Flowers for Scabbers

Chapter Eighteen

We'll Tell Them In A Week

George had an official burial for Scabbers just a few days shy of his death. He'd even paid for an expensive coffin and a tombstone, shiny and real. It was the least that George could do after they tortured the poor bloody thing to death.

Fred hadn't come to the funeral. "It's a rat," he told him. "A rat."

But that night, Fred woke up at two in the morning and started crying. George heard it clear as day, but he'd pretended that he didn't. Pretended that Fred was the strong one. Pretended, pretended, pretended.

The show went on after Scabbers' death and Percy's spiralling state. They opened up their shop soon after they'd left Hogwarts and filled it gaudy decorations. The aisles had so much colour and rubbish in them that you didn't know where to look at when you walked in. The cherry-coloured shelves? The oversized cardboard graphics? The bright, glittering signs? And the sadder George felt, the more rubbish he managed to cram in the displays. There were shelves that were absolutely brimming full of boxes that had a trillion shades of purple, green, yellow and Merlin-knew-what-that-colour-was. They had gone from simple fresh reds, purples and oranges to colours that George can only describe as troll vomit and dragon shite.

After eight days of working, their shop was fully furnished, with registers that gleamed in the dark and gleaming displays that could knock anyone's socks right off.

For the first shift, George manned the counter. The weather was so bad that day the only customers they got were pimply-faced second-years and a sardonic-looking Slytherin that refused to pay for anything. George was afraid she'd nick things from the shop at some point. Oh, and of course, the family visited—their mum tried hard to maintain her disapproving frown and unhappy expressions, but she couldn't. She gave up after a few minutes of surveying the counters. She said that it was a 'nice shop' and that they seemed to be doing really well for themselves. It was the biggest compliment she'd ever given them. Before they left, Arthur hugged him, saying, "I know that this isn't conventional by any means—quitting Hogwarts for a joke shop of all things, but I'm… I'm proud of you. Both of you."

George had almost cried. Proud of me? What a laugh. He thought of Percy lying in bed with gigantic eyes, unable to fall asleep without powerful sleeping draughts. We did that to him, George thought. We did that to him, and you don't even know. Imagine how proud you'd be then, finding out that we're actively killing that son that you said that you hated!

After that, he'd spent most of the day, scoffing overly doughy cheese and onion pasties until it was time for Fred to come around for his shift. There wasn't a single customer that would've been able to guess the pain and anguish that George was hiding underneath his beaming smile and upbeat salesman attitude. Especially not his own family.

When he handed the shift over to Fred, he apparated to Percy's flat straight after he left the shop. He felt shaky and overwhelmed by his father's comment. When he got in, he was distraught by the sight of Percy lying onto his side onto the couch, gripping tightly onto a pillow. His pupils were dilated with a pinkish cornea. He had work papers strewn everywhere. His handwriting was getting more erratic every time George saw it. It had gotten to the point where he couldn't even read a single word that Percy had written from how loopy his handwriting had become.

Bill was crouched down beside his listless body. He had his hand onto Percy's arm and was speaking to him in docile tones. He looked like a wreck. He had fly-aways everywhere and he hadn't even bothered with the ponytail.

When George crouched down beside Bill, he felt his older brother tense up. His jaw hardened, and he'd dropped his hands down to his side. Before George could even realise what was happening, Bill had smacked him to the side of his face.

George yelped. "Hey!" he placed a hand on his cheek. "What was that—?"

Bill pinned him down. "Godric, I could kill you right now," he fumed. "Godric, I could…" then it hit George. Charlie had told Bill about what was happening to Percy, about how he was dying, and he felt himself give way.

George let himself go limp. Tears burned into his eyes. "I know," he said in a broken tone. "I know."

Bill's eyes were filling with tears. "Look at him!" he tossed a look over at Percy, as if George hadn't had the image of him burned into his skull, with his lax facial expressions and vacant eyes. It was hard to imagine how he was like at work, but George had a feeling that somehow, he became invigorated the second he saw a bunch of boring papers.

Percy blinked a few times, but he was still staring blankly into space, muttering. "The Ministry has been very proficient in recognising the situation for what it was and I, as your Minister…"

George buried his head into his hands. "I know," he kept repeating. "I know, I know, I know."

Bill didn't seem moved by George's breakdown. He stood up from where he was at. George just realised how ripe he smelled. How exhausted he genuinely looked like. Charlie couldn't stay in the flat, minding Percy forever. Bill had come back to England recently because of the war. George knew that with the whole getting-married-to-a-part-veela-and-being-a-part-of-the-Order thing had kept him busy. Bill hadn't had that much time to see Percy (especially since he'd been trying to make the antidote). If you hadn't seen Percy spiral with your own eyes, then seeing him like that all of a sudden was a shocker. Last time Bill saw Percy, he could articulate how much he hated him. Now, he was visiting a Percy that barely slept and spent his time muttering to himself. He looked like an escapee from the Janus Thickey ward.

"He doesn't sleep," George whispered. "Barely. That's why he's…" he swallowed the lump in his throat.

"Couldn't have guessed that," Bill replied back hotly. "He's been talking to himself all day, reciting the Minister's speech and spluttering on about rules and regulations. It's…it's like he doesn't even know he's awake!"

The last time Percy had slept was two days back. A whole four hours, Charlie mentioned happily. He went by most days with ten-minute naps. And do you know what was sickening? George had realised that Percy probably hadn't slept normally for years after he'd taken that potion.

"Hey, Perce," George placed a hand on his shoulder. "How…how have you been like?"

Percy didn't even look up. Now that he was closer, he could make out the rest of what he was saying, "…the blasphemous Dumbledore has insisted that we…"

George turned to take out a vial of the Draught of Living Death and shoved it towards Bill, who stared at George suspiciously. "Stick this in his tea. He'll be out for a couple of hours." A couple of hours, George thought morosely. A potion that would slip most people into a comfortable coma barely knocked Percy out for a couple of hours.

"A couple of hours?" Bill was in disbelief. "Do you know what this even is? He'd be lucky to—"

"…refuse to comment at the current moment about the rumours," Percy echoed.

"Audrey gave it to us," George thought of her passing a couple of vials to them without a second thought, her dark hair spilling in front of her shoulders. "She works at the apothecary, remember? She thinks that that might not even work eventually. She's brewing something stronger for him so that he can sleep for more than a few hours at a time," he said in a rather flippant tone. But what was he trying to prove? That the powerful sleeping draught that he was giving Percy eventually wouldn't be able to help him at all? "Bill, he hasn't had a few proper's night sleep in months." When had that become normal? "Can't you tell? Well, obviously, Dreamless Sleep doesn't touch the sides anymore!"

"I'm not feeding him the Draught of Living Death," Bill said in finality. "And I won't hide it in his bloody tea!"

"Minister wants his tea," Percy slurred.

George's hands were shaking with fury. If he were alright with these potion measurements, he'd do it himself! Clutching the potion, he turned to show Percy the vial. "Perce, do you recognise this?"

Bill scoffed. "Don't be daft," he said. "You'd be lucky if he recognises his own reflection at this point—"

Percy eyed the potion deliriously. "Sleep," he realised. "Sleep," he reached out for the pale-pink bottle with a shaky hand. George had thought that he must be rather desperate to be lunging for the potion.

"Hey, Perce," Bill stroked Percy's arm. He honestly looked like he was calming down a dog. "It's…it's alright."

Percy was shivering, closing his eyes as tightly as he could. He placed his hands over his face, as if he'd just realised he looked like the walking dead. "Well… you don't have to hide it in his tea anymore," George shoved the vial towards him. He was never sure about these potion specifics, but he knew that Percy shouldn't down the whole thing. "What are you going to do, Bill? Let him go stay awake forever?" he challenged. "Look at him."

Bill stared down at Percy, who had his eyes glued to the potion.

"This is sick," Bill unscrewed the top of the potion bottle. George felt his heart hammer in his chest when he'd taken the chewed-up syringe on the counter that they used for Scabbers and started measuring out the potion. Of course, Bill knew the right amount without even cracking a book. And of course, he couldn't have known about Scabbers and the syringe. "How desperate you've made him to sleep is sick," he said a little hotly.

George shuddered, looking down. "I never said I was proud of it." I'm proud of you. Both of you.

Bill dispensed the potion into an unused, chipped white-with-purple-flowers-on-the-side teacup. Then he sat Percy up long enough to let him drink it.

After Percy (finally) fell asleep, George levitated a bunch of heaving maroon blankets over from his bed and threw it over his sleeping, tired form. He could've just levitated him to the bed, but he didn't want to risk waking Percy up when he'd become such a light sleeper. After the fourth blanket, Percy practically disappeared under the sheer volume of wool. George spent a few minutes listening to Percy's breathing before he quietly walked away. He walked towards the kitchen with Bill. He carefully shut and locked the door behind him. After a few exhales, George turned to Bill. His older brother was leaning against the counter with a vacant expression on his face, his arms wrapped around his chest in a deflated, defeated way.

"He's dying," Bill's voice echoed through the spotless kitchenette. "He's really dying." George nodded his head quietly. Yes, he is and yes, it's all my bloody fault. "He's dying and mum and dad hate him. That's what Charlie said," his hands were shaking. "Is that right?" he asked. "Is that right? That he's…he's…"

"Yeah, he is," George pressed his lips together into a thin line. "I don't think he cares much about mum and dad hating him anymore," he replied in a rather twitchy tone of voice, but he knew that he was right.

"It's inhuman what he's turned to," Bill' had his hands balled into fists. "Bloody inhuman."

"We…" George crossed his arms. "We're going to get the machine and then we're going to tell mum and dad."

Bill's jaw tightened, but his shoulders relaxed. "Yeah, why not wait?"

"Why don't you go and tell them now?" George dared. What else was he going to say? You're right, Bill! Let's go and tell them now whilst Percy's asleep and unsupervised! "Dad's in a mood every time he even hears Percy's name. He goes quiet every dinner when anyone talks about him! Mum can't hear his name without starting to cry! Ron and Ginny say such horrible things about him and I have to pretend to agree with them because that's what they expect me to do!" the look on his father's cheery face that morning, I'm proud of you, flashed into his mind. He'd be keeping that to himself. No need to let Fred know about it. No need to share the guilt. "But why don't you go ahead and tell them? Huh, Bill? Tell them everything RIGHT NOW!" his hands shook. "Bring mum here! Let her see him like this… go ahead!"

Bill flinched at the thought. She was in a state, knowing that he was out there all alone. If she knew how ill he really was, it would absolutely wreck her.

"You're right," Bill didn't sound happy about it. What did he think? That George was happy about the state of it all?

Things had stayed tense between the twins and Bill for ages. It had taken months for it to be anywhere near normal again. For a long-long-LONG time, Fred and George couldn't even open their mouths to talk about the weather without Bill replying in a condescending, holier-than-thou attitude. George wanted to throw him out of the shop on numerous occasions, especially when he came in and made snide comments about the products they were 'peddling'. You must be so proud of yourselves; he'd said once, and it had struck a nerve in George (wonder why.) He would've socked him in his thin, horse face if not for the fact that they needed him around for Percy's sake.

Because Bill was the one that came into Percy's flat at the crack of arse to make him breakfast when George was still throwing his alarm clock across the room (that usually bounced back and hit him in the head. Stupid magical alarm clock.) He was the one that knew exactly what to say to Percy to get him to leave work at three in the morning. He was the one that knew how to calm him down without sedating him with enough Calming Draughts to kill a dragon. He'd even brought Snape in on the down recently, not that the bastard was good for anything. He looked at the potion ingredient list in distaste and when he saw Percy's state, he'd sneered a "Good luck" and left.

And seeing how affected Bill was by how Percy had become really brought back home just how sick Percy was. Because Fred and George had almost gotten used to it—well, he'd been like that for ages then, you know? It was almost like he really was like that. They'd forgotten he had a completely different personality sometimes. Or maybe they really didn't forget, but it was easier to pretend that they had.

Percy forgave you, George thought, not that Percy was in the right mind to do anything anymore. The guilt still followed him around like a constant Dementor, siphoning off any good feeling he ever had about himself. It was there in the corner of every triumph and was a constant fixture in the looming darkness.

George was even more apprehensive about Percy's condition when their father got attacked and ended up in hospital. As horrible as it sounded, they were hoping it would bring everyone together. But Percy lived in a perpetually-raining dark cloud of work productivity and sleep deprivation. If they dragged him there, they wouldn't have been able to explain his behaviourisms, or excuse them. Even in the hospital, they could barely think about their own father because they were terrified of keeping Percy alone for such long periods of time. Bill, Charlie, Fred and George had formed their little cut-off circles with hushed whispers and prolonged glances at each other. Fortunately, their father was discharged a week afterwards with blood-replenishing potions and strict instructions on resting up whilst he was recovering. His mum had been rather adamant about it too. Every time he'd even talk about work or The Order, he received a firm talking to!

"The git hadn't even bothered coming," Ron had said the day that their father was discharged. "Typical."

Molly sighed. "He's still your brother," she reminded him, but it fell on deaf ears. But what broke George was that she didn't sound convinced. And he almost wanted to tell his own mum off, but he held himself. Because if she didn't believe in Percy as much anymore, then why should the rest of them? All over a mangy jumper that made him break out into a rash anyway. "But don't…don't mention that around your father." George could remember her warning clear as day. "He's recovering and is ill enough without stressing himself out about-about how their…relationship has been like."

"What relationship?" Ron had turned to George. He was grinning from ear-to-ear.

George replied with a fake smile, "Don't ask me." He just shrugged. "If it were up to me, I'd—OOF!"

Bill pulled him to one side. He leaned down and whispered into George's ear, "We need to get that machine now. I don't care if we have to postpone my wedding." He had such a determination in his voice that it sent a chill down George's spine. "Because it'll be Percy in the hospital next and we'll have a lot of explaining to do."

"Agreed," George mumbled under his breath. His cheeks were hot and red.

At that point, the shop had been rolling in a wonderful profit. But George was stunned when he and Fred went to see about the dialysis machine. They didn't want to do it into the hospital at the time of the war. It was getting progressively more dangerous to go out and buy a carton of bloody eggs, much less take someone that was already frail and vulnerable to a hospital! And what healer would let them use their dialysis machine when they knew that eventually Percy's potion-riddled blood might end up breaking it? But George winced when he realised just how pricey they were. Buying one of those things was like taking out a mortgage! George felt dizzy the second that Fred had asked about the price—ridiculous really. But he supposed that he shouldn't have been surprised. It wasn't like they could just pop into the shop and buy one. They had a bloke over at St Mungo's that did the ordering and would sell it to them for a heftier price.

Merlin bless him, because what excuse was he going to use? I've lost a twenty stone machine! didn't sound like it cut it. But hey, he'd have to be making something off it now, wouldn't he? For flogging off dialysis machines to pranksters?

Christmas was even more horrendous. Fred and George hadn't expected Percy to pop into the Burrow with Scrimgeour. And Fred and George started to realise that Scrimgeour had no clue about how Percy was like because at work because he was so put together and professional. You would've never been able to guess that when he came back home, he became a limp corpse that could barely speak. An Inferi that bred exhaustion and sickness. George felt ill, thinking about how their father wouldn't have been able to tell that his own son was dying if he'd passed him by in the hallway.

Well, Ginny thought it would be funny to start throwing mashed parsnips at him. Fred and George froze for a second, but joined in with laughter, both hoping that Merlin himself would have planned out a horrendous afterlife for them.

When they got to Percy's flat that night for Christmas, they found him huddled up in a corner of the bedroom, with his customary paperwork about strewn everywhere and that unreadable scrawl that had become imprinted into George's nightmares. His unravelling w's, his inconsistent a's and run-on sentences that somehow transformed into neat script by the time that it hit Scrimgeour's table. An emotionless Percy working behind the desk without a single thought beyond the tasks he had to complete. That day, Percy had still had the quill in his hand when he'd passed out. They had to take him to the hospital for the night, where they ran all sorts of tests and things, and kept asking him Is this normal for him? Is it normal? Does he have any kind of mental illness? whilst he was staring at the walls vacantly. He refused to move and was shaking like a floppy leaf in autumn. They had a psychiatric healer see him before they left, and he'd decided that Percy was 'catatonic'.

Catatonic! George thought with a grimace. This was someone that was running around, throwing away flying memos in the morning and he was catatonic by evening! He was upset for days upon hearing that, even though he knew how Percy looked like to everyone else and how he was just getting worse and worse and worse…

They ended up spending the days after Christmas trying to recreate the holidays for Percy. Because they couldn't just ignore the fact that he wasn't with them. He must remember the things that people told him, said about him, did for him. On the twenty-eighth of December, they'd had a full roast dinner. Charlie had to practically spoon-feed him just to get a proper amount down his gob. He drooled and spat out the undercooked potatoes, and they laughed for ages somehow. They didn't really know what they were laughing about, but George remembered his stomach turning. And they laughed, laughed and laughed until they cried. They thought to keep the gift exchange until Percy was better. When he can actually understand that he's been given a gift, George thought woefully. It would hurt too much otherwise. Having to unwrap all the nice things they'd gotten him and him not recognising any of them because they weren't a meticulous to-do list or a pair of work shoes.

"I promise we'll make it up to you, Perce," Fred said to Percy one day when he'd finally gone to sleep.

George didn't want to tell him that he was frightened that with the war looming over, that he might die like this. Not just from the potion! He was… Percy was defenceless. What was he going to do if he was ever attacked? If the Ministry was under siege? Ward off Death Eaters with his blank facial expressions and wonky handwriting?

As clouds vanished and skies turned darker, as the Ministry became more sinister and the rabbit hole got wider, things became infinitely more complicated. The week after Bill's disastrous wedding, they all sat down with a semi-lucid Percy. Bill had brought Fleur over to see him after he'd explained what was really going on to her. Fleur seemed to be overwhelmed with how unresponsive Percy was. She'd even cried and she didn't even know him. So, how was Ginny and their mum supposed to react after all the things that have happened between them? There were days where the only way to get his attention was to slide a form in front of him, in which he became a regular Ministry-oriented employee that was just doing his duty. As he wrote, Bill used to cut his hair and shave his face. He tore papers away from him and wouldn't give it back to him until he ate and slept. It was almost laughable really. George sometimes visited him in his job just to see how he was like. And no matter how bad he'd gotten at home, you could never tell when he was at his job. In the Ministry, he was the pinnacle of a perfect employee. It just happened to be that that employee went as rigid as a plank by the time that he went home three hours after everyone else had finished work.

It became too dangerous to go into the Ministry, with the attacks and riots, but Percy still went. Every night, George bit his nails down into stubs, wondering what was going to happen to him.

It must've been two or three years after they'd opened the shop, during the height of the war, that they'd managed to get that shiny dialysis machine. It was gigantic, almost too big for Percy's teeny flat, but they'd shrunk it down. They took Percy down to a death-infested, sickly hospital to magically create his AV fistula (don't ask George what in Merlin's name that was, but Audrey told him that he'd need it for the machine). After hooking him to the lines and watching his blood pump in and out of him for the better part of six hours, Percy slept the whole night for the first time in years.

That morning that George woke up in at around six, he'd gone down to the help Percy shower and noticed that he was still asleep, clutching tightly onto his blankets. His body, usually stiff, had become limp and floppy. His breathing was slow, rhythmic. Worth it, was the only thought that came into George's mind. Worth the hassle of getting the Merlin forsaken machine. Worth the hassle of using all their money, of haggling, and procuring and learning about two tonnes of metal that smelled like piss and faux dragon hide. Worth the hassle of staying the night in a hospital that was filled with the sick and the sicker, the dying and the dead. Worth it, worth it, worth it.

"Still sleeping?" Bill came from behind him with surprised look. It was the most pleasant thing to see him really sleeping.

George nodded his head. "Yeah, he is," somehow, now that he wasn't twitching all about the place or perfectly still, he'd realised just how terrible he looked like with his sunken eyes and sallow skin. Charlie had resorted to hacking off most of his hair in his lucid moments because he wouldn't let anyone touch it otherwise. His hair was growing back straight. Godric knew what how that happened. Percy had never had straight hair in his life. It lying so flat against him made him realise just how disgusting his face was, from his caved in cheeks to his gigantic-everlasting-doll eyes.

"Do you think…do you think we should wake him up?" he whispered quietly. When George snapped his head up to look at him in horror, Bill just flushed. "I mean, you know, to have something. To eat," he emphasized.

"You must be mental," Fred whispered when he'd come in. He looked like he'd slept well too. George couldn't. He'd been too frightened that the machine wasn't going to work. "He looks…so different."

George didn't know about that. He was frightened that if they woke him up, he might never get back to sleep. "Maybe later," it wasn't like a skipped meal was going to make a difference to him. Percy skipped meals all the time, and then scoffed whole cakes and things late at night when he was coherent enough to remember that he was starving.

"We'll tell them a few weeks from now," Bill finally decided. There was this heaving weight lifting off George's shoulders.

"Yeah," George agreed, and Fred gave him a soft smile. "A few weeks…when he's more normal."

Fred looked down at his feet, shuffling around awkwardly. "Hey, guys," his voice dropped down into a near whisper. He'd never looked so serious in his whole bloody life. "The war…it's…it's getting real." His voice cracked a little. Not that they were under the impression that it wasn't real or anything all this time, but it just felt like it was really approaching. "With…with Ron's last owl, it sounds like…like it's really coming in."

"Well, it is a war, isn't it?" Bill broke out into a toothy, broken smile.

"Yeah," George repeated, though he wasn't sure what he was adding to this conversation.

Bill looked down at the floor, rubbing his neck nervous. "Listen, if anything were to…to happen to me, I want to let you both know that it's never acceptable to make a move onto my wife. And if you were ever to even think about it, I'd come back from the grave and haunt you forever," he playfully pushed George on his shoulder. "Oh and tell mum I love her. If you know, I die." He was joking but both Fred and George knew that he meant every word of that.

Fred scoffed. "Yeah, well, if…if anything happens to me, then you have to promise that you'll tell mum and dad about Percy," he sounded sincere. Really? That was all that he could think about, because George could think of about a hundred things he wanted, and one of them ended with a new Firebolt to take with him onto the other side. "And-and maybe they can finally get him the help that he needs…" his voice dropped down a little. "I'm so bloody tired of things being the way that they are. I just want us to be a normal family again." He smiled weakly. "Do you remember how it was like when—you know, before we found Percy in the lake? It was the best years of my bloody life."

George just looked down at the floor. "Yeah," his voice cracked. But he didn't say anything else. Fred wasn't going to die anyway, and him talking about it so nonchalantly made goosebumps form onto his skin. "It can be good like that again."

"I hope so," was all that Fred said. Percy turned to the side, snoring. He hadn't realised that he'd started talking a little louder and Percy hadn't stirred. It was bloody perfect. "Well, it can't get any worse, could it?"