For the Weasley Winters Competition on HPFC. My chosen character: Percy Weasley.
I own nothing.
"Thawing Out"
He's a alone in his office, which, in and of itself, is not unusual, but today is different.
It's Christmas Eve and he's alone in his office. How did I get here? How did I sink so low?
He drops his head down on his desk with a thunk. If he's perfectly honest, things have been going downhill for a very long time. It's sad, really. Winter used to be his favorite season, but now he just feels perpetually lonely. Though, if he's being truthful, he's been perpetually lonely for over two years – since he slammed the door on the first nineteen years of his life.
The saying is right, apparently – it's lonely at the top.
He sighs. Merlin, but he misses how winter used to be.
He remembers the Christmases before he went to Hogwarts – they feel like a lifetime ago. He misses the simplicity.
He's ten. The first snowfall, his brothers drag him outside to have a snowball fight, which Percy complains is impractical, given how little snow there is, but no one seems to care.
He protests the whole way out, but, really, it feels good to be included. He and Ron and Ginny clearly win the snowball fight, too, which leaves Percy feeling euphoric. It's such a simple thing, snow, but it means so much more.
Bill and Charlie both return from Hogwarts this year, so it's all of them together for Christmas hols. Christmas morning, Percy's the first one up, which isn't unusual. Bill gets up next. He beckons to Percy. "C'mere, Perce. I want to show you something."
Percy follows Bill without even considering another route. He's ten-years-old, and BIll is his idol. Bill has always been the one who makes time for Percy.
Bill leads Percy up the rickety staircase to his room. He pulls a box out of the corner and sets it on the bed. It's wrapped in the way of boxes that can be opened without ripping off the wrapping – the top and bottom are wrapped separately.
"Y'know how mum always says it's getting a Weasley sweater for Christmas that makes you a Weasley?" Percy nods. "Have you ever noticed that she's never knitted herself one?"
Percy blinks. "Really?"
"Really."
He frowns. "That's not right."
"I know," Bill agrees. "That's why I made this."
He pulls the top of the box off with as much of a flourish as he can manage with the tight lid. Inside is a sweater that looks like it was knitted by a fifteen-year-old boy – which, of course, it was. It's a dull burgundy color with a gold – barely recognizable – 'M' in the middle.
Percy smiles. "It's amazing, Bill." In this moment, if anyone had asked Percy what he wanted to be when he grew up, he'd have said "Bill," because his brother is the greatest person he's ever known. Responsible, kind, popular.
The idealistic image of his brother lasted just over two years from that moment – until BIll graduated and left Percy behind without a second thought. In that year, the year he was twelve, Percy began to associate summer with people walking away, and winter with family. Winter becomes the only time he sees Bill, and Percy starts too look longingly out the windows for all of the autumn season, waiting for that first flake of snow to fall.
It's when he's fifteen, though, that he first doesn't come home for Christmas.
When Mum and Dad first tell him they're visiting Charlie for Christmas, Percy is absolutely devastated. He can't fathom Christmas without his whole family. Bill took the time to come home from Egypt for at least Christmas Day every year, and Charlie tried to, though he didn't usually make it. Still, Christmas without Charlie is completely different from Christmas without Mum and Dad. Ginny, too, will be going with them. His family for this Christmas will be Ron, who's got his best friend with him, and Fred and George, who've never much liked Percy and have each other to spend time with.
It ends up rather better than he was expecting – Fred and George are as tactless as normal and bully him into joining their celebrations, including the classic Weasley snowball fight. And on top of all of that, he finds a sickle in his pudding, though it nearly cracks his teeth in half. He tops it off by helping Harry lose a game of chess to Ron – quite spectacularly, actually.
So, all in all, his first Christmas at Hogwarts wasn't too bad. The next one, quite frankly, was absolutely awful.
His sixth year wasn't particularly cheerful. There was Penelope, and that kept things… lively, but other than that, it was just a morbid year. A dark cloud hung over the whole school, and Percy felt like quite a bit of it was hanging over his shoulders in particular. He was a Prefect, and he was trusted to keep students safe, but he was failing. Every attack felt like a personal failure. Then there was Ginny, who looked terribly pale and shaky all the time, but he just didn't have the time to spare to find out what was wrong with his own sister. He felt stretched too thin.
Really, he just wanted to go visit Bill in Egypt. That was what he wanted, more than anything. But he felt like he couldn't. He's not really sure why he thought he could make any difference whatsoever – he was just one sixteen-year-old boy. Still, if he'd left, and something had happened, he'd've felt guilty, like maybe there was something he could've done, if he'd been there. It's stupid, he knows, but he has always had a tendency to shoulder burdens that aren't his to bear.
He spends Christmas Day patrolling. He sees Penelope once, and his family not at all. It's the year that he starts feeling too old – surely he can't just be sixteen. Sixteen-year-olds shouldn't have to put everyone else first. Sixteen-year-olds should be able to be selfish. And maybe he is, a little. Because, if he's honest, he relishes the power. But it's not just about power, it's about using that power to do something good.
There's no snowball fight in Percy's sixth year.
His seventh year winter is… peculiar. He feels stuck in-between, though in between what, he isn't entirely sure. It's like he's halfway between the boy he was and the adult he's to become.
Seventh year he goes home again. Everyone does, except for Ron. There's no Bill, and no Charlie. Just Mum, Dad, Percy, Fred, George, and Ginny.
He feels kind of jaded. He didn't expect Bill or Charlie. He's grown too used to absence.
How did I get so old? he wonders. He's seventeen, but he's jaded and cynical like an old man, and there's no reason for it.
Fred and George start a snowball fight, but it's halfhearted at best. Neither bothers to drag Percy in. It tapers out after a few minutes. Percy feels like there's surely some sort of metaphor in that, but he's too tired to bother with properly figuring it out. Perhaps it's his childhood. Innocence, maybe. Does it matter?
And after he graduates, everything changes. Percy gets a job at the Ministry because he wants to change things, but the only thing that seems to change is him, his life.
He thought he was old, hardened, before this, but that was nothing compared to the way he is now. He's eighteen, and he questions everything. He trusts no one. He suspects everyone. The only solid thing in his life is Bartemius Crouch. Mr. Crouch seems to be the only one who understands, the way Percy does, that duty comes first. Duty comes before everything. Everyone else has these petty ties, like family, friends. Mr. Crouch, like Percy, gets that none of that matters. Duty matters. Rules matter. The law matters.
But then winter comes. And things start to go wrong. And winter, when everything used to finally come together in Percy's life, is the time when everything starts to fall apart.
Mr. Crouch stops coming to work.
Percy starts working double to make up for it.
He starts sleeping in the office.
He stops eating.
He becomes a machine.
But he does his duty. Above all, he does his duty. He shoves his emotions down and refuses to publicly crack. He puts on a fake smile and pretends nothing is wrong.
Eighteen was a bad year. He'd thought the job with Mr. Crouch was his chance, but it ended up a total disaster. That was one of his lowest points. He'd been convinced that he'd ruined his only shot at being a part of the Ministry, and that was the worst thing imaginable.
And then.
And then Cornelius Fudge shows up and makes him Junior Assistant to the Minister. And Percy understands, then, that his internship with Mr. Crouch was always destined to fail, because otherwise he never would've ended up here, where he can actually change things. And things feel all backwards, because it's summer, and summer's supposed to be the time for tragedy and winter the time for hope, but now it's backwards. Now things fell apart during the winter and came together in summer.
He thinks his family will be proud. Percy matters now. He's never been more wrong in his life. He's never heard Dad yell like that.
It hurts.
It hurts, and he's mad, and he slams the door on his way out. He barely holds back the tears. Why does no one understand? Why does no one understand that all I want to do is make the world a better place?
Summer is tragic after all. He doesn't go home. His pride won't let him, because he's done nothing wrong. And despite what his father said, Percy knows he earned this job, and his family can't seem to appreciate that.
Nineteen and twenty meld together in a blur of loneliness and pain.
The first time he cries – since he was a kid, anyway – is his nineteenth Christmas, when he hasn't seen his mother since June, but she still knits him a Weasley sweater. He doesn't even have to open the package to know what it is.
It makes him ache. There's this giant hole inside of him where his family used to be.
But he can't go back.
Because if he goes back, he loses his chance to change things. He loses what little power he's striven to gain.
He wipes away the tears and sends the sweater back unopened. It is the hardest (cruelest) thing he's ever done.
When he gets an identical package for his twentieth Christmas, he cries again. He curses his mother for being too nice, too loving. Doesn't she understand how much this hurts?
Frankly, he knows she does. It's probably hurting her as much as it's hurting him.
At this point, all his sound reasoning is out the window. He's not changing things; he's being used. He's a pawn. And, if he's honest, that's all he's ever been. But he's stubborn, and he can't seem to admit that he's wrong. The thought of facing his family and knowing they were smarter than him, always, is impossible. Percy hates being wrong.
And that's why he's alone in his office on Christmas Eve. Because he's stubborn and stupid and manipulable. What happened? he wonders. I used to have such dreams. Now, all he really wants is for this stupid war to end. All he really wants is to be free.
An owl pecks on his window. Percy frowns, tapping his wrist and murmuring, "Tempus."
It's 5 a.m. Why on Earth is an owl at his window?
And then he sees the package it bears. A lumpy package wrapped in brown paper – a Weasley sweater. His Weasley sweater.
For the third year in a row, the sight of a Weasley sweater makes him cry. He puts his head down on his desk and cries. The owl hoots angrily. Reluctantly, he gets up and lets it in. "Can't you see I'm mourning here?" he asks the creature jokingly. The owl just coos at him once.
He wonders who's the owl is; it's not Errol this year. This one actually looks like it might've managed the trip in one stretch, and he didn't crash into the window, which is kind of nice.
Percy shakes himself. Clearly, he's overtired and needs sleep. He strokes the owl absentmindedly. "Sorry, buddy. You're going to have to take this package back."
He gets an angry "Hoo" in response.
"I know," Percy says sympathetically. He's always rather liked owls – Hermes in particular, but all owls, really – and he does feel bad for making the poor bird carry the sweater all the way back. "I'm just not ready yet," he tells it.
The owl hoos almost sympathetically. Percy grabs a bowl he keeps under his desk for occasions just like this and fills it with water with a silent spell.
"There you go," he says, setting it on the sill and collapsing back in his desk.
He stays there, unmoving, for quite a long time. He is extraordinarily unproductive. Yet he can't even seem to muster the will to get up – not to go home, and not even to close that window.. He thinks of his apartment, lonely and cold. It's Christmas, but that means nothing to him. It's pathetic.
Eventually, people begin to move about outside his office. Even on Christmas, the Ministry is up and running. He sighs and plucks his coat off the back of the chair. What's the point of staying if I'll get nothing done?
He walks slowly to the Atrium – the only place in the Ministry where Apparation is possible. No one stops him. He's a nobody. He wonders absently how he managed to fool himself into believing he actually mattered for so long.
He Disapparates, but it isn't his own doorstep he arrives on. Before he can second guess himself, he knocks. A bleary eyed Oliver Wood opens the door.
"Perce?" he asks, baffled. Percy can't blame him. They haven't talked in about four years – since they graduated. Percy takes in Oliver's sleepy eyes, messy hair, sweatpants, and lack of a shirt.
"Shoot, it's early, isn't it?"
Oliver grins slightly, taking Percy's random appearance on his doorstep in stride, as he always does. "It always is, with you. You're lucky I'm wearing pants." He steps aside to let Percy in.
Percy actually smiles slightly at that. It's true, after all.
"You okay, Perce?" Oliver asks as he trudges into the kitchen, starting a pot of coffee and a kettle for tea – he's a coffee addict, but clearly he remembers Percy's preference. "You've been crying, and you haven't slept." Clearly he still remembers how to read Percy. He shouldn't be surprised. They did share a dorm for seven years, just the two of them – they were the only Gryffindor boys their year.
Percy sinks into a kitchen chair.
"I'm an idiot," he states without preamble.
Oliver blinks. "All right. And what idiotic thing have you done at this particular time that makes you say that?"
Merlin, the familiarity between them is comforting. It's just the same – they've had this exact conversation before, only backwards.
"I've alienated everyone, Ol."
"Not everyone," Oliver murmurs softly. Percy shakes his head.
"The only reason you're still listening is because you don't know what I've done."
Oliver sets a cup of tea in front of him, absently stirring in two spoonfuls of sugar – exactly how Percy has always had his tea. He sits in the chair opposite Percy, hands wrapped tightly around his own mug of coffee.
"So tell me," he says.
Percy's not sure where to begin.
"I betrayed them. My family. I yelled at my Dad and slammed the door on my way out. That was almost three years ago. I haven't seen them since." He glances up from his tea to see Oliver's reaction. Oliver simply nods for him to continue.
"I sent back my Weasley sweater. Three years in a row."
Oliver gapes at him. Having lived with Percy for seven years – though he rarely spent Christmas at the castle – Oliver knows the meaning behind the Weasley sweater.
"Perce," he says softly. Percy looks down.
"I know," Percy says. "I know. And the Ministry is corrupt and I'm a nobody and I can't change anything, and worst of all, I was wrong."
The words fall off his tongue easier than he's thought they would.
"So apologize," is Oliver's simple solution. He sips his coffee as Percy gapes at him. For a moment, Percy envies him. Oliver has always seen the world so simple, so black-and-white. He sees things as either right or wrong; there's no in-between.
Percy's never been like that. He lives in the grey areas.
"I can't," he whispers.
"Why not?"
"Because," he starts, then hesitates, thinking. "Because talking to them isn't like talking to you. Because around my family, I have to be Perfect Prefect Percy. I can't admit I was wrong!" The thought is horrifying.
"Perce," Oliver says, snapping Percy out of his thoughts – he'd been imagine all the ways that could go wrong. "That's always been your problem. You've always cared more about what everyone else thinks than you should. Don't hesitate because of them. Do it because of you. Because you're falling apart, Percy, even I can see it, and you need their forgiveness."
Percy looks at his… friend? For the first time today, Percy really looks at him. Merlin, he looks so much older. Oliver's eyes are weary. There's still the same spark in them – the spark of Oliver that loves life in a way not many do – but it's duller now, hidden behind four years of tragedy.
This nightmare hasn't been easy on either of them.
Percy jumps when a knock sounds at the door. Oliver swears. "That's Marcy. I'll tell her to come back later," he says, getting up. Percy shakes his head, draining the last of his tea.
"It's Christmas, Ol. Have fun. I should go, anyway."
Oliver nods. "And Percy," he adds. Percy looks at him. "Don't be a stranger, all right?"
A trickle of warmth flushes through Percy. He's spent two years turning to ice, and two years frozen through, but at Oliver's simple words, for the first time in four long years, he begins to thaw. He nods. "I won't."
"Good."
Marcy knocks again. She seems a bit startled when Percy opens the door. "Oh," she exclaims softly. Percy lets her in, Oliver coming up behind him. They present an odd pair, Oliver in sweatpants and Percy still wearing yesterday's suit.
Percy smiles at the befuddled girl.
"Happy Christmas," he says, walking out the door.
He goes back to his lonely flat, but it isn't so cold anymore. That trickle of warmth that Oliver started is warming him from the inside out. It's only Christmas, but winter is over for Percy. It's his own personal springtime, when things start anew, and Percy starts quietly fighting for what's right.
By May, he's thawed enough that he can finally face his family again. He can finally apologize.