TITLE: Maybe They'll Gnaw Right Through
AUTHOR: Aviatrix
PAIRING: Ron, Percy, general Weasleyness. Bring your own subtext. Or, bring none at all. Whatever.
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: JK Rowling owns everything, everything, and we should pray that she doesn't go all Anne Rice on our asses.
x
There are rats in the Burrow.
He can hear them, now, inside the walls, skittering and squeaking through the dust.
They never bothered him, not even when he brought Hermione home and she flinched visibly at the flashes of black-gray in the corners.
They never bothered Percy, either, not till he came back from the Ministry. He didn't flinch, just turned down his lips and raised his eyebrows in a way that said 'I can't believe I ever lived like this.'
Ron convinced himself that the awkward feeling in his chest was not his heart breaking.
x
Stretch a sweater and you can see through the loops.
Percy isn't coming home for the summer, and there's an empty space at the table between Charlie and Fred. The place isn't set, but there's a chair (rickety and grey) that forces a gap in the line.
Ron is silent during meals, and is always the first to leave. He gets up quickly, pushing away from the table, and pretends not to notice when his foot catches a rung and knocks Percy's chair over.
He spends the hours between dinner and sleep in his bedroom poking holes in an old Weasley sweater, pulling and yanking at the fraying yarn.
x
Summer nights aren't breezy, just still, and the sweat on his body refuses to dry. Hot and sticky and silent, almost: he can hear (faintly) Ginny in the next room over, reciting to herself in a sing-song-voice:
This is the man all tattered and torn
That kissed the Maiden all forlorn
That milked the Cow with the crumpled horn
That tossed the Dog
That worried the Cat
That killed the Rat
That ate the Malt
That lay in the house that Jack built
This is the boy all tired and worn that kissed the girl who flinched at the rats who live in the house that Percy broke.