Percy Jackson and the Department of Mysteries

117) I Finally Get to Sleep

For a while, the only sounds in the kitchen were the clanking of glasses against the table and controlled breathing. It was worse than silence — the sound of someone putting down their bottle a little too hard was a constant reminder of Mr. Weasley's unknown condition.

Finally, I couldn't take it. I made a move towards the door, the others watching me leave. Before I made it, a flash of light illuminated behind me, and when I turned to look, a scroll of parchment fell to the table, a golden feather falling gently above it.

"Fawkes!" Sirius stood instantly, snatching up the parchment. "That's not Dumbledore's writing — it must be a message from your mother — here —"

George tore open the parchment the moment Sirius thrust it into his hand, "Dad is alive. I am setting out for St. Mungo's now. Stay where you are. I will send news as soon as I can. Mum." He looked up at the rest of us, but he didn't really seem to see us. "Still alive.... But that makes it sound..."

"Still alive means a lot," I said quietly. "It's better than not. His chances of surviving are a lot higher if he's not dead." No one seemed to appreciate my joke, so I decided to take my leave. Kreacher was standing on the stairs to the basement, pretending casually that he hadn't been listening in. I ignored him. I wasn't much in the mood to berate him for being a snoop when that's all I ever did.

The hallway stairs were less comfortable than the chairs in the kitchen, but the atmosphere was calmer. It was me, my thoughts, and the people in the portraits lining the wall alone in the room. They're eyes were too bright in the dark, too much like a waiting monster. I wanted to leave, back to the kitchen, back to Hogwarts, back to Luke, but none of those were an option, seeing as my legs turned to jelly.

The portraits didn't say much, but my thoughts made up for the silence. Mr. Weasley? Harry as the snake? What was he doing in the Ministry — what was he guarding? Was the snake Nagini? Mr. Weasley?

I sat there for hours, the same thoughts echoing in my head, bouncing off of each other and making no progress in brightening my mood.

What did brighten my mood was the front door opening, Mrs. Weasley walking frantically through.

"How is he?" I stood and asked, my voice sounding strangely light.

"Oh, Percy," Mrs. Weasley breathed out, forgetting to call me Perseus. "Oh, he's going to be all right. He's going to be all right." And before I could even comprehend what she'd said, she pulled me into a too tight hug. "He's going to be all right." Her voice went weak, tiredness flooding her tone.

"The others are in the kitchen," I pulled away, unsure of what else to say. Mrs. Weasley nodded, and I followed her to the basement.

The others all stood as she walked in, anticipation coming off them in waves.

Mrs. Weasley gave them a wan smile, "He's going to be all right. He's sleeping. We can all go and see him later. Bill's sitting with him now, he's going to take the morning off work."

Fred fell back into his seat with his hands over his face. Ginny and George walked swiftly over to Mrs. Weasley and hugged her. Ron barked a laugh and downed his butterbeer in one go. Harry let out a sigh, smiling slightly.

Sirius joyfully shouted, "Breakfast!" He looked around. "Where's that accursed house-elf? Kreacher! KREACHER!" Kreacher did not answer the summons. "Oh, forget it, then. So it's breakfast for — let's see — eight.... Bacon and eggs, I think, and some tea, toast —"

I sat down heavily beside Fred, who didn't bother taking his head out of his hands. Instead he gave some sort of high-pitched grunt in greeting. I gave one back.

I wasn't very hungry, but the smell of food cooking eased my mood. So did the clinking of forks against plates, something that would normally make me want to scream. The normalcy of it, of breakfast and of eggs and of sitting around the table, was a drastic change and made me feel as if I'd just come down from an adrenaline high. I fell asleep at the table, none of the others bothering to wake me until they were done eating themselves. Ron was kind enough to push me out of my chair for me.

Thankfully, we spent the rest of the morning sleeping. Not thankfully, my dreams were plagued by snakes, snakes, and more snakes.

At least I got to sleep.

I wrote this chapter while trying not to fall asleep. It's been meh. Packed everything up, then the puppies our neighbors got from us came to visit. That was fun. Love them. They're so big now. Drove to stay the night at my cousins house. Tried not to sleep, ended up watching the last four Harry Potter movies (the last one was, sadly, covered by a pop up due to issues with HBO Max and I didn't know where the remote was, so it just played with a massive rectangle on the screen), and ended up falling asleep for, like, an hour. We left thirty minutes after we'd planned to, and I tried to fall asleep in the car, but apparently my hour long nap was enough for me. I did lie there for ages though. Underlined some stuff in this book I got from camp (I don't normally do that, but figured that this book should house the memories of what I enjoyed about it, especially seeing as a lot of it reflects my own life), and read some of my other book, which I finished about an hour ago. It was good. I wholeheartedly recommend Where the Crawdads Sing. We got to the house we're staying in, unpacked, and I accidentally introduced my baby cousin to outlets. Thankfully he just likes the fact that you can turn the light off and on, so I unplugged that and will not plug it back in until we leave. I hope there aren't any others. We went to eat at Dairy Queen, then stopped by this little beach store. I bought Kadee a ring, and, this seems to happen often, my grandma didn't feel well. She breathed heavy and hummed in pain the whole way back. She also might have thrown up — I don't like vomit though so I am not going to talk about it. One thing I like about the beach is that it actually changes. Every place I visit feels like every place I've been. It's as if I took an unfamiliar road and wound up in a town I know. The grass is still green, the cars still loud, the sky still full. But I come from mountains — not big ones, but mountains. Peaks that are covered in dark green, heights that tower over rivers and towns. The horizon line doesn't exist at home, blocked by mountains. But here, the water stretches as far as the eye can see — it's wild. It's unbroken and slate Gray and forever. Infinite. It proved that the world is massive, that everywhere isn't some nearby town. I guess that's what I like about the beach. Not the swimming, or the sand, or the heat, but the distance. How far would I have to go before I couldn't see anything at all? How vast is it? The horizon line is very cool. I do still like my mountains though. I wouldn't trade them for a thousand horizon lines.

Anyway, I hope you guys have had a jolly Saturday, and I'll see you on Monday CT. Love ya!

PS. I'm not actually sure if these chapters will come out CT. I usually post pretty late and have no clue if I'm in the same time zone. I don't have the best service so I can't currently look it up. If it doesn't come out CT, it'll probably come out within a couple hours. If not, it's because I'm at the beach and am busy entertaining myself with shells and sand.