Favours
Ron's eyelids fluttered open and he squinted in the bright morning light that shone through his bedroom window. Rubbing his eyes, he sat up and let out his usual morning groan before turning to look across to Harry's bed to see if he was up.
Hermione was there.
Hermione was in Harry's bed, Harry was on the floor beside it, Charlie was sleeping sitting up in a chair in the corner and an Extendable Ear trailed along the bedroom floor and out the door. Ron blinked, shook his head and then looked again. It was all the same, the room really was full and there really was an eavesdropping device of his brothers' flopped out in the middle of the room.
Ron drew in a deep breath and rubbed his face roughly and tried to think back. He wondered if he'd had another seizure or something. Then it came back to him, his little flip out and his grizzling fit on his mother's shoulder. He'd gone to sleep in his parents' bed. Ron pushed back the covers and swung his legs down from the edge of the bed to set down on the warped floorboards.
He trod softly across the floor, following the thin pink snake of the Extendable Ear, crept through the open door and down the landing towards the stairs. He tiptoed down them, cringing at every creak and groan the old wood made as he went, until he reached the point where the Extendable Ear turned a corner and led him back to his mum and dad's room.
Frowning, Ron leaned in to see the shapeless lump that was his father sleeping heavily.
"You're up, Ronnie!" his mother said, making him jump and have to force his startled yelp back down his throat painfully. "I'm usually the early bird around here you know?"
"Mum?" Ron asked, wondering how long it had been since he had fallen asleep in her bed, in her arms.
"We did what we always used to do, sweetheart," she smiled and approached him slowly, lightly rubbing up and down his arm and her warm old eyes twinkling at him lovingly. "You would sleep in our bed, all squashed up into my side like a baby koala clinging to its mummy, and then when you were dead to the world your father would carry you back up to your bed so you could pretend it hadn't really happened when you woke up in the morning."
Ron's eyes bulged so much he feared he might have strained them.
"Dad didn't carry me last night, did he? Bloody hell, Mum, have you checked he's still alive?"
The tired looking woman chuckled and pulled Ron towards her for a loose hug of reassurance before moving her hand around to rub against his back as the two of them headed downstairs while they talked.
"We levitated you at first but you didn't seem to like that, you got a little restless, so I held you and Arthur levitated the both of us up the stairs to your room."
Ron was stunned at the trouble they'd gone to and then smiled at the image now in his head.
"So I really was a pain to sleep with eh? Sorry."
"Not at all," his mum said kindly, "you just...well there didn't used to be quite the arms and legs problem when you were little, Ronnie."
Ron chortled.
"Yeah, they did get a bit out of control didn't they?" he said as he waved his long arms before him for emphasis.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, they paused and Ron's mother reached up to him to push his sticky up hair flat with little success.
"You look like a red-haired Harry in the mornings, did anyone ever tell you that?" she said wistfully before letting her hand slide down to cup his face.
"No, you're the first," Ron grinned before frowning thoughtfully and glancing up at the ceiling. "Hey, Mum, why are two extra people sleeping in my room and what's with the Extendable Ear?"
"Well, I wanted to make sure you were still sleeping well after we left you in your bed and Hermione felt guilty about rejecting you, so she st-"
"She didn't reject me!" Ron blurted. "It was my fault, I got all...me in the head about it and I was an arse."
"Well, I'm not going to argue with you about that, Ronnie," she said, looking more like her typical mothering self the more this conversation went on. "I really don't think it's appropriate for either of your reputations for her to be openly sleeping with you of a night."
"You'd rather she did it in secret?" Ron's mouth curled up into a mischievous grin.
"You know what I mean, Ronald Weasley," she huffed before taking his hand and dragging him along behind her as she made her way to the kitchen. "And Charlie was worried you might be disoriented waking up back in your bed when you fell asleep in mine."
"Fantastic job he did of reassuring me there." Ron nodded. "I must remember to thank him."
His mother laughed and Ron dropped himself down into a chair while she made them some tea and crumpets.
"He just needs to make sure you don't torment yourself, I think," she said as she kept herself busy, her back to him. "He's seen you at your strongest and your weakest and he hates to see you ignore your strengths and dwell on your weaknesses. He wants to be here to remind you of who you are and what you can do."
"So, who am I and what is that, then?" Ron asked, unsure he wanted the answer to that.
His mother turned around to smile at him over her shoulder.
"You are nobody's plaything and you can be a master of whatever you choose."
Tommy sat and stared at the empty space where his father's piano had been and sighed.
"Tommy?" his mum called as she walked back into the living room from the kitchen to lean in at the open door. "What was that big weary sigh for love?"
Tommy looked back down at the contents of the trunk Lee had donated and ticked things off the list he held in his hand.
"Just finishing up with the little Callahan's school trunk. I'll shrink it down and owl it over to Hogwarts ready for the start of term."
"Are they expecting a shrunken trunk from you, then?" she asked, looking puzzled.
Tommy laughed and slumped back in his seat.
"I wrote to Professor McGonagall and explained to her what we were doing. She's going to store the trunks until they arrive and the youngest gets sorted into his house and then send them up to their rooms."
"You only have one trunk." Tommy's mum frowned down at the old wooden box with chipping varnish.
"I've shrunk one down already and Patrick gave his old one to his sister. The Weasleys have donated heaps of stuff and all the kids have everything covered now."
He turned his head to look up at his mother and she sat down beside him and took his hand with both hers.
"I think you've done wonders, Tommy. You've delivered on your promise to Cally with interest."
Tommy shrugged.
"Well, he saved my life and then kept me alive. I'd have died before I even knew I was taken prisoner if he hadn't been treating me."
"You've done a fine job of looking after those children," his mum said proudly, "and you've been magnificent taking care of your friends. You're giving Fergus a focus other than drink, you've helped Lee loosen his hold on Ron and as for Ron..."
"There's nothing anyone can do to help Ron," Tommy said with a firm shake of the head. "Ron needs to remember that the strong bloke who led by example and kept everybody's heads up isn't only there during the bad times."
"And I'm sure you've been doing all you can to remind him, love."
Tommy didn't have a response to that; he wasn't sure if he'd done too little or if he'd done anything of any good at all. He sighed and gazed back at the empty space his father's piano had left behind.
"What are you going to put there now?" he asked distantly.
"Well, I was thinking about getting one of those big fireplaces you can step into and connecting it to the Floo network thingymagig so I can pop over to Molly and Marie's places for a chat. You don't have to be magic to get it to work do you, Tommy?"
Tommy looked back at his mother and grinned.
"You are magic, Mum, and I think that'd be brilliant! I like your friends!"
Moody skewered another piece of processed paperwork on the large spike sticking out of the corner of his desk and his magical eye watched Ron step out of the lift and glance from side to side nervously before taking a deep breath and making his way along the corridor towards the old Auror's office.
Moody lifted his good leg and pushed out the chair opposite him, ready for the young Weasley's arrival. Just as the lad was about to knock on the open door, Moody waved at the chair as he tidied away the rest of the paperwork.
"Take a seat, Weasley."
"Oh, er...right." Ron said, slightly startled by the greeting.
"What can I do for you, boy? Did you have some memories left over you wanted me to destroy for you?"
"No," Ron shook his head and shifted uncomfortably in the chair, "no, I needed to talk to you about...wel,l you were in charge of all the arrests in Venlo, weren't you, sir?"
Moody fixed both his eyes on Ron and nodded.
"That I was."
Again, the discontent redhead squirmed in his seat. He took a slow breath in and out and his eyes flicked up to the ceiling as he thought about how to word what he needed to say.
"Take your time, boy, I'm not going anywhere," Moody said kindly.
Ron looked back at the Auror and smiled gratefully before that expression of constant worry crept back onto his face. The lad fussed with his hands for a moment before opening his mouth and stalling immediately.
"D'you-you-y-y..." Ron growled and his head dropped again, shoulders falling with it.
"It's alright, Weasley," Moody said as he pulled his chair right in towards the desk and leaned over it to speak in a confidential tone to the anxious wizard, "there's no hurry."
Ron took another deep breath in and closed his eyes. For the briefest of moments Moody could have sworn the boy was humming to himself. It was so quiet but it was definitely there. The tension seemed to seep away from the young wizard's body, just a little bit, and the emotive blue eyes lifted and fixed Moody's gaze once more.
"D'you remember the names of the Death Eaters you arrested?" Ron said hastily.
"I have all their names," Moody said, his magical eye rolling to look over his shoulder at the filing cabinet behind him while the other considered Ron carefully. "I remember most of their details from the sentencing. Why?"
Ron pressed his lips together for a moment and swallowed before clearing his throat and answering the Auror's question.
"So you can tell me wh-who...the name of...Y-you know which one is..."
"We never found out the Puppet Master's real name, Weasley," Moody said, darkly. "I'm sorry."
Ron's eyebrows scrunched together and he shook his head emphatically.
"Not him." The redheaded wizard fumbled in his back pocket for a scrap of paper and unfolded it to read a name. "Erbarmen, which one was ca-called Erbamen?"
"Erbarmen," Moody said with distaste as he sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his barrel of a chest, "is the one who's been writing to you."
Ron huffed and leaned further over the desk with impatience.
"I know that! Which one is he?"
Moody looked at Ron with concern.
"He's an insignificant little lackey and he's locked up where he can't do any more damage, Weasley." The Auror paused to try and grasp exactly what Ron wanted to know and why. "I am doing my level best to get those letters stopped and then you can forget he ever existed."
"Oh, can I?" Ron scoffed. "That's nice of you!"
"Weasley," Moody began, wondering if he was the right person to be talking to the lad about all this. "Erbarmen is trying to manipulate you and I don't know a single person who cares about you who will think this is a good idea."
"Which. One. Was he?" Ron said fiercely.
Moody actually flinched and reached for a scrap of paper beside him. He scribbled on it with a quill and hastily folded it into a paper plane.
"Maybe Tonks would be the better person to talk to y-"
"It's in there, right?" Ron said as he got to his feet and pointed to the filing cabinet behind Moody. "He's got a file in there with his picture, yeah?"
Ron set off around the side of the desk and instinctively Moody grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him backwards and back into his chair. Ron was pale and his breathing was shallow but his eyes remained determined as ever and he set his jaw with defiance as he glared at the older man.
"You're not authorised to g-"
"Get off me," Ron warned darkly.
"If you promise me you'll stay seated," Moody said, wishing with everything he had that somebody better equipped to deal with emotional people were to show up at that moment.
"Get your hands off me, now!" Ron demanded.
"Will you stay calm?" Moody asked.
"If you let go," Ron snarled furiously.
Moody released him and took a step back. He watched Ron warily but the boy remained in his seat, still white with fury.
"Don't be like this, Ron," Moody said, almost bargaining with him. "Nobody wants you to have another seizure."
Ron blinked and seemed to be shaken out of his indignant rage for a moment. Moody guessed the troubled wizard had just realised that he'd held himself together despite forced physical contact and was slightly taken aback.
"Um... Erbarmen," Ron said with a shake of his head to clear the mass of thoughts, "which one is he?"
"From you testimonies and from what I saw in the Pensieve memories submitted to the trial," Moody began with great reluctance, "I can tell you exactly who he is to you, Weasley."
"Go on," Ron nodded.
"You used to call him Skunk-Head."
"There you go, Professor," Tommy said as he spaced the small trunks out on the floor before Minerva McGonagall., "ready for you to enlarge them again."
It was quite clever, actually. Witches and wizards had been trying to come up with a way to shrink a travelling trunk and its contents for easy portability but all they ended up with was a tiny wooden box that they couldn't lift because it weighed more than the moon! There had been charms that reduced the size of the trunk perfectly, but crushed everything carried inside, and a spell that made the trunk work like a vanishing cabinet that only led to possessions showing up in other people's trunks by mistake. Finally, Professor McGonagall had come up with the best way to do it.
She flicked her wand at the trunks and engorged them. The trunks swelled and soon they were all back to normal, their contents intact. It confused Tommy to think about it but McGonagall had said it was all about thinking logically, something most witches and wizards didn't do, and that you could return something that should be small to it's normal state without damaging it or anything placed inside it. All she needed to do was think up a spell to make the trunks think they were supposed to be small and then, once packed, a flick of the wand would make the trunk return to its proper size of a thimble.
The spell that was cast on trunk and contents was the spell to make things bigger and possessions were in no danger of being crushed that way. The weight of the load was also kept in proportion.
Tommy still didn't quite understand it but he knew that he had to cast the spell on the empty trunks, pack them as usual, and then cast a simple Finite Incantatem to reduce everything.
"Before you go, Mr Painter," the thin-lipped witch called to him as he made his way towards the fireplace, "there was a small favour I had to ask of you."
"Oh yeah?" Tommy frowned before remembering who he was talking to and ducking his head as if he'd been scolded by his mother. "I mean...yes Professor McGonagall?"
The woman smiled a little and gestured to the chair on the other side of her desk.
"Please, sit."
Tommy pulled out the chair as McGonagall did the same opposite him. They got comfortable and Tommy wondered what to do with his hands while the Headmistress of Hogwarts adjusted her spectacles on the end of her nose and pulled a sheet of parchment towards her from across the desk.
"Your organisational skills have been impressive, Mr Painter. You were able to assist the Callahan family discreetly, without offending the breadwinner or making the assistance appear to be a charitable donation, and with very little time available."
"Well, not really," Tommy shrugged, "I mean most of this stuff came from everyone else."
"I'm not just talking about the acquisition of the donations, Thomas, may I call you Thomas?" McGonagall asked with a warmth Tommy hadn't expected from her.
"Tommy, please."
"Tommy," the professor said, stiffening with the informality that comes along with shortening first names, "the thing is, I believe you have a great aptitude for organisation, mediation and communication."
"The three 'ations,' eh?" Tommy joked and immediately wished he hadn't.
"Indeed," McGonagall said clearing her throat. "My point being this, we have gone through a lot of changes here during the war and now we have even more students with no financial means to support their education. Our fund is used before the school year has begun and...well, come Christmas..."
"You've got a lot of orphans staying for Christmas?" Tommy frowned.
She nodded.
"You have a wonderful skill for creating opportunities and solving problems. I don't know if you had a career in mind Mr...Tommy, but if not, I hope you would consider coming on board here at Hogwarts as our family services and youth support administrator."
Tommy's eyes widened and his mouth fell open.
"Hallo, Mr Erbarmen."
"Firebrand!" the Death Eater gasped.
Ron flinched a little but stepped into Skunk Head's cell. The guard slammed the door behind him and Ron jumped and looked over his shoulder.
"I won't lock it, Mr Weasley," the guard said coolly, "but it has to be closed for security reasons."
"Th-That's okay," Ron nodded, body tense at being locked up in a dank little cell once again, and turned back to address the Death Eater as he sat crumpled into a corner on the floor. "Don't call me that."
"Het spijt me."
"And I kn-kno-know you can sp-speak English so do it!"
"You seem to be having trouble speaking yourself, Weasley," the Death Eater noted whimsically.
"Praat er niet om heen, zeg wat je wil!" Ron spat angrily.
"You speak well in Dutch, young Weasley," the Skunk Head said with an approving nod. "Maybe your stutter is telling you that you are really one of us?"
"I am not like you!" Ron said sternly.
"One of the Dutch," the Skunk Head smirked.
"Zeg me gewoon wat je wil, eikel!" Ron demanded.
"I want what only you can give me, young Weasley," the Death Eater said casually and shrugged. "I gave you a chance, do you remember?"
"I remember you didn't kill me when I had my hands t-tied behind my back...very big of you, well done."
"I let you go when I was ordered to kill you. I gave you the chance for freedom."
"After you watched me get tortured and felt up and fed human f-f-flesh!" Ron yelled furiously.
"I stopped the..." the Death Eater scrunched up his face for a moment before reverting back to his native tongue, "Ik heb hem tegengehouden voor hij je misbruikte! I made up an attack to interrupt. Don't you remember that?"
"I remember you turning away!" Ron snapped, "Walking away because you didn't want to watch."
"I stopped him!" The Death Eater bellowed.
"Not for me, you didn't!" Ron roared.
The man got up and took a step towards Ron. The angry young wizard raised his wand at the shabbily dressed man with the shock of white hair and he froze on the spot.
"I do not believe in the slaughter of purebloods," the man said, looking very unsteady on his feet. "I do not believe in rape and cannibalism. I d-"
"You just believe in slaughtering Muggles," Ron said with cold detachment. "You believe that half-breeds should be culled. You believe in slavery and you would murder most of my friends for being abominations...you'd murder my sister-in-law."
"I have beliefs I was brought up with just as you h-"
"Mummy and Daddy's fault, is it?" Ron laughed bitterly. "I'm an arsehole but you can't blame me? They didn't bring you up to think for yourself or develop your own opinion on anything? That's a pitiful excuse and you know it!" Ron said as he shoved his wand away again and paced the small cell.
"You were a great warrior, Weasley," the Death Eater said after some time watching him. "I saw many a hardened Auror break under much less. You still stand before me now...stronger than everyone."
Ron cast a sideways scowl at the man.
"Don't you compliment me."
The Death Eater shivered and leaned heavily against the wall, still watching Ron pace, and spoke in a slightly smug way. He knew something of the outside world, no doubt from his representative, Mr Eves, and was preparing to us it against him.
"I hear you are not so strong around people you trust."
Ron stopped pacing and glared at Skunk-Head.
"What?"
"I find it strange how you can be so strong in those cells, in the face of death and torture and...other indignities, and now you face me and you are the same. You are a leader. You are a warrior. You are a man, a force to be reckoned with."
"I'm not anything," Ron snarled. "I'm just more than you lot gave me credit for."
"So why are you falling apart in the real world, Weasley?" the Death Eater smirked. "Bairstow tells me you were back in St Mungo's with convulsive fits of terror because a man tried to urinate beside you. Where was your power then, boy?"
Ron turned around and banged on the cell door.
"Open up! I'm done with him."
"Wait!" the Death Eater said urgently.
"Why?" Ron asked as he scowled over his shoulder and the now panic stricken man.
"I have yet to ask you to do me...a favour?"
Ron snorted bitterly.
"Sod off!"
The cell door opened and Ron was about to step out when Skunk Head ran forward. The guard had his wand ready and froze him on the spot as if the Death Eater had just fallen into a thick glue that was impossible to walk through.
"I need you to request of the Minister for Magic..."
"Rot in your own filth, you fucking bastard!" Ron hissed. "You were happy enough to let that happen to me."
"Ask him to execute me!" the Death Eater yelled desperately.
Ron stopped dead and swallowed. He was looking at the guard's chest blankly and trying to comprehend what he'd just been asked to do.
"They will not murder in the name of justice unless one of the victims request it."
"S-So ask one of the others," Ron croaked, throat dry as sand.
"We both know you are my victim, Weasley. I disapproved but I still did nothing. I turned my back, every time I saw something that sickened me...I turned my back and let it go on."
"Kill yourself if you want to die," Ron said shakily, still with his back to the Death Eater.
"If only I had the means to," the man laughed sadly. "You must ask the Minister to execute me. It will put us both out of our misery, no?"
Ron didn't say anything.
"I turned my back that last time so you could run...so you could live. I allowed you to escape, boy," Skunk Head said with a tremulous anger in his voice. "I am asking you to release me...give me my escape from this place."
"Make me as ba-bad as you, y'mean?" Ron said raggedly. "Make me a killer, too."
"You already are."
A/N Obviously many thanks are due to the wonderful Maaike for help with the Dutch.