Stay A Day in My Coffin
Chapter Five
The Stranger
"Percy?" Audrey's eyes lit up when she'd seen him walk into the room, slumped and defeated. Then it was like it had dawned on her what had happened. She put down the glass she'd been washing. "Oh. Just you…Fred."
Fred looked away from Audrey, who was visibly shaken. He wondered how it felt like to wait for your husband to show up all day, only for your husband's dead brother to come sauntering into your martial house (flat?) without so much as a bloody carton of milk as a 'thank you' gift. "Yeah, just me Fred," he teased as he walked towards her. She was stiffening as she turned to look at him with this hardened expression on her face. "Are you alright?"
"Just wonderful," she replied hotly. There was that same hint of sarcasm that he used to hear from Percy when they asked him how he felt during exam months.
Fred stiffened. "I don't—"
"If you're going to pretend to be my husband, then the least you could do is put on a pair of glasses," Audrey said in a way that struck Fred as odd and almost defensive. She pulled her wand out and Accio-ed a case from the bedroom. She'd pulled out a pair of glossy, gold-wired frames and slipped them onto Percy's face. The second that she did, Fred's heart started racing. The world turned from fuzzy and colourless to clear…and still colourless. But there was something about Audrey that took his breath away. Maybe because you're in Percy's body and she's his wife? He reminded himself. Audrey placed her hand under his chin, running her fingers across the soft flesh of his cheek.
"I bought these for him on his last birthday. You know he's always complained about how much he hates his glasses. How big they were, how they were second-hand, how they made him look like a twat." Fred nodded his head numbly. What was he going to say? Yes, we've told him that a few times? "But he never wears these. He still wears his old ones."
"Well…" Fred didn't know what to say to that. What did you say to that? "I guess Percy is sentimental."
"Sentimental." She echoed as if she hadn't thought of that before. "I guess he can be."
Fred swallowed the lump in his throat and felt this eeriness as he watched her turn away from him.
She picked up the cup she was watching and put it in the dish rack to dry. Fred tried to swallow again, push down that knot that just wouldn't go away because he felt like he'd done something bloody wrong. But what had he really done? He didn't whisper seductively into Percy's ear and tell him to-to swap his soul with him now, did he? But there she was standing over the sink like Fred had bloody butchered Percy in cold blood.
"Do you know anything about Percy hiding a muggleborn family and…just forgetting about them?" he finally asked, because this tension in the air was just so suffocating. But he probably shouldn't have just said that. Maybe he should've asked her if she wanted to sit down first.
Fortunately for him, Audrey hadn't collapsed. "What are you talking about?"
"Um…Percy's ex-girlfriend, Penelope, she's in a muggleborn protection group," he said. And he realised he probably shouldn't have started with the words 'ex-girlfriend' but Audrey nodded as she'd at least heard of that. Maybe she even knew that they were working together, or that Penelope had at least approached him. "I met her today—as Percy." Blimey, she hadn't even mentioned the fact that she wasn't wearing his glasses. Her head must be really stuck up her arse, or she must really be used to seeing Percy with his glasses off. "She'd asked to meet and was asking me all sorts of rubbish about where Percy's hidden all these muggleborns. But I think that Percy can't remember. Doesn't have a clue. Somehow made a family as big as ours vanish into thin air without any documentation."
Audrey looked at him with a confused look on her face. "That's not possible." She looked at him like he was lying. "I don't know anything about Percy being involved in muggleborn protection groups."
"Maybe your husband was living a double life—frolicking about with his ex-girlfriend when you weren't looking."
"You're a monster," she said flatly. "He may be my husband but he's your brother. Percy gave his life for you—and we don't even know if that's a permeant thing or not—and you're making him out to be this shady comic book villain. Do you have any idea how horrible it was going into the Ministry every day and seeing all sorts of corrupt things happening all the time? I don't know what he was doing at that time, but he must've been terrified."
So, Audrey knew about the fight. Of course, she did. And of course, she'd be on his side.
"What are you talking to me like that for?" Fred asked him. "I forgave him. I was the first to forgive him before I…" before he died. Apparently, he'd forgiven Percy and the one second later, he was as dead as their third-year goldfish. It made him sound like such a ruddy saint. The last acts of Frederick Fabian Weasley! Forgiving his turncoat brother!
"You might've forgiven him, but it doesn't mean that he has to forgive you."
"Forgive me?" Fred thought that was a load of rubbish. He was not saying sorry to Percy just because his wife thought that he owed him an apology. "What does he have to forgive me for exactly? For welcoming him back into the family with open arms after he's up and left us? After he told my dad that he's not tried hard enough? Are you mental?"
"He would've come back sooner," Audrey replied stiffly. "But he didn't know where you were."
Fred felt like he'd been slapped in the face when she'd said that. Had mum not sent Percy a detailed letter, or was the risk too much of being intercepted back to them? The idea of Percy not knowing Shell Cottage was unfathomable to him, but the story checked out. It wasn't like they were in constant communication, and with Arthur under surveillance when the Ministry was under You-Know-Who—fuck it, Voldemort's—hold, he couldn't imagine much pleasant chatter between Percy, who was very firmly under Pius Thicknesse's control, and Arthur, who was one step away from being thrown in Azkaban himself.
"What if something happened to him?" Audrey's question made Fred want to curl up into a ball.
"Nothing did."
"But what if it did?" Audrey kept pressing on. "What if they'd decided that Percy was a blood traitor and threw him in Azkaban just for being related to you? What if they thought that they just couldn't take the risk of association? What if they wanted to do it so that they could back your father in a corner for their own benefit? Just to exude that control?"
It wasn't like Fred could tell her that there was no way that could've happened, because it could've.
"But it didn't," he answered back quietly, fearfully.
Audrey took a deep sigh. "I don't know what Percy was doing when that Muggleborn Registration Commission was running. I know that he said that he was actively involved in it, but he never told me what he did." Her eyebrows furrowed and were knitted with concern. "But he never came back home looking absolutely chuffing with joy if that's what you're worried about. He even electively took me himself to register me."
Fred couldn't imagine taking anyone he liked to register in that commission. "You're a muggleborn?"
"My parents were muggleborn. I suppose that makes me half-blooded, but I'm sure that two muggleborns having children wouldn't exactly appease the Muggleborn Registration Commission. I'm not sure what they believe—that I've been taught to steal magic, but um… nevertheless." Audrey then paused just to think about that day, and Fred wondered how much trust you'd have to have in someone to walk in with them to an interview, where you had a chance of being slaughtered. Where you had a chance of having your family slaughtered. "I think Percy faked my parents' documents. I think he faked mine too. But…but I'm not sure what else he's done."
Percy broke the law. Fred was mulling that one over his head. Well, if the law were under the control of Death Eaters, he supposed that was the least that Percy could do if he weren't a complete sociopath. "Maybe I could remember."
"Could you?"
Fred thought about it for a few moments. But then if he really thought about the day of Bill and Fleur's wedding, he could remember Percy rolling the invitation in his hand as if he didn't know how to read it. He could remember it being early morning, with the sun shining on his face and his glasses being foggy. He could remember being ruddy well exhausted. Apparently, no matter how little he did, Percy was in a constant state of fugue.
"I think I can," Fred sat down across from Audrey, but now she was actively staring at him, almost desperately.
Suddenly, all he could think about was a fifteen-year-old Percy throwing his winter clothes in the forest. It must have been five in the morning; the sun still hadn't risen. The waters in the lake by the Burrow looked freezing and murky. Percy was starkers in second and it was so cold outside that the circulation had been cut off his fingers. Percy put his glasses down, those ugly horn-rimmed ones that he absolutely loathed and dipped his toe into the water. He picked up his wand and then ran his hand over it. Fred wouldn't have known what he was doing, but since he was running through Percy's memories, he could remember very clearly that it was a cloaking charm. There were little sparks of magic running from Percy's fingertips. Fred didn't know why Percy was using a ruddy cloaking charm until he realised that in this memory, he was underage, and he was trying to shield himself from being detected as using underage magic. Fred reeled with surprise. Perfect Prefect Percy breaking the rules for a swim?
He placed a warming spell into the water and then jumped right into it. The water was perfectly warm, and Percy could feel his body melt into the welcoming heat. He swam little laps around the lake with strokes that Fred had no bloody idea that Percy even knew how to do. He must've been swimming for ages, his mind completely blank of anything. His whole existence was just him in the water, floating almost airlessly. The weight of these expectations that he felt like he had just drifted away. In the water, he was nobody. He was nothing but in the most comforting way possible. He felt like he could've stayed there forever. By the time that he'd put his head up, a chill went down his spine when he realised how cold it was outside. But it was a pleasurable chill. He swam back to the embankment and put on his clothes as quickly as he could before casting a quick drying charm. He stuck his wand into his clothes, and then walked back home, feeling like his ears were about to fall off from frostbite but feeling this surge of euphoria.
As he walked back home, there was an overwhelming feeling of guilt hitting him. By the time that he was inside the house, he felt almost crippled by it. Well, you shouldn't have done that, he scolded himself. Not unlike how he scolded the twins, but whereas Fred always told him to piss off, Percy was overwrought with remorse. That's underage magic. You know that you shouldn't have done that! followed by What if someone finds out? What then? What do you have to say for yourself then?
"Did you?" Audrey asked, realising that he must've looked dumb being spaced out.
Well, you'll have Father just explain to the Improper Use of Magic committee that you couldn't help but want to contract pneumonia? What if you end up in the hospital and worry mum into a heart attack and leave everyone alone?
"A little, but not exactly anything that could help me track down a muggleborn family," Fred found himself surprised. He never thought of what else Percy could've enjoyed beyond reading loads of boring books. He almost came to respect this new image of Percy in his mind, the one that snuck out of the house at five in the morning for a swim in the water because he just wanted to be by himself for one. "Actually, it was fuck all to do with the muggleborns. Something about Percy sneaking off into a lake when he was fifteen and using underage magic to warm the water but hiding it with cloaking charms. But the way he was thinking about it, you'd think he'd tried to choke dad with his pillow in the dead-end of the night. Or that he tortured a Kneazle or something." Yeah, that was a far cry from where they were now, with the mystery surrounding this bloody muggleborn family that he didn't know anything about.
Why do you have this impossible fixation with always doing the most juvenile thing you could possibly think of?
Blimey, it was just a bloody dip in the lake. It wasn't like Percy had stabbed a newborn baby out when his parents were asleep. But Audrey had been unwaveringly staring at him for Merlin knew how much. It was kind of unsettling.
"He's like that," Audrey finally said. "He's jittery when he breaks the rules. But he…does do it quite a fair bit."
"Percy? Break the rules quite a 'fair bit'?"
"You know, you have more common in him than you think," Audrey stared at him like she was surprised that he didn't know. "He isn't obvious or vocal about it, but he isn't particularly as stuck-up as you think he is." Fred didn't know if he should trust her with that statement. She looked like she was just as stuck-up as Percy was, maybe even more if she thought that Percy 'broke the rules a fair bit'. What would that entail? Accidentally coming into work three minutes later because he couldn't help but show up perfectly polished? Not reading the directions on the bag of his microwave porridge oats before he made it? What exactly did this woman consider 'broke the rules a fair bit'?
"I'm sure we do. Perce and me. I also absolutely lose it when I go for a swim in the lake at the crack end of dawn."
And she didn't even know him! Or George! Fred thought that sneaking out in the morning for a dip in the lake wasn't exactly like dropping out of school after a brilliant firework display. And if it did, that meant that he and George had really mucked up and hadn't gone all out like they thought they had!
Percy had never in his life received a single Howler, but here Fred and George were with their Howler collection box… and even Ron and Ginny had gotten an honorary red badge for their efforts at bringing mayhem to Hogwarts!
"Fine. Have it your way," she looked like she was tired of arguing with him. "I'll put the kettle on. How do you have your tea?" the thought of how he usually had his tea, black, unsweetened, almost made his—well, Percy's—stomach reel. "Or should I just do the tea like Percy likes it? With half a tin of cream and more sugar than a cake?"
"Sounds absolutely horrific, but…I can't exactly see Percy drinking down a cup of unsweetened black."
"Oh, Merlin, no. He'd spit that out so fast you'd think he'd necked down a vial of Moonseed Poison."
To Fred, that sounded disgusting, but he just relaxed and found himself nodding along. Then he realised that that daft arsehole hadn't eaten all day. It was like the thought that he had to eat had absolutely eluded Percy's brain. He had zero hunger cues. When he woke up in the morning, he didn't even think of food, which was unusual for Fred, who almost went to the kitchen automatically when he woke up. He remembered how their mum used to pick on him, but blimey, was it mental! It was nearly four o'clock and Percy was just happily existing on air and his own mental fuel. Even when he'd gone out with Penelope and seen her eat, he'd been staring at the menu but hadn't ordered anything. It hadn't even percolated through Percy's mind that maybe he should be having something on his lunch break.
But his sugar solution was enough to make him happy. Fred opened the fridge, and he was sure that Percy was the only being on the face of the Earth that felt nauseated at the thought of having to eat when he hadn't eaten all day. And the second that he slammed the door shut, he realised that he felt really dizzy just smelling food.
"Well, this also sucks. Your husband doesn't eat anything," he told Audrey as if she didn't know.
"Mmhmm." Audrey nodded her head. "I made you some eggs."
Fred again instinctively just shook his head. Here he was, absolutely starving to the point of dizziness, and he felt nauseated at the prospect of eating eggs. "Eggs?"
"You'll feel better once you eat," she obviously was in this situation a few times before.
With a wave of her wand, she had hard-boiled eggs brought to the counter, about four or five of them, salted and peppered as if she was almost anticipating it. Fred hated hard-boiled eggs, but apparently, Percy, being a bore, ate his eggs plain as day. He hated that he did feel better after the first one, less nauseated and warm. The tea, which would've made Fred gag, felt warm and sweet going down his throat.
"I feel so badly for your mother," Audrey finally said, and Fred looked up from his container of eggs.
"What for?"
"I feel like I know how she feels when she sees your twin brother walking around when she just lost you," and the way that she said that made knots form into Fred's stomach. He didn't know how it would be like for his mum, dad, or anyone else to just see poor George, who just shared his physical build and features, walking around. He couldn't imagine how hard it was for George either, to suddenly just lose someone that looked exactly fucking like him. "I feel so bad for him too. I can't imagine being in his shoes. It must be a walking nightmare."
"He cut me out of our pictures together," Fred couldn't feign the hurt in his voice anymore. Like it was nothing. "He threw all of my stuff over on the ground like…" he shook his head. "And I'm here now, aren't I? But he's still acting like I'm gone. You should see the way he looks. He looks like he died too, and nobody thought to bring him back."
"Can you blame him? Things are never going to be the same again for him."
Audrey's question made Fred freeze on the. "No," Fred answered. "And you act like I've…I've killed Percy. When Percy's the one that—he decided to do this, right? George even told me that you even helped him. So why are you acting like you can't bloody stand to be around me?"
"I did help him," her voice went down an octave. "The funeral was really bad. He was…out of control."
"The funeral," Fred echoed incredulously. "My funeral."
"Yes. George had implied that if Percy had tried hard enough, he'd be the centre of attention like he always wanted."
"You mean he would've died instead of…?" Fred couldn't imagine those words coming out of George's mouth. "There's no bloody way that George said that." He shook his head. "Not my fucking twin. He would've never."
Audrey offered a sad smile. "But he did."
Fred couldn't imagine him having a funeral. Just the thought of it brought chills to his bones. He obviously wanted to be alive, in his own body, not in Percy's body. He couldn't imagine how out of control Percy had to be for his wife to help him out with something like this, but he guessed he wasn't there so he couldn't make any assumptions.
"No, no, no," Fred shook his head. "You don't know George. He's my twin. He would've never said that!"
He waved his arms around theatrically, but Audrey took no heed of it.
"You helped him and now, you're making things up," Fred knew he didn't make any sense.
"Your brother has the worst impulse control," Audrey explained. "I really thought that if I didn't help him, he'd do it anyway and just…hurt himself. Really hurt himself. I really believed that he was a danger to himself." Fred felt uncomfortable with the idea of anyone describing Percy as a 'danger to himself.'
"Percy?" Fred croaked out disbelievingly. "Percy's not a danger to a flobberworm. As a kid, he used to make sure he didn't accidentally step on one when we were walking in the forest near the Burrow. Once he accidentally did, and he took it back home so he could help heal the slimy disgusting bugger. It died anyway—life span of five days they were. And I hardly think of Percy as someone that has an 'impulse control' problem."
"…"
"The way you bloody talk about him, it's like we know two different Percy's!" Fred laughed unconvincingly.
"But we do," Audrey finally said. "We know two different Percy's and the crazy thing is that I don't think either of us is wrong."
Fred scoffed. No, she was wrong. There was no way that Perfect Prefect Percy, the bloke that did extra rounds just to make sure that no rules were being broken, had an impulse control problem. Broke rules 'a fair bit.' Somehow forgot about a muggleborn family that he'd been hiding. It sounded like she was talking about someone else. Someone that he and George would actually get along with for starters. Just because fifth-year Percy took a dip in the lake with a few warming charms and never told anyone about it didn't mean that he was suddenly any less prissy.
"Listen, you make have married my brother, but we've been living with him all our lives," Fred said a little tensely. "Don't you think that someone would've noticed if he was out wreaking havoc everywhere? And the thing you're trying to tell me about George…"
Audrey said nothing after that, but she just looked at him like she pitied him. "You can ask him yourself if you like." She paused. "Or maybe you could remember the funeral yourself. Since you don't seem to want to believe me."
Fred didn't want to remember his own bloody funeral. What a horrible suggestion.
After he'd eaten his five hardboiled eggs (probably jam his arteries before he was thirty with all the stress that Percy put himself through) and drank enough creamy tea to make him about a stone heavier, Fred decided to apparate to the Burrow. His mum, who had been sat by the couch, using a cutting charm to make heart stencils for a card that she was making looked up and beamed at him. "Fred!" she could see him even through his Percy coat, and then wrapped her arms around him so hard that it left him shuddering. His mum had never hugged him like that before. She gave them half-hugs sometimes when they were kids, trying to tell them not to destroy everything. "It's so good you're here. I've made all your favourites," she said happily. "I've made a chicken burger for supper, with chips and chocolate cake for pud. Your favourite things, do you remember?" she eyed him like she was waiting for his reaction.
Fred would've bloody loved all of that, but even he was starting to feel a little weird. He felt like he'd walked into the middle of a tragedy-turned-fluff, and he didn't know what to make of it, especially with what Audrey had told him.
"Yeah, mum," Fred answered back unenthusiastically.
"I was so hoping you'd come by," Molly smiled at him. "How was your first day at work? Did you do anything illegal? Send poor Kingsley a dungbomb in the mail?" she was asking him as if she'd be proud if he'd set fire to the Ministry. As if he could do no wrong and it was more unsettling than Fred would ever explain.
"Angelina works for Percy," was all he managed to say.
"Oh, that's nice! She really holds a torch for you, that one… said some beautiful things about you."
At your funeral, Fred bet. Because you're dead, remember? He just kept nodding his head, but he felt so bloody down. What was it with Percy that made him feel so bloody depressed every time he talked to one member of his own family? It was getting rather irritating. And how conflicted Fred felt about everything didn't help one bloody bit.
"I know, mum," Fred smirked, trying to muster up some excitement for the rest of the day. "She was my Hogwarts girlfriend, remember? Well…we were sort of boyfriend and girlfriend. We never made it official." But they were snogging senseless every few months, and he'd asked her out to the Yule Ball that one time. They'd even had it off a few times! Well, at least he didn't die a virgin?
Molly looked a little surprised. "Oh, I didn't know about that. George never said."
George didn't look like he was going to say anything with him being in foetal position, looking like he was living in a vacuum. And as if on cue, Fred watched George walk downstairs in the same clothes that he saw him in last time. His jumper was even baggier. It was kind of horrifying to see George just disappear into his own clothes. His hair was a mess, and he obviously still had black circles around his eyes, even though he'd actually slept that night. When George joined them, Fred playfully pushed him by the side. "What's the long face for?"
George just shrugged his shoulders mindlessly. Then he decided to say, "Ron decided to transfigure my pillow into a spider to get back at us for what we did when we were kids."
Fred was biting back laughter, but it was plenty obvious that George didn't decide to find it funny. "Foreplay with an arachnoid, huh, Forge?" to which George pushed him back but it didn't seem as playful as much as it was spiteful.
"I couldn't go back to sleep! Arsehole!" George replied in annoyance.
"Serves you right!" Ron said from the top of the stairs. He'd been holding that one in for ages it seemed, but Fred felt a little bad for George because he didn't look…he didn't look right. He looked like he was ready to burst into tears at any given moment. "You think I went back to sleep that night?"
"No, but…" George rubbed his eyes, and like a fountain, he started crying. "I didn't sleep." He buried his head into his hands, and Fred was frozen in his spot as George just broke down in front of him. Seeing George so unhinged wasn't something he'd ever thought he'd ever have to deal with. He was a couple of sleepless nights away from being locked. "I'm so tired. I just want to sleep." He looked haunted almost.
For the first time in ages, Fred didn't feel like he was on the same page as George. It was almost as if they were on two different book, as if George had suddenly disappeared from his pages and was planted onto someone else's. The script had changed, and Fred hadn't been told what to say or do.
"Come on," Molly placed a hand on his back and stroked it as softly as she could. "I have a Dreamless Sleep for you."
After his mum had put George back into his bed, Fred sat beside him and grabbed his hand. He was shaking like anything, unable to relax. Fred had noticed that the room was even messier than it was yesterday, with chairs and tables that had been moved across the room. He barely drank from that bottle of water that his mum had put beside him. After the potion, George started to look drowsy and unfocused. But since he noticed that he barely drank water, Fred had started to notice how chapped and dry his skin was.
"What the hell are you doing?" he found himself asking furiously. "Are you trying to kill yourself?"
George shook his head, but the tears sprang back into his eyes. "Freddy, I think I killed him," he whispered to Fred. He suddenly was grabbing onto Fred's hand. "I think I killed Percy."
"What the fuck are you going on about?" Fred didn't mean to sound so angry or defensive.
George stared vacantly at the wall. He was obviously not in the right mind to remember what in Merlin's name he was saying. It probably didn't help that George had stolen Percy's old stuffed dragon, the thing that was missing a massive eye. He had creatively called him 'Big Dragon' because it was about half the size of six-year-old Percy. It was navy and massive with glossy silver eyes that could give you nightmares. Fred had no bloody idea how he'd slept with that thing on purpose. When he was six, he'd demanded his mum sew his eye back on, but she'd forgotten about it. As far as Fred could remember, Percy had a massive temper tantrum about her forgetting and then Molly had refused to do it out of the principle of the thing, no matter how much Percy screamed and cried. What a tosser.
At that time, George had Big Dragon's eyes sewed back in. Talk about sentimental. At the rate that George was disappearing, Big Dragon would start to look bigger than him too.
"I told him he had no right to say his speech," George's voice broke. "That it wasn't about him, that it was about you." Fred felt sick, hearing George talk like that. He'd never heard George talk like that. He'd almost wished that he really was six feet under if he got to see his twin unravel like this before him. "That it could've been him if he tried hard enough." He kept darting his eyes back and forth from the room, sobbing, his voice cracking. "I told him he didn't because they didn't give badges for that."
Fred didn't know what to do, so he just placed his arms around George. George threw himself at him, holding him so tightly that Fred thought that he'd manage to break his ribs. "Uh…he couldn't have known that a wall was about to collapse onto me, mate," Fred added on, unhelpfully because George looked like he was going to scream.
"He told me! He told me he didn't now!" George yelled. "And I told him that I thought that he knew everything." He turned away from Fred almost in shame.
"He does know everything," Fred said in a deadpan tone.
George shook his head and Fred thought if he did that anymore, his head might actually detach from his body. His limbs were everywhere, and he was hyperventilating so much that his cheeks were flushed and red. And even in the dim lighting in the room, he could tell how badly George looked.
"I told him you killed him," George's admission made Fred's heart flop. "He asked mum and dad if he did. He really believed me. He had to ask them. But he left before he'd heard…before…"
His sobs rang into Fred's ears. He had the most massive headache. He'd never had George act like this, look like this, sound like this, not ever in all the years that he'd been with him. And here was Fred, practically bloody useless.
"I killed him," George kept saying. "I killed Percy. I killed him." Then somehow, his breathing slowed down, and he'd closed his eyes. Fred was practically shaking as he moved away from George's frame. He was gone when you died, mate, there's nothing you could do about that, Fred thought to himself sombrely. George was obviously overwrought with guilt and Fred had wanted to wake him up just so they could have dinner together and actually talk about how there was this massive mystery at the Ministry, but he found himself staring at George's face with a stunned look. He'd shared a womb with George. They used to complete each other's sentences, but right then, he looked down at his own twin brother and he couldn't even recognise him anymore.
