i promised Thursday and Friday, but this week has been super busy. well, it's always super busy but the examination period is looming.

the beginning of this chapter is a flashback scene involving Ares and Percy. Percy is 20 then. it's mentioned very vaguely in the beginning of the flashback, and then for the rest of this fanfic, i plan that he steadily increases in age, i.e. 22, 23, etc.

if you've read this far, then you know what the warnings are.

this was very interesting for me to write. i absolutely how easy it is to write the interaction between Audrey and Percy. i love how easier transitioning Percy from 15 to 21 than it was from 11 to 15. i've still a bit to edit and rewrite, but 20,000+ words were chucked out of the water. i did rewrite quite a bit. the original is nothing like this.

Chapter Forty-One

"Have you ever practiced Occlumency, Percy?" Ares asked an exhausted twenty year old Percy.

"I haven't even gotten my O.W.L's thanks to your interference in my life," a twenty year old Percy spat back in irritation as he crossed his arms over his chest. "But yes! Oh, I have! I've practiced an ancient art that takes most years to garner proper expertise in and managed to master it at the age of fifteen. Not even I could break the shields that I've put up."

"Your sarcasm aggravates me," Ares said in distaste.

Percy rolled his eyes, as he mindlessly kept on tapping against the filthy stony floor. A staff member was due to come by any minute to take away his breakfast tray—which was infested with mice. There were no cold poached eggs for Percy that morning. Pitiful. "Wet toilet paper aggravates you."

"No, it does not. It only repulses me," Ares huffed. "What are you thinking of?"

"Breakfast," Percy expressed, eyes flickering back towards the tray. They were alone now, as they always seemed to be at around six in the morning. "Also, I do want to bring it to your attention—again—that asking me what I'm thinking of will not exactly make you come off as ruler of the universe. It does, however, make you seem to be a desperate paedophile. You're a Greek God, and you have to ask me what I'm thinking of. You're demoting yourself quite a bit here."

Ares didn't seem to find Percy's statement amusing. "For someone that looks like they've ill with phthisis, all you seem to think about is breakfast, lunch and dinner."

Percy raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to one side. "Well, I do typically think of breakfast at breakfast time."

"From what I know from watching over you for the past year or so before I've thrown you into this ward to attempt to convince you to rule the universe with me—"Ares began, only for Percy to cut him off.

"Yes, and you've accomplished so much in the past five years in terms of convincing me to eradicate mankind," Percy mumbled, placing his hand out and allowing a large tarantula to crawl on from his hand to his shoulder. It was rather comforting to feel those fuzzy long legs rub against his rubbery skin. "Lad, I thought you were desperate when you started asking me what I'm thinking of. The fact that you were stalking me for a year..."

"I would harm your vessel if not for the fact that if there is one major imperfection in my vessel, I risk it not ascending to Olympus. I know that fits don't quite do ruin it..." Ares mentioned. "When you will say yes to me, we will share this grotesque, emaciated body and none of it will be just yours. It will be ours."

A thought came to Percy but he'd pushed it away.

"I believe this is the point where you tell me that you will not fall for my ruse, Percival."

"I once crushed Ginny's Gwenog doll," Percy recalled. It had been nearly ten years ago, yet the memory was as vivid as the day that he'd done it. He could still hear her voice ringing in his head. "As I was ripping it apart, I felt a sense of satisfaction fill me like nothing before. Seeing Ginny upset made my stomach warm, and my heart tingle. I heard Bill and Charlie cursing out my existence, yet all I could think about was taking the actual Gwenog Jones in my hands and..."

He shook his head. "I enjoy death. I love the war. I take refuge in others' suffering, even when I attempt to deny it. I will myself to watch chaos yet," he did not look up when droplets of water starting to hit the bridge of his nose, "I take pride in the fact that no matter what will happen, I not allow myself to normalise it. It is not normal to dream of watching life dissolve by my hands. I will always treat it like a curse running through my veins."

Percy swallowed the lump in his throat. "I will destroy myself relentlessly before I will allow myself to watch someone else's blood trickle from my hands."

"Ah, there it is," Ares mumbled. "You reminding me that you will not allow me to seek sanctuary in your body."

Percy rolled his eyes and then... it happened. Ares had disappeared for a second because Nurse Snow had come with an envelope, the first and only bit of mail that Percy had ever received. Percy did not know later on that it required a lot of paperwork to be able to send mail to him. As Percy read the owl, suddenly everything seemed to be clear and vibrant. He suddenly realised what Athena's supposed gift was. Things all seemed to come together in a tiny piece of parchment paper! Percy was banged harder than a Quidditch Player with a Bludger. The realisation was so sharp and quick, and real that Percy could barely digest it for the first five minutes. It tousled about in his mind, between his childhood memories, the smell of Ginny's new perfume, the button falling from Gwenog's eyes and the sound of Charlie's laughter.

Three hours later, the same thing came about again, but not because now, Percy knew. "I will," Percy said.

"Yes?" Ares sounded surprised for someone that knew that Percy would eventually allow his love of the war and need for fulfilment to obscure his arguments against Ares' ploy.

"A year after I leave the ward," Percy decided. "You can have my body."

"Oh, just brilliant!" Ares exclaimed in annoyance. "You may never leave this ward, Percival. Not without my help."

"But I will," Percy chided. "In fact, tomorrow, I will not have a convulsion." He'd had a fit every day since he'd been here, since they were purposely trying to induce convulsions in him until he stopped having them all together.

"Yes, and one day, you will somehow be able to turn this on me to save the universe!" Ares exclaimed ardently. "This is what you think you can do, isn't it, Percival? You think that you can somehow find a way to end me?"

"I am not saving the world," Percy said, biting down on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. "I am simply ensuring that you do not destroy it over a prolonged temper tantrum with your father."

"It is not a temper tantrum!" Ares argued.

Percy smiled weakly. Things were not what they appeared. Alec Lestrange was Ares. Harry Potter was You-Know-Who. Percy was... Percy. "Heed my words," Percy warned. "Tomorrow, I will not convulse. Prefects do not convulse."

"You cannot prevent yourself from convulsing," Ares told him in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. "You cannot choose whether or not you will cure yourself from your fits. This is similarly to a bloody imbecile believing that through the power of thought itself, he could cure his disseminated dragon pox! Even Apollo cannot do this and he is the God of healing."

"You're right. I cannot cure diseases," was what Percy replied with. "However, tomorrow, I won't have a fit."

And Percy did not convulse the following day, or the day after, or the day after that day or...

"PERCIVAL," Nurse Snow walked towards Percy's dimly lit cell. Candles were floating round, creating a somewhat glimmer round the cell. It was—if Percy could make a dreadful joke about it—illuminating.

"Madame?" Percy sat up straight from where he was lying down on the cold, filthy ground.

Nurse Snow did not look amused. "In the epileptic unit, we do not show our displeasure at our lunch by pulling our robes down and threatening to urinate on the staff member that has bought you this exquisite meal." She paused, and then added on in a clear and concise voice: "We also do not intensify or exacerbate this situation by mentioning that said staff member will not be so fortunate next time as there might be other bodily fluids accompanying that urine."

Percy only smiled sheepishly at this. "Madame, I did apologise."

"And then you took it back and swore at them for perfectly fine bit of vegetation they'd given you for dinner," Nurse Snow reminded him, her face remaining rigid and her eyes filled with a complete annoyance.

Percy's smile disappeared. "You couldn't have blamed me, Madame!" he huffed in distress. "I prefer it when my vegetables do not attempt to eat me."

"And I prefer it when you do not eat rats—again," Nurse Snow reminded him. Percy's cheeks coloured in.

Rat eater, Percy could hear Fred and George teasing him in his mind. Rat eater rat eater rat eater!

"You have a visitor," Nurse Snow suddenly mentioned. "They've official Ministry papers, so I will let them in and you two have a nice chat now. We'll be off and won't be back until tomorrow."

"Pardon?" Percy echoed in complete surprise. "Did you just say visitor? As in... not a staff member?"

Nurse Snow nodded her head. "Do not threaten to urinate on them, Percival. Be polite."

Percy nodded his head, attempting to contain his merriment—which then turned into absolute dread. "No, nobody can see me like this! I've had a tarantula that I was attempting to sacrifice to Zeus die on me this morning. I have been attempting to gently remove a small pin from a rat that has rolled himself in the mud. My arse is stuck to the floor because of some amorphous muck and thus, I fear that the floor has become a permanent body part and-and-and—"

Nurse Snow quickly assaulted him with dozen or so cleaning charms in under than a minute and then hit by a very potent drying spell. "Stop whining, Percival," she said as he coughed out soap and lavender-scented bubbles. "You make me want to reach for strong pain potions."

"Likewise, Madame," Percy beamed. The chalky taste of soap was still in his mouth and he still felt a wet patch of something press against his neck. "Except I am not allowed to take any pain potions."

He saw a flicker of a humour in Nurse Snow's eyes. Percy would hate to admit this, but he'd come to enjoy the company of this woman, even if she was forced to whip him round more often that he'd like to admit.

Now that he was cleansed, scrubbed and laved, twenty-one-year-old Percy looked down at his body and noticed that his skin was actually white... his spots were more obvious now much to his chagrin. He attempted to survey his face with his skeletal hands. According to the results of his investigation, he had a very, very large spot on his nose. Terrific! This was the first time he had a visitor in the last six or so years and he probably looked like someone had pinned Bill's scarlet Prefect badge to his nose!

Percy stood up from the corner, walking towards the bars. His dodgy leg ached immensely after a brick off the ceiling accidentally smashed into it last week when Percy was praying to Zeus for his safety. He supposed that Zeus found it amusing to hurt him rather than listen and reply to his prayers.

He did somewhat steal Zeus' lightning bolt by accident when he had a fit... but that was not his fault! It was Athena's bloody fault for her terrible taste in gifts!

Percy's eyes were about to bulge out of his sockets when he noticed a particular brown-haired, rosy-faced, full-hipped female walk towards him and immediately covered most of his face (and nose) with his hands.

Audrey's face was more waxen than a ghost. Her bottom lip was quivering, and she looked close to tears. "Percy. You look..." she shook her head, more tears dribbling down her pallid cheeks. "You look absolutely dreadful! I don't think I've ever seen anything so-so—"

Percy pulled his hands away from his face. "It's just a spot! If I recall correctly, you had a very big one on your buttocks once. It was so large that I thought that it was an anti-decomposing charm gone wrong and now you have a very large tomato stuck up on your—"

"PERCY!" Audrey exclaimed frantically, waving her arms around in a rather frightened manner. "I don't care about your spot. Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror?"

Percy pursed his lips. "Well, no," he replied in a genuine tone of voice. "I am not allowed to have mirrors, as I am prone to breaking them either during a fit or a dramatic mental breakdown."

Audrey pulled out a handheld mirror and then offered it to Percy.

Percy stared at himself and then cocked an eyebrow. "And? Other than that spot I was—"

"Stop mentioning that bloody spot! It's—"Audrey hissed back before taking back the mirror from him.

"It's bloody?" Percy went to investigate any sense of blood gushing out of it and felt relief when he saw none.

"—you!" Audrey exclaimed. "You look like you've just downed down Madame Primpernelle's stock of weight loss potions for the past six years! I've seen premature infants that have more weight than you. I wonder if this is what happens if a vanishing charm backfires and hits you instead. On top of that, I think that I could see your miniscule heart beating in your chest."

Percy looked down at his chest. "That's not my heart. That's just a golden snidget—"

"—a golden snidget?" Audrey looked like she was terribly close to vomiting. "Percy, you have a bird sitting on your chest? UNDER your hospital robes?"

Percy then pulled his hand into the front of his gaping robes, and very slowly and carefully produced the golden-furred round, plump bird from his hands. "Yes, well, it is a tad cold in here. My body is warmer."

"Well, you could shove it up a much warmer place," Audrey huffed.

Percy's cheeks coloured in, because he supposed she was telling him to shove his little pet up his rectum. This was not a pleasant thought, even though a few vibrant images were flashing through his head already. "This is an endangered bird! I am not shoving it there," he gently placed the bird back onto his chest where it quickly descended down to his ribcage. For such a fragile bird, it once broke two of his ribs.

"You're right. It is an endangered bird," Audrey said in surprise. "If the Ministry finds out you're in possession of that thing, then you're going to be—"

"Oh, because the Ministry is going to be visiting me here?" Percy raised an eyebrow.

Audrey opened her mouth to say something against that, but she couldn't because he was right so she just shut her mouth. He was grinning because he seemed to have caught that notion too.

"You've changed," Audrey said, and Percy wasn't sure if she meant it as a good or bad thing. "Your red hair is black from filth and seemed to have taken the consistency of a Fwooper's nest. I am almost absolutely positive that there is something moving in there. You're sitting on the dirty floor where the titles look like they could crack any minute and you would fall into the centre of the universe. You're hoarding an endangered species and letting it sleep on your chest. You look a skeleton that's just been dug up from the ground—in fact; I am severely surprised that you are even alive."

Percy's good humour had faded by then. "Audrey, I have been stuck between these four walls for six years. I have a Greek God that is attempting to convince me to destroy the universe, and every day at approximately five in the morning, I am escorted to the end of the hallway to have someone attempt to induce a seizure by flickering lights on and off until I lose consciousness. It is just a matter of whether or not I have a fit too!"

Rat eater, rat eater! The voices of Fred and George invaded his head again.

Audrey opened her mouth to speak. "So, the tumult about a Greek God is true? I've heard Fred and George mention it before. Not to me, but I've overheard them discussing it. I thought it was all just a fairytale."

"It is not," Percy explained in a stern voice. Fred and George. They'd done more than him no doubt! He had no O.W.L's or N.E.W.T's, and he was a twenty-one-year-old never-was locked about in a cage.

For the next twenty minutes, all that Percy had done was explain the situation to Audrey. He'd started with his tale as an eleven-year-old, mentioning details of his turmoil. Penelope Clearwater and Alec Lestrange, the manticore and Lucius Malfoy, his father, his father, his father... and the story evolved back into Alec Lestrange (otherwise known as the Greek God Ares), and his plot for world domination and obliteration. Percy allowed himself to mention his love for chaos and destruction (ashamedly as he stared at the ground, only for Audrey to reach forward to give him a touch on his shoulder. She'd seen him no differently, just like his mother did.) He allowed himself to tell her things that he didn't even know how he felt—the feeling of overwhelming dread sat in his stomach whenever he thought of his plan to prevent Ares from destroying the universe. Percy told her that a year after he left the ward, he would allow Ares to wear him as a meat suit. That was when Audrey snapped at him and he attempted to calm her down as best as he could, mentioning that he knew what he was doing but he was just... startled at the fact that this may backfire. The conversation then changed to Audrey telling him that she knew that he knew what he was doing ("I believe that... despite the fact that you allowed an endangered bird is using your chest as a room in the Three Broomsticks," Audrey grumbled) and that he better gain some confidence ("I know Puffskeins that wouldn't be thrown around as much as you are, Percival!"). She might've also said that she would kill him if he dared talk himself down, and he only replied with a sheepish smile. Percy Weasley not talk himself down in a fit of self-loathing and lack of esteem?

Then the conversation drifted back and Percy might've said something he hadn't planned on saying. At all.

"It is a bit odd you visiting me right now. Considering what with the fact that tomorrow, I would've completed a year of not having a fit and I could be discharged," was the statement that Percy had mentioned in the passing. With his brimming luck, Percy would have a fit an hour before he'd hit the one year mark.

"You are?" Audrey said, her voice high with excitement. "Oh, Percy... I bet you must be over the moon!"

Percy's face remained rigid. "No, I am not," he expressed. "I'm dreading it."

Audrey crumpled almost immediately. "What?" her voice was soft.

Percy didn't know how to explain what he was feeling in any less words than Gilderoy Lockhart's autobiography. He kept on pressing his finger against his spot, which he probably shouldn't do but still did.

"This place isn't so terrible once you get past the semantics," Percy argued weakly.

"They whip you when you're unresponsive to them. You're redder than a bottle of firewhiskey. Your whole world exists of four walls that you haven't left in six years. You have no contact with the outside world at all. You might as well not exist from how insignificant you are when you are in this ward. This place is so dim that I could barely make out how absolutely awful you look like. You're so bloody emaciated that I'm afraid to look at you for anymore than a few minutes in case somehow my gaze becomes too much for you to bear," Audrey snarled out in concern and disbelief. Percy knew that she felt rather strongly about this, considering how acerbic and callous her tone was. "Percy..." she reached over to grasp his face.

Percy's heart did a few flips when he felt her warm hand on his cold face.

"I'm sure your family misses you," Audrey mentioned a topic that she shouldn't have, on any accords, mentioned. "They haven't seen you for six years after all."

Percy didn't even blink. "Yes, they do," he muttered. "That's why I've not heard of them once in six years."

"Percy," Audrey's eyes were hard. "It took me six years to visit you. It took me at least two years to be able to finish off the documents—do you know we had to fill in a three hundred word document? That has to be precisely worded so they don't reject me? And then I had to wait for years before they even approved said documentation. I sent them owls on the regular so that someone would just so someone could have a look at them. I bet they don't want to read a document that long! It is extremely hard to even get the approval to visit you and I'm sure with six other children, it's even more difficult to do. There's a war going on and—"

Percy cut her off. "You're right," he said in a low voice. "I'm sorry."

"NO! I'm wrong," Audrey snapped back at him. "I'm just saying that to be nice to them about it, but you're the one that's right. Bloody hell, Percival. You're been stuck here for six years and they haven't come to see you, not at least once? If they'd just bloody taken turns, they could fill in the paperwork just fine and I'm sure it wouldn't have taken them two years like they did me! And your father works in the bloody Ministry, how could he not have gotten it approved? Yes, there's a ruddy war going on, but that should be more incentive to have to see you just because there's no guarantee that you'd be alive tomorrow and—"

Percy placed his hand on Audrey's cheek, heat rushing to his cheeks.

"Audrey," Percy's voice was heavy and he could feel knots form in his stomach. "Duck."

Audrey didn't look amused. "You're not hiding a duck under your robes, are—"

Percy reached over, grabbed her shoulder and pulled themselves both down. A Hagrid-sized flaming arrow hit the bars, immediately tore through them and instantaneously smashed into the wall—leading to its instant explosion. The smell of smoke filled the air and Percy's cling onto Audrey was so tight. The rodents that were there had died on impact. Their blood was flowing everywhere. Apparently, whilst the bars were indeed potion and charms resistant, they were not 'Greek God's energy' resistant. Percy had allowed himself, for a moment, to fill into the gratification as the smoke hit his nostrils. These were feelings that he hadn't allowed himself to confront for years, because they were not normal. He'd rather drown them out with his unending self-hatred and other neuroses thank you very much.

And for once in her life, Audrey Brown was speechless.

"Percy! Look at me! I'm wearing Ares' handmade meat suit!" a voice that sounded a lot like Alec Lestrange called out, grinning wildly as they walked towards him, holding their wand out. "Do you know who I am?"

Given that Ares would not be saying that he was wearing his own meat suit and arrows were involved...

"Artemis!" Percy yelled in surprise, mostly at himself for coming to that conclusion so quickly.

"Yes!" Artemis called out, pleased. "So you have heard of my mission to obliterate you. I must let you know I'm not the only one who's keen on seeing you dead. Now, that you've managed to avoid my arrows—"

"I'm sure the same goes for you," Audrey hissed back. "Percy, we'll run for our lives whilst she's busy chattering on about how remarkable her archery skills are," she whispered and rolled her eyes.

"You want me to run...? I'm a cripple!" Percy replied back in a whisper. He knew that running will probably put him into an indescribable agony—yet as she sent another few flaming arrows into the air, he turned round, grabbed Audrey's hand and ran as fast straight into the gaping hole in the wall. He attempted to ignore the searing pain in his knee. He felt like it was about to split.

"PERCY!" a startled, teary Audrey exclaimed. "WHEN I SAID RUN... I MEANT THROUGH THE DOOR!"