Title: The Longest Stride
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Percy Weasley
Prompt: #24 – Family
Word Count: 2,143
Rating: K+ (Minor action violence without serious injury, may contain mild coarse language, should not contain any adult themes.)
Summary: Percy thinks back on the choice he made and wonders if it's too late to repair the damage.
Author's Notes: Warn: a vague hint at slash; Inspired by Nickelback's "Today Was Your Last Day" music video. Title is from the line "That first step you take is the longest stride."
Disclaimer: I own nothing …

Percy Weasley wandered the streets of muggle London, his mood dreary despite the bright summer day. In his head he lamented over the course of his life and the choice he had made over seven years ago in deserting his family for a quiet, uncomplicated life in the muggle world. He wondered if they'd ever forgive him.

He wished he could take it all back and start anew. But after all the time that had passed and the end of the war five years previously which he voluntarily had no part in he feared it was far too late and had been for far too long. As it stood he now deeply feared returning to his estranged life in the magical world.

The third eldest Weasley child walked aimlessly, hands in pockets, consumed by his thoughts when the air was suddenly filled with confetti-like strips of coloured paper. He removed one hand from the confines of his jacket and snatched a blue one from the air. Taking his other hand from his pocket he adjusted his modern and stylish wire-rimmed glasses and turned the strip over in his hands, reading the words written on one side: It's Never Too Late.

He looked down and read the words of some of the other strips of paper littering the ground. They held phrases like Call An Old Friend and Live Each Day. Glancing around he saw others on the street around him catching, picking up, and reading strips of paper. He watched as they smiled, some pulling out their cell phones or turning to someone near them and pulling them into an embrace.

He glanced back down at the strip in his hands and remembered a time when he was a young child, almost old enough to attend Hogwarts, and he'd asked Grandma Prewitt how he'd know how to find a friend. While he was use to being alone at home he was afraid of being alone at school.

She'd smiled warmly at him and said "There are signs everywhere, little one."

"What if I miss them?" he'd innocently asked.

"Then you've got to learn to pay attention," she'd explained softly as though she were letting him in on a great secret. "And remember the signs show themselves in the most unexpected ways. You'll need to trust in your heart to find them."

Percy continued to walk down the paper strewn street, away form the crowd that was forming to find a strip of their own, his strip still securely in his grasp. He mulled over the thoughts that had been playing in his head when the paper had rained down. It's Never Too Late…

He pulled his own cell phone out of his inside jacket pocket and browsed through his contact list, finding a number he'd never called despite having it for over three years. There were a lot of steps to be taken in order to bridge the gap between his current life and his former one. He took a deep breath and hit the 'send' button, taking the first of many.

As the tinny rings sounded in the earpiece sounding almost foreboding to his nerves he recalled the day he had obtained the number. He'd been on his lunch break from his job as a journalist (of sorts) for a popular teen tabloid magazine. He enjoyed eating lunch at the little café a block down from his office building. He was filling in the crossword puzzle in his newspaper and drinking coffee when the person approached him and the two had talked for the rest of his break. The other was living as a free-lance muggle photographer, having also tired of the wizarding world, and was working on a book showcasing much of the British Isles. At the end of the meeting they'd exchanged their cell numbers before going their separate ways.

Now Percy waited anxiously for the person to pick up. What if they were busy and he was bothering them? What if they no longer wanted to speak with him? What if-?

"Percy?" the surprised voice sounded in his ear. "Wes, is that really you?" the voice called him by the nickname he'd been awarded all those years ago.

"Hey," Percy breathed out nervously. "Marcus. Is this a bad time?"

"No," Marcus replied in a happy sort of tone. "Not at all. I just finished up with a photo shoot here in London."

He glanced down at the paper held between his fingers once more and read the words. "You want to do something?" he asked. "I mean, if you haven't got any plans."

"Yeah, that'd be great. Where are you at now? I can come pick you up."

- - -

Not many people were aware of the long standing friendship between the ex-Slytherin and the ex-Gryffindor. A scant few in fact. But truthfully they'd been friends of sorts since Percy's first year at Hogwarts. Percy was always being bullied by other Gryffindors and even several Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. From day one it was obvious that he was different from his two older brothers. He wasn't charismatic like Bill or athletic like Charlie. He was bullied so much by the rest that the Slytherins left him alone.

He'd tried going to his brothers but they just said the teasing was normal and brushed it off. So the four-eyed bookworm Weasley often hid in the library and kept everything to himself. But one day before Christmas break Percy was found in an out of the way and scarcely used hallway by a group of Slytherin boys – the quidditch team to be exact. The then second year Marcus was the youngest team member by three years. The others consisted of three seventh years, two fifth years, and a fourth year.

While the treatment of Percy by the other houses was amusing to the Slytherins in general a great deal of disrespect cultivated from it as well, adding onto the mutual dislike already in place. Slytherin may be ambition driven and willing to throw each other under the bus, so to speak, to save themselves but to be so publicly united in any disloyalty is something they'd never do. If they had any in-house unbalance it remained in house. They always, no matter what, provided a united front – especially when one of their own was threatened by outsiders.

Not only did the Gryffindors openly humiliate, ridicule and ostracize the young red-head they sat on the sidelines and laughed as the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws did so as well.

However when the Slytherin quidditch team discovered Percy that day they learned a new meaning to betrayal. The child they came across that day was bloodied, broken and abandoned. He drew in ragged, shallow breaths and lay curled on his side, holding his snapped right forearm to him. What made it all the more worse, they would eventually come to find, was that when the beating started the child's elder brothers were present and chose to leave instead of intervene. The seventh year Captain wordlessly picked the young Gryffindor and gently cradled the abused body in his arms, trying not to aggravate any of the multiple breaks and fractures any more than could be helped. He and the rest of the team rushed, unnoticed by the other houses, to the hospital wing.

Upon waking Percy wouldn't say who it was that hurt him, only that it wasn't anyone in Slytherin. Despite this the rest of the school, and even some professors, believed it was the Slytherin quidditch team. Despite how adamant he was that it wasn't them Percy was ignored. And the hostility grew – exceptionally so on the quidditch field. Percy wound up in the hospital wing several times more after that and everyone blamed Slytherin, laughing when little Percy defended them.

In the months following the time Percy was first brought to the hospital wing he found himself gradually being in the midst of Slytherins. While he didn't interact with them to any great extent there were more often a few of the older ones found close by. His trips to the hospital wing slowed and it was only on the odd times there were no Slytherins in the vicinity that Percy ended up there.

After a while he took to wilfully wandering into what was generally considered Slytherin turf or where a number of Slytherins were sure to frequent. In the library his study area was always next to one filled with Slytherins or even situated in the middle of several. By the last month of the school year the unthinkable happened. The three eldest years of Slytherins held a meeting with their head-of-house, Professor Severus Snape, and by majority vote Percy became the first outsider in five hundred years to be inducted as an honorary member of any house and was given a Slytherin house badge to keep.

While outside the walls of the dungeon dwelling he wouldn't be openly acknowledged – as not to bring even more unwanted attention to him for his own protection – he was officially one of them. And they subtly cultivated his character and ambitions. As the older students graduated Percy found himself at an odd truce with the remaining Slytherins – Marcus himself covertly becoming one of Percy's truest friends. The younger, newer students didn't understand the bond that was formed with the studious Gryffindor but left him alone after being ordered to by the older students.

The rest of the school eventually lost interest in the strange Weasley. When the twins entered Hogwarts in his fourth year they almost forgot him completely. The twins provided far more amusing entertainment with their jokes and getting on Percy's nerves.

He owed a lot to the Slytherins. After they'd graduated a number of the older ones still kept in contact with him, writing to him and offering him advice and support where needed. In every way that mattered they'd become his true family. He glanced down at the wristband on his right arm that now bore the Slytherin coat-of-arms he'd received back in first year nearly fifteen years prior. These days he wore it proudly, even though no one who would recognize it was around to see it. He worried if they'd accept him back; after all he'd abandoned them as well when he'd abandoned his blood relatives and the wizarding world at large.

He idly wondered what his blood relatives would think of the wristband and what it meant when Marcus Flint's forest green SUV pulled up in front of him, rousing him from his musings. He sat in the passenger seat with the window rolled down in the summer heat and fingered the strip.

"What's that?" Marcus asked.

Percy showed him the words and explained where he got it. "Do you believe in signs?" Percy asked back. Marcus grinned and pulled a yellow coloured strip of paper from where it had been tucked away in the driver's side visor, holding out to Percy. On it was written Fall In Love. Percy looked at him questioningly.

"I found that a second before you called me," Marcus explained.

Percy smiled wide and held both strips of paper high outside the car as it moved through the streets of London. He let them go, sending the small encouragements to others who would need them before taking Marcus' free hand in his.

- - -

Petunia Dursley walked slowly down a street of London lined with small shops. Lately she found herself thinking more and more of her long deceased younger sister Lily. She'd come to realize, after she and her small family had been relocated to protect them from the war that had consumed what was known as the wizarding world, that she had not done right by her sister's son. No matter how good she'd naïvely thought her intentions had been.

She'd often find herself wondering idly what had become of her nephew. Sometimes she even wished she could see him. Even if it was only for a few minutes, or even to be able to get a glimpse of his eyes that were so like his mother's. She wished she could tell him she was sorry for the way she, her husband, and their son had treated him growing up – for all the good it would do him, she thought wryly.

She sighed as she always did when thinking about Harry. She didn't deserve the opportunity to apologize. It was far too late for such a sentiment. Regardless of her feelings towards her nephew now the words would sound empty to his ears. She was sure of it.

As she resigned herself once more to her fate a strip of blue paper fluttered down to the ground in front of her. Curious, she bent down and picked it up. On it was written four words: It's Never Too Late.

- 30 -

THE END

chapter updated: May 17, 2009