DISCAILMER: You know what's mine and what's not.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story was inspired by an email I received from Joy: I don't believe all this Percy nonsense. He's not evil. He's ashamed of what happened last year and is pretending he's hunky dory with the Ministry so that he can spy and help his dad out. I refuse to believe he's evil.

Percy's Story

Percy Weasley slipped his horn-rimmed glasses off his nose and took a sip of stale tea attempting to warm up from the bitter cold that snuck through his very small office window. It was Christmas day, and he was sitting at the desk in his cramped office at the Ministry of Magic of all places. He pressed his eyes close and sighed before placing his glasses back on. As he did so, the fuzzy surrounding became crystal clear and the package on his desk came back into focus.

The hurried purple writing told him it was his Weasley Christmas sweater. Percy sighed. He knew it was bound to show up sooner or later, which is why he fled to his office at the Ministry of Magic for the holidays. He actually hoped the fights with his parents would make them hate him so much they'd forget about it, but deep down he knew they would never forget he was their son. So he decided to hide from the package. No one would expect him to be at the Ministry alone on Christmas, but Errol (the family owl) found him. He had an inkling that his mother insisted that Errol need not return until Percy himself accepted the package and the fact that Errol was very old and freezing did not help his bitterness.

Percy was extremely mad at his family, but not for the reasons they believed. Percy left the Burrow after the twins, Ron, and Ginny returned from Hogwarts; after Harry Potter stood face to face with the Dark Lord once again; after he was promoted by Cornelius Fudge, the Minister himself; and after he, Percy, decided that he would have to keep his family safe at all costs.

As soon as he came home with the news that Cornelius Fudge had promoted him to Junior Assistant to the Minister, everyone immediately thought he had turned away from the family; that he was so stuck-up and ambitious he didn't care about them or himself. This made Percy extremely furious and it made everything he planned to do easier. He fought back. He yelled and screamed and said every single hurtful thing he could think of so he could leave and be left alone. After the row with Arthur, he packed and left, hoping that no one would seek him out but knowing full well one of them would.

It was Molly who showed up at his front door in London after that, crying. He hated her for coming. He hated her for making him feel bad and pleading with him to come home; hated her for loving him after his despicable display. So he did the only thing he could think of and slammed the door in her face. He was so disgusted at himself after that, he realized that there was no turning back. It was too late to say sorry; too late to tell the family what he was planning to do. He knew if it was going to work, no one was to know about it and the less contact he had with the family, the less likely they'd get hurt.

Percy pressed his eyes close again. He had been so emotionally trained these past months, and putting on that fake cheery act for Cornelius Fudge made him want to vomit. There were plenty of times when he broke down in the privacy of his own home and told himself he couldn't do it any more, but he would look at the portrait of his family outside the Burrow - the picture of which he was absent - and remembered why photographic Percy was hiding behind the frame.

Percy stood up, took one sip of his now cold tea, and pulled on his heavy winter cloak. He grabbed his Weasley sweater still in its brown-paper packaging and walked out of his office, hoping he could still catch one of the Ministry owls to return the gift.

-Fin