review replies:

imagine forevermore

HPfan1221: thank you, love! :) i hope you enjoy this one too!

Kirlial: i am most definitely portraying them too harshly... honestly, it's one of the biggest reasons i didn't kill Percy during this mini suicide plotline because i want there to be a bridging and understanding phase between them! of course, it won't be smooth, but their intentions are very good and pure. i'm hoping that with these character centric chapters and some more chapters, i can add dimension to this. i wanted originally to do the fanfiction with more character splits, but it's been mostly Percy and George centric thus far. it's just sometimes... the characters' thoughts just don't translate so well into a chapter for me! i'm really trying to help expand. because the idea is they're not bad. they just have really bad communication issues plus poor coping mechanisms (which Arthur will touch on here a little.)

finkles89: keep your hopes as low as possible. i'm trying to find a way to attempt to finish this fic off without death, but it's unlikely at this point.

malfoyravenclaw555: :) i am too! though at the same time not... harder to write. *shameless smile*

Phoenixx Rising: "I wish the conversation hadn't cut off where it did because I would've liked to read more of it, I'll get over it." don't worry! it continues onto this chapter!

pupjasmine: i think this the soonest i've ever updated this fanfiction.

honestly, i've been trying to intentionally avoid a Percy-centric chapter... so here is an Arthur-centric chapter, followed by an Audrey-based chapter. well... at least you aren't wondering what the secondary characters are thinking! right?

Love and Old Black Shoes

Chapter Twenty-One

Arthur Weasley felt like he'd been under the Cruciatus curse for the past few weeks.

One of his sons tried to overdose on potent sleeping potions. Another one of his sons attempted to purposely to torture himself to death and had been pushed so far as to admit to everyone that his family were the ones that had pushed him into a point where not only did he want to die, but he wanted to do it in an unspeakably violent manner.

Arthur cleared his throat and sat close to Percy, staring at his son and realising just how little of him he recognised.

Percy rubbed his temples. "I… I truly apologise for that… that unnecessary outburst," he said, and the worst part of it was he did actually sound like he hated the fact that he said any of those things. "It was unacceptable."

Arthur was sure Percy deliberately tried to suck the emotion out of any situation he was in.

Just when Arthur didn't think that it could get worse, he saw Percy wiping his eyes. Like he was trying to stop himself from crying! And Arthur didn't even want to contemplate the fact that Percy could cry.

It was truly enough to make Arthur wish a Dementor would suck his soul and be done with it.

George was so stunned that he turned silent. Arthur wasn't sure what they were talking about before this came to light.

Ron was on the side of Percy's bed, staring at him with an expression he'd never seen on Ron… but he hoped he'd never see it again. Bill was looking down at the floor like he was about to be sent for an Azkaban trial. Charlie had Ginny pressing her head against his shoulder, her face was red, and already sticky from tears. Molly was clinging onto Arthur and he wasn't even aware of his wife's presence anymore. Very few things did that to Arthur.

"Please say something," Percy's voice was wavering slightly. "This is excruciating for me."

This was excruciating for him? Not the fact that his eyes looked like they hurt every time he blinked, or the fact that he had so many bandages Arthur thoroughly believed that Percy would be in pain regardless of what position he was in?

Ginny let out a sob instead and just shrugged her shoulders. What did he want them to say? What did he need to hear?

Charlie, who was probably sent from Merlin's heavenly round table itself, just leaned down to Percy's eye-level—which was rare for him to do since Charlie was short compared to Percy.

"You're right," Charlie said very slowly and softly. "It IS unacceptable… what WE did to you."

Percy shook his head. He didn't look like he wanted to admit the fact that he was right for once.

"No, no, NO, YOU do not understand!" Percy looked so… all over the place. It wasn't like Percy. "I was out of line!"

Arthur rubbed circles around his wife's back. Molly was just vacantly shaking her head, speechless.

Ron moved closer to Percy's bed. "Perce, I told you that you should've died instead of Fred and YOUR conclusion is that you're the one out of line? Why? Because YOU told me that I keep saying bollocks like that because I'm pissed at the fact that Fred is dead, and I took it out on YOU by telling you something I shouldn't ever tell anyone I actually bloody care about? By the way, you're spot on. I wanted to be angry at you because you seemed to be doing alright."

"Yeah, he lost half his body weight overnight, but he seemed to be doing alright," George sarcastically mumbled.

Arthur felt like he'd swallowed a mouthful of Molly's Christmas pudding and it just wouldn't go down. Bill nodded his head, but his words were obviously stuck in his throat too. Percy kept on shaking his head in disbelief.

"Come on, Perce, you can't be that far gone," George said in a soft voice. "You CAN'T be."

Percy was far gone if he felt guilty about being driven to his absolute breaking point.

"I'm not 'far gone.' I'm fine," Percy curled up in his blanket. "I just… should not have indirectly installed the guilt of a lifetime in my own bloody parents by accusing them of-of… well, the things I've accused them off! Highly unjustified!"

Highly unjustified? His child was lying in the hospital bed after trying to torture himself to death! It was justified!

"Percy, you tried to kill yourself by TORTURE! Did you expect that when Molly and I heard the wonderful news that my child had died, WE wouldn't feel guilty about it?" Arthur asked seriously. He was… scared of how Percy thought.

Percy refused to make eye contact. "Yes."

"Percy, I—" Arthur was immediately cut off by Percy.

"If there was a cell in my body that thought for a second that my death would make anyone suffer, I assure you that I wouldn't have even considered it," Percy spat out faster than he could process… and then he turned a chalkier pale.

Silence hung in the room, and Arthur didn't know what to say to the fact that his child practically told him that he genuinely thought that they'd be better off without him. Not for a second, not for a day, but for a FULL YEAR, he genuinely believed that if he was dead, everything would magically be better. Like it would resurrect Fred from the dead.

"Come on, Perce," George said in a weak voice. "Please tell me you didn't actually mean that."

Percy returned to shaking his head in disbelief, blinking repeatedly and wiping his eyes.

"Come on, Perce," Bill sounded out Arthur's thoughts. "Seriously?" his voice was soft.

Percy started chuckling before he nodded his head. It sounded so unnatural. Tears immediately just slipped down his cheeks. It got worse because Percy let out these tiny little sobs too. He was quick to grab a tissue box and rub his eyes to the point where milky-coloured discharge was running down his cheeks along with his tears. It looked SO painful.

"I'm sorry," Percy apologised again, his voice soft. "I'm so sorry… I… I obviously did not think this through."

George laughed. It sounded empty. "Perce, you overthink everything."

Percy ran his hands through his… well, he realised he didn't have any hair and he laughed again because he seemed to have forgotten that. It was vacant and empty, like George's laugh was. "I suppose I do."

Arthur wondered how everything was fine just a week ago.

"I'm sorry. I didn't… I didn't realise," Percy rubbed more tears out of his eyes.

Arthur thought to leave Percy alone to rest up because of how tired he looked. The family followed suit, with a quiet George standing to the corner with an even more quiet Bill having a conversation in whispers.

For the next few WEEKS, whenever they came to visit Percy, he seemed to be either asleep or had been taken out for a walk by one of the nurses. And the rare moments where he was awake—or in their case, George had woken him up in a gentle manner—he was so tired that he was inattentive to anything that was going around him!

This was, of course, at the beginning very concerning. Now, it was the fifth week and it was just frustrating!

"How are you, Percy?" was typically answered with a vague answer because Percy did not answer any question directly. He said things like I suppose I'm alright and I don't feel like today has been particularly eventful.

After the first encounter that they had with Percy, they hadn't so much as heard a sentence from him! About anything!

"Do you need anything?"

"No, I do not particularly need anything," Percy would say, propped up against pillows, looking uncomfortable and having blood seep out of his bodily orifices as he drank his third cup of tea that day.

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes, I feel better than I have in a while now. Thank you," Percy would reply again, usually after a consistent magical heart rate monitor that had been put on him because he went into a cardiac arrest two hours ago.

"Do you want a coffee? Do you want something to eat?"

"No, thank you. I've had lunch," Percy would say, and Arthur couldn't actually blame him for that one. The nurses here fed him an insane amount! And he was used to Molly shoving giant Sunday roasts swimming in gravy! Thus far, Percy never finished whatever was on his plate, but it was such a shocking amount that even attempting to eat half the mountain seemed sufficient enough for anyone looking to put on a few stones!

"Do you need to rest up? Is your sleep been an issue these days?"

"No, I'm perfectly alright," would be Percy's response to all of those, usually when half-asleep against his pillow.

Even though the nurses told Arthur multiple times that Percy was not doing well. He barely slept. They said that he was in pain so much that he cried every day for hours a day, begging them to please end it. Arthur found it so hard to see that when he looked at emotionless Percy that didn't show an ounce of vulnerability anymore after the meltdown he had with George. Arthur knew that there were days where Percy refused to let anyone see him, and the nurses told him that they had to sedate Percy a few times because he was in so much pain that he ended up accidentally biting his lips or digging his fingers into his skin enough to break some of his wires open.

Arthur found that so hard to believe too, looking at calm Percy placing his hand under his cheek and rolling his eyes whenever anyone made a stereotypical comment about how he looked like he was bored out of his mind.

It did not take long for the focus of their conversations to dwindle away from Percy.

At first, it started out as mindless chatter when Percy was asleep and they were waiting for him to wake up.

They somehow got onto the subject of how Ginny was getting on in her Quidditch practices, and then it snowballed from then on. Then they started talking about things like how Kingsley was changing the Ministry, what new shops had opened up, the revenue that Madam Malkin's was making after the new advertisement they had on the paper! How ghastly the copy of the Daily Prophet was yesterday and Arthur going on hour-long rants about it even!

"Children even read it!" Arthur remembered telling Bill, who was nodding his head. "That rubbish! Toxic to the brain it is! And did you see the advertisement they put on page sixteen? Those people don't have a bloody limit!"

"I think they're only allowed a limit of forty pages," Charlie said, not quite getting it.

How did he get so many O.W.L's again? Considering things seemed to flow past his head! (Pun completely intended).

But it was alright at the time. Because Percy was asleep.

Unfortunately, it started to seep into talks like this when Percy was awake. In fact, most recently they visited him on a Tuesday morning and beyond them asking how he was (most times they asked the nurses more than they asked Percy!), they started to talk about the 1986 Quidditch World Cup results and the new cards they were adding in the newer chocolate frog editions! How Ron and Harry were in them!

One of the nurses then came out to shout at them ten minutes ago, reminding them that this a critical care unit.

"Oi, I think we should be saving some for Victoire," Ron told Harry, showing off his shiny card. Arthur knew he bought at least ten chocolate frogs in the last few days trying to get as many cards of himself as possible. "I—"

"Pardon," Percy cut into a conversation for the first time since… well, since he'd woken up. "Did anyone ever feel the need to tell me the fact that Fleur gave birth to Victoire? I… Mind you that I am not very up to date on such things. But apparently, I know more than I would ever need to know about how my most favourite team apparently cheated their way to… well, victory." That Victoire slash victory pun was unintended. Because it was Percy.

"Merlin, she'd given birth ages ago!" Ron was not helping. "Didn't you know?"

Percy just glared at him. He was so irritated. "Well, considering I've been stuck in critical care…no. I did not know."

"Didn't you say something?" Ron turned to Bill, who just raised an eyebrow.

"I could've sworn I'd said something," Bill admitted. Arthur had not been cautious with his protective robes as he had been when he first walked into the critical care unit. "I hadn't? Because I could've sworn I—"

"Merlin, just forget it," Percy said, sounding extremely annoyed. He didn't say anything after that, but it left Arthur very unsettled because he'd realised what he'd been doing the past couple of weeks!

He hated the thought of it but… he'd gotten used to Percy being in the hospital. It became normal.

Because Percy didn't complain about the massive amount of pain he was in. It became so normal because Percy seemed the same as he always was… except he didn't look the same as he always did!

Arthur stared at Percy, wondering again when and how did he get used to the fact that Percy was so ill. He dared to say he got used to the fact that his son had seeping fluid out of his eyes regularly still—and it had been weeks, and it had been getting worse. He dared to say that he, yet again, not only got used to how many stitches Percy had, but he had gotten used to the mutilated patches of skin that Percy had everywhere.

He was not impressed with himself. Arthur did not know when the bone-crushing guilt had disappeared!

He hadn't done anything to warrant it! But Percy was sat there, silent and emotionless, barely reminding them of the fact that he had tried to kill himself in this incredibly violent manner and here Arthur was… having the gall to admit to himself that he no longer found it alarming the fact that his child was literally tortured to near death by himself!

And it took all of FIVE BLOODY WEEKS! Not five months, not five years… five weeks.

When Arthur realised this, he was really appalled at himself. Here was his child, his child that felt so unloved and unappreciated and invisible… having to spend the last two weeks listening to them talk about a newspaper right after he'd nearly butchered himself to death! The worst thing was Percy didn't even tell them that he found this disturbing. He just observed with eyes that were so red that it looked made a Chinese Fireball look white.

So, the following day, Arthur thought to come visit Percy during his lunch break. He'd bought his work container along with him and packed something for Percy to have so that they could have a nice chat.

The second he wanted to walk into the room, the nurse told him to get out.

Arthur found this strange, but he waited outside until he had another nurse come up to him.

"If I have another week of you and your family like last week was, then I am going to ban visiting privileges for you and your family around my patient anymore!" the way she said it made him feel bad, because it didn't make him feel like he was Percy's father for Merlin's sake but a stranger! "I keep on telling you he is not sleeping well. His eyes are not doing very well. And I do not like the fact that your sons have this habit of waking him up only a few hours after he fell asleep because they can't wait for him to wake up by himself! It is SO CRUEL! And you bloody wonder why he tried to torture himself to death if this is how you treat him after!"

Arthur flinched, but it was… well-deserved. "Is he asleep?" he asked very slowly.

The nurse shook his head and then gestured for him to walk into the room.

Arthur was used to seeing Percy sat on the bed, with his face as emotionless as ever like it was when they visited him every morning and night. But instead, he found Percy sat at the corner, head buried in his knees as his body shook.

Arthur knelt beside Percy, and then placed his arms around Percy, who just grabbed to hold onto him immediately.

In fact, Percy was holding onto Arthur's arm so tightly that he thought that Percy was going to break it off!

Percy was not affectionate by any means, but also, Percy did not typically bite down on his lip so much that he started to bleed either. His eyes twitched, and he was trying to rub anything that was seeping out of them.

Arthur did not know what possessed him to do this, but he grabbed a tissue with his free hand and tried to rub the discharge from Percy's eyes instead of Percy vigorously trying to rub it away from his hands.

Some of the pale discharge covered Arthur's fingers. And… it was hot.

Not warm. It was HOT. It was like he'd accidentally spilled a drop of boiling water onto his finger! Merlin!

Percy pushed his hand away and then shifted so that he had his head pressed up against the corner. He looked to have calm down in seconds, but Arthur was wondering what was going through his mind.

Arthur left the room momentarily and then came back in about ten minutes with a bag of no-melt ice.

He offered it to Percy, who with shaky hands, pressed the ice against the side of his face. His other hand was gripping onto his knee as hard as he could, enough that his knuckles were turning white.

Arthur got up to leave the room again to make Percy something to drink.

He made him a strong cup of tea with enough sugar in there to cause a diabetic imminent death. He had ginger and cardamom in it, and then put enough milk in there to make George's friend, Lee Jordan, sick for a week.

Arthur came back to the room and saw Percy still sat there. He'd shifted the ice to the other side. His eyes were no longer a shocking red but dimmed down to a shocking pink that would make the Quiberon Quafflepunchers jealous.

Percy took the tea that Arthur offered him. He took a sip of it, and then looked pleasantly surprised.

They sat there on the ground for a while. Arthur was particularly alert about everything that Percy was doing. He drank the tea, didn't say a word and after his eyes started to look less pink and more like… well, his eyes (Arthur almost forgot that they were blue!) that he just climbed into his bed, put the ice aside and just fell asleep.

Arthur sat down besides Percy. He saw that Percy had a bunch of books in the corner and went to pick them up.

All children's books! Arthur knew that Percy practically read every children's tale in the wizarding world. He was probably the only person that liked The Toadstool Tales. The only book ever to cause intractable vomiting in every other child that read it. Percy read that book even more than he most children read the Tales of Beedle the Bard, which Percy still probably had memorised. Arthur flipped through the pages, which were practically so worn-down the writing was illegible. No wonder Percy needed glasses to read it!

Arthur spent time reading the stories. He hadn't read them himself since he was a child.

When his family came around, Arthur almost immediately jumped to his feet before Bill's mindless chatter would wake Percy up from his sleep. Arthur instructed them to stay quiet, but he knew why they wanted to talk.

The silence was unbearable. The silence made them think about things.

Like the fact that Percy looked bloody exhausted. The fact that his skin still looked awful, even though it was better, and the nurse had a regimen to try and cure him of his self-inflicted scars. Apparently, scars via harming yourself were extremely likely to heal. Scars via a werewolf attack? Not ever likely. Like the fact that they just wanted this nightmare to end, and them going home with a Percy that actually looked like Percy.

Just because Percy had been putting on weight and healing rapidly didn't seem to change that empty feeling inside that Arthur was trying to bury under a senseless amount of chatter.

If they were busy talking about the Daily Prophet or the Quidditch Cup, it made them forget where they were.

Arthur knew that the nurses knew that they weren't bad people. They just had the worst coping methods possible.

Sitting there in silence whilst lamenting over all the things they'd done wrong was not one of their frequent ones. They'd rather shove it down with endless amounts of alcohol, sit in bed depressed all day, or yell at each other trying to make each other feel guilty because they couldn't contain their own guilt. Arthur knew that even though he wasn't going to a pub and drinking away his sorrows did not mean that he was coping well.

In a mere fifteen minutes of silence, Arthur could see that fear resurfacing again. That fear that they'd been trying to shove down and normalise underneath useless conversations and pitiful jokes.

It was like they were sobering up to a reality that they didn't want to particularly face.

When Percy woke up that evening after being asleep for close to eight hours, his eyes were BLUE. Not pink, not red. There was a little amount of clear discharge coming out of them. But they were BLUE.

"Hey," Arthur said, watching Percy pull the duvet up over himself. "Do you want us to go?"

Percy looked still groggy and tired. He just nodded his head very mutely.

Arthur walked out of the room with the rest of his family. Molly didn't leave without pulling out a new blanket that she made for him. The other ones were too thin, and the most recent one was too heavy. She had applied a sterilising charm, and gave him a few kisses, telling him to get better soon.

"There's some tea here for you," Arthur pointed towards the flask that he had made for him an hour ago. He needed to get up and he was tired of all the sitting he'd been doing and his brain was melting with how awful the writing was on that Toadstool Tales! Merlin! How did Percy read that?

Percy, again, looked pleasantly surprised. "Thank you," he said, his voice slurred and scratchy still.

Arthur did not know how this happened, but even though he hadn't had a conversation with Percy, he was beginning to understand what he might need. So, the following day, he came by late at night instead of during his lunch break. He did his paperwork in front of Percy, who seemed very interested in what Arthur was writing.

Percy laid on his side whilst Arthur worked meticulously on the table. What surprised Arthur was that Percy knew more about his department than Arthur did. He kept on correcting official titles and reminding him that certain people would not like the way that Arthur phrased his statements.

Arthur found himself reading what he was writing out loud and found Percy's facial expressions comical.

He then moved on to another report about Regina Davies' report to Magical Accidents and Catastrophes that involved The Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects. Percy's facial expressions completely changed then. He seemed to be sat there, contemplating something.

Arthur continued to read and fill out the report, but he noticed the drastic change in Percy's expression.

"And thus, I declare that…" Arthur paused, noticing that Percy wasn't listening anymore. "Is something wrong?"

"Oh, it's nothing," Percy was an awful liar. And everything was fine in his life, except for that time that he was so depressed that he decided to kill himself via a seriously torturous method. But he was fine after!

"Really?" Arthur didn't hide his distaste at Percy's statement. "Nothing's wrong?"

Percy curled up into his blanket. "Her son and I were close friends. Unfortunately, he died in the war due to a very unlikely accident caused by a defect in an invisibility cloak he confiscated from a Slytherin."

Arthur did not know how to react to that. He didn't expect that. "Oh… I didn't know."

"He, unfortunately, had this terrible habit of getting me intoxicated whenever there was a cause for celebration. Mind you, he was a Ravenclaw so his causes for celebrations usually involved Potions essays that were longer than six feet and periods of no restrictions when he tried to borrow books from the Hogwarts library," Percy explained.

Arthur seriously didn't know how Percy didn't end up in Ravenclaw.

Percy was smiling weakly. "After we had the fight, Roger, I and a couple of my other mates got so hammered I think I actually ended up being late for my first day at work. Fortunately, the Minister called in sick!"

Arthur tried to imagine a drunk Percy racing to work. It… wasn't particularly possible.

"I do not drink as much as anyone in this family, but apparently, when I do, I do have a lot of stories to tell," Percy commented, rolling his eyes as he said this. "My mates… unfortunately… they… they… they all passed away."

Arthur frowned. "I didn't know, Percy."

"I didn't either—not until most recently," Percy mumbled in irritation. "I was so consumed with Fred's death and how everyone else was coping with it that I had no time to entertain notions as my sudden lack of social life or my job or much else. And mind you, people dared to tell me that I didn't care for Fred's death!"

I dared to tell you that you didn't care for Fred's death, Arthur thought to himself. "I'm sorry, Percival."

Percy offered a weak, faltering smile. "The… the tea that you made me is very nice. I enjoyed it very much."

"It was the only way you used to drink it as an ill child," Arthur didn't think that Percy would've forgotten that. "And I thought that you had a near perfect memory, Percival… you disappoint me!" he said with a real smile.

Perfect Prefect Percy crossed his arms over his chest. "That is unfair. I believe you cannot use that when all my childhood illnesses involved an inability to smell Fred and George's socks or taste mum's Christmas pudding!"

Arthur thought Percy had to be very lucky to not be able to taste Molly's Christmas pudding!

"I remember you quite liked it when you got sick," Arthur told Percy, still smiling. It felt good to talk to Percy like this. "You didn't have to take a bath for three days if you could convince your mother you'd been sleeping all that time."

Percy flushed. "Out of all things I want you to remember about me, my reluctance to bathe was not be one of them!"

Arthur wanted to ask Percy more about what he felt like after Fred passed away, but he didn't particularly feel like Percy wanted to answer any of them. In fact, just now, Percy just grabbed one of Arthur's quills, picked up one of his reports, and started writing comments on the side of the paper whilst underlining a few words—err… sentences actually.

Percy curled the quill in his hand, and his hands started to shake a little. He looked so scared! Percy… scared! But when Arthur tried to ask him about it, Percy's face turned blank and he told Arthur had a very fatal spelling mistake.