i've not replied to any inquiries that have been made in a long, long time. thus, i thought to devote this particular section of the fanfic for this. i would like to remind you of the warnings that i've already established in this fanfic previously in Chapter 4, i.e. isolation, imprisonment, physical and mental abuse - some described in great detail, some only hinted, unlawful discrimination and God knows what else i decide to put in last minute. this still stands, and it'll be very apparent later on. in fact, you'll understand how bloody insane and relentless this fanfic was meant to be around Chapter 14-15. it's pure and utter Percy angst fest (which i adore), with a lot of misunderstanding and a lot of "good intentions gone wrong" situation as you've already seen. i truly try to play out that the family has the right intentions at heart, but somehow, i always make them miss one or two things and they come out as right arses (particularly Arthur, because i truly believe that the 'Weasley rage' can literally make one do things that they do not mean to at that particular point in time and then regret it afterwards, i.e. canon Percy leaving his family in the height of the war, canon Percy and Arthur being too damn stubborn to talk to one another for most of the war, etc).

to Crazy 109, "Getting just a tad carried away making the Malfoys overly cartoon-style super-despicable, aren't ya? Yeesh! Unless wizards on the whole are absolute morons (which might actually be near-canon, considering...)". bloody Hell, did you make me laugh my balls off. i could read this review about a thousand times and still think it was absolutely hilarious. as for the Changeling comment, i... had to look up what that meant. i absolutely love your thinking and wish i'd actually thought of that. it think it would've definitely worked into this fanfic quite nicely! i could've even made him stay in the forest longer and interact with different parts of it... oh, bother.

to WolfSpirit1992, "Hmm...now that Lucius knows Percy's feelings of contempt towards his family, would this eventually turn into an unlikely sort of alliance?" interestingly enough, i'm not exactly sure how long i want to go on with their interaction but if i had them interact again, i would imagine that it could lead to an alliance - or it could be the complete opposite. i haven't exactly fine-tuned the details yet unfortunately. i have a few possible subplots that i could use the Malfoy's for thus far.

to Phoenixx Rising: funny thing about that. my original idea was that he'd been taken home by Audrey. there's another scene later on where i tried to introduce Audrey in but it didn't work out so well. it was supposed to be some sort of heart-warming scene instead, Audrey just came off completely wrong. it hit a dead-end super soon. the Malfoy's were my go-to-switch because they're super easy to write compared to what i wanted to actually write. "Arthur was an absolute jerk. He has no right to do the things he did. I really dislike him in this story." oh, Hell. you're going to want to kill him at some point then. there's a reason why there's an abuse warning (that's not exclusively for Arthur though.)

McGwee: oh! i'm glad you like the miscommunication. i think the point of all of this is the miscommunication. I'm still hoping his "sickness" is vampirism -somehow that never even came to mind when i was writing this draft, but yes, it is going to lead to this scene. first time i wrote the scene, i actually felt like i could've just about ended it there, but that would've been too cruel. i haven't thought about cross-posting this to AO3 though i do have an account there. would you like me to? i wouldn't mind to.

Chapter Ten

Molly found herself yawning as Arthur Weasley tried to shake her away. She immediately turned away from her husband, and looked over at the clock that lay on top of their table.

"Arthur, it's far too early for me to wake up," she yawned, shaking her head. "Do you need me for—?"

"Molly, wake up," Arthur announced, his voice incredibly solemn. "I need to show you something."

Molly turned around, still rather sleepy. "What is it?" she said.

Her eyes suddenly cracked open in alertness, as they lapped up the image in front of her – her child, the one that she presumed was dead, had his head pressed up against a big, fluffy pillow. His breathing soft but laboured. He seemed to be a ghastly paleness. His thin lips pressed into a tight line as he slept.

Arthur then said, "He just fell asleep about half an hour ago."

Molly continued to stare over at Percy's frame. Her son? Her son was lying on their bed? Her son was home?

Arthur squeezed Percy's shoulder softly. "I'll take him to a healer after I'm come back home. His leg is in terrible condition, and he needs some form of treatment now before it gets any worse."

Molly nodded her head, suddenly remembering Bill's description of Percy's leg. "Can I see it?"

The man slowly slid back Percy's baggy pyjama bottoms and Molly's stomach churned. She couldn't take the sight of her son's wound. It was absolutely massive and seemed to run along the full length of his leg. It was impossibly deep and thick, and there seemed to be some form of white discharge escaping from the wound. Part of the bandage that had been covering the wound was torn, and it made Molly's stomach flip-flop, horrified at how bad it must've looked like before it was attended to (poorly, she wanted to add).

Molly's heart had sunken low into her chest.

"I'm off to work, Molly. I'll be back tonight to take him to the healers," Arthur announced.

Molly didn't understand. How did this happen?

"How did you find him?" she said, scooping up the delicate thing in her arms.

It hurt to see Percy like this. He looked much frailer than he did when he had left. She felt like if she pushed him just slightly over the edge, he would snap into a million little pieces.

Arthur looked down at his feet. "Percy came back to steal from us," the man's voice was dripping with gloom. "The nerve of that bastard Malfoy – trying to get my son to steal back his files from me! I was so ashamed of our son when I found out that he even tried to—"

"Arthur, stop it," Molly instructed, her voice cold. "I'm appalled. This is our child; the one that we thought was dead. I don't care if he tried to steal files, or if he tried to rob us blind, we thought he was dead!"

A furry of thoughts suddenly entered her mind. "What did you tell him? What happened?"

Arthur was stuttering about, not able to produce one concise thought. "Well, I…I-I…you see…what happened was…it was… I didn't mean to…"

The woman softly tucked a loose curl behind Percy's ear. "Arthur, please."

The man's cheeks coloured in. "I…well; I-I caught him in his room."

Room? Percy's room was deconstructed into nothing more than just four wooden walls. He had no room.

Arthur's eyes were getting teary, which scared her. "I'm such a fool, Molly…I'm sorry."

Molly shook her head again, tears running down her eyes. "Arthur, please tell me what happened."

Arthur bit down his lower lip, "I'll collect my thoughts and we'll talk later. It's just…the whole situation was so incredibly overwhelming, Molly. He said some things that maybe he regretted, and I said a slew of things I know that I shouldn't have… things that I can't take back."

Molly bit down her lower lip, glancing back at her child; this child that had a leg injury that could've potentially killed him but still kept on trying to run away… at the expense of his life.

Molly glanced back at Percy and felt tears rush towards her eyes. "The important thing is that he's back home…and-and that he's alive."

"I'm sorry, Molly," Arthur repeated again. "I said some things—"

"We'll talk about this later," Molly cut him off. The man nodded his head and then disappeared.

She carefully shifted Percy from his side of the bed to her warmer side. He seemed cold and tired. Despite September looming close, it was cold outside today. Molly pulled the duvet across his body, and frowned when she noticed that he was visibly skinnier than he had been before he left. She felt like such a failure. Every pound of him that left his body was another part of him that was disintegrating, and she felt herself grow with shame.

She disappeared downstairs to make breakfast. She made eggs, toast, sausages, bacon and she even had enough time to make warm homemade seeded bread rolls. As she cooked, she found herself feeling a sense of security. Her family was whole again. They were still broken apart, but they were one step closer to being stitched back together.

Molly frowned when she looked at the clock and realised that Percy's handle was missing.

She'd thrown it away. His plate was gone. Everything of Percy had somehow disappeared. He had nothing anymore. With that thought, she vowed to venture into the shops soon and buy him all kinds of things – new duvets for her bed, new wood to bring back his furniture, new books and tonnes and tonnes of sweeties.

She hummed as she set out breakfast and went to call the boys and Ginny down.

THERE was the usual ruckus about the table that made her roll her eyes and chuckle. Ron had already had a few bits of bacon. Against their mother's wishes, the twins were splitting apart their food. Fred was eating the crusts from the toast, strawberries and the yolks from the eggs. George was eating the rest of the bread, and only little amounts of the egg white. She placed an apple on George's plate. He snorted and pushed it away. Ginny was chewing on bits of sausage. Charlie and Bill were standing, and talking about firewhiskey of all things! She gave them a hard look that told them that their chat was over. Bill and Charlie complied, and piled their plates high with eggs, sausages and toast.

It was nice to see Charlie eating today. She practically had to shove a bread roll down his throat yesterday because he refused to eat for days.

Molly smiled and joined them after some point. She chewed a boiled egg with some toast, thinking to herself that she might want to go on a diet soon enough and lose some of the podge that she had acquired with being pregnant six times. She knew that Arthur did not care whether or not she lost it, but it was getting a bit hard to move around with such an abundance of belly flab in the way.

As she was in her thoughts, she was surprised to find Percy standing by the door. She dropped her fork. Her heart was ailing her seeing him pressed up against the doorway like that. He looked rather ill. He was so pale that he was grey. He swayed as he walked, and looked like he was going to fall down at any moment.

A shell-shocked Bill went over to Percy and helped steady him.

"Percy!" Ginny called out excitedly, running towards him and hugging him tightly. "I missed you so much! I thought you weren't ever going to come back – not ever!"

Molly smiled, but her smile faltered when she noticed that her son did not respond much to the hug. In fact, he looked nauseous. Fred and George seemed to leave their chairs and tackle him almost immediately down with a happy embrace.

"Percy!" they called out in unison. "Percy's back!"

"Where did you go?" Fred suddenly announced.

George nodded his head. "Merlin, wherever you went, you gave Mum and Dad a fright! It was the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life! They thought you were dead!"

Ron was looking up from his plate, but somehow returned back to his food. "Mum, these sausages look funny…" his eyes went back to Percy again, trying to appear as if he wasn't interested at all in Percy's return.

It made Molly want to laugh. Charlie seemed stunned, as he helped them the twins and Percy up again.

It was nice to see the excited chatter at the table again. It felt like things were going back to normal relatively quickly. As they ate, Molly couldn't help but love that things were somehow restoring themselves back to the normal balance it always was. Ron and Ginny were fighting on the last sausage. George was refusing to eat any form of fruit, and Charlie and Bill's Quidditch discussion was getting out of control. Somehow afterward, however, the table had gone to a standstill silence; an uncomfortable one.

"So, you missed Percy, didn't you?" Molly gawked towards Fred and George, loud enough for him to hear.

Fred nodded his head nearly immediately. "Yeah, it was boring without him!"

George chewed on an egg white and said (with his mouth absolutely full Molly wanted to add on), "Nobody else plays with us like Percy does! He's so fun to play around with, and the rest of you are so boring."

She glanced back at Percy, whom seemed to be looking away from the table. It made Molly feel terrible to see that her son, for some reason, still looked worn-out and frail. Arthur did say that the poor thing had only slept for a little while… Molly pushed a few things in front of him to eat, but he wouldn't touch a single thing off the breakfast plates.

Charlie had seen Molly's attempt at subtly persuading Percy to eat something, and had picked off a piece of toast from the plate to offer to him.

"I don't want to eat," Percy announced, his voice was incredibly strained. "Leave me alone."

"Percy, sweetie," this was breaking Molly's heart. "Eat something light. I can't imagine that you've been eating proper… it's been so long, honey, and look! You've lost so much weight in two weeks!"

Percy just shook his head. "I don't want to eat," he repeated, getting off the chair he'd been sitting on.

Molly watched him walk away and just noticed that the poor thing was limping! He could just about barely walk. He must be in an incredible amount of pain…

"Percy, how is your leg?" Molly suddenly asked, her voice low and soft.

Percy then looked down at it for some time, but he didn't respond to her statement.

A FEW hours later on, Molly had gone to tuck away the laundry and heard the sound of vomiting. What's going on? Who's sick? She asked herself, moving towards the kitchen with a great haste. In her mind, she was trying to remember a few spells to help her out. She normally used potions to quell any kind of illness, but if a child was vomiting, then potions were useless.

Her heart raced and she walked towards the kitchen to see Percy perched over the kitchen sink, violently throwing up the contents of his stomach.

She placed her hands on his shoulders. "Come on," Molly's voice was soft. "Let's take you to bed."

Percy practically collapsed the minute she took him to a bed. As she was covering him up with blankets, and placing a cold cloth on his forehead that was magically charmed to stay cold (he seemed to be sporting a high fever too), she noticed that the twins were standing beside her. They stared with big eyes, as Percy drifted off to sleep almost instantly.

Fred was the one to break the silence. "We were just playing around, and then Percy left to go to the sink to puke… we went to look for you but we couldn't find you!"

"We didn't do anything," George announced.

"Honest," they chimed together.

Molly placed a hand on Percy's shoulder, staring at him for some time. Seeing his chest move up and down was the most miraculous thing in the world. She felt like she was given another chance with her son, but the state that he was in now – she was half-frightened that he might be snatched away from her again. She didn't think she would be able to stand losing Percy twice.

"No, no," Molly said in a soft voice, hoping to be convincing. "Percy's just ill. Go play."

The twins didn't leave at all though. They stared at Percy for a while.

"Can we help?" they suddenly asked, voices high with need.

Molly shook her head. "No, no, boys," she paused just to think for a few moments. "Go help Bill. He was working on something important. Maybe he needs your help."

The two disappeared after that, and Molly felt relieved that they'd stopped asking questions.

When they were alone, Molly kept her attention focused on Percy.

She checked his temperature constantly, cringing at how high it seemed to be getting. She'd tried to do a few fever-reducing spells and pain-relieving spells but they did not seem to be eliminating any of her son's obvious discomforts. He continued to toss and turn in his sleep, his body quaking.

"That's it, isn't it, Weasel?" Percy reiterated in his sleep. "You don't have an excuse for the things that happened to this child…do you?"

Molly was surprised in the beginning, but then somehow remembered somewhere in her mind that a very bad fever caused by certain infections originating from forest doxies' biting fresh open wounds might cause the infected to recall and reiterate memories in their sleep. She remembered Arthur telling her about the encounter between him, Percy and Lucius Malfoy (the only person that would call them weasels). For once, she felt relieved that a small amount of knowledge from her healer friends had done her well. It made sense since a doxy could've been picking at Percy's wound and he wouldn't have known if he was consistently in pain from the wound.

"Percy," her child's voice had gone down a notch. She assumed this was Arthur speaking. "He's lying to you. He's trying to manipulate you. I am your father…you have to believe me."

She pulled his curls from his eyes. He was sweating so profusely.

Then the voice that came out of Percy was soft, "Where's my room?"

Molly's heart started to race, as she remembered those empty walls. She didn't think she could've answered the poor child if he'd asked her. She could see tears suddenly erupting from his eyes. He kept on trembling… she remembered Arthur not being able to tell her about the exchange that happened between him, Percy and Lucius Malfoy.

What had Arthur done…?

Percy had stopped shaking, his body calm and still, "I-I… I thought you were dead, Percival."

Then he twisted, his body raking violently again. "So, you got rid of all my things in what? A two-day period since my supposed 'death'… tell me, father, what exactly were you planning to do with the space that I was taking up?"

"Percy, no," Molly said in a soft whisper. "It—"

"It…" Percy's body had gone still again. "It isn't like that, son."

"No, it isn't," Molly cried out in relief that Arthur hadn't said anything else. He was treading the waters carefully now, and had not yet lost his temper. "Sweetheart, they just wanted to make things better for me because I didn't know what to do without you…you're one of my children for Merlin's sake! All I ever—"

"Oh no, you are mistaken," Percy's voice was rigid, and so was his body. There was no trembling anymore. The sweat pouring off his body only seconds ago had somehow disappeared. "I am not your son."

"But you are," Molly wrapped her arms around his frame. "I carried you in my stomach for nine months, love. You are my child, my son. I wanted you to be born."

"Why did you do it?" Percy called out, making Molly's heart clench – oh no, this would be the point at which Arthur would speak and she could tell that he had lost his temper. "How dare you leave your mother, Percival? She's been in absolute hell ever since you've left. How dare you steal from me? How dare you tear this family apart for your own selfish reasons? And to think – this was over a few books that you've lost!"

"No, no, no," Molly called out to herself. Arthur didn't actually say that, did he?

Percy's body was shaking again. It had suddenly lost so much control, "I hate you, I hate you… I hate you!"

"Percy," she called out gently. She tried to shake him awake. She couldn't bear to hear anymore of this. This would probably go downhill from then on. "Percy, wake up! Percy, please!"

Percy continued to reiterate speech from the memory in a rather cold, demeaning voice, "You think I'm pitiful enough to leave this family over a few books that have been taken from me...? I was fantasising about leaving this family for so long. It is you who made me resort to this. It's you who ignored me. It's you who made me look after the twins. You don't notice me. You don't believe me. You don't even like me. Please forgive me for thinking that I had a better chance of survival outside of the constraints of what you people have offered me!"

Molly wanted to cry out by then. She ruined him. She treated Percy like he was an adult, and thought that it was a privilege but it ended up being his curse.

"Percy, please, wake up!" she shook him even when he was shaking. "Percival!"

Suddenly, Charlie and Bill entered the room in a rather alarmed haste; the twins following them.

She was the reason that her son was lying in bed with a fever that seemed to get worse by the minute, as he shook, sweating and in pain from a doxy infection and a terrible leg injury!

"Percy, please," she begged, not sure what she could to do wake him up.

Charlie was the first to speak, "Mum, let go."

She was so ashamed of how badly she had wronged him. She let out a scream, still continuing to shake his body until he rose from his sleep, and he was already shaking himself, foam escaping from his mouth…

"Mum, stop it," Bill tried to pull Percy away from her hands, but she daren't give it up. "Mum!"

"He won't wake up!" Molly said. "MAKE HIM WAKE UP!"

Now, she was trembling herself. He had stopped shaking and she could hear his laboured breathing, but for some reason, he would not arise from his memory-sleep trance and it was killing her inside. "Please wake him up. I don't want him to die. Please…"

She couldn't lose him…she couldn't…

"Mum, let go," Charlie pulled Percy's now limp body away from her grip. "Percy just had a seizure."

"NO!" Molly denied hotly, her shoulders shaking. If Percy had a seizure once, he could have it again. If there was a chance that he'd procure wizarding epilepsy, then this entire family would fall to pieces because wizarding epileptics got sent to wards, locked away from the rest of the ward until they were cured because of how dangerous a seizure could be; they were practically fits of uncontrolled magic, be it dark or light.

"Mum—" Bill was cut off again.

"NO!" Molly repeated, her face red. There was a fleeting moment of silence. Pressed against Charlie's grasp was Percy, whom was sound asleep. "He's just ill—such a high fever—and he's so young—he can't have... he hadn't eaten... but he's so tired..."

She wished she could forget the look of pity Charlie gave her as he laid Percy down.

NINE-year-old Fred Weasley was playing around with one of Ginny's ribbons. She'd been looking for this one for days now, but she hadn't managed to grab a hold of it. Sure, she'd thrashed the whole house in search of it but she hadn't thought to look under Molly's cookbook, where Fred had hid it every night. He was wondering if all girls smelled like Ginny. He wondered if his dad ever tried to smell their mum. He'd heard a few creatures smelled each other before they got together. George snorted when he heard that. He said if that was true for the wizarding world, then Fred might need to take longer and more frequent baths.

The days were longer now. George was the sensitive, emotional one. He always knew exactly what to say when things were going wrong. A sad, seven-year-old Ron had been leaning on George for a fortnight. In the meantime, Fred tried to cheer Ginny up by making her look for her ribbons because if she was busy crying about her ribbons, she wasn't thinking about where what happened to Percy.