response to any inquiries made on the previous chapter:

FairyRave: oh, you'd definitely get your angsty fills within the next few chapters. these chapters are full of them with the only breaks in between that you get is for me to write a mildly comical scene! i've come to believe that i live off torturing characters. i've reread the following last 8 chapters or so dozens of times and i'm quite content with them! i hope you enjoy them!

Chapter Fifty-One

"I don't need this," Marcus argued when Penelope had him hooked to an IV line filled with warm fluids—of which was charmed to put Marcus back into his bed if he were ever to move. These charmed IV lines were typically used for temperamental, obnoxious children that attempted to sneak away from their bed the minute that they had the chance. Marcus, in Penelope's opinion, fit the bill quite nicely.

Oliver, holding Marcus' gloved hand, was staring over at him with agape expression. Penelope was glad that he was quiet for one... then again; it wasn't every day that your best mate slowly succumbed to hypothermia right in front of your eyes for relatively no reason whatsoever.

Marcus' lips and hands turned into a nice blueberry colour that matched his Marcus' underpants (yes, Penelope knew what colour underpants he was wearing because the baggy fuzzy thermal pants that Oliver had lent him kept on sliding down whenever he sat up.)

"I'm fine," Marcus complained, placing his hands on the blankets underneath. Penelope believed that he had all of Diagon Alley's supply of thermal blankets. It was astounding how his condition hadn't improved. If anything, it just seemed to get worse... even though he should've been boiling right now. "I don't need this."

"Mate, there are snowflakes in your hair," Oliver stated in disbelief.

Marcus leaned back against Oliver's bed and shuddered as if the temperature dropped. Penelope didn't know how this was possible. "I want to go to my flat and see my bloody daughter before I ruddy die."

"You are not going to die in here. Do you think I would allow you to die?" Penelope hissed coldly but to be honest, she was terrified. She wasn't sure how in Merlin's name he was alive and breathing right now with how low his core temperature was. In fact, he was so cold that Penelope felt a chill just staring at him. "And I am not taking you to the flat! I'm freezing in there. It's absolutely murderously cold. I have all the heaters in Britain in there and I still feel like I'm walking on ice cubes. There is no way I am taking my hypothermic husband there! You'll die of dysrthymia before you make it to the bed!"

Marcus grumbled under his breath. Penelope pretended that she didn't hear half the rubbish he said.

"You can go fetch Avis, love," Molly said from behind Penelope, scaring her because she'd forgotten that Molly was there. She'd been quiet thus far. Standing beside her was Viola Flint. Penelope swore to Merlin that if Viola said something about Marcus not needing warming potions and warm fluid resuscitation, then Penelope was going to throw her into the Great Lake. "I have this completely under control."

"Those warming potions—every hour on the hour," Penelope said sternly. "Even if he's having a kip, or he's hibernating. Wake him up and force him to take it. If he's not getting any better, give him two an hour."

Penelope had never given anyone two warming potions in an hour. She was afraid that they would combust.

Marcus groaned in irritation. "But I'm fine!" he exclaimed.

Oliver had decided that this was the perfect time to remind Penelope that he was an Animagus by turning into a great big shaggy-haired dog with thin streaks of black fur on his stomach—to signify his rock-hard abdominals. The Scot jumped atop the bed, lying beside a shaking Marcus.

"Don't worry, Flint!" came Fred's voice from the door. "We'll help!"

"YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING!" Molly exclaimed. Penelope was trying to ignore the sight of the bright boxes floating behind Fred and George. If they killed Marcus, she was going to strap them down to Avis' cot and leave them there until they died of neglect. "YOU DON'T TOUCH HIM! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

Seeing Viola about to open her mouth, Penelope apparated away. She couldn't particularly prevent Marcus from dying of hypothermia if she was busy serving time in Azkaban for cracking open his mum's skull.

PERCY felt a solid feeling in his stomach. He was stewing in his own hatred. He did not want to hate himself anymore (surprise: he still loathed himself and he wished that he could clone himself just so his clone could break every single bone in his body in the most excruciating way possible).

Instead of dwelling on how much he wanted to snuff it in these weeks, he focused on making up vivid scenarios in his head. The darkness was an old friend, greeting him back into its warm, lulling embrace...

And Percy found comfort in that part of him. Those thoughts assaulted his mind when he least expected it.

Within the past month, they were directed mostly at Adrian Pucey and Marcus Flint.

He was not sure why his thoughts were projected towards these two. He could've been thinking of Ares or the ward nurses or his father, or the twins, or Terence or Miles or anyone else... but he wasn't.

Percy often wished to stab Adrian in the back like he stabbed Percy in the back—for no good bloody reason. If he were to do such a thing (he would not. He was not a murderer), he would use a large kitchen knife. He would watch the blood pour like a fountain. He would let it cover his very quintessence. Adrian's sweet, chocolate-frog-sweet blood. Probably as runny as his nose in the summer time, and as delicate as his fingertips...

And Marcus!

If Percy had it his way, he would throw Marcus into the Great Lake, suspending his body into an endless watery abyss. He wondered if Marcus would swim to save his life or succumb to his fate immediately.

Percy would watch from afar, sitting down by the rocks where he would remember the days where he and Adrian shared frozen pumpkin juice and warm blankets together.

He would wait for Marcus to resurface, and if he did, Percy would push him back again—to plunge into the sea of what he'd made for himself. He would watch Marcus slowly disintegrate into bone and flesh. His blood would betray him. He would wash up on the shore like the skeleton he was, his thin skin pulled apart, leaving a bundle of bone, cartilage and muscle in its wake.

He would let Penelope see her so called husband. She could touch his unmoving body if she wanted to.

But Marcus wouldn't be able to touch her anymore.

Percy would never voice these thoughts out to anyone. He would not write them down. He did not normally allow himself to even dwell on them. They chased him in dreams and yet he ran away. However, they soothed him like a child's lullaby. They were his (very) guilty pleasure.

He loved the war and the war ran in his blood. He could smell death in his happy moments.

Percy was sure that if he was not in the ward, he would've taken on the Dark Mark. The temptation would be too much. He would not be able to take it. It was a beautiful work of art—pristine in every way. It was purer than even pureblood. It was a state of being that Percy would've always longed to transcend to.

He loathed himself for not being there with his family for the war; for not being in the war.

Percy would've sat in a corrupt Ministry and cherished every single missing file because he could see a world renew from the ashes of those that died. This world would disappear and a new world would unearth itself—like a flower blossoming in the spring, only to die come winter days.

Percy loved the winter days, where the world was coated into something pure. As pure as the Dark Mark.

There was something about the scent of fresh flowers resting over cold, decaying flesh that made a warm tingle form in his stomach—like the first bite of his mum's chocolate cake, like the first time he'd put on a jumper when he was cold, like every hug he'd ever received. That warm gooeyness in the bottom of his stomach. Except it would be amplified to such great extents that nothing in the universe could ever come to it. It was his fascination, the one that he could not help but yearn with every cell of his being. He used to deny himself the feeling of warmth. He used to tell him that it was wrong... putrid, to think of such things.

A five-year-old Percy tried to run away. An eleven-year-old Percy did run away.

The war...

It was like Arthur's eyes lighting up when he took a muggle toy to his shed. It was like his mum when she made them pull their jumpers over their heads and gather around the mantelpiece for a family picture ("it's been too long!" she'd say, even though she probably took one not only weeks ago.) It was like Charlie when he pointed towards a patch of burned skin and chattered on about it. It was like Percy finding Bill by the counter, putting on an earring whilst he told Percy that he might get a more proper piercing ("don't tell mum. She'll have my head.") It was the twins jump up in delight as they watched ten-year-old Ron leave the room with hair that glowed ("Mum, at least you won't have trouble trying to find him at King's Cross station!"). It was like Ron and Ginny running around happily after they beat Bill and Charlie in a Quidditch game.

The war was like that to Percy—and he was hallow without it. A shell of a shell of a shell of a man.

They didn't understand the temptation burned into his bones. They didn't understand how it was to like death. They didn't understand how it was like to yearn for bloodshed.

They didn't understand that he didn't go to funerals not because he didn't like them, but because inside, he laughed. This was the cycle of the universe. The death would make the new flowers grow, and the new flowers would die—the live people would eat them, but the living would die and then from them, new flowers would emerge. Death gave life, and life gave death.

The ward didn't torture him.

The ward liberated that very part of him that he kept buried so deep into himself that he felt like it had disappeared from the world, forever. He'd spent years forming this mask and it was torn away in seconds. He was sat in the midst of the darkness. The dark was his biggest fear and here it was, cradling him, whispering sweet nothings into his ear. He fell asleep to its soothing promises. Six-year-old Percy yearned for his mother but this new stranger promised him the biggest books, the most beautiful flowers, the sweetest candy and the best family. He knew he should listen to his mum. She told him not to talk to strangers, but the stranger was a blinding light. The stranger was a woman, fair and beautiful. It wasn't like the scary women he read about in books long ago. She told him to stop fighting it, that thing that was buried deep inside him. She stripped away every thick layer of his skin to find a soul that was as dark as her eyes.

He could not see. He was exposed. He was crumbling. He yearned for blood like a vampire did. He wished to see it spill. His weakness, his repulsiveness, his very being...

Percy let his own blood spill.

He chose his mother instead of the glossy-eyed stranger that gave him rose-tinted glasses and empty promises for she offered real roses despite her emptier promises.

He would destroy himself before he could will himself to destroy the universe.

PERCY attempted to ignore the warmth that spread across his stomach when he caught sight of a shuddering, extremely pale Marcus Flint that was lying on Oliver Wood's bed.

He did not know why his parents had insisted on getting a dog, and he did not know why it was sleeping beside a weary Marcus. He also didn't know why he hadn't seen the dog until recently. However, Percy knew that many dogs seemed to be attracted to noxious scents.

He supposed that Marcus' scent was probably a light springtime perfume for these little buggers.

As he stared at the blue-tinged Marcus, he felt his blood boiling and a rage encompassing his frame just thinking to himself that this-this thing had ever touched Penelope. He could see how vulnerable she was as Alec Lestrange attempted to strangle her with her own golden locks. He could also see vibrant images of the finger-shaped bruises on Marcus' neck begin to form in his mind. Percy had never felt the genuine need to strangle someone as intensely as he did right then.

Percy put his hands into his pockets because he did not trust himself not to do it.

"You're supposed to have bloody evapourated by now!" cried out an exasperated Terence Higgs, whom was feeding him what looked to be a strong warming potion that didn't look like it was taking any effect.

"Don't know how the bastard could look at me without morphing into a puddle!" Miles flexed his extremely muscled arm. Merlin, Bletchley himself looked like he needed to be admitted into the hospital due to how extensively burned he was. He was smacking Marcus' IV line... the fluids that were supposed to be warming him up seemed to have solidified. Molly was tapping her wand against it, muttering a warming spell that once set Ginny's ribbons on fire. Unfortunately, it would've even do as little as melt the solid bit of the liquid.

"THAT'S NOT FUNNY! HE'S DYING! THIS IS NO TIME TO MAKE A JOKE!" Molly exclaimed hotly, waving her short, pudgy arms into the air. She looked more stressed than she ever was. Percy felt an envy fill his chest. Merlin, she probably even cared for Flint more than she cared for him.

Marcus struggled to breathe. His cheeks and tongue tinged into a nice blue, matching the rest of his body.

They probably couldn't move him out of this room without risking his imminent death. Percy somehow doubted that a hospital could do much more for him. He did, however, wonder why a part-troll was dying of hypothermia in the middle of this Merlin-forsaken weather...

Then it seemed to hit him so hard he'd felt like a thing of ice just cut his cheek. He shuddered, his spine stiffening. Percy's heart started to pound in his chest. The anger running in his blood had... disappeared.

A whimper sounded out. Percy thought it was the pup until he realised it was bloody Marcus.

"It's alright, lad, it's alright..." Miles tried to soothe a shaking, frigid Marcus. He placed a hand on Marcus' shoulder and then immediately pushed it off, shuddering in cold.

Suddenly, the dark-eyed woman had left him abandoned in middle of the streets.

He was searching for his mum, but now, he was scared and standing in the middle of nowhere. Percy was freezing his arse off. He was hungry. Six-year-old Percy was far away from his mum, and Molly would be bloody livid if she found out that he'd gone along with the sparkly-haired lady with eyes darker than his soul.

Percy sobered up. He thought lucidly. All memories of the ward were muddled. He could remember nothing that went on there. The woman that promised him a thousand wishes had granted him none.

For the millionth time since Percy left the ward, a stark revelation came to his mind—the biggest yet!

It was more real than feeling birds flitter around his chest and seeing the accumulation of dirt under his nails. The images of his violent fantasies started to come alive again. Instead of giving him immediate warmth, they made his whole body tingle with a heaviness. For the first time in his life, Percy felt very... human.

Percy felt the sadness that he should've felt years ago when he saw his uncle Gideon and Fabian. He shuddered at the thought of their pallid faces and their long bodies in that coffin. He longed to hear them laugh. He felt a sickness that came to him at the thought of death. He felt cold now... no longer warm or soothed by it. Its saccharine lullabies were faker than the cherry candy that his mum used to try and feed him during the first wizarding world, the one that he spat into the bin whenever she wasn't looking. He thought of harming that long-haired eleven-year-old that used to drank hot chocolate with him late at night, the one that used to follow him around and chatter incessantly about flobberworm mush and it physically hurt Percy. A feeling of disgust came to his mind, thinking of harming that eleven-year-old part-troll that made harmless parchment paper balls out of his assignments and threw them over at people that irritated him.

He felt the happiness that he should've felt like when the war ended.

Minutes ago, he wished to immerse Marcus Flint in the cold water until he disintegrated into nothing more than flesh and bone, not even blood. It was a fantasy—a shameful fantasy that he would never allow himself to indulge in normally because Percy's mask was so well formed he sometimes felt humane. His perfectionist behaviour made sure that the mask would not crumble. Yet it did. The ward took it away, but now he had a new mask in his hands, one that seemed to fit in the spaces in him that he thought would always be empty...

Percy had somehow forgotten that he was a holder of uncontrollable, spastic magic. Marcus was in danger every since Percy had started dreaming of cold water baths.

"Marcus? Marcus?" Miles cocked his head to one side. "Marcus, are you alright, lad?"

"Yup, he's bloody brilliant," said Terence in a cold voice. "I didn't know that part of your ruddy brain tissue got burned in the process too, Bletchley—"

"Shut up!" Miles said, paling significantly.

Percy watched as warming potions spilled from Marcus' mouth, solidifying. He was so cold that even being near him brought shivers to Percy's skin—Percy, whom had only felt cold about three times in his life. Marcus sneezed, frosty snot leaving his nose. His eyes were almost as white as the rest of him.

"This is not working!" Molly decided to point out. She pushed her wand away from his saline and called out a charm. Marcus levitated soon afterwards. "To the bathroom! I'm going to draw him a hot water bath for now but-but... SOMEONE GO GET CHARLIE! He-he'll know what to do! He should be in Diagon Alley. I don't know where b-b-but..."

Percy put him back down on his bed. Marcus squirmed uncomfortably as Percy leaned down and placed his hands onto the bloke's shoulder. Marcus instantly melted at Percy's touch. The ice in his hair immediately liquidised, his eyes turning into a less opaque grey, and Marcus let out a wheeze. He started to cough, water escaping from his mouth and his face turned immediately red and sweaty. Percy leaned over to disconnect the warming fluid from Marcus' hand, but the IV—which had just started to respond to the heating charms applied to it, suddenly burst, sending hot water everywhere. Marcus jolted, just about barely avoiding getting splashed by a wave of extremely hot water. Marcus looked extremely fatigued, his arms and shoulders sagging with exhaustion and an unnatural redness came about his cheek.

"Percy," Molly stared agape at her son with a flabbergasted expression on her face. "You—"

Marcus coughed, sputtering water from his mouth. He looked so lethargic. Another whimper left his lips and he wrapped his arms around his body, shivering very lightly but also very visibly.

"I am so sorry," Percy could barely choke out his apologies. "I had no idea that whatever I had done would result to this! I believed that whatever was in my head was just a mindless fantasy! I was a fool, a—"

The small dog sat beside Marcus suddenly morphed into Oliver Wood. This nearly made Percy jump out of his own skull. He was more impressed that Oliver Wood had it in him to become an Animagus because from what Percy knew, it was an extremely difficult and labourious task.

Percy swallowed the lump in his throat as Oliver stood there; glowering at Percy as if he was the one that put Marcus in this predicament in the first place... which he was true. He accidentally froze Marcus when he was fantasising about freezing him. It was completely and utterly his fault—

Oliver grabbed Percy by his arms and then shoved against the wall. Percy heard something crack.

"OLIVER!" Molly shrieked.

"I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY!" Percy exclaimed, tears burning at the corner of his eyes.

"HOW DARE YOU BLOODY TOUCH HIM?!" Oliver exclaimed, reaching over to grab the handful of growing, but barely there red curls and tugging at it. "HOW DID YOU DO IT? HOW?! I DON'T BLAME THE RUDDY MINISTRY FOR LOCKING YOU UP—!"

Molly pulled Oliver away from Percy. "OLIVER, THAT IS ENOUGH!"

She immediately spun towards Marcus when she noticed that he was shaking. "Marcus, love? Marcus, are you alright? Come on. Let's get you draw you a nice hot bath..."

Percy rubbed his neck and stared down at Marcus with an apologetic look. He pushed back his tears away. He didn't deserve to shed them. He caught sight of Miles' shocked look. Terence curled his hands up into fists, looking like he wanted to reorganise Percy's anatomical structures—with his own bare hands that was.

Percy did not know if he liked the idea of this. He happened to like his bodily organs situated right where they were, given the fact that he had not considered changing their location since his birth.

Oliver's gaze was so fierce that it could've burned a hole through Percy's brain. "Bastard."

"I..." Percy's throat was closing up. He crossed his freckly arms over his chest. "I suppose that... I might have mucked up, but it is not entirely on purpose and I... I have an appalling, unpardonable explanation and I don't blame you if you loathe me for the rest of eternity," he offered a weak smile at the end. His heart stopped when he heard the sounds from just outside the bedroom.

"Marcus?" Percy heard a voice echo outside, a confused female voice. He knew that voice. Penelope.

"Molly?" Percy did recognise that voice. His father's voice.

"Mum?" he did not recognise those voices. A boy and a girl. Foreign to him.

"Excuse me a moment... as I'll tend to the lot outside," Percy nervous said to the trio standing before him, looking ready to perform the Killing Curse on him.

Percy swallowed and turned to leave the bedroom, bracing himself for either a spontaneous mental breakdown or an unexpected something—something good he hoped as he hadn't felt so human since he'd been in the ward! In fact, he didn't feel so human before the ward.

Percy left the room, heart racing in his chest. Penelope was now towering over his six-foot-frame with her heels. Standing beside her was a young blonde with the trademark straight Clearwater blonde hair that Penelope had lost a long time ago. Arthur (glasses!) looked older than usual. Two redheads, one with freckled cheeks (it had to be Ginny. It just had to be. Percy knew that freckle distribution by heart) and the lanky redheaded that seemed to be Penelope's height (he obviously wasn't wearing heels) just had to be Ron...