Chapter 1
It’s a little bit fucked how white infirmary rooms are. It’s like a form of psychological torture. You wake up, you open your eyes, and you’re assaulted by the brightness of the room…
It’s white.
Painfully white in the same way you’d expect the afterlife to be. Clean and pure and bright, and then it fucking hits you. Your breath has started to catch in anticipation. Excitement, maybe fear. Prepared for the unknown, for something different than the fucking misery of temporal existence. And then it fucking hits you.
November 5, 1993
It’s hard being the middlemost middle child in a family of 9. More than hard. It’s excruciating. It’s even worse when you’re identical to one of the others.
There’s no individualism in that.
No sense of self.
It’s always a shared occasion. Fighting for scraps of attention, and you can’t even get them to yourself.
When the loaf is already underbaked and moldy and made with sawdust instead of flour, and then on top of that, you have to split that loaf into six, and then you only get half of one of those six pieces- no wonder he’s fucked.
Malnourished in every sense of the word.
When Percy pulled a lawnmower on his wrists, it was probably fucked that the first thing Fred felt was anger. Because he knew this was going to dig into his slice even more. Allocate even more resources away from the starving man to feed the one who had far more food but wasn’t fucking grateful enough-
He’d make due. Hunger was an old friend.
Percy didn’t know it the way he did. It wasn’t his fault he’d lost it.
It’s never good news when you get pulled out of class. Ginny knows this. And even if she didn’t, the look on Professor McGonagall’s face was enough to make it clear.
She knew it was family from the outset. It was just a matter of who and how bad. Truthfully, her first thought went to Bill. Recently there had been a good amount of terrorist-type attacks in Egypt. It was either him or Charlie. Charlie who worked with some of the world’s most dangerous, volatile dragons because, in his mind, it was “fun.”
Probably the last person she’d suspect was Percy.
She was the last of the siblings to arrive in Dumbledore’s office. One look at her brothers’ faces, and she knew they were just as in the dark as she was. When Dumbledore started talking, she was confused. Percy wasn’t here yet, after all. She couldn’t think of anything the Headmaster would have to tell them that he wouldn’t have to tell Percy. She almost interrupted, the words on her tongue, when the Headmaster’s words finally made it through the language processing parts of her brain. But even then, even once they’d been translated in her mind, she stayed confused. Because that didn’t make sense… Percy? Percy of all of them? Percy?
And maybe there was something in her stomach from that. Something cold and slimy that felt like a dead boy’s hands and 1st year. The only thing she could put a firm pinpoint on was nausea—a drop in her stomach and a whirlpool in her gut.
And it was hard to stay standing and in the moment. Hard not to retreat into her mind and try to make sense of this. Because this- Percy. And maybe, she realizes later; it doesn’t make sense to have such a strong reaction because this was Percy.
Percy.
People are talking behind her. She can’t really hear them. She’s failing to escape the black hole of her mind. She feels herself drifting from the moment. The noises reduce to a buzz.
Percy.
Percy isn’t transferred straight to St. Mungos. He’s in the Infirmary Ward for a good hour before Madam Pompfrey declares him stable enough to be moved to the hospital.
When Professor McGonagall leads the solemn foursome of Weasleys down to the med bay, the first thing they see is an ashen-faced, blood-soaked Oliver Wood. Sitting against the wall with trembling hands over knees with crimson staining his arms, face, and torso - it’s a startling wake-up call. It’s a confirmation.
Professor McGonagall has that look on her face that George hasn’t seen since she pulled him and Fred out of class about Ginny. George, Fred, and Ron stop shortly after seeing the Quidditch Captain. Ginny keeps walking forward, a dazed look in her eye. Trying to be as gentle as possible, George grabs her by the shoulder to keep her from going any further. Some kind of consciousness makes a faint return to her eyes, and she stops. George keeps his hand on her shoulder.
And Ron is staring at Oliver, and his breathing is speeding up, and he looks achingly young. He's raising a trembling hand to his face but then seems unsure of what to do with it once it’s shaking in front of him. He just stares at it, and his face does that thing where his chin wrinkles and his mouth drops, and George knows he’s going to cry. He feels woefully unprepared. Fred stares at Ron with an unreadable look in his eye, and George strengthens his grip on Ginny’s shoulder as he tries to think of what to do because he doesn’t fucking know-
Ron is still staring at Oliver.
Professor McGonagall has left them for the moment. She’s crouching down and speaking softly with him. Oliver’s staring at her, dead-eyed. George watches Ron watch the brunette run a hand through his hair, leaving it smeared with red. And fuck how does all that blood come from one person- from his brother-
And then Ron has his hands in his hair and his head down, but he’s still kind of looking, and he’s shaking. George forces his eyes away. Ginny is staring vacantly at the floor. He leaves her and goes to Ron. He feels rather than sees Fred creeping behind him as he approaches his youngest brother.
He tries to block Ron’s vision of Oliver. But his brother is still staring, and he’s full-on ugly crying, so George grabs his face and forces Ron to look at him, and the eye contact is almost unbearable. A wave of protectiveness comes over him, staring into his brother’s red, teary eyes - and he remembers he and Fred aged 6. They were running around wreaking mayhem, and there was their littlest brother waddling around following them. Fred was always irritated and tried to make Ron find something of his own to do, but George always saw his big blue eyes and told Fred to let him follow them. He would make a fine apprentice. Well, “slave” was probably a more appropriate term. And their favorite pranks to pull would always be on Percy because Percy- Percy. Percy, whose eyes looked just like Rons except obscured by spectacles, but George remembers a time before those walls had come up, and fuck it, it’s his big brother too.
“Ron,” and he hates how his voice sounds - fragile and shaky. But he needs to- He licks his lips and tries hard to keep his eyes from watering as he stares into Percy’s Ron’s eyes. He takes a deep breath, “Percy’s okay,” he says, and his voice sounds a little bit better, even if it feels sour to say something he has no faith in.
“He’s going to be fine,” he hears his twin mutter from behind him, “They found him early enough,” and George knows that’s bullshit because Fred knows just as much as he does, but he doesn’t call him out. He just nods with Fred’s words and holds Ron’s face a little tighter. “You’re going to be okay,” he says because he can’t bring himself to say anything more about Percy because he can’t bring himself to lie because he doesn’t know. And Ron’s trying. He’s really trying to get it back together. He slaps at George’s hands. He lets Ron’s face go but doesn’t move any further. He watches him sniffle more and stare at the ground. Watches his shoulders shake.
But then Fred is muttering, “George,” and he turns around, and Professor McGonagall is coming back, and Oliver is clean of blood and walking with her, still dazed but with something harder behind his eyes. George’s hand finds its way back to Ginny’s shoulder as Fred silently stands by Ron.
McGonagall surveys them all, and she looks tired. And suddenly, irrationally, George thinks she’s about to tell them that Percy didn’t make it - that he was dead and gone - his brother-
But she just says that Percy is about to be transferred to St. Mungos and that they can take the Floo to get there, and that their brother Bill is already waiting. And somehow it’s that Bill is going to be there is the most relieving thing she said. Because George really, really fucking wants a big brother right now.