Momentary Illusions

Chapter Four

Between A Rock and A Hard Place

1987.

It was boiling in King's Cross on the first of September 1987. Whilst waiting for the train, Bill had shrugged off his favourite weather-beaten dragonhide jacket. His thin white shirt had become transparent with the sweat. Fifteen-year-old Charlie, who was skinny and pale, hungrily gulped down a cold bottle of water while crouched down in front of the floor, a position that would herniate whatever disc Arthur had procured at the ripe age of thirty-seven. Women and men in shorts passed him waving around wands with cooling charms. Blasts of snow came in from directions, but flecks and snowflakes melted before they hit the ground. Arthur reached to grab eleven-year-old Percy's hand, who complained that 'did not need to be held' and 'wasn't a baby anymore.' In the heat, Percy's cheeks were flushed and pink, and his small, thin hand was clammy. They'd just barely gotten to King's Cross by the skin of their teeth. Bill had barely packed his trunk and Charlie was tossing everything last minute. At breakfast, Percy loudly announced to everyone over waffles that he had packed his trunk two weeks ago in anticipation. This earned praise from Molly, an eye roll from Bill, and a 'prat' under Charlie's breath. Arthur took in the crowd, from older parents with liver-spotted hands and young, disgruntled parents. Children whined about the heat as advice on 'how to survive your first, second and seventh year of Hogwarts' got passed around, with the best being 'Don't die in the bathrooms' followed by 'Hogwarts is the safest school, you know?' He heard accents all the way from the South of Wales and Scotland.

Amongst the fuss of Remembralls, reminders and lost sneakoscopes, Arthur tried to relax. Everything would be fine.

But before Percy boarded the train, he snatched his arm. Percy turned his head back, irritated he might miss his train. Arthur leaned down to his son's ear and said, "Percy, listen." He saw Percy look up at him with big, emotionless blue eyes. "You're a boy. You've always been a boy." Even if I didn't believe it at first. He could practically hear his anxious wife lament about letting him to Hogwarts. Over the course of the week, they'd bought up bathroom debacles, room sharing and what would happen if someone would find out and tell everyone. "So, don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Percy looked up at him and with the confidence of the Minister of Magic himself said, "I know."

2018.

The world felt different when Percy had left the clinic that day. The word ovarian cancer kept swirling into his foggy mind, mostly the ovarian aspect rather than the cancer part. His whole fingers had gone numb and started to tingle the second that he'd left the clinic. He could barely hear his father asking him if he wanted a cup of tea before they had a spot for lunch. The sky didn't look as blue, the weather felt hotter than it was, and his whole body ached as if he'd been in a Quidditch Tournament. People shuffled in and out of hospitals, shops and train stations like it was just a normal day, when he felt like his whole world had eclipsed and all he could see was a bleak, winding road ahead of him. He could barely see or feel anything. The alarm bells of memos and meetings seemed farther and farther away, and within a couple of minutes of them leaving, he could barely hear the echo of his responsibilities. Percy sat at a bench near the hospital and took a deep breath like he was starved of oxygen. Molly. Lucy. Audrey, he tried to remind himself, Divorce proceedings. Children not having a job. Employee record review. Department heads board meetings at two with a shockingly red-flagged notice about the importance of attendance. But his body felt heavy, like lead, and he couldn't imagine the urgency of anything beyond I have ovarian cancer.

"Percy?" Arthur sat down beside him on the bench. He sounded unsettled.

He bit back his lip so hard he could taste his own blood. Suddenly, his life, which he had been so vibrant and happy that morning, started to unravel right before his eyes. His children didn't respect or listen to a thing he said. His wife was growing more frustrated with him. His family barely talked to him. His department abhorred him. He wrapped his arms around his chest, taking in a deep, jagged breath. What if he never went back? The illusion that he had built something that he was proud to call his own seemed to crumble. What if he never faced up to how ill he might be?

"It wasn't a standard procedure, was it? Marilyn found…something," Arthur guessed. "Didn't she?"

"Yes," was all that Percy said.

Arthur nodded his head. "Do…do you need any help?" he asked. "Do they need to do another procedure?" all Percy could imagine was the host of prodding that was going to happen into the future, and it was enough to make him perspire even more. Then he thought of having to tell people and it terrified him. How was he supposed to tell anyone? Nobody but his wife, his parents and his oldest brothers even knew to begin with. "Why don't we go back, and we can talk about this together?"

He didn't answer this question.

The silence just made Arthur look more perturbed. "Percy, I—"

Percy glanced back at his father. "Well, if you still insist on having lunch, we need to leave now. I have other matters to attend to," he decided to say, glancing back at the Weasley family watch, the only heirloom he owned and it looked like it had been scratched, beaten and had truly survived two wizarding wars. It gleamed in the sunlight. "So, do you want to come?"

"Oh," Arthur looked disappointed. "I suppose," he didn't sound convinced. "I thought you were taking the day off."

"You suppose that you want to come?" Percy acerbically reiterated. "Well then, don't."

"No, no, Percy, it's not that, it's…" his father took a deep breath. "Let's go back to the clinic and talk about this."

Percy didn't want to talk about it.

Arthur placed a hand on Percy's shoulder, squeezing it tightly. "Listen, I know it might be a sensitive subject, but whatever it is…there's always a solution," he smiled again as if he really could comfort him when he didn't know. But Percy didn't have to tell anyone. It was his body, and he was entitled to be the only one that knew what happened to it. "So, you don't have to be so frightened." He resisted the urge to scoff. "I might not know anything about your job, but if it's an issue of time or money, then I'd be happy to help. Merlin, Kingsley would be happy to help. You work too much already and…"

Percy looked down at the watch and kept thinking about how late he was going to be.

"You're right. We should go have lunch now if we don't want to be back too late," Arthur looked like he was giving up. "If we leave now, we might be able to make it before the lunch hour is over."

I have ovarian cancer, he imagined saying as if it were just a passing remark like him mentioning how tall Lucy had gotten or the fact that Molly had been covering her face with more paint than a Magenta Comstock portrait.

"Do you really think that I'll be able to make it back?" he suddenly mentioned in the most vulnerable voice he could.

Arthur snapped his head up in confusion. Percy wrapped his arms around his torso and suddenly, he was aware of every single pound he'd lost and felt small and vulnerable. He was no longer Percy Weasley, Head of the Department of Magical Transportation. He was just someone that was ill, and that notion frightened him. All he could think about was their mum's one-hundred-and-six-year-old father, who died last year of lung cancer and a horrific lung infection that spread to his blood. He was senile, delirious and spent his last few days asking for tea and someone to take him to the bathroom. He had soiled himself when he had arrested and died on a chilly, wintry night. His mum still cried if she thought about it. She was ghostly pale and went to bed at six o'clock on Christmas Eve, still thinking about the jumper she'd just knitted for him.

"Yes," Arthur reassured in a stern voice. "Of course, you will," he grasped his hand tightly and squeezed it. "Come on."

Percy had never felt more frantic than he had on that day. His Ministry robes were wrinkled, and he felt like crawling underneath his bed for the rest of the day. When they went to a café, Percy had never felt less interested in eating. Percy stared at his father's hands. His father's hands were massive compared to what he'd remembered them to be like, rough and calloused from years of tinkering with machinery. Percy felt like a child, with his thin, freckled ones.

The café was almost empty save for a couple of just-graduated seventh years talking to each other at the end, and an old man staring at his Remembrall looking like he was using all of his brainpower to remember what he'd forgotten.

How could you learn that you were dying on your own lunch hour? Percy stared at the clock and realised that he was going to be late no matter what happened. He had written a memo at the desk and sent it to Elora, saying that he'd be another hour, so she could rearrange his schedule. He might still be able to make it to the board meeting. Percy slunk back to his seat straight after he'd sent it. Just telling his secretary that he was still busy made him feel so worn out. Arthur ordered a massive-looking club sandwich with extra chips and salad that Percy was full of just looking at. He frowned when Percy refused to order anything and was picking off the salad and chips on Arthur's plate.

"What is it that's happened between you and Audrey?" Arthur decided to sour Percy's already grotesque mood.

Percy didn't want to talk about his wife. "She's been thinking about divorcing me for the past two years," Arthur had gone so white that it was almost laughable. "I found some papers in her clothing drawers. And it turned out that Molly and Lucy knew about it." He felt a chill go down his spine that he was the last person to know that his wife was unhappy with him. "And I was so sick of…how dysfunctional our family had got that I just left. And it's gotten so horrendous. Audrey and I rarely ever talk, and Molly and Lucy just seem to look at me like I'm a Gringott's account." Percy didn't realise how painfully sad he was until he'd said those things. "I spent the night at Shell Cottage. Bill and Fleur lent me Dominique's old room." He was forever grateful that Dominique's taste was white and bland.

"Percy," Arthur looked at him with a distressed expression. "Percy, I'm sorry."

He was picking tomatoes out of the salad and placing them aside because of how wet and slimy they were.

"Don't you think that you two should talk?" Arthur prompted gently. "Perce, it just sounded like…like things got lost a little in translation. It happens. Sometimes, you don't talk to the person you're living with for ages. Sometimes, things do go south, but I don't think that Audrey ever stopped loving you." Percy didn't know about that. He didn't feel very loved sat there at the café, wondering what this was all going to amount to. "I think that you just have to try together again." His eyes twinkled a little, that amusing glint in his eyes revived with hope. "Why don't you go see someone? All of you?"

"I suppose I can give it a shot," Percy didn't like the idea of that, but he knew it was for the best.

Arthur just nodded his head fervently. "Come on then," he smiled weakly. "And what's happened today at the appointment?" his voice was so warm that Percy just wanted to tell him everything. "It sounded serious so don't try to faff about it." He gave Percy a pointed look. His plate was almost cleared. Percy was grateful this lunch was coming to an end.

"It's nothing—"

"Percy—" his father cut him off in the middle of his response.

Percy was biting down his lip. If he'd gotten that second procedure ages ago with his own money, then maybe he wouldn't have been in this position. "They found a mass in my ovaries," he started speaking just as Arthur stuffed the last bite of his sandwich down his throat. "It's cancer." When he said that part, Arthur started coughing rather loudly.

He just barely got the sandwich down and had to throw down a gulp of water.

"It's what?" Arthur looked at Percy as if he'd misheard. Those words had probably never been uttered by his family member unless it was in the passing, about someone else's life. Someone that wasn't your child, or your sibling or your parents. Percy pushed his glasses up like he used to do as a child as if he'd done something wrong by saying the truth.

"It's cancer," Percy reaffirmed again, wrapping his arms over his chest. "Ovarian cancer." His voice lowered.

Arthur was panting like he was running a marathon. He kept on taking swigs from the glass of water beside him and a waiter had come by him, asking him if he were alright. Percy made the mistake of looking down at his watch just to see the time and his father grabbed his hand so tightly that Percy thought he might actually break it.

"She said that she'd have me referred to a specialist," Percy didn't want to say the words, but he did. "A gynaecologist."

Arthur flinched because this whole situation was sickening. Knowing that you might die was one thing but knowing that you might die from your darkest secret, your biggest insecurity was another thing. He couldn't imagine anything like it. He was going to die because he wasn't enough of a bloke. His vulnerability laid out in front of him. Percy was not just at risk of dying; he was going to lose his dignity in the worst way. That very thought was so debasing to his existence.

"If you'd…if you'd done the procedure earlier, you might not have…" Arthur was stammering over his words. Percy could see his emotions shift in his eyes, and he could just about barely imagine the thoughts that he was keeping at bay. "Percy," his voice was pained. "Percy, what are we going to do?" he took a deep breath. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't think I'd do anything," Percy admitted indifferently.

"What do you mean you won't do anything? You can't do nothing. You—"

"What-what am I supposed to tell everyone? Have you lost the plot?" Percy asked. It was one thing to be ill, and another thing entirely to come out to both his families at the ripe age of forty-one. Men like him didn't come out at that age. Coming out was for teenagers that were trying to find themselves. They weren't for Heads of Departments. They weren't for people that needed to submit papers about treatments and appointments to a committee and get them signed. And how was he supposed to get those leaves signed without his whole department knowing what he'd got between his legs? Quite literally. "I'll just have to die with my dignity. That's what I'll do. What other choice do I have?"

Arthur flinched at the thought of Percy dying. "Don't you dare say that." He clenched his jaw. "Don't you dare. I'm not-I'm not going to live to bury another child." Percy shuddered at the thought of that. "Don't you make me."

Percy said nothing to that. What was he going to say? That he'd rather have his pride?

Arthur didn't look like he approved of Percy's decisions when he'd said that he was going to head back to work. Finding out a life-altering diagnosis didn't change the fact that he had to be at that board meeting. When he got to his job, the accumulating mass of work almost made him double over. He signed off forms without rereading them. He didn't painstakingly fix Oliver Wood's grammar when it came to his off request. He didn't even ask Elora to make him his usual cup of coffee and was surprised to find one on his desk by the time that he came back to his meeting. By five pm, everyone had left to go home, and he was left alone. It took him three more hours to finish everything and by that time, he was so exhausted that he could sleep for hours.

But when he left the Ministry, he realised that he didn't know where to go so he found himself apparating in front of his flat. He opened the door and found it silent for the first time in ages. He had not wanted to come home so soon.

Audrey was sitting by the couch with torn divorce papers in front of her. They seemed ages away. She barely looked like the confident, sarcastic woman that he loved. She was so withdrawn. Her hair was messily pulled back into a half-arsed bun. She was in a pair of pyjamas that looked a little too wrinkled. His daughters mirrored her with sombre expressions and dull hairs and lashes that hadn't been coated with mascara. Percy felt a pang of pain in his chest when he saw how truly miserable they looked. There wasn't a chirp or a ray of sunlight in that room. In fact, Audrey had dimmed the lights down so much that it was hard to even tell if she was even awake. It was so quiet that Percy found it strange that nobody had looked up from their doing-nothings to notice him standing there, with his battered briefcase and his wrinkled suit. He cleared his throat and Audrey looked up. Her facial expressions changed from shock to this overwhelming relief in seconds. Before he had a chance to say anything, she'd thrown herself at him and sobbed into his chest. She was holding onto him so tightly that he could feel his ribs ache.

Percy hugged her back and buried his head into her hair, feeling her shake under his hold. "Percy," she croaked, her voice cracking as she called out his name. "Percy, I thought that…" she gripped so tightly onto him that he could barely take a breath. "I thought that you were going to leave for good." She looked at him with wide eyes. "I don't want to divorce you. I want us to…" she placed a hand on his cheek. "I want things to be better between us. I want us to talk more. I want us to be closer. I don't want us to drift away." He was stunned, listening to his wife saying his thoughts out loud. "I love you."

"Dad," his daughters circled him, each one of them grabbing a limb. "We're sorry," they chimed in a way that reminded him of the twins, which sent a shiver down Percy's spine.

"I know," Percy stiffly replied, his cheeks colouring in. "Let's just—"

"I have a job," Molly decided to say, which he wouldn't have ever expected her to in a million years. He was holding his breath because he thought that 'in a pub' or 'in a brothel' would follow (because that was the sort of thing he'd come to expect for them). "At Madam Primpernelle's."

"I do too," Lucy said, rubbing her neck. "For the Quibbler."

Percy was so stunned he didn't know what to say. Both reasonable jobs to have in this day and age. He'd known ages ago that his daughters didn't have any drive and weren't going to be the next Ministers of Magic. He didn't care much for that as long as they weren't lazing about the flat. "Oh," he sounded surprised. "Well…that's…um…"

"That's your father's way of telling you he's proud of you," Audrey nudged at his side and Percy shuddered, remembering how they used to be like. Audrey had never been affectionate. She was crass but in that way that he just loved.

"We know," Lucy smirked, her hands behind her back.

Before he could say anything else, Audrey said. "I've made your favourite supper."

Percy raised an eyebrow at this. "You've made my favourite supper?"

Audrey didn't know how to boil water most days. Her culinary expertise was totally confined to making oats in the morning and smearing jam on a piece of toast for lunch. When Audrey noticed the look on his face, she playfully pushed him on the shoulder. "Alright, your mum dropped by with a massive pot of spaghetti bolognese."

"Of course, she did," Percy replied. His mum had been sending them dinners pretty regularly. It was embarrassing (George never let him forget about it), but if she didn't, then they'd all subsist on takeaway. When she found that out a couple of years back, Molly went berserk, something about proper nutrition and how you couldn't possibly just exist on rubbish all the time. Percy hadn't eaten a frozen dinner in ages when he used to have one every other day. Molly made an extra pot almost every day, and their freezer was full of more containers than a Wizimart Frozen Charms aisle.

"I think it's rather sweet what she's done," smiled Audrey, placing a hand on his arm. "Where were you yesterday?"

"Shell Cottage," he'd answered. "Did you really think I'd own such a ridiculous ensemble?" He was glad that he was the Head of the Department of Transportation because he'd stormed out without his Ministry robes. He could come into work wearing a clown suit and nobody would dare say anything about it. And Bill's navy-blue tweed suits might as well be a Halloween costume in Percy's universe. "It almost makes his service uniform look downright elegant."

"Service uniform?" Audrey sniggered. "You make him sound like a prostitute."

"You know perfectly well what I mean," Percy just shrugged. Bill was working as part of Gringott's teller services as of late when Victoire had voiced concern over his profession. Charlie's response was 'that's why I never got hitched with a bird. You'd have to settle down sometimes.' Charlie had made it painfully obvious that he planned to settle down in a cabin in the middle of a forest, drinking too much liquor and owning an angry Kneazle that refused to be petted. Percy couldn't particularly say anything about his life's ambitions, but he seemed happy enough (in fact, Percy was almost jealous of how happy he seemed all the sodding time.)

Audrey just rolled her eyes, but just before he walked over to their dining room where Molly and Lucy, who were levitating tablecloths and pouring spaghetti by the trough. "Hey," Audrey placed a hand on Percy's back. "We'll work through this together." She smiled weakly. "We just need a little more time, but we're good together, aren't we?"

Percy just nodded his head emotionlessly, a sick feeling welling up into his chest.

They ate dinner together, with Lucy and Molly talking instead of grumbling about organic ingredients and how their mates made salads to eat with their dinners. Despite how lively the conversation was, Percy barely said a word, wondering how he was supposed to tell his just-now-starting-to-heal somewhat fractured family that he was ill. And having to say that meant that he'd have to come out with a secret that he'd kept to a few select people all his life. With Audrey's eyes on him, he felt pressured to clear as much of his overflowing plate as possible. He ate two plates just to feel like he was being completely normal.

When he was in bed with Audrey, overstuffed from spaghetti to the point where he felt nauseated, he didn't go into a fitful sleep. His stomach was as tight as a drum, but he managed to digest most of it an hour later. At around three in the morning, he spiked a particularly high-grade fever and a sore throat. Great. It was just a bloody temperature, but it terrified him. If he couldn't even resign himself to being ill for a bloody cold, how could he be ill for much longer? His mind was racing with all the things that he had to do that day. And he was out of the door, with a pressed white shirt right before Audrey could even wake up, realise that he had a temperature and slag him off for going into work.

At work, he was almost disorientated from the lack of sleep and the fever. He drank Pepper-Up potion in attempts to feel better, but by noon, he felt so lousy that even Elora was starting to look increasingly worried. At around one pm, Arthur barged into his office like he had no secretary anymore. Arthur didn't look like his usual cheerful self. There were shadows under his eyes as if he'd not slept a wink that day. His shoulders were slumped, and he looked like a defeated man as he walked over to the chair. Percy looked up at his father from his desk, his clammy hand gripping tightly onto an old, battered quill. Arthur sat down across from him. "Percy?" he was taking in his features, from his sickly grey to his sweating frame. "You don't look well."

Percy nodded his head, rubbing his neck. "I have a temperature," he admitted. But what was he going to do? Stay at home when he knew that there was an extensive amount of sick leaves to come? "But considering my predicament, I don't exactly think I should be taking any leaves when I'm not sure about how my future will look like."

Arthur flinched at the tone in Percy's voice. He said nothing and Percy just squirmed a little in his seat.

"I'm back with Audrey," he finally said, as if they'd been talking about that just now. "She decided that she wants to work on our relationships and the girls seem to be actually attempting to be functional members of society." His lip twitched into a half-smile, but he found himself shivering at the realisation of how ill-timed this all was. "Do pray tell, father, how am I supposed to tell them the truth?" he placed his hands into fists. "There has to be a limit of life-altering decisions one can make in twenty-four hours." He was biting down the inside of his cheek, feeling frustrated and overwhelmed.

"But did you think about when you're going to—"

Percy cut Arthur off with a wave of his hand. "No, I haven't. I just want to finish my work so I can actually go back home and sleep," he had no interest in attending board meetings or figuring out which new broomstick companies he wanted to write off. "And I really hope that you haven't told anyone else." He raised an eyebrow at him suspiciously.

Arthur frowned. "No, I haven't but—"

"Wonderful. Now that we have that all cleared up," Percy gestured for his father to leave. Arthur stared at Percy, and it was like, for a second that he could see how snowed under he was. Under the weight of the responsibilities that he had, the very new changes in his life, and the exhaustion that he felt just decided to go to work.

"We do," Arthur still looked concerned. "Percy, you're…" he paused and leaned forward to him. "You're still a bloke after this. It doesn't change anything about-about what you are. What you've always been. Even if I didn't know before."

Percy's shoulders deflated. "I suppose," he said unconvincingly.