Chapter 3
He never did figure out what had happened after he’d jumped. Disappointment had taken a hold of him from the moment he’d woken up to the cold, rough stone floor of his cell, and had lingered with him ever since. A bitter, everlasting presence, always by his side.
It could very well have been years, centuries since the Jump. He barely moves anymore. All his time is spent on the floor, trying to make sense of the never-ending uproar, piercing through his skull. You’d think he’d get used to it. He’s lost count of the number of people who have settled in his cell now. First, there was a blonde girl, someone the Voice had said was mad at him.
Every face in that room is familiar, somehow. A variety of red heads came some time ago and, for some reason, they’re the ones that hurt the most. Every time his eyes unintentionally lay on any of them, he forgets how to breathe. No one ever says anything to him, though. All they ever do is shout at each other; nonsense reproaches made of nonsense words. It feels as though more people are always popping up, and the cell is starting to get too small to contain everyone; none of them ever leave. He has long since abandoned any hopes of leaving.
Any hopes at all.
It is a lifetime before an unfamiliar, odd sound breaks the continuous shouting of his visitors. A shrill, metallic noise that would give him a headache, had he not already suffered from a constant one. The cell morphs, one of its walls shifts. Shrieking, he’s on the opposite side of the room in mere seconds. The wall opens and reveals a woman. Someone. His eyes widen.
Her brows are furrowed. “Weasley. Today’s the day.” She seems to wait for something; the way she scans him up and down. He looks down at his filthy knees. “You’re a free man. Get up.” The woman barks. Free. He has an almost instinctive need to scream at the word, but his instincts are long gone. A shiver courses along his spine as two men step into his cell and carry him out.
“Free, now?” The Voice hasn’t been present in…Merlin knows how long. He smiles at the familiar sound as he is roughly escorted through cold, dimly lit corridors, trying his very best not to hear the cries of other prisoners. Their laughter, their shouts. Their sobs. “Madmen.” The Voice murmurs in that soothing, yet cruel tone of its. “But then again, so are you.” It hums.
Next thing he knows, he’s alone with a tall man. The room is small, the walls paved with black tiles. In the centre of it stand a bathtub and a scale. The man looks up from his register and blinks at him through his glasses. “Mr Weasley. Almost had me waiting.” He offers a smile that the prisoner almost feels like watching fade away. At his lack of an answer, the man clears his throat. “Er, you’re expected to wash.”
And he finally lets his eyes linger on the bathtub. WARM WATER, the Voice shouts so loudly that he winces. Warm water, warm water, warm water, warm water, warm water, warm water, warm- He falls to his knees, taking his head in his hands, screaming for it to stop. The Voice gets even louder though, the two words spat with even more cruelty, the prisoner more panicked.
Then, nothing.
When his eyes open, he is on the water. He blinks, but it stays the same way. The waves go beyond the horizon, everywhere he looks is deep, black, cold water. And it’s both his worst nightmare and a waking dream that’s far too good to be true.
Next to him is a young man; ginger, like the painful visitors, with the only difference being his curly hair. “You’re up.” The boy acknowledges. He swallows, the younger man’s presence intimidating him in a way he didn’t even know was possible. He wants to ask who he is, perhaps he does ask. Most things go unheard anyway, these days.
“Who am I?” The other scoffs. “Do you even know who you are?”
And he’s aware there is no answer to give. He has the impression there used to be, but he has long since abandoned the idea of being. All he is now is a body, a fragile weathervane ready to morph at whatever gets thrown in its way. He sits back into the boat and curls up on himself. Something in him expected to start crying, but he finds his eyes are as dry as his throat.
“You know, you should talk to me.” The boy starts again. “I’m kind enough to do the trip with you. Though…” He pauses to think. “They used to say you were ungrateful, did they not?”
And he could jump into the water there and then, warm or otherwise.
His ears tune everything out. Even the Voice, surprisingly, and he closes his eyes. It’s when he scratches his itching chin that he realises his long beard had been shaved off. There is no need to bring a hand to his skull to notice his hair had been buzzed. A long time ago, he might’ve wondered how it looked.
When the rowboat reaches the coast, the young man has vanished. He brings a hand up to his face, his sore muscles screaming at every step of the way, to shield his blurry eyes from the blinding sun. That’s when he sees them. There, on the dock, is a group of people, most of which have bright red hair.
Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t move. Closing his eyes, all he does is curl up on himself even further, never mind if the uncomfortable wood of the boat digs into his back and his hands are trembling from the cold. He doesn’t want to go and meet these people. The mere sight of them is enough to send a punch to his guts; he hardly feels like talking to them.
After a little while, he hears a voice cutting through the buzzing in his ears. “Mr Weasley. Sir, please get up.” There it is again. That name. He could throw up, had there been any food left in his body. With being called a different name than yours -any name, for that matter, when you don’t have any- comes an odd, piercing feeling of unfairness. It’s as though he is denied being who he is. As though who he is isn’t enough. He vaguely remembers that being his biggest worry, in another lifetime. Not being enough. Little did he know he would someday be all right with not being at all.
“Sir.” He doesn’t move. The shaking of his limbs intensifies slightly, as particularly cold wind passes. “Sir, please. I’m going to have to escort you to dry land if you don’t comply.”
He must’ve not complied, because, soon enough, hands envelop his armpits just a little too roughly. Then, other hands are on him. Accompanied by tears, kisses to his forehead and messy words, half-whispered, half-sobbed, he feels touched everywhere. Something in him -the Voice, or perhaps something deeper, something that truly belongs to his spirit- gnaws at him, repeats he should be happy to be here, to be touched, despite having no idea why. He should be grateful, it said. Something he apparently was not used to being.
Minutes flash by, every one of them blurring into the others, and he has no idea when he leaves the cold beach. When he becomes aware of being somewhere again, he is on a bed. Soft, warm covers are pulled to his chin, just low enough for him to breathe. He blinks several times, trying to make sense of his surroundings. The first thing that comes back, even before his vision, is the smell. It’s so familiar, so great that the taste of sick invades his mouth, and the puke runs along his chin, staining the cover. Of course, once the pounding headache reveals itself, he hardly notices -or cares about, for that matter- the discomfort any longer. He grunts in pain. That’s when he sees her.
Next to the bed, there’s a woman. Red-haired, with dark circles under her eyes. At the noise he’d made she had almost instantly reacted. “Percy…” She whispers, and he would almost feel like crying. He isn’t who she, who they all think. The woman takes the vomit-soaked cover away and sighs. “Here.” She gently, motherly wipes it away from his face, before bringing another cover and tucking it in on top of the others. “Percy, can you talk to me?” Her hand lingers on his cheek, cupping it softly.
And he might’ve wanted to. If it wasn’t for his headache, for the lack of strength in his barely existent body…perhaps, in other circumstances, he would try. But there is no point. He shuts his eyes, hoping to drift back to sleep. Everything is easier when he sleeps, it seems.
The woman sobs, and he wishes he hadn’t heard it. Something in him knows it’s his fault. “I’m sorry…” She cries, her hand running through his hair. Or what’s left of it. It doesn’t feel right; the apology leaves a sour taste on his tongue; a taste he supposes he shares with her. “I’m so sorry.” She reoffends. “No one’s taking you away again, I promise.”
He’s tempted to believe her. He clenches his jaw; maybe if he does it hard enough, it will bruise. In an odd way, he sort of hopes it will.
For a long time, he sleeps. In those first days, that’s all he ever seems to do. Even when he is awake; it all feels unreal. It’s funny, to some extent. It takes waking up from a nightmare to doubt the dream is real. He wishes it is. It would give him something to feel hopeful about. Though he never did wake up from the nightmare. It all is still there. In the dead of night, cuddled up on the warm mattress, the moon staring at him through the closed window, he’s still in the cell. The cold, painfully rough bricks still dig into his lower back, the waves crashing onto the rocks still bring a ringing to his ears, the same thoughts over and over again. The blood.
He spends long nights blinking at the ceiling. Sometimes, when his eyes get blurry enough, he manages to convince himself something’s written up there. He knows there is water not too far, can feel it, and what can it be but warm?
There are pictures on the wall. Pictures of a family, all red headed. One of them catches his attention. It’s of two small children, sitting at a kitchen table, the taller one showing the other a book, pointing at the words with his fingers. As he watches the framed moving photograph, odd feelings of familiarity and yet distance tug at his heart.
“You remember that?” A voice calls, and he doesn’t look away from the picture. He’s not sure he could, should he want to. “It’s you and me.” The stranger simply says.
There is no answer, not from him anyway. It doesn’t surprise him, really. His mouth seems to have run out of things to say. The man doesn’t give up, agrees to have a conversation with the furniture. “Mum says you can’t speak. I guess…I was hoping it’d be false.”
He hears a sigh and, suddenly, he wishes he were dead. Anything to not have to bear witness of these people, this family, treating him as though he was one of them. “I talked to a healer, you know. She mentioned it was possible you didn’t remember…any of it. Any of us. Do you?”
His gaze remains on the picture. He doesn’t know if he remembers and, frankly, he’s not sure he cares. Exhaustion holds him, numbing him away into a deep, uneventful, lonely state. “I’ve brought you something to eat.” The stranger haltingly puts a plate of potatoes and a loaf of bread in front of him. His movements are slow, they’re careful. As though the bedridden man in front of him is a time bomb, threatening to explode at the smallest wrong move.
Tick, tick. He almost hears. Suddenly, he’s in a classroom. There are people all around him, He’s in- Muggle Studies, he remembers. Professor Burbage. An explosion, emerald-tinted. Bombs, she says. Muggle war devices. A green flash. A fallen ginger. A boy turns to him. He’s smiling. It’s like that movie we saw, remember? He doesn’t. Muggle World Wars. Oliver, I’m trying to listen to the class, he hisses. Oliver. The explosion, the brick wall that kills him even though he’s not under the debris. Okay, geez. Doesn’t hurt to be nice, you know, the other boy laughs. But he doesn’t mean it.
Then, he’s in a garden. Sat down on the floor with a book, he’s watching other children fly around on brooms, tossing a ball at one another. Wasting their time. Unlike him.
He’s never asked to participate.
The sky darkens, closes around him. He runs, away from the brick walls that are threatening to envelop him and swallow him whole. They catch up. He’s in prison. At least there are no dementors. The moon sneers at him. He sees himself, sneering at him too. He blinks. He sees nothing; he sees himself. There’s a voice. Breathe. A judge, a trial. A witness. Penelope Clearwater. Piercing pain, his head is stabbed. Come on, breathe! His mother, weeping. He just got his first job. A good job. They’re proud, until they’re not. Merlin, calm down! Take a deep breath. There’s a war. He wears his prefect badge proudly. Tossed in the fire. He cries like a child. Ungrateful. Breathe!
He does. Closes his eyes, follows the guidance. In and out. “That’s right. Breathe. You’re alright.” The man advances to embrace him, but he stops in his tracks. The man. Bill, he knows now. The name is a lifebelt that he holds onto. “Bill.” He murmurs. It’s no louder than a rustle of leaves, his voice is hoarse and weak, but it’s there. When Bill hears, his face lights up as though he’s seen a miracle. Maybe he has. He wishes Bill would look away.
He doesn’t remember much. Never does. In his dreams, the memories come flooding back, but he doesn’t manage to catch up with them fast enough. They always fade away a mere moment too late. He knows Bill. One day, Bill tells him he’s his brother. It doesn’t make sense, though it’s somehow logical. He’s far too tired to search for causes and hints in half-veiled memories and framed pictures on the wall.
There are visits, from people he doesn’t know but he’s sure aren’t supposed to be there. He says nothing, and lets them in anyway. Perhaps he enjoys the company. ‘Enjoyment’ means very little now. There is only hell and numbness. He cares for the numbness, he supposes. In an odd way. He cares for it as one craves to scratch a scab off the moment it’s begun to heal.
A thought crosses his mind one day, dashing through all the voices and migraines. He hasn’t moved since he first reached the bed. What if his body stops working? Perhaps in the future, he’ll try to sit up or grab something and will find he cannot. It terrifies him and, for a second, he’s tempted to try and wiggle his toe or something. “It’s useless.” The Voice whispers. It’s right. It’s not as if he’s going to move anytime soon. Laying on a soft mattress, warm covers pulled to his chin, spoon-fed by his older brother and a woman he’s been told is his mother, with no voice and no thing to say anyway; what more could he need? The Voice snorts. Or maybe he’s the one that does. It hardly matters.
Nothing, he notes in the back of his mind. He doesn’t need anything.
He hasn’t spoken since he woke up, at least to his knowledge -he’s less inclined to trust his mind than he feels he’s supposed to. Of course, the murmur of his brother’s name hardly counts. The people in the house notice this, he thinks. Perhaps they’re afraid he won’t talk ever again.
It’s daytime, when it happens. He knows because the sunlight’s tickling the top of his head uncomfortably, almost forcing his eyes shut. When the warm light is blocked by a shadow, he nearly thinks of looking down. After a moment, he hears someone sitting down on the chair. It seems to him it was already occupied when the intruder walked in, but perhaps he’d been seeing things. “Son.” A low, shaky voice says. “We’ve talked, with your mother…” The stranger trails off. “Could you say something? Anything, just so we know you’re-” Alive. He keeps his gaze on the ceiling. He certainly doesn’t feel alive.
“Right.” It comes a minute later, laced with disappointment. “Here. I know you used to like to write. If it’s easier than talking…” He allows himself a glance to the bedside table and what the man just laid down on it. A notebook, an inkwell and a quill. “I’m sorry.”
Then he’s gone. His father, he thinks, and the void in his chest deepens. He’s not sure if it’s because it’s true, or because it isn’t.
The notebook remains on the table, untouched. Many things are.
Sometime afterwards, the same day, he thinks, but he’s hardly sure, there are laughs. It sure doesn’t sound like a laugh, rather a screeching, painfully jerky groan. Perhaps he’s simply forgotten what a laugh is supposed to sound like. Is there really a proper way to laugh? He supposes so. He remembers, he believes, proper laughter. Two redheads that no one could tell apart. He could. They always laughed. Even then, it didn’t sound right. Natural. Always cruel. Sneering. Maybe it’s because he was never a part of it. Was there ever a joke that made him properly laugh? When he doesn’t find any, he blames it on the memory loss.
He's always warm. It’s strange, really; he feels anything but warm, inside. Inside, he is hollow. Freezing. Shivering with envy, with longing for the promise of the warm water. Now, the warmth is not so far any longer. He ought to feel grateful. Heat is enveloping him in the form of every blanket, every pillow around him, yet he’s disappointed. Such warmth is bitter, it’s dirty. He wishes he had at least one less cover. Then, maybe he’d have a right to be cold. Maybe he’d be a little less numb.