Chapter 1: The Worst Walk
The door slammed behind Percy, the abrupt sound knocking the wind out of him. Just moments before he had been filled with intense, all-consuming rage and frustration. However, now in the cool silence of the night, he couldn't help but feel that he had made a mistake. The Burrow, which moments before had been nearly bursting at the seams with yelling and screaming now seemed deathly quiet. What was happening behind the now closed door? Was his father waiting for him on the other side of the door, ready to apologize with open arms?
He knew that wouldn't be the case. He had crossed a line, insulting Dumbledore, he knew it. He didn't know what caused him to lash out like that. Perfect Prefect Percy was always in control; his hair was always carefully combed back, his glasses never askew on his face, his tone always polite. He had never felt out of control before and felt at a loss. Even last week, when Penelope Clearwater met him at a coffee shop and broke things off with him, he hadn't lost control. He had felt sad, but he quickly dealt with that sadness and packed it away neatly. After all, he and Penny had a good time while it lasted, so why fuss? But when his father questioned his promotion, all but snubbing his hard work in front of his brothers, it seemed as if something snapped within him. Everything he did, the long hours, the overperformance, the bending over backward, was done because he wanted to be someone. More importantly, he wanted to be someone in the Weasley family. Finally, when he had received word of his promotion, he thought that he had done something. He was on track to be the youngest department head in nearly 175 years. Why couldn't his father just be happy for him?
But now he felt at a loss. His body was shaking in an unfamiliar way, his hair stood upright at odd angles, and his face was flushed an unattractive red that clashed terribly with his copper hair. Percy raised his hand to knock on the door but quickly lost his nerve. He began to march dutifully away from his home. He realized at that moment that things would never be the same. This sense of chaos didn't come to him naturally. The combination of the regret and fear from his fight with his father and the disorientation of his unnatural reaction made him waver. Fearfully, he sat down in the damp grass across the field adjacent to the Burrow. He could only make out the small lights of the windows and gratefully acknowledged that it was impossible for his family to see him now, sitting alone, flustered.
The cool grass helped center him, slowly but surely. He sat there, counting seconds and waiting for his family to come search for him. He hoped that any moment he would hear the distant thud of the door and the shrill call of his mother or the somber tones of his father calling his name, carried to him by the wind. It became increasingly obvious that this was not going to happen. He had truly ruined something and now he sat in grief. He had never ruined anything before.
In the shadows of Bill and Charlie, he had vowed to always be the best. This vow was rooted in a sincere desire to be loved truly and sincerely by his parents. It never seemed to work; despite his efforts and hard work, there was always something bigger than Percy occupying his parents' minds. In fact, Percy's hard work seemed to do the opposite of what he hoped, instead of pushing him to the forefront of his parents' minds, his success made it easier for them to push him aside in favor of solving his other siblings' crises. There was no sense worrying about Percy - perfect prefect Percy was always going to be fine, whether his mother doted on him or not.
As he waited for his parents to come searching for him, his anger simmered and grew. Nothing his brothers or Ginny ever did would make his parents cast them aside. Fred and George were explicit, often, in their cruelty to their family, Charlie actively ignored his familial obligations, and Bill often battled with his father over lifestyle or career. However, when the anger came to the forefront and everyone cooled off, they were all welcomed home, with arms open and smiles. No, they had been waiting for Percy to finally do something so that they could be rid of him. They had tolerated Percy's swottiness for long enough and now couldn't wait for him to leave them to their perfectly chaotic life. While Percy wanted to feel a sense of anger towards his parents, and hate them for not loving him unconditionally, he couldn't bring himself to muster it up. Instead, he sat, silently, pondering instead his own inadequacies.
He sat for a long time, under the indigo of the night sky, and watched as the lights of the Burrow went out one by one. Soon, he was absolutely alone, with only the light of the stars to keep him company. Even then, he didn't move. He wanted to be angry, desperately. Deep down, in his heart, this even had cemented something that he had always known. No one loved him. His siblings barely tolerated him, and for his entire life, he had been the punchline to every joke at the dinner table. His father, while he tried to hide, often laughed along with his siblings. Even his mother, who for a long time Percy held out hope that he was loved by, couldn't always hide the unease in her eyes whenever Percy became consumed in his work, or a long-winded discussion about cauldron bottoms. As he sat, he realized that at this moment in his life was a crossroads and felt entirely uncertain of what direction to take.
He had found purpose in the Ministry of Magic. While Mr. Crouch was no substitute for his parent's love, it had helped to feel needed at work. He distracted his loneliness with hard work and it seemed to have paid off - until now. No one else at the ministry lived their lives totally ostracized by their families. No one else at the Department of International Cooperation worked 16 hour days. At that moment, it felt as though a light bulb went off in his head; he was being used. An intense feeling of disgust welled up inside him as he contemplated the last two years. For someone regarded as one of the brightest wizards of his year, he had been too slow to realize that Mr. Crouch, or the Minister, or anyone in the Ministry was using his ambition and determined to achieve their own means.
He had thought he couldn't sink any lower when he came to understand that no one in his family loved him. However, no one in his family had ever used him as a tool for their own means. Sure, he had been the constant punching bag of Fred and George, but they had never strategized their cruelty against him. He was just a convenience, an easy target. His supervisors and inspirations at the Ministry, however, had purposefully manipulated him. Too late, he realized that his father had been right. He wanted to punch himself. Why couldn't this revelation have come sooner? Why did it have to come now, after he had already gone and ruined his life?
The dampness of the grass brought an edge to the chill. He now found himself shivering, his lanky frame nearly vibrating within his pressed wool jumper. He couldn't stay here, he realized. While he was far away from the gaze of his family now, the moment someone decided to leave the house to go to the quidditch pitch or tend to the garden, they would see him - pitiful and damp, shivering amidst the grass on the hillside. Despite his desire to return home, the small amount of lingering resentment he held towards his family drove him to get up and begin, once again, marching away from the Burrow. He felt broken, but he didn't want to give his family the satisfaction of seeing him this way.
But his march posed other questions - where was he to go? He wished that he had fought harder against his mother and had begun leasing a flat in London as soon as he had started his first job at the Ministry. Then, he would be able to go somewhere and gather himself. He supposed he could go to Diagon Alley and get a room at the Leaky Cauldron. However, he knew from experience while investigating on behalf of the Ministry that Tom the barkeep was one of the biggest gossips in the wizarding community. If he wanted all of England to know that he was officially estranged from his family, going to the Leaky Cauldron would do the trick. He had no friends, well at least no friends close enough to knock on their door in the middle of the night. Perhaps, if this had happened a couple of weeks earlier he could have traipsed to Penny's loft above a bookstore in Diagon Alley. No, he was not going to dwell on that - he had packed that away.
His deliberate march had now brought him to the edges of Ottery St. Catchpole, the local muggle village. His father had always lectured the boys to always carry muggle money with them, even if they didn't quite understand it. "You never know where you'll end up, and it is the muggle's that occupy most of England." He now wished he had taken his words to heart. Instead, he walked past a vacant inn with a pocketful of useless jingling sickles and galleons. Would his life be simpler as a muggle, he wondered. The few muggle-born boys in his year felt exotic to him, and the stories of their lives before Hogwarts had always fascinated him. He had kept that curiosity to himself, less he would be known to be as eccentric as his father. But the concept of "University" held great appeal to him. If he could do it over, he thought, he would have liked to have spoken to his father about his interest in muggle education. He had earned an OWL and NEWT in Muggle Studies, so he knew the basics. But, just as his relationship with his family, his ambition at the ministry, and his sense of self, that was over.
Now in the center of Otter St. Catchpole, he now felt more and more aware of the impasse that he stood at. For the past six months, he had lived in conflict with his family. That position he had taken, that Harry and Dumbledore were crackpots, was one that he took more to soothe his ego following the inquiry regarding Mr. Crouch, rather than a sincere belief that Harry and Dumbledore were lying. In a way, he had loved Harry like a brother. How could he not after Harry's heroic efforts to save Ginny or the vibrancy that he brought to Ron's life? Even in the most impassioned moments of his arguments with his father, he struggled to truly believe in the depths of his heart that Harry was lying. How could Harry, the earnest, messy-haired boy that always helped with the washing up after meals, who melted into his mother's embraces, and smiled at his father's idiosyncrasies be the mastermind behind a plot to overturn the Ministry? It now felt ridiculous.
Whenever Percy felt at crisis, he turned to logic and reason. As he continued his quiet march, Otter St. Catchpole, now beginning to fade behind him, Percy now began to dissect the situation under Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor stated that the simplest explanation was most likely the actual explanation behind any conundrum. Was it simpler that Voldemort had returned or that Dumbledore was attempting to overthrow the ministry? Dumbledore had never attempted any sort of power grab in his entire life, even in the chaos following the fall of Grindelwald. He had quietly returned to Hogwarts and taken the headmastership instead. Percy had been young during Voldemort's first reign of terror but he remembered the constant tension and fear that existed in their household. One of his earliest memories was of his mother crying as she folded laundry in the living room. He supposed now that she had been crying sometime after her brothers, Fabian and Gideon had died. He knew even more from his NEWT studies in History of Magic that Voldemort's reign had been unlike anything ever before. Even Grindelwald did not wield the terror and destruction that Voldemort had enacted upon the Wizarding World. People openly spoke Grindelwald's name, however, Voldemort had always been known as "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." Considering all of this, Percy now felt with an increased degree of understanding that he had been wrong.
His father had been right and now Percy stood on the edge of a wood, one he was very unfamiliar with, grappling with this new feeling. Percy had never felt wrong before. In his already delicate state, from the chaos of the fight, the somber realization of the conditionality of his family's love, the disgusting understand of his role as a pawn within the Ministry, and now the gross truth that not only was he wrong, but he was wrong about something so terrifyingly horrible, brought him to his knees. He stayed there for what seemed like hours, choking on sobs and gasping for breath. It seemed the only thing tethering him to the wood was the sharp sensation of pine and rocks as his fist clenched against the forest floor. If he had thought he was out of control on the grassy knoll overlooking the Burrow, he was wrong. Now he felt broken, like a puzzle with a few too many pieces missing to make out the picture. Any sense of value he ever held to himself, any pride he may have held in his accomplishments, any esteem he felt in his life evaporated away. How could perfect prefect Percy hold any value if he was capable of being so, absolutely, undeniable, indescribably, wrong. He felt undeserving of the Weasley name. He understood now why his parents had withheld so much love and affection for him, why they hadn't gone searching for him. They were right, he was unloveable.
Finally, the sky slowly brightened from deep indigo to the blues, purples, maroons, and yellows that accompanied the sunrise. Percy attempted to collect himself but struggled as he felt such an immense pit of despair looming within him. He realized now that there was only one possible path of which he could take. Percy shakily stood up and focused his mind, and apparated to Hogsmeade.