Broken Pictures
The next morning Ron, David, and John awoke early to the smell of sizzling bacon, eggs, and toast that was drifting from the kitchen and through the floorboards. Wide awake with the thought of a home cooked meal by Molly Weasley, the boys dressed quickly and hurried downstairs, where the kitchen was already full to the brim of red-haired people eating and laughing. Hermione was helping Molly serve the food, and when she saw Ron in the forefront of the trio charging towards the table, she smiled and pecked him fondly on the cheek before serving him with a heaping pile of his favourite breakfast foods. They sat down - Dave to the left of Ron and John on David’s other side - and started wolfing down the delicious meal.
“David!” cried Hermione when she finally noticed him. He looked up from spreading jam on his toast to greet her in return. “It’s so good to see you!”
“Hello, Hermione. Long time, no see,” said David. He swallowed and stood up to kiss her cheek. “And this is my partner, John Fischer, from America; great Auror, he is.”
“It’s been too long. Nice to meet you, John.” She shook his hand, and just like with Ron the night before, John was once again caught up in the knowledge of how much he had missed her - missed them all. All of them were older now, wiser, matured, experienced; but when he was with them again, witnessing their nearly picture perfect family, he felt like he had never left; like he belonged with them still. And, he knew, as the sudden truth of the statement caught him off guard, that he loved that feeling.
“So, David.” Hermione had turned back to him and was quizzing him about his life in America. “How are you? Have you been very busy in the States?”
“Everything’s good, I guess. It’s been stressful lately though, hasn’t it, John? Bunch of rogue Death Eaters terrorizing the Muggles, but we’ve been slowly rounding them up.”
“Horrible, absolutely dreadful; of all the nerve!” exclaimed Mr Weasley, sitting at the head of the long table. “To think that some are still out there after so long!”
“There aren’t many, thank Merlin,” David replied. “Why, just a couple weeks ago we brought in another one. Four of them still got away, but it’s progress.”
John stayed silent through the conversation. He knew exactly why Draco Malfoy and his followers were in America, and it wasn’t just for the fun of Muggle-baiting. Besides, Malfoy had never been one for all that, more likely to only proceed to meet his own demands; and like every other time they had clashed in the past, he had a bigger plan than just seemingly random havoc now. The Muggle casualties were more likely to be a warning that they were coming than anything else. John just hoped that they wouldn’t notice he’d left the country for the meantime.
He tuned back into the present then. Mrs Weasley was asking Ron to de-gnome the garden after breakfast and Ron was arguing that he shouldn’t have to; it was his wedding after all!
“You didn’t make Bill or Percy do it!” he shouted. “At Bill’s, you didn’t want us planning behind your back, so you forced Hermione, Harry and me to do it! Three times!”
The entire table fell silent, and, realizing whose name he had just called a second too late, Ron’s eyes squeezed shut in anger and he banged his fist against the wood. “Damn it!” he said.
“But I am asking you to do it now!” she replied. She had drawn herself up to her full height, her hands resting on her hips: a bad sign that anyone familiar with Weasley family dynamics would recognize a mile away. “You’re not doing anything else today, so you have no excuse.”
“We’ll help, right, John?” Dave intervened quickly, before it could go any further.
“O-of course,” he answered, still shaken by Ron’s last outburst.
“Are you done eating? Come on, Ron, we’ll start now and maybe have a game of Quidditch after.” David pulled John up by the arm and Ron, albeit sulkily, got up too.
“Fine,” he huffed, and led the way out to the back garden.
But he did not go quietly. He slammed the back door on his way out and stomped all the way to the small, overgrown garden. At once, he started trying to yank a lurking gnome from its hiding spot behind a Flutterby bush, only succeeding in getting his finger bitten by the angry creature. After a great deal of swearing and some grappling, he finally grabbed it by its leg and swung it so far that it was only a faint dot in the sky before it dropped to the ground.
“Whoa, whoa! Slow down there!” David yelled. He forcefully held Ron back from snatching another gnome.
Meanwhile, John had his own gnome held tightly by the legs with both hands. Twirling it like a lasso over his head, he let go and watched it fly over the low hedge. It wobbled about for a moment before teetering off in the opposite direction.
“I’m sorry,” Ron murmured; Dave had let go of him and was swinging his own gnome around his head. “I shouldn’t have let her work me up like that.”
“I imagine she just wants to make sure you and Hermione have the perfect wedding,” John intervened quietly.
Ron snorted. “What? Does she expect it to be invaded by a horde of garden gnomes bent on using the appetisers for a food fight? Not bloody likely, if you ask me.” He bent his head down for another doomed gnome and continued muttering curses under his breath.
Afterwards, David and John waited in the Burrow’s living room while Ron went upstairs to fetch his Keeper’s gloves. They had agreed on the two Aurors playing Chaser against each other, with Ron acting as the Keeper for both sides. As John and Dave claimed to be equally horrible at scoring, and Ron was decent at defending the posts, the sides were the most evenly matched. John was glad that they weren’t playing a full scrimmage game: he didn’t think he could spare the embarrassment after having neglected flying for so long.
David had sprawled out on the couch. Upstairs, Ron was arguing with his mother about playing around when he should be working, and his loud voice carried down to them. At the moment, he was busy convincing her that a little fun hurt nobody and besides, they had guests who came for a wedding, not to be house elves. At the inclusion of house elves, Hermione started in about rights and freedom. Apparently her dedication to SPEW had not dimmed at all over the years.
While he waited, John scanned the framed photographs along the fireplace mantel. Portraits and captured moments in time depicting the Weasley children from infanthood to maturity spread along the wall. John saw a lot of familiar and happy faces. Bill and Fleur on their wedding day, Charlie riding a dragon in Romania, and all of the children’s graduations from Hogwarts were just a few. Some were harder to look at than others. One was of a jubilant Fred and George outside their Diagon Alley joke shop - their arms were around each other’s shoulders and the animated faces were laughing at a long-forgotten joke. George still had both his ears, and the twins looked much younger and carefree than the last time he had seen them both. But it was the picture lain face down on the stone mantel that caught his eye. Picking it up and turning it over, John gasped audibly as his blue eyes met familiar bright green ones behind round black glasses.
The picture was of a quartet of teenagers. They sat under a large oak tree beside a shimmering lake, the sun shining and the bright turquoise sky cloudless. A small dark shadow could be seen in the lake not far away, but unless you were looking, it was hardly noticeable. Two redheads, a boy and girl, another girl - this one brown-haired - and a scrawny boy with untidy black hair were enjoying the perfect weather by completing homework under the shade of the tree. John watched as the black-haired boy wrapped his arm around the red-haired girl’s shoulder, pulling her closer; the way his eyes shone, like he was the lucky winner of a much coveted prize. They were so happy …
"They like having no freedom!" Ron’s voice was heard from above, and John came back to reality with a sudden jolt. Hurried footsteps stomped down the wooden stairs and two doors slammed one after the other on the landing above. The picture frame slipped from John’s sweaty grip, succumbing to gravity as it fell to the floor, the glass cover shattering. David sat up in surprise, his eyes wide; and Ron, now standing frozen at the bottom of the stairs, stared disbelievingly at John across the den in an emotion that could only be pure, hot rage.
"What were you doing?" he shouted. His ears were still red from his argument with the women and the colour only deepened now. He strode to where John was standing, and bending down, scooped the fallen photo from among the broken glass shards.
"I was just curious."
David’s head was moving steadily back and forth between the two like a pendulum. His mouth was open and his eyebrows were drawn together as if he had just put the clues together and formed a larger truth that he in no way liked. Ron held the photo tight to his chest, beyond words.
"Who are they?" John questioned. He wanted Ron to admit his hatred for that green-eyed boy; wanted somebody to come out and finally say the words aloud.
"Who do you think?" he snarled. He waved his wand and the frame came back together effortlessly. Cradling it, he inserted the picture and placed it back in its spot on the mantel.
"Well, the red-headed boy is you … I think … and the brown-haired girl’s Hermione. Is the other girl your sister, Ginny?"
"Right in one. But aren’t you curious about the other?"
"The black-haired boy with the glasses? I - I don’t believe I know him."
Ron huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. He tried to look indifferent, but his eyes were full of pain as he spoke. "Harry Potter. Every bloody person in the Wizarding world knows him … or knew him. What rock have you been living under for the last twenty years?"
David got up then, probably deciding to cut in while Ron still looked halfway sane. Grabbing his broomstick and heading for the door, he smirked over his shoulder. "Are you ladies playing or not?"
Ron slumped out of the door, pulling on his Keeper gloves, and headed for the broom shed. When John followed, David stopped him by gently grabbing his upper arm. "You should tell them soon, John, or it'll only get worse."
John nodded stiffly and David let go. "I know. But I can't."
The game was slow, but exhausting. Ron was still an excellent Keeper and it was rare when the others managed to get the ball they were using as the Quaffle by him. John had not been on a broom in years, and the feeling was strange and foreign to him now; he'd always thought of flying as being like learning to ride a bike: once you’d learned, you never forgot. But when he felt so little like his past self, like a totally separate person, just maybe, he acquiesced, it wasn't so weird for it to feel wrong now. After over an hour, David ended up winning the match sixty to twenty, and the three companions flew back to the ground and put their equipment away. They all went straight to work then, dusting any surface they could find, changing the sheets in all of the bedrooms. Ron had told them earlier that his old school mates - Neville Longbottom, Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan - would be coming tomorrow to spend some time with Ron before the wedding, and with the addition of even more guests staying under her roof, Mrs Weasley wanted everything to be in pristine condition.