Percy's First Day
Author's Note: This chapter is a little short, but I thought it was worth including if only to mesh with Charlie's first day, which was dealt with earlier. Also, Tonks appears briefly for the first time. (The astute reviewer who noted her absence and mentioned it to me will be happy to see this inclusion, I hope.) On the subject of Tonks, according to the Lexicon, she is in Charlie's year at Hogwarts, and I'm willing to accept this figure based on their arithmetic as I don't trust my own. I put her in Hufflepuff, because apparently J.K. Rowling said she was a Hufflepuff, so there you go.
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On September first on platform 9 ¾, Molly Weasley hugged and kissed her three oldest children good-bye. "Be good and care for Percy," she ordered Bill and Charlie as she aided her sons in placing their trunks on the train. To Charlie, she added an additional stipulation, "If Percy wants to, he is to sit in your carriage."
Bill saw his brother glance sideways at Percy, whose quivering frame stated more clearly than words that he wished to join Charlie and his friends, and he protested, "Mum, why can't he sit with Bill?"
"Because, Charles, Bill happens to be a prefect, which means that he'll spend the first part of the train ride in the first two compartments, listening to the Head Boy and Girl go over the rules of being prefect and everything," his mother snapped, "and Percy might very well want someone by his side at the outset of the train ride."
"Besides," added Bill, smirking, "I had to teach you the ropes, Charlie, and now it is your opportunity to return the favor by doing the same for Perce. Here's your chance, don't let it slip right through your hands."
"If you don't close your mouth this instant, I'll close it for you by knocking your teeth out," Charlie offered, balling his hand in a menacing insinuation.
"If you do, I'll put you in detention for a week," responded Bill coolly. "You can be the first person who has ever landed themselves in detention before they even arrived at Hogwarts."
"Shut up, or I'll have Carver send a Bludger into where you are in the audience in the next Quidditch match," Charlie fired back.
Their bantering was interrupted by the arrival of a girl with short, spiky, shocking pink hair coupled with a pale, pretty, heart-shaped face, who Bill recognized as Nymphadora Tonks, a sort of distant relative of theirs. Also, she happened to be a Hufflepuff in Charlie's year whom Charlie had started hanging around with at the end of last term, when McGonagall had separated him from Dan and Matt in Transfiguration and sat him beside her because he had been talking too much, and he had taken to chatting with her, instead.
"Wotcher, Charlie," she greeted him now. Turning to Bill, she added, "Wotcher, Bill."
"Don't bother talking to him, as he's a git," Charlie educated her crisply. Grabbing Percy by the elbow, he continued, "Come on, Tonks, let's hurry, or we won't be able to find a compartment with enough room for you, me, Dan, Matt, your friend Karen, and witless here." He nodded at Percy, who scowled at this term, no doubt of the opinion that Charlie was more witless than him. Waving to their mother, Charlie and Percy hopped onto the train with Tonks.
Deciding it was time for him to leap aboard the train, as well, Bill leaned forward, and kissed his mother on the cheek. "Bye, Mum. I'd better get off to the prefect meeting up front. I'll write to you on Friday."
As he set off towards the opposite end of the platform, so that he could board the train nearer to the compartments where the Head Boy and Head Girl would address the prefects, he distinctly heard her call, "Have a good term, dear!"
After listening to the Head Boy and Girl yammer on about the obligation being a prefect entailed and the rules that governed this honor and weighty responsibility, Bill set off down the corridor to find the compartment where Chris and Mike had saved him a seat, hoping they had left some Cauldron Cakes and Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans for him to enjoy, as they had been considerate enough to do last year. When he entered, he was pleased to note they had, and scooped up a Cauldron Cake in one smooth movement, greeting his two best friends at Hogwarts as he did so, "Hey, Chris, Mike. How were your summers?"
"Cool, my parents and I went to Italy, and saw the ancient Roman ruins, and all that," Mike, midway through a Chocolate Frog, answered. "I was just telling Chris all about it, though, so I won't bore him with the details a second time."
"I see," laughed Bill, and then focused his attention on his other comrade. "And you?"
"I didn't do anything fun like that," Chris mumbled bitterly, "the most excitement pitiful me had was visiting my least favorite uncle for two whole days, and being forced to be polite to him. It was terrible. What about you, Bill?"
"Same as always."
They had just finished sharing their summer adventures or lack thereof, when the compartment door burst open, and all three occupants tilted their heads forward to see who had entered, expecting to see Brian, Jason, Heather, Jennifer, Stephanie, or even Charlie. However, they were wrong, for Percy, red-faced with hurt indignation, burst into the compartment.
"Bill," he educated his older brother as soon as he shut the compartment door behind him, "I've been looking all up and down the train for you."
"I see you've found me," Bill replied dryly. "What is it you want?"
"I want you to put Charlie in detention."
"Come again?" Bill blinked in astonishment at this blanket statement, because, in all his time as a prefect nobody had ever said anything like it to him.
"I want you to put Charlie in detention," reiterated Percy pompously, "because he was bullying me."
"And how was he doing this?" He was doing his best to be a supportive older brother, but this was hysterical, and a situation that only someone like Percy would create. Most likely Charlie had cracked one too many jokes at Percy's expense, and now the third Weasley sibling was miffed, and that did not constitute bullying in Bill's humble opinion.
"He—he picked on me when I talked about all the school books I read, and how I can't wait to try magic, especially Transfiguration and Charms, in a scholastic environment, and all his juvenile companions laughed along with him," clarified Percy with an air of utmost seriousness, ignoring the fact that Chris and Mike were stuffing knuckles in their mouths to stifle their laughter, an endeavor they were only doing because Bill was glaring warningly at them. Even Bill barely managed to suppress an eye roll at words such as "scholastic" and "juvenile," which only Percy would employ in everyday conversation. "And when I told him to be quiet, or I'll report him to you, and you'll put him in detention, he laughed at me."
"That's not bullying, Perce." Bill hoped his tone was gentle, or at least not amused, "that's just Charlie trying to be funny."
"Bullying is not amusing, Bill," Percy educated him shortly, crossing his arms over his chest in a gesture that reminded the addressed of their mother, as though the older boy was not aware of such a fact.
"Of course it isn't, and I didn't say it was, but it is a fact of life at school for first-years, and once you see real bullying, you'll know that Charlie, while he was having a little fun at your expense, wasn't bullying you. When someone truly is bullying you or any of your peers, I will be more than happy to put a stop to it."
"So you're not going to punish him?" demanded Percy incredulously. "You're not going to put him in detention or anything?"
"No, I don't often take away points, and I've only put someone in detention like once, because they let off a batch of Filibuster Fireworks in the common room, and it set fire to everyone's homework, but I'd rather make people listen to me in other ways. Just because a person has power and authority, that doesn't mean they should always use it."
"That doesn't mean they should neglect to use it, either, and let those under their care suffer for their lack of firmness," Percy frowned bemusedly, "and you threatened Charlie with detention earlier."
Now it was Bill's turn to frown in puzzlement. "When exactly did I do this?"
"This morning on the platform, of course," supplied Percy immediately, sounding surprised at the other's bewilderment. "You said that you would put Charlie in detention for a week if he punched you in the mouth."
At this remark, Bill could not control himself, chuckled, and was promptly joined in this expression of mirth by Chris and Mike, and Percy glowered at him. "Merlin, Perce, I was teasing with him, just as he was joshing around with me when he said he would sock me in the face in the first place, and when he claimed he would have Carver send a Bludger my way," Bill spelled out once he had caught his breath. "See, that's your problem, Percy, you take everything too seriously. A lot of times, people are just trying to have fun with each other, and, you know, make each other loosen up and laugh."
"May I sit with you for the rest of the train ride?" Percy asked in a more subdued tone as he settled himself in the vacant seat next to his brother, refusing to meet the eyes of anyone else in the compartment.
"Sure, if you want to," Bill shrugged, "but you don't have to sit with either Charlie or I, you know. You can strike out on your own, and dare to chat with some other first-year monsters, for that's how you'll become friends with them.You've nothing to fear from them, for all of them are as uncomfortable as you are in this weird new place."
"That's how we all met," interjected Mike.
"Yeah, that's how we discovered that we should become best friends forever," Chris affirmed. Seemingly second-guessing himself, he inquired of Bill and Mike, "We did agree to become best friends on the Hogwarts Express, didn't we?"
"I don't know, I think it sort of just happened," Mike shrugged languidly.
"Either way," Bill reasoned, "you won't make any new friends here, Percy, if you don't step out of your little shell, and try to talk with some of your classmates. If you do that, you'll have loads of companions at Hogwarts in no time at all, I promise."
"You let Charlie sit with you," Percy pouted.
"You can if you want to, but I just think you and Charlie are different." Bill was trying to think of a tactful way to avoid the impropriety of admitting that he had always been much more fond of Charlie than Percy, and, therefore, did not mind Charlie's presence in his compartment nearly as much as he cared about Percy's. In the end, he came out with, "Charlie is naturally more at ease around people. He can spend, like, two minutes with them, and end up best friends with them, and..."
"And I can't," sighed Percy, and Bill wondered if it was possible that his observation had stung his little brother, despite his efforts at tact, "which is why there's no point in my bothering to try and reach out to people, when my own brothers are convinced that I am a pompous bore."
"I didn't say you are a pompous bore," Bill argued, "I just said you needed to relax, and there's a considerable difference between the two." However, Percy just shrugged, and stared out the window, and, within minutes, the three older boys had resumed talking as if he were not present.