Summary:
Set during Chamber of Secrets, this story follows the lives of Percy and Penelope as they try to aid the teachers of Hogwarts, and to find themselves.
Angst, goth!penelope, slash: Percy/diary!Tom, Percy/OC, Penelope/OC.
DISCLAIMER: Most of these characters don't belong to me, and until they do, you'll have to settle for this little bit of fanfic. no harm intended, and so on. thanks!
Author notes: The Prologue takes place towards the end of Chamber of Secrets and in a dream sequence recalling Percy's first year at Hogwarts (which according to Nomad's Hogwarts Register is the 1987/1988 school year) the rest of the fic will take place during CoS. I know percy let us all down big time in OotP, but sigh, aren't you curious why?
also, thanks to Karen who beta-ed this baby.
Joining You by The Rebel
PROLOGUE:
* * *
His skin felt weak and disgustingly human against the cold dungeon floor. The walls, dotted with flickering torches, loomed over Percy Weasley, as he lay askew in the center of a small room overflowing with old books. Cold air circulated sinisterly through the room, rustling the pages of the dark tomes and whispering to Percy.
"Get out of my head!" Percy hissed, closing his eyes until it hurt and he could see fractals dancing and squirming on the back of his eyelids.
"Get out of my head.... Get out..." Percy weakly gasped for air as he became more and more lightheaded, and could feel a pool of blood accumulating around his outstretched hands, hot and sticky against the cold stone floor. His fingers reached out uselessly and desperately for the innocent looking wand only inches away. As brilliant flashes of light washed over him, he clenched his fists, white knuckles and bleeding palms. His breath quickened, and then he felt darkness gently coating his mind, coaxing his tense stature into perfect relaxation. And his lips curled into a real smile for what seemed like the first time since he had arrived at school five years ago as he quietly slipped out of consciousness...
* * *
First year students milled around the gray hallway, whispering nervously and impatiently to one another. Percy Weasley stood off to the side, awkward and quite clearly alone. He felt overwhelmed and lost among the masses of happy chattering students. He was too quiet, too serious. While his parents couldn't have hoped for a better-behaved child, Percy always suspected they secretly wished he were more like his rambunctious siblings. The Weasleys simply couldn't understand Percy's desire for solitude or his inherently serious nature. He stood out like a sore thumb in his family, and he wasn't expecting to fit in better at Hogwarts. But Percy was full of anticipation, because he knew that within these great walls he would learn all the secrets of magic, and he knew that knowledge is power. In front of Percy a rather burly boy with wavy brown hair (and what would undoubtedly one day be a roguish smile) was loudly telling a rather small girl with black curly hair and huge eyes that he was sure he would be sorted into Gryffindor. The curly haired girl wasn't really paying attention, though the other boy didn't notice this, as she hopped up and down trying to see what was going on in the front. In the confusion, a rather hardheaded boy with black hair backed abruptly into Percy, causing his glasses to clatter to the ground.
"Watch it!" the other boy roared, turning around to find the stomach that had connected with his elbow.
Percy gasped and looked wildly around at the indiscernible mass of color and noise surrounding him. He felt sick to his stomach and the room began to spin, his already blurred classmates whirling together faster and faster. Percy squatted down and fumbled around the floor blindly searching for his glasses as the other boy brushed himself off indignantly. Percy's hands connected with the wire frames which he quickly perched on his nose, only to see, as the room came into focus, the larger boy standing menacingly above him with his arms folded across his chest and a triumphant grin on his face.
"If you know what's good for you, four eyes, you'd best be watchin' where you going!" the other boy growled, as he picked up Percy and shoved his wiry frame into the castle wall.
"S-s-sorry," Percy sputtered, disoriented, as he desperately glanced at the other students around him silently begging them for help.
"No one is going to come to your rescue, you...you, fag!" The brown haired boy spat out, with a hateful glint in his otherwise vacant eyes. The boy painfully twisted the pale freckled skin below Percy's neck and laughed, as a silence fell over the bustling crowd of first years.
"First year students, welcome to Hogwarts. I am Professor McGonagell, and I would please ask you to follow me to the great hall for the sorting ceremony."
The students excitedly followed the stern green-robed witch through a large Gothic arch, all the students except for Percy. As the room emptied, he let out a sigh and slumped limply to the floor, head in hands.
Why did he choose me to pick on? Why didn't the other students stop him? I hate him and I hate them! It's not fair!
Percy clenched his fists angrily, not breathing. The silence was broken by the angry sound of a stained glass window exploding. (Almost instantly a hobbled over house elf was busy sweeping up the shards, as the window magically rebuilt itself).
Biting his lip, Percy scolded himself.
Control yourself. They can't know they hurt me. But I won't forget it. And I will be powerful one day, and it will never happen again.
Get up. Get up.
Percy took a deep wheezing breath, and bracing himself against the wall, stood up and reluctantly entered the great hall. Only the long-suffering house elf witnessed the odd dignity in the small boys limping march.
"Percival Weasley!" Professor McGonagall declared, holding up a rather large patched-up hat. Percy self-consciously walked to the front of the Great Hall, trying to hold his head up gracefully. He stumbled over a maliciously outstretched foot as he broke through the front of the crowd of first years. Although he managed to catch himself, it was not before the group erupted with cruel laughter. He looked around to see who had tried to trip him, but his glance was met only by merciless smiles and closed eyes. As he sat down on the chair he thought to himself how much he hated them. A second later, a large hat was placed on his head obscuring his view of the pitiless crowd.
"Ahhh another Weasley," whispered a raspy voice which seemed to echo through Percy's skull.
No, he thought angrily, ironically, I've never been much of a Weasley.
"Resentment and anger, yes, yes, perhaps a Slytherin then…" it paused before continuing, almost as if to itself "But I placed such a similar mind in Slytherin, only fifty one years ago, and he was great, yes, but perhaps he might have been good instead, given a different environment…tricky, tricky..." it trailed off.
"Alternately ignored and tormented by your family, you do not feel at home there…perhaps you can never be at home anywhere, young Percival."
Percy felt his stomach sink, but he steeled himself and thought fiercely I don't need home, I don't need anybody.
The Hat continued, "No perhaps not, you crave power- you wish to stand on your own two feet, and no doubt you can. You certainly have the brains and ambition. And yet…you are certainly not a Slytherin (you lack that disregard for the rules that Salazar so prized) or a Ravenclaw (though you do have a brilliant mind under that mess of emotion), and most decidedly not a Hufflepuff. Perhaps it would be best to keep up appearances then, as a Gryffindor?"
The hat began to speak again in an ominous tone, most quietly and seriously, "Young Percival, a fine line has been set before you. You must walk it carefully and neither fall nor falter as you strive to reach the light at the end. Failure will be most devastating. Can you play by their rules?"
The hat let it's musings hang in the air purposefully, before calling out,
"Gryffindor!"
The last word echoed through the great hall, which was quickly dissolving into blackness…//
* * *
"Percy? Percy!"
His eyes languidly opened and closed for a few seconds before he recognized the concerned young woman shaking him.
"Penelope?" he whispered steadily but almost inaudibly. "What happened?"
"I'm here, and you're okay," she replied.
He remembered now. The promise of a silent night, of a dreamless sleep without magic. Without pain. And the flashback dream, the cruel sorting, the beginning of it. Never the end.
"I should be dead," he stated plainly, defiantly.
He studied her face intently and met her worried stare coldly. "Why am I still here?"
Penelope looked helplessly at the pale boy whose head rested heavily on her black robes. His shock of red hair, usually prim, measured, and combed; now unkempt like a dying fire being fed wax by a bored pyromaniac. Singeing her fingers. Sleepless eyes puffed up with shadows like ash, cold and dead. Tight lips on perfect skin, never a hint of laughter. Penelope softly caressed the young boys' shoulders with her expert and callused fingers.
Like a fallen angel, he feels pain where he remembers his wings should be.
She traced circles into his bruised skin, which was dusted with freckles and glittering light from the torches.
Like a fanatical valentine made out of construction paper and crayons and glitter and blood and tears.
The tense knots in Percy's shoulders held out famously for a moment before succumbing to the other prefect's careful touch. As the boy melted quietly in her arms, Penelope saw only her own mass of curly black hair through the tears clouding up her eyes.
DISCLAIMER: Most of these characters don't belong to me, and until they do, you'll have to settle for this little bit of fanfic. no harm intended, and so on. thanks!
Author notes: The Prologue takes place towards the end of Chamber of Secrets and in a dream sequence recalling Percy's first year at Hogwarts (which according to Nomad's Hogwarts Register is the 1987/1988 school year) the rest of the fic will take place during CoS. I know percy let us all down big time in OotP, but sigh, aren't you curious why?
also, thanks to Karen who beta-ed this baby.
Joining You by The Rebel
PROLOGUE:
His skin felt weak and disgustingly human against the cold dungeon floor. The walls, dotted with flickering torches, loomed over Percy Weasley, as he lay askew in the center of a small room overflowing with old books. Cold air circulated sinisterly through the room, rustling the pages of the dark tomes and whispering to Percy.
"Get out of my head!" Percy hissed, closing his eyes until it hurt and he could see fractals dancing and squirming on the back of his eyelids.
"Get out of my head.... Get out..." Percy weakly gasped for air as he became more and more lightheaded, and could feel a pool of blood accumulating around his outstretched hands, hot and sticky against the cold stone floor. His fingers reached out uselessly and desperately for the innocent looking wand only inches away. As brilliant flashes of light washed over him, he clenched his fists, white knuckles and bleeding palms. His breath quickened, and then he felt darkness gently coating his mind, coaxing his tense stature into perfect relaxation. And his lips curled into a real smile for what seemed like the first time since he had arrived at school five years ago as he quietly slipped out of consciousness...
First year students milled around the gray hallway, whispering nervously and impatiently to one another. Percy Weasley stood off to the side, awkward and quite clearly alone. He felt overwhelmed and lost among the masses of happy chattering students. He was too quiet, too serious. While his parents couldn't have hoped for a better-behaved child, Percy always suspected they secretly wished he were more like his rambunctious siblings. The Weasleys simply couldn't understand Percy's desire for solitude or his inherently serious nature. He stood out like a sore thumb in his family, and he wasn't expecting to fit in better at Hogwarts. But Percy was full of anticipation, because he knew that within these great walls he would learn all the secrets of magic, and he knew that knowledge is power. In front of Percy a rather burly boy with wavy brown hair (and what would undoubtedly one day be a roguish smile) was loudly telling a rather small girl with black curly hair and huge eyes that he was sure he would be sorted into Gryffindor. The curly haired girl wasn't really paying attention, though the other boy didn't notice this, as she hopped up and down trying to see what was going on in the front. In the confusion, a rather hardheaded boy with black hair backed abruptly into Percy, causing his glasses to clatter to the ground.
"Watch it!" the other boy roared, turning around to find the stomach that had connected with his elbow.
Percy gasped and looked wildly around at the indiscernible mass of color and noise surrounding him. He felt sick to his stomach and the room began to spin, his already blurred classmates whirling together faster and faster. Percy squatted down and fumbled around the floor blindly searching for his glasses as the other boy brushed himself off indignantly. Percy's hands connected with the wire frames which he quickly perched on his nose, only to see, as the room came into focus, the larger boy standing menacingly above him with his arms folded across his chest and a triumphant grin on his face.
"If you know what's good for you, four eyes, you'd best be watchin' where you going!" the other boy growled, as he picked up Percy and shoved his wiry frame into the castle wall.
"S-s-sorry," Percy sputtered, disoriented, as he desperately glanced at the other students around him silently begging them for help.
"No one is going to come to your rescue, you...you, fag!" The brown haired boy spat out, with a hateful glint in his otherwise vacant eyes. The boy painfully twisted the pale freckled skin below Percy's neck and laughed, as a silence fell over the bustling crowd of first years.
"First year students, welcome to Hogwarts. I am Professor McGonagell, and I would please ask you to follow me to the great hall for the sorting ceremony."
The students excitedly followed the stern green-robed witch through a large Gothic arch, all the students except for Percy. As the room emptied, he let out a sigh and slumped limply to the floor, head in hands.
Why did he choose me to pick on? Why didn't the other students stop him? I hate him and I hate them! It's not fair!
Percy clenched his fists angrily, not breathing. The silence was broken by the angry sound of a stained glass window exploding. (Almost instantly a hobbled over house elf was busy sweeping up the shards, as the window magically rebuilt itself).
Biting his lip, Percy scolded himself.
Control yourself. They can't know they hurt me. But I won't forget it. And I will be powerful one day, and it will never happen again.
Get up. Get up.
Percy took a deep wheezing breath, and bracing himself against the wall, stood up and reluctantly entered the great hall. Only the long-suffering house elf witnessed the odd dignity in the small boys limping march.
"Percival Weasley!" Professor McGonagall declared, holding up a rather large patched-up hat. Percy self-consciously walked to the front of the Great Hall, trying to hold his head up gracefully. He stumbled over a maliciously outstretched foot as he broke through the front of the crowd of first years. Although he managed to catch himself, it was not before the group erupted with cruel laughter. He looked around to see who had tried to trip him, but his glance was met only by merciless smiles and closed eyes. As he sat down on the chair he thought to himself how much he hated them. A second later, a large hat was placed on his head obscuring his view of the pitiless crowd.
"Ahhh another Weasley," whispered a raspy voice which seemed to echo through Percy's skull.
No, he thought angrily, ironically, I've never been much of a Weasley.
"Resentment and anger, yes, yes, perhaps a Slytherin then…" it paused before continuing, almost as if to itself "But I placed such a similar mind in Slytherin, only fifty one years ago, and he was great, yes, but perhaps he might have been good instead, given a different environment…tricky, tricky..." it trailed off.
"Alternately ignored and tormented by your family, you do not feel at home there…perhaps you can never be at home anywhere, young Percival."
Percy felt his stomach sink, but he steeled himself and thought fiercely I don't need home, I don't need anybody.
The Hat continued, "No perhaps not, you crave power- you wish to stand on your own two feet, and no doubt you can. You certainly have the brains and ambition. And yet…you are certainly not a Slytherin (you lack that disregard for the rules that Salazar so prized) or a Ravenclaw (though you do have a brilliant mind under that mess of emotion), and most decidedly not a Hufflepuff. Perhaps it would be best to keep up appearances then, as a Gryffindor?"
The hat began to speak again in an ominous tone, most quietly and seriously, "Young Percival, a fine line has been set before you. You must walk it carefully and neither fall nor falter as you strive to reach the light at the end. Failure will be most devastating. Can you play by their rules?"
The hat let it's musings hang in the air purposefully, before calling out,
"Gryffindor!"
The last word echoed through the great hall, which was quickly dissolving into blackness…//
"Percy? Percy!"
His eyes languidly opened and closed for a few seconds before he recognized the concerned young woman shaking him.
"Penelope?" he whispered steadily but almost inaudibly. "What happened?"
"I'm here, and you're okay," she replied.
He remembered now. The promise of a silent night, of a dreamless sleep without magic. Without pain. And the flashback dream, the cruel sorting, the beginning of it. Never the end.
"I should be dead," he stated plainly, defiantly.
He studied her face intently and met her worried stare coldly. "Why am I still here?"
Penelope looked helplessly at the pale boy whose head rested heavily on her black robes. His shock of red hair, usually prim, measured, and combed; now unkempt like a dying fire being fed wax by a bored pyromaniac. Singeing her fingers. Sleepless eyes puffed up with shadows like ash, cold and dead. Tight lips on perfect skin, never a hint of laughter. Penelope softly caressed the young boys' shoulders with her expert and callused fingers.
Like a fallen angel, he feels pain where he remembers his wings should be.
She traced circles into his bruised skin, which was dusted with freckles and glittering light from the torches.
Like a fanatical valentine made out of construction paper and crayons and glitter and blood and tears.
The tense knots in Percy's shoulders held out famously for a moment before succumbing to the other prefect's careful touch. As the boy melted quietly in her arms, Penelope saw only her own mass of curly black hair through the tears clouding up her eyes.