Work Text:
There was no single person to blame, not really. This was all a sum of unrelinquished chaos kindling itself upon an unfortunate soul; an unfortunate soul he would nonetheless rather have breathing, that is. Still the same, breathing or otherwise, no specific person’s guilt was found. Yet, it was a singular ricocheting domino, he supposes, which led such a certain unfortunate soul to a near fatal catastrophe.
His life truly is some ironically disturbing cliché. An Americanized trophy wife searching amongst the marshes for a Hag, begging for adoration. Amusing, but nonetheless worrisome still.
Who would have thought up such a plan to murder his brother in a worthless, half-hearted attempt leaving him halfway between the grasp of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, and the other half in the universe he personally would far prefer him to reside in?
I repeat: no one is to blame. It was all a silly misunderstanding, an accident.
And I’m Luna’s Crumple-Horned Snorkack.
He is far from mauldin, farther from sentimental, but this is his brother. His youngest, babiest, brattiest brother who almost died. From poison. Nothing extravagant, eye-catching, or martyr-worthy to befit Ron’s emotional obtuseness and maddening, precariously used lion-hearted courage when going out by poisoned mead of all things. None at all.
He finds his stomach tightens sourly. A death such as this would have been a smear on all his brother had grown to be and accomplish. Not accounting he would, in fact, have been dead.
No blinking or breathing, or basic bodily functions. Just a dead cadaver, and I, an older brother without a brother to be older too.
But he is not dead.
In reality, he lay in the hospital wing, swaddled and fawned over like an infant by two women (a term which he uses lightly), who each vie for his brother’s unrelinquishing affection. Obviously, he’s on the book-worm’s team, but a little drama keeps the theatre stage of life funded and accounted for.
George F. Wealsely: The Actual and Proper English Dictionary
Drama: equal parts fundamentally healthy and exorbitantly comical.
Firewiskey in hand, and tipping precariously, George sought refuge from his own mind. End-of-the-world thoughts be damned, the end-of-his-family’s-lives concerned him more.
While Fred was out finding solace in a public muggle bar with elaborate cocktails and women and expensive ornaments to pulverize, George slouched on their decrepit sofa from Grimmrald Place.
Mrs. Weasley: “Why not take the sofa?”
George: “Mum, the thing—it’s—“
Fred: “—rancid, Mum. Rancid.”
Mrs. Weasley: “Hush. You boys need a sofa, and I need it gone. Just wave those wands around like you always do, and it’ll be good as new...”
At the time, he and Fred decided to buy something new once they found an extra hour or two. But war soon knocked on their door, and time became priceless while comfortable sofas soon lost their priority.
George slumped further into the greying plush thinking of his mother. Specifically, he thought of his mother carefully leaning down to kiss Ron’s fevered temple as tears slowly dug rivers of age into her skin.
He was never one to judge his mother’s appearance, because if he did, she would slap him with a spoon. But she had looked older as she straightened the tendrils of fever licked hair from her youngest boy’s eyes. There was a discrepancy in her movements, a limpness to her spirit. The fire that was his mother was dying out in the wake of another war and her child’s involvement in it. Instead, he saw granite walls building where a heart of gold, the heart Ron inherited, used to rest. For all their sakes, he hoped his mother’s dwindling spirit was temporary.
Then: The strands of grey practically popping out of his father’s head. The mandatory strings of confidence consistently prying up his father’s shoulders, like a master to his puppet, were dropped. The sparks of curiosity were lost in a depth of a history brimming with loss and heartache. There was fear residing somewhere there as well. He, too, looked older.
For that one moment, his brother looked dead and his parents appeared as if they were grieving a son.
That was the scene he walked in on at Hogwarts. The scene which decided its best course of action was to rerun once, and once again, and again, in a horrendous cycle in his mind.
Fred’s entire being had paused in an unholy stillness next to him, his own throat tightening as the Hospital Wing immediately became too bright.
Is that what it feels like to lose a brother?
He hoped he never knew. He already experienced what it was like to almost lose a father, to lose grandparents and uncles.
But that was different.
This was Ron—Ron the insecure, not very useless, stupidly brave, wicked strategizer who was grudgingly lovable. And if he had died, he himself would have failed.
Because, even if the git did not know it, he was Ron’s big brother which equaled the fact that he was supposed to watch his back.
But he almost failed. Again.
This was the sixth time death almost snuffed out Ron Weasley. He found his leg snapping up and down in agitation.
First: a chess board and a not so wicked head injury.
George poured himself another finger in the glass.
Two: both a sister and brother taken and almost murdered right under his nose. That night had been long and full of debilitating guilt.
He shot it back. His burning throat complained.
Three: Ron brilliantly decided to stand between his best friend and “supposed” mass murderer. He was damn proud of the insufferable squirt, but if Sirius hadn’t been—
He needed to stop.
Four: Ron, taken again, floating in the lake with who the hell knew what. I hadn’t paid attention then, but Percy had. Now Percy wasn’t even here.
The glass flew, shattering on Fred’s wooden bedroom door.
Five: — he grit his teeth — Ron at the ministry. Ginny, too. Ron could have possibly lost his mind or even his life. He had neglected to watch his little brother‘s back while he could still be, proximity-wise, close to him at school. But he had left like the idiot he was with a cow and a snake and their combined vendettas.
Shadows of guilt and long lost nightmares devoured him like a vulture's prey like no other night before.
It was in the complete darkness of the hours between late and early in which he stumbled. Later he gagged at the intoxicating mix of liquor and inner turmoil. Even later than that, he roared in fury with no direction and no one to hear except his straining vocal cords.
It was sudden, then, the realization of being draped over the kitchen sink with burning eyes. His wobbly legs indulged in the moment and dropped him to the floor. Squished between cabinets and making acquaintances with the dust bunnies, and with no intention of getting up again, George seethed through his scarcely present tears.
As dawn arose and broke though the grime of paneled glass, it framed the doorway of which lingered a red-headed twin, observing.
Silently, Fred stepped over his brother’s motionless feet and settled next to his sleeping twin.
Later rumination from an outside source:
It was a curious occurrence of vulnerability for the twin that night, as fear like no other gripped George Weasley on the floor of his flat.
It had not even been a full day after his younger brother’s birthday and respective brush with death.
Nor would this be the first of many collapses on a floor; countless more were to be observed—and unobserved—in the short future.
George, bless him, did not need such enlightening information, though.
fin