Arthur Weasley
A warm night by the fire is what awaited Arthur this night. He pulled out a book from a shelf and flipped it open to a random page. It was a book about muggle cars that he couldn't make heads or tails of but whenever he pulled it out to read it always had a way of making him feel relaxed before bed. On his way to relax into the couch he picked up Ginny out of her crib and cuddled her close to his chest. He never wanted to let a day go by without demonstrating his love for all of his children. He knew just how fast that might be taken away with how dangerous the war was.
Most of the family were laying around the room and growing drowsy as it grew close to nighttime. Molly was in the kitchen finishing up the dishes from dinner, Fred and George were whispering to each other and letting out snicker every once in a while. Bill and Charlie were talking while sharing a magazine between the two of them, and Percy was nose deep in a book.
Ron… Where was Ron? Arthur looked around to try to find his wayward son and found him looking out the window to the garden.
Ron was a very unique child. When he was a baby he hardly ever cried and had been performing little feats of magic only a few weeks after he had been born. Him and Molly had brought him to a lot of healers when he was young to try to find if there was anything wrong with him, but they just got told that Ron might be a magical prodigy, given how well he controlled his magic.
Arthur was afraid for his son. He knew what happened to people who displayed exceptional talent in their world. Drafted in by the ministry to work in whatever division would best use the person's talents. Arthur himself was a ministry man, but he didn't want to force his children into working there if they didn't want to. And if Ron kept up his prodigious level of magic up, Arthur knew that the Unspeakables would be knocking on their doors in a few years.
None of that was to say that Ron was distant from them. He laughed the hardest out of any of them and would have the brightest of smiles. And the way that he would look at you sometimes? It was like he could see straight into your soul. His eyes never did dim from the bright blue that he had been born with after all. Ron explored everything around him with determination and absorbed things faster than any of his siblings did.
Which is why how Ron was acting now was very strange. Ron was just looking out of the window with cold and sad eyes, as if he was looking at a candy bar that was just out of his reach. As Arthur watched him, he started to get concerned with how little Ron was moving. He wasn't hurt or anything like that, but he was as still as a statue.
Arthur put Ginny back into her crib and walked over to kneel by Ron's side. When he got close he noticed that there were tears running down Ron's face.
"Ronnie?" Arthur asked in concern. "Are you alright?"
Ron just looked at him and blinked a few times. It looked like he was just coming out of a trance. He brought his hands up to rub his eyes and noticed that he had tears on his face. Had he not known that he was crying? He rubbed at his eyes as he shook his head.
"What's wrong Ronnie?" Arthur asked as he wrapped Ron in a hug.
Ron mumbled a quiet "dunno" into Arthur's chest. Arthur just hugged him close as Ron started to quietly sob.
All of a sudden the floo gate swung open and Arthur spun around to watch someone hop out of the green flames. Arthur's hand snapped to his wand as he pointed at the woman standing in front of the grate.
His wand lowered when he realized that it was Pandora Lovegood standing in the grate. Pandora was one of the Order's best fighters and researchers and Arthur felt a pool of dread in his stomach when he saw the expression on her face. She looked shocked to even have to be there to tell them what she was about to tell them.
"Pandora," Arthur said breathlessly. "What's happened?"
Pandora just looked at him and blinked a few times. "He's gone."
Arthur felt something give way in his stomach.
"What do you mean he's gone?!" Molly exclaimed as she ran into the room.
"You-know-who," Pandora said. "He attacked the Potters tonight." Arthur's stomach flipped at the thought of losing such good people. "He took out James and Lily… but somehow Harry stopped him."
"Harry?" Arthur asked. "The boy that's Ron and Luna's age?"
Pandora just nodded with a dazed expression.
"How do you know that he was defeated?" Molly asked.
"Everyone in the Ministry that was under one of his Imperious suddenly regained their control," Pandora explained. She walked over to one of the armchairs and collapsed down into it. "I just don't get it. How could a kid defeat him?"
Arthur didn't know what to feel exactly but he could feel the tears starting to fall down his face. He looked at Molly and embraced her in a one armed hug as they both started to cry. He could see out of the corner of his eye that Pandora was also starting to cry.
"No," Ron said. Arthur stopped hugging Molly as he looked at Ron. Ron was still crying quietly into his chest. "Not gone."
"Ron?" Arthur asked. Ron looked right into Arthur's eyes and Arthur could feel a chill go up his back from the intensity of Ron's expression.
"Not gone."
