Charlie
Charlie reaches the Burrow’s front door and walks in. It’s early in the morning- too early for him. He had gotten used to early morning while he was in Romania, but he’s been on his sabbatical for a few years at this point, and he’s gotten a bit lazy. He’s nearly done with his book, thank Merlin. Only a few more months the book it off to the publisher’s and Charlie’s back on the next Portkey to Romania. He missed his dragons more than he’d ever thought he could.
“Hello?” he calls out to the seemingly empty house. It feels like the more often he comes here the less time he runs into people. It’s very different when he was growing up.
“Here!” Percy says suddenly, rushing down the stairs. He and his brother still haven’t had a chance to have a proper chat yet, but now wasn’t the time. Percy was wearing a dress shirt and tie; his glasses were polished and gleaming. He was on his way to his meeting regarding the mediation for his divorce. He’d needed to make a good impression or something.
Mum and Dad had offered to mind the girls, but Percy had insisted they get out of the house- they’d been watching the girls for more than a month at this point. He’d paid for them to have a nice morning at a fancy café and some tickets to a muggle art museum. So, he had asked Charlie to watch them while he met with his solicitor. He had briefly explained it- Percy had to file and declare all the financial documents and assets, to determine who was walking away from what in the marriage. Charlie had thought it was stupid and told him so, and Percy could only sigh and shrug.
“Thank you, Charlie.” Percy says, extending his hand in greeting. Charlie takes it and gives Percy a firm handshake and pats him on the back.
“No problem. You ready?”
Percy straightens his tie nervously. “I think so. As ready as I’ll ever be.” Percy turns to the stairs and yells up them.
“Girls! Uncle Charlie’s here!”
There are some footsteps and grumbling from upstairs and Percy turns back to his brother.
“Sorry, it’s early for them. It’s summer break so-,”
“They’re used to having a lie-in, gotcha. Have they eaten?”
“I don’t think they’re even out of bed yet.” Percy admits sheepishly. Charlies gives him what he hopes is a reassuring smile. Charlie is still upset at Percy, but he thinks back to what Newt had told him. Bravery and all.
“No worries, mate I can handle it.”
“Thank you.”
Percy reaches around Charlie for a thick stack of files that together look like a huge multi-color tome that should belong to Hogwarts rather than Percy.
“Okay. Okay, I think.” He rocks back and forth on his heels for a moment. “Okay.”
Charlie raises an eyebrow. “Do you need a pep talk?”
Percy shakes his head. “No. I’m okay. Penny is taking me, she’ll have it handled.”
He gives Charlie a quick hug and heads for the door.
“Good luck!”
“Thank you!” Percy calls over his shoulder as the door swings shut behind him. Charlie makes himself comfortable, kicking off his shoes and going into the kitchen. He checks the pantry- there are some eggs that have been charmed with a stasis spell and some bread, so he decides to use that.
As he prepares the girls’ breakfasts, he hears steps coming down the stairs. It’s Molly, yawning.
“Hi Uncle Charlie.” Molly greets tiredly. She thumps down in one of the seats at the kitchen table. It’s been months since he’s seen the girls thank to him icing Percy out, and he can’t believe how tall she’s gotten. She certainly inherited her father’s slender build.
“Morning Molls.” Charlie greets. He finishes with the eggs and toast and sets it down in front of her.
“Thanks.” Molly mumbles. Charlie passes her a fork. “Where’s your sister?” The girl shrugs.
“She might still be in bed. We stayed up too late last night reading some of Dad’s old books. There’s this muggle series about these warrior cats…” she trails off, waving her hand. “Couldn’t sleep until I finished them.”
Charlie hums thoughtfully. “Your Dad was the same way. Once he got his mind set on something you’d have to pry him away from it.”
Molly frowns into her eggs. “Really?”
“Yep. That’s why he did the best in school out of all of us. Persistent.” Charlie leaves off the bit where he’ and his siblings had teased Percy for this. The less they knew about how much of prat Charlie was when he was younger, the better.
“I’m here, I’m here.” Lucy calls, thundering down the stairs. She’s got more of her Mum’s coloring, but still has the freckles and red hair that mark her a Weasley, though it’s a bit darker than her sister’s.
Charlie plates up breakfast for Lucy as well, being sure to keep the toast and eggs separate on the plate. He’d babysat once when they were around eight and had made the mistake of preparing rice and peas mixed together- Lucy had thrown such a fit he’d never make that mistake again. He passes it to Lucy.
“Thanks.” She mutters. “Sorry, we stayed up late reading-,”
“Warrior cats or whatever. Got it.”
Charlie’s already eaten, so he just prepares a cup of coffee for himself and joins the girls at the table. Lucy eyes the mug he’s got in his hands.
“Does your dad let you drink coffee yet?” Charlie asks.
“Would you believe me if I told you yes?”
“No.”
“Then no, he doesn’t. Mum did though.”
Molly scoffs. “Mum’s coffee was gross.”
“That’s because she puts like five sugars in it.”
“Gross.” Molly repeats, tucking into her toast.
They get back to eating and Charlie studies them. They’re both handling this entire thing pretty well. Not that he was unsure what he was expecting. Tears, maybe? But it had been a few weeks since Percy left Audrey. Maybe they had time to process. But they weren’t talking about her like the monster she was. They were just talking about her as a parent who put too much sugar in her coffee.
The girls finish their meals and do their own dishes without Charlie having to ask, which he appreciates.
“What do you guys want to do?” Charlie asks. The girls both shrug.
“What do you usually do?” he asks.
“Whatever,” Lucy shrugs. “Mostly we play outside in the woods or go swimming in the pond.”
“Or huck garden gnomes over the fence.” Molly adds helpfully.
“Oh, they’re still here? Would have thought they’d have moved on at this point.”
The girls stare at him, waiting. Charlie is once again reminded how bad he is with kids. Dragons he could handle, but pre-teens? That was a whole other story. When kids are little he could handle them- mostly cause they couldn’t really talk or anything like that. But once they came into awareness and realized they were alive, it became something different. Kids liked him, though. Always had, even though he had no idea what to do with them. Part of his problem is that he never really knew how to do ‘kid talk’ and just treated them like adults. Which could be fine, but usually wasn’t.
“Right,” he says, standing up. “Get your shoes on.”
He takes the girls the muggle movies. Charlie had only recently gotten into muggle movies- there was nothing like it in the wizarding world. It was honestly incredible that muggles managed to create something so remarkable without the use of magic.
The cinema is in a big shopping center, so they kill some time window shopping, complete with a full hour-long pit stop at the bookstore. They don’t buy anything, much to the annoyance of the employees. It entertains them well enough until it’s time for the movie.
It’s some animated child-friendly cartoon movie about animals who go on an adventure. He doesn’t really follow the plot, he’s mostly just admiring the movie in its whole. It’s remarkable how far things have progressed for muggles since Charlie was a kid.
When the movie finishes, they loop around the shopping center again and end up in a park across the street. It’s a beautiful day- the sky is clear for what feels like the first time in ages. They pass others- couple holding hands, a young parent pushing a baby in a pram. The whole thing feels like a magazine cover.
Charlie spies and ice cream truck and buys the girls whatever they want- he’s the fun uncle, isn’t he? Who cares if it’s enough sugar to put them into a coma. He also gets himself a popsicle, because why not? The walk and eat their treats, the girls happy.
Charlie finishes his ice cream first, he’s an adult after all, and chucks the stick into the nearest park bin. He shoves his hands in his pockets as the walk through the park, the girls happily chattering away about Hogwarts letters.
“What house do you think we’ll be in?” Molly asks Lucy, who shrugs. “I don’t know. Aren’t all Weasleys in Gryffindor? Probably that.”
“Hey now,” Charlie interrupts quickly. “You may not end up in the same house.”
“But we’re twins! We’re always together!” Lucy protests. “Weren’t Uncle Fred and George in the same house?”
“Yeah, but just because you guys are twins it doesn’t mean you’ll be in the same house. I think your Uncle Harry went to the Yule Ball his fourth year with one twin whose sister was in a different house.”
This seems to make Lucy reflect, because she frowns into her ice cream.
“Well, I hope I’m in Gryffindor regardless.” Molly pipes up. A bit of her ice cream drips down her fingers and Charlie passes her a napkin to keep it from dripping onto her clothes. He finds himself wondering what houses they’ll end up in. Molly seems like a Gryffindor through and through, but she’s loyal, too. Lucy could also be In Gryffindor, but her love of reading makes him wonder if she’s better suited for Ravenclaw.
Harry had once told him that he asked the hat to be anywhere but Slytherin during his Sorting. He had always wondered how it worked- maybe all you had to do was ask for the House you wanted. Or maybe if you find the courage to ask, you get put into Gryffindor. Who knew?
“You’ll find the best place for you.” Charlie says instead of getting into a debate about the properties of a magical hat that tells you where you belong in magic school. “Don’t worry about it too much.”
Lucy nods and then takes a huge bite of her ice cream, using her front teeth. Charlie winces.
“Doesn’t that hurt?”
“No!” Lucy giggles and takes another bite.
“Devil child! Don’t you have any feeling in your mouth?”
“Not in my teeth, I guess.”
That gives them a bit of a chuckle and they continue their walk. The girls seem fine- they’re enjoying their outing with little to no worries that Charlie can see. They seem completely unaffected by the fact that their parents are literally in the middle of figuring out their divorce right now. It was the same relaxed attitude they had this morning. It made him feel a little uneasy.
“So” Charlie tries to be casual, “What do you guys think about your dad and your mum? How are you feeling about it?”
“Why do people keep asking us that?” Lucy questions with a small frown on her face “We’re fine with it.” She takes a final bite of her ice cream, finishing it, and leaves them to go to throw away the wrapper from her ice cream cone in a bin across the pathway.
“You are?” Charlie asks, surprised. Most children would probably be crushed at the idea of their family breaking up. Charlie had even thought about the idea when he was a kid, despite his parents never having shown signs of being unhappy. The very idea of it terrified him.
“Yeah. Mum was hurting Dad and not using her words like you’re supposed to do, and she wasn’t nice to him. It makes sense to break up if she’s mean to him.”
Charlie nearly trips over his own feet, stumbling a tad. If he had worse reflexes, he’d be face-planting on the ground right now.
“She-,” he echoes weakly, feeling like he’s lost all strength in his legs. “You said she wasn’t nice to him?”
“Yeah,” Molly says with a haphazard shrug. “That’s why he and Mum broke up. I saw.”
Charlie’s stomach bottoms out from him. His ears ring a bit. Something like horror washes over him. Surely, she hadn’t-,
“You what?”
Molly peers up at him, entirely too casual about it.
“Yeah. Mum and Dad were arguing and she hit him. Like, really hard.”
“And you know this because?” he chokes out, hoping that he’s getting the wrong idea here.
“I told you; I saw.” Molly repeats herself slowly, like she’s trying to explain something to a small child rather than an adult man. “Then a like a week later we moved to Grandma and Grandpa’s.”
Charlie feels very unsteady on his feet. He eyes a park bench and makes his way to it on shaky legs. Merlin. That was the reason Percy had finally left Audrey- it wasn’t because he was finally standing up for himself, or breaking out of the cage or whatever Newt had been talking about. He was standing up for his kids. Molly had seen Audrey abusing Percy. That had been his breaking point; he was trying to protect his kids. Not himself.
“Uncle Charlie, are you alright?” Charlie looks up from the ground where he had been staring mindlessly. Both girls were standing in front of him, peering curiously at him. He wonders how long he’s been sitting there.
“Yep. Just got dizzy. All that sugar, you know.”
“Sure,” Lucy says, eyeing him up and down. At that moment, Charlie’s watch beeps, signaling a change in the hour. He glances at it.
“I think it’s about time we head back to the Burrow. I think your dad should be almost done by now.”
When they get back to the Burrow, Charlie’s parents are there, back from whatever outing Percy had insisted they do. Mum’s taking her apron off as soon as they walk in.
“Oh girls, perfect timing! I’ve got to go to the market. Want to join?”
Dad appears from around the corner, slipping on a light coat. “It’s the muggle one!”
Mum sighs a little. “Yes, the muggle one. Do come. The last time your grandfather knocked over a display of soup cans and was about to fix it up using his wand. It was a good thing I was there, or it’d be a mess.”
Charlie’s not unsurprised to hear that his parents are going to the muggle supermarket. When he was a kid the idea of being so mundane would be unthinkable. After the war, the public reception of muggles and their way of life improved. The wizarding world war starting to realize just how handy muggle things were. Much like the movies, it was damn impressive they were able to invent so many things without magic.
Charlie checks his watch. He hasn’t got anywhere to be until this evening- Newt and Tina had invited him for dinner. Percy should be back soon, and he needed to have a conversation with him.
“Go on, girls. I’ll be here waiting for your dad.” Charlie tells the twins. They both nod, and it’s less than five minutes later that they’re out the door with re-useable bags that were apparently ‘all the rage’ with muggles. Charlie never did quite understand why muggles used plastic anyway.
Then, he’s alone in the house. It should feel comforting to be back in his childhood home, and most of the time it is. But now… now it felt different. The hues felt less warm then usual, the lights too bright or too dim. What Molly had told him still rings in his ears.
She had seen Audrey hit Percy.
Not for the first time, he wonders how long she’d been abusing him for. Had it started when they met? Or after they were married? Were the girls toddlers in their cribs when Audrey started to hurt Percy?
It drives him nuts to think about it. He should have known something was wrong that time he went to their home and saw Percy with that black eye. He shouldn’t have dismissed it so easily. It was like- he knew that something was going on but accepting Percy’s excuses were somehow easier. Or more comfortable. Charlie should have pushed- then maybe the twins wouldn’t seem so mature for their age. Their seriousness, the lack of emotions; it was like it was defense.
“Damn it.” Charlie says out loud in an empty house.
He sits down in the kitchen and makes himself a cup of tea. He’s finishing it down to the dregs when the door creaks open. He stands, pushing it aside.
It’s Percy, he’s looking a little flustered. His tie is loose around his neck. He’s got that thick stack of papers under his arms. When he sees Charlie, he smiles, his glasses falling a bit down the bridge of his nose.
“Oh, Charlie! Did you and the girls have a good day? I know they can be a little difficult. I swear, I’ll blink for a second and they’ll be teenagers-, what’s wrong?” His smile dims when he sees that Charlie hasn’t moved from his spot in the kitchen. He sets the stack of papers down on the counter.
“Did something happen? Are the girls alright?”
The mention of the girls being already gets Charlie out of his stillness. “We need to have a talk.”
Percy blinks, feeling off-center. He’d just spent all morning and afternoon with his solicitor, Mara, (Mara, that was her name. He finally remembered to read her business card), going over every single one of his financial documents. She hadn’t been kidding; it was a lot. Wills, life insurance, everything had to be reviewed with a fine-toothed comb. They’d barely finished it all in about six hours.
Now he was standing in the Burrow with his older brother staring at him like he’s got a toad on his head or something.
“Where are-,”
“Mum and Dad took them to the market. They’re fine.”
“Ah.”
It gets quiet again.
“Charlie what’s-,”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“What?” Percy asks, puzzled. Why didn’t he say anything about Mum and Dad taking the girls out? Now he’s really confused.
“Molly said she saw you and Audrey fighting. She saw her hitting you.”
Percy feels the blood drain from his face. He hadn’t told her not to say anything, but he hadn’t expected her to-,
“Why did it take your kid seeing it to get you to leave?” Charlie asks. Percy’s mind stutters to a stop.
“Why- what?”
“Why,” Charlie repeats, voice dangerously low as he takes a step closer to his brother. “Did it take your daughter seeing how Audrey was treating you to get you to leave her?”
“I don’t-,” Percy licks his lips and flicks his eyes nervously around the room. There was no escaping this. “I wanted to protect her. Both of my kids. It wasn’t okay for them to see that.”
“But it was okay for it to be happening?”
“No!” Percy exclaims, feeling his face heat up. Charlie had no idea what he was talking about it. Of course it wasn’t okay. The girls were his reason for leaving, but it wasn’t fine.
“So why didn’t you leave her the first time it happened? Or when she put you on the hospital? We didn’t speak for ages!”
“You set that expectation of no contact, not me.”
“Because I thought you’d choose me! Your family!”
“Audrey is-… s-she was my family, too.”
Charlie lets out an irritated breath, causing the hair in front of his face to swish a little. He needed a haircut.
“Typical.” His brother mutters something under his breath that has Percy's’ ears perking up. Had he just said what Percy thought he did?
Percy feels anger rush through him like a tidal wave. “Excuse me?”
“I said-,” Charlie says again, louder this time. “That it’s just typical of you. Choosing someone, something else, over your own family.”
“That is not fair. I didn’t do that!” Percy croaks out. He can barely contain his rage. It’s a wave about to crash into rocky shores. It’s a bottle about to explode. It’s simmering in a pot and is about to boil over.
“You did during the war.”
The pot boils over.
“Don’t you dare-,” Percy’s so angry he can barely choke the words out. “You have no idea what I went through during the war. None!”
“Because you picked the Ministry!” Charlie shouts, his voice echoing on the halls of their childhood home.
Percy feels like he’s just been backhanded across the face. After everything, after all he did and went through, spying for the Order and risking his life on a day-to-day basis-
“Shut up!” Percy yells. “You don’t have the right!”
“Oh, so that’s what this is all about then? Not leaving Audrey, is it about the war?”
“SHUT UP ABOUT THE FUCKING WAR!”
“No! You- you what, you stayed with her because you feel guilty?”
“Charlie!”
“Because you chose the wrong side and realized it and were too much of coward-”
“Stop it, Charlie!”
“That you dug your heels into the ground? That’s why? You just hate yourself that much that you forced yourself to stay when you knew it was wrong and only when you FINALLY fucking realized it was affecting other people you decided to change? What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
“It was not like that!”
“Yes, it was! You just hated yourself so much, don’t you? Perfect Percy, making the wrong choices, getting people killed because he chose wrong.”
“FINE! YES! I HATE MYSELF!” Percy roars breathlessly, taking a step forward, closing the gap between them. He thinks he can hear something rattling in the kitchen, but it may just be coming from the buzzing in his head. His brother takes a half-step back, like Percy’s one of his abused dragons, and it makes him even angrier.
“Is that what you want to hear, Charlie?” Percy screams, throwing his hands in the air. “Yes! Yes, I hate myself! I can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror. Because all I can see if a pompous arsehole who picked his job over his family and killed his own fucking brother- gah!”
Percy shoulder twinges so violently he must bend over at the waist to try and catch his breath. A shout of pain escapes his lips. Pain rattles through him like a bolt of lightning.
“Shite!”
He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to not lose his lunch.
“Are you alright?”
“Just peachy.” Percy says through gritted teeth, shutting his eyes. A droplet of sweat drips down the side of his face.
“Perce-,”
“Leave it, Charlie.”
“Percy-,” his brother tries again.
“I said to leave it! I’m fine.” Percy slowly straightens himself up as the pain goes from white hot fire to a dull throb. When he gets himself a bit more together, he opens his eyes. The kitchen is a wreck- the table is splintered into pieces, the chairs broken apart. The floor is lined with the shattered remains of ceramic. All the dishes on the shelves have been cast to the floor.
That must have been the rattling he heard earlier. He’d been so angry; he lost control of his magic.
He lost control of his magic.
His mind of its own accord throws him back into the memory of when Audrey had first lost control of her own magic- causing the photos on the wall to slips down and crash onto the floor. And somehow it makes him think about when she had thrown the bowl at his head- how he’d barely missed getting hit in the face by ducking from his screaming wife’s rage.
Do you enjoy making me upset, Percy?
“Percy? Percy?”
Am I not being clear enough? Should I take over getting the girls to school, too? Since you can’t seem to handle something so simple.
“You need to breathe. Take a breath.”
You always do this, Percy! You always go out of your way to remind me that I prioritized my career over my family!
“Percy, can you hear me?”
Then try and actually- Back me up!
“That’s it, take another breath, Perce. In and out.”
Percy, I-, I didn’t mean to do that I was just-, Merlin-,
It’s like he’s been flung out of a catapult and back into awareness. He’s on the floor of the kitchen, surround by broken pieces of glasses and furniture. He’s trembling. Shaking, really, his whole body vibrating in abject terror. His brother is kneeling in front of him, one of his hands resting on Percy’s chest, the other gripping his uninjured shoulder tightly.
“There we go, Perce.” Charlie says so gently it makes Percy want to cry. “Can you take another breath for me?”
Percy sucks in air, not realizing he’d all but stopped breathing, stopped moving, the only thing he was doing was shaking. He feels terrified. It had just felt like he was dying.
“Charlie-,” he manages to croak. Charlie throws his arms around him, embracing him tightly. Tears start to well up in his eyes. “Charlie I-I didn’t- I don’t know.” He tries to explain.
“It’s okay. It’s alright. You’re alright. I’m okay.” Charlie says quietly in his ear. He squeezes him a little tighter and Percy lets out a sharp gasp of pain as it sends new white-hot flames licking up and down his shoulder. Charlie immediately pulls back.
“I’m sorry, Percy I didn’t mean to make you upset like that.”
“What happened?” Percy chokes out.
“I think you just had a flashback. It was like you just…shut down. You stopped breathing.”
Flashback.
Good Godric and Rowena
Flashbacks were for people who had fought in war- people who had been tortured. There was a witch in the games department at work who lost three fingers and a leg to Death Eaters during the war- people like her deserved to have flashbacks.
Not a coward like him.
“I’m sorry.” Percy whispers, not trusting himself to speak any louder for fear he’ll burst into sobs. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s okay. It’s just stuff. We can put it back together again.”
Percy swallows hard and nods, his trembling subsiding just a bit.
“Can you stand?”
“Yeah.”
On shaky legs Percy stands, Charlie helping him. His brother takes out his wands and spells one of the chairs back together and guides Percy to sit down. Charlie also repairs a glass on the floor and fills it with water. He gives it to Percy who downs it in one long sip. It steadies him enough to try to get his head on straight.
He’d never lost control over his magic. Never. Not even when he’d been a small child. Everything was done with intention since he was small. But now-,
“Am I just like her?”
“What?” Charlie asks, his voice dropping to a croaking whisper.
“When the girls were first born,” Percy starts, not really feeling anything anymore, too numb from the shock, “she wanted to go back to work after six weeks. I thought it was too early, and we fought over it- and she lost control of her magic. I was so scared.” His mind is starting to whir him back to that first, terrifying moment when Audrey had started to show physical signs.
“You’re not, Percy.” Charlie says firmly. “You’re nothing like her. She didn’t feel sorry, not really. She doesn’t care about anyone else other than herself. You care so much. The fact that you’re worrying about it just proves to me that you’re a nothing like her.”
“Okay.” Percy says weakly, feeling drained and not quite believing him.
Charlie licks his lips. “Did you hurt your shoulder?”
“Huh?” Percy asks, looking up from the broken dishes on the floor. He feels floaty and sort of away from himself.
“Your shoulder.”
“Oh,” Percy rubs his shoulder, trying his best to ignore the pain their argument had just caused it. “It’s nothing, really I’m-,”
I’m fine.
That’s what he had been about to say. I’m fine. Merlin, how many times had he said that when he really wasn’t? When had Audrey screamed at him or called him names or hit him?
“It’s an old injury.” Percy settles on. “It comes and goes.”
“When did you hurt it?”
Percy sniffs. No time like the present.
“Uh, fifteen years ago. Give or take.”
His brother’s brows furrow. “But that was during-,”
“During the war. Yeah.” Percy says lamely. “I was there when the Ministry fell. It wasn’t pretty.”
It hadn’t been. It had been chaos- Percy had only stopped by the office to pick something up before sneaking into Bill’s wedding. He had been brewing the Polyjuice for weeks. He’d picked the Ministry, yes, but he wasn’t a monster. He wouldn’t miss his own brother’s wedding.
But then the Death Eaters stormed in and started firing off curses and hexes. Percy had been one of the lucky ones- he was still breathing and had all his mental faculties. The witch he’d shared an office with had gotten her legs completely blown off by a Confrigo. She’d bled out on the marble floors.
He winces as he prods at his shoulder. “It was a bonebreaker. It didn’t help that after-,”
He stops himself. He had been about to say that after he’d been rounded up with all the other surviving employees and was cruico’d on and off for the next three days.
“Well, things were a bit busy. By the time I was able to see a proper healer, the damage had been done.”
Percy had been hastily healed by one of his co-workers, and older man named Harold who had tried his best to patch him up. But without any Skele-Grow or a more trained professional, it was just enough to keep his damn arm from falling off. The curse had broken his shoulder into three pieces; he was lucky it hadn’t shattered completely.
Once he had dragged himself back to his London flat, he collapsed onto the floor slept for a full day. Then, once he’d taken a calming draught and forced himself to eat a piece of plain bread, he’d lugged himself to St. Mungo’s. The healer told him the damage was too extensive to fully repair, and he’d try his best but there was a good chance it would never heal fully.
“Do you want me to take a look?” Charlie asks quietly. Percy looks up at him, surprised by the offer.
“I’m a pretty good healer.” Charlie adds.
Percy looks down at his brother’s arms. He was covered in burn scars from his work with dragons, and they did look like they’d be healed correctly.
“I don’t know,” Percy says softly. “I don’t think you’ll be able to help.”
“I could try?”
Percy lets a huff of air escape his nose. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his brother, but he’d literally never let anyone see his scars before besides Audrey and the Healers at St. Mungo’s who patched him up. Even when he and Oliver and Penelope and the girls went swimming, he’d kept his shirt on.
Still… Charlie was offering an olive branch. If Percy didn’t take it, there may never be one again.
“Okay,” Percy whispers. “But- you can’t ask me about any details. I won’t tell you.”
If Percy was going to do this, he’d do it on his terms.
Charlie’s brow furrows, but he nods wordlessly. Percy sighs and unties his tie, slipping it off his neck. Then, with shaking fingers, he starts to slowly unbutton his shirt. He only undoes three or so buttons, unwilling to do anymore. He slides the left sleeve of his shirt down.
There’s an audible gasp from behind him. Percy had been expecting it, but it still hurts to hear it. He shuts his eyes tight.
His shoulder is a mess of scar tissue- long, ropey threads of raised pink and white that warp around his shoulder, extending to just below his collarbone and the far side of his shoulder. It’s concentrated in the middle, where the biggest mass of scar tissue is gathered. It’s ugly, he knows- layers piled on top of another, thick and bumpy.
“Percy-,” Charlie’s voice is shaking. “This-, this is more than just a bonebreaker. What did they do to you?”
Percy swallows. “Are you going to try to fix it or not?”
“Yeah.” Charlie says, voice hushed.
Percy keeps his eyes squeezed shut as his shoulder tingles, a lingering side effect of Charlie’s magic. He’s not sure how long it takes, but it feels like a long time. His legs are falling asleep.
Finally, it feels like someone’s just unplugged a damn in his shoulder. It feels like pressure is being released from his shoulder. For the first time in more than a decade, Percy’s shoulder can relax. It’s like he can breathe again.
“That should work, I think,” Charlie says in a tender voice. “I can’t get the scars to vanish, but I was able to repair some of the cartilage in the joint. That was why it hurt so bad- it was bone rubbing on bone.”
Percy blinks the tears out of his eyes.
“Thank you.” He whispers.
“Of course.” Charlie echoes quietly. They both are still for a moment until Charlie clears his throat.
“Well, we should probably put the kitchen back together before Mum comes home. I know were’ both grown men but I’m still terrified of her.”
Percy gives a dry, humorless smile.
“Me too.”