Chapter 3
//Flashback - Middle of Year 6//
Percy entered the Great Hall slowly and with much trepidation. He didn't want to face the crowds today; his brothers or the Slytherins. He placed his books at the far end of the Gryffindor table, far away from everybody. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his brothers making their way towards him, Lee tagging along, with barely concealed grins on their faces. Without even bothering to sit he grabbed some fruit, picked up his books and made his way out of the Hall, leaving the twins in the dust. Little known to him he was being followed by a fellow prefect. Penelope Clearwater followed Percy Weasley away from the masses.
Unaware that he was being followed Percy entered an abandoned classroom. There was some old dusty furniture; an abandoned teacher's desk, some student desks, some club chairs with worn down material or random springs, and old couch from the Ravenclaw common room in the corner, and some blankets folded in the corner. Percy crossed the room to the teacher's desk. It was his favorite perch, as it was a makeshift window seat. He put his books down and placed his breakfast on them. An orange, an apple, and a banana. Delicious. He paused when he saw how the fruit lay and snorted to himself.
"Percival Alexander Weasley, you have a dirty mind." Of course, the first to be eaten was the banana. "To rid yourself of slightly incriminating evidence." He said around a mouthful in a very un-Percy-like way. He giggled to himself, suddenly feeling very euphoric. 'Drunk on bananas and dirty imagry,' he thought, sending himself into another fit of giggles. He was just putting the empty peel down when he heard the door creak open. He froze. Students weren't allowed in empty classrooms and if he was cought.
A blond head poked into the room, followed by a robe clad female body, student sized. Penelope Clearwater.Percy's only real friend, his best friend. He sighed.
"C'mon in, Penny. Close the door, will you." She did and walked over to him, pushing herself up onto the desk with him. He polished the apple on his sleeve and took a bite. She waited. He chewed. "Well? What is it?"
"Are you alright Percy?" Percy sighed and took another bite of his apple, refusing to answer. She waited. He took another bite. She 'looked' at him. He noticed, apple half-way back to his mouth.
"What?"
"You didn't answer me."
"You're right. I didn't." She glared at him, then a glint appeared in her eye.
"If you don't tell, I'll tell your mum that something's bothering you and you wont tell, but I'm really worried it has something to do with a girl." He looked at her, frightened.
"You wouldn't."
"I would. You know I would." He sighed.
"You would. Damn, if Mum thinks I'm having Girl-Trouble, she'll never stop trying to set me up with girls. It'd just break her heart that I'd never go for them."
"Not even if she was your type?" He just raised an eyebrow at her.
"Not even if she was just like you." She raised an eyebrow.
"oh.so I'm your type then?"
"Nah."
"What is your type?"
"Dark hair, dark eyes, muscular, tall.male.you should know that Penn. I told you last year." She blinked at him.
"Percy.you told me you were bi, not gay? That's changed?" He thought for a moment mockingly.
"Yep." He said and took a bite of his apple. He looked over at her suddenly. "you don't mind, do you?" She shook her head.
"No, I think it's great." He took a bit of his apple and raised an eyebrow to the floor. "That means when I ask this favor of you, you won't try to hit on me anyway." He paused for a second then continued chewing.
"What favor?"
"Nuh-uh. Not until you tell me what's wrong." He sighed.
"Nothing's wrong."
"They why did you leave like that before." He hung his head.
"I just couldn't face the crowd yet today. The twins coming at me like a muggle smart bomb didn't give me reason to stay, either." His tone was bitter and she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, pulling back sharply when he hissed.
"Percy? What happened?" He put the now finished apple on the desk next to his books and gently pulled back his robes, showing where the bandage had bled through his white shirt.
"Shite," he muttered and conjured more bandages. He quickly undid his tie and shirt, gently pulling the white cotton away from the open wound. Using his previous bandage he wiped away all the blood he could before reapplying the new one. Penny took over then, wrapping his shoulder for him as he turned the old bandages into dust. With another spell he had the blood cleaned off his shirt and was shrugging it back on when Penny stopped him.
"Percy.what was that?"
"Nothing. It was nothing."
"Percy-"
"It was nothing! Just leave it be." Penelope set her jaw.
"No I won't, Percy. I've seen cuts like those before, on one of my muggle friends. She committed suicide late last year. I don't want the same to happen to you." Percy didn't look at her, staring back out the window. She sighed. "I want to help you, Percy." He laughed bitterly.
"No you don't, not really. You just think, mistakenly I might add, that I might be salvageable as a normal human being. I hate to break it to you, but I'm not. Worth saving, I mean. Don't waste your energy."
He didn't even see her hand move. One moment he was looking out the window and the next his cheek stung and tears had formed in his eyes. He looked at Penny incredulously. She was livid.
"Don't you dare say that about yourself Percy. You are too worth it. You might not believe me now, but you will soon, you can count on that." He snorted.
"Well.you always do like a challenge." She smiled at him.
"Yes, but only when there's a remote chance that it might work, which is why I haven't given up on my love-life." He mocked gaped at her.
"Love life? Who's the lucky bastard? Who do I have to go beat to a pulp." Penn laughed.
"First of all, if anything, she's a lucky witch and she can take you out in three seconds flat." He shrugged.
"I'm not surprised. Most of the female population can kick my.did you say witch?"
"Um." she blushed. "Yeah. I did. That's not a problem, is it?" He shook his head.
"No, I'm just didn't know you swung my way."
"Yeah."
"At least you're not as obvious about it as I am. I'm practically flaming, I must admit. I'm surprised nobody's noticed yet, and kind of grateful. I get ostracized enough as it is." His mood darkened considerably and the wind shook the windowpanes.
"That's it, isn't it? You're depressed because you have to hide who you are." He nodded.
"That's part of it at least. The major part is that nobody actually cared enough to look closer. It gets terribly lonely up on my high horse, but somebody moved my ladder and I'm scared to fly."
"It's still no reason to cut yourself." He sighed again.
"It is if it's been happening since you were out of nappies. When we were in the safe houses I had to care for the twins and they hated me for it. They've spent the rest of their lives tormenting me. Bill and Charlie had their friends and were off at Hogwarts. Ron was just a baby, and attached himself to the twins, Charlie, and Bill before I could blink. He's never even given me a chance, just took the twins' word for everything." He paused for a moment. "Of all of them I'm closest to Ginny. She's young enough so that she isn't as annoying as Ron or the twins and she's the only sister and the baby so everybody loves her." He laughed softly. "I'm her 'Perthy'. Then there's Bwill, Trwally, Freb, Goge, and Won. She was a cute baby." She smiled at him. There was some hope if he felt that he loved his sister and she loved him back. If there was somebody besides herself. He looked at her from the corner of his eye.
"Say.Penny?"
"Yes Percy?" She asked wearily. She didn't like that gleam in his eye.
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
"You're not setting me up with Ginny."
"Oh, Heaven's no. She's only 11. And she's my sister.I never want to hear about my sister in any way related to relationships, sex or romance. I'd be forced to tell Mum, and that would cause more bad than good, I'm afraid." She laughed, but didn't answer. "Oh c'mon!" He pleaded pealing his orange, "I told you bout me, now it's your turn.I'll give you some orange." He offered, waving the indicated fruit under her nose.
"Oh, alright. But only to stop you from asking. Her name is Betty Krebopple. You remember her, the Hufflepuff prefect?" He frowned, thinking hard.
"Oh yes, I remember her. Shorter, short curly hair, a rather good natured face, and she's always smiling too, isn't she." Penny blushed. "I wonder why." He deadpanned. She hung her head.
"Oh, shut it Percy." He laughed.
"Oh, Penny. You know I'm only teasing you because I'm happy for you." She nodded. "So what was this favor you were asking about?" Penny bit her lip.
"Well, you know my family's opinion of homosexuals." Percy nodded.
"The reason why I never visit."
"Exactly. Well, you know I can never let them find out, at least until I graduate. Betty has been a blessing for not pushing to tell others or show affection in public. Then she found out that her brother, the big scary one, is homophobic."
"Joy."
"Yes, I know. So in order to cement our cover as just friends, we decided to see if one of us could 'date' a guy. I immediately thought of you. You're my best friend Percy. There's nobody else I trust." Percy sighed and ate another piece of orange.
"Alright. It'll probably be the only way I get any sort of relationship in this school, and you're not bad for a girl." She glared at him and he laughed, offering her an orange slice.
"Truce?"
"Truce." She ate the orange. "I can't thank you enough Percy." He waved it off."
"You're my only friend Penny. It's not as if I have the people to spread my good will around to. You get it all." Penny laughed.
"Thank you Percy." He finished his breakfast and stood, turning to face her. He grabbed her hands and held them up and away from her.
"So we're a 'couple' now?" she asked.
"Yes. What we're a couple of, I'm not sure but." Penny laughed.
"Twit."
"Thank you." She smiled at him. Then her smile fell.
"You realize we're probably going to have to hold hands and kiss in public." Percy nodded slowly.
"True, however, we can put that off for as long as possible. I'm not the type of person to advertise anything other than the badge I wear, so I'm not likely to be seen in with any sort of stuff like that. We can be together and pretend not to be." Penny blinked.
"So we're pretending to be together while pretending we're not?"
"Exactly."
"Percy, that's confusing."
"I know. It's more believable that way." She nodded.
"I see what you mean. We'll still have to hold hands and kiss eventually. What's the point of hiding this if it never gets public?" He nodded. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, close to the corner of her mouth. There came a gasp from the doorway.
"Ginny!!"
"You were kissing a girl Percy!" Percy backed away from Penny quickly, his face red. "I thought you didn't like girls." Percy, who had opened his mouth to talk froze, then closed his mouth for a moment before going on.
"Come here Gin. Close the door." She did and then sat down on the desk next to Penny. "How did you know I don't like girls?" He asked she giggled.
"That's easy. You don't act like a guy who has girls on his mind all the time, Perc. And when I was showing you my Teenwitch magazine, you turned red when they showed the pictures of those sports boys." She winked at Penny. "He likes muscles." Penny giggled as Percy blushed harder, but said,
"She knows already Gin, but that's not the point. We need your help." Ginny nodded.
"Sure. What do you need?" Penny took over.
"You see Gin, I'm gay as well. I have a girlfriend, but I can't risk having my family find out. It wouldn't be pretty. To help prevent that, Percy here agreed to pretend to be my boyfriend, but to make it believable we decided to act as if we're hiding a relationship. This is where you come in." Ginny nodded and Percy explained.
"We know we need to somehow publicize this, and that's your job. Act like you saw something today, like us kissing, but don't tell anyone. Later in the year tell somebody, like Ron. Don't tell the twins."
"Why?"
"I don't want them to be the "first" to know. Can you do that for us, Gin."
"Definitely, Perce. On one condition." Percy looked at her puzzled.
"What is it?"
"That you won't sacrifice your own happiness for this." Percy blinked at her.
'My happiness,' he thought, 'what happiness?'
"I won't." He said out loud.
//End flashback//
TBC.
More will be up shortly. Like, within two days.
I was, am, and will always be, Immortaljedi
//Flashback - Middle of Year 6//
Percy entered the Great Hall slowly and with much trepidation. He didn't want to face the crowds today; his brothers or the Slytherins. He placed his books at the far end of the Gryffindor table, far away from everybody. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his brothers making their way towards him, Lee tagging along, with barely concealed grins on their faces. Without even bothering to sit he grabbed some fruit, picked up his books and made his way out of the Hall, leaving the twins in the dust. Little known to him he was being followed by a fellow prefect. Penelope Clearwater followed Percy Weasley away from the masses.
Unaware that he was being followed Percy entered an abandoned classroom. There was some old dusty furniture; an abandoned teacher's desk, some student desks, some club chairs with worn down material or random springs, and old couch from the Ravenclaw common room in the corner, and some blankets folded in the corner. Percy crossed the room to the teacher's desk. It was his favorite perch, as it was a makeshift window seat. He put his books down and placed his breakfast on them. An orange, an apple, and a banana. Delicious. He paused when he saw how the fruit lay and snorted to himself.
"Percival Alexander Weasley, you have a dirty mind." Of course, the first to be eaten was the banana. "To rid yourself of slightly incriminating evidence." He said around a mouthful in a very un-Percy-like way. He giggled to himself, suddenly feeling very euphoric. 'Drunk on bananas and dirty imagry,' he thought, sending himself into another fit of giggles. He was just putting the empty peel down when he heard the door creak open. He froze. Students weren't allowed in empty classrooms and if he was cought.
A blond head poked into the room, followed by a robe clad female body, student sized. Penelope Clearwater.Percy's only real friend, his best friend. He sighed.
"C'mon in, Penny. Close the door, will you." She did and walked over to him, pushing herself up onto the desk with him. He polished the apple on his sleeve and took a bite. She waited. He chewed. "Well? What is it?"
"Are you alright Percy?" Percy sighed and took another bite of his apple, refusing to answer. She waited. He took another bite. She 'looked' at him. He noticed, apple half-way back to his mouth.
"What?"
"You didn't answer me."
"You're right. I didn't." She glared at him, then a glint appeared in her eye.
"If you don't tell, I'll tell your mum that something's bothering you and you wont tell, but I'm really worried it has something to do with a girl." He looked at her, frightened.
"You wouldn't."
"I would. You know I would." He sighed.
"You would. Damn, if Mum thinks I'm having Girl-Trouble, she'll never stop trying to set me up with girls. It'd just break her heart that I'd never go for them."
"Not even if she was your type?" He just raised an eyebrow at her.
"Not even if she was just like you." She raised an eyebrow.
"oh.so I'm your type then?"
"Nah."
"What is your type?"
"Dark hair, dark eyes, muscular, tall.male.you should know that Penn. I told you last year." She blinked at him.
"Percy.you told me you were bi, not gay? That's changed?" He thought for a moment mockingly.
"Yep." He said and took a bite of his apple. He looked over at her suddenly. "you don't mind, do you?" She shook her head.
"No, I think it's great." He took a bit of his apple and raised an eyebrow to the floor. "That means when I ask this favor of you, you won't try to hit on me anyway." He paused for a second then continued chewing.
"What favor?"
"Nuh-uh. Not until you tell me what's wrong." He sighed.
"Nothing's wrong."
"They why did you leave like that before." He hung his head.
"I just couldn't face the crowd yet today. The twins coming at me like a muggle smart bomb didn't give me reason to stay, either." His tone was bitter and she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, pulling back sharply when he hissed.
"Percy? What happened?" He put the now finished apple on the desk next to his books and gently pulled back his robes, showing where the bandage had bled through his white shirt.
"Shite," he muttered and conjured more bandages. He quickly undid his tie and shirt, gently pulling the white cotton away from the open wound. Using his previous bandage he wiped away all the blood he could before reapplying the new one. Penny took over then, wrapping his shoulder for him as he turned the old bandages into dust. With another spell he had the blood cleaned off his shirt and was shrugging it back on when Penny stopped him.
"Percy.what was that?"
"Nothing. It was nothing."
"Percy-"
"It was nothing! Just leave it be." Penelope set her jaw.
"No I won't, Percy. I've seen cuts like those before, on one of my muggle friends. She committed suicide late last year. I don't want the same to happen to you." Percy didn't look at her, staring back out the window. She sighed. "I want to help you, Percy." He laughed bitterly.
"No you don't, not really. You just think, mistakenly I might add, that I might be salvageable as a normal human being. I hate to break it to you, but I'm not. Worth saving, I mean. Don't waste your energy."
He didn't even see her hand move. One moment he was looking out the window and the next his cheek stung and tears had formed in his eyes. He looked at Penny incredulously. She was livid.
"Don't you dare say that about yourself Percy. You are too worth it. You might not believe me now, but you will soon, you can count on that." He snorted.
"Well.you always do like a challenge." She smiled at him.
"Yes, but only when there's a remote chance that it might work, which is why I haven't given up on my love-life." He mocked gaped at her.
"Love life? Who's the lucky bastard? Who do I have to go beat to a pulp." Penn laughed.
"First of all, if anything, she's a lucky witch and she can take you out in three seconds flat." He shrugged.
"I'm not surprised. Most of the female population can kick my.did you say witch?"
"Um." she blushed. "Yeah. I did. That's not a problem, is it?" He shook his head.
"No, I'm just didn't know you swung my way."
"Yeah."
"At least you're not as obvious about it as I am. I'm practically flaming, I must admit. I'm surprised nobody's noticed yet, and kind of grateful. I get ostracized enough as it is." His mood darkened considerably and the wind shook the windowpanes.
"That's it, isn't it? You're depressed because you have to hide who you are." He nodded.
"That's part of it at least. The major part is that nobody actually cared enough to look closer. It gets terribly lonely up on my high horse, but somebody moved my ladder and I'm scared to fly."
"It's still no reason to cut yourself." He sighed again.
"It is if it's been happening since you were out of nappies. When we were in the safe houses I had to care for the twins and they hated me for it. They've spent the rest of their lives tormenting me. Bill and Charlie had their friends and were off at Hogwarts. Ron was just a baby, and attached himself to the twins, Charlie, and Bill before I could blink. He's never even given me a chance, just took the twins' word for everything." He paused for a moment. "Of all of them I'm closest to Ginny. She's young enough so that she isn't as annoying as Ron or the twins and she's the only sister and the baby so everybody loves her." He laughed softly. "I'm her 'Perthy'. Then there's Bwill, Trwally, Freb, Goge, and Won. She was a cute baby." She smiled at him. There was some hope if he felt that he loved his sister and she loved him back. If there was somebody besides herself. He looked at her from the corner of his eye.
"Say.Penny?"
"Yes Percy?" She asked wearily. She didn't like that gleam in his eye.
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
"You're not setting me up with Ginny."
"Oh, Heaven's no. She's only 11. And she's my sister.I never want to hear about my sister in any way related to relationships, sex or romance. I'd be forced to tell Mum, and that would cause more bad than good, I'm afraid." She laughed, but didn't answer. "Oh c'mon!" He pleaded pealing his orange, "I told you bout me, now it's your turn.I'll give you some orange." He offered, waving the indicated fruit under her nose.
"Oh, alright. But only to stop you from asking. Her name is Betty Krebopple. You remember her, the Hufflepuff prefect?" He frowned, thinking hard.
"Oh yes, I remember her. Shorter, short curly hair, a rather good natured face, and she's always smiling too, isn't she." Penny blushed. "I wonder why." He deadpanned. She hung her head.
"Oh, shut it Percy." He laughed.
"Oh, Penny. You know I'm only teasing you because I'm happy for you." She nodded. "So what was this favor you were asking about?" Penny bit her lip.
"Well, you know my family's opinion of homosexuals." Percy nodded.
"The reason why I never visit."
"Exactly. Well, you know I can never let them find out, at least until I graduate. Betty has been a blessing for not pushing to tell others or show affection in public. Then she found out that her brother, the big scary one, is homophobic."
"Joy."
"Yes, I know. So in order to cement our cover as just friends, we decided to see if one of us could 'date' a guy. I immediately thought of you. You're my best friend Percy. There's nobody else I trust." Percy sighed and ate another piece of orange.
"Alright. It'll probably be the only way I get any sort of relationship in this school, and you're not bad for a girl." She glared at him and he laughed, offering her an orange slice.
"Truce?"
"Truce." She ate the orange. "I can't thank you enough Percy." He waved it off."
"You're my only friend Penny. It's not as if I have the people to spread my good will around to. You get it all." Penny laughed.
"Thank you Percy." He finished his breakfast and stood, turning to face her. He grabbed her hands and held them up and away from her.
"So we're a 'couple' now?" she asked.
"Yes. What we're a couple of, I'm not sure but." Penny laughed.
"Twit."
"Thank you." She smiled at him. Then her smile fell.
"You realize we're probably going to have to hold hands and kiss in public." Percy nodded slowly.
"True, however, we can put that off for as long as possible. I'm not the type of person to advertise anything other than the badge I wear, so I'm not likely to be seen in with any sort of stuff like that. We can be together and pretend not to be." Penny blinked.
"So we're pretending to be together while pretending we're not?"
"Exactly."
"Percy, that's confusing."
"I know. It's more believable that way." She nodded.
"I see what you mean. We'll still have to hold hands and kiss eventually. What's the point of hiding this if it never gets public?" He nodded. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, close to the corner of her mouth. There came a gasp from the doorway.
"Ginny!!"
"You were kissing a girl Percy!" Percy backed away from Penny quickly, his face red. "I thought you didn't like girls." Percy, who had opened his mouth to talk froze, then closed his mouth for a moment before going on.
"Come here Gin. Close the door." She did and then sat down on the desk next to Penny. "How did you know I don't like girls?" He asked she giggled.
"That's easy. You don't act like a guy who has girls on his mind all the time, Perc. And when I was showing you my Teenwitch magazine, you turned red when they showed the pictures of those sports boys." She winked at Penny. "He likes muscles." Penny giggled as Percy blushed harder, but said,
"She knows already Gin, but that's not the point. We need your help." Ginny nodded.
"Sure. What do you need?" Penny took over.
"You see Gin, I'm gay as well. I have a girlfriend, but I can't risk having my family find out. It wouldn't be pretty. To help prevent that, Percy here agreed to pretend to be my boyfriend, but to make it believable we decided to act as if we're hiding a relationship. This is where you come in." Ginny nodded and Percy explained.
"We know we need to somehow publicize this, and that's your job. Act like you saw something today, like us kissing, but don't tell anyone. Later in the year tell somebody, like Ron. Don't tell the twins."
"Why?"
"I don't want them to be the "first" to know. Can you do that for us, Gin."
"Definitely, Perce. On one condition." Percy looked at her puzzled.
"What is it?"
"That you won't sacrifice your own happiness for this." Percy blinked at her.
'My happiness,' he thought, 'what happiness?'
"I won't." He said out loud.
//End flashback//
TBC.
More will be up shortly. Like, within two days.
I was, am, and will always be, Immortaljedi