Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me.

A/N: Sorry for the long hiatus – thanks to anyone still reading, and thank you so much for those who left kind reviews—you're the reason I'm continuing this story!

I've made some edits to the previous chapters and I'm going to try to do shorter chapters more regularly from now.

Content Note: Panic attack. Percy is in a very bad place mentally, and so his beliefs about how his family feels about him are not necessarily true. His memories of what Mr. Weasley said to him during their fight is not accurate; it has been distorted by the abuse and trauma he received during his captivity.

Chapter 4: Pusillanimous

"Well done," he can hear Oliver comment. "Real nice performance there, mate."

After Bill and Charlie leave, Percy turns to face the imaginary Oliver where he sits on the windowsill. "I mean, if they didn't think you should be locked up in Mungo's before…"

Percy closes his fist, squeezing fresh blood from cut on his palm. His head is swimming; had that all really happened? Had he just seen his two older brothers for the first time in years, only to literally collapse in front of them?

The moment flashes through Percy's mind. He'd felt the sharp sting of the slice through his flesh, seen the looming shape of a man closing in on him, and then—his body and brain alike had gone limp. An effective strategy for survival during his captivity, but absolutely humiliating in front of his older brothers. He'd spent his life trying to fit in with them, impress them, and then finally outdo them, and now…

Now they would no doubt be returning with Healers to drag him off to the incurable ward with the Longbottoms.

No. Percy shakes himself. He isn't a helpless invalid; he can fix this. He can clean his own flat and tend his own wounds. He's been more or less on his own since he was a child, after all.

Percy washes and cleans the cut. He used to be able to heal wounds in a second; now, he attempts the Muggle way, imagining Penny explaining the process to him as he fastens a makeshift bandage of cloth and Spell-O tape.

Next, he scrouges through the wreck of his flat for a working quill, unbroken ink bottle, and roll of parchment. Percy clears his small kitchen table, sits, and tries to force his shaking hands to write.

Clean the flat

"Oh good," Oliver says cheerfully. "We're doing a list. I remember your lists from school, Perce."

Visit Gringotts

"Didn't you save Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets and capture Sirius Black with those lists? Oh, wait…"

Percy scowls, trying to ignore Oliver's voice in his head. Next, he scrawls,

Speak with the landlord

It's a miracle the place hasn't been cleared out and locked up. Six months, that Percy was absent from his life and the world.

Owl the Ministry

He'd need to get his job back, soon; paying six months of back rent would make a severe dent in his savings. But would they want him back, after he worked for You-Know-Who's Ministry, sending muggle-borns to prison or worse? Would they believe that he saved as many as he could, until he couldn't?

And he would need magic for any job at the Ministry, wouldn't he, and he didn't have a wand or the ability to cast even the simplest spell…and he'd never worked anywhere but at the Ministry, he didn't have any other skills… If the Ministry wouldn't take him back, if he didn't have his job, he would have nothing…

The quill slips from Percy's fingers as his hands go numb. Suddenly, his chest burns like dragon fire, the pain constricting his lungs, seizing his throat, unbearable. Blackness writhes at the edge of his vision.

Then he's on the ground, his body refusing to move, to even breathe properly. "You're panicking again," he distantly hears a voice tell him, soft and feminine. Penny? Mum? "Try to focus on something else."

Percy lies on the floor, tries to breath, and starts to list the vocabulary he used to slip proudly into reports until Barty Crouch told him to quit it with the five Galleon words. Encomium, gainsay, frenetic, laconic, raconteur, limpid…

Time slips roughly by as the room darkens, until a soft knock shatters the quiet.

"Percy?" Charlie's hesitant voice filters through the door. "Can I talk to you?"

No. He said he'd needed time, dammit! But why would people start caring what he wanted now? Percy wants to scream, to hide, to barricade himself in and the world out. But he can't. He has to get up, answer the door.

He has to act like a wizard, or at least a human being, and not like the void he's been for the past six months.

Charlie looks apologetic as Percy eases the door open a crack. "Sorry, Perce," he says quickly, "I know you said—"

"PERCY!"

The door is flung open and Percy flinches backward, but it's not Death Eaters or Flint, it's his Mum. Tears streaming down her face, lines in her face and more gray in her hair than when he last saw her, but still Mum.

"Mum, wait—"

She doesn't listen to Charlie's warning. In an instant her arms are around him, pressing him close to her chest. But instead of feeling trapped or terrified, Percy feels an overwhelming sense of relief. Mum is warm and soft and strong when he buries his face in her shoulder.

"Percy." She's sobbing and saying his name, over and over again. She's saying other things, too, about love and sorry and being okay, but he can't focus enough to make those out.

"Mum," he whispers. He wants to hug her back, but his hands are still numb and his body won't cooperate. "Mum…"

He can't remember the last time his Mum hugged him like this, all-consuming, like the world was just the two of them. But then his stomach drops to his shoes as he does remember something—the last time his Mum had stood here, outside his flat. When he'd slammed the door in her face.

He'd been so angry, furious, hurt. Suddenly the hug is too suffocating and he pulls away.

"Oh, Percy." His Mum lets him go, but still holds his face in her familiar hands, rough from housework but perfectly gentle. "My baby."

"Er…" Charlie awkwardly clears his throat. "I know you wanted some time, Perce, but Mum…"

Percy turns to look at Charlie as he trails off. Bill is standing next to him, his eyes shining in his scarred face. And next to Bill—

His Dad. Arthur. He seemed far too old as well, his hair thinning, face lined and tired. He stares back at Percy, and Percy can't interpret the look on his face. The harsh words they'd exchanged explode to the front of Percy's mind. Naïve, undeserving, useless, his father had called him. An embarrassment, Percy had called his father. And Percy had been wrong about You-Know-Who and the coming war. So, so wrong.

He hears Flint's sneering voice, "Not even your family wants you. They left you behind. You have fucking nothing."

Arthur takes a step toward him, and Percy flinches backward. Something shifts on Arthur's face; his expression darkens. Percy can imagine what his father is thinking. "Deluded, stupid, pathetic boy."

"Percy. I'm so happy to see you, son."

Percy's heart skips. Could his father really mean that? But no, Arthur's hands are bunched in tight, angry fists at his sides. And his voice had been stiff, forced. He couldn't say what he really felt about Percy, not in front of Mum.

"I…I…" Percy drops his gaze to the floor. "I need to clean up."

"Clean? Don't worry about that, Percy." Mum fusses with his limp, overlong hair. " I'll take care of everything. You'll be fine once you're back at the Burrow."

The Burrow? Percy imagines going to the familiar coziness of the Burrow, sleeping in his childhood bed, eating his Mum's delicious meals three times a day. But the Burrow wasn't just Mum and homecooked food. The Burrow was insults and cruel jokes and everyone telling him to shut up the moment he opened his mouth.

The Burrow isn't safe. Nowhere is safe, but alone in his flat seems as close as he can get.

"No. I…I c-can't," Percy stammers.

"Can't?" Mum's hands drop from his face to his arms. She sounds confused and hurt; Percy can't bring himself to look at her. "What do you mean?"

"I have…I have…" Percy can feel his chest beginning to burn again, the darkness prickling at the corners of his eyes. He looks pleadingly at Charlie, who had seemed to understand before. "Matters. To attend to. Here."

"Matters to attend to?" Arthur repeats, and Percy flinches again. "Percy, I…I don't understand." "What could you have to do? You have nothing."

"Er…that's fine, Perce," Charlie sputters. "Maybe we can, er…"

"Of course you're coming home with us, Percy!" Mum insists, grabbing Percy's hands. "I need to feed you up, you're skin and bones!"

"We should probably take him to St. Mungo's first, Mum," Bill says, and Charlie kicks him. "Just quickly, just to get him checked out—" Bill adds hastily.

"I'll take care of him," Mum says fiercely.

Percy watches her hands squeezes his, but he can't feel it, his extremities have gone so numb. He can't think, can't conjure up the words to explain. "Merlin, you're pathetic. Can't do anything, can you?"

St. Mungo's, the Burrow. More prisons. More rooms he can't escape.

A flash of bright white light fills the corridor, and Percy stumbles backward as a silvery figure moves down the hall toward them.

"It's a Patronus, Perce." Charlie says. "Just a Patronus."

The Patronus is huge, so large its antlers graze the ceiling.

Antlers. A memory flashes in Percy's head, of sitting in a courtroom in the depths of the Ministry, scratching out notes as Madam Bones' voice boomed out—

"You produced a fully-fledged Patronus? Your Patronus had a clearly defined form? I mean to say, it was more than vapor or smoke?"

And then—

"Yes, it's a stag. It's always a stag."

Harry Potter's Patronus stops a few meters away from them, eyeing them calmly, a regal tilt to its massive antlered head. The Boy-Who-Lived's Patronus, come to Percy's flat. Why? "To say I told you so?" A voice whispers in suggestion. "To say the Weasleys are his family now, not yours."

But Percy already knew that.

Arthur and Bill hurry over to the Patronus. The message is relayed too quietly for Percy to hear it, but when the eldest Weasley men turn back, their faces are pale and grave.

"That was Harry?" Charlie asks. "What did he say?"

Bill glances at Percy. "Maybe we should talk about it in private, Charlie."

Percy's vision is tunneling again. "What?" he manages to say. "What's going on?"

Bill swallows nervously. "Percy, we don't have to talk about this right now. We can go to the Burrow, or Mungo's, whichever you want."

"I don't want either!" Percy snaps, surprised at himself. He hasn't raised his voice like this in years. "I want you to tell me what's happening!"

Bill and Arthur share a concerned look. Arthur is the one who speaks first. "What's important to understand is that you are safe, Percy. We won't let anything…" Arthur grimaces, can't even force the words out. "You're safe now."

Percy doesn't feel safe. He feels like he's choking on the air caught in his throat. "What's happening?"

Arthur sighs. "Harry sent word from the Auror Office. Several of the Death Eaters who were apprehended when Percy was rescued have escaped."

Mum gasps. She may grab onto him again, but Percy can't feel it, can't bring his brain in contact with his body. Charlie exclaims, "How is that possible? They had Aurors on them in France, didn't they?"

"They did," Arthur says. "But there are apparently more Death Eaters still out there than we thought. According to Harry, a group of them attacked and freed those who had been captured. The Aurors managed to stop a few from escaping, but several did. Selwyn, Rookwood, Yaxley, Flint…."

The world flips. Voices are swirling around him, hands are grabbing at him, and he needs to get away. Somehow, Percy manages to stumble back inside his flat before his legs give out on him.