Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor do make money.

046. Passing

"I'm sorry but I'm telling him."

"Telling me what?" Ron asked, his eyes passing from Pansy to Charlie and back again; trying to figure out why she looked so desperate and Charlie looked so defeated. And how the hell they would share a secret when they only just met? With a dawning realization, he growled, "Again? You have withheld something important from me again? When are you just going to trust me? What do I have to do to get you to trust me? Please tell me."

"This isn't about you, you know," Charlie snapped, stopping Ron from continuing on his rant. Ron just stared at his brother. Of all of them Charlie had always been the laid-back one, the one who never got mad – well, except maybe at Bill from time to time – but Ron couldn't remember Charlie ever snapping at him.

"Then what am I missing?" Ron's frustration was mounting. "Draco and Theo know about this too don't they?"

"Yes and no," Pansy whispered. "I think Theo knows more than Draco but we don't talk about it; so I don't know what their fathers' told them."

"Okay, why would Theo know?"

"Besides being my childhood sweetheart, I was betrothed to him."

"What changed?"

"I killed my brother."

Ron just stared at Pansy not sure if she really said what he thought he heard her say.

After a few minutes, he decided he heard wrong and asked, "What about Draco?"

"Afterwards, the contract was dissolved and I was betrothed to Draco."

"After what?"

Pansy just looked at him dumbfounded while saying, "After I killed my brother Ron."

"You had a brother?"

"I had two actually."

"And exactly how do you come into this?" Ron turned his attention to his brother.

"Because I was there the night she killed her brother. She killed him to save me about nine years ago. She's Finny Parkinson's little sister."

Ron deflated at this announcement, his eyes moving from Pansy to Charlie and back again. His hands running through his hair, over and over; sometimes stopping to grab it and slightly yank. His feet started to move as he began to pace from one side of the room to the other. His body in overdrive to compensate for the emptiness of his mind; trying to take in just exactly what his brother and his girlfriend just told him.

"Ron," Pansy started quietly. "Please understand my brother Callum wasn't a nice person. My parents were probably the only people in this world who actually liked him; Theo's family were the only ones brave enough to even enter into a marriage contract with me given Callum's behavior. But after he died..."

"You were suddenly good enough for Malfoy," Ron interrupted still pacing.

"No. I only became good enough because of how I killed him," she whispered as Ron came to a stop.

"What?"

"She doesn't need a wand Ron," Charlie said, watching his brother start his pacing again. "Even the unforgivables. She cast the killing curse that night without a wand."

"Why didn't you tell me? Why?"

"I didn't think about it because I don't think about it," Pansy pleaded trying to get him to stop. "I've spent the entire time you have known me blocking out the memory of what I witnessed and did that night. No one wants to remember that they killed their brother or watched him kill one person and try to kill another.

"Downstairs when you thought something was being said – that was it. Theo and Draco know what I can really do. I think they believe that the combination of the marriage bind and my magic will control the outcome of the heir charm saying it's probably the reason I'm still alive to begin with."

"Heir charm?" Charlie perked up. "What don't I know?"

"Later," Ron said gruffly, looking at Pansy who had her hands gripped in his shirt, holding him in place as she silently continued to plead with him.

"Look you don't have to do this. I won't think any less of you," she whispered. "Please don't do this to 'save me'. You've already done enough. More than enough in fact."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked, his voice rough and the hurt he felt at that moment. Hearing her say he had done enough when he knew he hadn't – that there was so much more he wanted to do for her. Especially when he knew that he hadn't saved her, she had saved herself; no matter what she thought.

"I only want you to do this, if you want it."

"And what do you want from me?"

Ron watched as her lips started to quiver as she slowly lost control in front of him. Guilt started to rise up in him at the same rate as the tears formed in her eyes. His hand was about to go to her face and wipe away a tear that had fallen when she stepped away.

When she was out of his reach, she whispered, "I want you to do what makes you happy. I just want you happy," before turning and running out the door.

Ron stood frozen in Ginny's room, looking at the empty doorway; hearing her feet on the stairs going down. He heard her name being called out by someone not him and that made him hurt even more. He wasn't the one that she was suppose to run away from; he was the one she was suppose to run to.

He didn't even notice that Charlie had come to stand by him until he said, "I figure that since she broke her promise to me, I can break my promise to her."

Ron turned to look at his brother puzzled before Charlie started to push him out the door, saying, "Go after her you fool. She loves you."

"Only because..."

"See I've got a bit of insider knowledge on her having been in love with her brother. She's just like him in many ways and believe me when I say she is absolutely, positively, in love with you and if you don't get down there and fix this right now – you will lose her to Theo who has loved her his entire life."

"But he abandoned her when she needed him. They all did."

"Don't you think they've learned their lessons?" Charlie replied, pushing Ron out the door.

"You really think she loves me?" Ron asked quietly, looking down the stairs but not moving in that direction.

"Yes Ron, trust me she loves you," Charlie replied, exasperated. "Go after her and make this right. Tell her you want her; tell her that you love her."

"Can you go and check on her I'll be right back," Ron said, taking off in the opposite direction of where Pansy had disappeared to..

"Ron." Charlie called out after his brother who was disappearing into his parents' bedroom. "Ron. Ron! Ron!"