Prologue: Sometimes, We Have No Choice
"The ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."
There was a moment of silence so absolute that it seemed nearly impossible that such a joyous wedding reception had been in full swing just moments ago. Within this silence, one could almost hear the frantic turning of gears in the minds of the others, trying to force themselves to comprehend what the lynx had just said. One unfortunate wedding guest seemed to be the first to accomplish this, letting out a terrified scream that would have left the rest chilled to the bone had it not been quickly drowned out by the following cacophony of the assembled party's panicked yells, the sounds of chairs being thrown aside in everyone's haste to make an exit, and, most alarmingly, the rapid sequence of loud cracks which signified that the anti-apparition charms had fallen, the Death Eaters had arrived.
Harry and Hermione sprang to their feet and scanned frantically through the flurry of activity for any sign of that flash of red hair that would hopefully tell them where Ron was.
"RON! RON!" Hermione dragged Harry through the crowd as she screamed Ron's name, her voice bordering on outright hysteria. Harry's eyes continued to fly every which way, trying desperately to pick out anything that would identify his best mate, until finally he saw the flash of brilliantly red hair that he'd been searching for... but it wasn't Ron's.
Harry froze on the spot in the middle of the furious tide of the wedding crowd, his gaze fixed to the spot where Ginny's vivid mane damed behind her, seeming to blaze like the brightest of fires as she drew her wand and began to duel a newly apparated death eater.
"HARRY!" Hermione yanked his arm violently, "We need to go, we need to find Ron! WE NEED TO GO!" she gave another all-mighty tug on his arm, sending him slightly off balance with the force of it. Harry was just about to reluctantly obey her, he spared one last glance towards Ginny only to see a second masked figure come up behind her and grab her roughly by the hair, yanking her head back in what looked to Harry like an extremely painful fashion. The first death eater closed in on her as well as she kicked vigorously at the one holding her and in that moment all rationality seemed to evacuate Harry's head.
He ripped away from Hermione's vice-like grip and started towards Ginny and the death eaters in an all-out sprint. He didn't care about the mission anymore, he didn't have room to care about anything except making sure that no death eater laid another damn hand on Ginny.
"HARRY, NO! YOU CAN'T!" He heard Hermione's continued screams behind him but they wouldn't quite reach his mind, he was almost to Ginny now...
He rammed his shoulder into the death eater holding Ginny and sent him staggering away as he released her. Harry drew his wand and turned it on the other death eater when a chorus of triumphant calls from the nearest death eaters reached his ears.
"It's Potter!" one yelled, "He's in disguise but it's him! He came to save the girl. Revelio!" There was a flash of brilliant red light and Harry felt an unsettling wave of heat wash over him, and he knew, without looking, that he had returned to himself.
"Grab him and the girl and go!" roared the man who had been holding Ginny, reentering the fray. Harry grabbed Ginny by the hand and raised his wand.
"Protego!" he yelled, wheeling around to look for Hermione as three death eaters bounced painfully off his shield, not knowing how he could possibly get out of this. As he scanned the crowd, his green eyes met the familiar brown ones of Hermione, and he realized, with a surge of alarmed horror, that she was about as far away as she could be within the confines of what had been the wedding reception. She had found Ron who looked just as panicked as Harry felt.
"Go! Take this!" Hermione mouthed frantically, drawing her wand. Before Harry could even wonder what on earth she was talking about, a small, beaded handbag, seemingly the one she'd been carrying all day, soared rapidly over the heads of death eaters and remaining wedding guests alike. Ever the seeker, Harry reached up with the hand still holding his wand and grabbed it, barely clinging to his wand by pinching it between his thumb and pointer finger.
The shield fell and his eyes met Hermione's again, then Ron's. He gripped Ginny's hand tightly and turned on the spot just as Hermione did the same with Ron, and with two pops that were surely drowned out by the screams of fury by the surrounding death eaters, they were gone.