Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Today was the day.

There was nothing particularly special or different about the day he chose. Nothing had happened to make him say, yep, this is the day I’m gonna kill myself. He just woke up a couple days ago and decided he couldn’t take it anymore.

The pain. The darkness. The self hatred and the hatred of others. The heaviness in his body that threatened to drag him to the center of the earth. And most of all, he couldn’t deal with the thoughts.

Worthless.

Everything is pointless.

Nobody wants you.

You’re annoying and boring and insufferable. No wonder no one wants to be around you.

Your siblings hate you. Your parents barely notice you.

You’re invisible. You’re not worth noticing.

You’re not good enough.

He couldn’t take it anymore.

He needed a couple days to get his affairs in order because Percy was nothing if not a perfectionist. He wasn’t one to leave loose ends.

It took three days. On the first day, he wrote the letters; it took most of the day because he had a lot of people to write to- his parents, his siblings, Penny, and of course… Oliver. On the second day, he turned in all his homework for that day and the next day, right up until he would kill himself. The homework after that was irrelevant. On the third day, he tidied his room. Made the bed, neatly stacked his books, put away his extra quills, folded all his clothes and arranged them in drawers.

On the third day, late in the afternoon after his room was tidied, he pulled a small case out from under his bed.

For his thirteenth birthday, his parents had given him a little money to buy whatever he wanted. He bought a book, but unbeknownst to them, he also bought a dagger. It was deathly sharp, sharp enough to leave a fingertip bleeding with barely a touch. Percy had taken it to his arms and thighs many times in the past four years.

This would be the last time.

Percy locked the door in case Wood came back from Quidditch practice early (unlikely because Wood would never end practice early, but better safe than sorry). Then, he rolled up the sleeves of his robes and touched the blade to the blue line running under his paper-thin skin on one forearm.

He took a deep breath and pressed down.

After years of cutting, Percy’s pain tolerance had risen significantly, but this was something else. Agony blazed through his arm, fire carving into his skin as hot blood poured from the cut. It immediately started dripping from his arm and onto the carpet, the blood blending in with the red. Percy hissed and almost dropped the knife, but he managed to keep a grip on it.

One down, one to go.

Percy switched hands, holding the knife awkwardly in his left, and pressed it to his right forearm. The skin was broken just as easily as the other arm, and the excruciating pain overcame his right arm this time. Blood overflowed from the cut, pouring onto the carpet.

Percy dropped the knife, his hands shaking too much to hold it. He was already feeling dizzy- from the pain or blood loss or both, he wasn’t sure. He collapsed to his knees and then because he didn’t trust his legs even on his knees, he leaned unsteadily against his bed and sunk the rest of the way to the floor.

The blood was soaking the carpet now, and the pain was engulfing both arms. Percy whimpered and tried not to cry, but it was useless. The tears overflowed and dripped down his face like the blood dripped down his arms.

Percy tried to think of the positives to get through the pain. No more pain. No more pushing it down and acting normal when he felt anything but. No more hating himself or feeling the hatred of others, of his own family.

No more Oliver making silly jokes just to try to make Percy smile (something he did rarely these days but found he did more when he was talking to Oliver). No more studying with Penny while she talked his ear off about anything and everything. No more of his Mum’s hugs or his Dad’s (albeit rare) proud gazes. No more of the pride he felt in his younger siblings, the pride he would only tell them about in his suicide notes. No more cauldron cake or butterbeer or trips to Hogsmeade or the feeling of excitement when he got really into a book. No more writing or drawing or reading. No more of the warmth he felt when Oliver smiled at him.

No more anything.

The fear hit him hard and fast. The blood was flowing quickly, and black spots were already dancing across Percy’s vision. His breathing was slightly more labored, and he felt cold.

He was scared. Gone was the peace he felt before picking up the knife; the prospect of nothingness had seemed so comforting then. Now it was a yawning void in front of him, a bottomless abyss, and Percy was on the precipice. Now, nothingness didn’t seem comforting at all. In fact, it was terrifying.

Percy realized in that moment, in a horribly belated fashion, he didn’t want to die.

But it was too late. He was much too weak to stand or yell for help. The blood was gushing down his arms and staining the carpet, and Percy didn’t envy the House Elves who would have to clean it up.

He almost laughed. He was dying, and his last thought might be for who would have to clean up the blood.

There was a click, but Percy didn’t hear it over the roaring in his ears. He did, however, see the door open in the last precious seconds before he passed out.

“Hey, Perc- PERCY!”

For once, Oliver didn’t keep the Quidditch team late, instead letting practice out on the dot. He couldn’t have told you why he felt merciful that day. Maybe it was the mountain of homework he had waiting for him back in his dorm room.

Either way, he was surprised to find the door to his and Percy’s room locked when he arrived back at Gryffindor Tower.

He frowned. That was strange. He jiggled the doorknob, double checking that it was locked. It was.

Maybe Percy was getting changed or something?

Oliver knocked on the door. “Percy?”

Percy didn’t answer.

Percy didn’t usually lock the door when he left. To have it locked now was odd. Maybe he was in the bathroom and hadn’t heard Oliver knock.

Oliver shrugged it off and cast a simple Alohomera. There was a click of the lock turning, and Oliver opened the door.

“Hey, Perc- PERCY!”

Oliver had been about to question the locked door, but the minute he crossed the doorway, he saw Percy lying on the floor, his sleeves rolled up and his arms gushing blood.

Percy didn’t respond to his yell, didn’t even lift his head. Oliver’s blood ran cold, and he managed to unstick his feet from the floor to rush across the room to Percy’s side.

Oliver gently lifted Percy’s head and found his eyes closed and his breathing slowing. He was unconscious.

Oliver stripped off his Quidditch robes and pressed them to one of Percy’s wrists to try to staunch the blood flow. He took off his scarf and tied it around Percy’s other wrist. Percy didn’t move, even as Oliver tied the makeshift tourniquets tight.

“Help!” Oliver screamed. “Somebody help!”

Twin faces appeared in the doorway. Fred and George stared in horror at their older brother bleeding out on the floor.

“Get help!” Oliver yelled.

The twins ran from the room to find someone to help while Oliver tried to shake Percy awake. Percy didn’t budge, his head lolling back when Oliver tried to lift him slightly.

Oliver leaned Percy against his chest, cradling him close. He noticed Percy had tear tracks down his cheeks.

“You can’t die,” Oliver whispered. “You just can’t.”

Percy didn’t miraculously wake up and respond like Oliver hoped. He laid in Oliver’s arms, limp and- Oliver tried not to think it- lifeless.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey strode into the room. Professor McGonagall stopped in her tracks, her hand flying to cover her mouth as she stared at one of her best students bleeding out. Madam Pomfrey didn’t falter as she strode towards them, and Oliver had the horrifying thought that she had seen this kind of thing before.

This kind of thing. A suicide attempt.

Madam Pomfrey levitated Percy onto a stretcher, and Oliver reluctantly let him go. His arms felt empty without Percy in them.

Madam Pomfrey whisked Percy away, and Oliver followed. He ran behind the healer and professor all the way to the hospital wing. They got several stares and gasps as students and professors alike saw Head Boy Percy Weasley lying on a stretcher with bleeding wrists.

“You’ll have to stay out here, Oliver, until we get him stabilized,” Madam Pomfrey said.

Oliver didn’t have time to protest before the door was slammed in his face.

Oliver took a shaky breath, and he rose his hands to his face, intending to bury his head in them like that could shut out the world. Only then did he notice the blood staining both of his hands and, with a glance down, his shirt and robes. The crimson robes were made even darker by the blood.

It all started to sink in, too hard and too fast.

Percy had tried to kill himself.

Oliver collapsed into a chair beside the hospital wing door and cried.

Seeing his brother bleeding out from self-inflicted cuts would be a memory that forever haunted him, Fred knew.

After getting Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall, Fred and George had been told to wait in the common room. A moment later, the healer and professor had come rushing down the stairs, levitating a stretcher.

Percy was limp and still as he laid on the stretcher, blood drenching his wrists, his robes, the cloth wrapped around both forearms. Fred had never seen so much blood in his life.

Percy was levitated through the portrait hole and out of sight. Oliver quickly followed them, and the portrait slammed shut, leaving Fred and George alone in the Common Room.

“W-We need to tell Mum and Dad,” Fred said shakily.

George nodded but didn’t say anything. He was still staring at the portrait with petrified eyes.

Fred grabbed a piece of parchment someone had left on the table and scrawled quickly.

Mum, Dad, Percy tried to kill himself. Not a prank- even we wouldn’t joke about that. Please come. -Fred

“Ron and Ginny,” George said distantly, still staring at the portrait hole.

“We need to tell them, too,” Fred said. “But first, we need to mail this.”

George didn’t respond or move. His eyes hadn’t moved from the portrait.

“George!” Fred exclaimed and grabbed his brother by the shoulders, turning him to face him. “Snap out of it!”

“There was so much blood,” George whispered. “What if Percy-“

“He won’t,” Fred tried to assure George, but how could he when he wasn’t so sure himself?

“He did that to himself.”

“I know,” Fred said. The knowledge that his brother had tried to kill himself settled heavy on him.

How could anyone just… decide life wasn’t worth living anymore? Fred didn’t understand. He didn’t think he would ever be able to understand.

“He’ll be okay,” Fred said.

The words sounded hollow, even to his own ears.

They walked through the halls towards the Owlery. Many people stared at them and whispered when they passed. They had probably seen Percy levitated to the Hospital Wing; within the hour, the whole school would know.

Fred and George had to hurry and tell Ron and Ginny. They didn’t want them to get that kind of news through the rumor mill.

Fred mailed the letter, hoping the owl would hurry, and they ran, not walked, to the Great Hall where Ron and Ginny would be at lunch.

They walked in, and the whole school seemed to turn at once to look at them. There were several whispers, people leaning over to their friends and murmuring to them. The news was spreading fast.

It hadn’t seemed to reach Ron and Ginny yet. They were looking around in confusion, probably wondering why everyone was staring at them.

Fred and George walked over to their siblings. Fred grabbed Ron, and George grabbed Ginny. The two were too puzzled to protest as Fred and George led them out of the Great Hall. Maybe they saw the looks on Fred and George’s faces and knew it didn’t mean anything good.

The minute they were out of the Great Hall, the questions started.

“What’s going on?” Ginny asked. “Everyone keeps staring at us.”

“And whispering to each other,” Ron added. “I keep hearing Percy’s name come up.”

Fred hated to tell them, but he realized with Percy… hurt, he and George were the oldest. The responsibility fell to them. Fred and George weren’t made for older sibling responsibility, not with Bill and Charlie and Percy always taking the responsibility on. Fred wondered if this was how Percy always felt, how he felt when he told them Ron was in the Hospital Wing with a head injury or when he told them Ginny had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets, when he had written the letter to their parents to tell them their daughter was in the Chamber of Secrets.

“Something happened to Percy,” Fred said without preamble. There was no gentle way to deliver the news. It was better to rip off the bandaid.

Fear trickled into Ron and Ginny’s expressions. They heard the gravity in Fred’s voice. They knew this wasn’t a prank or something small.

“He tried to kill himself,” Fred continued.

Ron and Ginny stared at him, not seeming to comprehend that for a moment. Then, Ginny took a shaky breath and stumbled back a step. Fred didn’t trust her to stay standing, so he rushed forward to guide her to sit down on a nearby bench.

“But… he’ll be okay, right?” Ron asked, his voice trembling.

“We’re not sure,” George whispered honestly. “There was… um, there was a lot of blood.”

Ron almost collapsed right then and there, like the words were a physical blow. They might as well have been. Ginny started to cry, sobs racking her whole body.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Fred hurried to say, even though he was uncertain of that. He chose to ignore the doubt whispering in his head. Percy wouldn’t die. Percy couldn’t die. He repeated it like a mantra until he almost believed it. “Percy’s too stubborn to die.”

“But he tried to kill himself,” Ron said. “Why-why would he do that?”

“We don’t know,” Fred said, “But when he wakes up, we’ll ask him.”

If he wakes up went unspoken.

Meanwhile, at the Burrow…

“Why is his hand on Mortal Peril? Percy is never on Mortal Peril!”

“I don’t know, Molly,” Arthur tried to calm her. “Maybe it’s a mistake. We’ll go to Hogwarts and find out.”

Molly nodded, but before they could move towards the Floo, an owl tapped on the window.

Molly hurried over and threw open the window, allowing the owl in. She took the letter from its beak.

“It’s from Fred,” she said as she ripped it open, hoping for an explanation as to why Percy’s hand had landed on Mortal Peril and stayed there for the past twenty minutes. Her and Arthur had waited for it to move again, to ensure them Percy was okay, but the most it did was waver between Mortal Peril and Hospital.

Mum, Dad. Percy tried to kill himself. Not a prank. Even we wouldn’t joke about that. Please come. -Fred

For a moment, neither Molly or Arthur were sure how to react.

Then Molly burst into tears, and Arthur had tears glimmering in his eyes too. Arthur grabbed his wife and held her close.

“Why would Percy-“ Molly gasped between sobs.

“I don’t know,” Arthur whispered. “I don’t know.”

Why would Percy kill himself? Why would anyone? Neither of them understood.

What they did understand was that their child had almost died and his life still hung in the balance.

Chapter Text

They sat outside the Hospital Wing for an hour and 47 minutes- Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, and Oliver, still in his blood soaked robes.

Molly and Arthur arrived after twenty minutes.

Molly Weasley rushed down the corridor, red hair flying wildly. Arthur wasn’t too far behind her.

“What happened?” She demanded as she skidded to a halt beside them. Her eyes drifted from Fred to George to Ron to Ginny and finally to a last person she didn’t recognize. She stared at him for a moment before remembering one of the photos Percy kept on his desk of him and his roommate; Percy was smiling, a rare occurrence for him in the past few years, and the other boy had an arm wrapped around him. So one of Percy’s friends, but Molly couldn’t remember the name.

Her eyes somehow moved from his face to his hands, and her heart dropped to the floor when she saw blood covering his skin. She knew in an instant it was her son’s blood.

She crumpled like paper, falling into Arthur’s arms with tears overflowing down her face. Arthur noticed what she did a moment later, and his expression broke like porcelain. Tears filled his own eyes, but he tried to keep them under lock and key. He had to be strong for his children.

“What happened?” Arthur repeated his wife’s words.

“We were in the Common Room,” George said. His gaze grew distant as he found himself back in Percy’s doorway, seeing the blood and Percy’s pale face, wondering for a terrifying moment if Percy was even breathing. “We heard a yell and ran upstairs. Percy was…” George’s voice broke.

“He cut his wrists,” Fred finished when George was unable to. Fred stared at his trembling hands. “On purpose. Oliver found him. There was so much blood, Dad…” Fred dissolved into tears. He had been trying to stay strong for his twin and his younger siblings, but all of it- the pressure of responsibility, the terror of losing Percy, the trauma of seeing his brother bleeding out- was piling on his shoulders. He couldn’t bear it anymore, and the tears he’d been holding back finally broke free.

Molly pulled away from Arthur, tears still flowing, but she pushed past her own fear and worry to focus on her children. Ginny was still sobbing, had been since they told her, and Ron was curled into a ball in his seat, knees to his chest and arms wrapped around them. George looked like he wasn’t even there, eyes glazed over, and Fred was breaking down. They needed her now.

Molly sat between Ginny and Ron. She pulled her daughter to her chest and let Ginny cry freely into her robes. She wrapped the other arm around Ron as he sniffled, trying to hold back tears. Ron leaned into her embrace but stayed curled into a ball, like he was trying to shut out everything.

Arthur sat between Fred and George. Fred immediately fell into his arms, and the sobs burst forth as the dam broke. George didn’t even seem to notice when Arthur wrapped an arm around him.

Oliver sat awkwardly off to one side as the family comforted each other. He pulled his robes down over his hands to try to hide the blood; it didn’t do much because it was also staining his robes, but he didn’t want to look at his blood-soaked hands anymore.

They sat there in silence for the rest of the time until finally, Madam Pomfrey exited the Hospital Wing. They all immediately stood up and crowded around her, waiting for the news with bated breath.

“He’s stabilized,” she told them. “A large part of that is because his magic was fighting to heal him; it kept him alive. I was able to heal the wounds, but there will be scars. However, Percy’s magic was exhausted in trying to save him. The magical exhaustion has put him into a coma.”

Everyone was quiet as they took that in.

“But he’ll recover… right?” Molly asked.

Madam Pomfrey hesitated. “I hope so, but the thing with a magical coma… no amount of healing spells can fix it. Percy has to choose to wake up.”

“So there’s nothing we can do?” Arthur asked.

“You can talk to him, spend time with him, and you can hope,” Madam Pomfrey answered. “I’m sorry I can’t do more, but what I can tell you is Percy is strong. His magic fought tooth and nail to keep him alive, and I hope it will continue to do so.”

“But why did he do it in the first place?” Fred asked. “Why would someone just… do that?”

“Some people are in a lot of pain,” Madam Pomfrey stated. “To the point where they think dying would free them from their pain.”

“Why wouldn’t he tell us?” George demanded. “We could’ve helped, we could’ve done something!”

“I don’t know,” Madam Pomfrey admitted. “But it is hard for people to explain this pain, to even put it into words.”

“Or maybe he just thought he couldn’t come to us,” Ron said.

“Ron,” Molly started.

“We’re all thinking it!” Ron exclaimed. “I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve talked to Percy in the past three months! Fred and George are constantly playing pranks on him! Ginny pushed him away last year! I wouldn’t want to come to us either!”

“Ron!” Arthur said. “You can’t blame yourself or your siblings. We couldn’t have known-“

“We could’ve if Percy actually thought he could talk to us!” Ron yelled.

“Ron’s right,” Fred said. “If we hadn’t pulled so many pranks on him, maybe-“

“He would’ve come to us,” George finished.

“Blaming yourselves will not help Percy,” Madam Pomfrey interrupted. “He needs all of you right now.”

Everyone fell quiet.

“You can visit him now,” Madam Pomfrey said. “Talk to him. Some say coma patients can hear when they’re in the coma.”

Madam Pomfrey stepped to the side, and everyone filed into the Hospital Wing.

Percy was the only one there, the curtains around the bed drawn. Molly immediately rushed to Percy’s bed and pulled the curtains aside; the others followed her, a bit more hesitantly.

“Oh, my baby,” Molly whispered as she sunk into a chair beside Percy’s bed, the others gathering around it.

Percy looked so pale, even paler than the white sheets he was lying on top of it. Even in a coma, he didn’t look peaceful; his face was slack and empty, like he wasn’t even in there. His arms lay on top of the blankets, so they could all see the white bandages wrapped around his arms.

Molly brushed aside a lock of his red hair and rested her hand on the side of his face.

“He’s so cold,” she murmured, and she pulled the blankets up to Percy’s chin, maneuvering his arms so they were under the blankets.

Oliver hung back, staring at his best friend in the hospital bed. Percy looked just as limp and lifeless as he had when Oliver found him, and if it weren’t for the slight movement of his chest, Oliver would’ve thought he was dead.

Oliver took a step back and then another. “Ihavetogo,” he blurted, and he ran from the room.

Oliver closed the hospital wing door behind him, and he leaned against it. He slid down the door until he was sitting on the ground, hands clenched into fists against the cold stone (just as cold as Percy’s skin when Oliver held him). Oliver pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face in them as the tears finally came, sobs wracking his whole frame.

Oliver wasn’t sure how long he sat there, crying into his knees. It could’ve been seconds, minutes, hours. Time didn’t seem to matter anymore; the world was shrinking until all he could see was Percy in that hospital bed.

“Mr. Wood,” a voice said, and Oliver looked up, face blotchy and covered in dried and fresh tears. Professor McGonagall stood over him, looking down at him with her face etched with sadness and sympathy.

Oliver quickly scrubbed his face. He knew it was stupid, but even given the situation, it was embarrassing to be caught crying. His teenage boy pride was cringing, even though it was perfectly normal to cry when your friend tried to kill himself. Oliver pushed himself to his feet and stared at the ground, trying to hide his red, tear-stained face.

“Professor,” Oliver greeted.

“How is Mr. Weasley?” Professor McGonagall asked.

“In a coma,” Oliver managed.

Professor McGonagall nodded. “And how are you?”

Oliver shrugged but didn’t say anything.

“Mr. Wood… Oliver,” Professor McGonagall said, and the use of his first name made Oliver look up in surprise. “Things like this happen because a person feels they can’t talk to anyone, but I want you to know you can talk to me.”

Oliver hesitated. He didn’t know how to explain the all consuming grief he felt. Percy wasn’t even dead (yet), and the weight of grief was bearing down on him like he was Atlas holding the sky on his shoulders. The guilt was eating him alive, clawing at his insides until there was nothing left. And the confusion, all the questions, were whirling around inside him, each question a jagged piece of glass cutting into him the longer they went unsaid and unanswered.

“I just don’t understand why,” Oliver said. “Why Percy would… he could’ve talked to me. He didn’t have to… He wasn’t alone!”

Oliver wasn’t even making sense to himself, but Professor McGonagall seemed to get it.

“Oliver, these things make a person feel so alone that they don’t see all the people around them,” Professor McGonagall said. “It blinds them until the pain is all they can see. They don’t see how their suicide will affect others. They just want the pain to stop.”

“It’s not Percy’s fault,” Oliver said.

“I know,” Professor McGonagall replied.

“So why am I so mad at him?” Oliver asked, and the admission splintered out of him like a broken mirror. Shame curled in his gut. His best friend tried to kill himself, and Oliver was mad at him. How selfish is that?

“It’s normal to feel hurt,” Professor McGonagall stated. “Your friend was hurting, and he didn’t tell anyone. He couldn’t see all the people that care about him, and he couldn’t see how his suicide would hurt people. It’s normal to feel angry.”

“But it’s not his fault!” Oliver burst out.

Oliver didn’t know how to explain how he felt, the turmoil of emotions building in his chest, but somehow, Professor McGongall seemed to hear what he wasn’t saying.

“It’s not yours either,” she said.

Oliver wiped away the tears on his face, wondering when he even started crying again. Professor McGonagall rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Why don’t you go get changed?” Professor McGonagall asked. “Take a moment.”

Oliver nodded. Being covered in Percy’s blood certainly wasn’t helping; every time he looked down, his mind flashed back to finding Percy bleeding out on the floor.

Professor McGonagall entered the Hospital Wing, and Oliver headed for their dorm room. He took the back hallways so fewer people would see him still covered in blood. The red of his robes helped to hide it, but the darker patches were unmistakable, and Oliver wasn’t ready to face the questions or the rumors or the stares.

Of course, he couldn’t avoid the Common Room. The minute Oliver stepped through the portrait hole, everyone in the room turned to stare at him. Oliver froze like a startled deer, trapped by the stares.

Oliver broke free after a second and ran up the stairs. Behind him, the whispering started.

Oliver approached the door to their dorm room and paused outside, his hand hovering over the doorknob.

The last time he had been here, he had been holding Percy’s unconscious body as blood gushed down his arms and soaked the makeshift tourniquets wrapped around his wrists.

Taking a deep breath, Oliver turned the doorknob and pushed it open.

The House Elves hadn’t gotten to the room yet. The dark patch on the crimson rug was easy to pick out, two puddles having sunk into the rug. Oliver wondered how the House Elves would ever be able to get it out.

Oliver tore his gaze away and went to his dresser, pulling out a new shirt, pants, and robes. He changed quickly and threw his old clothes in the trash. He could replace them; he didn’t think he could ever wear them again, even if the blood did manage to come out.

After changing, Oliver went to the bathroom and scrubbed his hands raw, the blood circling down the drain; Oliver kept scrubbing long after the blood was gone.

Oliver returned to the room and sat on his bed, burying his head in his freshly cleaned hands. He stared blankly at the wall.

He didn’t know what to do now.

Percy always hated the Hospital Wing. In first year, Percy told him the Hospital Wing was too colorless and still and quiet, compared to his noisy, bustling, colorful home. It smelled of medicine and potions, and it was always associated with pain and sickness. Now, Percy would have to stay there for who knows how long.

Oliver walked over to Percy’s bed, avoiding even looking at the blood on the rug. He grabbed Percy’s favorite blanket- a blue one he’d brought from home- always folded neatly at the end of his bed. Oliver could take it to the Hospital Wing, so Percy could feel a bit more comfortable when (if) he woke up.

Oliver moved to Percy’s desk next. It was always clean and tidy but now it seemed especially so. A stack of books in the left corner, a few ink pots in the right, and in the center…

A stack of envelopes. The top one said Mum in Percy’s neat handwriting.

Oliver placed the blanket on the chair and picked up the envelopes. He shuffled through them, reading the name written on each one.

Dad. Bill. Charlie. Fred. George. Ron. Ginny. Penny. And…

Oliver.

Oliver realized what they were. They fell from his hands and scattered across the floor. Oliver quickly followed them to the floor, falling to his knees and burying his head in his hands. A sob burst out of him, followed by another and another and another. He couldn’t stop crying.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there before a hesitant knock sounded on the door.

“Oliver?” Someone called. Katie. “There’s someone at the portrait asking for you.”

Oliver sniffled and hurriedly scrubbed at his eyes. “I-I’ll be there in a second.”

Katie hesitated another moment, like she was debating whether or not to say more, before Oliver heard her footsteps retreat.

Oliver gathered himself up, putting the pieces of himself crudely back together. He stacked the letters he’d dropped and stood, grabbing the blanket and heading for the door. He wiped at his eyes one last time before exiting the room and descending the staircase.

Everyone was trying not to stare at him and failing miserably. Oliver ignored all of them and headed straight for the portrait hole, stepping through it.

He paused when he saw who waited on the other side with red rimmed eyes and messed up hair, robes disheveled like she’d run all the way here.

“Penelope?”

Chapter Text

Dear Penny,

I want to start off this letter by saying I care for you so much. You’ve been my best friend ever since my second year when you came up to me in the library and shyly asked for my help in Transfiguration. I didn’t tell you then, but I had no friends except for Oliver, and I often felt he had to get along with me because we were roommates. You, on the other hand, for a reason I couldn’t understand, wanted to be my friend. I fully expected you to never speak to me again after I helped you in Transfiguration, and I wouldn’t have blamed you. After all, who would want to be friends with stuffy, boring, responsible Percy?

But you kept talking to me. You waved to me in the halls; you studied with me in the library; you even sought me out outside of the library. I didn’t understand it, but I never told you how much it meant to me. I probably wouldn’t have made it this far if not for you.

And then you kissed me.

Penny, I love you dearly. I have since the moment I asked you why you chose to talk to me and you said “well, we’re friends, aren’t we?” I thought because I loved you, it was romantic love. All my books told me the best friends always fall for each other- the guy and the girl, always. But there’s something I never told you, Penny, because I was worried you would hate me for it, especially after we started dating.

Penny, I’m gay.

It took me a while to realize it, but in fourth year, I realized I liked someone, a guy someone. It wasn’t what everyone else did, and I didn’t need another reason to be different, so I pushed that feeling down as hard as I could.

When you kissed me, that feeling tried to come back, the feeling that told me I could only ever like a guy. I hated it. I hated myself. Why couldn’t I just be normal? Why couldn’t I like a girl like every other guy I knew? I should’ve counted my lucky stars that someone as amazing as you would even want to be with me, but instead… it was a painful reminder that I could never be normal.

I didn’t want to break your heart, Penny, and I didn’t want to have to explain why I didn’t love you romantically. I didn’t want to see you look at me with disgust in your eyes, like Marcus Flint did when he caught me staring at him in second year and called me a faggot. Why do bullies always seemed to know things about you before you yourself do? I’m sorry I led you on, and I’m sorry I’m breaking your heart now. You don’t deserve it.

You’re the most amazing person I know, Penny. I was the selfish one. I was the coward. I was the one who wasn’t right. You deserve so much better than me, Penny, and now that I’m gone, you’ll finally get it.

I love you, Penny. I’m sorry it wasn’t the way you wanted me to.

Love,

Percy

“Penelope?”

Penelope Clearwater stared at Oliver with red rimmed eyes. She seemed to notice his own red eyes and the broken expression on his face.

“So it’s true?” Penelope asked.

Oliver knew immediately what she was asking. He nodded reluctantly. He wished it wasn’t true.

Penelope’s expression crumpled, and she seemed to cave in on herself, her shoulders hunching and her chest caving as she started to cry.

Oliver was never really good with comforting others. He wasn’t even good with comforting himself. But he awkwardly placed a hand on Penelope’s shoulder.

“Is he going to be okay?” Penelope asked, lifting her head so he could see her wet cheeks.

“They’re not sure,” Oliver admitted. “He’s in a coma right now.”

“Why would he…” Penelope stammered before trailing off, unable to finish her sentence.

“I don’t know,” Oliver said. He really didn’t.

But maybe… He looked at the letters in his hands. The proof that this hadn’t been spur of the moment, a moment of pain so deep, Percy couldn’t see a way out of it. This was planned. How long had Percy been feeling this way? Maybe the letters could answer at least some of the many questions Oliver had.

“But… he wrote some letters,” Oliver said, shuffling through them until he found the one labeled Penny. “This one, he addressed to you.”

Penelope stared at the letter in his hand as he offered it to her before taking it with a shaking hand. She traced Percy’s handwriting on the envelope with her eyes.

“How long has he been planning this, and he didn’t say anything?” She asked.

“I’m not sure,” Oliver said, “But there’s a lot of letters. It would’ve taken him at least a day to write all of them.”

“He could’ve come to us. We could’ve done something!” Penelope exclaimed. “Why didn’t he?”

“Professor McGonagall said this kind of thing-“ depression, pain, suicidal thoughts- “It blinds them to all the people around them until the pain is all they can see. They forget they’re not alone.”

Penelope was quiet for a moment. “Percy felt alone for who knows how long, so alone he tried to kill himself. We could’ve said something, done something, so he knew he wasn’t alone.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Oliver said. You didn’t live with him.

“I should’ve. I was his girlfriend,” Penelope said.

“You are his girlfriend,” Oliver said, ignoring the pang those words sent to his heart. “He’s still alive.”

“I know,” Penelope said. “But for how long?”

Oliver didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to.

Penelope sat on her bed in Ravenclaw tower some time later, staring at the letter in her lap. She’d needed some time alone, so she’d retreated to her room after talking to Oliver, away from the stares and whispers of everyone at Hogwarts. By now, everyone knew.

Penny tried not to think of how she found out, how Cho Chang had approached her and told her in a hesitant, careful voice, afraid Penny would break at the news. And Penny did. How do you even feel when your boyfriend just tried to kill himself? Penny felt a lot of fear for Percy’s life but also a lot of sadness, a lot of grief (he wasn’t dead yet), and a lot of anger.

Why didn’t Percy come to her? She asked him how he was every time she saw him; he had several opportunities to tell her, but he didn’t. He kept quiet, and now, he was in a hospital bed.

Penny slipped her finger under the lip of the envelope and gently tore- so gently, it was like she was handling a priceless artifact. She was all too aware that if Percy didn’t wake up, these could be his last words to her.

She pulled the letter out and unfolded it, Percy’s cursive spiraling down the page so neatly and deliberately. He hadn’t been rushed or distraught when he wrote this; the handwriting was too precise and neat. He’d been calm when he wrote this.

Somehow, that made everything worse.

Penny read the letter, almost hearing it in Percy’s voice. The more she read, the more her heart broke… but not for the reasons most would think.

She wouldn’t have hated him. Never in a million years. She had always suspected and had been looking for a way to bring it up.

Not to mention hating him for the whole being gay and being in a straight relationship to hide it thing would’ve been hypocritical of her.

She never told him about the way she looked at Cho Chang or Padma Patil, how she kissed him because that’s what she thought she was supposed to do. Like Percy, all her books told her the girl and guy best friends always fell in love, got married, had kids, and lived happily ever after. That was the job description. For Penny, girls should’ve had no part of that. But they did.

It was ironic that the two gay people in the school managed to find each other and date the other to cover up the fact that they were gay.

Would Penny ever get the chance to tell him he wasn’t alone? That he wasn’t the only one who didn’t feel normal, who didn’t feel right, who didn’t fit the mold everyone else was setting for them?

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? It was the mold everyone else set for them, not the one they set for themselves. They just wanted to be themselves, to love who they loved and live their lives how they wanted.

Now, Percy may never get that chance.

Percy opened his eyes.

The first thing he noticed was that he was lying on the floor. Why was he on the floor? He had no idea.

He sat up with a groan. His head was throbbing, and his arms itched badly, like the time the twins poured itching powder all over him. He blinked against the harsh lighting in the room he was in, trying to get his eyes to adjust. After a moment, things in the room started to take shape. He was on the floor beside a bed with crisp white sheets, an equally white bedside table at his back. The walls were white, the beds were white, the lights were white. Everything was white, and Percy immediately recognized it. He’d spent enough time there in second year when Marcus Flint decided he hated him and beat Percy up every other day.

The Hospital Wing.

Percy groaned again as he found his way to his feet. He buried his head in his hands, trying to block out the lights to hopefully quell the aching in his skull. When it did nothing, he braved opening his eyes again, squinting under the lighting, and his eyes landed on bandages, as white and crisp as the bed sheets, wrapped around his arms. On one, a spot of red had started to seep through, about halfway down his forearm.

What the…

It all came crashing back in, like he’d been hit with a Beater bat. The notes, the knife, the blood… Oliver. He remembered the door opening and Oliver screaming his name just before he passed out.

He almost broke down into tears as he realized he failed. He couldn’t even kill himself properly! And even worse, Oliver had been the one to find him. He’d hoped it would be anyone but Oliver or his siblings, but it had been Oliver. He’d traumatized his best friend.

Percy sat heavily in a chair beside the bed. He was a horrible person. Not for killing himself- everyone would be better off without him- that much, Percy was sure of. But because he’d slit his wrists in their dorm room where Oliver was sure to find him. He should’ve done it anywhere else, any other way, but instead, he’d traumatized his best friend for life.

Percy was still screwing up and making things worse for everyone, just like he always did.

Footsteps sounded, and Percy followed them to the doorway. Penelope appeared in the doorway, her robes rumpled and her hair a mess, her eyes rimmed red with tears. She paused, her eyes slightly to the right of Percy, like she couldn’t even bear to look at him.

Percy stood up, almost knocking the chair over in his haste. “Penny-“ he started, not even sure what to say but knowing he had to say something. He started to say he was sorry, but was he? What was he sorry for? She’d be better off without him, just like everyone else. Maybe he was apologizing for surviving.

Penny approached him, never even glancing at him. She kept her eyes fixed to the right of him.

“Penny,” Percy whispered. “I’m so sor-“

She kept walking and then… she walked right through him. Not past him. Through him, like the ghosts often did.

Percy yelled, his hand flying to his chest in a panic. Cold washed over him like a bucket of ice water had been dunked over his head. He stumbled back, knocking into the chair and making it shake.

Penny glanced at it, confused, but her eyes immediately returned to the spot they’d been fixed. This time, Percy followed her gaze.

And almost felt his heart stop… if it wasn’t stopped already.

Percy Weasley was lying in the hospital bed, face as pale as snow. The blanket was pulled up to his chin, and his face was slack, empty. Percy could sense the monitoring spells that would alert Madam Pomfrey to any change.

That was him. But… he was right here? How was he in two different places at once?

Penny sat in a chair on the opposite side of the bed, and she pulled back the blankets to grab one of Percy’s hands. Percy noted the bandages wrapped around his… other self’s? arms, just like the ones wrapped around his own, right down to the spot of blood seeping through.

“Hey, Percy,” Penny murmured, her voice thick with tears. The tears were building in her eyes, turning the cerulean ocean into periwinkle glass. “You really did a number on yourself, huh?”

Percy had pressed the knife into his skin with all his strength, which- granted- wasn’t much, but it was enough to rip open the paper-thin skin and into a vein. Percy remembered the agony blazing in both arms as the blood dripped onto the carpet. Yeah, he’d done a number on himself. The question was… did he regret it?

Percy didn’t understand. Was he dead? Then, why was he in the Hospital Wing and not in a coffin? Why would Penny be talking to him and holding his hand if he was dead?

Percy once read a book on near death experiences. People who had been in comas said they remembered hearing their loved ones’ voices. Some even reported feeling like a ghost, looking on at their comatose body and everything going on, but no one could see them. Was that what was happening?

“I read your letter,” Penny said. The tears were overflowing now, streaming down her cheeks.

Percy had written Penny’s letter first. All the letters were hard to write, but Penny’s was the easiest. Not because he felt any better about leaving her, but because he knew exactly what he wanted to say. Some of the others were a little more complicated than that.

“You could’ve told me,” Penny said, and her voice broke on a sob. She scrubbed away the tears on her face, but they were quickly replaced by more. “I would’ve understood.”

Percy wished he could believe her, but how could she understand when even he didn’t?

Percy didn’t understand why he couldn’t like girls like any other boy his age, why he couldn’t love Penelope, why he couldn’t imagine a future with anyone but a man…why his heart leaped when he looked at Oliver- who, he knew, could never feel the same way about him. He’d read books, journaled, asked badly-disguised questions like would you ever date a guy?, all to understand why he was the way that he was, and he never did understand.

So no, there was no way Penny could understand.

“When I kissed you,” Penny continued, “I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was just doing what I thought I was supposed to do. After all, all my friends were kissing boys- most of them, their best friends. For me, that was you.”

Penny had so many more friends than he did. Percy only had two friends, Penny and Oliver, and Oliver was… complicated. Penny had always been his best friend, but considering Penny’s multitude of friends, Percy had never even considered that he would be hers. It baffled him why Penny would even want to be his friend. Percy’s own family didn’t even like him; why would anyone else?

But despite that, Penny was his friend. Ever since that day in the library when she asked him to help her with her Transfiguration homework. Percy expected Penny to never talk to him again after she got an O in Transfiguration, but she kept talking to him, hanging out with him, calling him her friend. Percy never understood it, but he was grateful for it nonetheless.

And he tried to leave her. How could she ever forgive him?

“I didn’t want to think about how I looked at Cho or Padma or other girls. I wanted to be normal.”

Percy looked up from the ground in shock. She couldn’t be saying…

“And kissing boys was normal, even though I would’ve rather been kissing a girl. So yeah, Percy, I would’ve understood.”

No, she had to be saying this just to make him feel better. But she didn’t even know he could hear her, so she couldn’t be saying that just to make him feel better. She meant it.

Percy thought he was the only one that felt like this- wrong, abnormal, a freak. He was the outlier. But his best friend understood him in a way he never thought possible.

Could that mean… Percy wasn’t a freak? Or were he and Penny both freaks?

He could never think of Penny as a freak. Penny was the kindest, smartest, most amazing girl he knew. It didn’t matter that she liked girls, and it didn’t change who she was. She was still just as amazing as she’d always been.

So what did that say about Percy?

“And you could’ve talked to me. About anything. I would’ve listened. I would’ve helped in any way I could. Anything to keep you from…” Penny glanced at his arms and looked like she was about to be sick. “You didn’t have to go through this alone, Percy.”

But he did have to. How could he explain to Penny or Oliver or anyone the darkness inside his head? How could he taint them with it, burden them with it? Percy wasn’t so bad a person, he would put that burden on his friends’ shoulders. No, he had to carry it alone.

But that didn’t change the fact that it was heavy, and it didn’t change the fact that it was killing him.

Chapter Text

Dear Bill,

I’ve always looked up to you, for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories are of following you and Charlie around, trying to join in on whatever you were doing. You rarely let me, as I recall, and I don’t blame you. I was younger and much different than you and Charlie. I had hoped when I was a bit older and our age gap didn’t seem as great, I would be able to join with you more, but it didn’t work out that way. I was still four years younger and much more studious and boring. I don’t blame you for not letting me hang out with you much.

I’m thankful for the times you did, though. Remember in my first year, when you invited me to sit with you and your friends at lunch? You listened to me as I told you about my classes and my friends friend. It was the most anyone other than Oliver had even bothered to talk to me in months.

In fourth year, I wasn’t even sure if I expected you to write after you moved to Egypt, but I was ecstatic when you did. I never told you- I can’t believe I’m even telling you now, but I suppose the embarrassment wouldn’t matter anymore- but I saved every letter you sent me. You didn’t always hang out with me or talk to me very much, but you still treated me like your brother. Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny didn’t even do that.

That’s probably why it hurt so much when you stopped writing.

I know logically you probably just got busy and forgot. You’re a professional curse breaker. You don’t have time to worry about your little brother, especially the one who was always self-sufficient.

I never wanted to be self-sufficient, if I’m telling the truth, but you always were, and I wanted to be like you.

Just before my first year, you were sent a Prefect badge. Funnily enough, I thought it said Perfect, and it made sense because that’s what you were in my eyes. My big brother who could do no wrong, who excelled at everything he did and was effortlessly cool doing so. I wanted to be like that. I wanted Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny to look up to me like they looked up to you, and I wanted Mum and Dad to look at me with pride, like I was something special, something worth being proud of. I wanted you to be proud of me.

I tried… so hard. I became Prefect and Head Boy. I got straight Os, just like you did, and I hoped it would be enough. But I never received the look of pride or admiration you got. I only got more disdain, and Mum and Dad were focused on our siblings, too focused to spare an ‘I’m proud of you’ speech like they gave you.

I wasn’t special. I was just copying you. Maybe, after you became Prefect and Head Boy, it wasn’t even an accomplishment for me anymore, but an expectation.

Maybe I’m just being selfish. I understand you were too busy to write. I understand Mum and Dad were too busy worrying about the twins and Ron and Ginny to spend more time on me. Maybe I deserved to be hated by all of you for wanting so much.

I’m sorry I didn’t live up to you, Bill, and I’m sorry to put more of a burden on your shoulders now that our siblings have one less older sibling to look after them. But you always did a much better job looking after them than I did. I’m sorry I didn’t do a good enough job. I’m sorry I didn’t live up to you.

Love,

Percy

“Bill!” His boss called, making Bill pause in his spell casting and turn. His boss held up an envelope. “Got a letter for you. Says it’s urgent.”

Bill nodded and faced his coworker, Tommen. Tommen nodded and jerked his head towards their boss in a signal to go, starting to wave his wand to pick up on the spell casting where Bill left off. Bill stood, wincing as his knees creaked (he was only twenty-one. Why did he feel so old already?), and walked over to his boss.

Bill accepted the envelope and noticed the red and gold printed Urgent on the front, under the addressee information. In the top corner was the Burrow’s address and his father’s name.

Bill’s stomach dropped. Why would his father be sending him an urgent letter? Was it Ron? Had he gotten into danger again? Or Ginny? After last year… Or the twins? Had one of their pranks gone wrong? Was it his mother? Was it Charlie?

Bill hurriedly ripped open the envelope and pulled out the letter, unfolding it. It was only a few sentences, written in a hurry, judging by how it scrawled messily across the parchment.

Bill,

I don’t know how to write this, but I need to. Percy tried to kill himself. He’s in the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts. Please come as soon as possible.

Love,

Dad

Bill almost dropped the letter.

In all his worrying, Percy hadn’t even crossed his mind. Percy was just so… independent, self-assured, always cautious and safe. Bill never dreamed Percy would ever be in any kind of danger, not like Ron with his best friend Harry Potter or the twins with their endless pranks, some of them dangerous. Not like Ginny with her need to prove herself or Charlie with his dangerous profession, just as dangerous as Bill’s.

Even worse, this wasn’t an accident or even an attack. It was self-inflicted, and that was something- even in his worst nightmares- Bill had never even thought he would have to face. One of his siblings hurting themselves… it seemed unfathomable.

Why would anyone… Why would Percy…

Bill had been staring at the letter, and he’d just now realized he’d crumpled it in his hand. He was unsteady on his feet, like the carpet had been yanked from underneath him. His boss was still standing in front of him, concern flashing in his eyes. Bill knew he must look terrible; their boss hadn’t even looked concerned when Lucas’s arms got covered in third degree burns from a curse, simply telling Lucas to “get back to work.”

“M-My brother,” Bill stammered. “He-He…” Bill couldn’t even get it out. There was a lump in his throat, blocking all words, blocking air from entering his lungs.

“Bill,” his boss said, gently, gentler than Bill had ever heard him. “What happened?”

Bill forced the words out, lodging them past the lump in his throat. “My brother tried to kill himself.”

His boss’s expression dropped into one of great sadness. Suicide was rare in the Wizarding World, but it wasn’t unheard of, and regardless of how often it happened, the topic never became less heavy.

“Go,” his boss said.

Bill didn’t even think of arguing or hesitating. His feet came unstuck from the earth, and he turned on his heel and Apparated.

Bill landed outside the Hogwarts grounds and walked straight through the wards. Maybe the wards recognized him as a former student or maybe the wards could sense intentions and knew he meant no ill will. Or maybe Dumbledore had already shifted the magic of the wards to allow him entrance. Bill didn’t care. He just needed to get to the Hospital Wing.

He remembered the way and let muscle memory carry him all the way there, the route programmed into him from seven years at this school. Bill wasn’t in the Hospital Wing often, but Charlie was. His little brother was always getting into scrapes or receiving Quidditch injuries. Then, it had been the twins with their experiments and pranks. Then, Ron with his adventures. Then, Ginny with her bad luck and writing in the wrong journal.

It had never been Percy.

Bill didn’t bother knocking on the Hospital Wing door, swinging it open without preamble. Immediately, every face in the room turned towards him: his parents; his siblings; a teenage boy he recognized as Oliver Wood, Percy’s friend; and a girl he didn’t know.

They were all sitting around a bed, and in the bed was Percy. Percy was paler than he’d ever seen him, paler than a Hogwarts ghost. Even the freckles on his face had seemed to be drained of color, and his lips were as pure white as the rest of his skin. His face was slack, and his eyes were closed. The blankets were pulled up to his chin, including a blue one their parents had given Percy for his birthday years ago. His arms were resting on top of the blankets. His wrists were wrapped in crisp white bandages.

His mother looked at him with watery eyes. “Bill,” she said.

Bill crossed the room in three quick strides to arrive at Percy’s side. The closer he got, his years of curse breaking allowed him to sense the healing and monitoring spells drifting over Percy; he wasn’t a Healer, so he couldn’t have made heads or tails of it if he tried, but he hoped the readings were good. He grabbed Percy’s hand and almost shivered at how cold it was.

“What happened?” Bill asked.

He hoped to Merlin there had been a mistake in the letter. That this had been an accident or some asshole had hexed Percy. Anything but what it was. He knew how to deal with anything else, but he didn’t know how to deal with this. He was out of his depth here.

“He tried to kill himself,” Arthur said, his voice flat and dead as he stared at Percy with eyes so deeply sad, they were almost empty. “He cut his wrists.”

Bill’s eyes drifted to the bandages wrapped around Percy’s arms, and he spotted a small dot of red on the bandages. Now that he knew what they were from, he couldn’t handle it. He sunk into a chair beside Percy’s bed.

“Oliver found him,” Fred continued. For the first time in his life, Fred Weasley was not loud or rambunctious or outgoing. He was quiet and serious and reserved, seeming to shrink into himself when everybody turned to him. “He called for help. George and I came running. We saw…” Fred’s voice broke, and it took him a moment to keep going. “We got Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey, and they brought him here. That was four hours ago.”

“He’s in a coma, something about his magic trying to keep him alive and exhausting itself,” Molly said, and she swallowed a sob, trying to stay strong for her children

“Why would he…” Bill couldn’t say the words. The lump in his throat was back. The word were too horrible to even say out loud.

Suicide. His brother had attempted suicide.

Bill didn’t know much about suicide, but he knew you must be in a great deal of pain to be willing to kill yourself to escape it. He had always thought people who killed themselves had no one to go to and had just gotten tired of carrying the pain on their own. But Percy had people. He had them! So why had he…

“We don’t know,” George whispered. It was the first time he’d spoken in hours, and his voice was gravely.

Everyone was quiet for a moment, all of them asking the same questions. Why would Percy try to kill himself? Why hadn’t he come to them? And would they ever be able to ask him?

Oliver shifted and reached into his robes, pulling out a stack of envelopes. “I, um, I found these,” he said, and everyone turned to him. Oliver seemed uneasy being the center of attention, which was ironic because he was the Quidditch captain and was used to a lot of attention.”On Percy’s desk,” he added. “They’re letters, addressed to, well, all of us.”

He held up the letters to show them. The one on top said Mum.

“He wrote letters,” Arthur whispered, seemingly in realization. Bill wondered what he had realized.

Strangely enough, it was his youngest sibling who figured it out, but Ginny, even at only twelve years old, had always been smart.

“He took the time,” she said, horrified. “He planned this.”

The girl Bill didn’t know nodded. “Oliver and I think he was planning this for at least a few days.”

The cries Molly had been holding back broke free in a tidal wave, bursting out in heaving sobs. She buried her head in her hands, and her back shook with the force of her crying. Arthur tried to rub her back, but he was somewhere else, his eyes staring distantly at nothing.

An invisible fist punched Bill in the gut. His baby brother… Percy had made a plan. It shouldn’t have surprised Bill; Percy was always a planner. But this wasn’t his study schedule or Prefect rounds or his reading list! It was… Percy had planned his suicide.

How long had he been thinking about it? How long had he gone without telling them?

“Can I have a minute with him?” Bill asked before he even realized he was going to ask.

Arthur nodded. “Of course, Bill. I think we all need a minute.” He was staring at his own letter, at Percy’s neat, practiced, perfect handwriting on the envelope.

They all left the Hospital Wing, and Bill opened his letter carefully, pealing away the seal and pulling out the parchment inside.

He cried when he read the letter, realizing these might be his brother’s last words to him, and they weren’t even spoken.

What were Percy’s last spoken words to him?

In Egypt, over the summer.

Bill had simply said, “See you later,” to Percy when his parents and siblings were about to leave.

Percy had smiled, but it seemed tight, forced. “Of course. I look forward to it,” Percy said, always so formal, even with his own family.

Had Percy been thinking about killing himself even then?

Percy didn’t know what else to do. He hadn’t been able to brave returning to the Hospital Wing after he initially woke up on the floor of it. He didn’t want to face his family and the disappointment they must surely be feeling. So he wandered for a bit and then, with nothing else to do, he followed his usual schedule.

Transfiguration class in the morning. Professor McGonagall was lecturing on Animagi today, and it was very interesting, but Percy couldn’t concentrate. He couldn’t stop thinking of his own body up in the Hospital Wing, and he was hyper aware that nobody could see him after a few people walked through him. However, nobody sat in his seat, and Oliver’s seat beside him was also empty. Every now and again, Percy could catch people stealing glimpses at his seemingly empty chair and looking through him.

Next was History of Magic. Even Percy was not immune to the sheer boringness of the class. If he could, he would’ve fallen asleep, but he didn’t seem able to, either because of his rushing thoughts or as a side effect of… whatever this was. Percy was aware he could’ve gone anywhere, that no one was counting his attendance for the day, but there was something comforting in the routine. Like Percy was regaining a minuscule amount of control in an uncontrollable situation.

At lunch time, Percy wandered the halls. Something in him must have been drawing him to the Hospital Wing because when he looked up from the stone floors (which should’ve been cold on his bare feet, but if they were, he didn’t feel it), he found himself at the door to the Hospital Wing.

His family was there now, sitting around outside the Hospital Wing door. Had Madam Pomfrey kicked them out? They were all holding envelopes, and when Percy looked closer, he recognized his own handwriting on the front of each. The letters he’d written. They’d found them.

Now, they could know how sorry Percy was— for everything.

His mother was sobbing, and his father was trying to comfort her. Percy had to look away. When he made the decision, he knew she would be the only one in his family to miss him, and he hated to hurt her so much. But it really was for the best. He couldn’t let her down anymore if he was gone.

Percy couldn’t watch anymore. He turned away and pushed open the door. Nobody seemed to notice, which confused Percy. Penny could notice a chair move, but his family couldn’t notice a door open? Percy marked that question in the For Later category. Percy had enough to worry about without even more of an existential crisis.

His body was still in the same bed, exactly where Percy had left it, but now, Bill was sitting at his bedside.

What was Bill doing here? Shouldn’t he be in Egypt? Percy figured Bill would come back for the funeral, if only out of obligation, but Percy wasn’t dead yet, so why was Bill here?

“Hey, Perce,” Bill said, and he wiped at his eyes, smearing water across his cheeks.

Percy was stunned. He’d never seen Bill cry before, not as long as he could remember, anyway.

“Quite a letter there,” Bill said, and Percy noticed he was holding the letter Percy had written him in his hands. “How long have you been planning this?”

How long had Percy been planning this? In technical terms, he guessed, he’d only been planning it for three days, but he’d been thinking about it long before that— how he would do it, what he would write in the letters. Nothing in his plan ever mentioned wandering around like a ghost while still being alive. Nothing in his plan ever mentioned surviving.

“You must’ve been in… so much pain,” Bill whispered. “And you never said anything.”

“I didn’t know how,” Percy said, even though Bill couldn’t hear him.

“Why? I’m sorry I stopped writing, Percy. I just… got busy and forgot. I know that’s a bullshit excuse, but it’s true, and I’m so sorry.” Bill was rambling now, the words gushing out. “But if you had told me you were thinking about… if you had told me you were hurting, I would’ve dropped everything, I swear.”

Somehow, Percy doubted it. If Bill had taken the time to read any of his letters, he would’ve known Percy was being bullied, that their younger siblings were being relentless. Maybe Percy was being stupid, but he had hoped Bill would read between the lines and see that there was something more going on, but Bill hadn’t even bothered to read his letters. They were probably sitting unopened in a drawer somewhere or, even worse, in the rubbish bin.

Bill wiped at his eyes again, but every time he wiped away the tears, more rose to replace them. He seemed to give up and just let them fall.

“Just because I didn’t have time to reply doesn’t mean I don’t care. I was just stupid and got my priorities out of whack,” Bill said. “But I read every letter you sent me, Perce.”

Percy looked up from the floor. He wanted to call Bill a liar, but Bill wouldn’t be able to hear him anyway.

“On my birthday one year,” Bill continued. “You drew a picture of me breaking curses. I promise, it’s not as glamorous and badass as your picture made it seem, but the fact that you saw me that way, like I was so cool and confident—“

Aren’t you? Percy thought.

“It meant the world to me, Perce. I still have it, hanging in my office,” Bill said.

Was Bill just trying to make him feel better? Percy was thirteen when he drew that picture; why would Bill keep a stupid, useless drawing?

“You stopped drawing after that. I always meant to ask you why, but…” Bill trailed off, and frustration flashed across his face. “I was so focused on making a name for myself that I forgot what was really important, and I hate myself for it.”

Percy’s favorite things had been drawing and writing for the longest time, filling notebooks with stories and poems and sketches. When he was thirteen, he realized they were useless hobbies. Percy wasn’t going to make anyone proud by being an artist or a writer. It was better to focus on becoming a Prefect and Head Boy, getting the best grades possible, and someday landing a job at the Ministry (even though he knew he would hate it).

“You didn’t have to be like me for us to be proud of you, Percy. You just had to be you,” Bill said emphatically.

Be himself? Nobody liked stuck-up, prat Percy. Everybody loved Bill; their parents saw him as their pride and joy, and their siblings looked at him like he hung the stars. Percy had always wanted to be like Bill, following in his footsteps at every turn, hoping it would earn him the same pride and admiration Bill received. But it was never enough. Percy was never enough.

“We should’ve told you that. We should’ve made sure you knew how much we care. I’m sorry that we didn’t,” Bill said.

Bill kept saying he was sorry. Guilt gnawed at Percy’s insides. The point of the letters hadn’t been to make everybody feel guilty. It was to explain even a fraction of the reasons for Percy killing himself and to tell them he loved them.

His family was partly the reason, but even if the twins hadn’t been insufferable, even if Ron and Ginny cared, even if Bill and Charlie didn’t ignore him, even if their parents were proud of him… things probably would’ve still ended the same. Percy couldn’t explain the darkness in his mind, the invisible Dementor sucking out his soul every day. He didn’t know why life was so hard for him when it was easy for everyone else, and there was no way he could put any of it into words.

He loved his family more than life itself. He never wanted them to blame themselves because it wasn’t their fault. Percy was the problem. He had wanted to spare them having to deal with him, to keep the burden from falling to them. He hadn’t succeeded. If anything, the letters had placed a greater burden on their shoulders.

Even after his suicide attempt, Percy was still messing up.

Percy was jerked out of his self-loathing by the door opening. He pulled his eyes away from Bill and turned towards the doorway.

“Charlie?” Bill and Percy said at the same time.

Chapter Text

Dear Charlie,

I always hoped you would notice, that you would say something. Maybe, foolishly, I even hoped you would defend me. I was a stupid child then.

In second year, I was being bullied the worst I’d ever been. Marcus Flint was putting me in the Hospital Wing every week. Some of the Ravenclaws were angry I was getting better grades and tried to sabotage me at every turn- destroying my papers, locking me in broom closets so I’d be late for class, secretly countering my spells in class. Even the Gryffindors seemed to hate me, calling me names, pranking me, ostracizing me. I know you noticed, but you never said anything.

Then, Professor McGonagall found out about you playing a prank on the Slytherin Quidditch team and you were benched from the next game. Someone- probably one of the Ravenclaws- told you I was the one who told on you. You got so angry, called me a narc. You said “no wonder you don’t have any friends.” You walked away before I got the chance to tell you it wasn’t me. You wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

You barely spoke to me for the rest of the year. It hurt that even my own brother hated me. The bullying only got worse when the rumor spread that I was the reason Gryffindor’s Quidditch captain and Seeker got benched. No one would speak to me after that. Even Oliver went a few weeks without talking to me.

That was the first time suicide crossed my mind. It was fleeting, at first, a passing thought, but it kept getting worse, even after everyone came around and started talking to me again. With everyone treating me like I didn’t exist, I started to think maybe it would be better if I didn’t.

The thing is, Charlie, I should be mad at you for not listening to me, but I’m not. I was always a tattle tale growing up, I can admit that. No wonder you thought it was me.

I only tried to tell you about the bullying once, after what happened. I had a black eye and a split lip, and I thought you would at least hear me out because of that. I barely got a word out before you walked away. After that, I figured what was the point in talking to anyone when no one would listen. Maybe I deserved all the bullying for being so different. I’ve always been the black sheep of the family; I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere- in our family, at Hogwarts… in the world.

Everyone else thought I didn’t belong, too. It seemed like everyone was screaming “we don’t want you here!” Maybe this will make it better for everyone. It’s not like anyone really noticed I was here, anyway.

I’m sorry, Charlie. I’ve never been the brother you wanted. I’ve always been the tattle-tale, the stuck-up prat, the goody-two-shoes. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the brother you wanted, but at least I won’t get in the way anymore.

I know you barely think about me in Romania, but I’ve missed you since you’ve been gone. I wanted to write, but you probably wouldn’t reply anyway, so I never did, except that one time after you first moved. This will be the second and last letter I ever write to you. I don’t blame you for never listening to me, but I hope you would read this last letter. Thank you, Charlie.

Love,

Percy

Charlie quite literally dropped everything when he got the news. He was holding a few files on the newest dragons at the Reserve, holding them awkwardly under his arm as he wrestled the letter open. When he read it, he dropped all the files, the carefully organized paperwork scattering across the floor.

“Charlie, what the hell?” Lance, his coworker and the one who had painstakingly organized all the files, shouted from across the room.

Charlie didn’t respond, and all his coworkers exchanged confused glances.

Amy approached him, slowly and cautiously, not unlike she would approach a frightened and injured dragon. “Charlie?” She asked, gently placing a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”

Charlie jerked out of his stupor and turned to her. She looked searchingly into his eyes, seeing nothing but shock and terror there. A moment later, he spun on his heel and marched into his boss’s office.

His coworkers looked at each other behind them and shrugged before going back to work.

“I need to take my emergency leave,” Charlie said as soon as the door shut behind him.

His boss looked up from her paperwork, peering at Charlie over the rims of her glasses. “Why?” She asked.

Charlie didn’t know how to say it, so he handed her the letter. She scanned it, and her eyebrows rose.

“Of course,” she said, handing the letter back. “You get two weeks. I hope your brother’s better by then.”

“I hope so, too,” Charlie said. “Can I use your Floo?”

“Of course,” she said, and Charlie stepped into the fireplace, grabbing a handful of Floo powder.

“Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore’s office,” he called, throwing the Floo powder at his feet. Green flames shot up, and in a second, he was gone, sucked into the Floo network.

He was spat out in the Headmaster’s office at Hogwarts, coughing up some soot but none the worse for wear. Professor Dumbledore looked up from whatever he was writing. He did not smile.

“Mr. Charlie Weasley,” Professor Dumbledore said. “I suspect you’re here to see your brother.”

Charlie nodded.

“I suppose you remember your way to the Hospital Wing?” Professor Dumbledore asked.

Charlie was already halfway out the door by the time the Headmaster finished his sentence.

The walk to the Hospital Wing took him through the main corridors. Luckily, classes were in session, so there weren’t many students in the halls, but the few that were stared at him and whispered as he passed. Charlie resolutely ignored them and continued his path to the Hospital Wing.

He found his family and two other students (one of which, he recognized as Oliver Wood. The boy had always followed him around, prattling on about Quidditch after Charlie made captain) outside the Hospital Wing.

“Charlie,” his father said as Charlie came into sight.

“Where is he?” Charlie asked without preamble.

His mother pointed a shaky finger towards the door to the Hospital Wing. “Third bed. Bill’s in with him now.”

Charlie didn’t say another word as he entered the Hospital Wing, closing the door behind him.

“Charlie?” Bill exclaimed. “Surprised it took you so long.”

“Came as soon as I heard,” Charlie said. “But you know Errol. Probably flew into a few trees on the way there.”

Charlie’s eyes landed on Percy. Charlie remembered, in his fifth year, Percy’s second, being sent to the Hospital Wing for a concussion caused by a Quaffle to the head. Percy had been there with bruised ribs, a broken arm, and a badly bruised face. He’d sat up when Charlie walked in, his face filling with the barest traces of hope, but Charlie had still been mad about the snitching. Charlie had walked right past.

Now, Percy was stark-white instead of black and blue, and his arms were wrapped in bandages, one of which had a spot of red seeping through it. He didn’t sit up when Charlie walked in; his face didn’t fill with hope. He stayed still and silent, face blank and slack against the harsh white of the bed.

“Oh, Percy,” Charlie whispered, almost collapsing into the chair at Percy’s bedside, across from Bill. He reached for Percy’s hand, but he was almost afraid to touch him, like he might break him. He settled for resting his hand beside Percy’s, almost touching but not quite.

“Dad’s letter,” Charlie said. “It said Percy tried to… kill himself.” Charlie’s voice lowered, like he was sharing a secret, the words almost too horrible to speak out loud. The words brought a new gravity to the already heavy room, the oppressive weight of the words bearing down on them.

Bill nodded. “According to Fred and George, he…” Bill couldn’t say it, but he nodded to Percy’s bandaged wrists.

“Why didn’t he say anything?” Charlie asked, staring at the spot of red on the bandages.

“We’ve all been wondering that,” Bill said, “He wrote these.”

Bill held up his own letter and then picked up the envelope they’d rested on the bedside table, the one that said Charlie. Bill handed it to Charlie.

Charlie hesitated a moment, unsure if he could even handle reading his brother’s suicide note, but he also wasn’t sure he could handle not reading it, not having any sort of explanation. He ran his finger over the seal and then slipped his finger under it, gently opening the envelope. He pulled out a piece of parchment. His eyes ran over the words, quickly, hoping for some kind of answer, some kind of explanation.

He got at least part of one, but it only made him feel worse.

Charlie broke down into tears, dropping the letter onto Percy’s hospital bed, and buried his head in his hands.

Bill reached across the bed and grabbed one of Charlie’s hands, pulling it away from his face. Charlie forced himself to meet his brother’s eyes.

“Charlie, it’ll be okay,” Bill said, but the words sounded fake, even to his own ears. He had no idea if it would be okay, and that was the most terrifying thing of all.

“You don’t get it,” Charlie said, the guilt crashing into him over and over.

Charlie remembered the incident Percy mentioned in his letter. Charlie had just been so mad about getting benched from the Quidditch game, especially when it caused them to lose the game and the House Cup. He had wanted to blame someone, and when a Ravenclaw second year told him Percy had snitched, he found a target for his anger. He hadn’t even asked Percy for his side or if Percy even did it, and, like Percy suspected, Charlie probably wouldn’t have believed him anyway. Charlie had given him the silent treatment, pretended like he didn’t exist, for months. He hadn’t even thought of how it would affect Percy, too lost in his own anger.

“Then help me get it,” Bill said. Bill had ignored one brother, had made Percy think he couldn’t come to him, and that brother was now in a hospital bed. He wasn’t going to risk it happening again.

“It’s my fault!” Charlie burst out.

Bill blinked in confusion. “Charlie, this wasn’t your fault,” Bill said, but Charlie just picked up Percy’s suicide note and shoved it at him. Bill quickly scanned over the words and slumped in his chair.

“Charlie, these things don’t just have one reason,” Bill said.

“But I’m one of the reasons,” Charlie said.

“Maybe we all are,” Bill stated.

Charlie looked at him in bewilderment.

“None of us treated Percy well, always making him feel like an outsider,” Bill said. “But when Percy wakes up, we’re going to fix it.”

“If he wakes up,” Charlie whispered.

“When,” Bill asserted. He refused to think about if. If could go fuck itself.

Percy listened to Charlie and Bill’s conversation, pointedly avoiding looking at his body. It was weird enough being outside his body without thinking of his body lying there.

He almost laughed when they finished. They couldn’t fix this. Merlin knows Percy had tried to fix it, to fix himself, and it had never worked.

What would happen if he woke up? Things would go back to how they used to be with Bill and Charlie ignoring him, the twins relentlessly teasing and pranking him, Ron and Ginny hating him. Oliver would still be oblivious; his parents would still be too focused on his siblings to pay any attention to him. Percy understood, he really did. He just didn’t think he could continue living like that.

All the reasons that led up to his attempt were still there and would persist if he woke up. That was why he had tried to kill himself in the first place, to escape all of that.

He could still escape. He just had to… let go.

But despite everything, there was still a hope deep inside him that things would be different this time, that things could really change. He had learned a long time ago hope was useless and got him nowhere, but it didn’t stop him from hoping.

Hoping for someone to see him, really see him, to ask him if he was okay and not believe him when he said he was. Hoping for someone to say they wanted him around. Hoping for a future that wasn’t bleak and colorless and filled with everything he didn’t want his life to be. Hoping for someone to give him a reason to stay.

Now, the reasons to go outweighed the reasons to stay, but Percy would even take just one good reason to stay. If someone gave him that, he’d wake up in a heartbeat.

No one had. The future still loomed, an abyss that would eat him alive. Loneliness still surrounded him like a coffin. He was a planet floating aimlessly through space, reaching to try and pull someone into his orbit, only for everyone and everything to drift further out of reach. His own self-hatred was building until it was insurmountable, compounded by the hatred of others.

That would all still be there when he woke up. Could he really continue living like that?

The monitoring spells shifted, something changing. Even Percy, outside of his body, felt it, but he couldn’t pinpoint what the change was.

A second later, Madam Pomphrey came rushing into the room, her robes swirling around her as she hastened towards Percy’s bed.

“Madam Pomphrey, what is it?” Bill asked, standing up so fast, he almost knocked his chair over. “The monitoring spells—“

Madam Pomphrey didn’t waste her time answering, drawing her wand and hovering it over Percy’s body, whispering Healing spell after Healing spell. Her voice grew only more frantic the more spells she cast.

“His magic’s weakening, and with it, his body. His body is starting to give out from all the blood he lost,” Madam Pomfrey said.

“Can you heal him?” Charlie asked in concern. His hand bridged the inch between his and Percy’s hand as he took Percy’s hand in his.

“I can only take him so far,” Madam Pomfrey said. “Percy has to choose to keep fighting.”

“You’re saying… what? He’s giving up?” Charlie said.

Madam Pomfrey nodded somberly. “It is likely, but as long as he has even the smallest amount of fight left in him, I’ll keep healing him.”

Madam Pomfrey cast a few more spells and sighed in relief. “He’s stabilized for now.”

Bill and Charlie slumped, some of the tension leaving them at hearing Percy was okay (well, as okay as he could be) for now.

Percy sat beside them, invisible (hadn’t he always been invisible?), wondering how much longer he could hold on and wondering if he even should.

Chapter Text

Charlie and Bill sat outside the hospital wing. Their parents had gone inside a while ago, along with Ginny. Ron was with Harry and Hermione somewhere, and neither of the twins seemed ready to go in yet. Bill and Charlie understood. It was hard to see their brother like that, even as adults, and Fred and George not only had to see Percy in that hospital bed, but they’d seen him bleeding out in his dorm room. Nobody could blame Fred and George for not being ready to go into the Hospital Wing. Penelope and Oliver hadn’t left since Oliver found the letters.

“So. You’re Percy’s friend,” Charlie said to Penelope, if only to break the silence.

Penelope nodded. “Since my first year. He helped me with Transfiguration, and we’ve been friends ever since.”

Charlie nodded. He hesitated before asking the question he’d been dreading the answer to.

“Penelope, Oliver,” he said, and they both turned to him. “How bad did the bullying get? I knew Percy got teased a lot, but I had no idea how bad it was.”

Anger flashed across Penelope’s expression. “How could you not notice?”

“Penelope,” Oliver said, trying to calm her down. He placed a hand on her arm, but she shrugged him off.

“Marcus Flint was putting Percy in the Hospital Wing every other week!” Penelope exclaimed. “Bruises, cracked ribs, broken bones, a concussion, you name it! The Ravenclaws hated him because he was smarter than a lot of them, and you don’t want to know some of the things they said to him, calling him a waste of space and worthless and telling him he would peak in Hogwarts and go no where in life. Even the Gryffindors insulted him, both behind his back and to his face— teacher’s pet, pompous prat, saying nobody wanted him around. And none of you helped at all!” Penelope said, looking at Bill, Charlie, Fred, and George. “Percy could’ve handled everyone else— he shouldn’t have had to, but he could have. What he couldn’t handle was his own family hating him!”

“We don’t hate him!” Fred said.

“We never hated him,” George agreed, the first words he’d spoken in a while.

“Well, you have a funny way of showing it,” Penelope snapped. “Do you have any idea how much Percy has done for all of you?”

They all exchanged confused glances, wondering what Penelope was talking about.

“How many punishments he got you two out of it,” she said to the twins. “All those times you pulled a prank and didn’t get punished. Did you really think the professor’s did that out of the goodness of their hearts? No, Percy was the one who talked to them, saying he would handle you two, and when he tried to scold you, you called him a prat, perfect Prefect, pompous, goody two shoes, teacher’s pet, asking if he had nothing better to do than sticking his nose in your business. He was trying to help you, and he never told you because he knew you wouldn’t believe him!”

Fred and George were in shock.

“He tried to get us out of punishments? But Percy’s such a stickler for rules,” Fred said.

“He didn’t want some of your worst pranks on your permanent record, didn’t want you to ruin your futures,” Penelope said. “Not that you would’ve listened if he tried to tell you that.”

Fred and George stared at the ground, the guilt gnawing at them.

“You ignored him,” Penelope said to Bill. “Do you know how many times Percy tried to talk to you about the bullying? He didn’t even want to at first, but I talked him into it, and you wouldn’t even listen! Percy needed you, needed all of you, and none of you were there. Did you even think of him as your brother?”

“Of course we—“ Bill started.

“Then why didn’t you act like it?” Penelope said.

Nobody had an answer.

“And you!“ she whirled on Charlie. “Not talking to him for all of his second year for something he didn’t do? Do you know how much that broke him?”

“It was the first time he thought of suicide,” Charlie said dully.

That stopped Penelope in her tracks. “W-What?” She stammered.

All eyes were on Charlie now.

“In his letter… his suicide note,” Charlie said because it wasn’t just a letter, and they all knew it. “He said that was the first time he thought of suicide. He thought I hated him. He thought everyone hated him.”

Charlie looked at Penelope with a haunted gaze in his eyes.

“Trust me, Penelope, we’ve realized our mistakes,” Charlie said. “We want to fix it, all of us. We all pushed Percy away, and now, I wonder how much we even really know him. We screwed up, there’s no denying it, and I would swear an Unbreakable Vow right now if I could that if we get the chance, we’ll do better.”

Penelope was quiet for a moment.

“And nothing you can say about us would be worse than what we’re feeling about ourselves,” Charlie said.

Penelope sighed and slumped in her chair, burying her head in his hands.

“We’re all hurting,” she whispered, pulling her hands away from her face so they could hear her. “I shouldn’t have said those things. I just… I’m really scared.”

“We all are,” Bill said.

“But you heard Madam Pomfrey,” Oliver said. “Percy needs all of us right now. We can’t keep blaming each other.”

“I know,” Penelope said.

“We can’t blame ourselves either,” Oliver added, grabbing Penelope’s hand.

Penelope laughed, hollowly, on the verge of tears. “That’s easier said than done,” she said. “You didn’t date him.”

“You didn’t live with him,” Oliver pointed out.

They fell into silence after that, the quiet a heavy cloud pressing down on them. They all felt it, the way it wormed its way into their lungs, suffocating them all. The silence was killing them.

“We don’t know Percy well enough,” Charlie said, facing Penelope and Oliver. “But you two do. Would you tells us about him?”

Nobody missed the way Oliver smiled, his first smile since Percy tried to kill himself, some of the light making its way back into Oliver’s eyes as he began to talk.

“The things is, Percy’s a rule follower, but even he broke the rules sometimes. He just knew how not to get caught. There was this time I convinced Percy to sneak out, and Percy knew where the kitchens were, said he befriended a House Elf that showed him. Well, while we were down there, Filch came looking, something about a portrait snitching about two students out of bed, so the House Elves shoved us into a dumbwaiter, and it shot full speed up to the seventh floor. And that’s not even the best part! The best part was when Mrs. Norris came looking for us. Percy pet her and calmed her down; she even showed us this cool room on the seventh floor. Percy and I call it the Whatever-You-Need-Room. We spent all night there. The next morning, Filch suspected it was us, so he cornered us, and Percy brings out his teachers pet persona, saying something like “Mr. Filch, I’ve literally never even stolen a quill, and you’re suggesting I snuck out of the dorm after curfew? He talked circles around Filch; it was awesome to watch. Filch walked away, feeling kind of stupid. It was epic.“

“Once, Percy and I were in the library when these Ravenclaws came in and started taunting him,” Penny said. “Percy makes eye contact with them and casts augumenti on a book, soaking it. The Ravenclaws are like what the hell, right? Percy yells for Madam Pince, and she runs over. She sees the book, demands to know who did this, and Percy blames it on the Ravenclaws. The Ravenclaws tried to defend themselves, but Madam Pence was not having it. She banned them from the library for a month, and Percy and I actually got to study in peace.”

“I remember the time Percy helped us with a prank. It was only once, but it was a thing of beauty,” Fred said.

“The Slytherins were messing with some Gryffindor first years, so Percy came to us with the idea to prank them,” George continued.

“We couldn’t believe it at first,” Fred said. “But then, Percy hands us some papers. He’d planned out everything. The potion we’d use to change everyone’s appearance, how he’d get it into the Slytherins’ food but not anyone else’s, how we’d blame it on this older Gryffindor who was also bullying first years- even the Hufflepuff first years! Only a monster would do that. He’d thought of everything.”

“He just needed us to make the potion,” George added. “We did, and it was a prank for the ages. Slytherins were stuck as old hags for a few days, and that Gryffindor bully got three months detention! I have a feeling McGonagall knew about the bullying and added a month to his detention because of it. I also have a feeling McGonagall knew it wasn’t him.”

“McGonagall’s a fan of poetic justice,” Fred said, “No matter what she says.”

“I fell off my broom once during a Quidditch game,” Charlie said. “Got hit by a bludger. Percy reacted before any of the professors did. He leaped over people to get to the front of the stands and cast a cushioning charm. Only reason I walked away with only a concussion and not some broken bones. Considering he was a first year, it was an impressive charm. The professors were a little shocked a first year could cast a fourth year charm, and I remember thinking huh, Percy stealing my school books to read them came in handy.”

“So I’m kissing a girl in the fourth floor broom cupboard, right?” Bill starts. “The door opens, and I’m like, just great. It’s Percy, and I’m like even better, right? Percy screamed and covered his eyes, running away yelling my eyes! My eyes! Believe it or not, Percy can have a flare for the dramatic. But he never told anyone. Then, a month later, that girl cheated on me, and Percy cast a spell that turned her into the ugliest person I have ever seen, and she had cheater written across her robes. No matter how many times she changed, it always reappeared. It lasted a whole week. I knew Percy did it because he was the only one who knew we were dating, but Percy refused to admit it, always saying he didn’t know what I was talking about. I got him his favorite candy from Honeydukes for that, and I found a drawing of me in my room with this literal princess and written on it was you deserve better. I never told Percy or anyone I cried a bit, and none of you can either!’ Bill added, pointing to all of them.

They all sat outside the Hospital Wing, exchanging stories about Percy— funny, sweet, heart-felt, good stories that allowed them to forget Percy was lying in a hospital bed, if only for a moment.

Unseen by all of them, Percy sat beside them and listened to all the stories.

He’d always been called a prat, a stick in the mud, nosy, a wet blanket, and he thought that’s how they always saw him. The stories were proving otherwise.

But he didn’t want to dare to hope. He couldn’t bear being hurt and rejected again. He wouldn’t survive it.

Chapter Text

The wind blows through his greasy hair, like the proud ruffling from the hand of a father he never got. His Hogwarts robes are billowing around him, and he huffs, stripping them off before they make a sail of him. He doesn’t want to be a sail. He wants to be a stone, falling, falling, falling, splintering, cracking against the earth.

The Astronomy Tower is 100 meters tall, and the ground is hard and frozen from the January weather. They haven’t had snow yet this year, so there’s nothing to cushion his fall. He’ll die instantly, no chance of survival.

It’s an exhilarating, liberating realization.

He stands on the creaky railing, on the outside of it. There is nothing to catch him when he falls… when he jumps. All he has to do is let go of the railing. He starts to uncurl his fingers from the metal; they stick from the cold, like they had begun to meld with the steel. How long has he been standing here?

Why is he hesitating? This is what he wants. This is the only way out— the only escape from his abusive father, from the bullying (the stupid Marauders, as they call themselves), from his own thoughts of guilt and self-hatred.

He called his best friend, his only friend, a Mudblood. He hadn’t meant to. It had just slipped out. Now, he was completely and utterly friendless and alone. Lily would never forgive him. He couldn’t even forgive himself.

Remembering that gives him the strength to let go to the railing, to relax his hands by his sides. He’s still balanced on the railing, his heels on the bottom rung of it, and the drop looms below him.

No chance of survival.

He takes a deep breath, his last breath, and prepares himself for the jolt in his stomach as he falls, for the pull of gravity, for the nothingness on the other side (does he believe in an afterlife? He isn’t sure, but if there is one, it has to be better than here. It has to be).

“What the hell?”

The voice barely registers before a hand is grabbing him by the back of his shirt and hauling him over the railing like a mother cat lifting a naughty kitten by the scruff. The minute his feet touch solid ground, the person lets go, and he isn’t prepared for solid ground, for safety, for life. He falls to the floor and sputters indignantly.

“How dare you—“ he starts, pushing himself to his feet and spinning around to see… “Regulus Black?”

“The one and only,” Regulus drawls. He has on his haughty Black facade, like he isn’t bothered by finding a person about to jump off the Astronomy Tower, but there’s a glint in his eyes, a glint of masked concern. He wants to ask, but asking would give up the guise of indifference. “What on earth do you think you were doing, Snape?”

Severus gestures flippantly to the railing and the 100-meter drop on the other side. “What does it look like?”

“It looks like stupidity.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Severus snaps.

“I know about what happened with Lily today, but that’s no reason to off yourself! Just because one girl doesn’t like you—“

“She was all I had!” The truth bubbles out of Severus like an overflowing cauldron. It had been building and building and building, all of the years of baggage. He had only told Lily a fraction of it before they came to Hogwarts. They barely talked, even before he called her a Mudblood. She was always with Mary MacDonald or the stupid Marauders. She had all but forgotten about him until he called her a Mudblood, and she had the nerve to act betrayed, like she hadn’t abandoned him first. Severus knew he shouldn’t have said it, but the hurt was overwhelming and he lashed out like the snake he was.

Now, he didn’t even have their fragile friendship. He had no one but himself, and he didn’t even like himself. Why would anyone else?

Regulus is taken aback by the confession that splinters the air, like Severus’s spine would’ve splintered on impact if Regulus hadn’t pulled him back. He blinks owlishly.

“What about Mulciber and Avery?” Regulus asks.

Severus scoffs. “They don’t care about anything but their own interests, and you know it. We don’t all have a Crouch or a Rosier like you.”

“So you’re alone right now,” Regulus says, “But you can patch things up with Lily-“

“No, I can’t. She’ll never forgive me for this,” Severus says, and his eyes dart to the railing, wondering if he can throw himself over before Regulus can stop him. “And even if she did talk to me, your brother—“ Severus spits like poison. “—and his gang of pranksters will never let me near her.”

Regulus is quiet for a moment. “He’s not my brother.”

Severus laughs, bitterly. “That’s what you’re focusing on?”

“Yes, because you’re not the only one who got abandoned by a Gryffindor. Did I cry about it? No. I made new friends who have my back. You can, too.”

Severus rolls his eyes. “We don’t all have your stellar social skills, Black.”

Regulus laughs, surprising Severus enough to look up and meet his eyes. “I literally grew up with Sirius and a house elf for company. I barely knew how talk to anyone when I got to Hogwarts. I could’ve let that stop me, but I didn’t use it as an excuse.”

“It’s not an excuse—“

“Yes, it is! Snape— Severus, you could have the friends you want, but you’re never going to know if you kill yourself.”

“Or I could spend the rest of my life alone,” Severus says, his voice flat and dead.

“Maybe,” Regulus admits, “But you’ll never know if you jump, will you?”

Severus leans against the wall and sinks to the floor. Regulus sits beside him.

“Your brother tried to kill me, you know?” Severus says. He half expects Dumbledore to pop out from no where and expel him for even mentioning the incident. Then, he’ll really have nothing.. But that was where all this started, where his and Lily’s relationship started to fracture beyond repair because how could she be friends with someone who tried to kill her other friend? Of course, she didn’t know, and Severus couldn’t tell her, but she knew about the bullying, and she still associated with Potter and Black and Lupin and the other one. Sitting in his room after the incident was the first time Severus thought of suicide.

“Not my brother,” Regulus says. “But it doesn’t surprise me. Sirius can deny it all he wants, but he has a sadistic streak. Just like our mother.”

“Potter had to save me,” Severus says. “I thought, you know, maybe he’s not so bad. But the first thing he did was tell me not to tell anyone, and I realized… he didn’t care about me. He just didn’t want Lupin and Black to get in trouble.”

“Lupin?” Regulus asks. “Thought he was the good one.”

Severus pales, realizing he’d said too much, but then, Regulus raises his eyebrows like he’d realized something..

“Oh, yeah, the werewolf thing,” Regulus says, like he’s just remembering when Severus could never forget.

Severus’s eyes widen. “You know?”

“It’s kind of obvious if you know what to look for,” Regulus points out. “Disappearing around the full moons, the sickly appearance, the scars, Lupin’s and his friends’ secrecy. I’m not an idiot like most of Hogwarts.”

It’s quiet for a moment as Severus takes that in.

“Sirius tried to feed you to a werewolf?” Regulus realizes. “I knew he was sadistic, but that’s too far, even for him. I’m surprised he hasn’t been expelled.”

Severus scoffs. “All Dumbledore said was to not tell anyone about Lupin’s… affliction.”

Regulus’s eyebrows shoot up. “A student almost gets murdered on his watch, and all he says is keep your mouth shut so the ones at fault don’t get in trouble. Talk about favoritism.”

Severus nods.

“I never liked Dumbledore,” Regulus says after a moment.

“Me neither,” Severus admits.

“Well, that’s something we can agree on, and our mutual dislike of Sirius Black,” Regulus says.

“Dislike? More like hatred,” Severus says.

Regulus is quiet.

“You can’t hate him, can you?” Severus realizes.

“No,” Regulus says after a moment, “But I wish I could.”

They’re quiet for a long time, listening to the howling of the wind and staring at the stars.

“Do you still want to die?” Regulus asks bluntly.

Severus thinks about it. “No,” he decides. “Then, Black and Potter and the other two would get what they want. I refuse to get them the satisfaction.”

Regulus smiles, dryly. “That’s the spirit.”

They wait there another moment, staring at the stars, before Regulus speaks again.

“Now, let’s go inside. It’s bloody freezing.”

It’s no secret that Severus Snape does not like the Weasleys. They’re annoying, overconfident, and abysmal at potions. His distaste for them had been cemented the first time Bill Weasley melted a cauldron in his classroom— yes, the first time. There were multiple occasions. Bill Weasley was much too confident for his liking, expecting an O for the bare minimum. Charlie Weasley had his head in the clouds— literally. His obsession with Quidditch was almost as constant as Oliver Wood’s, and Severus caught him day dreaming almost everyday. Fred and George Weasley were nightmares and the bane of Severus’s existence- enough said. Ron Weasley was friends with Saint Potter and tagged along on all of Potter’s escapades; that was enough reason for Severus to hate him. Ginny Weasley wasn’t too bad, but her crush on Potter brought Severus’s immediate dislike towards her. Anyone who associated with Potter had Severus’s dislike.

The only one Severus didn’t dislike was Percy Weasley. Severus didn’t like him by any means- he was still a Weasley- but the boy had a talent for potions and was always respectful and polite. He was a bit of a know it all, like Granger, but no more than some of the Ravenclaws. So yes, Severus could tolerate him.

Percy Weasley was confident, a bit overly so, and assured in his own knowledge. Severus had never expected this. Too be fair, no one had.

Severus had been teaching the fourth year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs and was scolding a Hufflepuff student for not getting the potion right. Severus was feeling particularly mean today, so he was about to take thirty points from Hufflepuff (excessive? Maybe. But Severus didn’t care) when the door opened.

“Have you ever heard of knocking—“ Severus snapped, whirling around, only to pause. “Professor McGonagall,” he said.

“Severus,” she stated, which took Severus aback. She never used his first name in front of the students. Now that he looked closer, he noticed how pale she was, and she gripped the door frame like she didn’t trust herself to stay standing. “Come with me. Now.”

Severus didn’t argue. Something was wrong. It likely had something to do with Saint Potter, but he had never seen Minerva so shaken before, not even when students were being petrified left and right the previous year.

“Continue with your potions. I better not hear any chatter!” Severus said, and he walked out of the room, dramatically flourishing his cape behinds him. He had to keep up his intimidating image, after all.

Once the door was closed behind them and they were alone in the hallway, Minerva said, “I need you to make more blood replenishing potion.”

Severus frowned. “I just made a whole batch for the hospital wing.”

“Poppy had to use all of it today,” Minerva said.

Severus raised an eyebrow. “Five vials? Why on earth would she need that much blood replenishing potion in one day?”

Minerva hesitated, like she didn’t even want to say it. “Percy Weasley tried to kill himself.”

Somewhere, a record scratched. Severus stared at Minerva in shock.

“Percy Weasley,” Severus said. “The overly confident, slightly pompous, self assured Head Boy? That Percy Weasley?”

Minerva narrowed her eyes. “Yes, Severus, that Percy Weasley.”

“Why would he—“

Minerva shrugged. “We don’t know. He’s in the hospital wing, and he lost a lot of blood. We need another batch of blood replenishing potion as soon as possible.”

“Of course,” Severus said. “I’ll dismiss the class and make it immediately.”

Severus hesitated, unsure if he should ask his next question.

“Minerva… if you don’t mind me asking, how did he…” Severus couldn’t finish.

Don’t say the Astronomy Tower, don’t say the Astronomy Tower. Severus knew the odds of surviving something like that.

“He cut his wrists,” Minerva said, and her voice shook slightly.

Severus nodded. “And his family?”

“His parents and siblings are with him now, as well as Miss Clearwater and Mr. Wood.”

Severus nodded again. Good, the boy had people with him. He didn’t have to rely on a random student that just happened to be on the Astronomy Tower at the right time.

“I’ll make the potion,” Severus said.

“Thank you, Severus,” Minerva said and went back down the hall, presumably towards the hospital wing. She’d likely spend a lot of time there until the boy was healed. Minerva cared deeply for her lions, and Severus tried to imagine himself if one of his snakes was in the hospital wing because of a suicide attempt. He wouldn’t stray far either.

Suicide attempts were hard enough. It’s harder when it happens to someone you’re responsible for, when it’s your job to prevent it.

Sometimes Severus hated being a professor.

Severus composed himself and opened the door to the potions classroom again, walking straight up the aisle to his desk. He faced the class, who all stared at him expectantly, some of them actually pretending to work now that his eyes were on them.

“Class dismissed,” Severus said.

A Ravenclaw raised their hand. “But sir, we still have an hour left of class.”

“Class dismissed!” Severus shouted, and no one argued this time, everyone scrambling out of their chairs, grabbing their things and fleeing the classroom like a vampire was on their heels.

Severus sat down heavily at his desk once the classroom was empty.

A suicide attempt had rocked Hogwarts yet again, and just like last time, Severus hadn’t noticed the signs, hadn’t been able to stop it.

Regulus’s usual seat at dinner is empty. As are Barty and Evan’s.

Severus sits alone for the first time in a year. Ever since Severus had tried jumping off the Astronomy Tower and Regulus had stopped him, Regulus had attached himself to Severus like a leech. Severus tried telling Regulus off, saying he didn’t want the other Slytherin’s pity, but Regulus was persistent. He sat with Severus at meal times, studied with him in the library, and talked to him in the halls. Barty and Evan were baffled by this but never questioned it, merely following Regulus but not in the henchman way Severus followed Mulciber and Avery. Just friends following their friend.

Severus thought Regulus would get bored eventually, but Regulus continued talking to him like they were… like they were friends. Severus decided to allow it. It was better than sitting alone.

(And every time Regulus sat with Severus or talked to him, Severus could practically hear Sirius gnashing his teeth across the great hall or across the corridor. That was enough reason to put up with Regulus’s pity.)

Except, after a while, it stopped feeling like pity and started feeling more genuine. Severus started talking more, seeking Regulus out more, and Regulus never seemed annoyed or put off by Severus’s presence. Severus would never admit it, but it was nice to have a friend.

But now, Regulus’s seat is empty, and so are Barty and Evan’s. Severus doesn’t think much of it at first, figuring Regulus got distracted with studying or reading in the library, and Barty and Evan are off snagging somewhere (they think they’re discreet. They are not).

Evan walks in halfway through lunch, and Severus can immediately tell something is off. Evan is pale and he’s walking faster than usual, speeding across the Great Hall. He doesn't come to the Slytherin table, instead continuing to the teacher’s table and immediately to Slughorn. A lot of people are watching in curiosity. Severus rolls his eyes. People are so nosy.

But even Severus can’t deny his own curiosity. He watches out of the corner of his eye as Evan whispers to Slughorn. Slughorn pales, almost as pale as a Hogwarts ghost, and immediately pushes back from the table and stands, walking faster than Snape has ever seen him move. He leaves the Great Hall as people whisper behind him, wondering what’s happening.

Evan ignores everyone and makes his way to the Slytherin table— or more specifically, to Severus.

“Come on, Reg’s in the hospital wing,” Evan says.

Severus frowns. “For what?”

“I’ll explain on the way. Just come on. We have to get Black.”

“But Black is in the hospital wing—“

“Sirius,” Evan clarifies.

Severus scowls. “Why would we—“

“Severus, I can’t explain,” Evan says, and he walks to the Gryffindor table while Severus stands and makes his way out of the Great Hall, ignoring the whispers behind him.

A moment later, Evan exits the Great Hall with a glaring Sirius by his side.

“What is this all about, Rosier?” Sirius asks, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow expectantly.

Evan takes a deep breath, and Severus notices how shaky he seems, like he’s going to be sick. Severus takes a discrete step back in case Evan decides to vomit.

“Regulus is in the hospital wing,” Evan says.

“You mentioned that,” Sirius says impatiently. “You didn’t say why. What is it? A Quidditch injury?”

Evan stares at the ground like it’s suddenly very interesting. He’s quiet for so long, Sirius opens his mouth to speak again, but before he can, Evan looks up and meets first Severus’s eyes, then Sirius’s.

“Regulus tried to kill himself,” Evan says.

The words are a sucker punch to Severus’s chest, and he stumbles back a step, hitting the wall behind him. Sirius goes as stiff as a statue.

“You’re joking,” Sirius says coldly. “And I don’t think it’s very funny.”

Evan shakes his head. “I wish it was. Regulus, he…” Evan stammers. “He cut his wrists. Barty found him.”

Sirius is clearly in denial. Severus is, too, but less obviously.

“No,” Sirius says. “No! Regulus wouldn’t do that. The stuck up prat is always going on about how great he is, and he’s always been Mother’s favorite. He hasn’t known any real pain—“

Severus whirls around and nails a punch to Sirius’s face, splitting his lip. Sirius stumbles back against the wall, holding his jaw.

“Shut. Up. Black,” Severus growls.

“I’m just telling the truth!” Sirius says.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about! You’re the one who hasn’t known any real pain,” Severus retorts.

“You don’t know anything about me, Snape—“

“Both of you, shut up!” Evan roars, and Severus is sure the whole Great Hall heard them through the closed door. “Regulus tried to kill himself. This isn’t about you two or your stupid rivalry. Grow up!”

Severus and Sirius are thoroughly chastised, both of them falling into silence.

“Before he passed out,” Evan continues after inhaling deeply to calm himself down a bit. “Regulus said your name, Sirius. That’s the only reason I’m telling you anything. You clearly don’t care, so you can just go back into the Great Hall.”

“I didn’t say—“ Sirius bursts out before lowering his voice. “I didn’t say I don’t care.”

“Than act like you do,” Severus scowls.

“Snape, you better shut your damn mouth before I—“

Evan raises his hand in a gesture to tell them to be quiet. He’s quickly running out of patience, and Severus wouldn’t be surprised if he walks away without telling them anything else. They fall into silence.

“Regulus also said, ‘Severus was right,’” Evan continues, and Severus’s blood runs cold. “I have no idea what that meant, but you and Regulus are friends, Severus, which is why I’m telling you.”

Severus knows exactly what Regulus was talking about, and he wishes he didn’t.

“Now, can you two be civil?” Evan asks. “At least temporarily? For Regulus?”

Severus and Sirius glance at each other. Could they do that?

Sirius and Severus only have one thing in common- Regulus.

“You can’t hate him, can you?”

“No. But I wish I could.”

Right now, Regulus is all that matters. Severus and Sirius could stop antagonizing each other long enough to help Regulus. They have to.

Severus isn’t so selfish as to let a stupid rivalry get in the way when Regulus’s life is on the line.

…

Regulus is even paler than usual, an almost blue tint to his glass skin. The white bandages around his wrists blend in perfectly with his skin tone. Regulus’s posture is always so stiff and straight, like a board. Now, his whole body is as limp as a doll’s, laying in a hospital bed.

Sirius approaches him first, and the first thing he does is grab the blankets falling around Regulus’s waist and pull them up to his chin.

When Sirius notices the confused expressions Severus, Evan, and Barty are giving him- and the knowing one Pandora is giving him- he shrugs, a little sheepishly.

“He’s always cold,” Sirius says, “And he’s probably even colder now because…” Sirius trails off.

Because of all the blood he lost.

Severus sits on one side of Regulus, Sirius on the other. Neither even glance at the other, their eyes only on Regulus.

Regulus doesn’t move. Madam Pomfrey said it would be a few hours before he woke.

“What happened to not crying about it, Reg?” Severus whispers.

The others glance at him, wondering what that means, but Severus doesn’t even glance at them.

Regulus knows what it means. That’s all that matters.

Percy Weasley has always been pale, as all the Weasleys are. Now, he’s almost translucent. His perfect posture is gone as he lies there, limp, like he isn’t even in there anymore. Like his body is just a shell.

Severus blinks, and it’s Regulus in the hospital bed. He blinks a second time, and it’s Percy again.

“Blood replenishing potion, Poppy,” he says to Madam Pomfrey, handing her the vials.

Madam Pomfrey nods. “Thank you, Severus.”

There were signs. There had to be.

As he did with Regulus, Severus finds himself combing through every interaction he ever had with Percy Weasley, through the first class where the redheaded first year sat in the front row and raised his hand for every question (Severus remembers thinking his brothers told him what questions Severus would ask and Percy Weasley memorized the answers to show off. Severus never changed the questions he asked on the first day because no first year ever knew the answers. It wasn’t long before Severus realized Percy hadn’t just memorized the textbook. He knew how to apply the things he learned), all the way to the potions class two days ago (Percy Weasley had handed in his essays for that day and… today, Severus realized. It wasn’t unlike Percy to work ahead, but he didn’t usually hand it in until the day it was due. This time was different, and Severus hadn’t thought anything of it.)

“Hemlock is highly poisonous,” Severus says. “The effects are immediate, and death occurs within nine minutes. There is no antidote, and the potion is immune to bezoars. All of that to say, if you mess around with this potion, it could mean certain death. So don’t be idiots.”

Percy Weasley stiffens in his front row seat, and he seems to be paying even more attention than he usually does. Severus finds it odd, but then, Wood starts to cut the hemlock instead of crushing it, and he gets distracted.

…

Percy Weasley’s sleeve rolls up in class, revealing a thin cut slicing across his wrist. It’s started to bleed.

Severus tells the boy to stop wielding the potions knife like a butter knife and to go get a bandage from Madam Pomfrey.

It’s only later that Severus realizes there’s no blood on the potions knife when he goes to clean it. The cut hadn’t been made with the potions knife.

…

Percy Weasley has his potions textbook open to blood replenishing potion, even though that isn’t what Severus is teaching. Percy is gripping the edge of the desk so tightly, his knuckles turn white.

A moment later, he passes out.

When the boy comes to, he tells Severus and his worried classmates that he had woken up late and hadn’t eaten breakfast. He just got dizzy, is all.

Severus doesn’t question it. He has a large syllabus to get through by the end of the year, after all. He can’t stop for every little thing. He goes back to teaching.

That same day, the ingredients for a blood replenishing potion go missing from his potions cabinet.

There were always signs, and just like Regulus, Severus had missed all of them.

Dear Severus,

Regulus went missing a few weeks ago. He’s been assumed dead. I thought you’d want to know before you found out in the newspaper.

—Evan Rosier

Severus rests the letter on his desk and stares vacantly into space.

Regulus is dead. People will assume Regulus got killed on a mission for the Dark Lord or that he’d gotten cold feet and been killed for it.

But Severus knows the truth. Regulus Black would not let himself be killed by the Dark Lord or the Death Eaters or an Auror or an Order member or anyone else.

Regulus Black would die just as he lived. On his own terms.

When Dumbledore approaches him after Lily died, asking Severus to be a spy, Severus says yes. For Lily and for Regulus, but most of all, for himself.

He is going to live on his own terms.

Chapter Text

In the 29 years she’d been the matron healer at Hogwarts, Madam Pomfrey had seen a great deal many things, but she had only seen 2 suicide attempts and one close call.

The charms on the hospital wing alerted Madam Pomfrey to a student entering the hospital wing. She gave a close mouthed groan at being awakened from her sleep at (she cast a quick tempus) 2:35 AM, but she rolled out of bed and stepped out of her quarters and into the main hospital wing, still in her nightgown and slippers. A Healer’s work was never done, she reminded herself as she waved her wand and lit the torches lining the walls.

“Alright, what is it this time— Mr. Black?”

Sirius Black whirled around from where he had been closing the door softly behind him, and the first thing she noticed was the guilty expression on his face, his eyes darting to the floor, to her eyes, and back again. He was clutching his wrist, holding it against his chest. Like her, he was wearing pajamas— it was 2:35 AM, after all.

Madam Pomfrey sighed. She saw Sirius Black often. Him and James Potter were always getting into some sort of mischief that resulted in minor injuries- a few bruises, singed eyebrows, even a sprained ankle once when Sirius tripped while running from Minerva after a prank and crashed into a suit of armor- and even outside of that, they often visited Remus Lupin after the full moon. Madam Pomfrey didn’t know for certain if they knew of Remus Lupin’s… affliction, although she suspected they did. She was glad they were still by his side; he needed friends with unconditional acceptance. Goodness knows, the boy didn’t get enough of that.

“What is it, Mr. Black? Another prank gone wrong?” She asked, exasperated.

“Uh, no, not exactly,” Sirius said slowly.

Sirius was acting strange. Staring at the ground, no mischievous smirk on his face, shuffling from foot to foot, hesitation clear in his expression. He wasn’t sure if he should tell her, Madam Pomfrey realized. He still hadn’t let go of his wrist and actually seemed to clutch it tighter.

“Sirius,” Madam Pomfrey said, more gently. “What is it?”

Words came tumbling out of Sirius’s mouth like a landslide. “I-It was a mistake, honest. I just didn’t know what else to do, and it seemed like a good idea at the time, but it really hurt and then I thought of James and Remus and Reggie and realized how stupid it was, but I couldn’t tell them, so I came here. I was just going to take some dittany and bandages because it’s really not worth bothering you over, but—“

“Mr. Black, slow down,” Madam Pomfrey said, choosing to ignore for the moment that Sirius had been planning to steal from her hospital wing. “Let me see the injury.”

Sirius hesitated but finally pried his wrist away from his chest and held it out to her.

The first thing Madam Pomfrey saw was the red saturating Sirius’s shirt, previously hidden by his wrist. The next thing she saw was the towel wrapped around Sirius’s wrist, white with red leaking through it. Madam Pomfrey felt fear spike through her; that was a concerning amount of blood, nothing like the minor cuts and abrasions she’d treated Sirius for before. She hurriedly grabbed Sirius’s wrist, even as Sirius looked like he was wondering if he should grab his wrist back before she saw the injury. She had no idea why Sirius would be so cagey about such an injury; it was just a cut, after all—

Madam Pomfrey unwrapped the towel from Sirius’s wrist and found a jagged line carving from just below the web of veins at Sirius’s wrist until it curved towards the veins, coming dangerously close to them. The cut got deeper at the curve, as if… as if the knife had slipped.

But what caught Madam Pomfrey’s attention after that were the neat lines, scars and fresh cuts (some even still bleeding) drawn over the skin of Sirius’s forearm, too neat and numerous to be accidental.

“Mr. Black,” Madam Pomfrey said, her voice softening as if she was talking to a child. Then, she remembered Sirius was only fifteen— he was a child.

Sirius wouldn’t meet her eyes.

Madam Pomfrey ushered him over to the nearest bed and sat him down on it, bustling about in her supply cabinet to find some bandages, a blood replenishing potion, and dittany. Once she found those things, she walked back over to Sirius and set to rubbing the dittany over the worst cut— she’d handle the other ones after. The cut began to close, gradually but surely, until all that was left was a thick, angry scar.

Sirius was lucky he hadn’t hit a vein. Those deeper injuries were harder to heal and the sheer amount of blood loss harder to treat. The cut was messy and deep but had thankfully missed any veins by a few centimeters.

The worst cut taken care of, she moved to the other ones, but Sirius snatched his hand away.

Madam Pomfrey looked at Sirius in confusion. Sirius was staring at the neat lines of cuts, tracing them with his eyes like he’d memorized them.

“Don’t heal those,” Sirius said, and he sounded so tired, so heartbroken.

“May I ask why?” Madam Pomfrey asked.

Sirius didn’t answer.

“Sirius, the cuts could get infected—“

“I deserve it,” Sirius burst out, like a secret he’d been hiding for too long.

Madam Pomfrey blinked. “What could you have possibly done to deserve this?”

“I-I messed up,” Sirius said, and there were tears in his eyes. “I hurt someone I really care about, and he’ll never forgive me, and- and I keep thinking of the look he gave me when he found out. He said… He said I was just like my family, and I realized he’s right. I don’t even know why I did what I did; I just… I wanted this person I hate to hurt, to hurt the way I was hurting, and it just slipped out. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but I did, and what if he was right? What if I am just like my family?”

“Sirius,” Madam Pomfrey said, softly. “I went to school with your mother. You are nothing like her.”

Madam Pomfrey knew Walburga Black from their time at school. Walburga was cruel and a bully and merciless; her words cut deeper than her hexes and jinxes, although those certainly left a mark, as well. She knew Sirius didn’t have a good relationship with his family. She knew he spent more time at James Potter’s house than his own from the amount they talked about Sirius coming to James’s house for the holidays. She knew he spoke of his family and their ideals with nothing but disdain. She knew he barely spoke to his brother. But how deep did this go?

Was Walburga as cruel to her children as she’d been to other students at Hogwarts during her school years?

“But I am!” Sirius said, and he was definitely on the verge of crying. He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his forehead against his knees, curling up tightly to make himself smaller. Sirius Black had always had a larger than life personality, but now, he just looked like a scared, sad child. “She always said I had black blood, and after every time I disappointed her, she said ‘the black blood will get you eventually, and you’ll end up just like us, just what you’re supposed to be. It’s inevitable.’ I never believed her, but after this… she was right. I do have black blood, so I thought I could just…” Sirius suddenly clamped his mouth shut, like he’d said too much.

“Could just what, Sirius?” Madam Pomfrey gently prompted.

Sirius stared intently at the wall rather than at Madam Pomfrey when he said, “I thought I could, that I should just…cut it out.”

Madam Pomfrey’s blood went cold. “Sirius,” she said.

“I know it sounds crazy!” Sirius exclaimed, and his hands reached up to fist in his hair, pulling slightly. Madam Pomfrey wanted to stop him, but she was worried if she interrupted, he’d clam up forever. “I know I sound crazy! Mother always says that… that pain is a good teacher. She always said I deserved her punishments, and for the first time, I believed her. I’m sure my friends think that, too. So I… I made some of my own punishments.” Sirius laughed bitterly. “But I never seem to learn.”

Madam Pomfrey had seen many things in her 15 years as matron healer at Hogwarts, but she’d never seen a child telling her he willingly took a knife to his skin to punish himself. How could someone, especially a child, think they were so bad, so rotten, so… evil that they needed to punish themselves? Especially someone as happy and fun-loving as Sirius. Sirius, who had so many friends. Sirius, who everyone seemed to like except for a few Slytherins. Sirius, who no one had ever noticed was suffering at the hands of himself and his own family.

“Sirius, whatever your family has done to you,” Madam Pomfrey said, “You didn’t deserve that.”

“You don’t know that,” Sirius whispered.

“Yes, I do,” Madam Pomfrey said more firmly. “Because you are a child, and they’re your family, and because I know you. You are always by Remus’s side every month, making him laugh and smile.”

The mention of Remus made Sirius’s expression crumple, and the first sob burst out of his mouth, even as Sirius covered his mouth with a hand to try and stifle it.

Madam Pomfrey didn’t know what she’d said, but she worried asking would make it worse. Sirius needed to tell her what was going on; pushing him would not help.

Sirius cried for a few moments while Madam Pomfrey placed a hand on his shoulder to try and comfort him, and after a minute or two, the truth came tumbling out.

“I hurt him, Madam Pomfrey,” Sirius said in between sobs. “I hurt him so bad; he’ll— he’ll never forgive me.”

Madam Pomfrey thought back to the day after the last full moon. Remus had been laying in the hospital bed with a few new gashes. James Potter and Peter Pettigrew were there; Sirius wasn’t. There was a coldness in the room, a stiff silence. No one spoke; no one laughed. Madam Pomfrey remmebered wondering what had happened to make the most care-free, happy students at Hogwarts so serious.

“Remus is a gentle soul,” Madam Pomfrey said. Despite the wolf inside him, Remus Lupin was the gentlest soul she knew. “Whatever you have done, he is not one to hold grudges, and you clearly regret it. He will see that.”

Sirius looked away. “He’s a good person, the best. I’m just… not. He’ll be better off without me.”

“Sirius,” Madam Pomfrey said, and she waited until he looked at her to continue. “Whatever mistakes you have made, you are a good person.”

Sirius didn’t seem to believe her.

Madam Pomfrey took a deep breath. She had never told this story to anyone, but Sirius needed to see that mistakes do not define who people are or who they become. “When I was in my fifth year, I hung around some bad people, bullies. Once, my best friend used a cutting curse on another student. I don’t know if they intended for it to cut that deep, but she was bleeding everywhere. Dying. I had watched my friend draw her wand, didn’t even try to stop her, and when the girl went down, I just… watched in horror. I couldn’t move. My friend kept pulling at my arm to run, and… I did. I was so afraid of getting in trouble.”

Sirius looked at her in surprise.

“The girl survived but barely. She couldn’t speak after that; her vocal cords were cut. I never- I never told anyone. A few years later, my friend ended up in Azkaban for using an Unforgivable on her own sister. Her sister was pretty messed up after that, and while I didn’t draw the wand either time, I was not completely blameless either. I left that girl bleeding out in an empty hallway, and I never told anyone about what my friend had done. Her cruelty only grew after that, and it resulted in someone else getting hurt. I knew if I had said something, maybe that girl would be fine. Maybe my friend’s sister would be fine.

“I went into Healing after that. I hoped that by helping people, I could… atone for what I’d done,” Madam Pomfrey said. “I was never able to completely forgive myself, but I also know my mistakes do not define who I was or who I’ve become.”

Sirius was silent for a moment, comprehending that.

“Sirius, forgiving yourself is never easy, but you need to keep living. You need to stop punishing yourself. That kind of self-hatred eats you alive, and while I don’t know what happened between you and Remus, I know he still cares deeply for you. Anyone with eyes can see that.”

Sirius nodded. He still looked a little disbelieving, but he seemed to understand what she was trying to say.

Madam Pomfrey held out her hand, and Sirius offered his wrist. She quickly healed the other cuts until they were nothing but scars.

“Would you like me to call Mr. Potter, Mr. Lupin, and Mr. Pettigrew?” Madam Pomfrey asked.

Sirius didn’t say anything for a moment. “I don’t want them to feel bad about any of this.”

Madam Pomfrey nodded. “I understand, but I think they’d feel worse if this went on any longer.”

Sirius was quiet again until finally, “Could you call them please?”

Madam Pomfrey waved her wand and sent a patronus to find James Potter, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew.

Madam Pomfrey was worried about leaving Sirius alone, so she stayed by his side until, only five minutes later, the three Gryffindors burst into the Hospital Wing.

“Sirius!” James exclaimed.

“Where were you?” Peter asked.

“We woke up, and you were gone,” James said. “Then, we found some bloody towels in the bathroom, and…”

“Are you okay?” Remus asked, just as worried but standing a little further back.

Sirius hesitated. Madam Pomfrey wondered if he would lie to them and if she should let him, but then, he said, “No, I’m not okay.”

The boys all exchanged alarmed expressions. It probably wasn’t like Sirius to admit he wasn’t okay.

“I-I have something I need to tell you,” Sirius added.

Madam Pomfrey slipped back into her quarters to give the boys some privacy. She wasn’t as worried about leaving Sirius. He wasn’t alone now.

The next day, she saw Sirius and Remus hug in the corridors. Sirius planted an over exaggerated kiss on Remus’s cheek, and both of them laughed. Madam Pomfrey smiled; if anyone deserved some laughter, it was them.

The patronus- a silvery cat- entered the hospital wing while Madam Pomfrey was patching up Angelina Johnson after a Bludger to the head at Quidditch practice.

“Poppy,” Minerva’s voice came from the patronus. “Emergency in Gryffindor Tower. Please come immediately.”

“You’re free to go, Miss Johnson,” Madam Pomfrey said, having just finished up when the patronus appeared. Then, she speed-walked out of the room.

What kind of emergency was there in Gryffindor Tower? Had the Weasley twins pulled a prank, and it went awry and injured someone? Had Potter gotten into trouble again? Was it Sirius Black breaking into Gryffindor Tower for the third time (they needed to get some better security at Hogwarts)?

Madam Pomfrey prepared herself for a lot of things. She didn’t prepare herself for Head Boy Percy Weasley bleeding out in his dorm room. She didn’t let her shock show, though. A Healer did not freeze or pause. A Healer acted immediately, always quick on her feet. Hesitation could mean death in the world of healing.

Madam Pomfrey knelt by Percy Weasley’s side and found a tie bound around one wrist and Quidditch robes wrapped around the other forearm- makeshift tourniquets. Oliver Wood was holding Percy close, and she noticed his tie and robes were missing.

Madam Pomfrey never thought she’d be thanking Merlin Oliver Wood had spent so much time in the hospital wing with Quidditch injuries. He’d obviously learned some things from watching her.

Madam Pomfrey levitated Percy onto a stretcher and brought him to the hospital wing while Professor McGonagall and Oliver Wood followed her. The matron healer resolutely ignored the stares they received.

Madam Pomfrey got to work the minute Percy was in the hospital bed. She poured blood replenishing potion after blood replenishing potion on Percy’s forearms, watching it seep into the cuts. Every vial sunk into the wounds as soon as the potion touched skin, and Percy didn’t look any less pale.

Madam Pomfrey waved her wand to cast a monitoring spell and read the vitals that appeared in the air.

Heart rate: 44

Body temperature: 96.7

Respiratory rate: 32 breaths per minute

Blood pressure: 110/74

ALERT: Blood Loss- 1 Liter, 750 Milimeters

Madam Pomfrey promptly poured another three vials on Percy’s forearms. The vitals changed slightly.

1 LITER OF BLOOD RESTORED

That was all the blood replenishing potion, so she’d need Severus to make more, but Percy wasn’t in as much danger of dying at this point.

Madam Pomfrey set to work healing the cuts. They were deep, had definitely hit a vein, unlike… Sirius. Madam Pomfrey tried not to think about Sirius Black or Regulus Black. She focused on the boy currently in the hospital bed, not the ghost of a Slytherin with slit wrists or the shadow of a Gryffindor with more scars than skin. She couldn’t think about them right now. She had to focus on the dying boy in front of her.

Percy’s magic was completely exhausted. As much as Percy may or may not have wanted to die when he cut his wrists, his magic clearly wanted him alive, and it was fighting to save him. Before Madam Pomfrey even cast the spells, she could see the skin trying to stitch itself back together. She used her own magic to give Percy’s a push, and the cuts started to close completely.

The scar would always be there. Magic could heal superficial cuts without even a scar, but for an injury like this, even magic couldn’t erase the reminders of the injury.

Madam Pomfrey healed until the cuts were slightly deep lines running from wrist to elbow on both arms. She had focused on healing the veins Percy had hit, but her own magical exhaustion was getting to her. She felt unsteady on her feet, and as much as she wanted to heal the cuts into scars, she knew she’d be no good to Percy or any of the students of Hogwarts if she passed out. Percy was stable. She could take a break and give Percy some time to heal and rest before she continued.

Madam Pomfrey wrapped Percy’s arms in bandages to protect the cuts from infections and stem any lingering bleeding. As soon as that was done, she collapsed into the chair at Percy’s bedside.

She knew she’d have to tell Percy’s family soon. She could sense the bone-deep magical exhaustion in Percy; it made the air feel… heavier. She knew Percy wouldn’t be waking up any time soon; magical exhaustion almost always resulted in comas as the boy needed time to rest, recuperate, and build the magic back up.

Percy Weasley was pale in the hospital bed. He no longer looked like the confident, self-assured Head Boy she knew him to be. He looked like the child he was, only seventeen.

Madam Pomfrey couldn’t prevent herself from slipping into her memories, remembering the only other suicide attempt she’d seen in all her years as matron healer of Hogwarts.

“MADAM POMFREY!”

Madam Pomfrey almost dropped the potions she was restocking in the supplies cupboard as she spun around, recognizing the voice before she even saw him. Madam Pomfrey had a talent for that, remembering every student she ever treated. Such a good memory was a blessing and a curse, she’’d discovered.

“Mr. Rosier, what on earth—“ Madam Pomfrey stopped as soon as she saw the boy Evan Rosier was carrying. Not levitating, carrying; Madam Pomfrey wondered if they’d even learned the levitation spell for people yet. Wingardium Leviosa wasn’t good for lifting anything heavier than a feather, unfortunately.

Regulus Black was limp in Evan Rosier’s arms, even paler than usual and gushing blood from both wrists.

“Oh, dear,” Madam Pomfrey said once she got over her initial shock. She shouldn’t have frozen, even for a second. Hesitation could mean death in the world of healing. “Bring him here.” She gestured to the nearest bed, and Evan laid Regulus on it as gently as he could before stumbling back, out of breath. Evan Rosier wasn’t the strongest person; he wasn’t on the Quidditch team. Yet, he’d carried his friend all the way here.

Madam Pomfrey started the healing spells, spilling blood replenishing potions over Regulus’s wrists. The cuts started to close as Regulus laid still, the picture of a ghost with translucent skin and slack facial expression.

Once Madam Pomfrey had done all she could do, she stepped back. Only then did Evan Rosier speak up.

“Is he going to be okay?” Evan asked, his voice shaking.

Madam Pomfrey nodded. “Yes. He’ll make a full recovery, although he will have some scars.”

Evan sighed in relief. “Thank you, Madam Pomfrey.”

“Is there anyone you’d like me to call?” Madam Pomfrey asked. “Mr. Crouch, perhaps?”

“Barty found him,” Evan said. “He screamed, and I came running. Barty couldn’t lift him, so I brought Regulus here. Barty was kind of out of it when I left.”

Madam Pomfrey nodded. “I’ll go get Mr. Crouch. Anyone else?”

Evan hesitated. “Severus and Sirius. I’ll-I’ll tell them.”

“Mr. Rosier, are you sure? I can send a patronus—“

Evan shook his head. “I’d rather they hear it from me than a patronus.”

Madam Pomfrey nodded in understanding.

Evan headed for the Great Hall, and once Madam Pomfrey was sure Regulus was stable, she headed for the dungeons. She said the password (28, for the sacred 28) and stepped inside. The matron healer always knew all the passwords to each house, in case there was ever an emergency.

She knocked on the door of the fourth year dorm room, and she opened it slowly when she received no response.

She found Barty Crouch Jr. sitting on one of the beds, staring at a pool of blood staining the sheets of another bed. His eyes were hollow, his skin pale, his hands shaking. Madam Pomfrey recognized the symptoms of shock immediately.

“Mr. Crouch,” she said. Barty didn’t give any sign he’d heard her.

She cast a warming charm on the boy, as was standard procedure for shock, and she gently guided him to his feet. They were almost to the door when Barty spoke.

“Regulus was holding these,” Barty whispered, holding out some blood stained photographs.

Madam Pomfrey looked at the three moving photographs in his hand. One of Regulus Black and Severus Snape; Severus seemed to be teaching him how a pen worked. Regulus was transfixed by the pen, likely having only ever seen a quill, and Severus had a rare smile on his face. The other was of Regulus, Evan, and Barty. Barty was ruffling Regulus’s hair while Regulus rolled his eyes, but Regulus had a fond smile on his face. Evan had his arm slung around Regulus’s shoulders. The last was of a much younger Sirius and Regulus. Sirius was hugging Regulus from the side until the hug turned into tickling, and Regulus shrieked with laughter.

“Mr. Black is going to be okay,” Madam Pomfrey said.

“Is he? I mean, not just physically?” Barty asked.

Madam Pomfrey said gently, “I believe he will, with friends like you by his side.”

They headed to the hospital wing, and Barty immediately ttook a seat by Regulus’s bedside, grabbing his hand.

Madam Pomfrey slipped out of the room, but not before she saw Evan, Severus, and Sirius step into the room.

Regulus had people who love him, just like Sirius did. Madam Pomfrey hoped that would be enough for both of them.

“Is he going to be okay, Poppy?” Minerva asked. Madam Pomfrey had almost forgotten she was there, too focused on healing Percy and then on her memories.

“I hope so,” Madam Pomfrey answered. “But with a magical coma… Percy needs to choose to wake up. He needs to choose to live. For most people, that’s an easy choice. For Percy… it might not be so easy.”

Minerva nodded, her expression etched with deep sadness. “I-I need to inform Gryffindor House and the school,” she says. “Hopefully get ahead of the rumors.”

But could any rumors be worse than the truth?

Minerva left the hospital wing, and Madam Pomfrey stared at young Percy Weasley in the hospital bed.

The only suicide attempts she’d seen (that she knew of, she realized with some horror) were a Slytherin and a Gryffindor, and the close call had been another Gryffindor.

Slytherins and Gryffindors were more alike than they’d ever admit. Brave in their own sorts of ways. Gryffindors were brave for others; Slytherins were brave for themselves. Both would rather soldier through the difficult situations than ask for help, although for Slytherins, it was more to avoid showing weakness while Gryffindors, it was more about not inconveniencing others. Both clamped their mouths shut, pulled their shoulders back; Slytherins shut down, and Gryffindors plastered fake smiles on their faces. Both had misconstrued the meaning of bravery, of strength.

“There’s no need top be brave,” Madam Pomfrey whispered. Whether she was talking to Percy or the phantoms of Regulus and Sirius Black, even she didn’t know. “Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is ask for help.”

Percy, of course, didn’t answer her.

Chapter Text

Minerva McGonagall had a sister once. Diana.

Diana was older than Minerva by four years, and Minerva absolutely idolized her, as most younger sisters idolize their older sister. Minerva followed her around everywhere, and while most sisters would’ve gotten annoyed, Diana never did. She’d just smile softly at Minerva, as if thinking ‘I’m going to miss this.’

Diana killed herself when she was fifteen and Minerva was eleven.

Knock, knock, knock!

“Diana!” Minerva called through the closed door of her sister’s bedroom. “You’re never going to guess what happened today! Josh called me cute today!”

Josh Griffin was the cutest boy in the whole grade, and for some reason, he had come up to nerdy, dorky Minerva McGonagall with her glasses always slipping down her nose and said, “You’re kind of cute.”

Not exactly the picturesque love confession Minerva had been dreaming of, but it was something, and the first thing Minerva had to do when she got home was tell her sister.

Diana didn’t respond, and Minerva frowned and knocked again, harder and louder this time.

“Diana?” She called again before trying the doorknob. It was locked.

Minerva huffed in annoyance. Couldn’t her sister see how big a deal this was for her? Why wasn’t she saying anything?

Minerva stood on her tiptoes, and her fingers just barely grazed the top of the doorframe where they kept the spare key. She brushed her fingers over the wood until she found the key, her fingers hitting it and knocking it off. She leaned down and picked up the key, jamming it in the lock and twisting it.

She heard a click, and she pushed the door open.

“Diana, why—“

Minerva froze.

For a long minute, she just stared at her sister’s limp form, at her unmoving chest. Her brain wasn’t computing, wasn’t able to comprehend what she was seeing.

“Diana?” Minerva whispered as she crossed the room, her cat slippers padding across the carpet. “Diana?”

Diana didn’t move or speak or breathe.

Minerva screamed loud enough to wake the dead— but not Diana.

There was a clatter in the kitchen as their mother dropped something, and footsteps pounded down the hall as their parents came running.

Their dad appeared in the doorway, and for a heartbeat, he was as frozen as Minerva had been, but he snapped out of it after a second and rushed into the room. He knelt by Diana’s side and pressed two fingers to her neck. He cursed and rolled her over onto her back, stacking his hands on top of her chest. Then, he pushed down again and again and again. He breathed into her mouth twice.

It wasn’t enough.

Minerva’s mother had entered the room at some point, and she was wailing, sobbing. Minerva’s mother was always so stoic and stern. To see her like this was shocking, and Minerva couldn’t handle any more shock.

Minerva was cold, the kind of cold that seared down to her bones. Her stomach was twisting and turning, doing somersaults, like the time Minerva had squished herself into a tire and Diana had rolled it down the hill. Diana had been laughing the whole time.

Why wasn’t she laughing now? Why wasn’t she jumping up and yelling, “Gotcha!” Because this had to be a joke, a prank, something. Minerva’s sister couldn’t just be… gone.

Minerva’s head was spinning, and her legs were quaking, shaking, trembling beneath her. Staying upright was harder than usual; she was swaying side to side, like the time her sister taught her how to dance.

No more inprontu dance parties. No more climbing into Diana’s bed during thunderstorms. No more babbling on about boys and school and normal stuff. No more hugs or following Diana around like a lost kitten. No more of Diana’s laughter or bad singing voice or her dramatic story telling. No more Diana.

This wasn’t real, this wasn’t real, this wasn’t real.

Their dad stopped pushing on Diana’s chest, even though her chest still wasn’t moving. He sat back on his haunches and looked hopelessly at their mum. Their mum wailed even louder, crumpling to her knees, and gripping the doorframe for dear life to keep her from collapsing completely.

Diana was gone. This was real, and Minerva couldn’t handle that.

Black crept in on Minerva’s vision, and her legs turned to rubber. Her stomach somersaulted again, and this time, Minerva threw up, bile gushing past her lips and onto the carpet (stained by the red fruit punch Minerva had spilled a few years ago. It looked a lot like blood, and that made Minerva feel sicker). Minerva couldn’t see anything but her sister— her dead sister.

Minerva passed out.

The last thing she remembered was her mother leaping forward to catch her and her parents begging her to stay awake, the terror, the grief, the brokenness in their voices.

This was real.

Not much could shock Minerva McGonagall anymore. Thirty-five years as a professor, she thought she had seen it all.

Fred and George Weasley bursting into her office without a knock was not a shock— many students did that and always got scolded for it.

“Percy,” Fred had said. “There’s so much blood.”

That had Minerva on her feet in a second, sending a patronus to Madam Pomfrey, and following the twins to the common room, up the stairs, and into the seventh year dorms, shared by Percy Weasley and Oliver Wood.

Finding Percy Weasley, bleeding out in Oliver Wood’s arms from self-inflicted injuries, was a shock.

Minerva froze. She hated to admit it, but she froze. For just a second, she was back at that door, back in that bedroom, finding her sister dead.

Madam Pomfrey did not freeze. She looked shocked for just a moment before Healer mode took over, and she was taking large strides across the room to Percy’s side. Minerva got the feeling she had seen this kind of thing before. Who, though? It couldn’t have been one of her lions; Minerva would’ve been informed, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen in another House.

Minerva unstuck her feet from the floor. She wasn’t eleven years old anymore. She was a professor at Hogwarts, and one of her students was gravely injured. She needed to act.

She noted the robes wrapped around one of Percy’s arms and a tie around the other. A quick glance at Oliver showed he was missing his robes and tie, and Minerva thanked Merlin Wood had done that. She was amazed Wood had known what to do and been able to do it, as distraught as he was.

She turned her eyes back to Percy Weasley. Percy Weasley was always so confident and self-assured, crossing over into pompous many times, but he was a good student, a good Prefect, a good Head Boy. Minerva never could’ve imagined Percy would do something like this.

Percy was placed on a stretcher and levitated to the hospital wing. They drew quite a few stares in the hallways, and Minerva knew the rumors would be flying. She realized she’d have to set the record straight; it was one of her Gryffindors, and it would be her responsibility to inform her house and maybe the school of what happened to the Head Boy. Her heart clenched at the thought of seeing so many grieving, heartbroken faces.

Hogwarts was no stranger to tragedy, but this felt different. There was always something- human, monster, or something in between- to blame. The lines were cut and dry. This was anything but.

Minerva watched from the sidelines as Madam Pomfrey worked. Poppy cast healing spell after healing spell, and Minerva watched Percy’s injuries begin to stitch together. Poppy vanished the blood, and they got a good look at the injuries for the first time. Two deep cuts dragged over each forearm, starting at the wrist and traveling to the elbow. The cut on the left arm was steady and straight; the cut on the right arm was crooked and jagged. Minerva wondered if it was due to Percy being right handed or if the blood loss had already been getting to him when he made the cut. Likely both.

Poppy shook herself free from her stupor, and she Accioed a few vials of blood replenishing potion, upending each vial onto the cuts on Percy’s arms, letting the potion seep in before continuing to heal the injuries.

Poppy almost collapsed into the chair at Percy’s bedside, her magic clearly exhausted.

“Is he going to be okay, Poppy?” Minerva asked. She couldn’t take her eyes off Percy’s pale face, off the bandages on his arms.

“I hope so,” Madam Pomfrey answered. “But with a magical coma… Percy needs to choose to wake up. He needs to choose to live. For most people, that’s an easy choice. For Percy… it might not be so easy.”

Minerva had never understood how someone could just… choose not to live anymore. She hadn’t understood it at eleven, and she didn’t understand at sixty years old. She didn’t understood how she could fail to notice, how everyone had failed to notice.

“Everyone sees the suicide,” one of her professors had said to her after Diana died. Minerva had flinched at the word suicide. “Nobody sees what leads up to it.”

“I-I need to inform Gryffindor and the school,” Minerva said. “Hopefully get ahead of the rumors.”

It was her whole job to pay attention to her students, to keep them safe. Her failure to notice Percy Weasley’s pain hung heavy over her, weighing down on her shoulders.

There were signs. There always were. How much had Minerva missed?

“All students, report to the Great Hall,” Minerva announced through the magic intercom system Hogwarts had. They rarely used it, rarely had any need.

Minerva sat at the head table as students filed into the Great Hall, all of them looking puzzled as to why teachers had abruptly ended classes and ushered them all here as the announcement was made. Fear was etched into a few students’ faces; the last time something like this had happened was during the whole Chamber of Secrets fiasco, although they’d been instructed to go to their common rooms that time.

Minerva waited until all the students were in the Great Hall. Albus started to stand, but Minerva placed a hand on his arm to stop him.

This was one of her lions. It was her responsibility.

Albus nodded, seeming to understand, and Minerva stood.

“Students, I have some horrible news,” Minerva started. She had debated easing them into it, but what good would that do? There was no way to soften the blow.

Whispers broke out, so Minerva raised her voice louder to be heard. Everyone immediately fell silent.

“A student has been injured,” Minerva said. “Percy Weasley.”

“The Head Boy?”

“Didn’t his sister get kidnapped last year?”

“His brother’s friends with Harry Potter!”

“What happened to him?”

“Do you think Wood knows?”

“Percy Weasley was found in his dorm room with self-inflicted injuries,” Minerva said. “He is in the Hospital Wing, comatose from his injuries.”

Everything got deathly quiet as the students took that in.

“Wait,” Marcus Flint spoke up. He had paled three shades. “Self-inflicted. Are you saying he tried to kill himself?”

You could’ve heard a pin drop as all students turned to Minerva, waiting for an answer.

Minerva took a deep breath. “Yes.”

Noise broke out across the Great Hall, voices overlapping until it all became white noise.

“Quiet!” Minerva called, and the voices gradually died down into silence again. “Mr. Weasley is in the hospital wing, currently in a coma. You are allowed to visit him, but only three at a time with an exception for his family. All of the professors’ doors will be open if anyone wants to talk. You’re dismissed.”

Nobody moved for a moment, but finally, someone stood, and others followed suit, filing out of the Great Hall until only one was left.

“Mr. Flint?” Severus called.

Marcus Flint jolted out of his stupor, his eyes snapping to Severus. “Oh, sorry,” he said, and then, he was fleeing the Great Hall, almost running but not quite.

Remus looked at Severus in confusion. When Severus didn’t answer his questioning gaze, Minerva did.

“Mr. Flint and Mr. Weasley have never gotten along,” Minerva said, but even as she said it, she wondered… was that another sign she had missed? She knew Mr. Flint and Mr. Weasley had some sort of rivalry going on, both being the smartest students in their respective houses and seeming to battle for the title of smartest student in the school, but… how far did it go? Had it crossed the line from rivalry to bullying without her noticing?

“I’ll go speak with him,” Severus said, standing from the teachers table and following Marcus Flint out of the room.

“I should return to the hospital wing,” Minerva said. “Check on Percy and his family.”

The hallways were full of whispers about Percy Weasley.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?”

“He always seemed so confident, even pompous at times.”

“How do you think his siblings are holding up?”

“Should we check on Oliver? Everyone knows how close he and Percy were.”

“Percy was found in their dorm room. Oliver was probably the one to find him.”

Minerva McGonagall turned the corner and her steps faltered when she found Oliver Wood sitting outside the door, his knees drawn to his chest and his face buried in his knees. His blood soaked hands clutched at his legs, searching for something to hold onto. He was crying, and Minerva’s heart ached.

“Mr. Wood,” Minerva said.

Oliver looked up, and when he saw her, he quickly wiped his tears away, shame turning his face a bright red. Minerva didn’t understand why he’d be ashamed of crying when his best friend had tried to kill himself, but he was a teenage boy and a Gryffindor at that. Gryffindors never let anyone see them break.

Maybe, Minerva thought, that was part of the problem.

Oliver stood on shaky legs, his blood soaked clothes and hands on display. Minerva tried not to flinch at the sight of the blood, her mind replaying finding Percy Weasley bleeding out over and over again.

“Professor,” Oliver greeted.

“How is Mr. Weasley?” Minerva asked.

“In a coma,” Oliver managed.

Minerva nodded. So nothing had changed since she left. “And how are you?”

Oliver was clearly in a great deal of emotional pain- not surprising, in the least. Percy would’ve been in a lot of pain, too, and Minerva had never asked, had never even considered, that the Head Boy was suffering in silence. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake.

Oliver shrugged but didn’t say anything.

“Mr. Wood… Oliver,” Minerva said. Oliver looked up in surprise. “Things like this happen because a person feels they can’t talk to anyone, but I want you to know you can talk to me.”

“I just don’t understand why,” Oliver said. “Why Percy would… he could’ve talked to me. He didn’t have to… He wasn’t alone!”

“She had me!” Eleven year old Minerva had cried after the funeral. “Why didn’t she talk to me?”

“She loved you so much, Minnie,” her father said, embracing her. “But her pain isolated her. That’s what depression does. It isolates a person and tricks them into thinking they’re alone.”

Minerva didn’t understand then, didn’t understand how her sister could feel so alone when she had their parents and Minerva, not to mention all of Diana’s friends. It had taken her a long time to even somewhat understand.

“Oliver, these things make a person feel so alone that they don’t see all the people around them,” Minerva said. “It blinds them until the pain is all they can see. They don’t see how their suicide will affect others. They just want the pain to stop.”

“It’s not Percy’s fault,” Oliver said.

“I know,” Minerva replied.

“So why am I so mad at him?” Oliver asked.

Minerva had spent several months screaming. At her parents, her friends, her teachers, everyone. She was pushing them away because she thought it’s what she deserved. Diana had felt alone and Minerva hadn’t done enough to refute that feeling, so maybe Minerva deserved to feel alone, too. She wanted them to get angry at her; she wanted to push them away before they left her like Diana. But nobody got mad at her.

Her teachers had looked at her with pity. Her friends had just shuffled awkwardly, unsure of what to do. Her parents’ eyes had filled with tears, and they’d hugged her. They’d forgiven her; they’d been patient with her. They’d given her time to heal in whatever way she needed, and most of all, they hadn’t left. Minerva could never thank any of them enough for that.

“It’s normal to feel hurt,” Minerva stated. “Your friend was hurting, and he didn’t tell anyone. He couldn’t see all the people that care about him, and he couldn’t see how his suicide would hurt people. It’s normal to feel angry.”

“But it’s not his fault!” Oliver burst out.

Minerva said what she had always wanted to hear after her sister’s suicide and hoped the words would get through to Oliver.

“It’s not yours either,” she said.

Oliver wiped away the tears on his face. Minerva rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Why don’t you go get changed?” Minerva asked. “Take a moment.”

Oliver nodded, and Minerva entered the hospital wing. She saw a cluster of red heads gathered around Percy’s bed, and it reminded her of another scene, another crowd of people around, not a hospital bed, but a casket.

Diana had left a few notes, one of which specifically asked her parents to bury her at make out creek. It was a creek near their home that had earned the reputation of where people went to snog; Minerva found that very gross and wondered why her sister would want to be buried there.

She had specified a particular tree, an old willow that grew just a little ways from the creek side, and they found out why her last wish was to be buried here.

In the tree, two initials were carved. DM and BR. DM for Diana McGonagall, but no one knew who BR was.

“She loved someone,” their mother whispered.

Minerva had told Diana all of her crushes. Why hadn’t Diana told her about her crushes, her boyfriends? Why was there so much Diana hadn’t told her?

Her sister was cold and pale in the casket. Her hair was done in two braids, swept over her still shoulders. Her lips were white as daisy petals, devoid of her usual pink lip gloss. Her eyes were closed, no trace of the gray Minerva had seen every day of her life.

It couldn’t be her sister. It couldn’t be Diana. Diana wouldn’t just leave her. It had to be a lie.

Minerva broke down into tears at the casket’s side, and she fell to her knees in the muddy grass. It had rained the night before, but it was sunny the day of the funeral. It didn’t seem fair that it was sunny the day they buried Minerva’s sister, her best friend. The world should be as sad and scared and angry as Minerva was.

Her father picked Minerva up when Minerva was unable to walk, holding her like he had when she was a baby. Minerva sobbed into his shoulder. She was paralyzed with grief, unable to accept a world without her sister.

How could Diana leave her? It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair!

Minerva was broken beyond belief. She spent days in bed, Diana’s suicide note on her desk, unopened. She couldn’t bring herself to read her sister’s last words to her because then, it would make it real. It would mean Diana was never coming back.

It took three weeks for her to muster the courage to open the envelope. Minerva was starting to heal by then, slowly and gradually. She always thought healing and grieving would be like going from Point A to Point B, but it was more like a valley, hilly and desolate and you never really know where you were going— you’re just hoping you’ll make it out the other side.

The suicide note Diana had written her only had three words:

Be brave, Minnie.

“I can be brave,” Minerva whispered to the ghost of her sister, clutching the note to her chest and feeling her heart beat beneath it. She was alive. Her sister would want her to keep living. “I’ll be brave, Diana. I promise.”

Minerva McGonagall was still trying to be brave forty-nine years later as she stared at one of her lions in a hospital bed from a suicide attempt.

“You’re a fighter,” she murmured to Percy Weasley. “Be brave, Percy, and fight.”

Percy, of course, didn’t answer her, but Minerva hoped he heard her.

Chapter Text

Remus Lupin had always wanted to be a teacher. As a child, he would pretend to teach his stuffed animals. At Hogwarts, he was a great tutor. And yet, he always knew that dream was just that—a dream. No one would allow a werewolf to be a teacher, and even though Remus wasn’t on the werewolf registry, he wouldn’t be able to hide his affliction for long. So being a teacher was out of the question; Remus was just lucky to have any job at this point.

Until Albus Dumbledore approached him in the summer of 1993 and asked him to take up the mantle of DADA professor at Hogwarts.

Remus wasn’t stupid. The timing was too obvious to be coincidental. He knew Dumbledore only thought of him because Sirius was on the loose, and Remus could be an asset, being the person who knew (or thought he knew) Sirius better than anybody else alive. Remus couldn’t help but feel like a tool, to be used and discarded as needed. Still, Remus had ignored his own feelings on this matter and had taken the job; even if Dumbledore had ulterior motives to hiring him, it was still a golden opportunity Remus wouldn’t find anywhere else.

Remus did enjoy his job, very much so. Even with the looming threat of Sirius Black, he still loved teaching. From going up against Boggarts to introducing spells and counter-spells to warding off Dementors, Remus enjoyed teaching the students, getting to know them, guiding them in the way his own professors had.

He had worried about his past coming back to haunt him. A part of him had been waiting for someone to make the connection between him and Sirius or figure out he was a werewolf, and Remus would be out of a job again. Even after so many years, his past clung to him like a shadow, and Remus waited for the day it would lash out and grab ahold of him once more. He had never anticipated it would be in this way.

Remus, like most of Hogwarts, got it through the rumor mill before Professor McGonagall made the announcement. Today’s lesson was on shield charms and their ineffectiveness in different situations, but it didn’t take long for Remus to notice the students were distracted today. He expected distraction from a handful of students, but even the eager-to-learn Ravenclaws and hardworking Hufflepuffs were distracted.

Remus wasn’t sure how to approach it until he overheard the conversation between two fourth year Slytherins. Unlike the rest of the class, the two of them didn’t bother whisper, speaking at almost a normal level so the whole class could hear them.

“I don’t know what everyone’s so out of shape about. Who cares if Weasley’s brother tried to off himself?”

Remus stiffened like he’d been given an electric shock, and he whipped around to face the two Slytherins. The rest of the class did the same.

“What the hell, Kleger?” One of the Ravenclaws snapped. “Have some basic human decency.”

The Slytherin threw up his hands. “So what? The Head Boy tried to kill himself. It’s not my problem.”

A spell flew from a surprising source—a girl in Hufflepuff that had been the sweetest, bubbliest student Remus had—and the stinging jinx connected with the Slytherin’s arm. He yelped and whirled around to face the girl.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” the girl almost growled, all of her kindness gone in the blink of an eye.

The Hufflepuff boy sitting beside the girl crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it at the Slytherin. “Yeah, didn’t your mother ever teach you if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all?”

In a flash, the Slytherin had his wand out, but Remus was faster. Remus waved his own wand and cast Expiliarmus; the Slytherin’s wand flew out of his hand.

“I will not tolerate this in my classroom,” Remus said, sterner than he’d ever been with his students. Remus only brought out his stern side occasionally, believing you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but this seemed like the time to bring down the gavel.

It worked. The class immediately turned back to him, unused to the no-nonsense tone of Remus’s voice.

“For that, instead of actually practicing our shield charms, write 5 inches of parchment on the different types of shield charms.”

The class groaned, and everyone glared at the Slytherin boy. The Slytherin boy glared right back, engaging in a staring contest with the rest of the class, especially the Hufflepuff girl who jinxed him.

Remus sat down heavily at his desk and stared down at his paperwork, making no move to actually do any of it.

A suicide attempt. That’s what had all of Hogwarts whispering and murmuring. The realization of that would’ve sent him staggering if he wasn’t sitting down.

Suicide attempts were rare at Hogwarts… well, known suicide attempts were rare. Remus had a feeling that there were a lot of suicide attempts that went unknown. How many people had climbed the steps to the Astronomy Tower and had to pull themselves back over the railing? How many people had downed dangerous potions, only to throw it back up in the body’s last ditch efforts at survival? How many people had picked up a silver knife and pressed it to their throat when the door opened?

How many people were just like Remus in that way?

“Werewolves are monsters. The only way to keep good, honest people safe is to take them out before they take us out!”

Lyall Lupin’s words were met with a roar of applause and cheers from the gathered crowd. Remus, only eleven years old, had shrunk back into his mother; she placed a hand on his shoulder in a vain attempt at comfort, but her touch was feather-light, like she couldn’t even bear to touch him. She thought Remus didn’t notice, but Remus did. He always noticed.

“The only fate befitting something as monstrous as a werewolf is a beheading! They’re not even good enough for Azkaban! The werewolf registry is there is keep track of werewolves, so if they ever step out of line, they’re easy to trace. The ones who dodge the registry are the worst—staying untraceable so their atrocities are untraceable. Anyone harboring an unregistered werewolf is just as guilty and will be sent straight to Azkaban when they’re caught. The unregistered werewolf themselves will be beheaded without trial. By refusing to register with the ministry, they’ve given up the right to a trial and will be punished to the highest degree.”

Another round of applause, and Remus couldn’t listen to it anymore. He broke free of his mother’s grip—which wasn’t hard, considering how she barely touched him at all— and ducked into the nearest hallway. Once he was out of sight of the crowd, he ran.

He made it all the way to the floo before his mother caught up with him. She stopped him just as he grabbed a handful of floo powder.

“Remus, you know your father has to say those things,“ she started. “He doesn’t actually mean them.”

”I wish I could believe that,” Remus replied. “Face it, Mum, he thinks I’m a monster. You both do!”

“Remus, we don’t—“

“Then, say it!”

“Say what?”

Remus glanced around to make no one was nearby before whispering, “Say I’m not a monster.”

His mother was quiet for a moment, and Remus’s heart shattered.

“You’re still our son,” she said instead.

Remus pulled his wrist free of her grip and stepped into the fireplace, throwing the floo powder at his feet. “Lupin Cottage.”

The last thing Remus saw was his mother’s pained expression before the flames consumed his vision, and Remus stumbled out of the fireplace at home.

Was it really home? Did it deserve to be called that? Remus had been bitten by Fenrir Greyback in the garden right outside when he was five. Remus had been locked in the cellar of this house every full moon for six years and two months— 56 full moons. Remus had etched a tally into the cellar wall every full moon. This was the house where Remus’s parents tiptoed around him like he was an exploding spell about to go off.

Remus had turned eleven a week ago, and no Hogwarts letter had arrived for him. Remus had known it wouldn’t come—they couldn’t accept werewolves or even suspected werewolves into Hogwarts. His father had fought tooth and nail to keep Remus off the registry, breaking a dozen laws and going against his own beliefs to do so, but that didn’t mean people didn’t suspect. Fenrir Greyback hadn’t exactly been quiet about it after he stole Remus’s childhood, his future, his life and left Remus to pick up the pieces.

Most days, Remus wished Fenrir Greyback had just killed him that day in the garden.

What future was awaiting Remus? Another seven years of being cooped up in this house with no one but side-eyeing tutors and his avoidant parents. After that, it would be near impossible to get a job or get married or have a family, not once people figured out what he was. He would never have friends or a spouse or kids. He would never have anyone except himself, and Remus didn’t exactly like himself very much.

Remus’s eyes drifted to the top of the cabinets, where his mother kept the real silverware. They only ever used plastic forks and spoons, and they kept the real silverware out of Remus’s reach for when guests came over. That was the only time it made an appearance because it would’ve been too hard to explain why they used plastic forks instead of real ones at every meal.

It wouldn’t take much. Even a small cut with silver could be fatal to a werewolf, even in human form. Just one small cut and it would all be over. Remus’s parents wouldn’t be burdened by him anymore. His dad wouldn’t have to field questions from nosy people or ensure the basement was locked up tight or go against his own beliefs for the sake of his son. His mom wouldn’t have to avoid company at the house, lest someone ask why they didn’t have an ounce of silver in the house or why the basement door was barricaded like a fortress, and she wouldn’t have to lie to her friends or wistfully watch her friends with their normal kids while hers was just… a monster.

And Remus… Remus wouldn’t have to go through another full moon or another year stuck in this house without a single friend in the world. Remus would be free of the affliction that plagued him since he was five years old.

All it would take was a single cut from one of the silver knives on top of that cabinet.

Remus grabbed one of the chairs from the dining table and pulled it over to the cabinet, standing on top of it. He had to stand on his tippy toes to reach the top of the cabinet, even while on top of the chair, and he fumbled until he found the case. His fingers brushed against it, and Remus grabbed ahold of it, pulling it down into his waiting hands.

Remus got off the chair, dropping down to the kitchen floor, and he placed the case on the counter. He slid the lock out of place and opened the case.

The minute the case was open, Remus could feel warmth tingle under his skin. It was slight, not unlike a minor fever, but that warmth increased to burning when Remus picked up one of the knives. Remus almost dropped it as blisters appeared over his hands, smoke rising from his skin like Remus was going to spontaneously combust. Remus gritted his teeth and lifted the knife with a shaking hand until he had it pressed against his throat. More burns grew over his neck at the contact.

Now all he had to do was… press down.

Remus took a shuddering breath, knowing it would be his last, and was about to do just that when the fireplace flared green. His parents stepped out of the flames, and Remus froze.

“That rotten Willis, thinks he knows everything,” his father was grumbling. “He doesn’t know shi—“

Both of Remus’s parents spotted him at the same time. Remus was standing beside the kitchen counter, the open box of silver at his side, with the silver knife barely grazing against his throat. Each of Remus’s breaths trembled, and his hand was trembling even more. He might’ve dropped the knife except for his white knuckled grip.

Remus’s father was staring at his son in shock, and Remi’s mother was pale as a ghost, expression twisted in one of horror. They had looked at him the same way when Remus had been diagnosed as a werewolf after the Fenrir Greyback attack, and that information squirmed uncomfortably under Remus’s skin.

Remus’s father stepped forward, and Remus jumped back a little, his back hitting the counter. He didn’t lower the knife.

“Remus,” his father said. “Put down the knife.”

Tears overflowed down Remus’s cheeks. A part of him wanted to make the cut right now, but then, his parents would have to see him die. Remus couldn’t do that to them. They may have thought he was a monster, but they still loved him, and Remus couldn’t make them watch as he died. He couldn’t hurt them anymore than he already had just by existing.

Remus released his grip on the knife, and it clattered to the floor.

Remus’s mother lunged forward and lifted him into her arms as easily as she had done when he was five, cradling him against her chest just as she’d done all those years ago in the garden. She clung to him tightly, seemingly afraid he’d slip away if she let go. She carried him away from the silverware, and Remus’s father wasted no time in closing the silverware box and locking it. He tossed it out the window, like he was the one burned by it and not Remus.

“Baby… why?” Remus’s mother whispered.

“I’m a monster,” Remus murmured. “Monsters need to die.”

Remus’s father choked on a sob, and Remus looked at him in surprise. Remus hadn’t seen his father cry since the garden.

“Remus, I… you’re not a monster,” Lyall said. “You’re my son.”

“You don’t want me to be,” Remus pointed out, and speaking those words aloud, the fact he’d always known but never voiced, took the knife in Remus’s chest and twisted it.

Lyall reached out and placed a hand on Remus’s shoulder. “Remus, werewolf or not, I love you, and I wouldn’t trade you for the world.”

Remus wanted to believe him. He wanted desperately to believe him.

“Promise me you won’t do that again?” Lyall begged.

Remus hesitated. “I promise,” he lied.

Remus might’ve tried to kill himself again, if fate itself hadn’t intervened. Remus wasn’t sure if he believed in a god or fate or anything like that, but it seemed to be the only explanation when, against all odds, Remus’s Hogwarts letter arrived the next day.

Remus sat beside Professor McGonagall at the staff table as students filed into the Great Hall, all of them chattering quietly and wondering why they were suddenly being called into the Great Hall, during class time no less. They waited until all students were seated and had quieted down, all the students’ eyes on the staff table as they waited for someone to speak.

Headmaster Dumbledore went to stand, but Professor McGonagall stopped him with a hand on his arm. A silent exchange passed between them, and Headmaster Dumbledore nodded, taking his seat once more. Professor McGonagall stood.

“Students, I have some horrible news,” Professor McGonagall said, her voice heavier than a ten ton boulder.

Whispers immediately spread through the Great Hall, questions and theories and rumors moving through the student body like wildfire. Professor McGonagall spoke louder to be heard, and the students rapidly fell silent, all of them tense with dreaded anticipation.

“A student has been injured,” Professor McGonagall announced. “Percy Weasley.”

Everyone obviously recognized the name. Murmurs broke out once again, and Remus only caught snippets of “Head Boy” and “his brother” and “sister.”

Something about that didn’t sit right with Remus. Percy Weasley was injured, and people only seemed to know him by his title or his family. Remus wanted to be bitter about that, but the truth was… Remus was the same. He barely knew Percy Weasley at all; Remus only knew Percy was Head Boy, and the shared last name told him he was Ron’s brother. Remus taught Percy twice a week, and he hadn’t noticed a thing. No one had.

It was hard not to feel guilty, especially because Remus, of all people, should know what to look for. He knew from personal experience, after all.

“Percy Weasley was found in his dorm room with self-inflicted injuries,” Professor McGonagall said. “He is in the hospital wing, comatose from his injuries.”

Remus looked at Professor McGonagall out of the corner of his eye, more than a little skeptical of her choice to tell the whole student body that Percy had tried to kill himself. It seemed like an invasion of privacy. Then again, though, if Remus’s class was any sign, the whole school already knew or would’ve known shortly. He just wasn’t sure if it was the best option to take that choice away from Percy and his family.

However, Remus knew suicide attempts were rare at Hogwarts—well, known suicide attempts. Remus knew there were many that were never known, never reported. There was nothing in the handbook about how to deal with this situation. Professor McGonagall was just doing the best she could. They all were.

Sometimes, though, their best wasn’t good enough.

“Wait,” a Slytherin spoke up. Remus had to wrack his brain for the student’s name, and even then, only came up with a last name. Flint. “Self-inflicted. Are you saying he tried to kill himself?”

The Great Hall went as silent as a graveyard, all eyes on Professor McGonagall.

Professor McGonagall hesitated, probably wondering if she should confirm, but there was no backing out now. Judging by the looks on the students’ faces, they had already made the connection. Lying now or evading the question would be impossible.

“Yes.”

The whispers escalated, everyone talking at once, voices blurred in a mix of anxiety, curiosity, and confusion.

“Quiet!” Professor McGonagall called and waited until the voices faded into silence again. “Mr. Weasley is in the hospital wing, currently in a coma. You are allowed to visit him, but only three at a time with the exception of his family. All of the professors’ doors will be open if anyone wants to talk. You’re dismissed.”

It took a moment for anyone to move. Someone stood, and others followed, leaving the Great Hall, some in stiff, shocked silence, others with curious, bewildered whispers. Finally, the Great Hall was empty. Well, Remus thought it was empty until Snape spoke up.

“Mr. Flint?”

Remus turned to the Slytherin table and found the Slytherin boy, Flint, sitting at the table. He was staring into space, face paler than the Bloody Baron.

“Oh, sorry,” he said before almost running from the Great Hall.

Remus was puzzled by the boy’s reaction. Did he know Percy Weasley? Inter-house friendships were rare but not impossible, although a friendship between a Slytherin and a Gryffindor was as close to impossible as it could get.

Remus turned to Snape for an answer (it was one of his snakes, after all), but Snape didn’t meet his gaze, lip curling into a scowl. Yeah, Snape still didn’t like him, but Remus had hoped they could set aside their differences in light of the situation. No such luck, apparently.

“Mr. Flint and Mr. Weasley have never gotten along,” Professor McGonagall answered instead.

That could mean a lot of things. A mutual disagreement? A rivalry? Bullying? Remus didn't know how to ask, so he just nodded.

“I should go check on Mr. Weasley and his family,” Professor McGonagall said, but her voice cracked halfway through the sentence.

Remus stood. “I’ll do it. Take a moment, Professor.”

Professor McGonagall was quiet a moment, probably wondering if she should disagree. “I’m not your professor anymore,” she settled on. “You can call me Minerva, Remus.”

“Then, as your friend,” Remus said, “Let me handle this one. You’ve done enough for today.”

Remus may not have completely agreed with Professor McGonagall’s decision to tell the school about Percy’s attempted suicide, but he knew he couldn’t have made the announcement, even if they had come up with a lie or a half-truth. How could one tell a bunch of teenagers one of their classmates was in a coma and may never wake up?

Professor McGonagall hesitated, but it was clear she really needed a moment. She nodded.

Remus left the Great Hall and headed for the hospital wing.

Remus had only interacted with Percy on a few occasions, but in those few interactions, Percy had always seemed older than he was. Percy was so mature and self-assured, so confident and certain, that it was easy to forget he was only seventeen, a child just barely on the cusp of adulthood.

Now, he looked like the child he was, the child he had always been. Against the white sheets of the hospital bed, he was paler than a ghost and as limp and boneless as a doll. If not for the steady rise and fall of his chest and the monitoring spells shifting reassuringly in the air, Remus would’ve thought he was dead.

Remus sat beside Percy’s bed and stared at the teenager, in whom he saw too much of himself. They both carried a burden too heavy for small shoulders. Remus carried his… affliction, and Percy carried the weight of responsibility, as Head Boy and as an older sibling. Remus barely remembered a time without the burden of his curse. Did Percy remember a time when he was free of the burden of responsibility?

That’s the thing about burdens. They rarely get lighter. Most of the time, they just get heavier with time, unless one learns to share the burden.

Remus had James, Peter, and… Sirius. Who did Percy have? Would it have made any difference if he had someone he could share the burden with? Would it have been enough to make him put down the knife before he tried to take his life?

James and Lily were dead.

That fact had barely sunk in when Remus learned his friend, James’s best friend, had been the one to betray them, the one that had sold James and Lily out to Voldemort and gotten them killed. The one who then blew up a street, killing twelve Muggles and another of their friends, Remus’s friend. Now, Peter was dead, too, and Sirius was on his way to Azkaban.

Remus was alone, and he couldn’t handle it.

His apartment was deathly quiet. There was no one there to see Remus open the medicine cabinet and grab a vial of Wolfs Bane.

Wolfs Bane was a lifesaver and had kept the wolf calm during the full moon, but an overdose of the potion would be deadly. Wolfs Bane worked almost like a strong sleeping potion, a tranquilizer, but more than a few drops of it could slow the heart to a stop.

It would be all too easy for Remus to uncork the vial and tip its contents into his mouth, to lay down in his bed and go to sleep and just… never wake up.

Maybe in his last moments, he would dream of James and Peter and Sirius and Lily, the people who had made his life worth living. Maybe when he opened his eyes again, he would see James, Lily, and Peter smiling down at him, welcoming him to the afterlife with open arms, except…

They wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t be happy to see him. They’d be sad, maybe even angry. James, Lily, and Peter had their lives stolen from them, cruelly and unfairly. Remus would be giving his life up. They wouldn’t want that. They’d want him to live.

Remus didn’t know how to go on without his friends, his family, but how he could face them knowing he chose to die when all they wanted to do was live?

It wasn’t fair, but life and death rarely are.

Remus had to keep living. For James. For Lily. For Peter. He had to live because they couldn’t.

His friends may be dead or a traitor, but they were still his reason to stay, and all Remus needed was a reason.

Remus uncorked the vial and flushed its contents down the toilet.

Chapter Text

Dear Ron,

I want to start by saying I am so proud of you. I always have been. I know I didn’t say it enough, and I think that’s because I related to you in a lot of ways. Feeling lost in a big family, invisible, stuck in the middle, always unnoticed. All I ever wanted to hear was that somebody was proud of me, that people wanted me around, and I thought if I recognized that in you, I’d have to acknowledge those feelings in me.

It was selfish, I know, which is why I’m saying it now. I was proud when you played a dangerous game of chess to save your friends and the school. I was proud when you went into the Chamber of Secrets to save Ginny. But I was proud of you even before that. I wasn’t proud of you because you were a hero. I was proud of you because you were you.

I always saw myself in you with the need we both have to prove ourselves, but when you got to school, you did everything I could never do. You made friends. You earned respect. Our parents started paying more attention to you. Even our siblings pay more attention to you. A part of me that I’m ashamed of… was jealous. We both started the same, but you found your place in the world, in our family, with your friends… and I’m still wandering lost.

I know I nagged you too much, but honestly, the past two years, you’ve worried me so much. Getting a head injury during that chess match, going into the Chamber of Secrets. I really care about you, Ron. You’re my little brother, and it’s my job to protect you, and I can’t even do that. I was so busy being Prefect that I didn’t even notice how many times you were in danger until after it was done… and I’m sure there were dangerous times I didn’t know about. But even still, I know I was overbearing. I’m sorry that if, even for a second, I stifled you or held you back.

You always said I have a habit of butting in, not minding my own business. It was my way of showing I cared, but I’ve never been very good at showing people that I love them. I guess I’ve never really known how--to love and be loved.

And here I go again, putting all this on you. I just want you to know that I’m proud and I always have been, always will be, even from wherever I end up. You’re going to be great, Ron. You were always lost in the shuffle of a big family, but in a hundred years, you’ll be the Weasley they remember. I’m sure of it. Me, on the other hand, I’ll be forgotten, and maybe that’s for the best. Soon enough, even this moment of cowardice will be forgotten. I’m telling you now, Ron, that it’s okay to forget me. Don’t let me or my memory hold you back. No one ever noticed I was there, and maybe it’s for the best no one notices I’m not.

Live your life, Ron. Be who you are, and don’t be forgotten. You deserve more than being invisible and forgotten. Thank you for being my little brother. I’m sorry I couldn’t be a better big brother.

Love,

Percy

Ron was never close to Percy, not really, anyway. Yeah, Percy played Wizard Chess with him, and when they were younger, they would even play Aurors and Death Eaters together; Percy always let Ron be the Auror, even though Percy hated playing the role of the monsters that haunted his nightmares. But Percy was always a tattle tale and a goody-two-shoes, never breaking the rules and tattling the minute someone else did. Ron loved to break the rules, so it made sense that he and Percy grew apart as Percy got stricter and more adherent to the rules.

Ron always tried to blame that distance on Percy. Percy was the one who changed. He never had fun anymore, and he seemed determined to ruin the fun for everyone else, too. It was Percy’s fault he was a stick in the mud, a wet blanket, a prat. No one ever let Ron forget how perfect Percy was with his good grades and his prefect badge and now his head boy badge.

But after all this, Ron realized… he had expected Percy to put in all the effort, to bridge the gap between them. Had Ron ever tried to cross that bridge, to get to know Percy again? If he had, would he have noticed something was wrong?

“Ron? Ron,” Harry said, lightly shaking Ron’s shoulder. Ron turned to his best friend, and Harry evidently saw something worrying in his eyes because Harry’s face creased with concern. “You okay?”

Ron’s first instinct was to lie, to spit out the words “I’m fine,” to put up his defenses. It was how he always handled things, but with Percy in the Hospital Wing because maybe, just maybe, Percy had handled things the same way… Ron couldn’t bring himself to lie.

“Would anyone be?” Ron asked, dodging the question, but maybe his response was answer enough.

Ron wished someone would tell him Percy was going to be okay, but he knew why they didn’t. They couldn’t bring themselves to lie either.

Hermione and Harry exchanged glances. “You know, Ron, you can talk to us,” Hermione said hesitantly, like she was walking on a landmine. Maybe she was. Ron’s temper always came out when he was hurting.

“I just… don’t get it,” Ron managed. “He could’ve come to us. I know I told him off a lot, but I would’ve listened… about this.”

Would Ron have listened? Would he have even given Percy a chance to speak before calling him a prat or nosy or who-knows-what-other-insult and storming away?

Nobody had an answer.

“When Percy wakes up, you can ask him,” Harry said.

“If he wakes up,” Ron muttered.

Silence fell again, a heavy shroud blanketing over them.

Ron reached into his pocket and pulled out the envelope that held Percy’s suicide note, Ron’s name written on the front of the envelope in Percy’s loopy script.

“He wrote me a letter,” Ron said. “I haven’t… I haven’t been able to read it yet.”

If Percy didn’t wake up, that meant the letter Ron held in his hands could be Percy’s last words. Percy had intended them to be his last words, and Ron wasn’t ready to accept that yet.

“Would it make you feel better to read it?” Harry asked.

Ron shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It just feels too permanent. Percy wrote these letters for someone to read if he was dead,” Ron spat the word like it was poison, the word torn from somewhere deep in his chest, a place Ron was scared to even look at, much less voice. “He’s not dead yet. I just—it doesn’t feel right. Whatever Percy wanted me to know, he can tell me himself when he wakes up.”

Harry nodded in something like understanding, except how could Harry understand? How could anyone understand? Ron didn’t even understand.

“Are you going to visit him?” Hermione asked carefully.

Ron was quiet for a second. “Not yet,” he said. “I will, just… not yet.”

Harry and Hermione nodded, and they lapsed into silence again.

“I’m gonna go for a walk,” Ron finally said.

His friends looked like they wanted to argue (maybe they just didn’t want to leave him alone after what happened when Percy was left alone), but they understood he needed some space. They nodded, and Ron walked away.

He wandered aimlessly for a while until he found himself at the Owlery. He didn’t even know how he ended up there, having been lost in thoughts and worries for Percy. As he looked at the door to the Owlery, he thought of Hermes, sitting in his cage and having no idea his owner had almost died.

Ron pushed open the door and headed inside, stepping over the multitude of owl droppings with a crinkled nose. He crossed the room, peaking in each cage until he found Hermes, perched within the rusty, slightly bent cage that had been handed down from some aunt or uncle Ron couldn’t remember. Hermes blinked… well, owlishly at Ron, clearly surprised to see him there. Ron understood why. Percy always handled Hermes’s care and was rather protective of the owl, just as he had always been protective of Scabbers. Ron didn’t see the owl much, much less without Percy there.

Ron had been jealous when Percy got Hermes. The whole family had thought it selfish of Percy to request getting an owl when Ron needed a new wand, George needed new robes, and Fred needed a new potions textbook, all of which they didn’t get so Percy could get an owl. They’d given him so much ridicule for it, and yeah, maybe Percy shouldn’t have insisted on the owl, but if Ron and his other siblings hadn’t been so mean, maybe Percy would’ve talked to them about what he was struggling with before it got to this point.

That was how it always was. Percy was different from the rest of the family, more a rule follower, a goody two shoes, more stuck up. A prat, as Ron had always called him. Despite all that, though, Ron loved his brother. Percy had let Ron sleep in his bed during thunderstorms, taught him how to play Wizard’s Chess, read The Tales of Beedle and the Bard to Ron almost every night when Ron was younger. Percy tried to be a good brother. Sometimes, he wasn’t the best brother, but then again, neither was Ron.

Ron wanted desperately to try again, to fix things with Percy, and now, he may never get the chance to.

Ron grabbed the owl treats Percy kept tied to the bars of Hermes’s cage, and he dropped a few treats into his palm, holding them through the bars of the cage. Hermes pecked at them, hooting in happiness.

“I guess you had the same thought I did,” a voice spoke from behind Ron, and Ron turned to see Ginny standing in the doorway. She crossed the room to stand beside him, peering at Hermes through the bars. “How have you been holding up?”

“How have you?” Ron asked, and Ginny nodded, as if to say good point.

It was quiet for a moment before Ron said, “Do you think if we had been nicer to him, he wouldn’t have…”

Ginny shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe not. It couldn’t have hurt, though.”

“We were such arseholes to him,” Ron said. “And why? Because he was different? He was still our brother.”

“He is still our brother,” Ginny pointed out. “He’s not dead.”

“But what if he dies?” Ron asked. “What if he dies, and we never get to tell him we’re sorry or that we care about him or that we want to fix things? What if these—“ Ron pulled the letter out of his pocket. “—Are his last words to us, and we can’t even say anything back?”

Ginny didn’t say anything at first. Finally, she said, “It’s okay to be angry.”

“I’m not angry,” Ron snapped. “How can I be angry when he’s the one in a hospital bed?”

“Percy was hurting,” Ginny said. “He was hurting so much, he couldn’t see a way out of it. That’s real, and his pain is valid. But he also tried to leave us, and it’s okay to be angry about that.”

“I’m not angry,” Ron repeated, but the words were weaker than before.

Ginny nodded, and when neither of them said anything for a while, Ginny turned and headed for the door. She paused just before leaving.

“Ron,” she said. “I’m angry, too.”

The door closed behind her, and Ron was left alone.

Ron felt tears spring to his eyes, and he quickly scrubbed them away. He stared at the letter, Percy’s suicide note, in his hands, Ron’s own name scrawled across the front of the envelope. Everything Percy wanted to say but had felt like he couldn’t say.

Ron had a lot of things he wanted to say, but he felt like he couldn’t say them. Admitting them was painful, but so was keeping the feelings inside.

Ron put the letter back in his pocket and headed for the hospital wing.

Percy sat beside his… body (he didn’t want to think of it that way, but it’s essentially what it was) in the hospital wing. His family rarely left him alone; his mum, dad, Bill, and Charlie were the most frequent people beside his bedside, but occasionally, George and Ginny would join.

Fred and Ron hadn’t visited him yet.

His mum was the one beside his bed now, gripping his hand in hers and talking about anything and everything, from the last garden de-gnoming to the most recent Muggle invention his father had brought home. Percy wasn’t really following her stories, but it was comforting to hear her voice, to not have to listen to the silence that often accompanied his father.

The door of the hospital wing creaked open, and both Percy and his mum turned to find Ron standing in the doorway, wringing his hands nervously like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to be there.

Their mum smiled and stood. “Hi, Ron,” she said. “Come to visit Percy?”

Ron hesitated before nodding. “How is he?’ Ron asked.

Mum shrugged. “The same, mostly. His wrists are beginning to heal, but his magic is still exhausted.”

Ron nodded and stared at the floor, not taking a step further into the hospital wing.

“Why don’t I give you a moment alone with him?” Mum said as she stood, and she moved around Ron to leave the hospital wing, closing the door behind her. Ron stayed rooted to the spot for another moment before he unstuck his feet from the floor and crossed the hospital wing to Percy’s bedside. He sat in the chair beside Percy.

“Hey, Perce,” Ron said.

Even though Ron couldn’t hear him, Percy replied, “Hi, Ron.”

“This is weird,” Ron admitted. “Talking to you when you can’t talk back, when you probably can’t even hear me. But here it goes, I guess.”

Ron took a deep breath before continuing.

“I’m pissed at you,” Ron blurted out, and it sounded so cold, so flat.

Percy rose his eyebrows. He had expected some anger from Ron because anger had always been Ron’s default, but Ron’s anger was always heated and intense. This anger was cold and suppressed, a blue flame beneath an icy surface.

“I know I shouldn’t be,” Ron continued. “I mean, you tried to kill yourself. Being mad at you just feels… wrong. But I’m so mad. How could you try to leave us like that? How could you not talk to us?”

“I didn’t know how,” Percy tried to say, but Ron was already forging ahead. Ron stood from the bed and paced as he spoke, hands combing restlessly through his messy hair.

“You could’ve talked to any one of us, but instead, you wrote us letters,” Ron spat. “To read when you were dead. Do you know how fucked up that is? To get a letter with everything you could have told us when it’s too late for us to do anything. I know I say you’re a prat, Percy, and sometimes, you are, but this? This is the prat move of all prat moves.”

Percy had expected it, but the words still stung. He cringed with each slicing word, and for once, he was glad someone couldn’t see him because there was no way he could hide how much the words affected him.

“Did you just… think we wouldn’t care?” Ron asked. “Because guess what, Percy? You’re not always right. We care a lot. More than you could ever understand. I don’t know if you were just too blind to see that or what, but it’s true. We care. We always have. And if you die… I will never forgive you for putting our family through that, for putting me through that.”

Ron pounded a fist on the chair beside him before slumping down into it.

“I know I didn’t always show it, but… I do care, Percy,” Ron said. “We all do, so just… please. Wake up. Come back. We can’t lose you, and if you think I’m pissed now, I will be a lot more pissed if you die. Okay?”

Ron waited a beat longer, hoping by some miracle, Percy would wake. But Percy didn’t know how to wake up, even if he wanted to.

Did he want to?

Ron sighed and stood, heading for the doorway. He paused for just a moment.

“See you later, Perce,” Ron said, like he wasn’t sure how else to end this… conversation? If you could even call it that.

Ron left the room, and the door slammed behind him.

When Ron left the hospital wing, Percy followed him.

Ron moved through the corridors like a ghost, weaving between people with a blank expression while several people gave him concerned glances. Instead of climbing the stairs to Gryffindor Tower like Percy expected, Ron headed outside, trainers sinking into the light dusting of snow that covered the ground.

There weren’t many people outside. The snow was in that awkward stage where there wasn’t enough to play in the snow but there was just enough to be a nuisance, so most students had chosen to stay inside today. Ron crossed the grounds, a solitary figure, unaware of Percy following him.

Ron arrived at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, far from the school and completely alone aside from Percy. Ron stared at the pale gray sky, his skin almost as pale and gray as the winter sky above him. His gaze was far away, empty and void, for a few moments before that moment broke.

Percy jumped as Ron let out an ear-splitting scream, an anguished roar more than anything else, and Ron drew his wand, pointing it at a tree. A blasting spell exploded from the wand, and the tree was obliterated in a splinter of wood, reduced to little more than a stump with jagged pieces of wood sticking out of it.

Ron aimed his wand again, at the ground this time, and a spell of raw magic hit the earth, clumps of dirt flying at the impact. Ron didn’t even say a spell. The spell came from his raw magic and tumultuous emotions, the emotions whirling and rising until they escaped in a burst of powerful but uncontrolled magic.

Percy watched as Ron aimed his wand again and again—at trees, at the ground, at rocks, even at the Black Lake at one point—each burst of magic more wild and uncontrolled than the last. It was frightening, to say the least. This magic walked the line between accidental and purposeful magic with all the out-of-control nature of accidental and all the intent of purposeful. There was no one around, as Ron, even amidst his strong emotions, still had the presence of mind to get away from people. Percy knew that in whatever weird ghost-but-not-a-ghost-form he was in, Ron’s magic could do no damage to him. He worried more about Ron accidentally (or, Merlin forbid, purposefully) hurting himself.

Ron aimed his wand again, but this time, a sputter of sparks was all that flew from his wand, fizzling out as quickly as they hit the air. In that moment, Ron broke. He crumpled to his knees, wand slipping from his hand to land in the snow. Ron curled in on himself, his angry screams turning into sobs. He punched the snow-covered ground again and again, fists bouncing off the frozen earth. His knuckles split as they hit the frozen ground, cracks opening in dried skin. He punched the ground until his energy abandoned him, and with no energy left for magic or physical reaction, all Ron could do was cry.

Ron buried his face in his hands, his sobs dwindling into gasping breaths. In between breaths, he whispered the words "I'm sorry" over and over again.

During all of this, Percy watched. He wanted desperately to comfort his brother, but every time he tried to speak, his words went unheard. Every time he tried to touch Ron’s shoulder or grab Ron’s hand or pull Ron into a hug, his hands went right through Ron’s physical form, completely unnoticed by his brother.

Percy was nothing more than a specter, not dead but not alive, his body empty but breathing up in the Hospital Wing. Percy could do nothing but watch his brother fall apart, powerless to do anything to help.

Even worse than that, Ron was falling apart because of what Percy did.

Percy had genuinely thought everyone would be better off if he died, and Percy prided himself on being right. He always answered the questions correctly in class, came up with good solutions for school problems as Prefect and Head Boy. He was the voice of reason, all logic, and most of the time, that meant Percy was right, at least in a traditional sense.

This time, though, Percy wasn’t right. Not even close. Because this wasn’t a question in class to answer or a school problem to fix, and Percy had mistakenly treated it that way. As if this situation was cut and cry, right and wrong, simple and straightforward when it was anything but.

This wasn’t logic. This was emotion, and Percy had never known how to handle those.

Percy had thought no one would miss him; he had thought everyone would be better off without him. But the reactions of his family said otherwise.

Percy had tried to end his pain, but he hadn’t ended the pain altogether. Instead, he’d passed it on, leaving it for his family to pick up the pieces.

Percy didn’t think he could ever forgive himself for that.