A/N: The credit of the Harry Potter plot and characters belongs solely to J.K. Rowling. I own nothing of it but my own words.

WARNING: Includes suicidal thoughts and PTSD. Please do not read if you feel as though it might trigger you in any way.

Ambitious: In Defense of Percy Weasley

Dear— My dear br— F—

To be entirely honest, I'm not sure why I'm doing this. It's not as though you'll ever read— I suppose I just wanted to apologize for my actions of the past two years. I know now that I was wrong and that my being wrong cost you your— cost me my— I've known for quite a while that I was wrong, but the shame of facing you and Mum and Dad and everyone else after everything I've done, the guilt of everything I've said, the fear of being rejected as I'd rejected them— all of you, the anger, the hurt, the stubbornness, and the pride — mostly the pride — kept me sequestered far, far away, so much so that it took the promise of a war-ending battle for me to work up the courage to face you lot again.

That's funny, isn't it? The courage to face you again, my family of lions. We grew up in a house of red and gold, of bravery and chivalry and everything in between, and I had never been able to find it in myself to admit that I didn't quite feel that I belonged.

At age eleven, I sat on a rickety stool in my second- (or third-) hand robes and begged the Hat not to put me in Slytherin. Do you know what it said in response? "That's the secret. The wand chooses the wizard, but the wizard chooses the House." And so the amused old Hat relented and with a "GRYFFINDOR!", I joined the ranks of my (for once) approving older brothers. (You were nine and had already far outshone me in magical talent. I was jealous.)

With time, I forgot the Sorting Hat's indecision, its musings, but the Hat, I'm sure, which had seen into the minds of thousands of students over the course of its many years, probably didn't. The vain part of me imagines it reflecting on what an interesting case I was, a child who had grown up idealizing valor but having such Slytherin-like determination. You see, when the Sorting Hat sees into one's mind, it sees their thoughts, memories, feelings, anything that affects their personality, which is everything. (I wonder what it thought when it saw—

So in my case, the Hat saw me, at age six, holding two-year-old Ron's hand walking down Diagon Alley as the family shopped for Bill's Hogwarts supplies. People snickered as we passed, eyeing our stained and patched clothes, the dirt on our faces, our unruly red hair. (You and George were four and giving them something much more entertaining to sneer at.) The Hat saw me start to understand what people thought of us. It saw me try to take great care of my possessions because I knew they'd be yours soon enough. It saw me, age five, take in a shaking rat with a missing toe. I reckon I did it because I understood what it was like to feel powerless for something that wasn't your fault, after seeing the disrespect Father— Dad got at work. It saw me, year after year, stare longingly through the store windows at something or other and know I'd never be able to have it. It saw me resolve to earn it, whatever it was, someday. (I should've learnt to be grateful for what I already had, but I've never been good at learning practical lessons, only theoretical.) The Hat saw me, time after time, struggle to stand out in a family of seven children. (You never had that problem.) It saw me try to show Mother— Mum some drawing I'd made, saw her distracted, "Mm, that's nice, Perce," while folding the fifth load of laundry and keeping an eye on you and George. It saw my desire to make Mum and Dad proud of me, one day, to see people stop and appreciate me, for once. (I understand now, the difference between attention and appreciation. How differently people interpret love. I saw it as glory. You saw it as fun.)

It's these moments, these desires, cares, and thoughts that define a person, that the Hat uses. Yes, my imaginary Sorting Hat thinks (worries? fears?), Percy Weasley would have done well in Slytherin. But at age eleven, I, still young and always, always loyal, looked up at Dad and Mum and Bill and Charlie, these Gryffindors, with such unbridled admiration, and thought, Why can't I be like them? The Hat decides the House of Courage may yet do me good. Sometimes it does not put people where they fit so much as where they'd like to.

At age thirteen, I signed up for every conceivably available elective and aced them all. When I told Mum at the station, she gave me such a warm pat on the head that it was almost worth it and said, "You're such a smart b- FRED AND GEORGE, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" (Please know, I don't blame you. I would give anything— Dad was too busy telling Charlie about this Muggle car he had just purchased and was thinking of, ahem, adjusting to even hear. (At a certain point, I stopped trying to tell them much at all.)

At age sixteen, a little gold badge tumbled out of the envelope along with his letter. It said 'Prefect', and Mother was so proud, she bought me my very owl, and — ever self-absorbed — I thought, Finally. That year, I bossed people around, and they actually listened, and I thought, This is what success feels like. That year, I got twelve O.W.L.s, but Mum was more worried about poor Harry, stuck in that awful home, and worried about Charlie, all the way in Romania, and baby Ginny, off to Hogwarts in just a few short months to really notice.

If I tried, I could almost believe that I didn't need my family's approval or attention. I hid Penny from everyone, and no one found out except Ginny. I withdrew within myself, found family in friends as pompous and self-important as I was. And do you know what I discovered? When I stopped trying to make myself heard, nobody noticed me at all. The eternal clamor of our house dropped from nine voices to eight, and no one so much as batted an eye. My little rebellion was outshone by a flying Ford Anglia, and I retreated to the shadows.

The only place that I could make myself heard was school, and I did. I led and accomplished and graduated with as much fanfare as I'd ever hoped for. And it wasn't enough. I need to be better, I thought, do something bigger. That will make me happy. I worked menial jobs under Crouch, my idol, because by then I'd learned the patience involved in rising to the top, and I was willing to wait for it, to kiss up to the right people, and to bide my time.

My time came faster than expected. So fast, in fact, that it made Dad suspicious. And for me, that was the breaking point. I'd spent my entire life searching and working and doing everything I could to earn the attention (the love) of my family, and they refused to believe it was earned? I'll never forget the look on their faces — on your face — when I left, but this was nothing, I told myself hotly, compared to what they did to me for years on end.

At age 21, ten years after I joined the red and gold ranks of every Weasley before me, I stumbled through that tunnel into the Room of Requirement, full of self-loathing and guilt and every-bloody-thing else, and I'll never forget the way you held out your hand to me, first to forgive me, after everything I'd done and all the pain I'd caused. I'm sure you knew even then that you were the deciding vote in my fate, that the family would look to you for guidance on whether I was actually worthy of being forgiven, my slate wiped clean. I was half sure you'd stuff me right back into that hole and send me careening back to the Hog's Head, and I would've deserved it too. I deserve worse than you could ever do to me, and you had every right to tell me to never show my face ever again. But you didn't. You shook my hand. And for that, I will never forgive you. You forgave me, and that was by far the worst mistake you ever made, because it cost us both everything.

You said, "You're joking, Perce!" with that characteristic stupid smile and mocking awe. You said, "You actually are joking, Perce. . . . I don't think I've heard you joke since you were —"

And that was it. You never even got to finish your sentence, all because I came back, and I distracted you, and you died. And that is unforgivable.

Did you ever think about how easy it would be? To die? How simple? How quick? One explosion, one spell, one last breath (or laugh, in your case), and it's all over. Did you ever wonder if maybe the world would be better without you in it? Spoiler alert: it isn't. But it might be without me. Just think, if I hadn't've come, if I had just gone with someone else, you might still be here. If I had died, you might still be around. Mum wouldn't be crying, her sobs echoing so the whole house can hear, clutching that stupid metal hand like it will somehow conjure you back to life. Dad wouldn't be staring off into space, a statue made of flesh. Bill wouldn't be pretending everything's fine, and Charlie would say something, and we might actually see George once in a while, and Ron would come home, and Ginny would stop shaking. And they look at me now, and I know. I know that it's my fault and I know that they know and I know that we will never be okay again and we never smile and we will never, ever laugh, because that was always your forte.

Fred, without you, who are we?

P.S. Twenty years later, I have my answer. Fred, without you, we are broken. We are guilt-ridden. We are constantly thinking of you. We laugh less. We reminisce. We spend hours, days stuck in the past, stuck in that awful battle. We cry, and some days those tracks seem to weather us away until there is nothing less. And we learn, learn to avoid those triggers and help each other through our personal hauntings, learn to never again allow such hate to seep into our society, detected but indifferent to it. We learn to hold ourselves and our government accountable. We learn to control our urges (rashness, ambition, pride). Yes, we are broken. We are hurt. We are mending.