Flowers for Scabbers

Chapter Twenty-One

The Truth Is Out

"George…? Hey!" Bill looked surprised when he'd walked into the kitchen that morning and found George sat at the table, engrossed in thought—which rarely ever happened just so he could make himself clear. "Merlin, you gave me a heart attack! I thought you were..." His hair was pulled back into a tight bun and his face was covered in spots, which George supposed went well with the scars. He didn't know. Witch Weekly didn't really have a been-attacked-by-werewolf edition. "Um…well, you look great." He looked uncertain of what to say. "Considering."

"Considering what?" George piqued up an eyebrow.

Bill stood up straight. George tried to suppress the urge to laugh. "Well, um…you know…" then he noticed George's lip twitching in amusement. "Merlin, you're impossible!"

"Well, you fell right into that one," George smirked. "Merlin, you look like shite."

"Yeah, well, he was my little brother too," Bill narrowed his eyes. "And like you look any better."

George shuddered. He was fairly embarrassed by how bad things were. And he hadn't even noticed how things had changed in the past couple of months. Ron was lashing out. Ginny didn't want to talk to anyone. Bill and Charlie were engrossed into their jobs in their attempt to try and forget about everything. And Percy was… well, Merlin knew how Percy was like. He talked back to their mum most days, and then hid in his room for the rest of the day. Ron and Ginny often complained about how much of an arsehole he was for someone that had 'a lot of grovelling to do.'

"You're such a charmer, Bill," George replied with a dry tone. His shoulders were hunched back, and he had a mug of his mum's hot chocolate, which, alright, did make him feel better he'd admit (well, not to her, but that was all the same). "Hey, um…"

"Yeah?" Bill sat across from him. He furrowed his eyebrows together, tilting his head down in thought. Did he notice the same thing? How different everything was? How everything felt artificial and unreal? How the whole family had changed?

George stretched his arms above his head and let out a content sigh. Silence. Beat. Nothing. He yawned. No response from Bill. Quiet. "Um..." tension, then something he didn't want to ask. "Did…did you talk to Percy recently?"

"Percy?" Bill echoed the name like he'd never heard of it before, like they weren't absolutely breaking their backs not only two months ago just to make sure that he showered and slept and ate. "No," he tightened his lips. "Is there anything…?"

George just shook his head. "It's just that…" he glanced sideways. "I think that the machine is starting not to work."

He remembered the way that Percy's hands were starting to twitch as he read The Daily Prophet that morning. He circled jobs and disappeared for most of the day, looking for work. He only came back late at night, twelve, or one, or two in the morning, after a day of rejection. An unnoticed guest in the house, a shadow of someone familiar. There was a look of pained desperation and weariness underneath his blank facial expressions and upright posture. A disbelief. How was this happening again? it read, and George shut the book before he could read the rest. But it just sat there, taunting him. His mistakes, his future, his past, as sands of time slipped through his fingers. Alone.

"Oh," Bill replied but his tone was monotonous too. Is that it?

George nodded his head. "I guess we'll have to tell mum and dad about it. We have to I mean," he explained. "But I'm scared that-that if I tell them, they might not…they might not take Fred's death that seriously anymore." He realised how stupid it sounded like when it had come out of his mouth. But it had felt so real in his mind.

What's another death after all? George thought. Let's just pile them all up! Two for one! Stick them in the same coffin!

"Of course, they would," Bill shrugged lazily. "But how do you think they'll cope not knowing? Because if something happens to Percy today or tomorrow, what then? What are we supposed to do?"

George felt like the worst person in the world for being able to get up and go on with his day without thinking about it even once the past couple of months. Lucky, he thought. That Percy hadn't turned purple in his sleep. The adrenaline was gone, disappeared with the grief. George was worn-out, just wanting this Percy debacle that had consumed years of his life to end. Even if he died, he thought deep down. At least he wouldn't have to think about it anymore, alright?

"Good morning, darlings," Molly said as she walked into the kitchen.. She was a little chirpier these days, but not like before. She hadn't slept a full night since Fred had gone, George reckoned. "Oh, Bill!" she beamed with puffy eyes and a heavy smile. "What a nice surprise! You look…you look well."

Arthur walked straight in afterwards, hair a mess, glasses askew, shoulders slouched. "Molly, have you seen my…" he smiled. "Oh! Bill! George? How…how are you two?" he just about barely Accio-ed a pot of cold coffee to the table.

"Hey, mum, dad," Bill shuffled uncomfortably into his seat, not meeting their eyes. "I'm alright."

'Now?' he mouthed to George.

George nodded his head. Well, might as well just get it over and done with, so that didn't have to feel his twin brother scowling at him from beyond the grave anymore.

"What's brought you around here at this time of the day?" Arthur asked, pouring a sad cup to himself. "Not that we aren't grateful of course…"

"You're always welcome back home," Molly nodded her head, as she placed the kettle in front of the table. The tea was stale, and it had been for months. No working stovetops or flying toast this morning. She just levitated biscuit tins to the table. George grabbed a few custard creams, but he didn't really want to eat them. Somehow, the hot chocolate that he'd started to drink felt a little bit like a condensed sugar slab in his stomach. "How's Fleur been doing?"

"Great," Bill gestured to George. "Um…mum, dad, we actually wanted to talk to you both about something."

"What about?" Molly eyed George. "You can tell us anything, you know."

"Anything at all," Arthur added on, as if they hadn't heard it the first time, you know? But they both looked anxious. George figured it was probably not the right time to tell them, but sod it, how long were they going to wait? It had already been a couple of years for starters. "Now, what's this about?"

Feeling both his parents' eyes glued onto his face, George cleared his throat. "It's about Percy."

You should see how tense the room got, just by saying his name. Like he'd become the new You-Know-Who. George could hear the ticking of the clock, smell the bitterness of the coffee, feel the colour drain from his face. Last night, he'd passed by Percy's room and saw him in the throes of a panic attack. George didn't do anything but what was he supposed to do? Hold him until he felt better? Nobody was holding George through his. And he had one every night.

"What about your brother?" Molly's voice was sharp. George knew that he was over exaggerating, but the way that she said it sounded a little bit like: he's YOUR brother, doesn't have anything to do with the rest of us…

"He's really ill, mum," George explained. Bill's pupils dilated. "The kind of ill that's dying really."

Monster, he could practically hear Fred say. How can you talk about him like that? Like he doesn't matter? Like even finding him a fucking grave is an inconvenience for you? George didn't even feel bad. He just felt so defeated. Even as he was talking, he realised how detached he sounded. How could his parents believe him if he talked about it like he was talking about the bloody weather?

"What?" Molly looked at George like she was waiting for him to say that it was a joke. "It's not funny."

"It's not a joke, mum," Bill jutted his lip out, trembling. "He's…well—"

"Of course, it's not a joke!" George answered defensively. "Why would I joke him dying?"

He puffed out his cheeks, which were flushed and pink. "Listen, Fred and I gave him a potion in his sixth year. To help him be more ambitious, since…well, you don't know this, but he didn't care as much anymore. He was upset that his girlfriend got petrified... not that we knew that she was his girlfriend at the time." Well, he was ambitious alright. George started to feel prickling pains in his chest. "You should've seen him. He didn't care about his grades, about being a prefect, about anything! He just didn't care! He was just... depressed or something." Well, he did try to kill himself.

"A potion? What potion?" Molly pushed her chest out. "He's never had a potion—"

"They gave him a potion, mum," Bill quietly said. "At Hogwarts. In his sixth year. They made it themselves."

"Made it?" Arthur eyed George suspiciously. "A potion to make him ambitious? Isn't he ambitious enough without you pumping potions into him?"

"He…he was really not like himself, dad," George replied in a hushed tone. "And it was fine in the beginning. He was back to himself. He was you, know, doing his prefect rounds, and his homework and everything was fine. But all his mates kept telling us that he's not acting right—"

"What mates?" Molly looked more surprised at that than anything else he'd said. "He's never had any mates."

"He has mates," Bill crinkled his eyes in amusement. "They were all prefects."

George was irritated at the interruption. "Anyway…well, we had a rat named Scabbers, not like the Scabbers that Percy gave Ron, another one...we just named him Scabbers too. We gave him the same potion. And Scabbers got a little batty, overworking himself and all." George blathered on. "So, we got someone from the apothecary to look at the potion we made. They don't think that they could make an antidote for it. We've been testing his levels with a Potion Detector and it's gotten worse. His last reading was Dangerously High."

"Dangerously High?" Arthur reiterated. "A potion can't be affecting him for that long! You've said you gave it to him in his sixth year? Well, it would be—"

"Scabbers got to Toxic and then he…he died. Rather miserably." George could still vividly remember the shoebox funeral. "I don't know why but the potion multiplies over time, I think. Gets worse."

"I'd—I'd rather not you mention that the bloody rat died miserably," Bill huffed in George's ear. "Why would you—"

"Worse? Worse enough to…" Molly had paled. "To kill him? Is that what you're trying to say?"

"Yeah, well, just let me finish telling you and you'll know! And like you care anyway! You were fighting with him yesterday about how he used up all the hot water!" George yelled, gesturing his hands wildly at her. "Well, mum, okay, so Percy… he's bloody obsessed with going into work. We had to drag him out ourselves, you know, not that you noticed. We had to even feed him and bathe him, like he was a child. But we couldn't tell you that because you got upset the second you heard his name. The lady at the apothecary, Audrey, said we can get a machine, and it'll help clean his blood but not forever. He was like an Inferi before—you wouldn't believe that he was so normal at work because he fell apart the second that he was out of that building—the second," we. Them. Fred and him. "Then Fred and I—we got a machine. So, we could clean out his blood and he's better now, but… but she said that he'll end up breaking the machine. Potion poisoning. The machine that is, so it's not going to keep up, and we can't keep buying new ones. They're so expensive…and the hospital won't let us use theirs because of the same reason. And even Snape, before he died…well, he made it plenty obvious that it's a lost cause. That he's just going to die anyway, because there's no way to make an antidote."

George gestured towards Bill. "He knew about it too. But we forced him into an Unbreakable Vow, so he couldn't tell anyone anything." His shoulders sagged a little. "And then Charlie knew, but it was quite late. Middle of a war so…"

"George!" Bill slammed his fist on his table "Merlin, this is your fucking brother. Show some respect for Godric's sake."

Bill's jaw was tight. "What he wants? Do you think he wants a job right after his brother died? Do you think he wanted to be under the influence of a potion for the last five or six or whatever how many years of his bloody life?" he scoffed in disappointment. "George, I got to ask! Do you even care?"

"I…well, I thought you didn't care either!"

"Either?! Of course, I care about my fucking brother! What makes you think that?"

"Well, well…"

They both went quiet. Arthur and Molly's face had contorted into disbelief.

George was breathing out, his cheeks colouring in. "Well, you didn't want to talk about him. Neither of you."

"So? Then-then you're excused from not telling your mother and I about this?" Arthur asked. Then it clicked. The reality of the situation. How causally he'd been talking about Percy dying. How horribly that he'd given his parents the news, like he was telling them about a carpet that he'd wanted to buy but couldn't quite haggle the vendor down to the price that he wanted. How defensive and angry he was on the inside, how rotten and gone-gone-gone. But the way that he talked about it, it was hardly the kind of tone you used to tell your parents that something awful was happening to their son.

Arthur's shoulder slumped. "Does this-does this mean that when we fought, that he was…"

"He was sick, dad," Bill whispered. "Is sick. Really, really sick." Bill met George's eyes. "Right, George?"

"Yeah, well, so the fight wasn't his fault," George bowed his head. "Who… who cares?"

"Who CARES?" Molly shrieked out loud enough that they probably heard her all the way over at Hogwarts.

Arthur clenched his hands into fists. "Sick," he reiterated in an appalled tone. "And you couldn't have said anything then?" he asked. "That he was ill?"

"Why would you do something like this?" Molly screeched. "You made him a potion because he was upset that his girlfriend had been petrified? Of all the foolhardy things you two…that you…that you have done…"

But it was no longer you two. Never again, George thought miserably.

"You should've waited," Molly finally said in a level tone. "He would've gone back to normal. There's nothing wrong with a little heartbreak. Now, Merlin knows what you've given him—"

"Yeah well, he tried to kill himself," George finally answered, the pale, bloodied Kneazle in his gigantic bag. The Kneazle that was floating in the Great Lake, blue and dead and gone. The way that George had said those words frightened even himself. He was so calm and collected that you'd bet that he was talking about what they were having for dinner. "And he was rather unhappy about us saving his life so he wouldn't have been back to normal, alright?"

"George!" Bill yelled.

George felt hot tears fill his eyes. "Why couldn't you have known that there was something wrong with him?" he finally asked. "Why did we have to deal with it? Alright, yes, we ruined his life, but-but we did what we thought was right. We were fourteen. We were fourteen," his head pounded so hard he could barely think. He was defending Fred now, and he knew it. "It was Fred's idea. And he just wanted things to go back to normal! Percy threw himself in that lake and Fred took the bloody blame for it after he saved his life. If Fred and I hadn't been there, he would've died! Don't talk to me like that! DON'T!"

"George, hey, calm down," Bill reached over and squeezed his shoulder. "Georgie—"

"Don't you dare look at us for it," George's throat ached. His voice had gone hoarse, pained. "We didn't do anything wrong. It's your fault. You didn't know! How could you not know that there was something wrong with him? He's out here slicing his bloody arms every time he feels sad and remembers that someone whacked him over the head when he was a kid!" George's cheeks felt hot. "And he still asked you for help, but you had to fight with him, mum! Why did you have to fight with him? Why couldn't you just see right through him? Dad's bloody oblivious to everything, but I thought you'd figure it out!"

"George, come on, mate!" Bill screamed back at him, his hands shaking. "It's not our parents' fault. It's nobody's fault."

"It's somebody's fault," George whispered. How could it be nobody's fault?

It's my fault, he knew deep down. It's my fault.

He ran out of there and sped straight into his and Fred's room. He locked the door, shut the blinds, and then threw himself onto his bed. He buried himself underneath the duvet, underneath the damp, musty smell of unchanged sheets and old blankets. He didn't want to think about Fred, Percy, or how he screamed at his own parents. He didn't want to think about brightly coloured potions or disappointed stares. He didn't want to think about that day in the tea shop with his mates, or how that clotted cream tea tasted like that day.

If anyone even tried to make it past his door, he'd hex them, George decided as he buried his head into his pillow and cried until he passed out.

When he woke up the next day, the house was deathly silent. There wasn't even a chirp outside his window, or a few hushed whispers outside his door, like there had been the morning after the war. Even his feet barely made a sound as he walked out of his room. Then suddenly, the sharp, unexpected sound of a single sob coming from the hallway outside his bedroom. His limbs felt heavy and his head felt even heavier as he turned his head and met with the sight of his mum, head bowed, tear-stained, back painfully hunched over.

"Is it true?" the sound of Ginny's voice came afterwards, snapping George out of his musings. "About Percy being sick. Is it true?" beside her, Ron was standing there with an almost Snape-like scowl, shoulders straightened.

George cleared his throat, but his voice still sounded hoarse after. "Yeah."

Ron pushed him backwards, rather weakly and pathetically. George hadn't moved an inch. "Bloody hell, George," he didn't sound angry, not even disappointed. He just sounded tired. George supposed he'd be tired too. It's because I lost you, George thought to himself. He didn't think his family knew how to be angry around someone that was so raked with grief all the time. Even if he had literally tortured Percy with a few ounces of liquid he drank when he was a kid.

"I know," George answered back, ducking his head so he wouldn't have to look at them.

"Any bloody idiot could tell you lot not to open a potion book," Ginny added on.

George managed to form a small smile. "Yeah, well, you know how we're like."

"Do you think that we can try?" Ginny asked.

"You and your top marks in Potions, you mean?" George answered.

Ron playfully shoved him to the side and said, "Arsehole."

POP! The sound of Percy apparating in the middle of the hallway. George turned to look at him. He looked an absolute wreck. He looked so exhausted that he swayed like he'd just downed down a few pints of firewhiskey before he came back home. He wore his exhaustion like a coat, and with tunnel vision and a stupor, made his way to his bedroom without even looking at anyone else.

Passing by George, he could smell a whiff of his strong, cheap cologne and his cigarettes.

George reached out and held onto his arm. Percy stood abruptly, and then turned to look at him. His facial expressions were blank. He looked like he was already starting to doze off and that was before he'd even seen a pillow.

"Come on," George placed a hand on his back. "Let's get you to bed," he whispered.

Ron and Ginny followed him, as if they were about to have a party in his tiny, stand-offish room. George was just trying to make sure that Percy got to his room without falling flat on his face and smashing his glasses into pieces.

When he got to his room, Percy promptly collapsed onto the bed with his shoes on.

"Perce," George called out. "Perce, your shoes are still on," he said, only for Percy to groan and wave it off.

George was appalled. Percy probably needed to be near death to even consider getting into his bed with his shoes on. As Percy reached for the duvet, George unlaced his shoes and tossed them aside. Percy buried himself underneath the covers. His noisy breathing filled the room.

"Perce?" George shook him lightly. "You should really lay off the smoke because you sound like a chimney sweep with a double pneumonia."

Percy shoved him away and turned to the side. "Sod off."

"Language," Ginny was trying to suppress a smirk. Even Ron had lightened up by then.

"How unbecoming of a prefect," George crossed his arms over his chest, which earned a massive white pillow from Percy that he was using to prop up his already pillowy arse. But he swore that he could see a hint of a smile on Percy's face. "Goodnight, Perce," he said, and then gestured for Ron and Ginny to follow him outside.

George couldn't fight this feeling that Percy was becoming resistant to the sleeping draughts that they were giving him. As they left, he could see an empty vial of the Draught of Living Death. Had Percy dawned the whole thing down like it was water?

What if that stopped working? What next? They should hit him with a Bludger and hoped he passed out?

Things were tense around the whole house that evening that Percy was asleep. They ate dinner in absolute silence. They went off to play Quidditch just to lighten up, but nobody really had their heart in it. Besides, spoiler: Charlie always won all of the games when he was around. Ginny came close to beating him once or twice, but the arsehole was just too quick for her too. Arsehole.

But they hadn't even finished the game that day. They called it quits in the middle and went back to the Burrow.

Stepping back home, George didn't expect to see the sight of Percy, who looked like he had barely slept a wink last night, clutching onto a massive burgundy velvet pillow that practically swallowed all ten-and-a-half-eleven stone of him whole. He was curled up on the couch, eerily quiet. Molly and Arthur were sat beside him, so close that they were practically sandwiching him into a corner. Molly had a hand on top of one of his hands, and was speaking to him in soft, docile tones, barely audible really. Percy nodded his head every now and then. But his eyes were glassy, and he didn't look like he knew where he was. His lips were parted, and he was quietly sucking in air like he was hungry for it.

"…should know that your father and I care so much about you," George was able to make what his mum was saying but just barely. "Nobody wants anything to happen to you. You do know that, don't you?"

Percy, again, just nodded his head without even meeting her eyes. He rubbed his eyes.

"Why don't you go have a little kip?" Arthur suggested, as if Percy could just close his eyes and fall asleep.

Percy stayed quiet but he didn't argue. Didn't say anything about how he'd probably need to be Avada Kedavra-ed to even get a decent night's sleep these days. His shoulders slumped; he pressed his lips into a thin line.

Bill, behind him, snorted. Molly and Arthur suddenly whipped their heads up to look at him.

"What was that for?" Molly's tone changed from tender to mildly irritated.

"Mum, he can't sleep," Bill explained. "Maybe if you hit him in the head with a broomstick…" he gestured towards Percy, who was clutching his temple. He supposed that barely sleeping more than a couple of hours a week gave you massive headaches. "Um, he's barely getting a couple of hours drinking a whole thing of a Draught of Living Death."

"The Draught of what?" Arthur snapped his head up to rapt attention. "Do you want to kill him?"

"It doesn't work anymore," Charlie defended. "Oi, Perce, how much did you drink last night? The whole thing?" only to earn a placated nod from Percy, who seemed to have lost all other forms of communication. "How much did you sleep?" then he saw how Percy's hands starting to shake. "How much did you sleep this past week?" he added on, just to enunciate the fact that Percy was a walking Inferi at this point.

"You all sound pleased with yourselves," even Molly looked appalled at this state of affairs. "And nobody's thought to bring this up before?"

"Mum, you saw him," George tried to explain. "You knew he barely slept. You sent him out with us to Diagon Alley a lot, do you remember? When he's started working at the Ministry—"

"The Ministry?" Percy perked up, acting as if he was remembering fond memories of being overworked to the bone.

"I didn't know he wasn't sleeping the whole night!" Molly looked affronted at the accusation. "You'd assume that when people say that they didn't sleep well, it would be a couple of hours less, not that he's only slept a couple of hours a week!"

Nowadays, Percy probably dozed off for a couple of minutes every day.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Arthur looked like he'd just been smacked by Lucius Malfoy. There was a mixture of confusion, fear and disgust in his face. He stood up and helped Percy up to his feet. "And I suppose nobody ever took him to a hospital? What are you waiting for? For him to drop dead from exhaustion?"

"Um…" George realised that alright, maybe the hospital wouldn't help him with the potion poisoning but at least they'd be able to help him get a couple of nights of sleep.

When Percy started to sway when Arthur helped him up to his feet, Bill dove right in and rescued him from smacking his face straight into the coffee table and smashed his head right in. "Hey," Bill gripped tightly onto Percy's waist. "Hey, Perce."

Percy let out a "Hmm?" and looked up. George doubted he'd registered a single thing that their parents said to him.

"Mum and dad were talking to you," even Ron had caught on. "Do you remember?"

Percy stared at him a little confused. "What about?" he slurred almost drunkenly. His parents looked a little confused and bewildered by his amnesia. George could imagine they'd probably sat down with him four a couple of hours, trying to console him and here Percy was, completely unaware of everything that probably happened in the past few days.

In St Mungo's, George noticed Ron biting his nail down to stubs as they sat in the waiting room of the emergency department. When they'd been called in, the nurses didn't look convinced about accepting him. She kept walking in and out of the triaging room, to discuss the case with the healers it seemed.

Yeah, potion poisoning, yes, about six years back…but apparently, he can't sleep? Horrible the past few days.

Percy looked properly sick, with the blood pressure cuff snaked around his arm and his head ducked down, his eyes watering from the lack of sleep. Then a healer came bursting in lime-green robes and his hair askew. "Percy?" then George realised that it was Roger Davies, looking older and much more mature. His face was more chiselled, his hair was tidier than ever. He stood there, looking like he'd had the shock of his life. "Hey, mate."

Percy nodded his head as he sat by the chair, but he didn't look like he knew where he was.

"Is that his blood pressure?" Roger asked one of the nurses, tapping onto the monitor. "That can't be right."

He coughed and it didn't sound right. It sounded like there was something stuck in his chest. George turned to look at his blood pressure reading. Their father had high blood pressure, so he knew that anything above 160/90 was on the higher side. He could remember the trips his mum took with him to their surgery, where they'd leave with the healer chiding him about taking his potions. He'd also told him to cut salt and fat out of his diet, exercise more and insist he lose that extra stone he'd put on (when their father was, and had always been, a thin man). George could even remember the daily evening walks he'd take with his father and mum, where his mum spent most of the time reminding him to take care of his health more often.

That was why he couldn't believe it when Percy's blood pressure clocked in at 185/106. And Percy wasn't exactly going to be cutting salt out of his non-existing diet, lose weight he'd never really put on and walk when he could barely stand up without collapsing.

But when the nurse re-checked it, it had gotten even worse. Nearly-reaching-200 worse, and Percy was clutching his temples like he was in physical pain. Roger practically grabbing his waist and led him down to the emergency room himself, which was probably a striking thing for people to see. A healer dragging a patient inside the room. George felt like he'd legitimately failed him. Why was Percy's blood pressure sky-bloody-high to begin with? Was it something to do with the potion that they'd given him, or the amount of work-related stress he was under, being so jobless?

They followed him in. They kept him on a monitor bed. Percy curled up against the bed, burying his head into his hands. His whole form looked rather pitiful. Nurses were all around, putting blood pressure cuffs and wires on him.

Roger was stood at the foot of the bed, waiting for the machines to light up. The machine started blinking rapidly and making alarming sounds. Thung. Thung. Thung. Like an alert of something. Hardly the thing that you wanted to hear.

"This is the same potion you gave him in his sixth year?" Roger suddenly asked, as he pulled out his stethoscope and pressed it to Percy's back. Percy was crouched forward, his breathing a little noisy and wheezy. "For Godric's sake, what did you give him?" he looked genuinely sickened when George had confirmed Roger's suspicions. He waved a purple-looking wand and furrowed his eyebrows at the results. He let Percy lie back on the bed. "Take off your shirt."

Percy hesitated momentarily, but then pulled up his shirt. He had little patches of prickly-looking scars scattered all over his abdomen, but otherwise, it was just milky-white skin. Roger started palpating his stomach, and Percy just sagged, his body lying limp against the bed. You'd have mistake him for falling asleep, if you didn't know how hard you had to work to get him to have a few hours to himself.

"Do you have the ingredients to the potion you made him?" Roger asked. George managed to scramble out a piece of wrinkled paper from his battered-looking rucksack. Roger tore it from his hands before he'd even started unfolding it. And then, when Roger looked at it, he started to look a little green around the gills. "How did you even get all of these ingredients? This is-this is going to—this is going to kill him for starters! Rather badly to boot…"

"We know," Charlie said stiffly, as he'd pulled Percy's shirt down for him when he showed no signs of moving.

He rubbed his neck. "All those times that we were fighting…" George heard him mutter.

After they'd started using the dialysis machine regularly, Percy had mentioned quite often about how badly he'd ruined all of his friendships before. When he'd started to become lucid, he anguished about it regularly. Apparently, he'd said some horrible, unforgivable things to his mates. And it was hard to suggest that a potion made him a total arsehole.

"What's wrong with him?" Arthur asked all of a sudden, breaking Roger out of his thoughts.

"Looks like kidney failure," he gestured towards his diagnostic wand. "That's why his blood pressure is sky-high, and it sounds like he's got water in his lungs, which happens sometimes in later kidney disease." He paused, and George was shocked. Percy's kidneys were failing? How did that happen? He didn't understand that.

"We tried to use a dialysis machine for him, but it's not working anymore," Bill explained. "Audrey said—"

Roger raised an eyebrow. "Audrey works with potions. We can use peritoneal dialysis for him. We've just gotten someone a week ago that's been helping people with long-term potion poisoning because of it." He looked over at Percy, who was looking drowsier and more unresponsive by the second. "But I don't think you understand just how ill he is." George held in his breath because he could hear the scorn in Roger's tone. How could you let him get like this? kind of scorn that made him shudder. "His electrolytes are out of whack. He's very hypertensive. His headache is worrying, because coupled with the hypertension, might mean that he's at risk for a bleed in the brain, which is very fatal. We're going to do a wand scan for him, and then have the medical healers see him. He needs to be admitted."

At that point, Percy just offered a weak smile, looking like he was a million miles away from there.