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An infant moves in his sleep, giving a small sneeze, before drifting back to a peaceful slumber in his mother’s arms. He doesn’t steer, not as the floo lights up on his father’s arrival. Not when his mother sets him back down to the crib. Not at his father’s hushed, tense tone or his mother’s gasp.
“ - got to the Potters?”
“Sirius was their secret keepe - ”
The events of that halloween night drastically changes his life, throwing him onto a path very different than what might have been. To most, it is just the weary end to another normal day, another step into uncertainty. Merlin, but they were so young, is a murmur passing the lips of all who knew them. Grief is one thing that is quickly becoming familiar. May they rest in peace, James, and little Harry.
But Ron Weasley sleeps through it all.
Ginny is the first Weasley to be born not in peacetime, but a new, ruthless regime. Blood status confirmed: Pureblood is stamped neatly on a certificate next to her name. The entire family is required to have one made. They line up in front of the verification booth at the Ministry, with Molly ahead, holding Ginny in her arms. Ron laughs as the twins pull a series of funny faces. His smile vanishes as his attention is drawn to a woman’s screams.
“Please, my parents were wizards! They worked for MACUSA, you can look it up, don’t - ”
One of the officials hauling her away holds up his wand to her neck, muttering a spell. She yells in pain, but stops talking immediately. Tears silently stream down her face as she’s pushed through the door on the left.
“Don’t stare, Ron,” his mother says, sharply, and he tears his gaze away from the door. By the time they reach in front, three other people have been taken to that door. Ron is practically hiding behind Bill’s legs, afraid that someone might snatch him away to that door.
The years pass, and while there isn’t much to smile about, there is still joy in the Burrow. The yard is filled with laughter as they play Quidditch, watching Fred and George chase after a garden gnome. His brothers go to Hogwarts, one by one, more solemn each time they return. But while they grow, the Weasley siblings all try their best to give their youngest members a happy childhood.
And so they are just a little more affectionate, a tad bit more protective of Ron and Ginny. Business of the Order, any arrests, any such news is kept away from their ears, out of fear they might babble it out to the wrong person. Ron still catches brief snippets of hushed conversations, sometimes.
“They got Moody,” Dad says, grimly. “Put up a good fight, from the looks of it, but he was outnumbered.”
Mum chews on her lip, worried. “What about Lily? They were hiding together, weren’t they?”
A hand on his shoulder shakes him away.
“Why don’t we go play some Quidditch, Ron?” Bill says, cheerfully. “Let’s see if you’ve improved at all since last summer, shall we?”
“I’ve improved loads!” Ron replies, indignantly.
“I’m sure you have,” Bill ruffles his hair with a laugh, and any thoughts about this ‘Moody’ are quickly abandoned for the moment.
They are all children far too young to remember a time before, when the mudbloods they detest used to walk among them in Diagon Alley, wide eyed as they hold their muggle parents’ hands. But unlike his pureblood peers, Ron Weasley doesn’t grow up hating muggleborns and laughing at muggles.
Maybe it’s because of the way Mum’s face hardens as a shopkeeper in Diagon Alley tries to strike conversation, they found a mudblood hiding in Deverish and Bangs yesterday, they ought to be thrown to the Dementors, the lot of them.
Maybe it’s how Dad looks so sad as he reads the news. Six muggles suspected to hide mudbloods; execution next week says a headline. It’s Bill’s fake smile and Charlie’s hidden grimace, as someone asks why fine young men like themselves haven't joined the Death Eaters, a shame, you’d make excellent Ministry men! It’s the note of disapproval in Percy’s voice as he talks about his ‘Muggle Studies’ class, something that is now mandatory for every student in Hogwarts.
It’s how while Fred and George are absolute terrors, they are never unkind to the muggles they run into in Ottery St. Catchpole. Not like many other children who take delight to play ‘tricks’ on muggles, who brag about it. Are encouraged, even.
And maybe, it’s how Ron has never heard the word ‘mudblood’ uttered by a single person in his family.
It’s these small, quiet gestures which hold far more weight than anything that can be said out loud. They don’t escape Ron’s sharp eyes.
They don’t go on like that forever, though, tiny acts of discontent and no real way to dissent. Tragedy befalls their family when Ron is eight. The twins, Ron and Ginny poke their heads into the kitchen.
“Not Bill,” Mum croaks out. “Tell me it isn’t true, Arthur. Tell me.”
Dad doesn’t reply. He stands still in front of Mum, looking broken, and Ron knows the worst has happened.
The funeral is a small affair, just their family and no one else. Most no longer bury their loved ones in Godric’s Hollow, but they lay Bill there. Ron later learns why. Ginny is huddled between Fred and George. Charlie has an arm around Mum as her shoulders shake with sobs, and Percy holds Ron’s hand, giving it a squeeze as he sniffles.
Dad’s head is bowed down. William Arthur Weasley. Beloved son and brother. There’s a stream of silent tears in his eyes that doesn’t stop.
Ron passes the headstone of a Harry James Potter, as he leaves. There’s a fresh bouquet of flowers on his grave, he notices. Delicate, white lilies, unwilting in the harsh winter.
Things are addressed in their household. Talked about, for the first time. Ron learns, that his brother had been a part of a secret organisation. A group against the framework of their world, one that protects muggleborns and fights for their rights. The Order of the Phoenix.
Bill was caught. Killed.
Murdered.
Dad fought, to stop his son’s from being tossed into a nameless, numbered mass grave reserved for traitors, rebels, enemies of the ministry. He had begged.
Ron is nine, when Dad takes him to one of the Order’s quarters. Their house is subjected to random inspections from the Ministry. As if they are hiding muggleborns with the ghoul in the attic. Percy and the twins are already at Hogwarts, Dad says. It doesn’t escape Ron how he doesn’t say they’re safe at Hogwarts.
At any rate, it’s decided that Ron and Ginny should lay low, somewhere safe. Mum would rather they’re with her, but she agrees.
Often, families of traitors are subject to the vengeance of Death Eaters. Accidents nobody looks too deep into.
The outhouse bustles with people. Some who stay for just the night before leaving, others who stay for weeks, and those who have been here for months. More often than not the people who come here are injured and in need for care, healing potions they can’t just buy in the outside world.
There are children too. Muggleborns. Ron and Ginny share a ‘dorm’ with them in the basement, which is basically a series of quilts and mattresses in line. Fourteen of them live here as of now. Most are quite young, the youngest a cheeky three year old girl who uses her accidental magic to her fullest advantage.
If they were dressed in robes, Ron thinks, nobody would be able to tell they were different. Snobbish Justin Finch-Finchey would fit right in with the purebloods.
In what way were they supposed to be different, Ron wonders.
Penelope Clearwater is kind to him and Ginny, makes sure that they feel settled. She’s one of the few old enough to learn magic, so Ron doesn’t see her very often.
A few months later, Ron and Ginny return back to the burrow. But it isn’t the last time they’re hidden; a bunch of times over the next few years, whenever Dad thinks someone might come poking around, he takes them to an outhouse.
Ron Weasley is eleven. He boards the Hogwarts express, and there is no boy with a lightning scar who shares his compartment and his friendship. He eats his corned beef sandwich alone, watches as Malfoy and his cronies go around.
A stern looking wizard guides them to the carriages. The tradition of rowing first years down the Great Lake is long forgotten, along with Hagrid and the warmth with which he might have welcomed them.
The Headmistress welcomes them. Ron knows about Dolores Umbridge and exactly how much his siblings hate her.
Ron is a hatstall. You’d do well in Ravenclaw, the Hat tells him. A keen mind, I can see.
Me, a Ravenclaw? Ron scoffs. I’m not - I haven’t got the head for it. I’m not smart enough.
There’s more than one sort of intelligence, Ron Weasley. You observe. You strategise, the Hat replies. Give yourself more credit, but I’m afraid it would be kinder on you to be with your family in GRYFFINDOR!”
He goes over to the spot next to Fred and George. Percy gives him a little wave.
The boys dorm feels a lot emptier. Only three beds. Him, shy, stammering Neville Longbottom whom Ron vaguely knows from multiple playdates in the past. And Seamus Finnegan.
On the first day, their names are called out in every class, along with their blood status.
“Half bloods, please be seated to the left. Purebloods can remain where they are,” Professor Rosenthal, the Potions teacher, says. Seamus Finnegan, who had been laughing at something Ron said, goes across the classroom, face red. The procedure is followed throughout the day in the rest of the classes.
It isn’t explicitly said that you can’t be friends with a halfblood. It’s something that is silently discouraged. Ron doesn’t care, regardless. He doesn’t even want to be friends with most of the sneering pureblood children, anyway.
Gryffindor doesn’t mind the halfbloods. At the very least, the halfbloods sorted here don’t have to worry about their housemates making their life a living hell. Ron and his yearmates don’t mind that Seamus Finnegan is a halfblood. They unanimously make sure he doesn’t walk down the hallways alone, sometimes with Ron and the Patil twins, sometimes with Neville and Lavender.
Not all halfbloods are as lucky.
“Careful now, Weasley. If you keep spending time with people like her, people might think you’re a mudblood lover,” Malfoy sneers. He’d been in the library with Tracy Davis, a Slytherin halfblood. She goes a dull pink.
“Ask your brother what happens to mudblood lovers, don’t you? Oh wait - too late for that,” he laughs, cruelly. Ron wants to chase him down the hallway, to hex him, punch his pale, pointed face until it resembles a smushed tomato.
He doesn’t, knowing the risks of picking a fight with someone like Malfoy.
“Do they all treat you very badly?” Ron asks Tracy, as they finish their essay. Tracy snorts.
“‘Slytherins take care of their own,’ the prefect told us after we were sorted,” she says, smiling humourlessly. “A nice joke, isn’t it?”
Her shoulders are downcast as they part ways, walking down towards the Dungeons.
The rest of the year goes uneventfully. The twins cause mayhem. Percy chides him to focus on his studies. He plays gobstones with the Patils. He studies with Seamus and Tracy in the library - he helps Seamus not completely blow everyone up with his spells, and Seamus in turn helps him with History of Magic. The boy is quite interested in goblins. Neville helps him with Herbology, sometimes.
He’s only home for a day on the winter break when he and Ginny are rushed out of the burrow.
It’s a new outhouse, and this one is a lot emptier, with fewer people. Just enough adults to avoid any detection of underage magic.
It’s boring.
One afternoon, Ron hears someone in one of the otherwise empty rooms, as he explores.
“Wingardium Leviosa,” a voice says, frustrated. It’s a girl, of maybe his age, with bushy hair. She’s trying to lift a piece of crumpled paper, pointing her wand at it determindedly,
“Wingardium Leviosa,” she says, with more force.
“You have to swish and flick it,” Ron says, without thinking. The girl’s attention snaps to him, and Ron flushes, embarrassed.
“Erm, I mean, your wand movement,” Ron gestures awkwardly. “You’re rotating it wrong. You need to swish your wrist, and then flick it.”
Ron has the instructions practically ingrained into him, after Professor Verity made him repeat the spell again and again. The girl's curiosity overtakes her pride. She gives him a curt nod, following the instructions. Giving a delighted laugh as the paper floats.
There is no green eyed little boy to hold them together, no trolls to be fought. But maybe, even in this world, Ron Weasley was meant to find Hermione Granger.
She has a week off from lessons, her version of a winter break. Hermione, Ron soon realises, is a very quick learner. She thirsts for information, far more than the sparse, outdated collection of books in the outhouse can provide.
“I’ve read all about it, in Hogwarts: a History,” Hermione says, excitedly. “Is it true that they have a ceiling enchanted to look like the night sky?”
She listens, in rapt attention, as he talks about Hogwarts, and the classes and Professors, the halfbloods and his friends.
“I wish I could go to Hogwarts, too,” Hermione says, wistfully. Ron feels a wave of guilt wash over him. Hermione deserves more than learning magic on someone else’s wand, with so few books to guide.
He misses Hermione, when he goes back to Hogwarts. But, luckily enough, they get to see each other over the summer break.
There’s a new Defense professor, when Ron goes back to Hogwarts for second year. A steely looking woman, with greying hair, and sharp brown eyes.
“I’d like to give my heartiest welcome to Professor Geraldine Galloway,” Professor Umbridge says, with a smile that looks like a grimace. Clearly, she didn’t want Professor Galloway to be here. Professor Galloway looks at the headmistress, venomously, and nothing more is said on her arrival.
“She hates halfbloods, I hear,” Lavender comments. “Keeps an eye on them.”
It turns out to be true, as Professor Galloway barks out their names from behind her desk. “Halfbloods to the left. Do I need to repeat myself?”
It worsens, as the lesson progresses. “Miss Moon, are you truly so incompetent that you cannot perform a simple disarming charm?”
Lily Moon cowers away from the Professor’s practically murderous expression. Professor Galloway ends up assigning her detention, and by the end of the class the girl looks so frazzled she is on the verge of tears.
As the months pass, her reputation and bad temper is well known. She yells at the halfblood students - at everyone, really, but she holds a personal vendetta against halfbloods. She doles out punishments and detentions if they so much as breathe the wrong way. Katie Bell is banned from the Quidditch Team because her essay wasn’t of the acceptable length. Even Umbridge is a little scared of her.
It doesn’t escape Ron’s notice that the halfbloods who attend her detention stop struggling with whatever spell they were having trouble with.
Professor Umbridge wants to see him, one day.
“Relax, she meets with all the pureblood students second year and up,” Percy says, though he fiddles with his messenger bag. “Just - don’t drink anything she gives you, pretend. And you know what not to talk about,” he says with a pointed look.
As it turns out, he isn’t offered any tea.
“Mr Weasley, all your professors say you’re doing quite well in classes,” she says, with a wide smile. Ron smiles back, weakly, ignoring the portrait of the huge cat behind her. “I believe you’re quite promising. Nothing has to be said of the twins,” Umbridge grimaces, “but Percy has a bright future ahead of him. I’m sure you’ll want to follow his footsteps.”
“Of course, Professor Umbridge,” he agrees, immediately, with fake earnestness.
“However,” she adds. “Try to… limit your company to those who are appropriate. Your family has suffered already, after all.” A warning. Ron feels nauseous, as he walks out of her office.
It doesn’t stop him from talking to his friends, though.
Ginny has been acting odd. Ron catches on a lot sooner, this time around, and he’s worried. Ginny won’t tell him anything, and it’s impossible to find the source of her distress. She’s cut off. Scribbles in that diary of hers, all the time.
Three months into the term, something odd happens. It’s night, and he realises he’s left his homework on the common room sofa. As he drags himself out of bed, Ron catches the back of Ginny’s head as she rushes out of the common room. By the time he rushes out of the stairs to look out, she’s gone.
Ron sneaks into the third year boys’ dorm. Fred and George haven’t change the combination for the lock on their trunk since first year. Really, you’d think they’d use magic to lock it.
“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” he whispers, just as he’d caught the twins do countless times.
What he sees bewilders him. Ginny’s dot heading to the third floor girl’s bathroom, stagnant, and right next to hers he can see Professor Galloway’s dot.
Worry gnaws in Ron. What on earth was she doing there at this time? Was she okay?
Filch was on the other end of the castle. Ron decides it’s worth to risk a potential detention if Ginny is in trouble.
Thankfully, the staircases are asleep. Ron hurries to the third floor.
The sinks. They had all parted to give way to some sort of absurd entrance into the ground. A hint of fear creeps in him as he hears something from the depth of the passageway. Where is Ginny -
Someone’s hand grips the floor, on the edge of the entrance.
Ginny’s body follows, floating in the air before gently levitated down.
“Ginny!” Ron yells, going beside her body, no, not Ginny, she can’t be is she dead is she dead is she dead is she
“She’s alive,” a voice says, from behind him.
She’s dressed in Professor’s Galloway’s black robes, though her hair is long, red, and she’s a foot taller. The woman is right. As his panic subsides, he can see the steady rise and fall of Ginny’s chest.
“I - what?”
“Ron Weasley, I am a friend,” she says, her voice softer than Geraldine Galloway’s. “I’m a part of the Order. And right now, I need your help.”
There a sword holstered on her back, Ron notes, hysterically. How did he not see her name in the map?
“My office is on this floor. I need you to wear this - ” she hands him a silky cloak. “ - and get a flask labelled ‘Odgen’s finest’ on the desk.”
“But Ginny. . .”
Her green eyes soften. “Your sister is fine. I promise. I’ll explain everything, but I need you to get that flask quickly.”
A battered diary that looks suspiciously like Ginny’s is on the floor.