A/N:
Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Assignment #2.
House: Gryffindor
Class: Dueling
Prompt: Write about 'killing someone with kindness'
Word Count: 689
HUGE thanks to CrimsonGoldQueen and Magi Silverwolf for beta'ing.
The war hadn't changed much for Percy. He headed to the Ministry every morning. He wrote letters every night, to a pretty Ravenclaw girl who never replied.
He never saw Fred.
Then, one day, he left work early. A beautiful, clear day in spring, the kind where the air is thick with flowery perfume and buzzing and hums. The kind of postwar day where outside just doesn't match inside.
It wasn't the anniversary of Fred's death, or of his burial, or of his birth, or anything like that. Just a random day. The type where otherwise he would have gone back to his flat and pretended nothing had happened.
The first "burial" ceremony had been a short eulogy for Alastor Moody. Percy had attended dutifully, transcribing Kingsley's speech for the Daily Prophet and trying to ignore the glares.
They didn't want him there. The Order. Percy Weasley, so useless and stupid he'd abandoned his perfect Gryffindor family. Abandoned them for a Ministry that called him Weatherby. Perfect Prat Prefect Percy. Always good to laugh at. In the end, not quite so perfect.
After that, he didn't attend a single service. He hadn't known most of the Order or DA anyway. And those he did...
Well, there are some kinds of pain only Percy Weasley can inflict on himself.
He stared at the ground as he stepped towards Fred's tombstone. It stuck up oddly, unnaturally, like some sort of twisted, dark bulge. He hated it as he had never hated anything in his life.
He reached out and fingered the gravestone. In his hands, he held flowers.
Frederick Gideon Weasley
1 April 1978 - 2 May 1998
Beloved son, brother, and friend
Our laughter and light in the darkness
Fading notes and wilting blossoms were scattered everywhere. Someone - maybe Percy's mum; she spent days just sitting in the cemetery - had recently left roses. Percy placed his own offering (lilacs) down just in front of them. White and purple. It had an odd peace to it.
Peace. But Percy wasn't feeling peaceful. His eyes hovered on that word. Laughter.
Laughter. The twins throw parsnips at his glasses, making his mum cry, just reminding him why he left…
He thinks maybe his little brothers will want to look up to him, like he looks up to Bill and Charlie, now that he has his shiny new Prefect badge…
His mother bites her lip to keep from laughing as Fred and George chase him around…
He tries to clean up before his parents get home, but they keep damn laughing…
Fred laughs like nothing has changed, like he's still Perce, like he'd never left…
Fred, the first to forgive him…
Fred, his last laugh…
He felt a piercing heat behind his eyes. He felt this heat well up inside him until he was nothing, just a spring of heat and pain, felt it drip down his cheeks.
The tears landed on his lilacs. Taunting him.
"Percy."
He had company. But the tombstone protruded between them. Percy had a mad vision of an ugly grey spirit rising from inside it, consuming them, sucking them both in…
"George."
It had been four years since they had spoken each other's names.
George was crying too, and it was that which truly infuriated Percy.
"I KILLED HIM, YOU BLOODY IDIOT!"
George wasn't looking at him. He was sobbing into the ground. Slowly, he placed his palms on the top of the smoothed grey rock.
Percy stared at the crumpled notes, the old flowers. Was it that easy? Was Fred already fading?
He placed his own hands on Fred's, first the left and then the right. He had never thought about how similar their hands were.
The sun beat down on both of them. Neither spoke a word. Their tears flowed as one.
"He died, Perce."
Percy could think of nothing to say. So he brushed a tear nestled on George's eyelid. They had all wished it had been him. Maybe they still did. He looked at George and he wished it too.
Finally, George met his eyes. After all, he had already lost one brother.
"He died loving you, Percy."