No Laughing Matter

Chapter Thirty-two

Fred couldn't explain the anger that was bubbling up inside of him. All he was sure of was that after the memory of the itching powder, he'd felt a rage so intense, that he was seeing a haze of red over everything in front of him. His emotions had been all over the place today, from one extreme to the other, but over all, the anger kept washing over him at unexpected moments. He left the table, and everyone gathered around it, before he exploded and said something inappropriate or unforgivable, and wished viciously that he'd disappeared with Bill and Charlie; they had offered to take him along. He knew vaguely that Carly had followed him inside, but he didn't want to talk to her... how would he explain this sudden fury, when only minutes ago they had been talking quietly and looking at the emerging stars together? He went into his room and sat on his bed, with his back deliberately facing the door.

"I don't want company right now," he said quietly, trying to keep his voice level as he sensed he standing in the doorway. He didn't want to hurt her feelings on top of everything else.

"Too bad," came the reply. But it wasn't the voice he had expected; he turned around to find his mother approaching him, and coming to sit beside him. "Because I think that you do."

Molly had seen the expressions crossing Fred's face at the table. She understood every one of them with excruciating familiarity, and so she had caught up with Rowan and asked her to let her have a mother/son moment. She had been watching all of her children carefully over the past couple of days, and was worried about each and every one in a different way. Right now, Fred needed something from her, and she intended to give it to him, whether he thought he wanted it or not. Fred merely looked through her as he waited for her to talk at him; it was a tactic that she knew well from the times during his childhood, when he hadn't wanted to listen.

"Today's been hard," she began.

Fred nodded. That was an understatement if there had ever been one. He knew that there would be no getting rid of his Mum until she'd had her say, and so he sat and waited for her to get with it. It would be over soon enough, and then he could get back to his anger in peace.

"You're angry at Percy," she observed.

'Well that's pretty obvious,' Fred thought sourly. "No big maternal insight there."

"You know what?" Molly asked, seeing the derision in his eyes. "I am too."

That brought his head up. His mother had looked many ways since that night: incredibly sad, disbelieving, tired, thoughtful, determined... but angry? 'Surely not,' he thought. His gaze was no longer the vacant stare it had been a moment before, but a probing one. Could she really be telling the truth?

"No," Molly corrected firmly. "I'm furious! I didn't raise any of my children to hide behind some stupid mask!"

Fred was shocked at the venom in his mother's voice. He eyes were glinting with the feelings that her son hadn't thought she would be able to feel at a time like this. Her breathing was a bit heavy as she let the anger really show.

"I didn't make all of those sacrifices for all of those years to have my son turn his back on his family and actually consider killing his own brother!" She ranted, tears now gathering in her eyes. "I didn't praise him for his accomplishments and bolster his self confidence to have it thrown back in my face as 'not good enough'! I DID NOT RAISE A DEATH EATER!"

Fred didn't even realize that he had tears on his cheeks. He threw himself into his mother's waiting arms and finally, finally, wept for the first time since he had seen Percy's lifeless body fall to the ground. Molly gave a shaky sigh of satisfaction as the dam inside him burst at last, as she had been waiting for it to do. He needed this release, she knew, as much as it hurt her to hear and feel the sobs ripping through his sturdy frame. She rubbed circles on his back and murmured, "It's okay. It's okay, love." The storm within him began to subside, and he sat up, wiping his eyes on his robes.

"It's okay to be angry, Fred," Molly said quietly, lovingly caressing his damp cheek. "As long as you don't let it consume you. There's no shame in being angry with all of this; it doesn't mean that we don't love Percy, or that we failed him. It means that while we loved your brother, we're angry and disappointed at the way he chose to live his life. It wasn't your fault or anyone else's in this family that he was killed. That includes you, George."

She had seen George's reflection in the window across from her. He was standing framed in the doorway, with a stricken look on his face. He looked to Fred, who wiped his face once more and said, "Come on in, bro."

"I'm sorry," he said, sitting on the other side of his mother. "I heard the shouting and I was worried."

"It's okay," Molly assured him, taking his hand in hers and giving it a pat.

"I was angry, too," George admitted. "I blew up at Rowan yesterday. Luckily for me, she understood."

"And how do you feel now?" Molly asked.

"Guilty, I guess," came the truthful answer. "Ever since Percy's speech about all the humiliation we piled on him when we were growing up, I can't shaking the feeling. We never did any of that stuff to hurt him. Well - not most of it. We were just trying to have fun. I think that we thought we could help him develop a sense of humor; it was just our way of including him in our lives. Now I can't help wondering if we did him serious damage with all of our pranks and jokes. I keep telling myself that maybe if we'd listened to him more, or given him a bit more respect, if he wouldn't have..."

"It wouldn't have made a difference."

They all turned their heads to see Ron, standing in the doorway looking sad. He came in, and they all shifted, so that he could sit with them, too.

"It wouldn't have mattered," Ron said. "Because I did listen to him more. I did give him respect most of the time. I let him boss me around and tell me what to do. We had our arguments as much as any brothers do, I guess, but nothing too major. Look what I got in return - a letter telling me that I should turn into a duplicate of him, and abandon my own friends and family in favor of sucking up to some little Ministry toad who was blatantly feeding all of the student at Hogwarts a bunch of lies about Voldemort. Maybe he really believed the Ministry at that point, but how much longer could it have been before he found out the truth? What did he do then? Not make the apology he said he was so ready to 'graciously accept' from Mum and Dad, that's for sure!"

Fred and George thought that this was probably the longest speech they had ever made Ron make. When had their twerpy little brother turned into someone who had important things to say? Now there was a half-grown man sitting here, venting some of his own anger, and what he had to say was all making total sense.

"Something went wrong with him," Ron continued with surety in his voice. "The minute he found out that the Ministry had been wrong, he should have turned around and come home. He should have done something to help spread the word. He should have admitted it! It's what any of us would have done, and so I know that Mum is right - she didn't raise a Death Eater."

Molly looked proudly at her sons, not the least bit embarrassed that she must have shouted loud enough for the whole house to hear earlier. Ron was the baby of all of her boys, and now just look at the man he was turning into!

"Anyway," Ron finished, looking slightly embarrassed at his outburst. "That's what I think."

"You're right," George told him, slapping him companionably on the shoulder. "And I, for one, needed to hear that."

Fred nodded and used his good hand to squeeze the back of Ron's neck affectionately. They had all need to hear it.

"Now," Molly said, more to herself than to her boys, wiping at her eyes again. "Where have Bill and Charlie gone off to?"

"Oh," George said matter-of-factly. "Charlie took Bill off somewhere in Diagon Alley to get drunk."

"Honestly!" Molly muttered, without much heat. If the truth were to be told, she'd have joined them if she were thirty years younger. She stood and winked at her boys, then left them alone. She passed Harry in the hallway, and paused to give him a hug, almost brought to tears again when he whispered, "I love you, Mum."

Things were starting to look brighter after the darkness of the past three days.