Prompts
QLFC - Round 6 - Percy Weasley: (word) barbarian; (colour) cream
HA - Mythology Task 4 - Write about a tumultuous relationship between siblings
Insane House Challenge - 31. (character) George Weasley
365 prompts - 146. (genre) Family
Word Count: 1641
If I could turn back time
It only took a moment. The merest second; a blink of the eye and he might have missed it.
Maybe then he could have pretended it hadn't happened.
X
The screeching and shouting had at last come to a stop, but the battered wooden door that stood between him and his parent's room remained - oddly - closed. Percy couldn't remember a time when he had been barred from this room.
At the tender age of two, Percy was easily toddling and very curious, but the firm hand of Bill kept both him and Charlie from going anywhere.
"It's not something you want to see," the eldest Weasley child had told him when he asked why - sounding far more imperious than his seven years of age should have allowed.
It had been quiet for awhile now, which was something that concerned Percy more than the shouting. Even he knew by now that his mother was a loud woman. Eventually, though, the door creaked open. A sweaty, exhausted, but ultimately smiling Arthur Weasley emerged and beckoned his three sons into the room.
Needing no further encouragement, Percy was in the room and on the bed before he even registered the bundles in his mother's arms. Percy recoiled, barely catching himself before he barrelled into them. He was instantly cross - what were those things and why were they preventing his cuddles?
After some gentle coaxing, Percy edged closer and peered into the wriggling bundles of cloth. Pink wrinkles contrasted sharply against the clean, cream of the blankets and disgruntled noises greeted Percy. He jerked away again.
"Wha' they?" he asked his tiny nose wrinkling with disgust.
Molly chucked, a tired smile creasing her face. This was something she had already experienced with both Bill and Charlie. "They," she told him gently, "are your brothers."
X
He'd expected the noise to be deafening. It should've been.
The rending of stone, the crackle of fire, the screams of the wounded and dying - they should've been overwhelming.
In that moment, though, there was only silence.
X
By the time he was seven, Percy had come to realise a few things. Firstly, that his parents loved each other very much - another little brother had followed two years after the twins and then the universe had seen fit to bestow a sister just a year later. And secondly, he was destined for far greater things than the lot of them put together.
His older brothers were always off tramping through the countryside and returned so filthy and dishevelled that Percy and his cream cable jumpers felt the need to flee the room completely. Often, Charlie and his bleeding heart would return with some sort of wild and wounded animal in tow - which didn't encourage him to bond with his brothers one bit.
Ron, and now Ginny, were simply too young to do much other than cry or demand food - but even his meagre attempts at interacting with them had only served to prove his point. There was very little to work with.
That left the little barbarians. At five years old, they were the bane of his existence and Percy really didn't think that age would improve their relationship. Everything they seemed to do was aimed at annoying or upsetting him. Ruining his clothes, hiding his books,and even going so far as to set fire to the notes he'd written on the different types leaf patterns on their trees.
"Peeeeeercy!"
He stiffened, pressing back against the tree that he had been sheltering under before springing into action. He quickly shuffled the papers together and secured them in the book he was reading.
"Where are you, Peeeeercy?"
The second voice was almost identical to the first, their pitch varied just slightly - though the gleeful menace was just the same. Percy's eyes darted left and right, trying to work out which direction they were coming from, and which way he had to run.
The rustling was, all of a sudden, coming from above him and their joint triumphant yells had him off like a shot. He scurried across the hill and nearly fell over himself sprinting down the back of it. The twins - hooting and jeering like real barbarians would - were hot on his heels.
The Burrow was well in sight, growing ever larger as Percy's breaths started to come in harsh bursts. Little missiles of stones and twigs started to patter to the ground all around him as he continued to run, some of them even hitting their mark. His legs burned and his lungs felt like they would burst but he sucked in one last huge breath as he tumbled through the open gate of their garden. A few more steps had him flying through the battered front door which he slammed shut behind him.
As he panted in relief, the two little monsters thudded against the other side of the closed door and he could hear them laughing and calling his name in the same teasing, menacing manner.
Barbarians indeed.
X
There was dust in his eyes. It stung and scratched and he wanted nothing more than to scrunch them tightly closed against it all.
They wouldn't close - he couldn't stop watching.
X
He couldn't quite believe it. Looking around at the chaos of mess and colour and paper, Percy still couldn't quite believe it. He couldn't fathom how even his most precious sanctuary had been violated. They ran riot in the halls, they caused chaos in the Great Hall, but even they wouldn't harm the library. Surely?
It seemed, however, that he was wrong.
Paint powder splattered up the sides of bookshelves. Books themselves lay across the tables and floors in bits. Students stood around with expressions that ranged from overjoyed to outraged. Poor Madam Pince was beside herself. Her hands were moving and her mouth was open but it seemed that she was too shocked to say a word.
And there, in the middle of it all, covered in paint and looking far to pleased with themselves, were his little brothers. They had started to make a name for themselves as pranksters during their first year - small, mostly harmless jokes - but it seemed that their second year was going to be a whole other story.
Percy saw red. He felt his blood start to boil and could almost imagine steam coming out of his ears as he marched over to them - drawing himself up to his full 14-year-old height.
"Do you have any idea what you have done?" he roared at them, outraged at this utter disrespect.
His little brothers raised their freckled faces, their blue eyes shining, and laughed right in his face.
X
It was amazing, really, how even at this great distance - almost the whole length of the corridor - he could see the light dimming.
He could watch as the chunks of stone crashed against his frame.
As the smile froze in place.
X
He hated walking down Diagon Alley now.
It seemed as if the once cheerful little street was now perpetually under a dark cloud. Everything looked grey and run down. Shops were battered and boarded up and even Ollivander's had suffered - a fatal blow to both the street and the wizarding community.
Madam Malkin hovered at the door of her own shop, warily watching passers by and even Flourish and Blotts looked decidedly duller than usual. Not even knowledge could withstand the current mood.
There was only one establishment that seemed determined to deny the current situation, a shop painted a striking contrast of orange and purple with a big WWW stamped across the outer walls of the top floor: Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
As Percy approached the shop he felt himself slowing, as he always did. It caused him more pain to walk past this one shop than to see the whole street coming to ruin. He paused by the window and felt his heart stutter. There they were, his little barbarian brothers, holding court on the large staircase as they performed to the crowd, showing off their latest products.
He wanted to be in there, to be part of that family again, part of the easy humor and love that had surrounded the Weasley's for their entire lives.
Fred looked up. He glanced through the window, his eyes snagging on Percy's.
For a long moment the brothers stared at each other before Percy ducked his head and scurried away. He pulled up the lapels of his cream coat against the weather.
He had drawn his line in the sand. There was no going back now.
X
Fred.
Percy didn't know if he had even spoken aloud, but he felt it reverberate through his soul as his legs started working and he found himself on his knees by the pile of rubble, hauling the misshapen stones off his little brother.
He knew he was speaking, but the words weren't registering aloud. Panic and terror coursed through him and a bone aching feeling of loss.
He pulled Fred from the floor and collapsed backwards with his brother in his arms. He held Fred's face in his hands, tried shaking his shoulders, although the logical part of his brain told him Fred was too pale, too still.
He was still smiling though. He would always be smiling.
Tears came then as he felt his throat becoming raw from screaming. Memories rushed through his mind of all the times when he had shouted or cursed at his little brother - each one tinged with his own regrets of all the time he had wasted.
In the end his voice gave out and the tears dried up. He sat there, on the broken floor, in the broken hallway, with the broken body in his arms.
Percy squeezed his eyes shut, bent his head and whispered, brokenly.
"I love you."
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Much love, MaryandMerlin x