Title: Sight
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or an of the characters so sue me not for I have little except for this mind in my head.
Pairings: Mild Percy, Fred and George Weasley
Author's Note: Fiddling around.
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"Well, no one's going to mistake you for one of us now."
"They're…kinda becoming?"
"Haha, see, toldya not to read so much."
"Yea, all you did was wreck your eyes!"
The redhead scrunches up his nose and then is forced to push his glasses back up. The action is greeted by laughter. And already he hates the frames that set him even further apart from his brothers. Oh, he would dash them across the table if he didn't need them. Them being his glasses, not his brothers.
The twins would pinch them, eager to see how he'd react, hoping he'd stumble about or resort to other funny antics. At first it wasn't so bad. A little blurring around the edges but fine enough. As long as he could still make out the giddy pair and looming walls.
Later his sight deteriorated. A combination of dependency on the lenses to clear things up for him and late nights burrowed in books. So that one day when a cheerful, freckled hand plucked his glasses the world splintered before his eyes. An indistinct mass of color and double images swirling together. Arms outstretched, as he stood there, frozen and helpless.
I can't see.
And he spent half the day howling for their return, face flushed and voice high. Percy doesn't cry.
Fingers clenched onto something, anything, knuckles white as if he can hold himself to the tidy world he knows surrounds him.
Taunts and light taps on the shoulder, and isn't it grand, that the old bookworm is joining in for once?
Wiry frame stiff as he privately wishes Mum and Dad were home but he's too big to say that aloud and he has no power… Stinging scrapes on his knees because he keeps stumbling, tripping as he follows their voices but they sound just a like and they're everywhere. In front, behind, to the side, above, below and in between. Percy doesn't like this game.
Hands curling into small, tired fists as he demands and demands and demands but they don't get it, can't get it.
To them he's always annoyed, on edge and whiney. And he never wants to play, too busy, not interested and they just want to be the center of his attention for once. They've never been able to read him. There's too much space in between. Always in between.
This gets his attention though, and holds it. It may not be like the content, pleased gaze pages filled with scribbles of text receive but it's something and he's theirs.
It's revenge and release and finally getting what they think they want but it isn't really. Instead it's something smaller and weaker. A taste of the truth that leaves their mouths bitter for hours later. They're happy now and that's all that matters when you're young.
Small hands grab onto his arms and tug him around. Spinning, spinning with off-tuned voices shouting, singing about rings and posies and he's too dizzy to follow.
A pile of three boys, all mildly nauseous, freckled and red, two grinning, pleased with a job well done, and one grumpy despite being included for once.
Fin