Surviving a man like Albus Dumbledore means a lifetime of puzzles. You're casting a "scourgify" on your ridiculously bright work robes, getting ready for the office job in the Muggle Affairs Department that you've been doing for upwards of ten years, when suddenly…
The yellow robe drops to the floor, and you drop to the bed. You're going to be late, but you have to figure it out. Hufflepuff colors, you think, glaring at your robe. Cedric Diggory. Voldemort's body, containing your blood—Dumbledore said it saved your life.
The man must have been like a muggle god or a fiction writer, knowing every single thing…and you can't stop twisting at the fabric of your robe as you put it on, thinking "the time, the time, Arthur already wishes he never hired me…"
Arthur Weasley is polite and paternal when he judges a person, but judgmental nonetheless…it's almost worse than what Snape used to do, all those years ago at Hogwarts, because him, at least, you could get angry with…Until you couldn't anymore, because everything he did suddenly boiled down to what you found out after he died…he thought you were raised like a pig for the slaughter.
You pin your id charm to the breast of your robes. You're tired enough for it to blur out and change, the way things do in dreams… "Dept of Muggle Affairs"… "Support Cedric Diggory"… "Potter sucks"… "Cedric Diggory Dumbledore Affairs"…
And it seems so horribly funny, the idea that Dumbledore had figured out the whole picture of your arm gushing blood under Peter's wicked knife, of Cedric's corpse in your arms…the horrific scene that put your blood in the monster's body and allowed you to survive the second killing curse. Or else Albus hadn't figured it out at all, and your own corpse was supposed to decorate the Hogwarts Great Hall when you were seventeen.
Like a pig for the slaughter. Your robe must be choking you…it's crazy to be thinking this way; you're going to be late; you can't stop thinking about the past; you're distracted, and spaced out, and Arthur regrets hiring you, but feels sorry for you, for how useless you've become, disorganized, unable to concentrate, stuck in the past.
It's the suicidal part of you that wants to divorce Ginny. And so you know you'll stay with her and take your moments of happiness when you can; you know you can't leave her any more than you could, for instance, not show up for work…the whole world would come crashing down. You can't divorce the world, even when Dumbledore has jumped into a void and taken the concept of greater good with him.
There, there now. You walk through the door and nod to Arthur—you give him a tight smile. Dudley has a similar job and is somehow happy with his life. You're two minutes late. You're sorry.