Well, I hope you will consider that this has been worth waiting for, and that it lives up to the cliffie at the end of the last.

I know most of you were expecting the George/Charlie conversation in this chapter, and George's drinking problem to be dealt with... Sorry, but not yet! (Although it's touched on here.) That will be in the next chapter. If you haven't voted in my poll to say who you think will get through to George, please do so. Extra cyberchocolate to those who get it right (and because I'm mean I won't tell you if anyone is right so far!)

As always, please leave a review. I am a review junkie, and I wouldn't write without them.

1st March 1999 Ron Weasley is 19

IV

Charlie stared in disgust at the lurid sign outside the new bar, but seemed to be reduced to silence by the sheer inaccuracy of the picture.

"C'mon Charlie," George urged, grinning. "If we go in, you won't have to look at it any more."

"Are there any more inside?"

"No. You're quite safe. Come on."

Once inside, Percy headed for the bar, while the others found a table and dumped their cloaks.

"Do I get any help here?" demanded Percy, and Bill went over to help him with the drinks. He was aware of the barman staring – almost glaring – at him as he did so, but he did his best to ignore it. In the nearly two years since his mauling by Greyback, he had grown used to people staring at his scars, and although he hated it, he tried not to let it show that it bothered him. There was an intensity in this man's scrutiny though that was hard to disregard.

"What happened to your face?" the man asked abruptly and loudly. Several people in the crowded bar turned and looked.

Bill felt himself stiffen, and struggled to keep his voice light. "An accident." It was his stock response when anyone asked. Usually it was short enough to make it obvious that he wasn't going to discuss it: that didn't work today.

"You're lying. You were attacked by something."

"What the hell's it got to do with you?" demanded Percy, putting a hand on Bill's arm. Bill himself was standing very still, looking at the barman, his expression unreadable. Percy could feel the tension in his arm.

"It's my business because this is my bar," the man said loudly. He looked and sounded both angry and aggressive, and everyone in the bar was now watching the scene unfold. Charlie, George and Ron, who had been sitting down, were all on their feet, and Charlie had his wand in his hand.

"What attacked you?" the barman demanded. "It was a werewolf, wasn't it? You're a werewolf."

"No. No I'm not." Bill's voice was quiet and steady, but Percy, who was still gripping his arm, could feel him trembling slightly.

"Get out!" the man shouted suddenly. "We don't allow freaks and monsters in here. Get out!"

Charlie moved forward, and was only prevented from throwing a hex at the barman by Ron grabbing his wand hand. George stood still and shocked, white-faced and wide-eyed. Percy and Bill were both motionless beside the bar, Percy still gripping Bill's arm.

"Get out!" the barman shouted again. "We don't want your kind in here."

Bill shook off Percy's hand, and turned on his heel, striding out of the bar, apparently oblivious to the hostile stares and cries of abuse from several other customers.

The barman turned to Bill's brothers with a shrug that was almost apologetic. "It's not that I don't feel sorry for him," he said. "But this is a decent bar. We have to have some standards, some limits about who we let in."

Surprisingly perhaps, it was Percy who replied. "You feel sorry for him?" His voice was icy. "Don't. He doesn't need sympathy from morons like you. You want to know how my brother got those scars? Fighting against Voldemort. Fighting so we can all have freedom. Fighting so that everyone - including idiots like you – can live their lives as they want to, even if that means being as prejudiced and bigoted as you are. Don't you dare feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for you."

He stopped, shaking with anger, and Ron let go of Charlie to come forward and take his arm.

"C'mon Perce, let's go. It's not worth wasting time on bastards like him. Let's go."

The four brothers turned and left, Ron still holding Percy's arm; Charlie looking as if he would like to murder someone; George moving as if he were sleepwalking. Once outside, they looked around for Bill, but could see no sign of him.

"Damn!" Charlie exclaimed. "If he's Disapparated, he could be anywhere. We'll never find him."

"He won't have done," Ron said, in a voice he was fighting to keep level. "He was too upset, even if he wasn't showing it. He'll be around here somewhere. We just have to find him."

It took them a while. In the end, they ran Bill to earth in a tiny dark alley hidden behind the bulk of Gringotts. He was leaning with his back against the wall, his head bowed, his arms folded across his chest. He had never looked less approachable in his life. By unspoken consent, Percy, George and Ron halted a few feet away, leaving Charlie to go over and place a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey," he said gently, but Bill shook him off and turned away from him.

"Don't!" he said harshly, in a voice totally unlike his own. "You don't want to associate with freaks and monsters like me."

"Don't you dare!" Charlie was furious, and grabbed Bill, swinging his brother round to face him. "Don't you dare talk about yourself like that!" He pulled Bill into a hug, feeling him beginning to shake and gasp as he did so. "Hey, easy, easy." His voice was gentle again now, as he rubbed his brother's back. "Shh, shh. It's okay, it's okay. Don't do this to yourself, Bill, don't. Morons like that aren't worth it. It's his problem, not yours."

"It's – not. It – You don't – understand. You don't – know what – it's like Charlie." Bill's breath was coming in gasps, so that he could hardly talk, and he was shaking worse than ever.

Percy walked over and put his arm round Bill, helping Charlie to support him.

"D'you want us to take you home?" he asked quietly, but Bill shook his head.

"No. Don't want – to upset – Fleur. Godric – I can't – I can't breathe."

"You can, or you couldn't talk." Charlie spoke reassuringly, trying to hide how scared he was by his brother's reaction to all this. "You're okay, Bill. You're okay." He turned his head to where George and Ron were still standing. "Can we go to the shop? George!"

But George's face still wore the stunned expression it had had since they left the bar, and it was Ron who answered.

"Yeah, of course. We'll have to Apparate to outside though. We put the anti-intruder wards up inside."

"Okay. C'mon then," said Charlie, and the five of them Apparated to outside Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, Charlie and Percy taking Bill between them. Once inside, they got him upstairs to the flat, where he sank onto the settee, his head in his hands. Charlie sat down beside him, putting his arm around his shoulders. Bill was still shaking and hyperventilating, apparently incapable of saying anything now.

"Easy, Bill, easy. It's okay. You're going to be okay. Come on, just breathe. It's okay. It's okay," Charlie repeated over and over, trying to stay calm, trying to get through to his brother somehow and help him.

Percy came to sit on Bill's other side, and rubbed his arm gently, adding his reassurances to Charlie's.

Charlie looked up at George. "Have you got some firewhisky?"

George nodded, and went over to the cupboard in the corner, but stopped abruptly when he opened it and the bottle wasn't where he expected it to be.

"Uh – I'll get it," Ron muttered, going into the kitchen.

George followed him, in time to see him retrieving the magically shrunken firewhisky bottle from a corner behind a tin of beans.

"Why the hell did you do that?" he demanded loudly, as Ron returned the bottle to normal size with a flick of his wand and poured a generous dose into a glass.

"Why d'you think? And don't yell, George."

"Dammit, Ron, I don't need anyone nursemaiding me. Least of all my kid brother!"

"Don't you?" Ron's voice was raised now too. "Take a look at yourself, George. What would Fred think of how you're behaving lately?"

George took a step forward, and the argument might well have escalated into a fight, had Percy not appeared behind them.

"Cut it, you two, for Godric's sake!" he said in his best Head Boy voice. "Not now, okay? Not now."

He glared at both of them, and took the glass from Ron, before returning to the living room and sitting back down beside Bill, holding the glass for him to drink. George and Ron followed, Ron looking slightly sheepish, George still angry. George sat down in one of the armchairs, looking mutinous. Ron stood leaning against the doorframe. They both pointedly avoided looking at each other.

Bill managed to choke down some of the firewhisky, and his breathing steadied somewhat, though Charlie and Percy could feel that he was still shaking. Then suddenly he turned to Charlie, burying his face in his shoulder and beginning to cry. Charlie and Percy exchanged a look of relief – at least this was a reaction that they knew how to deal with – as Charlie hugged Bill tightly, and Percy rubbed his back, both of them murmuring words of comfort to him.

After a few minutes, Bill managed to control his crying, and pulled away from Charlie and Percy, scrubbing his eyes with his hands.

"S-sorry," he managed. "That-that was st-stupid. S-sorry."

"No, it wasn't stupid," Ron told him, coming over to crouch on the floor in front of his eldest brother. "I can't – I can't believe that bastard. How can people be so horrible?"

Bill shrugged and tried to smile. "People are scared of things they don't understand, so they lash out. It's human nature."

"It's happened before, hasn't it?" Percy asked quietly, laying a hand on Bill's arm.

Bill nodded reluctantly. "Once or twice," he admitted. He shuddered violently.

Ron straightened up. "I'm going to make some tea," he announced, heading for the kitchen. "Might not be the cure-all Mum thinks it is, but it might help."

He was back in a few minutes, with five cups of steaming tea floating in front of him, plus a large slab of Honeydukes chocolate that he had unearthed.

"Where did you find that?" asked George, who had decided that it was probably wise to call a truce with Ron for the moment at least.

"Lurking behind the breadbin," Ron told him with a grin, handing round the tea and breaking up the chocolate to share. "I think Ange hid it there. I'll pay her back. If she notices…"

There was silence for a few minutes as they all drank the tea and ate the chocolate, each one lost in his own thoughts. Then George put his mug down, and looked round at the others challengingly.

"What was the point of it all?" he demanded.

The others looked at him blankly. "What d'you mean, George?" asked Percy. "What was the point of what?"

"All of it. Fighting Voldemort. What was the point? I mean, if people are still going to behave like that moron in the bar, it didn't make any difference, did it? We might as well not have bothered. All those people – Fred – died for nothing." His voice cracked as he spoke.

There was a stunned silence, and then all four of the others started talking at once.

"You don't really think that, George. You can't." (Ron.)

"That was just one person, George. There will always be idiots in the world." (Bill, his voice still shaking.)

"Merlin, George, did you even hear one word of what Percy said in the bar?" (Charlie.)

"Just shut up and listen, all of you!" (Percy, loudly enough to make all the others stop and turn to him in astonishment.)

"You want to know what the point was, George?" he asked. "I'll tell you. None of you have seen the laws Voldemort's people drew up while he was in charge. I have. Stuff they were really going to enforce. Horrible stuff. It wasn't just the Muggleborns they were after. Anyone that didn't meet up to their revolting Pureblood notions would be next. There were laws to stop anyone they considered subhuman getting a job, using a wand, getting married – someone like Fleur, because she's part Veela, someone like Bill, because he got on the wrong side of a werewolf. They'd never have been allowed to get married, let alone have kids, and that would have been the law,not some idiot in a bar who can make his own rules about his own business. You can't seriously think the two things compare, George? They'd have made laws about who you could serve in the shop, who you could employ – if they even let you run the shop, which they well might not have done, because blood traitors like us would have been next on their hit list. You know it was worth fighting. You know it was." He stopped, and drew a deep breath, blinking back tears. "Fred knew it too," he finished in a quieter voice. "He thought it was worth dying for, if it came to it. We all did. Even idiots like me who tried to avoid believing it for too long."

There was a silence when he stopped talking, and then George stood up and came over and hugged Percy.

"You're right, of course," he whispered. "We all knew what we were doing and why. Fred knew. Sorry."

"S'okay," Percy said, returning his hug. "You just weren't thinking straight. We had to fight, George. We didn't have a choice. And-and F-Fred and the others died to make the future possible for everyone, not just the Purebred elite that Voldemort approved of."

He stopped, swallowing hard, and George hugged him again.

Charlie clapped him on the back and gave a faint grin. "You're wasted in a desk job, Perce, if you can make speeches like that. You ought to stand for Minister, give Kingsley a run for his money."

"Don't be an idiot," Percy muttered, colouring, but laughing all the same. "I wouldn't have Kingsley's job for the world. Much too much like hard work. I'll stick to worrying about cauldron thicknesses and important stuff like that."

They all laughed. Somehow what had been an awful evening didn't seem quite so bad now after all.