Percy hadn't had a chance to eat even a little bit of stew, so after his parents had gone to bed he went back down to the kitchen to find something to eat. There was a strong smell of skunk in the kitchen emanating from Charlie, who was sitting at the kitchen table with a bong.

"Mum doesn't like it when you imbibe illicit substances in the house." Percy said. "You shouldn't do that, at least not inside."

"Mum doesn't like it when you disown the family." Charlie replied in an even tone. "You probably shouldn't do that either."

"For the record, my disowning the family may actually bring about some good." Percy opened the fridge, only to find it empty of stew. Ron must have eaten all of it earlier.

"Oh yeah? I will say, the good it did me is that I went two years without hearing a single thing about cauldron bottoms."

"No, something for the greater, common good." Percy went for one of the pies that his mother kept making. Blueberry. "I was junior assistant to three ministers. Cornelius Fudge, Rufus Scrimgeour, and Pius Thicknesse." he ticked them off on his fingers, ignoring Charlie's eyeroll. "By the time we got to Thicknesse, he completely trusted me because of my exemplary track record. I knew where he went and who he associated with. Now Minister Shacklebolt wants me to use what I know to help track down remaining death eaters."

"Ah." Charlie took a hit from the bong. "So you disowning the family and making Mum cry all worked out in the end because now you can kill death eaters? You know, you could've just helped kill death eaters if you'd stayed with us."

"Actually, we wouldn't have so much insider information about Thicknesse if I'd stayed with the family."

"I also would've had to spend a lot more time listening to you talk about yourself, so there are tradeoffs here." Charlie took another hit from the bong. Percy glared at him but didn't say anything, only leaned against the counter and began eating the pie. Silence fell. Percy watched as Charlie fiddled with the bong, trying to pretend his younger brother wasn't in the room. Percy sighed and began eating a little louder, clinking the fork against the plate. The awkward silence was worse than the argument they'd been having, and he would have to get Charlie to stop ignoring him.

Charlie continued ignoring the clinking fork, so Percy changed tack. He put the plate down. "So, uh . . ." he muttered. "What the heck was that, earlier?"

"What was what?" Charlie asked.

"Charlie, is your mind really so addled by that disgusting herb that you don't remember the huge screaming spat we all had at dinner?"

"Can you get through one sentence without insulting me and my hobbies?"

Percy raised an eyebrow. "Can you get through one sentence without holding my past mistakes over me?"

"Fine. The thing earlier. The spat at dinner. You know, so much crap happens in this house that I sometimes can't keep it straight." Charlie was right. Ever since the battle—no, ever since Fred's funeral—they'd all been on edge. They had held it together until after the funeral, then after that had started snapping at each other over small things. Tonight's spat had been the biggest, though.

"Well, I—" Percy started to say, but Charlie cut him off.

"You couldn't just sit down and give Mum some space, could you? You had to jump in and insert your abnormally large nose into everyone's business and somehow get the entire family upset!" He broke off, breathing heavily. "No, it's not your fault, it's that Mum's been a lot more sensitive to every little thing. You were trying to help. Still, you couldn't have listened to her?"

"It's not my fault she's sensitive about every little thing!" Percy snapped.

"No, wait, it's . . . hear me out, because I'm really, really high right now." Charlie said. Percy sniffed in disgust. "What? It helps me feel better. At least my coping mechanism isn't work. Anyway, I think what's going on is that we're all taking it out on you. We're mad at Voldemort because Fred is dead, but Voldemort's dead too so we can't take out our anger on him. We can take it out on you, though, since you're right here and you're easy to get mad at."

"Excuse me?"

"Come on, Percy, we all know it's easy to get mad at you. You walked out on us for two years, then just waltzed back in like everything was fine. You didn't even get punished for what you said to Dad. Now you're all excited about work when our brother is dead. If I'm gonna be angry at someone, it's gonna be you."

"Work helps me." Percy said. "The routine of things calms me down."

Charlie raised an eyebrow. "You want to take a hit from the bong? You could use something to loosen you up."

"No. I told you, I don't do substances. Back to what you were saying—what am I supposed to do, just sit here while everyone takes out their misplaced anger on me? I can't do that."

"Couldn't you?" Charlie asked. "We're all grieving. The least you can do is hang tight and not cause more trouble about this until things get better."

"I am not a family punching bag, Charlie."

"I never said you were! I'm just saying, we're all grieving so you shouldn't get too mad at us if we take stuff out on you. You getting mad just makes things worse."

"I'm grieving too. Fred was my brother too."

"You sure didn't act like it."

"He was the first person to offer his hand to me when I came back. I was the first person to run to him after . . . after he . . ." Percy tossed his plate into the sink with more force than was necessary, its edge chipping as it hit bottom. "Don't talk to me until you're ready to apologize for what you said." With that, he turned and dashed back up the stairs.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Percy Weasley knew he'd hit rock bottom. He thought he'd been at a rock bottom many times before—like the time in his seventh year at Hogwarts when he'd subsisted off nothing but strong tea, or the early days in his very own flat with instant noodles and no one to talk to. How foolish he'd been, since it turned out the bottom could always drop lower.

Percy knew his place in the broken, tangled web of the family was tenuous at best, but things got markedly worse after the fight over dinner and the subsequent argument with Charlie. Molly drifted even further into obsessively mothering her grown children, buying more yarn and making more food and giving them more tea. However, her children seemed to be finding any excuse to wiggle out from under her oppressive presence.

Ron and Hermione departed for Australia at the end of May. Apparently it was to find Hermione's parents, whom she had memory-charmed the previous summer and then made them believe that their life's ambition was to move to that godforsaken country. Percy wanted to commend Hermione on her forward-thinkingness, but he held his tongue. He was unsure how she felt about him and didn't want to cause another row.

Harry left soon after Ron and Hermione did, saying that he was going to a small town on the coast to spend some time for himself after everything he'd been through. The Weasleys bade him a gentle goodbye and let him go, even Ginny, who Percy had thought might cry or beg him to stay. Harry hugged her tightly and promised he would come back for her before the summer was over, and Ginny simply nodded him and told to write her.

As June progressed, the house felt remarkably empty. Bill came around less and less since the blowout with Percy and Ron. Percy envied him, tucked away in a little cottage with his beautiful wife, away from the mess that was his family. Percy thought about moving out to his own place, but he was afraid of how it would reflect on him. He was different from golden boy Bill, and moving out to one's place looked very different when you had a large black mark on your early adult years. He didn't want to do anything that resembled his actions from when he'd walked out on the family, so he stayed.

Charlie stayed too. He'd managed to finagle his way into even more time off, explaining that his boss could be persuaded with a large package of sugar quills, which you couldn't get in Romania. He'd then claimed that he would be a bad son if he left his parents and Ginny alone with no one but Percy and George for company. He never spoke directly to Percy, preferring to ask their mum to tell him things. She'd picked up on this and tried to interrogate them on multiple occasions, but Charlie only said that Percy was being a stubborn ass and Percy would only tell her that Charlie owed him an apology.

Percy was, for the most part, alone. He didn't try talking to his father, who for the most part was still catatonic in that damned armchair. He had no idea how to broach any topic with his dad at a time like this, considering they hadn't always gotten along during the best of times. Ginny was finding any excuse to be out of the house and spent a lot of time over at Luna Lovegood's. Charlie and Percy weren't on speaking terms and Bill and Ron were never around. George spoke to no one. Most days the only person who spoke to him was his mother, usually when she tried to stuff an entire pie down his throat at dinner.

Work was the only thing that was halfway normal. Percy had dug up his old diary, translated his ridiculously complicated code, finished compiling information about Thicknesse, and was now helping the auror department pursue possible leads for dark wizards who were still unaccounted for. He also helped Kingsley rebuild the government. The minister had been right about a lack of qualified, capable adults, and now there were quite a lot of younger people with less experience being promoted to leadership roles. One was Cressida Lee, who had been Head Girl when Percy was Head Boy, now promoted to head of the Improper Use of Magic office to replace the death eater who had previously held the role. They were also trying to hire people fresh out of Hogwarts, mostly people from Ron's year, including Seamus Finnegan, Terry Boot, Hannah Abbott, and Ernie MacMillan. Percy wondered if Ron had any plans to go back and finish school, but he did not want to broach that subject with anyone in the family right now.

Percy kept a calendar in his office, and one day he crossed off the day and realized it was the last day of June. Tomorrow would be the first of July, and after that would be two months since the battle. Two months since . . . no. Percy shook himself. He wouldn't think about that right now. The last month, things had slowly been looking up at work. Now if only he could get things to look up with the family.

The next day Percy got permission to come home early from work. He wasn't exactly sure how he was going to help his family, but he had an idea of where to start. He picked the easiest target, his mother.

"You're home early." she said as she let him in. "Are you ok? You're not sick?"

"I'm fine, Mum. I asked Minister Shacklebolt for some time off work today."

"Really?" Molly would've been less surprised if he'd told her he wanted to become a tap dancer. "But you never—and I mean never—ask for time off work!"

"Well, tomorrow is two months since the battle. And two months since Fred—two months since we said goodbye to him. I was thinking maybe we could go for a walk. Maybe visit his grave, leave some flowers. I don't know, I'm just spitballing."

"Oh, Percy!" She wiped away some tears. "I think that's such a sweet idea. Hold on, let my get my walking shoes. Arthur, Percy and I are going to visit Fred's grave. Would you like to come?"

"Huh?" Arthur looked up. "No. No. I need to stay here, I . . ."

"Suit yourself." Percy said. "After you, Mum." He pulled the door open.

"Thank you, sweetheart." Molly led the way down the path into the village. It was a beautiful summer day, the sky a sweet high-strung blue, the temperature balmy and warm. Wildflowers bloomed along the flanks of the path. As they walked Molly picked wildflowers and rambled on about when the children were small, how they'd used to play in the fields of flowers. Percy smiled and nodded and chimed in as needed. He, like all his siblings, had mastered the art of talking to Mum when she was in one of her sentimental moods. The key was to smile and nod and reply just often enough to make it seem like you were still interested.

Fred's grave was in the churchyard in the village, tucked away in a corner under the spreading branches of a willow tree. They'd all been too preoccupied at the funeral to notice how nice the spot was, but now as Percy looked around he realized that it looked like quite a comfortable place to rest. Standing in front of the grave, Percy carefully aimed his wand and conjured a wreath of flowers.

"Oh, lovely, Percy." Molly said. "But I think I'm going to do a wreath the muggle way. My mum taught me how when I was little. Here, hold these." She passed Percy some of her wildflowers and began tying the stems of the others around each other. "Here, why don't you help me?"

"Mum, I don't even know how to make a daisy chain."

"Here, let me show you." She pushed the stem of a yellow flower into his hands. "Now take the stem and wrap it around this one. Now take the end and thread it through—you see? Then you can keep adding flowers the same way."

"Like this?" Percy took a purple flower and clumsily wrapped it around the others the way she'd shown him.

"Yes, just like that."

Percy paused to look at her. She was holding the the flowers, her face lit by the dappled sunlight coming through the branches. The smile on her face was the first real one he'd seen in a long time. She finished weaving the flower wreath together and held out for a moment, admiring her handiwork, before placing it next to the wreath Percy had conjured. Hand shaking, she reached out and gently patted the corner of the headstone. "There you go, Freddie. All decked out for summer." Percy turned away before she started crying again.