just bundle up my coffin, 'cause it's cold way down there

[aperfectthird]

When; BACKDATED to midnight-ish, Monday, March 26
Rating; PG-13
Characters; Team Magical Redhead (aperfectthird, hexuality, onlyholey, and feorge)
Summary; Percy's back from the dead and his siblings are not well-pleased that he had the nerve to die on them.
Log;

When Percy comes to, it's not so different from waking up after a nightmare. He jerks awake with a gasp, feeling nauseated and dizzy, arms thrown up in front of his face like he's warding something off.

It's dark and quiet. Slowly, he lowers his arms, tries to get his bearings. He reaches for his glasses on the bedside table (glasses, bedside table) and puts them on, blinking to focus his vision. It doesn't help. Even with his glasses on, his vision is still blurred and he can't quite get anything straight.

He breathes, presses his face into his hands. His head is pounding and his mouth is dry, like he's coming down from a day-long bender and the hangover from hell is rearing its ugly head. He could do with a hangover potion - or, failing that, some of that Muggle analgesic - aspirin, he thinks it's called. Of course, if there's nothing else, there's always coffee. It's gotten him through some pretty bad mornings-after, though none of them made him feel quite like his head has been used as a Bludger. Swinging his feet over the edge of his bed, he puts them firmly on the ground, lets his head swim for a moment before he attempts getting to his feet.

The trek to the kitchen is long and slow, and his brain attempts to make some progress in figuring out what in Merlin's name happened to get him in this position. There's something, something at the corners of his mind that he can't quite put his finger on, but there's a blue light behind his eyes that makes his head throb and his pulse pound dully in his temples.

If nothing else, Percy is quite good at managing a coffee machine semi-conscious (it's the one Muggle device, and the one thing in the kitchen, he's any good with) and it's not long before the rich smell of coffee permeates the air. While he waits for it to percolate, he leans against the counter, rubbing his forehead, waiting for the pain to recede, and hopefully reveal some answers.

Comments

[hexuality]

Ginny has dealt with death before, of course. At home and here. Three years in the City hasn't left her unscathed in many ways and waiting for someone to return to life is not something she is unfamiliar with. But the last time it happened, it was Remus Lupin, and he had been murdered and he never returned—his name turned up in the graveyard and that was that. Peter Pevensie had vanished on her once before, too, but she never knew if he had died or not. This is the first time she's had a body. It's morbid and she knows it, but having a body strengthened that grim assurance that Percy would come back to them—warm or cold, well, that remained to be seen.

It worried her, the icy, angry fire that burned through her during yesterday's horrors. Why wasn't she upset? Why wasn't she crying? Why wasn't she stunned into silence and inaction? (Partially because inaction isn't the Gryffindor way, even in the face of a lost brother, and hasn't she faced that before? But not like this, not like George.) It hit her later that night, curled in her old bed in the cabin, and she allowed herself a few breath-stealing sobs before clamping back down with steely resolve. Tomorrow. Wait until tomorrow to mourn, there's no reason yet. That's what she told herself.

And now it's tomorrow and she snaps awake to the smell of coffee. At first, Ginny can't separate the memories from the dreams and while she bolts upright and pushes a hand through her tangled hair, she tries to sort through it all. And then it all clicks, falls into place, and her heart lurches and she thinks she might be ill. Still in yesterday's rumpled clothes, the youngest (not-so-youngest) Weasley tumbles out of bed and rushes down the hall, first wrenching open Percy's already-open door—and she forgets to breathe when she sees his empty bed. Before she knows it, she's just about run down the stairs and caught herself on the doorway to the kitchen, chest heaving and pulse pounding in her ears and half-believing what she's seeing.

It's Percy. He's fine. He's there and making coffee and looks vaguely like shite but he's alive. She should be relieved. She is relieved. The first thing she should do is hug him and tell him how happy she is to see him. And she is. But those won't be the first things she does or says.

"You great, sodding berk."

[aperfectthird]

"Ginny?" Percy's voice is gravelly, rougher than usual. His pretenses can't stand up in the face of what feels like the world's biggest hangover, and his polished, crisp RP accent is gone. He's about to tell her good morning, but he's not sure what time it is. He can feel his watch on his wrist (but why is his watch on? he never wears his watch to bed), and he's glad that men's watches tend towards bigger faces. Squinting at it to figure out the time is still an effort and makes his head throb, but he can eventually puzzle out that it's half midnight.

Half midnight? But it was nearly eleven in the morning when he -

- that blue light races across his eyes again, and he presses his hand to his eyes again, and suddenly Ginny's voice, and his own, are far too loud.

"...good morning," he finishes in a hoarse whisper. "Could you bring it down a little? Thank you."

[hexuality]

Her jaw clenches as the stubborn impulse to do just the opposite bolts through her core, but Ginny is not heartless—she can see her brother is disorientated and in pain. She wants to lecture him. She wants to demand answers (are you alright? What's wrong? What can I do?) but her tongue is still sharp behind her teeth and she has to force herself to keep silent and swallow back the bitter anger for sweeter, cooler tact. It's a hard thing, though; it would be so easy to let emotion override everything else when she's been caught on the edge of an outburst for weeks, and losing Hermione had not made it any better. So Ginny closes her eyes for a half-second, breathes deeply, releases the air in a silent rush.

"Sorry." The word is muttered and she moves from the doorway to the nearest kitchen chair and drops herself into it without her usual boneless grace, something heavier tugging at her limbs and heart and head. Ginny pushes a hand through her hair again and sets her elbow on the table, surveying Percy for a moment, brows knit. And then, belatedly, she corrects him.

"It isn't morning yet." She keeps her voice soft, as asked. "I must've fallen asleep. I didn't mean to, but it's been a hell of a day." The young witch pauses and then, in a tone a touch gentler than before (though there is no denying the heat it rides on), "How're you feeling?"

[feorge]

Fred stirs the moment he hears movement outside in the hallway, and manages to catch the pretty side of a 'berk' and the last part of a 'sorry' by the time he makes it to the top of the stairs. Quiet as a mouse, which may actually say more than any words that might rest on his tongue. Any other day, he'd charge right in and clap Percy something hard on the back for the trouble he's given them and laugh it all away, but.

Hermione and Luca are gone, their birthday's in five days, and he just lost a brother. Much as he's tried going around and partying and making a riot, he's too damn tired at this point. He's tired.

So Fred sits at the top of the stairs, and listens instead. He leans against the wall, and listens to his younger sister (hardly younger, barely any younger at all and he's not getting older, dammit) talk to his older brother (talk, civilly, in a way he can't recall - ever), wondering if he's the not only dead person in the house now.

And hates himself for wondering.

[aperfectthird]

Percy is honestly surprised - but pleased - when Ginny doesn't immediately start shouting. He'd really been expecting her to, because Weasleys get intransigent when they're upset or angry ... and, for some reason, Ginny is upset or angry with him. He just wishes he could remember what he'd done, so he would know if he deserved the anger or not.

The coffee's almost done, at least. Just a few more minutes, and maybe some of this will make any kind of bloody sense at all.

"Hung over," he admits, and normally this would be accompanied by a lecture about how she shouldn't know how that feels, but a) she's nineteen, so she's legal to drink if she wants to; b) she works in a bar, so she's probably seen it if nothing else, and c) he's worried that if he keeps his mouth open for too long he's going to vomit. "Do you know what happened yesterday? I can only remember bits and pieces."

[hexuality]

She's too tired to shout. That's the fact of the matter. That, and she's just tired of shouting—and maybe that's a mark of her growing up, a maturity brought on by her time in the City that she hasn't reached at the end of the war. And isn't that the sister her brothers are used to, are still expecting, in a way? And really, what's the use of shouting over something that's already happened when there's something deeper that must be dealt with here, a fallout and consequence that she hopes doesn't gut them as much as losing Fred did just a few months ago. Ginny had burned out her temper yesterday, and though it's still simmering under her skin even now, she's keeping a tighter hold on it—until something else comes along and snaps that fine control.

"Hung over," she repeats with a low, humourless huff of laughter. The sarcastic comment is the first to leap to the tip of her tongue, something along the lines of, How would you know what that feels like? but the urge to fling it out at him dries up quickly. There's a time and place for that and it isn't now. And then he asks what happened, which means he doesn't remember, and her stomach lurches rather sickly with the realisation that she might have to be the one to tell him.

Where are their brothers and why aren't they here to back her up?

Ginny takes a breath at his question, trying to steady herself under the guise of collecting her thoughts and constructing an answer. But what she's truly wrestling with is the chance to say nothing at all. What if she doesn't answer? What if she doesn't tell him he died? (But is his heart still beating? Is he cold? She hasn't checked like an idiot.) Wouldn't that be better if he just carried on not knowing? Or would that be worse?

"What bits and pieces?"

[aperfectthird]

If Percy notices Ginny's inner struggle, he doesn't say anything, just ducks his head, takes off his glasses, and rubs at his eyes. It feels like it ought to help, and it does, for a moment. Then the pain comes rushing back and he puts his glasses back on, because if the headache is this bad while he can see, it'll be ten times worse if he's squinting and fighting his terrible vision, too.

The coffee machine clicks off, then, and he reaches for a mug, pours some coffee while he tries to put his fractured memories into words.

"I remember going into work," he says, then takes a sip of his coffee, winces slightly. It's strong enough to go into work for him, which is exactly how he likes it, but that first sip is always a bit like walking into a Shield Charm. "And I was leaving, and then there's this - "

The blue light flares behind his eyes again, and he puts his free hand to his temple.

"This light. I can't imagine what it came from."

[hexuality]

He doesn't know. That confirms it. In a way, she's grateful for it, but that puts her in a harder place and she doesn't know how to get out of it with the delicacy it calls for. Ginny Weasley is not a delicate creature; it is something she has tried to learn to ease into and some days, some situations, are easier handled than others. And this one needs someone less edged than the only Weasley girl, but she's the only one here, and she knows her temper and tongue have better reins on them than Fred's. Maybe it really is better that she's the only one here for now.

But that doesn't give her the answers. (Except she has the answers, doesn't she, all in her hands? She just wants to keep them to herself, as she has done with the rest since her family and friends returned to the City.)

"For Merlin's sake, Percy," Ginny cuts in after the silence, suddenly firm as she tries to steer the conversation elsewhere for now. "Sit down before you fall down. Don't worry about that right now."

[aperfectthird]

He obeys without thinking, clutching his coffee mug in both hands as he sinks into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. He sets the mug down, pushing his glasses up to rub at his eyes again, then navigates the mug up to his mouth to take a long swig of it. It's hot and delicious and it's slowly making his headache recede. Caffeine withdrawal? he wonders, taking another sip. Replenishing something that the blue light took from him?

- ɪɴᴀᴛᴇ

His head throbs, and he has to put down his coffee to rub at his temples again.

"Do we have anything to help with this?" he asks thinly. "Hangover potion, or aspirin?"

[hexuality]

His sister is grateful for the excuse to stand and move without appearing too out of the ordinary, the restlessness settling in her bones and turning her stomach. So when Percy prompts her for a remedy beyond coffee, she's on her feet before he's finished asking, too-long hair sweeping behind her as she moves through the kitchen and straight for the cupboard full of potions and their ingredients. Ginny rises on her tiptoes and nudges the glass bottles carefully out of the way, going by feel for some and pulling out others to check their labels (done in Hermione's neat hand from ages ago or her own). It's odd, she thinks as she searches; potions was never her favourite subject at school but she's gotten so accomplished here. Maybe it's because she's had to.

Finally, she unearths the proper potion and sets it down gently at the table and surveys her brother once more. And then, in a tone that is decidedly too Mollyish, she says, "You shouldn't have coffee or that on an empty stomach. Here—" Ginny turns again and sets to work in the kitchen. "I'll make toast or something."

[aperfectthird]

Percy hears the familiar clink of glass against the tabletop and cracks open an eye to see a small vial, neatly labeled in Ginny's handwriting. He can feel a little part of his brain demanding indignantly as to when she was able to brew hangover potion but mostly he's ridiculously grateful to see it, even if the idea of taking some right now makes his stomach unsettled.

Lifting pained eyes to look at Ginny, he shakes his head minutely, reaching for the small vial. "There's no need, thank you. I've taken these on an empty stomach before."

The mornings where he practically crawled into his kitchen the morning after and fought to stand up straight long enough to take the potion are few and far between, thankfully, but they've happened enough that he knows he can.