Chapter 2
Amelia stood at the door of Arthur’s and Molly’s bedroom, hesitating to knock. She could hear crying and sniffing from this side of the door, and soft-spoken words of comfort she couldn’t make out because of how low they were being murmured. She had to straighten herself before she dared to knock on the door, when she did there was only a moment or two of silence before the door swung open.
Arthur looked surprised to see her, he had only opened the door slightly to see who had knocked, his body blocking her from seeing inside the bedroom. “Amelia? What are you doing here?” He asked. Arthur looked worn and tired, looking like he had aged a decade or so, Amelia gave him a small sad smile.
“Is Molly, inside?” Amelia asked instead of answering him, more out of politeness than anything else.
Arthur turned his head to look over his shoulder, his features twisting into something painful. “Yes, she is, but this is not a good time, Amelia. It hasn’t been a good day for her. Give me a minute and I’ll be out, and we can discuss why you are here.”
“Arthur,” Amelia said softly, her tone got Arthur to straighten to attention, sensing the urgency behind it. “I need to speak to both you and Molly,” she replied firmly, “It’s about your son.”
Arthur’s grip on the door handle tightened, Amelia couldn’t see it, but she could hear it by how the handle creaked and shook from the intense pressure being applied to it. That was the only outward expression of distress on Arthur’s face, and other than that his expression remain passive, controlled.
It disturbed her more than she would like to admit, Arthur was not one to keep his emotions in check, not one to be able to maintain a Pureblood mask despite being one himself.
“Percy? Did you find him, Lia?” a soft and croaky voice whispered from behind Arthur.
Arthur moved to the side, opening the door wider so Amelia could come in. As soon as he did, she saw Molly standing by the end of the bed, legs shaking beneath her, probably from being unused for so long. She was still in her soft blue nightdress with her hair braided into a messy braid.
She was deadly pale, this was more evident when the sunlight streaming from the window behind her, highlighted her freckled face. The dark circles under her eyes, and the hollowness of her cheeks became more prominent the longer Amelia stared at her.
Amelia walked forward to stand in front of Molly, gripping her by her forearms to steady her. Molly straightened despite her shaking body, eyes alight with determination. She was strengthening herself, Amelia realized, she was preparing herself to hear her news, waiting for Amelia to tell her that her son would need to be buried six feet underground.
She heard Arthur inhale sharply behind her after closing the bedroom door, waiting and readying himself for Amelia to deliver the killing blow that will never come, not if she had anything to do about it.
“Yes,” Amelia whispered delicately, her voice beginning to crack and her eyes beginning to sting with tears. “Yes, Molls, we found your son, Percy. He’s alive. Molly, they found him alive. Alive.”
Molly all but collapsed in her arms, letting out a heart-wrenching sob as they both fell to the floor. Amelia hugged Molly to her, her body shaking as she gripped Amelia’s coat for dear life, crying into her shoulder.
Amelia’s eyes searched for Arthur, finding he had moved to sit at the end of the bed, right next to her and Molly. His head was in his hands, his fingers pressing into the flesh of his forehead like he wanted them to pierce him and remove it from his person. He was crying softly into his hands, and he was breathing heavily, inhaling and exhaling sharply like he didn’t want to be loud as he all but crumbled.
“He’s currently in a small town, being attended to by muggle healers, but I placed an order for him to be relocated to St. Mungo’s as soon as possible,” Amelia informed both of them. “You both must know, that he is in critical condition. He was in an explosion and found ten miles away from the scene, I don’t know more details than that, but I’ll find out, I promise.”
“I want to see him,” Molly declared, staring up at Amelia desperately, eyes rim red, as she tightened her grip on her coat. “Please,” she begged her, “I want to see him. I want to see him, my Percy.”
“We will,” Arthur answered before she could, “We’ll go see him, be at St. Mungo’s before he’s relocated. I’ll write Muriel to see if she can come and take care of the kids while we are gone.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Amelia said, “I can take them with me, back to Bone’s Manor.”
Arthur was shaking his head before she was even done speaking, “No. No, we couldn’t ask that of you, Amelia. You’ve already done so much for us.”
“It’s no trouble, really Arthur,” she sniffled, whipping away the tears that had streamed down her cheeks with the back of her hand. “It’s no trouble at all, plus, I’m sure Susan would love to have a play date with Ron and Ginny, and even the twins. Just go, go be with your son, I’ll take care of the others.”
Within the span of an hour, Arthur and Molly were off leaving their children in Amelia’s care.
They didn’t make it in time.
By the time they entered St. Mungo’s, their son was gone.
They never did see him again.
When Percy gained consciousness again, he found himself in an unfamiliar room. He could hear murmurs of voices, and people bustling around in the distance. He found himself face down on a bed, he could feel that his back was exposed to the air and that he was in a hospital gown. He could smell the scent of alcohol and sterilized equipment burning his nose.
Percy let out a groan, wanting to turn his body over, but having difficulty doing so. He found out why as soon as he lifted his arms.
“What in the seven hells?!” Percy whispered to himself, voice coming out dry and croaky. His arms were bound with leather strappings to the frame of the bed, and when he tried to move his legs, he found that they weren’t bound like his hands.
Percy pulled at his restraints and the leather began to burn his skin from how hard he was pulling.
“Mr. Weasley?” A voice above him called out, Percy tensed, his head whipping around to find the source of the voice. He met the eyes of a man in lime green healer robes, he had a clipboard in his hands as he observed him critically. “I would advise against trying to remove the restraints, it is for your own good. You’ll only cause yourself to have rope burns.”
Percy narrowed his eyes at the healer, remaining stubbornly unresponsive in any way, verbally or otherwise. The silence stretched on, and on and on, and the healer who had yet to present himself grew more and more uncomfortable the more Percy stared into his soul.
The healer shifted from foot to foot, coughed a little awkwardly, and cleared his throat, all in the span of ten seconds. “Um… so I’m your healer, Dorian Maxwell… You’re in St. Mungo’s… right…” Healer Maxwell trailed off, growing unsettled with Percy’s eerie silence and blank-soulless stare. His brown eyes shifted uneasily across the room, looking for a way out of this situation.
“Right,” Healer Maxwell cleared his throat once again, “I’ll be back in a bit,” he whispered hurriedly and all but fled the room. Percy watched him leave with mild annoyance; it was only when the doors closed behind the healer with a loud bang did his facial expression change. He went from a blank stare to his face turning pained as he tried to move and kneel on the bed. His back was on fire, every muscle pulled felt like a burning torch being lit, the heat making it more unbearable than the actual pain.
Percy gritted his teeth and bared with the pain, he was used to it by now, ignoring its existence, dulling the ache until it melts into nothing more than a buzz beneath the skin. When he finally managed to sit up, he tried to pull at his restraints once more, grunting and hissing in pain as rope burns began to appear around his wrists. He finally gave up when the friction of the leather had cut through the surface skin of his wrist, drawing droplets of blood that fell and stained the white sheets of the bed.
He began to look around the room, silently cursing himself for not being more vigilant about his surroundings sooner.
He was the only one in here despite the multiple empty beds arranged along the length of the white room, on both sides. The room had high walls and windows placed along the slanted portion of the walls where they met the ceiling, allowing light to pour in from above. Percy thought that perhaps the reason for having placed the windows so high up was because patients have tried to throw themselves out of them before.
Or perhaps, that was just him and his morbid way of thinking.
He tore his eyes away from his surroundings and directed them back toward his restraints, there were no sharp objects here, and if they were, then they were beyond his reach. There was truly no other way, he brought his restraints up to his mouth and began biting at the leather viciously. He only bit through them enough to weaken them and pulled at the restraints again sharply, making a satisfying snap echo through the room.
Percy grinned, throwing the restraints to the side, and getting off the bed. When his feet hit the cold floor, they buckled beneath him, he had to hold onto the bed with both hands to keep himself upright. That’s when he first noticed it, his height, the bed barely reached half of his body, which shouldn’t be possible because the bed was only three feet off the ground, before it would have barely reached his mid-thighs.
There was a silver tray that held a vase with flowers on a nightstand, two beds down from his. Percy staggered towards it, legs shaking and using the metal frames of the foot of the beds to support himself. He removed the vase from the tray, set it on the nightstand with shaking hands, and held it up to see his reflection.
Percy had to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from screaming, the tray slipped from his fingers, and it clattered against the floor. The tray still landed upright, and as he stared down at it, his reflection stared back up at him. His eyes were wide, his skin pale and sickly, worse than he had ever remembered it ever being, worse than those stressful months of N.E.W.T.S studying, or those awful months in the Ministry in 1997 or even during the duration of the final battle.
He looked like a walking corpse; his lips were dry and chap like he hadn’t drunk water in days. His skin was flaky and cracking like he had spent countless days stranded in a hot desert. There were dark circles under his eyes and his cheekbones were awfully sharp and hollow.
But that wasn’t the reason Percy had to bite down at his tongue, making blood pool in his mouth.
It was the childish youthfulness, the small stature, the tiny hands, all things that shouldn’t belong two a twenty-two-year-old man.
He was a child once again.
Or at least it looked like it.
Percy swallowed hard, and his hands shook by his side, he was unable to tear his eyes away from his reflection.
The door of the room abruptly swung open, a medi-witch entered, a middle-aged woman with brown hair and an unfortunate forgettable face. She was balancing two trays packed with potions, undoubtedly for him since it seemed he was the only patient here. The witch was distracted in her task, so Percy took the chance and bolted.
He ran past the medi-witch, pushing her out of the way, rather rudely. She tumbled backward, the potions flew in the air, and Percy had already made it out the door before he heard the familiar sound of glass breaking and the thud of a body falling. The Medi-Witch screamed, and Percy ran down the corridors as much as his little legs could carry him, back flaring in pain.
He didn’t look back to see if he was being followed, you never look back when you are being chased.
He passed startled patients, healers, and Medi-Witches alike as he ran down hallways. He pushed everyone out of the way, even if they were physically bigger than him now, they should know better than to stand in the way of a run-away patient.
Honestly, how rude of them.
He went down hallway after hallway, getting more and more lost.
Percy only came to a stop in his frantic search for the exit when a hand shot out to grab his hand, he cried out, the bruises he hadn’t known he had until now on his arm, flared with pain. He turned to meet the worried eyes of Healer Maxwell.
“Mr. Weasley, what are you doing out of bed? You are in no condition to be standing, let alone be running around St. Mungo’s!” The healer said, already beginning to tug Percy back in the direction he came from.
Percy wasn’t having it.
By the gods he wished he had his wand, maybe then he wouldn’t have to resort to childish things to defend himself.
He sunk his teeth into Healer Maxwell’s arm, biting down hard until Maxwell yelped in pain and let go of him. Percy took off again, not even sparing Maxwell a glance to see if he was all right.
“Mr. Weasley!” Maxwell called out to him, but Percy ignored him. “Come back, here-Annabelle, call security, tell them we have a Code Green, and tell them it is a child! Tell them not to use physical force unless necessary, got it?!”
Percy mentally cursed, deciding to avoid the hallways where no doubt security would be looking for him. He took the side stairwell used for emergencies only, and he ran down the stairs to the first floor, apparently, he had been placed on the Seventh Floor for the Critically Injured, or so the sign on the door said.
He had to stop when he got to the bottom of the stairwell, he had to brace a hand against the wall next to the exit door. His vision blurred, it danced dangerously all around him, creating white spots. Sweat trickled down his face, as his entire body ached and burned, trying to slow down his heavy panting all the while. He could feel his feet beginning to buckle and shake beneath him once again, already at their limit and ready to give up.
Percy rested his head against the cool door of the first floor and closed his eyes for the briefest of moments, letting the silence and much-needed rest, soothe him. He needed to get out of there and figure out what in the world was going on, and more importantly why he was suddenly a child again.
The last thing he remembered was a big ear-ringing explosion of golden light, he remembers Neville and Draco, bravely fending off Voldemort’s army until Percy could do what he must.
But anything after that was a big blur that was beginning to irritate him.
He took in one last sharp breath before he placed his hand on the handle of the door, and pried it open just a tiny bit. The first floor had people in a frenzy, he had a good view of the reception desk and the front double doors of the hospital. There were reporters milling in front of the double doors, chatting with each other, looking excited to be there.
Percy wondered if someone famous had been hospitalized, and that was the reason they were all there.
He glanced over to the reception desk where what Percy assumed were the guards of the hospital stood, surrounding the semi-circle desk. They were listening with rapt attention and nodding to something the receptionist was saying, no doubt informing them they had a runaway patient.
Aka, him.
Percy grimaced as he closed the door silently once again, there was no way he could make it past the gaggle of reporters or guards without dragging attention to himself, not with the clothes he had on at least.
He had to think of a plan and fast, it won’t be long before the guards started scouring the hospital from top to bottom, trying to look for him. He closed his eyes trying to remember the layout of this place, if this was truly St. Mungo’s then he has been here a couple of times before so he should know where key things are. Ever since he was a boy, Percy had the habit of searching for every type of exit available when walking into an unknown place, mapping them all in his mind. He didn’t know why he did it, all he knew was that he started doing it when he was fairly young, and never stopped.
It was like he couldn’t function or feel safe without having an exit strategy in place in case anything happened. Perhaps he had been paranoid or just hyper-aware, but he never truly cared, this little habit always seemed to come in handy sooner or later.
Now, if he remembered correctly there was a broom closet on the second floor labeled Lost and Found where everything a patient leaves or loses is placed there for a period of nine months before all of it is sold to second-hand shops in Diagon Alley. If he was lucky, then the staff hadn’t cleaned out that room yet.
He turned back to the stairwell and started climbing the steps up to the second floor, it was only twelve miserable steps, but by the time Percy reached the top, he was feeling like he had been running for hours. He cracked the door open to the second floor, letting his head peer inside the hallway to make sure it was empty.
It was.
He walked into the hallway, walking quickly as his weak body could, down the hallway, scanning the plaques on the doors as he went. He halted to a stop as he reached the one labeled Lost and Found praying to whatever deity was hearing him that it was unlocked.
It was.
He pried the door opened and quickly walked into the room closing it behind him. It was fortunate that the room had windows, allowing sunlight to stream in and illuminate the room. There were boxes staked on top of boxes along the back wall, Percy guest there must have been at least twenty. Thankfully he saw they were all labeled, so he wouldn’t have to waste time trying to dig through them all to find something his size.
He pulled out one box labeled Children’s Clothes from the stack at the bottom, causing all the boxes to topple over, Percy moved out of the way, watching them crash to the floor without a care. He placed the box down to the side and opened it, beginning to take each item of clothes out of the box and throwing them to the side when they weren’t of need to him.
He ended up finding a blue Puddlemere United sweater, some black trainers, a Portsmouth football cap the exact shade of the Puddlemere United sweater some poor muggle-born or half-blood probably lost, and grey sweatpants.
Overall, he counted it as a score, despite the Puddlemere United sweater being a size or two too big for him and having some kind of brown stain on its left sleeve, but it was warm and cozy, and it smelled faintly like the blue fern and citrus scented candle he always used to buy while at Hogwarts.
So it was a win for him.
He found other items of clothes that would fit him, some trousers, a couple of t-shirts, and even a mustered colored jumper that would complement his hair. He bit the inside of his cheek contemplating, it would be wrong to take the clothes with him, he knew. His parents, may they rest in peace, would have been so disappointed in him for hitting this new low, resorting to stealing.
But he supposed they would already be rolling in their graves if they knew half the things he had done since their deaths. He wasn’t the same person he used to be; his morals have become twisted. They could be grey at best, nonexistent at worst. He had done worst things than steal, he had spilled blood, he had tortured and dismembered, lied, and betrayed. All to stay alive, all to continue to live to see another day.
Percy supposed they were already disappointed in the way he turned out, so different from his own siblings.
He might as well finish tarnishing the Weasley name, go big or go home, as the muggles say.
He began opening more boxes, in search of a bag he could place the extra set of clothes in. He ended up finding a dark purple backpack with three little daisies stitched in the front almost immediately. He also found a sterling thermostat, a blanket, a winter coat, some socks, another cap, a pocketknife, an old watch that also served as a compass, and an umbrella.
He strategically placed every item in a way that they would all fit, the only things that didn’t go in the backpack were the umbrella he decided to carry, the watch he decided to wear on his right wrist, the winter coat he wore over his sweater, and the pocketknife he placed inside the right pocket of the winter coat.
Once he had changed out of his hospital gown and into the newly acquired clothes, he swung the backpack over his shoulders, placed the blue football cap on his head, making sure none of his ginger hair peaked out from under it, grabbed the umbrella off the ground and headed out the door, not before making sure the hallway was devoid of any life, of course.
He made his way back down to the first floor, cracking the door open once again to peer into the hallway, the reporters were still there, now looking mildly bored and exasperated, most were lazing about. The guards were no longer crowding around the reception desk, instead, there were three guards in all black, opening and closing door, searching for him.
Percy held his breath as he tightened his grip on the umbrella and on one of the straps of the backpack. He carefully made his way into the hall, head bowed low, pulling his cap down to obscure his face even more. He walked past the group of reporters, some gave him a curious glance, and others didn’t even acknowledge his presence as he went to open the double doors.
Before he could, however, someone else opened the doors, Percy stiffened as the doors slammed open, but he didn’t lift his head, he just kept on walking. He passed a man and a woman, he could tell by their shoes, making it out into the chilly air of Britain before anyone could stop him.
He heard the reporters start to move, yelling out questions he couldn’t quite here with how brutal the winds were blowing against his ears. He began to walk faster down the street, letting out a breath of relief when he made it down the block without anyone running after him. He pulled the winter coat tighter against his body, already feeling his cheeks turning red against the brutal cold.
He walked, and he walked, not really knowing where he was going.
He was thankful it hadn’t started snowing yet despite winter clearly already starting, it made it easier to navigate through the city without having to try to avoid icy sidewalks and inches of snow. He needed to make a plan and fast, he needed to find out what he was going to do, or more precisely what was going on with him right now.
He thought about apparating to Leaky Cauldron and try to score a room there, but the Wizarding World wasn’t safe anymore, not with the war raging on, he would be much safer in the muggle world. But the problem with that was that one, he had no way to research his current predicament, and two, he had absolutely no money whatsoever to survive in the muggle world.
He grimaced, it would be sometime before night fell, he had a couple of hours before daylight set in. He watched pedestrians go about their day, some with multiple shopping bags in hand, the closer he got to a street entirely overtaken with shops that people went in and out of.
Percy didn’t feel an inch of guilt as he began to pickpocket those who dressed expensively.
He did it quickly and efficiently, purposely bumping into people, and charmingly apologizing to them, using his newly attained youth to his advantage. He would pat them on the back gently or place a hand near their elbows to steady them, then he would give them a toothy apologetic smile, slip his index and middle finger into their pockets, careful not to let his thumb tug at any of their clothes, and pulled out their wallets, before going on his merry way.
He had truly fallen this far.
Percy didn’t know how much more of rock bottom he could hit before he descended into what the muggles called hell. If only his siblings could see him now, he has really taken the title of black sheep of the family to a whole new level.
By the end of his little illegal adventure, he had acquired a thousand pounds, three golden watches, four expensive bracelets, two necklaces, and a bunch of wallets he had no use for but looked to be good quality. By now he had a sense of where he was in London, if he walked fast enough he could make it to the Pearl of the Sea before daylight runs out, it is a pub that caters to both wizardkind and muggles alike, or at least that is what the family who runs it has led everyone to believe.
It's run by a family of squibs, while the family runs the place as a pub to outsiders, to those in the know, know that the place has actually been a front for passport and identity forgery for years. The family, the Parkers, have been highly monitored by the Ministry, but have never been caught red-handed with anything, as far as anyone is aware they are squeaky clean. They were a great help to him during his time in the Ministry, helping smuggle half-bloods, muggleborns, and their parents out of the country under new identities. Helping them settle overseas in a safe house, with bank accounts already in place to help them start a new life.
Percy had been grateful they had never gotten caught, because of them many lives have been saved despite them being less than ideal citizens. Being ostracized and even hunted themselves, the Parkers understood what it was like, the crippling fear of always looking over your shoulder, never knowing when death will come to collect your soul.
When he made it to the Pearl of the Sea, a three-story vintage-styled blue building, the sun had begun to set. There were multiple biker bikes parked outside, and sketchy-looking people hanging about by the entrance of the building. Their boisterous laughter echoing down both sides of the street. This place was truly no place for a child.
Good thing he wasn’t really one.
He crossed the street and walked towards the Pearl of the Sea, his eyes focused on the entrance, however, his path was quickly blocked by a big muscled man. Percy looked up to stare at the man with long brown tousled hair pulled up in a bun, and a puffy beard the length of his neck, who was in leather from top to bottom, the only item of clothing that wasn’t leather was his Queen t-shirt under his leather jacket.
A classic biker outfit if Percy had ever seen one.
“Move!” Percy growled, staring the man straight in the eye menacingly.
The man just stared down at him amusingly, “No,” he replied simply, his voice gruff and deep with poorly concealed humor.“This is no place for children, boy, now why don’t you run along back to your mum? I’m sure she must be looking for you, and you’re here trying to get into a place you don’t belong.”
“Move,” Percy repeated again in a hiss, noticing that they had gathered most of the attention of the people outside the pub. He silently cursed, he would have much rather gone about his business without catching anyone’s attention, but he supposed it was futile when you looked like a child trying to enter a pub.
The bearded biker sighed, exasperated with his stubbornness, and went to go grab him by the arm to pull him away from this place.
But Percy was quicker, before anyone could so much as breathe, he had whipped out his pocket knife between one blink of an eye and the next.
Pointing the sharp blade unashamedly in the direction of the man’s crotch area.
“Move or I’ll cut your manhood from your person,” Percy threatened, making sure not to blink so much to further unnerve the man before him.
The man gave a full belly laugh and Percy had truly had enough.
He pocketed the knife, flipped his umbrella in mid-air, caught it by the tip of it, and swiped it under one of the man’s legs. The handle of the umbrella, shaped like a hook, caused the man to slip, the other knee to give out from the sudden shift in stability, and the man to fall backwards, inside the pub.
The man let out a yell that sounded like a cat screech and fell with a loud thud that he was sure shook the entire foundation of this place.
Percy calmly placed the tip of the umbrella on the ground in front of him, leaning against it with both hands as if it were a cane. “Anyone else want to express their lovely opinion to me?” He asked the onlookers with a raised brow. The gathered crowd wisely turned a blind eye to current events, going back to their conversation as of nothing had happened, never say bikers didn’t have a single brain cell to share between themselves.
He huffed, pulling his cap even lower as he walked inside the pub, no one stopped him this time. He jumped over the body of the groaning man with a slight childish giggle.
He might have accidentally kicked him in the lungs… or was that his kidney?! He didn’t really know, he wasn’t much of an autonomy guy, that was a thing best left for healers and serial killers.
He tore his eyes away from his poor victim, only to notice that the entire pub was now staring at him with a various range of emotions. Percy ignored them as he skipped over to the bar, climbing into one of the barstools and taking a seat.
Another man tried to take an empty seat to his right. Percy, being the petty person that he was, let his backpack fall onto the barstool before the man could sit. The blue-eyed man raised a brow at him, but Percy only glared at him. That same man rolled his eyes at him, and went to go take the empty seat on his left, his umbrella miraculously happened to land on that seat.
The man clearly went to protest, but before he could open his mouth, Percy annoyingly pointed over his shoulder at the biker man still sprawled on the floor.
Honestly, Percy wanted to roll his eyes, the man hadn’t fallen that hard, he was just being dramatic.
The blue-eyed man next to him looked at the man on the floor, looked back at Percy, and then grunted before finding another empty seat at the end of the bar.
“Establishing dominance are you?” The bartender asked, a man Percy quickly recognized as Philip Parker, a thirty-something man with black hair, blue eyes, and a scar along the curve of his jaw, on the left side.
He looked younger than Percy remember, an entire decade younger. For the first time since waking up, he could feel dread pool in the pit of his stomach.
“Someone had to,” Percy replied idly, swinging his short legs back and forth to hide the nervousness and anxiety that was beginning to claw at him.
Philip hummed, eyeing him critically as he cleaned a bear cup with a rag. Percy crinkled his nose, he hoped they at least washed it with water before using it again, not that that would do anything against the germs.
“You look like shit, kid,” Philip commented, trying to sound casual and failing like always. Apparently having no regard for cursing in front of kids.
“I feel like shit,” Percy replied, and wasn’t that the truth. He felt like at any given moment he would topple over with a single feather and faint. “I’m looking for your mother, Philip,” he quickly changed the topic, “I am in need of her… talents.”
Surprise flickered across Philip’s eyes, before the wariness and suspicion set in, always the paranoid bastard.
“I doubt my mother’s cooking would do anything for you, other than feed you of course. Something you clearly need by the looks of it,” Philip frowned, giving him a once over, “You really do look like shit, kid. Look, why don’t I order you some food, anything you want, on the house of course-”
“No!” Percy hissed, bracing his hands against the bar to lean forward, closer to Philip, his voice lowering to a mere whisper. From the corner of his eye, he saw a rolled-up newspaper, he didn’t hesitate to reach over and grab it, proceeding to hit Philip with it multiple times in the head like some mad woman. “I did not just walk all the way from the hospital to this pub, in this freezing weather, to be turned away! I am literally moments away from passing out, so get me your mother or so help me Merlin I will set you on fire!”
“Okay! Okay!” Philip screamed trying to shield himself from Percy’s attack. “Jesus! You really are a little ball of pure violence!”
Percy growled and proceeded to hit the man twice as hard. “Who are you calling little?!” He asked indignantly.
“Okay! Okay, stop!” Philip screeched, finally managing to snatch the newspaper from his hands.
Philip tried to compose himself after the on slaughter, trying to take deep breaths to stop his panting and running one hand over his hair to try and flatten it. Before holding the newspaper up like those muggle baseball players, looking ready to smack him in the face if Percy tried to hit him once again.
“Go get your mother,” Percy said bossily, jutting his head to the door that read Employees Only, crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest, indicating he wasn’t going to go anywhere, any time soon. “And leave the newspaper,” he ordered.
Philip glanced at the newspaper he was still holding like a bat, then back at Percy, eyes narrowing with mistrust. Percy sighed exasperatedly, “Just leave it, you crybaby. I promise not to give you another boo-boo.”
Philip scowled at him, throwing the newspaper in his face, Percy let it hit him so Philip could feel like he had accomplished something in life.
Philip smirked satisfactorily before turning on his heel to do as he was told, apparently not yet realizing he had been ordered around by a ten-year-old.
Percy watched him leave before he turned his attention back to the newspaper. When he unfolded it, he quickly realized it was a muggle newspaper, no matter, it wasn’t the content of the newspaper he was looking for, no it was the date printed under the headline.
London, Friday, December 13, 1986