12th January, 2000. 12:41 p.m.
“Bill, honey, whatever’s the matter?” Padma asked, sounding genuinely concerned, rather than just testy.
This, at least, was a relief. Bill knew he had been ignoring her ever since she’d gotten home from her night shift at St. Mungo’s, but he just couldn’t help it. He had a deep, ominous feeling about his earlier conversation with Harry. Even though he had reassured his friend that everything would be fine, and he had believed it at the time, something was nagging at him now. He wondered if Harry had had any luck with the Patronus message. He wished that he had told Harry to get back to him about it. Perhaps he should send one of his own?
Gah! He’d gotten distracted again, and now she was looking at him with even more concern, which was mixed with a little bit of anger. He forced himself to voice a fairly cheery reply. “Sorry, love. Just got some stuff on my mind, you know. Nothing important. What were you saying?”
“I wasn’t saying anything. I was waiting for you to say. I asked you how your morning was going.”
Bill worked as a freelancer now, performing most of his tasks from his desk at home. Occasionally, he had to travel, but mostly he was a house-husband who dabbled on the side. All very twenty-first century modern. Padma was always concerned, however, that the situation would eventually take its toll on their relationship, and she got anxious at the first sign of distemper in her husband.
“Oh, uh, yes. It was fine. I didn’t get much done, actually, but I’ll get on it this afternoon now. Why don’t you go and get some rest? You must be tired.” He gave her what he hoped was an affectionate smile. Why was he so reluctant to tell her about the conversation with Harry? It wasn’t like anything serious had happened. Ron had just gone AWOL for a few hours. It was hardly the first time. The youngest Weasley son, notorious for his temper, had long since learnt that sometimes it was best just to take himself out of the way of his friends and family, rather than risk arguments and feuds. Still, there was a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something in Harry’s look, which hadn’t struck him at the time, had started nagging at him. There was something more going on, he was sure of it. Something that he wasn’t aware of.
“Hey? Will you listen to me for just one damn minute?” Padma demanded loudly. She was getting increasingly angry, now. Bill tried for a rueful look and nodded to show that he was giving her his full attention.
“Why don’t we go out somewhere and have lunch?” Bill had forgotten to make the lunch, which he usually did for her before she got home. She had <i>said</i> she would make something for herself, but then they had gotten into this conversation.
<i>Don’t get distracted again, Bill!</i> he chastised himself. “Okay, honey. Where might you like to go?” he asked enthusiastically, rising from his chair at the dining table and moving towards the coat rack.
“You can choose. On one condition. You tell me what the hell’s wrong! Are you working on a big case? What’s worrying you, baby? Just tell me,” Padma implored.
After letting out a long, deep sigh, Bill attempted to vocalise his thoughts. “I don’t know. Harry Flooed earlier, and he was looking for Ron. Apparently, he didn’t come home last night. I thought he might have just gone off for a night, that maybe he and Lav had had a spat. Harry said that she was there, looking for him. I just suggested a Patronus message and then tried to get on with some work, but something started nagging at me. I don’t know what it is. I just feel… worried. Distracted. Anxious. Like I need to do something really important, but I’m forgetting to do.” He shook his head wearily and sat back down again. “Honestly, Pad, I just don’t know what it is.”
“Maybe you should just Floo Harry and see if they’ve found him?” Padma suggested. “You know what Ron’s like, but if it’s worrying you, you should just check up on it with Harry.”
“Oh, Harry will be at work by now, and Ginny’s going to be busy with Xander. I don’t want to bother them.”
“Well, fine. Send your own Patronus, then. It can’t do any harm, and you can get Ron directly, and you won’t have to bother anyone else.”
“Yeah, I was thinking about that…” Bill’s sentence trailed off. How could he explain to his wife that something was holding him back? He didn’t <i>want</i> to send the Patronus, although he knew how ridiculous that was. It would only take five minutes, probably even less, and then his mind would be set at ease.
“Go on, then. Do it before we go to lunch,” Padma suggested, moving towards the coat rack to get her own coat now. Bill rose again and toyed with his wand nervously, tossing it from one hand to the other.
<i>Focus on something happy.</i> All he could think about was the vague, dull, weighty ache of concern in his stomach.
“Oh, Bill, what are you waiting for?” Padma asked with a laugh. Cheerfully taking her own wand out of her pocket, she cast a Patronus almost instantly, whispered in its ear, and sent it on its way. “Now, come on, husband of mine. Let’s go to that new Egyptian place!”
***
12th January, 2000. 1:23 p.m.
“So, I said to Dolores...” Padma fell silent mid-sentence, and Bill quirked an eyebrow at her and laughed.
“What? Come on, don’t drag it out!”
“Bill…” she managed to utter before a familiar silvery shape appeared beside their table.
“Padma?” Bill asked, his voice strained with panic, now. “What… What…”
“I don’t know, Bill. Honestly, I don’t know,” she replied, responding to his fear with the sound of her own, her eyes wide as she looked to him and let the Patronus dissipate.
Shoving back his chair, Bill rose from the table. “Padma, I have to go. I have to talk to Harry.”
With a terse nod of agreement, Padma let him hurry from the restaurant without another word. A moment later, after tossing down a few coins to cover their bill, she hurried after him.
***
12th January, 2000. 1:25 p.m.
“Harry! Ginny!” Bill’s voice thundered from the garden a second before he burst through the front door.
“Shh, for Merlin’s sake. Xander <i>and</i> Lavender are asleep upstairs,” Ginny chastised her brother in a low whisper.
“What the hell’s going on, Gin? Where’s Ron? I sent a Patronus—”
“And it came back on its own without a message. I know. Harry’s did the same thing.”
“What does it mean?” Bill demanded, his voice still a trifle too loud for Ginny’s liking.
“Just calm down, Bill. There’s nothing to worry about just yet. It wouldn’t be unlike Ron to try and shut himself off from us after an argument.”
“Was there an argument?” Bill demanded, interrupting his sister. Patiently, she answered his question.
“Not as such.”
“What does that mean?”
“What does what mean?” Padma demanded as she hurried in through the door behind him.
“I have no idea. My darling sister is holding out on me!” Bill muttered angrily. Padma put a tentative, calming hand on his forearm and pulled him down into one of the seats around the kitchen table as she took a seat herself.
“Okay, let’s start again, shall we?” Padma suggested calmly. “What’s going on, Gin? ‘Fess up.”
“Okay, well…” Ginny hesitated. Ron had kept his intentions perfectly secret from most his family. None of them knew that he had gone to visit Hermione. Still, Bill looked almost crazed with worry, and she herself was more anxious than she wanted to admit. Secrets would do no good. It was time to get things out in the open. “Ron went to see Hermione last night.”
“He <i>what</i>?” Bill yelled, leaping up from his chair. “That murderess, that Death Eater accomplice, Snape and Draco’s little whore?”
“Bill, sit down!” Padma ordered sharply. Even before Ginny could open her mouth, the piercing cry of her awoken son hit her ears.
“You’ve woken him up, now," she commented with an angry, I-told-you-so look. "I warned you, didn’t I? Can’t you just control yourself for once? Honestly,” Ginny muttered to herself as an afterthought as she hurried from the room.
Padma only just managed to start speaking before her husband began to rant. “Before you even say anything, I’m going to state for the record that you and I have very different views on Hermione. And I think that Ron thinks of her far more in the light that I do. So don’t judge too harshly of his decisions, okay? And, if he wants to take a little bit of time out after a traumatic experience like that, who can really blame him? I’m sure it can’t have been pleasant or easy for him. So control your temper with Ginny, and don’t even think about saying such things to Ron when he gets back.”
Bill cast his wife an angry glare and crossed his arms in front of him defensively. “She killed my brother, Padma.”
“She killed Ginny and Ron’s brother, too. Don’t think you have the monopoly on suffering. People deal with it in different ways—”
“And you’re supposed to be on my side!”
“Padma? Bill? What’s going on? What are you doing here? Is Ron with you?” Lavender asked from the doorway. She was dressed in red flannel pyjamas that were almost certainly Ginny’s – they were slightly too small for the larger woman – and was rubbing her eyes drowsily. The shouting had apparently woken her, too.
“No, he’s not. We’re just trying to find out where he is,” Padma replied in a calm, friendly voice, not trusting Bill to speak.
“Harry’s gone to The Ministry to see if they can track him. Of course, he’s not a missing person, so they won’t, and we’ll just have to wait until the selfish git comes back of his own accord, like always. Still, Harry thought it was worth a try,” Lavender informed them as she sat down to the table and poured a cup of tea. She was just pouring one for Padma – Bill had refused grumpily – when Harry himself Apparated into the small corner left free of clutter for precisely that purpose.
“Harry! Did you find him?” Bill demanded excitedly, almost before Harry had had a chance to put his wand back in his pocket.
“Hello, Bill. Hello, Padma. No, Bill, I didn’t. You know what it’s like. Has he been gone more than forty-eight hours? Do you have reason to believe he might be in danger? Blah, blah, blah.” Harry had spoken all this in a whiny, angry, sing-song voice, and he now slumped into a chair next to Lavender.
“I suppose we’ll just have to wait for him to come home on his own, then?” Padma suggested. “We were just so panicked when our—my Patronus came back. But, of course, that was just an over-reaction. The charm to block them is easy enough if you have a mind to do it.”
Harry nodded in glum agreement. How on Earth was he to confess to all these people, Ron’s brother, sister, sister-in-law, his fiancée, just how worried he was?
***
12th January, 2000. 5:16 p.m.
As Ginny, Lavender and Padma had collected in the kitchen in order to make dinner, Harry and Bill finally got a chance to talk privately. Well, not counting Xander, of course, but he probably wouldn’t be telling anyone any secrets any time soon.
“So, what do you think happened?” Bill demanded forthrightly as soon as he felt he could.
Harry gave him a sharp look and bounced Xander on his knee distractedly. “Honestly? I think she refused to speak to him. I think he got himself all worked up, perhaps tried to Apparate in and force her to talk to him. Maybe they got into a fight. She probably told him some things he didn’t want to hear, and he’s run off to contemplate his life and everything and everyone in it.” There was a pause as Bill digested this information. “Of course, that’s just a hypothesis. Who knows, maybe she took him in with open arms and they’re having wild, passionate sex right now. That’s what Lavender’s afraid of. And, before you say anything, I know how much you hate Hermione, but Ron really does still love her. And we have no idea what sort of state she’s in, emotionally, physically, mentally. Either possibility is equally as likely, as far as I can see.”
“Ron would never…” Bill began, but he didn’t bother to finish the sentence. Maybe Ron would. How would either of them know for sure? It had been so difficult for Ron after the War, both before and after the trial. Maybe particularly after, knowing that she was out there somewhere, living her life, so close and yet so far. Lavender had been a great help to him during that time, and they had all hoped that Ron’s obsession with Hermione had come to a close. But you could never know for sure. “How are we going to find him?” Bill finally asked.
Harry raised his head – he had been watching his son lovingly – and gave his brother-in-law a calm, level look. “I’m going to go and visit her myself. And if she won’t talk to me, then I’ll try and find a way to make her.”