CHAPTER THREE

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It hadn't taken as much effort to get Percy to the infirmary as George had feared. After his moment of... insanity, Percy was strangely compliant, walking where he was told to walk, not really saying anything. It was actually rather eerie how quiet Percy could be, and it wasn't just the fact that his footsteps were utterly silent against the stone floors.

Sure, Percy wasn't usually the most talkative person around, but he did have an opinion about nearly everything. And even though he'd been trying hard to stop himself from being such a complete arsehole, he was still Percy. Only now he was acting all funny and being around him gave George a strange feeling in his belly.

I've never been afraid of Percy before, George thought, so why am I afraid now? There was no answer.

Sitting on a patented Hogwarts infirmary bed--narrow, vaguely uncomfortable, covered in thin sheets and a scratchy blanket--dressed in a pair of too-large cotton pajamas with the pant legs rolled up, Percy looked smaller than usual. He looked about twelve years old until you met his eyes, then he looked ancient--old and tired.

Percy sat on the bed with his legs drawn up tight against him, his chin digging into his knees. He chewed on the fingers of his left hand with a nervous zeal that should have had blood spraying everywhere. He seemed to see everything going on around him, even when he didn't turn his head to look.

"Where... where are you from, Mr. Weasley?" Snape asked.

George had to wonder why Dumbledore was letting the most hard-arsed teacher at Hogwarts ask the questions. Strangely, though, Percy actually seemed to respond favorably to the questioning by the complete arse-face.

"I live in the Ruins now," Percy said. "Nowhere else is livable. Even the Enemy is slowly being worn down at the place where he lives, dying bit by bit with each day he stays there."

"What are the Ruins?" Fred asked.

Percy shrugged. "Here are the Ruins, what's left of Hogwarts. The stones hold a partial protection in them already, and I make sure they're safer, plus Professor Sprout's greenhouses still let me grow food in them. The Enemy is starving." A cruel smile tugged his lips. "He's so hungry that I can hear him howling at night, cursing me with every breath, hating me as much as I hate him. He has won the battle, but I will win the war, and he knows it."

"How... what happened to Hogwarts?" George asked.

Percy shrugged. "The same thing that happened to everywhere else. Voldemort rose. The world fell." His lips twitched and his hands twisted together nervously. "The ones I feel sorry for are all the muggles who died without knowing why it happened. They burned, writhed, melted and gasped out their last all without knowing why they were dying. At least members of the wizarding world knew why they were dying and who to hate and blame. Not that it made them feel any better at the end."

"What happened to Percy... our Percy?" Ginny asked, sounding like she was about to cry. She was still only sixteen years old, just a girl, and even George was feeling like he was about to fall apart so he could understand her excess of emotion.

"He's probably already dead or dying," Percy said without a single blink. "He's probably lying at the feet of Voldemort right this minute. He was too soft. He could never stand against Voldemort and win. He is dead already. Forget about him."

"How can you not care about him?" Ron demanded, pushing forward. "He's you."

Percy shrugged like it didn't matter. "He's not me, I'm me. He's just the person I used to be a long time ago. Besides, it's too late for him by now. The Enemy would have felt the sudden weakness in the shields around the Ruins and he wouldn't have hesitated a second to destroy him. He was weak."

"Does this mean we're never getting Percy back?" Ginny asked, disbelievingly. She leaned her forehead against Ron's chest. "Percy's gone forever?"

Percy cocked his head. "Yes. He was weak and Voldemort is stronger than he is in this time period. We were barely holding even as it is, and my younger self was a weakling before I became a Weapon."

"A weapon? What are you talking about?" Fred asked.

"You were babbling about weapons before, too," George said. "What's happened to you, Perce, really?"

Percy looked at them all, his eyes mirror-like, reflecting back nothing real. "I died and was reborn. The old Percy Weasley was killed, but I was not allowed to lie fallow in my grave. I was brought back to be a tool in the war against Voldemort and his followers." A grim smile twisted his lips. It was horrible to see on such an almost-pretty face. "I served my purpose well, and all of the Dark Lord's followers tasted my wrath until only he was left hiding like a rat in a hole, waiting for me to kill him."

"But our Percy... what happens to him?" Ginny asked again.

There was a tiny glimpse of sadness in Percy's glance at Ginny, but it didn't last long enough to really see. "Your Percy is a child that has never tasted true hardship. He does not have the power to face even the Voldemort of this time. The moment the Enemy realizes how flimsy his defenses are, Percy will fall before him. It should not take very long at all."

George felt his heart sink down into his stomach where it burned painfully. He had done this. He had helped to kill his big brother, and in return he got this stranger to replace him.

Percy had never really been one of his favorite people, but they were still brothers and that had to mean something. They shared the same blood, and to George family was an important thing.

The way he saw it, it was his job to make Percy's life a living hell and finally get him to relax a little. But if anyone else messed with Percy... well, anyone that wasn't on the list of people George called either family or friends was going to be wishing they were dead by the time George was done with him if they messed with Percy.

Poor, rule following, straitlaced Percy who he had just consigned to death or maybe even a fate worse than death. He didn't know what to do.

"Please tell me this isn't real," he murmured, not really expecting an answer from anyone.

"Of course it's real," the strange Percy said. "It's always real, even when you want more than anything for it not to be. It's only when you start doubting the veracity of reality itself that you have to realize that you've completely lost what little mind you once might have possessed.

"I remember the first time I went mad. It was almost a comfort to escape from all of the bad things in my life happening at the time. Nothing really seemed to matter and everything just suddenly seemed so easy."

"I don't think he ever came back," Ron said sotto voce. He yelped when Fred reached back to swat him on the back of his head.

"How did you come here?" George asked.

Percy shrugged. "Strange things happen all the time. Something pulled me back through time, but I don't know what it was."

"How can you not even care that Percy is trapped in the future being killed by You-Know-Who?" Ginny demanded, pulling away from Ron. Her face was tear-streaked and she looked as though she had suffered the emotional impact of having the world fall in on her.

Percy shrugged. "I can't do anything for him. I'm not there; he is." It was as simple as thought.

We did this, George thought with a sudden flash of horror. He backed up into Fred's arms. "The potion," he whispered.

Fred's face drained of color, making his freckles stand out starkly. "You think?"

"I know," George said.

"We did this." Tears shimmered in Fred's eyes.

"What are you talking about?" Percy asked, looking directly at them. George shuddered at being the focus of those shallow pools. There was nothing of his brother in that gaze, just the weight and tiredness of someone that had seen too much violence and death.

"It was our fault that you were brought here," George rasped. His throat felt dry and his eyes burned. "We created a fifty year aging potion that was supposed to show how you're going to look in fifty years. None of this was supposed to happen, I swear."

A grim smile tugged at Percy's lips and his eyes sparkled with an unholy kind of glee. "I think I know what potion you used. It was a physical warping potion, but the spell you had to tie into it to make it work is a mental warping one. If you cast the spell correctly during the brewing process, which it appears you have, the potion becomes extremely effective. It doesn't just age the recipient fifty years, it pulls all the memories of the future version into his past self. It was supposed to enable the user a glimpse at their future so he could decide if there was anything he wanted to change about himself."

"If you're Percy in fifty years, why are you so young?" Ron asked. "You only look a couple of years older than our Percy, if that."

Percy looked at the twins. "That was your mistake. You were trying to turn your Percy into his future self, but what you couldn't know was that I died when I was twenty-seven years old and was brought back. Death changes a person's magic beyond all reckoning, which is why the Enemy has always been so hard to face. I never physically aged the fifty years your potion called for, and my magic fought back against what it saw as an enemy assault and warped your spell, which brought me here, and sent your Percy into my world.

"I very much doubt that your Percy will ever be able to come back, even if the potion wore off and the spell ended. My magic has changed what you've done." There was a flash of something almost like sadness across his face, but it was gone too fast to tell. "There is nothing even I can do to change things back. It's already too late."

George felt as if something was breaking inside him. He thought that maybe he was about to collapse to his knees, when a hard hand clamped down on his shoulder. He turned his head to look at Snape.

"Show me the potion and spell you used," the Potion Master demanded.

George dumbly nodded, leaning further into Fred's arms. His twin tightened his grip, holding him closer to his heart.

It was only when they were this close together that George ever felt truly safe. It made him think that he could almost remember them wrapped tight together in the womb, their entire world the beating of each others' heart.

From their first breaths, the twins had always known that they weren't alone. They always had each other to play with even when the rest of the world was busy elsewhere. They were safe together and no one could ever take that away from them, even when they messed up so badly with their pranks that everyone turned against them.

With Fred's arms around him, George wondered for the first time if he deserved the comfort of that much loved presence. While they had each other and were safe, their brother Percy was dying alone on some horrible future world where everything was against them.

Tears filled George's eyes, but there was nothing he could do to make this better. They had really and truly fucked up this time, and he didn't think he could ever forgive himself, not even if everyone else did.

* * *

He could sense the pain radiating from the twins and a nearly forgotten part of him wanted to offer comfort, but there was nothing to do. He had forgotten all of the softer emotions. Life had pared him down until there was nothing but a blank hole inside him where a sensitive and caring man might once have lived. His heart had been ripped out of him months before he'd died.

The Infirmary door opened and Madame Pomfrey bustled back in, a forced cheerful expression on her face. "Well, it's time for you all to leave," she said.

"Please, Madame Pomfrey, can't we stay with him?" Ginny asked.

"I am sorry, Ms. Weasley," the nurse said. "I am going to have to check Mr. Weasley here over, and I think it would be best if you weren't all crowded around. Come back later and you can visit before bed."

Ginny was quietly crying as Ron pulled her out of the room. The twins trailed after them with many glances back over their shoulder at him.

"I'll report to the Headmaster," Snape said, stalking away.

Once the door was shut, Percy turned to face the mediwitch. "I am healthy," he said.

She laughed a little and shook her head, but there was very little humor in her. The events of the day were too terrible for even her cheerfulness to overcome. "There's always some patient that tries to get out of an examination by saying they're healthy. There was one wizard that was almost coughing up a lung, but still insisted that he was perfectly fine. You will be examined."

Percy sighed heavily, but conceded to her wishes. She would see soon that he was right. Nothing had been able to touch him from the time he became the Weapon. The magic that filled every particle of his being kept him at optimal health even while he scrabbled in the dirt for every bite of food he ate.

She would have to realize that he wasn't the Percy she remembered. They all would.

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