Disclaimer: This world and all its characters belong to JK Rowling. I wrote this purely for entertainment purposes, and have no wish to sell, copyright or otherwise claim any of this content.

Ron sat on his bed, watching as Mum made up the spare cot in his room. Above his head, he could hear the ghoul moaning, a noise which was accompanied by the occasional sniffing coming from where Ginny stood in the doorway. Her small arms clutched a bundle of blankets and stuffed animals tightly to her chest, while a small pile of her clothing sat in the corner.

"There, all set. Bring over your blankets, Ginny, love." Mum beckoned, and Ron watched silently as Ginny crossed the room and dumped her armload on the floor. Mum helped her untangle everything, then waved her wand so that it set neatly on the small bed.

Ron knew that he should be protesting these arrangements. Why did Ginny have to stay in his room when Percy's was bigger? And he thought that he should perhaps be a bit more distraught by the fact that Uncle Bilius had just died, so unexpectedly – he was upset, and thought that he might even cry if everyone left, but somehow he felt that he ought to be more focused on that. Instead, all he could think about was the fact that Aunt Muriel was coming to stay. When was she coming? How long would she stay? When would she leave?

The first memory that Ron had of his great aunt was when she had come over for Easter when he was five. On Easter morning he and the twins had ambushed their older brothers, and then Fred and George had convinced Dad to teach them how to ride a broom while Ron watched enviously for most of the morning. Mum had been cooking and cleaning and looking after Ginny all morning, and so Ron had figured that both of his parents would be so worn out come lunch that they wouldn't bother to tell him off for not wearing the lacy white dress Mum had bought him for the occasion. He had gone to lunch in wet socks, stained shirt and pants, and the cleanest robes he could find.

Aunt Muriel had gone off the moment he entered the room. What are you wearing? she had demanded of him. She hadn't waited for him to answer before turning to Mum. What is she wearing? Mum had dragged him all the way back up to his room, forced the silly white dress over his head, and given him a stern warning about keeping Aunt Muriel happy. Apparently the dress had not completely satisfied Aunt Muriel, though, and after lunch she had sat both him and Ginny down for a talk on womanly manners and appearances. Ginny had fallen asleep after the first two minutes, Ron had stopped paying attention after that first five, and Dad had rescued them after ten, but Ron had tiptoed around his aunt for the rest of the visit, usually hiding behind Bill, who was his aunt's favorite.

It wasn't any surprise, then, that Ron had never understood why Uncle Bilius chose to live with his mother. Ron loved Mum, he really did, but if she turned into someone like Aunt Muriel as she got older Ron didn't think he could live with her when he was grown up. He had asked Dad once, who had tried to explain it to him. "Your uncle was always Muriel's favorite, and I think that after your great uncle Ernie died he couldn't bear the thought of his mother growing old alone. He may be eccentric, but he loves your great aunt dearly."

Usually they saw their great aunt and uncle two or three times a year. Dad visited more regularly (after all, it was his aunt and cousin), and while he usually took one or two of his children along, that child was rarely Ron. Every time Aunt Muriel caught sight of him she would want to know why his hair was so short, or why he wasn't wearing a dress. (Ron didn't think he'd ever seen Aunt Muriel wear something that wasn't a dress; he'd seen Mum wear pants a few times, but never Aunt Muriel). As it was, Ron hadn't seen either her or Uncle Bilius in over a year, and to say that he has nervous would have been an understatement. He was terrified.

"….Ronny. Ronny, honey, are you okay?" Mum was frowning worriedly at him, and Ron realized with a start that she had just asked him something.

"What? Sorry, I'm fine," he said.

"I was hoping you could help Ginny with the rest of her things. I need to check on Fred and George, and then I need to make sure that everything is ready for Muriel in Ginny's room."

"Oh," Ron nodded. "Oh yeah, sure." He glanced rather apprehensively at Ginny, who was still sniffling. He didn't know how to deal with her when she was crying – depending on the situation, he usually got George or Bill to deal with it. But Bill wasn't here, and both George and Fred were just as upset as Ginny was, so he would have to be the brave one. I'm a Gryffindor.

Mum left, and Ron hopped off his bed. He went over to the chest which held his soft toys and started tossing them onto his bed. "Here, Ginny, you can put your stuff in here."

"O-okay," Ginny hiccuped. She sniffed, then bent and picked up her pile of clothes off the floor. Ron tossed his stuffed lion onto his bed, then hopped up after it, watching uncertainly while Ginny placed her clothes in the chest. She sniffed again.

"I don't mind, you know," Ron said uncertainly. Ginny glanced at him, confused. "That you're in my room, I mean," Ron added hastily. "I don't mind."

"You h-hate it," Ginny said. "And now Uncle Bilius is d-dead and I have to – I have to b-be in your room –" and just like that she was crying again. Alarmed, Ron jumped off his bed.

"No, Ginny, stop crying," he said. He grabbed her arm and tugged her onto his bed. "Look, you can sit on my bed if you want. And here, have Tobin." Ron shoved his stuffed owl into Ginny's arms, then peered at her nervously. Of course, he did mind that she was staying in his room. His room was his only sanctuary in this crowded house, and if it weren't for the fact that Ginny was crying right now he would probably be fuming. But only one of them could be in a bad mood at a time; this was an unspoken rule which was followed by any Weasley who didn't want a given situation to dissolve into a petty fight. If one of your siblings was in a bad mood and you didn't want a fight, it was up to you to fix it. So, even though he knew that Ginny would probably rather share a room with Percy anyway, Ron decided that the most important thing right now was that Ginny stop crying.

"Please, Ginny," he said. "You can stay in my room. You can stay in my room as long as you like."

It was after dinner, and Fred was trying to coax George into a game of Exploding Snap when Dad came home with Aunt Muriel. They heard her from downstairs, complaining about getting ash on her traveling cloak. Mum said something, Dad said something back, and then someone burst into tears.

"I wish we could hear what they were saying," George said quietly, his gaze flicking to the door and then back to the pile of cards that Fred had shoved in his lap.

"Me too," Fred said quickly. "Imagine if we had ears all around the house – we could hear what everyone was saying!" He stared at George, trying to gauge his reaction. Are we going to keep going …?

Uncle Bilius up and dying had been a terrible shock, and Fred wasn't entirely sure he was over it yet. He hadn't cried yet, and that was starting to make him nervous. Should he have cried from the start, like Ginny? But that seemed wrong somehow, disrespectful almost – wouldn't it be better until Aunt Muriel arrived, so that she could witness his tears? That way he wouldn't have to cry more than once (he really hated crying, and tried to do it as infrequently as possible). But wasn't that disrespectful, too? Uncle Bilius had just died, after all. He was dead. I'll wait for George, Fred decided. He would cry when George did, not before and not after.

The problem was, George wasn't doing much of anything at the moment. At first it had been Fred who wasn't doing anything; he had been too shocked, and had only been able to hold on to George in the hope that, if the world shattered, George would stay safe with him. After all, if Uncle Bilius could die, then who knew what was possible? He had snapped out of it during dinner, though, when he realized that George hadn't said a word since Mum left with Ginny to set up a bed in Ron's room. He had spent the rest of dinner puzzling through what could make George upset enough to stop talking with him, and had settled rather uncertainly on it being the fact that they would never see Uncle Bilius again. Fred had then decided that, since George had snapped him out of his shock, it was his turn to snap George out of his. Which had led to them sitting on the mustard-yellow carpet in their room, dealing out Exploding Snap cards.

Mum's voice drifted up the stairs, and there was the sound of squeaking floorboards. George reached up to place his cards on the bed – face down – then crawled over to the door and flopped on his stomach. "You could apparate," he said, his voice slightly muffled. "and splinch yourself so that one of your ears would be left behind."

Yes! Fred cheered inwardly. He threw himself onto his stomach and wriggled up so that he was level with George, his ear pressed to the crack of the door. "But you would have to charm it so that you could still hear out of it."

George frowned. "Is there a charm for that?"

"I dunno," Fred said. "We should ask Bill."

George's face lit up, and it was so sudden that Fred felt his own face lift in response. "That's right! We can ask him when he gets home!"

"We could leave our ears everywhere…."

They listened by the door for another fifteen minutes, without success, and then the noises got fewer and farther between until it was just Mum and Dad, the familiar cadence of their voices drifting up the stairwell. Fred moved first, and convinced George to play one round of Exploding Snap before bed. In the end, they tied – sometimes Fred won, sometimes George, but they were so evenly matched that it seemed more a stroke of luck than anything else; more often than not, they either forgot the game before it was finished and moved onto something more interesting. And then sometimes, like now, they neither won nor lost, but simply reached a draw.

After setting the cards aside, they went through the motions of putting themselves to bed. It was a point of pride to Fred that he and George could put themselves to bed – they had insisted upon it when they were eight, and had been doing it successfully ever since. It meant that they were no longer "little" like Ron and Ginny, who Mum and Dad still put to bed every night.

Climbing into bed, Fred thought of their previous discussion. Listening ears, he thought drowsily, curling up on his right side so that he could watch his brother fall asleep. Splinched eavesdropping ears left in the kitchen, in Dad's shop, in Percy's room….

"Psst!"

But what if they were still attached to us somehow? What if we could … move? Move them? Remotely controlled eavesdropping … to follow the conversation….

"Psst! Hey, Fred! Are you awake?"

Fred blinked, realizing that George must have said his name a few time by now. "What?" he whispered, squinting in the dark. His eyes came into focus, and he saw that George was sitting up in his bed. Uh oh. "What?" he repeated, blinking himself more awake.

"Remember what Mum said about Uncle Bilius dying?"

"Er… " Fred frowned, trying to remember.

George huffed impatiently. "She said that even though he's gone, he'll be with us in our memories and our magic."

"Oh, right," Fred nodded, pushing himself up. He did remember Mum saying that, when she was comforting Ginny.

"Is that enough, though? What about when we die? Where will his memories and magic go then?"

"They'll go to everyone else who is still alive," Fred said after a moment. "Like how it is with Great-great Granddad Arnold." He had never met Great-great Granddad Arnold, but then most of the people who would still be alive when he and George died would never have known Uncle Bilius.

There was a long silence, and Fred was just beginning to wonder if he should try to go to sleep again when George said suddenly: "What do you think Uncle Bilius wants us to do with all his memories and magic?"

Fred opened his mouth to answer, then realized that he didn't know. So he shut his mouth, flopped back on his bed and thought about it. "Remember when we set off the Dung-Bombs?" he said finally. "Aunt Muriel was furious."

"Mum was too," George muttered, but Fred could hear the grin in his voice. "But Uncle Bilius loved it."

"He thought it was the best," Fred agreed. "And remember –"

"– when he took us trick-or-treating," George interrupted. "With the muggles."

"We were dementors," Fred said. He remembered the long black robes, and the thrill of being out on the streets at dark. "Ron got in a fight with Perce because they both wanted to be Merlin."

"He took us twice, so that they could both be Merlin."

"And then he told us to hide our candy, because otherwise Mum would take it away."

"Remember when we stole his fake teeth?" George asked. (Uncle Bilius had never gone into specifics about how he lost his teeth, and Dad had been even more silent on the matter.) He sounded strange, Fred thought. Like he was on the verge of laughing, but not really.

"Yeah, he talked really loudly about how much fun it was to talk with just your gums."

"And then he gave us vampire teeth."

"But only once we'd given him his own teeth back. He bribed us."

"I miss him."

Fred was silent, unsure of what to say. George had said it so quietly that if he wanted to, he could just pretend that he hadn't said anything at all. But then George sniffed, and suddenly Fred felt a burning sensation in the back of his eyes. I must be tired, he thought, but when he closed his eyes the burning worsened and he could feel tears leaking down his cheeks. And suddenly his throat hurt, and he couldn't swallow, and all he could think of was Uncle Bilius laughing.

I'm crying.

There was a rustle of bedsheets, and Fred had moved over even before George crawled into bed beside him. George's breath was ragged in Fred's ear, and he could feel his pillow getting wet where he had his face pressed against it. I miss him too.

Eventually, though, George's breathing quieted and Fred's tears slowed. Uncle Bilius was gone, sure, but that didn't mean that he had to stop laughing. He was in their magic and their memories, Fred thought. Every time they laughed, Uncle Bilius would laugh too. Satisfied, he smiled. What would make Uncle Bilius laugh? It occurred to him almost straight away, but apparently George had been thinking along the same lines, because he beat him to it.

"Let's prank the funeral."

Ron threw himself angrily onto his bed, pressing his face into his pillow so that he wouldn't scream. Three days. Aunt Muriel had only been staying with them for three days and already Ron felt like he was going to explode. Or implode. He would hold onto his temper so tightly that it would just suck him into himself, and that would be that. Letting out a groan, Ron rolled over and stared at the Chudley Cannon's poster that hung over his bed. Bernie Smith stared back at him, brandishing the bright red quaffle in his orange Keeper's gloves.

"You don't have to worry about brushing your hair," Ron grumbled. "You have a buzz cut." He rolled back onto his stomach so that he wouldn't stare enviously at the Keeper's shorn head. "I want a buzz cut."

There were three things that Aunt Muriel talked about since she'd arrived Wednesday night. The first, of course, was Uncle Bilius. Aunt Muriel alternated between talking loudly about what a great son he had been, and sobbing uncontrollably. The second was Grims. She had told the story so often that Ron thought that he must have it memorized by now – Uncle Bilius had seen a Grim in his tea leaves, and twenty four hours later he had dropped dead. Ron hadn't been able to sleep the first night because he was afraid he would see a Grim in his dreams.

Then, finally, there was Ron himself. If she wasn't crying or talking about Uncle Bilius or Grims, Aunt Muriel was complaining about Ron (so it seemed to him, at least). His clothes, his mannerisms, and especially his hair. Ron had come down for breakfast this morning only to have Aunt Muriel insist that he go back upstairs and brush his hair before breakfast. What has this world come to, she had demanded, that a lady will appear without first making herself presentable?

So Ron had stomped back upstairs and run a brush twice through his hair before returning to the kitchen. Behave, Mum's words kept running through his head. Your aunt is in grief. Be kind to her. And he was trying, he really was, but it would be a lot easier to be nice to Aunt Muriel if she was nice to him as well.

His bedroom door swung open and Ginny wandered in. "You didn't brush your hair," she said.

"Shut up, Ginny," Ron groaned. It was night now, and Ron had been hoping to make a smooth escape to bed until Mum cornered him in the bathroom. "Brush your hair before you go to bed," Mum had suggested. "That will make it easier to deal with in the morning." Of course, he hadn't listened to her.

Ginny perched climbed onto her bed. "I like this room," she said. "You can hear the ghoul."

"He snores."

"I like it."

There was a light knock, then Dad came. "Are you two almost ready for bed?" he asked. Ron pushed himself up and watched as Dad went over to Ginny's bed. "Have you both brushed your teeth?"

"Yes," Ginny said, squirming a little as Dad tucked the blankets around her. "Give me Dragomoranda." She stretched out her arms, and Dad placed her stuffed niffler in her arms. He planted a kiss on her forehead and turned to Ron. "Ronny?"

"Ron. I'm almost ready, Dad, I just need to get into my pyjamas."

"Alright. I'll kiss you goodnight now, anyway." Dad's rough lips landed on Ron's forehead, and then he stood. "Love you, Ronny, love you Ginny. Sweet dreams."

"Love you," Ron and Ginny both echoed, and then Dad left, shutting the door behind him. Ginny watched drowsily as Ron sat still for a moment, feeling hollow. It was like he wasn't there. It was a familiar feeling, one that Ron was used to, a feeling that came whenever Mum or Dad didn't listen. Whenever they called him Ronny, or Veronica, or told him to play nice or brush his hair or wear what they told him to. He knew how to deal with it. Shaking his head slightly, Ron hopped up off his bed and crossed the room to tap the light off. Then, in the darkness, he changed out of his clothes and into his pyjamas. Just as he was snuggling under his blankets, though, Ginny's sleepy voice broke through his routine.

"Why do you always get dressed in the dark?"

Because I'm not really here.