Middleground
by zahra




They argue about how fucked up they are in the head even though Harry doesn’t say ‘fucked up.’ Harry calls them slightly mental or mutters about Ron’s lost rag, but Ron knows what it is. He knows what’s happened to them, and he calls it what it is.

He’s fucked up, Harry’s fucked up. They live together in a small flat which is very much not like the Burrow because the Burrow is all fucked up.

Any place that gets blown up at five o’clock in the morning when there are still people inside is undoubtedly a fucked up place.

Ron hasn’t even been to the countryside in years. It’s all fucked up, and so are they and Ron doubts it’s possible to be anything else but very much fucked in the head when one kills ones own brother – He-Who…Voldemort gave Ron no choice. He gave them no choice. Voldemort had to choose Percy; Percy who just wanted to please. Percy who never broke a law a day in his life. Percy who became a Death Eater and went around with Marcus Flint.

It was never even about Percy and Marcus or Marcus and Percy and, how on earth could Percy use that as his reason? What kind of love forces the person in question to turn their back on their family? How fucked up can one relationship be?

Ron doesn’t say You-Know-Who anymore. He calls him by his name, Tom. It’s what Ginny called him and in some odd way Ron is now related to Tom Riddle and there’s too much power in a name. Ginny called him Tom. She said she was happy.

Tomtomtomtom.

She went to him willingly and died by his side.

It’s all fucked up. They’re all fucked up.

Hermione is gone and Percy is dead. Ginny is dead with Ron’s brother-in-law and Ron spends his days watching Harry. He watches Harry move around, bumping into furniture with his one good eye and the charmed specs that Hermione made for him before she left with Bill for Egypt.

It’s all fucked up, and there are dead bodies lying on top of the graves of Ron’s family. He killed a Death Eater for every one of his fallen family members: George, Percy, Ginny, his Dad, and left their bodies on top of the gravemarkers.

Atonement. Sacrifice.

Harry says he’s fucked up in the head. Ron agrees.