Flowers for Scabbers

Chapter Seventeen

You Don't Use Shoeboxes for That

Percy's flat was almost sterile. Sure, there were a few dragon breeding magazines strewn about haphazardly and a dirty white mug and a crumb-filled plate on Percy's coffee table, but the rest of the flat was so pristine it looked boring. The smell of firewhiskey and leather hit Fred's nose the second that he and George apparated into the flat. George protectively clutched onto a shabby, old shoebox. Scabbers' new home, George had morosely said. When George had seen Scabbers dead, he'd cried for an hour, sobbing until he'd probably given himself a pounding headache. After taking a Pepper-Up, George slumped over Fred's shoulder and slept the whole way back. Meanwhile, Fred was numb and unfeeling. He spent the journey holding the syringe they used to use to give him a bunch of vitamin solutions and sugary supplements that cost a fortune. Like it helped. Like anything helped. Like anything would've helped. He remembered seeing the world pass by him in flashes of dreary grey and sombre black, a heavy curtain over glossy skies and what-things-used-to-be. The smell of England had left him feeling sick. Scabbers' death had left George too distraught to speak for most of the way back home. And Fred was quiet too. Thinking—not that he got anywhere. He was never really good at the thinking thing anyway. It seemed more of Percy's suit than his, you know?

Last time they'd gone back to England, it felt magical. This time, the whole journey was long and relentless. The closer they were to home, the more trepidation and anxiety Fred felt. What were they coming back to? A broken brother? A fractured family? An impending looming death? Looking back at the flat right then and there, Fred wasn't really sure just yet.

"Come on, Perce," Fred heard Charlie tiredly say from the hallway. The door to the flat had slightly been ajar when they'd come in. No anti-apparition charms, no wards, no bloody locked doors even. A weary-looking Charlie burst into the flat, carrying a listless Percy by his arm. "You don't have to go into work today! It's your day off! Did you hear that? You're OFF work today!" he shrieked at him. Percy flinched momentarily. He was shaking underneath Charlie's hold. Percy was mumbling under his breath, and it sounded a whole lot like nonsense. "I'll make you a bath! I've even bought you a new book to read in the tub so you can relax." He emphasised on the last word, as if Percy had never heard of it before. "Remember that, Perce? Huh? How to fucking relax?"

"No time," he whispered. "Can't relax," he sounded exasperated by this, his breathing becoming more laboured.

"Yes, you can," Charlie ordered in his most authoritative voice. "If you don't relax, I'll chain you to this bed indefinitely and you won't be able to do a bloody thing about it." Percy scoffed. "Seriously? You're giving me that attitude? Because I've worked with dragons. I have no problem holding your scrawny arse down for a day or two!" Percy paled after Charlie's threat. "Great! There! Now, we're on the same boat." He placed a hand on Percy's shoulder. "If you relax, you can go into work tomorrow. I won't even try to stop you. I won't drag you back here for a single bloody thing. Now, how good does that sound?"

"How many hours?" Percy immediately asked afterwards. He looked suspicious. "How many hours do I have to relax?"

"Many hours," Charlie decided after some time. "Many, many hours."

"Three," Percy reasoned, which only received a glare from Charlie. "Five." Charlie shook his head.

"Five," Percy repeated as a final offer, shoulders stiffening.

"Fine," Charlie replied stiffly. He sounded and looked exhausted. "Fine. Whatever. Do what you want. It's your funeral." Fred and George flinched when they'd heard Charlie say that. If only he knew, right?

Fred couldn't believe how bad Percy looked like. His skin was ashen, and his eyes had sunken in a little. They were also wide and bloodshot. One of them was practically red from a burst blood vessel. He was moving his thin lips purposefully, pressing them in, biting them, the corners twitching erratically ever so often. He was visibly thinner and hunched over instead of being stood upright and proud. He looked like a man possessed, like he was under the Imperius rather than a bloke doing exactly what he'd wanted to do since he was a first year. How in Merlin's name did the Minister even let him stay at work when he looked like that?

Politics is a stressful line of work! You wouldn't know about that, would you? Fred could imagine the arsehole telling him.

Percy, who looked drowsy and inattentive, snapped his eyes wide open in a moment of lucidity when he caught sight of Fred and George standing there. "What are those two doing here?!" he asked angrily. "C-came to see your work? Because you…you did this to me!" he pointed a trembling, accusatory finger towards them. "You made me into… into this," he clasped his hands over his ears, his breathing becoming shallower. "I...I hope you're happy, I hope you're happy, I hope you're happy!"

"Shhh," Charlie softly cajoled. "Come on," he whispered. "Let's get you into that bath I promised you."

"Four hours," Percy almost drunkenly slurred. Fred almost believed he'd start laughing at some point. "Three."

"Five hours," Charlie reminded him firmly. "Come on. You won't even notice the time passing." He paused. "Do you want some tea?"

"Fine, whatever, I don't care," Percy answered in the same tone that Charlie had used. "Yes, thank you."

A couple of minutes later, Charlie had given Percy a couple of Calming Draughts (where you supposed to have more than one?) and he looked sleepier and more human. Fred noticed that his hair had been cut too short, but his face was clean-shaven. Fred didn't know if Charlie needed them around because he seemed to know exactly what to do.

"I'll go make him a nice tepid bath," Charlie looked back at the twins. "I've made tea so… help yourselves." As of on cue, a teapot had whizzed its way into the room along with a plate of shortbread biscuits. But Fred didn't really feel like it. "And don't mind, Percy. He's just…under a lot of tension lately. He…he wants someone to blame."

"We gave him the potion," George reminded him in a matter-of-fact tone. "Perce can blame us—"

"—all he wants," Fred cut him off. "He's right, Charlie. He's right about us. We did do this to him."

Percy's face softened, as if he didn't really want to blame them anymore. Why? Fred didn't understand. George put a couple of biscuits onto a plate and placed it across to Percy, along with a mug of tea with three sugars and creams.

Fred sat across from Percy. "Hey, Perce," he greeted, but didn't expect a reply beyond scoffing and rolling his eyes.

"Hello," Percy replied back quietly, taking a sip of his tea. He still had tea splashing around everywhere because his hands were still unsteady even though he seemed calmer and more like himself.

"Look, um… I'm sorry about this. All of it." Fred thought that that was a given, but he had to say something now, didn't he? "I-I wish every day that I hadn't given you the bloody potion thing. Both George and I are going to open our joke shop soon and we're going to use the money to get you this…this dialysis equipment that's going to make you feel better," at least Fred hoped that it would. "I wish that we could just go back and treat this the right way instead of-instead of deciding to do what we did but we can't now so…that's done and done. I guess, I mean-"

"Done and done," Percy echoed. As if it wasn't his life that had been 'done and done'. "Yes," he looked lucid. Like he understood exactly what was going on and exactly what they were telling him.

Fred looked down at the carpet, which was a creamy beige and went along with the rest of his stale-looking flat. "I know that it doesn't change anything, and I know that you already know why but…we…we really were so scared." They wouldn't know how to live with it if their brother had died in his sixth year. "You were so young, Perce. We couldn't…couldn't lose you."

"Yeah," George nodded his head. "I still have nightmares about it. About pulling you out of the water and you…just lying there, looking like a corpse."

Percy looked like he was pondering. "It's alright." How could it be? "I understand."

Then George started talking, "Perce, I know you'll never forgive us." Fred realised that he hadn't even considered that to be a possibility. Because of course, Percy would never forgive them for stealing away three years of his life and making the whole family blame him for something that wasn't his fault in the first place. "But we were just fourth years. And you were our older brother. We thought that we were doing the right thing—wait, did... did you just say that...that..." George looked confused. "It's alright?" he reiterated in a high-pitched voice.

Percy made an agreeable sound. "It's alright," he blew on his cup of tea.

"It's alright?" George must've felt as weird as Fred did. "No, Perce, you-you don't understand. It…it can't just be alright." The sudden forgiveness was worse than Percy angrily pointing a finger at them.

How could it just be alright? The family hated him, and he was so focused on his work that he needed Charlie to take care of him—well, until his inevitable death, Fred thought with a solemn expression. He thought of poor Scabbers lying there in the cage that morning. The thought of how miserable he had been up to his death had left a shiver down Fred's spine. It was sickening to see this sort of thing happen to an animal, but the idea that it was happening to someone that was your own flesh and blood and there wasn't a single sodding thing you could do about it? How were you supposed to cope with that? When everything was your fault? And your brother wanted to forgive you?

A flash of recognition formed into Percy's eyes, but it disappeared in seconds. "Because you can't undo what you've done and you've spent the last three years apologising for it," Percy stated in a matter-of-fact tone. "So, it's fine."

"Yeah, Perce, we did spend three years apologising for this but…" Fred whispered. He was tired of saying the same things over and over again. Percy was sitting across from him, probably haven't have slept or eaten in ages. Why did he care what their intentions had been?

"But what?" Percy seemed more like himself by the minute. "If you apologise some more, do you think it'll cure me? If I were angry, would it change anything?"

"No! But-but you can't just forgive us," George supplied with a cracked voice. "You can't. We…" he stared down at the shoebox. "You can't forgive us because this isn't fair! Mum and dad don't even know that-that we've wrecked your life and smashed it to bits, and you can't…you can't decide to be nice enough to forgive us! They don't know that you're like this because of us, that-that-that…" he stuttered, looking close to a breakdown. Hot tears were running down his cheeks. "You don't know what..."

Percy didn't look like he knew what to do with a whimpering, blathering George so he just stared at him for some time. Then he offered up a tissue box. Taking one, George angrily wiped away the tears from his face.

Fred wished that he could take back every comment he'd made about his stupid prefect badge. "We believe you."

Percy snapped his head up. His eyes softened, and there was something that was so human about the way that he stared at them. Like he already knew what they were talking about.

"You believe what exactly?" Charlie asked. He'd returned by then and sat down right next to Percy. "I drew you a bath," he said. Percy, who'd calmed down, nodded his head. "Hey, eat these," he grabbed the plate of biscuits that George had produced. "They're nice, these ones. Got them discount from some posh place."

Percy tentatively accepted the plate, but once he started eating, he'd scoffed the three biscuits in less than a couple of minutes. Ten minutes later, he had the tin on his lap, and he was scoffing them by the handful. There were biscuit crumbs everywhere. His eyes wide and animalistic with every bite. It was mental, especially considering that Percy didn't even really like shortbread biscuits that much to begin with! How long had it been since he'd eaten anything?

"We…" Fred swallowed the lump in his throat. "We know that Uncle Fabian and Gideon hurt you."

"And we believe you," George supplemented. "We don't think that you've made up anything—not that you should be thinking that you did, because you didn't. We just…we think you should tell mum. And if you do and if she overreacts, we'll all leave and just huddle up here forever. If you decide to tell her that is because that's entirely up to you and..."

Percy stopped eating. There was sugar smeared all over his mouth and his pupils were still massively dilated. Fred had gone tense, holding in his breath as the whole room went silent.

"It wasn't true what they said about you, you know?" Charlie decided to say quietly. "It isn't true."

"You must be thinking that it's all rather ironic," Fred sadly chuckled. "That we were named after them and I've turned out to be such a fine person." He wasn't going to be dragging George into this. "Kind of like history repeating itself, don't you think?"

"No, it's... I'm…" George spoke in that timid tone of his when things went belly-up. "I'm the awful one."

Percy's eyes were located onto the biscuits. "You're nothing like them," he said plainly. "Neither of you."

He went back to eating biscuits, but his pace had slowed down enough so he could probably taste what he was putting into his mouth. "I forgive you," he said, but that was the final nail in the coffin. Fred couldn't just…let him do that. Let Percy forgive them.

"Perce, you…you can't forgive us," Fred's voice dropped down. "Because…because this potion is going to kill you."

It felt like a nightmare now that it was all out in the open, now that Charlie and Percy knew that they should be counting the days until his death when he was barely out of Hogwarts.

"I know," Percy answered indifferently with a raised eyebrow. "I can feel it. It's…it's like a poison."

"You know?" Charlie snapped his attention towards him. "What do you—what do you—" he stammered.

George looked alarmed too when Fred had told them the truth, but then he opened the shoebox. "This… this is the rat that we were testing the potion with," he didn't really leave him out close enough so Percy could look at him. Why should Percy be staring at a skeletal rat with mangled paws? "We called him Scabbers. And…he's died. And his potion levels were plenty high before he did." He paused. "Toxic," he echoed.

"He's died a really miserable death," Fred wouldn't lie. "Tried to run himself into the ground even after his heart stopped and George revived him."

Charlie's hands were shaking. "But I…I just thought that…" he erratically waved his arms around. "This machine! The machine you'll be getting…"

"Do you know anything about potion poisoning?" Percy pointed out with a haughty tone. "It ruins machines like that all the time." Fred knew right then that he was talking to Percy, not just a walking potion-addled nightmare.

Charlie shook his head. "No, that can't be… that can't be right."

"But it'll help! It'll help...slow things down," George responded. Slow down death, Fred thought resentfully. Percy was so lucky. "We'll open up our shop for the money. We've already gotten a few orders," George offered a weak smile. "We'd be able to clear the money in a couple of months." Percy had had the potion in his blood for three years. He could wait a few months. "But…but we've talked to Audrey about it and she said that-that she thinks it'll slow it down, but it won't…it won't…"

Percy lifted his heavy head again. His eyes were turning glossier. "Audrey?" he whispered.

"You're killing him, this potion is literally killing him… slowly, like a bloody sickening version of the Cruciatus curse! Do you have any idea how many days he works beyond one or two in the morning? How little he sleeps and eats and just lives? That today's just a lucky break that I've managed to drag him out of there? And it's only because of how weak he is after sleeping fuck all this week!" Charlie's voice rose with anger, his hands clasped into fists. Fred hadn't even thought of it like that. "And mum and dad think he left the family because he hates us! And…and you two just let him!" Fred flinched. "How dare you?"

After Charlie's outburst, the whole room went silent. What was Fred going to do? Defend himself?

"Yeah, Perce," George said after some time. He was quiet, unsure of himself. "Audrey's helping us figure out how to help you."

"Audrey wants to help me?" Percy looked touched by that. Fred supposed he thought that he ruined all his friendships.

"She…she understands that you weren't in the right state when…when all those things happened between you and your mates," Fred explained. Apparently, they'd really tried to get a hold of him, but he was callous and rude to them. That was the short story that Audrey gave them when they asked. Fred imagined that he treated them like he'd been treating their mum, cold and bitter. He shuddered. "She knows."

Percy nodded his head wordlessly, his mouth a little agape as he rapidly blinked his eyes.

"We need to make an antidote," George explained to Charlie. "To really reverse this."

Charlie's eyes were onto the shoebox that George snapped up. His lower lip trembled. "And if it doesn't work? If we never find an antidote?" he said the last bit a little harshly.

The whole room had gone silent. Fred didn't want to think about that. The threat that Percy would die was as real as the shoebox in George's hands. "Then…then…" Fred stammered. "Then you know what happens."

"I know what happens," Charlie mocked bitterly. "Yeah, he dies because of something he drank when he was a sixth year. Because that's fucking fair."

Fred closed his eyes, feeling his chest tighten. "Yes."

"Perce, you have to say something," George whispered. He clutched Scabbers' box a little bit tighter. Fred felt guilty. Because since he'd dragged Percy out of the water, his life had gotten progressively worse. He'd spent ages arguing with his mum after she'd declined to come with him to the clinic for help. He wasn't speaking to any member of his family after a massive row he'd had whilst he was under the influence of a potion that had kept him awake every night without fail. Behind his back, Ron and Ginny said horrible things about him that Fred and George had no choice but to agree to. "Please."

What was Percy supposed to say? He kept his head hung low and stayed quiet. But Fred wished that he'd start yelling at them about how they absolutely had no right to do what they did and—

"I already told you that I know," Percy rolled his eyes. "It's fine. It's—"

"Get out," Charlie ordered. Fred and George looked up at him with surprised expressions.

"Charlie—" George was cut off by Charlie shrieking, "GET OUT!"

Fred looked down at his lap, trying to think of something to say that would somehow smooth all of this over. Yeah, he couldn't come up with anything.

"Come on," Charlie stood up, grabbing Percy by his hand. Suddenly, he looked like he didn't know where he was at. Did he even really hear the things that they've said? About him dying because of this? Did he know? Because he suddenly looked a million miles away. "Let's get you into the bath and-and then we can get you something for dinner that isn't just pure sugar," he saw Percy nod his head. When they were heading to the flat, Fred had noticed that there was a place that sold Cornish pasties down the road that looked rather nice and golden, just like how they all liked it. And that was when Fred really wished that this were just a normal visit, instead of a horrific one where he practically told his older brother that he was going to die because of something that they made him drink against his well nearly three years back.

"But…" Percy looked down at Charlie. His breathing had gone laboured again and it was like he didn't even recognise the flat he'd been living in for years. "But…but I have work to do."