Snapshots and Thundersnow
Chapter 2: The Ice Mage
"Perhaps you should try this one. Pine and dragon heartstring, fourteen inches. Quite rigid. Go on, give it a wave... well well... suddenly a bit chilly... but with that wand... no surprise at all..."
Well, that was that then.
Couldn't Perfect Percy do anything right?
He stalked about his flat, wishing he could stomp around and throw things but not caring to draw attention to himself. Damn. Damn, damn, damn.
He was back. He Who Must Not Be Named. Well, yes. Percy had known that for a year now. Really. The fight hadn't been about... him... at all! A side issue. A catalyst, maybe, though even that was stretching his importance.
No... the issue had been Percy's so-called family. Yes, he'd seen the possibility that Fudge had given him the promotion in hopes of planting a spy in the middle of Dumbledore's circle. He'd even expected that he might have to leave to get out of said spying. But not the way it had happened... couldn't they even pretend to be happy for him? Just for a few moments? Of course not.
The moment he'd announced his promotion, they'd started looking at him as if he'd already betrayed them. He might as well have walked in and declared his loyalty to the Death Eaters. Somewhere under their stares he had realized they were waiting for this, just waiting... for him to confirm their suspicions...
That was what had set him off. And once he'd gotten started, good lord it was hard to stop. But stop he had. Finally. And he might've calmed down and apologized for the horrid things he'd said, too. He'd tried. He'd stood there, taking deep breaths, glanced around with a bit of shame before speaking.
The glance had completely changed the words coming out of his mouth. If only he hadn't looked... it was so clearly there. The follow-up to his realization not so many years ago, when he was still at Hogwarts, when the world still seemed to simple. It wasn't just that his family didn't need him anymore.
They hated him.
That was when he had screamed that he was leaving. And what was there to do after that? A few attempts were made to bring him back into the fold—Mum sent him his Christmas jumper as if nothing had happened—but how could he dare accept? Why torture them with his presence any further? He'd rejected everything. And to all outward appearances, he'd made himself into Fudge's perfect little sycophant. He'd locked his doubts away, knowing something was very long but not allowing himself to see it. He had only one concern.
Make them hate me more. Make them stop trying. Let them forget me and get on with their lives.
"Dammit!"
There had only been one problem with his plan. He Who Must Not Be Named had returned in full force now, and Percy had no bloody idea what he was meant to do about it. Maybe he should've found a way to drive his family further off without calling Harry and Dumbledore lunatics.
He was not going to go crawling back begging forgiveness. Even if they could pretend... even though he'd know they were pretending...
"It would break me," he whispered to the empty room. He could not accept their forgiveness any more than they could give it... he'd hurt them too badly, he missed them too much.
He had one thing left. His secret.
The secret he had kept so mum wouldn't worry for him. She had so much to worry about already. She shouldn't have to worry about him too... but that had been before. Did she hate him yet? Did she hate him as the others did?
It didn't matter.
Percy stared at himself in the mirror. His hair was still Weasley red, he would never escape that. His eyes—a brown so light they appeared gold—were filled with a bitterness that had not been there a year ago. He was paler, thinner, looked so very tired...
He had his secret.
"That's all that matters," he told his reflection, wondering just what it said about his sanity that he was now talking to mirrors. His hand closed around the crystal he kept in his pocket. It was cold to the touch, despite the summer warmth that made it into the flat.
Percy was still an Ice Mage. And nobody but himself and Dumbledore—Dumbledore who knew everything, who had probably seen right through his act over the last year—knew about it.
He glanced at the mirror again, trying to decide what he could do with this realization. The light glinting off his glasses hid his eyes for a moment, and in that moment his face didn't seem like his own.
Yes. That was it! A simple disguise... but effective... enough to let him perhaps spend time with his 'family' members, unrecognized... the Order of the Phoenix? No, he didn't think so. His mother would recognize him even if no one else did. Too much family contact. He didn't want to see them, he just knew he would have to fight beside them.
Whatever Percy was, he was determined to fight He Who Must Not Be Named. At least the sin of denial was a sin he could atone for.
He couldn't stay in the Ministry. The Ministry sickened him. The Ministry that made rules, rules for the betterment of all wizards and Muggles... but that same Ministry had allowed He Who Must Not Be Named to grow strong. Percy had put such faith in their authority and their rules. It had gotten him nowhere.
"They weren't just wrong," he snarled. His reflection looked slightly frightening with that awful expression on his face. No, the Ministry hadn't just been wrong. Wrong was forgivable. Lying, abusing power, libel, slander... these things were inexcusable. How could anyone take the Ministry seriously when it didn't follow its own rules?
His eyes held his reflection's. "I'm through with rules." Those words seemed to echo through the flat like a gunshot. "I'm going to Hogwarts, and Perfect Percy is staying here."
A wave of his wand shattered the mirror into a million fragments. He'd get it replaced before moving out. He didn't worry about any repercussions for breaking it, despite what he was about to go and do—Muggle mirrors didn't give bad luck.
He had the distinct feeling he had been the only person to apply for the Defense Against the Dark Arts job... other than Snape, who didn't count. It wasn't a particularly hard guess to make. He'd spent the weeks since sending it in alternately studying books of curses, Dark creatures, defensive charms... and his own study material, which it would be important to keep up on.
He was absorbed in Advanced Ice Magic by I. C. Winns when the owl came.
The most powerful of elemental spells require not only the Elementalist's focus crystal, but the use of at least one rune with which to focus the spell. The Ice Mage must always remember that ice magicks are a complicated art, very different from the normal magicks, and require the utmost patience to learn.
The relevant runes for the Ice Mage include 'kohrie', the rune of ice, and 'taizel', a nature rune commonly associated with Elementalist Power. The most common way for an Elementalist to activate the required runes as a focus is to trace them in the air with his wand, though some Elementalists prefer to carry material representations of the runes, in order to save time.
He knew all this, but he always read the introduction before attempting a new spell. It relaxed him, got him in the proper mood for—
A tapping at his window. He looked up and saw a large, rather distinguished-looking owl clutching a bit of parchment with... Percy squinted. The Hogwarts seal. He flicked his wand towards the window and it opened enough for the owl to hop inside, drop the letter, and fly off.
Percy smiled as he read. He'd known it.
Nobody believed Saburo Winters was his real name. That just proved that people were smarter than Percy sometimes gave them credit for. Not that he'd expected anyone to believe in an Ice Mage with a last name like Winters. ...Then again, the way the wizarding world worked...
In any case, nobody pressed him over his real name either. He slipped wraithlike through the streets, in the shimmering cloak of an Ice Mage, a Reflector Charm on his glasses, and people stayed out of his way. He ate and slept and studied, and waited for fall.
Of course he'd gotten the position. It was cursed, after all. Nobody in their right mind would apply. Percy, in his new thrill of reckless mutiny, was quite looking forward to it.