Percy awoke with a throbbing head and fuzzy vision. He couldn't remember what happened the night before. He was in bed, but it certainly wasn't his own. It looked familiar, though, and he tried to sit up, slowly, to decipher his surroundings. He winced at his aching head as he moved, but eventually managed to get up.
Yes, he had definitely seen this place before, so he racked his brains to try to remember. He drew a blank. Nothing from the past night came back to him. In fact, he remembered very little of the past few days, even. he looked absent-mindedly at the window, wondering what could have happened. It was snowing outside. He found himself frowning. Was it winter? Why couldn't he remember anything?
There was a soft humming coming from downstairs. He threw on a dressing gown-his dressing gown?- and headed downstairs. The rickety old stairs that belonged to an old place. Grimmauld Place. He was in Grimmauld Place! The realisation confused him further. Why was he here? Where was everyone else? He hurried the person singing there would know.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and quickly ascertained that the sound was coming from the kitchen. The song sounded familiar too, but he couldn't quite place it. However, he immediately recognised the figure standing over the pot of stew that he could smell, even from a distance. But something was wrong with that picture. Penelope didn't cook. Nor did she sing. That was more like something his mother...his mother, of course! She would sing him the song, an old lullaby, as a child. It sounded strange in Penny's voice. Perhaps...perhaps it wasn't her, he told himself, as he stepped forward. He couldn't remember, so that might as well be true, he reasoned.
He placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Penelope?" he asked, quietly.
She turned around to face him, and he gasped, horrified. Empty eyes stared at him from a lifeless face. Blood trickled down her forehead, even as her humming grew louder. He pulled his arm away in shock and stepped back fearfully. The was not, could not be, Penny. He didn't mull over it, however, choosing instead to run away to the door as fast as he could. Nothing made sense anymore, and all that mattered was that he had to get out of here.
He opened the old, wooden door and stepped outside amidst the snowfall. It was only seconds later that he realised he had stepped on nothing. There was no ground. But the fall was important. The fall reminded him. Of everything.
The owl from Penny and the dinner and the stroll and the Muggle cars moving too fast and the crash and the scream and then...nothing. Nothing at all.