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Chapter Thirty-Four

By Rosa241

Percy POV:

Waking up the morning after the second task three things run through my mind.

Number one – I actually did it!

Number two – I can't believe that I actually did it!

Number three – My ankle hurts.

It's the third one that my mind focus' on the most. Madam Pomfrey said that my ankle would be quite sore for a while despite being fully healed. The wound was apparently deeper than I had initially thought it was. I can't help shivering as I remember the feeling of the blood pumping out of me. Watching the red liquid spreading across the platform still makes my insides quiver. I've never been a fan of blood anyway and watching it coming out of me wasn't going to make me like it anymore.

A loud snore erupts from the bed across from me and my attention turns from my ankle to my roommate. The snore makes me smile and I can't help sitting up to look at him. Yesterday was hard on him too. I'd been worried when he didn't show up to the task. For a moment I'd considered walking away but I knew deep down that I couldn't. I wouldn't have forgiven myself if I'd have walked away.

Shaking my head I'm tempted to get out of bed and go downstairs before I decide against it. It's Saturday. It's the weekend. I spent the whole of yesterday worrying about the task, getting attacked by creatures in the god forsaken lake and then getting poked and prodded by Madam Pomfrey for hours on end. I've got no homework to do and for once I have no intentions of getting up early. Instead I lie back on the bed and close my eyes for the first time in years.

"Percy!" A banging on the door grabs my attention and I realise that I must have fallen back to sleep. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes I sit up intending to tell whoever it is to go away when the voice comes back. "Percy are you okay?"

Ron.

Shaking my head I contemplate getting up to let him in when my ankle swiftly reminds me of its presence. Maybe not.

"Come in." In typical Ron fashion he throws the door open with as much grace as an elephant. "What's up?"

"Nothing it's just…" He trails off and instantly any sleepiness is stripped away.

"What's wrong?" Looking down at the floor he shrugs without mention of exactly what he's doing here. "Ron what is it?"

"You're usually up by now." For a moment I don't quite get what he's saying before it suddenly comes to mind. He's worried. Ron always gets embarrassed when it comes to feelings and emotions. Smiling I shake my head. "Come here."

Hesitating for only a moment he finally wanders further into the room, making sure to close the door as he does, and leans against the far wall. He says nothing and for a moment I'm not sure what to say.

"Yesterday was a bit much wasn't it?" Nodding he still doesn't say anything and makes sure not to look at me. "Ron come here." I'd love to walk over there and wrap him up in a hug I'm sure he needs but I'm not really sure I'm ready to test my ankle just yet. After a minute of debating with himself he eventually wanders over and perches on the side of the bed. Shuffling round so that I'm sat next to him, wincing as the movement causes pain to rise in my ankle, I place an arm across his shoulders.

"I guess it wasn't a pleasant sight was it? My ankle." He shakes his head at that and speaks at last.

"It was horrible." You're telling me. "Too much blood."

"You don't have to tell me that. I'm fine though." Scoffing at that he turns angrily to face me. Anger, okay that's new.

"Fine? You're not fine! Someone tried to poison you, you spent most of yesterday bleeding and you're competing in a tournament that could very well end up with you getting killed! You're not fine!" The outburst shouldn't really surprise me but it does. Although his words are angry the tears threatening to fall from his eyes are another surprise for me that really shouldn't be. This has been hard on him as well.

"Ron…you're right. I'm far from fine but I'm still here. Whoever's behind all of isn't going to win. I won't let them." The worry in his eyes isn't going anywhere and I don't expect it will any time soon. "I am not going anywhere. No way on this earth am I going to let anyone change that."

"You promise?" He sounds so small, so young as he speaks that it actually breaks my heart. Pulling him into a hug I can't help but squeeze him tight. From the strength of his hold I think he needs this more than he was willing to let on.

"Of course I promise. Like it or not little brother you're stuck with me." A small chuckle erupts from him at that and I can't help but smile. "I'm going to be here nagging you for a long time to come."

"Well if your going to nag me…" He trails off with a slight smile and I can see the initial panic beginning to disappear.

"You going to be okay now?" Nodding he stands up and makes his way to the door. It's only as he opens it that another thought comes to mind. "Hey are Fred and George around?"

"Think so. Don't think they've left their rooms all morning. Why?" They're not the only brother I need to deal with today.

"Can you tell them I need a word?" Tilting his head at those words he merely nods.

One down, three to go.

George POV:

Exchanging a look with my twin we both stare at our younger brother with a strange look.

"What exactly did Perce say?" I ask with a slight hesitation. This can't be good. Whenever our older brother needs to talk to us it's never good.

"Not much. Just said that he needed a word with you two. What've you been doing?" Although we both narrow our eyes at the suspicion behind his words I can't say that I blame him. In previous years whenever Percy was looking for us it was because he'd found out about some prank we'd pulled or were planning to pull. But this year it's different. With everything that's been going on this year we haven't had time to even consider pulling pranks.

"We haven't done anything. Don't be so suspicious. Anyway why can't Perce come and find us himself if he wants to talk to us so bad?" Ron's face falls at Fred's words and in a heartbeat we all know why.

His ankle. Neither Fred nor myself had been there to see the blood but from the pale faces of both Ron and Oliver afterwards were enough to convince us that it had been bad.

"Right." Standing we both move with trepidation towards the room that our brother shares with Oliver. Things might have started changing between us but we're still pranksters and Percy is still head boy. There are some things that we'll always clash on. He believes in following rules and we do our best to break them all. Problem is we haven't done anything lately. I just hope he isn't going to accuse us of something. None of us liked how things were before, not really, it's been much nicer now that we're actually getting along for once.

"Thought you two might have gotten lost." His words do nothing to still the worry in us both. "Well don't just stand there, take a seat."

"So what's this about?" Fred asks from his position on the end of the bed. His eyes drift over to mine and I can see the same worry sitting within them that is within me.

What did we do?

"Listen yesterday before the task I had a chat with Bill and something he said got me thinking." Bill? What could he have said? "He mentioned that the whole getting you two to watch over me was his idea."

"Oh." This again. Truth be told I'd forgotten that we'd told Percy about the promise we made to Charlie. "Wait what does Bill have to do with this?"

"It was his idea. Apparently he thought he could kill two birds with one stone. Getting you two to keep your eyes on me meant that they didn't have to worry so much about me being on my own with this stupid tournament. Also it meant that you two could protect me and stop feeling so guilty about Flint." As always Percy doesn't mince his words and says it like it is. We'd always thought he was just being mean before but I've realised differently this year. That's how he is. Percy speaks his mind no matter what and says what needs to be said rather than what you want to hear. I thought he was just being cruel but now I know differently.

Sharing a look with Fred I can tell the same thought is running through his mind as well. We should have known that he'd make a point of trying to solve our little problem. After finding out from him and Charlie about everything that happened with Flint we'd both felt so guilty. Our brother was bullied. He was bullied. Things even got physical. Percy was hurt so much by Flint and his little band of followers and we did nothing. Well that's not true. We made his life hell. Neither of us had ever considered how difficult we made things for him. Truth be told we just saw them as pranks, they were jokes and Percy over reacted. Now we know why…

With everything that happened to him it's no wonder he over reacted. We probably made him feel awful. Even without knowing about Flint and everything he did we both should have seen it sooner. We should have considered how our pranks and teasing would affect him. He never did find it funny.

"I want you to listen to me and listen well." Here it comes. You don't need to feel guilty. It's not your fault. We've heard this before and it doesn't help. "I'm sorry."

What?

"What have you got to be sorry for? We're the ones who treated you like crap." My twins words are echoed within my own heart. This isn't his fault.

"No…well maybe you did but it wasn't intentional was it?"

"Of course not! We'd never do that deliberately!" He had to know that. He knew that right?

"Exactly! That's my point." Coming to stand in front of us he winces slightly as he walks and I'm reminded of his ankle. "You guys never tried to make me feel bad intentionally. In fact if you think back before I started at Hogwarts didn't I always laugh at your jokes? Didn't I find your pranks funny?"

As a matter of fact…

"Yeah. You did. Actually…" Fred trails off and I can tell the words that he's thinking.

"Actually what?" We share a look and Fred takes a breath before speaking. Maybe we should have had this conversation years ago.

"Well you weren't exactly thrilled when we played pranks and jokes but you always found them funny. You always laughed and sometimes even helped." I know it's a foreign concept to most but Percy did, on occasion, help us prank Bill and Charlie when they deserved it. "Then you went to Hogwarts and just changed. All of a sudden you didn't laugh with us anymore and it's like…it's like you were too good for us."

"Guys." He comes to sit between the two of us and sighs heavily. "When I first started at Hogwarts…"

"You okay?" For a moment he doesn't speak and I almost think he isn't going to again.

"I'm fine. It's just that this isn't easy to say. It's difficult to talk about." Part of me wants to tell him that he doesn't have to talk. I want to tell him to stop but I can't. I know that he needs to say this as much as we need to hear it. "Okay. When I first started at Hogwarts and everything started up with Flint I was on my own. I've never found it easy talking to people and I was too afraid to talk to anyone else in case they were like him. I didn't realise it at the time but people were trying to be my friend but I was too scared to see it. People eventually gave up trying and I ended up alone."

"You didn't have anyone? Not even Bill and Charlie?" I've never heard this part before. "What about you and Oliver? You guys were friends right?"

"Oliver and I didn't click straight away. Truth be told it was in our second year when we became friendly. As for Bill and Charlie well there's a really good reason I didn't tell them. I thought they'd blame me." WHAT? He's not serious, surely he can't be serious.

"Are you mad? Bill and Charlie would've killed Flint if you'd have told them what was going on." I'm not joking they actually would have.

"I know that now. Charlie actually said the same thing to me when I told him." Doesn't surprise me. Everyone always thinks that because Bill's the oldest he's the most protective and whilst he is an over protective moron Charlie is ten times worse. No one on this earth could out mother hen Charlie. "But the thing is I blamed myself. I convinced myself that if I wasn't so different, if I wasn't weird then none of it would have been happening. Honestly I figured that there had to be something wrong with me for Flint and his little gang to treat me like that."

"Well that was stupid." Percy manages a chuckle at that and the tension that had fallen across the room breaks a little. "Seriously those two over protective idiots would have gone full on big brother mode on Flint."

"I know. After Oliver and I became friends and things with Flint stopped I realised how stupid I'd been." He heaves a sigh and my heart breaks a little bit more. We never knew. We never knew how badly things were for him when he started at Hogwarts.

"I wish you'd have told us. Things would have been different if we'd have known." Too damn right.

"Well you know now. And things have been different." With a start I realise that he's right. Ever since we found out we've stopped with the pranks and the teasing. Things have almost gone back to how they were before. Sure there's still bad memories between us but it's better now. We're back to being brothers again, real brothers. "We can't change what's happened and lamenting over it isn't going to help."

For a while no one says anything else as we take it all in. The guilt that had previously eaten away at me was still there but it had lessened. Sure we didn't treat Percy right but we weren't doing it intentionally. We really weren't. We'd always pulled pranks and jokes, he'd never reacted too badly before. All of a sudden he changed and we didn't know why.

Now we do.

Percy's right. We can't change everything that's happened but we can fix it now. And we will.

We're brothers after all.

"Right push off you two. I need to get dressed and track Ginny down." Ginny? Apparently he senses our confusion as he talks. "You're not the only ones who've been going over-board. I think she really needs to talk but doesn't want to push me."

In all honesty it doesn't surprise me.

And there we go. So that's three siblings down and one to go. Sorry for not putting Ginny in this chapter but I really wanted to round things off with Fred and George. I know they had a brief conversation before but it didn't feel like enough. I felt like I needed to clear the air a bit.

Until next time,

Bye x