Interlude IV
Ron P.O.V
Ron was still reeling from the Battle of Hogwarts. Everything that had happened, the people they had lost. In one day, their world turned upside-down.
When Ginny landed next to him with Hermione, he thought they were dead – lying so still, barely breathing. It wasn't how he wanted to see his little sister and his best friend. Percy, traitorous, cowardly Percy, was the one who healed them and put them in a room and spoke to mum about them. Ron hadn't expected that from Percy, but it was the main reason he had forgiven his older brother.
Bill's arrival with George's body was horrifying. The blood was everywhere, George hanging limp in Bill's hands, and Bill's face – blank, covered in blood and tears. Bill disappeared for days after that, and Ron wasn't sure he could blame his brother.
Then, Hermione woke up and it was like some of the tension drained from his body. He could breathe, even if he turned to look for Ha – him every few minutes. And when Ginny finally came to, he had spent every moment glancing at her to make sure she was alive, real, there.
Charlie disappeared a few days after Ginny woke up, giving Ron a vague excuse and looking shifty. He was probably running after Bill.
It had been four weeks since anyone had heard from Charlie and Bill. Four weeks of radio silence. Groceries still appeared in the kitchen every Monday, and no one left the safehouse on Bill's standing order. None of it reassured mum, though. She was worried, and so was Ron.
But Charlie and Bill were both warriors, fighters, dangerous. Ron knew that much. Both had grown up during the first war, and both went into dangerous careers – Curse Breaking and Dragon Taming weren't for the weak, after all.
So, upon seeing Bill drag Charlie into the safehouse, both bleeding out and laughing maniacally, Ron stared. He just stared.
"Ronniekins!" Charlie exclaimed, giggling madly and almost slipping onto the ground. "Do you mind helping us?"
Bill grinned, and Ron's stomach heaved. He shoved down the bile at the blood on Bill's teeth. He shouldn't be so sensitive, especially considering the fact that they were in a war, the losing side of the war.
"Come on," he hauled Charlie up, determining that Bill could walk himself to the medical room. "What happened to you two?"
Charlie giggled again. Bill answered, "We might have done some investigation."
And got into a fight as a result. Ron knew his brothers well enough to know that they picked a fight with the death eaters. What they had been doing for the entire four weeks, that was the question.
"Here," he dropped Charlie onto the bed, and grimaced when the Healer, Clara, turned to him in question.
She seemed to understand something from his face because she simply tended to Charlie, giving him potions and healing the curses as best as she could. Bill seemed to be doing well enough on his own with simple potions, cuts and bruises fading from sight, as he lay on the other bed.
By the time Clara was done, Bill and Charlie were asleep, sprawled in identical positions. Ron would have laughed if he wasn't so worried.
"You should tell your mother, and everyone else that Bill has returned." Clara suggested, giving him a pointed look.
She had been a Healer for over 30 years now, and Ron didn't want to antagonize her. He nodded, giving his slumbering brothers one last look, before heading out.
"Ron, there you are!" Ginny said, walking up to him. "What were you doing in the healing room?"
Ron sighed. It would come out soon enough. "Bill and Charlie are back."
"Injured?"
"Charlie was out of it, giggling madly. I have no clue what Bill is going through."
"A lot, apparently." Ginny's shoulders slumped. "Want to go tell mum two of her precious children are back?"
Ron gave her a withering look. "If I wanted to tell her, would I be procrastinating?"
She laughed slightly. Not her laugh, but what it had become this past month. "I'm sure we'll survive."
Telling mum hadn't been a problem for them. By the next morning, everyone in the safehouse knew that Bill and Charlie were back, and that they had received no less than three hours of lectures from their mum.
"I hear you're in charge of the order now," Ginny said, when they were all sitting in the bedroom the four brothers shared.
Bill gave a dismissive wave. "I'm only in charge until Kingsley wakes up. And even right now, only of this safehouse."
"How many others are there?" Hermione asked softly and Ron's heart leapt slightly. She rarely spoke recently, drowning in her books. "Who is in charge there?"
"Dad is in charge of Crown Mansion, which is the name of the safehouse." Bill answered, frowning at the name. "Andromeda is in charge of Tree Houses."
"And you are in charge of…" Charlie asked, trying to rile Bill up. Those names were terrible and sounded like stuff from a child's imagination; something that Voldemort would never guess or even consider saying. They were perfect.
"Haunted Castle."
"Because that's a nice secret name." Charlie snarked.
Bill nodded sagely. "I wouldn't have been so uncreative. Old people are so unoriginal."
Ron snickered. 'Old people'? This sounded like the work of a hyper and imaginative 5-year-old.
"Can we get back to the topic at hand?" Ginny interrupted. "I want to join the expeditions outside and fight those death eaters, starting with Lestr–"
Charlie's hand on her mouth stopped the words. "You don't want to finish that."
Ron scowled fiercely. Not only does his name have a taboo, but so does a death eater's. This was getting worse.
"I need to speak to everyone today," Bill said, after an uncomfortably long pause. "Preferably now, if it's possible."
"Why?" Hermione asked, fire burning in her eyes.
Charlie, Ginny and Bill smiled sharply, and Ron felt a similar grin grow on his face in anticipation. "It's time the wizarding world stood up for itself. The Order is removing the no killing ban."
Ron felt vindicated, blood rushing through his body and magic thrumming in sync. They waited for Hermione's answer with bated breath.
A sneer formed on her face. Completely uncharacteristic of her, and yet so reassuring. "Finally! When are we having this meeting?"
Ron shrugged when everyone turned to him in question. He was managing the daily schedule of the two hundred odd magicals in this safehouse. He said, "Most of them should be free now."
"Good."
Ron wasn't sure what to expect from the meeting, but this was not it. Everyone around him was whispering, terrified and contemplating. Bill had struck a nerve with his speech. Ron wished the people would actually start doing something other than complaining, and the speech was aimed to propel them into thinking and standing up for themselves.
"This is a war." Bill started. "And in a war, people die. On both sides. The first war ended with casualties; many family members gone. But so was he. He had been killed by a baby - Harry Potter. Harry was supposed to be our savior."
There was a hush as they listened to him. Ron wondered absently where Bill was going with this.
"When you celebrated Harry's defeat of him, you rejoiced the deaths of James and Lily Potter, you rejoiced a baby murdering a full-grown, homicidal wizard. And when he returned, you expected an orphaned child, with no knowledge of his enemy's name to defeat him."
There was silence in the room, everyone holding their breath. Ron realized the way Bill was going about this a minute too late. His oldest brothers had always been ruthless… and protective.
"You placed all your expectations and hope on a teenager, barely old enough for the Trace to have broken. And what did you expect from him?"
Bill left the question hanging, waiting for someone to take the bait, answer his question. Ron noted Charlie's grim smile, Ginny's snarl and mum's uncharacteristic silence. He knew no one in the crowd would answer, the realization of their expectations and the following guilt hitting them.
Ron wanted to pummel them. He was dead already, and it was too late for them to be trying to pay him back. His death was on everyone's head. But if it got them to fight back and actually do something, anything, Ron would guilt trip them for all he was worth.
"We expected him to kill the Dark Lord," Hermione whispered, before Ron could do so.
In the silence of the room, the whisper reached all corners, every single person heard it. The guilt and grief in Hermione's voice was clear.
"We expected him to kill the Dark Lord," Bill inclined his head, a silent acknowledgement to a fallen brother. "And yet, when faced with mere Death Eaters, no one kills them. Morals can be shed when it's someone else doing it, killing is accepted if your savior does it but when it comes to yourselves, do you think you could honor your family's sacrifice to rid the world of those that wish to oppress it?"
Ron looked at the room full of magicals, every face affronted by the suggestion that they kill death eaters. Ron knew it was a long time coming. If one boy can be asked to kill a warmonger, an entire army; then a group of rebels, they can be asked to kill for their own safety.
"We can't use the unforgivables." One voice piped up, louder than the rest. "I'm not going to use them."
"So don't," Charlie and Ginny snapped at the same time.
"There are so many ways to kill a person without using an unforgivable." Ginny said, a 17-year-old standing up for what she believed in.
"And if you can't fight to save yourself, then how can you ask someone else to fight for you?"
