The Burrow - May 5th, 1998
Percy sat up in his room. Tears were streaking down his face, just as they had been for the past few days. Fred was gone, Fred was gone. It was all his fault. If he'd never left, if he hadn't shown up then, if he'd done something about it… All of the opportunities he'd had to save Fred, and he hadn't. He'd failed.
Percy sat up in his room, oblivious to the fact that his girlfriend had just emerged from his fireplace.
"Oh my goodness," she said when she stepped out. She took several deep breaths and steadied herself on the couch, unaware of the other people in the room. She had just transported from one fireplace to another.
Bill stepped out from behind her. "Great, you made it!" he exclaimed. He seemed to have recovered slightly.
Or maybe it's just because his mother was sitting, sniffling, on the chair on the other side of the room. In her arms she held a sweater with the letter F on it.
"Mum," he said, greeting her. "This is Audrey, Percy's girlfriend."
Mrs. Weasley barely even acknowledged that he'd spoken.
Bill turned away from her, eyes full of sorrow. This was not how his mother was supposed to react to meeting one of his son's girlfriends. Bill looked around the room. Harry and Ginny sat on the step right outside of the door, but judging from the way they leaned into each other and whispered in each other's ears, they didn't want to be bothered at the moment. Bill couldn't find anyway else to introduce Audrey to, so he led her upstairs. As they walked, he told her who Ginny and Harry were.
Audrey loved the Burrow once she'd adjusted to the method of transportation they'd taken to get there. It was small and it was messy, but it was so homey. There were pictures everywhere of a group of gingers – and the pictures were moving!
Audrey tried not to concentrate on those little magical things that stuck out about the house. Her goal today was not to learn about magic – it was to comfort Percy.
Bill led her up the rickety steps, higher and higher.
They ran into a bushy brown-haired girl as they went up the stairs. She held a tray with a couple of plates on it and there was a determined frown on her face.
"None of them will eat, Bill," she announced.
"Charlie?"
"No."
"Percy?"
She shook her head.
"George?"
The girl just sighed.
"Ron's eating, right?"
A blush and a smirk appeared on her face. "Only because I'm feeding him. And Ginny and Harry are slowly forcing each other to recover. Honestly, I expected Harry to have the longest recovery rate, seeing as he went through so much but… he's doing pretty well. He won't be the same for a long time, obviously…" The girl trailed off as she spotted Audrey. "Oh, hello. You are…?"
"This is Audrey, Percy's girlfriend," Bill told her.
"Oh, hello. I'm Hermione, Percy's brother Ron's friend."
Bill chuckled. "I'd say you're a little more than friends," he said with a wink.
Hermione blushed again and she passed them with a smile at Audrey.
Audrey and Bill walked up one more flight of stairs before they reached a door. "This is Percy's room," Bill whispered to her before knocking.
"I don't want any food," Percy called.
His words hit Audrey like a bullet. The haughtiness that his voice usually held had been replaced by pure, pure pain and grief.
She pushed past Bill and opened the door. "I'm not here to bring you food," she announced once she was in his room.
Percy looked up at her in shock.
His eyes were rimmed with red, his shirt was soaked, he was curled up into a ball against his back wall, but Audrey barely noticed any of that as she went straight up to him and wrapped her arms around him.
Percy shook and sobbed in her arms for hours. "It's okay," she insisted. "I'm here. You're going to be okay."
"But Fred…"
"It wasn't your fault," Audrey said, as she started to cry too. "Everything's going to be okay."
He didn't argue. He just cried and cried until the tears were gone.
Just one more chapter!