Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J. K. Rowling. No copyright infringement is intended. The title is taken from the song "I'm Still Standing" by Elton John.

Written for QLFC – Season 10, Round 1: What Is There to Believe In? – Kenmare Kestrels, Beater 1 – Prompt: Write about falling out of love.

Optional Prompts: [word] tomorrow; [song] "I'm Still Standing" by Elton John; [action] coughing

Word Count: 2975

Many thanks to Ikuni and WeasleyObsession for beta'ing assistance! Additional thanks to shaddow for helping me invent the Wizarding version of an inhaler!

A/N: This is definitely the most intensely personal story I've ever written. On a surface level, my situation at the lowest point in my OCD journey had little in common with Percy's, but the thoughts and struggles that I've portrayed him with here are so true for me that I could scarcely manage to get them on the page. If you've struggled with OCD, particularly of the pure-O/mental compulsions variety, I would advise some caution with this fic. Much love!

Warnings: family conflict; obsessive thoughts; panic/asthma attacks; thoughts of self-harm

a cold, lonely light shines from you

It's impossible to tell exactly how long he's been staring at the strange Muggle painting. It isn't as though the oil landscape interests him particularly, only that the bit of wall where it happens to be hanging is directly across from him. The details of it filter through as vague impressions amidst the fog of his roiling thoughts: a lush meadow, lying still and silent as if it's been Petrified. No breeze rustling the tall grasses, no insects buzzing among the wildflowers. A starling arrested mid-flight, never able either to rise up higher or to come back down to rest. The image is eerie, ominous somehow.

"Percy?"

Penelope's voice seems to come to him across a great distance. With effort, he tears his eyes from the painting and tries to focus on her face—not on her eyes, no, he can't manage that, but somewhere. He settles on the freshly torn bit of skin on her lower lip; she does that when she's anxious. He hasn't told her yet, hasn't been able to get out the words, but she has to know that it's bad. He's visited her home a few times before, but he's never turned up on her doorstep in the middle of the night, with everything he owns in the world crammed into two shabby suitcases and a birdcage.

"Here, drink this."

She folds his hands around a steaming mug of tea. The warmth of it grounds him, and he inhales deeply, allowing its fragrance to wash over him, pulling some part of him outside the prison of his churning mind.

"Penny?"

Her voice throbs with relief as she answers, "I'm here, Percy. I'm here, and you're right here with me. It's going to be okay. Whatever's going on, we'll get through it, all right? You're going to be okay."

He nods, trying to anchor himself to the stream of words tumbling out of her mouth. His thoughts are spinning away again, but he needs to talk to her, to make her understand. Needs some kind of reassurance that he hasn't just made a terrible mistake.

"I don't want to be a Weasley anymore."

He knows he's begun badly before the words even leave his mouth. She gasps, pulling back from him, just as he'd feared. "Percy, what are you talking about?" Her eyes anxiously search his face.

He still can't meet them as he emends, "I can't be a Weasley anymore."

Even to him, his voice sounds flat, emotionless. He knows he ought to feel something; this means turning his back on his family, on everything he's ever known and loved and cared for. And yet all he can feel is a profound numbness, sitting like a massive weight on his chest. The righteous anger that carried him through the argument with his father has drained away, and in its place is just… nothing.

Gently, Penelope takes the teacup from his hands and sets it on the floor, then twines her slender fingers through his. "Tell me."

And he does. He tells her about coming home on top of the world, bursting with the news that after all the inquiries and examinations about his former position, he's been not only cleared but promoted to Junior Assistant to the Minister. (This isn't how he'd imagined telling her; he'd hoped to take her out to dinner, share the news over pudding and bask in her delight and adoration. Strange how hollow her congratulations sound to him now.) He tells about the cold, stony silence that followed his announcement, about looking around the kitchen at his family's blank faces and wondering why they couldn't for once just be happy for him. About how his father—the man who raised him, whose love he's never doubted but whose respect has always been somehow just beyond his reach—looked him in the eyes and accused him of being prepared to spy on his own family. And about all of the awful, awful things that were said after.

"Breathe, Percy," Penelope whispers, laying a gentle hand on his chest.

He's trying, but his breaths are coming short and frantic, and his lungs feel like they're collapsing—his whole world collapsing in on him. Just this morning he could see his entire path laid out before him, tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, leading straight as an arrow right up to the office of Minister for Magic. Now his whole foundation has been shaken. And while he knows that his father is dangerously wrong, that the choice he's made is the only right and safe one, it doesn't stop the horrible feeling that nothing is really certain anymore.

His chest tightens with panic, and he begins to cough violently.

With practiced calm, Penelope whips out her wand and murmurs, "Accio Spirator." Within moments, the leather pouch that holds the short, pipe-like object with its packets of powdered Breathing Potion has worked its way out through the threadbare corner of a suitcase. She seizes it, tips in the medicine, and holds it up to his mouth. "Here, Percy, breathe in. That's it."

He gives himself over to her ministrations, following the lilt of her voice as the air returns to his lungs. He watches her quietly: her long curls brushing against him as she reaches up to smooth his hair and wipe his brow, her lips ragged with worry, her soft brown eyes tight with concern. She pauses when his eyes meet hers, and a trace of a smile touches her lips.

"It'll be all right, Percy. I know it seems like they—I know things look bleak, but you're going to be all right."

He nods, feeling a bit reassured. There is, after all, one thing he's still certain of: her. She's the reason he can never be like his father, flighty, ambitionless. The reason he refuses to go through his whole life being poor. He's seen what poverty has done to his mother, how hard she has to work, how much she's had to give up. He won't do that to Penelope. If she'll ever agree to be his wife—not now, but someday, when he's made something of himself—he's going to give her everything she could possibly want.

The path for tomorrow looks suddenly clear again.

The flat is drafty. It galls him to hand over the two months' rent, but it's the only place in London he can afford, and though Penelope urges him to, he isn't about to ask his father for help. She changes some Muggle money for him, and he gets the broken down bed and desk for a song. Thank Merlin for the Mending Charm.

He hates this, every step of it, but this is what it means to stand on his own two feet, and he promises himself it won't be forever. This is the last time he's going to buy furniture thirdhand, the last time he'll have to play whack-a-gnome with holes in the roof when it rains. It's the last time he'll pick flowers off the side of the road for Penelope's birthday because he can't afford a present. (He buys her a proper bouquet out of his first paycheck from the Minister's office, then puts most of the rest in the bank.) When the wind howls in the cracks he can never quite get rid of, he imagines the home he'll buy for Penelope: not a lopsided, tricked up old barn like the Burrow, but a proper house with upright walls and a ghoul-free attic and respectable neighbors who'll comment, "What a lovely young couple! That Percy Weasley is certainly going places!"

He's just going back to his reports one rainy night after Mending yet another dripping hole when a knock sounds at the door. Percy springs to his feet, frowning; it's late for Penelope to be out, especially on such a dismal night, and no one from work ever visits him at—here. He opens the door, ready to usher her inside, but the words die in his throat.

It's Mum.

"H-hello, Percy," Mum says in a timid voice that isn't hers. Her face is red and blotchy, and she looks about to start crying again any second. Percy can only stare at her, his mind gone utterly blank. After an awkward moment, she asks in the same quivering voice, "May I come in?"

Half of him wants to fling his arms around her, and the other half wants to slam the door. Instead, he steps back mutely, and she slips in past him. He watches her take in the bare walls and floor, the sparse furnishings, the howling wind. An absurd urge comes over him to defend the hated little flat; at least he's got rid of the latest drip.

"P-P-Percy, please come home!" Mum says at last, her voice shaking uncontrollably. Tears begin pouring down her cheeks. "These last weeks have been so awful! Nothing's the same without you, we've all been so miserable, and then to find you here, in a place like this—Oh, Percy, these drafts, and your asthma, and you've got so thin—"

He can only stare at his mother, uncertain what to do. He isn't the one who comforts people; that's Father, or Bill, or Fred, or really any of them except him. And especially when he himself is the cause… but still there's a part of him that yearns to go to her, to be like a little kid again, back when everything was simple and his parents were always right.

"And what with what's going on in the world, not knowing if anyone's really safe… If something should happen… Oh, Percy, I know your father would forgive everything if you'll only apologize, and—"

"Apologize?" The word bursts out of him, and he finds his voice at last. "I need to apologize? After Father as good as said he thinks I'd be happy to spy on our family—I'm the one who needs to apologize?"

"And what about the things you said to him?" she demands. "How it's your dad's fault we've always been poor, and how he's an idiot and a traitor to the Ministry and—"

"So he isn't?" Percy retorts. "He isn't a reckless, thoughtless, Dumbledore-loving—"

At that moment, a large drop of water falls from the ceiling just above Percy's desk, splattering his advance report on the new Hogwarts High Inquisitor position. He dives for his parchments, sweeping them out of the way as just another droplet hits the desk. The sound echoes in the sudden silence as two pairs of eyes find the newly formed crack in the ceiling.

"Out," Percy mutters. Then, louder, "Get out."

Mum starts to sob again, but he's heard enough. She's on his father's side, and therefore against the Ministry and against everything that's true and right and safe. Against him.

She turns back to say something as he hurries her out into the rain, but Percy doesn't want to hear it. He slams the door in her face.

That night, huddled on his rickety cot in his damp and drafty flat, Percy has the worst asthma attack he's had since he was a child. As he lies coughing and gasping for air, he refuses to allow himself to wish for home, for Mum.

This is his home now. He's got to stand on his own.

Somehow his new life resolves itself into a routine. Perhaps it isn't that surprising: before he ate, slept, and breathed Ministry work, with loud and occasionally explosive interruptions from his family; now he eats, sleeps, and breathes Ministry work in relative peace. Fudge is an even better boss than Crouch (for one thing, he remembers Percy's name), and soon Percy knows the Minister so well he can anticipate his requests more often than not. His bank balance is slowly creeping up, and he watches it with satisfaction. He skips meals now and then to save a few Sickles and is glad Mum's not around to scold him for it. The empty feeling in his stomach is a reminder he's making progress.

At home, the thoughts never leave him alone. He replays the fight with his father on loop, analysing each moment, weighing each word, examining each facial expression. Sometimes he comes out in the right; sometimes the cycle ends with him drowning in guilt. Once he was on the verge of Apparating to the Burrow and begging his father for forgiveness, but by the time he'd thought it all out again, he'd changed his mind. Most of the time he just isn't sure, and then he wants to bash his head against the wall to dislodge the memory.

Instead, he works. The thoughts aren't as loud when he's at the Ministry, and there he has only to look to the Minister for reassurance. Fudge is protecting the Wizarding World against dangerous misinformation from the likes of Dumbledore and Potter, and he, Percy, is helping him. That has to be right. It has to.

When Errol crash lands on his desk, Percy almost sends the letter back unopened, but then he's glad he didn't. Ron has made prefect, and while Percy doesn't want to get his hopes up—Dumbledore takes a role in prefect selection, after all—he thinks maybe it's a sign that at least one of his brothers isn't lost. He owls Ron as soon as he can without seeming overeager, offering his congratulations and a bit of brotherly advice. He never hears back. He never really expected to.

"Maybe you should just go talk to him," Penelope suggests.

They're over at her place again; he tries to keep her away from the flat when he can. He'd rather not remind her how little he still has to offer.

"What, just march into Gryffindor tower and say, 'Hey, I need talk to my brother! He hates my guts, by the way.' I've said everything I have to say to him, Penny. It's no use talking."

"You don't know that he hates you, Percy. He hasn't seen you in months; he can't understand how hard it's been. If you would just talk to him, try to make things right—"

"No." Percy looks down at the table, turning his teacup in his hands. She's been doing this, pushing him to reconcile with his family. As if he wouldn't be the happiest person in the world if they would only see sense and reconcile with him.

He leaves her house rather early that night. There just doesn't seem to be much to talk about.

He starts finding reasons to avoid seeing her. It isn't like it's hard; Fudge needs him almost constantly now. Owls are coming in night and day, and it's all they can do to stay ahead of the rumours and conspiracy theories. He's spending most nights on his office floor; it's warmer anyway, and he can get back to work in the mornings without time for thinking.

He's spending a rare evening at home when he hears her soft knock at the door. He was just weighing whether to call on her; it's been over a week since their last date. He thinks. He's starting to lose track.

Penelope smiles when he opens the door, but something is wrong; her lower lip is torn to shreds. He kisses her gently and is surprised at how desperately she returns it. He tastes blood and salt as their lips entangle for a long, frantic moment. Then she pulls back, and he sees the tears on her cheeks.

"Penny?"

"Percy." Her voice is shaking, and this time she's the one who doesn't meet his eyes. "Percy, I can't do this anymore."

The blood freezes like ice in his veins. "What are you talking about, Penny?"

"I can't. Percy, I've watched you throw away everything—your family, your home, your health, your… your sanity, Percy. And I've tried to support you; I've listened to your struggles and your dreams, and I know you try so hard, but this isn't you. I haven't seen you in weeks—"

"Weeks? It hasn't been weeks—"

"Yes, it has. I've tried to come over here so many times, and you're never home. I don't understand what all of this is about; I know it has something to do with your father and not wanting to end up…" She trails off. "I don't know. But all I ever wanted was you, and now I feel like I don't even know you anymore."

She ends in a sob, and again he wonders what he's supposed to do. The things she's saying don't make any sense. This has all been for her—the long hours, the skipped meals, the growing pile of Galleons in his Gringotts vault—all to provide for her the way his own father never did. Why can't she see that?

Percy steps forward, meaning to comfort, to explain, but she moves away from him. "I'm sorry, Percy. I think… you need to figure some things out before we see each other again."

And with that, she's gone.

Stunned, Percy sinks slowly down into the rickety chair. The room seems oddly still and silent, no wind ruffling the stray parchments scattered across his desk. He feels frozen himself, left without the one thing that still gave his life purpose. She'd been his certainty, his reason, his path forward… and now it's all gone. For once, his brain doesn't even have the will to analyse, to try to make any sense of it all.

He doesn't know how long he sits there at the desk, or when his exhausted mind finally gives in to sleep. When his eyes open again, the sun is shining, and the clock says it's tomorrow morning.

Slowly, dazedly, Percy stands up. It's time for work.