Chapter Fifty-One

Epilogue

September first came by and Percy waited at the Hogwarts Express with a testy Molly Weasley. He saw glimmers of red hair and pricy pink robes walk into the train, but he hadn't had a chance to wish Molly and Lucy good luck on their fifth year.

He waited for them to come back on their Christmas holiday…and their summer holidays…

Percy loved them so much. He just wished that they didn't hate him so much. He sent them owls every few days instead of every day, just so that he didn't seem as intrusive or too worried. He spent most of his days awake at night, just wondering if they needed him. If there was something he should do for them. If he'd done the right thing. He spent his days wanting them to come back to him, or at least stay as far away from Audrey's family as possible. He didn't want them to be around Candace, who hated him. He didn't want them to trust Dominic, who tried to throw little Molly out of the window. He didn't want them to be away from him. But when he did send Molly and Lucy letters, they were long and poetic. Sometimes, he spent a whole day just trying to find the right words to say, but there were only so many ways he could tell them that he loved and missed them so much that his whole body ached at night. He still cried when they went into their room sometimes. They were born on the day that Audrey died, and remembering that tore him apart. Sometimes, when he missed them, he took out their robes from their closet and just took a deep inhale, just to smell that sickly-sweet-floral scent of his fifth-year daughters. He couldn't remember the last time that he held them. He couldn't remember the last time they called him his father. It wasn't fair. They were his daughters.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair!

He tossed his Parenting Without A Wife, Crup Or Copious Amounts of Firewhiskey Instructional Manual into the fire.

His father had officially offered him a job, and Percy Weasley had officially declined. He never wanted to be in a position where anyone that loved him felt like he was choosing a job over them. He would rather just live in his flat forever, even if it was missing a couch since 2000.

Given that he was nobody's father anymore (a realisation that made Percy crawl into bed for a week, crying until he managed to pass out in sleep), Percy spent most of his days with Daphne.

They woke up together in bed and drank multiple cups of coffee until she had to go to work. She made it how he liked it—not how Audrey liked it. He had stopped feeling guilty when he couldn't remember how she looked like or what colours her eyes were. Percy and Daphne talked for hours and hours about everything and nothing at all. She asked him how it felt like to live in that chair. He asked her how it felt like to take care of him in that chair. They both eventually decided that maybe they didn't mind it so much...if this was how their life was going to be like forever. Every day, he wanted to know more and more about Daphne—what she wore to their Hogwarts graduation, what jobs she'd had before she'd came to the Ministry, what was her first impression of him, and… what kind of flowers that she liked. It turned out that she liked roses the best. He bought her a tacky headband with a cheap plastic pink rose that cost him three sickles. She wore it on her wherever she went, as if it were a bottle of Felix Felicis. She wore it on Witch Weekly cover. She wore it when they renewed their vows on a beautiful autumn evening where the leaves crunched underneath his wheelchair. They didn't leave Britain. They spent their whole honeymoon in Grace's cottage, where Daphne took him out sometimes to pick off berries. Once, they were poisoned by a batch of innocuous-looking pink ones and had to spend an admission getting their stomachs pumped. Daphne was absolutely disgusted. She vomited gross pink stuff after all. Since then, she and Percy had been going strong—they hadn't even eaten a single strawberry tart since!

On their anniversary together, Percy had managed to make her a cup of coffee. Although it required him owling Arthur and asking him to do everything whilst he just sat there, telling him to hurry up. They both drank their brews on the coffee table at six in the morning. It was very romantic actually. Percy had thrown rose petals on her bed that night—pity he fell on his arse and needed help getting up. And needed to be driven to that Merlin forsaken emergency room for NO reason at all!

Some days, he felt like things were really nice. Some days, he just thought that life was so colourless, so worthless.

Despite the three depression potions he took and the twice weekly therapy that he went to, he wasn't exactly cured. There were times he felt so empty for weeks. There were months were it was as he was living with a Dementor and no amount of potion or chocolate, therapy or crying would take the feelings away inside of him. Sometimes, he wished that he could numb his feelings away with a bottle of firewhiskey. Sometimes, he wished he could disappear. Sometimes, he didn't wish anything at all because wishing just took so much energy and he didn't really have any. Sometimes, existing was just painful. Sometimes, it was...impossible. Recently, it had been like some of those times. Recently, Percy had even read up on muggle electroconvulsive therapy, but Daphne had found those pamphlets and thrown them away. What was he supposed to do? Just live like this with people pitying him? Thinking that he was always on the verge of committing suicide? And if people just assumed he would kill himself, then why didn't he?

"It's going to be okay," she told him often, but he didn't really believe her. When he told her this, she just smiled at him. "It doesn't matter. I believe it for you." Which, of course, made no factual sense but it seemed to calm him down somehow. She just...calmed him down.

That early summer, Percy still hadn't received any owls from them. He didn't know if they took their exams, or if they've decided to leave school after a theatrical fireworks display.

That night, he tried to blow out Daphne's candles before she accidentally set the flat on fire. He was on his fifth one when he heard a knock on the door. He was dressed in a pair of navy trousers and a pale-blue shirt that Daphne had bought him three days back. He had a new closet full of clothes now. He hadn't bought clothes for himself in years. It was nice to have clothes that weren't filled with holes. Percy had a new non-magical dependent wheelchair. He slowly wheeled himself over to the door and with a deep breath, he opened it. About to-be-sixteen-year-old Molly and Lucy were stood there. Their pink robes looked a little frayed, and Molly's hair was even more atrocious than usual. Lucy was holding a light blue bundle in her hands. Percy's eyes widened. Oh. Merlin.

"I…I didn't know where else to go," Lucy's shoulders were shaking. "You were right about mum's family. You were…they weren't happy about me…they called me…they…I'm so big…I could hide it. I…he's three days old…"

His mind was already thinking about all the things he'd have to do. He would have to register the baby tomorrow (it helped that Arthur was the Minister of Magic), take him to the hospital for a mandated check-up (he might have to owl Penelope. How was she doing these days anyway?) and go shopping in the second most horrific wheelchair in the world. Percy smiled weakly as he stared down at the baby in his arms. It had been so long since he'd held anything.

He kept their rooms exactly as they left it, waiting for them to come home.

"Shh, it's alright," the baby was obviously premature and small, but he looked okay. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach that there really was something wrong with this baby. But he was going to help them. He didn't want to. He had a horrible day. He just wanted to stay in his bed and sleep forever and never wake up. "I'll help you. Please come inside."