PURIFY : Fred Weasley

37: Rescued

I get home the next day early in the morning. I feel queasy so I apparate into Diagon Alley and walk home. I open the door and the room is bright, even though it is no later than 6 AM by the time I get home.

Fred is sleeping on the couch. I'm quiet enough that he doesn't hear me when I shut the door, nor when I take footsteps across the living room. Unfortunately, as I turn the corner, I spot Robbie.

She looks at me, grabs me, and pulls me into a tight hug. "We've been worried sick about you. What happened?"

It will be the first time I speak since I told my father to speak to my mother. I'm not even sure that my voice works anymore. As if it disappeared into the night, I feel hollowed out. It's almost like a piece of me, a fundamental thing, has been carved away.

"Did your brother..." she trails off, the words unspeakable to her and me.

"Not this time," I tell her.

She grabs hold of me and leads me into the living room. She sits me down on the chair and goes over to the stove to make tea. I watch her hands as she lights the burner the muggle way, and puts the kettle on the flame. She has always preferred to do things in a muggle fashion. It's one of the many things that has made living with her joyous.

I cannot tell if this is the last that I will see of her.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks me.

Fred, still a heavy sleeper, lies down across from me. Even if he weren't here, I don't know that I could speak about the last twelve hours. I look at the freckles spread about his cheeks, and his short red hair cropped close to his head. He looks too big for the couch, and yet it seems he has been waiting for me all night.

"No," I answer, and the words of course not are on my lips but the taste in my mouth isn't bitter enough to say them. Of course, I don't want to talk about it. "But, she is dead."

"I'm sorry," she says. "I can't say I understand, but I am here for you."

"What happened to your Mum?" I ask.

Robbie looks at me and sighs. "Disowned," she tells me. "They don't like witches."

It hadn't occurred to me that muggles might dislike us as much as we dislike them. After all, who doesn't want their child to be gifted with magic? I guess people just want their children to be like them. Not all people are as lucky as me, to have a mother who wants them safe and happy.

I am the luckiest of all of our friends, and the unhappiest all the same. I suppose that I should blame that on my own way of thinking. Robbie passes me a teacup. I can't bear to bring it to my lips, be it sweet or bitter. Nothing satiates me.

She moves Fred's legs off the couch and sits down across from me, jolting him awake. He sits up abruptly, his eyes wide yet blinking. Then, he looks at me.

"You're back," he says. He sits up, staring at me. "Where the bloody hell have you been?"

"Excuse me?" I ask back, putting my teacup down on the end table. "Excuse you. Who are you to talk to me like that?"

He stands up and points at me. "You had Robbie crying all night, thinking you were dead or worse."

"My mother is dead," I say, my voice falling apart all over itself. I feel it go raspy at the end as my eyes fill with tears. "And you are going to yell at me?"