To anyone following, sorry it took so long but the computer broke and I just got internet today. So of course my first priority was to add a chapter. Here it is.
"Damn Snape, a walk in eastern Europe my ass." Uttered aloud it sounds ridiculous. But seven days peddling down every type of road imaginable will put you in that frame of mind. Sure no one made me leave, but my destination was due entirely to the suggestion of our most esteemed potions master. "Mr. Weasley," he said. "Perhaps these past few months of deception and your double life has done more harm than good." These words, coming from a man who had faced a much harder and harsher reality than I, were puzzling to say the least.
When late in the evening he even suggested time off to find myself, I was thrown farther for a loop. "A vacation perhaps might help you; a visit to the quiet country side might be exactly what your looking for." Was he suggesting I go stay at my Mothers house? It is certain that the Burrow is quite far off the beaten path, but who in their right mind would suggest it as a place to collect yourself. He couldn't mean my mother's home, even he knew how uncertain my welcome there would be.
One off hand comment at a celebration dinner hosted by the Hogwarts faculty and off I go haring about throughout the continent with out any clear idea of where I'm going or what I am looking for. Well, perhaps I sat on the idea for a few weeks.
The first week after the defeat of Voldemort I expected to be awkward. After all, I had spent last few years alienating myself from my family. First distancing myself by choice. Later, realizing I had been the one mistaken, distancing and alienating myself out of necessity. I couldn't tell my family I had made a mistake, that I had realized the truth behind what Dumbledore and Harry were saying.
Oh yes, the Ministry of Magic publicly (if not tardily) announced that Voldemort had risen; the real question was were they doing anything about it? The ministry, I came to find, was laden with Voldemort sympathizers, if not out right Deatheaters. For Merlin's sake Lucius Malfoy was a department head!
In the end it turned out Cornelius Fudge, the pureblood bigoted Minister himself was a sympathizer. The majority of upper ministry officials being pureblood themselves, felt secure in their positions. More and more they became willing to let Malfoy, and others like him, push through regulations, cause delays, and generally muck about my once beloved Ministry to their hearts content while they stood by and dreamt of the glory days of the Ministry. The days of their grandfathers; ended by muggle-borns and blood mingling. I couldn't stand aside and watch that happen, because in the long run I might gain favor doing so, others would suffer.
I couldn't justify it, the victims wouldn't be just random muggles. It would be old classmates, perhaps their parents, half-blood families whose only crime would have been to love someone different, and first and foremost "Muggle loving fools." Like my Father and to tell the truth my entire family.
There was too much good I could do. I went to Dumbledore. The order barely realizing the need for a spy. Sure, they had a number of members serving some function at the Ministry, but they would never see what I was privy to being the Minister's assistant. I had changed sides but became more reserved and distant. The letters I had once sent Ginny instantly ceased. The mingling at the Ministry parties I was never terribly good at, but still attempted, came to a complete halt. I instead became the most eager and helpful employee the Ministry had ever seen. I built myself up behind a wall ,storing all I had gleaned and made camp.
The Ministry took the bait. They bought into my act. Everyone did; the ministry, my family, and eventually myself. I lost what little I knew about my self in that act.
I figured it would take time, adjusting to the changes in my family and them to the changes in me. I don't think they believed Dumbledore's story of what happened at first. Believed that I really had changed my stripes and become a team player. Gradually Mum and Dad came to believe I had helped, after all who would want to believe their child and uncaring fool. A person more concerned with position than with people.
But my sibling swere a different story entirely. They had seen my full Percy persona in school and beyond, while my parents had only seen Head Boy Percy. Prefect Percy who tutored and looked after the other students while at the same tin maintaining perfect marks. Sure, I cared about my family, but I think they knew I had secretly measured how much they cost me and my ambition. I did what I thought would redeem me but n actuality had been the most painful mistake of my life, I had all but disowned my family.
In that first week I had to own up to what I had done. I could have told a lie, told them I was spying the entire time. Dumbledore I'm sure would have let me have that small lie. Dumbledore, unknown to most people, does not overly concern himself with the full details when the end result is to his liking. Dumbledore lives firmly in the belief that the ends justify the means. This all being as it was, Dumbledore being the only one who truly knew when I had become a spy, would have let me have it. But I had already lived to many years of lies. I wasn't going to waste my fresh start. I was naïve enough to believe I could fold right back into the flock and arrogant enough to believe I had earned that right.
That first week after Voldemort was defeated I was still alienated and alone, but worse still I was lonely.
The second week after the defeat of Voldemort was when Bill asked a question that forever changes my life. I was over at my parents for a family dinner, the idea being that proximity would make our family "whole" again. I wasn't under any allusions, the only disjointed member of the family was me. Sure, everyone at the table wasn't completely up to date with each others lives, but I was the largest gap. The person no one knew what to say to, the person no one knew what was going on with. And I only made it worse.
"So...Percy when do you plan to go back to work?" Bill asked me, I assume only to find a safe topic. I answered my first and last question that night with the vaguest reply I had probable ever given a question. "I'm not."
I probably could have and should have explained. When I went to work for Dumbledore I had given up any chance I had ever had at the Ministry. No one there would trust me again. I had spend months proving to my employer and coworkers that I was no longer a Weasley. Reconciling with my family just hours after the Voldemorts defeat under cut any credibility I had earned. Everyone would surely think I had just been playing games , and that was if they were feeling generous, at worst the would believe that that my reasons for abandoning my family had to do with the dark lord himself. I had no family while he lived, and as soon as his death is confirmed I go crawling back to them? No, no one is to know the true role I played in his down fall. I didn't see my family the rest of that second week. I stayed home. Trying to figure out what to do with myself. I had mapped out my life at the age of sixteen, the different paths I could take. At the age of twenty-one I had burned all my bridges, those roads were closed to me now. I was resigned to do as those before me had done, those of us foolish enough to be drawn in before we realized our mistake. I would go to Dumbledore.
Dumbledore however, was no more help to me than I was to myself. He was already employing more than his fair share of ex-spies. I didn't have one saving grace, the way Snape had potions. I was moderately skilled in all the subjects taught at Hogwarts. Even if I was the current professors didn't deserve to be replaced be cause I hadn't covered my ass. Oh, I was encouraged to hang around the castle and help with repair the damage from the war and set up for the new term, but lie everywhere else I had been there was no place for me here.
I remember the exact moment I decided to leave. I was assisting Madame Pompfrey in restocking the medical supplies, under the direct supervision of Professor Snape, when I realized I wasn't the first to have my entire life dissipate before my eyes. Snape had been through this at least twice.. I wonder how he made it even now thru the first war and it's after math. He never came out will his role as a spy. He spent years as the Deatheater who got away.
He, if anyone, would understand the dead-end my life was becoming. He looked up then as if he had been waiting to see that final shoe drop. He said only two word before he turned and walked away. "Eastern Europe."
The third week wasn't even a full week. I took only long enough to settle my affairs, put my belongings in storage, and leave my notice with the Ministry. I had only to tell my parents and I could be off. I chickened out, my letter explaining should reach them when I am well on my way over the channel.