A/N: I do not own anything you recognize.

YES! There is a third chapter! I planned on adding a chapter each Friday, though that may change…

This chapter goes out to my reviewer Avanell. Thanks so much!

Chapter 3: Coping and Healing

The Weasley family had taken their share of beating from the war. Now that it was over, now that they didn't have to spend every waking moment fearing for each other, life had a suspended sense of unreality about it. Things were not all better, and no one had expected them to be. George still drank himself to sleep each time he woke. Percy and Bill were both beginning to suspect that he was getting illegal substances from filthy Dung Fletcher, too, though Bill was as yet unable to prove that. Ginny had taken Hermione's lead and buried herself in her books, spending hours in her room alone, not studying on her NEWTs as much as she was studying on how to cope. Ron, Charlie, Bill, and Father were pulling many extra hours helping pull together the shattered fragments of a weakened government, helping track down escaped Death Eaters and remove the stain their influence had left on the world.

This month, this July, he almost missed the nights he had spent all alone in his flat last year. Not truly, but a little. It was easier to imagine his family all having a grand old time together than to know for certain that they were dying inside separately. Their days were long and separated, frazzling hours spent on their wrecked existences. And at night they'd either curl up and cry alone, or curl up and cry together.

At least, Percy hoped he wasn't the only one who still cried and had nightmares at night. He certainly didn't let anyone know that.

He'd been back with the family for over two months now, and he still had no one to talk to. He still sat lonely each night.

Percy pulled himself out of his reverie as he looked at the familiar ramshackle house. He was here, he'd best go see what was about.

Gnomes scampered from the corners of his eyes as he approached the door. Tugging it open, he stepped inside and made his way to the kitchen.

George was sitting at the table, his eyes nearly clear for once, his hands around a glass of pumpkin juice. Bill sat on one side of him, scowling jointly at a chessboard in front of him, and at Ron, across from him. Charlie and Ginny were up helping with dinner, Potter was sitting with George, and of course Hermione was sitting in a corner with Father. Talking about toasters, most likely.

Percy crossed the room to lean over Ron's shoulder and study the chessboard. As usual, Ron had Bill beat already. Percy punched his shoulder lightly, and could feel his brother's smugness. Bill glowered at the pair of them.

"Shove off, Glasses. And no helping."

"It would appear to me that Ron doesn't need my help." Percy replied.

"Percy?" His mother emerged from the pantry. "Ginny, set the table. Hello, dear."

"Hello, Mother." He let her hug him tightly before stepping back. "I hope you don't mind me. I didn't think we'd all be here." He glanced about.

"No, no, not at all." She waved him off before moving to the final dinner preparations. "Charlie, forks on the other side."

Charlie studied the place settings critically before shrugging and simply leaving the utensils in a pile for everyone else to pick out. The family moved about the table.

"Say, Bill, where's the wife?"

"Spending the day with Gabrielle." Bill replied dolefully. "Apparently I'm little fun at Madame Malkin's."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Salt, please, George."

The conversation rolled on, and as usual Percy contributed little to it. No one was talking about just one thing, everyone was involved. It had always been that way, but still the room felt stiff and stilted. God, who had known that Fred contributed quite so much? Just looking over at George made Percy look down at his plate and bite his lip, stomach twisting. The FredandGeorge act he'd always hated was all gone now. One of the two faces was gone and the other was dull, bleary, no longer wearing a perpetual insolent grin.

He rubbed his eyebrow absentmindedly, trying hard not to think of the last time he'd seen that grin...on Fred's face...the ceiling was falling in, and they were dragging him away, down the hall, and he was a dead weight, but they couldn't leave him, and God, why wouldn't Ron just hush and help them out here, and if he ever saw that bastard Death Eater again, so help him he'd curse him into infinite hell-

"Glasses!"

Percy snapped up. "Mm?"

"Potatoes?"

"Er...no thanks." Percy rubbed his eyebrow yet again, and Bill raised his own. "Work stressful lately, eh?"

Percy tried to shrug. "You know. Nothing like a little unsolved murder, a few muggle-killings, a bit of avada kedavra to spice up the workplace."

The table fell silent abruptly and Percy cursed himself. He should not have come. He was a perpetual killjoy in a family of fun-lovers. They were trying to heal, trying to move on. He was just trying to cope. Healing was something he hadn't even considered. He didn't want to. He thrived on the hate that made him able to do his job. He'd never been an emotional person, but once he tasted hate, he'd become strangely addicted.

"Sorry." He muttered. "I'm just tired."

"Morbid." Charlie said. "Stop trying to make jokes, Perce, you're still too new at it." He was attempting to lighten the mood a bit, and Percy managed to turn the corners of his mouth up in a pretend-smile.

"Still morbid." Charlie told him. "Just don't smile at all, it suits you better."

Percy glared at him and reached for the potatoes for something to do. His mother was talking about knitting with Hermione, and he pretended to be deeply interested so he wouldn't have to face his brother's looks. He honestly didn't feel comfortable looking at Bill's face anymore, anyways, what with half of it gone and all.

After dinner, the family scattered. Ron asked him to a chess match, which he declined mostly because he knew that Ron was already better at it than he was. He ended up stuck with Charlie, sitting on the porch. They'd gone outside into the thickening dark to drink their butterbeer, mostly so that George wouldn't see them drinking and get any ideas.

Charlie sipped thoughtfully from his butterbeer. Percy wasn't the only one who had learned a lot about relationships over the course of the war. Charlie had finally figured out how to hold a conversation with a human, and a serious one at that. With Bill busy with work and a wife, Charlie had been forced to step in and play big brother in a way he never had before. Percy had thought he'd enjoy showing Charlie how to take responsibility at last.

He hadn't enjoyed it a bit.

"So." Charlie began. "I usually don't ask about your work because...well."

"No cauldron bottoms." Percy muttered. "I don't think anyone cares about stuff like that anymore."

"Good." Charlie sounded relieved. "Then, how is it?"

Percy rubbed his neck as Bill stepped out with a bottle of his own and plopped down on Percy's other side. How splendidly copacetic. Now he was trapped.

"Just gets old, I suppose." He admitted. "I can't wait until we're all done with the post-war mess and I can get back to writing reports about fertiliser samples." He was fairly certain his brothers both thought he was being a sissy again. After all, they were Order. They did cloak-and-dagger rot for a living.

Silence fell, reassuring him that his brothers did think he was a sissy. He sipped from his butterbeer, wishing Hermione would come out so he could stop thinking about work and talk about nonverbal legilimency or the properties of wolfsbane or something equally nerdy.

"Just a little longer, Perce." Bill said quietly. "No one is slacking off on this. The harder we work, the quicker we can get things back to the way they were, but..." He glanced over at his bespectacled brother. "I don't think anyone expects you to kill yourself trying to get there."

"I'm not-"

"Yes, you are. You're skinnier than usual (which is saying something), you talk less than you ever did (which is saying something a lot more), you're rubbing that right eyebrow there to where it's nearly coming off, and you clearly aren't sleeping enough. You've got those huge enormous circles under your eyes, and don't say they don't show, because they do. Merlin alive, you look like some sort of sick inferi in a new set of dress robes."

"With ugly glasses." Charlie added.

"That, too."

Percy glanced at Charlie, annoyed and aware that the effect of his glare was lost because of said glasses. "I'm working no harder than anyone else."

"Then what was bothering you so much at dinner?"

"I just-you know, everything."

"How eloquent of you."

"Bill!"

"Percy?"

Percy sighed and rubbed his eyebrow again. "It's all the things we have to do to get it all fixed." He said finally. "It seemed like just last year-I mean, in '96, everything was just fine and the Ministry was running splendidly. And now it's '98 and all hell's broken loose, and how on earth or hell or whatever's in between did that happen so fast, and furthermore, why does it seem we're not making any progress?"

"You ought to know." Bill said. "You're the one who's an absolute sucks at Quidditch."

"What?"

"It's a lot easier to fall down than it is to go up, Perce. And it's a lot faster, too." Bill reminded him.

Charlie snorted. "Very original analogy there, Bill."

"Shut up." Bill waited for Percy to respond, and when he didn't, the elder brother simply shrugged. "The worst is over. People-at least, good people-aren't dying anymore, eh?"

"No." Percy said. "They're not dying anymore. But I still have to look at them now they're dead."

As long as he had to spend his waking hours looking into a dead man's eyes, as long as he had to spend his sleeping hours looking into Fred's empty grin, he knew he wasn't going to start healing. Coping was one thing. Healing was another.

Audrey curled up on her bed, stared out the open curtains. She and Mum had talked for hours, on and on about the case. Recalled every detail. She could still feel that wonderful thrill she'd felt when she'd answered her phone and been asked to meet with a Mr. Weezly regarding her father's case.

P. Weasley wasn't quite the investigator she'd expected, but at least he was...

Thorough. That was what her mother had said. "At least he's thorough." She'd looked perplexed as they'd discussed the questions about religion and beliefs.

He didn't exactly ooze concern. He was just like a lot of policemen she'd talked to. Focused on his job, focused on his work. The people were hardly more than circumstantial pieces in a puzzle they'd be willing to stick together any which way to make it fit and get it off their desk. Hurry and solve this case so you can hurry and solve the next one. Hurry, hurry, hurry. The next murder is always the most important, the next meeting the most urgent...

Audrey punched her pillow and rolled over.

Please, please, please, God, I know I haven't been real great with you lately, but please, please, please, I want who did this to suffer. Didn't you say an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Isn't the penalty for killing to be killed oneself? Isn't that in the Bible? Then please, step in when mortal men fail, and catch this man. Send me a miracle, and don't let him walk away. The government isn't working as it ought. Step in yourself and right what's wrong...

She stared into the dark, not at all sure that God was hearing her prayers. She had sworn and cursed at him last year when they had found her father dead. She had trusted him to see that the man responsible was caught. Instead he gave her men in suits and ties who told her it was a heart attack, when it was perfectly plain that it was not. She knew there was no proof of murder, that heart failure was feasible, but yet that didn't answer all the questions. So she'd sworn some more and had to admit that man had failed, yet again. Had to admit that the only way justice would come was by God. Because humans were flawed, wretched beings who did hurtful things and never made it right.

Please, she thought. Please, bring justice. If this is the miracle I've been waiting for since August, please let it come to pass.

Her mind traced over one of her newest, most favorite verses in the Bible.

"The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they bathe their feet with the blood of the wicked. Then men will say, surely the righteous are still rewarded; surely there is a God who judges the earth."

She sat up. There was no way she was getting to sleep tonight. Not as long as she savored her hate. Not as long as she dreamed of personally murdering whoever had killed her father.

Why couldn't she be calm, complacent, content, like her mother? Why couldn't she be whole? She wasn't even close to the healing her mother had. She was only making it by now, because she had no choice but to cope.

Coping was one thing. Healing was another.