couldn't see her son. Thinking he'd come indoors, Molly headed back into The Burrow. Shouting up the stairs to her son, she quickly put the shopping away while she waited for Ron to make his appearance. When Ron still hadn't made an appearance when she was finished, Molly headed off to find her son. Surprisingly there was no sign of Ron either in his room or elsewhere in The Burrow.

"Where is he?" Molly muttered as she headed back downstairs.

Wondering if Ron was still down at the lake and she'd just missed him, Molly headed off down to see if there was any sign of Ron. It wasn't until she neared the lake that Molly spotted something floating in the water. Initially she thought it was rags, but when she got closer, she spotted a flash of familiar red hair.

"Ron!" Breaking out into a run, Molly tore down to the lake as fast as her legs could carry her.

Without stopping to think about using magic to assist her, Molly waded into the lake and grabbed onto Ron. Turning her son around, she subconsciously recognised she was too late, but it didn't stop her trying to pull her son out of the water and save him. It was only as she continued to struggle that Molly remembered her wand. Pulling the piece of wood out of her pocket, Molly tearfully used magic to get Ron out of the lake.

"Ron, Ron," Molly cried, trying her best to revive her son.

Five minutes later Ron was still unresponsive and Molly was sobbing heavily over her son's body. Slowly she pulled herself together long enough to send a message to Arthur, before she slumped back over Ron's dead, cold body.

Molly was still lying draped over Ron half an hour later when her husband arrived. Arthur was just as devastated as Molly over Ron's death, but he managed to hold himself together long enough to call for help. He then collapsed next to his wife and pulled her into his arms as they grieved together.

"It was them," Molly wailed. "They killed my son."

"We'll get them, Molly," Arthur promised, tears streaming from his eyes as he looked at his son's lifeless body.

Unfortunately for the Weasleys when help arrived, they didn't get the response they expected. Arthur had notified the Aurors as Ron's death was suspicious, but when the Aurors called in a healer, he pronounced that Ron had died from drowning. There was no evidence of foul play at all. Ron hadn't been killed with the killing curse, or hurt in any way. He'd merely drowned, and that could have been a simple accident.

"It wasn't an accident," Molly whispered to Arthur when they heard the initial findings.

"No, it wasn't," Arthur agreed, even though deep down he had his doubts.

He couldn't deny Ron had been depressed these last few weeks, so was it totally unconceivable that he'd ended his life? Sadly, Arthur couldn't be sure either way. The truth was, he just didn't know what had happened and how his son's life had ended. All he could hope was that it had been quick and that Ron hadn't suffered.