for @rxmione's feburary context. prompt - ron.

*

So Tired of Being Alone.

Step by step, Ronald Weasley picks up what he needs to survive and packs them up tightly into a small duffle bag. He scutters and shifts around the room, picking up and putting down until what's left are empty drawers, a bag full of clothes and his heart in his hand. There's nothing left in The Burrow that hadn't been taken from him once before. Their youth had been tossed away like rags, laughter hushed with a simple flick of a wand, happiness flattened by the wall that had killed Fred.

Fred.

Godric, there was never a moment now that he wasn't haunted by it all. It's a plague - infecting every single cell inside of him. No one ever told him that the memory becomes a part of him, haunts him like lice in a carpet.

The scent of him still lingers, just like the old times he craves to obliterate. Harry and Hermione by his side, in the thick of the busy common room, bustling with crimson and gold, his brother's laughter repeated like a poorly written joke lyric in a failing comedian's mind. He remembers the laughter more than anything else. It's become worse than any words that had ever been uttered to hurt him.

Ron moves past his bed, past the pile of clothes onto the desk where a small, handset radio was blaring out muggle music, in this instance: 'Tired of Being Alone' by Al Green. His hand lingers against the off switch, turning it the moment he hears the first line.

His bottom lip quivers, threatening release that he can't allow. He couldn't break in the Burrow, not alone.

The doorstop is a pile of books Hermione had left, the ones filled with dark magic that belonged in a dumpster fire. His eyes linger on it for a few moments before picking up the bag, throwing it over his shoulder and passing through.

Trudging down the stairs, past the moonlight through the window and Ginny's bedroom, someone appears before him from one of the lower rooms, looming like a darkness. "Ron..." Percy whispers, hair fried in all directions. He had seen the bag and knew. Anyone would know. Ron had spent too many hours pouring his mother's day-old tea down the drain to be stopped by the person who wasn't there for any of it. Kitchen table fights were merely imagination for Percy, it had been Ron's reality for years. Rage had become him for a moment before he dulled into numbness again. "You're not– I'll tell mum, get back to bed–"

"Tell her, I don't care..."

"Really? She lost you once before–She couldn't bear losing another one of us."

"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"

"He was my brother too–"

"Who is 'my'? You weren't there."

He took it, even though it had been a low blow.

Ron clatters down the steps, with a bit more chaos than he had previously intended. The mess in the kitchen stops him - the table cluttered with cups and unwashed plates kept as evidence of their being. Without Fred, the house seemed to have lost its usual welcoming allure. Molly Weasley hadn't left her bed for a few days now and they hadn't questioned it or bothered to help. In all his years in this family, he had only just realised the Weasley way was to wallow in their own grief alone, surrounded by one another. He found the past month fucking exhausting.

He makes it to the blossoming orchid, unkept and riddled with pesky gnomes, when he hears the door again, no change from the last time aside from one thing; Percy Weasley was wearing his jacket. Why, in Merlin's name, was he wearing his jacket?

"Come on, let's go on a walk," he tells him, forcing the shoulder strap down onto his own shoulder. He walks ahead, expecting Ron to follow behind him and strangely, he does. They walk past the garden gate, climbing the first steep hill until they are breathless. Percy gives up before Ron does, sitting himself down when he reaches the highest point, looking down upon the house in its jumbled up glory. He could see his bedroom window from there, a ghost of a smile lingers on his mouth. "Where're you going to go?"

It takes Ron a few moments to realise he had no idea, only that the thought of staying in that house with his friends so far away made his skin crawl. "I don't know."

"Who were you going to then?"

Percy knows he's hitting the mark when Ron shifts in his patch of grass. He doesn't smile or say 'I told you so' like he used to; he stays electrifyingly silent.

All the voices in Ron's mind were telling him to speak his mind but his heart was warning him of the cost. Ron can't tell him the only thing he hears when his ears are empty are Hermione's screams. He can't tell him that Harry's body in Hagrid's arms was tattooed behind his eyelids. He can't tell him Fred's eyes, sapphires, would be etched into every sky and ocean he will see for the rest of his horrid life.

"Nothing? No one?" Percy continues, relaxing Ron slightly.

Strangely, annoyance soothes him into speaking. It means he's not numb and the void is filled, even superficially. It had always been the void that killed him.

"Hermione," he finally answers. She was in London again now, waiting until her parents had settled down again to visit the Burrow again. He wants nothing more than to stay in her arms, to let the screams turn into symphonies, to let the numb feel something again. The last he remembered of her, he had been washing the ash from her hair and then she had been beside him, resting. Her sleeping figure was unconscious, a knife pressed against her–No, never again, not even the thought of it would be allowed.

Percy stares in complete understanding, practically facing a brick wall. The tenderness of love is something he knows all too well. The sun is shining on them, the clouds demystifying the sky and there he is, in the teal that was beginning to form beyond the sunrise. Fred Weasley in the flesh before them.

"I see him everywhere, Perce," he blurts, turning to face his brother in this, one of the only ones he had left. The thought of it makes a sob threaten to climb up his throat and punch the daylights out of him – No, not here, not in front of Percy. He can't help it. Percy has his eyes, it was the same sapphire. He starts crying before he can even stop himself, using his hand to cover what's left of his dignity.

Percy's hand grips his neck, pulling him closer to his chest as if to say 'I've got you, brother, tell me it all'. It takes him back to that evening, the rubble and dust and the hug from his mother right after, coaxing him in with a force of a thousand men.

Percy is nothing like their mother. He doesn't dare to coax or even speak until the violence of Ron's cries drift into confetti. He doesn't say a word so they just stay as they are, watching the dirt and the sky.

"I see him too..." Percy mumbles into his hair, still holding him. He wants to cry with him but he's not sure how to anymore. He didn't cry at the funeral, only standing to the side with the thought that it should've been him flattened by the wall. If only he hadn't told that stupid fucking joke. He sees the dust and rubble too, the sight of Rookwood falling to the ground, and then the emptiness. It didn't matter how many Death Eaters he had killed after he had seen it, the void had tempted them all that Saturday night.

He says nothing more until Ron is steady again, breathing through his own rotten lungs. "I know how it feels," he begins, "I just..." Godric, when did it become so hard to speak to his own brother? "I want you to speak to someone, just so it doesn't feel so bad."

"I just want it all to end..."

"It won't..." Percy remembers Cedric, how it had been for months after he found out and how bittersweet his memory still lay. They had barely known one another, spoken a handful of times in playful combat, but somehow Percy mourned as if he had been his closest confidant. "I don't know how it'll end but you'll feel better, it won't always be like this."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have before..." Ron cuts himself off swiftly before the guilt can set inside his stomach. It's selfish, he knows, but that is the least of his concerns. Words cannot describe how much he cares for Percy at that moment. "I'm really sorry."

"I deserved it for the way I've treated this family..."

"I think you should stop speaking like we hate you," His eyes linger on the sky accidentally, "If Fred could forgive you, so can we."

Percy's smile is bright but fleeting when he realises that Ron is still dressed, ready to leave the house behind him. He's happy Ron's running to what he loves, what upsets him is that it isn't them. It's a few moments later before he speaks again, "So, are you still going to go to her? I won't blame you if you do."

He sighs, "No, it's okay. I'll stay. She'll come here sooner or later."

It's a weight from his shoulders, "I'm glad," he tells him, "because it's a right piece of shit in there and I can't clean it alone." A chuckle leaves Ron before he realises, "Yeah, you're stuck with me now, buddy."

"Too late to back out?"

"Absolutely. You've had your chance..." Chance, Percy thinks immediately, my fucking second chance. His feelings had felt far away for months until this moment where all he felt was regret for the condition of living. "Listen, mate, I know it should've been me–"

"No." Ron responded, stern, stopping him before the words could be uttered. Percy shuts his mouth the moment he can, "It shouldn't have been any of us."

The words cradle him, reassure him in ways he hadn't been able to reassure himself. It gives him peace.

Early September is merkier than it usually is in Devon. Fog turns the streetlights in the town below into paper lanterns, appearing like stars. They sit there until the sun brightens the horizon, clouds clearing the sky to grey, until Ron can bear to face that bloody house again.

Percy doesn't tell anyone about what Ron had done or intended to do when they return to the Burrow, beginning the clean. Percy moves Fred's usual mug from view before Ron could catch it from the corner of his cautious eyes and Ron does the majority of the work between them - setting charms to wash dishes, dust floors whilst they work the rubble and coffee stains on hardwood. They move onto the living room, plumping cushions and returning things to their place. Family photos were aligned and smiles plastered like peeling wallpaper. In the end, they were left at the kitchen table, laughing at something unbelievably cringy that Percy had once said in his youth. The laughter is a birdsong to the family upstairs and when they go to investigate, they join the pack that was forming.

Ginny Weasley had been first, sitting beside Ron and nicking his mug before he could say anything about it. Bill scrunches his nose and shakes the youngest's hair, offering refills without hesitation, Charlie joining the moment he heard the kettle boiling. Lastly, George hears Fred's name in the laughter, the bittersweet balad, and lowers himself down the steps. They stop when they see him, the image of loss, before Charlie stands and invites him into the seat beside him.

Nothing changes. They still mourn the worst of it away, locked in rooms or clutched within their partner's safety. Hermione Granger returns to him a few days later and Harry Potter comes home, taking his room as a sanctuary.

But in the darkness, when Ron is restless and seeing sapphire, he wonders, waiting for Percy to enter his space and he always does. They sit in silence, they joke, they speak about nonsense or occasionally cry (Percy cries, Ron is determined to keep it down to one time). Everything changes, Ron never feels alone while Percy's around.