to be honest, i had this chapter ready to post a week ago and then the whole thing got deleted. so... i was not happy.

this was a much longer chapter but i had to split it into two halves because it's gotten too long and i can't edit all of it. i've tried to edit this chapter a lot, so i hope the wording is okay now (it was more than just a little off first time i tried to edit it). please excuse any mistakes i might've made when editing! i hope you enjoy the chapter.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Percy Is Not A Herbologist Part 2

It was six in the morning and Percy was excited and prepared for a day of… absolutely nothing.

Merlin, how could he be excited about being alive if all he did was breathe and read the same old circa 1980-1998 The Practical Potioneer articles?

Yes, 1980-1998. You know, the time before his favourite journal turned into absolute rubbish. He'd honestly seen first years write more interesting articles. He still bought the new issues, of course. How else was he going to continue to complain about how substandard their new publications were? Besides, this was the only hobby he had besides trying to pretend he wasn't effected by the fact that his daughters tossed him around like Ron did Puffskeins. His two girls, that he bought up practically by himself (sorry, Daphne), didn't even respect him!

Why should they? Percy wondered. How could they respect a man that was challenged by his own spinal cord?

Sighing to himself, Percy laid on his bed, watching his thirty-year-old wife drool all over their bed. He placed a hand on Daphne's cheek, who just smacked his hand away. "Get your freezing hands off of me, Percival!" Daphne said tenderly.

This was his wife's true form at six in the morning. Her blonde hair, now getting darker by the day, looked more like it belonged to Medusa than a Witch Weekly model. She hadn't washed it in three days and now, it was oilier than a slice of his mum's tomato-zucchini vegetarian lasagna. Her pink alarm clock had suffered from a Confringo three days ago.

"You're going to be late," Percy warned her, turning his head to face her. His nose was pressed against her temple, and she pushed him off because he had the nose of a snowman that had been chilled and set in the freezer for the last decade.

But then she inched in a little closer to him, grabbing his arm and then burying her head into the crook of his elbow.

"Why does it matter so much that I'm going to be late to work! Have you forgotten I work for a man that has the mentality of a seventh year Gryffindor?" Daphne asked him coldly. Percy smiled weakly, but Daphne reached up to kiss him. He bet you'd feel warmer eating a bucket of Ice Mice after swimming in the Great Lake. "Godric, I can't stand your father as it is! Do you see the way he looks at you? It's like you're a broken broomstick that he doesn't know what to bloody do with! The gall of what he said last night! I can't believe he looked appalled when Molly asked him why he doesn't visit. What would we talk about? Merlin, that really got to me. It's almost like you ceased having brain cells after that last stroke…"

Percy knew exactly how his father looked at him. Like he didn't know why he bothered existing. How encouraging. He turned his head away to the table where Arthur's files were at. There were red-coloured papers strewn everywhere. It was just so tempting and eye-catching, like Charlie admiring a shiny new Firebolt that he just had to buy.

He reached over to grab the files as noiselessly as possible (this was hard when Daphne had built-in Extendable Ears for... well, ears!). Yes, it might be extremely confidential but in Percy's defence, it was just sat there for-for public consumption! And how could he not? When it was literally just a few fingertips away from him? When he opened the files, he felt his heart race. He knew that he had no control of his privates anymore, but he was sure that he'd just had an orgasm for the first time in his life...

"What are you doing with THAT?" Daphne had turned around, only to find Percy holding Arthur's files and weeding through them. He felt like he might have a heart attack. He was appalled at the state the Ministry had gotten to. He would've never left it like this. It was a miracle it hadn't collapsed on itself as it was. Knowing Arthur, there was no standard for anything! And what was this thing about a muggle appreciation protocol? "For Merlin's sake, Percival, can you just take a break? Can you try not to fix everything that you see?"

Percy flinched, but turned his head away. "I…I was just curious," he felt disheartened. "I mean I... I do worry about this outbreak you've been having at the Ministry. I mean it is concerning that everyone is… v-vomiting buckets of blood. Did you know that Lucy is start an internship in the Ministry this month? She is going to let me look over her application—well, I practically told her that I had to do, or I'll cease giving her money to buy overpriced robes but…the sentiment is there! She respects me enough to look over her application! Once she has it done. In a day or three or…maybe a week. Well, I do have this suspicion that she's already submitted it and hadn't bothered to show me, but the spirit is still there!"

Every day he sounded more pathetic than the next.

"Well, don't be so 'curious'! This isn't Hogwarts. You can't just walk into random corridors without authorisation," Daphne grabbed the files from him and then shoved it angrily on her dresser, far away from his reach. How insulting. Percy felt like he was a child rooting through his mum's important papers. "Yes, love, Lucy is starting her internship today. You already know that, don't you? I had your father place her with me for the month…"

Percy nodded his head but, in all honesty, he didn't. "Of course, I do! What do you take me for? A fumbling fool that doesn't know where his own daughters are at?"

He sighed to himself. What he wouldn't give to show Lucy around the Ministry right now. He would love to show her off in every department he could, but he supposed that he'd be more likely to fly a Chinese Fireball all the way from Romania to China overnight than have a chance of that happening.

Truth be told, he mostly had no idea what Molly and Lucy did all day. Their lives were so different from his. He couldn't control them walking in and out of the flat. It wasn't like he could follow them around with his heaving wheelchair. And it wasn't like he could bar them from leaving the house with his extendable limbs now, could he?

Ever since he'd become physically disabled, his whole family had practically been treating him like he was mentally disabled as well.

If they could cheer him for daring to breath all by himself every morning, they would (and in case of his mum, she did!). He understood that he had nearly died, but that was a decade ago! During the time that everyone could've died as well. They had been a WAR. Well, to be fair, he did suppose that the second stroke and nearly being trachoestomised might have done it…

But they acted like his twelve O.W.L knowledge had suddenly disintegrated the second that he lost the ability to walk!

Percy was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't even hear Charlie rustling in his sheets on the floor.

"What do you mean? About dad treating Percy like rubbish?" was Charlie's belated response. He sat up from the mattress on the ground. Yes, Charlie slept in the same room as Daphne and Percy. If Lucy and Molly shared a room, then the third wizarding world might begin over a missing vial of appallingly overpriced occamy egg yolk shampoo. Either way, it wasn't like they were going to be up to anything even if Charlie hadn't been around. After that second stroke, Percy didn't have the ability to…err, pleasure himself. Speaking of which, he hoped that the vibrating wand he found tucked under the couch belonged to Daphne. "He-he…I know that their relationship is a little rocky, but I'm sure that dad doesn't mean to be an arse to Percy, I mean…"

Rocky? Laughable. Yes, it was like someone took one of Hagrid's rock cakes and hurled it at the glass house that was Arthur's deteriorating respect for him. He'd seen gingerbread houses that had a better foundation than their relationship!

"He knocked him over his wheelchair last Christmas and didn't even bother to apologise! He might as well be wearing an invisible cloak!" Daphne reminded Charlie with a look of disgust on her face. She sat up now, her pink dressing gown slipped down to reveal her extremely sensual lavender-coloured Puffskein bra. It looked like it belonged to a third year that was starting to develop breasts. It could barely contain her. "When are you going to stop making excuses for him?"

Charlie sat up, his duvet slipped off his muscled chest. "I…" he looked like he'd been hit by a Bludger. Or maybe smacked in the face with one of Daphne's knockers (hey, Percy didn't need glasses to be able to appreciate how large they were). "Well, just last week, Dad said that he was going to talk to Percy about—well, no, that wasn't dad…he… I mean last time that Perce and dad went out, they ended up—arguing about…he sent an owl once that-that… was for Daphne but there was that one owl that...he accidentally sent to Percy. But-"

He looked genuinely disheartened. "Oh." He paused. "I… I didn't realise that it was so bad."

"You didn't realise that your father treats Percy like he might as well not exist?" Daphne shot him a pointed, calculated look. She was weeding through her closet, probably looking for something horrific to wear. "Seriously, Charlie?"

"No, I didn't! Do you think I'd let him if I did?" Charlie now looked like he was fuming. "Godric, what is his problem?"

Percy mourned the loss of her body heat against his. But at least now he could actually cover himself (how did a five-foot-seven woman require six feet of blanket?) and not die from the hypothermia. Honestly, Percy didn't even want to know how it had gotten so cold last night when they were smack in the middle of June as it was! His bum was about as frozen as one of Lucy's old Pixie Puff ice lollies. But at least he didn't have to worry about suffering from a thyroid storm, right? What a pity he had to lose his toes to frostbite. Why was it so cold in the middle of summer anyway?

"It's not just him," Percy tried to gather as much blanket as possible. Even you do it.

Now, if only he could turn to the side because lying like this on his back probably was not helping his pressure sore (wonderful. A pressure sore before thirty-five!).

He tried to go back to sleep because he could feel tears forming in his eyes. It was so hard to know that you were physically not capable of doing anything without assistance. It was hard to know that his daughters would rather have an intelligent conversation with a first year than have one with him. It was almost like he hadn't spent his whole life teaching them. It was almost like he hadn't been preparing them for their O.W.L's when they were only first years. He could remember feeling like he'd been slapped in the face when he realised that Arthur knew that his daughter, Molly, was seeing Clark a whole MONTH before he did!

After ten minutes of trying to go back to sleep (and failing miserably), he heard Charlie say, "What's wrong with him?"

Oh yes, Daphne and Charlie liked to talk when they thought Percy was asleep.

"He's just really depressed," he heard Daphne reply back. "He spends all day in this flat. He's read every book there is under the sun. There's only so many conversations that he could have with you without going mental. Lucy and Molly come to me for advice instead of him…even if it's just about school subjects! You'd think I know all there is to know about how Advanced Arithmancy is like? I didn't even know Arithmancy had an advanced course! You'd think that the standard Arithmancy class wasn't hard enough? Oh, and his mum sends him about three hundred owls asking him if he drank his nutritional shakes. His whole life was about his job, and I…I know that this is strange to say but I'm sure he was happier even being overworked and barely sleeping than this. Honestly, I know you haven't seen him then but he really did have more spark to him when he was literally not sleeping for more than a few hours a day."

She paused for a few moments. "He's...he's just not used to this, Charlie. Even after all these years," she sounded sad. "I'm sure that even five-year-old Percy was used to being productive."

"Oh, you have no idea!" Charlie laughed vacantly. "He learned how to use cleaning charms on his training wand by four!"

"What a protégé," Daphne replied flatly. "Shame it all has to go to waste on the most obsessive human being in the world."

When Daphne left to go to work, it always left him feeling empty. Even though he hadn't done it in years, he missed just being sat there in his kitchen table, drinking his coffee, reading a copy of The Daily Prophet and then apparating to work. She was right. Even though it had been a decade, Percy could remember going into the Ministry just like it was yesterday. Sometimes, he felt like he would give anything just to have that feeling back sometimes.

Unfortunately, he now had less respect that Dolores Umbridge after the second wizarding war. So, he doubted that that would be happening any time soon.

He gave up trying to go back to sleep at six-thirty (shocker). By seven-thirty, he'd already been washed and changed into his regular clothes. He was sat at the table, drinking a disgusting pot of too-watered down coffee with Charlie. He was slowly nibbling on the corner pieces of a slice of toast. It was dry but he didn't want to ask Charlie to butter it for him.

When Lucy walked in the kitchen., Percy started choking.

"Percy? Percy!" Charlie was three seconds away from performing the Heimlich manouvere before Percy managed to spit out the piece that dislodged itself into his throat.

"Are you okay?" Charlie asked, concerned. Meanwhile, Percy stayed quiet, his eyes locked on his FIFTEEN-year-old daughter.

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Dad, come on," she smoothed over her…Merlin knew what it was. It was thin, lacey and shorter than the Fred and George's Potions essays. Percy wondered if she borrowed it from a Knockturn Alley two-knut prostitute. "You're SO old-fashioned! Everyone wears these now! Haven't you seen them walking around everywhere in Diagon Alley? Because if you haven't, you seriously need an even bigger pair of glasses!"

Bigger glasses? Percy balked. He didn't want to see her being nude in high definition!

Percy shook his head. "Darling…I think I'd notice if fifth years start walking around in Madam Malkin's Tartiest."

"I'm not a TART because I happen to show off a little more than our grandmother, dad! Seriously, you're so ancient. These, by the way, are called bralettes," Lucy said. Why was it white and see-through? Percy refused to meet his daughter's eyes because he was too ashamed to see that much of her. His heart was thudding so quickly into his chest that he felt like he was about to sit a Charms exam that he didn't study for. She was wearing this monstrosity with the tiniest pair of shorts that he'd ever seen. He swore that if he looked long enough, he could practically see her ovaries. That was not something that any father (or even a concerned, considerate stranger in the Knight Bus) wanted to experience. "They're part of my style! Just like you wear those awful frumpy trousers that make you look like you're McGonagall's age, I wear cute things because, you know, I like them. I like to look cute instead of looking like good ole Madam Pince."

Madam Pince was still alive? And so was McGonagall? Well, you truly do learn something new every day.

"Love, when you say cute, I'm not exactly envisioning clothes straight out of Witch Weekly's Dark and Dirty column here now," Percy said. Cute was the pastel pink rose-patterned dresses he used to buy her a decade back. Not this tattered kitchen cloth! "Where do you get your fashion advice from, Lucille? Because I don't even allow those kinds of magazines in this flat."

"That's-that's not fair!" Lucy looked like she was about to cry. "Uncle Charlie, tell dad that he's being awful and that—"

"Gross! WHERE are your clothes?" Molly walked into the room. If Lucy was underdressed, Molly was overdressed for the weather. Percy felt his body rise ten degrees just looking at her. They were smack in the middle of a horrific heat wave (well, except for last night where he froze to death and suffered from frostbite at three am. May his toes rest in peace). It was like she was challenging Fortescue's No-Melt ice-cream to liquefy. After all, who in their right mind would wear a hideous, gigantic dark jumper on top of a long-sleeved white shirt when it was thirty degrees outside? "Are they back at Fernando's house?"

"Molly," Charlie spoke up before Percy could. "That's-that's not like you!"

Unfortunately, it was most definitely like her.

"Do you even know me, Uncle Charlie?" Molly scoffed. She smirked as she ran her hand through her mass of congealed ginger curls. "I bet that the Department of Mysteries spent all their time trying to find out what's wrong with Lucy's va—"

"Ugh! You're the worst sister ever!" Lucy complained. "I don't care what you think about Fernando and me, Mowwywobbles, because even though we don't know each other for that long, at least my boyfriend doesn't stare at my twin sister's arse in front of her face!" she smirked at her.

Molly look seriously hurt by this for a second, but that hurt changed to anger in only seconds.

"At least I can keep a boyfriend for longer than three days!" Molly rolled her eyes back at her. She picked up a piece of toast from the table, not bothering to butter it. Lucy, meanwhile, had already managed to scoff a slice of buttered toast with apricot jam in less than three seconds and was on her second slice. "But you better watch it, Luce. Well…if you keep eating like that, your next date will be at the new gym that's just opened up in Hogsmeade. But don't worry, because I'm sure they have a discount for slags!"

"MOLLY!" Percy and Charlie called out in surprise. Percy knew that Molly was vocal but this was above and beyond.

Lucy stopped eating her slice of toast and threw it at her. Molly dodged it.

"I...I hate you, stupid frigid bitch!" she looked close to tears. "I hope you DIE!"

"Lucille, that-that, too, is uncalled for!" Percy yelled straight after her. "Why can't you two just sit down and have a normal convers—"

Before Percy could tell both of them off, Lucy had walked out of the flat and slammed the door shut. Her face was covered in jam and she was still not dressed appropriately for a nude beach, much less an internship in the Ministry!

"Why can't we just sit down and have a normal conversation?" Molly finished off. "Well, why can't you just sit down and have a normal conversation with everyone else, dad? It's very much the pot calling the cauldron black, isn't it?"

Pushing her thick-framed glasses to her face, Molly grabbed her plain piece of toast and then stormed off to her room.

"Perce," Charlie's voice was soft. "I'm sorry about the fact that both of your daughters hate you. I…well, I'm sure they don't really hate you but…" he paused.

Charlie placed a hand on Percy's shoulder. The plate of toast was now out of his reach. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm elated, Charlie!" Percy replied back hotly. It was almost like they were all living separate lives in this flat. He had no idea what his daughters did anymore, and they didn't even tell him. Percy's heart broke when he thought of how long it had been since he'd spent time with them, but every time he inched near them, they told him off. "One of my daughters just wished death on the other and is parading around Merlin only knows where in see-through lingerie! And...and I can't believe that Molly just told me off for not having normal conversations with the rest of my family when-when I...I just…"

Molly treating him like a child was even more insulting than Lucy treating like he was a walking Gringott's account (maybe walking wasn't the best term to use.) Percy had said kinder things when he'd disowned his family. How did they talk to him like that on a day-to-day basis? How was it even fair?

Percy felt hot tears burn into his eyes, as he placed his hands onto his lap. He wiped his tears away with his sleeve.

He picked up a piece of toast and angrily bit into it. He smacked Charlie's hand away when he tried to take it away from him.

"I-I can eat toast just fine! How do you ever expect me to get better if you won't allow me to-to consume leavened products?" Percy yelled, looking more like a lunatic by the second. Charlie swore that he heard Percy say butter instead of better. "I have the ability to eat yeast-ridden products—I mean, I've been living with Daphne Greengrass for years and I'm still alive! No matter what you think of me, I am not bread challenged! I will… I will rise to the occasion!"

Percy stuffed a piece of bread down his throat, and then looked disgusted. It wasn't the kind that he liked.

"Perce, putting aside your—um…you know, your new-found obsession for carbs," Charlie looked at him with a soft expression. "I'm really worried about you…I think you're probably a little…um…depressed," he said slowly and quickly, as if he was afraid that saying it out loud might make Percy want to kill himself. "How about we go for a stroll? In the Ministry? You can-you can see what other people are doing and tell me all about how you would've done it better!"

Percy would hate to admit it, but that did sound sort of good. "I suppose I can criticise others to validate myself. But if anyone asks, it was your idea first," his mood was lifting. Oh! Lucy would be in the Ministry too, wouldn't she? He could tell her all about how Daphne didn't know how to write a report if she drank all the sugar-free lattes in the world…

Charlie looked back at him, twisting his lip into a smile. "You should take that jacket off, Perce. It's a little toasty outside!"