I can't stop loving this cliche but it's just… it's just one of my favorite things about magic in the fandom. You'll know what I mean when you hit it. The idea echoes throughout literature in various forms and permutations, but it's so much fun. That's why we can't let go of it!
THERE IS SO MUCH SYMBOLISM IN THIS CHAPTER YOU WILL DROWN IN IT. YOU WILL ACTUALLY DIE IF YOU READ THIS CHAPTER I'M WARNING YOU TURN BACK NOW.
Please leave a ghost review if you go ahead anyway; lots of love, kisses, mwah.
I don't own Harry Potter and co. in any way, shape, or form.
On the one hand, Percy wasn't going to make it up to the owlery if he let go of where his teeth dug into his tongue and his claws into his own will. Probably the haze would sweep in. He'd wake up knuckle deep in a Christmas sweater, chattering aimlessly. On the other hand, Percy wasn't going to make it up to the owlery if he didn't let go, either.
Blood dripped slick and hot down his throat, forcing him to swallow it or risk asphyxiation. It only added to the roiling nausea he assumed came from voluntary mutilation of his will. There was something wrong inherent in the act, something he felt only the slightest twinge of when he was taught to heal with it, multiplied by a hundred when his claws sat heavy and unmoving in his center instead of scraping lightly along the surface to be done with it.
The world felt distant. Twin points of pain flared like stars of awareness in an inky dark sky as he put one foot in front of the other in a jolting, dragging rhythm. There was only the sound of his shoes rasping against stone, and the furious thumping of his heart in his throat and his head. Bile had rose and was forced down often enough in his trek that the taste tied with the metallic tang of blood as most prominent in his mouth and nose. Time passed.
One foot in front of the other.
Don't let go.
It wasn't fair.
The thought made his next step falter, the ones following slow, until they stopped.
He hadn't done anything to deserve this. Had he? If he was paying back a debt, he could almost accept it - accept everything. Being alone in his family, before and after; the whole Malfoy debacle; his own lingering, irrational resentment for- for all of them. But what crime could he have committed that merited losing his mother? Or his mind?
He hadn't.
There was no balance of rule broken to punishment meted out and for some reason it was that thought that made his eyes burn. The stone of the halls was rough as his hand unintentionally clenched against it.
Why did nothing ever follow a clear, obvious set of rules? Why was it hidden and full of exceptions for the carefree, or the powerful? Why were there pitfalls that only caught the people taking the marked path?
It wasn't fair.
It was chaos.
And he hated it.
His feet started moving again. Not because he'd overcome the churning in his stomach or his head, but because he'd reached a point where he was sure he'd cry if he stood still any longer, with nothing to focus on but the pain and the injustice of it all.
Time was limited if he wanted to keep anyone from seeing him this way.
Class was still in session, but he didn't know how long he'd been standing in one place, much less the struggle before it. There was an off-chance a professor might come across him, and it was more real, more possible the longer he was unmoving. Of course, that'd require the professor to be obsessive enough about finding students out of class to spend their free period patrolling the drafty castle mid-afternoon instead of taking the time for themselves-
"Mr. Weasley, I see we are too good for our usual schedule. A detention should suit."
Percy stifled a laugh that might have broken into a sob. What were the chances?
As Professor Snape stalked up beside him, the dour man continued in a clipped tone, "And don't bother trying to tell me you've a free period when Minerva was so worried about your continuing Transfiguration to a NEWT level…" It didn't raise a flinch, but only because Percy didn't want to clench his jaw any harder. Getting a better look at Percy, the professor's tone didn't change, but his sneer faded, eyes piercing rather than accusing, "Injured or ill?"
Percy had come to a stop, knowing it was folly to try limping away from a professor when he'd been thoroughly caught. There was no good way to communicate. But he didn't want to go to Madam Pomphrey when he was sure she'd not have the background to help. It would only be further humiliation. So he'd need to figure it out. He had his book bag, and his wand, but…
"Can you speak to explain?" Professor Snape's posture was tense with alarm, "Look at me." He'd taken too long to respond. There was an idea about parchment and heat on the edge of his awareness, but he wasn't given the time to put it into practice. A hand gripped his shoulder roughly, pinning him in place as the professor's gaze darted about his features, cataloguing clues Percy couldn't guess at. "Imperius…?" His tone was verging on horror, but it firmed up again quickly, as Professor Snape repeated, "Look at me."
This time when Percy met the professor's flinty gaze, the taller man flinched. His eyes glazed slightly and the almost painful grip on Percy's shoulder eased. Professor Snape turned with a sleep-like countenance down the hall, hands dangling limp at his sides. Entirely unlike how they typically were, clasped behind the professor's back or curled into claws with stress.
Oh, Merlin. It was contagious.
Percy redoubled his efforts, feet dragging faster and jaw tight.
Of course, that begged the question of how it had jumped between them without a bond – that Percy knew of, anyway – but that was a worry for another time. Perhaps there was some sort of mentor-student link between them, as Hogwarts seemed to facilitate the forming of connections at the slightest opportunity. Percy wouldn't be surprised.
A worry for another time, he repeated to himself strictly. Then a hand gripped his arm with unnecessary force and Percy was spun around again in the wrong direction. The professor appeared to be more proficient than Percy at shaking off the haze's effects – or it might have been due to the fact that whatever it was had originated in Percy – but no matter how it came about, Professor Snape was staring at him with a combination of horror and fury that did nothing for the man's looks.
He bit out, wide eyes at odds with the venom in the statement and the snarl at his lips, "We'll be visiting the Headmaster. Now."
No, no, no; the last thing Percy wanted was for the Headmaster to know Percy had so horribly screwed himself up using magic known for being the domain of squibs! He was already miserable about the idea of contacting his Great Aunt Muriel in the position of supplicant. So far as he knew, she was the only one who could help. There still remained the problem of communicating this, but the frantic scrabbling of his mind finally fell on the idea that had been forming at its edges.
With a supreme force of will, Percy pulled parchment from his bag, allowing himself to lean against the wall and Professor Snape's hold on his arm so he wouldn't have to waste any focus on standing. He didn't have the dexterity to work with ink and quill as he might have, but just burning the words into parchment with his wand would work well enough.
Producing pinpoint heat was a mistake he'd made, learning to iron out wrinkled robes with Molly. Now it could serve a use.
"Family issue?" the professor read with an upward tip to his tone that expressed his incredulous disgust a little too well, "And owl- you can't possibly be trying to make it up to the owlery in your condition, you dim-witted fool-" Percy tapped owl again, with a bit more force, and crossed shaky arms over his chest.
It was bad enough Professor Snape's opinion of him would drop; he'd prefer no one else knew.
"It would be pathetically easy to stun you and take you to the Hospital Wing, Mr. Weasley." A hard glint was in the professor's eyes. All Percy could do, with a flagging spirit, was stare back at him and hope whatever had hopped the haze over before would do it again. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be the case, but Professor Snape let loose a long-suffering sigh of the type that was blatantly fake, before Percy was trying not to flail at his sudden levitation. Was the professor just going to drag him to the Hospital Wing against his will?
…Percy supposed that would be the responsible thing to do, but when they reached the next corner, Professor Snape turned the wrong way with a snap of his robes, marching towards the owlery with Percy bobbing along beside him.
Curtly, the professor informed him, "Please note that you will explain yourself to me, regardless of how secret your family may desire these events to remain." Severus could tell the boy was telling the truth – that much his passive Legilimency could pick up without issue. Of most importance was that something had leapt at him, overwhelming his mind for only a minute before his defences finally shut it out. For something borne of a family issue to make it past his Occlumency so quickly, even if he wasn't expecting it… And with the number of times he'd thought nothing of glassy-eyed Weasleys in his class…
Percy wasn't in the right state of mind to note the professor's nearly imperceptible shiver.
If Professor Snape was taking him to the owlery, that was all well and good, though he was not looking forward to holding up his end of the deal to which he hadn't quite agreed – being mostly unable to do so. The most prudent use of this time was, then, not staring at the professor for his unusual decision but instead attempting to burn a mostly coherent message for Siffy or a school owl to bring to Great Aunt Muriel (Errol had been flooed through to Charlie weeks before, since it was unlikely the daft thing could hunt for itself at home). …He was taking great pains to make it somewhat neat, as well, if only to avoid bringing down any additional wrath on himself. Tears kept prickling at his eyes, making the writing blur but he'd pause and breathe deeper through his nose, waiting for it to pass before he continued.
Woe unto the soul that sent his great aunt an SOS in sloppy handwriting.
The professor was blatantly reading as he wrote, but Percy wasn't exactly sending his great aunt an epic volume on what had happened and why. If her prompt response to his siblings that summer was any indication, she'd be flooing to Hogsmeade and storming the castle later that day when the owl arrived. He never thought he'd be thankful she lived in Scotland, near to Hogwarts. Prewitt Manor was situated a day's walk away from the far edge of Hogsmeade so he had little doubt the owl would reach her in just an hour or two.
He might actually bite his tongue off in that time, but needs must. Asking for help was all the message she'd need. Even if she'd ream him up one side and down the other when she showed up.
…And he'd probably need Professor Snape's continued cooperation to keep the visit under wraps.
At least that part of being caught had worked out. Even if he'd rather not be blotchy-faced and on the verge of tears around his most critical professor.
When they'd reached the owlery and the message was sent, Professor Snape eyed him, "How long?"
Percy wasn't an idiot; he held up a parchment where he'd already painstakingly written, 2-3 hr.
"You're lucky your brothers have made the potions classroom uninhabitable for the afternoon," the professor sneered and Percy determinedly did not think about it. The Gryffindor hourglass in the Great Hall was probably – no, he did not think about it. While Percy was not thinking, Professor Snape clearly had been, as he straightened back to his full height and jerked Percy back into the air with a distinct lack of the bedside manner appropriate to someone with their teeth through their tongue. As in, Percy regretted the jostling more than Professor Snape probably knew.
"You still refuse the Hospital Wing?" the professor asked with a sly edge that made Percy re-evaluate how much Professor Snape might have guessed about why he wasn't talking, but the prefect still shook his head no and wrote hastily, I won't tell you anything if there.
The twitchy curiosity of the professor was served with a side of tense anger in the lines of his stance, but they were off in a direction not hospital-oriented. It appeared Percy had judged the man's original concession correctly – Professor Snape wanted to know what was going on more than he wanted to follow school policy. There was an uneasiness that slid like creeping slime into his gut at the thought that a professor could be so easily led by his curiosity to break the rules, but it was working so shut up.
That he'd just told his own emotions to shut up was another thing he couldn't spare the will to think about.
He was pulled from the mindless fight – like a bull dog with its teeth clamped on a struggling serpent – when he hit the ground again. The landing was not gentle but it wasn't painful, either. More like the professor had brought him down to an inch above the ground before abruptly cancelling his spell. A jolt more than anything.
"That should do it," the professor said aloud, opening a window. They were on the ground floor and, from the view of the lake, towards the front of the castle in a classroom that had seen little use but still retained a few tables and chairs. Professor Snape shot him a glare, "Don't move." He stepped into the hall and there was, a moment later, the popping noises of a house elf appearing and disappearing in quick succession before the professor returned, parchment, closed inkpot, and quill balanced on top of a blanket.
The writing supplies and- essays, Percy guessed, were deposited onto the nearest table, and Professor Snape approached him with the blanket. For one wild moment, Percy feared the professor might be about to smother him to death, but the blanket merely fell about his shoulders with a heavy weight.
"You appear to be shaking, on top of whatever manner of issue," he sneered the word, "plagues you. Our esteemed headmaster would take my hide for a hearth rug if I let a student die on my watch. Try to breathe and if you pass out, you will wake up in the Hospital Wing, secrets or no." Without another word, Professor Snape took a seat and pulled the top essay off the pile, quill in hand, as if there were no one else in the room.
Percy tried to drag his limbs into a more comfortable position and clamped down harder on everything he was digging into. It would be a long couple of hours. Professor Snape's quill was harsh as it scratched against the parchment. Percy's breathing was harsh as it scratched through his lungs and nose. Percy knew which one he preferred to focus on.
When Percy had been in an almost meditative state of pain for who knew how long, the sound of quill on parchment trailed off. He shook himself back to reality as Siffy swooped through the open window. A deft hand snatched the attached parchment as Professor Snape disregarded all propriety and casually took over the task of reading Percy's mail. He could see it, just barely. Percy didn't get to see the letter long but he didn't need to when it only contained two words.
"I imagine I'll need to let this mystery relative in at the gates, then," Professor Snape stood without delay, belying the reluctant tone of his voice and Percy nodded. He'd correctly interpreted Great Aunt Muriel's I'm here.
A statement which would ordinarily horrify him.
Still, as Professor Snape swept off, he could only hope his 'mystery relative' didn't try to take his professor to task for his shoulder-length hair. That could only end in disaster. A stand-off between his great aunt and his potions professor would be a thing of nightmares. Hogwarts might not survive it.
Though Percy wouldn't mind seeing the expression Professor Snape might have had at the criticism.
They both appeared in the room in record time, however, and Percy panicked for a moment that he'd slipped but- but clearly he was still thinking about the haziness so it was probably a moot point.
"He won't speak, you said?" Great Aunt Muriel had knelt beside him elegantly, but her question was directed at Professor Snape. Her next statement, however… "Your call for assistance left much to be desired," she informed Percy cuttingly. For just a moment, Percy closed his eyes against the situation. He'd known she'd be insufferable, but he had no other choice.
Even if the slightest hint of her disapproval added the heat of shame to his already roiling stomach.
It wasn't fair, but when had these two cared about that? Percy curled in on himself slightly, with a mental reminder that they were both here to help him, in one form or another.
"I believe Mr. Weasley, here, is literally biting his tongue on the matter," Professor Snape drawled, arms folding over his chest as he drew his cloak further about him like a great, upright bat, "Would you happen to know what family issue might cause bouts of distraction beyond the usual haze of the feeble-minded?"
His great aunt leaned over him, frowned, but did not answer. It took a moment, but Percy eventually realized she was not just staring uselessly at him. A weak, nearly insubstantial will was haltingly working over his own. With what he knew about the iron force of her actual willpower, Percy took an even longer moment to connect the struggling thing with his great aunt.
"Percy I need you to let go for a moment; can you handle that?" she prompted in a low voice that Professor Snape didn't even pretend not to be raptly following, "This will cause, perhaps, the same amount of pain."
Oh, well, sure, let Percy just go get his party hat because that sounded like things were about to get fun. Despite the sardonic nature of his thoughts, the underlying cold fear that had dug a thousand prickling claws beneath his skin had him nodding. Whatever this was, it was messing with his head. With the heart of who he was. Without his mind, Percy was nothing.
And that scared him more than pain.
He slid the claws of his will gingerly from their temporary home buried in itself, and hissed, blood dripping around his newly bared teeth and down his chin when the previously weak will of his great aunt sharpened to something thin and slicing as a cold wind. It cut into the slowly closing wounds he'd inflicted on himself and slid deeper, searchingly.
For a moment, the search paused, and Great Aunt Muriel's eyes blanked. With a snarl he'd never seen on the elderly woman's face before, her gaze cleared and her will thinned, becoming impossibly sharper as it condensed and sliced viciously towards something foreign. Now that it had been attacked by an outside force, Percy could almost feel the edges of it. Unlike the merfolk's slick cold or his great aunt's feathery thin ghost, this was something… clutching, even malleable, in how it gave under the attack but did not break. Water parting around an intrusion, but clinging to the lake bed all the same.
Great Aunt Muriel slid away - or her will did, anyway. The thing resettled, unharmed, and Percy hastily cut his claws back in.
"We'll need your uncle Parsifal," her voice was firm and gave away nothing, but her hand was gentle on Percy's shoulder, "He's not the best at legilimency, but needs must." Would that mean she was taking him out of school? Or bringing Uncle Parsifal in? Percy was beginning to worry there'd be more Weasleys than not in Hogwarts if this became a trend.
Professor Snape cleared his throat. When Great Aunt Muriel gave him her attention, he smoothly offered, "I happen to know something of the practice myself."
"Handy," she replied flatly. Her gaze did not waver from him, however, and Percy knew judgement was being passed. To his credit, the professor did not falter under the intensity of her analysis. Rather, he seemed to be giving her the same treatment in turn. "I'd rather not have this spread about, but I suppose there's no sense in having Percival suffer needlessly. The Prewitts train our youth in hedge magic before they're ready to hold a wand, in an ancient tradition honoring those young who died at muggle hands, merely due to their inability to cast through a wand. A secret tradition," she emphasized, garnering no response from the potions professor beyond a glimmer of something sharp in his gaze. Honestly, Percy had no idea whether a word of that were true, but it would explain where Molly had learned the basics. "And there's a reason it is kept secret, Mr. Snape."
Oh, Merlin, she was insulting the man intended to help muck about in Percy's head. Professor, he wanted to correct, but there was no way for him to fix things with their eyes on each other and his great aunt still talking.
"This type of exposure when one is young can shape the magic to allow certain spells to… sink in more deeply, with allowances for the personality of the individual. Such as a charm that affects emotion. Or a compulsion." She allowed the two men to take this in for all of a second, before addressing Percy with a hint of steel, "I don't know what it was meant to do, but it seems to be amplifying something already in you, rather than adding something new. If we can remove it, you will have to identify the obsession on your own, to truly end it. Still, you must have done something to disrupt it already, or it would not be lashing out."
…Thus, when he'd popped whatever it was, trying to block out Hogwarts, it hadn't been a mistake, per say. The balm to his wounded pride helped more than Percy would have liked to admit, had he even been able to admit it.
"...go in after it," she was saying, and the professor's eyebrows were high with skepticism.
"Legilimency does not actually place the mind of the user within the victim's." His arms were crossed over his chest, haughtily. "I might have expected an amateur to have such a warped idea of what it can do, but you did not initially give me that impression." Oh look, they were both in on it, now. If they couldn't cooperate, Percy really didn't want to be here. Inadvisable would not begin to cover a full on enmity between two people with such depth of experience in antagonism. "Still, there is that saying regarding books and their covers."
"Legilimency without a hedge assist is only half of the original spell," Great Aunt Muriel sniffed, "I believe you may have experience with the wandwork of it, perhaps even enough to do without the motions from your composure. However, I'd thank you to trust in my expertise in this particular field."
This needed to stop. They were both just within Percy's reach, and out of the two of them, one scared him less.
Percy tugged lightly at Professor Snape's sleeve and stared up at both of them pleadingly.
They exchanged a silent, disdainful glance before refocusing on the problem at hand.
"...You really should have come to tea," Great Aunt Muriel scolded Percy absently as a way to get back on track, but there was more exasperation than anger in her tone, so it was alright. She appeared to sense his thoughts, because he was cuffed lightly upside the head the next moment. No consideration for the teeth in his tongue, but what had he expected? The jolt of additional pain took him out of it for a moment.
When it passed, they were plotting quietly, harsh but hushed, and Percy fought to pay attention - in fact, the adrenaline screaming through his veins at the image the two made, conspiring together, demanded it - but he was feeling more helpless than ever. And it didn't exactly help him keep his composure or his focus. He blinked rapidly. Other than George, there was no one he wanted to see him cry less.
Well, maybe the Minister.
"Buck up, Percival," his great aunt took his hand bracingly, appearing to loom over him even as she daintily slipped her other withered hand into his professor's. They both avoided looking at or acknowledging the movement. "Lie back and think of England, and all that." The phrase finally roused a reaction from his professor, as he pinned her with a pinched expression. She settled herself, and her feathery will curled tight around something between Percy and Professor Snape, "Oh, for pixies' sakes, get over my word choice and focus. There is a time for propriety, and it is not when there is no time."
There was no hesitation, "Legilimens."
And the world went black.
When he came to, it was to a buzzing murmur that vibrated in his bones. The texture of the ground beneath his hands was wrong. Pebbled, almost, but with the smoothness of finished wood.
"He's awake," Great Aunt Muriel gripped his shoulder and pulled him to his feet, "Things should settle, now."
"It's already impossible," the professor was a few feet away, running his hand over a blurry shape that was rapidly coming into focus, before jolting back, "It's sharp! But it only felt like wood. A railing, perhaps."
"No sense speculating before it's shaped." The words dripped condescension, despite the matter-of-fact curtness they attempted. Her lips quirked in her weathered face, betraying the smug satisfaction of being right.
"It looks almost like a courtroom," Professor Snape murmured, ignoring the remark entirely and holding his palm with the other hand as if to apply pressure. He wasn't wrong - there were benches lining the edges of the room, and shadowy figures stepping forward to fill them. The three of them were down in the center, where the speaker or plaintiff might stand, and a podium bubbled up from the ground and solidified, another figure stepping up behind it. Gradually, the shadows cloaking everything eased to the edges of the room, making the walls impossible to identify but revealing the features of the occupants, and that same pebbled texture of the metal and wooden furniture, alike. As if parts of it were unnaturally raised and indented in long lines of nonsense.
Percy didn't recognize the man on the stand. He was tall, dark-haired, and thin, with an angry smile under an aggressive amount of freckles.
"I appeal to the confederation," he stated, expression unchanging.
As one, the occupants of the stands rumbled back, "The confederation acknowledges your appeal." There were familiar faces - his brothers, his sister, classmates, professors, even duplicates of Professor Snape and Great Aunt Muriel - and there were unfamiliar ones. Ones that varied between stranger on the street to other. Dotted among the sea of human faces were the usual magical beings Percy was familiar with and creatures that appeared to have stepped out of a nightmare. Features distorted and twisted and mixed between species for these few, monstrous councillors - the word jumped to mind and Percy couldn't dispute it - but they didn't disturb him as they typically might. He'd noticed that they had spoken along with the rest, following the rules of whatever governing body this was. They were not a threat.
The man at the podium, the plaintiff, opened his mouth and the screeching of the merfolk exited. Every councillor in the stands was leaned forward, rapt, until it ended. As one, they nodded, and the man stepped down from the podium and into the stands, lifting something dangling from the edge of the half-walls of wood separating the different levels as he sat. In fact, each councillor held something in their left hand that connected back into the half-wall before them.
Professor Snape, evidently following the same line of thought Percy was, traced the line splitting off of the wall with his gaze, "It's a chain. It looks as if it were an organic part of the wood. Is that…?"
"That's not the compulsion," Great Aunt Muriel turned away, "There's a bit of it in here, but it's reaching up from somewhere deeper. Look for a way out."
After a moment, the professor pointed, "Down there. The line must enter somewhere and we can follow it to its start."
As they'd been speaking, another had stepped up to the podium from the seemingly endless line Professor Snape had brought to Percy's attention. A young woman, looking desperate and haunted with the shadows under her eyes, "I appeal to the confederation."
The thunder of the practiced response nearly sent Percy back to the ground.
"Where are we?" A thought occurred to him, but it was impossible and the image was slightly off. Still, he added, "Why does it look like the International Confederation of Wizards?"
"Is that what it's modeled on?" His aunt mused before visibly dismissing the thought, "This is your mind and heart, Percy; do keep up." At his lost expression and the professor's seemingly involuntary sickened air at any mention of heart, she elaborated, "Your mind is built of your thoughts, memories, and plans, your heart is a term for what's used in hedge magic. Together, they form the part of you that is individual, the magical construct that leaves a ghost. While you're still alive, true legilimency can visit it in the image of a place." She shot the professor another smug look that had him scowling and shutting his mouth on what might have been a curious question before she'd antagonized him yet again.
Another plaintiff had stepped up to the podium, another woman, but smiling prettily, "I appeal to the confederation."
"This is… me?" The room was the size of the Great Hall, at least, and well lit in the center but dark about the edges. Packed to the indistinct, shadowy walls with that mix of familiar and foreign faces. The appeal this time was music, beautiful and sweet, but with a few discordant notes that made a frown pull at Percy's lips without his permission.
It grew in volume, and the councillors appeared unmoved, faces blank as the sound - the violin, maybe? - grew more frenzied, the sour notes more frequent.
A shadow fell over the open floor, cast over Percy and his tagalongs as well as the plaintiff at the podium. Shapes loomed out of it, twitching and crawling into three dimensions until a four-legged, spindly beast pulled itself out of the shadow and up onto the floor. It paced for a moment, limbs bending unnaturally and clicking at it moved. The creature resembled Berodach in the same way a cave painting resembled an actual animal.
There were more lupine influences, though it was hairless and dark as shadow. The snout was longer, the eyes hungrier, colder, the creature more quadrupedal as a whole with a long, whip-like tail. Every angle sharp, every movement threatening. Each part seemed almost unattached to the whole. Distinct. It was put together as if the connection had been an afterthought to picking out the pieces. Limbs jolted as if they could come free of the thin flesh. Yet it was clearly in control, moving with a purpose.
Finally the music spilling from the plaintiff's mouth reached a fever pitch, and the councillors turned their heads from one side to the other in a simultaneous rejection. The creature lunged, teeth closing on her middle as they ran into and through the ground. They vanished with the shadow, and the next plaintiff stepped up to the podium.
"I appeal to the confederation."
"Lovely," Great Aunt Muriel intoned wryly, "Would you call that a one track mind?" She shook the humor before Percy could come up with any sort of response, "Better get on with it, unless you want your professor to invade your privacy any more than he has, already."
The professor straightened from where he had been crouched, running a finger a centimeter above the raised texture shared across every solid surface in the room. His hands clasped behind his back and he said nothing.
"Shall we?" the elderly woman prompted. Putting action to words as she walked down the line of plaintiffs forced the two less experienced men to follow or be left behind. Professor Snape managed to catch up more gracefully than Percy's scramble.
The queue of people and creatures stretched out though a plain, wooden double door into a hallway Percy recognized as Ministry standard. Clean white walls with sconces lit and intricately tiled floors in nonsensical mosaics of tiny squares in a mix of dull color and clear glass.
Professor Snape must have recognized it, too, because he snorted.
He was strangely open in expression and word, as was Percy's great aunt. Perhaps it was because they were functioning without a body to hide behind. Percy knew stoney expressions and stiff postures couldn't make the emotions behind them settle on their own. If they were in his mind and will - or heart, if that's what real practitioners called it - then they couldn't be anything but their own will, could they?
It put him a little at ease to know that, although they were tromping through his head, the other two were vulnerable, as well.
The texture of the ICW's main convention room followed them through the halls. Surreptitiously, Professor Snape had tapped the wall with his wand while he followed them a few steps behind. Despite being out of Percy's view, he knew it was happening. At least, he could be sure anyone wandering off would be unable to do anything without his knowledge. Not that there were side hallways or doors to wander off through. There was a hiss interjected into the unending, buzzing drone at the edge of hearing, not unlike the white noise of the wizarding wireless when it wasn't tuned correctly popping with sudden static. A line of red opened on the professor's hand and he swore, making another line appear before he dropped his wand and the second hiss faded back into an unintelligible drone.
"What was that?" the professor hissed, unintentionally echoing the sound.
"Well, you already found out Percival doesn't respond well to touch in the first room." His great aunt sounded far too pleased, "It appears the second offense is punished twice."
Percy wouldn't do that! "No, that's not fair," he interjected unthinkingly, "Two punishments would only be for two broken rules."
"Swearing?" the professor ventured through gritted teeth. Percy assumed, for his own peace of mind, that the expression was irritation more than pain. He didn't want to think his mind would dole out anything too horrid to its visitors.
If he were to think of rules the professor might have broken, one came immediately to mind. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to share, but the glare from said professor promised points off that he couldn't afford with Oliver as his partner in potions. "You can't be angry with a wand in your hand," Percy revealed reluctantly and the professor darted a sharp glance up at him before equally reluctantly leaving his wand where it lay.
"It's a construct, same as you," Great Aunt Muriel reminded them, bringing their pace back up with a curt, "And if that's settled, we should get a move on instead of gawking about like muggles in the moonlight."
Percy didn't wince at the casual prejudice only because he was too used to it to feel more than a twinge of embarrassment. The professor, on the other hand, had revelation dawning over his far-too-open expression. Yet he stayed silent, fell in step, and left the odd texture of the walls alone.
Percy didn't like it, but he wasn't about to provoke Professor Snape when he didn't know what damage could be done from the inside of another's mind.
As they walked, a chill made itself present in the air. The far end of the hall was cloaked in shadow that didn't retreat as they moved towards it, unlike the shadowy edges of the ICW, but thinned as if they were walking into a bank of fog. The plaintiffs, still waiting in line, began to look sickly. Paler and gaunt, with a strange feeling that held Percy when he caught them out of the corner of his eye.
"I am not surprised you have a very straightforward approach to neglected thoughts," his great aunt broke the silence, perhaps registering his unease and seeking to assuage it. Or to soothe the professor, whose quiet, disgruntled gaze was further down the line, where parts of the plaintiffs began to flicker. A hand, an eye, would start off one way, then flicker to another. A different ethnicity or missing pieces. For only enough time to blink, then it would return to the sickly norm, "I have seen far worse."
But this was not the end.
Eventually, aside from the flickers, Percy could not call the plaintiffs anything but dead. Dead men, women and creatures standing in an interminable line, with necks and limbs at angles that made the viewer uncomfortable.
"Your creature should make a visit down here," she commented, unruffled, "Clear out the trash."
"They haven't gotten to speak, yet." The words were his, came from his mouth, but he hadn't consciously decided to say them. He crossed his arms over his chest uncomfortably and kept his eyes on the ground.
"I can't help but wonder if they will retain the ability to do so, once they reach the stand." He got the sense she was trying to catch his gaze, but he wasn't having it. "It's better to let go of the things you can't help, Percival. Keep that in mind for the future, at least."
Nodding was the only acceptable response and so he did.
At least Professor Snape looked as uncomfortable being present as Percy felt having him there. Sharing the misery made it a bit less humiliating. It was a shift in emotional focus.
"Hmm," the hum was disapproving as Great Aunt Muriel put a hand out to the side for balance, nearly brushing the line of standing dead, "Watch your step. You really need to tidy things up, Percival."
The heat of a flush flooded his face as Professor Snape tried and failed to suppress a nasty smile. Ice had infiltrated the grout between the tiny glass tiles and began to steadily replace it, climbing over the edges and across the floor as they continued down the long corridor. It crept over the walls and the plaintiffs alike, eventually thick enough to hang in clumps of icicles from the ceiling and sconces that were slowly dying down. The corridor grew ever more cold and dark, but their vision remained clear, as if it were only the feeling of darkness they waded into.
"I do believe I see it," Great Aunt Muriel squinted, pulling out her monocle and muttering something about overcoming that dreadful bias towards nearsightedness later before she confirmed, "Yes, that should be it."
The creature at the end of the hall more closely resembled Berodach than the beast in the ICW chamber, but made out to be as dead as the plaintiffs. Inferi-like. It clawed relentlessly, mindlessly at the solid wall of ice that blocked it from going any further, a plaintiff half-unearthed, hanging limply in the places where it was free. A hazy fog dripped from the Berodach's mouth that seemed out of place in the cold and dark. For one thing, it was a pale, misty color that looked as if it were less a physical vapor and more a glimpse of nothingness. Like blotches of erased world before it fizzled back into existence. Around the Berodach creature, wooden and glass chains like those held by councillors in the chamber stretched into the ice from the walls and floor, keeping to the same texture and medium as their source.
"I was wrong." She ignored how the uncharacteristic words nearly gave Percy a heart attack and his great aunt approached not the Berodach but the wall, peering into it. The dead stretched back ad infinitum in the ice. "This is not where the ideas end, but where they start. Your compulsion here is controlling the flow from your subconscious, but your beast prunes the unwelcome under the reign of higher thought. It's almost an elegant balance, if one weren't the result of a foreign influence." Her brow was furrowed, and her hand hovered over the ice, looking into the eyes of the dead. Those who would be returned to life, if her theory was correct, "It's not often one's mind turns the cycle backwards in this way."
"Is there a reason the compulsion takes the shape of the boy's familiar?" Professor Snape was leaning carefully around it, analysing and absorbing with the kind of focus one gained from fascination.
"Camouflage," she replied, before giving it a second look, "Goodness, Percival, that's your familiar? Where have you been taking the children?"
"Nowhere," Percy protested hastily, fully aware of how much pull his great aunt had in the family. If she thought he was putting his siblings in danger, she could break them up. "I- he's the same ghoul from our attic. Mr. Lovegood explained that he changed into something stronger because of how often I worry. I didn't take the kids anywhere dangerous."
She sniffed, but didn't say anything more on the topic, pushing her robe to the side and sliding a rapier from the folds of her skirts, "Regardless, this has to go." A wave at them both, "Think deeply on attacking; you may need a weapon."
Professor Snape raised an eyebrow, then startled when a wand slid out of his flesh and into his hand, pale and notched at one end like a finger bone. Great Aunt Muriel took this in with a little less of the ambient disapproval that she usually exuded.
Percy took a moment longer to focus, but ow.
It cut smoothly out of his thigh, lengthwise and parallel to the bone, the flesh closing behind it as it had for Professor Snape. An honest-to-god smile touched Great Aunt Muriel's face when he lifted the sword awkwardly; she tilted her own, thinner weapon in a sort of salute.
"Getting here should have been the most difficult part, since most people are naturally hostile to invasive presences. I would surmise we haven't broken any of your major rules." She spun the rapier with an expert flourish, "You should only need to strike the killing blow."
And she was off, faster than she'd ever moved in reality. She darted around the Berodach duplicate like a hornet, landing shallow cuts by the dozen before it could turn and swipe at her. It was practically spinning in futile circles as she dashed about it, a whirling dervish of bladework and fancy robes.
Then it thrust a clawed hand into the floor and began to dig.
"Shit!" Percy clutched a hand to his chest, bent over from the sudden stabbing pain.
His great aunt spared a moment to tsk at him. She speared its heart from behind, taking advantage of its apparent distraction, but it continued to dig into the floor, ripping great chunks free that floated up into the air and slowed to a halt, frozen in more than one sense of the word.
"Incarcerous," Professor Snape jabbed his wand forward and its limbs snapped to its sides, encased in metal chain. He probably hadn't cast before for fear of hitting Great Aunt Muriel. Still it made another play. Throwing itself back impaled the Berodach creature further on the rapier, but knocked it from his great aunt's grip. It clawed at the floor with a hind foot, frantic, as Great Aunt Muriel got ahold of the rapier again and twisted it.
If anything, it focused harder on digging into the floor.
Something cracked with a sound like glass, and light flooded the hall, glinting off the ice and bathing the area in red. The Berodach creature smiled.
And Percy swung at the professor.
It was a clumsy bit of swordplay that went wide the first time, but the arcs of metal got faster, closer. Still, Severus wasn't exactly slow on his feet. He managed to stumble back out of reach, the sword instead sliding through the wall without damage.
"Clever little thing," Muriel stabbed through the Berodach creature's head from behind, but it only wobbled in place, the dead grin still macabrely stretched across its face.
Easily, Severus took down Percy with another set of chains, and took a few steps back when the boy bared teeth at him. The professor's lip raised in a light snarl, "What's wrong with him?"
"It's just his temper," Muriel grunted, having hefted the creature up onto her frail back using the rapier now buried to its hilt in the Berodach creature's chest for leverage, "Bit strong, even for a Prewitt. We will be having words about his self control in our next exchange of correspondence, I assure you. Can you pick up his sword?"
Might as well. He was curious what use it had when Muriel seemed unable to do much damage on her own. It was heavier than it looked, and hilt was raised with the same letters he'd noted alternately impressed and raised on the walls. He was sure it spelled out more of the Weasley prefect's inane rules, in a finer font. It was smoother than the wooden half-wall he'd touched before it cut him. This time, nothing tried to split his skin open, however.
"Well, you survived," the elderly maniac waved at him dismissively, even as Severus almost tossed the sword away at the pronouncement, stopping himself merely to preserve his image, "You should probably be able to stand in for Percy here, since you're technically a guardian." His unimpressed stare, often the expression various idiots saw last in his potions class before they fainted from fear, bounced off her tough hide, but was acknowledged with further elaboration. On the second point, alone. "As you are a teacher at Hogwarts," if Percy had been aware to notice, he'd have realized Muriel and Molly spoke the word with the same irreverent exasperation, "It will have strung you together with students as a type of guardian, should you have shown the slightest concern for their well-being. Congratulations, you've a weak bond with practically every student in the castle."
"I'm thrilled; what does this have to do with… this situation?" He didn't normally find himself at a loss for words, but he found himself gesturing between the bound compulsion and Weasley with his borrowed sword.
"Percival has been rather effectively dispatched; the compulsion is manipulative rather than brute force as I might have anticipated. It usually takes an attack from the person under the compulsion to throw it off, but as I said, you can stand in as a guardian," she slid the ghoul off her sword and to the floor, standing above her bound grandnephew with a poised dignity, "All you have to do is stab it through the heart."
"Is that all?" he muttered, looked between her and her prone grandnephew, and stabbed down into the creature's chest. He could trust, at least, that she was acting to save her family, and not in the right frame of mind to be executing some plan to dispose of the Headmaster's pet Death Eater. The sword glowed silver as the creature burst into dark tar, as if it had been a balloon ready to pop. Muriel dashed forward, before Severus could startle away, and clasped a hand around his wrist before the light faded. When she pulled back, there was a silvery band there of the same color.
"Keep the secret," she smiled, and ripped her hand down through the air in a clawing motion. The world dissolved around them, until they were back in the abandoned classroom they'd started in. Percy appeared to be unconscious, a fresh trickle of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.
Jerking his hand away from Muriel's grip, Severus eyed her with the air of a cornered animal, "What did you do?"
"Compose yourself," she ordered, straightening her robes with a few precise tugs and smoothing out the wrinkles in the next second, "You shall only find it difficult to communicate what occurred here to anyone who doesn't know of it. In any form." A tight smile, "I'm afraid I couldn't find it in me to put my trust in your honor. Or your loyalties. There will be no effect, otherwise."
"I have more than one acquaintance with better than passing interest in my mind," Severus said carefully, "The Headmaster being one of the most… insistent. He is one of the most likely to know which side I am on. Your concerns are unwarranted."
"It's the other one that worries me," she looked pointedly at his covered forearm and stood, "However, I trust you cannot let a student bleed out under Hogwarts' wards, yes?"
Sweeping out before he could reply was petty, especially when it was her grandnephew that she abandoned to him, claiming- alright, yes, he was paler than was healthy, extremities cold, and when Severus pried his mouth open… Somehow the boy had retained the sense to keep his head turned so he wouldn't choke on the blood that poured out unless it filled his mouth to the point of pushing down his throat. Which it probably had. Damn her, she was right. Vials clinked in his robe as he shoved a clotting and a blood replenishing potion down the boy's throat, levitating him in the next instant.
He had made no promises about keeping the boy from the Hospital Wing afterwards and thus, the Headmaster's attention, once his curiosity had been sated.
Percy woke to an agitated owl, hissed arguing, and the clacking of knitting needles.
"You wake him up," one of the twins pushed the other towards the bed, "He still likes you."
Thus it could be assumed by the discerning that Fred was the one whispering back with fists clenched at his sides, "I don't want to tell him!"
"I can tell him," a quiet voice put in, needles going silent and still, "I already had to tell the Hufflepuff common room, so Percy can't be any worse."
"I'll tell him." That was Ron.
"No, you'll botch it." Ginny, her voice flat.
"Will not!"
"Ron," Harry put in, sounding grave and entirely unlike his meek persona when Percy was around and awake, "You're my best mate. You are not sensitive."
What could they possibly have to tell him that was so horrible? He'd noted every one of his younger siblings by voice. The world was blurry - but that was down to his glasses being on the table. The owl that had woken him with its annoyed hooting snapped at someone when they tried to take its message.
"Leave it, Grimmett," the unknown woman sighed, "He'll only give it to Percy. That's why he's still in here."
Grimmett? He'd thought it was chilly in here.
Reaching out for the owl, he untied the message and was halfway through the message: Saturday afternoons would be convenient. 3PM. Library entrance. Yours - the word was crossed out violently - Draco Lucien Malfoy when the room exploded. Not literally, but the noise was comparable. He tucked the missive in his pocket, relieved he was still wearing his robes. Only his shoes had been removed.
"You're awake!" Ginny was on his chest, holding onto him tightly, and it was awful. How could he be expected to respond when someone threw themselves on him like that?
"Who chews through their tongue-"
"-like it's taffy, you-"
"-daft imp-bitten-"
"-twice-poxed idiot?" Fred and George finished together, and Percy could be excused for immediately groaning and covering his face.
"Couldn't you wait until I'm fully awake?" The words hurt to say in a purely physical sense.
"Don't talk," Audrey said, leaning over him, the maroon of Ron's Christmas sweater hanging from one hand as she revealed herself to be the unknown voice in the conversation, "You're not fully healed yet."
"Snape said you got hexed with a babbling curse and wouldn't give into it," Harry reported, tone skeptical, "Is that true?"
Really? That's the excuse his professor went with? How idiotic did he expect Percy to appear to others? Passing out from blood loss because he bit his tongue against a babbling curse? He wanted to deny it, but that would just put him against a professor. Whose word would they believe? Well, it looked like Harry would believe him - was hoping he'd say no, really. Perhaps he could tell his siblings the truth, later. He glanced at Audrey, and Grimmett hovering at her side as she tensely worked at the Christmas sweater, one of eight that were out and at normal size. Either it had worn off, or someone had hunted them down in his pockets and reversed the shrinking.
Moving his gaze back to Harry, he nodded his head slowly.
Putting his hands in his pockets, Harry followed the direction of the glance and his expression shuttered, "Oh, okay."
That put aside, Percy turned towards Audrey expectantly, and she stared back for a moment before looking down at the knitting in her hands and setting it to her lap as she took the straightforward approach, "There's a serial killer on the loose, and they think your dad was supposed to be his second victim. They're targeting pureblood Ministry officials. The head of the DMLE, Amelia Bones, showed up at the Ministry last night, dead." She paused, jaw tight, "Half of Hufflepuff is here under calming droughts."
Oh, was that all?
He'd known someone had been involved in his parents' incident from Professor McGonagall, already. Though he hadn't shared the information. Now people might be on the lookout. There was a chance the killer could be caught without Percy getting involved. Not that he had real plans to get involved or- or he didn't think he did? That was best left to the Aurors. And Dumbledore, since he was already in the know, from his wards about the Burrow. The general public would be more aware now that this death… Shaking himself, he realized he'd just glossed over the death of another Ministry official and felt vaguely sick, forcing out and immediately regretting, "That's horrible. Have they got any suspects?" He reached for his glasses and slid them back into place, vowing again to keep his mouth shut until his tongue was less sore.
"I could have told him," Ron decided agitatedly, sounding almost vindicated by Percy's less than dramatic response.
"No," Audrey shook her head, replying to Percy's question rather than Ron's huff, "Not for lack of trying. Apparently the body was portkeyed in this morning, and two more have shown up through the course of the day. The rumors were crazy until the Daily Prophet put out an emergency edition this evening, clearing up the facts."
"And thus, Madam Pomphrey hasn't kicked us out yet," George smiled with a thin edge, and Percy, now that his vision was clear, could see the tension in him echoed through the room, in others' postures and gestures, from his family to the strangers from other Houses and years he didn't know. Their noise didn't intrude on the area, however.
The last time there'd been an epidemic of wizarding tinnitus - when a witch or wizard found themselves hearing high-pitched, whistled versions of popular tunes twenty-four-seven - they'd put up silencers around each bed to keep any outside noise from exacerbating the condition. It appeared they'd revived the use due to the sheer number of incoming patients.
That was odd, though. His father and one other, probably far enough apart that no one initially linked them, then three in one day? Well, there was the autumn solstice coming up, from what he'd learned from Muggle Studies and studying with Penelope. If the killer had a grudge against purebloods, it would probably be a halfblood, or a muggleborn, and muggles who called themselves witches tended to celebrate solstices and equinoxes. The autumn one was… Mappin? Mabon?
He was glad he wasn't taking that class anymore. Well, if it really was relevant, the Ministry would probably come up with that connection on their own.
A chill washed over him before he registered Grimmett had patted his shoulder and wandered off.
Audrey watched him go, then informed Percy, "He wanted to make sure you were okay before he left. We were on patrol together when the news came in, and he knew you'd missed our meeting." She pointed both needles at him, careful not to dislodge them, "Next time you're hexed, swallow your pride and ask one of us for help, Percy. I'm taking this to work on, and I'm glad you're not dead from your own stubbornness, but I've got to get back to my Hufflepuffs." She gathered up Ron's sweater and stood, making good on her word, as she added in farewell, "I'll see you next week."
When she was gone, he abruptly had Harry in his face, "So did Snape lie?"
Well, not maliciously. Or at least, giving the excuse was just keeping his word to Great Aunt Muriel, but the excuse itself may have been a bit malicious. Or the professor just had that low an opinion of him. Ouch. The last one felt most likely to Percy - he'd already pissed off Professor Snape once this semester and Oliver had a knack for it.
Anyway. Percy tilted his head side to side in a so-so gesture and Harry's eyes lit, "I knew it. What a git."
"Harry, don't-!"call your professor that! He subsided with a little moan, wincing when his tongue spasmed. It was hot and throbbing, now that he'd pushed it for a third time. He hadn't realized his tongue moved so much when he spoke. Obviously, he knew it on a logical level, but now he really knew.
"Did Snape hex you?" Ron crowded in next to Harry, and Ginny, who had been leaning beside his chest instead of on it, leaned in further on his other side, one elbow back on his chest.
A firm shake of the head, no.
"Like Percy would say if he had," George snorted, but was, for the most part, ignored until he added, "Professors can do no wrong in Perfect Prefect Percy's eyes."
"Okay, George, that's enough," Fred snapped, before sitting down hard in the visitor's chair and looking away from George's bewildered glance. His voice was small when he said, "Sorry."
George crouched beside him and they began a whispered conference.
If Molly were here to eavesdrop, Percy would feel much more confident in ignoring it, but he had no other choice, as it stood.
Ginny edged further into his space, cutting off Ron and Harry's progressively more outlandish theories - Percy heard and flinched at the name Voldemort - as she ventured hesitantly, "Okay, you can't tell us what happened to you yet. But… if the Malfoys sent the spider, could they have been the ones to kill Mum?"
Ron straightened, pulling a bit away from the bed.
The idea hadn't really occurred to him beyond the instant suspicion of Dobby when the idea of a house elf visiting the Burrow had come up, but Percy didn't think the Malfoys were behind it. Honestly, he'd thought Dobby might have done it on his own. The idea of a mad house elf, circumventing orders, sent shivers down his spine. There was a reason some of them were shackled to wizarding families.
No, he doubted the killer was among the Malfoys. Not if the modus operandi as of yet was killing Ministry purebloods, as the Prophet and the Ministry believed. They had to have more information than they were releasing to the public, after all. Of course, without knowing the identities of the others, he couldn't be sure, but…
Why would the most powerful man in the Ministry aside from Minister Fudge starting killing people in the Ministry? Malfoy had other avenues of attack beyond the obvious. Legal channels afforded him more ease and security than if he started operating outside the legal loopholes and ancient laws that protected him. And Mrs. Malfoy? She was practically a non-entity outside the social circuit. The loss of her sister to Azkaban had hit her hard. Percy shook his head.
"It's really annoying that we can't ask you why not," Ginny pointed out, frustrated but unwilling to push him to speak.
"Well, they're supposed to be after purebloods," Fred pulled his feet up on the chair, George now perched on its arm, "That's not really the Malfoy way, is it?"
"But they're all Ministry," George replied, "Maybe he's assassinating key opponents."
"Maybe they're trying to pave the way for Voldemort," Harry muttered to Ron, who looked a bit pale, but nodded.
"We won't know more until the Ministry releases the identities of the last few victims to the Prophet," Fred put in, wringing his hands, and Percy pointed at him in agreement. The debate devolved further, despite his best and silent efforts, however, until accusation had been thrown at practically every corner of the wizarding world. And outside it. George had somehow stumbled onto the idea of a muggle hitman and convinced himself of its validity. The boy was pale, shaken, and Percy couldn't speak to dissuade him of the ridiculous idea.
At last, Madam Pomphrey eventually remembered Percy and shooed his cloud of siblings out of the Hospital Wing. She was clearly frazzled, hair falling out of her usually neat bun, but she still managed to threaten everyone equally and make it clear she expected Percy to stay the night for observation.
Without a solid grounding in silent casting, a mangled tongue could spell career death for a witch or wizard.
She got no argument from him.
His mind lingered on the new information he'd been given on his parents' attacker, despite telling himself there was nothing he or his family could do about it. It was up to the Ministry to find justice. Yet as Percy drifted off to sleep, an unsettling thought occurred to him.
Couldn't they come after his father to finish the job?
.
.
.
.
.
.
I mean, I don't see why not?
So what would you have picked for Percy's mindscape? Have I finally pushed you all too far? What do you think we'd find in his siblings' heads?
Don't forget to review!
SELF-PLUG: Do you like Camp Camp? Wish this story had way more violence? Go read the WIP Put That Kid Down by yours truly on AO3!