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  — TWs for murder/killing and character distress.

  THE DOORS FLEW OPEN with such force that brass hinges buckled and one side of the cabinet drooped, as if suddenly deflated by the motion.

  "Please dear..." The woman began wringing her hands, stepping forwards but making no move to stop Seven, almost as if begging her in as few words as she could to understand, "Take what you want from us — take anything, nothing we have is worth much... But please — don't tell them you saw him..."

  Seven cautiously moved closer, so that the light fell into the opening of the cabinet, uncertain of what exactly to expect. She frowned into the darkness, struggling to try make out the strange shape curled somewhere near the back of the hidden compartment.

  — And then she saw him. As he shifted his position slightly her eyes locked onto this new humanoid silhouette. He gave a low groan; as if pained, and Bill came forwards to remove the body from the vanishing cabinet.

  As he came into the light Seven finally recognised the familiar face before her.
The boy from the poster; the boy she'd been searching for since before the first Sin fell dead at her feet. And finally, here he was held limply before her.

— But something was wrong with the man. His eyes were unfocused, and his legs would not support his weight, instead Bill practically dragged his brother over to an empty arm chair and set him sat upright upon it.

Ronald Weasley may have been alive, but only in the most cardinal and raw sense of the word.
— His chest rose and fell with the intake and expulsion of breath, his fingers flexed and pawed at the arm of the gnarled chair, and occasionally, his lips tremored with the thought of words, though none ever found him; and that was about it. He was alive, but far from living.

"What happened to him?" Seven tried her best not to gawp at this sentient corpse as Ron's eyes darted lazily about the room, never truly able to steady on any one thing.

"Crawlers hit him with a killing curse a few weeks back." Bill explained, staring down at his brother with an emotion Seven couldn't quite decipher. If anything it seemed closest to resentment. "It didn't hit him directly which is how we guess he survived, but the curse hit a steel lamp-post first and then rebounded... He's been like this since."

Seven breathed a curse, taking a deep inhale. Every ounce of newly-found hope at the discovery of Ronald Weasley fast leaving her. He was yet another dead end.

  "Please — ," The mother pleaded, stepping closer to grasp Seven's hands within her own, "He's not getting better and we have no money and nowhere else to go — no one else to turn to." Tears brimmed in her honeysuckle eyes. "If you have anything — anything at all that could help him, or even just to ease his suffering a little... He's all we have left."

  "Mum." Bill cut their contact as he engulfed his far smaller mother in his arms. "It's okay." He soothed. "Everything will be okay."

  His mother broke; shattering in front of Seven, who watched helplessly as this woman came undone before her eyes. Every once of grief that she'd kept pent up inside came pouring out of her; tears unguarded and heart-drunk.

  Seven didn't have to search her purse to know that she had nothing. There was no magic in this world that could save her son now, Seven knew it, his brother knew it, and deep down, his mother knew it too. In fact, she knew the harsh reality more than any of them, which is why she clung so desperately to the impossible hope that maybe, just maybe, there might be salvation yet.

  "I'm so sorry." Seven whispered, for there was nothing else she could do.

  Three words. Nine letters. Four syllables. That was all it took for Molly Weasley's life to come crashing down around her.
  Her knees gave way and she came crashing to the ground, her son holding her tightly to his chest; never once letting go. If she fell, he fell.

" — My son," Her voice awoke an ache within Seven's chest, a deep, pulsing pain. She wondered if this was what a heart break felt like, though she knew this was scarcely a fraction of the mother's pain. " — My son..."

"It's okay." Bill whispered, smoothing a hand over her fiery hair. " — You're okay."

  — But she was not. And she never would be.
  Instead she was stuck firmly in some wicked place of purgatory, somewhere between life and the living.

  "We need to let him go — ," A vicious, gasping, soul-shaking sob tore her voice away mid-sentance, "It's not fair on him — he's suffering, Bill — I mean, just look at him — he's in agony every second of every day that we keep him here."

  Ron's eyes rolled back in his head, teeth bared and gritted to ward off the nightmares that didn't leave him even when bathed in daylight, for he was living an eternal night. Unconscious. Unaware. Only alive to feel pain, to suffer.

  "Are you sure?"  Bill's jaw was sturdy. Held tightly, holding himself together, but only just.

  Molly cast one final look to her youngest son and broke all over again. A whole new world of grief awakening before her, swallowing her whole. With every death her pain grew tenfold, manifesting within her like a deadly disease. It overcame her, it became her, lips trembling terribly as she spoke and her words barely audible through the sadness that filled the room. "It's what's best — he deserves peace."

  Seven looked away as the mother said one final goodbye to her child and then left quickly, unable to watch another second. She did not need that final image of her son to remember him by; dead, lifeless and milky-eyed.

  Bill's chest rose but never fell. Holding within him a tense breath, and he told himself, that with the exhale he'd end his brothers suffering. But he couldn't do it. No matter how he tried.
  His hands shook, his wand's aim unsteady.

  Seven stepped forward, placing her hand on his, lowering his wand. "I'll do it."

  No brother should have to do such a frightful thing, let alone live with the thought that he, — he, had been the one to make himself the last remaining child.

  "No." He tried to say firmly, but his facade had began to crack, and just like his mother his voice trembled. "I can do it."

  "...But you shouldn't have to." Seven said gently.

  Bill cursed, hands falling by his side and his shoulders slumping; defeated.

  "Go." Seven urged, " — She needs you more than ever right now."

  — And then she was finally alone. The murderer and the murdered.

  She had killed many times before, even lost track of counting a long time ago, but somehow this was different. This was not fair, this was not justified in the name of preserving her own life. For Ronald Weasley had no wand pointed at her head or blade at her throat. Instead he sat there, otherwise dead to the world. And yet somehow that made it so much harder.

  Seven slowly raised her wand, centring at the furrow of his brow, between his eerily blue eyes. And in that moment, right before the words left her lips, his half-dead eyes found hers and a memory flickered somewhere far off.

  — A room somewhere far, far from here, alit with rose-red banners, carved with golden lions. A fire casting their skin bronze in the fading daylight. And another boy, one Seven had seen thousands of times, one who's desecrated face she'd tried her best to forget. The Boy Who Lived, alive in this moment. Both boy's faces bright with joy, Seven even found herself smiling. They'd been her friends.

  — But it was too late. Because before she could stop it, without her permission or command, the emerald bolt of light jolted from her wand, knocking her back and sending the memory spiralling as Ron Weasley fell from his chair; dead.

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QOTD- What's your favourite moment from Fallout so far? -TFOA