i've had a tough few weeks, and couldn't look at anything remotely to deal with death (though i've had this and Chapter Eight done but it just needed editing). but now after some wonderful news, a week of watching romantic comedies, i'm ready to be editing and writing some dark and depressing fanfiction!
Stay A Day in My Coffin
Chapter Seven
The Café and The Pub
Fred had never been to that café just next to the Ministry before. Sure, he'd been to other shops in the area. He'd been to a nearby pub with Bill way before he'd been of age (George didn't like to drink, the wanker). There were also a couple of Japanese restaurants that his father used to take him and George to before. They'd just about try anything on the menu that looked a little weird. Raw fish. Eel. A sample of that octopus stuff they put into a rice paper something. That orange stuff on a blob of rice. Really fishy stuff (quite literally). But he'd never been to any coffee shops. And when he'd caught sight of the one that Angelina was trying to drag him to, he knew why the hell not.
"Bloody hell," Fred swore he felt his abs tighten when he'd laid eyes on the entrance—alright, well, Percy didn't exactly have abs, but Fred's old body had! Sue him for having phantom muscles.
Just outside the shop, there were a gigantic mass of black signs that had more red ink than one of Ron's Potion essays, delightfully announcing that their 'Blackcurrant Mocha' was forty percent off. There was also a delightful drawing of a mocha, with a pool of bubbling red liquid running down the sides. Fred couldn't decide if it was supposed to be the blackcurrant syrup or the blood of their victims stewing away in a pot for an illegal potion operation. The hefty signs were decorated quite tastefully with shrunken red roses and lavender bushes that had been charmed to be the colour red.
Angelina smirked. "Quite literally, huh, mate?" she jabbed a finger at his side. "Scared?"
He was not scared. But the hairs on the back of his neck started to stand up. Must be the cool breeze. In June.
"Halloween isn't for another couple of months, you know," Fred just shrugged. "Besides, there's just been a war, remember?" The more he'd thought about the war, the more he'd realised that he'd really…died. And that scared the bloody daylights out of him. Maybe he hadn't realised it before, but he sure did now. And maybe seeing blood plastered everywhere made him feel a little out-of-touch with himself. And then he realised that his family had been acting like he'd been on vacation instead of six feet under.
"Uh huh," Angelina turned to open the door and Fred tried to relax. He expected something to explode in his face.
"Whatever," Fred couldn't hide how angry he was. He'd really died, and they were all acting like he'd done something wrong by being brought back. And he was the angriest at George, who didn't so much as look at him.
Bastard. Two could play at that game. You're dead to me too, arsehole.
The chairs were made from black velvet and the menu advertised gigantic frothy lattes made with different radioactive syrups. The display case just beside the counter showcased heart-shaped pastries that were so massive that Fred reckoned he could lob it at a Chaser in a Quidditch game. There was a woman behind the counter with hair so greasy it outdid Snape's. Fred reckoned that was enough oil in her hair to bake a Malfoy-style wedding cake. Her face was just as greasy and covered in spots. She wore bright red lippy that just made it more obvious that her face was covered in spots. She wasn't exactly the prettiest looking lass—no offence, but she was very cheery when she'd seen him walking in. Her nametag loudly read Hello; my name is KATHLEEN and I love BUTTERBEER LATTES. In red ink.
By the time that they approached the counter, she disappeared into the backroom.
"Why can't we go anywhere else?" Fred asked, and he realised that he sounded like a moody arsehole.
Angelina just shrugged. "Percy used to go here."
"To do what?" Fred mumbled. "Plan his suicide?" Easy for him to do. He didn't have to deal with this crap anymore.
That's not fair, he could hear George's voice inside of his brain. Fred just wanted to strangle the imaginary George that popped up, all sad-looking and pale. You're not angry at Percy. You're angry at everyone else. Don't take it out on him.
When Fred looked down at the menu and saw Percy's face staring back at him, he realised how eerie all of this was.
"Well, I'm not Percy," he mumbled back to her.
Angelina looked at him for a while. "But you're…" she looked like she didn't know what to say. "You're different."
"I am?" Fred raised an eyebrow at her with an irritated look. "Not like I died or anything."
Angelina shuddered. "Hey," her voice was soft. "I know that things are hard. I know that people aren't reacting the way that you expect them to, especially just figuring out what…what happened but—"
"Someone looks dashing today, don't they?" the cashier, Kathleen, cut into their conversation when she walked back to the counter. He looked down to her face, which probably should replace the scarecrow outside. Fred still found it strange how tall Percy was. He still wasn't used to being in his body. He probably never will be. "Love what you've done with yourself. The red, purple and pink really go well together. Very well prepared for a possible abduction."
"Thanks?" Fred noticed how Percy-like he looked like from the reflective surface of the glossy, laminated café menu. Percy must be the most eternally confused person in the world but in the most condescending way possible.
"He couldn't find his glasses when he was choosing his outfit this morning," Angelina joked.
"Yeah," Fred mumbled. He couldn't find his glasses. He didn't know how Percy lived needing a couple of little bits of glass to see. So much for an all-powerful wizard. He couldn't believe it now that he thought about how Harry was the Chosen One. Yeah, not chosen for his perfect vision. "Silly pratty me."
Kathleen looked confused. "Why would you call yourself pratty—?"
Angelina had tucked one of her hairs back. "I'll have a latte," she turned to look at Fred. "You?"
"Um…" Fred had no idea what Percy ordered. Probably a cake, and some coffee with sugar and arsenic. "I'll have the usual." That sounded like the most arsehole-y thing he could've said. Like this chick would remember, but she just nodded her head and jolted down his order like nothing was amiss.
"And what would that be?" Angelina teased Fred. "I'd like to try whatever you have. If I know what it is that is."
"Oh, it's—" the cashier started blathering, but Fred had cut her in the middle of her sentence.
Fred rolled his eyes. "Um…you know," he waved towards the cashier. "Come on. Let's go hide in a corner."
"Sounds very Percy-like," Angelina whispered into Fred's ear, who just shrugged. "You know, I think you couldn't be anymore antisocial if you tried." Fred was more amused and light-hearted than he had been all day. There was something about Angelina that made him want to be around her. "Did you and Percy ever do this?"
"Percy?" Fred reiterated as if he'd never heard the name. It sounded weird hearing it in Percy's voice. "Never."
"Did you and George ever do this?" Angelina changed her words around.
Fred wasn't a coffee shop kind of bloke. "No."
"George liked this place." George had been there before? Fred didn't know that, but George and Percy shared the same Merlin-forsaken sweet tooth. When George was eating frosting out of their birthday cake, Fred was sneaking in an extra scoop of mashed potatoes and roast chicken when his twin brother was preoccupied with demolishing an extra slice of hefty chocolate cake. "You didn't know that George was here before, did you? With me? Before…before you…" she waved her hand around.
"No," Fred felt a little angry, even though it was hardly a secret for them to be meeting up. He met up with Lee and Angelina separately all the time too. Just because George had a stomach bug or Fred was sleeping didn't mean that they had to wait for the other to join in.
"Well, he did," Angelina finally decided to say. "Like to come here that is. He's not super outgoing these days."
"I noticed," Fred couldn't hide the bitterness in his tone. "So… what's George's usual?"
"Uh…" she must've noticed how Fred's tone had changed but decided to answer his question anyway. "He gets this hot chocolate," Angelina finally said. "There's beetroot in it or something. It tastes kind of weird and funky, but he really likes it. And he eats it with this massive oatmeal raisin cookie that's the size of his face. You know how George is like."
Fred couldn't be any more turned off by the idea of eating those things. "Huh." He was the kind of guy that would sit down to drink filter coffee and eat a couple of his mum's toasties. He wasn't the kind of guy that drank weird hot chocolates that had vegetables in them. "Sounds absolutely disgusting."
She nodded her head enthusiastically, as if she'd been waiting for someone to say that for ages. "I know, right?"
"Yeah," added Fred unhelpfully.
They sat at the far corner of the shop. Fred automatically knew that Percy sat there often. Because the second that his arse had hit the chair, there was this overwhelming sense of calm that washed over him. It was that feeling that you got where you were somewhere familiar. Somewhere you liked. Somewhere you tried to run to. He needed that so badly. He'd felt so jarred just thinking about the whole ordeal. And he was sick of flipping back to suicide-sacrifice-or-what. He was sick of it being about Percy being gone when he'd just been back. When he'd been dead and had just been back. And Fred felt angry that he hadn't realised that sooner. That it hit him so fucking late that his family had the worst emotional response to the whole thing.
"Are we still together?" Fred asked, and Angelina just stiffened on the spot.
"I don't think so," Angelina replied. "You're technically married, you know."
A plate of a warm oatmeal raisin cookie and a radioactively coloured hot chocolate made their way to Fred's table. He thought that he was stuck in some sort of strange déjà vu land where everything meant more than what it was. And did it really have to mean anything that Percy and George had the same fucking order? So, they liked the same biscuit. They didn't share a bloody womb.
"I guess," was all that Fred replied with. "Look at this. Percy and Georgie. Kindred fucking spirits."
"It's just a coffee order."
"Are you sure? Are you sure they're not fucking twins? Are you sure they're not swapping each other's spit—" he took a sip of his drink, but it was hot and scalded his tongue. "Fuck!"
When Fred had put down the beverage, a slew of memories just hit him. And he felt like he'd been paralysed for a second, remembering sitting there in that café just a few months back. He vaguely remembered meeting a black-haired woman, who carried around a six-month-old who adorned the crimson red tablecloth with drool-covered fingers. She'd also knocked over Percy's hot chocolate and he could remember the smell so clearly, just like the smell that was penetrating through Fred's mind just now. He could remember the six-month-old's cheerful cries, and her big green eyes staring at him happily. She beamed at him. She'd started teething. The mother was wiping down the front of her sleepsuit and looked like she slept an average of three hours a night. Her ponytail was as greasy as Kathleen's. She looked frustrated and she reminded Fred of when his mum was taking care of Ginny and Ron. Like she'd just realised that she was too young to be having seven bloody children.
The family, Fred was sure. He didn't know if there was a spouse involved or other children, or something else, but he'd seen her face in the passing, even if it felt like he'd been watching everything without his glasses.
Angelina sat across from him and crossed her legs. She was in her usual office-wear of black shorts and a Holyhead Harpies jumper. He was angry at her too, but he wasn't sure what for. Maybe for just talking about Percy. Maybe because she didn't hug him or cry or talk to him about how she'd missed him all that time that he was gone.
"Are you okay?" Angelina asked, reaching out to hold his hand.
"I guess," Fred answered and hearing his words in Percy's voice unnerved him so much more than he could ever explain. "Actually, no, I'm not," he finally said. "How come nobody's acting like-like you know that I've just died and come back? Why is everything so bloody weird and why is everything about Percy?"
"That's…pretty deep questions you have there," replied Angelina.
There was a moment of silence between them. Fred sipped his beetroot hot chocolate, which he liked. He was starting to eat his cookie. A part of him felt like he was drowning in saturated syrups and valleys of sucrose, but the other part of him just relaxed into puffy clouds of silky sweetness. He melted like caramel in heat, like a fifth year in the hands of a Weird Sisters' band member.
"I guess it's because feelings are confusing," Angelina finally said. "I mean…it's a lot to feel in a short period of time."
"I guess it is. I can't imagine what I'd be feeling," Fred wondered how it must be like to bury someone that you loved and then the next day someone from your family announced that they were doing this weird swap. He guessed his feelings wouldn't be so straight-forward either. "Maybe I should give my family—George—everyone—a break."
"Maybe you should," Angelina confirmed. Fred stared at the world before him. He felt uncomfortable in Percy's skin, like he was wearing someone else's comfy coat, but it just didn't fit his limbs the way that they were supposed to. He felt like everyone could tell that he was a Percy imposter, that he wasn't supposed to be there. "This isn't easy for anyone." And Fred thought that he was beginning to understand, even though he still felt so confused.
"Yeah," Fred finally concluded.
"Maybe you should give Percy a break too," Angelina finally brought it up and Fred looked at her, his facial expressions became lax and soft. The rhythmic sounds of the cashier machine opening and being closed, the clinks of glass, the sounds of people talking a world away filled the room for a few moments in a way that relaxed him. "If he killed himself or if he didn't, it doesn't matter because he's gone for now. And I guess that means that he's dead now."
Fred flinched. "Yeah."
"How can you blame them for not wanting to talk about you being dead if you won't even come to terms with the fact that Percy's technically taking your place right now?" Angelina pointed out.
"Alright, alright," Fred held his hand up and sighed. "I get your fucking point."
"Do you?" Angelina challenged.
"Yeah."
There was a moment of silence, and they just stared at each other. It was the first time he'd seen her in ages.
"I missed you so much, you stupid jerk."
He winced when he heard her say that, and he really felt how bad it was. For him to be gone. For what the funeral was like, for what had happened.
"I get it now," Fred swallowed the lump in his throat, realising that this would be the last time that he'd have with Percy. "I'm just here to say goodbye and then go. I get that. This isn't my place anymore." He somehow didn't sound as fucking terrified as he felt. "I guess I'm lucky that way, that I'm back to say the stuff that I wanted to say before."
"Yeah," Angelina looked at him, but her voice was breaking. She obviously didn't want him to go. "I guess."
Fred smoothed over Percy's coat. The maroon coat that he'd put on clashed with his pink button-down and dark purple trousers. You know, Percy owned quite a lot of vibrant, shocking colours for a bloke with such a gloomy outlook on life. It was like for every dark thought he had; he'd decided to buy a flamboyant suspender to replace it. He had yellow boxers and orange suits. No wonder that Charlie had talked to Bill about Percy maybe being just as colourful as his clothes. On his fourteenth birthday, they'd tried to set him up with a bloke when they'd found out that—gasp—Percy was not bent. Or the bloke wasn't his type, they really couldn't figure that one out.
They, Fred thought sombrely as he'd stared at the glossy menu in front of him as if the old George were hidden behind it.
"I don't wanna die," Fred finally said, his eyes wide and hot, stinging with tears. "But I don't want Percy to die too."
Angelina shuddered, and suddenly, she looked so small in her clothes. As if she would sink into them. As if she would disappear under walls of fabric and pain. "Of course not," she replied. "He's your brother. You would've done the same thing for him."
"No," Fred shook his head. "Not in a million years would I trade my life for Perfect Pretty Percy's." And that hurt him so much, to know that he could live a hundred years and not be ready to make the kind of sacrifice that Percy made. And he wasn't even sure if it was entirely selfish or entirely selfless. He guessed he'd never know. He didn't think he'd get to ask Percy those questions. "And do you know why? That kills me, to know that—"
"Would you do it now?" Angelina asked, and Fred knew what she was asking.
Fred didn't have to think about it. "Yeah," he finally agreed.
"I think that's worth coming back for," Angelina whispered. And Fred didn't think about it like that, but he guessed that that really was worth coming back for. To know that someone that you loved, that you doubted, would do something like that for you—whether Percy wanted to die or not, and to know that you'd do the same thing for them. "But I think you should probably talk to George before. And do some things. And fix the shop."
"I should," Fred nodded his head. "Merlin knows what George would be doing with the shop. With his taste..."
Angelina nodded her head. "I miss looking at you," she said, and he missed it too. He missed being in his body. He wanted to go home sometimes. He wanted things to be simpler sometimes.
"I love you," Fred said, and he'd never said it, but he'd never meant it any more than he did then.
That was worth coming back for, he decided. That was worth everything that had happened.
"I love you too," Angelina answered, and he knew that she meant it as much as he did. Even if she'd end up marrying a bloke down the line (a marginally less attractive bloke, let him be fair). Even if she ended up being hit by Knight Bus a couple of months from now. Even if she resented him ten years from now. It didn't change the fact that at that moment, in that very pure, very honest moment, she had told him that she loved him, and she'd meant that.
He could die knowing that. Sure, he could. He ate the rest of his cookie and savoured his hot chocolate like he was a beetroot connoisseur. He held Angelina's hand on the way back to the building. She told him about all the things that she wanted to do when she was older. She told him about the dreams that she had, the things that she liked that she'd never told him, the things that she hated that she'd never told him. She talked and talked and talked until there was nothing left to say between them, and Fred was listening to the way that her hands moved when she talked. They must've stayed there for hours and hours. And during all that time, Fred hadn't even bothered to pick up a single piece of parchment paper.
Fred took a nap onto one of the couches in the room at the last hour of 'work'. He had used his coat as a blanket and had curled up onto the uncomfortable couch until he'd managed to find that one position where his whole body just seemed to sink into it.
When he closed his eyes, he was fifteen-year-old Percy Weasley being pushed into the wall by a furious Penelope Clearwater.
It was late at night, and he was sweating in his Gryffindor slacks. Penelope was seething so much that the sweat was practically evapourating out of her skin. Her damp hands were all over Percy's forearms. They were supposed to be patrolling, but they were cut short by Penelope being a crazy fucking bitch (Fred's thoughts).
"Control. Your. Brothers!" she shrieked at him. As if Percy could do anything about that, Fred scoffed. He tried as hard as he could, but he couldn't 'control' anyone. "How many times have I told you that their antics are not cute? How many times? But I know you, Percival Ignatius Weasley! I know that you're covering for them! I know that-that you know what they're doing!" she yelled so loudly that Percy's ears started to vibrate. It was a miracle that Percy ever seriously considered snogging that woman. "Do you know what they did today? Hmm?" she raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you have any idea what they sold to first years on the guise of experimenting for their joke shop?"
"Of course, I do!" Percy waved his hands around dramatically. "And it was perfectly safe! I've…"
"You've what? Congratulated them on their efforts?"
"I've looked over it."
"Oh Merlin," Penelope looked like she was about to help an aneurysm. "You knew about it. You know about everything they do!" She then glared at him. "You helped them." Percy opened his mouth to reject it, but it was like all the words in his mind just suddenly melted. "You're like this-this annoying guardian angel that looks over all of Hogwarts' pranksters and instead of telling them off for setting off fireworks or dungbombs, you decide to break into their dorms, steal their plans and then decide to do fuck-all about it!" She said the last part in disdain.
Percy baulked at her statement and withdrew. "I've fixed the charms on their canary creams."
"What do you mean you've fixed them?" Penelope reiterated in disbelief.
"Well…it's not like the twins are getting O's in Charms now, are they? I just…fixed the charms on their botchy canary cream batch," Percy protested lightly, but she looked like she was going to strangle him. He knew that the twins didn't do their Charms homework as much as they should be. "But now, they're…just ordinary canary creams." He just shrugged nonchalantly, as if he'd resolved the whole situation. He could feel Penelope's eyes on him, judging him for what he did, for what he didn't do, and he felt smaller than he had in ages. "They're harmless!"
"Harmless," Penelope echoed incredulously. Her hands were in front of his collar, and she was clinging onto him so tightly that Percy could feel her breath on his face. "How would you like to be a bird?"
Percy just shrugged mindlessly. "You probably know more about that than me."
"You're such an arsehole." She smiled at him, and he relaxed. "Fine. It was a harmless joke," Penelope placed her hands on her hips, shaking her head at him. "You know, I'm glad you are a prefect because I'd hate to see what you think is funny." She sighed. "We'd probably have fireworks in the halls and exploding mashed potatoes for lunch."
"You have a limited imagination." Percy just smiled at her weakly, and she grabbed his wrist and tore him away from the walls. The portraits around them pretended that they hadn't listened in on what happened, except for one which made a low whistling sound.
"You really are a git, you know that?"
"I do. But thanks for the reminder."
When Fred woke up, he thought that he was dreaming for a few minutes. Come on. Percy would never interfere with their joke products other than to tell them that they were a danger to society, but the more than Fred thought about it, the more he could remember the fact that he knew that the Canary Creams were faulty, but all of a sudden, they weren't. He'd always just assumed that George had tinkered with them because he seemed pretty chuffed with himself. He never would've considered anyone else helping them—much less Perfect Prefect Percy.
Stunned in the revelation, Fred just laid onto the couch, unsure of where he was.
Something worth coming back for, he echoed his and Angelina's talks.
Knowing Percy, really knowing Percy, was worth coming back for. Bridging the years between them was something worth coming back for. Knowing was the most important thing right now.
Merlin, what he wouldn't do for a chocolate frog—
But before Fred could digest what he'd remembered, he was hammered by more memories.
Eleven-year-old Percy stealing a chocolate frog from Charlie's bag when he was sleeping. Thirteen-year-old Percy Weasley figuring out how to cheat on tests just for the thrill of knowing how to. Fifteen-year-old Percy Weasley mapping out mental stars on his girlfriend's spotted back whilst she drawled on about how irresponsible he was. Seventeen-year-old Percy receiving the warmest hug from his father on the day that he left Hogwarts, a feeling that had stayed with him for days. Eighteen-year-old Percy knowing that that 'Norwegian fertiliser' was a load of dung but trying to keep a completely cool expression when rooting through his mail. You've got that one, Percy thought. I'll give you that. Twenty-one-year-old Percy Weasley picking up a broomstick—and then…
BAM!
Another series of memories, all coalescing together, with Percy in the air, riding so fast that he was seeing stars. Fred felt breathless. Percy in a pair of sweatpants that were so tight that you could see his veins. Percy making loops that Chasers would never dare to. Percy in the air, Percy with a broom, Percy in a broomstick race. An illegal broomstick race. He could remember the patterns and colours of each racer's jumper. He could remember seeing zigzags of colours that would send most people into convulsions. He could remember smelling the sulphurous air as he weeded through dense humid nights and cool winter mornings. He could feel a shiver running down his back. So much for obscuring underage charms being a shocking thing for Percy to do.
Fred's heart was thudding, his peripheries were warm, his hands were clammy as he whizzed through the sky like a bolt of lightning. Harrowing, racing, feeling, floating.
His stuck-up brother, Percy, was a broomstick racer. His neurotic, always-going-on-about-the-rules brother was involved in Illegal. Broomstick. Racing. The sounds of cheers echoed into Fred's mind.
And he was good at it.
"Oh Merlin," Fred groaned as he sat up straight. Angelina looked up from her stack of papers that she was pretending to work through. "Ange, you wouldn't believe it." He shook his head in disbelief. It was like he was uncovering a part of his brother he didn't know, he'd never know, and he felt a stab of both anger and jealousy. Because the glimpse of that Percy that he saw was someone he'd love to get to know, and now, he couldn't. "Perce, he was…he was a broomstick racer. You know," there wasn't any legal broomstick racing. It was banned way back when from the volume of players that had fallen off their brooms and fractured their spines. No charm was ever going to repair a severed spinal cord. "A broomstick racer," he reiterated in disbelief. Even he thought that was asking for a death wish.
"Percy?" Angelina echoed incredulously. "The same guy that used to tell us off for putting our feet up the coffee table?"
Fred nodded his head, stunned. "Yeah," his voice cracked. "Yeah," he repeated.
"Are you sure it's not just some…post-death nightmares?"
"No." Fred remembered the feeling like it was just yesterday. Just thinking about the feeling made him shiver in this indescribable delight. The way Percy felt on that broom was the way that he and George felt like playing pranks. "He used to help George and me with our pranks. If we had faulty…if we had faulty products, he used to fix them. He's a closeted broomstick racer. He used to steal chocolate frogs from Charlie's bag during the train—like we steal chocolate frogs from Ron when he isn't looking." Not once in a million years would he have assumed that Percy would do something like that for them. "Penelope confronted him about him helping us. She knew. She knew the real Percy. That's probably why they were sending each other so many bloody letters."
And just like that, he stood up with renewed purpose. And at the same time, both he and Angelina said:
"You need to talk to Penelope."
"I need to talk to Penelope."
They shared a smile and then Angelina just shrugged. "And I bet his wife knows something about it too."
"Well, she's his wife so she probably does. Yeah." He remembered Audrey saying something about them not being that different. But how similar was she talking about?
But Fred didn't want to talk to a pregnant woman that hated him.
"Do you have any idea what you're going to do now?"
"Yeah," Fred nodded his head, offering a tight smile. "I do." Then he paused to think a little bit, about everything that had happened in the last few days. "I need to talk to my parents too. And my brothers." His mind wandered to his twin. "And George too." He couldn't keep this distance from George when he was literally mourning him just days before. "But…maybe I can talk to George after everyone else." He was terrified. And he knew George was too.
He thought Angelina was about to tell him off for being so distant with George but instead, she said, "You probably should." She placed a hand on his own. They should've been home six minutes ago. "You're going to be okay."
"I know," Fred believed it too. "One of us has to be." And he didn't know if he was talking about Percy, or if he were talking about George when he said this. Angelina didn't ask him to elaborate.
"Hey, thanks." He said. "For everything."
"For everything," Angelina breathlessly confirmed. "Don't be a stranger."
"I'm not." He felt like he was the only one that hadn't changed. He'd walked into his family for the second time and had met strangers. And this still didn't explain the missing family, or whether or not Percy really wanted to die, or how the funeral was. Not that Fred wanted to remember, but he supposed that he'd find out eventually.
And he was ready to know.
Penelope replied to him at the pace of a fangirl responding to an owl from her favourite artist. Fred had sent and gotten a reply within minutes. She had asked to meet him in a pub that night, and that whole thing left a sour tone to the night because would Percy be meeting Penelope in a pub regularly when he was already married? Did Percy have a double romance with his double life? Fred's stomach twisted into knots, and he'd barely made his way through his inedible basket of fish and chips from a chippy next to the pub she'd asked to meet him at. The fish was underdone, and the chips were almost burnt. The air was crisp, and the roads were well-lit. Petrichor. Damp. Musty. Post-rain and post-dust swirled together into the smell of childhood nostalgia and muddy Quidditch try-outs.
Percy's face illuminated into pools of rain, and Fred's heart stopped, knowing what he looked like. Knowing that Percy looked a little sad, a little lost. And Fred wondered how he felt, but he only came with indifference and boredom. In his mind, he could hear George chattering beside him about how this was a shit night and that they should head home. He could practically see his twin, all white-faced with teeth clattering, talking about how he'd rather die than catch another cold. He remembered how it was like to be next to George, just knowing that he was there. Just knowing that if it was three in the morning and he couldn't sleep, he had someone breathing, living, alive next to him. Now, lying next to George was like lying next to a corpse, a shrinking, diminishing pseudo-light. The draught of living death personified, looked dead but was supposedly alive, supposedly living, supposedly something.
Penelope's pub was cosy and not at all the romantic set-up that Fred had in mind. It was crowded and small, and Penelope had already ordered him a butterbeer. He didn't feel like they were about to have a secret love affair.
"Hey, Penny," came out of Fred's mouth before he had a chance to think about it. Percy called her Penny.
"Don't 'hey, Penny' me," she said with air-quotations. "Where's my fucking family, Percy?"
He winced.
"What have you done this time?" she followed. "Did you lose my family? Did you forget to hide them? Do you think that I wouldn't notice that a whole family just disappeared out of the face of existence?" she sighed, and it was the sigh that their mum had when they'd done something wrong. They. Fred and George. "Godric, Percy, just talk to me. Tell me the truth for once." She clasped her hands together and stared at him pleadingly. "What have you done?"
"The truth."
"The truth!"
The truth was a rather outrageous thing. Did she really want to hear that old thing?
Fred obliged.
"You found me with a firework once past curfew and told me off until my ear started ringing. Then you've made me go to Madam Pomfrey to have it looked and she said that you've ruptured my eardrum," Fred said.
A moment of silence. Confusion, followed by a prompt realisation and then shock horror.
"Fred."
"Fred," he repeated.
Silence.
"I've stolen your knickers once and made you think that Percy's done it." Fred didn't know if Percy would've done something like that. If you'd asked him a week ago, he would've laughed into your face. There was no way that he would've believed it, but now, he wasn't sure. "The blue ones. You've found me with them. I was just about to tape them up near one of the portraits." The portrait wasn't having it though. Kept screaming like it was bloody murder to be covered by a woman's undergarments. "Reckon he was afraid that his portrait would smell like your muff."
Penelope looked like she was going to cry, but she said nothing.
"Percy found a spell," he finally said. "So that he could be in my body, and I could be in his."
"You're dead." Penelope didn't beat around the bush. Fred flinched, but then he nodded his head. He supposed that he was dead, and it was such a strange thing to come to terms with one's mortality after they'd passed. At the ripe age of twenty. "Percy's dead?" she reiterated in disbelief. But then instead of shock, she just said. "Oh."
"Oh?" Fred noticed Penelope's lack of surprise. She noticed that he'd noticed too.
Penelope looked down at her lap, but tears started to form in her eyes. She loved him. He was her boyfriend before. He was probably still her friend. She probably knew more about him than their own mum did.
"Can you tell me about him? How he was really like?" Fred asked. His heart was pounding quickly. "My brother?"
