silently housed in its original walls?
Dear Charlie,
I always hoped you would notice, that you would say something. Maybe, foolishly, I even hoped you would defend me. I was a stupid child then.
In second year, I was being bullied the worst I’d ever been. Marcus Flint was putting me in the Hospital Wing every week. Some of the Ravenclaws were angry I was getting better grades and tried to sabotage me at every turn- destroying my papers, locking me in broom closets so I’d be late for class, secretly countering my spells in class. Even the Gryffindors seemed to hate me, calling me names, pranking me, ostracizing me. I know you noticed, but you never said anything.
Then, Professor McGonagall found out about you playing a prank on the Slytherin Quidditch team and you were benched from the next game. Someone- probably one of the Ravenclaws- told you I was the one who told on you. You got so angry, called me a narc. You said “no wonder you don’t have any friends.” You walked away before I got the chance to tell you it wasn’t me. You wouldn’t have believed me anyway.
You barely spoke to me for the rest of the year. It hurt that even my own brother hated me. The bullying only got worse when the rumor spread that I was the reason Gryffindor’s Quidditch captain and Seeker got benched. No one would speak to me after that. Even Oliver went a few weeks without talking to me.
That was the first time suicide crossed my mind. It was fleeting, at first, a passing thought, but it kept getting worse, even after everyone came around and started talking to me again. With everyone treating me like I didn’t exist, I started to think maybe it would be better if I didn’t.
The thing is, Charlie, I should be mad at you for not listening to me, but I’m not. I was always a tattle tale growing up, I can admit that. No wonder you thought it was me.
I only tried to tell you about the bullying once, after what happened. I had a black eye and a split lip, and I thought you would at least hear me out because of that. I barely got a word out before you walked away. After that, I figured what was the point in talking to anyone when no one would listen. Maybe I deserved all the bullying for being so different. I’ve always been the black sheep of the family; I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere- in our family, at Hogwarts… in the world.
Everyone else thought I didn’t belong, too. It seemed like everyone was screaming “we don’t want you here!” Maybe this will make it better for everyone. It’s not like anyone really noticed I was here, anyway.
I’m sorry, Charlie. I’ve never been the brother you wanted. I’ve always been the tattle-tale, the stuck-up prat, the goody-two-shoes. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the brother you wanted, but at least I won’t get in the way anymore.
I know you barely think about me in Romania, but I’ve missed you since you’ve been gone. I wanted to write, but you probably wouldn’t reply anyway, so I never did, except that one time after you first moved. This will be the second and last letter I ever write to you. I don’t blame you for never listening to me, but I hope you would read this last letter. Thank you, Charlie.
Love,
Percy
Charlie quite literally dropped everything when he got the news. He was holding a few files on the newest dragons at the Reserve, holding them awkwardly under his arm as he wrestled the letter open. When he read it, he dropped all the files, the carefully organized paperwork scattering across the floor.
“Charlie, what the hell?” Lance, his coworker and the one who had painstakingly organized all the files, shouted from across the room.
Charlie didn’t respond, and all his coworkers exchanged confused glances.
Amy approached him, slowly and cautiously, not unlike she would approach a frightened and injured dragon. “Charlie?” She asked, gently placing a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”
Charlie jerked out of his stupor and turned to her. She looked searchingly into his eyes, seeing nothing but shock and terror there. A moment later, he spun on his heel and marched into his boss’s office.
His coworkers looked at each other behind them and shrugged before going back to work.
“I need to take my emergency leave,” Charlie said as soon as the door shut behind him.
His boss looked up from her paperwork, peering at Charlie over the rims of her glasses. “Why?” She asked.
Charlie didn’t know how to say it, so he handed her the letter. She scanned it, and her eyebrows rose.
“Of course,” she said, handing the letter back. “You get two weeks. I hope your brother’s better by then.”
“I hope so, too,” Charlie said. “Can I use your Floo?”
“Of course,” she said, and Charlie stepped into the fireplace, grabbing a handful of Floo powder.
“Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore’s office,” he called, throwing the Floo powder at his feet. Green flames shot up, and in a second, he was gone, sucked into the Floo network.
He was spat out in the Headmaster’s office at Hogwarts, coughing up some soot but none the worse for wear. Professor Dumbledore looked up from whatever he was writing. He did not smile.
“Mr. Charlie Weasley,” Professor Dumbledore said. “I suspect you’re here to see your brother.”
Charlie nodded.
“I suppose you remember your way to the Hospital Wing?” Professor Dumbledore asked.
Charlie was already halfway out the door by the time the Headmaster finished his sentence.
The walk to the Hospital Wing took him through the main corridors. Luckily, classes were in session, so there weren’t many students in the halls, but the few that were stared at him and whispered as he passed. Charlie resolutely ignored them and continued his path to the Hospital Wing.
He found his family and two other students (one of which, he recognized as Oliver Wood. The boy had always followed him around, prattling on about Quidditch after Charlie made captain) outside the Hospital Wing.
“Charlie,” his father said as Charlie came into sight.
“Where is he?” Charlie asked without preamble.
His mother pointed a shaky finger towards the door to the Hospital Wing. “Third bed. Bill’s in with him now.”
Charlie didn’t say another word as he entered the Hospital Wing, closing the door behind him.
“Charlie?” Bill exclaimed. “Surprised it took you so long.”
“Came as soon as I heard,” Charlie said. “But you know Errol. Probably flew into a few trees on the way there.”
Charlie’s eyes landed on Percy. Charlie remembered, in his fifth year, Percy’s second, being sent to the Hospital Wing for a concussion caused by a Quaffle to the head. Percy had been there with bruised ribs, a broken arm, and a badly bruised face. He’d sat up when Charlie walked in, his face filling with the barest traces of hope, but Charlie had still been mad about the snitching. Charlie had walked right past.
Now, Percy was stark-white instead of black and blue, and his arms were wrapped in bandages, one of which had a spot of red seeping through it. He didn’t sit up when Charlie walked in; his face didn’t fill with hope. He stayed still and silent, face blank and slack against the harsh white of the bed.
“Oh, Percy,” Charlie whispered, almost collapsing into the chair at Percy’s bedside, across from Bill. He reached for Percy’s hand, but he was almost afraid to touch him, like he might break him. He settled for resting his hand beside Percy’s, almost touching but not quite.
“Dad’s letter,” Charlie said. “It said Percy tried to… kill himself.” Charlie’s voice lowered, like he was sharing a secret, the words almost too horrible to speak out loud. The words brought a new gravity to the already heavy room, the oppressive weight of the words bearing down on them.
Bill nodded. “According to Fred and George, he…” Bill couldn’t say it, but he nodded to Percy’s bandaged wrists.
“Why didn’t he say anything?” Charlie asked, staring at the spot of red on the bandages.
“We’ve all been wondering that,” Bill said, “He wrote these.”
Bill held up his own letter and then picked up the envelope they’d rested on the bedside table, the one that said Charlie. Bill handed it to Charlie.
Charlie hesitated a moment, unsure if he could even handle reading his brother’s suicide note, but he also wasn’t sure he could handle not reading it, not having any sort of explanation. He ran his finger over the seal and then slipped his finger under it, gently opening the envelope. He pulled out a piece of parchment. His eyes ran over the words, quickly, hoping for some kind of answer, some kind of explanation.
He got at least part of one, but it only made him feel worse.
Charlie broke down into tears, dropping the letter onto Percy’s hospital bed, and buried his head in his hands.
Bill reached across the bed and grabbed one of Charlie’s hands, pulling it away from his face. Charlie forced himself to meet his brother’s eyes.
“Charlie, it’ll be okay,” Bill said, but the words sounded fake, even to his own ears. He had no idea if it would be okay, and that was the most terrifying thing of all.
“You don’t get it,” Charlie said, the guilt crashing into him over and over.
Charlie remembered the incident Percy mentioned in his letter. Charlie had just been so mad about getting benched from the Quidditch game, especially when it caused them to lose the game and the House Cup. He had wanted to blame someone, and when a Ravenclaw second year told him Percy had snitched, he found a target for his anger. He hadn’t even asked Percy for his side or if Percy even did it, and, like Percy suspected, Charlie probably wouldn’t have believed him anyway. Charlie had given him the silent treatment, pretended like he didn’t exist, for months. He hadn’t even thought of how it would affect Percy, too lost in his own anger.
“Then help me get it,” Bill said. Bill had ignored one brother, had made Percy think he couldn’t come to him, and that brother was now in a hospital bed. He wasn’t going to risk it happening again.
“It’s my fault!” Charlie burst out.
Bill blinked in confusion. “Charlie, this wasn’t your fault,” Bill said, but Charlie just picked up Percy’s suicide note and shoved it at him. Bill quickly scanned over the words and slumped in his chair.
“Charlie, these things don’t just have one reason,” Bill said.
“But I’m one of the reasons,” Charlie said.
“Maybe we all are,” Bill stated.
Charlie looked at him in bewilderment.
“None of us treated Percy well, always making him feel like an outsider,” Bill said. “But when Percy wakes up, we’re going to fix it.”
“If he wakes up,” Charlie whispered.
“When,” Bill asserted. He refused to think about if. If could go fuck itself.
Percy listened to Charlie and Bill’s conversation, pointedly avoiding looking at his body. It was weird enough being outside his body without thinking of his body lying there.
He almost laughed when they finished. They couldn’t fix this. Merlin knows Percy had tried to fix it, to fix himself, and it had never worked.
What would happen if he woke up? Things would go back to how they used to be with Bill and Charlie ignoring him, the twins relentlessly teasing and pranking him, Ron and Ginny hating him. Oliver would still be oblivious; his parents would still be too focused on his siblings to pay any attention to him. Percy understood, he really did. He just didn’t think he could continue living like that.
All the reasons that led up to his attempt were still there and would persist if he woke up. That was why he had tried to kill himself in the first place, to escape all of that.
He could still escape. He just had to… let go.
But despite everything, there was still a hope deep inside him that things would be different this time, that things could really change. He had learned a long time ago hope was useless and got him nowhere, but it didn’t stop him from hoping.
Hoping for someone to see him, really see him, to ask him if he was okay and not believe him when he said he was. Hoping for someone to say they wanted him around. Hoping for a future that wasn’t bleak and colorless and filled with everything he didn’t want his life to be. Hoping for someone to give him a reason to stay.
Now, the reasons to go outweighed the reasons to stay, but Percy would even take just one good reason to stay. If someone gave him that, he’d wake up in a heartbeat.
No one had. The future still loomed, an abyss that would eat him alive. Loneliness still surrounded him like a coffin. He was a planet floating aimlessly through space, reaching to try and pull someone into his orbit, only for everyone and everything to drift further out of reach. His own self-hatred was building until it was insurmountable, compounded by the hatred of others.
That would all still be there when he woke up. Could he really continue living like that?
The monitoring spells shifted, something changing. Even Percy, outside of his body, felt it, but he couldn’t pinpoint what the change was.
A second later, Madam Pomphrey came rushing into the room, her robes swirling around her as she hastened towards Percy’s bed.
“Madam Pomphrey, what is it?” Bill asked, standing up so fast, he almost knocked his chair over. “The monitoring spells—“
Madam Pomphrey didn’t waste her time answering, drawing her wand and hovering it over Percy’s body, whispering Healing spell after Healing spell. Her voice grew only more frantic the more spells she cast.
“His magic’s weakening, and with it, his body. His body is starting to give out from all the blood he lost,” Madam Pomfrey said.
“Can you heal him?” Charlie asked in concern. His hand bridged the inch between his and Percy’s hand as he took Percy’s hand in his.
“I can only take him so far,” Madam Pomfrey said. “Percy has to choose to keep fighting.”
“You’re saying… what? He’s giving up?” Charlie said.
Madam Pomfrey nodded somberly. “It is likely, but as long as he has even the smallest amount of fight left in him, I’ll keep healing him.”
Madam Pomfrey cast a few more spells and sighed in relief. “He’s stabilized for now.”
Bill and Charlie slumped, some of the tension leaving them at hearing Percy was okay (well, as okay as he could be) for now.
Percy sat beside them, invisible (hadn’t he always been invisible?), wondering how much longer he could hold on and wondering if he even should.