Title: Just Better at Pretending
Disclaimer: I don't own anything
Summary: Selfishness comes in all shapes and forms. Those who we believe do not have it are simply better liars than the rest of us.
Just Better at Pretending
Percy stared at the mirror in front of him, ignoring its taunts about his appearance. Any other day, and he might have retorted to the talkative mirror, but today he was in no mood to listen to its nosy opinions.
He had wiped his glasses clean, removing every last trace of the mashed parsnip. He didn't really know why he hadn't just used his wand to clean off the horn-rimmed spectacles, but he hadn't. It was almost as though he needed to do it the Muggle way, to actually feel the cooked vegetable underneath the cloth in his hands.
He was a fool.
He knew that now, but some insidious part of him would remind him, in the middle of the silent night, that hadn't he always known it?
Perhaps he could have believed that Dumbledore was losing his marbles. After all, the man had allowed Harry, Hermione, and Ron to follow a Voldemort-possessed Quirrel into the lair beneath Fluffy's feet, and they had all almost died.
Percy shuddered as he remembered the bruises on Ron's head where the giant stone chess piece had smashed into him.
And he had let a giant snake wander around Hogwarts for an entire year without actually considering shutting down the school.
Percy shuddered as he thought of what had almost happened to Ginny.
And then, when they had still believed Sirius Black to be a madman and a murderer (and the truth about that had come as a shock to him), the Headmaster had still kept the school open.
Percy shuddered as he remembered Ron's dramatic retelling of the night he woke to see Black standing over him with a knife in his hand.
And, of course, one could not forget the disastrous Triwizard Tournament, which had resulted in Cedric's death. Dragons, bewitching people to sleep underwater, and that horrible maze.
Percy shuddered as he remembered Ron's soaking wet form being pulled from the lake. He had run down to his brother then, needing tangible reassurance that the younger redhead was alive and breathing.
No, it was not difficult to wonder if Dumbledore was losing his marbles. And, even if he wasn't, it was not difficult to question what kind of man continually puts his students at risk like that?
He was just a man, and he made mistakes like everyone else. But it seemed, ever since Harry had come to Hogwarts, that those mistakes the Headmaster made resulted in one of Percy's siblings getting hurt.
Which brought his thoughts to Harry. The boy his father and his siblings all adored. Did they know what it felt like to sit in the same room as them and watch as they made it all so blatantly obviously that they preferred Harry to him? There was little doubt in his mind that they would have readily accepted Harry as a replacement brother after the argument with his father had forced him from the house.
He sighed.
That was why he was a fool. Not for believing everything Fudge said about Dumbledore. Not for disliking Harry and wondering whether or not he really was seeking attention. Not for being frustrated with his parents' lack of understanding when he had been promoted.
No, he had been a fool for walking away.
Family was everything to him, and he knew that. And he had left them behind.
He turned away from the mirror. He had another long day ahead of him, and he needed to get to work. With any luck he could avoid his father and bury himself in his work and forget these treacherous thoughts before they festered deep in his mind.
He took the Floo directly to work, too tired to even consider Apparating or walking. He stepped into his office and walked over to his desk, slipping into the seat and pulling out a pile of parchments to read through. But try as he might, he couldn't keep his mind on the words in front of him.
He knew what his siblings thought of him.
Prat. Ambitious, self-important, back-stabbing traitor. Insufferable git.
He knew Fudge had promoted him because he wanted a spy in the Weasly family. He had known that since You Know Who's return, finally accepting the truth about the type of man he had worked for. So maybe he was a traitor to his family. And he had walked out on them, so perhaps that made him a back-stabber also.
Ambitious, he would certainly not deny that accusation. He wasn't entirely sure being ambitious was a bad thing, but they used it like any other dirty name.
Prat. Self-important. Insufferable git.
His hands clenched into fists at his side as he stared down at the parchment, no longer seeing anything but red.
Unwanted and uncalled for, but powerfully strong, a memory rose in his mind, shoving itself in front of his eyes so that he was forced to think about those terrifying moments trapped in the pitch blackness of the pyramid.
They had thought it was funny. Fred and George had laughed outright at his face when they had finally released him from the tiny prison. Ginny had been amused as well, her eyes sparkling with laughter. Ron had given him an impish grin, and then continually brought up the story as a reminder every day for the rest of the trip.
Even his father had found it humorous. He had given George and Fred a stern glare while their mother had yelled at the twins. But then their mother had left, and the corner of his father's lips turned upwards, as though he was struggling to keep back a smile.
Yes, being trapped in the tiny confines of the dusty pyramid while the claustrophobia that had afflicted him since childhood reared its head and caused his breath to come in short gasps and his heart to be erratically… that had been funny.
He rubbed his weary eyes and tried to refocus his concentration on the rolls of parchment on his desk. Quill in hand, he scribbled out a list, detailing the complaint on each parchment, and who the appropriate person to receive said complaint was.
Even after he had broken ties with his family, when he no longer could have functioned as a spy, Fudge had still promoted him. He knew he had screwed up his previous job, but the official investigation into Crouch's bizarre madness and unexpected disappearance had revealed that no one would have been able to tell that Crouch was under the Imperius curse. And really, that made sense, didn't it? If it was so easy to tell when someone was being controlled, then the Imperius curse wouldn't be as affective, and it wouldn't have caused the Ministry as much trouble as it did back during the first war.
He had handled his job well, all things considered. He had continued to smoothly run Crouch's department, even without anyone there to watch over his every move. Didn't that show that he had talent? Didn't that show that he was competent?
Maybe Fudge had wanted a spy. But wasn't there a chance, any chance at all, that Fudge had also promoted him because he had the skills necessary for the job?
No.
Not according to his parents or siblings.
Why? His father had been promoted by Scrimgeour, and everyone jumped to the obvious conclusion that it was because he deserved the promotion. So what was it about Percy that made him so obviously inferior? Why couldn't they have ever paused to wonder if maybe he deserved it as well?
Every day during Ginny's first year, she got paler and paler. She cried herself to sleep, and her eyes were perpetually bloodshot in the morning.
And what had Fred and George done? They'd played pranks on her.
They were trying to cheer her up, he knew that. But it didn't work. Did they even notice that? Did they even realize they were only make the situation worse? Or were they so caught up in their pranks that they didn't realize what they were doing to her?
They had only stopped their pranks when he had threatened to write to their mother. And what was their response to his threat?
They called him an insufferable git.
But Ginny's nightmares had come less frequently.
When he told Ron off for wandering around the girls' bathroom, he wasn't worried about his badge. He was fairly certain that McGonagall thought highly enough of him to ignore his misbehaving brothers. No, he was worried about Ron because the bloody Chamber of Secrets had been opened, and people were getting hurt!
Not, of course, that Ron would ever have believed that.
Percy shook his head. He didn't want to think about this right now. Rubbing weary eyes, he read over the parchment in front of him and groaned. Someone had actually taken the time to write a complaint requesting a law banning the use of silver cauldrons? Why?
He began to draft a response to the letter. There was no reason to pass it on to anyone of higher rank, and he might as well do the job himself. It was one of the things he prided himself on, that he did not try to delegate the unpleasant tasks to others.
An hour or so later and he had successfully avoided thinking about his parents, his siblings, or that horrid Christmas and the parsnip.
But good things do not last long.
He put down his quill and pushed away the picture of his father's tight-lipped face. There was nothing that unnerved him more than to see his parents looking at him with… hatred?
He had always been the odd-man-out in his family. With so many siblings, he thought he should have had at least one that he got a long with. But Bill and Charlie were too much older than him, and when they were little, that age difference had prevented them from really wanting to play with him. He only slowed them down.
Fred and George… well, he didn't even want to think about that.
He wasn't sure why he had never been able to be friends with Ron. Perhaps it was that his youngest brother too often followed in Fred and George's footsteps, and that had not predisposed either brother towards being friendly with the other. Perhaps it was the same reason Bill and Charlie had never really spent time with him, the age difference was just too much.
And Ginny.
Ginny was the youngest, the girl. She was the one everyone felt the need to protect. She was the one their parents doted on. The age difference had added to this, but mostly it was that Percy just felt the need to set the good example for her. Bill and Charlie had left at that point, so all Ginny had to look up to was Percy. After all, he didn't really want her to turn out like Fred and George.
And that had left him all alone.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. He remembered Ginny telling him to lighten up when he got upset at one of Fred and George's stupid jokes. He remembered the numerous times Ron had called him a prat or a git because Percy had told him off for doing something stupid.
Like wandering around the school by himself while a giant snake turned people to frozen statues.
In the end, he decided, that was what frustrated him the most. After everything his siblings had done to him, they still had the nerve to act innocent in this entire mess. Fred and George especially, when all they had ever really done was to drive Percy away.
His family, he decided was just as self-centered as he was. Just as ambitious, just as willing to disregard what was 'good' and 'right' to get what they wanted. Just as blind to the pain people around them might have been feeling because of their comments and actions.
They were just better at pretending.