Author's Note: Am sooo sick of fighting the formatting here, it's unbelievable. I'll upload something and it'll look lovely, and then I'll pop back to have a look at it and it is all full of bizarre symbols. Grrrr. So, basically, if you want a nice, polite, un-pissed off Angel Interceptor, or if you want me to acknowledge your review, or you want to nag me about continuing quicker, then commenting over at my livejournal is probably a good idea: its on livejournal dot com and the username is sunsetmog - that should work.

~ Part Seven ~

The owl from his parents was no surprise; they invited him to Sunday lunch every couple of weeks. As usual, the invitation included Oliver, and for a moment, Percy bit back the tears. If he didn't constantly remind himself, his body was quite efficient at forgetting that Oliver was no longer a feature of Percy's life. Whenever he tried to sleep, he reached out for Oliver, the tears spilling when he remembered Oliver was far out of his reach. He'd been shocked by just what little things could set him off – a bourbon biscuit crumb which had to be Oliver's because only Oliver ever bought them – relishing the three-stage tactic when it came to eating them, top, cream, bottom. He'd cried for an hour before realising the crumb was in fact a rather large lump of grit. A note on the front of the fridge – buy more chocolate­ – which was so old that Oliver himself had attacked it with his wand, performing a sticking spell so that Percy would never miss it when he was writing his beautifully ordered, multi-coloured shopping lists. A beautifully ordered, multi-coloured shopping list had caused him to be an hour late for work that morning, sobbing as he remembered Oliver's amazed hysterics on finding it.

"Why do you use fourteen different coloured pens, Perce?"

"Because there are fourteen different aisles at the supermarket, Oliver." Percy had replied patiently, adding 'lentils' with a red pen.

"And this is so you don't miss anything and shock-horror have to go up an aisle twice?" this was followed by a choking noise which Oliver explained as a cough but was subsequently followed by tears of laughter escaping down Oliver's face. 

What was funniest, Percy privately acknowledged, was that he spent long arduous hours buying sensible things like barley and fresh lemons and sage, when he was perfectly well aware that he burnt or destroyed almost every thing he ever tried to cook. It was amazing he'd managed to survive this long – but that was down to his mum, Hogwarts, Penelope and then Oliver. He'd never been on his own before.

Percy closed his eyes, briefly massaging his temples as he sank down onto the sofa. His duvet was still there from that morning, because he hadn't been able to go into the bedroom since Oliver had left. He was surviving entirely on the clothes that had been drying over the heater whilst Oliver was in Iceland. Not that there had been much sleeping going on – quite a lot of moping and an awfully large amount of feeling sorry for himself and a bit of chocolate eating, but not much sleeping. It would explain the headache he'd been fighting for the last three days, and why he didn't remember much from the office. He'd been going in, that was for sure… he'd sat at his desk and stared at his in-tray for a bit, and had some coffee so he didn't fall asleep. Some people talked to him sometimes, but he wasn't sure if he'd bothered replying or not. They'd certainly given up in the end. Somebody had brought him a sandwich that lunchtime but he was buggered if he could remember who or what it was. Work had been discreetly slipped out of his in-tray and into someone else's (they thought he hadn't noticed that, but really, he couldn't bring himself to care). Even Lucy had asked him if there was anything she could do, which was tantamount to having his pain tattooed on his forehead, because Lucy's radar was a difficult thing to penetrate in any normal situation. He'd shaken his head, mumbling, "I'll be fine."

And fine he would be, if he could just concentrate on taking over the world rather than on a dirty-blonde, lithe, rather sexy Quidditch player who had just left him and destroyed what little security he had left. Well, 'left' perhaps wouldn't be the right word to use, Percy reasoned with himself. 'Pushed' perhaps, or 'dismissed'. Whichever word is actually most accurate is of little importance, as Percy is well aware that Oliver's leaving was precipitated by Percy asking him to.

His boss had taken him to one side and asked him if he wanted to take any holidays. He'd said no automatically, because he was saving his holidays up to take Oliver to lake Geneva in six months time as a surprise. He'd not linked Oliver not being there with the fact that there was no longer a necessity to save up his holidays, and hadn't realised his mistake until he'd returned home to his empty flat.

It was late, and no doubt his parents' owl had been tapping its feet on the window ledge for quite some time before Percy had let him in, the animal nipping him in irritation as he did so. He'd sat at his desk long after his colleagues had left for the evening, some passing his desk in a mixture of wonder and despair. Percy had for so long been utterly dependable, the man always chosen for extra work. For a long time, some of his workmates had been waiting eagerly for the day something broke him, but the reality of seeing him crumpled and unshaven, staring for hours at nothing had moved even the most jealous to a curious form of sympathy. The house elves had been cleaning around him that evening, muttering spurious comments between themselves as Percy stared on, oblivious. His stomach rumbled, an ominous reminder that the kitchen had been off-limits since the discovery of the rose and Oliver's favourite mug, broken. The last thing on his mind was the imminent confrontation with his family, but somewhere on the edge of his tired mind was the logical part of his brain, nudging him, muttering that the break-up would all have been for nothing if Percy didn't take the bull by the horns and tell the truth. He scribbled a hasty reply in his immaculate handwriting, accepting for himself. There was no mention of Oliver. Attaching the note, he bade Errol goodnight.

*

Sunday turned out to be a grim morning; the rain lashed against his windows, the sky rolled from grey to dark grey. Percy was doing the only thing he could think of to combat such a dark portent - he was ironing. He'd been ironing for hours, the table next to the fire covered in neat piles of ordered clothes. When the iron showed signs of cooling down, he waved his wand and began again, smoothing creases in all his pyjamas and revelling in the familiar steamy sizzle as he pressed one pair of underpants after another. He'd ironed his whole drawer of identical duck-egg blue shirts again, fearing that their prolonged respite in his wardrobe may have had a detrimental effect on their smoothness. Stopping a second to wipe a hand across his frazzled, freckled brow, Percy hazarded a guess as to just how long he'd been stood there. He ventured an approximate time of starting as about half past three that morning, but as the sky had remained dark it was of little relevance to look out of the window.

It was only a matter of time before he had to apparate to the Burrow. With a grim smile bordering on hysteria, Percy made his way to the bathroom.

*

"Hello, love," Molly was in the kitchen, waving her wand over a great bowl of dough. A wooden spoon danced through the mixture as she slowly added milk.

"Hello Mum." Percy sighed, rubbing a tired hand over his aching shoulder muscles. He had knots on knots and was desperate for a massage. At the moment however, that was the least of his worries.

"Your father is in the garden – him and the boys have been setting up some sort of aerial runway across the lawn; Harry assures me its perfectly safe but I always say if there's room for a safety net it can never do any harm…" Molly turned to smile at him, a smudge of flour on her nose. "Can you just pass me the butter, please?"

Percy glanced around the kitchen and caught sight of the butter in its earthenware dish on the table. Silently, he brought it across the kitchen, leaning back against the counter next to his mum.

"Thank you." Molly took a spoonful and added it to the pan on the stove, waving across a spatula to spread it across the base with her wand. "Is Oliver not with you today?"

"No." Percy took a deep breath, "Look Mum, there's something I wanted to talk to you about…"

"Hello son," Arthur came in through the back door, stamping the mud off his wellies on the back step. The rain had decided to hold off for an hour or two, and if Percy knew his family that usually meant that everyone headed outside for some fresh air. "I'm sure your mother's told you but we've got a runway going across the garden, you should go and have a look." There was a long, protracted yell from outside, followed by a splash and a thud. "It needs a little tweaking, perhaps," Arthur explained, hurriedly shutting the kitchen door to distract Mrs Weasley away from the sight of George knee deep in mud at the bottom of the rope runway.

"Not now, Arthur, I'm sure Percy knows better than to go and get himself all muddy and wet before dinner. Anyway, Percy was just saying he wanted to talk to me about something. What was it, dear?" Molly was spooning the dough into bun trays for Yorkshire puddings as the bowl hovered in mid air.

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you both."

Arthur narrowed his eyes, "Have you been working too hard again? He looks tired, doesn't he Molly, looks like he could do with getting home from the office earlier once in a while."

Molly looked her son up and down, "Your father's right, my dear, work isn't everything. You should relax a bit more, go out and enjoy yourself – you won't be young forever."

Percy sighed, "I'm not working too hard, Mum." It was like this every time he came home, 'Are you getting enough vegetables, when was the last time you did some exercise, are you taking regular breaks and getting enough chocolate'. "I've got to talk to you both about something important."

"Oh yes," Molly raised an eyebrow, nudging the oven door open. She slipped the Yorkshire puddings in under the chicken, and went back to the sink full of potatoes.

"It's about me. Me and women, and well, men." Percy blushed, and suddenly found the need to examine his fingernails in great detail as both Molly and Arthur turned to stare at him. "It's something that I've been meaning to talk to you about for a while now."

"Go on," Arthur said slowly, sitting down.

Percy closed his eyes, counted to three, and opened his mouth. "I'm gay."

Molly laughed, "Don't be silly, you're just saying that because the right woman hasn't come along."

"That's right son, we all get a bit desperate when it's been a while since we've been in a relationship."

"I don't want a woman," Percy explained quietly, fighting the urge to inform his parents he had been in a relationship, thank you very much; he may be anal and value order above all else, but that didn't necessarily mean that he was entirely incapable of finding a mate, "I don't find them attractive. I'm attracted to other men."

His mum blanched, and turned back to her potatoes, "Don't be ridiculous, Percy, I don't know why you're saying such things." Without bothering with the wand, she picked up the knife herself and began to peel one of the larger jerseys, her fingers trembling as she dug out an eye.

"What about Penelope?" his father asked, running his fingers through his unwieldy hair. "You were going out with her, weren't you?"

Percy nodded, trying to ignore the thumping suspicion that perhaps Oliver had been right all along. Families weren't put on this earth to know the ins and outs of their children's sex lives.

A bead of sweat was pearling on Arthur's upper lip, "Well? She didn't look like a man to me, or was that just something you weren't telling us?"

"Don't be so preposterous." Percy sighed, "We were good together, but I had to break it off with her because I knew I could never love her like… like…"

"Like a proper man would," his father ground out.

"Dad…"

"Don't you 'Dad' me; what sort of thing have I brought up?" Arthur's raised voice brought an abrupt end to the shouts from outside; a cacophony of voices stilled in an instant.

"Arthur!" Molly spun round from the sink, "Don't say such things. He's our son!"

"Well we certainly went wrong somewhere along the line, didn't we!" Arthur tugged at the collar of his jumper, loosening the top button on his shirt. "We must have done something to make him like this…"

"Dad… I'm not like this because of something you and Mum have done; it's just how I feel. I can't help my feelings."

"Feelings about what?" the kitchen door had swung open to reveal five curious, freckled faces, Ron, Ginny, Fred, George and a mud-spattered Harry.

"Your brother has had to tell us something," Molly was roughly drying her hands on the tea towel, the potatoes still half peeled in the sink, "Your brother was just telling us how he prefers men," she hiccupped, her eyes filling with tears, "about how he's a homosexual."

Five pairs of eyes unanimously turned towards Percy, who blushed unceremoniously, his fingers tracing the pattern on the tablecloth.

"You're a what?" Ron raised an eyebrow. Harry, wide-eyed, began to edge slowly out of the room, feeling suddenly very much out of place.

Percy blushed crimson. Oliver was most definitely one-hundred-percent right. No family member was ever, ever going to know anything about his sex life ever again.  "A homosexual." He muttered, forcing himself to meet Ron's amazed stare. I haven't got anything to be ashamed of, he repeated to himself. "I prefer men."

"To what?" Fred sneered, "It's not as if you get any action anyway, Percy. You're just swapping from nothing to nothing."

"Fred…" Percy held out his hand, "Don't be like that, I haven't changed, I'm just the same Percy I've always been."

"Get stuffed, it's bloody disgusting what you lot get up to."

"Shut up," Ginny hissed, staring wide-eyed at her mother, who was sobbing quietly in the corner, "Don't make it worse."

"I don't think it could be worse," George muttered gloomily, sinking down next to his father at the kitchen table, "What are people going to say about us now?"

"That you're all making a fuss about nothing?" Hermione shook her head, pulling out of her duffel coat and dropping her bag on the table. She'd obviously just arrived. "There's nothing changed about Percy, he's just the same man who came for dinner last Sunday, the same Percy who used to be head boy, the same Percy he's always been. Nothing has changed."

Percy shot her a grateful smile.

"A fuss about nothing?" Fred shook his head, "This isn't nothing, this is our brother admitting he's one of them; it's horrible."

"One of what?" Hermione raised her eyebrows, "One of the slug people? The androids? I thought better of you, Fred, thought you were a little more tolerant."

Ron bit his lip, glancing quickly from his mother, head in her hands next to the sink, to his father, fiddling with his collar whilst staring at the teapot. Hermione was going too far; his parents wouldn't stand for any criticism of their children in their house. "Come on Hermione, I'll carry your stuff upstairs," he said quickly, leaping across the room to shut his girlfriend up.

"Wha.., No Ron, I want to make them see sense! They're all being really stupid about this…"

Ron grabbed her by the elbow and frogmarched her out of the kitchen, hissing "Shut up!" at her. "This isn't the time or the place." He muttered, relaxing his grip a little.

"See what you've started?" Arthur stared across at his son, his eyes cold, "See what trouble you've caused by becoming a homosexual?"

"You don't become a homosexual, Dad, you are one." Percy was equally cool, but the muscle pulsing in his neck and his sweating palms gave him away, "It's not a career choice, it isn't something I choose to be. It's what I am, and you're just going to have to get used to it."

"Well I'm never going to get used to it," Fred muttered, his eyes narrow. "That's not something I'm ever going to accept, and you're just going to have to get used to that."

"Boys!" Molly sobbed, "Please… don't say anything you might regret."

"I think that's already been said, don't you?" George shook his head, staring sadly at his older brother, "I'm going upstairs to clean up. Are you coming, Fred?"

Fred didn't even look across to where Percy was standing, wide-eyed and angry, before storming out of the kitchen after his brother.

"I think that is a very good idea, boys." Arthur ran a tired hand through his hair, shaking his head in disgust at his son. "I hope you're pleased with yourself, Percy."

"I've done nothing wrong, Dad," Percy repeated, sighing, "This is just something you're going to have to get used to. It isn't going to change; I'm gay."

Arthur made a noise that sounded something like a strangled hiccup, and moved across to his wife, slipping an arm around her shaking shoulders. "You've upset your mother," he said quietly, his arm tightening around Molly, "That's unacceptable, Percy."

"I didn't mean to upset her." Percy said quietly, "I know that this is a shock for you, Mum, and I'm sorry. But I haven't done anything wrong. I can't help the way that I feel. I'm sorry if that is hard for you both to take in."

"What are the neighbours going to say?" Molly mumbled, fishing for a handkerchief from up her sleeve, "How am I going to face them?"

Percy could feel himself getting annoyed, and he wished Oliver were here to hold his hand. Well actually, he corrected himself; he wished Oliver were here to stand by him, to present a united front. But that wasn't going to happen, and Percy just had to accept it. He was on his own, and he'd done it so as not to continue lying to his family. So he wasn't bloody going to give up this easily; there had been too much at stake. "I suppose you'll face them in the same way you did when Fred and George handed out those buns that made all our friends' faces swell up," Percy told her, "or when Ron crashed his broom into Mrs Macgregor's delphiniums. Or when Ginny pulled up Mr Johnson's prize cabbages. You just get on with it. You say, that's my son, and I'm proud of him. I love him just the way he is." His voice was getting louder, and Molly was already glancing this way and that just in case anyone could hear him. "Mum," he lowered his voice, "If you love me at all, you're just going to have to accept this."

"Don't go issuing ultimatums to us, Percy," Arthur shook his head, "Who do you think you are?"

"Hush, Arthur." Molly shushed her husband.

"Your son." Percy began to pull on his coat again, trying to disguise the fact that his hands were blue and shaking. "I didn't mean to disappoint you," he said, quietly, "and Mum, I never meant to make you cry."

"Where are you going?" Molly asked, snivelling and wiping her eyes.

"Home." Percy said, and his eyes were bright and wet, "I think you need some time to get used to the idea of me being gay."

"When will we see you again?" Molly pulled away from her husband, trying to come to terms with her son's news. "Will you be alright?"

"I don't know." Percy was fumbling, doing up his buttons with trembling hands, "and again, I don't know." His eyes met his mother's, and for a brief second, he wished he'd never mentioned his sexuality, for now her eyes were guarded, and wet, and confused. And he'd been the one to do that… it hurt. "It took a lot for me to come here today, and to tell you… but you deserved to know. I couldn't keep on lying to you, it wouldn't be fair."

"Well… promise me you'll look after yourself, Percy," Molly was crying again, and this time, she pulled Percy to her, and he felt her breath against his cheek. "Take care of yourself, and make sure you're eating properly. You're too thin."

"I promise, Mum." Percy hugged her back, and he longed to be young again, to accept this hug as unconditional, as a symbol of his parents' love for him, but now he knew differently. He knew that this was a turning point in his life, and that from now on, nothing would be the same again.

"Aye," his father was staring at him, and his expression was stony, "Perhaps it is best if you go."

"Arthur…" Molly pulled away from her son and turned to her husband, "Don't let him leave like this; he's our son."

Arthur wouldn't meet Percy's eyes. "He's not the son I thought he was." He said quietly, turning away.

Something inside of Percy shattered, and the pain was more than he thought he could bear.

*

Two hours later, and Percy was curled up on his sofa, his hands clutching a half- full glass of whisky. Slowly, he tipped the liquid from side to side, watching as the whisky found its own level with every movement. He was cold, inside and out, and he knew he'd achieved nothing. He'd given up everything that he loved, and what had he got to show for it? A cold, dark flat and hands mottled from the cold. It hadn't turned out like he had expected it to; none of it had. When he imagined the day he told his parents, he imagined him and Oliver, together, and a peaceful acceptance of inevitability by his family. Perhaps even the casual 'we always knew, love'. But not for Percy, such accidental happiness. As Percy sank lower into the couch, he knew he was condemned to loneliness, and it broke his heart.