Chapter 6
November 11, 1993
As expected, Madam Pomfrey had been waiting a few feet from the fireplace, ready to meet him as soon as he flooed. Percy had barely gotten a sense of his surroundings, his head still spinning, before the matron had ushered him into the hospital wing, magicking the soot from his clothes and muttering about the hygiene issues associated with flooing as she crowded him toward a bed at the end of the row.
He sat on the cot closest to Pomfrey’s office when she distractedly gestured at it, and scanned the empty hospital wing as the woman muttered a silencing spell and drew the curtains around the bed. After finishing she turned on her heel in that militaristic way she had about her. Her face was stern as she reviewed how exactly he was going to go about taking his newly prescribed draughts - calming and sleeping. Due to his recent history, he wouldn’t be allowed to self-medicate. He’d be watched very strictly, and would get all of his medications directly from Pomfrey or Professor Snape, who apparently had an active role in keeping the hospital wing stocked. Irritatingly, he’d have to come to Pomfrey after dinner on a nightly basis to receive his draughts. He’d be watched as he downed the potions by the Matron or Oliver, who he was assured had been given a lecture and would not let things slide. While normally the Matrons strict attitude could be nerve-wracking for Percy’s people-pleasing personality, he found that after almost a week of apologies, pity, and sympathy, Pomfrey’s down-to-business disposition was a nice change of pace. Her orders were something he was a bit more used to - sharp, clear, and strict. As irksome as her instructions were, he appreciated the way they were conveyed. It was easy to follow a set of directions. He was nothing if not a willing rule-follower.
She’d also briefed him that nobody beyond his family and Oliver should know where he’d been and it was completely up to him if he wanted to disclose it or not. He’d actually snorted at that. Disclose that he’d tried to kill himself? That he’d pulled his eldest two brothers from their jobs, uprooting their lives? That he’d scarred his younger siblings and best friend for life? That he’d initiated his siblings being taken away from their parents and possibly being put with a monster that rivalled Voldemort himself? Hardly likely. It was hard enough to live with his own guilt, let alone feel the judgement of others projected a hundred times over from his classmates.
After she’d explained things, Percy was forced to lounge around in the hospital wing for an additional 15 or so minutes as he waited for Oliver due to the new rule of not being able go anywhere without being chaperoned. Pomfrey herself skittered rather awkwardly around the room, tidying beds that didn’t need to be tidied and wiping away nonexistent dust. He didn’t know why she bothered with the charade. They both knew her bloody instructions.
Oliver came at last, red in the face and slightly panting as he crashed through the hospital wing, dressed partially in muddy Quidditch attire. Madam Pomfrey turned to him with a rather unimpressed look on her face and an eye that lingered on the grime he had tracked in. “Mr. Wood” she’d said, “thank you for gracing us with your presence”.
Oliver turned redder and sheepish. “Sorry” he mumbled, but it didn’t take long after that for his attitude to shift again, anxious eyes darting to Percy. The brunette stumbled over his own feet and kept going as he fretfully moved to his friends side. Were they really friends anymore? Percy wondered. Had they ever been? That bitter, nagging part of him whispered that even after everything he was still taking a backseat to Quidditch.
Oliver stopped abruptly just short of Percy, who’d been sitting casually, half lounging against a bedpost. Usually, his posture was much more rigid, proper, but something about the last few weeks, months days had sapped away the energy he usually expended on that kind of behavior. Knee to knee, Oliver seemed to lose all of his excess nervous energy at once. He gulped audibly and Percy noted Madam Pomfrey watching rather unimpressed from the corner of the room.
“Can I..?” Oliver eventually said, gesturing at the spot next to Percy, his Scottish accent thickening with his nerves. Percy tilted his head in acquiescence and hid a fisted hand in his lap. Oliver spread his legs wide despite his anxiety, taking up probably twice as much room as Percy when he sat down. Percy watched him with as much casualness as he could muster. His exhaustion benefited him. He didn’t have the strength to be anxious right now. Oliver stared in that wide-eyed way he got when he saw something he didn’t like from his opponents on the Quidditch match. Not his aggressive look… game face if you will - that was much more common. No this was more akin to a deepset nervousness, maybe even bordering on fear. Percy’s fingernails dug into his palms. You made him scared of you. He pushed his nails in deeper with purpose now. The physical pain was a good distraction. A good punishment.
Oliver rested his elbows against his knees but kept his neck craned painfully so he was facing Percy. Uncomfortable, Percy pulled his robes a bit closer together. “Look” Oliver began, his voice shaking, “I can’t even start to explain how sorry I am-”.
“Then don’t” Percy said, surprised by his own words.
“I- what?”
“Don’t” Percy repeated. His voice was smooth. A door closed loudly shut. They both swivelled their heads to see behind them. The matron had left. As soon as she could be rid of you.
Oliver shook his head and turned back towards him, “No, I mean it though, Perce-”.
Percy's voice went on, words tumbling out of his mouth without his brains approval or acknowledgement, “Everyone’s fucking sorry” he said, his voice losing its false apathy, and giving in to his nascent anger, “Everyone’s sad and worried and sympathetic and oh-woe-is me-ing and ‘was it something I did? Something I didn’t do?’ ”
He didn't know if he meant what he was saying. Did it matter?
Percy, in his outrage, had sat up fully now, aggressively leaning into Olivers space, the other boys eyes now wide with panic, “You’re all bloody narcissists. I’m what’s fucked up. I’m the issue here. How isn’t that abundantly clear by now?”
It was silent, the two boys’ noses a few centimeters from touching. The room was still as the two stared each other down, Percy’s panting the only sound filling the echoing room. Then, a voice softer and smoother then Percy had ever heard from Oliver: “If it helps,” he said, cautiously, “I won’t apologize”. Percy could feel his breath on his face. It smelled like a Ploughman’s lunch. It smelled like guilt.
A ghost of a touch against Percy’s wrist and he scoffed, pulling away. He stood up. “Can we leave?”
Oliver looked at him, unsure with those wide brown eyes that darted back and forth as he tried to decide what he was supposed to do. Nobody did what they were supposed to do until it didn’t matter anymore, Percy thought bitterly.
Percy started walking for the doors, knowing Oliver couldn’t leave him on his own. Sure enough, the Keeper was a step behind him by the time he pushed open the hospital wing doors. He felt slightly out of breath as he went up the flights of stairs, skipping steps two at a time. By the time they’d made it within seeing-distance of the Fat Lady, he felt a pulsing headache coming on. He twirled the sleeping draught Pompfrey had given him. To drink or not to drink, that was the question.
They arrived at the Fat Lady, for once, Oliver being the one lagging behind. “Password?” she asked disinterestedly.
“Fortuna Major” Percy said impatiently. She tutted. “Open up, would you?” Percy snapped. The Fat Lady harumphed.
“Old password” Oliver revealed, jogging up to Percy’s shoulder, “Blimey you can move fast when you want to”.
Percy tuned him out in favor of glaring at the stupid portrait. She seemed to get a kick out of being the biggest inconvenience in the bloody castle since Peeves. “Flibbertigibbet” he heard Oliver finally say. What was the point of these damn passwords anyways? All the Gryffindors shared it with their mates from other houses, who shared it with their friends in turn. The whole school knew the bloody thing within a few hours of it being announced.
“You could do with some manners” the portrait opined but turned inward. Percy didn’t bother with a “thank you” before bounding toward the boys common rooms, almost tripping over a few idiot first years who’d decided to play Exploding Snaps on the floor.
“Percy!” he heard Oliver call. He ignored him in favor of getting to his bed - with its blessed curtains and promise of an ounce of privacy - as soon as possible. He practically jogged up the stairs, hearing the indignant cries of the clearly-in-the-wrong first years as somebody inevitably tripped over them again. He just wanted this day to be over. His four-poster bed was going to be the closest thing he had to privacy for the next Merlin knew how long. He pushed his way into the room without much thought, took a few steps and then stopped, suddenly rooted to the ground.
How had he just about forgotten that this was where… House elves had obviously cleaned and magic didn’t leave stains but he swore he could still see crimson soaking into the carpet all around his bed. Suddenly he felt rather faint. Heavy breathing behind him and the memory of his almost suicide started to intermingle with another. His head pounded more harshly. He felt light and heavy at the same time. He was slowly sinking, lowering himself onto the ground.
Breathing. He needed to breathe. And.. fuck what had that Healer spoken about… grounding? He dug his fingers into the carpet. What did it feel like? It wasn’t wet. The air didn’t smell like metal or sweat. His uncle wasn’t here. The panting was still fucking there though. A butterflys touch on his shoulder and he reared backward. His ears felt as though they’d been filled with water, only vaguely registering the, “-it, -erce… I do?”. What do you see? What do you see? Run away. Hide in the dark. If you can’t see them, how can they see you?
Breathing. Why did he keep forgetting about that? It was a basic biological function. What did it say about him that he couldn’t even breathe correctly? Something was at the edge of his mind. It whispered: calming and suffocating all at once.
In for two… out for four… Count. Count and breathe.
A shuddering breathe in… then out… he couldn’t make it to four. Bloody hell just do it. He tried to hold in and choked on the air. A vaguely worried tone buzzed somewhere near him. He focused on the whispered voice in his head, trying to derive comfort from his eldest brothers’ imagined voice. Slowly, he brought his knees up and linked his hands around them. Carefully, he managed a two-and-four-beat inhale and exhale. It was alright. Of course it was alright. His ears lost some of their swimminess and his breathing began to even out.
Reluctantly, he forced himself to open his eyes, jolting a bit when he saw the wide chocolate eyes of his friend staring him down. Oliver had sat himself right across from Percy, leaning anxiously toward him but a good few feet away. “Are you alright?” the Keeper asked. Percy struggled to interpret the words, feeling sluggish and slightly behind, “Not like.. I know obviously.. but I meant…”
The headache was really coming on strong now. Percy ignored Oliver and, without warning or much thought, uncapped the sleeping draught, tipped it back, and drank it in one swallow. Almost immediately, his breathing began to slow and his eyes drooped. Oh, now this was a nice feeling.
He stumbled onto his feet, walking past an open-mouthed Oliver and The Spot and plopping himself, stomach-first, onto his bed, not even bothering to draw the curtains he’d fantasized about on the walk over. “Uh…” he heard vaguely, and a slight creak, but the words were swimming away, and instead, he let the familiar enveloping darkness swallow him whole.
Bill stared down into the depths of his coffee, feeling oddly contemplative. The exhaustion of the past week seemed to have caught up with him all at once. He was tucked away in a small corner booth of a muggle coffee shop. The thick manila folder of guardianship papers he’d been scouring over had been tossed unceremoniously to the side after the words had begun to swim in his vision. He’d tried to push through it, but after rereading the same sentence for a seventh time, he’d decided to take a much-needed break. He tapped idly on his mug and wondered if Charlie was having difficulties navigating through the Muggle area.
Bill had suggested this shop, having been somewhat familiar with it from the trips he’d taken to London during his school years. Being among muggles was oddly comforting at the time. Their obliviousness to him, his OWLs or NEWTs, and the magical world in general had been something of an escape. It could be nice to pretend for a bit. He was by no means a regular here, but it was familiar nonetheless.
He let his tired eyes drift to the clock, nearly half past 2. This was his third cup of coffee. He was too sleep-deprived for tea alone to do the job. He massaged his temples, thinking more about the headache it was going to be to schedule a custody hearing. It was going to be hell to demonstrate he was better equipped to raise his siblings then his parents when his primary residence was in Egypt and his employment was currently up in the air thanks to his sudden leave of absence. Charlie was out of the question with his dragon-work and his established history with alcoholism. Even if it weren’t for that, Bill was intimately familiar with how… traditional, much of the wizarding world could be, particularly their branches of government. Charlie’s sexuality was unfortunately enough for many judges to reject any attempt at custodianship. Uncle Bilius had offered to take Ron in, but Bill didn’t want everyone getting separated, and Percy had made his distaste for their uncle clear, meaning the man wasn’t a viable option. As selfish or egotistical as it seemed, Bill also wasn’t confident in his uncle’s ability to help Percy through this. While he was fully aware he had barely spoken to Percy since he’d graduated, there was a gut feeling inside him - maybe some kind of protective older-brother instinct - that screamed that only he could fix this. Only he was equipped to help his baby brother. He knew that was flawed thinking. He knew he was 22 and naive and barely aware of the kind of mental help that Percy needed, but he couldn’t suppress that opinion no matter how many times he tried to logic it out of himself.
He didn’t have a lot of money saved away. He was early in his career and he’d sent a good portion of his salary to Arthur to pay for new school clothes and the like for his siblings. Now he wondered if the money had gone right into Molly’s drinking fund. He didn’t know why he hadn’t considered that a probability when he’d started sending money in the first place. He’d grown up in that bloody home. Why had he, three months away from it, suddenly decided his parents could be trusted with finances? That they were responsible, good citizens and loving parents who didn’t neglect and, at times, abuse their children? He took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. He really did prefer tea.
The sound of a door chime rang out and Bill leaned slightly out of the booth to get a good look at the door for the upteenth time in the last 20 minutes. This time, Charlie had finally arrived, looking a bit lost in the cafe. Bill raised an arm and eventually Charlie’s searching eyes sparked in recognition and he made his way over. Bill slid back fully into the booth and took another sip of his drink as Charlie slid in across him, unwinding his scarf as he did so.
“Blimey I don’t know how muggles manage” Charlie said, shaking his head, “I probably did a loop around here three times and one of their Ford… er cars, nearly hit me as I was crossing the street”. Bill snorted.
Charlie fiddled with his collar and looked distractedly in the direction of the menu overhanging the till. “You want anything?” Bill asked, following his gaze.
“No” Charlie said turning back toward him, “Don’t have any muggle money”.
“I can get you something” Bill offered.
“Oh no” Charlie said, shaking his head, “Ta, Bill, but I’m fine, really”. Bill stared at him, pursed lips. The bags under Charlie’s eyes had purpled. His skin was paler, even after only a few days in England, and his freckles had faded somewhat from the lack of sunlight.
“I’ll be right back” he decided.
“Bill, really-” Charlie started, but Bill made his way up to the counter.
“A cappuccino, please” he said to the girl manning the till.
She looked at him amusedly, smacking on a stick of gum, “A fourth one, mister? Aren’t we a bit jittery by now?”
“For my brother” Bill explained, surveying the selection of sweets behind the glass, “and one of those muffins maybe”.
“The lemon or blueberry?”
“Blueberry”.
She bagged the muffin as another staff member worked on the cappuccino. Bill pulled out his wallet and went through the muggle notes. He still hadn’t memorized what color and design corresponded with what monetary amount. His vision was also a bit swimmy in the middle and vibrating at the edges, so he brought the money closer to his eyes to inspect. As he finally picked out the right amount, he saw the cashier looking at him amusedly again. He flushed and muttered, “Long day".
The girl smiled good-naturedly and handed him his order. He smiled back in a tired way that probably looked more like a grimace then made his way back to the booth. He sighed as he saw Charlie flicking through the papers in the envelope, who looked up rather sheepishly as Bill returned. “You really didn’t have to” he muttered as Bill shoved the order at his brother.
“You look dead on your feet” Bill said. Charlie reluctantly took the bag and drink before continuing to scan through some of the documents.
“You’re really serious about this, then?” Charlie asked finally.
Bill almost felt insulted, but the earnest expression on Charlie’s face kept him from taking offense. “I should have done this ages ago, really” Bill contended.
“Fresh out of Hogwarts?” Charlie asked skeptically, “I hardly think they would’ve allowed that. Even now…” he shook his head and shut the folder.
“You know what Molly’s like” Bill said, “What she did to you alone-”. Charlie’s jaw tightened. “Sorry” Bill muttered.
“You’re fine” Charlie said nonchalantly, taking another sip of his coffee. He cleared his throat, “Anyways if you’re going to do this, you’re going to need a job here in England, unless you plan to get everybody Egyptian citizenship”.
“No that’s…” Bill trailed off, “I’ll get a job in England. Uh.. I’ve got an interview lined up in Bristol”.
“Bristol?” Charlie said, a bit of surprise in his voice, “You were a head cursebreaker-”.
“In Egypt” Bill said tightly, “and with how short-notice everything is…”
Charlie nodded, “Right. Bristol”.
“And you?” Bill asked, “When do you reckon you’ll be heading back?”
Charlie aimlessly mixed his coffee with a stir stick, “My boss said I could take all the leave I needed” he said. “He’s… you know what he’s like” a half smile crossed Charlie’s lips, “I think I’ll stick around a bit longer. You’re obviously swamped and I know not everybody wants to see me but… I want to help”.
“They love seeing you-” Bill started.
“Ginny maybe” Charlie said tightly, “But Percy… even Fred and George-”.
“Fred and George-”.
“Fucking left them” Charlie muttered, “I fucking left them. And Percy-” he wiped at his eyes gruffly.
“You didn’t leave them” Bill tried, “you were kicked out of the house, you couldn’t have-”
“Even at Hogwarts” Charlie said miserably, “They didn’t want to talk to me”.
“That’s not your fault-”.
“Of course it was my fucking fault!” Charlie roared.
The quiet buzz of the cafe went dead silent. Bill felt the hairs on his neck raise up as the feeling of 20 sets of eyes boring into him and his brother made itself known. He anxiously massaged his fingers and silently willed the muggles to return to their own conversations. A slow restart in the murmuring and then the same low level buzz had restored itself to the coffee shop. Muggles were good at ignoring things they didn’t want to deal with.
“Bloody hell” Charlie exhaled, running a hand down his face.
He had a bit of a stubble coming in, Bill noted. He hesitated. But then, as gently as he could, “Have you owled Dora?”.
Charlie let out a wet laugh of disbelief, “Merlin” he muttered, eyes dancing to the ceiling.
“Really though” Bill tried, “You’re obviously having a hard time-”.
“She’s not my sponsor” Charlie said simply.
“Why don’t you owl your sponsor then?” Bill challenged.
“Fuck you” Charlie muttered, “I get my two year chip in three weeks”.
“Doesn’t mean you don’t need help” Bill said, “It’s a rough time right now”.
Charlie sipped on his cappuccino, continuing to not look at Bill. It was silent between them. Then, a not so smooth subject change: “So are you going house hunting?”
Bill sighed.