Archive of Our Own

They take him to see Fred.

"Fred," he says to himself, sounding out the word. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth and it makes him dizzy. Fred, Fred. Something old tells him that Fred doesn't like being called the wrong name. Fred, Fred.

The lights are out, in Fred's room. Just like they are in his room. Is it for him?

He can't see him very well. It's dark, and there are bandages all around his head. He doesn't move. The healer said he was sleeping. He can't tell. He's not close enough to touch him. He's all bundled up in a blanket or six, and in a wheelchair, and his left side doesn't work. He moved his left fingers and toes yesterday. Yesterday. The day before? Yesterday.

Something tells him-- the same something that says that Fred's name is very important-- that Fred isn't supposed to be still. If Fred is still something is very, very wrong.

"Fred," he whispers again.

He hates sitting up. They make him do it all the time. Ten minutes, the green-and-pink-dress healer says. Ten minutes to start. And when he can do that, they'll move on to something more. Doesn't that sound exciting, not being stuck in bed all day? But sitting up makes him sick. The room spins around him, it spins and spins, and he'd close his eyes but closing his eyes doesn't make it stop. He throws up and has to lie down again and bury his face in his pillow until the next time he wakes up. It's awful.

But he has to sit up, to visit Fred. They won't let him see him if he doesn't.

He sits up.

"I'm sorry," he says to Fred.

He can't quite remember what for. But he knows he is. Just like he knows his name, and how important it is.

It's very important that he says he is sorry.

He sits. And he drifts. The edges of the room start to go fuzzy.

"Hey, buddy? I think you have the wrong room."

Hm?

"Are... are you okay? How did you get here?"

"Fred," he says. No, wait. That's wrong. He closes his eyes, sifting through the family picture one by one in his mind. That's Ginny. That's Earring... no. Bill? William? That is Mum and Dad. And the twins are, are...

--a book charmed to bite his hands everyone is laughing at him his face is so hot so hot twenty points from Gryffindor--

"George?"

George. George. George tilts his head. But his hair is too long. And his ear is--

He tries to reach out. He wants to touch it; it doesn't make sense. But his arm won't move.

George narrows his eyes at him, and he gets closer.

"You're..."

He's asking a name. It's one of the harder questions.

He hasn't had a name in a very long time.

"George," he repeats, touching a finger to George's chest. It helps, doing it in pairs. Then himself. "Weatherby." Wait. Weatherby? No.

Something happens.

"Mum! MUM! DAD!" He vanishes. He goes away. "Get in here! DAD!"

No no no no no. No screaming, too loud, it is too loud. He crams his hands over his ears, but he can't, he can only move one and it's not enough. Then the entire world goes bright and blurs and it is screaming at him and won't stop, it's all red hair, it's all touching him, hands everywhere, screaming, bright, it's so bright--

He wants it to stop, he wants it to stop right now, please stop

please stop

His head splits.

"--Percy--"

It's dark again.

His head hurts. But it always hurts. His stomach still feels upset, upset enough that some baser instinct wants to roll onto his side so he can't choke. But he's too tired to move. He's always too tired to move.

It's always dark in his room. Now that he's left it, he understands why. He never ever wants to leave it again.

He moves his toes. Just because he can. Just to see if he can. He can. He can feel his socks, the nails catching on the wool. He can move them, just like the healers said. His whole foot feels like a bit much, though, and he doesn't try to move that.

He can't move his fingers, though, and is too tired to understand why.

One of the family is sitting next to him. He's holding his hand. Percy does not want him holding his hand, not that one. Being pinned down-- his skin crawls, his head hurts, he wants to throw up. But he's not pinned down, is he? He can't wriggle his fingers. But he couldn't do more than that anyway.

He wants the hand off. He wants it to go.

He is farsighted. So farsighted that he really only needs reading glasses, reading glasses, somehow, at six years old. Why he remembers that but not anyone's names he doesn't know. The man shouldn't be blurry like letters on a page, but he is. He hadn't ever known before that it takes effort to focus his eyes on something, but effort it does, and he's so tired right now that even that is too much to ask.

He stares at the vaguely blurry shape through his eyelashes, and breathes.

The man is reading the paper. He has only just gotten his letters back, but not like this, the page crinkled and at an angle. It makes his head spin all over again and he has to stare away to settle his stomach.

His head hurts.

He-- he remembers this man. Not like Fred And George. It's not like them. It's different. He opens his mouth and the words don't come out, but they echo and scream in his head.

Please talk to me

Please don't turn away

Please look at me

Please please look at me I'm so scared I don't know what to do come back wait wait come back don't let me die like this

COME BACK

I HATE YOU. COME BACK

The man turns a page. Then he gasps.

The hand is suddenly crushing his. His skin crawls.

"Percy," he rasps. "Son."

The name game, again. "Arthur." He points a finger, then weakly at his own chest. "Weath... Weasley. Weasley." No, that's not right. He's gotten it wrong again. "D- Dad. Percy."

He's too tired to try to understand the look on his face then. It's not a good one. But he's too tired to wonder why.

"Son..."

Son. Son.

He starts crying and doesn't know why.

His head hurts.

"You're..." He moves closer, the paper rustled and put away. His hand moves to touch his face, brushing the tears back. it's searing hot and Percy is just so cold. "How are you feeling?"

His hand now free, Percy stretches his fingers. One, two, three, four, five. And then his toes again, too, just because he can.

"Percy?"

What? Oh. Right. He'd been asked a question.

"Hate. I. H-hate."

"I'm sorry?"

No-- no, that's not what how are you feeling means. He is not asking what he is feeling, he is asking how he is feeling. No. Try again.

He licks his lips. They taste like sand. "Poorly."

Perhaps that was still the wrong answer. The look on his face isn't a nice one.

"Percy," he says again, then stops. He looks down. And now his warm thumb moves in slow, gentle circles over his arm. His throat works. "Everyone else is waiting outside. They all want to see you, but the healers said only one at a time. They... they told us what happened to you. They said..."

Percy stares at him.

Arthur stares back.

His voice breaks, then. It just breaks. And he cries. Tears slowly overflow and drip down one cheek. The hand on his arm stays where it is.

Percy would really rather prefer complete sentences right now. Or nothing at all. He can barely read or move or see. He doesn't understand what this is and doesn't care to.

"I am so sorry, Percy. For everything. I am so..." He sniffs. Trembling. Shoulders trembling, trembling all over. "I should've..."

"Complete sentences," he says, or tries to. Turns out the words are a bit too complicated and he can't form them properly. He closes his eyes, pressing his hand to his head.

He'd be embarrassed if he weren't so tired. If his head didn't--

There's a prickly dragon behind one eye. It's curled up and covered in spines and burns inside, and every time it breathes its whole body fills up and its horns and talons and spikes dig into the inside of his head all over and the fire in its belly sears into his skull. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

"Are you okay? Do you need a healer?"

Complete sentences, at least. Better.

"Percy, what's wrong?"

Everything. Everything. Everything is--

He sits up, deliberately, slowly, because everything he does nowadays must be deliberate and slow. Or he tries to but suddenly is met with hands on his shoulders, soft hands, gentle hands. stopping him. holding him down.

stop stop stop stop stop

"Percy, wait, wait. Son, the healers said you shouldn't-- what is it? What do you need? I can-"

stop stop stop donttouch stop

"-whatever you need-"

STOP STOP STOP

"Fred," he nearly spits. He's shaking all over and so scared and this has to stop. This has to stop right now. Don't touch me don't tell me what I can't do let me go let me go let me "I want to see Fred."

The hands on his shoulders go slack. But he's too weak to throw them off.

"Percy..." One hand moves to his neck instead. He looks like he's grieving. "Fred's asleep right now. You can see him when you're feeling better."

"N-no. No." He grits his teeth, rolling the word around in his mouth. No, no, no. "Now. I-- I will go now!"

"You had a seizure, Percy! In Fred's room, you had a-" He sucks in a deep breath and when he speaks again is calmer again, his hands back on his shoulders. "You're not well. You have to stay here and rest."

And he says other things, other words, things that sound like no. And Percy can't-- his skin crawls and burns and there's bugs in his head, scratching and crawling to get out. The sheets itch and he wants his dad's hands off, he wants them off right now, he wants, he wants--

He won't be told no again. He won't. He won't go back there. He wants to see Fred, and he will see Fred, he's not going to be locked up in his own head again he won't do it he wants to see Fred he wants to see Fred he wants to see Fred

"Percy!"

And he is sobbing, kicking, shoving, writhing. He wants out of this bed, out of this room, he wants to be nowhere, he wants no one to ever be able to tell him no again, he wants to clamp his hands over his ears and sink into the floor so he can't hear it when it comes. He bawls like a child and there are arms around him, arms that he can't get away from. They squeeze him like a straitjacket, rubbing his arms, his shoulders, cradling the back of his broken head and he wails but they don't stop. They don't ever stop.

let me go let me go let me go let me go let me go letmegoletmegoletletletletletlet

LET ME GO

"I"m sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry Percy." There's tears falling onto his face and he can't do anything but scream in his own head.

It's George, the next time.

He remembers the name without needing to think hard about it. Every time he wakes up, it's a little easier. He feels a little better.

The healers say his magic is working overtime. That every time he sleeps, it patches up a little more of himself, unscrambles the eggs in his brain. They say it's one of the reasons he's so tired all of the time.

He feels like scrambled eggs. He feels like he's been beaten and beaten and beaten around the edges of Mum's mixing bowl, swirled all up on the inside until everything important is gone. And next she'll pour him into the pan and he'll be thin and soupy and still so tired.

There'd been a metaphor, somewhere in there, a metaphor with a conclusion, but... tired.

Tired.

He rolls his hand, his whole hand. He can make a fist. His head pounds but the dragon behind his eye is asleep.

"George."

George looks up. He's sitting with criss-crossed legs and bags under his eyes and purple-- purple-- robes. Percy appreciates it. No one else wears purple; it helps him remember who's who.

His voice must've sounded pitiful, because George stands up, pouring him a glass of water. He holds it out to his wrong side, but at least he doesn't help him drink like he's a baby.

Sitting up makes his head swim. But a little less. Always a little less.

"Twinsies, huh?" George says, when he lies back down. He nods at Percy. "Triplets. You, me, Fred."

Percy stares at him.

"Triplets," he repeats. He updates his priors. "Are we triplets?"

Ah. No. Wrong answer. Must've been. George looks very wrong.

"No. No, you--" George starts to point at him, then draws a circle around his own head. He's gone very, very pale. "The bandages, you, and Freddie, you..." His voice shudders, and a dark cloud passes over his face. "They really messed you up, didn't they."

It's not a question. So Percy doesn't answer.

No one asks him anything, or tells him to do something. George is staring at him, but not saying anything. Percy's attention lulls back to the ceiling.

"Fred is hurt really badly." George stands back a little, folding his arms. "So he can't come see you right now. You're also hurt really badly right now. You can come visit when you're not. But the healers said you're not allowed to until then. Right now the rules are that you stay here and get better."

Rules.

He hates... rules. He hates--

He hates being told what to do. He can not stand being told what to do.

He will not-- he-- he will not--

But it's also like George has tucked him in, all the way up and then over his chin, and with the world's thickest, heaviest blanket. It's suffocating and a sedative all at once. He despises it. But he can feel his body relaxing. It's almost like he's gone numb. It's the one thing he can do. He does what he's told.

"Okay," comes out. He can feel himself shrinking, stomach crawling, skin itching, claws on the inside of his head. "Okay."

George stares at him. It's awful. Percy looks away.

"I'm gonna be with Fred after this. There'll always be someone here with you, too, but-- I have to be with Fred. So if you need me just... let someone know, I guess."

"Okay."

George fidgets in the corner of Percy's eye. Percy moves his left fingers again.

He doesn't need to play the name game anymore, he thinks. But it plays out in his head anyway, pictures, images, association. George, Fred and George, school, a Head Boy badge. Twenty points from Gryffindor. We can't sit together at lunch, Penny, Fred and George won't ever leave you alone. Fred and George. Penny. Penny. Muggleborn. Penny.

A fist grabs around his heart, and suddenly he's taking deep breaths to not throw up.

"P-Penny."

"...Penny? Clearwater? From school?" George tilts his head. One ear. He tilts his head. Percy expects him to point or laugh or mock him, because that's part of the Penny Memories, but he doesn't. "Do you want us to call her for you?"

No. No. Why would he do that? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

"Okay, okay, calm down, Merlin, we won't call her. Fuck--"

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

"S-stop that! Stop that, Percy!"

His one hand is yanked off his head, his ear, and George pushes him back to lying down, and-- and he does not want to but he's being to told to calm down so he does. All he can see in his head is Penny's terrified face and he wants to be nothing, he wants to be nothing at all, he can feel himself cracking his head against the wall, but he's been told what to do so he does it. He's shaking all over and going to throw up and tears are running sideways down his face again but he stops. He stops speaking. He stops trying to move. He just stops.

George hovers over him and the look on his face is unrecognizable.

"Penny. Penny." He rolls her name around his mouth, tasting it, fighting with his tongue. "Is she okay? I. I. He made me. He. I didn't want-- G-George."

His left hand grapples, sloppy, grabs on. He holds George's sleeve and he doesn't know how to say it so he just stares at him, begging him to understand.

He thinks George had been about to leave, before. But he sits back down now. He sits on the side of the bed and doesn't even make Percy stop holding onto his sleeve. And Percy bites his own tongue to stop from sobbing.

He's so sorry. He's sorry about everything. He's too sorry for words and he doesn't even have his words anymore, he just has George's sleeve and a limp pillow and Penny in his head. He's dragging her down the blackness of the Ministry and he can't make it stop.

George just sits there. Slowly, Percy stops crying.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"You were imperiused." George goes to fold his arms again, his face doing an odd, painful thing, then stops when Percy clings on. His voice is gruff. "It wasn't your-"

"I'm sorry for not being nice to you. I was never very nice to you."

George blinks.

He looks stunned.

Perhaps if he'd been nicer. Been better. Been good. Good. Been a good boy and done what he was told. Perhaps. Then they would've known-- they--

There'd been a Death Eater pretending to be him for years and none of them had known. Because he is so mean. So bitter. So arrogant. So stuck-up. So foolish. He is obsessed with rules and he is the only one that never belonged and he is pathetic and he is so so so so so so so so so sorry.

George has never looked at him like this before, and Percy once again has to stare at their hands instead. The hem of his purple sleeve, neatly tailored, red thread marking the cuff. His hands, with scars and callouses and old burns from potions gone wrong and products messed up and experiments that ended badly. And then Percy's, pale and unblemished and thin.

Everyone's hands look like George's. Percy has always, always, been the one who didn't belong.

"Well," George mutters finally. "We were never very nice to you either."

Mum is there.

Percy sees her, and he opens his mouth, though he's not sure what to say. Perhaps hello, perhaps her name, perhaps his name.

He bursts into tears instead.

He doesn't even know why he's crying. She doesn't ask. She just holds him and rubs his back and doesn't even make him sit up. He's so sorry. He wants to take back everything he's ever said to her and he can't even remember what it was. But she tells him shh and it's okay and I love you over and over, and he cries until he can't any more and his head aches even worse than before.

He falls back asleep in her arms. The last thing he feels is her lips on his temple.

His memory is starting to piece together.

He remembers-- more. More of everything. He remembers more than the last thing that he saw. He remembers healers, telling him (and they've told him this more than once) that being upset is normal, that head injuries affect emotional regulation. They'd whispered to his parents that meltdowns and temper tantrums and crying jags while he heals are normal. Like he's a toddler.

Mum brings a sweater from home, she says. Home. One of his old ones, the letter faded and a hole worn into the elbow. The healers tell her that should probably wait until he stops getting sick so often and she looks like she's about to snarl at them. He moves his whole left arm and his whole left leg and finally remembers just where Weatherby comes from and groans. Something clicks in his head and he can read again, read properly, not word-by-word, and someone lets him have a book of common magical diseases that he reads when he's not asleep, when his head doesn't hurt so badly that he can't.

They still haven't let him see Fred again. Or even out of bed.

One single trip with a wheelchair, and it ended so badly that they're not even going to try again.

There's still always someone with him whenever he wakes up. At some point, it's his father again.

He's asleep in the chair, his head sagging onto his chest and the paper abandoned in his lap. There's a picture of Harry on the front cover, ducking into a fireplace surrounded by camera flashes and reporters. The memory of Harry stirs something vague in his head, something distant that makes his stomach tighten with guilt, and he deliberately steers his thoughts away from it.

He looks at Arthur instead.

Those memories aren't so far away that he can forget them.

He remembers seeing him. Over and over. He remembers his face. Their eyes never meeting. He remembers believing in him at first, he remembers trying to shove off the magic suffocating him, to open his mouth, to cry out, say something, but he never came close enough to hear and at some point the day came and Percy just stopped trying.

He stopped trying.

He remembers seeing his face and just going back to sleep in his own head so he didn't have to look at it.

He remembers being turned around and slamming the door of the Burrow in his face and apparating out, and he'd-- he'd been so--

He'd been so relieved. He'd been so happy. What a fool, he'd thought! Only a fool would think that an argument would do any good to keep the Weasleys apart! The Death Eaters had piloted his body to the Leaky Cauldron and he'd sat there feeling relief for the first time in weeks. It was over now, he was safe, he wasn't going to die, his father was coming to save him just like he'd saved Ginny from falling off her first real broom, and Ron from the twins' spider, and the twins from the swamp out back, and Charlie, he had come for Charlie. The Weasleys always come for each other.

And--

Percy opens his mouth and closes it over and over. All the words of three years are caught in his throat but he can't say them. The pressure is relentless, suffocating, drowning him from all sides. They won't come out.

He's supposed to be good. He's supposed to be quiet and do what the healers tell him and be grateful his family is here. The feeling is overwhelming. He opens his mouth and can already hear quiet, dear and don't trouble yourself about it now, love, and that's enough of that and nothing comes out. He sweats and pants and shakes, mouth dry and bile growing in his throat, and he stares at his father and he can't. He can't do it.

He can't do this.

He wants it all to stop. He wants it all to go away. He wants to never see him again, to never see any of them. He wants to shut his eyes and be back in that black void of the last three years and never have to wake up again. He wants his head to stop hurting, the healers to stop asking him questions and making him do things, his family to go away, go away, he wants to sink into nothingness and stay there

he

he wants

He finds darkness, and doesn't come out again.

Light. Light.

He can't help it. He presses himself back, cringing to get away from it. The pounding in his head escalates another step and he has to press a hand to his mouth to force whatever little is in his stomach back down.

He hasn't been out of his dark room since going to see Fred.

It's-. It's-. He doesn't know. He can't remember his name. The picture in his head is older, outdated; he hasn't seen this one in quite some time. He's got short hair and broad shoulders and a tan, and a tattoo, and is currently staring at Percy like he's hung the moon. His mouth moves and he presses a hand to his heart.

Please shut the door.

Please.

He comes closer, reaching out to him, his mouth moving again. Then he freezes, eyes wide. Repeats it a few more times; stepping back, saying something, stepping closer, saying something. Percy never hears anything at all. It's silent here and that's the way he likes it.

Finally he stops. He meets Percy's eyes and holds a finger up, just one. Percy has no idea what that means, but he also doesn't care, because then the door is shut and he's back in darkness again. Silence and darkness.

All too soon, he's back. But this time he comes into the tiny, cramped space with him and shuts the door behind him. The tip of his wand lights up, but it's a faint glow, and as long as Percy doesn't look directly at it it's okay.

He sits down beside him, and dusty books and files and a box of something green and slimy. Silence.

The question mark man presses something into Percy's hand. A note.

Are you doing this?

Doing what? Percy looks back at him, and he just gestures around the closet with one vague, scarred hand. Burn scars.

Oh. The silence.

Yes. He thinks he is.

It's not on purpose. He's not sure how much he could do on purpose right now if he tried. He probably shouldn't be. The healers are always talking about how all his magic is going towards keeping him alive right now, that it's too dangerous to cast spells at this point in his recovery, but... it's not on purpose.

He's not supposed to be doing this.

He'd stop if he could.

He goes to nod his head, but pain rolls through him again and he freezes, gritting his teeth. Right. Keeps forgetting that. Moving his head hurts.

One warm hand squeezes his shoulder, steadying him, his fingers digging into Percy's collarbone. He can't do anything but stare hard at his lap, waiting for the room's edges to stop pulsing, until a second note is shoved in front of him.

Don't do that if it hurts.

If something happens I'm taking you back to your room. But otherwise we can stay here. If that's what you want?

Well, he just told him not to nod.

It's dark in here. Dark and silent. Dad isn't here. There's no pressing memories when he looks at whichever brother this is, no feeling that he's done something wrong, or isn't safe, or needs to go.

He could stay in here forever.

A third note appears.

My enclosure is taking care of the dragon from Gringotts. I set it up for Ron, who's doing it for Hermione. Took us two weeks to track the guy down out here though. Did the Ministry know Gringotts has a dragon? HAD. They are never getting him back. Do you know what those goblins were doing to him? All to guard some stupid rich pureblood's stash?!

What?

This note, unlike the last two, is baffling.

Did the Ministry know Gringotts has-- had-- a dragon? Is that the question he's supposed to answer? Percy certainly didn't know that. Not until just now. What does that have to do with anything, anyhow?

Ron, and... and... Hermione? Who?

He hasn't had to play the name game in a while. Some little murmur in his broken head whispers that that means something is wrong, that the healers are right, he shouldn't be using magic, but the end point of that thought is Going Back To His Room, so he doesn't follow it. Instead he stares blankly at the note, turning it over in his head. For once he has absolutely no idea how he is supposed to behave.

We're not sure what we're planning on doing with him. We'd like to re-home him to his natural habitat, but you can't do that with dragons that are too violent. We might be able to improve his behavior, but we might not. He must've been down there centuries. I told Bill he should get a new job instead of staying with those arseholes. I know he's not involved with security but I certainly couldn't stay there after seeing what they did to the dragon.

There's no question there.

Percy re-reads the note, and, yes, no question mark appears the second time, either. No question.

Ah, he realizes.

He's not expected to answer. He's just expected to listen. Read.

The buzz in his head fades.

He can do that.

His brother, whatever his name is, continues to write to him. He writes furiously, quill already back to paper the second he's passed a note over. A little mumble in his head says that the quill he's using is increasingly popular, these days, but it's not a quill, really, it's a Muggle pen. The sharp tip and feather are just for marketing. What self-respecting wizard would use a Muggle pen?

He remembers that but not his own brother's name.

He reads about the Gringotts dragon. He reads about a new subspecies of horntail, this one apparently incredibly docile compared to its Hungarian counterpart. His brother calls it cuddly. He reads that his brother is actually on leave from the enclosure right now, because he's got two little dragons to take care of at home. Whatever that means.

Another note appears. This time, the little pocket-quill is pushed into his hand with it.

Why did you leave? What was wrong?

It takes Percy a few moments to realize that he is meant to write an answer, this time. Which is a problem. He has his letters back, but writing-- writing remains difficult. Some of it is physical, struggling to make his hand grip and move correctly, but some of it isn't. He just can't think fast enough to write a three foot long essay anymore. And some of it--

He... he doesn't want to say this. He feels bad already. He doesn't want to.

Suddenly, his perfect dark silent closet isn't so perfect anymore.

But he's supposed to. His brother is staring at him, waiting, silent. The question is in his lap, demanding an answer. He's supposed to. He's expected to. He. He.

Dad, he writes down, with one shaking hand.

He can feel himself being stared at. But if he closes his eyes-- if he pretends--

Please don't make him say why. Please don't.

He can feel the unspoken pressure closing in around him. He can feel the question hovering in the air. But if he closes his eyes and buries his face in his knees and holds his hands over his ears in this silent, silent, silent room, if he pretends, maybe he doesn't have to answer it. Maybe he doesn't have to find words for the snarling broken scream in his chest, the devastation that's lived inside him for years. Maybe he doesn't have to understand what's happening when he looks at his own father and feels like he's being torn apart.

His brother hugs him, at some point. Wraps both his arms around him. He doesn't make him unfurl out of his ball. Doesn't make him lift his head up. He just sits there and holds him.

Charlie, he remembers. This is Charlie.

"Why didn't you ever come see me?"

No sound comes out, and with his head in his knees, Charlie doesn't see his mouth move, either. Doesn't know he's saying anything.

"Why didn't you? And Bill?"

"You weren't there. I thought you would be. I thought you'd come."

"Where were you?"

Charlie's big, rough hand is moving over his shoulders, over and over again. He never touches his head or tries to give him another note. His warm hand moves, cradling him ever closer. Percy lets himself feel it until he's gone numb.

Turns out he's not supposed to be using magic after all.

He throws up on Charlie. He throws up all over him and all over himself, and oh, oh, that makes the spell snap. It fizzles and sparks around them, the sounds of the hospital incoherently falling in and out of time around his skull and it hurts. He can hear Charlie's clothes rustling, he can hear a sneeze from outside, he can hear a whisper of magic a floor away, and it's all buried inside his skull shredding his brain into infinitely smaller and smaller pieces and he can't bear it. He can't bear it he can't bear it he can't bear it. He buries his head in Charlie's neck and he's sobbing, sobbing as Charlie says, "Shh, shush, it's okay, shh," over and over, but it's not him that needs to be quiet. His head is splitting in half and he'd tear it off his body to make it stop.

The sounds abruptly all stop. His head doesn't stop hurting, but the sounds have gone away. Percy hiccups and gasps, his mouth still wet and tasting foul, and there's vomit under his cheek. But the sounds don't come back.

And that's when he realizes Charlie is his favorite brother, ever, ever, he doesn't care if Charlie never came to see him, because Charlie's hands are over his ears instead. He's staring at him with the worst expression he's ever seen in his life, his legs wrapped around him in the strangest hug in history, but he's covering his ears. It's silent again. Silent.

Percy doesn't want to see that look on his face, so he just presses his face and his aching head back into his neck.

He doesn't remember how he got to his room again, after that.

But there's a new rule, now-- that someone must always not just be there with him, but touching him. The healers whisper to his parents like he's not even there, but he hears them all the same. Hears that he's set his recovery back by days or even weeks, using magic like that, and they can't put him in one of the room with anti-magical wards on it because his magic is the only thing keeping him alive in the first place. All they can do is have someone always touching him. It won't stop magic, but it will stop him from disapparating again.

He doesn't... he doesn't want that. He doesn't want people touching him. He doesn't want to be alone but he doesn't want his family there either. He wants-- he wants--

Charlie takes the first shift. The same clothes from before but the stains have vanished. He sits there and holds his hand so tight he couldn't move it if he tried and stares at him with red eyes.

He's sick and tired of this bed. He wants to go back to the closet. He wants to be alone.

"Not that one," he spits.

Charlie flinches. "W-what?"

"Other one." He waves his hand, his good one, not the one that he struggles to move, the one that is currently being crushed. "I can't use that one."

The look on his face is like Percy has just thrown a hammer at him. He nearly jumps, dragging his chair around (ow!) to the other side of the bed. Somehow in all of it he manages to never actually let go of him, just switches one hand for the other.

"Better?"

Stop talking to him like that. Stop sounding like he's about to cry.

It's not better. It's not what was bothering him. What is still bothering him. He'd said something, he'd had to say something, but what had come out wasn't what he wanted at all.

"Better," he repeats, and shuts his eyes again.

Bill is the one that helps him walk again.

It's bitterly disgusting. Bill. He'd toddled up to Bill when he was a baby still crawling. His first steps had been for his parents, he's seen the dammed pictures, but Bill had been the one after that making sure he didn't fall; he's seen those pictures, too. And now he's a grown man. And it's happening all over again.

It starts with just exercises in bed. It's degrading, trying to bend and flex limbs that just won't move, straining to lift his arm and leg just a few inches at a time, healers holding him steady, and fucking Bill. is there. Holding his hand. Telling him he's doing so well. Watching him with this horrid, awful look on his face, like he's the one that's in pain, but he's not. Percy is. He doesn't even understand why it hurts so badly but it does. Each session leaves him utterly wiped out, pouring sweat, whimpering behind gritted teeth. His whole body is on fire. And next time he wakes up he knows it'll happens all over again, and Bill, again, is there.

Then they put him in a wheelchair again, which doesn't even make any sense. This is supposed to be about him walking. Not carted around like a sack of potatoes. But it's still what happens, and it makes sense then, because after months of lying prone save for exactly one ill-fated trip to see his brother, apparently this is something he has to relearn too. Just sitting there as Bill pushes him slowly around his room needs to be relearned.

He gets sick twice. Or possibly more. That's all he remembers. Both times Bill carries him back to bed, and tucks him in on his side so he doesn't choke, and touches his forehead with a cold cloth until he falls back asleep.

Percy doesn't know where the hell he gets off, doing that.

And then, he takes his first steps again.

Over and over and over, every day, he takes his first steps. And just like twenty years ago, Bill must actually hold him upright so he does not collapse. Every day he is shaking all over and every part of himself hurts and there's no need to worry about the light in the corridor, because he can't even make it to the corridor.

Sometimes they don't even walk at all. Sometimes they just stand there, Percy taking most of his own weight, but that's all he can do.

"Ron's not staying away because he's mad at you," Bill says at one point. They've taken three steps, and aren't going to take anymore. "You know that, right? He just doesn't want to scare you."

"Scare me?"

He has no idea what the hell Bill is talking about. It's true, he hasn't seen Ron, has he? He can't quite remember. He thinks not. He tries to tug Bill to turn around, to let him lie down again, but Bill knows he's a filthy liar and doesn't need to yet, and he doesn't. Bastard.

"Yeah. When he visited before, and, you..."

He doesn't finish his sentence. Percy had not been aware there was a prior visit.

But with the pieces of his poor battered head all over his hands like eggshells and his memories on his fingertips like beaten yolk, it's not hard to guess what must've happened. "I'm not scared of him," he mutters, seething. "I would appreciate it if someone told me why he was at the Ministry punching people in the first place. But I suppose that's too much to ask for here in my playpen."

He thinks this is the reason Bill is always the one that does this. Bill, the oldest, Bill, who raised six siblings, stupid sodding perfect Bill. The healers muttering nonsense about emotions and temper tantrums, and saying it is Normal when he is worn out and in pain, and who better than Bill to know how to handle a temper tantrum?

He's not a baby. He is having a normal reaction to being in pain and exhausted and unable to walk and no one just treating him like a normal person. He's not having a temper tantrum. He is the only one that is acting fucking normal.

He's trembling, now, his bad leg quaking underneath him, and Bill eases him back, helping him sit down again. He's not so dizzy he falls but he still has to clutch his shoulder, blinking until the black spots go away, and that's hateful, too.

Bill waits for a bit, for him to steady. He reaches for his pajamas at the foot of the bed, another fun little development; now that he's well enough to wear his own clothes, an improvement, he needs someone to help him change, the opposite of an improvement. And Bill does that, too. Bill or Mum.

Fucking pathetic.

But Bill doesn't start to unbutton his shirt yet. He just sits.

"I'm afraid I don't know much about it," he finally answers, and so, so patiently. "He, Harry, and Hermione broke into the Ministry early on, but they won't say why now. Just that it was a mission for Dumbledore." He stops for a second, and with Percy hanging all over him, still seems to feel the need to put a hand on his anyway. "I'll tell Ron he can visit."

Percy has no idea what he'll say to Ron. Perhaps congratulate him on the break-in. Perhaps take away house points for assaulting a prefect, that might do, except it might not; Ron might actually think he's deluded and believes he really is still a prefect. And he's really so sick of being looked at like that.

Ron couldn't have slowed down, that day at the Ministry. He and his friends, doing an illegal break-in, a building full of Death Eaters, ran by Voldemort himself. Percy would have been an actual, genuine threat to them. And it would have been incredibly dangerous for them to even try and take him with them back out.

He breathes in and out. In and out.

He's not scared of Ron, no.

He hasn't seen his dad in a long while.

He wakes up with Ginny's head in his lap.

Perhaps she's fallen asleep, he thinks at first. This silly rule of always needing to be touched, even though he has perfect control over his magic now. If she's asleep, he doesn't want to wake her up, so at first he doesn't move at all.

He hasn't seen much of her either. He thinks. Maybe.

But then she sniffles, a little. Just once. She's trying very hard to be quiet. But she's not asleep.

She's crying.

"Ginny." His throat is sore and his voice is hoarse from sleep, but he pushes himself up anyway. He reaches for her but he doesn't know what to do, what to say, and finds his hands just hovering over her shoulders. He feels desperately uncomfortable all over again.

"Sorry," she mumbles. She turns her head the other way, looking up at him with red-rimmed eyes, but otherwise doesn't move at all. "Didn't mean to wake you up."

He just shrugs. It's morning. Probably. He'd have been getting up anyway.

It's been a long time since he's seen Ginny. Ginny. His baby sister. His... not a baby anymore sister.

Because she is not a baby anymore.

Last time... last time she had been... fourteen. Fourteen. Yes. Heading into her fourth year at Hogwarts. As tall as his shoulders, young enough that Mum wouldn't let her wear makeup, old enough that she wore it at school anyway. Last time he'd been a full-grown man. And she'd been just a little girl.

He'd yelled at her. He hadn't even had any worst thoughts to scream at her, not since she'd aged out of needing to be checked on in the middle of the night. But he'd still shouted at her to shut up. Karkaroff had called her a-- a bitch.

She's not fourteen anymore.

"Ginny, I'm..." He's not sure what, exactly, he's done to upset her, but he knows why he is upset. Her arms tighten around his waist. "I'm so s-"

"No, you're not! Don't you dare."

He... he doesn't know what she wants. He can't tell what she wants him to say. Just that she doesn't want him to say this.

He words vanish from his throat like she'd physically reached down in there and grabbed them. He ducks his head, silent, and strokes her hair instead.

"The Carrows made us use Unforgivables on first years," she says. It comes out muffled by his layers of blankets, barely even audible. "If you refused they'd use them on you instead. The Cruciatus and the Imperius."

"G... Ginny."

He's not really sure who or what the Carrows are-- another thing that people have neglected to tell him. But he doesn't need her to spell it out for him. His hands are suddenly trembling and it's a good thing she's trapping him in bed. If he could grab something right now he'd break it in half.

"So don't--" She sniffs again, and readjusts her hug around his middle. "Do not tell me you're sorry. Because you're not. You didn't do anything. And I would know. Okay?"

But he's not. He. He didn't. He.

He didn't do anything. For three years. He didn't do anything.

He didn't.

"Okay?" Ginny presses. She still won't look up at him, and is hugging him so, so tightly.

"...Okay."

That's the start of it, then.

Okay.

He dozes back in on his side. Which is odd. He only sleeps on his back these days.

His eyes are sore and his throat hurts and his skin is clammy. For a moment he vaguely wonders if he has a cold. If that'll be it, that's what kills him, a bloody cold. He certainly feels like a cold would do him in right now.

His head is killing him.

His mother is sitting behind him. He can tell it's her; she's humming softly, one hand stroking his back. She hasn't hummed to him in ages. Not since he'd had a cold, when he was very small, and she'd tucked him and brought him soup and hummed him to sleep.

He wishes she would pull the blanket up. He's so cold and he's too tired to do it himself.

He goes back to sleep.

He stands up. He walks. He walks the whole length of the room and back by himself. He counts backwards from fifty, and writes down and reads aloud the magical theory behind a simple levitation charm (though they still will not allow him his wand). They give him a potion that makes his hair grow back and leave the bandages off for the first time.

And finally, finally, they let him visit Fred.

He hasn't seen George since. It's just that one time. He can't really feel neglected at this, when he's let back into Fred's room.

He looks awful.

They both look awful.

Fred's whole right side is glowing with a faint hum, monitoring spells more extreme than they'd ever used on Percy covering every inch of his skin. What little of his arm that isn't bandaged is black and burned, like it's died, and the right side of his face is just the same. Covered in bandages, his eye too, half his hair cut, and a twisted black spiderweb radiating out from his eye. Whatever the curse is that hit him, it looks like they are desperately just trying to stop it from spreading further than it already has.

If they hadn't gotten to him when they did... if they hadn't been able to stop it spreading on his head or to his heart...

Percy-- can't touch him. He's scared to. Fred and George, the first ones that made him a big brother, the ones he was supposed to protect no matter what. He looks at Fred and he looks at George, and they're the only ones that don't make old memories whisper in his head, screams as Ron punched him in the face and he shouted at Ginny and his dad turned his back. He just looks at them and sees Fred dying and he can't do anything at all.

He sits down, pressing his hands to his mouth.

George looks like he hasn't left the room in days. Percy knows that Mungo's has visiting hours, but they haven't seemed to apply to him, and it doesn't look like they've applied to Fred, either. George isn't even wearing robes anymore, just an oversized sweater, just like Percy, and he's watching his twin with bloodshot eyes. He looks like he hasn't shaved in weeks.

When Percy had been taken, they'd just turned seventeen. They'd just started shaving. Now he has a scruffy beard without even trying.

George glances at him with something that can only approximately be called a weak smile. "Good to see you on your feet."

Then he looks wordlessly back at Fred.

Percy feels like he's supposed to say something back. Like he's expected to. But he's not sure what he's expected to say. There's so many expectations, more by the day, but no one will just tell him what they are and he never knows what he's supposed to do. It feels so terrible.

He stares at his lap. And George doesn't speak again. The pressure on his tongue to say something, say anything, fades.

No one had given him a rule on how long he's allowed to sit here. So he doesn't move. He just sits.

At some point, Fred wakes up.

It's with a hard jerk, twitching so violently he rocks the bed. Percy flinches, but George just sits forward, like he's seen all this before. He puts a firm hand on Fred's chest, keeping him still.

"Easy, Freddie. Still here."

He sucks in one shaking breath, then another. The look on his face, the way he's lying-- it reminds Percy of how everything had been for him, not all that long ago. When even sitting up had been an ordeal and even when he'd been asleep he'd been in pain.

Something tells him that Fred is not going to be walking the ward in just a few weeks' time.

Fred shifts around a little, each tiny movement looking like it takes an inordinate amount of effort. He starts to roll his head closer to George, white-faced and sweat beading at his hairline.

He freezes.

"W-what... what the hell are you doing here?"

It's an accusation. It's mean. Every single ounce of brotherly familiarity is drained out and what's left behind is naked hostility. Fred wants him out.

An easy numbness settles in his chest again. An expectation. Someone is telling him to do something. The endless buzz in his head dies and for the first time in weeks he's comfortable in his own skin.

"Get out."

Yes, yes, he's going, isn't he? It just still takes him a moment to stand up.

"Sit down, Percy!"

He-- oh. Oh. Percy swallows. He's cold, suddenly, his legs trembling. "Okay." He sits back down.

"George, why-?" Fred is struggling, still, his voice weak, barely more than a whisper. His one eye is bloodshot and wild. "Go, Percy!"

Okay.

"Stay, Percy!"

Okay.

There's a short silence. He's sweating and trembling and can't look up and feels sick. Please stop, he wants to beg. Please stop this.

Fred is staring at him now, and even unable to look up from his own lap, he can just feel the smirk on his face. "Sit, Percy." He shrinks lower into his chair. "Shake, Percy."

He-- he won't. He won't do that. He knows he's not serious. He knows--

Please stop.

Please stop.

Please stop.

"Roll over, Percy. Play dead."

"Fred." George is suddenly in his face, Percy's face, one hand grabbing him by the shoulder. "Percy. Go outside. Sit with Charlie." He points, like he doesn't know where outside is, like he needs the help to find Charlie.

He's shaking so badly he almost does need the help to stand.

Don't do that, he wants to say. Don't do that. Make fun of him however they want but please not that.

The words never even make it to his throat. Never mind out of his mouth.

He does what he's told, and staggers back out to Charlie.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realizes that no one has told Fred, yet. He's been sleeping so much and in so much pain that it's just never come up. Of course. Not even Fred would do-- that-- on purpose. It's just that no one's told him. That's all. It was an accident.

He's trembling, even with Charlie's hand on his shoulder. He's asking him what's wrong. But he can't answer. If he opens his mouth he thinks he's going to be sick.

Some time later, George comes back out to sit next to him.

"Fred's asleep again," he starts roughly. "That's, uh, normal. He usually only stays awake a few minutes."

Silence. Tick, tock, tick, tock.

"Look, Perce, he didn't... I haven't had the chance to talk to him yet, about you. He had no idea. He'd never have talked like that otherwise. I'm sorry."

He's not sure Fred or George has ever apologized to him before. Not like they'd meant it. He squirms and rocks gently back and forth and wants to disappear. He would disappear, if Charlie wasn't touching him.

"I've explained it to him now. If you want to come back in you can. Though it'll probably be a while before he wakes up again."

Percy does not do well with conversations like these. And no one seems to get that. He doesn't-- he can not handle someone asking him what he wants. That's not how it works. He wants to do what he's told. He simultaneously wants to do what he's told and for no one to tell him to do anything ever again. He wants absolutely nothing.

When he doesn't speak, it's Charlie who intervenes. "I'm going to take him back to his room." Quietly. He's speaking to George, not him. Like he's not even here. "I think he needs to lie down."

He doesn't want this either. He doesn't want people talking about him like this, like he's a child that needs minding. But-- Percy doesn't know what he wants. Doesn't he? He wants to be told what to do, to not have any choice or question about it, but the second it happens he's throwing a fit and insisting he knows better. There's nothing they can do at all. Everything they're saying is making it worse.

He doesn't want to go back to his room. He wants to go back and sit with Fred. How long has it been since he's been able to see his own brother?

He doesn't feel all that bad now. He doesn't need to lie down.

He just wants to see Fred.

"Percy?" Charlie tries softly. One hand messes gently in his brand new hair. It's still growing out.

He can feel his eyes start to sting furiously, and he shuts them, so his brothers won't see him cry.

"Okay."

Kingsley Shacklebolt visits.

The lights in his room are finally on. So at least he doesn't have to greet the man in the dark, even if he does have to do it in bed. He shakes his hand, properly, and he sits up when he settles in the chair next to him. His mother has relocated to the edge of his bed, stroking his hair, over and over. It's incredibly embarrassing, but he can't ask her to stop.

"I hear you're to be released soon," he says. "How are you feeling? Looking forward to going home?"

They've told him that. That he can go home soon.

He has absolutely no idea what home is anymore.

Percy chews on the words for a bit. "Better," he says, finally. It's true. He does feel better. He can walk and talk and dress himself. Better.

His head still hurts. Almost all the time.

"That's good." He pauses for a long moment, looking at him rather too closely. "I get the feeling that you're not up for small talk right now, Percival. So I'm going to be frank with you."

Percy, he wants to say. My name is Percy.

"The Ministry-- the Order-- can not apologize enough for what you went through. I am truly sorry that no one intervened until it was too late. If there is anything that you need that we can provide, anything at all, just say the word."

Oh. Percy squirms, his face heating up. He looks back down at his lap; his hands wormed into the sweater from home. "It is almost impossible to identify a victim of the Imperius Curse without Legilimency," he quotes dully. It's from Advanced Dark Arts: a N.E.W.T. Study Guide. "This is what allows the spell to be so effective in the first place."

His mother's breaths hitch a little. "Oh, sweetheart..."

He doesn't want to see the looks on either of their faces.

Don't act like they could've stopped this. Don't act like that, don't make him think that, because if that's true--

Kingsley clears his throat after several moments.

"Well. Be that as it may. I still sincerely apologize." Tick tock tick tock tick tock. "I'm also here to speak to you about your job."

His what? What job?

"I want to make clear that this is only an offer. If you don't want to come back, or if you need more time to decide or recover, we completely understand. This is only if you're interested, Percival. But if you want your old position back, then it's yours."

His mother sucks in an angry breath, inhaling as if she's been slapped. "Kingsley. Now is not the time."

"As I've said, if he needs some more time, he can have it."

"He's not well, Kingsley!"

Percy isn't even sure what his old position was. He thinks it was assistant to the Minister. He remembers, this time last year, being with Thicknesse-- Thicknesse, who'd been under the Imperius Curse too. They'd had the same dazed schedule. The same dull useless stare into space when there was nothing to do. More than once they'd both been forgotten in their office overnight like dolls, and their bodies had just started playing cards with each other on autopilot.

It'd been... not-terrible. He rather likes Thicknesse, he thinks. Though he's never met the man for real. And Thicknesse has never met him.

"Mrs. Weasley," Kingsley says quietly. That alone makes her grip on his shoulder tighten. "With all due respect, this is Percival's decision to make."

She huffs again. And now all eyes are on him. He is supposed to say something.

He wants to point out that he has never actually been assistant to the Minister. He was Mr. Crouch's assistant. That's his sole work experience. And for that one single year he had apparently done such a terrible job that he hadn't even noticed his boss had been controlled by the Imperius Curse.

In his worst moments, he thinks it's karmic justice. That the same would happen to him, the very, very same. Percy had noticed something was wrong with him. He'd just cast it aside. He'd wanted to prove he could do the work, wanted to make a name for himself. He'd thought it was nothing. That it hadn't mattered. This-- this is just him getting what he deserved.

In his even worse moments, he thinks that he didn't deserve that. He thinks that Crouch had willingly broken a Death Eater out of prison. Crouch had done something wrong. Percy had been a fool, he had been irresponsible, but. But Crouch had deserved this. Percy hadn't. He hadn't.

Everyone is still waiting for him to say something.

"Why me?"

"Why you?"

"Yes." It's so much easier if he looks down at his lap so that's all he does. "I didn't... do anything. For three years. I didn't do anything. I tried. It didn't work." He was too lazy. Too weak. Too incompetent. Too unskilled. "I fail to see how I have the qualifications for... any Ministry position, sir."

His mother is trembling, again. She sounds like she's almost about to cry.

"Your test scores alone more than qualify you for nearly any starting position in the build-"

"I killed Scrimgeour, didn't I?"

"What?"

"I killed him," he repeats dully, hanging his head. "I'm the reason they knew his schedule. It was me."

Everyone sits in a shocked silence.

Percy suspects the only reason he had not literally killed him is because he would've lost. A barely out of school assistant next to a former head of the Aurors. But he knows that Scrimgeour is dead. He doesn't remember much from that time period, but he remembers that. One day he'd been there, the next he hadn't.

He also remembers that he hadn't been resisting any of it, by that point.

He'd woken up. Blinked a little at the Minister's office. Waited for the tide to pull him back under.

What else had he been supposed to do? It had been two years, then. What, day seven hundred was going to do it when days one through 699 hadn't? What had he been supposed to do? It had been so painful to fight back, it was so hard, and if it wasn't working, if there was no point, he was just making himself suffer--

"And Mr. Crouch," and it just spills out; he can't stop it. "If I'd reported it he'd still be alive. If I'd-"

"Darling, no-"

"Percival," Kinglsey interrupts. He looks at him with eyes like steel. "Do you really think Voldemort's plans would've been affected if he hadn't known how Scrimgeour took his coffee?"

It's not an answer. He isn't saying no, it wasn't you. Which means it was him.

"And as for Barty," he goes on. So easily. Like it's not even in question. "If we were to go over all the mistakes I made as an eighteen year old Auror, we'd be here all day. But suffice it to say I messed up a lot more seriously than not noticing that my boss was acting strangely. If you want to insist on the point that you made a mistake... all right. So you made a mistake." He shrugs a little. "You were also eighteen and had been given an incredible amount of responsibility in a nearly impossible situation. It would've been a miracle if you hadn't."

How absurd.

Percy is quite sure no one else shares the thought. His father certainly had not.

The pressure is becoming intolerable again. The intense suffocation that both his mother and Kingsley want him to stop talking, to stop saying these things, so he does. He shuts his mouth, looking back away, tasting nothing but ash. The words are completely gone.

He is once again struck by how humiliating this is. Sitting here in a hospital bed and all tucked in, his hair greasy and mussed, wearing just a frayed ancient sweater and pajama bottoms, his bloody mother glued to him like he's been called into the headmaster's office. And this is how he greets the Minister of Magic. He once would've died from the shame of it.

And he doesn't have to do it. He could've at least gotten out of bed. They could've gone for a walk, he could've asked to speak to him in private. He. He could've. asked. He could've asked her. to. to leave.

He knows she doesn't want him to do any of those things.

Kingsley sits forward, his hands dangling between his knees. He looks at him, right in the eye. "I think we're not on the same page here. So, I'm going to be blunt. I'm not sure how much you know of what's been going on in the Ministry this past year, Percival. But we're in a bad state right now. There's a number of staff that were all too eager to collaborate with You-Know-Who's regime, and right now we're focused on identifying and charging every last one of them. But there's also a number of others who weren't on his side... but weren't on ours, either. Weren't on anyone's but their own." He breaks off, his throat working. "There were a lot of people who were too scared to do anything but save their own skin. And it didn't have to be this way. If they'd all stood with us, protected Muggleborns instead of looking away, we would've won a year ago. My friends wouldn't have died."

Kingsley is right. Percy had been aware of precisely none of this.

He looks away, playing with the blanket over his legs. It's a hideous blue.

"So, maybe those people don't deserve Azkaban. But Muggleborns also deserve better than a government ran by people who have already proven that they'll let them down. That's not what you did, Percival." He puts a hand on his arm briefly, touching his wrist. "When they had a choice to make, they chose their own lives. You chose to give yours up to save someone else's. I know that you're recovering right now, and that's why I'm fine to wait as long as you need. However long that that may be. Because if the Ministry had had more people like you, then I don't think we'd have ever gotten here today."

If he could, Percy would shrink. Just shrink and shrink. Shrink until he was so small he vanished into the sheets and they couldn't find him and they never had this conversation again.

He wants to say that he didn't do anything.

He wants to say that he gave up fighting a long time ago.

He wants to say that one day his father turned his back on him again and that was the day he stopped trying to get free.

He wants to say that he'd rather slit his own wrists than go back there.

His mother is stroking his hair, again. Staring at him with so much love and pride. She thinks he's so amazing. And Kingsley is watching him. He so badly wants him to say yes.

He's choked all over again.

"Okay," he mumbles.

She tsks quietly. And now he's disappointed her anyway. He can't look at either of them and he just feels so hollow.

"He will consider returning when he feels well enough, Kingsley."

"That's all I ask."

Percy can not imagine ever feeling well enough to want to return to that building.

"Sweetheart," she murmurs to him, once Kingsley has left. She pulls him closer into a hug, wrapping her arms around him, tucking his face against his shoulder. "What were you thinking? You don't have to worry about this now, baby, not a thing. You just need to get well again."

She doesn't understand. He is well. The healers said so. They're letting him leave soon.

He is as well as he's going to get.

Home, apparently, means the Burrow.

Percy has not been back to the Burrow since the Death Eaters had forced him to leave.

He has not been back to the Burrow since the Death Eaters opened his mouth and used his voice and his words to break his mother's heart. To yell at his baby sister. To call his father an embarrassment. To say that he hated all of them.

He has not been back to the Burrow since I wish I wasn't a Weasley came out of his mouth, and in a deep black pit in the very back of his mind Percy had frozen. Percy, screaming at the top of his lungs, his hands scraped raw and bloody, tearing himself endlessly forward and forward, had stopped.

He'd let it happen. He'd let it all happen.

It's all his fault.

Percy has not been back to the Burrow.

And, it takes him some time to realize-- he still has not been back to the Burrow.

He's on his knees. When did that happen? He's kneeling in familiar dirt of the garden outside. His legs feel like jelly and he can taste bile in his raw throat; his throat, raw, like he's been screaming. He knows, by now, that if he doesn't keep breathing deeply he's going to throw up. He's cold all over and trembling.

He has no idea what happened. All he does know is that he's not standing up. He can't do it. He's supposed to, his parents want him to, he's surely about to be told to, and-- he can't. He can't he can't he can't.

Saying no is the most terrifying feeling of his life. But he can't do it. He can't take even one single step forward.

He can't do it.

"Percy." It's Charlie. Charlie's on his knees, too, sitting in front of him. "Perce? Are you with me?"

He can hear his mother crying somewhere. He can-- he can see-- but if he looks just at Charlie's navel it's okay. He can't see the house behind him.

"Y-yes," he croaks.

Charlie takes his hands in both of this. His are so warm, or maybe Percy's are just so cold. "Percy," he starts again. "You don't want to come here, do you?"

Don't say it like that. Don't say that. Percy can't answer that. He doesn't have needs or wants, he does what he's told. He can't not want to do this. He's being told to do this. His mother is crying because he isn't. There's a hem of green robes just at the edge of his vision and he instinctually knows who they belong to and he slams his eyes shut. If Charlie weren't holding his hands he'd cover his ears again.

There's a terrible sound happening. A miserable, low whine, like a beaten dog. It takes him a while to realize it's coming from his own throat.

"Okay, all right, all right, it's okay, take it easy," but his voice is shaking, and Percy can't stop trembling. "Shh. Take a breath, just focus on me. There you go. Another." Charlie lets one hand to go to cup his face and Percy stares at the dirt under his knees. "Shell Cottage. Bill's staying there right now. Is that okay?"

Don't they get it? He can't ANSWER THAT.

He doesn't answer that. He doesn't say anything at all. But at some point, Bill appears again. Maybe he was there all along. He helps him stand, and Percy is shaking so badly he needs the help all over again. He's in no state to apparate, but the only other choice is the fireplace inside the Burrow, and no one says anything. Bill just holds him and the Burrow disappears.

There's a woman at Shell Cottage. A woman that he recognizes, because even it has been so very long since she has seen him, it has not been so long since he has seen her. She reintroduces herself anyway, Fleur Delacour, and he says nice to meet you back because that's what he's supposed to do. No one bothers to tell him what on earth she's doing here, so he doesn't ask.

It's not until Bill has taken him to the guest room, his left hand gripping his shoulder tight, that he realizes.

Bill is wearing a wedding ring.

Bill is married.

"Are you okay?" Bill asks him. He's shaking out a second or third blanket over the bed. Percy's job is to just stand dumbly and watch, apparently.

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Just..." He hesitates, looking like he's going to say something else, but changes track at the last moment. "All right. I'll let you get some sleep. Fleur and I, we're just one door down, so if you need anything just give us a shout." His hand lingers on Percy's shoulder and his face does something awful, something vulnerable. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

It's the first time in weeks that Percy has been left alone anywhere other than the loo.

He changes into pajamas because he's supposed to. He turns out the light because he's supposed to. He tucks himself under the sheets and both blankets because he's supposed to. He closes his eyes because he's supposed to.

And he sobs.

He sobs so hard he can't breathe. He sobs until his throat hurts, until his chest aches, and then he just keeps sobbing. He curls up into the tightest ball that he can and buries his head in his knees and it just doesn't stop. His heart is pounding and his stomach is in knots, and it keeps happening until he's sobbing so hard he throws up all over himself, spitting little more than bile onto his shirt, and then it still just keeps happening.

He should've died that day at the Ministry. Kingsley shouldn't have found him. He should've died in that black hallway. He can't do this.

He feels like he's at his own funeral. And nobody has noticed but him.

The first magic he's willingly used in years is to clean up his own sick. It's not a particularly complicated spell but it still takes him three tries, and he can't tell if it's because of his head or because he's so out of practice. It's humiliating. He used to be top of his class and now he can barely manage a simple cleaning spell.

He's twenty-one years old and still talking about being Head Boy because he doesn't have anything else. Almost his entire adult life is gone.

He goes to work.

Mum spent a whole day begging him to reconsider. But aside from lingering headaches, there is nothing physically wrong with him. Or there is-- being out of practice with spells, still a little oversensitive to light, to sounds-- but the healers said that that's something he needs to get back into the world for. He won't get better anymore sitting in a hospital bed or the guest bedroom at Shell Cottage.

It had been hell on earth, sitting there with his mother, her pleading with him to do something. But he couldn't. He'd already told Kingsley he'd start back on Monday. He can't do both. He can't do what she wants and what Kingsley wants.

So he goes to work.

And the Ministry is--

Percy, in his new suit, borrowed from Bill, and work robes, borrowed from Bill, and dress shoes, that don't fit, borrowed from Bill, he stands there in the new atrium. The same shining walls and paper airplane memos and fountain he remembers from when he was a child. The place he'd wanted to work all his life. The same fountain. The statue is gone, and he only blearily remembers it had been changed the last year. It's completely gone now.

The hustle and bustle around him. The infectious cheer that lingers still after Voldemort's defeat. The lobby that he has walked through every. single. day. for three years. The same lobby.

The last time he'd been here under his own power was... he can't remember. He can't even remember.

This is--

"You okay?" Ron asks him quietly.

Ron is here. Like he needs a chaperone. A grown man that needs to be walked to his office like a child. Like Ron, who's worked here barely a month, is a better chaperone than his father. Like Ron, who just survived hell on earth and is only eighteen, also needs to be made Percy's Minder on top of everything else.

People are starting to stare at him. To whisper. His head is spinning, spinning, he can't feel anything, he's numb all over. He wants to run headfirst into the nearest wall and crack his skull back open.

Ron wants him to say yes.

"Yes," he says.

And inside his head, he falls. He shuts his eyes. He can't do this so he just shuts down. He crawls into the very back of his head and puts his hands over his ears.

He's spent three years doing work on autopilot. He can do it again.

sit down at his desk

good morning sir, how are you today, just fine, thank you

sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name

cut chew eat, cut chew eat, cut chew eat, cut chew eat

sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name

the form requests a budgetary increase for taking care of hippogriffs in the lobby. there aren't any hippogriffs in the lobby. he half-signs his name, stops. three people are giggling.

sign his name sign his name sign his name

yes ron, quite well, and yourself?

yes bill, quite well, and yourself?

cut chew eat, cut chew eat, cut chew eat. brush brush brush, shower shower shower, bed

he can't sleep

sit down at his desk

sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name

sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sigh his name

sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name

sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name

a good first week back, percival! anything i can do for you?

n-not here

what?

not here not here not here not here not here not here not here not here not here not here not here not here not here not here not here not here not here not here not here

sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name sign his name

"Percival!"

sign his...

Ow?

His face hurts.

Why does his face hurt?

He blinks, a little. He's not in his office. He's not in the Ministry at all.

He's not in the Ministry at all.

He's not in the Ministry at all.

Percy buries his face in his hands.

He honestly does not know where he is. He's outside, somewhere. The light hurts his eyes. It looks like that same overcast London weather that everyone knows and loves. It doesn't smell like ink anymore.

Kingsley is crouched in front of him, and the look on his face is very much as if he's missed something.

One hand is raised, as if... as if... to hit him?

To slap him, he realizes. Kingsley has just slapped him across the face. Very hard.

"Ow," he mutters. It actually does sting. His glasses are askew.

Kingsley lets out a shuddering sigh, and his face does a funny little dance that finally settles on relief of his own. "Merlin, Percival. Are you all right?"

Yes. "Yes." Why wouldn't he be?

He does not look very convinced.

"It was too soon for you to come back."

"What? No, sir, I-"

"I'm putting you down for sick leave, effective indefinitely. If you want to come back-- if-- you'll only do so when you can. Your mother was right. You're not well."

"But you said you needed-"

"Percival. The Ministry needs good people. It does not need someone who's going to burn himself out and drive himself into an early grave at twenty-five." The hand still raised to slap him drops to settle down on his shoulder instead, and his face is doing something indescribable. "You tried to kill yourself there. I'm... sorry I asked you to return so soon."

Percy hangs his head.

There is absolutely no part of him that wants to go back into that building. None. Not even a single little toe.

They need him. The Minister himself asked for him personally. Isn't that his biggest dream?

There's nothing wrong with him.

And now the Minister himself has left work in the middle of the day to take him off site and sit with him. And Percy isn't going back inside.

He's such a failure.

He's a crushing disappointment.

They get his father to take him home. Not Ron. Dad.

Kingsley must not known this absurd little farce his family has been playing at for weeks. No one talking about it. No one saying anything. Pretending they're not stopping the two of them from being alone together.

Percy wants to say he could take himself home, thank you very much. Since he is apparently being sent home. But he feels black endless waves lapping at the back of his mind again, the same void that's sucked him in every single day back in that office. He thinks if any single thing goes wrong now he's going to fall back into it and this time perhaps just not come out.

He's so scared.

He wants his dad.

Dad takes him home. To Shell Cottage. And then they just sit there. Bill isn't there. Fleur isn't there. It's just them.

Percy hasn't been alone with him in weeks. He still can't look at him now. After today-- after this past week-- he feels scraped raw, like all the careful walls and filters he's spent months constructing are just absent. There's nothing left in him right now but the person that stood alone in the black dungeons of the Ministry and rammed his own head into the wall.

He stares at his dad's knees and can smell his own blood.

Why didn't you help me?

Why didn't you save me?

Why didn't you love me enough?

He doesn't even know what happened today. Just that whatever it was, whatever he'd done, it'd been alarming enough that Kingsley had sacked him-- sick leave. Sick leave, he says-- on sight. That he hadn't even trusted him to get home alone or to come collect his things.

That his dad has taken him home at two in the afternoon but now isn't going back either.

He doesn't think he wants to know what happened today.

"Son..." His hand is on his knee and it's shaking. "Listen. I know that your work is... very important to you. I don't know anyone that works harder than you. But right now you need to take care of yourself. We're all here for you, whatever you need, but we can't help you if you don't help yourself." His voice shudders, too. "If you felt that badly about going to the Ministry you should've said something. We c-can't... we can't lose you again."

He's not lost. He hasn't gone anywhere.

He'd never gone anywhere.

He's so scared, and so hurt, and so tired, and he's slept five hours this past week, and suddenly he want to scream it. I never went anywhere. I WAS NEVER GONE. I was right here!

Where the fuck were you?!

He presses the heels of his hands to his face and says nothing.

That night he wakes up screaming.

He throws himself back and screams himself raw and something breaks and shatters. Broken glass scatters on him like rain and he screams and screams and screams and very nearly disapparates outside. The lights turn on and there's hands all over him, voices. Bill's panicked face pieces into view.

"Don't touch me!"

"Percy-"

"SHUT UP!"

Bill stops touching him, stops speaking, but doesn't leave. He sits there inches away and stares at him. Like he has any right. Like he gives a single fuck.

"Get out," he growls, gasps. He doubles over on himself and tucks his hands to his stomach. His head hurts, why does it always hurt. "Get out!"

He doesn't want to be touched, he doesn't want to be looked at it, he doesn't want to be spoken to. Why don't any of them fucking get that? He wants to apparate into the ocean outside and drown. Leave him alone! Leave him alone!

He wants to claw that fucking look off Bill's fucking face. He wants to tear at him until he's bleeding.

"I'm not going anywhere, Percy."

Percy nearly snarls. "And why not?! You were gone for three years, and that suited you just fine. You were all gone for three years. And now you want to be here? Now you want to pretend like you can fix this? You don't know a single thing about me, Bill! I was a Death Eater and you all thought nothing about it!"

"Perce-"

"GET OUT!"

He has spent the last three years of his life wanting so badly for his family to be there, and now they are, every single day, and it's killing him. He can't stand it. It's everything he's ever wanted and they're not even doing anything wrong and he hates them so much he can't breathe.

He wants to go back to being cursed. He wants to go back to sitting in a daze doing paperwork all day and asleep in his own head.

Anything is better than feeling like this.

Bill doesn't go anywhere. Because he's a stupid perfect at everything perfect person and Percy is not. Percy pushes himself as far away as he can get and curls back up into a ball, down on his side and his face pressed into a pillow. Go away go away go away.

He remembers Penny's hands all over him and wants to tear off his own skin.

Bill doesn't go anywhere. But he also doesn't say anything for a while, either. He just sits there and stares at pathetic Percy having yet another breakdown, because that seems to be just about all he can do nowadays. What, is he afraid he's going to hurt himself? Is it just funny, to watch Big Head Boy cry like a baby? He's really got nothing better to do than hang around here embarrassing him like this?

"Your favorite color is green," Bill says.

What?

"You never wanted to admit it... always told Mum it was blue. Probably thought Fred and George would call you a Slytherin. But your favorite color is green."

I--

what?

"You got an Acceptable on your third Transfiguration exam. You spent three days studying for the next one and never got anything below an E again."

His face flushes.

He. He did do that. His third Transfiguration exam in first year is still the lowest grade he'd ever gotten.

"You felt bad about looking forward to Hogwarts because you didn't want to keep babysitting. Charlie and I never told you that we felt the same way."

"You loved the pyramids in Egypt but pretended you hated them so Ginny wouldn't feel so bad about not getting to go."

"You secretly think Fred and George are hilarious but are afraid if you laugh at them it'll only encourage them."

Percy closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. He feels humiliated all over again and his stomach hurts. Slowly, his arms shaking, but at least he's not sobbing anymore, he pushes himself upright. Bill moves a little closer but still doesn't touch him.

Hot tears keep spilling silently down his face. But as long as he keeps sitting like this, his back to him, breathing quietly, Bill can't tell. His nose is stuffed up and he has to breathe through his mouth and his head hurts. He wonders if it's never going to stop hurting.

"Do you have a headache?"

He doesn't even know how Bill knows. "Yes."

"Do you want me to go get your prescription?"

He doesn't want Bill to go. Just five minutes ago he'd screamed at him to get out and now he wants him to never leave again.

The potions barely even help in the first place.

"Where were you?"

It's not what he wants to say. He just doesn't want Bill to leave and knows this will keep him there. He ducks his head against his chest, swallowing fruitlessly at the lump in his throat. "Where... where were you, Bill?"

The bed shifts and creaks as Bill moves closer again. He seems to be waiting to get told to go away again, and when that doesn't happen his arms circle around him from behind. And Percy doesn't understand this, how it feels, how angry he is at all of them, how very much he wants to never see any of them ever again, but then his parents or his older brothers hold him like this and he feels safe. He shouldn't. They weren't there. They let him down. They are, by a very objective measure, not safe.

But Bill hugs him from behind and it's so stupid, but he feels-- he feels protected. He feels like no one could possibly touch him ever again. He doesn't want Bill to ever let go.

"I don't know. We've all been asking ourselves that and I don't know. All I can say is that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." His voice is thick and he kisses the top of his head, like he's Mum. "You don't have to ever forgive us. You can be mad at us for the rest of your life, just... please let us make sure you have a rest of your life. We can't lose you again, Percy."

Just like what his dad said. Word for word. We can't lose you again.

"I'm not mad at you," he sighs, and shuts his eyes.

It's true. He's not mad at Bill.

He knows where Bill was. Bill was in Egypt. Bill was running an Order safehouse. Bill wasn't here.

Bill isn't the one he was asking the question to.

Percy has barely slept in days, days, days. He's so tired he keeps falling asleep sitting up, and in bed like this, surrounded by warm blankets and his brother's arms, he collapses back over. He winds up face down in his lap, one hand stroking his hair and the other pulling the blankets back up around them both. He could fall asleep like this.

He could.

He can't.

He's so exhausted.

His hand keeps moving. Up and down, up and down. His fingers comb through the tangled knots, but so gently, gently enough to never tug even once. Up and down, up and down, up and down.

"Percy?"

"What."

"I..." The hand in his hair hesitates. It's too close to his scar for comfort. "When you said that-- that I thought I was too good for you. For all of you. That wasn't true. I left because I'd never been on my own in my entire life but I never thought I was better than you. I just wanted to find who I was by myself for a little while."

Percy closes his eyes. He feels how warm Bill is, how he moves as he breathes, hears his own heart pound in his ears. "Bill."

"Yeah?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

He expects him to laugh a little, but he doesn't. His hand slows again, and there's a low, unsteady intake of breath. "Remember? When I came over to see you. It was about a month after-- after you let home. And... do you not remember?"

No, Percy realizes. Something cold solidifies in his stomach.

He doesn't remember at all.

Bill, thank Merlin, stops talking.

He doesn't work anymore.

Bill and Fleur still do. So he spends the days alone at Shell Cottage. He gets up, at first. Eats breakfast, washes dishes, dusts, reads a random book. Chops vegetables, minces garlic, blinks and realizes he's been swinging a knife at a mutilated and crushed pile of herbs for hours.

There's no real point to it all. So someday he just stops bothering to get up.

Mum visits sometimes. Or a lot of the time. When she's there, he gets up.

They don't even really do anything. She'll talk about how things are going at the Ministry, at Hogwarts. Ginny's back at school, and that's when Percy dully realizes that he's missed his birthday, at some point. He's twenty-two now. She'll take him to sit outside with her, and always is giving him his prescription the first time he winces, and calls him darling. She cooks a nice, big, fancy dinner, because that's her nervous habit, she cooks, and he just kind of stands there and watches and chops vegetables when he's told.

When she's there, he gets up, because he's supposed to. He gets up, gets dressed, smiles, says yes ma'am, lets her hug him. Because he's supposed to.

Sometimes he wakes up with his head splitting in two, the snarling dragon moved back in behind his eye. He can't even walk on his own on those days, and he does get up then, Bill carrying him to the loo, carrying him back to bed, spending hours sitting hunched over himself in the darkness as the walls sparkle and blur around him. He'll be freezing cold and unable to reach so much as an inch for the blanket. His prescriptions don't help, not on those days, nothing does. He just has to wait for it to stop.

But when his mother isn't there, and his brain isn't clawing itself out of his skull, Percy is--

He just--

He doesn't. He isn't. Anything.

He'll drag himself up for dinner, usually. Because he's not going to have soup brought to his bedside like he's an invalid again. Sometimes he even bothers to change out of pajamas. But that's all. He just doesn't want to get out of bed so he doesn't.

He starts to feel awful. He's groggy, all the time, and his head has a dull, lingering ache that he remembers from Hogwarts, when he'd studied too hard for an exam and crashed the next day and woken up at noon. He feels gross, his hair greasy, his clothes wrinkled and unkempt. It's embarrassing, that Bill's perfect Veela wife knows him as little more than a deadbeat that sleeps all day because he can't sleep at night and wears pajamas at the dinner table.

He doesn't have anything else that he wants to do. So he doesn't.

On the weekends, they go to visit Fred.

It is, pretty much, the only thing that he wants to do.

Fred is recovering much, much slower than Percy had. They've stopped the curse from spreading, they're sure of it, but it's still there. Him being able to go home is not even in question while it lingers, eating away at his leg muscles, his arm bones, his sight. He hears that every time they take the bandages off to test it, his sight is weaker than before. Percy knows they've brought in a specialist, an older man from Germany with terribly accented English, and knowing that alone, that his brother is so badly hurt that he needs a specialist from out of the country-- it's nauseating.

George asks him about it, once. Holds out a bit of parchment with big words on it, most of them not in English, or his handwriting. "Please?" he very nearly begs. "They tried explaining it to me but-- but I don't know anything about this. I don't understand what they're doing."

He means it. For real. This isn't like Bill asking him to do the laundry or his mother asking him to chop vegetables, clearly tasks that do not need doing but just that they think he'll feel better if he does something. George isn't asking him this out of pity. He's asking him because he means it. He want his smart older brother to know the answers.

Which is a pity, because he doesn't.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles. "I didn't take any of the healing tract courses at Hogwarts."

George stares down at the parchment. And he looks so hopeless that Percy's heart cracks.

Maybe he could study it at Bill's. Maybe he could ask someone to bring books for him to learn it. Maybe he could find the healer and ask him himself.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

"Lotta fucking good Ancient Runes and Arithmancy are then, aren't they." George folds his arms, shrinking into himself. "Why'd you even take them, just so you could be sure to always have the most boring person in any room award?"

Silence.

"That was a joke," George tacks on weakly. He cringes, which is just wrong. "That was... you're supposed to laugh. Or insult me back."

All right. "Ha ha."

The thing is-- Percy never would've seen it coming, but Fred and George, it seems, are the only ones to get him now. Fred, too, because after that first day, Fred has never talked to him like a dog again. Which is bizarre, because they're the ones who've seen him least. But they seem to understand without words that he's not fucking dead, he's not lost in his own head, he just doesn't know how to... what to... how to be. He can't translate his thoughts and feelings properly into actions anymore.

He hears people talking about him like he's a child, and he hates it. But Fred and George don't do that.

They understand that he really, really, really, really, really needs to be told what to do. And as terrifying as that thought should be, the twins realizing they've got someone who would swallow sparkling sludge if they just told him to do it, that's not what happens. They don't... take advantage.

They just help him exist.

At some point, Percy remembers that they are the ones closest to him in age, so close together that they've never really known life apart from each other. They couldn't be more different, but they also couldn't know each other better.

"Deal the cards," Fred orders, nudging the Exploding Snap deck closer to him. "Yourself in, too."

No one else would've let him deal. Would've done it themselves. Like he's too fragile to deal a deck of cards. Probably would've assumed he didn't even want to play.

"Are you sure you're allowed to play this game right now? Am I going to get thrown out when the healers find out we're setting off explosions?"

"Just because you've never broken a rule in your life," George mutters, rolling his eyes, "doesn't mean we have to follow them." He puts his feet up on Fred's bed, kicking back in his chair. "Besides, the healers already hate me, they'll know it's my fault. You go first."

Fred smirks. It's one of the most beautiful things Percy has ever seen. "Angelina doesn't hate you."

"Oi! Shut up!"

They do wind up causing a mess, only a small one, and Fred doesn't even get singed. Percy and George do, just a little, but it's nothing too bad, and when Percy moves to heal the burns George orders him to sit back down. It's probably for the best; healing magic is tricky, and with his track record lately, he'd probably just make it worse.

George heals both their hands, and he instructs Percy to shuffle the deck for next time, and he does. It is so easy, being with Fred and George. It's the only time all week he feels like he can breathe.

Sometimes, he comes, and Fred's been taken for another procedure again. Experimental spells, trying to heal dying muscle, a rotted limb, an eye on life support. George isn't allowed to be with him then, so Percy sits with him, usually in silence.

He doesn't think George ever leaves the hospital. Their parents are handling paperwork on the shop for now, but rent will always be due. And at some point George is either going to have to run the shop himself or shut down for good.

Percy will give them money, if it comes to that. It's not like he's using it for anything else. But his funds aren't limitless. It will only postpone the inevitable.

There's just... there's nothing else he can do. Even if he were-- okay. Which he knows he isn't. He can't heal Fred. He can't make George feel better. He can't keep the shop afloat. Even if he were working full-time under Kingsley, his salary wouldn't be enough to cover rent at Diagon Alley for a shop that big. Maybe if they all put their money together, all the siblings, but Bill is married now, he wants to start a family, and Ginny's still at school, Ron's not got much to spare, and-

George throws himself at him, collapses into his lap, and bursts into tears.

The spiral stops.

"G- George--"

George grabs onto him even tighter, almost like he's a pillow, trying to crush himself to him. He has not hugged Percy like this since they were both tiny.

"George," he gasps again. He struggles his thoughts together; he repeats what Bill had mentioned before they'd left today, word for word. "It's just an experiment with a new treatment. He'll be back here in a few hours and even if it doesn't work, he won't get worse. He's going to be-"

He wails. It comes out muffled into his shirt but it's a wail all the same, choked with tears and his arms locked around him so tight it's starting to get uncomfortable. "It's not just Fred! It's both of you!"

It's-- it's what?

"B-both brothers on either side of m-me are... are... and I don't... I d-don't know what to do! I don't know what-- I'm supposed to be able to ask you but I can't! You're hurt, too!"

"I'm." Percy swallows, shuddering; his mouth has gone dry. "I'm n-"

"Yes, you are!" George sobs and sniffs and his shirt is starting to feel damp. "You're just sitting there! You'd never do that! You'd be reading a book or cleaning up or something but now you never do anything, Percy, you just sit there and it's really really obvious that you're not happy, and I can't help you or Fred! I can't help anyone!"

Percy desperately wants to say something. To say anything. But he can't. He can't say George is wrong because he's not.

He'd had no idea George felt like this at all. George is supposed to be worried about Fred. That's all he needs right now. How... how is there even enough in him to worry about Percy too? Percy?

He finally clears his throat, because he just has to try. "I'm visiting my brother in the hospital." He tries to say it dryly, but winces when he hears how dull it comes out. "Am I meant to be happy?"

But George just scoffs. "Don't even try that. I'm not happy all the time but I am some of the time. You're not any of the time." He sniffs again, and he's not quite sobbing anymore but tears are still streaming down on his face. "I still have nightmares. Almost every night. It's usually about Fred but sometimes it's you. That first day we saw you, and... you fell out of your chair. S-started shaking on the floor. You weren't responding to us at all. I tried to hold you still but the healers said that made it worse. I made it worse. You bit your tongue and there was so much blood on your face-- Mum and Dad were terrified. It was the first time we'd seen you in years and you, you..."

Percy hadn't known that. No one had ever told him.

"You can't do that again. You can't."

"I'm... I'm not going to. The healers said I'm fine-"

"But you're not," George gasps. His hitching breaths slow down a little, calmer, easier. But the quiet devastation in his voice doesn't go away. "Why... why aren't you?"

He doesn't know.

He doesn't know why he's spent his entire life unable to stop working and now it's an effort to even get out of bed.

He doesn't know why he doesn't have a job and also doesn't even care to get one.

He doesn't know why he can't care about anything.

He doesn't know. So he can't answer. He just sits there and holds George and doesn't know what to say.

George shifts around a little. His hold around his middle finally loosens. "Every time you visit we're so awful to you. I-"

"What?"

"We just keep telling you what to do and you-"

"You are not being awful to me." Percy swallows down the lump in his throat, and now he's suddenly the one that can't let go. "You're the only ones who... who do that."

"Because it's mean!"

"It helps!" It's awful and embarrassing and he shuts his eyes, feeling heat flame in his face, but he has to say it. He'd had no idea George was so upset about this. "It helps. It's the only thing that makes me feel even a little okay, George, I don't care how mean it is, please don't stop doing it."

George doesn't answer. And Percy can't go on. He can't put into words how there's just a brick wall inbetween his head and his body right now, and trying to break through it is terrifying so he just doesn't. What he wants, what he needs, what he's feeling, it just has no import at all on what he does. The worse he feels, the worse it gets, and he doesn't know how to reconnect the two at all. He doesn't care how unhealthy it is; Fred and George telling him what to do helps and they just simply must keep doing it.

After a long while, George clears his throat. He's finally stopped crying. "You're supposed to be telling us what to do."

Ah. Another joke, is it. Or an attempt at one.

"Well," he answers, and tries to smile. "Perhaps I figured I'd let you two be Head Boy for a change."

But Fred and George had never wanted to be Head Boy.

Percy, quite honestly, has no idea how long it has been, when Shell Cottage gets a whole entourage of visitors.

They don't tell him, of course. No one bothers to tell him anything, nowadays. Let's not say anything that might upset the invalid, now. They clearly think he's asleep-- Bill has no idea how little he actually sleeps at night-- and doesn't even know what's going on.

He cracks his door open, just an inch, and listens.

"...don't see what he's like when you're not here, Mum. I thought it was just temporary, maybe, that he just had to get used to being off from work, but... he's getting worse."

Bill. That's Bill. And Mum is here too, then.

Brilliant.

"It's not about the money, he doesn't need that. Even without us, with the restitution fund he's got enough to be all right for a few years. I think he needs some sort of routine, and this is the only thing I've been able to think of."

Percy scowls.

He hadn't wanted the money. But Kingsley had told him it was in his account whether he'd wanted it or not. Then he'd stopped, hesitating, and finally added on in a low voice that before they'd made the deposit, his account had been completely empty. All of his meager savings were gone, and his entire salary had been directed to the Malfoy's account for years.

If it weren't for Kingsley, he wouldn't have anything.

"Unless any of you have any better suggestions," Bill tacks on, his voice turning sour. "Because at this point it's either this or we take him back to St. Mungo's. And if this doesn't work we still might have to."

Take him back to Mungo's for what? Is it a crime, now, to sleep all day? Is it illegal to not want to get out of bed?

Fuck him. Fuck all of them.

He can hear his mother's voice hitch. She's already fighting back tears. "What about-- what about Fred and George's? They need the help, George keeps saying he can't run the shop alone. And Percy-"

"He needs help on the floor, Mum. Someone who can handle it if one of their products goes off or has a problem, magically and... emotionally. Talking to customers. Do you really think Percy can do that right now?"

What? They think he can't handle a conversation now?

What on earth do they even think him capable of, at this point? Is laundry his limit, to them? Is that all? How pathetic do they think he is?

Very, apparently. No one speaks up in his defense. Not one.

A new voice enters the conversation. Dad. "I was talking with someone on the Board of Governor's the other day. Hogwarts is still looking for a lot of staff. I know Percy doesn't have his mastery in anything, so he can't take a professorship, but it sounds like they're also looking for a few tutors. Everyone's education has been so disrupted these past few years... Percy could do that, couldn't he?"

An unfamiliar squirm of warmth stirs in his stomach. His dad thinks he can do it? Of all of them, he's the one who sticks up for him?

He... he could do that. He could be a tutor at Hogwarts. He already had been, when he was Head Boy; just part of the job. And all his little siblings, too. That wouldn't be... so bad. Would it? He'd have to study up on some of his subjects for the older students, but he'd already passed the exams once before, hadn't he? That wouldn't be terribly difficult.

He could do that. Couldn't he?

"He'd have to live on site for that," Bill sighs heavily. "And with our jobs none of us could go with him. He can't be alone right now, Dad."

Ah. Well. He can't, then.

Percy looks down at his lap. He feels about two inches tall.

Why does he tolerate this?

Why does he let them talk about him like this?

None of them think he's capable of anything anymore. Mum and Dad used to say he could be anything at all that he dreamed of as long as he worked hard. And now he can't even take a job he's perfectly suited for because he wouldn't have a babysitter. And he can't even say a word about it. It's not as if McGonagall would be asking their permission. He could owl her tomorrow.

He knows he won't.

"Ginny... Ginny thinks that we're being..." Dad, again. "Overprotective. She says that he can make his own decisions. That we're not helping."

"Ginny is only seventeen," Mum sniffs. "And she's still in school. She hasn't even seen him since Mungo's, has she? She doesn't know what she's talking about."

They all talk like he's back in Mungo's again. Like he can't dress himself, or cook breakfast, cook, not just eat, or walk through the house without support. What exactly do they think he'd do if left on his own? Trip and hit his head again? Starve?

He wishes they'd listen to Ginny.

"And... and you're sure this job is safe, Charlie?"

Charlie? What, is everyone older than him here? Is Aunt Muriel's ghost going to jump in next?

"Of course, Mum. Even if I wanted him to work with the dragons my boss would never let him. No one gets near them without showing that they can handle it. It's just paperwork. And I promise I'll keep a close eye on him, you know I will."

She's quiet for another few moments. This is starting to feel like an intervention for her as much as it is for Percy.

"And not the Ministry. It's absolutely not an option?" Despite the question, she sounds resigned. She already knows she's lost. "Not his old job, no, of course not, but..."

"Very sure," his dad sighs. "Kingsley said he's not letting Percy back in that building for six months at a bare minimum. He said if he's well enough to work there, he's well enough to work somewhere else in the meantime. And if he's not well enough to work somewhere else, he's got no business being back there."

Great. So now the Minister is gossiping about him, too.

He feels awful.

"I just mean..." She sniffs a little and blows her nose. "Romania is so far away. I'm... I'm just so worried about him. It feels like ever since he got out of the hospital he's only gotten worse."

"Mum. Every day that you don't spend at the hospital you spend here with him. You're running yourself ragged." Charlie hesitates, his voice thick. "You know we'll Floo back every weekend, and if anything happens you'll be the first people I tell. But I really think this'll be good for both of you."

Good for both of them. Like he's a little kid getting set up on a playdate or given a bedtime. Like he can't make his own fucking decisions for himself.

Percy shoves himself to his feet.

And then--

He can't be angry.

He's not supposed to be angry.

He ambles out of his room.

Everyone nearly jumps at the sight of him, and Percy can't help the nasty flare in his chest. What, is him being out of bed that surprising? But none of it ever makes it up to his mouth. "Oh," he mumbles. He's really too tired to properly feign surprise. "I was just getting a glass of water."

And of course his dad immediately jumps up to get one for him, and Bill pulls out a chair for him, again like he's a child. Like he couldn't get his own bloody water. He sits down and stares at the table and his mum holds his hands in both of his. He's not sure why he's still so cold and everyone else is so hot.

"We've... had a thought, darling."

Oh, have they.

"Charlie's enclosure is looking for some extra help out there. Nothing too difficult, just a bit of help with their paperwork. Is that..."

Everyone is staring at him.

"...something you might be interested in, do you think?"

Percy looks at her hands around his. Her older, careworn hands; his, perfect, unblemished, because he doesn't do fucking anything.

He takes a deep breath. And he says: "I've heard Hogwarts is looking."

That's it. He can not say anymore. He physically can't. Even that little act of rebellion has made his chest go tight. He curls his toes in his socks and breathes in through his nose and counts wood grains on the table and feels himself already starting to drift away.

They all obviously know he was eavesdropping now. Who the hell else would he have heard it from, the seagulls outside?

They all stare at him. He stares down at his hands. He can't do it. He needs to take it back. They haven't said anything. He needs to take it back and run and pack his nonexistent things and Floo to Romania right now.

"I don't think that's a good idea, son," his dad says, finally. And he just leaves it at that. Final.

His eyes sting.

So that's that, then. He's going to Romania.

That will be all, Percy assumes, for tonight. Because it's late. It's already dark outside, and it's the middle of the week; none of them are moving tonight. And yet, mysteriously, it is not. There's another bit of small talk, which he ignores, as routine, and then a round of goodbyes and well wishes and hugs. All normal. But it takes him a second to realize that Dad isn't leaving.

The family still hasn't left the two of them alone together. It's been months, now.

Clearly, he has something he wants to say.

He waits until everyone is gone. Charlie and Mum, apparating out from the shoreline, and Bill, back in his room with Fleur, the door shut firmly with a soft snick. He, it seems, will not be eavesdropping. Percy sits back, cradling his glass of water, just for something to do with his hands. He finally drinks some of it. He waits.

"I've got news from Kingsley," his dad starts, without preamble. "They have Igor Karkaroff in custody."

Percy's brow furrows.

All right. He's not sure why he's being told this, but. All right.

"That's... good," he offers lamely. Karkaroff was a Death Eater, wasn't he? He supposes that's it.

"That's-- that is, I mean to say--" He coughs, sounding desperately uncomfortably. "He... confessed. To what he did to you."

Percy freezes.

Just as there is almost no way to identify a victim of the Imperius Curse, there is no way to identify the spellcaster of one, either. The spellcaster would have to confess, and why would they do that? He'd known Kingsley was looking, but there was nothing that the man could do, really. Percy had thought that he'd just-- never know. He'd thought that knowledge was out of reach permanently.

And now...

Not just a name. Karkaroff is still alive.

Percy suddenly feels very cold.

"Are you sure?" he blurts out. He can't help himself. "Are the Aurors positive?"

Dad nods heavily. "As sure as they can be. He's confirmed it under Veritasereum. It's possible he is an Occlumens or has had the false memories implanted, but that's all highly unlikely, Percy." He pauses, looking away. "He confessed to it nearly the moment he was caught. After the last war, he gave up a lot of names to stay out of Azkaban... he's trying to do the same now. Thought having information about one of Harry's friends would help his case."

Oh. He-- oh. Oh. Oh.

He suddenly can not move. The room feels very, very small, and even sitting down the floor is starting to spin under his feet.

In the space of twenty seconds, he has a name, a face, he is still alive. And now he might be--

He grits his teeth, clenching his jaw shut. There's bile in his throat.

"Hang on, Perce. He's not--" He takes his hand, just the one, his thumb moving over the back of it over and over. "Sorry, I shouldn't have led with that. Percy, this is Kingsley we're talking about. He took the Malfoy fortune not even a week after the war is over. You know he won't let that happen. The trial is just a formality. He's going to Azkaban and he's never getting out."

He had before, though.

He'd gotten out of Azkaban before.

Breathe. Breathe. In and out. Slowly. Deep breath. Breathe.

As much as he hasn't wanted to see his father, suddenly his hand is the only thing that's keeping him from losing his bloody mind.

"You're allowed to testify," he says gently, when the moment has passed. "If you'd like."

"Testify?" he blurts out again. Why would he do that? "I can't identify him, Dad. And he's already confessed, hasn't he?"

The question seems to give him pause. "It's, ah, one of the reforms Kingsley's made. He says Muggle courts do it. A victim of a crime can testify at sentencing, to plead for leniency, or-- not."

Leniency. Percy almost lets out a hysterical laugh.

This is absurd. Perhaps something that should've just stayed with Muggles. What nonsense. There's nothing Percy can even testify about. What, the Wizengamot wants to hear about all the paperwork he'd had to do? What a tragedy.

The worst parts of it are self-inflicted. Karkaroff isn't the one who'd hurt him. That was himself.

"If you don't want to go-"

"I'm not going, Dad." He ducks his head, taking deep, calming breaths again. "I'm not testifying." The thought of seeing Karkaroff again fills him instantly with a cold, sick dread. The idea of testifying about it? In front of the whole Wizengamot? Gods.

Some Gryffindor he is.

"I thought I wasn't allowed back in the building for six months," he hisses. He suddenly wants this all to stop.

His dad flinches. "Percy-"

"Is there anything else?"

There's another short silence. He still hasn't let go of his hand.

"I was going to say that I was planning on attending the trial. If you weren't. If that's... all right with you."

"Fine," he snaps. What's not all right with him is being asked that fucking question. He doesn't even care. So his dad will get to hear all about Percy letting a Death Eater touch Penny and kiss her and-- and what does he care? He doesn't. He doesn't fucking care. He never wants to hear about any of this ever again.

There's another short silence between them. Percy is wide-awake now, and wishes he wasn't. He'd rather go to Romania than hear a single more word of this.

Silence.

His dad's hand tenses, a little. He looks to be about to stand.

"Did he say why he did it?"

He hadn't meant to ask it. But it's come out anyway.

"Why--" he stammers. "Why me, I mean. I've never understood... my position was not very advantageous to them. That's all I mean. I've never been able to think what they wanted to use me for."

His dad sits quietly, for another few moments. His hand is back to holding his tightly. Almost too tightly.

The answer is a bad one, then.

But-- but why? Perhaps they'd planned for him to spy on Fudge, he'd thought, except it happened before that promotion had ever come. By all rights, he should've been about to be sacked, when he'd been hit with the Imperius Curse. Or at the very least reassigned to a lower office. Hogwarts had been full of high ranking Ministry officials and Hogwarts professors at the end of the tournament. Why him? It's never made sense.

"He said that he was fleeing Hogwarts. He was going to go into hiding from You-Know-Who. He was almost out when he saw... saw that boy who'd been working with the Minister. And he thought that taking his chances with a live hostage gave him a better shot than running away."

Then he stops talking. Like that's just-- it.

But that can't be it. There has to be more. Doesn't there?

Doesn't there?

He feels seasick. What does he mean that that's it? There's no reason there. What's the actual reason? What was the point of it?

DOESN'T THERE?

Percy is twenty-two years old and has lost almost his entire adulthood to this. He's lost the job of his dreams that he has spent his entire life trying to earn because he's too sick in the head to do it. His family treats him like he's a two year old. At least once a month his head hurts so badly he needs someone to carry him to the loo.

What does he mean that's it?!

His entire life he's felt like an afterthought even among his own family. A middle sibling even among the middle siblings, too old to need looking after, not old enough to not still want it. And now come to find out he's even an afterthought here too. Karkaroff, Igor Karkaroff, has ruined his life.

And he did it on a bloody whim.

Even in the most important event in his entire life, he's still just... nothing.

"I'm really sorry, Percy." He's still holding his hand, not letting go, and it's clear in his voice he very much understands even if Percy has gone silent. "I don't know if there's anything I can say or do, but... I love you. I love you very much. I'm so sorry this happened to you."

He's too shellshocked to be angry. But there's a muted murmur in his chest all the same. It happened because Arthur Weasley turned his back on him. Over and over and over. He is so patient and soft and gentle now, but it's too late now. He's never needed any of this. He's never needed anyone to hold his hand and say I love you.

He'd needed him to be there for him three years ago when he'd left home and thought for sure his father was just behind him, because he hadn't needed someone to love him. He'd needed someone to save him. And Arthur Weasley had not.

 Because no matter how many times he says I love you now, Percy was still an afterthought in his own damn family. His entire life is as an afterthought.

"Are you all right, son?"

No. No. NO.

"Yes, Dad," he sighs.

SHUT UP.

He moves to Romania.

He lives with Charlie. Of course. Because there was never any thought in anyone's head that he might prefer a place of his own. And he works with Charlie. Of course. Because there was never any thought in anyone's head that he might just be capable of working alone.

Charlie was telling the truth. His job isn't with the dragons, but no matter what his official responsibilities are, Charlie's supervisor won't let him anywhere near the enclosure. He thinks it's him, at first, that Charlie has been gossiping about him to bloody strangers, but then realizes that's how the man is with everyone but the actual dragon-tamers, and the fury in his chest begins to cool. There's nothing wrong with being a little safety-conscious.

He sees the dragons from the window, instead. He does paperwork. He eats lunch with Charlie. He does more paperwork.

That's about it.

He does have to get up and get dressed. Some days that's a good thing. Some days that's harder than others. The change of scenery is nice, he supposes. Meeting new people is nice, people who look at him a little strangely after a failed attempt at conversation but don't approach him like he's glass, like he's about to break.

It's all just... okay.

Fine. Fucking fine. Bill was right about him needing a routine. FINE.

He knows his family had been hoping for more. That they could just ship him out here and a week or two later he'd have a big turnaround and suddenly be back to normal, back to the Percy who wishes there were more hours in a day because there's just so much to do, the Percy who only sleeps because it's a necessity, who can't get enough of work and studying and self-improvement.

Percy never gets out of bed on Sunday. The one day of the week that's his now, just his, his alone. He stays in bed until dinner and Charlie never even says a word when he sits at the table in his pajamas, or when he just goes back to bed without even finishing his plate.

He has appointments with healers. It's supposed to be for his head. They check his vision, with and without his glasses, his balance, ask about his headaches, if there's any lingering pain or difficulties like he'd had in the hospital.

Then they start talking about other things.

They tell him he's lost weight. First with a cheeky smile, that he must be trying that new diet from Witch Weekly, but his next appointment it's noted down with a frown, and the one after that they tell him directly he needs to eat and exercise more. They watch him struggle with relatively simple spells and tell him that his magic is a muscle like any other, and he needs to exercise it regularly for it to work properly. They tell him his heart rate is too fast and ask if he's anxious about the appointments, which he isn't. He just can't sleep. At all. So they prescribe him sleep aids, and when they ask him if they help, he's supposed to say yes, so he does.

He says yes.

He says he'll sleep more.

He says he'll eat more.

He says he'll do better.

They start asking him other things, then. If he has any thoughts about hurting himself. If he has any thoughts about ending his own life. Percy isn't sure where the questions come from. Perhaps they've had it noted down to ask all survivors of the Imperius Curse that.

He says no, of course.

Charlie grins at him when he gets back from the most recent exam, the disappointment of expectations failed to be met lying over him like a shroud. You're not gaining weight, Mr. Weasley. Your spellwork hasn't improved, Mr. Weasley. Are you quite sure you're feeling better, Mr. Weasley?

"No more new prescriptions!" Charlie announces, when he enters empty-handed. "That's a good sign, right? How'd it go?"

"Quite fine," he says.

He grabs a book at random from Charlie's disaster of a living room, saying he's going back to his room to read.

They both know he's not going to read.

He doesn't know what's wrong with him.

Penelope Clearwater comes to Charlie's house.

Percy is shocked.

He'd tried not to think about her at all. The many occasions that he had, he'd felt... he hadn't known what to feel. He had been pretty sure that he was never going to see her ever again.

And then she just shows up. In Romania. Penelope Clearwater. With her same long, soft, dark hair, tied up in a ponytail, and her same pink ribbon bracelet, and her same blue eyes.

"Hang on, hang on," she rushes, holding her hands up as Percy nearly stumbles over his own feet backward. "Slow down a sec. Your mum's been writing me. I already know what happened, okay? You don't need to explain."

"I-- Penny." There's anguish and devastation and horror inside him. "Penny."

He'd nearly killed her. And now she is standing there. Smiling at him. Holding out a scarf as a present.

His scarf, he realizes. His green-striped scarf, that he'd bought at Hogsmeade with his own money seventh year. He'd let her borrow it. Years ago.

"I'm so sorry." He has to say it. She doesn't want him to, he can see it on her face, but it spills out anyway. "I'm so sorry, Penny."

She sighs. She reaches out, holding his hands like she'd used to, when they were still dating, when everything was okay. "I'm sorry, too."

Which is positively insane. There is nothing for her to be sorry for.

They go to a park to talk alone. Percy has been in Romania for a while, now, and it's the first time he's been anywhere that isn't Charlie's place, the enclosure, or the Ministry to use the Floo network.

Like everything else, it's... nice, he supposes. He gets why Charlie likes it. Can't really be bothered to form an opinion on it himself, one way or another.

"Your mum's been writing me for a while, now," Penny starts off with. "At first she thought we were still dating and was hoping I'd have some magic bullet, you know." She hesitates. "I didn't tell her about... well." She clears her throat uncomfortably. "Just that we'd broken up around graduation."

Percy finds himself... relieved. He'd wondered, for a moment, if Penny might have thought they were still dating, when she'd found out that she had never actually broken up with him at all. If she might be here to pick up where they'd left off.

He adores Penny.

And he really, really, really does not want to do that.

He thinks that the idea of dating anyone at all makes him sick.

"Sorry," he mumbles again. That's all it seems he can say-- sorry. "She shouldn't be troubling you with this."

"I think she should. Just because we're broken up doesn't mean we can't still be friends, Percy." She folds her arms, looking out at the empty playground instead of at him.

He'd thought he wanted kids, once.

"I think you're depressed."

"What?"

"Depressed," she repeats. "Wizards don't talk about it. But I haven't seen any evidence that they're immune. They just don't talk about it. Maybe that's why your society collapses into a race war every couple of decades." She laughs bitterly, just to herself, but her gaze when she turns it back to him is nothing but kind. "You're depressed. You have depression."

The way she says that-- have depression. Like it's a disease. An actual physical disease, something that is actually physically wrong with him. It wouldn't surprise him, to be honest. He doesn't feel right and he knows that.

But he's had so many appointments with healers. They cast diagnostic spells on him every time, the same as they do with every other patient. If there were something wrong with him, they would've found it by now.

He doesn't say anything. He's not sure what to say, really. And after a few moments of waiting for a reply, she goes on on her own.

"Just, if someone says they don't want to get out of bed for months... it's kind of a classic. A textbook case, really."

"I never said that."

"Yeah? So there's some other reason you're doing that, then?"

He looks down, fiddling with a loose thread on his trousers. He could say that he's not sleeping well. And it's true. He's not. The potions from the hospital hadn't helped with that at all and he doesn't even bother to take them anymore.

"There's no point," is what he says, instead. "I don't have anything to bother getting up for." A little flare of irritation burns that his mother was telling this to his girlfriend-- his ex-girlfriend. Does she just tell everyone? Does everyone back in his old life know what he's turned into now?

Penny laughs a little again. But she doesn't sound very happy."Yeah, that's another classic symptom, Percy."

Even underneath a sweater and one of Charlie's jackets, he's still cold. He folds his arms tighter, curling his bare hands up against himself. Penny doesn't seem half as bothered, wearing a skirt and a light cardigan and yet not shivering at all. For the very first time it occurs dazedly to him maybe he'd stop feeling so cold if he started eating properly again.

"Well?" he asks, finally. "How do Muggles treat it, then?" If it's an actual real condition, a recognized disease, then obviously there is some treatment for it. Some potion-- or, no, Muggles don't have potions. They take medication. Some medication he could take, some exam to confirm the diagnosis. Maybe feeling like this isn't supposed to be normal.

Penny is quiet, for another few seconds. "Depends." She glances over at him, but thankfully does not reach out to touch him. "Sometimes it just goes away on its own. Sometimes it doesn't. Medication can help, but I think that's supposed to be a last resort. Usually they'll have you work with a therapist first."

"A therapist?" he asks, tilting his head. Fred has physical therapists. Percy had had them, briefly, showing him and his older brothers exercises to do while he was still bedridden, when his arm and his leg wouldn't work properly. He's not sure what that has to do with this.

"Yeah. You know how we have healers that specialize in everything? So do Muggles. Therapists specialize in what's wrong with your head. You talk to them about what's going on with you and they help you find a way to feel better. And--" She sits forward suddenly, looking him right in the eye. "And there's nothing wrong with seeing one, Percy."

What? "I think it would be extremely illegal for me to discuss the Imperius Curse with a Muggle."

"That's--" She lets out a startled laugh, breaking out into her first real smile of the entire conversation. But it's a bittersweet one. "I suppose so, yeah."

He doesn't really understand what she means, anyway. Talking about... what? Is talking about this supposed to make him feel better? If it's a actual recognized illness, if he is sick, why isn't there a real treatment? Talking about things isn't a real treatment.

Though it's not as if potions have been doing all that much for him, lately.

"I'll write to you, when I leave. I guess you can't see a real therapist, yeah. But I am a healer. And I do have some Muggle education. We weren't Head Boy and Girl for nothing, you know." She's again smiling at him. Trying to look more confident than she obviously feels.

"Can... can I give you a hug, Percy?"

"Sure." It even happens to line up with what he's really thinking, for once.

It's the first time he's touched her since that day at the Ministry. She wraps her arms around him, and he wraps his around her. He smells her shampoo-- she's using a different one, now-- and his arms fall on her lower back and hers around his shoulders. And the world doesn't end.

It all just keeps spinning on.

Living with Charlie is very different from living with Bill.

Bill is a very quiet, calm person. He somehow always knows just the right thing to say, even when there shouldn't have been anything right at all. He'd let Percy be unless something was wrong, was really wrong, and somehow then would stop him from drowning. Living with Bill had been like treading water.

Percy can't stand to admit it, but he thinks that without Bill, he wouldn't have been treading the water at all.

Charlie is the opposite. He can hardly ever stop babbling, even when he's saying the very very worst very wrong thing to say. But unlike Bill, he is also a very tactile person, and that, he is exceptionally good at. He always seems to just know when Percy can't stand to be touched, when he needs it, how he needs it, how much is too much, how much is not enough. Some days he'll swallow him in a bear hug for no reason at all, and some days they'll walk to work together with two feet between them and a cold sweat on the back of Percy's neck.

He still has nightmares. Though he's not sure he can really call them nightmares if he's not ever getting into a deep sleep in the first place. At some point they just give up the charade of Charlie sticking his head in to 'check up on him' and he just follows him into his room and never shuts up. He sits on the floor next to his bed and he talks. He talks about everything. He talks about work, as if he and Percy don't now work at the same place and he already knows exactly what he's going to say. He talks about Quidditch, he talks about the new dragons they're expecting next week, he talks about their co-workers, and Percy falls asleep, and he wakes back up, and Charlie is still talking, and finally he'll fall asleep and not wake back up again.

Sometimes he'll crawl into bed with him. When Percy can't stop trembling, when he's so scared but can't ever put it into words. And he hates it. He hates that he doesn't feel safe, and he hates that Charlie pulling him into his arms does make him feel safe. He hates that he's scared of nothing at all, he hates that he is a grown man with a wand and still needs his big brother to wrap him up in his arms and protect him like he's just a little boy again. He hates that Charlie does make him feel safe even though nothing is wrong. He hates that Charlie tries to talk to him but always winds up just dissolving into brokenhearted apologies, smothering him in an embrace that's too big and croaking I'm sorry I should've been there I'm sorry over and over.

Percy isn't even angry at him anymore. He used to be. But he's not anymore. Bill and Charlie weren't there for him because they weren't there at all. Being angry at them would be like being angry at Penny. Sure, he could contort a sense of logic there, how maybe they could've done something, but-- he just isn't. He can't live every day with how much Charlie cares about him being stuffed down his throat to still be angry.

He's not angry at them.

It's Sunday. Percy is doing his favorite Sunday activity of finding the most comfortable, warm spot under the blankets that there is, when he hears voices out in the living room. Voices that don't belong to his family, or one of his co-workers, Charlie's friends.

He listens for a little bit. Decides he doesn't care.

He thinks about Penny's latest letter to him, his own marked up in red ink, like it was an essay. She'd circled one part of what he'd written, scratching through it as if it was an incorrectly stated theorem. Is that logical? You're waiting for your feelings to change first to change your behavior. But what if it needs to be the other way around?

He's so tired.

He doesn't care at all.

He grabs a blanket, and trudges out into the living room.

"-and you should've seen the look on his face. Didn't realize I was telling the truth about playing pro, what rubbish, and-- oh, hello th... Percy?"

Percy blinks.

"Hi," he says to Oliver.

Charlie, standing just behind him, is too busy looking stunned to contribute anything. He barely manages to shut his mouth.

"It's been a while, yeah?" Oliver starts a step forward, then stops, looking oddly at him. "Sorry, are you sick? Didn't mean to wake you."

It's late afternoon, and Percy is standing there with bloodshot eyes, wrinkled pajamas, and a blanket around his shoulders like a cloak. It isn't all that insane a question.

All Percy can really do is shrug. They're both staring at him, so he moves to sit down, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed by how he looks. "I'm fine. Charlie didn't mention you'd be visiting."

"He didn't mention you'd be visiting, either! Come on, we should all do something together!" He over-eager puppy dog act falters as he casts his state of dress another critical eye. "If you're sure you're feeling all right, I mean."

"...okay."

Oliver looks at him oddly, again.

It is once again Charlie who rides in to his rescue. "Actually, he's got an early start at work tomorrow, right, Perce? Maybe best if he stays in tonight."

"Oh," Oliver says easily. "Well, maybe next time, then."

There's a familiar stirring of irritation at that. It's not even that Charlie is wrong. He doesn't want to go, at all, and he can't say no, at all. But that doesn't mean he can stand being talked about like that. Treated like this.

Does he have a reason not to go? That's what Penny would ask. Does he have an actual reason not to spend time with his brother and his old roommate? Does he have a problem with Oliver? Does he have a headache? Are they doing something that he hates?

Does he know he'll enjoy it?

Then why isn't he going?

"Ac-actually," and Charlie is staring at him now, staring, and his stomach starts to knot and the words are squirreling back into his throat. "I. I c-can join you. If you'll wait for me to grab a shower."

Oliver blinks again. And Charlie is still staring.

Stop looking at him like that. Stop making him feel like he's said the wrong thing. Stop, stop, stop.

"Okay," Oliver fumbles after a moment. He can clearly feel that something is not quite right here. "Uh... sure? That's fine."

Percy has to pull a tactical retreat, then. It'd be only a few seconds more of that look on Charlie's face before he took it all back and never said anything like that ever again.

They grab dinner.

Percy gets the feeling that their plans had been something else. But Charlie has changed them on a whim to something... simpler. Something easier.

They grab dinner.

Oliver barely talks to him.

Percy gets the feeling that Charlie has told him not to.

Oliver keeps staring at him.

They grab dinner. Percy manages to eat a whole three fourths of it. Oliver stares at him. Charlie talks about his dragons and asks Oliver about Quidditch and Oliver sometimes manages to get sucked into a story about a match. Percy listens.

It's all fine. The world doesn't end. Percy doesn't have another episode. His head doesn't hurt. He listens, and feels fine, and sometimes even laughs, laughs because he wants to, not just because he's supposed to. Charlie finally quits watching him out of the corner of his eye like he's about to jump out of his skin if anyone touches him.

It's all just fine.

Percy really gets the feeling that none of this was Charlie's idea, still, none of it, when they wind up back home... and Charlie, with a very unsubtle sigh, says he's going out for a smoke. Which will leave him and Oliver alone. Perhaps Oliver gets former-roommate privileges. Perhaps it's just that dinner actually wasn't the disaster he'd expected it to be.

Percy doesn't even know where he got this reputation from. He handles going out fine. He just doesn't want to.

Sure enough, when Charlie is gone, Oliver drops the whole ignoring-him act. He sits on the edge of an armchair, staring at him with a furrowed brow and with an intensity he's only seen him use when talking about Quidditch. "Sorry if I was kind of rude at dinner. Charlie said I should, er, leave you alone."

Yeah. He'd guessed.

"I don't want to pry, but... are you doing okay? You seem a little..."

He doesn't finish his sentence, and Percy doesn't know how to answer. The proper response to are you okay? is yes. That's usually what he's supposed to say. but Oliver doesn't seem like he'll be mollified by that when it is so obviously not true.

"I... don't know what you want me to say."

"How about you just answer the question? Honestly?"

"No," he says curtly, and snaps his mouth shut.

He has no idea how Oliver's taken that. By the look on his face it seems like it's been heard as a refusal. It was supposed to be an actual answer-- no, he is not doing okay-- but either way he supposes Oliver has what he wants. Nothing about this conversation is saying yes, I'm fine.

He hasn't seen Oliver in years. Not since Hogwarts. Apparently he's playing Quidditch now. His big dream, exactly what he'd always wanted, exactly what he'd worked so hard for. Just like Penny, a healer. Just like Charlie, a dragon-tamer. And then here's Percy: part-time work cataloguing dragon subspecies, complying with Romanian import laws, and researching uncommon ailments for magical reptilian species.

Fun.

Oliver is quiet, for another few moments.

"What are you even doing out here?" he asks at last. "I thought you were visiting. But Charlie says you work at the enclosure with him? You?"

"I'm not a dragon-tamer," he says, knowing that is the objection. "Obviously, given the lack of burn scars."

"Okay, but you still work there. What happened? You used to never shut up about the Ministry."

Please just leave him alone.

"I'm on leave from the Ministry," he mutters. He has no idea if that's still true. "Everyone thought it'd be better for me to still have something to do, though. And Charlie's enclosure was hiring."

He knows that Kingsley had said he could come back when and if he was ready. He'd said that with no strings attached, he'd made that very clear, just when and if. But that can't be true. If Percy comes looking in five, ten, twenty years, will his desk still be waiting, dusty nameplate and all? He somehow doubts it. The bare minimum of six months has passed already, and he knows the job is still there. But he doesn't know for how much longer.

None of his family had brought it up to him. For once, he doesn't mind.

He can't go back there. He... he can't.

"Everyone thought," Oliver repeats. He sounds a little numb. "What did you think?"

He's starting to sound like Penny, Percy thinks bitterly. Maybe they'll start gossiping behind his back next.

"Hogwarts was hiring," he admits. "A couple positions."

"Er... okay. Did you not get them?"

How sweet, that Oliver thinks Hogwarts has any use for a washed-up has-been that keeps botching the extension charm on his own desk. "I didn't apply. No one thought it as a good idea."

Oliver stares at him like he's sprouted a second head.

He sounds insane, doesn't he? What was Percy even thinking, that he could ever make that position work? No one thought it was a good idea and that was all it had taken?

He wouldn't let first years push him around-- not even Percy has fallen that far-- but a couple of clever seventh years would make mince meat out of him. If Snape were still there he'd probably have him swallowing poison for fun before the week was out.

"Who cares what anyone thinks? Since when do you care about that? If you want the job just bloody apply for it, what's the worst that could happen?" Oliver sits back, still looking stunned. "I'm pretty sure she's still looking. Just send an owl off, Percy, jesus."

What's the worst that could happen is something else Penny writes to him a lot, in her red-ink marked up letters. What's the worst that could happen? And-- nothing, usually. Barely anything. That's a question he's trying to ask himself more, when he doesn't want to do something. Is there actually a reasonable way things could really go wrong? If not, then why not?

The worst that could happen here is that he makes a complete fool of himself in front of his former Head of House. That's about it.

He doesn't want to do it. He knows his family doesn't want him to do it and so that's enough. He doesn't want-- no, he can't. He can't. Half a dozen people are telling him what to do. It is completely irrelevant what he wants and Oliver just doesn't understand that.

"Look, sorry for pushing, it's just... if you want something you should go for it. You know? And I can see you at Hogwarts way easier than I can out here anyway. When Charlie got the job you said you'd rather die than shovel dragon dung."

That's not actually his job, but Percy doesn't really care to point that out.

"Thought you'd rather die than leave the Ministry, to be honest," he goes on, laughing a little, and Percy grits his teeth, gripping onto the sofa. "Anyway. I guess I'll be off, now. I could write to you, if that's okay?" His brow furrows again. "Not sure why we stopped. I feel like you just didn't reply at some point. Or maybe that was me? Sorry."

In Percy's memory, he and Oliver had written once a month after graduating Hogwarts and never stopped. Percy's memory, which crashes to a sudden halt upon the end of the Triwizard Tournament. Which means that Oliver had written him, and Karkaroff had not replied.

"I don't want to talk about this." The words come out through gritted teeth, dragged one by one from his throat. He has to close his eyes to survive the look on Oliver's face. "I. I w-would like not to talk about this. Please." He keeps his eyes shut, waiting for the pressure in his head, on his tongue, to recede. "You can write me."

It might not be so bad, to talk to someone who didn't know. Who didn't treat him like something was wrong with him... even if it was out of love for him or not.

To pretend things are normal.

Everyone takes the news... better than expected.

His parents insist that they'll be down to Hogsmeade every weekend, with no mention of the Burrow. Everyone else is clearly happy that he'll be closer to home, except for Charlie, who isn't close to home in the first place, and is obviously stunned that Percy has done all this-- exchanging three letters with McGonagall-- without telling anyone. But then he gets swept up into another bear hug, and Charlie promises he'll be there in a second if he needs anything, anything at all, no matter what. Bill says he's proud of him. Percy has no idea what he's proud for.

It feels like him doing this has put them all at ease. They all seem to feel just so much better now. Ah, Percy's back! They were right all along! He just needed a nice vacation in Romania to get his head on straight!

He can tell Charlie hasn't fallen for it. It doesn't really feel the twins have fallen for it either.

Percy is just lucky that McGonagall hadn't insisted on an interview or spellwork demonstration. He doesn't know what he's going to do if an older student needs the help there.

Everyone thinks it'll be good for him. He can tell. And it will. Won't it?

Hogwarts again. Hogwarts, which is such a nice, warm place in his memories. Studying with Penny, eating lunch with Oliver. Taking too many classes and thriving. His professors telling him that he has no need to be nervous, they've barely taught anyone more suited for the Ministry than him. The twins, happy, healthy, hexing his soup to make him unable to talk without singing. Ron and Ginny, little kids, just little kids, concerned with detention and house points and a date to the dance.

Hogwarts, again.

Hogwarts. Where he can ask the house-elves to bring him meals in bed and he won't even have to move to his desk. Perhaps he can hold office hours in his bedroom.

Where this time, Penny, Oliver, and his family won't be there.

Where he knows all the secret passages because he is Fred and George's brother, and so if he wants to be alone, no one will find him.

Where he can sleep alone, and charm his quarters with a muffling charm, so no one will hear him if he has a panic attack at night.

Where no one knows him well enough to call him a liar, so no one will when he says I'm fine.

Hogwarts, again.

It'll be good for him.

Won't it?

On his second to last night in Romania, his father visits.

Percy makes tea. He nods politely during stories about the Ministry. Declines the offer to help him pack, so he won't see how little he actually owns. Is silently thankful that he'd actually decided to get up and get dressed today.

It's just such an unspoken fact of their family now-- Percy and Arthur aren't supposed to be alone together-- that he's almost forgotten that that isn't actually normal. That it is odd, for him to come visit alone, and not bringing urgent news about Fred or the Ministry. Percy isn't the one who started all of this, though, so as unusual as the situation is, finds he doesn't want to question it. He just goes along with it.

It, like everything else, is... fine.

Things have been quiet for some time, the both of them sitting at the table over slowly cooling cups of tea, when his dad puts his aside.

"I know you and I haven't really spoken much in a while," he starts. "I'm not sure how much you remember, but back in the hospital, you told Charlie that I had... upset you. We all thought it was best if I gave you some time after that, and I suppose I was waiting for you to say it was all right, but-- I'm sorry. We may have taken things a bit far."

"It's fine, Dad."

He remembers that day in the hospital.

His dad frowns. "I wish you wouldn't say that. Just that everything is... fine. It's okay to not be fine, you know. Especially after what you went through."

Percy cringes.

"Okay."

He wishes people wouldn't talk about it like that. He didn't go through any more than Ron or Ginny. Certainly not Harry. This was his parents' second war. Bill had lived through the first one for almost his entire childhood.

Percy mostly just did a lot of paperwork for a very long time.

That's about it.

Silence.

"I suppose I just wanted to... I thought that..." He clears his throat, jaw working. One hand hesitates on the table, like he wants to touch him, but isn't sure how. "I wanted to apologize, Percy."

"I forgive you."

"Percy--" His face does that uncomfortable thing again, the same thing everyone's does when he says something that isn't quite right. "I haven't even said what I'm apologizing for."

"Okay."

Silence again.

Percy is usually better at this. He's gotten better at it, at taking his answer and turning it over in his head until it's something less unsettling. Something about his dad in particular just puts him so on edge that his hard-won filter is turned off.

"I know that we all let you down, but none of us more than me." He ducks his head a little, his voice thick, and suddenly is touching his hand after all. "And I can't take it back, I can't fix it... I can't ever apologize enough for that, Percy. I'm so sorry. I made a mistake but you're the one who paid the price. I should've been there for you. And I wasn't."

Why?

Why weren't you there for me?

Why didn't you come for me?

Why did you always turn away?

Where were you?

"I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'd never ask that, Percy, if you never wanted to speak to me again I'd understand that. But I need you to know how sorry I am. I need you to know that, that-"

WHERE WERE YOU?

"-that it was never your fault. You didn't do anything wrong." His hand is shaking, now, and Percy knows if he looks up he'll see his eyes are wet. "I was too proud to stop and think about what was happening. I wanted you to apologize first and... I'm so sorry. Whatever else, you have to know that. It's the worst mistake of my life and I'll never forgive myself for it but all I can do is promise that it will never happen again. I love you, Percy, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Where were you?

Where were you?

Where were you?

Where were you?

Where were you?

Where were you?

Where were you?

Where were you?

Where were you?

Where were you?

Percy waits the appropriate amount of time.

He arranges his face into the appropriate expression.

"I forgive you," he says appropriately. Again.

His dad blinks at him. He's crying silently, tears spilling slowly down his cheeks, and it's easy for Percy to make himself copy it.

"You... you do?"

"Of course." Smile, wait a beat, squeeze his hand. "I love you, Dad."

Tears are still spilling down his face. He stares at Percy like he can't believe his own ears, like he's a miracle. He ducks his head for a moment again, wiping his face with his free hand, but his voice is still broken and the tears just keep coming. "You forgive me," he repeats. He nearly sobs.

They sit together for another few moments. His dad sniffs and wipes his face, then reaches out to wipe Percy's copied tears, too. "I thought that you'd..." He clears his throat, shaking his head. "I love you, Percy. " And he smiles. He fucking smiles. "You'll be okay. You'll see."

"Okay," he echoes.

Okay.