Flowers for Scabbers
Chapter Fifteen
Aftermath
The Burrow was somber the night that Percy left. It was the kind of somber that made you shudder when you tried to fall asleep. The kind of somber where you could barely recognise your father's emotionless facial expressions or hear your mum's sobs, but just knowing that they were in so much pain brought you to your knees in front of the fireplace in the middle of the night. The kind of somber that brought tension to the place that you call home and made it so awkward that you felt like you had to ask your weeping, distraught mother for permission to brew a fresh pot of tea. Which you did, and it was where Fred was at now. He poured water from a piping hot kettle into a ceramic teapot that he hated, his numb mind still trying to digest what in Merlin's name just happened.
Their family had survived through a war, their endless well-intended-but-blew-up-in-your-face-pranks, two older brothers leaving the nest and finding the most dangerous jobs imaginable but with Percy leaving… it felt like it had just broken apart. Shattered in seconds, because of a fight that Fred knew deep down was his fault.
He remembered Roger telling him that Percy wasn't like that. But that was how the family had always seen him, Fred shuddered. What a joke.
They've done what they did so that the family would never have to break apart. But this was worse, because Fred was just thinking of the situations where an Auror would be knocking on the door any minute, telling them that Percy threw himself over the bridge or a lake or done something absolutely terrible and was just gone. And if it did happen, then they would've never known him in the way they were supposed to. That potion-less regular-ambitious Percy that sobbed by his girlfriend's side because he cared so much about her. Thinking about their break-up still sent shivers down his spine. It was his fault too. Everything was. Might as well just stick in You-Know-Who and Cedric's death on him too. Why not?
I was getting through to him, Fred knew. I was bloody helping him! He also knew that Percy hadn't completely succumbed to the potion yet. Because if he did, then he'd be chained to his desk right then, staring at papers with glazed-over eyes that belonged to an Inferi.
George walked into the room. Before he'd even had a chance to open his mouth, Fred wiped his head back and then threw the Potion Detector onto the table, with its 'High' reading staring him back at their faces. "Georgie, it's not him," Fred said. "I know what you want to believe, what you think is right, but it's not him," he let out a breath that he'd been holding in. "It's never been him."
My fault, my fault, my fault echoed into his mind, followed by our fault, our fault, our fault.
"Listen… when Percy was trying to bandage his cut that morning, I took his blood," Fred explained in a cool tone. "His blood. And…" he pointed towards the 'High' reading. "Georgie, it's still in him. It's always been in him. Always."
"This is Percy's?" George called out in a broken tone. "But it says…it's…" his voice wavered. George's face was pale as he picked up the Potion Detector from the table. George went from shock to confusion to anger to contempt to fear to pain, all in the matter of seconds. You could see it in his face, in his eyes. He blinked, eyelashes fluttering rapidly. His hands clutched the thin stick so tightly that his knuckles went white.
"No," George shook his head, strands of red hair falling in front of his eyes. "He…he…"
"He knows," Fred finally said, and George looked stunned. "He can feel it, he says. The potion," he didn't understand how he could. "He called it a poison, like we'd poisoned him." Fred thought that it was all laughable until he'd just stormed out of the house late at night. George blinked a few more times, overcome by emotion. "Well…well, I've-I've sent owls to all of Percy's old mates, told them that if he showed up at their houses, that they should let us know." He didn't know what else to do. He was terrified. "But I don't think he really has any mates anymore."
"Oh," George nodded his head. "Oh… okay," he rubbed his arm. "That's…that's great, Freddy."
It wasn't great, but Fred didn't say anything. "This is Percy's?" George reiterated, staring at the Potion Detector. "But…"
"You were right," Fred didn't think that George wanted to be right. Ten times out of ten, he'd rather be wrong when it came to this. "Georgie, you were right about the potion all along. About what we should've done. About needing to tell mum and dad and let them deal with it... we… I should've listened."
George nodded his head. "I-I told you," he said through gritted teeth. "I told you that…that…"
"Yeah, you did," Fred nodded his head. "I'm sorry." He placed a hand on George's trembling shoulder. "Hey."
George stricken, but Fred felt like he was the one that was responsible. It might be their joined effort that made the potion, but it had always been Fred's idea. If he'd just let Bill tell mum and dad about it years ago, then maybe this wouldn't have happened.
"Georgie, I…" Fred's voice cracked. "We really, really should've told mum and dad." Because this was what they were trying to avoid, weren't they? And look what a fat load of good the potion did for them.
George was biting down his lower lip. "They hate him now," his tone made Fred wince. "They don't know that…"
"They don't hate him, Georgie," Fred insisted. How could they? "They're just hurt is all."
He stared down at his tea pot, wondering what in Merlin's name he was going to do when George wrapped his arms around him, burying his head into Fred's shoulder and crying. Fred froze, feeling George's hot tears ruin his favourite Montrose Magpie jumper.
His hands started shaking and he was spilling tea everywhere. Hot tears started to form into his vision.
"I'm sorry," George's voice cracked. "I didn't mean what I said," his voice broke. "He's not helpless, he's not…" his voice trailed off as if he couldn't bear to think about the other words that he'd thought about Percy. "He's not."
There was an unspoken agreement between them that came from years of living together. A mutual pain and understanding.
"I know," Fred had forgotten all about it now. The fight was a shocker. Everything that happened before didn't even seem to matter. "Do… do you think I liked the way that he was talking to mum?" it broke him to see what the family had become whilst they were away. There was so much resentment in Percy. Fred couldn't help but wonder how much of it was because of the potion. He wondered about it sometimes, how angry Percy must've been the day that they saved him. You've saved me for this? He could imagine Percy asking.
"No," George laughed, but it came out as strangled and pained. "But-but… it wasn't like she was being nice to him either."
"He was just getting worse," Fred didn't know how he couldn't have put that together until then. "She doesn't know."
"Yeah, but we know. And he didn't need mum on his case about how often he worked," George shook his head. "He needed real help."
"Yeah," Fred agreed. He remembered Percy saying that he spent days away from home just so he didn't have to deal with their mum. He wished he knew now where he'd spent his time on his days off. He wished he just knew. "He still does. We just…" he was stammering. "We can fix this."
George didn't answer him. "I don't think that we can," he honestly said.
They stood like there for a while. Well, it felt like a while, but Fred knew that it couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes. Then they headed upstairs together. They drank tea and fell asleep in awkward positions. The last thing that Fred could think about before he slept was how strange everything was, how everything was changing.
They hadn't woken up until three in the afternoon the next day. That afternoon, they glanced at each other with confused expressions and tired faces, trying to digest what had happened the night before. They, Fred thought with a weary smile. It had been ages since they'd both been on the same page.
That calm, understanding silence broke. The sound of screeching echoed through the walls. Fred looked up and saw Scabbers the rat, now thin with patches of missing fur, trying to get onto his wheel with all his might. He looked exhausted, but his eyes were glossy and enraged. Fred's mind flashed back to Percy's eyes yesterday, like they were doll's eyes, wide and in disbelief. Fred picked Scabbers up, who started biting him everywhere, uncontrollable. He let out a strangled cry.
George took him from Fred's hands, but he was visibly shaking. He'd fed him some sugar solution and then Dreamless Sleep with an old, chewed-up syringe.
Fred stayed with George, watching Scabbers fight sleep. It must have been an hour before he'd finally given up, letting his heavy lids fall. Scabbers was still shedding his fur, his little paws were bloodied and scratched up.
George looked up at Fred with terrified eyes. "This is going to kill him," he said. "This can't happen to Percy."
Little Scabbers looked like a victim of animal cruelty—well, you shouldn't really be feeding potions like that to a rat. Trying to imagine that happening to a real human being, their own brother, was disturbing to say the least.
Fred flinched. He closed his eyes and nodded his head. "I…" his voice trailed off. "Godric, we've been torturing him." That was all he could think about. Percy didn't want to work as much as he did, or care as much as he did, but he did because of the potion. And he knew it. He could feel it, and he couldn't do anything about it. And Fred had the feeling that Percy was just becoming worse, just like Scabbers. What if he couldn't tell anymore? That he still had the potion in him? What if it just got bad enough that he believed that that was his real personality? "I mean…I…I've been…"
"We made the potion together," George shouldered the blame too, but it was Fred's fault. "At least we did something."
Fred nodded his head, but he still felt so terrified and empty. "Should we tell mum and dad?" he finally asked.
George shook his head. "I don't think…I don't think they'd believe us." Fred barely believed it, and he was there to see it with his very eyes. "But Bill knows he took the potion," he said a little thickly. "It's time for our big brother to bloody do something about it." He sounded resolute in a way that surprised and pleased Fred.
"Yeah," Fred nodded his head, his eyes on the sleeping Scabbers. He looked jittery even in his sleep. "Okay."
"And he can tell us what he knows about Percy," George finally decided. "About…about what happened to him."
Fred's head snapped up, as he took in that thought. He nodded his head fervently. "Let's go."
Bill's room was just as untidy and horrible as Fred remembered it. The bed was chronically unmade, the posters were asymmetrical and peeling off the wall, and there were stickers that were wonkily applied everywhere. This room was Percy's nightmare. He'd have an aneurysm over the curtains alone, which were floppy and see-through. What was the point of having see-through curtains anyway? Fred never understood people that wanted to wake up naturally by the light of the sun, but he supposed the sun did shine brighter in Egypt.
Bill was sat on his chair, looking like he, too, was realising how much they'd all mucked up.
Fred sat down at the edge of his bed. George sunk down to the floor, picking off a stray pillow and leaning back against the dresser, which looked like a hair salon had just exploded. There were more combs and hair products in Bill's room than they probably sold at Primpernelle's. Ginny probably didn't even own a comb.
"Tell us," Fred demanded, not even bothering to ask him how he felt like (shite) and how he slept like (shite).
Bill's head snapped up, like he'd just noticed that Fred and George were there. "Wha…?" his voice was slurred.
Great. He'd been hitting the firewhiskey. Real responsible adult right there.
"About Percy," George added on. It felt good to be a united front. It felt like it had been ages. "Tell us about Percy."
Bill rubbed his neck. "You…" he paused. "You really don't want to know."
"We do," Fred fumed. "We want to know what made Percy so hopeless," he said the last part angrily.
Bill's eyes were soft, as he stared down at the ground, his hands were clasped together. "Because I didn't…I didn't actually believe him," his lip twitched. "But-but after what you've told me, I've gone and asked…someone and… they said that it was true. What he told me." There was a pain in his eyes that made Fred soften. Because he understood. "But I didn't bloody believe it at the time. And he knows that I didn't believe him, which makes things…" he cradled his head into his hands, looking like he was about to cry. His twenty-four-year-old brother in shambles. "Merlin."
Fred placed a hand on Bill's knee. "What happened?" Fred tried to sound kind. "Bill, you've got to tell someone."
Bill nodded his head. "I need a moment. I…" he said, but then went quiet. "Merlin, just give me a second."
They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. Fred didn't feel angry anymore. He was sick of being angry at people at his own family, sick of making decisions by himself when everyone was affected by it, sick of this miscommunication between them. He just wanted things to be alright, he decided. He wanted Percy to get the help that he needed and be back home into a loving family like things were supposed to be. He wanted to tell mum and dad, he wanted them to to believe him. But how were they going to do that when they didn't know where he was? And what Bill knew about him?
'We'll tell him about the potion,' Fred mouthed to George who nodded his head.
They had just relaxed into their respective spots when Bill finally decided to talk, "Well—"
"What are you doing here?" Charlie asked, stood by the doorway with a confused expression on his face.
Well, why not? The more, the merrier! Fred snorted. He didn't want to tell Ron and Ginny yet, not until they knew what in Merlin's name was going on, but he'd decided that Charlie was already a part of this. George had told him about it, that he knew something too. Well, if they all collected their somethings together then surely, they'd make a story, or paint a picture or something.
"We're talking about Percy," George said. "Bill was just about to tell us what happened to him."
"What did happen to him?" Charlie looked like he didn't know the specifics either. "You just said that…"
"Well…yeah," Bill nodded his head solemnly. But he didn't add on after that. He just went quiet again.
Charlie surveyed the room and then sat down beside Fred. George clutched his pillow a little more tightly. Charlie and Bill stared at each other, but Fred couldn't read the expressions on their faces. The silence in the room was bordering on uncomfortable, with its untold secrets and… um, well, that sort of thing.
Bill finally gave in after a while. "Alright," he finally said. "I'll tell you."
They must have been sat a couple of minutes in silence before Bill had gathered his thoughts enough to actually talk. "He said that Uncle Fabian and Gideon…they…hurt him."
"What do you mean?" Fred found himself holding his breath. "What do you mean hurt him? Hurt him how?"
He obviously didn't want it to be true. Both him and George were named after their uncles, who they knew nothing about. It wasn't like Percy had been that old at the time either! Bill was just starting his first year of Hogwarts when the war ended that was for starters. Percy would have to have been a child when Fabian and Gideon were alive.
"He said that they smacked him a couple of times. And that they used to hit him on the back of the head with a broom when he was 'misbehaving'," Bill admitted. He doubted Percy had ever misbehaved in his life. He'd refused to look at anyone. "And that they'd shoved him down the stairs, scared him off, told him that mum and dad didn't really want to have him, and he was a mistake. And he said when he used to be alone with them, they wouldn't help him shower, or go to the bathroom or feed him so he'd end up having to hold it for hours. That's what he said anyway, but it just sounded so…" Bill shook his head. "I mean, he was four or five. How would he remember? I thought it was ridiculous but…"
Bill closed his eyes. "Well, I've had a talk with Aunt Muriel about it…because she'd been around," he was flushing because nobody really wanted to talk to Aunt Muriel. You sort of got roped into the conversation with her. "She said something about it. She said that mum never knew, and she never wanted to tell her because-because they'd died for Merlin's sake, but she knew. She said some horrible things about mum—well, you know how she is. How she could be like. I was livid, and I've left and thought that she was just a gossipy old bat that was—…well…" his voice dropped.
Things went quiet and Fred found his heart beating into his chest. Well, that would explain everything, wouldn't it? If Percy really thought that nobody liked him, then why would he think that him killing himself was such a big deal?
"But I can imagine now, being that young and…believing those things, being hurt like that and mum and dad not knowing about it, it must have been…" Bill shook his head. "He must have had to believe it for ages before he'd told me. That nobody would care if he'd been hurt. But I do care. I just never thought that…" He winced, recalling the fight that just took place hours before. "I can't imagine living with something like this. The questions alone…"
Fred was thinking about the questions too. Wondering how mum and dad didn't notice this either. But how was a five-year-old boy supposed to tell his mum about that? When she was moody and mourning Uncle Fabian and Gideon for ages, when she'd named her own twins after them. How Percy must've been when he'd realised that they, as the twins, were a nightmare to deal with it too. It wasn't that their mum and dad were horrible parents. They just didn't know. They didn't know about what happened to Percy when he was a child. They didn't know about him trying to end his life as a sixth year, or the fact that he was cutting himself. Their parents didn't know that they'd given him that potion that made him act like a work-obsessed zombie.
"He used to come up to us, remember?" Charlie broke the silence. "Sleep into our rooms."
Bill looked surprised that he'd forgotten but he did nod his head fervently. "Yes," he looked stunned. "I remember he had bruises on his arm. He said that he fell down the stairs." He looked like he was having an epiphany then. "Merlin, he was terrified. I thought that it was because he'd heard mum and dad fighting, or the fact that we kept moving houses, and mum and dad thought the same too. I never thought that someone might have hurt him on purpose."
Charlie nodded his head. "Mum used to tell him off before," he remembered. "Because he'd cling onto her. I mean when you've just had two babies, you wouldn't want a needy five-year-old clinging onto you. I know but…"
"It wasn't the right time," George concluded. And it was happening again. Blah blah Percy was poisoned by their potion and was a danger to himself, but like their parents would believe a word they'd say. He could imagine going upstairs now, telling Arthur that Percy had been smacked on his head with a broom as a child. Arthur would probably ask George if he was mental and if that was his idea of a joke before he'd tell him off for coming into their room when their mum had finally gone to bed after spending the whole night sobbing.
"It still isn't the right time," Charlie said. "Mum and dad really don't want to talk about Percy. They can't hear news like this now… they wouldn't be able to cope with it right."
Then it was time, for their somethings to be added in. Fred just let out a deep breath, but he felt like he still couldn't breathe. "Percy still has that potion in him that we made," he pulled out his Potion Detector, which was a really horrible piece of second-hand junk now that he was giving it to Bill and Charlie. "We've given him a potion, an ambition potion after-after he'd…" he couldn't even say it, Merlin, how was this going to be okay? "After he's tried to kill himself in his sixth year and it's still in him. It's been two bloody years, and it's still in him. Affecting him."
Charlie stared at Fred like he was mental. "He tried to do what?" his voice was full of anger.
"You're joking!" Charlie yelled. "I saw that-that he's cut himself," he said. "I know that now, but…I didn't think that…Merlin, are you…" he paused before he realised what they were talking about. "You mean when he'd nearly drowned? Mum and dad told me about that after ages ago. I thought that was an accident!"
"It wasn't an accident," George whispered. "He did it on purpose." He shuddered, just thinking about it.
"He did it on purpose and nobody knows?" Charlie looked like he was getting dizzy.
Fred felt his stomach hurt just thinking about it. "Yeah," he replied softly. "Well, he's glad that we were such rule breakers because if we hadn't been there, he'd have…" his eyes had gone wet just thinking about it. "He nearly died, Charlie. You…you don't understand. He really could've…"
"You should've…" Charlie shook his head. "Merlin, mum and dad should have known. They'd never have had that pitiful fight if they knew that Percy had thoughts like that, that he was…" he didn't have to say it. Fred knew.
"What were we supposed to tell mum and dad? We just thought that…" Fred's voice wavered. "We were kids."
Charlie sat there, stupefied. His eyes were glossy and red-rimmed. "We have to get him to come back," that was exactly what Fred thought. "And then we'll tell mum and dad everything the second that he does."
"Well, maybe wait a couple of hours," George prompted. "Or maybe a day. I mean it has been a couple of years…"
Charlie rolled his eyes, "I didn't mean literally!" Fred didn't even know how to bring something like that up if they hadn't all made up. Unless they went back to a family glowing with love, he doubted they were going to mention any of this. Fred bet that that would take more than a few weeks or even months for them to be anywhere near normal, even if Percy did come back. And as hard as it was to accept that, it was the truth.
Fred imagined telling their mum about this ages ago, how her eyebrows would knit in fury as she told them off for doing something like that to 'poor Percy'. Your own brother! Your flesh and blood and you've poisoned him with…with this potion! He could hear his mum rattling off and Fred wanted it so badly that his whole body almost ached. The scolding would be so much better than his mum curled upstairs in her room, sobbing until three in the morning. The scolding would've been so much better than that distraught look on his father's face when Percy had said what he did.
They'd wrecked the family, not Percy, not anyone else. And Fred had to take ownership for that even if he didn't want to.
That whole night, all Fred could think about was how scared Percy must have felt like. It wasn't like Bill or Charlie could've done anything for them. Their mum, Merlin bless her, probably didn't get much sleep with the red-faced, screaming babies keeping her up busy all day. And during a war too, you'd imagine that they were terrified all of the time. What was one finicky annoying five-year-old when you were afraid you might die? It wasn't their parents' fault. But Fred wanted to blame someone so badly and what was he going to do? Blame his uncles that he'd never met? The ones that had died heroically during a war? The ones that they'd been named after and were only told shiny stories about? Fred shuddered just thinking about it. It all seemed sickening. He could understand why Bill didn't believe Percy right away. It wasn't right by any means, but he understood why.
After all, Fred didn't think he would've believed how sad Percy was until they'd pulled him out of the water.
Sometimes, a guilty part of him would wish that it would all end somehow. Wished that Percy's problems would just go away on their own because he was so sick of having to chase after him. Wished that they were the lovely, quaint little family that they always felt like before they'd found him in the lake that night.
Would you rather he'd have died? The angry, sensible part of him had asked. Well, just send him an owl! Let him know!
Fred did send Percy an owl, saying that he wanted to talk. Fred could imagine Percy slugging along London with an irritated facial expression, his arms firmly tucked in by his sides. A permanent scowl grazing his freckled face as he shrieked to anyone that passed by about the injustice of it all. He'd probably receive a smack or two across the face if he weren't careful. Hard blue eyed and thin lipped, trudging about the world with no sense of direction. Merlin, where on earth could he have gone at that time of the night anyway? Beyond the pub that was!
"I bet he has an apartment," Charlie said after Fred had told him his concerns. "If he's been spending that much time outside of home just to get away from mum, he has to go somewhere."
Fred reckoned that he was right, but he didn't know where Percy could've possibly had gone.
"I'll make more tea," actually, he hadn't really drunken the first batch he'd made on account of the fact that it was watery and tasted ashy. Reminiscent of the chalky, old tea leaves they've used in Divination. As he passed by the Weasley family clock, he'd nearly dropped the teapot in his hands when he'd noticed that Percy's handle was on 'Work'.
Fred could go to the Ministry without a problem he'd decided. He was newly invigorated and went off to tell Bill and Charlie what he'd discovered too. George seemed to be just as determined as well and they went off with a tentative-looking Charlie and an awkward-looking Bill. When they'd gotten to the Ministry, they'd forgotten about the fact that the building was gigantic. They couldn't make heads or tails over how to get to the Minister's office without ending up being questioned by a couple of Aurors. At the information desk, there was a young blonde reading an old issue of The Daily Prophet, which was weird because who read news that happened a week before? Much less news that happened in 1954.
"We need to see a Percy Weasley," Fred knew how he must've sounded like, but he didn't care. "Can you get him to come down here? I think—well, he used to work in the…" well, he didn't know where Percy worked at per say, "He used to work in that, you know, department with Mr Crouch… which I guess isn't working there anymore in light of all the things that have happened, but now, he's been promoted to the junior assistant to the Minister of Magic?"
The woman's face was impassive. She furiously scribbled something onto a notepad. "That red haired bloke that's been complaining about how nobody in his life understands him?" she asked.
"Oh, yes, that'll be him," George answered.
She nodded her head. "Yeah, I've seen him," she pointed to the hallway. "Ate his weight in doughnuts."
Fred supposed that 'ate his weight in doughnuts' was a lot less frightening than 'slashed himself to bits in the bathroom and was bleeding all over the floor but an Auror took him to the hospital!'. It let Fred breathe out a sigh of relief almost, but his heart stopped in his chest when he found Percy slouched against a table. His fingers and face was covered in sugary glaze, and there was a coffee next to him that looked cold. Little sobs escaped his throat.
"We'll help you, Perce," Fred whispered as he wandered towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Hey," he said quietly. "Do you have any place to go? Like a flat or…well, you must have some place to go when you don't want to see mum," he asked, and Percy nodded his head and whispered something about a flat. It was mental, thinking that Percy had a flat just to get away from their mum. They had their work cut out for them that was for sure. "Come on," he squeezed his shoulder in what he hoped was reassurance. "Let's get you there."