this chapter had to be re-written many times, and the ending was hard to write. there was something about it that was really just... it got to me. hopefully you feel the same thing too. this is another big time skip. in the last chapter, November was beginning and in this one, it goes towards the end of November instead. but for the next few chapters, time will hopefully slow down! :)

i also want to say that i will write comment replies for the chapter after because i am not feeling well!

Love and Old Black Shoes

Chapter Ten

"Hey, kid," Marcus was staring directly at Percy. No, this was not Markus the owner of the tattoo parlour, or Marcus Flint, the intellectually disabled student that only made an effort to learn colourful hexes – but Marcus Scarrs, the son of Markus Scarrs. Yes. It was confusing, but Percy did not really care for such semantics considering he was too busy wondering why he was not in his bed that extremely fine Monday morning.

"You're scaring the damn customers, walking around looking like you've inhaled the whole of Obertelli's Eating House! Nobody needs any post-war flashbacks from any raspberry sauce you have dribbling down your chin AND they're asking ME if your lunch breaks are never-ending!" in all honesty, Marcus did not give Percy long-enough lunch breaks in his opinion. After seeing enough gore to last a lifetime before ten in the morning, Percy believed his lunch break should extent from twelve that day to twelve the following week. "It ain't good on my reputation. I already have enough problems with stupid people claiming that they get these infections from my tattoos—I don't even sell 'em! I sell some pretty badass tattoos… BUT they should be bloody glad they got that Staph infection FOR FREE!"

"Yes, sir," Percy replied, trying to pretend he didn't hear any of what he just said to try and preserve his brain cells.

Marcus grunted. Was there a requirement that all blokes named Marcus look like they all consumed steroidal potions and had a questionable level of intelligence? Percy wondered dully.

Truth be told, his bottle of CHUBBY MUMMY'S WEIGHT GAINING SUPPLEMENT: WE MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE YOU PUT ON WEIGHT FOR A WHOLE 72 HOURS had a very unfortunate catch.

Apparently, chronic use had a very small side-effect that Percy had even missed on the fine print…

Chronic use made you bloody HUGE for the time that the potion was taking effect. Those 72 hours? A nightmare.

So now, without the potion, he looked like he was about to die of starvation and with the potion, he looked like he was about to bulge out of his clothing—like a sausage stuffed in its tiny casing. Percy did not know how to deal with this horrifying train wreck that he'd put himself in. He had gone from being impressively underweight sans potion to breaking the elastic off his sweatpants two nights ago after taking two bloody drops of the cursed thing!

Percy supposed that it was one of the lesser evils. He'd rather look like he always ate compared to the fact that he oscillated between eating ridiculously small amounts for days down to eating whole banoffee pies and silky chocolate mousse cakes because of how disgusting he actually looked like—again.

Percy had no idea how to remedy this situation, but he supposed that he'd send Marcus Scarrs – and Markus… and Marcus Flint – to the hospital due to heart attacks if he decided to come to work with his—err—'natural' appearance.

"You know, ever since we got you as a cashier," Marcus said, and Percy flinched because the word cashier sounded so… unimportant. He would rather be called The Exclusively Exclusive Currency Supervisor and Advisor, "I've been making more money but I've not been having more customers than usual. That's a mysterious thing."

"It is not at all mysterious, Mr Scarrs," Percy replied in a monotone voice. He wondered if there was a Dementor around because this job sucked the soul out of him. "I just do not steal out of the register like your previous workers."

"You don't?" Marcus looked shocked at the notion that there were workers that did not steal his property. "Wow, kid, you got some balls on you. For that, I'm going to keep your pay the same but I'm going to stop smacking you in the face with it because I respect you. Hell, you're the new employee of the month. Everyone should look up to you."

"It's difficult for most not to," Percy's voice was still indifferent. "I am over six feet tall after all."

The bloke guffawed like he'd swallowed one of George's Laughing Lollies... not yet on the market because the shop was still closed. And there was a minor side-effect of rats accidentally laughing themselves into a coma.

"Hey, Percy," one of the girls there, a young, black-haired girl by the name of Rochelle, moved to place a hand on his shoulder. "If you want to take a lunch break, you can you know. I bought an extra sandwich if you want something."

He gawked at her. "Miss Lamb, I assure you that I do not need a lunch break at eight in the morning."

Percy even took an extended lunch break yesterday. Unfortunately, he just did not use it efficiently. You see, bawling in the toilets was hardly an appropriate use of his time.

"Aren't you hungry?" Rochelle moved closer to him, and Percy was sure that Rochelle had a feeding fetish.

"After this conversation?" Percy's round, freckled cheeks went red. "Certainly not."

"Oh, I should've phrase myself better then," Rochelle had taken the cheese, tomato and ham toastie out of her box and shoved it to his chest. "Take a bloody break, Percy and go home. It's not even your shift today! Oh, and I know that you've been taking that stupid weight gaining supplement from Primpernelle's... You spend like twelve hours of the day here and I only ever see you eat crackers! HOW did you put on four stones on that regimen and how is everyone convinced that you could put that on in TWO WEEKS? Do people really have no understanding of biology?"

"It is hardly professional to leave in the middle of a shift," Percy said sternly. "And they are highly calorific crackers."

Rochelle then told on him, and Percy was kicked out of his job. So much for professional. Marcus Scarrs mentioned something about Percy overworking himself on purpose so that he could sue them. Percy scoffed.

If he was going to sue the tattoo parlour, it was for nearly blinding him with their kitschy body ink collection!

As he made his way to his house, Percy felt a heavy exhaustion weigh on his little body.

Ever since the confrontation with Bill and Fleur, Percy had lost any shard of determination that he had to even attempt to keep himself glued together by his weak little threads of okay-ness. He had planned to be dead in less than half a year, what was the bloody point? And how was it that time just seemed to pass by so quickly?

When he thought that days had passed, it had been weeks. He was consistently unaware of time.

Except when it was eight in the morning and people were telling him to go have a lunch break. Nutters.

He swore that just yesterday, Percy was at Fred's funeral. Just yesterday, he was the youngest junior assistant to the Minister for Magic. Just yesterday, he was trying to make sure that Fred and George didn't eat biscuits before dinner.

Just yesterday, he didn't even exist and there was only Bill and Charlie and the world was safe and warm.

Well, being at work certainly slowed it down. Percy hadn't fully recovered from the day that they accidentally poked a bloke's eye out and rendered him blind. And they still charged him seventy Galleons for the job—which he paid in full, and he seemed rather happy about the eye-poking incident because now, he could have a particularly dangerous sounding nickname and could make an elaborate story about how his eye wound was really a war wound! Ridiculous.

Typically, Percy worked behind the register, crunching numbers most of the time and very far away from the site of doom. Unfortunately, this was not far away enough from being subjected to the more horrific tattoo experiences.

Despite so much time passed, all Percy had to his name right now was an Employee of the Month plaque in Markus Scarrs' Indelible Tattoos and a fridge full of mouldy food because he'd kept on threatening Hermes with the spicy snacks that made his stomach upset when he'd tried to remind Percy to eat more than once every three days. Until he had a mental breakdown and consumed kilos of mouldy Greek yoghurt.

As he came to his flat, he had been surprised to see Audrey just standing there with an assault of bright purple shopping bags and glossy totes that reminded Percy that he could get a two for one deal on nail polish.

Percy did think that his finger beds were looking anaemic these days. Perhaps, he should take up that offer.

He tried to be as quiet as possible. How embarrassing. He chronically abused his weight gaining supplements because he was worried about what his employer thought of his protruding clavicles. But honestly, Percy was aware that without said potion, he looked worse than ever. Without the potion, Percy felt like he was almost in the nude. He was suddenly aware of every fat cell that should exist but had melted off when he'd shoved down four cups of tea and called it dinner for the fifth time that bloody week.

Apparently, his one-man Fast for Fred campaign did not seem to help bring Fred back from the dead... pitiful.

As he turned to unlock his door, he could practically feel Audrey's eyes on him. Percy turned to open his door, and looked up to see Audrey pulling her bags protectively around her. Percy ran his hand down his neck because he felt like he looked like he'd once been engaged to the Fat Lady many eons ago.

Her face then melted into excitement and then she beamed at him. "Percy, you are SO cute!" she shrieked.

Percy's cheeks coloured in and the only thing he could blurt out was, "I EAT CALORIFIC CRACKERS!"

Audrey giggled, before she wrapped her arms around him. "You put on a little! You have this adorable little belly!"

"Little?" Percy echoed. Fine. He might admit that he was exaggerating his weight gain slightly.

To him and to his work place that saw him balloon, he looked like he was the gigantic blueberry that he had once seen in a muggle film starring a poor child that ended up in a chocolate factory (which did not exist much to Percy's chagrin.) To everyone else, he was a normal sized bloke that had a somewhat soft middle and giant arse.

"Yes, it's so small!" Audrey then did something that Percy thought was horrifying—she cupped his belly into small fistfuls into her pale hands, and he stared at her in pure horror. "And I love it! Percy, do you want a milkshake? I can make you once with brownies, and dark chocolate! I can even put squirty cream on top!"

"Brownies?" Percy echoed in horror. "I look like a candidate for muggle bypass surgery!"

"BYPASS? What makes you think that?" Audrey was making him deaf to boot. "Let me guess… you had to buy a MEDIUM for the first time in your life instead of the non-existent size that you usually wear?"

Percy's cheeks coloured in. "Err… that is correct."

She rolled her eyes but then she looked like she remembered something. She moved away and smacked his arm. Percy did not understand how Audrey shifted between emotions so quickly because one second ago, he was 'cute'.

"OH MY GOD, I JUST REMEMBERED THAT YOU'RE AN ARSEHOLE!" Audrey yelled. Percy did not know how she forgot that. That was his personality. "WHY didn't you visit Ron in the hospital yet?"

"Because he sent me very elaborately worded death threats telling me not to go?" Percy raised an eyebrow.

"That's not excuse!" Audrey's cheeks went red. "Well, it is sort of an excuse."

Percy swallowed the lump in his throat. Ron had used very abusive language in his owl. Sometimes, Percy wondered if Ron had any good ways of making Percy suffer as he succumbed to a long and perilous death.

"I…" Audrey did not look happy but she seemed to have marginally calmed down. "I'm just really glad that you're still not the size of a small, sick Calico cat or else I'd be thoroughly pissed at you and—"

She paused again and then realised something else. It seemed that Audrey's smoothies made her extra smart today.

"OH MY GOD, you're using that weight gaining potion thing, aren't you? The one I keep on telling you NOT to use?"

He didn't have to say anything because she knew the answer.

"You have a death wish, don't you?" Audrey snapped. Her demeanour was changing for the ten millionth time that day. Percy doubted that she thought he was cute now. She probably thought that he was atrocious and stupid. Unfortunately, Percy could not defend himself against those claims because they were true. "Percy, you're such a CHILD."

"I am not!" Percy knew how childish that sounded like but, err…

"You must be joking," Audrey shook her head.

Percy just cracked afterwards. "AUDREY, PLEASE! I DO NOT JOKE!"

Audrey flinched and he felt guilty—momentarily before the rush of emotion had him saying things that he didn't think he would tell anyone. At least not now. Percy supposed it was better to keep it in a suicide note.

"Why is it that everyone else could be struggling and not be condemned for it, but I cannot?" Percy's shoulders sagged. "Why in Merlin's name do I always have to be fine and if I'm not, I deserve to be shouted at like a misbehaved child? I suppose that if your gigantic brick-house brother suddenly lost weight and refused to eat anything, you wouldn't be calling him stupid or childish… I certainly wouldn't if George suddenly decide to go on a hunger strike!"

He felt like he'd accidentally shown someone a piece of him he shouldn't have. It left him quite troubled.

"Oh, my poor sad Percival that lost three quarters of his body weight," Audrey responded acerbically, and the words cut deeper than he expected because he just told her something that had been in his head for months now, but he hadn't had the courage to say. "Percival, we are not asking you to do much. We are asking you to eat at least three times a day. I cannot believe that you are finding that difficult."

"If I eat three times a day, then I will most likely throw it back up," Percy snapped back.

He felt nauseous even before he ate. He was always nauseous.

"It's all in your head, Percy! You won't throw up if you eat more than three times a week, I'm SURE!" Audrey crossed her arms around her chest. "People need you. Your family needs you. I even need you—did you know that I bothered to go to the crazy magical hospital where they have Ron in the DRAGON BURN UNIT because I care? And I don't even know him! And I accidentally called him Rupert because he reminds me of a… non-magical actor!"

Percy just shook his head. He felt like he had poured his heart out and she had rejected him.

"You're…" Percy stared at her with a vacant expression. You're wrong. You're wrong. It's not in my head. It cannot be in my head. I am trying so bloody hard to pretend that I am fine, but I cannot consume food the way I normally do. Why is it so hard for people to believe that I literally forget to eat for days when it isn't hard for people to believe that I can't stop eating?

"You're right," Percy said in a soft voice. "I will sort myself out."

His heart was aching in his chest, and he felt so defeated. He nodded his head at her. "Thank you," he whispered.

He turned to walk back into his flat, trying to forget the fact that he was getting told off. Again.

Going back to his flat was a tedious experience. He did not feel relieved because he knew he would have to wake up early the following day to go to a job he excelled at but absolutely despised. Percy did not even know why he was working. He was suddenly afraid that somehow, he'd need to pay for something in the last few months of his life.

Percy contemplated quitting multiple times in a day, but couldn't not write the first words to his resignation letter.

The weight he'd put on in months, he'd lost again in what felt like days. It seemed like it was only yesterday he was at the Burrow, but it had been two weeks since he'd dared enter the Burrow or Shell Cottage after the confrontation.

Why was this so difficult? Audrey was right. It was simply eating three times a day. If he did that, he could convince everyone else that he was just fine. Instead, they saw him as he saw himself… a relentless failure.

He threw himself over at his desk, buried his head into his arms and cried like the child that Audrey insisted that he was. At this point, Percy felt entirely pathetic. He looked up at the window, and felt Hermes peck at his elbow. Hermes was staring at him, and Percy tried to pull his owl close to him, burying his head against his extremely large body. Hermes was a plump owl, almost the size of a small pillow.

Percy took off his work clothes, which he hoped nobody would see him in because it made him look like a criminal.

He threw on the first awful sweatshirt he saw, and a pair of baggy sweatpants (they were baggy originally but not on this stretched, plump skin) and threw himself on his bed. Percy buried his head into his pillow, and tried to fall asleep because if he did not, he'd claw his blood vessels out of his hand.

He had spent most of his time laid in his bed, and only bothered getting up to check on the potion he was brewing.

Or to find something seriously horrifying to do to himself. Most days, Percy could not find anything extremely terrible to do to himself, and then just ended up breaking down and falling asleep. Wonderful.

Oh, he had forgotten to mention that he had chosen how he was going to kill himself ages ago. He had decided on brewing an ancient pain potion to kill himself with. This pain potion was previously used to torture Death Eaters, but was withdrawn from the market when they realised that Dementors were a crueller way to punish them.

Percy was going to lie in a pool of pain potion in a bath tub in his locked flat until he died—which according to his accurate calculations were approximately… oh, just a fortnight.

Yes, he was going to lie in a pool of an acidic potion that was going to slowly burn through his skin and then his internal organs and he will feel all of it and not be able to do anything because Percy had specifically made another potion to take with it that would make him able to feel everything but not move a singular muscle for a month—which was more than enough time for him to feel his body dissolving into nothing as he succumbed to his death. He could not think of a more gruesome way to die. Honestly, Percy wouldn't have tortured Rockwood in this manner.

He could not think of another human being that he loathed as much as himself.

Percy shuddered at the thought of that. He felt a sick satisfaction knowing that when they were going to form the autopsy report, they were going to know just how long he'd spent planning this because the potion took so long to brew. He had already arranged his funeral and he had already written his will, which was not unusual considering a war just happened and the prospect of death wasn't fleeting from anyone's mind. He'd written it in unicorn ink, of course… Percy reminisced with a sad smile. Because he needed to count on all the lucky stars he had.

Now, all he had to do was wait for time to pass.

Percy had been spending his time checking on the potion every minute, even though he knew himself that the potion needed a week to settle before he'd add in the next step. It was a long and laborious task.

Fortunately, Percy had 12 N.E.W.T's and was finally going to be able to use them for something productive!

Unfortunately, he had miscalculated, and the potion would take approximately a year and two months to complete, which meant that he'd have to delay his suicide for another two months. Instead of killing himself in May to come in accordance with Fred's death, he'd have to do so in July. Horrible and extremely untraditional.

In other unexciting news, Percy hadn't consumed anything in approximately a week, and Hermes had been rooting through his fridge for him and giving him packets of chocolate that hadn't gone rancid or whole-grain crackers that tasted like Ice Mice—well, the packet that they came in anyway. Percy had refused anything his owl would give him because he just felt so unsettled. He constantly felt like he was only seconds away from projectile vomiting. He didn't know why the confrontation with Bill left him in such a broken state that Percy couldn't even fathom the thought of putting himself back together. He'd exhausted all his Reparo's on other people and left nothing for himself. It was perhaps the realisation that to his family, he would not amount to anything but Perfect Prefect Percy and that thought pained him to this point or the realisation that it had been two weeks since he last had contact with anyone other than Hermes and the bloke at the tattoo parlour in Knockturn Alley and nobody seemed to really notice that he wasn't there. Not counting the fact that Audrey just told him that he should stop being a child and to visit poor Ron.

What about THEM visiting HIM? He could be dead for all they knew. Or all they cared really, Percy thought spitefully. Why was he the one that had to apologise? Why was it such a crime for him to still find it hard to come to terms with Fred's death when everyone else could be in pain?

Why couldn't everyone else be wrong? Why did it have to be him?

That bright, sunny Wednesday morning, Percy decided to take a shower.

Embarrassingly enough, it was his first time in two weeks that he had even bothered to do this. He shaved the facial hair that he was growing and cut off the mane that he was sporting that could rival with Bill's.

Doing this took three hours of his day, and he was already crumbling with exhaustion.

Percy refused to get out of bed, but Hermes simply would not let him just stay in bed all day today, so he sighed and for the first time in two weeks, he'd actually decided that he would go visit Ron, who was still in the hospital—well, first he put some clothes on and took a dose of CHUBBY MUMMY'S WEIGHT GAINING SUPPLEMENT: WE MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE YOU PUT ON WEIGHT FOR A WHOLE 72 HOURS. He watched his skin become engorged with a thick layer of padding he was still not used to. Lovely. But he had to because he knew that he had officially surpassed his previous low weight. Percy wouldn't dare hop on a scale to confirm a number when a mirror sufficed. He was so thin he was mortified even thinking about going outside looking the way he did.

When he got to St Mungo's (after trying to convince himself that it would not be the end of the world—which took a full two hours of him chattering mindlessly to himself), he was quick to find Ron's room.

It was not hard to find the room of someone that had flaming red hair and was covered in freckles and burns.

Ron was sat on the bed, glaring at Percy, and the dragon burns that he had looked like they were healing. Harry and Hermione were standing by the window. Percy could hear Hermione complaining about how Harry and Ron should've been more careful during their Auror missions. Percy clung onto his old, tattered bag, and moved closer to them. Harry was staring at him with a hardened facial expression, and Percy felt himself shrink.

Percy clung onto his bag as tightly as he could, and before he walked closer to Ron, he heard someone walking in as well. He turned around and saw that George, Ginny and Molly were there, and Percy felt even smaller. What a feat considering that most of the time, he felt like a battered sausage roll.

He was being stared at. Percy felt like an abomination standing there, being stared at.

"Where were YOU at for the last two weeks? Stuck in an all-you-can-eat buffet?" Ron spat out.

George cocked his head to one side. "I like it. It brings out the stick in your arse more."

Percy's cheeks coloured in. "Err… um…" he missed his family, but being here was painful too.

Ron just jumped up from his bed, ignoring his magical re-filling IV line—which tightened around his wrist because it was enchanted for patients-jumps-out-of-bed-because-the-brother-they-hated-was-there situations. He grabbed Percy by his arms, holding them so tightly that Percy felt his arms start to bruise.

"RON!" Molly yelled in surprise. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"You bloody asshole," Ron did not look happy to see him, seeing as he was busy strangling his arms and compromising the bloody supply to his body. "Why did you bother visiting? Did you run out of working hours at your new bloody job, you little arsehole? Or did you want to inhale the cheap chocolates everyone's gotten me yesterday? Did you bloody know that I've been here for TWO WEEKS!?"

You sent me death threats telling me not to come here! Percy wanted to say, but why bother? Nobody would listen.

Percy looked away from Ron, and then nodded his head. "You're right," he said in a low voice. "It's unacceptable."

He was tired of defending himself. Nothing he said mattered.

"TWO BLOODY WEEKS AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO COME SEE ME! HARRY AND HERMIONE DID! BUT YOU HATE HARRY! YOU NEVER EVEN BOTHER APOLOGISING TO HIM, EVEN AFTER HE SAVED US ALL!" Ron yelled out, and Percy was becoming deaf, but he still slowly nodded his head.

"I'm sure that he—" Harry was now flustered.

Percy turned to Harry and gave him a nod. "I actually am sorry, Harry. I—" his voice was soft.

"I WISH THAT YOU HAD DIED INSTEAD OF FRED!" when Ron said that, Percy flinched.

Percy could not deny that sentiment. He was sure that George used to believe that Percy had killed Fred before, and now, Ron had verbally told him what Percy had been wishing all along: that it was him that had died instead.

He stared at the ground, with glossy bright blue eyes.

"Get out of my room," Ron ordered. "I don't want you around here."

He looked back at George, Ginny and his mum who apparently were so shocked that they could not say a thing, but Percy didn't want to stay around anymore. However, he did because he was sick of people telling him that he did not care. He was sick of being in this cycle of coming back only to be thrown out.

Percy sat his arse down onto the chair just beside Ron, and pulled his leg across his lap.

Ron looked absolutely pissed, but Hermione chose the time to sit next to Percy and place her hand on his own.

"He's going through a difficult time even if he's not saying so," she explained, and Percy nodded his head, as if he understood but he didn't understand. He was going through a difficult time as well, but he did not just tell someone else that he wished that it was them that had died.

Percy sighed deeply. "It's perfectly fine."

"Perfectly fine?" Ron reiterated in a mock tone. "You have no bloody soul."

Percy closed his eyes and he wished so very badly that his owl was here.

Hermes knew the whole story and about how Percy was going to torture himself very slowly over a period of two weeks until he died. Yes… Percy had talked to his bloody owl about it.

The only person he felt comfortable enough talking to was his OWL. How pathetic was that?

He could not even write this down in a personal diary because diaries were stolen (typically by family members) and read to the general public. Humiliating. And he could not tell it to people because people told on him and then yelled at him for daring to feel pain whilst simultaneously saying that he had no emotion. He only had Hermes.

He sat there and drank cheap hospital coffee with everyone else.

Percy tried to shrink into his seat and pretend he didn't exist. It did not help his situation.

He ran his fingers up the rim of his cup. Audrey thought he was childish and wondered how difficult it was for him to eat three times a day and Ron just told him he wished it was him that had died. Hermione told him to ignore it because Ron was having a hard time and thus, it was completely acceptable.

Percy wondered why he bothered staying alive for this long when his life had practically been a downhill trajectory ever since he'd been born. He could not imagine his situation getting worse.

He remembered the days where he was motivated to be noticed, motivated to get people to love him, motivated to be the best brother, the best kind of friend, the best boyfriend, the best student and the best employee.

He did not understand how someone could be so invisible when he was covered in freckles, was over six feet tall and had bright red hair, but nobody noticed him—not even his teachers noticed him. Percy was consistently compared to someone else. But some point, he just wasn't even worth the comparison. His teachers had such high expectations of him, and for some reason, he didn't meet them. But Percy was so sure one day that they will see how much heart he had in him. His motivation was what kept everything inside of him alive. Percy was SO sure that the next thing that he was going to do was going to make people see who he really was underneath all that arrogance and cockiness that had become an integral part of his personality. It was the only thing that kept him from breaking into pieces.

Right now, as he was sitting here, having been told off by his younger brother, Percy had no pride at all. He carried himself like he was about worth as much as a blood-thirsty Flitterby. And nobody seemed to notice the change.

That night, the dragon burns were healing so well that they had even considered discharging him.

It made Percy feel guilty momentarily, because he wondered how bad they had been if they considered it enough of an improvement to discharge him. He looked like he was a half-burned toastie that Percy normally tossed in the bin without a second look. However, everyone was insistent he looked MUCH better than he had before.

They had gotten to the Burrow at around eight in the evening, and the first thing that Percy did was notice that everything was clean for once even though he hadn't been there in weeks. But at the same time, nothing changed.

Nobody was really the same as they were before. This house wasn't the same no matter how it looked.

Percy told Ginny and George that he was going to his flat to pick up all his things and back. He denied their company multiple times, and insisted that he'd actually come back. And he genuinely planned to. He went to his flat, packed all his things, even his potion, which was sat settling in a dark place—and would require at least three weeks of settling before he moved onto the next step—and little things like the banana that he'd been trying to eat for the whole week that had nearly gone bad, and the giant box of snacks that he had bought for Hermes last week to celebrate his birthday.

He went downstairs, paid his last rent, and mentioned that he was moving out tonight.

Percy felt a small twinge of pain, thinking of leaving Audrey. He had the landlady yell at him about rules and regulations that he cared about deeply usually, but he did not care about right then. He tried to subdue her and mention parts of his situation and managed to get through drab paperwork that he had to fill out.

Percy did not remember any of the questions on the paper, or how late it was when he left. He didn't know how many minutes or how many hours he spent staying there or how the landlady looked like.

He didn't know how why she gave him a tray of shortbread biscuits when she was so upset with him moments ago. He didn't know why he sat in the muggle bus all by himself, as he greedily chowed down on a whole tray of shortbread biscuits—and his rotten a banana. Or at least he tried to.

Percy ate three shortbread biscuits, and half his banana before he found himself getting off at a stop that wasn't his and violently vomiting all over the street. Percy didn't remember how he had gotten there either, or how the biscuits tasted like in his mouth. He vaguely recalled that the banana wasn't sweet, and contemplating what kind of coat that he chose to wear that night—even though it wasn't that cold outside. Percy vaguely remembered one or two questions off the form that he had submitted, and what colour he last saw Audrey wearing that day. He vaguely remembered feeling an ache in his arm as he ate the tasteless biscuits, and the sound of two laughing children behind him. As he vaguely remembered these very specific things, he threw up again.

Percy placed his hands on his thighs, noticing how badly his fingers were trembling.

He had forgotten what day it was. He was trying to remember but instead, all he could think about was the fact that Ron had told him that he wished that it was him that was dead, and it just made his whole chest burn.

Hot tears were running down his cheeks and he sobbed recklessly in the middle of a busy muggle street.

Percy was feeling very weak suddenly, and found himself sat on the ground. He was so humiliated that he had vomited and cried in a busy street where everyone was moving past him, and leaving him alone to sob to himself. He tried to keep to himself as much as he could, taking deep breaths as his eyes stung. He could somewhat smell the disgusting sickly-sweet smell of his own sick but most importantly, he could feel his head spinning. He couldn't remember, besides today, how long it had been since he'd last had something that was not a hot beverage.

After sitting there for what felt like hours but was indeed only thirty minutes, Percy got up to carry on his journey back to the Burrow.

He didn't reach the Burrow until very late at night. Approximately the latest—or rather earliest—that he had ever arrived to any destination. It was nearly five in the morning.

And when he had gotten to the door, he realised that it was locked. It was almost funny at that point.

For some reason, being locked outside of the Burrow combined with how tired and exhausted and just thoroughly done he felt like made him sink down to the tattered Welcome mat that they had. He curled his legs up to his chest, and buried his head into his knees. It had gotten colder outside, and it was so nice to sit there even. It felt… it felt almost good, if it wasn't so depressing. He suddenly remembered how it felt like to be small and rejected. It hurt.

Then he felt two hands pull him to his feet and he groggily opened his eyes and noticed a red-headed angel. He was so exhausted. Percy was used to sleeping at least ten hours a day, and he had gotten through an average of three hours per day in the last few days. He had smiled at the angel, and felt his head pounded as he was being guided inside the house. He was shaking from the cold, but it was a pleasant sensation somehow. Percy could not remember much of that either, but the world was blurry. All he could remember was his sausage-like fingers, and the fact that he was smiling in a way that made him feel like he was either delirious or drugged of potions.

He remembered being tucked into bed by someone else, and did not know who but he had told Merlin to bless them.

Percy fell asleep for whole days after that, only waking up to drink some of the water that was there on the table, and to ensure that his stomach was still bloated with potion. By the time that Percy really woke up, he knew that it was the twenty-fifth of November, and it was approximately noon. He could recall what happened that night suddenly vividly. How embarrassing and heinous. Percy was ashamed of himself.

He smiled to himself. Bill had opened the door and it was his mother that had tucked him into bed that night.