Chapter 5
A falling sensation shook him awake. It felt like he’d closed his eyes just a moment ago but the stiffness in his limbs told him that he’d been asleep for hours. His body felt weird. Too light and fragile in a way that left his nerves frayed and his mind threatening to cave into bouts of insanity. He groaned and sat up in his bed.
His bed. In his old room, in the Burrow.
Right, Ron thought. He was going to throw up. The feeling was disgustingly familiar. As it was, not having eaten anything in two days meant he retched a couple of times, expelling nothing but spit. The pounding headache left black spots in his vision as he stood up and tried to walk around. His legs were wobbly and light, lacking the muscle mass he’d accumulated over the years.
The room was messy, just like it had always been as a kid. Just like it had been months/days/moments/eons ago before it was destroyed. There were some discarded Bertybox’s and Chocolate Frog’s packages and clothes scattered where they probably shouldn´t be.
The Chudely Cannons captain from the poster, whose name he couldn’t remember, waved at him cheerfully. Ron ignored him and took in the state of his childhood bedroom. There were some family photos peaking out from under the bed. He could faintly make out the grinning face of Charlie with someone’s, probably Bill’s, arm thrown over his shoulder. A stone-crafted phoenix lay half under his old study table. Ron had a vague memory of Percy using it as a paperweight before giving it to Ron when he’d started his first year.
Right…
He was starting his first year …again.
His hands started scratching at his pants absently as he looked around. Clothes, food, papers, and quills were scattered all over the place, and Charlie’s old bag was discarded on the floor. Nothing he could truly focus on for at least a few seconds.
“Ron!”
He froze for a second and exhaled slowly. Right. Right. Get a fucking grip moron!
“I can hear you shuffle around in your room. If you’re awake, get ready for breakfast.” Percy’s gentle voice rang through the stillness in his room. The thought of seeing his family sent his heart into a frenzy. He had vague memories of being brought home yesterday. He had probably passed out as soon as Bill had sat him down in the living room. Evergleam had warned him that he wasn’t completely healed. I don't even fully understand what's wrong. And that he’d have to sleep more often to let his body adjust to the changes. What's changed?!
As annoying as it had been to feel so weak and disoriented, Ron had been grateful that sleep claimed him as soon as it did. There was no way he could face the rest of his family, safe and whole in a house that was supposed to be wrecked years ago, without breaking down. He doubted he’d be able to see them now without crumbling but it wasn’t like he had a choice. Sooner or later someone would come up and help him down the stairs toward the kitchen
His coordination, unfortunately, was still shot to shits. He could barely stand without support let alone make it to the kitchen without the threat of serious bodily harm. Ron might have to learn to walk all over again. The thought made him want to curl up and cry. As it was, the most immediate thing that demanded his attention was his bladder, which was painfully full and a mortifying reminder that one of his siblings might have to accompany him to the bathroom.
Sure enough, there were heavy footsteps on the stairs before, to his relief, Dad opened the door and led him down the stairs with a firm but gentle grip.
“Do you need to use the loo?” he asked because he was considerate like that.
“Yeah..” Ron’s voice was still weak. Whispery and rough like he’d been screaming. Dad didn’t say anything but he did squeeze his shoulder and pressed him into his side. He sighed at the comforting contact. It felt like a dream. An amalgam of warm touches, comforting voices, and familiar scents. It was too good to be true and too good to last. He didn’t want it to end.
Ron half turned in his father’s hold and wrapped his arms around the man tightly. Dad wasted no time in hugging him back just as tightly.
“Ron?” the older man sounded worried. Ron remembered hating hugs and pats from his parent, whining at them about how he was too old for hugs and no he didn’t want goodnight kisses anymore. He wished he’d savored them more. The feeling of bittersweet longing echoed with a pang of regret in his chest. The remainder of the moments he’d let slip away like sand.
“Sorry…” He bit out after a while and pulled away, hiding his face by turning his head.
“What for?” But Dad wasn’t really expecting an answer, somehow knowing that the youngest son was not going to say anything more. His father was just like that, tender and understanding to the point that it hurt. He entered the loo quickly.
It took a while to compose himself. Dad stood outside waiting the whole time and didn’t question the red eyes as he emerged nearly ten minutes later. The breakfast table was fairly empty. Charlie and Ginny were chatting loudly. Mum was leaning over the stove. Bill was probably still asleep in his old room. There was a commotion upstairs from Percy’s room. A moment later Fred and George burst down the stairs into the kitchen, a red-faced Percy at their heel.
“Give it back!”
“Nu-uh” Fred teased and tossed Percy’s prefect badge to George on the other side of the table who blew a raspberry before passing the badge back to Fred as Percy lunged at him. Mum immediately began shouting at the twins and started waving a ladle threateningly. Percy looked sullen and entirely too upset for the seemingly light teasing. Charlie and Ginny were laughing at their bespectacled brother, thriving off of the chaos. Ron remembered laughing at Percy along with everyone else. But this time something about Percy’s agitated expression unsettled him.
It was little things like this, he realized, little bouts of merciless teasing that pushed Percy away from them the first time. Moments like these sowed the seeds of resentment that haunted them in the years before the War.
They would laugh and throw jabs without constraint and then the laughs would turn mocking and the jabs too cruel and they'd all look back and wonder where they went wrong.
We're already breaking, he realized. Frayed and brittle around the edges he wondered why he hadn't noticed, why nobody had noticed, before. Ron was on his feet before he could think and snatched the badge out of the air as Fred tossed it back. Or at least tried to. The badge touched his hand and fell into the bowl of soup before him. Right…. The arms were too short again.
There was silence for a moment before a fresh bout of laughter rang around the table. His ears warmed in embarrassment. He quickly fished it out, fumbling clumsily with the badge until Percy gently took it back and clutched it to his chest.
Ron turned towards the twins, hand on his hips, forgetting that he was physically younger than them. "Hey! Cut it out with Percy, will you?"
There was stunned silence around the table. Fred and George exchanged a glance, their grins fading slightly at Ron’s harsh tone. Admittingly, it wasn’t something his younger self would’ve cared about so it was disconcerting. “Easy there, Ronniekinns!” Fred came around the table and hooked an arm around his shoulder, George doing the same on the other side.
"We're just having a bit of fun.”
“Well, Percy doesn't look like he’s having fun.” Ron knew they wouldn't take him seriously. They never did. Especially, in their current mood. He ducked his head at the odd looks from everyone in the room.
“I am not,” Percy added. Fred just rolled his eyes while George let go and threw his hands in the air.
“Well maybe, Percy needs to lighten up and crack a smile once in a while,"
"How exactly will taking my badge make me smile?" If looks could smolder, which Ron was convinced they could because he did remember Charlie setting fire to a poor tree just by glaring at it, the twins would be a pair of smoking charcoal biscuits. He quickly averted his eyes from Percy’s storming blue ones.
“If you could just pull out the stick up yo-”
“BOYS! Break it up!” Dad decided to interfere before things got serious. Mum looked seconds away from shoving the ladle up someone’s behind. Percy shouted something at the twins but his voice was lost in the sea of chaos that erupted around the table. Mum was yelling at the twins. Charlie was roaring loudly drowning everyone’s voice with his rambunctious laughter. Ginny joined the twins in taunting Percy. And just like that, it was just another Weasley breakfast.
Loud, chaotic, full of bouts of laughter and raging anger. Ron felt like he was thrust onto a stage without a script, into a role for which he'd forgotten his lines long ago. Each laugh and jest around him was a cue he couldn't follow, a reminder of lines he couldn't recall. He felt dizzy with how fast-paced everything was.
Fortunately, it was at this moment that Bill chose to walk in. Charlie also chose that moment to remember he too was an of-age responsible adult and thus should wrangle the twins into their seats before Mum decided to tan their hides. Bill took Percy to the other corner talking in a soft voice. Ginny took her seat to his right and dove into the soup he’d dropped Percy’s badge in. It was probably safe. Their curly-haired brother meticulously cleaned his badge with a reverence bordering on the obsessive.
“You shouldn’t rile up Percy. The twins do it enough as it is.” He felt the need to gently whisper. Over the years he and GInny had grown close enough to actually give each other pieces of advice without ruffling any feathers. The younger redhead gave him a disbelieving look.
“You don’t tell me what to do!” He flinched at the tone. Mum gave her a disapproving look but didn’t say anything. Ginny narrowed her eyes at him dangerously and Ron's heart sank as he realized the stark contrast between the Ginny he knew and the younger, more spiteful version standing before him. He’d forgotten how…..antagonistic they used to be.
His appetite, pathetic to begin with, was gone. Quietly, he pushed the soup away from him. Of course, Bill, even when he was on the other side of the table, noticed and glared at him until he huffed, pulled the bowl back, and took a spoonful. It was too hot and burned his tongue but he forced it down with a grimmance. At least It gave him something to do other than pretend that everything was okay. It was not.
He was playing with his scrambled eggs absently when he noticed how quiet it’d gotten. Lifting his head, he realized that everyone was looking at Charlie. He must’ve said something when Ron wasn’t paying attention.
“Well?” He said crossing his arms. “I’ve been waiting patiently but the suspense is killing me! What happened to Ronniekins? What did the healers say?”
Mum looked reluctant to share anything. Everyone at the table including Percy was sneaking not-so-discrete looks at him. It made him shuffle, uncomfortable with all the attention.
“They deserve to know as well, Mum,” Bill spoke up. Mum’s eyebrows furrowed in worry. As expected she began to protest. “But-”
“Bill is right, honey.” Dad heaved a sigh and cut her off. “Sooner or later we’re going to have to tell them. Ron’ll need his brothers at Hogwarts.” He was sitting to Ron’s left and he could see the older man taking Mom’s hand in his and squeezing it gently. Tension filled the air like a bad odor as Dad and Bill began talking.
There was a long moment of silence when they finished before chaos broke out once again at the table. Everyone was speaking over each other. Ginny was looking at him like he was a particularly interesting garden gnome. He was sure his ears would turn red permanently with the way they were burning.
“Merlin’s saggy teats!” Charlie whispered, sounding amazed and concerned at the same time. The twins were shouting over each other, their words overlapped, rendering their conversation utterly incomprehensible.
Ron managed to catch them formulating plans to corner him and exploit his ‘abilities’ to extract every nugget of future knowledge from him before he stopped listening for the sake of his, frankly questionable, sanity. Fred's eyebrows wiggled with anticipation, while George's grin widened like a Cheshire Kneazle. Ron was terrified. Hopefully, Bill would deter them from bothering him too much.
The man in question was pinching the bridge of his nose as if to ward off an impending headache. Dad and Mum were alternating between whispering among themselves and scolding the kids to finish their breakfast and “NO. You will not involve Ron in your next big money-making scheme! Honestly Fred!”
The excitement of the news lasted the whole morning even after everyone was assigned their chores. Ron, unsurprisingly, was ordered to “Get back in bed, young man!” It was Percy who helped him back to his room. Ron thought Bill would take the opportunity to corner him but the older redhead himself was cornered by Charlie. He was glad Carlie hadn’t decided to corner him. Things would’ve turned pretty awkward pretty fast.
It wasn’t much better with Percy but hopefully, the older boy wouldn’t ask any questions. Ron wasn’t sure he could even look at the bespectacled boy without crying or having a full-blown panic attack.
It wasn’t until they were in front of his room that Percy spoke. “You had a vision the other day.” welp. Technically it wasn’t a question. Because he was self-assured like that. Ron rested his eyes under the older boy's chin, not trusting himself to make eye contact. “You looked at me like you were seeing a ghost when Bill and I found you.”
Fuck!
Ron was sure his heart had stopped beating.
“You didn’t look at me all breakfast. In fact, you’re still avoiding looking at me directly.” Ron had no idea what to say to that. Was the older boy always that perceptive? Ron would take Bill’s interrogation a hundred times over if he could escape Percy and this god-awful conversation.
There was a static in his mind that wouldn’t allow a single comprehensible sentence to slip past his lips. Ron hated when his brain betrayed him like that.
“Breathe, Ron.” There was a gentle hand on his back. Air rushed out of his lungs with a wheeze. Ron looked up furiously, meeting the speckled brown eyes for the first time, and almost fainted when the image of his brother alive and well overlapped with the deathly pallor and foaming mouth of his older version that had burned into his mind.
“Am I going to die….? When….?” Percy prodded gently. And nope. Nu-uh. He was so not ready for this type of conversation. There was no way Percy was going to die! Because Ron won’t let him. It was as simple as that. He grabbed at the older boy’s robes harshly, his breath coming out too hard. “Nothing happens, Percy! I won’t let anything happen to us! I promise.” the force of his panic was making his speech slur.
The older boy looked more tired than he’d ever seen him at this age. There was a faint tremor in the tenseness of his jaw.
“I promise, Perce. I am going to fix this!” Something in his eyes seemed to convince the older boy because he took a shaky breath, ruffled his hair, and quietly stepped down the stairs. Ron fled into his room.
Belatedly, he realized he really needed to clean up. It wasn't until he'd picked up the stray shirt from the floor that he realized he was shaking. Tremors wrecked his body with such intensity that he feared he might black out. A drop of water fell on his hand and Ron frowned up at the ceiling. Had the ghoul managed to break the water pipe again?
But the ceiling was blurry and oh…oh no.
He was crying. Again. The shaking got worse and Ron wrapped his arm around his torso as if that would stop him from falling apart. He thought he’d finally gone mad. Was this real? Was the life he lived real or some fucked up dream his mind conjured up? He couldn't draw in enough oxygen. Confusion and despair snapped at his heels like bloodhounds on fresh meat. He had died but he was alive. He was alive when he shouldn’t be and a child was dead when he shouldn’t be. His lungs were burning. The scent of burning sulfur and decayed bodied made home in his hollow ribcage. He imagined he should be screaming and shrieking. Did he imagine everything, the past? Harry? Hermione? His family? Maybe he’d finally lost it. His sense of reality had been shattered and he was sent spiralling, falling and falling but there was no one there to catch him. He’d hit the bottom and shattered.
“Breath, Ron.” There were rough hands on his face. It was Bill because, of course, it was Bill. He was always better at picking up the broken pieces. He gathered Ron into his arms and put him together, piece by piece and breath by breath.
He followed his brother’s instructions. Trying to match his fluttery breath with Bill’s long exaggerated ones. Ron had buried his head in the older boy's arms but he knew that if he were to look up, he would find questions he couldn’t answer and sympathy he couldn’t bear to take. The tears came again and Ron didn't bother to fight them this time. He sat and cried until his legs were numb. He was grieving for his own death and everything he’d lost with it. Not that there was much to lose. But the second life had taken everything from him. He should be with them. His family. His Bill. He was on his way to reunite with his loved ones. But his stupid wish had taken it all away and he had to start all over again with the people who would never be his family. Because he wasn’t their Ron. He’d killed their Ron.
He didn’t how long they sat there on the dusty floor. Bill held him tightly through it all. “I know you saw some…bad stuff. Ron. I can see you suffering.” Bill shifted his hold until he was seated comfortably with Ron practically sitting in his lap. “You don’t have to tell me everything. But you can’t hold it all in. Knowing the future is a big burden to carry. You have to let us, your family, help you.” Ron cursed silently at Bill's uncanny ability to say the right things. It was one of the reasons the older boy was so dangerous. He didn't pry, but he had this way of making you want to spill everything out.
“It’s time for your medicine, Ron,” Bill spoke quietly, as if speaking louder would break him. Ron cringed because he didn’t know if the healers had the right diagnoses and who knows how the potions would affect his body. He didn’t have the energy to argue though, and drank every potion obediently.
The silence around them wasn’t particularly tense but it wasn’t comforting either. Bill was looking at him expectantly. Ron tried to meet his eyes and it was a battle of wills really, which he was going to lose spectacularly and spill his gut out because he couldn’t handle the way Bill was looking at him with his brows frowned in worry and Ron was going to break which would be bad because he’d already had two breakdowns in just as many days and he was such a whimp-
“It’ll be alright, Ron. Come on. Just breathe, okay? We’ll figure it out, yeah?”
Get a fucking grip, Weasley! He took a deep breath.
“I am fine, Bill. it’s just….you don’t have to worry, okay? I am fine.” Bill raised an eyebrow at him, which prompted him to add a petulant. “Really!”
“You don’t have to tell me what you saw” and Ron just about stopped himself from rolling his eyes at the tone, “But don’t lie to me, okay? I can read you like an open book.” He did roll his eyes at that one because, really? His eyes fell on the corner of the window sill where scabbers, Pettigrew was perched on looking right at him and Ron felt his breath stutter in his chest.