Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me.
Content Note: Percy spends much of this story suffering from compulsions and obsessive thoughts as a result of his ordeal. He has picked up a habit of imagining conversations to keep himself occupied; the dialogue of these imagine conversations in is italics. Please review if you get a chance!
Chapter 2: Adumbrate
By the time the owl bearing his letters disappears over the horizon, Percy is trembling—he regrets writing three letters, as though anyone but his Mum would care, regrets contacting his family at all, regrets not begging them to come and get him and bring him home.
One of the Healers attempts to press a Calming Draught on him. Percy refuses—he needs to keep what's left of his mind in a somewhat reasonable condition—and the Healer bustles from his room, sour-faced, muttering under her breath in French.
French, because, as Percy has learned, the Death Eater hideout in which he's been imprisoned is in France. He cannot muster much surprise for this fact, given all the other revelations that have been foisted upon him in the brief time since his rescue.
You-Know-Who is dead, the war is over, and has been, for six months. Hogwarts castle was destroyed, and has been largely rebuilt. The Ministry as well. He feels like a ghost, floating above the events of the war and its aftermath, watching them drift below him, beyond his ability to touch.
His whole family is alive. This information was easy to obtain, even in France, because the British Aurors who participated in the raid on his prison are familiar with the Weasley family. It turns out, for all Percy had worried that Harry Potter would end up getting his younger siblings expelled or even killed, the Chosen One has helped turn them into heroes instead.
The Aurors don't recognize him, though. His once distinctive Weasley-red hair has faded from filth and lack of sunlight. But even if his hair had been bright red, why would they associate him with that family of brave fighters? He hasn't been part of it for three years.
"That's if you ever really were, mate."
Percy hears the words in the voice of Oliver Wood, one of his roommates at Hogwarts, and he can imagine the burly Scottish Keeper sitting on the bed across from him, leaning casually against the wall.
Percy is less alarmed than he probably should be; he had these mental conversations constantly during his captivity, long back-and-forths with most everyone he had ever spoken to, and some he had not. His siblings, his ex-girlfriend Penelope Clearwater, his bosses Barty Crouch, Cornelius Fudge, and Rufus Scrimgeour, his professors, even his owl Hermes and old rat Scabbers. Why should his mind stop toying with him just because his body is, ostensibly, free?
"I mean," the imagined Oliver continues, "For a while I just figured the Weasleys were a mismatched bunch, knowing you and Charlie and Bill. But once I met Fred and George, it was pretty clear they fit the mold and you were the odd one out. The black sheep, yeah?"
"Yes, you are far from the first to voice that belief," Percy responds idly in his head, watching two Healers discussing something in French while tossing him the occasional glance.
"Not surprised to hear it, specially since I've seen you all fly. Well, seen them fly, seen you flop around on a broom. "Oliver chuckles, then nods toward the Healers. "Any idea what they're on about?"
"I'm afraid not."
When he worked for the Department of International Magical Cooperation, Percy had mastered a variety of translation spells, immensely complicated, tricky magic, spells not even Bill could cast. But now Percy's wand has been snapped and dumped in a bin somewhere. He hasn't used magic in six months, and isn't sure he could if he tried.
"We 'ave good news," one of the Healers says to him in heavily accented English. "Your Ministry 'as arranged a Floo connection to bring you and ze, ah, others back to Britain, to your St. Mungo's."
The "others" are the Death Eaters captured when he was freed from Flint Manor. Percy hears Oliver's voice again, but this time it's not an imagined piece of dialogue; it's a memory.
"Don't be thick, Percy," Oliver had said. "If you don't want to tell McGonagall, at least let me owl Charlie—"
"Absolutely not," Percy had snapped back.
"He told me if Flint started in on you again, I should—"
"I do not need my older brother's help. I am a prefect."
"Désoleé?" The French Healer says, eyeing him uneasily. "My Eenglish ez not ze best. What ez 'prefect'?"
Percy swallows. Had he said that out loud? He needs to be more careful. "What I mean, is that I don't need to go to St. Mungo's. I am quite well now, thank now."
The Healer frowns, and for a second Percy sees himself through her eyes. They've healed all his cuts and his broken arm that had set incorrectly, but he's far from in good health. He's deathly thin, with thick yellow paste meant to treat bruises caked on his greyish skin. His body is wracked with tremors, and that's just the problems outside his head.
"Maybe you should to St. Mungo's, Percy." This time it's Penelope Clearwater he imagines, biting her lip, her curly hair frizzy like she let it get before major exams. "They could help with your shaking; that's nerve damage from the Cruciatus Curse, isn't it?"
"If it's damage from Dark Magic, then the Healers won't be able to help," Percy replies darkly. "It's permanent, and there's nothing they can do for me."
"But St. Mungo's is where your Mum will look for you, isn't it?" Percy can hear Penny asking. "When she gets your letter?"
He tries to imagine seeing his Mum again, after everything he said and did and didn't say and didn't do over the last three years. Then he imagines his seeing his father. His brain refuses.
Suddenly, the Healer waves a hand past his face, and he flinches backward. The Healer frowns at him, and Percy realizes she's been talking to him and he's heard nothing, lost in his own mental conversation. "I'm sorry," he says. "I don't quite understand you."
"Ah. I look for someone to eexplain, zen," the Healer hurries out of the room, clearly overjoyed to have a reason to leave Percy's presence.
"You've got a point, though, mate." Percy hears Oliver again, imagines him with the deep frown he sported whenever he had to apply himself to non-Quidditch matters. "Why do they want you at Mungo's?"
"I don't know," Percy thinks. "There's nothing more they can do for me physically, so…"
"Hey," he hears Oliver saying. "What were the names of that Neville kid's parents? The one you always had to let into the common room, because he forgot the password?"
"Frank and Alice Longbottom."
"What happened to them, again…?"
"They were tortured by Death Eaters, and then committed to a ward at St. Mungo's. They've been there since…since around when Ginny was born. I don't believe they've ever improved."
Percy's heart is pounding. Is that what there're planning to do to him? He hardly paints the picture of sanity, conversing with imaginary versions of his schoolfriends, unable to follow the real world.
"Then maybe it would be best, Percy," he hears Penny murmur gently. "Maybe a ward at St. Mungo's is where you belong."
Percy considers this. He could go quietly with the Aurors to St. Mungo's, commit himself to a comfortable ward with the other hopeless cases, spend the rest of his life staring at a different set of walls.
No. Percy's body shudders. He cannot and will not be locked up in another room.
He slides off the bed onto wobbly legs, and peers out the door. Down the hall, he can see a few Aurors, clustered around another door. Guarding the Death Eaters, then. Another shudder tears through this body. He turns the other way and strides down the hall, as quickly as he can, until he comes to—
A fireplace, with a neat container of Floo powder bolted to the wall against it. Percy takes a handful. International Floo travel is a tricky business, but Percy is confident he can make it to London. He wrote several of the relevant regulations, after all.
When Charlie, Bill, and Fleur arrive at the hospital in France, they discover that, unbelievably, Percy has done a bunk.
They'd found out from the Auror Office the location of Death Eater hideout the Aurors had raided, and the hospital where they'd taken the prisoner they'd rescued. Mum, Dad, and the twins were at Mungo's, but Charlie and Bill had recruited Fleur to go directly to France.
Only to find out that the prisoner had slipped into the Floo, without his escort of Aurors and Healers, and had not reemerged at St. Mungo's.
It could be a hilarious thought—Percy going rogue through the International Floo Network—if Charlie wasn't worried about what this meant for his little brother's sanity.
Fleur is conversing rapidly in French with one of the Healers, bless her and bless Bill for convincing her to marry him. After a few minutes, she hurries back toward them. "Zey say zat 'e said 'e did not need to go to St. Mungo's, because, uh," she swallows. "Because 'e is a prefect."
Charlie blinks. He searches Bill's scarred face for a hint of a laugh, and finds none. "Erm…" he swallows. "At least we know it's definitely Percy?"
Bill rubs his forehead. "Bloody hell," he murmurs.
"'E...'e was joking, yes?" Fleur says, her face clouded with worry. Charlie tries to agree, but his voice dies in his throat. "I will get more information," Fleur says and she marches back toward the French Healers.
"Do you think he's…" Charlie swallows, trying to find the right words to describe his fears. "Do you think his mind is…"
"Affected?" Bill completes, his expression dark. "I don't know. Six months is a long time to be…" he waves his hand, vaguely. "You know. But they had Ollivander for over a year. And he's fine. Still fragile, but fine."
Charlie remembers the old wandmaker Ron, Harry, and Hermione had rescued. "What I don't understand is why. They wanted Ollivander to make them wands. But Percy…" he shakes his head. "If the Death Eaters wanted him to give them Ministry secrets, or to use him to blackmail Ron or the Order, then why did they keep him…"
Alive. Why keep Percy alive, six months after the end of the war? Why would the few Death Eaters who managed to escape capture go through the trouble of keeping a strategically useless prisoner alive?
"I have no idea," Bill says, summing up the Percy situation pretty well.
Fleur returns. "Zey say 'e was fine, physically. Thin and weak, but fine. But 'e had curse damage, from ze, um," her eyes flash downward, "torture. And 'e seemed to 'ave trouble focusing on what people were saying to 'im."
While subconsciously he had known it, hearing confirmation that Percy had been tortured still makes Charlie feel sick to his stomach. "And did he say anything? Other than the prefect thing."
"'E asked questions. About ze war, and who 'ad survived. Zey say 'e was especially interested in 'Arry, Ron, and 'Ermione."
"Well, at least that's something," Bill says, drawing Fleur into a hug.
"Thanks so much, Fleur," Charlie adds as she leaves to continue her interrogations.
"Where do you think he would go?" Bill wonders. "If not Mungo's or the Burrow?"
"Ministry?" Charlie suggests.
"You think he'd just walk back into the office after six months and start working through his inbox?"
Charlie shrugs. "Maybe." If Percy's hold on reality was slipping, then absolutely. "It's where he's spent most of his time over the last few years."
"He had a flat in London," Bill says. "You think he might try going back there?"
"He might." Charlie feels himself rolling his wand between his hands, a nervous habit he hasn't had since he failed his Apparition test. "I've, uh, been paying the rent. For Percy's flat. Since he disappeared."
Bill blinks at him. "Oh."
"I wanted him to have all his stuff," Charlie says, feeling somewhat defensive. The rent on Percy's flat wasn't cheap, but the idea of some landlord tossing Percy's belongings, or storing them in the Burrow for Mum to cry over every day, felt like an admission that Percy was dead.
And Percy wasn't dead. The realization hits Charlie again, and suddenly he can't keep still. Percy is alive, he's out there, and they needed to find him now.
"Okay," Bill says. "That's good."
"Alright," Charlie readies his wand to Apparate. "Let's go get our brother."