This is a random oneshot that came to me – I've wanted to write a "10 Things You Didn't Know About X" style fic for a while but I've read a few good ones and I feel like I'd be plagiarising. So this is my way around that. I'm thinking of making this a chaptered story, maybe adding new characters, but with each chapter being themed. For example, this one is 'My Confession', but the next might be "My Favourite Memory" or "My Most Embarrassing Moment", or something.

My Confession

Ron

Percy always used to be my favourite brother.

Until, of course, he turned his back on the family, and on Harry. It's hard to admire someone when they're standing so violently against absolutely everything you're fighting for. Most people assume my favourite brother would have Charlie, because we got on so well when we were younger, and because of how laid-back he is. I can see why they'd think that, but they're wrong.

It's not because I liked Percy the most. That's not it at all. He was just as annoying and self-righteous and moral when we were children as he was when we got older. He's still the same way even now. He won't ever change. But that's the point. Right from the start, he wouldn't change, not for anybody. No matter how many snails Fred and George put in his soup; no matter how many times Bill begged him to stop writing his endless essays and just come and play Quidditch with the rest of us; no matter how many times we hid his Prefect badge just for the fun of watching him stress about it, he remained the same old Percy. He didn't care that we thought he was strange, or prissy, or a goody-goody. He was just Percy. So it wasn't that I liked him the most. It was more...admiration. I wanted to be like that – to not care if Fred and George laughed at me for doing something, even if they didn't mean it viciously. I wanted to care about something enough to not care what it meant to follow it, even if it meant sacrificing my entire life for it, even if it was something as mindless as rules and laws.

It took me until I was fourteen to find that something, but now that I have her, I can remember a little of why I admired him so much. Thanks to Hermione, a small part of me will always like Percy the best.

Hermione

I didn't really like Crookshanks all that much, not at first.

It took a couple of months before I started to warm to him. That sounds terrible but it's true. He was ugly and haughty and bandy-legged, and I didn't feel particularly attached to him, initially. When I went into the shop to buy a pet, I was thinking of the beautiful tabby cat I could see in the very back; the one that was stretching carefully, the one with the single white paw and the scissor-flash of black dotted amongst the fur around her face.

But then Crookshanks announced his arrival, and I bought him. It was partly because Ron seemed to really hate him, and partly because it would serve him right to be the one being endlessly annoyed for once. But mostly it was because I saw a little more of myself in my cat than I cared to admit to at times. It's why I defended him so bloody-mindedly against every one of Ron's (admittedly justified) accusations.

And then by the time it all started to backfire on me I liked Crookshanks too much to admit Ron had been, at least partially, right all along.

Harry

I never kissed Cho.

Not really; not technically. I just sort of stood there, stunned, while she moved her mouth against mine, not moving or responding in any way. Does that count as a kiss, technically, if I wasn't an active participant? Is it still a kiss if I only pushed my lips out a little? I wasn't expecting it, at all. I was completely shocked. I thought she was going to hug me – that's why I leaned forward. I didn't realise she wanted to kiss me until it was too late and it was already happening. And by that point I was so overcome with surprise that I couldn't make my brain work fast enough, to respond properly. I couldn't understand what was wrong with me – I wanted to kiss her. I'd dreamed of kissing her for weeks. I couldn't understand why it suddenly seemed so hard when my fantasies had made it look like the most natural thing in the world. When it was over I smiled at her. I thought it might make up for my uselessness. I thought that's what she needed. I thought it would cheer her up, because I could see the sadness tugging at her mouth even as she smiled at me. So I returned her awkward grin.

And watched her dissolve into tears, once again.


Sirius

I didn't actually run away from home, at least not the way I told Harry I did.

By the time the big showdown with my mother came, I had already been basically living with James for a month, so that when I tried to grab my things and go, all that was left to take were my trainers and a photo of myself and James taken last summer. She didn't really even need to order me from the house – I'd been planning my eventual exit for weeks by that point, knowing it would come soon. No one came to look for me. I never even got an owl, demanding I pick up any belongings left behind.

Does it count as running away if the people you're running from wave you off as you go? Is it still running away if no one notices you're gone? Or is it just disappearing?

Ginny

I went through a period of time where I tried to hate Harry.

I say "tried" because that's all it ever amounted to. I was awful at it. I knew from experience that I was awful at it, so I should have given up before I started. I'd tried it in my first year, when my infatuation with him was making me miserable because it was utterly unrequited, and I'd failed spectacularly. So I don't know why, with this evidence to prove otherwise, I thought that trying again would make any difference.

It was while he was on the run with Ron and Hermione. I wanted to hate him for going, for leaving me behind, and I couldn't, anymore than I could hate him for breaking up with me before he went. How can you hate someone for doing something so moral? So I tried another tactic. I did hatred exercises. Every morning when I woke up, I thought of something I didn't like about him; some physical flaw, or something he'd done in the past to annoy me, so that being apart from him didn't hurt so much, so that not knowing where he was or if he was okay didn't rip me apart. I focused on that flaw all day, blowing it out of proportion so that it seemed to be his only attribute. I hated him for the fact I didn't know if he still had ten fingers anymore, for example, and for the fact that his left eye is the tiniest bit wider than his right eye.

I lasted about eight days before I realised I was just making up flaws so that I'd have something to hate him for.

Luna

I don't remember my mother dying.

At least, I don't remember as much as I let my father think I do. I saw it – I know that because if I hadn't seen it then why else would I have been able to see Thestrals? But I don't remember the spell she was trying to customise, for example. I told Daddy it was a Hiccoughing Charm but for all I know it could have been a spell to make frogs fly from her nose. I don't remember what she was wearing, or the way the room smelled, or what time of day it was, the way he thinks I do. I fed him whatever details he asked for, because when I did I could see the wrinkles on his forehead smooth a little bit. It comforted him to know all the details – I think it makes him feel better for not being there with her, with me.

I remember two things about that day. I remember the last expression on her face, a mixture of triumph and surprise frozen there. And I remember hearing a high pitched scream, repeated over and over, like someone in the worst pain of their life and with no escape in sight for them.


Regulus

I found Sirius again, the night my dear older brother ran away.

I don't think he ever knew that. As soon as my mother paused for breath in her vitriolic defilement of his very name, I sneaked out of the house and I followed him to his friend's house. I stood outside the window, listening to them speak with magic. I was going to burst in to the room. I was going to make Sirius see that was he was doing was foolish, and show him that he'd be forgiven if he apologised. And if that didn't work, I was going to beg Sirius to come home.

Then I heard Sirius say he didn't care if his whole family dropped dead, every last one of them, and something inside me broke, because I knew I was included in that. I went home, alone. I never came back, and I never told my mother where Sirius was.

Not that she ever asked.


Neville

I remember my mother smiling.

Not the vacant empty smile she presses to her face whenever I visit her, and not the feral grin of fear that crosses her features when she doesn't know where she is or what is happening, but a true, clear smile. A bright one, the colour of happiness itself. I remember her stroking my hair and smiling. It's my earliest memory, although Gran doesn't know it. I remember a lot more than she thinks I do, but sometimes I think it would be easier to remember nothing, because then I can't miss what I could have had.

If I have no memories, I haven't lost anything.

George

At first, a tiny part of me liked only having one ear. I liked it because, even though I loved being a twin and I loved having someone who was always there for me, having only one ear singled me out and gave me something that was only mine, something that Fred could never share, something that showed I was a person as well as a twin. So, at first, I liked it.

Now that I don't need anything to show I'm not Fred, I'm not so sure I like it anymore.