"Keep up, Ron!" Mum snapped, pushing her way through the crowd, following the tracking charm that was supposed to lead them to Ginny. It might've just been Ron, but he thought she might sound a little concerned as well as furious, now that it looked like they were headed into the Healers' tent. She'd been absolutely stewing since Ginny and the twins had told her to go to hell over that Irish bloke — Snape's spazzy apprentice — down in the Great Hall, and seeing Gin and Fred (or George, Ron couldn't tell them apart from that far away) at the middle of the riot hadn't made her the least bit less angry.

It might make Ron a bad brother, but he was sort of glad it wasn't him she wanted to shout at for once.

He'd sort of thought that Ginny had to be exaggerating, making it out to be worse than it was, being the only kid at home alone with Mum all day, but if anything, she'd been downplaying it. He didn't think a single day had gone by without him being called lazy and compared to Bill or Percy, and he wasn't sure, but he thought Mum might be a worse teacher than Snape.

Well, probably not, but at least he'd only had to see Snape three hours a week. At home he was lucky if he got off with six hours of lessons every day, with Mum hovering over his shoulders correcting every little tiny mistake that even Professor McGonagall would've let slide. She'd locked up the broom shed, and if he made too many mistakes she wouldn't even let him go flying, which was just cruel — that was the only place he was safe from her barging in and demanding that he clean something that didn't need to be cleaned or practise some stupid transfiguration he'd never use in real life or chop up meat and veg for dinner like they were potions ingredients because she didn't like to see him "lazing around like he was on holiday" and not being punished for his terrible marks. He wasn't allowed to practise on real potions ingredients because those were expensive, and at least if he didn't dice the beef for the stew to her ridiculously picky specifications it'd still cook fine. (So she'd said, very obviously assuming he would cock it up.)

He'd even started hanging out in the Shed with Dad when he came home, just to avoid being in the house. Which he was pretty sure was the same reason Dad was out there, actually. He wasn't sure how he'd missed it — maybe because Dad was always at work and the whole family ate together in the summer? — but Mum and Dad really didn't get on. He wrote to Ginny to ask specifically what the hell was up with that. (And got screamed at for monopolising Errol when Ron'd had no way of knowing Mum would want to send a letter that day too, had he!) She said Bill told her that they'd always fought like that, they just kept it away from the house when the two of them were little. But like, that was the reason Mum hadn't gone to the World Cup, and Dad wasn't here for the Task today, and, thinking back on it, probably why they'd never really been in the same room very long when they'd gone to Egypt. He hadn't even noticed at the time, but they couldn't stand being around each other longer than a few hours without fighting. Which was sort of...

It was sort of like finding out his entire bloody life had been a lie, somehow.

And somehow, he was the last to find out!

He'd tried to press Dad a little, see exactly how long this had been going on and why, and maybe it was just that Dad never had anyone to talk to, but he'd gone on for hours about Mum and the Prewetts and money and— It wasn't like he was bitter about it, that they were poor and Mum constantly nagged him for all his "muggle junk" even though she knew he'd wanted to be an artificer and modify muggle shite to work on magic (or work better with magic, like the car), he'd only taken the job at the Ministry because Mum had gotten pregnant and he couldn't afford an apprenticeship and support a family. (Ron hadn't known that.) That was probably the worst part, honestly. The whole time he was just so...defeated. Like this is just how it is, son, and there's nothing to be done about it.

Even though from what Ron had heard, it was mostly Mum's fault they were poor — much more than Dad spending money on muggle junk, like she complained about all the time — and they could probably stop being poor if Mum would just apologise to her own mother about some shite she'd said at the end of the war.

See, it all went back to right after the Death Eater Trials ended. Mum had tried to hex Narcissa Malfoy in the back in the middle of Diagon Alley because it was her fault so many of those fucking wankers got off scot-free — including the Yaxleys, who Mum knew had been involved in her brothers' deaths. (And also because Narcissa Malfoy was a smug, stuck-up bitch, probably.) And then the Malfoys had pulled some strings at the Ministry so Dad had gotten "promoted" to Head of Misuse of Muggle Artefacts. (That was actually a step down from his old job in Administrative Registration in terms of pay and respect, but had a nicer title, and he got to go out in the field with Patrol Officers on raids and shite instead of...mostly filing. And of course he got to work with muggle junk professionally.) That wouldn't have been so bad even though it did pay less. It had still been enough for them all to live comfortably.

But then Grandmother Lucretia had told Mum that she was going to have to swear off trying to take vengeance on the Malfoys and the other Death Eaters who got off, for the sake of the Truce, and they'd gotten in a huge fight over it. Mum had accused Grandmother of not caring that those bastards took three of her four children away from her. Grandmother had threatened to disown her if she didn't take it back and agree to drop it with the Malfoys — partly because she was so angry, but partly because she didn't want the Prewetts getting dragged down with Mum when everyone started shunning her for refusing to keep the peace and abide by the terms of the Truce.

Mum had called her bluff, and as it turned out, it hadn't been a bluff. So there went the nice cash gifts at Yule and Midsummer and holidays with the Prewetts. And then that squib accountant cousin they never talked about? Turned out, it wasn't that they never talked about him because he was a squib (which was kind of what Ron had thought when he was a kid). They never talked about him because he took care of the Prewetts' finances and he'd been the one to point out that the land the Burrow was on technically belonged to the House. If Mum and Dad were cut off and wanted to stay, they'd have to buy the Prewetts out.

It could've been worse. They could've just kicked Mum and Dad out. But adding house payments on top of everything else had made money much tighter.

And now, knowing all that, Ron couldn't help thinking that Mum should've just...swallowed her pride and apologised. She'd had to drop it with the Malfoys once she didn't have the Prewetts backing her up to make shite like charges for attempted aggravated bloody assault against a sitting Lady of the bloody Wizengamot go away. She couldn't possibly really believe Grandmother didn't care that Uncle Fabian and Uncle Gideon were dead, and Aunt Alice would never recover from Lestrange's attack on the Longbottoms at the end of the war. But she felt betrayed by Grandmother actually cutting ties with her and Dad, so she probably wouldn't ever apologise and ask the Prewetts to drop the stupid house payment thing.

So, fine, then. Don't apologise and beg the fucking nobs to stop bleeding you dry. But you could at least go and get a job yourself, Mum! Because as much as she complained about Dad spending money on stupid shite (which Ron wasn't defending...even though he was much sorrier now about losing the car than he had been when it happened — ninety-nine per cent of the shite in the Shed was complete rubbish), it wasn't exactly like she was pitching in, was it? He hadn't noticed until he was at home all the time — it wasn't nearly as obvious over the summer, when there were other people around and he was outside a lot more — but she didn't really do anything with most of her time. She cooked and knitted and kept up the gardens, but that was barely anything. Most of the time, she just listened to the wireless or read magazines and these awful romance books—

Ron had tried to read one, once. He hadn't gotten three pages in before he came across a heaving bosom and not one but two sexy flying horse wranglers, and had had to stop because it was just...eugh.

So, it sort of made sense that Mum didn't want Ron spending too much time out in the Shed with Dad. He'd said something in one of their worse fights about spending all day studying, how it wasn't like she spent all day working, she could get a job or something, and she'd basically accused Dad of trying to turn Ron against her, when it wasn't like Dad had even tried to make her sound bad when they were talking about all that.

Honestly, Dad was just...completely cowed. He never even brought it up that maybe she should get a job herself, just let her nag him and bully him about his hobbies and one-hundred per cent supported her decision to not apologise, like supporting your wife is just what you do, even though it made his life so much harder and more stressful and she didn't even seem to appreciate it. Ron hadn't asked, but he sort of got the impression that Dad wouldn't have wanted him and Gin, and maybe even the twins, if he'd known he and Mum wouldn't have the Prewetts' support as well as his salary to take care of them. He didn't doubt that Dad loved them all, just... If he was working so much he never got to see them, what was the point of having a family at all?

Yeah, knowing that it was basically her fault they'd only ever gone on one holiday ever and he'd had to have a hand-me-down wand his first two years at school and there was never any money for anything had made him rethink all her whinging about Dad's muggle junk, but he didn't really need Dad to turn him against her. She was bloody horrible, especially when the twins and Ginny weren't there to distract her from Ron.

Thankfully, though, Ginny and the twins were here to distract her today, and Bill — his team was based in London at the moment, analysing and disenchanting the bank's share of the loot from the Egyptian project he'd been on the last couple of years, so he'd gotten a little flat in Knockturn Alley until Yule. Mum had been even more upset about him living in Knockturn instead of at home than she was about the fang-earring or the fact that he was apparently shagging a wilderfolk (which was just...bloody weird, okay). Or, had been, Ron guessed.

Bill had come around for dinner a couple of times since everyone else went back to school. They'd gone flying after and Bill had let him bitch and moan about how much it sucked living with Mum. He'd mentioned he'd asked out a girl he worked with, so Ron had said what about bird-girl, and been informed that field-relationships stayed in the field and wilderfolk didn't do commitment, anyway. Neither of them had expected it to last after Bill came back to England, any more than the goblin he'd shagged had thought that was going to last.

Ron was beginning to think that Bill was a bit of a pervert. He claimed he'd shagged human girls, too — the girl he'd just asked out was human — but still. Shagging other species was just sort of...weird.

Ron hadn't told Mum about the goblin, even though Bill had said he didn't care if she knew — she knew he'd asked a metamorph to marry him when Ron was about ten (Ron had had no idea). At least goblin and wilderfolk girls were always girls. Metamorphs...weren't. Which was just...maybe not as wrong as just shagging a bloke, but...weird. It was all just...really bloody weird. Especially since, until a few months ago, Ron had really considered Bill a pretty normal bloke. But then, he'd also thought Harry was a normal bloke, so maybe he was just shite at picking out perverts.

He'd never think, watching Harry blush half-embarrassed, half-proud as Ginny chattered at him (yeah, he'd outflown Krum, but he'd also not outflown a stationary tree, so), that his former best mate, a bloke he'd changed his shorts in front of more times than he could count, was completely bent. (And for Blaise bloody Zabini, of all people... Clearly Ron couldn't pick out snake-fanciers in any sense of the term.)

"Bill! George! Ginny!" Mum screeched, making a beeline for Bill and one of the twins, standing a few feet away from Harry and Ginny and the other twin at the next healer's station — his healer was pointing his wand at his head despite...Ron was pretty sure that was George, actually, trying to wave him off, and Harry's was doing something to one of his legs. "I cannot believe you—"

She was interrupted by an apprentice healers' assistant — blue robes were for assistants, and the black trim meant she was still in her apprenticeship...or maybe her journeyman practice? What did they call that in healing? Residency? Whatever, not important. She wasn't really a healer, anyway. Mum just brushed off her attempt to warn her that if she was going to cause a scene she was going to have to be asked to leave without a word, sort of flicking her fingers dismissively in favour of answering Fred's "I'm Fred, honestly woman..." with a sharp, "Ooh, I am not in the mood for your games today!"

Ron was almost positive he was actually Fred — there was a little scar over his left eyebrow from trying to catch a salamander in the garden when he was a kid. George had a divot in his chin from falling on a rock at about the same age. Ron wasn't sure if those were the names they'd actually been given at birth, but Bill and Charlie had just sort of decided that those were their names now when they were three or four, and made sure Percy, Ron, and Ginny knew how to tell them apart, too.

"Madame!" Mum turned on her heel to give whatever self-important French bloke thought he could kick her out of the healers' tent while she was in the midst of shouting at her children a piece of her mind. Her jaw clicked shut almost audibly when the man, a tall blond with a chiselled, Gilderoy Lockhart jaw and a Senior Healer's silver trim — seriously, the wizard looked like he could've been on one of the covers of her awful novels (gag) — stepped forward into her personal space. "Please leave, before I am forced to ask one of these so-helpful elves to remove you." He gestured at one of the Saint Mungo's Transport Elves scurrying around with an armload of rolled bandages.

Since even Mum wouldn't tangle with a House Elf that wasn't under orders not to hurt her — seriously, elves could be bloody dangerous, just ask Lucius Malfoy (Harry had told him about Dobby blasting the slimy bastard down the stairs after he freed him) — she gave the Healer a sneer that wouldn't have looked out of place on the greasy Dungeon Bat and turned right back around, clamping a hand around Gin's upper arm and dragging her toward the doorway. "Let's go, missy! You, too, Fred, Bill!"

"Mum!" Gin yelped, trying to yank her arm back, but Mum's nails were sharp and she wasn't about to let her troublemaking daughter get off the hook for defending someone else this time. Seriously, Ron wouldn't've picked a fight with anyone for Snape's apprentice, spaz or not, but sticking up for people who couldn't stick up for themselves was one of those things Mum had told them they should do since they were tiny. Something good little Gryffindors did. You'd think she'd be happy Ginny was being a noble idiot like that, even if she had sort of been making a scene. Sort of, she hadn't started it. But then, she hadn't started the riot up in the stands, either, and Mum was even more furious about that. Apparently good little girls don't get in fights won out over good little Gryffindors protect the weak and even don't get hurt.

Ron wasn't surprised she and George had refused to sit with him and Mum after Mum tried to tear her a new arsehole in front of half the bloody world for not rolling over and letting those slimy snakes bully Irish Potions Apprentice. Seriously, he would've expected Mum to back Ginny and the twins, there — no love lost between her and the Parkinsons — but apparently not. Of course, they probably wouldn't have anyway, since Mum would've had something to say about Fred being down in the arena using their freaky twin telepathy to (in Mum's words) "cheat" at the Task. (Ron thought it was bloody brilliant.)

He was a little surprised Bill had refused to sit with them, but only a little. Not only had Ron told him about the near-scuffle down in the Great Hall, but he'd also been looking for some cursebreaker with the Durmstrang people. Wanted to talk to him about...some sort of ward it sounded like Bill had invented, but this Nyberg found out about it somehow and if the goblins found out about it, they'd be murderous? He'd been a bit cagey about it, it was sort of hard to pick out exactly what was going on. Black might've been involved somehow, too. (Of course she was, if there was trouble, she'd be involved.) He was a little annoyed because Bill had said Ron couldn't tag along, but not really surprised.

"Let go of me!" Gin snapped, trying to yank her arm free or resist Mum dragging her off through the crowd of spectators milling around outside the Healers' tent, waiting for someone to tell them what was going on or walk them out or something, but Mum out-weighed her by about fifty pounds, so that wasn't happening. Mum just ignored her struggling.

Which was...probably a mistake. Ron saw it coming half a second before she did it, but he didn't think he would've said anything even if he'd had time. He wouldn't have been able to work through the shock and disbelief — she wasn't really going to hex Mum...

Except then she actually did, just threw a stinging jinx at her, point bloody blank! And she sort of dug in her heels and twisted her hips to get enough leverage to actually pull Mum off balance and shake her off.

Mum's claws left bloody scratch-marks, but she stumbled and let Ginny get a couple of steps away before she had time to get off a Disarming Charm.

Ginny flicked it away with some little tennis-racquet looking shield charm, like whatever Black had been using down in the arena to throw off that Cæciné girl's curses, sending it flying off into the trees behind them and giving Mum a positively Slytherin sneer, waiting for her next attack. Damn, when had Ginny gotten scary?

"Ginny...you just hexed Mum..." he found himself saying. Fred chuckled with the same nervousness he felt.

"I cannot believe you— You are in so much trouble— Give me your wand! Give it to me! Now!" Mum demanded.

Ginny obviously did no such thing. "No! I told you to let go of me," she snarled over Mum's shrieks of outage.

Fred and George — still a little out of breath from running to catch up after escaping the healers — circled around to stand at her back, the same as they had in the Great Hall earlier, making it very, very clear that Mum could go to hell. (Easy for them, they didn't have to go home with her tonight...) Bill, being Bill, sort of edged around until he could cast some sort of paling between them and started trying to diffuse the situation.

"Fred, George, go back up to the school, there's got to be a victory party or something you should be at."

"Well, yeah, probably," "but Gin—"

"Go on, I'll be fine," Gin said, still scowling through the paling at Mum, who was, of course, still screaming at her, as well as the twins and Bill, now. "None of your business!" she shouted back at "Where did you even learn to fight like that, anyway?!" which was a shame because Ron sort of wanted to know the answer to that, too. Just...bloody hell... "You can go, too, Bill."

The look on Bill's face said like hell. "If I leave, one of you is going to end up actually cursing the other," he informed her.

"Not if she doesn't manhandle me or try to take my wand again," Ginny snapped, not taking her eyes off their mother.

Bill obviously thought that was about as likely as Ron did, which was to say, not. "Yeah, I'm staying. Fred, George, go."

"Er...yeah," "all right..." "Come find us later, though, Gin." "Party'll be down in Hufflepuff."

Ron sort of doubted that Ginny would be in a mood to party after this, but she nodded anyway.

Mum, of course, kept up her tirade the whole time, about Ginny having no respect for her ("If you want my respect, earn it!") and if she was going to keep getting into trouble like this, getting into fights all over the place when she shouldn't be fighting at all, maybe Mum would pull her out of school, too, and on and on, but Ron...wasn't really listening anymore, because Ginny's response to the suggestion that Mum would drag her home was a challenging, narrow-eyed glare and, "Try it! I'll just run away! You'll have to lock me in my room to keep me there!"

And they both knew Mum wouldn't. She might lock up the brooms and barge into Ron's room all the time, but she wouldn't literally lock him — either of them — up. That was like, Petunia Dursley insane. But...did Ginny really think she could get away with just...refusing to come home? Or running off, if Mum did pull her out of school? Practically everyone they knew, everyone whose houses they could get to from the Burrow — really just the Lovegoods and the Diggorys — would tell Mum or make her go home. It wasn't like they had a lot of friends, and especially not a lot who would tell Mum to piss off. They didn't even really have any close family they might be able to go stay with, except...

Well, the whole reason they didn't talk to the Prewetts was that Grandmother had cut Mum off, right?

No, Ron, that's completely mental...

But... If he just...didn't go home, if he snuck away and hid somewhere in the Castle for a couple of days until he could send a letter to Grandmother Lucretia, Mum would never be able to find him by herself, Hogwarts was huge, and Dumbledore might not even want to help her, he had tried to talk her out of pulling Ron out of school in the first place... Plus he'd be busy with political shite, what with the bloody riot, and all. Even if he did want to help Mum, he probably wouldn't have time for at least a couple of days...

That could work, he realised, a little shaken. That...might actually work.

He was brought back to earth by something almost as shocking as Ginny hexing Mum: Bill swearing at her. "Okay! Stop it! Stop— Mum, shut the fuck up!"

She actually did, as surprised as Ron to hear his (second-)most-level-headed brother losing his temper like that. (Charlie was the most laid-back, but honestly, Ron hardly knew him. He'd been in school ever since Ron was old enough to remember him, and then moved to Romania right after he graduated.)

"You did not just say that Gin should've let that poor Irish boy deal with a bunch of angry British nationalists on his own, or imply that she should have let herself and George get cursed up in the stands. Are you even hearing yourself right now?"

Mum scowled, like how dare my own child question me like that. "No, I said she shouldn't be getting into fights every time she turns around! She's been hiding things from me and—"

"And why wouldn't I hide things from you?! You don't care about anything in my life unless you don't approve — why would I ever tell you anything?!"

"Of course I don't approve! That 'poor Irish boy' is an apprentice! He's an adult! He can support his family's position on Gaelic independence just fine without your help! It's none of your business, and you don't want to get in the middle of—"

"He's fifteen, and no, he can't! He doesn't care about Gaelic independence! He doesn't know anything about it! And even if he did, I'd like to see you defend yourself against a whole crowd of screaming nutters! And maybe it's the fact that I don't like being told what I do or don't want to do, but I happen to believe the Gaels have as much right to rule themselves as anyone!"

Bill winced, knowing as well as Ron did that Mum was going to say—

"You're thirteen! You don't know what you're talking about!"

—yeah, something like that. And that it was going to go over about as well as a lead balloon.

"You don't know a damn thing about what I do or don't know, Mother! I know that unless the people in charge get their heads out of their arses, we're going to have a fucking war over it, so—"

"Don't exaggerate, Ginny, and watch your language! We're not—"

"I'm not fucking exaggerating!" she snapped back. Mum's face went even redder, grinding her teeth at Gin's blatant disrespect. (Ron almost wanted to clap, but he was still sort of considering whether he might actually get away with just...sneaking away, and that would draw attention to him, so.) "Lord Black says we are, and it's Gin!"

"The fact that we were just caught in a second riot in three months does sort of argue Gin's right about this one, Mum," Bill said, sounding weirdly annoyed.

Mum ignored him, changing the subject. "Lord Black? Is that little— Is he the one who's been teaching you to fight? I'm going to kill him, that— He has no right to—"

Ginny's chin jutted even higher with that stubborn scowl of hers. "So what if he is? And I asked him to! I want to learn how to defend myself!"

"Defending yourself is not something a thirteen-year-old girl should have to—"

"If I don't, who will? Because I didn't see you noticing I was fucking possessed for ten months!"

"This isn't about that, Ginevra!"

Really, Mum... Bloody hell. That might be the single stupidest thing she'd ever said. Of course this was about that! Why did she think Ginny had gotten so obsessive about her self-defence shite? Or maybe it just seemed obvious to Ron that she wouldn't want anyone to be able to take advantage of her again like Riddle had because he was still sort of hung up on Pettigrew being Scabbers that whole time. He kept catching himself giving the side-eye to any animal that wandered into the yard at home, and he'd learned a bunch of charms to identify any other living thing in his room. That was practically the only thing he'd learned those last few weeks at school. (And one of the only useful things he'd learned from Mum was some of her cleaning charms, because knowing how many spiders were just lurking in the corners and under his wardrobe sort of creeped him out.)

"Yes, it is! That's why I asked him to teach me, and that's why I'm not going to just sit there and let people hurt me or people I care about! If I don't protect myself, who will, Mum?" she repeated. "Not you, not Dad or Percy or any of my teachers—"

"Well, if you had told us that your diary was writing back—" Mum snapped defensively, which was exactly the wrong tack to take. Ginny had been eleven. And Riddle was an evil, mind-reading git. It hadn't been her fault he'd gotten in her head. Even Dumbledore had said so!

"Well, if you hadn't made my life fucking miserable, maybe I wouldn't have thought that a diary that wrote back was really cool and Tom was the only person I could talk to!" (That, too.)

"You can talk to me, Ginny!"

"No, I can't! I can't even tell you that Lord Black is teaching me to fight, because you don't think I should be fighting at all, because ladies don't get into fights, and why can't I be nice and sweet and just like Aunt Alice — but Aunt Alice was a bloody Auror! And ladies do fight, Grandmother Lucretia told me over the summer that—"

Ron hadn't thought his mother could get any angrier, but her eyes actually flashed at that, golden and furious. "You were speaking to my mother?!"

Ginny refused to be intimidated, tossing her hair back over her shoulder and giving her a level glare. "Yes, I have been!" That was news to Ron, and sort of encouraging, honestly. If Grandmother had answered a letter from Ginny even though Mum was disowned, she'd probably answer Ron, too, right? "And she says she taught you and Aunt Alice how to fight, and the Blacks always taught everyone at least enough to protect themselves, and—"

"You are not a Black, Ginevra!"

"No, if I were a Black, I would have known occlumency before I met Tom, and I would have recognised a fucking horcrux when it started talking to me!" Mum flinched. That had come up over the summer, that Ginny thought they should've been taught occlumency when they were little. Mum thought it was paranoid, but she couldn't deny it would've helped, and maybe it wasn't really paranoia if some slimy Malfoy might try to slip your eleven-year-old daughter a possessed bloody book. "And I'll tell you what, I like Lord Black a hell of a lot more than I like you! And unlike you, I actually can tell him anything! He actually listens to me and—"

"Lord Black is not appropriate company for a young girl to be spending hours alone with," Mum snapped seizing on the change of subject, "and he's certainly not a good person for you to talk to about what happened with that diary!"

"If Gin trusts him enough to talk to him about it, I think he's probably the best person, Mum. He's not the most stable bloke, that's true, but he's not going to hurt her or try to take advantage of her or anything."

"I didn't ask you, William Arthur! I've known Sirius Black since he was three years old! When he was your age, Ginny, he admired de Mort and loved Bellatrix — she was his favourite cousin, you know."

"I did know that, actually," Gin bit out. "I know she saved his life when he was little and I know he was a Fourth Circle Death Eater until he was fifteen because she was the only person in his family who actually cared about him. If Bill was a Dark Lord, I'd probably do the exact same fucking thing!"

Wait, what?! Ron hadn't known that! Not about Bill, if Bill was a Dark Lord, Ron would probably follow him, too — he liked Bill...even if he was a pervert. But he hadn't known that Sirius Black actually had been a Death Eater. Everything he'd heard was that he was You Know Who's right hand and spy, and then no, he'd never actually been a Death Eater at all. He definitely hadn't heard that he had been a Death Eater when he was Ron's age. Christ... That entire family was so fucked up. He absolutely understood why Mum didn't want Ginny anywhere near them, but then again, he sort of also understood that maybe that was why Ginny could actually talk to him. If he'd been talked into doing the same sort of horrible shite she had when she was possessed by the diary, just being brainwashed by the Blacks, he probably knew what it was like, trying to become a good person (again) after, right?

"Did you know that he was her favourite, too? Bellatrix's. He was a vicious little monster, Ginevra! Mad and battle-hungry, just like her! And he might not have betrayed the Potters, but everyone knew he wanted to escalate the war, use the same tactics they used—"

"Refusing to try not to kill people who are trying to kill you isn't even close to the same thing as torturing children to provoke the Aurors, Mother! Using unblockable curses to kill people who are attacking innocent civilians or a fucking field hospital is not the same thing as throwing Avadas around because they're intimidating and who cares about collateral damage! He rejected the Dark when he was sixteen, and Cassie bloody Lovegood recommended him as a tutor!

"And yes, he did admire Tom when he was my age — unlike practically everyone else, he knows what a charming, devious bastard he was, and doesn't think I was a naïve little idiot for believing his sympathetic act. And knowing what I know now, I'd rather learn to be a vicious little monster who can protect herself from sick, twisted bastards like Tom fucking Riddle than stay a helpless little girl hoping the people who are supposed to take care of me actually do."

Okay, Ron really wanted to stay and hear the rest of the fight, but if he stayed too long, he was going to miss his opportunity to sneak off and hide in the school. He had to leave, he decided, eyes darting between his sister and their mother, trying to decide whether Mum was distracted enough she wouldn't notice.

"You know, Ginevra, I've changed my mind! Bill was right! We should have made you talk to a mind healer — who knows what that thing did to you, what insidious influence or compulsions might still be affecting you? I will be speaking to—"

Definitely yes. He started easing away toward the tree line. Bill saw him, he was pretty sure, but he didn't say anything.

"Oh, fuck you, Mum! What, me being possessed and trying to kill myself wasn't enough to make you concerned, make you think I really needed a mind healer, but me learning to defend myself is?! Talk to whoever you want, you can go jump off a tower if you think I'm ever going to just let anyone else in my mind—"

"You are thirteen years old, Ginevra! You don't get a choice in the matter!"

Well that was just complete dragonshite. She hadn't said Ginny didn't get a choice in the matter when she'd said the same thing right after the whole Chamber of Secrets thing. Was she really that pissed off that Ginny had been talking to the Prewetts? That was just...insane. Completely bloody mental.

Ron paused for about half a second — if this didn't work and he ended up having to go home, Mum would probably be even angrier at him, but... No. He was going to do it. He didn't have a choice, he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he was too much of a coward to even try.

Bill seemed to agree Mum had crossed a line there. "Mum!" he exclaimed, dragging her eyes and Ginny's further from Ron before their sister answered that ridiculous claim. He took advantage of the brief distraction to slip behind a tree, breathing a sigh of relief to be safely out of sight. That was Step One.

"Yes, I do! You can't make me!"

"No! That is enough, Mother!" he added a charm Ron didn't recognise to drown out whatever next awful thing she was about to say. "If anyone here needs to see a mind healer, it's you. Gin, go throw curses at trees or something until you calm down enough not to hex the next person to talk to you, then go up to the Castle, somewhere you feel safe. I'll come find you after I escort Mum off the grounds."

She hesitated for a long moment before taking a deep breath and edging back toward the treeline herself (thankfully not in quite the same direction as Ron), still not taking her eyes or her wand off Mum. "Don't bother — I'll be at Ancient House, where she can't get to me."

Ron was betting that wouldn't stop Bill coming to check on her, but he nodded anyway. She kept backing up until she reached the trees, only a few metres west of Ron, then darted away toward the school, dodging between them in a way that would make her almost impossible to hex in the back until she was well out of range.

Mum moved to follow her, but Bill cut her off. "I swear by all the gods and Powers, by Magic Itself, Mother, if you try to stop her, I will get one of those elves to pop you down to Saint Mungo's so you can talk to a mind healer!"

"You wouldn't dare!" she spat, but she didn't believe it. Ron could hear it in her voice, uncertainty. She hadn't imagined Gin would dare throw a stinging jinx at her, either, or that Ron would run away. (He bit his sleeve to stifle an anxious giggle, edging deeper into the trees so they wouldn't notice him following the same path as Gin, up toward the school.) "Get out of the way, William! This is between Ginevra and myself! You are not her parent!"

"Oh, really? You wouldn't know it from the fit you threw when I wanted to stop raising her and Ron and have my own life! Whose advice does she actually listen to? Who taught her occlumency when you dragged her to Egypt instead of getting her a mind-healer a year and a half ago? And someone clearly needs to tell you when you've crossed a line! Dad's not here — and we both know why that is, don't we? — and he wouldn't dare, anyway, so no, Mum, I will not get out of the way!"

Mum's nostrils flared, lips pulling into a tight line, her hat quivering as she shook with suppressed fury. "William Arthur you will do as I tell you or so help me—"

"I said no, Mother! Try to hex me if you want, but someone in this family needs to stand up to you!"

Ron was too far away to hear Mum's response to that, but it didn't matter. If he was lucky and played his cards right, it wouldn't matter if anyone else was willing to stand up to Mum for Ginny or him, because they'd both be safely out of her hands. He just needed to find somewhere to sleep tonight, and maybe he could eat dinner with the foreign students? If he charmed his hair brown, that would probably work. He'd ask around for a quill and parchment, someone would give over, he was sure, and then it'd just be a matter of time until his owl reached the Prewetts...

It was like a weight off his shoulders, having a plan and knowing he wouldn't have to go back to the Burrow tonight. Or ever. He grinned, practically skipping as he made his way up to the school. The only thing making this plan less than perfect was he couldn't go to the Victory Party if he was keeping his head down...but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

Oh, hey, look, Ron's back. Because we definitely didn't have enough side-plots going on already. Seriously, this isn't going to be a new major thing, just another perspective on how shite's shaping up with Gin and the Weasleys.