i'm not sure why i mention all the unplanned things, but the Marcus and Oliver interaction at the end happened spontaneously. the conversation with them was one of the easiest things i've had to write in a long time. i have no idea how that even happened. poor Ol though. it doesn't take much to win him over, it seems.

to Ceti H. Black: honestly, that was my plan from the beginning, but it's so difficult to write an extremely happy Percy. i tried to extend it as much as possible, but i had to put in a lot of my older drafts back into play and it was so difficult to mesh them together they way i wanted them to!

Chapter Thirty-One

It was three in the morning and Percy was buzzing.

He'd flown from Hull to Cardiff on that beautiful, beautiful Firebolt (he might re-consider his stance on brooms. Not all of them needed to die a fiery death, just ones that didn't cost a troll's arm and a leg) and found himself walking up to a mucky flat that looked like it was about to disintegrate. However, on the inside, it looked how Percy would imagine the Malfoy's lounge to look like. In fact, Percy feared of breathing on the biscuit bowl just because one of those carefully iced buggers looked like they cost more than Percy's robes, his dragonhide loafers, Firebolt and the few sickles he had stowed away in his trouser pockets...

This morning, he nearly got mugged by a young bloke but the bloke laughed uncontrollably when Percy pulled out the few sickles he did have. Apparently, he was fortunate enough to be too poor to be mugged.

As he walked up the stairs, Percy may have knocked on every door from the first floor to the eleventh floor.

Thus far, he had a cat attack him (that was apparently not supposed to be in the building), got hit by a rather large purse that must've contained a dozen or so of Hagrid's rock cakes, been hit on by a Russian male that found Percy's hips to be tantalising, been offered a change of clothes and a nice warm shower because he was thought to be a homeless beggar and had a six-year-old blond insist that Percy join him inside the room and play dollies with him until she had to be tucked into bed. This would've been adorable if not for the fact that Percy caught sight of the said dollies—unfortunately, they were Daddy's dollies than they were hers.

He knocked on the fifth door of the twelfth floor and was met with Audrey—in all her five-foot-eight, full-hipped, rosy-skinned, brown-eyed glory.

Audrey still looked to be completely and utterly pissed off, which Percy expected.

If she wasn't still enthralled about their conversation a few hours ago, she would've surely been enthralled over the fact about the fact that it was four in the morning.

"Many pureblood families marry fifteen-year-olds to much older women than you—and vice versa," Percy finally said, trying to catch his breath after all the stairs he'd climbed. It had been eight hours after the argument they had, and this was the most lucid response that he could give her, a response he'd happen to deliver at around four in the morning. "It is not considered a felony. At least people do not get charged with it as a felony unless there is serious abuse or offence being propagated in either parties."

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?" Audrey mumbled in annoyance, crossing her arms over her silken baby blue pyjamas. Some of the buttons were undone, showing off her soft, squishy stomach and Puffskein belly button ring. Yes, Puffskeins of all ruddy things.

Percy nodded his head, but then paused as he recalled, "Anti-decomposing charms apparently don't give you viral infections. They give you sinopulmonary infections."

Audrey rolled her eyes. "Percival, I have actual adult things to do tomorrow morning if—"

"I have epilepsy," Percy suddenly cut her off. He had never actually told anyone. They usually deduced it from recurring seizures and the fact that he could fall into a coma from how exhausted he was after a fit.

Audrey grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him inside of her flat.

"You are so, SO lucky Georgie isn't visiting. Else this time tomorrow, you'll be telling specialised nurses all about anti-decomposing charms," she didn't sound like she hated him. Percy fortunately didn't give a rat's arse about Georgie. Her hands felt warm and she smelled like bacon (how was that diet coming along, Audrey?). She pulled him onto her couch and had him sit there. "Bastard. I was just fine, being pissed at you three ruddy seconds ago, and then you start telling me your deep, dark secrets."

She shifted to get the fellytone contraption on the table, and offered it to him before pulling it back to herself, as if she'd just realised something important. "I was going to tell you to call your parents, but I'm the one that's going to call them. Godric knows what you'd say to them. You're so bloody wasted I'm surprised you can carry out intelligent conversation."

"I am not wasted," Percy hadn't had a sip of alcohol since his mum had given him that spiked milkshake. Though alcohol suddenly seemed to be an attractive idea at the moment...

Audrey sat down on opposite end of the couch, picked up a piece of parchment paper and then started to fiddle with the numbers on the fellytone.

"How do you know my father's fellytone number?" Percy was surprised, peering over at her shoulder to take in the numbers scribbled on the side of the paper along with Arthur Weasley scrawled on the top with an alluring handwriting. This was not Audrey's large and curly handwriting, not to mention that Audrey always swirled her h's and w's, and connected her t's together.

"I had a long chat with Perkins regarding work when I was treating his nieces. As the conversation drifted to goats with wires, electrical kettles and mucky old pick-up trucks, Perkins just happened to casually mention that your mum is exceedingly annoyed at your father for bringing the fellytone into the bed, and for allowing Perkins to ring late at night to talk about how muggles put the caramel in their caramel chocolates," Audrey mumbled, as she continued to fiddle round the fellytone. Percy could hear ringing. "I told Perkins that I'd like to educate your father in the art of prank calling. I was going to call and pretend to be an ex-girlfriend, but I thought that the consequences would be outrageous considering that your family manages to take a small harmless situation and turn it into a shitstorm where to make any sense of it, you have to talk to all offended parties."

A blush crept to Percy's cheeks at Audrey's vibrant descriptions. His family had quite a reputation.

Percy thought that they might have added some class to their name over the past few years, but that was all abolished last summer when Percy's Uncle Nicholas insisted that he wanted to use Azkaban as a wedding venue and was involved in deporting British prisoners to American prison institutions whilst they had a week to turn the most soul-sucking, dismal place in existence into a ballroom! Molly had shown vehement discomfort with this, and insisted that they all stay at home. Unfortunately, Nicholas was the only relative that seemed to like Percy much more than the others and thought Percy was "cute", especially in "those big ugly glasses." Nicholas was able to bargain with his mum and insisted that Percy just had to be there!

At least if he ever ended up in Azkaban, he'd remembered the cell where he had a bottle of firewhiskey to himself and told the bride she had a spanking bottom (said bride pinched Percy's cheek) before he found the Dementors' cloaks and robes and decided wearing something that had been on a soul-sucking beast was a fine idea. He was sure he'd actually pissed himself in one of the cells at some point during the night. Percy had concluded that apparently, to Nicholas and Margery, he must look like a three-year-old in formal dress. He told his mum this and she disagreed, only for Percy to happily remind her that he was the ring bearer.

Percy was brought back to reality once the fellytone ringing stopped.

"Hello," Audrey's voice was clear and concise. "Can I speak to Molly Weasley?"

Percy buried his head onto her warm shoulder to listen in on the conversation and heard Arthur say "Molly, there's someone that wants you to use the fellytone!" in the most excited voice Percy had ever heard in his life.

At this point normally, a wave of contempt would hit Percy's chest, wondering why these stupid muggle things interested his father more than his sons but nothing. Percy felt nothing but that fuzziness in his stomach, that tingle in his spine and drowned his senses in the smell of Audrey's perfume.

He could barely make out his mum's muffled voice through the phone.

"Hello, this is Audrey Brown. I'm not sure if you know about the predicament that Percy has put me in, but I'm sure that if you didn't, I could explain the situation and..." Percy felt a small condensation of fear pool itself into his stomach. "Percy's in my muggle flat in Cardiff. I'm not sure how much he drank, or what combination of potions that he'd had or what he might've smoked, but he's still lucid enough to remind me about the latest literature he's read so he's not that far gone. If anything happens to him, then at least I could convince you'd he's around medical assistance."

At this point, Percy was only beaming coyly to himself and pressing his head against her arm.

He was offered the fellytone and Percy stood up, noticing the wobbling of his leg and the way that his deformed knee bowed out. Just the act of standing up used to make the bones in his knee felt like they were being lit with dragon fire... and this was usually accompanied with a sharp, shooting pain running from his ankle to his gastrocnemius. The never-ending pain was absent but despite that, his knee was still bulged out at an uncharacteristic, position and—oh, how his thighs trembled as he tried to steady himself. He didn't notice how was holding onto the coffee table for support until he gave a glance down to his freckled hand. It made Percy wonder how people dare treat him unjustly and that feeling of being cheated twisted like a ribbon in his stomach ("you need to walk a bit more," he recalled Arthur telling him as Percy stared down at his numb limbs and blue-tinged feet) until he pressed the fellytone to his ear and heard his mum's docile voice.

"Percy?" he heard Molly's loving voice. "Percy, I've talked to Bill about Audrey."

"What did he say?" Percy's heart skipped a beat.

"Well, he didn't find it strange at all and then five seconds later, asked me about how attractive she was and asked me to rate her from about 1 to 10 with 10 being a veela and 1 being a Puffapod," Molly expressed with a sigh.

Percy cocked his head to the side and looked over at the small kitchen where Audrey was pouring herself a bowl of prawn cocktail crisps, and in the process of pouring it into the bowl, had consumed about five of them. She crunched loudly, and then ran her greasy fingers through her unkempt auburn hair.

"What did you say?" Percy watched her eat a bowl of crisps in less than three minutes, and then pour herself some more from the share bag that she had lying around.

Molly chuckled, "I told him that she was attractive."

"That is not a number," Percy echoed, as he watched her lick the flavouring from her fingers and stare back at him with those hard brown eyes. "Eight and three-quarters."

"Percival," Molly sighed deeply. "What I meant to say is that I'm sorry about the way that I spoke with you yesterday. It was—it was uncalled for, love! I know the age gap between you and Audrey is a bit concerning. I mean it's the same age gap between Charlie and Ron—"

"Mum," Percy cut her off with a soft tone. "Listen to me. I want to say that—"

"But after Arthur's grandfather passed away, his grandmother got married to six other blokes, had three more children and lived a very happy life until she died at the age of a hundred and twenty-eight! This surely isn't the last time that anyone from this family does something stupid in regards of romantic relationships! And who knows? Maybe it'll turn out fine. Maybe Audrey won't get sent to Azkaban. Maybe—"

Molly was cut off by Percy, because he had a feeling that if he didn't, she'd go on talking about how they had to live in her airing cupboard because they were all felons for agreeing to this criminal relationship.

"Mum, she was taking me to the muggle pictures! There was no discussion of wedding bells at any point in time and if it would help you help you sleep at night, mum, Audrey and I have never participated in bedroom activities of any sort," Percy mumbled in great irritation. Their relationship was so pure that eschewing the three innocuous kisses that they've had, they looked like just any old mates going out with the goal of having a good time—well, very close mates that allowed you to sleep on them when they thought you were either wasted, exhausted or playful, but mates nonetheless. "I have to go now, mum. I'll see you tomorrow."

Percy heard Audrey choke on a crisp, and he felt his cheeks fluster as he slammed the phone down.

"Eight and three-quarters?" Audrey echoed, shaking her head. "The length of my wand?"

Percy only smiled in response. "Well, that was a strange coincidence."

"Coincidence," Audrey reiterated in disbelief, and continued to reiterate in an annoyed voice, "My name is Percival Ignatius Weasley. I say big arse words, dress like someone's dead grandfather and convince other people that I am ten years older than I actually am... Audrey and I have never participated in bedroom activities of any sort! And then they forgive me even though I'm a sodding bastard, and I wake them up at four in the morning—"

"I didn't wake you," Percy cut her off, the smile still tugging at his lips. "I know when I've woken you up, Miss-Had-Bacon-At-Four-In-The-Morning."

"I was hungry," Audrey mumbled in annoyance, running her hand through her hair. "All I've had today was a banana, a salad and a low-fat yoghurt. With the bollocks they serve in the canteen, I decided to stick it out, come home and have something healthy to eat. Instead, when I was getting ready to go home after my shift was done, I rationalised a curry, and late at night, I decided that tomorrow I will stick to this new diet 100%, so I gave myself leeway to make myself a few strips of bacon, had a few crisps, and if you weren't here, I'd have attacked the biscuit tin."

Percy chuckled softly. "Well, I wouldn't mind if you attack the biscuit tin."

"Percy, I have to get one thing very clear," Audrey grabbed the biscuit tin from the cabinet and walked towards him with a determined look on her face. "This will not be more than an oddly close friendship. I am still not impressed with the turn-out. It has questioned my trust in you entirely, vanquished any form of respect I had for you and made me wonder about our ability to have a stable friendship, much less anything else even in the future. I also suggest that you start to look for girls your own bloody age to shag."

Percy slowly nodded his head, but then he joked, "You mean look for girls that would help tempt you back into my arms?" he was amused to see her look of surprise.

"You're a cocky bastard," Audrey mumbled, and leaned back down. "And I want whatever you're on."

PERCY had fallen flat on his arse three times in the past hour when he was trying to stand up. He felt like a toddler that just learned how to walk—well, he was indeed re-learning how to walk without cursing out and threatening to chop off any poorly supplied limbs. The pain had been guiding him in a way, telling him not to do foolish things like attempt to invert his arthritic knee into his thigh (Percy heard a unpleasant crack in his joint that couldn't be natural to say the least—it sounded like the crack of his teeth after he'd had one of Aunt Muriel's homemade salted caramel fudge), or sit in a position that engorged his leg with so much water that he wouldn't be surprised if at the autopsy, they found grindylows swimming about his knee.

The warmth that soaked his bones when he'd had the first sip of that tea was still saturating his body. It was as if sunlight was running through his veins and as if the stars had found refuge in his bright blue eyes.

Audrey fell asleep when she'd finished half the biscuit tin at five. He wiped her mouth away and covered her body with a warm blanket. He vowed to himself to bother her as least as he could and then cursed himself momentarily for letting this ruse go on for so long.

The Firebolt still rode like a dream—all the way from Cardiff to Devon.

Percy was over the moon, he was! The only thing that could make this any better was that somehow, he'd end up with a Prefect badge in the post. However, this was unlikely given the fact that they mailed the badges early onto the summer holidays. Penelope would thrust hers everywhere she could to show off her success at getting one. Percy tried not to tell it to shove it up...um, a particular orifice.

When he'd gotten home around eight in the morning, he saw Errol smash into the window. Percy went over to take him into his hands and noticed that Errol also came with a belated Hogwarts letter for Ron (whom fortunately would no longer have to endure the twins' taunts of him being a squib and could stick it into the twins' faces) and a shining green Prefect badge. Percy thereby decided that the twenty-seventh of August was his favourite day of the whole ruddy summer, though he supposed it was poor Errol's least favourite day... Percy couldn't wait to go upstairs and give his new badge a nice polish! It would certainly be shining brighter than Penelope's stupid badge!

Percy walked into the room with an uncharacteristic beam. Errol was perched onto his shoulder.

Not only five seconds until after he'd breathed in the scent of the Burrow was he attacked by a wrecked-looking Molly, whom had embraced him so tightly he felt like he'd broken three of his ribs. Errol was so alarmed he immediately flew away, leaving mounds of silvery feathers decorating the living room. That bloody bird was going senile it seemed—and Percy wouldn't live long enough to become senile with how his mum was crushing his internal organs. He supposed he didn't need these organs anyway. Their existence only tempted thirteen-year-old Fred and George to try and do something they found incredibly amusing to them but was, in actuality, exceedingly appalling. This included but was not limited to: them casting a spell that involved repeated punches being administered to his gallbladder, having his stomach stapled because of a potion, or have his liver and brain matter liquefy as a result of them punching up the butterbeer content from nearly trace alcohol to sky-rocketing, fatal percentages.

"PERCIVAL IGNATIUS WEASLEY, WHERE WERE YOU ALL NIGHT?!" Molly exclaimed, pulling away. He attempted to take a deep breath, but it seemed she might've punctured his frail, pathetic lungs. "Do you know that I haven't slept? I was up all night! Worried sick! I nearly fell asleep at around four o'clock but I've downed that vile tasting thing that Bill drinks when he's going round the pyramids late at night! Especially when Audrey called and she told me that you've had something and—"

Molly's eyes suddenly fell on the emerald green badge in his hand.

She grabbed it from his hand, looking over at it with an excitement glittering in her eyes.

"I think your father owes me quite a few Galleons now, doesn't he?" her eyes shone eagerly with excitement. "And when he pays me, we could go off to Diagon Alley tomorrow and—is that Ron's letter?"

"Mum," Percy groaned. He couldn't believe that his parents bet on whether or not he'd be prefect! And he couldn't believe his father bet against him!

Then again, in retrospective, Percy would've bet against his self (and not because of his rising self-esteem either). They normally didn't send badges this late but Errol must have been travelling for ages. Merlin knew where he'd gone since Ron's Hogwarts letter was half-dipped in a fine waxy coating of chocolate.

"Yes. It's Ron's—"

"IS THAT MY LETTER?!" eleven-year-old Ron said from the stairs, walking over to Percy and tearing off the letter from Percy's hands. Percy grumbled to himself ('you could've said 'please' and 'thank you'). He broke off a thing of the milk chocolate coating much to Molly's horror and then placed it into his mouth, chewing avidly. "This is BRILLIANT! Where're Fred and George so I can rub it into their bloody faces?"

"Ronald," Molly chided whilst Ron was practically skipping about the living room.

"It's eight in the morning," Percy reminded him sharply, not caring nearly enough to scold him for his inappropriate language. Whilst Molly also slept very little, Percy deterred to the fact that Ron didn't come out of his orifices and thus, didn't have to discipline him after an inadequate amount of sleep. "The only place those hooligans would be is—"

Just before Percy could finish his sentence, his skinny, rosy-cheeked brother suddenly ran up the stairs. Percy was sure the twins would need a medal for the day that they got out of bed before noon. A sloppy thing that was! Sleeping in... Unfortunately for Percy, he knew he was going to have to do it now because the thought of staying awake even for another second seemed like pointless torture to him.

"Percy, how was your last shift?" Molly asked, as they both walked upstairs. He supposed that his poor mum couldn't squeeze in an odd nap here and there. The Burrow would probably fall apart without her.

Percy yawned. "Brilliant, until the early afternoon. There was a petition signing going round the Paediatric unit, basically stating that the parents 'don't want the cripple to be drawing blood from our children. It upsets them'... this, of course, made the disability division absolutely mad with rage. They had this whole spiff that didn't blow over until four in the afternoon! I nearly got discredited for my work if not for the fact that Audrey had managed to persuade my superior to fork over my certification anyway!"

Percy paused when he'd gotten close to the door. "Merlin, I've been reduced to that cripple. I already thought it was bollocks that they'd cleared the disability locker for me. And for someone that's apparently disabled, they sure had no problem making me wake up at the crack of dawn."

He turned around to see Molly staring at him with big, shining brown eyes. She looked hurt.

"They call you a cripple?" she didn't look angry, just surprised.

Percy wondered why she was so surprised. "Everyone calls me a cripple, mum," he said, running his hand through his vibrant red hair. He didn't think adding because I am will help the situation. He pushed off his shoes, which literally fell apart when he'd taken them off. He'd have to attempt to mend those later. He started to groggily unbutton his button-down, not even realising he was doing so in front of his mother. "You just don't notice. Though I can't blame you, not a single member of this family notices. When we've gone for shopping last time—the day that you assumed was my birthday, I recall a bloke that was quite liberal regarding my condition. I believe he said that I should get a disability pension and stay at home instead of running amuck in the streets, causing everyone else evident distress."

Well, he couldn't exactly run... the thought brought a bright smile to Percy's lip. He'd been smiling much more since he'd had that tea.

"He was talking to you?" Molly seemed surprised at this. "Why didn't you mention this before?"

"Quite frankly, I dislike mentioning such things. I'm only inclined to mention it right now because I'm too tired to filter out anything that might be inappropriate to bring up by my standards," Percy said, pulling over his pyjama top. Merlin, did he just take off his shirt in front of his own mother? At least he wasn't down to his skivvies. Though at the moment, it seemed very tempting given how lethargic he was. He will probably regret that he'd even mentioned the disability comment. "Don't worry, mum. I'm sure as my dear father has mentioned multiple times—walking more will miraculously heal my ruddy useless leg. Though I now believe that Fred and George have more potential than it does."

He laughed at his own comment, even though it wasn't very funny. Merlin, he needed some sleep before he started walking round the house dressed in nothing but an oversized patchwork pillowcase and a pair of frayed Chudley Canons socks, singing the latest tunes of whatever tosser was famous these days.

"You be nice to your brothers," Molly warned. Merlin, that was she decided to comment on? He was recklessly letting her know his deepest fears and agitations, and this was her brimming advice.

He collapsed onto his bed, without bothering to change into the other bit of his pyjamas.

"Why? It's not like they're any nice to me," Percy shifted to the other side of his bed, and pulled his thin blankets over his frame. He tossed his glasses aside as if they were completely worthless, practically falling asleep before his head hit the crocheted pillowcase.

FOR the first time in his whole life, Oliver Wood was trying not to be noticed as he weeded through the streets. Tucked under his strong, muscular arms were an extensive amount of copies of The Daily Prophet. Though he'd been out in the humid British weather since half-six, he hadn't sold more than three. Oliver was close to having a mental breakdown. He didn't have money to buy new books, and he didn't think it mattered with how dreadful his grades were. The only thing that kept his sanity at bay were those long Quidditch sessions where nothing existed but him, a broom, two golden hoops, a bunch of fancy balls (two of which happened to made out of pure iron) and the white fluffy clouds.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to meet cloudy grey eyes.

"Marcus?" Oliver called out in shock. "Marcus Flint?"

The part-troll only flashed those awful, large crooked teeth. It didn't look like a smile. It looked more like a manticore showing its teeth before it attacked its prey.

"Flint..." Oliver wanted to say 'please don't hex me' but that was pathetic. "Were—were you looking for me?"

"Yes, I was looking for you, you bastard. I've been looking all over London! I've heard you take portkeys from Scotland to sell some bloody paper out in Diagon Alley every bloody morning," Marcus exclaimed, puffing out his sharp cheekbones. "You're the one that sent me Christmas owls... weren't you, Wood?"

"I didn't," Oliver said in a whisper. He was afraid that the owl had angered Marcus.

Yes, an Oliver did send Marcus an owl during the Christmas holidays for the past four years, wishing him a merry Christmas and hoping that he was settling in well. Because Oliver was so poor and had to rely on selling copies of The Quibbler or The Daily Prophet to even attend school, all he could send was what he already had. Over the four years, this included him putting shrunken down Gryffindor sweaters and scarves in the post. He thought the Gryffindor red scarf would be more accommodating with the crimson red of Marcus' uniform and cloak. Oliver saw that a lot of blokes in his house had three or more of the same sweater and thought that he had to, but then realised it was just their preference. Oliver never needed three blankets, or two scarves or five earmuffs. Oliver only ever needed one... and it was cold there in Durmstrang.

"I hate Christmas," Marcus spat out coldly. "Why'd you send me that owl?"

Oliver felt like fear might just engulf him entirely. "I—I—I just thought it'd be... nice."

Marcus snorted, seemingly finding this funny and then pulled out what appeared to be a photograph from his pocket. With an Engorgio, the photograph grew to its original size. "This is for the owls, Wood. I..." Marcus bit down his lower lip, "Nobody else from Hogwarts sent me owls since I've been to Durmstrang."

Oliver, thinking it was a huge set-up, slowly took the photograph from Marcus and then felt his heart race when he caught sight of the two women standing close to each other and a man in the far corner. A curvy blond with lavender eyes smiling (Viola Flint—Oliver saw her before), a thin woman with brown hair and blue eyes beaming back, and a man with large glasses, a moustache and freckles on his nose who happened to have a small smile on his lips. Oliver had seen pictures of his parents before, but he'd never owned one.

He looked down at Marcus and then dropped the newspapers in his arms. Oliver wrapped his arms around Marcus Flint, burying his head into his shoulder and breathing in that awful scent of mud and rotten bread.

"I want you to be my friend," Oliver suddenly said, as he pulled away from the hug. He wasn't sure if his eleven-year-old self would believe he'd ever hugged Marcus Flint. "I want you to be my best friend."

Marcus looked surprised and then slowly nodded his head. "Do... do you want to play Quidditch?"