QLFC S11 R6, Catapults Keeper. Prompt: Guitar Hero.

A/N When I googled "Guitar Hero", my mind immediately latched onto the words guitar and playing songs and virtual audience. And from the idea of playing a song for someone who is not physically present, I got to this soulmate!AU in which you can hear any song your soulmate is listening to.
None of the songs mentioned here are mine. I found all the titles by googling "Celestina Warbeck's songs" xD

Warnings: some curse words. Percy and Oliver are still underage, but nothing happens between them

Word count: 2946 (Gdocs)

Many many thanks to my betas: Queenie, Lily, Ikuni

The first time it happened, Percy almost missed it. It was just another repetitive rhythm which joined the cacophony of other ongoing noises at the Burrow that he was trying to filter out in order to be able to focus on his Transfiguration book. But studying seemed out of the question today, he thought despondently, as another loud bang made his room shake. Unwillingly, he tuned back into his surroundings.

Ginny and Ron were cheering and making a ruckus playing a game of Exploding Snap in the living room.

Fred and George were locked in their room, from which emanated bubbling and blasting sounds, all too often for Percy to be comfortable sharing a wall with them, but it couldn't be helped. He had tried to talk them into using some safety measures—or at least to let him verify if their cauldron contained the right amount of tin—but he had been ruthlessly mocked for his troubles.

Dad was hammering in his shed, tinkering with Merlin-knows-what Muggle artefact.

The pot lids were rattling in the kitchen as water boiled inside under the effect of the cooking charm, and Mum was shouting from the garden for someone to go help her pick some vegetables for dinner. Percy knew if he didn't go, no one else would. With Bill and Charlie away from home to pursue their dreams, he was now the eldest child still at home and it fell to him, everyone kept repeating, to set an example for his siblings.

Counting down the days to Hogwarts and his quiet dorm he only shared with Oliver—still thirty-seven days—Percy got up and headed towards the door, startling at yet another bang.

In such chaos, the last thing Percy expected was drums. He pinched the bridge of his nose where he felt a headache developing, his first instinct to go to the twins' room and demand an explanation, before the realisation settled in.

He held his breath for a moment. No, he had heard it just right; it was a noise that didn't belong to the Burrow, the first hint from the universe about his soulmate. From this moment on, the communication channel between him and his soulmate was open: whatever song or music one would listen to, the other would hear it too. It was a weird system, but Percy guessed music was as good a way as any to be introduced to your soulmate's tastes and interests.

Meanwhile, the repetitive vocals and drum rolls were getting louder in his head, as if his soulmate was getting closer to the source of them. They sounded like—"No way," Percy muttered, but listening more closely, he was forced to admit that yes, those were indeed stadium anthems.

His first thought was to hope his soulmate had better taste than this, but he immediately berated himself. Who cared? He, Percy Ignatius Weasley, had a soulmate. Him! That was all that mattered.

He made his way towards the garden, his steps matching with the speed of the song his soulmate was listening to. It was full of repeated vowels—no full words in sight—but Percy had to admit it was catchy.

That evening, for once, he didn't care about what the twins were doing with their food, not even when bread was thrown at him behind their mother's back in an attempt to get his attention. He had something else to think about, like deciding which song he would play for his soulmate before going to sleep.

In the end, he went with the song that had brought his parents together, Celestina Warbeck's 'A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love'. As cheesy as it might be, he hoped it would bring him the same luck it had brought his parents.

…..

Percy started keeping track of all the songs that he received from his soulmate, writing them down in a journal and enchanting it so that it would open only when he touched it. He didn't want his family to find out about his soulmate just yet.

A part of him was scared that his soulmate would be disappointed to get the most boring one of all the Weasleys, but he squashed the feeling down, choosing to focus on what he had been learning about his soulmate.

Most importantly, his soulmate was a huge Quidditch fan, which—well, it wasn't that great of a clue. At least three quarters of magical Britain were, including unexpected professors like Professors McGonagall and Snape. But that also meant that Oliver, Percy's best friend, would get along with his soulmate; Percy could only be happy about it. His best friend had been unusually morose when Percy had started getting closer with Penelope while patrolling the halls together. And Percy knew, he just felt it, he couldn't lose Oliver over someone he hadn't even met yet, just by a decree of the universe. No, if Oliver couldn't accept his soulmate, Percy would—he would—

He didn't dare go on, startled by the turn his thoughts had taken. When had Oliver come into this equation? But he didn't have time to mull it over. His soulmate blasted the ears off both of them with the Puddlemere United anthem, again. Percy groaned and checked the time—punctual as always. His soulmate would listen to Quidditch anthems—Puddlemere seemed to be his favoured one—and then upbeat music at around 3 pm every afternoon. Percy had figured out that this was the time his soulmate worked out; they did so for three whole hours every day, sometimes more, but never less than that. Upbeat songs were also played early in the morning—was it training time again? Or was his soulmate just a deep sleeper? Percy couldn't figure it out.

What he knew was that his soulmate's taste in music would soon become a problem for his studies. He could have put up with soft instrumental music, but those drums seemed to be drilling holes in his head, making every notion he learned immediately slip out.

Percy's first solution was to grab his father's radio and go into the woods surrounding the Burrow to avoid being heard by his family and blast his own music—something random that was on air at that time—to get his soulmate to stop theirs. His soulmate did seem to get the message, going silent for a while, and Percy relaxed back, opening his book, only to almost bite his tongue off when a heavy-beat song loudly invaded his ears.

Well, two could play this game, Percy thought with a malicious grin, already planning the moment he would be the one to distract his soulmate. He did so that very evening, borrowing Ginny's Weird Sisters' record and playing it on his mother's gramophone. But the victory was short-lived. His soulmate got his revenge at 5 am.

Before Percy knew it, it became their own small game of reciprocal distractions. By tacit agreement, it only happened no more than five times a week—the one who last managed to startle the other each week got the moral victory. Not that Percy was keeping tabs here. After all, neither wanted to actually hinder the other. To Percy, each unexpected distraction was a way to say, I'm here. You're not alone. This reminder never failed to bring a smile to his face. He could only hope his soulmate felt the same.

It continued on like this for the rest of the summer.

On the 31st of August, at midnight, Percy played the Hogwarts' Hymn for about thirty seconds, his only aim to surprise his soulmate, but the song was still filling his ears even after pausing the gramophone. Percy looked at its unmoving needle in disbelief and turned it on again.

He and his soulmate went back and forth for what felt like mere minutes—Percy's mind too elated at having discovered they were thinking about each other at the same time to bother with anything else—until his siblings yelled at him to turn that darned thing off and stop showing off his Prefect status by playing that hymn, that nobody cared about it, not at 1 am!

Sighing, Percy turned it off, but the hymn kept playing in his head, lulling him to sleep.

…..

Being back at Hogwarts necessarily changed things. Soulmates were rarely discussed at school, and blasting music through the halls would be extremely impolite and would defeat the purpose of a secret connection between him and his soulmate. Plus, Percy had been made a Prefect this year; he couldn't afford false steps.

Everything was also complicated by the fact that no Muggle electronics could be used, and his mother would notice the absence of her beloved gramophone. But Percy had found some Muggle instruments gathering dust in his father's shed, and he had grabbed the one who looked the easiest to play—a guitar—and carefully placed it in his trunk, after casting a shrinking spell on it.

He spent the first days back at Hogwarts in the Library, looking for a spell that would let him learn to play the guitar. He found one that applied coloured buttons to the neck of any stringed instrument and let you visualise the notes you were playing as coloured bubbles floating in the air. The impurer the colours, the more out of tune you were. It was exactly what he needed since his ear wasn't trained to recognise notes.

At his first session, his finger pads tore off over the guitar's steel strings, but Percy didn't let it scare him off, believing that everything could be learned, if he tried hard enough.

Not wanting an audience, he practised in his dorm when Oliver was on the Quidditch pitch, a Silencing Charm firmly in place. Unfortunately, he couldn't avoid his soulmate hearing all of his butchered attempts, but he hoped the result would make up for it. Perhaps he would never play with passion, but, by Godric, he could learn to play with precision.

As he tried this chord for the fourth time today, the pinky finger of his fretting hand locked up. He grimaced and shook the soreness away before trying again until the pastel orange of the bubble representing the last note turned into the expected yellow. With this, he was now able to smoothly play the first two lines of 'Beat Back Those Bludgers, Boys, and Chuck That Quaffle Here'. His soulmate should be happy.

The real downside was that his soulmate had not yet found their own way to bring music inside the castle and had gone silent for the last three weeks. Percy didn't want to think it was because they had found more interesting people to hang out with, now that they were back at Hogwarts, and forgotten about him.

Shrinking his guitar, he put it in his pocket, where he could always hold on to it for comfort, and went to his desk to catch up on his studies.

Tomorrow, he would practise something else. He liked variety.

…..

"What are you doing?"

Percy nearly jumped out of his skin when Oliver unexpectedly appeared at his shoulder ten minutes after leaving their dorm to go to the Quidditch pitch. His brows were raised as he looked down at the guitar Percy had just enlarged. It was too late to hide it.

"What are you doing here?" Percy asked, echoing his friend's words for lack of better ones. "You should be out there." He pointed at the window.

Oliver walked towards his bed, dragging his feet, and plopped down on it with the air of someone who only experienced pain in his life. "Not enough players to practise. Your brothers have detention—I'm going to strangle them for it, by the way—Angelina is sick and Katie has to study." He rolled his eyes. "All invalid excuses, of course, but Professor McGonagall had already let the pitch to the Hufflepuff team so there was nothing I could do. Not really."

"That is really unfair. That was your time to practise." And it was Percy's time to play the guitar. Since he had started practising his guitar during Oliver's Quidditch practice, he had developed a schedule, which his soulmate would have learned by now. They would be wondering what had happened to Percy.

An uncomfortable silence settled in as Percy uselessly held on to his guitar, not knowing what to do with himself.

Suddenly, Oliver sat up, a calculating look entering his eyes as they set on Percy. "Doesn't this silence bother you?"

Percy swallowed the Yes that had instinctively formed on his lips. "What?"

Oliver's eyes fixed on his guitar, expectantly.

Percy exhaled as the realisation dawned on him as slowly as the sunrise over the mountains. "Oh my God, we're soulmates," he said in a daze, but he couldn't quite help the way his voice turned interrogative at the end of the sentence.

In response, Oliver hummed a very familiar melody, his low voice out of tune but warm. Percy felt goosebumps rise in his arms.

"This is one of the songs you've been working on, right?" Oliver didn't even let Percy reply before saying, "Play it again now that I'm actually here."

Oliver's eyes were burning with an intensity that scared Percy to the point of looking away. Talking to his feet, he said, "It's not good enough yet."

"It doesn't matter. It meant a lot to me to hear my soulmate—you—plinking your guitar ever since we got back to school. Well, the first time I heard it, it was so unexpected I almost fell off my broom, but after I realised what you were doing—" Oliver's voice wavered and trailed off. "Anyway, I'm sorry I couldn't do the same. I felt so bad not being able to play anything for you or keep our little distraction game going. Which I totally won, by the way."

"Like hell you did!"

Oliver went on, unbothered. "I had actually planned to ask your brothers to bring me to the kitchens and play drums on some pots tonight, but—"

"Merlin, no! I mean, I appreciate the sentiment, but I'd rather you didn't." Then, he suspiciously added, "You won't, right? I don't fancy deducting points from our House so early into the term."

Oliver laughed. "Alright, Mr Prefect, I won't. Gryffindor won't lose any points on my account. Not now that I have you keeping me in line, I presume," he finished in an exaggeratedly flirty tone.

Percy ignored the fluttering feeling in his stomach. "You can bet."

"But I demand a reward."

"What?"

"My song."

"Oh, if that's all it takes to avoid you breaking curfew, it can be arranged, I guess." Percy balanced his guitar on his left knee. "Just don't laugh." He glanced up, uncertain.

Oliver's eyes crinkled at the edges, going softer than Percy had ever seen them. "Of course not."

Percy took a few moments to calm down his nerves; then, he started playing. He didn't dare to sing, but at the last chorus, he did whisper, in time with the music, "You charmed, charmed the heart right out of me," trying his best to ignore the increasing warmth in his cheeks. Why were Celestina Warbeck's lyrics so corny?

After playing the last chord, Percy waited with bated breath. When he was met with silence, he darted a gaze at Oliver, whose eyes were closed. Percy waited, his heart slamming against his chest, until he couldn't bear the silence any longer. He had to know.

"Oliver?"

Oliver roused himself. "Sorry, I got lost in a reverie…" A laugh escaped him, but there was no mockery in it, only something affectionate and almost incredulous. "Percy!" he exclaimed. "It was beautiful, darling. Of course it was."

Percy's face was in flames.

"And you are adorable when you blush."

Merlin, Oliver was so frustrating. Under the guise of checking his guitar over, Percy placed it on his bed, taking the chance to turn his back to Oliver. He took a deep breath as he waited for the redness in his face to abate.

"I hope you are not disappointed…" he said. Only after these words left his mouth did he realise he was not talking about the song.

He heard some shuffling movements behind him before strong hands grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to turn and look into Oliver's eyes.

"Are you kidding me? I hoped it was you."

Percy opened his mouth, but all that came out was, "Oliver..." His voice was unsteady even to himself, breaking with disbelief and awe. At that moment, the revelation that it had always been Oliver for him and he wouldn't accept anyone else bloomed in his heart like flowers breaking through a blanket of snow. It was shocking and yet, at the same time, not exactly unexpected. Nobody liked Quidditch more than Oliver, and nobody liked to challenge Percy as much as Oliver did. They always pushed each other to do better.

"I can't believe people actually tried to fake being my soulmate," Oliver said. "As if I wouldn't be able to tell..."

"Well, in their defence, you are very easy on the eyes." The words stumbled out of him before his mind could catch up with his mouth, and Percy blushed again.

Oliver grinned. Then, with a wink, he teased, "I knew you only liked me for my body and not my brains as you always claimed."

Percy spluttered. Oliver had the frustrating habit of embarrassing him. "I hate you."

"Nah, you love me." At Oliver's rock-steady certainty, Percy conceded defeat.

"I do," he admitted.

"I knew it." Oliver's laugh was the best music Percy had ever heard, and he hoped to have the privilege to listen to it for a long, long time.