Disclaimer: I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.
Warnings: This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers. Please practice understanding of personal boundaries before and during reading.
Song Recommendation(s): "Believer" by Imagine Dragons
Author's Note(s): This piece was part of a larger collection and is now being removed from that collection to be posted individually.
Competition/Challenge Block:
House: Hufflepuff
Category: Drabble
Prompts: Disgusted [Emotion]
Word Count: 458
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What No One Saw
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"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes."
– Sherlock Holmes from The Hounds of Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
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Percy stared at the files in front of him. He didn't want to believe it. It wasn't the way he had been raised to view the illustrious headmaster. That man couldn't have done what the file alleged. Percy broke the stare by scrubbing a hand over his face. His glasses clattered against the file laying open on his desk. He shuddered involuntarily as the shock began to fade before the incoming tide of disgust and rage.
He had resisted the prevalent opinion among his coworkers. Albus Dumbledore had always been a hero in his book. His parents had taught him that and he had always believed it. But the evidence before him clearly indicated that Albus Dumbledore had actively worked to occlude the Wills of two noble Houses for his own personal gain while privately paying officials to look the other way. It was common knowledge that Dumbledore had arranged for Harry Potter's placement after his parents' deaths. No one had questioned it, trusting that the Defeater of Grindelwald would only do what was best for their little hero.
Percy thought of the boy that hung around his youngest brother, the flinches when people reached for him that were so common no one thought anything of it. He thought of the clothes that hung off of the boy—clothes that didn't change through all the years they both were at Hogwarts and didn't need to, because the kid didn't grow out of them. Percy thought of how each of his siblings had needed their clothes replaced or stretched practically every summer. His mouth had a sour taste to it. He could see how tiny the boy had seen facing down the most vicious kind of specimen of the largest dragon breed known to wizarding-kind.
They had done that. Dumbledore had arranged it and maintained it, but in the end, by doing nothing, they were responsible. Choosing not to see and not to act are also choices. Knowing what he did now, Percy was disgusted by his own choice not to help, not to see what was plainly there, not to live up to trust in him shown by making him prefect and then head boy. He should have seen it; he should have done something.
He lowered his hand slowly as realization poured over him. The past could not be changed. He didn't do anything and that will never change. Carefully, Percy replaced his glasses to look over the file again. He had turned a blind eye to the suffering of a child and the manipulations of an old man. But maybe, if he did something now, he could think of that inaction without feeling like he was going to vomit in sheer disgust.
Somehow, Percy doubted it.
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The End
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