To stand the test of time,
to stand alone.
To be without the glue,
that keeps us glued together.
And feeling so excrementable.

August 23rd 9PM

"Only five days to go until the twenty-ninth and then onward to Hogwarts," I said excitedly as I put an 'X' over August 23rd on the calendar that Remus had given me the day before.

I plopped down on the bed in Percy Weasley's old bedroom with an exhausted sigh. Molly had kept me busy all day. We cooked, we cleaned, and she showed me how to de-gnome a garden, which I had found to be a lot of fun. There was something perversely satisfying in watching the little gnomes go flying through the air to land some distance away with a loud thud.

"Nox," I said proudly and I was bathed in darkness. The more I used magic, even indirectly, the more confident I was in its presence. I needed that confidence to stay at the Burrow and not feel on edge every second of the day, the place was just dripping in magic.

An uneasy feeling came over me as I lay in Percy's old bed. It could've been the fact that I was staying in the bedroom of someone who was deceased, or it could've been the ghoul in the attic banging on the pipes, I wasn't quite sure. I did know that I was going to have a very difficult time falling asleep.

When I had asked Molly about Percy earlier in the day she had only stated that he had passed away before hurrying out of the room with tears in her eyes. I felt bad for even asking and decided not to inquire as to the whereabouts of the other two Weasley boys that I had not met and no one had mentioned, Bill and Charlie Weasley.

After restlessly tossing and turning for quite awhile I finally succumbed to my fatigue and fell asleep. The uneasy feeling followed me into unconsciousness and my dreams were soon overrun with nightmares.

The house was dark and quiet as it usually was when I was not there. My father preferred darkness and he relished in silence. There were no lights on in the house but I knew my father would be awake even at the late hour. He's always had horrible insomnia. He was probably painting in his workroom in the basement.

A slight uneasy feeling filled me as I slowly opened the front door. I felt guilty for the fight with Father and I knew I should apologize for the things I had said but I decided it could wait until morning. I ascended the stairs as quietly as possible so I would not alert my father downstairs.

When I got to the top of the staircase and stepped into the hall the uneasy feeling seemed to triple. Something was wrong, I wasn't sure what, but I knew that something just wasn't right.

I headed down the hallway towards my bedroom, one hand brushing up against the wall to guide me. As I passed the bathroom I could swear I heard water sloshing around in the bathtub.

That's odd. There was no light coming from underneath the door so if Father was in there, he was bathing in the dark.

"Dad," I called out, "Is that you?" There was no answer from the other side of the door. I pressed one ear to the wood and listened for another moment. Once again there was only silence. With a shrug I made my way back down the hallway.

There was that sloshing sound again. It was barely audible but I could definitely make out what sounded like someone moving in the tub.

"Dad," I called out again as I headed back towards the door, "I'm coming in, alright?" I waited a moment for a reply and when there was none I hesitantly pushed the door open.

The bathroom was dark. The sloshing noise became louder. I could feel something slippery under my bare feet and I slid them across the floor experimentally. It felt like lotion or shampoo, but not as thick.

I reached for the light switch and cautiously flipped it on, bathing the bathroom in fluorescent light. I looked down at my feet and couldn't help but scream.

"AAAAAHHH!" I yelled as I sat up quickly and bumped right into Ron. We both rubbed our temples and I could feel a faint bump beginning to rise. "What the hell are you doing in here?" I asked angrily. He glared at me and stood up next to the bed.

"I was trying to wake you up," he replied indignantly, "You were screaming bloody murder."

"Sorry," I said sheepishly as I stared down at my hands.

"Well, I'm certainly not going to get to sleep now so why don't we go downstairs and get something to eat," said Ron.

"Sounds good," I said with a smile. He helped me out of bed and we headed downstairs dressed in our pajamas. His feet were bare, mine were not, I had insisted on wearing slippers.

We sat at the kitchen table with a softly glowing candle between us. He offered me a cup of tea, which I quickly declined in favor of a simple glass of water. I chuckled to myself as he raided the kitchen in search of a late night snack. When he finally returned to the table he was carrying a plate that had three sandwiches piled on top. One for me, and two for himself, he explained to me before grabbing one of the sandwiches.

"So," he began, "want to tell me what your dream was about?"

"Not really," I answered as I grabbed a sandwich for myself. I wasn't really hungry but eating sounded better then talking at the moment.

"Sometimes it helps to talk about it," he stated.

"Maybe when it's not so fresh in my mind."

"You might forget it later though," he said with his mouth half full.

"No," I replied as I shivered slightly, "I doubt I'll forget this one anytime soon." He shrugged and grabbed the second sandwich off the plate. I looked down at the sandwich in my hand and realized that I had still only taken one bite. "I don't think I'm very hungry," I said as I laid the sandwich back down on the plate in front of me. Ron gave me a quizzical look but remained silent.

The clock in the hall chimed midnight and I was startled for a moment. I glanced over at the wooden grandfather clock and couldn't help but notice that there seemed to be something odd about the hands. I went to ask Ron about it but he was engrossed in his second sandwich while eyeing what was left of my own. I pushed my plate towards him and got up from the table to get a better look at the clock.

At first glance the clock seemed completely normal until I walked closer and got a good look at the hands and the face. Instead of regular clock hands, the hands on the Weasley's clock had a picture of each member of the family painted on them. The numbers that should've been on the face of the clock had been replaced with words like "Home", "School", and "Traveling."

Almost all of the Weasleys, including Hermione and Draco were currently pointing at home. Two of the other hands were pointing at "Deceased." I recognized one as Percy Weasley and the other was Bill Weasley. Charlie Weasley's hand was hovering between "Work" and "Traveling."

"That's a pretty neat clock," I said to Ron as I sat down at the table once again. He grunted in response as he shoved the rest of my sandwich into his mouth. "Do you miss him?" I asked. I don't know what made me ask the question but for some reason I just couldn't help myself.

"Very much," Ron replied sadly as he finished off the sandwich and poured himself another cup of tea. "He was like a brother to me, I just wish I could've been more of a brother to him."

"What do you mean?"

"I need to tell you something," he said nervously, "but I need your promise that you won't say anything to anyone else, not even Hermione."

"You would share something with me that you won't even share with your wife?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes," he stated firmly, "It's about something that happened between Harry and me before he left and since you're his daughter I feel like you have a right to know."

"I don't know Ron..." I was going to tell him that I didn't think it was right for him to keep things from his family but decided against it when I saw the pleading look in his eyes. "Okay, I promise." I said as I leaned back in my chair, ready to give him my undivided attention. He poured himself another cup of tea, spilling a few drops on the table as his hands shook.

"You have to understand something," he began, "I've always been a jealous person. Sure I've gotten better over the years but that's only because I've gotten many of the things I was jealous of when I was a boy."

"I was glad to have Harry as my best friend but at the same time I would sometimes hate it," he explained, "Harry was always the center of attention and I felt like no one ever noticed me. I thought Harry had all of the things that I wanted; fame, fortune, popularity, and I was so blinded by jealousy that I didn't realize that he was just as jealous of me but for all the right reasons instead of the wrong ones."

He glanced at me to see if I was surprised by his revelation but I honestly wasn't surprised in the least. I knew what it was like to be jealous of others. When I was a child many days were spent staring longingly out the window at the happy families that walked by or the children heading off to school.

"I feel really bad about it now," he continued, "but I have to admit that I was even a little glad when he didn't come back to school sixth year." I bristled slightly at his comment but urged him to continue.

"Hermione and I started dating, I was still a prefect with hopes of being Head Boy and I was Quidditch Captain. I finally felt like I was noticed for something other than being Harry Potter's best friend. It's almost as if I tried to forget about Harry and pretend he had never been there in the first place. I know that's an awful thing to say but it is the truth."

"Hermione told me that she explained what happened in Hogsmeade," he said and I nodded in confirmation, "Well after that we didn't really see Harry again. At least I don't think Hermione did. I actually saw him once more after graduation."

"It was when the Ministry of Magic was attacked," he explained, "I was there visiting my Dad and got caught up in the fighting. We were getting beat pretty badly and Percy ended up getting killed as well as some aurors and Fudge, the Minister of Magic at the time." He stopped for a moment and stared at Percy's hand on the clock.

"Harry showed up with a few other Order members and complete chaos broke out," he continued, "Curses and hexes were flying everywhere and Dad and I barricaded ourselves in his office and hid."

"We didn't know that the fighting was over when the door opened and Harry walked through," he said sadly, "I fired a curse at him without even thinking. He was extremely fast though and fired a curse right back at me."

"I had always known he was powerful and it was proven that day when his curse almost seemed to eat my curse and both of them hit me straight on." Ron's eyes had gone cold now and there was anger in his voice, as well as a small amount of regret.

"At the time I seemed to be okay and I was able to get up and brush it off as if it were nothing," he said, "A few months before Harry left, Hermione and I announced that we'd be getting married. Hermione insisted that we go and see a doctor to have physicals before we were married. She wanted children really bad you see," he said anxiously, "and she wanted to know in advance if we'd have any problems. That's when I found out I was sterile."

"No!" I gasped.

"Yes," he replied quietly, "the curse that hit me that day was the cause of it and once I had two more doctors confirm it I went after Harry to confront him."

"Confront him for what?" I questioned, "It sounds like you were both to blame."

"Yeah," he said as he stared down at his teacup, "but I was the one that got hit and so I blamed him."

"I found him at Grimmauld Place," he continued in a strained voice, "You should've seen his face light up when I walked through the door. For a second it was like we were back in first year again and he was just the same cheerful boy that would play me in chess even though he always lost and laugh at my jokes even though they were horribly stupid."

"Then I remembered why I went to see him," he explained darkly, "and so I walked up to him and punched him right in the face. He fell to the floor and I jumped on him and just started punching him. He didn't fight back at all; he just lay there and took it. It was like he thought he deserved it and I hadn't even told him what I was angry at him for."

Ron rested his head in his hands and I could see tears falling from his eyes onto the table. We sat in silence for a long time, neither one of us wishing to say anything, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

"I told him what happened," he sobbed with his head still in his hands, "I blamed him for it all and all he did was say he was sorry over and over again. Why didn't he fight back Jenny?" he asked desperately, "Why didn't he tell me that I was being a git, or a prat, or even a bloody motherfucker!?" he yelled the last question and I hoped that the Weasleys were deep sleepers.

"Do you really want my opinion?" I asked doubtfully. He stared at me for a moment with tears still streaming down his cheeks before he gave a small nod.

"He didn't fight back because as long as he didn't you would keep hitting him and yelling at him," I explained. Ron gave me a puzzled look and I sighed in frustration.

"I don't understand," he said.

"As long as you were taking out your frustration you remained there with him," I said. When Ron still appeared to be confused I explained further. "He didn't want you to leave. He was so glad that you were there that he probably wouldn't have cared what you did to him as long as you stayed."

"You're right," Ron gasped, "He was so alone and no one even noticed, not even his bloody best friend!"

"I know," I said disdainfully, "But that's what happens when you're alone, no one notices." Ron began to cry again and I thought about attempting to comfort him but decided instead to head back to bed and leave him to his own grief.

I was angry with him for what he had said and even though I knew he was just being honest it didn't stop me from hating him at the moment. As I walked out of the kitchen I glanced at the clock and noticed that Ron's hand had moved. There was a word on the face that I hadn't noticed before and I had a suspicion that it had just appeared on its own.

Ron's hand was pointing to the word "Despair," and I couldn't help being a little satisfied when I noticed that it was far away from the rest of the Weasleys. Perhaps now Ron would get a taste of what it truly meant to be alone.