comments to any inquiries on last chapter:
FairyRave: i love that Marcus and Penelope ended up together, though that was not the initial plan. i was pretty sure this was supposed to end up slash-y but the whole fanfic didn't like that direction that that was taking. as for Percy and the wand... you'll see! i'm also glad that things are starting to make more sense from how Percy's epilepsy works.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Miles had always been extremely interested in finding out the truth behind a couple of mysterious mysteries of his chosen interest. He did realise that using the term 'mysterious mysteries' sounded a bit off, and that he was probably a bit of a plonker. No matter! He continued to insist that he would one day find the cure for dragon pox. Yes, he knew that there was indeed a cure for dragon pox, but still—a better one, because he had had people in his family die of dragon pox even when they've had the cure because the cure did not have a one hundred percent success rate. In fact, if not for the fact that mum insisted that he needed to consume stewed blueberries on toast in the morning for the past ten years, he bet that his brain cells would still be working and today—and thus, he would've achieved all his life's ambitions. Unfortunately, upon the first day that he'd chomped into his berry-based breakfast toast, his brain cells just froze, curled up and died because they wanted to spare Miles. They wanted to kill off any nervous system innervation to his taste receptors, because he did not do anything to warrant this pain.
Still, some of his neurons were still intact. And they helped him solve a number of 'mysterious mysteries.'
Some of these mysteries included: who ate the last chocolate frog in 1989 (Miles realised that this crime was not very important to solve because he happened to be the culprit), who was the tosser that put blackberry jelly in his boots when he was asleep, and why the hell did his mum insist on taking a perfectly good piece of fish and then mould it using a box of gelatine, cottage cheese and artificial sweeteners?
In 1992, he tried to find out what size his mum's knockers were. He stole one of her bras and tried to measure one of the cups with a tape, and it was ruddy big enough to fit Marcus' big fat head in it.
This was confirmed later in his sixth year when he'd managed to spello-tape the thing to Marcus' head.
Now, on this crisp November day in 1998, he was attempting to find out what colour the Weasley family couch was. Miles deduced it to be a soft periwinkle colour. Molly admitted that it used to be an off-white colour. Miles yet again deduced that they were the same thing and yet again, he was right. In fact, he was always right and should never be questioned—especially when it came to bets on Quidditch games. His opinion was fact and he should be swamped with Daily Prophet reporters on the clock, asking him exactly how the weather would be like tomorrow (did The Daily Prophet cover weather? He'd never bothered reading one of those blasted things because, as stated previously, he knew everything.)
"Are you comfortable?" Miles looked up to see Molly standing in front of him. Her hair was in complete disarray and she was holding a cup of what seemed to be tea.
"Very," Miles couldn't feel his arse and there were pins sticking up his bum. "I could live on this couch."
"Percy wouldn't recommend doing that," Molly said, her voice hollow and vacant as she put the tea cup beside him and gestured for him to have a sip. She collapsed onto the loveseat just beside him, offering a weak smile. "Percy said he isn't sure what else lives in that couch, but he did once extract a whole bunch of horklumps from under there. He was able to harvest forty different species in one extraction. He spello-taped them to a notebook and showed them to me when I was making dinner that night. Needless to say, I accidentally tossed one of the bags in when I was putting mushrooms in my variation of a steak and kidney pie. Godric, I've never seen anyone get so sick so quick. The family refused all my pies for a month after!"
"Don't tell my mother about these horklumps, ma'am," Miles took a sip of the tea. He hadn't had a cup of tea for ages that did not have cobwebs growing around the rim. "She'll try to gelatinise them."
Molly smiled a proper smile and placed a hand on his own.
She looked like she was studying him. He didn't know if she was enamoured with his dashing good looks (likely) or repulsed by the amount of scar and burn tissue scattering about his face (unlikely), as her eldest son, Bill, had tram tracks for scar, Charlie was extra crispy, Percy looked like a mentally disturbed bloke that just came back from a Death Eater's 'mudblood' concentration camp, one of the twins had his ear blasted off and Ron and Ginny probably were more mucked up than the rest of them because they did help Harry Potter defeat You-Know-Who. They'd both probably seen enough blood, tears and torture to last a lifetime.
"There was this little bloke that Percy brought over with him once for Christmas," Molly suddenly decided to mention. That was when Miles realised that she hadn't been examining him at all. She'd been lost in thought and happened to be looking straight at his face. "Adrian... something... oh, it's been so long. He looked like a little... oh, never mind how he looked like... how is he doing?"
"He's in a coma. I saw him a while ago," Miles smiled weakly. "Bastard's put on weight. He's got a belly and all. It really suits him and makes him look less like..."
For Salazar's sake, Snape was dead. How could he be dead?
Molly nodded her head and said nothing.
"When Marcus and I were young, we used to be real bastards," Miles put the cup of tea down and offered a bright smile as a slew of warm memories danced in front of his eyes. "We still are, mind you, Mrs Weasley, but we used to sit around and tell each other what we hated the most about our mates. Marcus said that he used to hate Adrian so ruddy much because his hair was so... black."
She seemed confused by this. "But Marcus' hair is black!"
"Aye, but not like Adrian's!" Miles chuckled. "Marcus used to say that he hated the amount of time that Adrian spent fixing up his blacker-than-black hair. You see, Adrian used to make it cascade down like a waterfall; a homage to the fact that he's the biggest tosser in the world."
Molly could remember this. "Yes, it is a bit disconcerting how... fluid his hair was. I thought that it was fake first time I've seen it. It was as soft as silk from that one time I've patted the bloke's head."
"I know. Bet you can market it for quite a few Galleons," Miles agreed. "Godric, just because of that hair, Marcus was so sure that Adrian was bent. Actually, Marcus was sure he himself was bent until he actually kissed a bloke. Pity. If he actually was, then Wood could stop pretending that he isn't interested in forming relationships because he's too much of a Quidditch-addled maniac—"
Molly's face contorted in surprise. "Oliver likes blokes?"
"No, he doesn't like blokes. He likes a bloke. His eyes are so fixed towards Flint it's like no other lad in the universe exists. Flint might as well be a Quaffle and everyone else is just a Bludger trying to get in the way of the lad," Miles offered a beam. "Adrian, however, oh—he was so enticed by women he used to sneak into the girls' dormitories. Marcus used to say that Adrian would never find a lass that likes him because he would spend too much bloody time making his hair all waterfall-like. I happen to wholeheartedly agree."
She shook her head. "And what about your other friends? Did you pick on them or was it just Adrian?"
"Well... there was Terence," Miles' eyebrows were knitted together. "Oh! When we were younger, Terence's hair was so ruddy short, and he used to always trim the Merlin-forsaken thing. I used to say that I'd hope that the next time he asked a house elf to trim that hair of his, that the thing would just chop off his head because there would be no hair left to trim. Marcus didn't seem to mind his hair so much. He kept on thinking about his ears. He said with ears as big as Terence's, he wouldn't need a broom to fly. The little lad was insistent on the fact that if he had Terence's ears, he'd try to cover it up with as much hair as possible."
"Oh dear," Molly shook her head. "You aren't exactly the nicest lads, are you?"
Miles laughed and offered another beam. "Aye. When we were discussing the lads, Marcus had no problem telling me that he bloody loathes me just because I'm myself. I don't mind because it's the same reason why everyone tends to hate me. It's the accent I presume. Oh, and Percy..."
Molly seemed to perk up. "Yes?" she then sighed. "I hope you're not going to tell me what you hate—"
"Your son is a very interesting character," Miles' mind was assaulted by a thousand memories that were so vibrant that they could've blinded him. Because being half-toasted wasn't enough! He had to be blind as well! "We used to take the mickey out of him. You know, he always had his head stuck in a book even though he's memorised the whole curriculum within two days of coming to Hogwarts—"
"He's hardworking!" Molly defended him. "It does good to be like—"
"And his glasses... Merlin!" Miles couldn't stop himself from being the biggest wally in the planet. "Mrs Weasley, I don't know what you were thinking but they're bigger than Terence's ears! And Terence's ears are bigger than house-elf ears—"
"Miles," Molly's voice was steady and calm. "If you continue the conversation down this route, this very hot tea is going to end up somewhere you wouldn't want it to be."
Miles wanted to say that he only had partial feeling in that area, but he didn't want to challenge her.
"Do you have anything to say about him that is not just a jibe at the fact that maybe he's a bit more studious or stiffer than most children tend to be at that age?" Molly asked calmly, raising an eyebrow. She looked like she was this close to beating him up if he insulted Percy again.
Miles swallowed the lump in his throat. "There is one thing... but it's terribly depressing."
"Tell me," Molly demanded.
"But it's really... something," Miles said in a weak voice. His voice had gone down a few octaves.
Molly stared at Miles with a determined expression. "He's my son," she said. "I have a right to know."
"You do," was all he replied with.
A fleeting silence encompassed between them. Miles bet the 'hot tea' that she was threatening to splash him with had turned into ice. Time seemed to pass by so slowly. Every minute felt like an hour and yet, every minute felt like a second. Time was slow and it was quick...
And then Miles said his bit.
"The thing is no matter how colourful our insults were, your son could probably come up with a thousand more colourful ones about himself... he probably hated himself more than he hated anything else in the world," Miles chuckled, even though his tone was serious.
Molly slowly nodded her head. "I know," she said in a low voice.
"We..." Miles stopped himself, trying to find the proper words to express what he had to say. "We managed to unlock his diary once or twice, when we were in our fourth years. Pushing aside the fact that we needed a dictionary to decipher what he was trying to say, he wasn't actually painting the prettiest picture. Reading it was absolutely terrible. Merlin, it was downright disturbing actually."
Molly was shifting uncomfortably in her spot. "I know that I'm intruding into my son's personal space and this is wrong on so many levels but..." she was whispering, "Do you remember what he'd written?"
"Hard to forget, ma'am," Miles said sternly. "He kept on saying bollocks about how if they'd sewed different parts of his family together, they wouldn't be able to build anything like him."
"That's not true!" Molly shook her head. "He looks very much like Arthur now that I think about it."
Miles bit back his tongue. He didn't think that that was exactly what Percy was looking for.
"He kept on mentioning rubbish about how he thought that his father didn't make him feel like he was worth much, about how every year he wishes he could just barricade himself in his own room so he wouldn't have to go down to King's Cross station with everyone else. He said that just coming home made him lose his appetite and his will to live completely, that he'd rather just fade away into nothingness when he's in the house because he thinks that he mustn't even bother, that you've got six others that fit perfectly and he just... didn't," Miles rambled on. He felt like he was missing so much of what he'd read before. "Oh, Godric, and the way he used to take the piss out of his body? You'd think he was proper appalling. He went on about how lanky and freckly he was, and kept on mentioning all this absolute nonsense about his nonexistent stretch marks from growing tall too quick. With the way the lad talks about himself, it's like he should apologise for whenever anyone's ever looked over at him. Like his bloody existence is so traumatising that he has to apologise for it. He was acting like the only reason he's alive is so he could give you lot visceral organs if you ever lose any! Merlin, he's so depressing. He counted the number of minutes he and his father spent talking to him for three months. It totalled up to four hours apparently, three and a half of which is him describing some muggle gadget or telling him to walk more. The other half was him ranting about the man, telling him that he'd met house elves with more class than your husband—"
"Milespleasestop," Molly said, her voice low. "Please."
Miles nodded his head, shifting into his couch. "Alright, ma'am," he said. "I'm sorry I even brought it up."
"It's fine. I told you to," was all she replied with before she stood up and disappeared into the kitchen.
Listening to the clock tick away, Miles found himself lost in his own thoughts. He had just realised that the rubbish he'd learned about Percy from the diary was all before the ward. What was spinning in her head now about the little lad? It was no surprise to Miles that Percy tried to snuff it in any chance he got.
Godric knew what he'd write in his diary nowadays if he had the chance to. From what Miles heard from Audrey ranting to Fred and George about the bloke, he was almost certain that if he made this mentally unstable Percy write out his thoughts, he'd cut himself to ribbons and then use his blood to ink his melancholic thoughts out onto the parchment paper.
AUDREY should not be eavesdropping on Arthur and Molly's conversations.
She was not supposed to know that Molly's new lingerie did not quite fit her as well as she hoped. She was not supposed to know that Molly was worried about that rash that Bill refused to tend to (Audrey tried to bite back her natural response towards such situations: 'I can have a look at it! It's my job, you know!').
She was definitely not supposed to know about the strange places that Arthur Weasley broke out in either.
Instead, she was supposed to be putting on this frock that Molly had spent a week knitting for her to 'truly welcome you into the family'. She was supposed to be attempting not to scratch her skin off when she'd finally put it on. Most importantly (and the reason for why she hadn't left the lavatory yet), she was supposed to look nice in Molly's handmade knitted frock... instead, she looked like an oversized, chubby banana with extra filling, watermelon knockers and a peachy arse.
She poked at her stomach, sighing in exasperation. She would not be able to blame this on the pregnancy yet, given that this was her first month of pregnancy. She would, however, be able to blame it on the rather large carton of peppermint bourbon biscuit ice-cream that she'd insisted on demolishing right after dinner.
Audrey walked out of the lavatory, trying to make herself seem shorter than normal to avoid anyone noticing that she was wearing this—this travesty.
It was almost as bad as Percy's pinstriped trousers and pale button-downs!
She was standing there, muttering to herself. Audrey was speculating if she really needed to have three servings of pud every night. She was in a rather nice mood that day.
At least, she was in a grand mood before she heard Arthur say, "I think I've forgotten my wand over at the shed."
Audrey didn't know her blood could boil this quickly. She curled her hands into fists, and then stormed out of the room, stomping toward Arthur. Suddenly, her worries of having nice, mottled red splotches from this frock seemed to disappear from her mind. She was too busy attempting not to hex Percy's father.
Audrey did not care if Arthur would hate her for the rest of eternity if she said what she had to say, but her tongue was hot and the words were rustling about in her mind—plonker, plonker, plonker!
How dare he forget his wand over in the shed?! Did he want Percy to do himself in? Why not just throw in a thing of firewhiskey to an alcoholic in their own room and see how they handle themselves? Probably better than a traumatised, self-destructive Percy being given any means to harm himself with! Godric... if Percy really did do himself in, she wasn't even blaming the lad! How could she?!
He wasn't ready for this... he wasn't bloody ready for this!
Three days ago, she was sitting down and trying to attempt to tend to his self-infliction. Percy now scraped off his skin with his fingers. Apparently, cutting his nails didn't do anything because he'd just started to use his teeth... this certainly was not someone that should have a wand anywhere near them!
"What do you mean you've forgotten your wand over at the shed?" Audrey called out in a high, incredulous voice. She was staring at Arthur with a suddenly lowered respect for the man. Yes, it was that serious! She was preparing to see Percy parts when she'd go to the shed now. "I tell Molly not to put proper spoons when she's giving him a tray of his breakfast because I'm afraid he'd gauge his eyes out! I've seen him do things to the blunt end of a quill and parchment paper that I didn't think was possible! Even with absolutely nothing to harm himself with, he'll start using walls, or his teeth or and his own hands and you're telling me that you left your wand over there?! How long ago was this? How many pieces did he manage to cut himself down to? Should I even expect him to resemble a human being when I go down there right now?"
Molly had paled significantly. She looked back at Arthur with a soft look to her sad eyes. "I didn't even know you'd gone to see him..."
Needless to say, a trip to the shed was the first thing on Audrey's mind. She turned and stormed off, leaving the Burrow. Her heart was pounding and she could only imagine what foul thing Percy managed to do to himself with a charmed stick of wood!
Audrey's stomach was twisting, and she tried not to blow up on Arthur again as he and Molly followed her towards the shed.
"I didn't know!" Arthur said, looking alarmed.
Audrey stared at Arthur with a look of disbelief. "It doesn't take a bloke with all twelve O.W.L's to know that Percy's mentality is extremely questionable. You only need to stay with him for about three seconds to figure that one out! You can't tell me that he hasn't done anything that might make you think he's not all there when you went to talk to him now, did you?"
"I told you that he might not be able to handle you, love," Molly was definitely on Audrey's side.
Arthur shook his head. "I know you've told me not to talk to him, but he seemed perfectly fine when I stumbled upon him by accident in the hallway. Very much like his old self! Except for..."
"Except for what?" Audrey's voice was high with fury. Her hands were balled into fists.
Arthur was so red he looked somewhat comical. Under any other circumstances, Audrey would've lightened up at this, but instead, this just made her more furious. "Except for the minor detail that he'd tried to scratch his mouth out for no reason. Oh, and he did seem a tad upset when I left... though I'm not sure why."
Audrey was staring at Arthur, still dumbfounded. "You left him when he was upset? And you left your wand behind too? Godric, you really are trying to help him snuff it in, aren't you?"
"What?" Arthur said, surprise evident on his features. "I've heard he wasn't in the best frame of mind and that he might not be fully mentally... there... but not that he was trying to end his own life! Surely, if I'd known that, I would've been more cautious!"
"What good is it NOW?!" Audrey asked acerbically before she pushed the door open.
Audrey had expected to find many things, but not this.
She found Percy curled up against his long bed, head buried into a crocheted pillow. There were definitely tear streaks evident on his pallid cheeks. He was clinging so tightly onto the pillow, the thing might've suffocated. Percy's hair, gelled back as of recent, was back to its usual flat and uninspired state that Audrey had seen when they first met. He'd probably only recently properly fell asleep from the looks of things.
Arthur's wand was on the other side of the room, snapped beyond repair.
Audrey collapsed beside him, tucking a loose strand of dull red hair behind his ear.
"Oh, Percy," she crouched down to his eyelevel, turning to pull blankets over his frame. "Why are you such a self-destructive prat?"
She wouldn't have blamed him if he'd done something with the blasted hunk of magical wood, but he'd... done nothing, except 'fix' his hair like he'd insisted he needed to do for months now.
He'd done nothing, and a big part of Audrey was beaming with pride. The other one felt absolutely dreadful. How hard must it been for him to resist doing something to himself? She, yet again, felt angry at Arthur for even putting Percy in this situation in the first place... but this was really masking the anger she had for herself. She should've been there with him. With the twins, she'd barely ever left him! Nowadays, however, hours could pass by and she wouldn't have heard a whisper from him. Sometimes, meal times would pass without her even having an inkling of a clue how he was doing. And it wasn't because he was getting any better; she was just becoming more negligent! And what was going on in that little head of his? He must've noticed! Even Lucy had noticed that she was seeing Percy less and less and...
Audrey eyed him, pressing a warm hand against his cold cheek. He moved away from her instantly, turning away so that she was met with his back. From the corner of her eye, she watched Arthur pick up his battered wand pieces and pocket them.
Audrey moved forward and pulled open his mouth as gingerly as possible, noticing the small flecks of red spots on the roof of his mouth. Arthur was right. He did try to scratch his mouth out somehow.
Percy tore his face to one side, opening his weary blue eyes. He did not look amused.
"Audrey, are you inspecting my oral cavity before you dive in for a snog?" he mumbled in irritation, closing his eyes again and letting out a yawn.
"I'm inspecting your oral cavity because you've happened to scratch it to bits," Audrey herself wasn't very amused. "Percy, what in Rowena's name did you think you were doing?"
Percy kept his eyes closed. "I didn't attempt to harm myself. I was..." his voice started to drift off.
"You better have a good reason for this," warned Audrey. "Of all the moronic things you've done to harm yourself since you've left that Godric-forsaken ward—"
"Yes, I do. Again, this was not my attempt at harming myself," he replied almost automatically, pulling the blankets above his frame again. He kept his eyes closed as he explained, "Seeing my father has put me into a state of despair. I recalled a few memories that have happened in the ward. I happened to recall a particularly unpleasant memory and the memory happened to be vivid enough that I had decided to make a fool of myself in front of my father. I was... attempting to pull a tarantula out of my mouth. I know that I seem to be nostalgic about the ward, as I tend to find myself recalling memories of it at all times and I seem to do all I can to give people reasons to throw me back in there."
Audrey wanted to kill him for his poor excuse of a joke. "A tarantula?" she echoed.
"Yes," Percy replied; voice apathetic. "A nurse did make me swallow one before. It is not quite the best memory, hence me attempting to shove the blasted thing out of my... oh, Audrey, just let me sleep."
Audrey nodded her head, placing a hand on his shoulder. She leaned down to peck his cheek.
He seemed to have fallen back asleep already. She then remembered that she should probably wake him up for dinner, but knowing Molly, she was going to make sure he had dinner, probably with someone because the interaction with other people seemed very sporadic and lacking in substance.
She looked up to see Molly and Arthur standing there, both with unreadable expressions.
Audrey wasn't quite done yelling at Arthur, but his wand was torn to bits... and he would never have a wand that was as compatible as this. There was also the fact that Arthur didn't seem to be complaining about it.
"You must think that I'm terrible for even allowing this to happen to my child in the first place," Molly suddenly said to Audrey.
"No," Audrey responded honestly. "It sounds like you think that you're terrible for allowing this to happen to your child in the first place."
Molly nodded her head. "I feel like I'm doing something wrong here, that I'm just not taking care of him like I'm supposed to. I don't know how to just make him snap back, if there is a way to even do such a thing. I feel terrible for just wanting him to wake up and be... just himself again. It isn't really possible with whatever happened in that ward, is it? We're just stuck with... having to attempt to cope with this?"
Audrey cleared the lump in her throat. "I hope not," she genuinely answered. "I'm sorry, Mrs Weasley, but if he doesn't make any proper progress soon and stop with consistently trying to hack his own body parts, I'm taking this child and Lucy and I'm leaving. I can't..."
She swallowed the lump in his throat. "I can't live like this forever," she tried to explain. "And I'd rather not have my children ever have to witness Percy post self-mutilation."
Molly flinched. Arthur stayed silent.
"I want to tell you that you can't do that to him, that you shouldn't but..." Molly sounded conflicted. "I can't. I mean I have to deal with him. He's my son after all. I can't just let him... but what can I really do? I just feel like...I don't quite really know. I love him, but—"
"Well, I am quite sorry that you have to deal with me," Audrey's heart stopped. It was like she was having a proper nightmare play out right in front of her. Every body part of her was frozen as a tired looking Percy stared at them with a look that could've turned anyone to stone. He was asleep just seconds ago! What was he doing here? "You lot should really decide on what you want to do with me. You refuse to let me end my life or allow me to harm myself, but you're not quite acting like you value my life very much at the moment."
And she could say nothing as she watched Percy turn around and storm off back into the shed.