A/N: Written for the Snakes and Ladders Challenge, the Epic John Green Quote Competition (with the quote "My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations."), and the Prompts Only One Hour Hardest Challenge Ever (with the prompts "Game" and "Sunday"). I'm not JKR. I don't own Percy, or the Minister, or the world of HP.
"Percy?"
"What is it you need, Minister?" He shuffled around the papers on his desk, trying to look busy.
"Nothing, but it appears some personal mail of yours has arrived today." Personal? He didn't know who it could be. Would Penelope have written him again? After their falling out, they hadn't talked at all. Perhaps it was Oliver? Or fan mail?
"Personal mail, sir?"
"From your mother."
Merlin. "I'm sorry, Minister. I'll make sure it won't happen again," he said, taking the letter from Fudge's hand. "Incendio." There was no need to read that trash, anyway. What could his mother have to say to him? Her last letter had been all drivels about missing him, how the war was heating up and You-Know-Who was back. It disgusted him to see his mother all wrapped up in Dumbledore's nonsense. Why couldn't she see him for the fool he was?
"Very well, back to work." Fudge left without ceremony, but Percy found it hard to concentrate. Normally, he was wrapped up in his work, didn't even mind that he couldn't remember his last day off. Sunday afternoons like this one, he was supposed to be responding to letters from the public. Drab business, normally, and Percy could work off the same form letter for each one.
Dear Mr. _,
Thank you so much for your concern for the Minister and the Ministry. I understand that you are under the delusion that your safety is at stake due to the reappearance of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I can assure you that this wizard died many years ago and will not be returning any time soon. Thank you again for your letter and please write back if ever a legitimate concern appears.
Sincerely,
Percy Weasley
Junior Assistant to the Minister
But his own letter-writing was difficult with the weight of the letter he had received. Doing the right thing could certainly make someone lonely. He wondered how much longer he could bear the solitude of standing up for what he believed in, despite having a huge family on the other side. If it came to war (oh, Merlin, don't let it come to war), would he be able to pick up his wand and point it in the face of one of his brothers? Could he curse his own mother for being wrong? Or would he find a way to hide somewhere, cowardly, too scared to stand up to his family for what he believes in, too proud to face them and apologize?
He didn't want to know. Penelope Clearwater. Oliver Wood. People he trusted and loved and had friendships with - if they were all fighting against him, could he stand his ground? (Was this what war was, after all? Hexing people - real people with lives and families and hopes and dreams and fears - and the side with the least casualties wins? Put that way, it seemed all the more childish. Put that way, he couldn't imagine fighting against people - looking into their eyes and hurting them.)
The day droned on. His thoughts left him confused and irrational. (Dear Mr. X, so sorry about your toilet seat. I'll be sure to send a replacement. He sounded like his father; he burned the letter and began again.) Thoughts all over the board, taking up spaces in his brain like stars in a nighttime sky (and when was the last time he went and lay outside to look at the stars? There were no stars to see in London). But stars created constellations, and his thoughts made no sense. He turned them over, folded them into each other, but it just left them agitated, disjointed as ever.
Sitting at a desk just outside the Minister's office, Percy Weasley questioned his loyalty. Signing paperwork on behalf of Cornelius Fudge himself, a faint whisper in his brain would not leave him alone: Maybe you're wrong.
There was too much at stake to be wrong. There couldn't be anything more to life than climbing the ladder, making money, siding with the government, the rules, the order. There couldn't be anything wrong with order. It was his family who had it backwards, his father who tried to eke a living out of a dreadful, nasty hobby, sacrificing the financial state of his family for his own quirks.
It was Sunday. Summer. Where would they be? Eating dinner in the backyard? Treating that delusional Potter boy like a member of the family? (Perhaps so; if Potter came, they would have seven children again. Percy wouldn't be missed.) Certainly his good-for-nothing father wouldn't be working. Not on a Sunday. He wasn't ambitious enough for that. (Secretly, he was glad for it. Those awkward moments in a lift with his father were dreadful. Perhaps it was why he preferred working nights and weekends.)
His stack of paperwork was getting no smaller. Nearly all his energy was focused on trying to straighten out the knotted tug-of-war in his head. Playing connect the dots. Creating constellations. (After all, constellations were just the work of ancient players in a game of connect the dots.) But the constellations wouldn't come. War and family - they didn't combine to create something good. He seemed to have forgotten that the constellations didn't come with happy stories. Cassiopeia, hung upside down in the heavens. Her daughter, Andromeda, chained naked to a rock in the sea and later forced into a marriage. (Perhaps family relationships had always been terrible. Perhaps some things never change.)
"Percy? Percy? Are you okay?"
He lifted his head off of his desk. Had he been sleeping? "Minister? What time is it?"
"Nearly eleven o'clock. I imagine you might want to be getting home now."
"Yes, of course, sir. I'll see you in the morning." He gathered his belongings into his briefcase, straightened his expensive suit, and headed out to the library. He skipped the Floo, the Apparation, and decided to walk the mile or so to his flat. The stars were out, though they were dim above the city lights. He looked for any constellations he could recognize, but the sky was simply a canvas of splattered stars.