"Unsaid"
by MmeFleiss
Rating: K+ for character death
Disclaimer: Not mine even if I change my initials to JKR.
Note: Written because sectumsempra is a Percy fangirl and requested this. :) Thanks to nelliedarlin for the beta.
Percy supposes he shouldn't feel at all surprised at seeing that his mother had left his room untouched since he left home all those years ago: from the faded teddy bear in the corner with the frayed red bow which he has never got round to throwing away, to the framed Head Boy badge above his writing table, shining with what sunlight manages to penetrate the grimy windowpanes. Unlike the rest of the house, it's the one place where time seems to stand still; a memorial to that long-lost youth he barely recognizes.
With uncharacteristic slowness, he steps inside the doorway and sits down on the floral duvet he'd hated but hadn't had the heart to tell his mum. He ignores the squeals of long-unused springs as he reaches for the folded note on the bedside table, the parchment rough beneath his fingertips as he smoothes away the well-worn creases on his lap.
The combination of faded ink and tearstains blotting the page make it nigh unreadable, but he wonders how often his mother had sat on this exact same spot anyway and made herself reread those angry, ill-thought-out words.
Percy pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to recall that feeling of never quite belonging; the nights he stayed awake in bed and listened to his siblings' whispers and guffaws on the opposite side of the too-thin walls, lying alone in the dark because they never thought to invite him. But the sentiment eludes him, slipping past his fingers as easily as mist.
Even murmuring under his breath the long-memorized reasons, numbered and footnoted on the parchment before him, elicits nothing more than a soft sigh. Because they are no longer real in the same way that war is real. Or houses that ceases to be filled with voices and laughter. Or death.
There is no triumph in knowing the he alone had the foresight to consider his continuing survival instead of dying for a losing cause.
Percy stands up and dusts the back of his robes, sending motes of dust swirling around him in the fading light. He then takes a final look around before flicking his wand in an upward arc, hoping to seal away the tattered remains of his emotions along with the last relics of his childhood.
