Chapter Text
Percy thought as though he’d personally accosted his subconscious in an alley. As if he were alone in a ballroom and requested a dance. It was fickle, his mind, something twisted and grotesque and nothing like his exterior. If he were to ask someone, his brothers - Bill or Charlie, maybe, ask Penelope on a bad day, they would say-
“…he’s a bit straight-laced, too far in his own mind to see what’s in front of him.”
Ron would call him a prat and be on his way, but beggars can’t be choosers.
The fact was, the war in Percy’s mind was not fought in silence. It was a loud, sprawling thing - a monster of trumpets and teeth, that shattered against the pink flesh of his skull as it clambered onto his thoughts. It chased with speed it could not possess and wrenched apart just as fast, scrambling to connect back together. The scars that lined the edge of his brain were mottled, twisted with time and barely healed before they were torn up over and over again and again and again and-
Hm.
The week after Bill turned fifteen, his mother taught him to tend to the chickens.
He was distantly aware that the food on the table and the rabble who ate it had all grown up in the same place, same home. They fed them grain from the sack he had fought tooth and nail for at the market, blustered through some sort of deal where he fumbled over his words and harboured it home, weighed him down heavier with the guilt he couldn’t chew through a few easy sentences to smart a better price.
He never understood why the market men couldn’t just take pity for once, have his father talk his ear off about-
“…too many galleons spent on a bit of grain, Percy, seriously, we’ll have to send Ginny with you next time, they just adore her.”
And they would still send him alone next time, but-
-but, it hadn’t occurred to him, at all really, how the chickens outside were the same as the leg on his plate at supper.
Really, really stupid, Perce. Really.
So, you could ask him anything, and he would try to get it done. He had always been good like that, always eager to please.
“Chop the carrots, Percy!”
It would be done.
“Go help your brothers with the Gnomes, Percy? There’s a good boy.”
He would grumble, of course, muster less than half of what Bill could throw, but still, it would be done.
“Perce, you have to get Fred and George to stop, they’ve taken my gobstones and you know they haven’t got the brains in there to actually play, so they must be doing something. Percy, please, they won’t listen. You need to distract one of them at least, and I’ll grab them so quick you won’t even see me. You’ve always been my favourite brother, just tell them to stop being such annoying PRI-“
Okay. Maybe not so much done. Maybe more of an attempt to tell his mum and stay away from the twin’s pig headedness and avoid being called a nosy ponce, but still… he would try to do … something.
But chickens?
Well. Mum had said-
“Percy’s going to help with the chickens today, aren’t you love?”
But that was the first he’d heard about it, watched the way the words tumbled from her mouth, dropped onto the table with a heavy thunk, mocked by his sister, ginger tuft bent down in her toast.
He still had his nightshirt on, for Merlin’s sake, he felt more preoccupied with his plate than anything else - he wouldn’t have said he was wolfing down his food, but then again, he didn’t think he would look amiss amongst the table.
“Good lad,” Dad had replied, “Big enough now, aren’t you?”
Yeah. He had felt himself flush at that, stark against his pale complexion, following his freckles as they curled a trail up his ears. Not as if his father’s praise wasn’t a regular occurrence, far from it, but it was easy to get lost in the noise amongst the bustle of seven children.
Only when Bill slapped him on the back in the middle of his bacon, giggling at his misfortune when it splattered across the table, did the thought come to him to reply.
Eloquent as always.
“Huh?”
“The chickens, Percy, love, your brothers are going to need your help.”
She attempted a glance, shifting her head slightly to gesture towards them; a huddle of lanky limbs awkwardly bent into their breakfast, all half-lidded and drool.
It had done nothing to hide her mirth when she chanced a look back to him, which seemed to creep into the lines of her cheeks as though it belonged there.
His mother, Percy thought. The devil.
“Yeah, Perce, they’re gonna need you for sure!”
“Gotta wrangle them down and…and-
“-clean up the muck?”
“-defend Charlie when they come back to life and start to attack him”
“Yeah! Huh? Wait, hang on, why am I the one-“
“-Well, it would be you… Wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t be Bill that’s for sure-“
“You won’t be doing any of that,” his mum snapped, falling back into her chair with a harsh creak, little patience for the mess she had caused. “It’s something we all have to learn. There’s a spell later, simple too, so you’ll pick it up. Ahh, but not for a couple of years, I suppose?”
He hadn’t even finished his bacon. Stunned to silence, he watched as Charlie plucked it right from his plate, following his fingers as he wiped the grease onto his pyjamas.
His hands were bigger, for sure, full of the strength of an almost thirteen-year-old, readily equipped to tend to the chickens, he thought distantly, already scarred from his many attempts to climb the big oak in the yard, surely he didn’t need Percy’s help? Surely two people would be enough. He was already so good at pulling the weeds and collecting the eggs, he could fare much better at the market and could accompany his mum to practice.
Though when he tried to convey this to her, his eyes desperate with silent pleas, it went unnoticed.
That, or his mum was ignoring him to make him suffer terribly.
She had that tendency sometimes.
“We’ll go to the back in a minute, finish your food and wash up.”
***
Maybe it had taken Percy longer than necessary to scrub his face, making sure to fasten his belt with precision when he pulled on Bill’s old trousers. It didn’t help that Fred had thrown one of his boots over the sofa, and he had to clamber right over him to get it, making sure to kick him in his mouth on the way back over.
“Don’t let them nip you,” he’d laughed.
“Heard they get ya headless!” George followed, blurting a mix of barbs and chicken calls until he stomped out the door, forgetting he was meant to be taking his respectable time in the first place.
Stupid, stupid Perce.
Anyway.
Percy remembered, distantly, that it was cold, with a light crunch on the green when he ventured over, and he could almost see the thin gleam of frost starting to seep through the holes in his socks to slink sharply around his toes. The apprehension settled around his chest just the same, scorched in a fever chill on his skin as he bundled back onto the dirt towards the pen.
He’d tried to brush it off. Stupid Perce, you’ve gotta eat somehow - but it was too late. The worry had wormed its way in, cracked apart the hollow in his chest until it was open and gaping, buried amongst his beating-beating heart to make a home under the small of his ribs as he battled with the wind around him.
He couldn’t breathe , he thought, delirious, which was so stupid when he could feel the whole world passing through him.
He looked to the clouds, his hope fleeting with the attempt to catch a glimpse of something bright slinking its way to the sky, hiding amongst them - only to come back with the weariness of murky grey settling between his lashes, creasing canals beneath his eyes- the taste of rain on his tongue, a shudder of thunder roiling across his belly and crashing down through his chest.
Hm.
Nothing for him. He carried on walking.
Percy’s scarf began to scratch as he drew closer, digging little slithers into his neck for him to trace later, poke pockmarks out of the indents. He felt it burn all the way down as he stomped shallow water onto the hems of his trousers. Burned worse than his nails when he scratched and scratched underneath his chin. Bill was growing a beard; he thought, maybe this was how it felt. It wouldn’t take much to take his scarf off, fold it nicely, only to shove it in his pocket. He didn’t, though.
Wind-tinged nose scrubbed pink in the breeze, fingers curled like mittens in the sleeve of his jumper. He kept his scarf on and walked off to find his mum, like it was a death sentence, and hoped he could find some air for his lungs on the way.
Once he reached the pen, he realised he might have been able to pester Charlie for a warming charm. But he wasn’t so good at those, maybe he should have swallowed his pride and asked his father, but-
“Come on then, Perce. We haven’t got all day.”
Right.
He followed Mum into the centre of the coop and scuffed the ground when he had to duck. He wasn’t personal with any of the chickens; they didn’t have names, and he couldn’t differentiate their little faces except for the one Ron had taken a liking to a couple of months back. He called it Susan ‘for a laugh’ but hadn’t had any qualms with those his mum had already picked for supper later that week.
Even still, Percy closed his eyes and gave himself a moment to press the heels of his hands blunt into his eyelids, dug until the little black smudges danced prettily across his view, tinged blue-purple-pink like some gnarly bruise his brothers would get fighting. Maybe that’s what it is, he had thought.
Fighting for his breath as he fought for supper, maybe that’s what muggles did, but he wasn’t so sure. That didn’t sound right to him.
When he looked back up, his mother was wielding an axe.
The sight made him snort, shocked, and he struggled to choke down the bout of hysterics clawing up his throat.
“I don’t see what’s so funny.” But she was smiling too, lugging around something half her size as though it was Ginny in a tizzy over her shoulder. The thought sent him keeling over, hands on his thighs.
He was laughing, they were laughing, giggles smattered down upon the hay.
“No way are we using that, mum!”
“There’s nothing else for it, Percy, love. What would you have me use? Ginny’s hairpin?”
It stopped him short; a vice hand crushing his lungs. That wasn’t so funny, really.
Gin had thrown it in his face last week when she had one of her tantrums, nicked him right over the nose, and it cut him something nasty. He felt blood on his lips, blood on his hands, smudged on his cheek, a ruddy brown where it had dried over.
Mum had found him sulking and used an episkey, which hurt him twice as bad with his pride wounded. There was no scar, it healed over lovely, but he could still feel it writhing beneath his skin.
Fred and George had laughed at him, hauled Ginny atop their shoulders in celebration.
Percy retreated to the bathroom and washed his hands. Twice.
He scratched around it again before he’d even thought up a response-
“But can’t you just teach me the spell on your wand? Surely it shouldn’t be that difficult? I- I’ll practice when I go to Hogwarts, Mum, you know that I will.”
“And end up with you chopping your fingers off when you can’t get the movement right? No. I think you’ll fare just fine, Merlin knows Charlie and Bill do.”
“It looks heavy.”
“You held it just fine chopping firewood-”
“Can’t we do it another day? It’s a bit chilly and-“
“Like it won’t be cold for the rest of the year? Percy, we’re not on our travels!”
“Ahh, well, actually I’m not really feeling chicken for tea- yeah. Though I love that recipe you do Mum, you know with the pastry whi-“
“When are any of you not in the mood for chicken? It’s like feeding a horde of bloody crups! Don’t think I can’t see what you’re doing-“
“But mum-“
“Enough! You’ll have to learn eventually Percy, it might take a couple of hours at most. You can help your brothers later and we’ll have a lovely roast for tea. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, mum.”
All for his supper. How bleak.
She handed it to him. Though he’d held that wretched thing a hundred times over, it immediately felt different between his fingers. An amalgamation of metal and mud carved into some kind of monstrosity atop his skin, and he could feel the way the wood sank through the rivers on his palm till it hit bone.
Percy had sworn he could see it then, each knuckle a pullet feather, threatening to snap beneath the weight.
His hands were shaking something terrible. Blood and bone coursed hot, pumping through his veins, and he felt the urge to itch those too, as though he could scratch his nails through broken skin and peel it off without reluctance. Peel it all away, layer by layer. He could rip down to reveal a mess of pink, dark and sweet like fresh mulberries in summer, staining his lips, his tongue, his teeth crimson with the weight of it all if he just sank his canines into the flesh underneath. Settle his aching jaw into the brittle rind, pushing and pushing till he hit the marrow.
Maybe that would taste right, he thought, better than chicken - he’d suppose. But they were shaking, and he was itching, and there was nothing for it.
He pretended not to notice.
As if he could power through his stupid, trembling hands with a harsh glare. He clenched down on his jaw with a sharp and shaky breath, desperate for any kind of reprieve.
Stupid, stupid Perce.
Did his mother even notice? She barely blinked when the handle slipped through his thighs and danced a quick back-and-forth onto the hay. She smiled, a crinkle upon her brow, when she clasped his fingers between her own.
“You’ll do just fine, Percy, really.”
Did she know? Something nasty was rising through him, like bile creeping quickly up his throat. It coated the back of his teeth, soot black, stuck to his gums, rolled the taste around his mouth until it caught between his teeth, pushed it back to his cheek and held it there till he broke soft skin with its maw.
And he smiled.
“Of course, mum, I won’t disappoint.”
The tremor was persistent, twice-fold haunting his fingertips and scratching at his nails when he settled them around the handle. A slight twitch of his fingers.
Almost nothing. Almost perfect.
Itching. Itching. Itching .
He felt it clawing within him, scratching and biting through his neck before sinking into the pit of his stomach and ripping him open inside. It would scar, he thought, if you cracked him open and peered inside, it would scar.
And he could do nothing but let it.
Words passed through him like a blur, the feeling thick and soupy as they made their way up to his brain. It still rattled around him just the same. Rattled his lungs, rattled his mind.
He knew his mother had explained it twice already, heading carefully to her third. She guided him through the steps, her voice calm and steady, but still no more than a whisper in his mind, as he lifted the hilt above his shoulders and swung it down softly.
It wasn’t real, but soon it would be, he knew. As sure as a fishhook in his skin, he knew.
Her hands slid themself between the wings of his shoulder blades, lying flat and firm on his back with a warm comfort only his mum could possess in such biting cold. He expected them to stay there, and leant into the warmth like it was some creature comfort. Made it just that more devastating when she pulled away, pushing him forward slightly in the same breath.
It caught him off guard, feeling the heat seep out and away, buzzing between his shoulders, his ears- savage his teeth, his knuckles, his chest, his throat, all of it itching and itching.
There was a bird below him, Percy realised, though it was blurry and distorted as something wet slid down the bridge of his nose.
He sniffed and rubbed beneath his glasses with the back of his sleeve.
Pressed the metal cool and sturdy to his eyebrow.
Just for a moment.
Let it cut him ever so slightly.
The axe swung above him.
And hit.
He hit he hit he hit he hit he-
He hit, and there was blood under his nails again. Fresh and red and bright like the sun he never saw. There was blood and there was blood and it slid thick down his thighs and drove him full force to his knees, thumping when he hit the dirt. It wrecked his skin, dark and heavy, that ate away at his muscles. Relentless.
The blood was rotten. Rotten and rotten and writhing. It was inside of him, somehow, sat thick in the centre of his stomach, and he needed to cut it out. Hold himself down and gut him open. Until all the rot and mould poured out. Stupid boy, stupid thing, struck with the feeling of blood beneath his nails that he had to wash off.
Percy was being held. His mother was holding him. And he didn’t know how he got there, cradled tight to her bosom like he was some breakable thing- maybe he was - feather knuckles he said, maybe that’s all he was. Stuffed with feathers, stuffed with cotton and left in the dirt to rot with a stupid twitching— he couldn’t breathe-
Oh Merlin.
The chicken, that thing with its head a mile away from its body, twitched and shuddered atop the hay. His mother pressed his face to the crook of her neck, and he felt her pulse rapid through the sweat on her skin. Maybe he put his own head there? He wasn’t so sure. His head felt stuffed, and blood howled between his eyes, rushed and rushed out of his ears.
Mum didn’t want him to see, he thought, watching it writhe as though struck by a crucio in the quiet of the morning breeze.
But he’d seen. He’d saw.
The twins laughed at him before he left.
“Don’t let ‘em scare you,” they’d said, “…can get ya headless!” and giggled like it was some funny joke.
But wasn’t, It wasn’t, It wasn’t.
It wasn’t.
The wings sat crooked, all wrong, he realised, the thought passing through him like sludge. It was bent and broken like someone had thrown it at the wall. Over and over.
He didn’t do that; he was certain.
He knew.
He thought.
Did he?
His mum would be so mad. He couldn’t tell, though. The thing that was not so much a chicken anymore, nothing more than a pile of bone, it spasmed and bled. Twitched around as if to call out, bleeding and begging with feathers alone. It clawed at the ground with the strength it had left and tried to peel away.
It’s heading to the door, he thought.
It had barely moved an inch.
Maybe it’s trying to see the sun .
Percy sobbed, and scratched at the red atop his head, scratched at his neck, scratched at his chest till someone took his hands away.
“Mum,” he said, he spat, choking over the blood in his lungs.
“Mum. Mum. Mum.”
But she couldn’t hear him, he couldn’t hear himself. He couldn’t breathe.
“Mum. It’s trying to see the sun.”
He scrambled over to pick it up, tried to move it out and over and towards the door. He wanted to move it away from the metal that left it there, away from streaming blood, burning, biting in the white-hot chill of the pen.
He tried and he tried, but someone held him back. Maybe it’s him , he’d thought, but he wasn’t so sure. That didn’t sound right.
“Mum, we- mum , it needs to see the sun- it needs to, i-it wants to- mum, it can’t see the sun. It can’t, it can’t-“
It was cloudy outside. The sky was a wall of grey painted in thick coats across his eyelids. Maybe its bones were feather-light too, maybe they were coated in wax and ready to break; ready to burn.
Maybe that was why it stopped, red and ruddy brown from the dirt below.
He was a lamb in his mother’s arms, held on so gently as he sobbed against her neck, voice strained, trailing into helpless heaves. His body all itch, itch, itch, his mother couldn’t scratch, lest her fingerprints be stained too. She spoke urgently into his ear, to breathe, to come back to her. Like he was ever there at all.
“Never again,” she soothed. “Don’t worry, Perce, I’ll fix you.” But his bones were brittle, snapped and misshapen. Could she episkey that?
They moved out and away, but his head was so dizzy and the world moved so fast, it stole his breath away, and he let it claw its way into the wind. It belonged there, he thought.
***
A week and a day after Bill’s fifteenth birthday, a bird sat in Percy’s chest.
He hadn’t told his mother, his father, or the mediwitch they scrambled to find. He didn’t tell his older brothers when they fretted him to bed. Never told Ron, or Ginny, or the twins, with all their attempts to make him smile. To make him feel normal again.
There was a bird spun of milk and fawn in the centre of his skull. It flapped its wings with every thought, splintered and frail as it writhed helplessly in the confines of his head.
His fingers felt stiff with burning blood and bile that seeped back grey with each attempt to wash his hands, scrubbed pretty under the heat of the bathroom tap and he let it run, just so, watched it shift under the rim of the faucet, collecting until it tipped over the edge and trickled into the tiles.
He shut it off when his socks became sodden - thought the rot might gather there instead.
He sank his fingers deep within the bowl until they puckered and wrinkled, and watched as it reaped the youth straight from his palms, frayed and tearing at the seams. His breath plucked straight from the cavity in his chest, straight from where that bird resided, and he let his fingers turn blue and stiff all over again.
***
Percy sat, far too grim-faced for sixteen, amongst the endless hordes of children crammed on thick wooden benches, shifty with the buzz of the new year. Pressed to sticky fingers and chattering voices, he was squashed so close they were nagging at his side, spilling over tables, into his pockets, worming their way off their chairs and edging closer to the front.
He didn’t think he could applaud any louder, any harder. His fingers would be red raw by the end of it all, but at least it seemed fitting to match his house colours. Despite his attempts, he was still drowned out as Ginny clambered down from her perch, brandishing her new crest, seeming so proud that, if he hadn’t heard the hat already, he would’ve guessed Gryffindor just by the look on her face.
He followed her surprise as she was scooped up and accosted by Fred and George on the way to their table, swinging her arms between them with giddy excitement. They pulled her closer, twin smiles when they dragged her in, only to be swallowed whole by the swarming mass of gold and crimson, and shuffled back to their rightful place.
He should go over, he thought, ruffle her hair and cradle her softly with his palms. He could have joined the celebration, but his hands were shaking, his cheeks aching at the sight of the blinding grin breaking across her face. That, and Ron was missing.
Ron was missing.
Not that anyone had noticed, or cared, he realised. He wouldn't want to ruin the moment. He couldn’t interrupt the celebration, and wouldn’t have dared to stop the little Ravenclaw who just got sorted in her stride.
But there was a bird inside his chest; half rotten with feathers and flesh still clinging to the round of its belly. With no mouth to squawk and no throat to swallow, he sat, silent.
Percy tucked his hands underneath his thighs and continued to applaud when needed, barely remembering to spare Ginny a proud glance as the hat continued.
He followed the stream of students out of the hall, picked out the redheads as his gaze flittered over and dismissed them just as quickly. His eyes wandered up and over to the professor's table, as though he might be hiding amongst their clinking glasses. He tried to catch their eyes, to no avail. Of course, they would never have noticed one student missing, of course .
He risked a look back, and panic clawed desperately at his skin as he craned his head to peer down the end of the table. Ron’s classmates were there, a bundle of bobbing heads. If he strained his eyes further, he could almost pick out a girl. Ron’s friend, he thought, he knew - a mess of dark curls and frantic eyes, shifting nervously under her sweat-plastered fringe. Her frown hid her crooked teeth, but with a pile of books already crammed haphazardly into the satchel looped under her arm, it had to be her. Hermione, was it?
She was smart, Ron had said, so she must've noticed her friend wasn't there, that his own brother wasn't there, probably already concocting a plan if he could remember what Ron had told him over Summer, and eager to discuss it all with Harry, but-
-he wasn’t there either. Harry wasn't there.
They were both missing.
Shit.
His breath began to scramble, shrivelling quickly from his grasp as if it had been stolen straight from his throat. How unfair, he thought, that Ron could be missing and that monster inside him could still keep him pinned in place. Flapping and flapping, until its wings beat into the space within his chest, leaving shards of itself within his lungs, clenched into his knuckles.
He choked and spluttered, and thanked his lucky stars when the cheers started up again; that there was food in front of him to occupy his shaking hands. He couldn’t bear to look at the plates, as flashes of Ron plagued his mind, with each scenario worse than the last.
He was hurt, he was trapped, he was dying, he was dead.
Maybe it had shown on his face, as much as he tried to force it away, because Oliver began to stare at him strangely, forming his words into something slow, laced with soft concern that ended with strong arms around his shoulders.
But his ears were ringing terribly, and the bird inside his head began to smash against the lining of his skull again and again and again-
Oh Merlin-
He let himself fall into Oliver’s shoulder and sank all his weight onto the hard mass of his side so he could gather himself together, piece by piece, feeling his steady inhale-exhale-inhale, waiting until the mess of trumpets and teeth followed that steady rhythm.
“You okay, Percy?” he asked, his voice rough with worry.
“I’m just fine, thank you,” but he was lying, and they both knew it.
He was sure he could feel the tremor in his fingers all the way to his toes, wracking his body, so he decided not to protest when Oliver's grip tightened.
“You’re sure you’re alright?” He said, all hushed voices, “The feast is almost over, so we should be fine to leave in a minute, if you want to unpack your trunk?”
“I said I was fine , Oliver, really,” his voice betraying him. “I- It's just, have you seen Ron ?”
“Your brother? He isn’t here?” Percy watched as Oliver pitched himself backwards to scan across the hall, saw his eyes squinting with the determination Percy only saw when speaking of Quidditch. “I can’t…see… him, but maybe he went to speak with McGonagall? See, she’s not here! Neither’s Snape, now that I’m looking, so maybe he’s with them, that’s fine, right?”
“Do you think he’s hurt?” He worried his lip between his teeth, his jaw trembling. “It’s up to me to look out for him, it’s my responsibility to look after him.”
His hands were really shaking now, festering underneath his nails, chipping them bit by bit, but he could barely feel it when Oliver held them steady between his knees.
He was numb, numb, numb. His limbs had been detached and scattered across the great hall, his bones were broken and bent in ways they shouldn't be, fingers snapped and locked into an endless plea as if he were brought to his knees, begging and begging.
Please let him be alright.
He must be, Percy thought, Dumbledore would surely address the whole school if some tragedy had occurred.
If not for Ron, then at least for Harry, he bargained.
Or would he gather the family together first, tell them through sympathetic eyes and steady apologies? Would he announce that Percy had sat there, ignorant, and allowed his little brother to die, scared and alone?
He inhaled, deep, and allowed the air to collect inside his rotten lungs—stupid, stupid Percy.
Before it had the chance to fester, Oliver began to speak, his words a quiet, soft murmur.
“I’m sure he’s fine, honestly. I can’t imagine anything would happen on the first day, even the twins haven’t managed that… yet.” He squeezed Percy’s wrists for comfort, though the pressure on his pulse didn’t make him feel all that assured.
“Let's go back to the common room, right? We can’t do much from here.”
He let himself be guided out of the hall and stumbled to the tower with a cold detachment.
“He’ll be fine, Perce, really, we’ll find him.”
And that had been that.