The Mother Who Cried Werewolf
Chapter Two
There's Nothing Wrong with Percy!
His mum did decide to take Percy downstairs that evening. Bill wasn't sure why she bothered. If Bill couldn't eat, he didn't want to sit and watch everyone else stuff their gobs full whilst he made do with syringes of Fortifying Potion. But Percy said nothing, sitting there with his empty plate, his empty cup and an uncharacteristic smile on his face. It left Bill feeling unsettled because what did he have to smile about? His life was bloody miserable.
Charlie had come home within a few minutes of them sitting down to eat. He was cheery and hadn't bothered to take off his snow-covered boots and his hefty green puffer jacket before he sat down smack in the middle of the table and started dishing himself roast lamb and potatoes. If every time Bill came to see Percy, he was smaller, then he opposite was true for Charlie. Every time he saw him, he'd put on more muscle and size than he had last year. But he was also slender and sinewy, with about as much body fat percentage as an apple. Bill couldn't help but feel a little jealous.
"I'm dying from the heat," Charlie rubbed his neck. Bill and he had a completely different attitude. Every time Charlie came in, decked in jackets, gloves, thermal socks and underpants whereby Bill came in looking like he had just come in from a chilly summer evening. You try finding a proper winter jacket in a country that had never seen snow. "Back in Romania, we were using the dragons to heat up our fireplaces just to sleep in the night without the hypothermia."
His mother frowned. "Oh, Charlie," she practically saw him as a lost cause. He always came home with stories about how he'd nearly lost a limb trying to wrestle a dragon back into the reserve.
"I'm alright, mum," Charlie grinned at her. "All limbs attached."
"Don't you think you'll feel a little better if you have a nice job here in England?" when Molly said that, Bill sighed in relief. At least she wasn't targeting him this year. Last year, she was harping on about how he shouldn't be staying up at three in the morning every day when he had to be up at five to get ready for his job. "A nice safe job?"
"My job is plenty safe," Charlie frowned. "Besides, I have health insurance."
"Yeah, mum, so if Charlie loses a leg, dad's not paying for it," Ron snorted.
As Charlie loaded up his plate, he turned to look at Percy and turned pink. "Hey, Perce," he said quietly. Charlie had no problems approaching a feral dragon, but he didn't know how to approach him. Bill could relate.
"Hello, Charlie," Percy replied. He looked confused, probably because nobody usually talked to him.
"You've not got anything on your plate," Charlie gestured towards his empty plate and cup.
"Yes, I know," Percy said. "I'm not blind."
Fred and George rolled their eyes. "Bet he goes blind next week," one of the twins whispered to the other. Bill heard them, but fortunately, it slipped by his mum's and Charlie's attention.
"Nice piece," Charlie gestured to Percy's tracheostomy tube. Bill had not noticed that it was a different colour from his normal one. "You're not missing out on anything by the way. Mum burned the lamb. And there are more sprouts than potatoes today." He wrinkled his nose in distaste, but Bill knew Charlie ate more sprouts than the rest of them. Half his plate was just sprouts.
Bill had no idea how it was so easy for Charlie to talk to Percy when it was so hard for everyone else. He knew exactly what to say to him and it didn't feel forced. But when anyone else talked to him, it was plenty obvious it sounded like someone was paying them to talk to him.
"Mum, we should take Percy upstairs," Ron finally said, as if Percy wasn't even there. "He can't even eat. There's no point in him being here."
"Yeah, mum, it's hard to eat when he's just sitting there watching us," Ginny added on.
Bill agreed. He had no idea why their mum insisted Percy join them in for their big dinners. It was awkward for everyone around, he reckoned. Having Percy around made it that much harder for him to enjoy how succulent his lamb was because Percy was staring at them as they ate.
"Your brother is part of this family," Molly said hotly. "Just because he can't eat doesn't mean he's exempt."
"Yeah. And you know, he's in this room, you know. There's no need to talk about him like he's deaf. He's ill, not bloody stupid," Charlie said hotly. "Sorry, Perce." Sounded to Bill that Charlie didn't seem to believe what everyone else did about him making himself sick. He did look at him like you would a sibling that had the short end of the stick.
"It's fine," Percy looked like he was used to people talking about him whilst he was in the room. With the tracheostomy tube, Percy's voice was a little hoarse and screeching.
"Bet you that he can eat," Fred mumbled to George.
"Yeah, mum, why can't Percy try to eat a potato?" George asked. He was sick of whispering and tiptoeing around the topic. "We could mash it with a fork. Bet you that our grandmum would be able to have it that way. Or we could make him porridge—practically a liquid really. Why can't he at least try and drink water?"
Percy was eying the potatoes as George spoke about them.
"He. Can't. Swallow," Molly reminded them diligently. "You won't be trying anything, young man."
Arthur cleared his throat. "Maybe in the future," Bill bet that he believed everyone else's side of the story, that somehow Percy was making himself ill and Molly took it all in because she couldn't imagine the fact that Percy might not be perfect in everything that he did. "Do you feel tired, Percy? Why don't I take you upstairs?"
"I'm fine," Percy insisted, clinging tightly onto his chair.
Molly frowned. "Your father may be right. You do look a little peaky. Why don't you go upstairs?" Bill was sure that Percy's normal was looking 'a little peaky.'
"I always look like this," Percy insisted. "There's no need."
"Come on up," Molly had made up her mind as well. She stood up to take him upstairs, but Charlie got up before her and walked over to him. Bill swore for a second that there was a look of near relief on Percy's face when he realised that Charlie was taking him upstairs instead of their mother.
Bill watched Charlie help Percy stand up and take him upstairs with a hand firmly clasped onto Percy's bony back.
When Charlie came back downstairs, their parents had already finished their dinner and were sitting in the living room, his father reading The Daily Prophet and his mum furiously knitting jumpers to send to the extended family. They had just finished their roast and were about to tuck into the pudding, but Bill felt a pang of pain thinking about how things were like before. When Percy used to eat, he loved eating their mum's carrot cake. Did he even remember what it tasted like?
"How fucking dare you treat him like this?" Charlie asked furiously as he came into the kitchen room.
"Didn't you get the memo, Charlie?" Fred asked as he wiped frosting off the back of his spoon with his tongue. He didn't pause eating to talk. "Percy's mental. He makes himself sick so that mum could stay by his bed all day long. So sorry that I'm not kissing his arse just because he pretends he's sick."
Charlie didn't react like this was the first time he'd heard that. "You're sick," was all he said. "You're all sick." Then he looked at Bill for moral support. "So, Percy's just gone to the healers and asked for his emergency tracheostomy? All those months that he's spent in hospital, it's because healers think that he's faking everything he's had?"
Ron didn't look least bit affected. "He's made mum take him to every healer under the sun. Of course, one of them is going to indulge whatever sick fantasy Percy wants these people to play for him."
"You can't be serious," Charlie sounded out. Even Bill felt a little sceptical. "Gin, talk some sense into him."
"He's right," Ginny said in a small voice. "Look, you guys are never around. You have no idea."
"How come nobody's found out what kind of mysterious illness that Percy has that needs him to have a tube and be on permanent bed rest?" Ron pointed out. "Or explained why he's in and out of hospital all the time?"
"And why his bones are so brittle?" Fred mocked. "And why he can't bloody leave the bed? How come mum's afraid that he'd die if degnomes the garden once every while? Or Merlin forbid—actually go to Hogwarts?"
"He can walk without assistance, you know," George agreed. "He's not ninety. He walks by himself, but mum insists on him having a kip on that wheelchair. We have to push him around every time we go to Diagon Alley."
"And why are his electrolytes always imbalanced when he's having all those nutrient shakes through his tube?" Ron asked.
"And how come nobody's actually seen—or bloody well heard—him fall but he's always broken something?" Fred added on. "He's broken his arm at least twice this year and it's always in the dead end of the night."
"Found out he's also on antiepileptic potions," George laughed. "I've never seen him have a seizure before!"
"He's on what?" Ginny looked like she didn't know that. "That's mental."
They made some good points. Bill didn't know why Percy used wheelchairs when he could walk either or why his mum thought that he was so fragile. He did have his fair share of broken bones, but he couldn't have possibly done that to himself!
"And he can swallow just fine. Mum said that he's on the tube because he can't eat," Fred said hotly. "But George and I have seen him before. I think even mum knows because she's fed him a Pepper-Up before when he's actually been sick." He shook his head in disbelief. Bill didn't think that their mum would indulge Percy that much. He had a feeding tube. "There's nothing wrong with him swallowing. Maybe he has an eating disorder and that's why he's on the verge of collapse all the time, whatever, but Percy doesn't need a fucking feeding tube."
Bill disagreed. With the way that Percy's weight was plummeting, he did need a feeding tube. This was the bloke that could eat them out of house and home just under a year ago. What in Merlin's name happened?
"And if he is mentally ill, he'd still need help for that," Charlie huffed.
Charlie had a point. Even if Percy was faking it, it still wasn't normal. Normal people didn't make themselves sick and then throw themselves at every healer available. Even if Percy was faking his illnesses, he still needed help.
"We can prove it," George decided to say and that piqued Bill's interest. "We can prove that Percy's faking."
"How?" Ron looked intrigued too. "Maybe mum and dad will believe us too."
"Dad believes him?" Bill felt like maybe their mum would be the hard one. From the looks that Arthur was giving Percy over the table, it was awful. He looked like he was disappointed in how Percy turned out. Not exactly the look you'd give your poor ailing tracheostomised son. "He never gave off that impression at the table tonight."
"He doesn't," Fred confirmed. "But mum believes everything he says. And dad just goes along with whatever mum says." Bill shuddered thinking about that. "I want to catch him in the act just once."
"Yeah," George nodded his head. "Mum's been acting like we're the worst because we won't stay in when Percy's admitted to hospital. Nobody does. Even dad has stopped going in the last thirty admissions. He's not seen him in ages," he grimaced. "Blimey, why does Percy want to be in the hospital so bloody much? And why is he admitted to the hospital so much? What was the last one for?"
Ron shrugged. "He had his fifth electrolyte imbalance that week. Too much salt."
"Yeah, well, my electrolytes will be imbalanced too if I didn't eat anything for a year," George scoffed.
"That's not how it works, you wanker," Fred said. "He gets all he needs through that stuff mum gives him."
Molly rushed out of Percy's room and walk to her and Arthur's room. Arthur passed them, looking uninterested as Molly tugged at his shirt and kept talking to him in hushed tones. They headed to Percy's room.
Ron groaned. "Not again," he sighed deeply. "What is it this time? Percy can't sleep so they're taking him down to A&E for a Dreamless Sleep so poor little baby could huddle up with his blanket at night?"
"He was just fine like two seconds ago," Ginny groaned in annoyance. "He doesn't need to be taken to hospital."
Just as they were talking about it, Bill watched Arthur wheel Percy out of the bedroom. Bill swore that Percy didn't look like he was kicking with delight, excited about being taken to the hospital like his siblings were trying to imply. But he also didn't look sick. He looked perfectly fine, lying there in his wheelchair.
"We just helped him back up. He was walking, Charlie, wasn't he?" George asked. Charlie said nothing, but it was true. Percy walked upstairs with him. "He can walk into A&E."
"Probably would collapse if he tried to walk any more than a couple of steps," Fred snorted.
Molly had left to get Percy's overnight hospital bag just in case he needed to be admitted. Bill was surprised that he now had a bag prepped and ready for any time he was due to go into A&E. Arthur followed Molly, mumbling something that sounded a lot like "he's fine, Molly. He was just sitting downstairs at dinner, trying not to be snide."
"What is your problem with me?" Percy said from his wheelchair, with his cuddly blanket on his lap.
"What's wrong, Perce?" Fred crossed his arms over his chest. "Have a cold you need to be intubated for?"
"Yeah, Perce, what is actually wrong with you?" Ginny went out on a limb too.
"Mum acts like you're the only one that deserves all her love," Ron said and there was a bitterness to his tone. He had been feeling that way for a while and Bill felt strange to feel like this was the first he'd heard of it. "Do you know that mum hasn't come to pick us up from the train in ages because of you? That she doesn't even care about how I'm failing Potions or know anything about Fred and George except for how they're so mean to you?"
"Well, then she's a bad mother," Percy replied back hotly. "Did you ever think of that by any chance?"
"A bad mum!" Fred looked furious. "Yes, a bad mum. She checks up on you fifty times a day at least!"
"Ungrateful prick," George added on unhelpfully.
Molly had a massive bag slung over her shoulders and Arthur pushed Percy down the hallway like he was being made to wash the dishes after dinner. They didn't know then, but their father would be in the hospital for about ten minutes before he returned back home.
"Those are…some strong words you've said," Charlie brought up when they had left.
"You have no idea," Ginny said. "But Ron is right. Mum doesn't care about us anymore."
"But we're going to prove that Percy isn't really ill," Fred replied. "And things can actually be normal for once."
Bill had wondered why they were so determined to out Percy as fake, but now, he felt like he understood. He could vaguely remember the hospital visits becoming obsessive and overwhelming by the time he'd left. And by the looks of things, it looked like it had gotten out of hand. "And what exactly do you have in mind?"