More than Words
Jedi Goat
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Author's Note: This one is for KCRedPanda98! Enjoy. :)
These days, he barely recognized the silent hollow that had once been Diagon Alley.
The deserted streets unnerved him. With a hand near his wand and his gaze lingering on the shadows, Percy Weasley forced himself to walk onward. He had already put this off long enough, he told himself whenever his footsteps halted or he hovered, daunted, outside a burned shop front. His steady mantra had begun when he had left work an hour earlier than usual. It wasn't like him to procrastinate. He had put this off far long enough.
And yet, every time he glanced at that old photograph – the one hidden, facedown, at the bottom of his desk drawer – something odd happened in his stomach.
He had put this off long enough.
He owed them this much.
Percy had crumpled his mother's scrawled directions in his fist, but he knew at once when he had found it. Other shops lay dusty and desolate in the wake of Death Eater attacks; if they were open, it was only upon a second, scrutinizing glance that one discovered the small 'Open' sign in the window. Against such a monochrome backdrop, looking at their shop was akin to staring too long into a brilliant firework.
For a long moment, Percy was hardly aware that he had stopped in his tracks, or that he was staring.
It was not the first time he had seen it. He had walked by on occasion, even if it was out of the way of his usual shopping, even if he had no reason in his right mind to be there. Just to look, he would tell himself then, his laden shopping bags chafing at his fists. Just to check on them.
As he stood now, his heart hammering against his ribs, he wildly thought he might do the same today. Just walk by. Just get his leaden feet to move again, as impossible as it seemed. They were still in business. If anything, that meant they were fine. They didn't need him sticking his nose in it.
And yet, his feet wouldn't move.
He owed them this much.
Percy drew a deep, shaken breath. He slipped his mother's crumpled letter back in his pocket and, out of nervous habit, smoothed down his robes again. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, cleared his throat, and stepped up to the door.
It would have been simpler to floo there. It would have been safer, too.
But, somehow, he owed them this – standing on the rickety shop stoop, sweating and nervous – too.
Percy pushed open the door to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. The bell overhead jingled out a vaguely familiar tune; he smiled wanly and scanned the vibrant shelves that he had only ever glimpsed from outside the windows. There were the Canary Creams that they'd once slipped into his Easter gift to Penny – how long was it since he had seen her? – and haphazardly scattered on a near-empty shelf were boxes of something he noted, with trepidation, to be called Skiving Snackboxes.
It was close to closing, Percy knew. The long aisles were empty. A part of him that he had thought he had left at Hogwarts wanted to linger and examine their curiosities, but he forced his feet to keep moving. Thoughts – any other thoughts – would only distract him now.
He had put this off long enough.
Percy rounded the end of the last half-empty shelf and at last stopped short. He had found him. His brother had his back to him, his hair sticking up over robes of such a violent shade of magenta that Percy winced. He was directing a legion of brooms sweeping the floor.
Percy gathered his nerves, stepped forward, and cleared his throat.
His younger brother turned around. Percy knew it was Fred when the twin jutted his chin and said, "What d'you want?"
"I… Your mother told me what happened." Percy touched the crumpled letter in his pocket. Fred said nothing; a muscle jumped in his jaw. Percy pressed on. "Can I… can I speak to George?"
Behind Fred, some of the brooms had fallen over; others swept themselves into corners and stilled. At last, when Fred spoke, his voice was oddly flat. "The summer we were in Egypt. Why'd mum almost drag us home?"
"You two locked me in a pyramid."
For an instant, Percy deluded himself with a familiar twitch of Fred's smirk. Then his younger brother turned away, flicking his wand at the fallen brooms. "He's upstairs. Gotta finish locking up."
Percy nodded. He hovered for a moment behind Fred's back and opened his mouth, but then he thought better of his vacant words. Instead he turned away and trooped in the direction of the spiral stairs half hidden behind the deserted register.
He wound his way upstairs alone and tried the door to the twins' flat. It was unlocked.
Pushing at the door, Percy edged into a surprisingly neat living room. The space was empty; Percy's gaze wandered across the photographs lining the mantle, and suddenly a lump rose in his throat. He turned away.
"Hello?"
His voice quavered and faded into the still air. Just then, a familiar voice rang out from the next room.
"Oi, Fred, don't tell me you forgot to do the shopping again. No matter what you think, my cooking isn't quite magic."
Percy followed the voice toward the kitchen and blinked in an influx of brightness from the open windows. When he looked again, George was peering up at him from where he stood at the stove, his sleeves rolled up and his wand in hand.
"Oh, hey, Perce." George didn't seem to miss a beat at his appearance. "Fred's cooking sucks, by the way."
"I…see." Percy looked carefully at his younger brother. George turned away; he was grinning absent-mindedly as he tapped his wand against the edge of the stove, waiting on a pot of water to boil.
Percy didn't know what he expected, but it certainly wasn't this: George looked as carelessly cheery as they always had, when they were scheming to hide his glasses and lie to their mother about it. He was full-cheeked and smiling, and maybe he was taller – or maybe it was his hair was longer; Percy couldn't quite remember. Certainly, though, George didn't look particularly unwell; in fact, for an instant, Percy could imagine he was still the brash youth who had been squandering his gold on a bet against Bagman.
"You're looking for this, aren't you?" George didn't turn around; he didn't look at Percy as he carelessly lifted the left side of his hair. Then Percy saw it, and he drew in a shuddering breath at the sight.
Where George's ear should have been was nothing but garish and red; a gap, a hole in his little brother's head.
Percy felt the colour drain away from his face. Unconsciously, he had sunk into a rickety kitchen chair.
"It's all right, really." George had turned back to look at him. His brow furrowed slightly as he patted his hair down again. "I mean… It doesn't hurt, not really. I keep telling Fred. I don't think he believes me. But sometimes, the both of us, we forget…"
He trailed off, and the furrow deepened. The words hung, unsaid, in the air: We're not identical anymore. In an instant, Percy knew why George couldn't say it.
In the silence, Percy cleared his throat. "I'm sorry."
"'s not your fault, Perce." George flashed him a grin and turned his attention back to the now-boiling pot. "And besides, ladies love rugged scars."
"Or so he keeps telling me." Fred appeared in the doorway behind Percy. "So, you've seen it, then. His...his ear. Anything else?"
His voice was too sharp. Once, their mother might have reprimanded him; but their mother was not here and, Percy thought, Fred had every reason to be so cold. Over his head, he sensed the twins looking at one another, and as he hesitated in their kitchen chair he had the impression a full-fledged conversation passed between their eyes.
Percy broke the silence for them. His chair scraped back as he rose. "No. No, you're right, I can't...I can't stay long. A...project waiting at home..." He let his awkward voice trail off, vaguely. He knew neither Fred nor George cared for what the Ministry had him working on now; and in that moment he didn't care, either. He looked between his younger brothers, and for a moment they were all frozen as he hesitated, wondering how to say goodbye.
"Take...take care of yourselves."
"We're not kids, Perce," Fred said quietly.
Percy's throat was strangely tight. "I know."
George stepped between them, tugging at his sleeves. "Fred's already done the wards downstairs, so you'll have to use the floo." He walked out into the living room; Percy hesitated, looked at Fred again.
The words were on his dry lips; but somehow, now, when two of their brothers and their father had nearly died already, when their world was crumbling around them, it seemed too cheap to say I'm sorry.
Instead he wandered after George into the living room. He had pulled down a pot of green powder from between the grinning portraits on the mantle. Percy tried not to look at them, but the family portrait caught his eye as tiny figures scrambled over one another to wave at him. There they were, both of them grinning as widely as the Cheshire cat, framing a disgruntled miniature of himself who scowled, readjusting his crooked glasses.
They all looked so young. It had been taken the year before he... the year before the war.
Percy looked around and found George was still holding out the floo powder. He blinked and dug his fist into the emerald powder; he let it seep between his fingers like grains of sand before he flung it into the hearth. Bright green flames seared and crackled to life.
Percy offered his younger brother a final, weak smile before he turned away; then George's voice was so quiet, he nearly missed it.
"Fred says thanks, too, you know."
And, somehow, Percy knew. He looked up and met his younger brother's clear blue stare. The same eyes of the imps that would creep into his room at five in the morning to steal his glasses while he slept.
It was without thought that Percy reached out, grasping George's shoulder, and for a moment – only for a moment – they were anchored together in this mess they called a war. All three of them.
"I know."
Then Percy turned away, still with an absent, sad sort of smile, and let the whirl of flames sweep his brother out of sight.
End.
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