i am absolutely shattered. the only way i was going to update this was if i didn't do any comment replies. i totally appreciate your comments, guys though! it's what makes me want to update this fanfiction!
this chapter mentions what was happening with George (since he was with the rest of the Weasley's), finding the letter, etc. and then mentions where we'd last cut off. so you're going to have a mini-recap in George's point of view (with a lighter beginning to the chapter with him in the hospital)... i just didn't know how else to write it so bear with me! and the next one is Arthur's point of view. i'm purposefully avoiding a Percy POV so that i could get some of the other POV's. i'm so sorry, i'm so tired i didn't know who asked me this, but about a Ginny or Ron chapter... it will be absolutely out of character for me as i can barely write them in a few sentences here and there! i'd love to, i just don't want to completely butcher the characters so i only write POV's that i know i can sort of make believable or realistic enough (at least i hope that that's what i'm getting at anyway!)
Love and Black Shoes
Chapter Twenty
George had been discharged only a few hours after he was admitted because he stopped upchucking Pixie Puffs all over the wall. But hey, at least the other stuff that he ate came up easy! Though George doubted his mum slaved over the stove that morning just for her porridge oats to end up decorating the hospital floor… and wall… and his robes.
Oh, and the nurse's robes… and the table… and he bet there was some on Charlie's shoes! It drastically improved them!
Yes, he only ate a whole bowl of Pixie Puffs and a sad bowl of porridge oats with a sliced banana in it that morning! His stomach had been acting up, so he skipped the fried toast that he usually had with this. But seriously! The only time he ate something healthy for breakfast, and he got sick! What a load of augurey bollocks!
What good was eating bananas if they didn't counteract the effects of thirteen measly little sleeping draught phials?
When it came to times like these, George tried not to think of the fact that Percy sometimes went DAYS without eating and made it look like it was normal! George felt like the only being in the universe that could go days without eating was the ghoul they had in the attic—and even he liked to help himself to a flobberworm every now and then!
By the third shade of yellow he had expelled from his stomach, George had stopped feeling the urge to vomit!
But then Ron, Merlin kill him in his sleep through suffocation, started to talk about how much he liked sleeping with Hermione and George felt his nausea come back tenfold. George wanted to thoroughly mention that those two events were entirely related—he believed the peak of his nausea was when Ron started to mention to Harry the type of lingerie that Hermione wore. George's gag reflex was stimulated for at least five minutes after trying to imagine Hermione sexily standing by the bed with her horrible attempts to seduce him how much she liked big books. Hermione was the sort of bird that you somehow imagined taking a shower in full robes! The only time George could think of her interested in anything sexual was if it a long report about the reproductive lifestyle of common Herbology plants!
Not to mention, George felt like if he tried to go down on Hermione, he'd end up in the Forbidden Frizzy Forest!
So, after that traumatising incident, they were off their merry way with the intention of going home!
Well, they were going home but George insisted to stop for a Chinese because he hadn't had enough breakfast and he had just emptied his stomach of its contents. He was practically running on empty—if not on a deficient because he lost bodily fluids. So, he ate a massive fat Chinese takeaway and then received a fortune cookie that told him that someone that he loved was in a perilous situation right now!
At first, George thought that the cookie was talking about Charlie's serious post-potion abuse constipation issue but then he concluded it was obviously related to Puddlemere United's most recent game! Every time those trollops played nowadays, George had to pretend that he actually paid people back in bets and that his team's losing streak was going to end by next game. If they got any worse, they'd make the Chudley Canons look like they knew which end of the broom they should shove up their arses this year when they lost to the most pathetic teams in the league—again.
Then they tried to go home, but George had a mental breakdown about how much he hated himself because he was alive, and Fred wasn't. Nothing shocking. In fact, the breakdown lasted less than twenty minutes. All was well after!
And then, after that, they came home. George was getting ready to go upstairs to his room to ignore everyone when he heard his mum screeching like poor Errol did when he was about to slam into the window for the fifth time that week. George immediately ran back downstairs, and he realised… that his mother stubbed her toe on the table. Ouch!
The worst thing was when he left, he stubbed his own toe on the table! The blasted fortune cookie was right after all!
After that, George decided to go see if Percy was in his room because he wanted to talk to him about how much of an arsehole he'd been the past few weeks and that he totally didn't mean it when he implied that he was a gigantic prat in the last… well, twenty years! And George was sorry for that time that when he and Fred were about five and they told Percy that his freckles were really dragon pox and Percy ended up crying for a week because he thought that he was going to die? Their mum bit their head off for that one! But—
Blimey, George's thought process broke when he noticed the fact that Percy's owl made Errol look sane! He snorted and inched closer to Percy's door. That fat arse probably ate too many party rings!
"Hey, Perce," he opened the door, 'forgetting' to knock. "We're back from…"
The second that George walked into Percy's room, he felt the whole world suddenly stop.
All he could focus on was the fact that the whole room was COVERED IN BLOOD.
George knew it had to be PERCY'S blood! Who else's blood would it have been if not Percy? Suddenly, all George could think about was every wrong thing that he'd ever told Percy. George's thoughts were racing faster than a snitch, faster than George had time to process them! He suddenly felt very warm and very cold at the same time…
WHERE the hell was he? How in Merlin's name did he lose this much blood and LIVE?
Was he alive? George's mind was going down that route. But it shouldn't go down that route! Percy was fine a few hour ago! What happen? Did he apparate away to Diagon Alley for a coffee and forget half his blood volume at home!
But Percy had to be… well, Percy HAD to be alright because… because…
HE JUST HAD TO BE! PERCY SAVED HIS LIFE! HE CAN'T DIE! HE CAN'T EVER DIE! HE WAS… TOO PERFECT!
Hermes suddenly tried to shove this envelope into George's face.
"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?!" George blew up towards Hermes, who dropped the letter and flew away.
George kneeled to the floor and tore the envelope. "Stupid bloody owl... I want to burn you, you stupid animal!"
He just skimmed through the giant wall of text. His mind only zeroing in on the words of words like funeral and bury me in the backyard. And the DATE. This was dated YESTERDAY! His mind felt numb and frozen, like he couldn't understand words. George felt hot tears start to run down his hot cheeks.
George ran to the bathroom, his eyes searing. "PERCY!" his hands were shaking.
Why in Merlin's name Percy would be in the bathroom? Or the shed? Or the kitchen where he never was because he was suffering from a state of chronic malnutrition? Or the bloody front yard where he wanted them to bury him at?
He ran around the house, running in circles because his head was running in more circles than an intoxicated Chaser.
George stopped in front of the Weasley family clock, panting heavily after spending the last five minutes wasting his time. His hands were shaking even more because George remembered that his father took away Percy's handle because of him! Because HE kept on having fits about how much he hated Percy and how much he…
I don't hate you I don't hate you I don't hate you… Percy if you die I'll never ever not ever forgive you!
George shook his head violently, sobbing uncontrollably. "WHERE IS PERCY'S HANDLE?! WHERE IS IT?!"
Molly poked her head from the kitchen. What the bloody hell was she doing in the fucking kitchen all the time—
"WHERE IS HIS HANDLE?! WHERE WHERE WHERE WHERE?" George's words were muddling together.
He was holding tightly onto the clock, like it was just going to tell him that everything was okay, and that he was imaging things. And that Percy didn't lose half his blood volume and plan his… suicide! SUICIDE!
Arthur came downstairs, holding Percy's rusty clock handle into his hands. "What are you—?"
George grabbed the handle and forcibly shoved it back into the clock, who seemed to seize under George's sudden violent tendencies. "TAKE IT, YOU STUPID CLOCK! TELL ME WHERE PERCY IS… NOW!"
Only a few seconds afterwards did the handle point towards HOSPITAL. George felt like throwing up again.
And what was BILL DOING IN THE HOSPITAL WITH HIM? Wait, Bill pardoned himself for being a giant git and came back home to talk to Percy about the fact that he purposely made him miss Ginny's wedding—which she was holding this princess-like grudge about! BILL must've seen… what made Percy lose all that blood…
"George," Arthur inched closer and placed a hand on George's shoulder.
Percy was with Arthur for at least half the day. And he didn't feel comfortable enough to tell him that he was planning on somehow mutilating himself to the point where there was somehow blood on the ceiling of his room.
"IF PERCY DIES, THIS IS YOUR FAULT! IT'S YOUR FAULT!" George suddenly shouted at his father.
Arthur placed his hands on George's shoulders. "Calm down, G—" Arthur paused. "What's wrong with Percy?"
George couldn't say anything, but Arthur was shaking George now by his shoulders. "What's wrong with my son?"
"Oh, now, he's your son!" George sounded out. "Now that he's in trouble, he's suddenly your son!"
His father went so red he matched that miniscule tuft of hair he had on his face.
"Did… he do anything…" George choked out in a tired voice, "…anything weird today? Something unlike himself?"
"NO!" Arthur shook his head. "I took him to see Audrey. He wasn't happy about that. And he didn't want to eat any of Honeyduke's Happy Holidays Honeycomb that I bought for him, even though he loves it! I thought that it was probably because it was not a holiday and Percy was proper about these things… doesn't eat Christmas pudding at any time of the year other than Christmas! Well, that may be because Molly's Christmas pudding is a poor representation of any pudding I've ever tasted. In fact, I think my stomach is still digesting the one I've had last Christmas but—"
Arthur cut himself off. "Well, he was drinking something this morning and I hadn't the daftest what it was! Looks like a botchy-coloured Strengthening Solution with bits of Cheeri-Owls on the bottom!"
Strengthening Solution! He bet the colour was miles off because his father failed Potions in school.
But that had to be it! George rationalised. Percy's…. death-inducing potion! That he took, in the MORNING?
This and the letter just confirmed to George that Percy had spent the whole day, with this thought in his head that he wanted to die but he didn't feel like he could tell anyone.
"It isn't a bloody STRENTHENING SOLUTION!" George shoved the letter to his father's chest, his hands still shaking. He shook his head in disbelief, trying to process the fact that on the same day that George had accidentally overdosed on a phial, Percy had intentionally taken something that was meant to kill him HOURS before George came to him.
George felt lightheaded, like Fred had whacked him with his Beater's bat!
Arthur read the letter and he was so pale he made the Bloody Baron look lively and full of energy. "Oh."
His father cleared his throat, and placed a hand on George's shoulder. "Sit down," he instructed softly. "I'll call your mum, your sister and your brothers and we can go see Percy in the hospital, alright?"
"Bill is with him," George sounded out. He didn't know why this bit of information was so important for him to say!
I should be there! NOT Bill! was all that George could think about. He didn't want to wait for his family to come with.
George's hands were trembling. He wanted to say that he hated Percy for doing this, but really, he just hated himself for not noticing that this was happening right in front of his eyes. This was why Percy kept mentioning his death and his tombstones and what kind of ghost he'd be after he'd passed away! Then he remembered that Percy was preparing for his O.W.L's at his first year, so of course, he'd had his mind set on this for ages. It made George sick to think about it, because he remembered how scary it was that he wanted to die. He didn't feel like himself. Percy had this planned for ages, so he must have felt like that all the time. And that scared George because he couldn't handle it for more than a few minutes without just wanting to rip out his hair and choke on his own vomit.
He heard plates break and sobbing entailing afterwards. George hugged his knees to his chest. His mum knew now!
He always knew that deep down, that Percy purposely tried to burn himself! How come George was the only one that bloody picked up on that anyway? It wasn't like Percy was particularly subtle about anything. He got paler by the day and every time he bought new robes that fit him, they'd hang off him the next week! George wasn't even sure how Percy got so skinny so fast in the first place. And he just kept on looking worse every week. What were they waiting for anyway? For him to die because his body started eating his heart muscle from how skinny he was?
George stayed silent. Minutes felt like hours, and hours felt like seconds.
There was a lot of screaming and crying involved in the kitchen. This time, not just mum's voice, but also Ginny, Charlie and Ron, who two hours ago had agreed to stay home to make sure that George didn't off himself tonight.
After another hour of screaming and shouting, they ended up in St Mungo's.
All that George heard was that Percy and Bill were in the treatment room (which George low-key knew was used for emergency surgical procedures using wands, vacuums and wires… he wasn't sure where he knew this bit of information from but like it bloody mattered. He knew Hermione told him that muggles called it an operating theatre).
They waited outside, and watched healers and nurse frantically running around.
George and the rest of his family sat outside the treatment room. The whole world felt like it stopped. Charlie got everyone coffee, and sat down beside George. He offered him one, and George took it just to have something hot to drink to steady his nerves. He just didn't feel like he was there anymore, but he wasn't thinking of anything. He felt like he'd eaten a packet of Ice Mice and it all went to his brain because he was shaking, and his mind was cold.
They waited there for a while.
George felt like he had every crack memorised and had made up his mind about what shade of death covered the walls. He noticed his mum's hair looked almost neat—like she hadn't had an altercation with a Whomping Willow. His father had his hand on his robes. George didn't realise how old they both looked like until today—the wrinkling in their hands, and the sadness in their faces. George didn't know how it must be like to lose your child before you died.
He didn't know how it was like to know that two of your children tried to kill themselves both in the same day.
He glanced over at Ginny, who suddenly looked about six. She was placing her hand on Ron, who was mumbling angry things that George knew meant nothing because they were both terrified. Except Ginny was okay with showing off how terrified he was and Ron tried to turn that terror into anger, but his mask seemed so fake that even sad little George could see right through it. George glanced to Charlie, who was sat beside him looking vacantly at the wall like George had been doing for a while now. He hadn't had a sip of the coffee that he bought for them. Charlie didn't look scared as much as he looked heartbroken. But ever so often, there was this sudden lapse of fear.
They probably reread his suicide note so many times that it was imprinted in their brains.
As George grasped the fact that Percy had not only killed himself but was in the treatment room for five hours because of the way that he killed himself, he wondered if Percy was actually going to be alright afterwards.
He didn't know what had actually happened that made Percy lose so much blood. His mind hadn't even begun to fathom what Percy had taken. And up until seven hours later, when Bill walked out of the room, robe absolutely covered in Percy's blood and other white, slimy bits that George also assumed was a part of Percy that he realised how bad the situation was. His heart was suddenly racing, and he looked up at Bill with those shining, horrified eyes.
Before Bill could say a word, a dark-haired healer walked towards them and told him about the potion that Percy had taken. He didn't remember the specifics after he heard the words torture-inducing potion that mimicked the Cruciatus curse in a concentrated form, only need two drops for an effect when George knew he drank a whole phial and took a year to brew.
He kept shaking his head in disbelief.
A YEAR. PERCY HAD BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS FOR A YEAR! A YEAR AND HE HADN'T BLOODY CHANGED HIS MIND ABOUT IT! George trying to contemplate feeling the way he felt like today, when he took the potions and tried to think about feeling that way for a year and his mind just couldn't do it.
Then after that, all he could think about was all the terrible things he'd said to Percy this year. From the moment that he came into the house and he said that he wanted Fred dead, down to the last few months where he kept on mentioning how he tricked Fred and that he didn't care about anyone other than himself. The months that he'd spent burning all of Percy's Christmas sweaters and chucking his handle off the clock. George was sure that he intentionally destroyed at least 95% of Percy's wardrobes, his things and his books in the last few months, screaming and shouting about how Percy cared about his things more than he cared about this family.
If George hadn't felt awful by then, he felt about a million times worse when they took Percy out of the treatment room and he was covered in bandages. He didn't look like a human being. He just looked like things stitched together to look like a human being. They'd shaved off his hair and took off his glasses! If it wasn't for the fact that he was the only six-foot-two bloke in the world that weighed less than seven stone, George wouldn't have even considered that that stretchy lump of skin and bone was, twenty-four hours ago, HIS BROTHER.
He felt like his brain wasn't digesting any of this. One minute Percy was fine, the next he was being transferred to the intensive care on the third floor because they needed to keep a close eye on him!
George couldn't bear to look at his family. He could hear crying and weeping but he just stayed silent and numb.
Oh, and the debate that they had about waking up Percy was a joke! George didn't know what in Merlin's name he would say to Percy if he woke up, if Percy woke up not screaming bloody murder! He looked like his battered stuffed crumple-horned snorkack and they wanted to wake him up? What for?
When Bill mentioned the fact that Percy could die any minute, George was on the fence.
He didn't want to think about the fact that Percy could die at any minute, but he also didn't want to think he'd forced Percy to wake up and be in bone-crushing PAIN just because he couldn't stand the thought of him having a kip!
If Percy could somehow withstand the pain, he would be bloody tired anyway! They'd want him to sleep!
George was just about to sound out his concerns when Percy's ex-girlfriend, that terrible Penelope sort, just shoved the IV into Percy and he opened his eyes. He knew that it was a mistake the second he did!
Just seeing all those fluids seep from his eyes was a nightmare on his own. His eyes made their Gryffindor red look white. They looked so sore and swollen! Went well with his sore and swollen-looking body. Even whilst retaining what looked like multiple gallons of water, Percy's hospital robes looked were hanging off him in a near comical manner. George wore the same gown just a few hours ago and he tore it with his biceps. No, he was not overexaggerating.
This happened to him a LOT. Even the protective robes he was wearing now felt snug!
Of course, even though Penelope and his family were debating on waking him up, somehow, the subject of the fact would a potion that could practically bring someone from the dead might not be enough to wake Percy up did not come up. Mostly because George had never been in a situation like this before.
It was getting tiring and George knew he couldn't stay here forever. He wanted to, but he was so exhausted from the events of the last twenty-four hours alone that he felt like he needed to sleep for a week.
George wore some protective gloves, and sterilised himself another time with cleaning potions before he tried to change Percy's position and give him more pillows. He had literally screaming so hard that he screwed up where his IV lines were, and Percy's lips were still bleeding from how hard he bit down on them.
By about seven in the evening, they were back home.
He, Ginny and Ron spent the night trying to clean Percy's room because there was blood everywhere.
It took them three hours to just get his bed clean because a lot of the blood had already dried up. Ginny and Ron helped him move his thing back to where they always were in the past fifteen years and George tried to pretend like these things weren't Percy's things. Ginny had a breakdown when she found Percy had tucked the box of the things she gave him under his bed… next to his box of personal achievements.
"I told him I didn't want anything to do with him anymore," Ginny was clinging onto the box for dear life.
Ron looked away from Ginny. "Well, I told the git that I wished that he'd died instead of Fred." He looked over at George, who was busy staring at Percy's drawer and staring at his collection of imported quills.
Ron crouched down at the bed, and had tears running down his cheeks. It didn't look right to see Ron crying.
"Did he say something?" Ron suddenly asked, and George hated that question. Like Percy was already gone. Percy was alive, but it just didn't feel that way when looking at corpse slash badly constructed blanket Percy. "Before?"
George didn't like doing any of this cleaning stuff. His room was a seriously horrific mess, so it didn't make any sense that he was now cleaning Percy's.
"He said a lot of things, Ron," replied George, remembering all the death jokes.
Ron just looked down at the ground. "Alright," but George knew that Ron had a lot more questions.
Ginny looked up from the box, face stained with tears. George had been crying so much he didn't think he could cry anymore if he wanted to. His head was pounding, and his face felt wet and sticky.
"I just keep thinking to myself that I don't know what could go on in someone's head that's SO bad that they decide that the only way that they could cope with it is to do… to do… what Percy did to himself," Ginny didn't get it.
"Yeah, I know," Ron responded, but he didn't add anything to it. "Hey, if… if he wakes up, what are you gonna say?"
George swallowed the lump in his throat. He went to Percy's closet. It was usually colour-coded but now, it was a mess and there wasn't a single robe in there that was Percy's. Because I burned all his sodding things! George thought.
"I'm sorry I made you want to torture yourself to death…?" Ron was echoing George's thoughts. "What a bloody joke!"
Ginny picked up one of the dolls that Percy bought her when he was about seven. It cost three knuts.
George pulled the clothes down into a pile and tried to code them by rainbow colours. He paused when he noticed that there was an envelope on top of a heap of clothes. He tore it and then started to read.
Dear Mr Percival Ignatius Weasley, I have confirmed your deposit in the… blah blah blah… official bank titles and boring procedures that George always pretend didn't exist and a deposit of… whoa, that was a lot of money! Enough to start back his joke shop… George skimmed through the letter and then felt the blood drain out of his face.
It WAS to start back his joke shop! George was apparently supposed to receive a confirmatory letter soon?
And all the money that Fred gave him was now George's? George shook his head in disbelief. This was a nightmare!
"The sodding bastard… FRED gave him that money!" George yelled out and forgot for a second that Ginny and Ron were in the room. Apparently, they'd been rooting through Ginny's box, and had been reminiscing stories about him.
Again, reminiscing stories about a person? People typically did when a person DIED. Percy was ALIVEALIVELAIVE.
Ginny and Ron tried to talk to him about it, but he wouldn't have any of it.
Truth be told, George just wanted to go to sleep and wake up and find Percy in his bedroom, with his nose buried into a book. He wanted Percy to fit into his pants instead of them falling down to his knees because of how bloody skinny he was. George wanted to wake up tomorrow, and find Fred sleeping next to him, snoring louder than a banshee immune to laughing potions. George wanted to wake up tomorrow and find Lee bouncing into their room energetically, telling them about all the latest stuff—which did not equate to gossip. They were RESEARCHING!
As George thought about this, he went to bed and then he cried himself to sleep. And when he woke up, he was alone.
A few days later, George found himself visiting Percy for the first time in a while.
He had been too scared to see Percy and opted for staying at home instead. He'd been thinking about him all the time though. George felt like he could sort of face him today, even though he hadn't yet figured out what he wanted to say.
He didn't think he'd ever really find out what he wanted to say.
George thought it would be nice to get him giant, colourful flowers. He had to get them sterilised of course.
It was so early when George left the house that even his parents were asleep.
He knew that his family told him that Percy hadn't woken up yet. George had opened a BOOK for the first time in forever. He'd been trying to find if there was an antidote for Percy's potion! His room was strewn with books. George hadn't found an antidote yet, but maybe there was something he could give Percy that would take all his pain away. That would stitch him back together like he was. It was this little glimmer of hope that kept him going.
He walked into the room and placed the flowers on Percy's shiny table.
"OH! I was hoping to see someone soon!" one of the nurses was there. "Your other family membranes hadn't really come yet today, but I just wanted to say that Percy woke up naturally today. I got him to drink something, but he fell right back asleep. He's asleep because he wants to be asleep and not because he's comatose! We didn't even have to give him his daily cycle of rejuvenating potions! Isn't that wonderful?"
"Yeah," George was staring at Percy's chest move.
He knew he was going to Azkaban for even considering waking him up, but George had to. He was so scared that his family were going to come around and he wouldn't get to say nothing.
George then shook Percy awake, smiling weakly. He felt so bad for doing this. Percy must be bloody exhausted.
"Hey," George was shaking him as gently as he could. "Percy…? Perce?"
Percy opened his eyes. They still looked as bad as ever. Red, and swollen, and like he was in pain. He instantly regretting waking him up and wished he could take back those three seconds where he was shaking him.
George was scared that Percy would scream himself unconscious, but he looked pleasantly surprised to see George.
Percy looked dead tired. He rubbed his eyes and gooey, pale-coloured fluid just escaped from his sore-looking eyes. "I'm sorry. I was under the assumption I was alone," Percy's voice was very low and scratchy. George heard his owl whining when Percy said that he was alone. "Well, not technically alone. Sorry, Hermes."
George's heart jumped out of his chest when Percy slowly pulled himself so that he was sat upright.
Percy looked extremely lethargic—like I just played five months of straight Quidditch without a single pause or break like the Ballycastle Bats did in 1954 type of exhausted. Percy rubbed his eyes to try and pretend that he wasn't falling asleep in front of George's very eyes! Except George's eyes weren't covered in disgusting, painful-looking yellow muck!
"Pardon me," Percy said in a slurred, scratchy voice. "I feel like I've been run over by the Knight Bus."
Even as Percy said that, his eyes looked glossy and red. George closed his eyes. He was an awful person for waking the sodding bastard up. George didn't look like he was run over by the Knight Bus. He looked like he'd been run over by the Knight Bus for a little warm-up before getting thrown into a pit of a hundred blood-thirsty dragons before he decided to have an orgy with Dementors. The worst part was Percy CHOSE to do it!
George leaned forward. "Perce, what…?" his voice was soft.
Percy raised an eyebrow. He picked the flowers that George put on the table. "Hmm?"
"What…" George noticed Percy picking off the petals. "What happened?"
Percy looked away from George's face. He looked… well, honestly, George didn't know what kind of emotion Percy had on his face, but it made this tight knot form into George's stomach and he felt like throwing up.
This was not exactly the bonding experience that he envisioned when he came here!
The look that Percy had on his face almost made George yearn for Perfect Plastic Percy that less facial expressions than most Hogwarts' portraits. Because it made George realise he didn't know how to decipher any of Percy's genuine facial expressions. Like when he was sad, or happy… or scared. George wondered if Percy was afraid of anything.
"Well… um…" Percy didn't look like he knew how to answer that question. "What happened is…well…"
Percy swallowed a lump in his throat and looked at Hermes like his gigantic owl was going to answer that question for him. George wondered if Percy told that stupid owl that he wished he was dead but didn't tell anyone else.
"That's a very good question," Percy decided. He looked nervous. George had never actually seen Percy have so many ranges of emotions all in one go. It was unnerving. "Unfortunately, I do not know the… well—"
"Hey… hey," George placed his hand on Percy's arm. "It's okay, Perce… it's okay."
It felt so strange saying those words to PERCY, and Percy didn't look like he knew how to receive them.
Percy slowly nodded his head. "Alright," he said in a whisper. "Thank you, George… I really want to apologise for putting you in this situation, but I do not particularly know what to say," he didn't sound convinced.
George didn't get what Percy was saying. Was he feeling regretful that he killed himself? Or just that George was 'stuck with him'? Like Percy was only sorry about the fact that now, his whole family's activities surrounded around him?
"You could've just told me," George swallowed the lump in his throat.
Percy didn't say anything, but his bloody owl didn't like that statement. That didn't sound good.
A moment of silence passed, and George tried to say something because he just wanted Percy to say anything.
"You could've told Ginny, or Mum or Dad or Bill or Charlie or hell, you could've even told RON that you were feeling like…" George's voice was wavering, "… like THIS! Instead of not only killing yourself but bloody well torturing yourself to oblivion! Blimey! I WOULDN'T DO THIS TO THE BLOKE THAT KILLED FRED!"
"Neither would I," Percy replied. George felt like he'd just slammed into a giant brick wall.
George's lips were trembling and there were tears burning into his eyes. "You could've told someone."
Percy shook his head at George's statement and George was getting unnerved.
"No," Percy's voice was soft. "I couldn't have."
"YES, YOU COULLD'VE!" George yelled back at him, already feeling a few tears dribble down his cheeks.
"George, I do not mean you any harm and I love you dearly. But no, I could not have just told someone something as delicate as this," Percy sounded like he was trying to restrain something. George wondered what he really wanted to say. "Pardon me, George, but WHEN, in the past year, did you exactly want me to tell you that I was suicidal?"
"Anytime!" George shouted. "I wouldn't bloody mind if you woke me up from my bloody sleep to tell me that…"
Percy looked down at his knees and then shifted so that he was sat cross-legged. Hermes flew out of the room.
"Honestly, Perce! You literally came with this-this idea of… of torturing yourself like this? What the HELL were you thinking…?" George was mortified at what he'd even seen in the past week or so. It felt like a bloody never-ending nightmare… with emphasis on the bloody aspect. "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE SMART ONE!"
Percy cleared his throat. "I had this eerie feeling that if I told someone, I'd be told that I have about as much emotion as a horklump, and then I would probably be yelled at for worrying that person. That would be the best-case scenario."
"You're kidding!" George was gawking at Percy. "How could you think THAT way! We're your bloody family!"
Percy stared at George very seriously. The look that Percy gave him could probably make Inferi crawl back into their graves. Percy suddenly slammed his fists into his thighs. "You are making this very hard for me to stay calm."
George didn't get why Percy had to be so bloody PROPER all the time. George let his emotions be known all the time!
He heard the door open and his family walked inside. They were surprised to see Percy was awake but couldn't say a word, because George just EXPLODED right then. He needed to make sense of this situation.
"WHAT ARE YOU TRYING NOT TO SAY TO ME? What is SO bad that you've been practically dodging the question ever since I got here?" George asked. "So bad that… that you didn't want to write in your suicide note?"
His family was stunned. Percy was turning whiter than the cot that he was sat at.
"WHAT IS IT?!" George knew that this wasn't kind. It was immoral. It was cold. He WOKE Percy up for this!
Percy clenched his hands into fists. "I'm bloody sick and tired of attempting to be NICE TO YOU when your emotions towards me changes on a weekly basis!" he suddenly spat out and George's heart stopped at the second he said that.
"I'm sick of people saying horrible things to me, and then pretending that it's fine because they've apologised to me. I'm bloody sick of people being unhappy and then putting it on ME! I'm sick of people trying to say cruel things to me to try and get a rise out of me and then being shocked when I'm upset. But suddenly… suddenly! When I leave the bloody room that I've been living in and announcing my departure after spending months practically living in solitary, I'M SO MISSED! Get bloody real! I bet you couldn't think of a memory that involves me that doesn't have my face stuck in a book! I bet FRED'S LIFE on the fact that you couldn't answer the most rudimentary questions about me if you bloody well tried and I'm supposed to believe that I'm supposed to TELL THE VERY PEOPLE THAT MADE ME WANT TO BLOODY DIE—NO, MADE ME WANT TO TORTURE MYSELF FOR A YEAR—THAT I WANT TO DIE?"
Percy shook his head vehemently. "Mind you, I'm not bloody sick enough to put that on a note that might be the last thing you might've ever read from me. I'm not that much of a bloody git, even though you seem to think otherwise. I'm not sure why I'm so horrible and unlovable but I assure you I have some semblance of standards."
George suddenly felt bad about intentionally prodding Percy. He had been trying to get a rise out of him. He knew how inhuman it was just to wake up a bloke that was so bloody tired as Percy and he still did it! And then demanded an explanation for his suicide! He forcefully woke Percy up after knowing that he'd tortured himself enough to require half a day in the treatment room! George felt so ashamed of it… and he was supposed to be the nice twin!
"I'm sorry, Perce," George said weakly. He remembered Percy just yelling about the fact that he hated how people apologised to him and pretend that everything was okay. I don't mean it like that, Perce. I listened! George thought. Please.
"It's quite alright," Percy said… as if it didn't matter that he just had this gigantic meltdown a few seconds ago.