AU! Inspired by A Walk In The Sun. The hard science fiction part is taken from the short story, and I don't own it.
Points to remember: Lack of gravity on the moon allows a person to walk almost fifteen to twenty miles an hour.
Warnings: death.
Written for QLFC, Semi-Final.
Pride of Portree
Chaser 1
Prompts:
(word) burn
(word) universe
(word) clarify
Word Count: 2788/3000
Betas: Bea, S Lowelle, secretfanficlover, ViolaMoon, VanillaAshes, Cupcakeyy
Percy stared at the destruction. Only Merlin can save me now.
The insubstantial titanium struts had never been designed to take the force of a landing. Perhaps his cabin mates could have done better, but they were both dead. The walls had collapsed and shattered, spreading debris out into the vacuum and across the lunar surface. Before the ship had exploded, Percy had grabbed the first EVA jet-pack he had seen and plugged it into his suit.
When Selene had crashed, Percy had waited for only a moment before he had thrown himself out. He quickly had to accustom himself to the lack of gravity on the moon and stood by as he watched the ship burn to smithereens. If only he had brought his wand along, maybe he could have gotten to the ship's module in time, but he had given up his Wizarding heritage after the war… and now, it was too late.
He stood on the ash-grey surface and stared at his surroundings. It was completely barren, and there were craters as far as Percy's eyes could see. His eyes flicked up to the sunlight which had reflected off the remaining materials of his ship, and he fought with himself to stop the tears slowly welling up in his eyes from falling.
It took the twenty-eight-year-old a few minutes of breathing to compose himself before he tried to use his radio to contact Ground Control; but he only heard static. It didn't surprise him; Earth was over the horizon, and there were no other ships in cislunar space at the moment.
He knew he couldn't stay there and wait for death; he wouldn't go down without a fight. He thought of his training at the Space Centre and began taking inventory of his assets. His vacuum suit was in serviceable condition. The suit's solar arrays powered the life-support; he had air and water for as long as the sun continued to shine. He scavenged the burning wreckage and found plenty of unbroken food packs, and he quickly picked them up, grateful for his miraculous survival.
Then he needed to call for help. In that case, the nearest help was 384,400 kilometres away. To contact Ground Control, he needed to get to a mountain peak to let his radio catch a strong signal. As he checked his suit's solar arrays to make sure they were working properly and would allow him to walk comfortably, he let out a sigh of relief. With the solar arrays spread out behind him, he set off towards the mountains and thought, 'At least it can't get any worse.'
Ten minutes later, he reached the steep mountain and looked up at it. The low gravity helped him easily climb the rocky outcropping, and he was grateful he didn't have to do much. As he reached the ridgetop, adrenaline still coursing through his veins, Percy was rewarded with the sight of a tiny speck of blue in the distance.
He raised his radio higher and pressed the transmit button. "Hello? This is Astronaut Weasley from Selene. This is an emergency. Repeat, this is an emergency. Can anyone hear me?"
He removed his thumb from the button and waited, but he received only static in response. Percy felt dread pooling in his stomach. If only I hadn't given up my wand. He was about to press the button again when he heard something that caused his heart to lurch.
"— Ground Control — faint but clear. Hang on."
Percy felt a wave of relief wash over him, and he dropped to his knees as tears of hope streamed down his face. I'm going to live. I'm going to survive.
After five minutes, the Earth's rotation had taken the ground antenna out of range. After they had gotten over their startled disbelief that someone had managed to survive Selene's crash, Percy was informed of the only possible situation.
"- Too close to the sunset terminator. Sunset - in three days. Your solar cells need sunlight - your air fresh," said Ground Control. Percy nodded along, aware that there was no shelter on the moon for him to stay in.
Percy pressed the transmit button and asked, "How long will it take for you to rescue me?"
"Approximately, a month. You need - move with the sun. Stay - the sunlight."
Percy knew it was impossible for him to survive without air, so he agreed. Sliding down the mountain with ease, he began to lope over the lunar surface, a bubble of hope forming in his chest. With the low gravity aiding him, his run was more like a ballerina performing grand jetés on a stage. Nostalgia hit him hard as he was reminded of the time Fred and George had Charmed his shoes to force him to perform ballet in front of the entire Weasley family.
Fred and George would have loved to see this. Percy smiled forlornly as he imagined the twins cackling with delight at how graceful Percy was on the moon. Merlin, I wish they were here with me. They would have done something ridiculous to distract me from all of this.
Percy still couldn't believe where his life had brought him. At one point in time, he had been one of the Ministry's most valued employees, and now, he was living like a Muggle. He had chosen the Muggle world over his own; he hadn't thought he was deserving enough to live in a Wizarding World without Fred. His guilt hadn't assuaged as the years had passed, and now, he wondered whether he would see his family soon.
With the sun ahead of him and nothing but the blue crescent of the slowly rotating Earth off the horizon, Percy's attention wandered. Selene was supposed to be a mapping flight to scout sites for the future moon base. The spaceship had never been designed to land anywhere — and especially not on the moon. He had barely succeeded to survive on his own, and he swallowed the lump in his throat as he thought of his cabinmates' corpses burned to a crisp in the raging inferno.
When Fred had died during the Battle of Hogwarts, Percy had thought he had seen enough blood and carnage in his twenty-one years on Earth, but then, he had deserted his family and lost them a week later. And now, as he thought of his dead cabinmates, he could safely say he had seen enough death and destruction in his twenty-eight years in the universe.
The under-voltage alarm beeped. What's the problem? In the low gravity, walking had posed no problem for him. Percy glanced at the navigation aid and was stunned that he had walked a hundred kilometres already.
Time for a break. He sat down with his back to the crater-wall and pulled a snack-pack out of his small bag. The airtight quick-seal on the food pack was designed to mate to the matching port in the lower part of his faceplate. It would be important to keep the seal free of grit. He opened the pack into the suit, then pushed the food bar in, so he could turn his head and gnaw off as best as he could.
Percy looked west across the plains. The horizon was as grey as the decisions Percy had made in his short life in the universe. The moon was surprisingly flat; only one per cent of the surface had a slope of more than fifteen degrees. He sighed as he finished eating the bar, grimacing at the unpalatable taste. Charlie would have loved this. Charlie had always liked the outdoors or anything that had to do with nature — and there wasn't anything more 'outdoorsy' than the moon. Loneliness settled in his chest as he thought of his older brother, which inevitably led him to think of the family he had lost.
Tears formed in his eyes as thoughts of his mother rose in his mind. "Oh, how she cried when I told her I was leaving," he murmured, trying to alleviate his loneliness by talking out loud. The unearthly silence around him was too much for him to handle. "Still… she was so supportive of me… even when I hurt her so badly, she still encouraged me... Merlin, I'm a terrible, terrible son!"
Percy groaned and closed his eyes for a few moments to compose himself. He still had to keep moving, and he stretched his legs before he began to glide over the craters and hop over the little hills. He didn't feel tired, gracefully flying over the moon's surface, but when he looked at his readings, he realized he had been walking for almost nineteen hours. Percy stopped near a boulder and decided to rest once more.
The solar arrays had been devised to be separated from the suit for quick maintenance, but they had no means of powering the life-support if they were detached. Percy managed to prop the arrays up beside him and stretched the short cable out enough for him to lie down without disconnecting the power.
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but he was haunted by memories of the war — and his ship's wreckage. When he finally fell asleep, he dreamt of his family. They stood in the garden behind the Burrow and called out to him, pleading with him to come to them, but when Percy turned his head, he saw Fred standing on the other side of the garden with a mischievous smile on his face. His subconscious led him towards Fred to apologize like he had been dreaming of doing for the past seven years, but a soft beeping interrupted him before he could beg for forgiveness.
He woke up, disoriented, and looked around to find out what was wrong. Percy realized the sun was beginning to disappear over the horizon, and he shot to his feet, terrified he would be left behind. He picked up his carry-all and started running after the sun, unaware — or uncaring — of the blisters forming on his feet.
Percy had never been one to spend his time doing physical activities; he had preferred curling in front of the fireplace with a good book in his hands. When he had finished his Muggle postgraduate degree in Physics, he had seen a recruitment advertisement for astronaut training. He had spontaneously signed up, terrified of what he had just done. But he had passed the test with flying colours and had been selected for his first mission — a mission which he had mostly failed.
The days turned into weeks, and Percy learned to keep his hopes up by talking out loud to himself about what he would do once he got back to Earth. A week into his journey, the blisters on his feet burst and caused him to slow down, but he continued to glide over the lunar surface with the sun as his constant companion. His food supply was getting dangerously low, so he lowered his consumption even though he felt fatigued.
He began to amuse himself by narrating his journey to his family. "The terrain's got these boulders that are as big as Erumpents. It's difficult walking around here, guys. There's regolith here. Do you know what regolith is? It's a region of loose unconsolidated rock and dust that sits atop a layer of bedrock." His tone had become pompous once again, and he breathed a sigh of relief for finally feeling like himself. Fred and George would take the mickey out of me if they were here.
He continued explaining about the rocky hills, which were most likely ancient volcanic bubbles. And as he continued talking and jogging over the grey moonscape, his prolonged isolation began to make him hallucinate.
"Stop lagging," he called out over his shoulder at Charlie, who stuck his tongue out at him and crossed his eyes. "You're so immature, Charlie! Grow up already."
"Like you did? No, thanks!" Charlie called out before a dragon swooped in and swiped him up in his claw.
Percy yelled at the dragon to drop Charlie, but they had already flown far away. Percy groaned and muttered, "It's alright. Charlie knows how to handle dragons. He'll be fine."
"You okay, Perce?" Bill asked, wrapping his arm around Percy's shoulders, and Percy shrugged, not used to his brother's physical affection. "Tell me about that crater we just passed."
Unaware that it was just a hallucination, Percy beamed with delight at Bill's interest in gaining more knowledge from him. "Okay, so that was Copernicus. It was named after Nicolaus Copernicus, and it may have been created by debris from the breakup of the asteroid 495 Eulalia 800 million years ago! Do you know what its location is called?"
"No, but you're probably going to bore us with that fact, aren't you?" George teased, somersaulting overhead in an outrageously orange spacesuit. Fred followed right behind in a green spacesuit. "Whee! Look at us! Follow us, Weatherby!"
Percy scowled at him and yelled at them as they floated away, "Get down here, Fred! George! Don't make me come up there and get you!"
From behind, Percy heard Ron say, "You can't catch them — they're too fast for you."
Percy harrumphed and turned to talk to Bill, but he was off gallivanting over the horizon. "Bill! Come back! Don't you want to learn about the Oceanus Procellarum?"
"That's so boring, Perce!" Ginny yelled, flying on her broom above his head, and Percy scowled. "Oh, no, don't give me that look. It is boring."
"Is not!" Percy argued, jogging to keep up with his sister. "And how are you flying up there? There's no air!"
"We've got magic, son," his father said, suddenly appearing beside him, and Percy nodded slowly. "But don't you worry, Percy, you'll be with us soon."
Percy smiled at that and replied, "Really? I'd like that very much."
"We can't wait for you to join us, dear." His mother's voice sounded like heaven to him, and Percy whirled around to gaze adoringly at her.
"Mum… I missed you," he whispered as he floated towards her. "I missed you all so much."
"Soon, you'll be with all of us," his family chorused happily, and Percy beamed with happiness at the declaration.
He didn't realize he was following his family in the opposite direction of the sun. He didn't hear the soft beeping of his under-voltage alarm, too distracted by his family's presence. When he began to feel claustrophobic inside the spacesuit, he didn't understand his oxygen levels were depleting. He naively assumed it was because he had spent so many days in a spacesuit which itched and stank and chafed his skin nearly raw across his thighs. Percy knew he should have broken it in better, but no one could have predicted him to need to go jogging in it.
"It's almost time for you to come home, son," Molly whispered as Percy suddenly felt his throat begin to constrict. "It'll be alright, dear."
Shortage of breath was his first sign that something was wrong. Percy tried to breathe in, but the air just refused to go in. Panic accompanied the dizzying feeling to get low on the ground. He stumbled and fell onto his hands and knees. He wheezed as he reached his hand out for anything to help him, but he came up empty-handed.
Percy felt his family's presence near him and managed to tilt his head back to look at them. They all stood in a line, and for the first time since they had appeared on the moon, Percy saw them for what they truly were. Corpses.
"Is… it painful? Dying?" Percy managed to voice his question despite the constriction in his lungs.
In unison, his family smiled and chorused, "No, it's just like falling asleep."
"Are you… sure?" He wished for them to clarify it before he could join them.
Fred stepped away from the rest and walked closer to his prone body. He covered Percy's eyes with his hand, and Percy felt a strange thrumming in his head. "Go to sleep, Weatherby. We'll be there for you when you wake up."
And Percy closed his eyes and breathed his last.
When the rescue ship finally arrived and took Percy's body back to Earth, the Wizarding World mourned the loss of the last Weasley. They murmured about how terrible it was that the Weasleys had first lost their son, Fred, and then they had all died in a rogue Death Eater attack a month later. And now… the last of the Weasleys had passed away.
"At least he'll be with the rest of his family now," they said, shaking their heads solemnly.
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