I apologize for the long wait, but real life invaded my writing time throughout most of spring.
Disclaimer: I still only dream that I own. Anything in bold is quoted from the first book. All other words are mine.
Percy sighed and started scrubbing the next plate. After three years on his own, he had grown accustomed to managing his own time. He had thought nothing of going for a walk to sort his thoughts.
And with waking up seven years before the devastation of the Ministry, his thoughts had needed plenty of sorting. He had barely remembered to scribble out a note to leave with his brothers' school letters. Unfortunately, no one had found the things promptly.
As Percy returned in the mid-afternoon, his mother had had plenty of time to fume. At least Mum's lecture did not last near as long as the one over not obeying Father's demands that I turn down that promotion. She had started that one the moment he opened his flat door and continued on long after Percy had reached his limit and shut the door. Honestly! I was nineteen, not nine.
Percy ducked the plate under the rinse water, and placed it in the dish rack. And what are you now? he wondered, staring at his reflection in the soapy water. Twenty-one? Or fourteen?
"I deactivated the autodry charms on the towels, too."
"Yes, Mum," Percy responded dully as she placed a stack of dishtowels on the counter. He started on the next plate. At least Muggle drying made a simpler chore than Muggle scrubbing. "Don't take that tone with me!" his mother snapped. "I expected more from you!"
You always did, Percy thought bitterly. "Sorry, Mum," he replied as one of the twins--George, he thought--spoke up from the living room:
"Yeah, you expected him to be prefect!"
"Poor Percy, just fourteen..."
"No badge..."
"Unsuitable for a life of petty rule-breaking..."
"He's nothing."
"Be quiet you two!" Molly snapped. "Your brother works hard at school, and doesn't need your nonsense!"
"That's our Perce!" Fred cheered. "In trouble and still the favorite!"
Two pairs of footsteps scrambled up the stairs. Molly shook her head and walked out of the kitchen.
Bill walked in. "Don't let them get to you," he said. "They're just--"
"Disappointed I didn't give them a badge to target," Percy cut him off. "Calling me a failure now isn't as fun as parading the fact that I could never make them half as proud as when you made prefect."
"Proud!?"
"It's all they talked your fifth year," Percy replied, moving on to the glasses. "They thought that your having a school rank was the most brilliant thing they'd ever heard of."
"They broke into my trunk and coated my badge with gnome piss!"
"They're Fred and George, what do you expect?" Percy rinsed the first glass. What did I ever expect? He spotted a smear on the side of the glass and scrubbed over it again. "Trust me, while you were at school, they were impressed--especially if they had a chance to compare us." Percy rinsed the glass again. The smear had only spread. Percy frowned and held the glass up to the light. Why those...
Bill laughed. "Those two are something else, all right. But don't let them get to you. They have no idea how hard it is to make prefect. Or how it hurts not to receive something you wanted."
Sighing, Percy threw his right arm back so that the glass was inches away from Bill's nose. "You ever see a grease smear made solely out of tiny hexagons?" he asked.
"Percy, I understand if you'd rather not talk about it--"
Percy turned and looked into Bill's blue eyes. "I never said I was upset about not making prefect--I never even said that I didn't make prefect. The twins suggested I couldn't have, and everyone just agreed. Now would you please undo the jinx those hellions placed on this glass?"
Bill took the glass from Percy, tilting his head to the left. Bill's red hair brushed his shoulder. I wonder if he's decided to grow it into a ponytail yet...
"Granted, they should have let you answer Mum, but what else could you possibly have needed to 'sort your thoughts' about?" Bill handed the glass back to Percy. "It'll wash off once it spreads too thin."
"I'm impressed. I didn't think the twins were capable of a curse you couldn't break," Percy responded sarcastically. He set the glass behind the sink and grabbed another one from the soapy water.
Bill gave Percy a sour look. "Mum's upset enough with you. She specified no magic."
Percy cocked a finger at the cursed glass as he rinsed the second one. "The twins disobeyed that, not me." He set the second glass in the rack and moved on.
"Trust me, you're better off scrubbing."
Percy snorted.
"It shouldn't take that much more time," Bill replied cheerfully. "Percy, you're a clever and responsible kid. I'm sure you'd have been a terrific prefect. You're not making it says more about the quality of competition..."
Sighing, Percy tuned Bill out. Why did I miss this place?
By the time Percy returned from Ottery St. Catchpole, he wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed.
He had awakened around four, and had left the house by five. Percy had walked--and ran--toward town. He arrived well before the art shop opened, as unsettled and itching to draw as when he started.
The door to The Burrow opened before he reached it. "It's about time!" his mother raged. "What were you thinking? Taking off... Leaving us unaware--"
"I left a note!" Percy protested.
"Left a note? 'Sorting thoughts. Will take a while'. You call that leaving a note? Not a single word about where you were, what you'd be doing, or when you'd return! That was not a note!"
"Yes it was," Percy replied. "Though not good one, I guess," he added hastily at his Mum's expression. "I'm sorry. I'll do better next time."
"NEXT TIME?" Molly Weasley thundered. "YOU'RE PLANNING ON PULLING THIS AGAIN?" Percy winced at her volume. "YOU CAN'T JUST GO OFF TO--WHERE DID YOU GO?"
"Walking," Percy replied. "I went a little past town and back."
"TO TOWN! WHAT IF YOU'D BEEN HIT BY ONE OF THOSE MUGGLE LORRIES? HOW WOULD WE KNOW IF YOU WERE LAYING DEAD IN THE ROAD?"
"Family clock," Percy muttered, more than a little annoyed about being treated as a child. He looked over his mother's shoulder at the Prewitt heirloom. Percy could only see half its hands.
"WHAT POSSESSED YOU TO DO SUCH A THING?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Fred asked flying over from where the twins were practicing their Quidditch skills. Percy looked at him and stepped back. Windswept red hair framed a face of raw muscles and tendons. Fred slung his bat over his shoulder as empty sockets leered straight into Percy's eyes. "Perfect Percy wasn't good enough for prefect!"
"No..." Percy took another step back and hit the wall of the Department of Mysteries. "That couldn't have been you."
Fred laughed. "Not so clever after all, Perce?"
A loud curse exploded down the hall. Percy turned and ran into the last room. Instead of finding the sealed Orb of the Time Thief, he ran into The Burrow's grass garden. Two tables had been set together for supper. His parents ate on opposite ends of the long table. Bill, Ginny and the twins filled one side of the table. On the other side sat Ron, Harry and Hermione. "There you are," Bill said casually cutting off a piece of roast. "How are the cauldron bottoms?" He lifted his fork--the bite of meat now one of the Egyptian beetles the twins once laced his soup with--and popped it into his mouth.
"Captivating," Charlie called over from the vegetable garden. He stood with his back toward everyone. "They're taking Percy up in the Ministry. Too high for us," Charlie turned around. His gut had been ripped open. His entrails spilled out, dragging on the ground. A section of bowel was flattened and split open. "Until its too late. He'll have all ready trampled us."
Ginny screamed. Percy whirled around. Voldemort stood behind her. She and Fred--with his face again blasted off--slumped dead in their chairs. The rest of the table continued eating beetles, unaware of the red-eyed menace.
Voldemort stalked around the table, aiming and retracting his wand at the back of each person's head. He stopped and kept his wand pointed at Ron's neck.
Percy unfroze and pulled his wand as Voldemort began the lethal incantation of the killing curse. Percy aimed his wand straight at Voldemort before he realized his arm ended at the wrist.
His wand fell to the ground.
Voldemort completed his spell...
Percy sat up, gasping for breath and tangled in his sheets. He kicked them away. Percy rushed to the window and opened it. The night air was still. He sighed and sat at his desk, laying his head and arms on the cool surface. It wasn't Fred, he told himself fiercely. It did nothing to calm his doubts. The body he tripped over had a similar bone structure to the twins--as well as Charlie, and many other people. With the dim light in the corridor, Percy could not have recognized anything more--he did not want to know if it was possible to recognize the features of a skinless face.
He did know that he never saw Charlie at the final battle. He did see a few disemboweled Ministry workers--he trampled the intestines of one while trying to maintain balance and counter an oncoming hex at once--but she was not Charlie.
Something soft nuzzled his hand. Percy looked up and scooped the gray rat up. "Hey, Scabs," he said softly, bringing the rat up to his chest. "I'm all right." He scratched the top of Scabbers' head. "Just a nightmare." Scabbers walked back and forth between Percy's hands. "You-Know-Who was killing everyone."
And he would start killing again. Less then four years from now, Pettigrew would revive the vanquished--
Percy froze as Scabbers sat on his hind legs, bringing his forearms up to his mouth for grooming. Percy reached up and grabbed the left paw. The rat had lacked his last toe for as long as Percy could remember. Percy never thought much of it, but now his mind focused on the report of Sirius Black's innocence: Pettigrew was an illegal Animagus. He cut his own finger off, blasted the street behind him, and escaped down the sewers as a rat.
It can't be, Percy told himself. Scabbers died.
But... someone who faked his death once, could fake it again. There was no body. Ron just assumed the bloody cat ate Scabbers.
Percy frowned and bit his lip. Dumbledore listed Ron as a witness. If it had been Scabbers, surely Ron would've said something. I know he pulled away after meeting Harry, but--
Scabbers climbed up to Percy's right shoulder and nuzzled the redhead's ear with his nose. Percy smiled weakly. "Sorry, boy." He reached up and scratched the rat's back. "I'm not up to talking about it."
It's not him. Probably. Even if it is, I can't do anything about it for now...
The racket at King's Cross Station made Percy's head pound. People swarmed everywhere, rushing to catch their trains.
"GINNY! STAY WITH ME!"
Ginny moved back to their mother's side--from four feet away. The plump woman reached out and grabbed her daughter's hand. "That's it dear. Now remember, you must keep the platform number in mind as you pass through the barrier. What is it?"
"I'm not stupid! I know it isn't ten and one-eighth!" Ginny protested.
"Yeah, she's not as fun..."
"...As ickle Ronnie," the twins chimed in.
"And being so clever, I should go Hogwarts!"
"Ginny--"
"You said yourself, my accidental mag--"
"Ginny!" Their mother snapped. "Watch what you say."
"But why?"
"Because this place is packed with Muggles, of course."
Like Mum's being any more discreet. Percy found that observation more annoying than the last time around.
"Now, what's the platform number?"
Ginny sighed audibly. "Nine and three-quarters! Mum, can't I go..."
"You're not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first."
Gladly. Percy pushed his trunk through the barrier. Once on the magical platform, he quickly made his way down to the first two cars. Behind him, he heard the twins come through the portal. "Oi, Perce," Fred called after him. "We're too late for anything but the back cars to be free."
Percy smirked slightly and paused. "I have a spot saved. I'll help you look after I'm squared away." He continued on, ignoring the squeaky wheel of George's trolley following him. Percy stopped at the second passenger car and hoisted his luggage inside.
Unlike the subsequent cars, the Prefects' cars were not divided into compartments. Dark gray carpet covered the floors. The medium-gray seats were mounted below the windows and faced a table in the middle of the car. Shades covered the windows.
The Head Boy, a seventh-year Ravenclaw by the name of Clese, directed him to a free seat. "Grab your robes and change now. We have a lot to cover. As Percy nodded, Fred and George stuck their heads in the door.
"Blimey!" Fred exclaimed. "Any room..."
"...Left for us?"
"Prefects only!" Clese snapped.
"Then what's Perce doing here?" Fred blurted.
"What do you think?" Percy asked, opening his trunk.
"I don't think they're likely to change their minds," Fred retorted.
"Why would I want them to?"
"Don't you want to be a prefect?" George asked.
"So why would I change that?" Two identical jaws dropped as Percy pulled out the set of robes he had set on top of his trunk. Hand-me-downs, but not worn enough to look shabby. "We're leaving soon. You'd better find a free compartment."
"You lied to us!" Fred accused.
"You never bothered to ask," Percy stalked over to the door. "Now go find somebody you care about." He pushed them back and closed door.
The twins slowly walked back down the length of the train. They look almost hurt...
Percy shoved that thought out of mind and started changing into his robes. "What was that about?" John Robinson, a sixth year Hufflepuff demanded. Percy looked up and saw Clese and the other prefects staring at him. "Do you think a prefect badge is something to take lightly? Worth only a petty trick on your family?"
Percy stared into Robinson's brown eyes. "Five years ago, my eldest brother made prefect. I thought it the most brilliant thing ever. They," Percy cocked a thumb towards the car's door, "celebrated by breaking into his school trunk and painting his badge with gnome piss."
"Gnome piss?" Zane Taylor asked. "Where'd they get their hands on that?"
Percy sighed, tossed his shirt onto his seat, and answered the older Gryffindor. "Our garden's perpetually infested thanks to a hex of my uncle's. How they managed to collect it without getting scratched, much less maimed, I don't know--and I don't want to know. Anyway, that was just a start," Percy slipped into his robes, "and their biggest change since then is that they've learned some magic. When everyone assumed I had to have been passed over, I figured I could at least have a month free of thoroughly inspecting and polishing the badge every time it was out of my sight more than a second."
"Looks like you found a way around that," Bartholomew Smith drawled.
"Only because they didn't know to look for it." Percy removed his badge from a chain around his neck, fastened his robes over the chain, and attached the badge to his robes. He pulled Scabbers from his shirt pocket and tossed his shirt into his trunk. Percy shoved the trunk into the magically expanded storage beneath his seat. "I need to say goodbye to my family," he said curtly, dropping the rat into a robe pocket. "I won't take long."
Twenty minutes later found Percy sitting in the Prefects' Meeting, the two cars merged into one carriage. Clese and the Head Girl--Victoria Smith, Bartholomew's twin sister--went over the responsibilities of the Prefects. Percy feigned interest--he had heard the speech twice before, and helped give it once. Scabbers slept in his lap, and Percy scratched his tiny head to keep himself distracted from the desire to pull out his sketchpad.
Trees flitted past the opposite window, and food sat on the table. Lunch appealed to Percy just as much as the meeting. It'll only last an hour longer, Percy told himself. And six hours after that, you'll be at Hogwarts--And you can finally start solving your questions.
Unfortunately, thoughts of the approaching library only made him more nervous.