I Cry Now
by: epiphanies
A Penelope monologue. Regarding Percy. The stupid git. Oi.
He was always a little bit insufferable. I kind of liked it about him. He took charge. He didn't allow himself to be taken advantage of. He knew his mind and he was stubborn enough that, through blood and gore, he would still have his opinion in tact, no matter how wrong he'd been proven. I liked that about him. I'm just odd that way, I suppose.
I liked the way he kept us secret for fear of losing our Prefects badges. Even though I couldn't have given a toss because of how much I felt for him, I would have given up not only a Prefect badge, but a Head Girl badge and an expulsion and an exile from the wizarding world.
Maybe that sounds crazy, but it's true. I still feel that way.
I liked the way that, on the first day of Seventh Year, on his way to meet me at Platform 9 3/4, he threw out his chest just to show off his shiny badge to me. Like it would have mattered. But it did. It mattered to him.
I liked that he felt that he had to protect Harry Potter when Sirius Black was after him. I liked the fact that he always had a straight head on the rules, and that he wasn't afraid to set his brothers straight. I liked that he was a leader.
It was after Seventh Year that it all changed. It was after Seventh Year that he locked himself in his room even more, concocting Ministry papers about leaky cauldrons. I remember joking about him with it, saying that we should VISIT the leaky cauldron sometime, meet there, for we hadn't seen each other in months. He yelled at me. He sent me a Howler, believe it or not. But I laughed it off and said "That's Percy for you," and sent him another letter without mention of leaky cauldrons and Howlers.
As the year following Seventh Year went by, the letters grew smaller and fewer. Until I sent a letter, a long letter, speaking to him about the loss of the boy Cedric Diggory. For Cedric, as Percy well knew, had been my cousin. I spoke to Percy about loss and pain and betrayal and tears. I signed the letter, as always, with Love.
And I haven't heard back from him yet. It's been over a year and he hasn't responded.
I spilled my heart out to Percy Weasley. I admitted my fears, my dreams, my weaknesses...even the fact that he indeed -was- my weakness. I let him be the first to touch my hand in a romantic way, the first to brush my lips with his own, the first to open my heart to. And I haven't heard from him.
I've moved. I'm living alone in London now. As I've heard he is.
I actually saw him the other day. He was unlocking a flat on Ridgewide Hill with paper grocery bags filling his arms. He didn't see me. He couldn't feel my eyes burning into his back, into his fiery red hair, into his skull, into his nose, into his backside.
Percy always used to know if I was in the room. He'd had a sense for it. I'd liked that sense.
He doesn't have it anymore.
But crazily enough, even though he kisses Fudge's feet like the Leader of years ago never existed, even though he doesn't throw out his chest with a shiny Head Boy's badge anymore, even though he never returned my letter, I still love the boy. I've always loved the boy.
It doesn't mean that I have to like him anymore, after everything that's sat dormant between us for so long. But I do love him still, and I cannot help that. I cannot help that as I cannot help the intake of my breath, the blood in my veins, the colour of my hair. I cannot help that, even after his betrayal, his abandonment, his recklessness... I still do love the boy. I do not know why, but what I know is this. If Percy Weasley died tomorrow, I would grieve. I would grieve for the absence of his letters. Of the memory of his pride. Of the memory of his lips on my previously untouched ones in that abandoned classroom. Of he, docking points from both of our houses every time we met in secret.
If Percy Weasley died tomorrow, I would cry tomorrow.
And, because Percy Weasley is as good as dead to me now...
I cry now.