The Mother Who Cried Werewolf
Chapter Thirteen
Auror Offices and Crisps
"Hey, Perce," Charlie said. They'd entered the Burrow, and the house was deathly still. Percy stared at the carpeted stairs, imagining the pathway to his sterile prison. Percy could already feel the starchiness in his sheets, smell the paint coming off the walls, feel the stifling humidity, disappearing, dying, disgusting. "We're home now. It's all okay."
When Percy said nothing, Charlie cleared his throat.
I've heard you the first time, Percy wanted to say but remained silent to avoid disturbing the peace. He didn't think he'd ever stop if he started talking about how hurt, angry, and heartbroken he was.
"He can talk, right?" Oliver asked Charlie. "Think I've heard him talk, but…."
"Talk? We can never get him to shut up," Charlie said. A small smile formed on his face. He looked like he was reminiscing. Percy wondered what he was remembering. It wasn't like they had a lot of memories together anyway. He placed a hand on Percy's shoulder and shook it. Percy stared at the space in front of him, feeling his heart race. Would a solution for the dire situation he was in suddenly materialise like he'd been hoping for? "Hey, Perce? Are you okay?"
Charlie brought the wheelchair closer to the stairs, and Percy felt all the air go out of his lungs. Percy gasped in his chair, placing a hand on his chest. He felt as if his heart would explode.
"I don't want to go up that room," Percy said—or rather, begged.
"Blimey, he's terrified," Oliver said. He still spoke to Charlie as if Percy couldn't understand what he said.
Why? Percy thought.
"Hey, it's okay," Charlie said. He fumbled with his hands as he ran to the kitchen. He stumbled on his way there. In the darkness, Percy heard the sink running and the sound of glass clinking. Charlie approached back with a glass of water and gave it to Percy. He managed to spill three-quarters of it over himself as he tried to drink it. It was cold, and the water splashing on his lap in his new pressed clothes made him shiver.
Charlie reached over to smooth Percy's new hair down. "It's just a room, Perce," he said.
"No, it's not," he said.
"Percy—"
"I won't forgive you, Charlie. I won't."
"Don't you think that you're being overly dramatic?"
"Why do I have to go?" Percy didn't understand why they insisted on keeping him in that room, why they couldn't just listen to what he wanted. Why did everything have to be a fight or a massive discussion? Would it change Charlie's life drastically if he was in his room and not somewhere else?
Oliver glanced over at Charlie, looking apprehensive. Percy didn't blame him. The way that Percy was talking about it, it sounded like he was going to be taken into a torture chamber. But that was how it felt like to him. He felt like there were Dementors inside the walls, sucking all his energy away. He couldn't bear the thought of it, not anymore.
"What's in there?" Oliver asked Charlie.
"Nothing," Charlie insisted. "It's just a room. His room. He hates it."
"Stop talking to me like I'm not here," Percy said.
Oliver looked surprised and ashamed of being called out but took it stride. "You're right," he said, looking at Charlie and flicking his eyes back at Percy. They'd had a private discussion with just their eye movements. 'I suppose I'll talk to him now,' Percy supposed Oliver had told Charlie through that simple jerk of his eyes. "Where would you stay then?"
"I can stay on the couch."
Percy would rather sleep on the floor than be back in his bed.
Charlie didn't look sure about that, but Oliver, wanting to redeem himself for being an arsehole or feeling like he wanted to be on Percy's side, helped throw pillows onto the couch. The pillows were those macramé yellow ones that Percy always liked. A blanket that had been stored under the cupboards was aired out after five-ten-fifteen years. It had funny swirly patterns and smelled of dust and rotten milk. But that didn't matter. Percy finally relaxed when he realised that Charlie was letting him stay on the couch. Percy took the one step from the wheelchair to the sofa and sat down before Charlie could even notice his limp.
Why are you protecting her? A part of him asked. What is wrong with you? But he knew he wasn't looking after her. He was just sick of bringing attention to himself, of being ill, of having people feel like it was one thing after another.
"I don't think mum or dad will be too happy about you just sitting on the couch," Charlie said.
"What?" Percy said with more anger in his voice than he'd intended. Why would he care about what made them happy? He was furious. If Charlie brought it up again, Percy knew he would get into a fight with him.
"It probably wouldn't look good when those people from the CPS come up and see you sleeping on the couch," Charlie mused. He'd meant it as a joke, but it rubbed Percy the wrong way.
Percy flung a pillow at Charlie. Why was Charlie trying to protect them so much? Why did they need Percy to tell them that their actions were highly fucked up? And how could his father expect Percy to trust him after this?
"It doesn't matter," Percy said. He felt himself on the edge, cusp, breaking. "I'm going to tell them everything."
"What's that?" Oliver asked Charlie, who ignored him. "I thought you said that there was some sort of mix-up—"
Percy snorted.
Charlie snapped his head up. "What do you mean?" he asked as he crouched down to be on his eye level. "Perce, what's going on?" his voice was soft and caring, but Percy didn't think he'd buy into that again.
"You know what it means," Percy told him stiffly. "Blimey, how stupid could you be?"
Charlie winced as if Percy had hit him.
"You'd never said," Charlie said.
"Why do I have to say anything?" Percy asked, his voice straining with the anger he felt. "I don't trust any of you." He had never told them out loud about the lack of trust he had in his family, how angry he was at them for abandoning him and then expecting him to forgive their past transgressions, especially when they'd rather deny that their mum was an abusive lunatic because they felt bad about breaking up the family. "You'd do anything to believe her over me."
Charlie went white, and Percy didn't even feel bad at how he'd made Charlie feel. They had to wake up sometime.
"You'd-you'd never said," Charlie kept repeating because that was the only excuse.
"And your dragons never say when they need to be fed or when they're not feeling well, but you manage just fine without that. But I have to tell you when mum is being mean to me," Percy said that last part with a whiny, high-pitched voice, mimicking a child. He was clinging onto the swirly blanket like it was a lifeline. He coughed because of how dusty it was. "Did you expect to find mum beating me with a frying pan and hope that that would be your bloody proof?"
"Why wouldn't you tell us?" Charlie asked, and it was the truth.
Percy refused to meet Charlie's eyes. What was he going to say? That he was afraid that nobody would believe him?
"Perce, this is serious," Charlie told him. "Dad thought he was making it up because you wouldn't say anything. He thought he was going mad, thinking that mum was making you sick on purpose because he found a box of chocolates in her room. But when he'd thrown her out, he thought that maybe he'd been making it up because you'd only gotten poorly after mum left. He couldn't make up whether he was being right or not. He tried with you, but you'd never said…."
Percy could understand that. He did feel like he'd gotten worse when Molly left, but that didn't mean she'd been taking such excellent care of him. "Why would I tell you or dad anything? I barely know you," he said, and he meant what he'd said. "You've stuck me in that room then forgotten about me for the last ten years, but now, you want me to pour my soul out to you. You hated coming to see me."
"I'm sorry, Perce," Charlie said as he placed a hand on his knee. "Dad's trying his best for you right now. We want things to be better. We-we didn't know," he said the last part to try to salvage the situation.
"This is his best?" Percy asked with a raised eyebrow. "Charlie, you have to open your eyes to the situation because nobody else is going to. You're telling me that his best is letting my mother, who he still has his suspicions about—suspicions that she'd made me ill on purpose—come back into our lives just because he felt like I've not said anything, so it must be alright then?" he was speaking more calmly now. He was still angry, but Charlie's genuine concern and compassion had softened him.
Charlie bucked under pressure and rubbed his eyes, which were becoming wet.
Percy felt terrible for making Charlie cry. "I don't mean to—"
"You're right."
Charlie's voice was breaking, and the sight of him being so scared made Percy stifle.
"Hey, mate, it's alright," Oliver decided to soften the blow for him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Percy felt like it was a strange moment to share with a relative stranger, but at the same time, Percy didn't care about how absurd it was either. "Look, whatever it is, whatever has happened, it's alright."
Charlie grabbed Percy from his waist and scooped him up into a hug, placing his hand underneath his hair. Percy listened to Charlie's sobs, slow and low, and barely reacted to them.
"Oh, Godric, Perce, you nearly died," Charlie told him. "And look at what the hell we're doing."
He could feel tears pricking his eyes too, but they disappeared. Percy felt his arms wrap around Charlie's muscular torso, burying his head into his chest and inhaling the strong smell of his brother's expensive Romanian cologne.
"Shit, shit, shit," Charlie cursed, clinging onto Percy a little tighter. As if he'd disappear if he let go.
"That's enough now," Percy said. He was not the best at such touchy situations in the first place, and he was already tired and cranky.
Charlie laughed. "Merlin, you're someone special, Perce." Special? What was that supposed to mean?
"Is that an insult?"
That made Charlie laugh even more, and it was the kind of laugh that made Percy feel warm. He supposed that it was not meant to be an insult.
Percy didn't feel much at all. He felt bad for Charlie, but a part of him was sure it wouldn't change anything. He didn't think that anything ever could. He didn't believe that he could be seamlessly woven into the family when he'd felt so isolated from it for years and years.
After Charlie let go, he looked reluctant to leave. Oliver Wood sat at the edge of the sofa and said nothing. Percy wished someone would tell him off for being a self-centred git. At least that was easier.
Because the silence was deafening.
And why did he feel like the only way he could communicate with his family was by hearing them put him down? Was that what home looked like to him?
Percy must have fallen asleep at some point. He woke up at two in the morning, plagued by nightmares. He thought he might have a coronary seeing his father sitting at the edge of the sofa with freshly brewed coffee in front of him. Percy developed chest pains staring at him sitting there in his melancholy.
Arthur met Percy's eyes but said nothing.
"Dad," Percy said after some time, his voice unsure.
"Percy," he said, soothingly placing a hand on his leg. There was a sad glint in his eyes. He looked defeated with his shoulders slumped and his blue eyes downcast. He felt like a Dementor had sucked the energy out of his father, just like the walls in his bedroom were sucking energy from Percy.
Percy rubbed his eye. Was he hallucinating? Why was Arthur watching him? "Dad, what are you—"
"Percival, listen to me," he said very softly.
"Listen to you?"
"Yes."
Percy then remembered the conversation that he'd had with Charlie. Charlie must've told Arthur. He must've talked to him.
"In the morning, I am going to the Auror office, and I am going to be filing a proper report against your-your mother," he said. Arthur looked just as broken as Charlie had sounded like or even worse. "And if you want to tell them…tell them what happened, then…you've got a chance to do that."
"Charlie—"
"It shouldn't have come from Charlie."
There was a moment of silence between them.
"I hated you," Percy admitted. Was that hated or hate? Percy didn't know which one he said. "You've abandoned me."
"I know, Percy," Arthur said. "I thought that I was making it up. I didn't…I thought that…I love your mother. I thought that I almost killed you and your mother has been taking care of you all this time that I…I was so disengaged that…."
Arthur shook his head. "I just kept thinking that if something serious were happening, you'd say something."
"Yes, why not?" Percy mumbled. That seemed easy enough then! "Just openly talk about all the bad stuff that's happened over dinner whilst you go on and on about how much you love my mother." He said the word mother as if it were an insult. But it was just one big fat joke.
His mother. Oh, she'd given birth to him. Oh, the luxury! A mother that did below the bare minimum!
Arthur flinched at that. "I'd never been—I wouldn't know what you'd think if someone that was supposed to love you did something like that to you," a confession that Percy felt like he could understand. Arthur didn't know how to react because he didn't realise how Percy was supposed to feel. "I just thought that if I'd asked you—and you're old enough to understand—you'd tell me."
"I'd love to be that ignorant," was all that Percy said.
"I deserve that."
Yes, you do, Percy thought. He thought about the times he could hear his family laughing while he was holed up in his room. Did they not realise? Did they not remember? Did they think about it sometimes, or was Percy the only one left needing more?
"I didn't want to be responsible for destroying our family," Percy said. "And I didn't know if you'd believe me."
He was bitter. He was so upset that it pained him to think of how he didn't trust his family to have the appropriate reactions. They didn't react appropriately to his mum making him ill, to her drugging him continuously, to him being in the hospital all the time when he'd rather die than be there. They didn't react appropriately to him trying to study and still have good grades and devour things that he hadn't seen so that he'd have something to talk about when they came to speak to him (but nobody did ever come now that he thought about that).
"Merlin, Percy, of course, I'd believe you!" Arthur acted like it was out of the question. "You're my son."
Arthur's voice was drastically different from the casual tone he had during dinner. They were joking about Molly moving away like she was out for a bit of house construction rather than being away from the son she hated and abused.
"When have I been your son?" Percy asked. "You hardly know me. You'd have buried a stranger if I'd died that day."
Arthur's eyes widened at Percy's comment. But Percy knew it was warranted.
"I don't want to go up in that room," he said. As if that was what he and Arthur had been talking about.
"Okay," Arthur agreed without any fight. "Percy, there's no reason for you to think I wouldn't trust you."
"Really?" Percy said, trying not to scoff at him.
"Yes, you're crass, opinionated, arrogant and unapologetic," Arthur said, and all of those things should've been bad, but Arthur was recounting them fondly. He thought about how Charlie smiled when he'd said that Percy never shut up. "You think you know everything under the sun and want everything to be your way. But you are my son, and I love you."
Percy was so taken aback by that description that he stayed silent for a few moments, his heart beating fast. He had felt a warmth in his chest, a sort of belonging spreading to his limbs. Oh, he thought.
Despite his reasoning why he had to be there, Arthur truly wanted to leave the second they'd gotten to the Auror office together. Percy was in his wheelchair, which he seemed to cling onto more than usual, in a pair of new burgundy shoes, velvet black trousers and an oversized cream sweater. He looked well, and he never looked well. His hair was done quite nicely, almost coiffed back—which was funny because Arthur was sure that Percy did not intentionally mean for his hair to look like that. He'd put all his weight back on in no time after he started scoffing everything but the kitchen sink (though Arthur suspected if it was covered in chocolate, Percy might have a go at that too). Anyone that looked at him would never believe what his mum had done to him. If it wasn't for the tracheostomy tube, he might even pass off as an ordinary teenage boy.
They were in the Auror office, waiting to be called. The heavy scent of burning plastic, botched ink and leather were in the air. The seats were uncomfortable. Percy was eating a massive bag of crisps at eight in the morning. The sound of him crunching was so distracting that a bespectacled woman across the room stared straight at her son. Arthur had the urge to flip her off. His fifteen-year-old was having a couple of crisps for Merlin's sake. What was her problem?
He'd been here before, he'd realised. The healer's appointment where Molly had fainted, where the healer had told her that she needed professional help, and he'd taken it with a grain of salt instead of helping his wife. He remembered just before they'd been in that room. Molly was glaring at a woman minding her business, just eating a bag of crisps with a pink pram in front of her.
Percy must've noticed that woman staring because he'd stopped eating and flushed.
"What's your problem then?" Arthur told the woman. She looked away from him. What would she say about the child in the wheelchair with a funny tube sticking out of her neck? Nobody would be on her side. Then he turned to Percy, feeling the need to protect his son like he never had before, as he asked, "Do you want another bag, Percy?"
Percy, who was done eating his crisps, nodded his head. "Can I have some tea?"
"You can have whatever you want."
He got Percy tea from a wizarding vending machine that spat out drinks with a simple wave of the wand. He'd procured a packet of cheese and onion crisps and offered it to Percy with a cup of hot tea. It was so milky it was almost white and smelled so sweet that Arthur's stomach turned when he'd inhaled it. He'd already been feeling poorly. He'd constantly been thinking about how Percy had a tube in his stomach that he didn't need, that his wife convinced he most definitely needed. That he had blindly turned an eye to his son starving under his roof for a year.
Arthur couldn't precisely claim pride himself for how neat Percy looked either. Molly had transformed him when she'd taken him to Diagon Alley that day. He'd thought it was a new chapter in their lives, but all she'd done was take their emotionally and physically abused son and put him into a nice paper bow with the promise of change.
And Arthur had completely fallen for it.
"That Oliver bloke," Percy said as he slowly tore open the crisp bag. "Why is he not in school?"
"Oh, he's…he didn't go back after the Christmas holidays," Arthur said. "I think his mum's taken ill, not expected to come out of it."
"Am I not…expected to come out of it?" Percy asked. He looked so innocent, so young when he'd asked Arthur that. Blimey, what was he supposed to say to that?
"They've said you need a heart transplant," Arthur said.
"And then I'll be normal?"
"I don't know, Percy."
Arthur was terrified that getting that heart transplant would be a more challenging option than he'd made it seem. The waiting period seemed excruciating, and he didn't know how the procedure would go. It wouldn't be like what the muggles would do, but he'd wager it still needed a lot of follow-ups.
"If I'm still ill after, I don't want it. I'd rather just die," Percy said softly.
"Things aren't going to be the same, Percy," Arthur said. "I promise you."
Percy didn't look like he believed him. He looked frightened. Then Arthur finally understood that Percy wasn't sick of being ill as much as he was sick of living the poor excuse of a life that he was living. Suddenly, his refusal to return to his room made so much sense to Arthur. It seemed so obvious in hindsight. Percy had lived his whole life in his 'sick role.' Arthur bet he didn't hate being ill as much as he hated his hospital-room-hospital-room-hospital-room on-a-loop lifestyle. And who could blame him after living the last decade in a poor semblance of a life?
"Percy," Arthur looked at him seriously this time. "Percy, I promise."
His son shook his head, and bits of crisps spilled over his lip.
Hearing Charlie tell him that it was all true, that Percy had told him it was true, had shaken Arthur to his very core. Because all this time, he was under the assumption that if it were something huge, Percy would tell him. He was a fool, not realising that maybe Percy might not be comfortable enough to talk to him about something so dark, sinister, and cold. And the thought of his other poor children having to suffer through the on and off yes-Molly-can-stay-here-but-oh-no-she-can't was inexcusable. Arthur should have been strong enough to not only say no, his wife couldn't live with him anymore but abide instead of giving his family false hope.
"No," Percy said, his voice cracking. "No."
Arthur finally understood Percy for the first time in a long time and felt relief that he could somehow understand how Percy thought. Before Arthur could say anything else, they called for them to come into a room.
"I want to go by myself," Percy said when Arthur got up to push Percy's wheelchair to the office door.
"Percy—"
"Or I won't go at all," Percy said. "I want to go by myself."
"Oh…okay," Arthur said unconvincingly.
Arthur felt uneasy with Percy's statement, but he had to trust his son if he wanted his son to trust him. As Percy wheeled himself away (refusing Arthur's help), Arthur rubbed his hands together and realised how clammy they were. He didn't know if Percy would also paint him in a bad light. If he did, then he deserved it and should just accept that. If Percy made it seem like he'd instead not go back to the Burrow, then that was his choice, and he had to take it.
Things were going in the right direction, Arthur told himself. Let him do what he needs to do.
Percy stopped in the middle of wheeling himself away, turned around to Arthur and said, "When mum pushed me off my chair, I think she broke my leg."
Arthur froze and placed a hand on his chest with his lips parting into an O. What did he say?
When mum pushed me off my chair…
Arthur felt that Percy told him because he felt comfortable enough to tell him now. But his confession was anything but soothing. If Percy hadn't thought he could tell him, would he continue confining himself in that wheelchair until the problem worsened? If Percy didn't have the tiniest bit of trust in him, would he have told him at all or just suffered through that injury until it made him more miserable than ever?
Arthur stared at Percy agape as he wheeled himself into room number nine for an interview.