THC

House: Ravenclaw

Class: Head of House

Category: Standard

Prompt[s]: [character] Oliver Wood, [Object] time turner

Bonus Prompt: [trope] mutual pining

Word count: 1210

Notes: Some things may not line up with canon exactly. The timeline is 100% mentioned but I'd say this happens before the battle of Hogwarts

A Dumb Idea

Percy wasn't one for dumb ideas. In fact, he lived his entire life trying to stop his siblings from enacting any of their dumb ideas. This had to be the dumbest of all the ideas that any Weasley had ever come up with; Percy would admit that much. He knew that it was dumb, a completely non-Percy idea, and that did not stop him. The outcome of not going through with this stupid idea would be worse than if it worked. So, in a way, it was a genius idea.

It was easy to avoid Oliver as he executed his plan. They didn't live in the same neighborhood and thankfully, Percy spent most of his day at the Ministry. There was no way to run into Oliver during Quidditch season, unless Percy actively tried to. Percy had never tried to run into Oliver. After their school days, they just lost touch. Theoretically, that would have helped Percy move on from his ridiculous crush on Oliver. It was actually way more than a crush, but Percy would never admit that to anyone. Usually.

A couple of nights ago was a different story. The events of that evening were the sole reason as to why Percy was in need of a Time Turner. Yes, time travel is bad; Percy knew all of the issues it could cause but frankly, this was a dire situation. Not only did Percy admit to someone that he liked them, but he admitted to Oliver Wood that he had been in love with him since their third year of school. Percy would have taken the embarrassment and moved on if he had used the term "crush" or something akin to that, but no, he did use the phrase "I have been in love with you since third year". Not "had" or any other past-tense version, but present tense. As in, Percy was still in love with Oliver.

Percy knew that Hermione had been given a Time Turner for her studies while at Hogwarts. He thought it had been irresponsible to give her one for that reason but here he was trying to use one for an even worse reason. Surprisingly, he had gotten one fairly easily. And yes, it was real he did test it out. Percy made sure that the way he went about getting it wouldn't cause any issues with his Ministry job should anyone find out. He went about it in a completely legal manner which was another surprising aspect. For something so powerful and coveted, it wasn't that difficult to get.

He was sitting in his apartment, the calculations in mind and the Time Turner in his hand. Mentally, he wasn't sure if he was prepared but everything else was ready to go. He stared at the Time Turner as it glittered in the light of his apartment. Maybe he should just move on. It's not like Oliver said anything back, and he hadn't tried to go after Percy when he ran from the pub. If Percy was lucky, then Oliver had been too drunk to remember it and he didn't need to mess with time travel to stop himself from saying anything.

A knock at his front door jolted him from his thoughts and he hid the Time Turner behind a pillow on the couch. He didn't bother to check the peephole before he opened the door. Percy didn't know who he was expecting to be there, but it wasn't Oliver.

"Can I come in?" Oliver had never been one for small talk. He had always jumped right to the point.

Mindlessly, Percy moved from his spot to allow Oliver inside. The apartment was quiet as Oliver sat on one end of the couch. Thankfully, Percy had managed to sit where the Time Turner was hidden. He really would have been embarrassed if Oliver found out about his plan. Even if the Time Turner would have been able to fix it all.

"You didn't give me much of a chance to process what you said the other night," Oliver started when Percy remained silent. "I know you didn't mean to say it."

Percy felt his stomach drop. Had Oliver really come all the way here to reject him? It's not like they were really friends anymore (if they could have been called that at any point). It could have just been ignored and that would have made Percy feel much better.

"You didn't have to come here," Percy didn't bother to look up at Oliver.

"I did," Oliver sighed, "I've been trying to wrap my head around all of this. I didn't know what to say at the moment and I still don't."

"A simple 'no Percy I don't feel the same' would suffice so I can just move on."

Oliver looked at Percy confused, "I'm not here to reject you."

"What?"

"I honestly thought I was really obvious when we were in school. That I liked you, I mean. I just took your disinterest as my answer and never said anything."

"It wasn't obvious," Percy blurted out, "I don't know why you think that."

"Well, I know now that it wasn't. At least not to you. Pretty much everyone else knew about it."

Percy felt like his heart stopped, "Who?"

"I mean the entire Quidditch team. I'd say about half of Gryffindor and maybe some other students. Really, I wasn't trying to hide it."

"Well, maybe you should have thought about saying it to me instead of thinking that I would just understand." Percy felt stupid. How did everyone know this except for him? He hated it when he didn't know things, and this caused him to look like a fool. He had even gone as far as to get a Time Turner to try and fix it.

"Yeah," Oliver laughed, "We can make up for it now. I mean, if you want to."

"Of course, I want to," Percy picked up the pillow by him and lightly threw it at Oliver. "I can't believe this."

"Is that a Time Turner?"

Percy startled as he realized he threw the pillow that had been hiding it. "No?"

Oliver gasped, "Please, tell me you didn't get a Time Turner to go back in time and take back your confession?"

"That's absolutely not what I did." Percy was a horrible liar when people asked him things outright. If there wasn't a loophole to dig into that would help him lie that he was bad at it. Oliver had backed him into a corner.

"I really did not think you would do something that dumb." Oliver laughed again as he reached past Percy to pick it up. "How did you even get it?"

"It's a lot easier than you think." Percy shrugged, "I just filed some stuff with the Ministry. They don't really ask for a concrete reason, so I sugar-coated it."

"That's ridiculous," Oliver shook his head, "Thankfully, you don't need to use it now."

"I'll return it when I get to work tomorrow." Percy said, "I was probably going to chicken out of doing it anyway."

"I'm free tomorrow night if you want to go out after you're done working?"

"Okay, but I'm picking where we go." Percy smiled.

"That's fine with me."