this isn't really a double update. you may notice i've added a chapter and that's 'Telling' i.e. Chapter 5 ( 6 actually because it counts the prolouge ). i noticed i haven't uploaded the chapter where Percy tells Audrey/his daughters about his cancer/comes out to his daughters so i have ( in it, it also explains how Molly and Lucy were also concieved ). that meant i had to reupload 'Coming Out' and i also was about to accidentally skip a chapter ( i haven't realised i've already written one that i haven't posted ). let's just say it seems like i've missed a chapter and hope not to do it in the future, even though i almost did in this one too... oops.

Momentary Illusions

Chapter Eight

Almost Halfway

1987.

"Hey, Perce," Oliver greeted as he walked into his and Percy's dorm room.

Percy had been caught with his trousers down his hips. His cheeks were pink and flustered because Oliver had walked on him when he'd been changing into his red flannel pyjamas. The ones that his mum sent him after he'd stopped replying to her last owl. When Oliver explicitly knew that he should knock on the door. When he knew that Percy only changed when he was alone. When he'd endured the words 'weird', 'a total chick' and 'a big, fat baby' just to be able to do that. He'd been in Hogwarts for about a week, and all Percy wanted to do was go home. Every time Charlie came around to ask him how he felt like, he told him that he couldn't be any better. Whenever Bill glared at other kids and told them off, Percy just got picked on ten times more.

"Get out," Percy wasted no time in reminding him that this was his time. By himself. He'd reserved that.

"Come on. I'm your roommate for Merlin's sake. I don't care what you look like." He shrugged. Yeah, well, if Percy had Oliver's burly frame, he wouldn't mind changing anywhere either. "We're all blokes here, aren't we?"

What was that supposed to mean? Percy froze.

Recovering quickly, Percy scowled at him. He really doubted that Oliver wouldn't care about his lack of Christmas packaging. "Well, I don't care about your ratty broomstick, but I don't stomp on it when I go out because you care." His voice had progressively gotten higher. He sounded like a total girl. They were right, and if he kept whining like this, everyone would know about what he had between his legs, about his secret, about the fact that he was born with more things in common with Ginny than he did with his other brothers. "Why can't you just respect my privacy?"

Oliver scoffed. "Whatever."

Percy quickly changed out of his trousers and into his pyjama bottoms. He ignored the letter on his desk from home that day. His mum had asked him how he'd been getting on. Things are quite busy; he knew he was going to write. But everything's fine, mum. Stop worrying about me and sending me all these letters. It's embarrassing. Well, he wasn't quite going to write that, but he was sick of his mum sending him letters all the time when she barely sent any to Charlie and Bill. She was worried that he wasn't adjusting well when he was adjusting just fine. He didn't need anyone's help.

"I just hope that nothing happens to your broom, Oliver. I hope McGonagall doesn't have to confiscate it for any reason." Percy gripped his chest in feigned shock. "You do know that first years aren't supposed to their own brooms, don't you?"

Oliver went white. "Fine!" he then stormed out of the room. "Don't walk in on there," he said loudly outside of their shared dorm room. "Percy doesn't want anyone accidentally catching his bloody fanny!"

"You can say goodbye to your ridiculous Cleansweep!" Percy shot back as fast as he could.

2018.

Percy was still absolutely shattered the day that he was discharged home. He lumbered like his limbs were made out of lead and stone. He had the concentration of a sleep-deprived Ron after a double History of Magic class.

He woke up in cold sweats most days, with nightmares that he couldn't even remember. His heart felt like it was about to burst out of his chest at the most minute movement. His parents were suffocating him with concerned glances and dubious whispers. His family wrapped him around in hefty blankets and tried to feed him chalky, expensive nutrition shakes that said 'energising' and 'restorative'. His daughters—and wife to be fair—looked like they'd forgotten who he was because they seemed to treat him like a strong gust of wind could carry him away and he'd disappear into the ether if they looked at him for too long. As if he went from a normal wizard to a dying man the second they'd told him that there was a fleshy parasite growing inside of him. As if he were no longer Percy, but this poor little cancer victim that couldn't make his own decisions. That was dying and frail and had lost every shred of decorum that he'd had.

There were unspoken rules and unwavering stares. There were fears and trepidations that Percy pretended not to notice. And there was this bone-weary exhaustion that Percy carried around wherever he went that turned the hardest pillow into silk and satin.

The second that he got home; the first thing he did was collapse onto his bed. He slept like a corpse, well into the night, as if he'd accomplished some great feat—walking up to his own building.

He was barely able to get out of his own bed at five in the morning, but by 5:05, he'd swatted Audrey with a pillow so that he could wake her up too. Life must go on. Things had to return to normal. His mind was attached to the feel of his bed, to the fibres of his pillow, to the scent of his wife, but his hands were manoeuvring through his shirts like it was every other morning. Like a couple of days back, he wasn't in the hospital, unable to take a piss without assistance. Percy hated looking at himself in the mirror because he didn't look anything like himself. His shirt was loose on him after he'd lost half his organs. His trousers fit differently. His whole body didn't feel like it belonged to him. Like I don't know how that feels, he thought bitterly. Like I haven't felt that way all my life and now I have to reaccept this body too? For Merlin's sake.

Did his body ever really belong to him?

"Percy," Audrey had gotten up from their bed as he was buttoning up his shirt. He looked as bad as he felt. She grabbed his wrist just as he got to the top button. Smooth white skin peeked out from his 1924 brass button. He couldn't remember their history, or where he'd bought them. He was lost. "Tell them that you're going to be staying at home."

For how long? Percy looked at her with big blue eyes. This naïve woman. "And will be I be just fine tomorrow?"

Audrey said nothing, but she squeezed his hand as tight as she could. "Don't give up on your life, Percy," the way that she said that didn't touch him in the way that she thought it would. Who was she to tell him not to give up? What the hell did she know? "Please." She squeezed his shoulder as tight as she could and buried her head into the crook of his neck. "Please."

"That's easy for you to say," was all he replied with, uncharmed.

"Maybe you'll feel better tomorrow." She insisted. "Maybe you should stay at home."

"I don't want to stay here," Percy firmly stated, his shoulders stiff. He could hear Lucy and Molly getting out of bed. He could vaguely hear something about a missing hairbrush and sulphate-free shampoos that had disappeared three days ago. They were going to get ready to go to their jobs too. "Maybe I don't want to feel depressed, thinking about how my life has been reduced to this after I've spent all my life working my way into this position!"

Audrey's lips were pursed tight. "Maybe your life isn't about your position, Percy."

Percy just scoffed.

"Maybe it's about the people that love and care about you. The people that have always been there for you. The people that you'd sacrifice everything for." Audrey stared at him with a hardened expression. Because Percy hadn't done anything for those people. Because he hadn't gone under a knife when he never wanted to. When he was happy just dying at his own pace. "But you can't think past your own selfishness to see how everyone's bent over backwards for you."

"I didn't ask anyone to do anything for me," Percy clenched his hands into fists. "And I don't need my wife making decisions for me. My cancer is not in my brain." When he said that last part, she'd flinched.

"Then start acting like it," Audrey mumbled. "You don't want to die, don't you? Or do you?"

Percy felt tears starting to sting into his eyes, but he blinked them away. The gall of her! Just because he didn't want to put poison into his body didn't mean that he wanted to die. He wanted to live just like anyone else did, but he didn't want to suffer if there was still a chance he'd die anyway. Why was that concept so difficult for her to understand? "Oh, screw you, Audrey," he spat out rather spitefully, and as he did, his voice cracked.

You could tell that he was about to cry. You could tell that she'd hurt his feelings.

Before she could say anything, he walked out of their bedroom and apparated out of their flat. He didn't eat breakfast. She didn't get to really talk to him, and he hadn't seen Molly or Lucy that morning. He hadn't kissed Audrey goodbye for the first time in years. If he died on his way to work that morning, then he supposed that they wouldn't have been on good terms.

Percy thought that it would be another normal day, a break from his sick-dying-poor-pathetic-Percy role.

But by only eight in the morning, that exhaustion that he'd been lugging around the whole day had become unfathomable. His clothes felt foreign. His satin Ministry robes felt like they draped rather awkwardly onto his frame. The few bites of banana bread that he'd eaten on his way to the office sat into his stomach like a brick. At eight am, he was at an important presentation. The kind of presentation he'd be stressed about the night before if he hadn't been so busy sleeping away his backaches and bone pains. It was that time in the year where he had to present himself to the Minister of Magic and all the other Heads of Department and give them a summary about the work they've been doing for their annual review. Every department always went into the same order. Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Department of Magical Cooperation. Department of Law Enforcement. Department of...

"Magical Transportation," the Minister himself continued, with a wave of his hand. "Percy Weasley."

He hadn't recognised that they'd been asking for him until Kingsley repeated himself.

"Percy?"

"Yes, Mr Minister," Percy sat up straighter like they were in a roll call in school.

His ears went red. Everyone was staring at him. Their eyes were on him, and he could hear their silent conversations. I've heard that he's been on holiday for a week. I've heard that he's going to get a divorce. I've heard that he's been listening to people telling him off all day when he should've been working on this. I've heard he hadn't even given his wife a kiss goodbye this morning.

After a few minutes of silence, Kingsley cleared his throat. "It's your turn to present."

There were two minutes of the meeting, unaccounted for, just filled with silence. Two minutes out of the fifteen minutes he had to present his departmental statistics. Two minutes of Percy just listening to conversations in his mind that had never happened, that didn't exist but were so real and damning. He felt like his throat was raw and he hadn't even said a word.

"Of-of course, Mr Minister." Percy could feel the heat rising in his face.

"Maybe your life isn't about your position, Percy." Then what was it about? His family didn't ask him what he wanted. Why should he care about what they wanted? Why should he fight for people that never gave him his own freedom of choice?

The second that Percy stood up, he felt his legs go heavy and rubbery. His hands were clammy and cold, and he was sweating through one of his favourite shirts. With the 1924 brass button in celebration of a wonderful Education Decree being passed. In the older times where people saw education as a privilege, not a necessity. Where people traded books instead of chocolate frogs. And as he realised where he was, he also realised right then and there that he hadn't eaten an actual meal in the past twenty-four hours that he'd spent sleeping. He hadn't showered since he'd left the hospital. He was too thin and so pale he was ashen. But Percy stayed tight-lipped with a stern expression and a straight back.

"But you can't think past your own selfishness to see how everyone's bent over backwards for you."

"Well…" Percy clapped his sticky hands together. "There has been a sharp incline in the use of transportation services in the past year overall, most likely due to the decline of illegal portkey acquisitions, failing new broomstick ventures, and increasing use of Floo networking to go hand in hand with the increased number of houses being purchased around the UK." Percy pushed his glasses up his nose, but it slid right back down. He was sweating so profusely in his suit. His whole body felt like it might give way any second and he realised he didn't really want to be reiterating the presentation he'd been rehearsing for the past two months. He realised that he didn't want to be there, but he also didn't want to go back home. He realised that he'd lived forty years of his life and had nothing to show for it. That he had no legacy, no passion, no love, no honour. Fred had died at twenty years old, but he had more life in him than Percy had done with double the time. "And as with other departments, there is an increasing shortage. We simply do not have the resources or capacity to… to…um…"

"Well, I don't care about your ratty broomstick, but I don't stomp on it when I go out because you care. Why can't you just respect my privacy?"

"Yes, Percy?" Kingsley stared at him with a raised eyebrow.

Why can't you respect me?

He caught sight of how he looked like when he'd accidentally saw himself in the mirror opposite to him and realised how badly he was perspiring and how unwell he looked like. "Sorry, it's a little hot in here," he loosened his tie as if to demonstrate his point. Audrey hadn't done his tie today. He couldn't remember if he did, but it was too loose of a knot to look anywhere near presentable. "Anyway, as I was mentioning, we do not have the resources or capacity to accommodate this volume of work and…and…—" he was rubbing his neck. Six minutes of his presentation and he was in the first paragraph. His mind had turned to the consistency of marmalade, and he couldn't remember a word of the speech he'd had memorised months prior.

"Percy," the Minister raised a hand this time. When Percy's eyes met Kingsley's, he was absolutely terrified. "Don't you have anyone else to do this for you?"

"Anyone else?" Percy reiterated in complete disbelief, and he couldn't hide how offended that he was.

"Someone that isn't… well, never mind," Kingsley had the most sympathetic look on his face, but Percy just stared at him. Sick? Dying? A transman? "Not that-not that you weren't doing an incredible job, but I'd reckon that maybe you need a break."

Percy kept gawking at Kingsley like he had no idea what he was talking about. But he knew. He knew that he'd mucked up. Badly. He knew that it was over that second. That his life had crumbled before his eyes, and he couldn't salvage it.

Kingsley cleared his throat. "Percy, why don't you just go drink some water and we'll come back to you?"

He awkwardly sauntered out of the room. He could hear the whole meeting room suddenly erupting into animation. Questions and comments sprung out of nowhere and Percy had barely left the room. He could hear people that he'd come to think of as colleagues, as equals, as friends even, come to tear him down like he was a scrap of meat.

"Is he okay?"

"Does this mean that the position is open?"

"I don't think he should be coming into work like that."

"Those poor girls."

"What did you expect with one of them?"

Outside of that room, Percy swore he saw his whole life flash right before him. It lasted about three seconds. It was blank and uninteresting. He was having his mid-life crisis in the middle of his death sentence. But as he walked towards the water cooler, he felt like there had been another flash. It was black and bottomless, and Percy had fallen straight into it. He was suddenly eleven years old again, falling off his broom because he was too anxious to let himself make a mistake.

"I don't know what's happened." Kingsley. "I found him flat on the ground after that meeting."

"What was he doing in a meeting?" his mum, annoyed, like one of the twins had eaten a Jaffa cake before dinner. Well, before Fred had...

"You know, Percy." Ron. "Wants to work himself to death… quite literally. The stupid bloody bastard."

When Percy woke up, he was in the hospital again.

He didn't know it at the time, but he'd find out that they've run wand tests on him. They found him to be hypoglycaemic, so they gave him liquid sugar through an IV line because he was unconscious. He had electrolyte imbalances, which apparently meant that he had to be admitted to correct them. He had done a 180 in about four days—out of hospital, in a meeting, out of meeting, back into the hospital. He couldn't believe that he was back in there again. It made him feel ill just thinking about it.

Is this what his life was like? What was the point?

His daughters were sitting across from him. Molly was in her powder pink Primpernelle's uniform and Lucy was in a pair of pants that looked painted on. Her cardigan had weird patterns on it and her t-shirt was such a gaudy colour that it almost hurt his eyes to look at it. They looked older than he remembered them to be like.

He was awake, but he found it hard to speak. His tongue was heavy, his whole body felt paralysed. But he could see everything in front of him, vividly, as if he were looking at a painting that he used to love but had forgotten about. The colours of his reality swirled together, and Percy found himself looking up-down-right-left and everywhere in between. He used to know what he was seeing, but not anymore. Now, things looked like they were black even when they were white. Bleak and endless and bottomless. Like he'd never really woken up from that abyss that he'd fallen into. But at the same time, everything was so bright that it seared into his brain.

You sound mental, was the only coherent thought that came to his mind. What are you bloody smoking, mate?

Molly stood up and walked over to him, stroking his hair rather gently as if he were her ailing grandfather instead of the man that used to tell her off for spending too much money on nail polish removers and haircare products. She pulled him close to her and he could smell that sugary-sweet perfume that she always wore as she continued to stroke his hair.

There was something wrong with this picture. And even if he had been taking a mind-altering substance, he would know that.

When Audrey walked into the room, Percy was starting to fall back asleep again. He could hear everything around him, but his head was so big, and his mouth felt so dry. He could still smell Molly's perfume around him.

"You did this to him, mum," he heard his little Molly accuse Audrey. It was the first time he'd heard her talk like that. He wondered how it was like when he wasn't around. What they said to each other, what they talked about. Because it didn't sound like it was the first time that she'd talked to her like that. "He was fine before he got that procedure done." Her voice started to crack. "Now, he's like a corpse. All he's been doing is sleeping ever since he's been out of the hospital." Molly closed her eyes and then afterwards came a torrent of sobs and weeps, the sounds of which he'd never wanted to hear in his life. His whole heart ached, and he found himself trying to hold onto her hand as much as he could, but he just felt so spaced out. He felt like he was submerged underwater.

"It's not mum's fault. It's not dad's fault either," Lucy said. "He has cancer." She sounded like she couldn't believe that Molly had forgotten. "You're in bed all day when you've got a cold. I bet that you can't imagine how this would ever feel like." She wagged an accusatory finger towards her. "He probably just shouldn't have gone back to work. And mum was trying to get him to stay home—but he wouldn't have any of it."

Molly spoke back to Lucy as if she was the one that had made him ill. "So, it's his fault that he's sick, isn't it?"

"When did I say that it was his fault that he was sick?"

"You implied it."

"I didn't imply it! You're crazy! It's all that puffy Primpernelle junk that you keep spraying all over the house!"

"Nobody said it was your father's fault," Audrey said from the corner in a faint tone. He could feel her eyes on him.

He could remember the meeting. He supposed he must've fainted afterwards, but the whole thing felt like it had happened ages ago. Like it had been days or weeks or months since all of that happened even though he knew it wasn't. He could feel and hear everyone in the room, talking about him.

"I don't think dad was okay before," Lucy admitted in a small voice. "I think he was getting to where he is now. I think he was kind of not doing okay, but he's really good at hiding these things. And then now, after the surgery, he just couldn't hide how it anymore." Percy didn't know. He didn't think so, but what did he know? He couldn't remember how everything was like before yesterday and the day before. All the hours and days and weeks was just blurring together. And how could it when the rest of the time they had to be accounted for? Every minute, every day?

Molly sounded disgusted. "They took away part of his liver and his spleen. And a part of his stomach and intestines too."

The way that she said that sent a shiver down his spine. It was like she was retelling a gruesome horror story.

"They took everything," Molly's voice broke. "They took my dad too."

"They didn't take dad." Lucy sighed. "You're so overdramatic, Molly. He's always been like this."

"No, he hasn't."

"Lucy is right," Audrey replied firmly. "Your dad is the stubborn mule he's always been. In fact, he's in the hospital because he's just like he's always been." And Percy could practically feel Molly smiling. He wanted to say something, but he just felt like he might fall back asleep any minute. And then he really did sleep. He was carried off into a dreamless sleep just a few moments after he'd imagined how Molly looked like when she'd been smiling.

He didn't know then, but he'd be asleep for only a couple of hours before he woke up. And by then, the veins in his arms were bulging and the nurses had a difficult time finding a new one for their cannula, even with their special wands.

Percy watched them for a whole twenty minutes as they searched to find a vein. They eventually cannulated him after a few attempts. During that whole twenty minutes, even though Percy's tiny emergency cubicle was filled with his family, nobody said a word. As they tested veins, Percy's eyes drifted to Audrey, who had changed into a red floral frock that he'd never seen before. Molly and Lucy were still in their work uniforms, but they looked tired. He bet that they'd just finished work. He was sure that they'd come to see him at a break before. His parents were tapping their feet onto the ground and playing with the hems of their jumpers. His father was in a pair of old grey robes and his mum looked like she'd just thrown the first thing she'd seen on top of her sleeping gown. George was shuffling his foot and putting his hands into a weather-beaten jacket. He looked so much younger than he was, but he also looked that much older than Percy remembered.

After he'd been cannulated and had some sort of saline hooked to him, Percy brought the blanket close to him. It was his blanket from home. The one he'd always wrapped himself up with when he was doing his work. It was brown, dusty and smelled of mothballs and sometimes made his allergies worse, but he couldn't get rid of it for anything. Audrey, he thought.

"Hey, there, little guy," Arthur reached out to hold his hand, the same one that had that cannula.

Percy just stared at his father. He was listening. He knew that his father knew that he was listening. If he didn't feel so tired, he'd be shuddering at the thought that his father would call him little at the age of forty.

"You feel a little tired?" Arthur asked, and he felt the whole room staring at him, waiting for a response.

Percy nodded his head mutely. His hold onto his blanket felt so fickle and tired. He felt like he could barely hold onto it. He was shivering underneath the hospital sheets. He closed his eyes again and he felt Arthur stroke the inside of Percy's hand. "Percy," he sounded scared. Percy couldn't understand why. "He's been asleep all day," he said when someone walked in. A healer? A nurse? One of his brothers? Ginny? Harry? Who knew because Percy was nodding off to sleep again. He was back to sweating again and he didn't feel so good. He felt kind of queasy and delirious.

"Weasley?" a healer's warm voice made it to Percy's ear. It was a man he knew, and he could tell. He was shaking him as hard as he could. He could recognise that drawl everywhere that he went. Cassius Warrington, who used to tape women's underpants onto his door back in Hogwarts after the 'the fanny' incident with Oliver.

"He's done a procedure about a week back," Audrey explained. "A debulking procedure for ovarian cancer. And since then, he's eaten like a bird on a diet and has been sleeping constantly. He fainted when he tried to go back to work today."

"Uh-huh," Cassius sounded unperturbed by the fact that Percy had had ovarian cancer. "And when did he get a temperature?"

"What temperature?" he felt a hand on his temple. "Oh, he really does have a temperature, mum. How come nobody said that he's got a temperature?" Percy felt like he was melting into his hospital bed, into his favourite blanket that he was suffocating under, the one that smelled like dusty death. "He could be really dying. Right now." Molly's voice. It cracked with every word that she was saying. Percy should be the one telling her that he was just fine. "He wasn't like this before they did that to him. He was normal and now, he's totally a corpse. I know everyone says that he's fine but…"

"He's not fine. He's got a bad water infection that got to his blood," Cassius explained "And we've also done a quick brain scan with our wands and he hasn't had any bleeds…"

"Bleeds? Were you thinking that he had a bleed?" Audrey. Hysterical. "In his brain?"

"He should be better now."

Percy couldn't recall much again for the next few hours. Just that he felt a little better after just a short while of being there in the hospital. He'd had a sleep that felt like it had reinvigorated him more than the periods of sleep he'd had before. The monitor had stopped beeping. He was conscious enough to hear everyone's conversations without slipping back to sleep. He had stopped sweating so much, and he didn't feel like he was in a fever dream. He felt like he was grounded and at home somehow, even though he was in that hospital again. The nursing staff had gotten him dinner, which looked unappetising. They had a small yoghurt pot for him, and a sandwich with some crisps and a juice box. He didn't even drink orange juice. He just stared at his tray until they took it away from him. He didn't talk during that time, but he'd had been sent for a scan for his abdomen so that they could make sure that he didn't have a 'collection'—which apparently he did have. And it needed to be drained. Percy wasn't even sure of the specifics, but somehow, he was not well and back in the hospital again.

He was shifted into a new ward—and it had green walls that reminded him of someone's sick. The bathrooms all smelled like shaving cream and his roommate was an alcoholic that had accidentally drunk poison and eroded his oesophagus. Percy was comfortable in that room, where he was kept monitored consistently. A nurse came in every now and then and checked his blood pressure and blood sugar. They fed him potions the second he'd come in and had explained to him the bell system they had in place. They warned his family, only one visitor at a time, and disappeared, knowing that they'd all stay.

"Audrey," was the first person that Percy called since he woke up. He followed with a command. "I want my book."

"Of course, sweetie," she didn't call him sweetie. What was going on? "Of course."

His wife frantically turned to her bag and then produced the book that Percy had been reading over the past few weeks. He took out his maroon bookmark, which had practically broken at the spine from how much he'd used it. He had his pillows fluffed as he turned to read the book. Within the first hour of him reading, them watching him read, the tension in the air lessened. Everything was back to normal like it was snapping back an elastic band. His family was talking normally about things that weren't related to scans and antibiotic potions. The nurse came around fifteen minutes in and asked if they could all leave. They promised that they will, but nobody moved, nobody made a sound, and everyone stayed silent. Percy didn't bring up the fact that the girls had to work, that Audrey looked like she was having a migraine and that he probably got fired from his job after what had happened that morning.

Just when Percy had thought that he started to feel like himself, he found himself heaving all over his book. He stared in horror as his blanket was covered in bilious spew, and his cannula, which took twenty minutes to place, had bulged and dislodged out of his hand. His book was wet with his own sick, and he wasn't even halfway through it.