Chapter 9: Doing the Do

According to Google, the best way to start running is to start walking, switch to a run-walk mix, and then eventually build up so that you're running more than walking and ultimately cut the walking out altogether. It's not like I didn't do any walking already—Hogwarts is a big castle that we all have to get around every day—but I was never, like, speed-walking or anything, and I certainly wasn't logging a couple hours a day of exercise like I need to be if I want to take up running. Hogwarts's crowded grounds aren't the best place to be pretty much the only student in the school to take up an exercise regime—some privacy would be nice, so that there's nobody around to make fun of me for being so slow—so I take to leaving the castle after hours and walking along the edge of the Forbidden Forest where nobody will be around to see me.

It would have been easy to pull off if it weren't for McLaggen, who actually notices that I keep disappearing. On Thursday night, when I'm packing up my bag and excusing myself to take a shower, he says knowingly, "What, so you can disappear for two hours and not tell anybody where you really went?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say, smirking.

"I'm going to figure you out one of these days, Weasley," he calls at my retreating back as I go upstairs to grab my shower bag. I'll have to take it along with me when I go outside, which is fine for now but will be a little awkward when I actually take up running for real.

Walking is nice. It's not as nice as I imagine running will be once I'm able to do the thing properly, but it feels good to put one foot in front of the other fast enough that the muscles in my legs start to ache. Plus, it gives me a chance to slow down (ha) and process what's going on inside my head, like everything that's going wrong with the people in my life.

Don't get me wrong—I'm thoroughly enjoying spending all my weekends with different Weasleys—but it's not like I don't notice what a mess they all are. Dad may say I'm not dealing with Mum's death properly, but it's not like he's pulled his head out of his work for the two seconds it would take him to admit to himself that he's falling back on his old coping mechanisms to fill the void where she used to be. Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny are getting a divorce, and Angelina and Uncle George are all screwed up because Angelina apparently used to date Uncle Fred until he died. And everyone keeps asking what's wrong with me.

It occurs to me, not for the first time, that someday, these flawed and broken people whom I love so much are going to die and I'm just going to be left with Molly and a bunch of cousins that I can't really stand. Sure, Dom is cool and I'm trying to make it work with Al now that he's a Slytherin, but I hate seeing them at Molly's stupid gatherings, and I stick with the adults as much as I can when the whole family gets together. I know that's a ways off yet—wizards typically live to be well over a hundred years old, so I've got time, unless everybody decides to go the way Mum went and off themselves, which I doubt—but it's going to happen eventually, and I won't be able to stop it, and I won't know what to do. How am I supposed to make friends with these people I hate? How am I supposed to call that my family?

All week, I've been wanting to talk to Angelina about all of it, but I feel weird bringing any of it up, half because she's one of the people having problems and half because I feel stupid for caring so much. Either way, I still don't get why she's so determined to get in with us Weasleys if she and Uncle George have such bad issues. If she weren't sure about her relationship with him, why would she so eagerly make herself a part of his family? I know I could ask her—knowing Angelina, she'd give me a straight answer—but it feels weird to think about revealing what I overheard Uncle George telling Dad, like I'd be admitting that I know she's not what I thought she was and neither am I.

I'm not seeing her this weekend on account of my date with McLaggen, which means I have another week before I have to face her after what happened between Dad and Uncle George. It's stupid that I'm so nervous about it. This is Angelina. She's one of my best friends in the world, and that's not going to change just because I found out some of her dirty laundry.

The evening before the Hogsmeade trip, Molly throws another Weasley shindig out on the grounds. It's getting colder and windier—it's like ten or fifteen degrees out, maybe—but compared to winter weather, that's still pleasant enough for me to want to go outside and appreciate it. God, can you imagine what it's going to be like going outside for my stupid walk/run mix when it's below freezing out here? And that's assuming I don't slip on ice and fall and kill myself.

Anyway, the Weasley picnic is the first time I really see any of them since the funeral, even Al, whom I've only seen around the common room a little. "You're not avoiding me or something, are you, Albus Severus Petunia Vernon Dudley?" I tease him while Molly is Conjuring up the turkey roast she got from the kitchens and passing paper plates around. "It's like you fell into your little hole with Scorpius Malfoy, of all people, and forgot—"

"Don't talk about him like that," scowls Al, who seems to have accepted that I'm going to butcher his name no matter what he says or does. "Scorp is cool. He hates being a Malfoy as much as I—"

He clamps a hand over his mouth. Nobody else notices at first—Vic and Dom and Louie are busy talking to Molly about the food, and James is animatedly helping Rosie spell her phone to work on the grounds—but I get their attention when I raise my voice and say, "What, as much as you hate being a Weasley? Is that what you were going to say? Boy, Al, I didn't realize you were harboring such a grudge against us."

Al and Vic and Louie all start talking at once, but they get drowned out by James. "He doesn't hate being a Weasley. He hates being a Potter. Isn't that right, Al? He hates being the black sheep son of Harry Potter who got himself landed in Slytherin and brought dishonor on the family. The Gryffindors won't stop taunting him about it, will they, Al?"

"Shut the hell up, James," Al snarls.

But James isn't done. "That's why he's become such good buds with Scorpius Malfoy, isn't it? Because us Gryffindors are such assholes to both of them? Sure, they'll leave Lucy alone because her dad is Percy Weasley and everybody knows he should have been a Slytherin, too—that she's just out for herself and doesn't give a shit about other people just like her father—but Al was supposed to be better than that—"

"What the fuck did I do to make you hate me so much?" spits Al at the same time as I say, "You know what, screw you, James. You can talk shit about me, but nobody talks shit about my dad besides me. He was off rescuing Muggle-borns from right under Dolores Umbridge's nose while your dad was hiding out in the woods daydreaming about uniting the Deathly Hallows and becoming Master of Death, do you remember that? Huh?"

"My father," says James, his face reddening, "killed Lord Voldemort. And this is how you thank him? This is how Al thanks him? By buddying up to the son of the guy who joined the Death Eaters and tried to kill Dumbledore when he was Dom and Molly's age?"

"Our dad," sneers Al, "who abandoned Mum, abandoned you and me and Lily, to go cozy up to Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione like it's the golden days and he doesn't have any responsibility to our family? Is that the bloke you're talking about?"

"Wait, what?" says Louie, raising his eyebrows. "Your dad—?"

"Mum is the one who filed for divorce," says James. "Mum wanted him gone."

Al retorts, "Because Dad has been holding her at arm's length the entire time they've been together, and you know it. Who did he bring with him to hunt the Horcruxes? Who did he want working in Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry with him? Who does he try to spend every free moment he has with? Because it sure as hell isn't Mum."

"For the record," interjects Rosie, "my mum transferred from creatures to law enforcement totally on her own steam. She didn't need Uncle Harry or anybody else to do her any favors." She looks pissed, which is interesting because Rosie—I've seen her depressed, sullen, and frustrated, but I've never seen her direct anger directly at another person like that. "My mum and dad aren't the ones responsible for screwing up your parents' marriage."

"No, they're not," James agrees. "But neither is Dad."

There's a big pause where James and Al stare each other down, and then Molly says carefully, "Would anyone like a dinner roll to go with their roast?"

x

I don't bring up the whole sordid mess again for the rest of dinner—nobody needs that shit—but when we're back in the castle, walking in step back to our common room, I tell Al, "You know, whatever you think of your dad, you're not a disappointment to him. Any Gryffindors giving you shit about being a Slytherin need to shut their goddamn mouths. And I don't care if you want to be besties with Scorpius Malfoy as long as he's a good guy."

After a pause, Al says, "He's a good guy."

"Well, then, that's settled."

He lets out a big sigh. "Thanks, Lucy."

"I know the Weasleys cousins aren't easy," I add. "Believe me, I know. But I'm not one of them. I'm on your side. You're not doing yourself any favors when you push me away."

"But you are one of them," says Al. "You're going home to hang out with Weasleys every weekend, aren't you?"

"There's a big difference between Weasley cousins and Weasley adults," I point out. "If I were expecting the cousins to get me through this? For Molly to get me through this?"

"So you admit it, then—that your mum killing herself has got you messed up."

It's my turn to sigh. "Maybe I am, Albus Sev—well—Al."

"'Al' is much less of a mouthful, you have to admit," he says all too casually, and I grin at him. "Look, Lucy, I'm really sorry about your mum. I know she was… I know. But still."

I look away. "I don't want to talk about it."

"I know," says Al. "I know."

x

Hogsmeade with McLaggen goes surprisingly not horribly. We bum around Zonko's for a while, then Honeydukes, then Dervish and Banges, and while grabbing lunch at The Three Broomsticks, we run into Louie and some of his Hufflepuff friends. They're surprisingly not assholes to us, although it's not like quiet, laidback, roll-with-the-current Louie would probably say much to dissuade them if they were acting like assholes to us. Either way, I leave the bar an hour later with McLaggen feeling full and relatively happy, as these things go.

We go back to the castle after that, but we don't split up—McLaggen brings me up to his dorm. It's empty, obviously, as everybody else is probably still in Hogsmeade. He steals one of his roommates' chess set so we can play a few games, but three humiliating losses (for him) later, he puts it back, and we end up sitting there just staring at each other for a long moment.

This is it, I tell myself. This is the part where we do the do again. But right before I'm about to make to lean in and kiss him, McLaggen says, "You haven't talked about your mum since you told me she—passed away."

I roll my eyes. This isn't what I was expecting, and quite frankly, it's a lot less pleasant than the alternative. "She killed herself. You can say it."

"Fine. Since you told me she killed herself. I'm—uh—I've been worried."

"You're worried. My dad's worried. Everyone's worried, but I'm fine. See?" I'm starting to breathe a little faster. "I'm not falling behind in school. I'm not isolating myself from my friends. I'm even spending extra time with family so that I can expand my support network."

"It's not really a support network if you're not letting anybody in the network do any supporting, is it? From what I can see, you're not talking about it."

"I don't need to talk about it because I'm fine. I'm not talking about it because I'm fine."

"You're not fine," McLaggen insists. "I see your eyes sometimes, and… you're not fine."

"That's your proof? You see my eyes?"

"I see your eyes," he says firmly. "I know."

"How do you know I'm not talking to other people about it anyway, huh?"

"Because if you were talking to people, I wouldn't still be hearing radio silence from you about it."

"And who says I tell you anything? Who says you're one of my people?"

I can tell immediately that I've crossed a line. Something hardens in McLaggen's face as he says, "Really, Weasley? You're gonna go there?"

"C.J.—"

"Don't even," he says with disgust. "Just go. Go on."

So I go—out of McLaggen's dormitory and into my own, packing up one bag with schoolbooks and the other with clothes. By the time I carry a pouch of Floo powder down to the fire, throw it in, and call out Dad's address, my heart is still pounding.