Candor
When Percy is sure the girls are asleep, he leaves them in the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. He wanders into the kitchen, where Oliver is preparing two cups of tea. He pours some water from self-heating kettle into a mug and hands it to Oliver. Percy sniffs the tea, smelling the citrusy sent of bergamot.
“Earl grey? You remember after all this time?”
“Of course.” Oliver says, preparing his own tea. He starts for the living room with the massive couch and waves for Percy to follow. Percy does, and they end up sitting close to one another on such a massive couch. Percy tucks his legs under him the warmth from the cup seeps into his hands. He’s been dreading this conversation.
Still, he speaks first.
“Thank you, Oliver. For all of this.”
Oliver nods and cross his legs, leaning against the cushion.
“It’s no trouble, Percy. What happened today? With Audrey?”
Percy sighs, distracting himself but looking down at the tea. Steam gently rises from the mug, fogging up his glasses a bit.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Oliver says quickly. “I know you don’t-,”
“It’s fine.” Percy interrupts, his shoulder slouching. “Audrey called me at work and said some hurtful things. She was just angry, and I set her off with some of things I said. And she had been drinking and forgot to pick up the girls-, that’s when I called you to cancel but you invited us over instead.”
Oliver is quiet for a really long moment. Percy finds himself being strangely irritated at this.
“Look, if you’re going to say I should leave her-,”
“No,” Oliver says, voice low and gentle. He looks to the mantle of the unlit fireplace, where there’s a framed photo Percy hadn’t noticed before- it’s of Oliver and a woman who looks like him- the same crooked smile and tawny hair. It must be a photo of him and his mother. They move together in the magical photo, caught mid-laugh. Oliver looks young, maybe sixteen.
Oliver eyes don’t leave the picture when he says…
“My father killed my mother.”
Percy’s veins turn to ice. A revelation like that-, it’s a horrific feeling. It’s like all the air has been sucked out of the room and is replaced with the thick fog of shock. Percy just about stops breathing.
“It’s sad story, isn’t it? Mum always said she was happy, but there were times I came home from Hogwarts, and she’d have bruises. Sometimes they’d forget to put up silencing spells and I could hear them screaming at each other. But then the next morning dad would surprise her with gifts and shower her with affection. They tried to hide it from me, but I think I always knew. And her got sick, cancer. That’s when I stayed with George and them. And he got better… and I thought they’d gotten better. Then, right after the trials ended after the war, I came home for a surprise visit. I’d brought purple tulips- my mum’s favorites, and the door to the cottage was wide open. And I found her. She was dead. It was messy- he hadn’t even bothered to use magic. I found him in the next room. He’d hung himself.”
Percy can only stare at Oliver. He hadn’t even imagined that this could be a possibility for someone like Oliver Wood- confident, kind Oliver who remembered his daughter’s eating habits and was close friends with the owners of a takeaway restaurant. Oliver’s still looking at the framed photo-, but his eyes of glazed over in a cloudy fog.
‘I’d gotten there in time, though. He wasn’t dead yet. He went to St. Mungo’s and made a full recovery. But it was too late for Mum. She’d bled out. He was sentenced to life in Azkaban after. But I was an orphan from that day on. Last time I saw him was at his trial, and he was begging me to forgive him. I never will.”
It gets quiet after that. Oliver looks so lost- he’s wearing his grief like a heavy cloak. Percy doesn’t even know what to say. What can you even say to that? Then, Oliver blinks a few times, and Percy can see a bit of wetness fall from his eyes. It’s enough to have tears threatening to fall from his own, something hot and thick bubbling in his throat but getting caught. Oliver finally pulls his gaze awake and looks at Percy with such a sorrowful look on his face Percy needs to take in a shaky breath.
“I know what it’s like, Perce,” Oliver says in the gentlest voice Percy has ever heard. “And with Audrey…I know you feel like you’ve brought this on, somehow, but I promise you: you did nothing to deserve any of it You deserve to be treated with love, respect, and care. Just like Mum was. But she couldn’t see it. Not until it was too late. I think that’s the worst part.”
“What is?” Percy asks, surprised to hear his voice trembling a bit.
“Not knowing. Not knowing if she thought she deserved more and was too scared, or if she hated herself so much, she let it happen.”
It feels like Percy has been hit by a train. That made… sense. It made sense to Percy- did he take Audrey’s treatment because he was too scared, or was it because he hated himself?
He wasn’t sure he wanted to answer that.
“Thank you for telling me, Oliver.” Percy says low and quiet, matching Oliver’s tone. He tries to keep the emotion from flooding into his tone, but he can’t. Oliver doesn’t look bothered by it.
“Just know that when you figure it out, I’ll be here.” Oliver says with a nod. He stands, tea untouched and walks into the kitchen. Then he comes back with a pillow and blanket for Percy.
“I’m going to bed, Perce. Think about what I said, alright?”
Percy can only nod wordlessly. Oliver gives him a sorrowful, grim smile and walks out of the living room, turning the lights off as he does so. Moonlight seeps in through the windows, and Percy realizes he’s still holding his tea. He sets it down on the coffee table, unable to stomach it.
In any other circumstance, Percy would have found it quite odd if not rude that someone had just walked out of a conversation and literally left him in the dark, but since it was Oliver, it was different. Percy lays down on the couch and stares at the speckled ceiling, muscles tight.
Oliver’s father had killed his mother. Had he planned it? It didn’t seem like it- Oliver himself said that his father tried to take his own life after. He must have been hurting her, realized he killed her, and then felt so overwhelmed by guilt or fear of punishment he’d tried to take his own life.
Suicide was rare in the wizarding community, but not unheard of. While mind healers and even muggle means of counseling were slowly becoming more accepted, the majority of public pinion was to keep ones struggles to oneself and the family. Percy was no stranger to self-hate, especially during the war.
During the warm h was so consumed with not getting caught, he’d played it safe. And sometimes playing it safe meant knowing that when he could have stuck his neck out and didn’t, people died. He’d tried, once, to forge the family tree of a muggle born witch- she was just eleven and in her first year. But the records were too public at point and changing them meant risking leaving his own magical signature, so he hadn’t. Then he had been at the trial when her wand was snapped. He’d read in the paper the next day about a home invasion- the young witch and her entire muggle family- two older brothers and a younger sister and the parents, had been murder. They muggles were calling it a cold case. But Percy knew.
After the war, he’d spent days not sleeping. He’d just about stopped dreaming- any time he did fall asleep he could hear were screams- the screams of innocents the Ministry persecuted. The cries of families as their loved ones were hauled away to Azkaban on trumped-up charges. The wails of a widow at her partner’s funeral.
Sometimes, he’d drink fire whiskey until he fell unconscious. Then he’d wakeup and do it all over again. He’s not sure he’s ever really rested since.
After the war, things had been dicey with his family. His parents, Bill, and Charlie eagerly forgave him. Ron and Ginny had been upset for years after, and George had been too lost in his grief to register that Percy was even back in his life. Percy had missed so much- the twin’s starting their shop, Bill’s wedding, Ginny’s Quidditch matches… It was like a giant hole in their history. The guilt of keeping silent ate away at him. He’s not sure he has to courage the talk about what he did during the war. No one really asked him, anyway. And he doesn’t want to bring it up.
Even before the war, Percy was well versed in self-hatred. He hated his gangly limps and his red hair and freckles. He hated how compelled he felt to stick to the rules. He hated being the prim and proper one, he hated how others picked on him for it. He hated himself when he scored anything less than perfect. That was basically his whole life, in the end. Hatred of himself by himself, and by others.
Was that what this was? He loves Audrey, or he thinks he does. But realistically, he knows that deep down what she’s doing is wrong. But it’s like he’s stuck in mud and stopped struggling. He knows all he has to do is stand up; but being crushed by the weight of it all somehow felt like penance.
He thinks of the girls, and how scared they had been when Audrey hadn’t shown up. He thinks of all the times she’d put him down. He thinks of all the times she’s hurt him physically. Mostly he thinks of when she’d put him in St. Mungo’s and hadn’t bothered to visit him.
The afternoon in the kitchen, if things had gone differently, Audrey could have killed him. His family, his children, would have been left behind to deal with the aftermath. The thought of not being able to see his kids grow up is terrifying. The idea of Molly and Lucy getting that glazed over look in their eyes that Oliver had when he was telling Percy about his father murdering his mother was unspeakable.
Percy thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks, and before he knows it the sun is rising in the window, and the streetlamps outside have turned on.
The next morning is pretty much a repeat of the night before. Percy gets the kids up and gets them ready for school. He knows that Audrey’s due to leave for the next five days for a work trip in Monaco- something about standardizing wizard policing or something, and she’s meant to leave tonight. He figures it won’t hurt if he just takes the girls to school without stopping back home, then picking them up in the afternoon. That would give Audrey time to deal with her hangover she’d undoubtedly had, in addition to packing. That is, if she remembered.
When he goes to the kitchen, he surprised to see Oliver is in there, wearing an apron with a cat on it wearing a chef’s hat. He’s got some flour on his face and he’s flipping pancakes. When he hears footsteps, he turns and smiles when he sees them.
“Morning! Pancakes?”
Percy’s jaw drops. He hadn’t expected Oliver to make breakfast, and even he did, he didn’t expect what was laid out on the table. There’s bowls of different fruits and four plates, a carafe of milk and orange juice, and there’s already a stack of pancakes in the center.
Percy’s used to be the one to make breakfast. Oliver hadn’t known Percy was coming over with the girls until 30 minutes before he showed up at his door. Had he prepared all this just for them?
Molly and Lucy nod shyly and they sit at the table. Oliver flips a pancake and pulls the pan off of the stove. He places it onto the stack and motions for Percy to sit down. He hadn’t even realized that he was still standing. He does so.
The girls are unbothered by this event and dig into their pancakes happily. Percy waits until the three of the them have filled their plates with pancakes before he take sone of his own. He watches Lucy carefully as she tucks in. He knows anything brown or beige is one of her safe foods, and he thinks back to when the last time she’d had eaten anything other than a carb- even last night had been beige with the potatoes.
‘Lucy, love, try some fruit.” He tells his daughter. She immediately begins to pout and whine.
“But-,”
“Lucy, please. Just a bite-,”
“No!” Lucy protests, slamming her fork down. He hears Molly sigh from next to him. Lucy’s about three seconds away from a meltdown, they both know it. It was common in their house, especially in the mornings when Lucy was cranky. She had foods she liked to eat, much like Percy, and often refused to try anything else. She’d either stop eating altogether, or she’s fuss about. Percy was too soft-hearted to force her to do anything, and Audrey would often play the role of the bad. Percy steels his nerves, about to try and calm her down when Oliver suddenly says-,
“You know Lucy, I really like blueberries.”
All three of them look at Oliver. He picks up a blueberry and throws it high into the air catching it in his mouth. He winks at Lucy who giggles.
“I think they’re fun to eat. I used to think I didn’t like them until I tried them. Now I like them a lot. Have you ever had one?”
Lucy purses her lips and shakes her head ‘no’.
“Well if you don’t want any, I’m happy to have yours. I think you’re missing out though.” He throws another one into the air and catches it in his mouth.
“I’ll try.” Lucy says suddenly and Percy whips his head to stare. Lucy has never once agreed to try something without tears. Oliver smiles and gives her one. She tries to copy him, throwing it into the air but it misses her mouth. It lands on her cheek instead and rolls to the floor.
“Ooh, so close!” Oliver smiles at her, handing her another. This time when Lucy throws it into air, lower this time, she catches it in her mouth. Percy studies her face as she chews. She’s quiet for a bit as she chews but then she swallows it. Then she smiles.
“It’s nice!”
Oliver nods approvingly. “See? I think so too. If you hadn’t tried, you wouldn’t have known, would you?”
He gives her the bowl of blueberries and Percy watches in pure shock as she takes a handful and puts them on her plate.
“Let me try!” Molly exclaims. Lucy hands her the bowl and the girls spend the next few minutes launching blueberries in each other’s faces like projectiles. Percy can only stare, even when a blueberry hits him square in the eye. The girls giggle and laugh, and then Oliver shows Lucy a bowl of cut up green fruit. They’re kiwis.
“Want to give these a try, Lucy?” Oliver asks kindly. Lucy picks up her fork and spears a piece of fruit. She stares at it for a moment, considering, and then puts it into her mouth.
Immediately, she sputters and gags on it. Oliver gives her a paper napkin, and she spits out the fruit into it, tears forming in her eyes.
“You didn’t like it, huh?”
Lucy shakes her head, wiping her mouth of the remaining fruit. Percy looks from his daughter to Oliver. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Lucy not throw a fit after being introduced to a new food she didn’t like. Maybe because they weren’t at home?
“That’s okay. Now we know you don’t like kiwi. You don’t have to eat any more of it if you don’t like it. There’s lots of foods I don’t like, too. Thanks for trying the kiwi, Lucy. Would you like some more blueberries? I could put them in some pancakes for you.”
Lucy sniffs and nods. Oliver stands up and takes Lucy by the hand, bringing the bowl of blueberries with. He lets Lucy add a handful of blueberries to the leftover pancake batter and shows her how to pour it into a perfect circle. Molly, intrigued, follows them to the stove, leaving Percy sitting alone at the table.
The entire thing is so… domestic. Oliver is showing his kids when to flip pancakes by pointing out the bubbles in them, and Lucy is chattering his ear off about her new favorite fruit while Molly stands on the tips of her toes to look at the cooking pancake. It’s all very surreal.
They make a few more pancakes, and when they’re done Percy and the girls help Oliver clear the table and wash up. Percy is surprised when he turns around and sees two brown paper bags in Oliver’s hands.
“Leftover pancakes should be a good lunch, right? I added some blueberries in both.”
Percy blinks. He’s been really taken aback this whole morning- maybe it was because of how little sleep he’s had?
“Uh, yes? It’s fine?” Percy stumbles out. Oliver huffs out a laugh.
“Is it fine? I’m sure there’s time to run down to the shops to get them something-,”
“No! No, it’s fine. Perfect, really.” Percy utters out, finding himself flushing for some reason. Oliver gives him that crooked smile and claps his hands together.
“Alright. Let’s get these little ladies to school, why don’t we?”