Carry On

I'm there when you get the news. I watch you as you read the little slip of paper that your mother's owl has delivered to you, I had to convince you not to throw it out just moments ago, and I can't tell from the look of disbelief on your face if you're glad that I did so in the first place.

I catch you as your knees crumple and the piece of paper falls from your hands and onto the floor of the hotel room that we've been staying in for the last few weeks, ever since the boys abandoned us.

I shake your shoulders and try to ask what's happened but you don't move, you look like you're about to cry. I try to help you to your feet but you're a dead weight.

"Molly," I ask worriedly, "What's wrong, what's happened?" but you either can't form words, or you won't. I slide my arms underneath you and lift your suddenly frail frame from the floor onto your bed where you rest against the wall and stare straight ahead, the same expression of disbelief etched across your face.

"Molly, can I? Read the letter I mean?" I ask tentatively, and to my surprise you nod your head ever so slightly and I know I'll never hear the news straight from your mouth. I walk back across the room and pick up the piece of paper with the unusually untidy scrawl of Percy Weasley. That was when I knew this was serious, if Percy's handwriting had become a scrawl, there was something very wrong.

I let my eyes move slowly across the paper and as I do so, I feel just a fraction of what you felt when you saw the words written on the page. Lucy, your sister, my little cousin, is dead. She'd committed suicide earlier that day.

We were never close with Lucy, she always preferred to keep to herself and do her study with Rose and Dominique while you, the boys and I were out wreaking havoc in the corridors. She was never a pain though, in fact, we probably caused her more pain that she caused us.

We ran away, us and the boys, we ran from your house after a massive row between us and your parents about why we shouldn't be out doing muggle drugs and drinking muggle alcohol.

When I think about Lucy having to hear that argument, I feel guilt tear through me and my heart shatter like glass. The things we said about her, the things that you did to her right before we ran. Her last memory of you was your cold eyes staring up at her bedroom window and then a rock shattering the window pane as you threw it in a cold rage, knocking her down like you always said you would eventually.

That argument was probably what tipped Lucy over the edge. Now I realise that just one simple talk could've prevented her from even going down that path of depression. If only we hadn't been so stupid, young and naive.

I watch as you sink into a deep, dark depression. You don't eat, you don't speak and you don't sleep. You barely move to go to the toilet. I can't remember the last time you went outside either.

"Molly it's been weeks, you have to eat something," I say desperately, standing over your bed with a tray of food. You don't move, so I set the tray down on the floor and sit on the bed next to you.

"Y'know," I say, "Keeping it all bottled up isn't going to help you in any way, talk to me Molly, please."

And to my surprise, you turn your head and the rest of your body follows until you're facing me completely.

"I don't see any way out of this," you say, your voice raspy.

"Any way out of what, exactly?" I ask curiously, "this situation?"

You nod, "The only way out is to go the same way that she did, jump off a cliff or something."

I open my mouth to tell you never to do that to anybody, but it's then that I notice you're crying. I gather you up in my arms and hold you tightly as you sob into my shoulder. I whisper into your ear and tell you that it's okay but I know you don't believe me.

"I don't think I can take this anymore Roxy," you whisper and my heart shatters because I can't ever think of losing you. I need to help you, but you're so far gone that even I don't think I can pull you out.

I can barely keep you alive. I can see you dying more and more each day and it breaks my heart to see you like this.

This is when I know that you're not just my closest cousin or my best friend. This is when I realise that I've completely and utterly fallen for you.

I can't say anything to you, we're cousins, it's not right. But every day I watch you sitting on your bed, barely moving and only eating minimal amounts when I coax you to eat, and every day I wish that you would get better, I wish that you would move on. I'm scared that if I fall asleep I'll wake up and you won't be there. I'm scared that if you're not there that I'll end up where you are now. I keep reaching in to the fire to save you but every time I try I get burned.

It's like I'm half agony, half hope. It kills me to see you like this, broken and battered, but at the same time I'm certain that I can save you. I can help you, just like you've helped me for my whole life.

I can't take it anymore. You've been like this for much too long and its killing me just as slowly as it's killing you.

"Molly," I say loudly, making you jump. I haven't spoken above a whisper for weeks, possibly months. You just look at me, that same vacant expression on your face, "Come on, I need to go and get some more food, we'll get lunch at that Café down the road."

You don't seem to have processed what I've said. "Moll," I say again, walking over to your bed and sitting down, "Come with me, I need you to tell me what you want to eat for the next week."

You say nothing, just like you've been doing every time I've tried to talk to you for the last few weeks and something inside of me snaps.

"Goddamnit Molly!" I yell, grabbing her by the shoulders, "Stop moping! I get that she was your sister and all but you've been like this for too long. Lucy wouldn't want you to be like this, she'd want you to get on with your life!"

"No she wouldn't," you whisper and I'm slightly taken aback, "I was horrible to her, she'd want me to kill myself just like she did."

I gasp softly as my heart starts to pound. I move my hands slowly from your shoulders to your waist as I pull you in closer and press my lips to yours. To my surprise you respond immediately and you move your lips against mine desperately, like there was no tomorrow.

We eventually break apart and I can see that your eyes have some life left in them. I can see that you haven't lost all hope. I put my hand behind your head and try to pull you in again but you stop me.

"We can't," you say breathlessly, "It's not right."

"Who cares?" I say with a devilish grin, "That's what makes it so much more fun."

A smile spreads across your face as I tell you what you had told me for years and you let me pull you back in, hungry for more. I need you, and you need me and together we will pick ourselves up and eventually carry on.

AN: This is very loosely based off my oneshot 'above and below' but you don't have to have read that to understand this, they just have links in them. Anyway, this was written for.

Big/Lil Sis Competition – Round 3: Prompts – MollyIIRoxanne, glass, wishes, "I am half agony, half hope", disbelief and knocked down

Camp Potter: Tech Discovery – Write about Roxanne Weasley

Fanfiction School of Imagination and Creativity: PDHPE: Prompts – Depression, 1354 words, Forbidden Love and Resting

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DFTBA,
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Nayla xx