Title: Making Lemonade
Team: Holyhead Harpies
Position: Beater 2 [Bill Weasley/Ron Weasley]
Reserve & Extension: No
Prompts: [Trait] Angry; [Emotion] Surprise; [Colour] Lemon
Beta: beawrites, TheMajesticDolphin, Ash Juillet, MissyAndTheDocs
WC: 1742
QLFC: Season 9, Round 6
Notes and C/W: Mentions of parental neglect and adultification
Bill wasn't sure what to tell his mum when she first turned Ron to face him. The action of meeting a little brother wasn't new to him. What did feel new was the overwhelming sense of responsibility that he felt over this new baby. A whole brand new Weasley, with his chubby legs, pinchable cheeks and flaming red hair was another mouth to feed, another individual to be responsible for.
As the oldest Weasley son, a chill that set itself in Bill's bones could only be described as fear. However, his biggest surprise would be Ginny, and the satisfaction his mother exuded after Ginny. There would be no more new siblings after his sister.
That year between Ron and Ginny's birth was easily one of the most stressful and angering of Bill's life. Dad was constantly working, and Mum simply didn't have time. Bill came to the horrifying realisation that he was the third parent of their family. He helped his younger brothers with their lessons, he was responsible for overseeing homework and teaching Percy how to tie his shoelaces.
He didn't know how his family was going to cope once he went to Hogwarts. Not when Ron still knocked on his door every night out of fear of the family ghoul.
Bill constantly fought the urge to scream at his mum when he opened the door at night to find Ron, barefoot and clutching his teddy.
"Another nightmare?" Bill asked, picking Ron up.
Ron just nodded before placing his head on Bill's shoulders and wrapping his tiny arms around Bill's neck. Bill gritted his teeth and bit his tongue.
The number one rule of parenting: Never get angry at the children.
But, Bill didn't ask to be a parent, this was not what he asked for when he told Mum he wanted a brother all those years ago.
"Hey, Ron," Bill murmured, before sitting at the edge of Ron's bed. Ron had just turned nine and stopped knocking on Bill's door because of nightmares about spiders.
Ron turned around, pulling his blanket over his head.
"GO AWAY! I'm still angry at you!" Ron yelled. "Mum said that you're going away to Egypt because you don't care about us!"
Bill loved his mother, he really did. But she was so meddlesome and incredibly selfish at times. She shouldn't have phrased Bill leaving like it was a betrayal. Besides, Bill knew he needed to leave. He couldn't spend his life under his parent's thumb, picking up after them so that they could enjoy what little sanity, a household of their size had. Almost all of his siblings were at Hogwart's for most of the year. His parents would be fine. That's what his anger told him anyway.
Bill ran his fingers through his short hair, trying to think up a response. While the rest of his brothers always had a partner (Charlie and himself, the twins and Percy), Ron had spent his childhood not really fitting anywhere in their family unit. Bill made an effort to listen to Ron, and, in a family with nine loud people, that was important.
"What did we promise each other we would do if we were angry?" Bill asked, with clenched fists. Logic, cold and calm, was always the best place to start when it came to Ron. He would have to calm his brother down before attempting to make him understand.
Ron peeked up from beneath the covers. His signature Weasley hair clashed horribly with the orange Chudley Cannon bedsheets and looked incredibly messy. Bill fought the urge to pass his fingers through Ron's hair to flatten it out and neaten it.
"I don't want to do that. You can't make me do that. You aren't mum." Ron might have just turned nine, but there was cruel intent in his voice that only a child could pull off.
Bill slapped his hand hard against the wooden bed frame, his own anger finally getting the better of him, and Ron pulled the blankets closer to him. The room seemed to shiver with rage, and a second later, two quills exploded, leaving behind inky-black smears on the wall.
"Oh, so I'm not mum," Bill said through gritted teeth. He stood up and gripped his wand. "Of course, I'm not. She isn't the one who stayed up late rubbing chamomile on your back when you got muggle chickenpox. What about taking you to the Healer, making sure you had eaten, or washed your face, or brushed your teeth in the morning?"
Ron flinched at the words. They both knew that Bill had a temper. It usually wasn't directed at Ron though.
"It's not like anyone asked me what I wanted. Maybe I didn't want to be a parent? But I stepped up because if I didn't, Charlie definitely wouldn't," Bill muttered darkly. A weight seemed to come off his shoulder at his bitter words.
"So I am a burden?" Ron said, with surprise in his voice tinged by a deep sadness.
Bill sighed. "No, it isn't you," Bill said, reaching over to let his fingers ruffle through Ron's hair. His brother flinched at the hand and Bill pulled it back to his side. "I think leaving might be good for me. I'll always be only a letter away." Anger flared again at that thought. The fact that the only way he could find himself was to be far away from his family.
"I don't want to talk about this anymore. Let's just play a game," Ron said, his shoulders were slumped and he pulled the blanket closer.
"I did suggest the colour game," Bill reminded him.
"We look for five objects the colour of something," Ron said. His voice came off as angry, which barely concealed the hurt Bill could hear underneath it as if the activity was beneath him.
"So let's look for five objects in this room the colour of lemons?" Bill suggested. "If you don't feel ready to talk after that, I'll just leave. But can we try?"
Ron sat up on his bed and crawled to sit next to Bill.
"I get to go first though," Ron said seriously. "The painted ducks on the walls."
Bill smiled. It was the most obvious object in the bedroom, and it didn't surprise him that Ron had gone for it.
"The mug on your table." Bill pointed to the mug of steaming hot chocolate that he had brought up.
Ron's eyes widened with surprise. He argued, "That's so unfair, you just suggested the colour so you could win."
"If the ducks on the walls count, then the mug definitely counts." Bill's voice left no room for argument.
"You sound like mum," Rom whined. "She always says that things are supposed to count equally, but she never treats me like she treats Ginny. You're the only one that even bothers to check if I need my night light spelled on. You know I can't do it myself!" Ron's eyes widened in surprise. "Nightlight! That's my next lemon-coloured object."
Bill felt his blood grow from its constant simmer and surge to a boil as his anger rose again at his parents, but the emotion was quickly overtaken by surprise. "I thought you wouldn't have noticed that yet," Bill whispered.
"It's kind of obvious when mum buys Ginny a new chess set because I inherited a set. She didn't even ask if I wanted a new one too. Mum just assumed I would be fine. But, I guess I'm used to you being the only one who asks those things." Ron's tone sounded so defeated for a child who had only just turned nine.
Bill hummed, his eyes scanning the room for a lemon-coloured object. "The letters on your comic book volume. Mum can be unfair, but I don't think she realises what she's doing, though."
"So why are you leaving?" Ron asked. "You said you'd always come back to the Burrow after school, so why is going to Egypt so important? Your shirt's lemon-coloured."
"That was the plan," Bill admitted, shifting around to sit cross-legged on the bed. "But Egypt is the best place to go to study curse-breaking, and I need to go somewhere where I won't just be another Weasley."
Even if Bill said those words over and over again, Ron would still take it as a surprise betrayal.
Bill didn't know why Fleur Delacour followed him to Egypt. She was younger than Percy, and on that principle alone, Bill was tempted to stop her approaches. He wasn't in Egypt to fall in love, not when his parents needed him back at home. Truthfully, his anger at his parents hadn't diminished, but they had already isolated Percy, and Bill needed to go back to protect his siblings, especially Ron.
He was, however, flattered, but mostly surprised, that someone as pretty as Fleur thought him worthy of their time. But Ron had written about her. His little brother had composed pages of letters about how wonderful and brave she was.
So Bill did what he thought was the right thing. With his youngest brother at the forefront of his mind, he asked Fleur to stop.
She blinked at him in surprise. Her blue eyes seemed to swallow his own in their depths. When Bill thought back to the day he told Fleur he wasn't interested, all he seemed to remember was out of all the lemon-coloured things that surrounded them, her sundress still shone the brightest.
"I'm not looking for a commitment," Fleur said, her eyes piercing his. "I just want to get to know you."
The words caught Bill off-guard; they, in fact, surprised him. With his parents, love had seemed like a permanent thing that he needed to get right on the first try. While he knew objectively, for years, that his parents were only human, he had never thought that there was a possibility other than something that lasted forever.
"Besides," she added, carefully weighing out gold. "Ron said even if you tend to get angry faster than most, you are a good man to know."
The compliment was unexpected, combined with the idea that Ron and she wrote to each other. Bill shook his head; he was thinking too far ahead. Ron and his parents still needed him. He needed to go back to where his anger would be put to good use. Even if it was tempting to stay, Bill was not that selfish.