"Now, you've packed all your things?" Arthur asked. "All your books, your cauldron, your robes?"

"Eleven-year-old Percy nodded. "I triple-checked!"

"And you're not going to mess with Peeves? You're not going to go running around at night? I don't have to worry about you running around in the forbidden forest because 'ooh Dad I heard a rumor about a cool dragon living there and I wanted to see it?'" Charlie's forbidden forest escapade at the end of last year had earned him a howler.

Percy shook his head. "You don't have to worry about me, Dad! I aim to follow every rule at Hogwarts." A train whistle blew. c

"You'd better get on board." Arthur hugged his son. "You'll be all right, dear."

Percy scrambled aboard the train followed by Charlie and then by Bill, who was adjusting his prefect's badge. He waved before disappearing down the corridor.

Arthur woke up disoriented, believing for a moment that he was still standing on platform nine and three quarters, the summer sun flooding in through the roof as his three oldest sons boarded the train. He remembered it all now—Percy's excited little face, Charlie trying—and failing—to impress a girl he fancied, Fred and George putting love potions in Percy's trunk for him to find later along with a note that read, "you'll need these if you want to get the girl of your dreams."

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up, remembering that it was the present day, that his wife had been sobbing uncontrollably for the past several days, and Percy was flirting with death in a hospital bed. It was probably the only kind of flirting Percy had done.

"Molly?" Arthur rolled over and looked at his wife. "Mollywobbles?" A loud sob was her only reply. "Molly. I'm going to head over to St. Mungo's soon. Are you coming, or do you need time?"

"Need time." Molly choked out.

"All right, dear." Arthur patted her on the back. "I'll be back later. I'll let you know if there's any updates, all right?"

Molly's reply was another sob.

Arthur slipped out of the house as its occupants were waking up and apparated away to St. Mungo's. Healer Perkins was there when he arrived, scribbling notes in Percy's chart. "How is he?" Arthur asked.

"No changes." Healer Perkins replied. "Which is a good sign. If the potion wasn't working we'd start seeing signs of decline."

"Ah." Arthur bit his lip.

"You look troubled, Mr. Weasley. This is good news."

"I know, I know. Look, Percy and I weren't exactly on good terms before the attack on the ministry." That was the understatement of the century. "I don't know what I'll say to him when he does wake up."

"I'm sure you'll think of something." Healer Perkins scribbled a final note on her clipboard and hurried away to see her other patients.

Arthur sat down in the chair by the bed and tried to absorb the knowledge that Percy would likely be waking up and that he would be forced to talk it out with his family—from what Healer Perkins had told them, Percy would be in now condition to get up and walk out when he woke up. Which meant that Arthur would have to listen to the twisted logic of Percy's mind and likely endure another round of insults. If he was being honest with himself, he wasn't quite ready to forgive Percy. He couldn't forget the venom in Percy's voice, the accusations and insults that had been slung at him.

But it didn't matter. He had to forgive Percy, for Molly's sake, for the family's sake. If he tore the family apart now, he would be no better than Percy. Arthur got up and began to pace. Parenthood required one to put aside one's pride—the first time he'd been puked on, the first time he'd been body-slammed by a toddler on a broomstick, the first time he'd gotten down on all fours and let the boys ride him like a horse, the first time he'd let himself be roasted by a seven-year-old who thought they had discovered peak comedy—all those times he'd put aside his pride and let himself look ridiculous. He'd had to put aside a whole lot of his pride the first time he'd had to attend a parent-teacher meeting to discuss Fred and George's behavior. It had been unpleasant to admit that his parenting had not been enough to keep those two in check. This was no different, right?

He sat back down, letting his shoulders slump. The wait was killing him. He simply needed answers. He needed to know whether to put his pride aside once more or to see about getting a plot in the family graveyard ready.

He would have slumped over completely, but the sound of footsteps caught his ears.

Arthur looked up, surprised to see Charlie coming in. "What are you doing here?"

"I needed to get out of the house. The Delacours are nice people and all, but they're so . . . French. It's exhausting. Harry and Ron are still teaching Gabrielle quidditch and one of them threw a quaffle through the kitchen window earlier. I get anxiety when I talk to Hermione because the only thing she wants to talk about is current events. I don't even know how to begin to talk to Mum right now. I figured I'd find some peace and quiet here."

Arthur raised his eyebrows. Charlie had never been one for peace and quiet—he worked on a dragon range, for Merlin's sake. He must have been more affected by Percy's situation than he let on.

"So how is he?" Charlie asked. "I didn't have plans to ever speak to him again, but if he dies then it opens a whole new can of flobberworms."

"No changes, which is a good sign." Arthur said. "Which means he's more likely to wake up, which means some of us will have to speak to him again."

"And what would you say to him?" Charlie was fiddling with the vase of flowers on the nightstand that Molly had brought in the day before.

"I don't know." Arthur said. "I don't know. I keep thinking back to the row we had with him, how he called me a fool with no ambition who was content to let his kids grow up in poverty. I know we weren't rich, but I think you kids had everything you needed."

"We did. Everything and more."

"And, you know, if he hasn't changed then we just send him back to whatever box in London he's living in. But if he wants to apologize—"

"I wouldn't bet on it."

"If he wants to apologize, then I want to forgive him. I have to. But I don't know if can. I don't know if I have it in me."

"Of course you do. You've forgiven us for loads of dumb things. Didn't I call you a cruel overlord one time?" Charlie was tilting his chair back on two legs, anxious to avoid his father's eyes as he recounted his past mistakes.

"You did. I remember that."

Charlie shrugged. "You forgave me for that."

"You were fourteen." Arthur said. "You were fourteen and upset that I wouldn't let you go on a summer internship to the dragon range in Romania and get yourself killed. Percy was eighteen, going on nineteen. He knew what he was doing."

"Eighteen is plenty young and dumb." Charlie countered. "When I was eighteen, my mates and I mixed fire whiskey and vodka—we called it fire-vod-skey—and then played quidditch completely wasted. I would never do something so stupid now."

"Ah." Arthur pushed his glasses back up his nose. "Let's, uh, maybe not tell your mother about the fire-vod-skey. But that's a fair point. I forget that people do a lot of maturing between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. I was just thinking I need to put aside my pride for a bit and suck it up and forgive him. It's something that happens when you have children—you have to take a lot of insults. It's part of the job."

"I'm not planning to have children." Charlie said. "They're noisy and sticky and they smell weird."

"A good decision." Arthur muttered. "It would certainly preserve your sanity."

"Anyway, Mum also sent me here to ask if you want to come home for lunch." Charlie said. "And then she'll come back here with you afterwards."

"Yes, I will come home for lunch."

"I won't tell her about you not wanting to forgive Percy if you don't tell her about the fire-vod-skey."

"Deal."