Past, Presence and Future
Funerals are always hard. But when it's family it's even harder. Because everyone deals with it in different ways, hysterical crying, silent shock, the hard glazed look of the hopeless.
And everyone is always there. Surrounding you, like vultures circling a dying carcass. They don't really care of course. They give their condolences like they actually matter and make the face but they don't care.
I hate the face.
And it's always there.
Tepid, bordering on indifferent , then cocked to one side, pity hastily written all over it. 'I'm so sorry.' Of course they always say that. Not that they care, it's a reflex, muscles moving and contracting, a reaction of nerves. And then they go and drink the wine and talk to acquaintances, not caring that my families been ripped in half.
I hate the face.
So it follows me. Every time I manage to escape it, it follows me again, finding a way in, a crack in my blank shell, my cold exterior. They seem to think I am so prostrate with grief that they think I'm ill, shocked, alone. So the face follows me, finding weakness in my armour. They don't realise that I'm not sad…
I'm ashamed.
They give me pity, say it wasn't my fault but it is.
And that makes me a murderer in all but name.
I, Percy Weasley, murdered my brother.
And I hate myself because of it.
So I withdraw from the world, from my family and friends, not that I have many, and hide away.
I sacrificed my family for a stupid job. I wasn't there when they needed me most. Ran away to a toffee nosed prig under the Imperius Curse. I alienated my own father, made my own mother cry. I made my own siblings hate me.
So there I hid, in my room, as the bustle streamed pass my closed door, words floating up by my closed window and drawn curtain. This was ridiculous, I was twenty-two, and yet I felt like crying, crying in that raw, almost primitive way. I gulped back the lump in my throat but the tears were rising, spilling out of my closed eyelids, running down the inside of my glasses.
My room was dark so I didn't notice the door creak open and a small figure slip in, words dying on her lips as she took in my red, bloodshot eyes and blotchy cheeks. I looked a wreck but I didn't care.
"What d-do you want?" My voice cracked on the second word.
She looked at me, straight at me, almost straight into my soul and I knew she could see my shame, the guilt gnawing away at my insides like a rat but then...
She didn't make the face.
And I knew I would love her for all eternity for that compassion.
So I found love on the day of my brothers funeral.
I found Audrey.
Or maybe she found me.
Destiny brought us together.
And we've been together ever since.
