Title: Reality Check.
Rating: PG
Characters: Percy Weasley, Arthur Weasley
Summary: Things that were left unsaid…
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There are many things that are left unsaid in The Burrow…
Many things.
Like the way that the Twins were too loud, especially when one of the other kids were sick in bed with a high fever.
The way that Bill had so many callers who would spend all day in the Floo talking about all this mundane, while other people needed to use it.
The way that Charlie wasn't as smart as his older brother, but still managed to become the Quidditch Captain.
The way that Ron and Ginny seemed to spend every minute with the infamous Harry
Potter, only to always become closer and closer to death.
And beyond any doubt how the third oldest could just walk out, not to ever say a word to the Weasley's again…
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They aren't a perfect family.
They don't absolutely love one another to death.
They care. They do love.
But sometimes it doesn't seem to be enough.
The Twins would die for Ginny or Ron, but they would allow Bill and Charlie to defend themselves.
The same would go for Charlie and Bill. The two youngest were to be protected against anything.
And they would defend one another. Meaning that Bill and Charlie stuck together and
Fred and George were glued…
But it left one of the Weasley kids out.
But he wouldn't care. He never did.
He didn't want to be the Quidditch Jock that everyone talked about. He didn't want to be the one who would sit in the hallway and talk to his friends because it was cool to block
the doorways…
He didn't want to be that one everyone looked at and laughed at because he was different.
… yet the thing was—
Everyone knew that.
Sometimes, when Arthur Weasley thinks back on his family and how it became so big, he forgets that he even had a third son.
Not intentionally.
Not so that when he does think of him that the pain in his heart goes down. But more of a passing of the times where his third son doesn't show up but as a background figurehead.
Sometimes he'll rub the palm of his hand through his balding hair and think to himself that he's a horrible person.
Others he'll be angry at himself because he can be convinced that in the end it was all his fault.
They all had red hair.
They all had approximately the same shade as well.
They all had the same amount of freckles.
(In different places, respectfully.)
They all had the same mannerisms. All used the same etiquette and other things…
(Only some I actually /I used them.)
There was really no competition because everyone was equal.
(That was a lie.)
There are days when he can see him walking in the hall. Arms ladled with paperwork or
something as ridiculous as the lunch of a superior.
He would help him if the light didn't shine off those horn-rimmed glasses in such a way
that he can't see those eyes he never knew the shade of.
Soft brown, he overheard Molly telling Tonks.
"The only one to have soft brown eyes…" He stopped listening because he could hear the
emotion in his dear wife's voice.
He hates it when he can hear her cry and not be able to do anything about.
Instead he pretends his heard isn't pounding, pretends that his old intestines aren't
clenching in anger…
"How is that Clause 23 I asked for?" His secretary is a young thing just out of school.
The overbite takes some time to get used to.
None of them had glasses.
Except for one.
The younger ones wanted them because they thought it was neat.
The older ones thought of how lucky they were.
The third one thought nothing.
There were a couple pranks that were played on the glasses. Some of them were meant to
hurt (walking down the stairs when somehow the vision becomes blurry, or when there
was Aunt Marla who married the Ogre, who was really just a I very /I ugly man but
got the nickname from the Fatal Dinner..)
Some of them were mistakes (Like when they were used to make the broom fly better because it had bad eyes…)
The glasses became a symbol of status in the family.
He knows where his son eats his lunch.
Alone in his office with no one but a filing cabinet to keep him company.
He wishes he could go in there like he would before and just sit with his son… talking
about things that only they would understand.
Instead he listens to Kingsley's barrelling voice and laughs at the punch lines to some
obscene joke that he would be ashamed of his dear wife of hearing.
Though he has walked in on some very embarrassing conversations his wife was having
with a couple of her friends…
Needless to say, only his wife could make him feel complimented, offended and regretful all at the same time.
All of them liked to be outside.
Most of them would love to be in the sky flying as high as they could without falling to the ground.
Except for just that one.
The one who would rather stare at the water than play on a broom stick while they were on a beach.
The one who would rather be sitting there thinking to himself in the shade… in his own
little world.
When one of the other kids would let out a screech and start hysterically crying as Molly
Weasley would come over yelling that they should all be like I Percy /I .
Then everyone would go back to what they were doing.
Each of the kids liking their brother just a little less.
Only thing is—
He knew it.
Sometimes he wonders if his son has a drinking problem.
The only reason this would ever occur to him is because he once read somewhere that most politicians were bad alcoholics.
The really good ones anyways…
Though that might only refer to Muggle politicians.
He doesn't really know.
But he does think that his son is going to be one of the greatest.
He already nearly is.
Being the youngest to get where he is now.
It makes him proud.
At school it was different.
No one at home had to know anything.
No one at school would say anything.
No one anywhere would do anything.
Sometimes he misses his son.
When he wanders the hallways at night and drinks in the silence…
In the old times his son would be awake too. They would go down for some warm milk and talk quietly before he would hug his untouchable son and send him off with a kiss to the top of his curly head.
In theses times he wanders only to return to his son's old room with all the boxes and sit down with his head in his wrinkled calloused hands…
There was something that no one would say.
There was this underlying understanding between all the kids.
And that was that one of them didn't really deserve to be there.
One of them wasn't really one of them.
The parents didn't really understand because they were supposed to love everyone the
same.
So it was agreed that one of them really didn't exist as a Weasley sibling.
There are times when he is needed in his son's presence.
He could stare at him thinking that this used to be my son.
He could talk to him as if he forgives his third.
But no.
Instead he forgets that he has a third son.
It's better that way.
Even if it's not intentional.
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