this took forever for me to strike enough inspiration to begin to write it. i have a few ideas about what i think i want to happen in the future...it will be a little different than my usual Percy fanfics, but not too much (still incredibly angsty and dark, which is what i'm here for.)

trigger warning: there may be some mature topics, i.e. sexual topics explored and if i continue with the plotlines that i want to do, there may be some older/younger person relationship (some within age of consent, some...not so much).

Stay A Day in My Coffin

Chapter Three

The Aftermath

"Spells are sentient sometimes," Audrey said to Percy that night before he fell asleep. The following morning, he was going to go to the Burrow, at the insistence of his family, who seemed to want to 'talk everything out' and trying to call an 'emergency family meeting' regarding the situation. An eerie chill made its way to his bones, and he couldn't figure out if it were delight or fear at his predicament. And which was worse? "The reason why dark magic doesn't get extinguished is that even if you throw away all the books, they find themselves back to you again. Like…like the spell did when you were vulnerable and you…you were thinking about doing what you should've done."

"You mean thinking about wanting to die instead of Fred," Percy said, only for Audrey to shiver underneath her duvet, even though he could see sweat pooling down her eyebrows.

"Yes."

"And?"

"And I don't know," Audrey whispered. "I think I was just saying it, so I don't feel so bad about what happened. So, I don't have to take so much responsibility. I mean it is true—the fact that spells do have a semi-sentient nature to them, but I can't exactly blame the spell when you need a wand to cast it."

"…"

"Percy, your family is right about how this is an assisted suicide," the word made him shiver again, and again, he couldn't tell what feeling he felt. But he didn't feel as hollow and empty as he usually felt. But he didn't feel full of anything either. He was so solid, and yet so airy and far away, and he didn't understand how those two feelings could coexist in the same person. "I was assisting you in your suicide."

Percy closed his eyes, because just because hearing it more and more didn't change the fact that nobody thought it had been an 'assisted suicide' at the time that Audrey helped him with the spell.

"You're going to bring me back," he said flatly, just to close this topic more than anything.

He could feel Audrey's eyes on him. "And you care about that?" she caught him out. "What if I can't?"

Percy let out a deep sigh but said nothing.

"I feel like a criminal," Audrey finally stated. "I feel like I should be locked up in Azkaban. Because it's sick, isn't it? That I've helped you do this when you said it yourself, Perce, that you're not well. You needed help, not…not me just disintegrating at your feet and helping you kill yourself," He could feel his throat constricting because he was sick of talking about this. "Imagine if I'd just whacked you with a knife, then I'd be in prison."

"Not necessarily," Percy mumbled. "Murderers have stood trials and won. And the Wizengamot doesn't exactly like me, so I'd say that you have a fair shot, particularly considering that when this event was happening, neither of us was actually thinking that this was an assisted suicide," he said the words bitterly, as if he were mocking them and the situation.

"Then what is this?" Audrey asked.

Percy just stared at the ceiling. "What does it matter what it is?" he was sick of trying to give a name to it. "A funeral gone wrong," he'd decided on. Was George the only one that couldn't be held accountable for the things that happened during the funeral? But then he tried to imagine George deciding to do what he did - to swap his life for Fred and it left a bitter taste in his mouth.

He barely slept that night, and neither did Audrey. By the time that it was five in the morning, Audrey had stopped moving so much in bed and was asleep. Sometimes, he wished that he hadn't married her just so she didn't have to deal with the fact that there was something quintessentially wrong with him. He still wasn't sure what that was yet, but it was there. At around six in the morning after managing to take a fifteen-minute kip, Percy had apparated to the Burrow without even bothering to change out of his dressing gown.

That morning threw him back in time from when he was an eager fifth year receiving his Hogwarts letter. His mum still bought the same brand of cheap white bread. She still made her eggs too milky and watery. And she still had a steaming pot of tea ready by six o'clock in the morning as if it were a permanent house fixture. Same teapot. But the tea didn't taste the same, and the chairs were new and didn't squeak when he pulled them. He could hear snoring from the room above—Bill's room—and remembered how they used to beg him to put on a silencing charm at night.

"Did you figure out what you wanted to do?" his father had asked him on that sunny morning where Percy had barely slept. He supposed that he'd have a good amount of time for that afterwards.

"Pardon?" Percy tiredly stretched his arms over his head, his wrinkled sleeping gown rising as he took a long breath.

"What you wanted to do," Arthur repeated as if Percy hadn't heard him the first time.

"Well, um…I quite like working in the Ministry under Kingsley's leadership," Percy replied. He had been working there for a couple of weeks and things had been going alright, even if he felt like Kingsley had the tact of a stinking alcoholic at times. But who was he to judge when he had managed to 'maybe' commit suicide?

The world was hazy through his fuzzy lenses, even though he was staring at it with his glasses on. He had a massive headache and could barely hear himself think. The smell of coffee both made him want to down a cup, but also made him nauseated. Smelling his father's aftershave brought back so many memories he didn't even know that he'd missed.

"No, you prat," Ron stared at him like he was mental for needing an explanation. "What you want to do in your last few days of living." He said the last part as if he was confused about the concept still.

"Oh," Percy hadn't really put much thought into that. He wasn't exactly going to be shagging his way through London or find some death-defying stunts to pull off since he supposed his life had come to a screeching halt anyway. He peered outside their window and saw that the sky was greyer than Fred's gravestone. The outlook was gloomy, with a few spluttering of off-white clouds that didn't look like they wanted to be there. They looked more like puffs of smoke, and he wondered when they'd disappear. "I suppose…well, I hadn't really paid much attention to that."

"Figures," George rolled his eyes. "Perce, apparently, we might not be able to bring you back so…yeah, you have to do something. If you want my advice, you should go read a book about the end of the world and make up some last-minute conspiracy theories. It seems to be right up your alley." He was smirking as he said that.

"I wouldn't trust you to bring back a toad," Percy wondered what he was supposed to be feeling. He placed his hands into the pockets of his old sleeping gown. "But well, I suppose an ice cream would be nice," he said quietly, realising how juvenile it was for him to ask for ice cream, who he, as a grown adult, could purchase his fill in; no questions asked.

"An ice cream," Ron reiterated in disbelief. "That's all that you want?"

"I…I suppose so," Percy didn't sound certain now. He wanted things to be different. He wanted Audrey to have married someone that didn't hate himself so much. He wanted her to be okay with whatever was happening to him, even though what he'd asked her to do was so ruddy selfish. "I've lived a very fulfilled life thank you very much," he held his head up and puffed his cheeks up. Besides, every time that he'd done something that he felt like he supposed that he shouldn't have done, he'd come to woefully regret it. "Well, I would like to read the third instalment of Gilderoy Lockhart's autobiography series, but I suppose that that's not out for another four and a half months."

"That quack has written more than one autobiography book?" Ron sneered.

Percy just shrugged. He enjoyed his lucidly written paragraphs and shuddered at his experiences in the Janus Thickey ward thank you very much. He did not have to shag the man senseless to enjoy his work. "Despite the controversies, he has a very eccentric way of writing," he tried to explain. "And whilst his discoveries might not be his own, his narration was definitely unique." Ron just stared at him like he was mental. "A teeny bit self-absorbed I'd say but everyone has their faults."

"A teeny bit self-absorbed," Ginny reiterated in disbelief. "Sure, Perce."

Ron was trying to stifle back a laugh. "Whatever you say."

"Well, if it were my last day, I'd be doing all the illegal stuff I've always wanted to do," George said very plainly as if someone had asked him for his opinion. "Setting things on fire. Running amuck. Sending threatening messages to other Ministries as a prank. Getting myself on The Daily Prophet through acts of pseudo-terror by apparating into people's homes and trying to scare their six-year-olds by hiding in their closet. Turn myself into a legend."

"And this differs from your usual life how?" Percy asked.

"Point taken," George replied. He scrunched up his face, deep in thought. "I'd do it buck naked since I won't live to see the humiliation on mum and dad's face when they realise what their twenty-year-old son's done with his life."

"I never fantasised about doing anything with no clothing on," Percy stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Asexual, are you, Perce?" George snorted. "That's why your bird needs to be a surrogate to get knocked up."

"Audrey's a surrogate?" Arthur stared at him as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Yes, she is," Percy answered. If it were up to Audrey, she'd stop being a Charms professor. He had no idea why she liked being a surrogate, or why her dream profession was to excel in Divination. She still had a picture of the first baby she'd ever had—a boy named Jacob—and he still sent her owls, thanking her for 'growing him for his mum and dad.' She thought that it was one of the most selfless things that she'd ever done. Besides, the few Galleons that she'd received had helped furnish their abode. "I don't quite understand it, but whatever makes her happy."

"Oh, thank Merlin," Molly looked relieved. "And here I thought that…"

"Mum," Percy raised an eyebrow at him. If he was having children (which he never would because the thought of having to take care of another batch of red-haired sprogs truly terrified him), then he'd not exactly swap his spirit for Fred's unless he was particularly sure that it was reversible. But he'd leave his wife a widow without a second thought? Well, you could argue that.

When he'd come to that realisation, he felt himself go spare. then he tried to ignore it as if he hadn't thought about it.

"Well, it's not come up then, has it?" Molly asked.

"I suppose not."

He couldn't help but feel unnerved by the way that his parents were staring at him, like they weren't sure if they should just casually go on with their day or if they should Floo call a psychiatric ward just to commit him for the day.

"Perce, have you ever, just ever, considered just doing something reckless?" George asked. "For fun?"

"I wish I would stop doing reckless things for fun," Percy mumbled under his breath, which had obviously caught George's attention. What did they exactly call this swapping spell for one? Did they think that it was a level-headed decision? And that was just the tip of the iceberg, the surface of the four-tier cake, the cherry on top of a Fortescue's Sundae…

"What did you say?" George asked.

"Nothing," Percy flatly replied. He supposed that his last few hours on Earth didn't particularly include honesty. It was hard enough having to explain to Audrey ('you've done what? No, that's not possible') without having to explain to his family that he was worse than the lot of them. "Just that I don't consider doing reckless things 'fun' by any means." Well, that was true enough. He didn't consider it fun, but it didn't mean that he hadn't done his share of irrational things. "Mum, do you need anyone to go down to Diagon Alley with you for the shopping?"

"The shopping," Ron echoed incredulously. "Bugger only has a couple of days to live and he wants to do the shopping."

Molly looked stunned. "Well… I suppose I do," she sounded confused. "If you fancy that."

"I do," Percy didn't fancy that, but he didn't think that he had anything else to do that day.

So, by noon, Percy and Molly were outside Diagon Alley, doing her customary weekly shops. She kept glancing back at Percy as if she could barely recognise him and holding his hand in very strange moments. Her hands were dry and cold despite it simmering outside. She refused to let him carry around her shopping bags, which were filled with hefty slabs of discount local beef, cases of tomatoes and shrunken down packets of mozzarella cheese. She let him pick things for their dinner tonight, and Percy couldn't think of what he fancied, but he supposed that his favourite meal was salmon and potatoes. He'd paid for the salmon because it was pricier than their usual dinners, and his mum had gotten his favourite potatoes. He'd also gotten half a gallon of honeycomb ice cream and he supposed that was his greatest wishes fulfilled. A half-gallon honeycomb ice cream and a shopping trip with his mum.

His mum kept anxiously looking at the clock and then looking at him as if he'd disappear. And instead of going back home afterwards, she'd insisted on taking him to the hospital just to get checked out.

"Mum, what's a hospital going to be doing for me?" Percy asked her with a raised eyebrow.

"Maybe they could figure out if the spell can be recanted or…or maybe they could tell us when this spell is really supposed to take an effect—a precise time that is," Molly suggested. "It's only for a few minutes."

Percy didn't want to tell his mum that he'd probably need Trelawney for those predications, so he said nothing.

But when his mum explained to the healers what he'd done, they looked at him sceptically. They ran a battery of tests and sent him out within a few minutes of him being there. Percy thought that was that, but Molly's tremors were getting increasingly noticeable as they left the hospital.

"Well, that was useless," Molly said, shaking her head. It was obvious to him that she really thought they'd be able to help. "They didn't do a single thing." The way she said the last part sent a chill down his spine. It was like she was hoping that they'd just commit him to a psychiatric ward just for what he'd done. "What normal person does what you did and then just…walks out of the hospital as if nothing has ever changed?"

She plonked down onto a bench. They were practically alone, and she'd wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she could, and she cried as hard as she could.

"This is your form of suicide, isn't it?" Molly decided, gripping so tightly onto his hand that it hurt.

"Mum."

"So, what's that wife of yours doing when she decided to help you?" she sounded angry, and a little terrified.

"She didn't decide to help me," Percy explained. "I didn't seem to give her much of a choice." Then he recalled the conversation that he'd had with her that morning and felt his heart beating faster. "Spells can be semi-sentient—"

"Oh, so does that mean if I fire a Killing Curse at you, then I shouldn't be held accountable for that? Because spells are semi-sentient?" when had his mum gotten so good at these counterarguments?

Percy felt something solid form into his stomach, like lead. His mum was hunched over, her hair was matted, and her face stained with dry tears. She was darting her eyes back and forth from her hands to him. The thought that Audrey could be thinking that she'd assisted into his 'suicide' was making him feel rather ill and confused.

"It…" Percy thought about how scared Audrey looked as he broke down. "It all happened in a few seconds. Very heat of the moment."

"A few seconds!" Molly cried out. "Well, you could drink poison in a few seconds! Do you think that I'm going to be trying to help you drink that? Do you think that if George was trying to slice his throat and begging to join Fred, that I'd just let him do it because it'll only take him a few seconds to end his-his life?" and the way that she said it sent shivers down his spine. "What a lousy excuse, Percival. That sweet little wife of yours—"

"Please just stop talking about Audrey like that," Percy cut her off. "It was my idea."

"Your idea," Molly echoed incredulously. "And what was that idea exactly?"

"I just wanted things to be better," Percy admitted. "And I didn't…I didn't care if something would happen to me."

They sat there for a few seconds. His mum's shopping was on the ground as if she hadn't paid money for it. She didn't look like she cared about it. She didn't look like she was excited to go back home and prepare their family dinner whilst the radio was on, playing Celestina Warbeck's Greatest Hits. Percy couldn't fathom the idea of what he'd done actually happening. Would it be painful? Would he just sleep and never wake up? Would Audrey really be able to bring him back, or was this really his last few days walking?

"You wanted things to be better," Molly grumbled to herself in disbelief.

Percy could feel the warmth of the sun on his back. A couple were passing by across from them, carrying purple carrier bags. He and Audrey would look like that sometimes.

"Well, I did! You didn't exactly do anything when George's said what he did," Percy said rather stiffly. And there he was, saying it for what it was. A spell that might backfire on him, that might kill him, and he just simply couldn't care any less. "And I kept telling her that…that she could bring me back. I suppose convincing her, edging her on. I've put her into a corner, you realise. It's not like we've planned it a couple of days back!"

"No, I've not but I'm not going to help you try to kill yourself, Percival," Molly shook her head, tears burning into her eyes. "And if she can't bring you back?"

Percy just shrugged as if he didn't have a care in the world. "Then…then she can't I suppose."

"That's the problem, Percy. It sounds like you don't care if she can't bring you back! You don't care if this is the last few moments of your life. How am I supposed to react to this?" she stared at him like she couldn't recognise him. "Just this morning, all of you just sat there joking around about all of this, and it's made me ill. It really has, because it's turned this twisted thing that you both have done into this-this normal thing. As if everyone's done what you have at some point in their life. Your father's just sitting there, drinking his tea like you were all talking about going to a Quidditch match."

He wondered if that was what downing onto Audrey these days. She looked so pale that her client was worried that she might induce some sort of preterm labour to herself. She cried sometimes when she thought he wasn't looking. She was obsessively reading books about the-spell-that-can't-be-recanted, desperately trying to figure out what had happened.

I am so, so ashamed. She'd said to Nathan a few times, to him too. I feel like I should be put in Azkaban for this.

"What in Merlin's name am I supposed to do when my child doesn't care if they live or die?" Molly asked.

"This is pointless." He finally sighed. "Mum, the spell can't be recanted! What's the point of this?"

"Oh, so I'm just supposed to accept that? That the spell can't be recanted? That I might never talk to you again?"

"Well, if this is the kind of conversations we'll be having, then I can't say that it's such a bad thing, mum."

"Don't you dare say that, Percival. Don't you dare start with me."

Percy was sick of having this conversation with Audrey, with his mum, with everyone else that he'd ever had in his life. Instead of answering, he just carelessly shrugged his shoulders.

"Do you remember the last dinner we all had together?" Molly asked as if Percy couldn't remember the day that he'd left the family. "Well, before…before you've told us about the promotion." He nodded his head curtly, remembering how nicely they were sat around the table. His mum had just bought a new tablecloth, and they were eating a wonderful roast dinner. In fact, Percy could still remember spooning mashed potatoes as he trembled with anticipation of his 'wonderful news' that later destroyed his family. Wonderfully wretched that was. "We were just having such a nice time. Everyone was relaxed. The twins were even well-behaved for one. I felt like I was really happy to have such a family. And then this fight happened, destroyed everything. And I really thought that…even with Fred's death, we can somehow bring the family back together. Maybe not now, but eventually, that…that we'd somehow be alright."

Before you've ruined it that is went without saying. Again. He knew his mum wasn't thinking that, but it was how it felt.

"What happened to you? I can't even recognise you anymore. You don't…you don't act the same. It's like you're a shell," she said. "You sound and look like a stranger to me. It doesn't feel like you're my son anymore."

"Well… I'm sorry you feel that way," Percy said indifferently. "But you haven't talked to me in ages. What did you expect? That the war was only happening to you?" his shoulders slumped in thoughts of the last few months of the war.

"I suppose not," his mum supposed that the war wasn't just happening to her. How lovely.

When they went home, his mum spent the afternoon packing away her groceries and making supper for that night. Percy said his goodbyes and left to go to his flat. When he saw Audrey, she had that ghostly face that he'd seen her with last and he just felt like giving up. He had never wanted something to end so quickly . How did a few hours seem so long and so fast at the same time? When he caught the silhouette of his grieving wife, he walked into the bathroom and washed his face a few times until his heart didn't thud so much into his chest.

You want to die but can't face the consequences, he rationalised as he stripped down to his birthday suit. He opened the facet, letting the water turn from cold to warm to scorching hot, just like how he liked it. Coward.

When he walked outside after he was clean and sopping wet, his clothes felt fresh and pressed. He was wearing his favourite cream button-down and white trousers but didn't feel the least bit uplifted. He kept thinking how easy it would just be to end this himself, but he didn't know if the spell would take place then. He didn't know if Fred would be able to be in his body anymore if he'd sliced his wrists until his favourite cream clothes were soaked in crimson. So, instead, he just smiled at Audrey and pretended like it was just an ordinary day when his heart felt so heavy.

Audrey looked up from the spell-books that she was reading and pressed her lips to his cheek. "Hello," she had her hand absentmindedly to her protruding abdomen, stroking it. "Was it okay? Talking to your parents?"

He grunted as a response. Great. Now, he'd been reduced to troll speak.

"That badly then?"

He moved away from Audrey and opened the door to the fridge so he could stare at their wilting lettuce.

"Percy, are you listening to me?" had she been talking? He couldn't remember a word she said after she started talking about spellbooks and charms. He looked up from the fridge and smiled weakly at her. "Don't you want to talk to me?"

"If it's about the same things we've been talking about recently…" Percy warned.

She took her wand out so she could Accio a carton of orange juice from the fridge. She poured some into a glass. He wrinkled his nose because he never understood how people drank that tart poison and enjoyed it.

"Percy, love…" she begged. "Come on, this is ridiculous."

"Yes, it is," he agreed. "Why are we talking in circles when we can't change the fact that what's done is done?" he placed his hands together and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Audrey, but is talking like this about it supposed to make me regret what happened? Is it supposed to make me want to live?" he saw her accidentally drop the carton in her hand. Orange juice spilt all over their glossy floors, but Audrey didn't look like she was in a hurry to tend to it.

"What happened today, Percy?" Audrey asked as if she'd forgotten the things that he'd said about how he didn't think that he was well. He thought that this would be so easy, a few hours and then he'd be gone, but it was so long, so painful, so agitating. "I know that you're grieving but I'm really scared about how you've been like recently. It's like…you're almost out of control."

He wasn't grieving. He genuinely wanted to end his life. "This is not just grief."

"I know," she sounded timid. "But I don't think that this is going to make you happy, love."

Percy stared back at her. I don't think anything will make me happy. He didn't have to say it. She knew that he was thinking it. "I suppose not," he was clenching his jaw so much and hadn't realised it until he felt how much it ached. "Mum is going to be making dinner tonight. I don't really think she wants you to come by, but I do."

"She blames me," Audrey concluded, and he nodded his head. "Well, I don't blame her for how she feels."

Percy said nothing for a while. What was he supposed to say to that? "I would've done it without you." He knew that she knew that too. "But I'd probably have hurt myself more in the process."

Audrey had let him sit down. He stared at her and tried to remember how he met her. He couldn't remember because his head felt so fuzzy. All he could think about was how hollow and empty he felt.

"Maybe…when you come back, you can also see about getting some help again," she decided to say.

"I suppose," Percy replied. He was counting on not coming back, but he didn't know how it would go.

At around an hour afterwards, he'd gone to his family home, clutching Audrey's wrist. She was wearing pink robes. His whole family was there, including Bill and Charlie, who were there because of the 'family emergency.' How surly they must feel like having to come back again after the funeral.

Percy looked away from Bill when he'd met his eyes. He still hadn't gotten used to his mauled face, and he particularly wasn't used to it with that interrogating look on his face. Charlie didn't look approachable either. He'd placed his hands into his pockets and looked down at their old Persian carpet.

"Oh, you're here," Molly walked out of the kitchen, breaking the hefty silence. Her eyes were on Audrey for a few seconds, with a disappointing, mistrusting gaze. Her eyes went down to her belly and Percy flushed deeply, despite him not having a single thing to do with that conception. "Well, now that everyone's here, together, why don't we have a nice dinner and catch up?" Catch up. In their 'family emergency' that was.

"Yeah, let's catch up," Bill eyed Percy carefully. "Since we're having an 'emergency family meeting' because my brother had this wonderful idea of doing a spiritual swap that would make Trelawney jealous."

Percy let out a deep sigh. "What does Trelawney know about ancient charms?" maybe if it came with a crystal ball.

"That's not the point," Bill shot a pointed look over at him. Even though Percy had seen him just a day back, he looked different. His hair seemed to have gotten thinner. His eyes seemed lighter in colour than he remembered and spending so much time back in England had made him pastier than ever. "Percy, what in Merlin's name did you do?"

"I don't know," Ron just shrugged. "Don't think anyone does. Mum thinks that he's trying to kill himself."

Audrey was grabbing Percy's arm and inching close to him as if she could hide away. Percy was surprised at the range of interpretations for what he did. From his mum and Audrey calling it assisted suicide to Ron just nonchalantly waving it off like it was just something that he did to Ginny insisting that it was a 'family emergency.'

"Are you trying to kill yourself?" Bill asked as if Percy would just straight up tell him.

"I didn't intentionally consider it," was Percy's roundabout answer. Did he do it for the sole purpose of dying? No. Did he care that it might occur because of the actions that he'd chosen to take part in? No. Fortunately for him, he'd sorted out all that will rubbish during the war, along with every other practical bloke. Apparently, that also included Fred, who had left an uncomfortable sum of money to everyone in the family and insisted that Ron take his place in George's shop. "It seemed to just…occur." He waved his hand around in slack gestures.

"You look absolutely gutted at that," Charlie raised an eyebrow at him.

"This is my reaction in every situation," Percy retorted. And it was the truth. He wasn't exactly breaking walls or having breakdowns at Fred's funeral. He wasn't exactly going to go into the fact that he didn't care if he were gone. Molly was eying him, considering the conversation that they'd had on that bench next to St Mungo's.

"Boys," Molly called out. "And Ginny," she tossed a look over at Ginny, who was sitting on the couch. "Dinner."

His family didn't know how to handle a stressful situation at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. Percy heard that they'd uprooted to Grimmauld Place to use as a safe house during the war without so much as explaining it to everyone else. So, the fact that they were just sat there eating dinner for their 'emergency family meeting' didn't really phase him. As Percy cut into his salmon, he felt all eyes on him. The topic of conversation. Inside, he could practically hear Ron sniggering about how he was the centre of attention, just like he'd always wanted.

"So, what happened exactly?" Charlie decided to break the silence around the room. Percy knew that this was just going to be more talking around in circles. He'd anticipated it, but it didn't mean he had to be okay with it.

Percy was sipping water. "Nothing," he said hastily. "In a fleet moment of desperation, I happened to come across a spellbook with the aforementioned spell that everyone is already well aware of. The one that has multiple warnings regarding the fact that it cannot be recanted? A fact that I have mentioned numerous times? And it's occurred right after the eventful service we had. Audrey's theory is that spells can be semi-sentient enough that you happen to come across them with you feel like they are most needed. And well…it's happened and since then, we've just been talking around in circles about what it is and what it means. Mum insists that my wife is in some form of conspiracy where she's helping me kill myself? I'm not sure what Witch Weekly magazine is publishing these days, but I suppose conspiracy theories are rather popular amongst the masses."

If he knew there was going to be so much deliberation involved, he'd have locked himself into his bedroom until the spell swap was complete instead of having to answer questions. Percy even sounded bored talking about it. There was no sense of urgency in his tone. It was like everyone was talking about something they'd read in the papers that Percy had some sort of personal stake on but couldn't find the topic more tedious if he tried.

"Whoa, Perce," George mockingly put his hands up. "Do that again, but this time with even LESS emotion!"

"Conspiracy theories," Molly muttered. "You still haven't answered me, Percival, about what you think this is supposed to be."

"This have been talked about to death, mum," Percy supposed that he probably shouldn't have said to death in that statement but well, what was done was done (and that was what he kept trying to say!). "Did you really think that if I was genuinely trying to end my life, I'd bring someone else into this?" her face stiffened but she looked like she relaxed a little. He buried his head into his hands, rubbing his temples because he was having this massive headache.

"Well, when you put it like that…" Molly looked almost a little apologetic for that. "You have to forgive us, love, but this situation, it's…it's more than a little odd, isn't it? I don't really know what to say about it. I still don't know how to feel." He really felt for her when she said that. He supposed that he'd forced their hand in a very peculiar situation, and he knew that it was selfish of him to just assume that nobody would react to it. As if he was the only one affected by his own decisions. "I didn't even know this sort of thing was possible! I don't know how it's going to be like, or anything of that sort. I mean, really, Percival, how are we supposed to be reacting to something that nobody's ever heard of?"

Percy's grip on his fork tightened. "Well, um… I'm not sure."

"Well, mum might not know how she feels but I know I do," Charlie stared at Percy with a hard look on his face. "You're a selfish bastard for doing this. We've just lost Fred and now, you've just made everyone else scared that they'd lose you too? Because great going, Perce. It's been about one day since we buried Fred." George winced at that, and he, who hadn't even been eating, put down his spoon. George was already looking like he'd lost about half a stone in three days with his only-water-and-firewhiskey diet without Charlie reminding him that he'd lost his twin.

"I know," Percy said when he noticed his mum pale at Charlie's robust claims. "I didn't do it on purpose."

"You don't do a lot of things on purpose, Perce," Charlie reminded him. "Like fighting with dad and running out of the house? Remember that? Whose fault is that supposed to be?" the statement made Percy shrink into his chair.

"Leave him alone," Audrey retorted weakly, even though she seemed to be so small in her chair. Nobody had mentioned her pregnancy, so Percy had assumed that news of her being a surrogate had managed to make it to the whole family. "What's interrogating him going to do?" Percy and Audrey exchanged silent glances, both thinking the same thing. Audrey had obviously tried to pry into it more than once. He knew she couldn't blame them for what they thought. This was an impossible situation.

"What else are we supposed to do?" Ginny raised an eyebrow. "Congratulate him for his efforts? Just ignore the fact that it had happened?" and then silence ensured afterwards. It was a stifling dinner, with an even more stifling conversation. Percy felt like the potatoes were jammed in his throat. He had never wanted to disappear more than in that moment. He almost missed the days where he'd gloat, and everyone would ignore him. But if he started gloating about this, his whole family would be flinging mashed potatoes at him for being a git.

"I…I suppose not," was Percy's riveting response to Ginny's points.

The whole night felt like a blur. Percy could barely remember how the tablecloths looked like, what Ginny was wearing, what anyone had talked about afterwards and what he was supposed to be looking forward to. His heart felt so heavy, his body felt so limp. By the end of the night, he had gone out onto a stroll. He went into the forest late at night, which wasn't as frightening as it sounded like. The trees were so bare that you could see anything coming kilometres away. There were more flowers in the forest than Xenophilius' garden of mysterious plants. He sat down on a log next to a murky lake. He could recall the dirty taste from when he'd bathed it in one summer as a third-year Gryffindor. The kind of water that left a film in your throat and left you coughing for days just trying to dislodge whatever you've accidentally ingested.

He took out a book and flipped to the last page he'd read, where the words were glittering like the inky sky before him.

Percy stayed there for a while. At some point, he rested his head into his book, nestling up to that new book smell. He didn't know what he wanted from his family. He didn't blame them for how they reacted, but he still wished they'd stop talking the way that he did. By the time he walked back to the Burrow, he felt like he'd chugged down a glass of lake water and all the sewage and dead doxies and flobberworm mucus was stuck in his throat along with his mum's dry potatoes and salty salmon. He could barely swallow without feeling the thick layer of deceit. A familiar feeling.

I've done so many horrible things that nobody knows about, was all that he could think about. I am not a good person.

He was selfish. Even as he saw his mother crying, he felt nothing. She genuinely had thought that this was his form of suicide. His family didn't know what they thought of it now. If it was a selfless sacrifice, if it was just something that happened; if it was still a suicide. The guilt was so bad, but the thought of living such a vacant existence with all this pain inside of him was even harder.

By the time that he'd made it inside the Burrow, he was starting to feel sleepy. He collapsed in front of the couch whilst he could hear his family bickering over nonsensical things in the kitchen, where they were still eating pudding.

Percy was just going up the stairs to go to his bedroom so that he could sleep. His head started to feel groggy, and he was seeing stars in front of his eyes. He rubbed his eyes and then, just as he was started walking up the stairs, he felt himself slipping away into a dark hole. The last thing he could remember was letting out an ear-piercing shriek before his body hit the floor.