When Oliver Wood walked into his dormitory after Quidditch training right before dinner, he did not expect to find Percy Weasley crying. He was rather shocked for a moment, as even thinking about the concept of his roommate, (who after a few days of meeting him in their first year of school, Oliver had decided that he was a robot) actually showing some emotion for once in his life. Not that Percy didn't have emotions, but Oliver was convinced for years that Percy only had three; disgust, annoyance and in rare cases, excitement (But that was only reserved for when they got marks back from essays and tests.) So seeing his emotionless roommate crying was a bit of a shock for Oliver.
Percy was slumped over the desk in the dorm, a rather usual position for Percy Weasley, who seemed to be glued to that desk apart from when he was on his prefect duties, class times and mealtimes. However instead of the powerful upright posture Percy usually put on when he was sitting at his desk, as if he was going to be writing the next great wizarding book or a personal letter to the Minister of Magic, Percy was slumped over the desk with a quill in his hand and several rather daunting lengths of parchment hanging off the desk and several crumbled up balls of it by his feet. If it was any other day, Oliver would have left Percy alone, as he learnt better to disturb Percy when he was working, as he still hadn't recovered from that itching jinx Percy had given him, while they were in third year when he had asked Percy if he had seen his chocolate frog stash while the red headed boy was in the middle of a potions essay. But Oliver decided to risk getting another itching jinx fired at him as we saw Percy's shoulders shake more than they should and the fact that Percy had ink on his fingers was a good sign that things were not fine.
"How are you doing Percy?" Oliver asked in an overly cheerful tone as he strolled into the room, throwing his broom on his bed.
"I'm perfectly fine Oliver." Percy replied curtly after a few moments, not looking up from his desk with the usual glare that he reserved just for his quidditch loving roommate when he came back from practice, as Oliver had the tendency to drag mud on the ground and into the carpet as he never cleaned his boots after being on the field, and Percy detested a messy room more than anything, even more than when his twin brothers made some adjustments to his prefect badge.
Oliver plonked himself on Percy's bed taking great care not to wrinkle Percy's sheets far too much as he wouldn't hear the end of it it if he did, he looked over at the desk and he saw Percy glaring intently at a piece of parchment. Oliver counted to ten and he did it again, just so he could give Percy the time to give him the usual lecture about how it was rather rude to sit on someone else's bed and how it was violating private property, but the lecture didn't come. Percy remained silent, just glaring at the piece of parchment. Oliver didn't like this. He didn't like seeing Percy like this, it was very un-percy like for him to be quiet and being slumped over a desk, with shaking shoulders. Oliver let out a sigh, he didn't know what to say in this situation. Being honest, Oliver was better at preventing a quaffle from going into a large hoop than actually using his words. To be honest, it was a rather good job that he was wanting to be a professional quidditch player than a writer as Oliver is positive that the only word he could write down would be ' quaffle.'
"Percy?" Oliver asked carefully, checking to see where Percy's wand was, just so he could avoid any curses from Percy, thankfully Percy's wand was on his bedside table. "Is everything okay? You just seem a bit...I don't know what you seem, being honest, but you don't seem yourself."
Percy let out a shuddery sigh and he turned to face Oliver, Oliver pretended not to notice how Percy's eyes were red but it was rather difficult as the lenses of his round glasses magnified his eyes, making them impossible to ignore. Percy's normally perfectly parted hair looked as if he had been dragging his fingers through it and it just looked as if he had been a victim a cursed hair comb. Percy had ink on his fingers. That was the definite sign that things weren't fine, as Percy never had ink on his fingers, and he had always managed to stay clean when he was using a quill-an ability that Oliver had never developed. Percy put down the quill with a shaking hand and he picked up the bit of parchment that he was looking at.
"I'm trying to write a letter to my mother." Percy said finally, voice sounding thick and watery.
"Has something happened to your family?" Oliver asked, straightening himself up from the bed. "Has something happened to Bill or Charlie? Or has something happened to one of the younger ones?" It had to be that, as why else would Percy be upset? From the late night conversations with Percy, Oliver had learned that Percy was rather protective over his two youngest siblings and Percy himself had said that he is sure that his world would end if something happened to one of them, especially Ginny, who was in her first year of school, and Percy had taken up to keeping an eye out for her . It seemed that it would be the only plausible reason for Percy to react like this.
Percy shook his head slowly. "Is your family fine? As if your dad has lost his job, I am sure that my parents will happily go and help yours with things. I'll do my best to help, I'll even let your sister use my broom when she wants."
"No it isn't that." Percy said, he held up the parchment in his hand and he shoved it out in Oliver's direction. "I don't know how I am going to tell her about this." Oliver took the parchment from Percy's shaking hand. When he looked at it, Oliver realised that it was the charms essay that Flitwick had given to them last week, the one that Oliver didn't do himself as he was too distracted with making a game plan for the match against Ravenclaw the day that it was due. Oliver looked at it with a look of confusion on his face, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with the essay and Percy had even gotten an A for it. If Oliver got an a for a charms essay, he would be bloody chuffed with it. "I did really badly on it." Percy said as an explanation when he looked at Oliver's face.
"I don't know what you are talking about." Oliver said. "It looks really good, you got an A for it."
"That is the problem." Percy exclaimed, snatching the essay back. "I got an A for it, that isn't good. I was meant to get an O for it."
"I don't see what the problem is." Oliver said gruffly, "You just didn't do as well as you wanted to do on an essay, it happens to everyone."
"Not to me." Percy moved around and stared at the parchment again, glaring at it as if he could change the grade onto it to something better. "Bill and Charlie never got A's they always got o's for everything. My mother is going to be so disappointed in me."
"Mate , I promise she won't." Oliver moved off the bed and went to the desk, removing the piece of parchment from Percy's hands in the attempt to force Percy to look at him, Percy's eyes just seemed to be redder than they were before. He placed a careful hand on Percy's shoulder. "She should be bloody happy with that mark, it is definitely better than finding out that the twins have gotten another detention again."
Percy let out a groan with the mention of the twins and he covered his head in his hands and sighed. "The twins are going to find out and they will not let me forget about this. They will rub this failure in my face."
"I promise not to tell them." Oliver said. "I would make an unbreakable vow on that, but we need to let someone else know about it, so they can seal the vow, and I don't think you want anyone else to know." Oliver joked in the attempt that he could brighten up Percy's mood up a bit, but it didn't seem to work and Percy only glared at him.
"What is the worse the twins can do?" Oliver asked, well it was a bit of a stupid question, knowing that the twins had a talent for causing trouble and they could do a lot of things, and it didn't help that recently they had developed a talent for exploding toilet seats off the hinges of the toilet, and Oliver was doubting that the twins would go that low and cause a toilet to explode when Percy was using it, but then again it was the twins and Oliver had learned not to doubt the extent of damage the twins could easily cause.
"They will call me Perfect Percy." Percy whispered thickly, eyes focused on the desk. He seemed to be shaking even more than before. "They will keep calling me that, as they will know that I am not perfect anymore." Percy let out a hiccup and his eyes started to get watery. "Mother will be so disappointed in me, she told me how proud she was of me when I got twelve owls at all O's. She was proud of Bill and Charlie when they got all o's for all of their exams."
"Percy, your mother is going to be proud of you no matter what." Oliver finally said, passing Percy a crumpled up tissue from the bottom of his school bag. "It is just one bad grade, it isn't going to be the thing that defines you for the rest of you life. And you are not your brothers, they did some great things at school, but it doesn't matter now. They left and what you are doing now is more important than what your brothers did."
"But I am not perfect anymore," Percy whispered. "Don't you see it? I am not the perfect son anymore. I need to be the perfect son, while Bill and Charlie go around gallivanting around the world like fools, and the twins are too busy in detention to care about being perfect and Ron just spends his day eating bacon sandwiches and reading about the Chudley Cannons than care about being perfect. My mother was relying on me to be Perfect Percy, and yet I have let her down."
"I don't know what to say, mate." Oliver said, sitting himself down on the desk, so he could look Percy in the eyes. "But maybe you can use this as an opportunity for growth." Percy just looked at him as if he was mad. "Maybe this shows you that you don't have to be Perfect Percy, maybe you can just be Percy for once in your life? Percy who is still a pompous twat, but he can also flunk an essay and get back up again. When I got hit by that bludger on my first quidditch game and I was out for a week, what did I do?"
"You should have taken up a sensible hobby such as Chess." Percy replied blowing his nose loudly.
"Maybe I should have done that, but I didn't." Oliver said. "Three hours after I woke up, I went on that bloody broom and I played quidditch once more, as I wasn't letting bloody bludger knock me down again and let it win. Percy when a bludger hits you, you get back on that broom and play quidditch and you will eventually win the quidditch cup."
"That actually makes a bit of sense Oliver." Percy finally said wiping his hands with tissues in the attempt to get the ink off them, despite his efforts to clean his hands, there was still black smudges on Percy's hands.. "Thank you."
"Don't let an essay get you down, there is no point. If I let essays get me down, I would be so depressed I would have stopped playing quidditch a long time ago, and that is just from the ones I forgot to hand in." Oliver shrugged. "There is more to you than just a grade on a bit of parchment,, you are annoying, you are neat freak, you complain about a lot of things and you sing badly in shower, but more importantly you are a mate. And that is more important that just a letter and your mother is going to still think the sun shines out of your arse anyway."
"I don't know if I should be offended or flattered by that." Percy said giving a small smile as he pushed his glasses up his nose. "But I do appreciate it anyway Oliver, thank you."
"Don't mention it." Oliver replied clapping Percy on the shoulder. "Why don't you forget about it now and we can get some dinner? If the twins say something, I will hex them into next month before you can say Golden Snitch."
Percy nodded and stood up from the desk and smoothed his robes down. He picked up the parchment from Oliver's hand and shoved it in the bottom desk drawer, where he had kept all of the confiscated items that he had collected from Oliver over the years. Hopefully that essay wouldn't see the light of day again.
Right as they left the dormitory, Oliver turned to Percy with a smirk on his face. "Percy, maybe you would have gotten a better grade on that essay, if you didn't spend so much time snogging your girlfriend."
Percy's ears went pink.