Chapter Text
Percy is just shy of one and a half when he becomes a big brother.
He doesn't remember it, of course. It's impossible to think that there was ever a time when Fred and George weren't there, poking and pushing him. There had to have been a time like that though. He imagines it was much quieter and peaceful, and his toddler self had no idea that he should have enjoyed it while he could. He doesn't remember when Ron is born either, buthe does vaguely recall worrying that his mum was going to burst if she got any bigger with the baby. And he remembers just after Ron was born, only because he would bury his head in his pillow to drown out the sound of crying.
He does remember, however, when Ginny is born a week and a half before his fifth birthday. The entire family is excited, because there's another new baby, and also because there is a girl. Or... well, most of them were excited. Percy himself just hopes this baby doesn't cry as much as Ron had (and as much as Ron still did, to be quite honest).
When Mum and Dad bring the baby home to meet her brothers, Percy wonders how a person can be so small. Ron had to have been that small when he was born, and the twins, and he had to have been too. The things is, Percy doesn't remember any of that. But baby Ginny is etched into his memory, and Percy will swear up and down (to himself; never out loud) that she is his first vivid memory.
It would always bug him when Fred and George would bounce off the walls asking for things, not stopping until they either got what they wanted or were shooed away. Even as a kid, Percy understands the importance of patience and waiting your turn. The day Ginny comes home though, Percy is willing to take a page out of the twins' book, all for the sake of holding his little sister.
It takes a lot of convincing. His parents try to say that he's too small, that he might accidentally drop her if he's not careful. He's actually offended by that. Percy knows how to be careful, of all things. He reminds his mum how they'd baked cookies over the summer, and when he'd helped her get them out of the oven, he hadn't dropped a single one. And Charlie isn't careful most of the time, but he was allowed to hold the baby! Percy doesn't realize it, but he's giving his first persuasive essay right there in the middle of the Burrow's living room, listing reason after reason about why he should be able to hold the baby. Its choppy, and mostly a stream of conscious for whatever he can think of to prove it to them, but in the end it works.
His mother fusses over him after making him sit on the couch. She tugs his arms into the right position to make sure he supports the head the right way, and both his parents and Bill loom over to make sure nothing goes wrong. He wants to whine, but he doesn't. This is his little sister, he won't let anything bad happen to her. He won't let anything bad happen to Fred, or George, or Ron either, just like he knows Bill and Charlie won't let anything bad happen to him. And how he knows his parents won't let anything bad happen to any of them.
He only gets to hold her for a minute before Fred and George run through the room, yapping that they want to hold her too. "Absolutely not," his mother declares, and Percy can't help but feel proud of that. The twins can't hold her because they're not responsible like he is.
Percy is one and a half when he becomes a big brother, but he's almost five when he realizes what exactly that means.
(It takes until he is nineteen to appreciate what exactly that means. His first birthday after leaving his family falls eleven days after Ginny turns fourteen; he's only recently broken off contact with the lot of them, and the wound is still fresh, but he's too angry and stuck waiting for an apology that won't ever come. His friends try and make it a good birthday for him — Oliver burns a cake because he's too fixated on prepping for his first professional game with Puddlemere, and Penelope comes round to give him a card she's charmed to sing Happy Birthday in a four-part harmony of her own voice. They try, but Percy still ends up working overtime at the Ministry on his birthday, so that he can pretend that he didn't miss out on Ginny's for the first time ever.)
Percy is seven when he decides he’s going to be Minister of Magic.
It’ll be hard, he knows that. He hears the things people whisper about his family, that they’re “blood traitors”, whatever that means. Percy can’t put his finger on why, but he can tell that that means he has to work even more to prove himself and get the job. He’ll have to work even harder than his dad, and he’s seen how tired his dad can be sometimes. He’s heard his parents talking about money too, when they think no one is listening. All the effort his dad puts in, and it’s still barely enough for them to get by. When he realizes this, Percy becomes even more sure about what he wants.
The first step will be at Hogwarts. Bill just ended his second year, and Charlie will start in September. Percy is lucky, he thinks. He’s got two big brothers he can ask questions to and learn from, so it’s like he starts school before he’s really old enough. Once he's there, he'll be the best, because being the best at school means being smart. And if there's one thing Percy knows how to be, its smart. Bill told him about the school's prefects too, how they make sure other students do what they're supposed to do, and Percy decides he's going to be one of those. Then he'll graduate, and get a job at the Ministry (like his dad, but not just like his dad), and do whatever to show that he's the right man for the job.
He tells his family his big decision, and their reactions are... mixed. Ginny doesn't understand and Ron is too little to care. The twins don't really care either; they just scrunch up their noses and say that it sounds boring. Percy retorts that it's not boring, it's gonna be a better job than whatever they end up doing. When he tells Charlie, there's at least some excitement. He grins and tells Percy that its a great idea, even if its clear that its a generic response. When he tells Bill... well, Bill is thirteen and moody, so when he wishes Percy luck, its about as much as he could have expected.
His mother squeezes his cheeks and calls him her big dreamer. As a kid, Percy smiles. As an adult, Percy questions if that was her polite way of saying that his head was in the clouds.
His father is too tired when he gets home from work that day, so Percy isn't sure his declaration is even heard. But his dad does give him a smile, and that's validation enough for him.
He's going to be Minister of Magic. And when he is, he'll know exactly how to make the entire British wizarding society a better place. His family will be proud of him, too. He knows it.
(He gets hired by the Ministry when he's seventeen, right out of Hogwarts. Contrary to what he'd been hoping for for years, any bit of pride his family might have had is soon overshadowed, but that's okay. He's proud of himself, and doesn't that matter more?)
Percy is ten when he has his first panic attack.
He won’t have a name for it until almost a decade later, when he’s accepted them as just being a thing that happens to him. But even without knowing what it was at the time, he distinctly recalls how his hands shake and his chest tightens when he can't find his younger siblings. Dad's at work, Mum is mending clothes upstairs, and he's supposed to be in charge. He’d just gone into the kitchen for a second and when he returns, all four of the kids were gone.
(It doesn't matter that he's just a kid too; whenever Bill and Charlie are away at school, that means Percy is the oldest one in the house and that means he can't be a kid. He has to be The Big Brother.)
His thoughts are telling him to look for them, that rationally (for all his ten year old brain knows what that means) they’d probably gone outside or to one of their rooms and he could find them easily if he just looks. Looking would require moving though, and other than his shaking, Percy can't move. His legs feel like lead. What if they’d gone outside and ran too far off their property and got lost? What if the twins had convinced the younger two to play with the ghoul? What if they’d wandered off and been found by someone? What if Mum had come downstairs, seen them unsupervised, and decided Percy was too irresponsible? whatifwhatifwhatif
“—cy?” The sound is muffled in his ears, like he's underwater, but its still there. Its only when the room comes back into focus that he realizes how blurry his vision has gotten. And it's only when he sees the four little redheaded figures crowded around him that he realizes he was gulping for air like a fish out of water. “Are you okay?”
Percy doesn't know which of the twins is talking, but he can tell that its one of them, just like he can tell that Ginny’s hand is tugging at the bottom of his shirt, and that Ron is looking at him like he’d just sprouted three heads and a tail. “I’m…”
“Go get Mum.”
“No!” Looking back on it as an adult, Percy knows that it was the fear of being seen as different that makes him sound so angry at George's suggestion. If they’d told Molly, she would fuss and worry and Percy would be embarrassed that he’d freaked out for literally no reason, because the kids were right there now. They were fine.
At ten though, he doesn't have the words to articulate any of that. It is just bad enough that they’d seen him like that, he couldn’t let his Mum think something was wrong. “No, I’m fine, you guys…” He's still shaking but his breathing is slowing down enough for him to talk, even though his brain seems to be wadding through muck to think properly.
When he was finally able to speak, he asks where they’d all gone. Ron readily admits that Fred and George had started an impromptu game of hide and seek, with Percy as they unknowing finder. In response, and in part thanks to his still muddled brain, he snaps at the twins that that wasn’t funny, and lectures the younger two on why they shouldn’t do everything they’re told. They whine and groan and Fred and George insist that “it was just a joke”. Percy’s headache and dizziness aren't a joke though, and he tells them all to just play quietly until Mum is done.
The last thing he tells them before settling down to read is that they shouldn’t tell their parents that he’d gotten weird. Whether because they were still annoyed with him, or because none of them thought it was worth mentioning, the four them agree to keep their mouths shut.
(At nineteen, when he’s alone in his small London flat, huddled on the floor with his back against the bed and grappling with the news of his father’s hospitalization, he tries to remember the twins saying his name and Ron’s fear and Ginny’s small hand curled into his shirt. Those memories helped to keep him grounded during the dozens of Moments that he’d had since he was ten. Now, thinking about how each and every one of them probably hated him, the memories just make the entire situation worse).
Percy is eleven when he gets sorted.
It isn't until he'ssitting on the stool, with over a hundred pairs of eyes on him, that he wonders where he would be put. Gryffindor had been the only house that existed to him. Sure, he knows there were others. But his entire family was in Gryffindor, so why wouldn’t he be? Maybe that isn't enough.
Kids who liked learning went to Ravenclaw. Percy likes to learn — it was why he’d always sneak a peak at Bill and Charlie’s textbooks long before he was at an appropriate age for them. Kids who are hard workers went to Hufflepuff. Percy is a hard worker! He knows he was, much more so than any of his younger siblings and even more than the older ones at time. He has to work hard to make sure things go how they're supposed to. Even Slytherin, which he knows he shouldn’t think about, isfor people who’d do anything to get what they wanted. Percy knows what he wanted out of his life already, and while he knows that every bad person he’s ever heard about hailed from Slytherin, were they bad just because they’d gone after what they wanted?
He has to be Gryffindor. Maybe for other kids it was a choice, but he has to be Gryffindor. From under the hat's brim, what part of it that wasn't covering his eyes, he spots Charlie and Bill at the Gryffindor table. Bill, sporting his shiny new Prefect badge. Charlie, who’d told him on the train that he’d save him a seat for once he was sorted. His parents are probably already awaiting the letter saying that another Weasley had joined the lion’s pride.
Eventually, Percy has to squeeze his eyes shut, just so he stops having to look at his brothers.
Most everyone else had been sorted right away, if not after a few seconds. One girl had been there a minute until the hat sent her to Hufflepuff, but Percy was sure that he’d been sitting here a bit longer than that. There really was something wrong about him, wasn’t there? That was the only explanation. He had magic but he wasn’t brave enough or nice enough or smart enough or cunning enough for any of the houses. It had been over a year since he'd had that first Moment, when his heart had raced and his vision had gone fuzzy, but Percy is suddenly gripped with the worry that that same thing would happen again if he doesn't calm his thoughts. Right here. In the middle of the Great Hall on his very first day. With everyone looking at him.
Up until that moment, Percy didn't know that the hat could talk directly to you. His brothers had mentioned nothing like that; neither had his parents or any of the Hogwarts-related history books he'd read over the last eleven years. So when its voice echoed through his ears, completely unexpected, it tugged him out of his own brain simply from surprise. "Calm down, boy. Not every one is as easy as your brothers."
If he's taken aback by the fact that the hat can communicate on a one-to-one level, it's trumped by the fact that Percy has a point to prove. Not as easy as his brothers? What did that even mean? His brothers were Gryffindors just like his parents had been Gryffindors, so logically that's where he would be too! "Your family's bravery is what got them in Gryffindor, not their last name. You, on the other hand..." Again, what did that mean? Percy knows he isn't as brave as the rest of his family, but for the hat to put it so bluntly is... jarring, to say the least. He's only eleven though; at eleven, Percy is still very much in pursuit of belonging and feeling like he's a part of his family. If he's put anywhere but Gryffindor, he's sure they'll still love him. It would make him different though. Then, the hat's voice rings in his ears, a sentence that will keep Percy up late at night for years to come:
"Your ambition would help you excel in Slytherin."
Impossible. The mere thought that anything about him was on par with the darkest minds in wizarding history makes Percy feel physically sick. And he bites back again, letting the hat know just how insane that entire idea is. He might be ambitious, but he's a good guy. He tries to be, at least, and that's more than can be said for anything he's ever heard about those sneaky snakes.
In the end, he's pretty sure his stubbornness is what convinces the hat that he's meant for Gryffindor. Not any bit of inherent bravery. Not his strong leadership skills that, as an older sibling, he's been cultivating most of his life. Its his refusal to back down from what he knows is right (and what he wants, but that's far too Slytherin for him to think about). He later finds out he was on the stool for a little under four minutes when the hat finally shouts out, "GRYFFINDOR!"
The table cheers, his brothers loudest of all. Percy walks to join his new house with his head held high and his back straight, not giving any hint that he'd just been bordering on a crisis. As promised, Charlie had saved him a seat. "Took you long enough!" He jokes, and even though Percy doesn't find it very fun, he forces a smile. Bill, who sat with his friends through the sorting, l takes time once the feast has begun to come over and congratulate Percy fully. It's obvious that he hadn't expected any different, but the validation is still nice. And when Bill, in his second year of being a prefect, helps direct the first years to their new home, Percy finds himself hoping he really does belong.
(Despite his last name being at the end of the alphabet, he was the first boy sorted in to Gryffindor that year. He was quickly followed by a bright-eyed Scottish boy who is sorted almost immediately. For most of the year, Percy resents Oliver for how quickly he was put in the proper house. Or he tries to resent him, anyways. Oliver doesn't make it easy, with his natural charm and extroversion. It also isn't helped by the way Oliver insists on engaging Percy, especially after he finds out that Percy's brother is on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Once that gets out, Percy prepares himself to be relegated to being Charlie's Brother, even in the confines of his own bedroom.
Oliver doesn't do that though. He hero-worships Charlie, sure. But he also still talks to Percy like normal. He pesters him for help on homework, and rants about how unfair it is that they won't let him try out for Quidditch. He offers Percy something from every care-package he gets sent from home, and over the months of their first year, Percy discovers that coming back to Gryffindor tower at the end of the day wouldn't be half as relaxing if he didn't have Oliver's familiar voice and bright smile to greet him.
Oliver is Percy's first real friend, and when Percy confides in him at the end of the year about how the hat thought about putting him in Slytherin, Oliver just shakes his head. That's crazy, he says. You're more of a Gryffindor than anyone I know.)
Percy is twelve when he has his first kiss.
No, that's not right.
Percy is twelve when someone kisses him for the first time.
During his first year, his brothers had been polite enough to not blatantly tell him to go away, but Percy knew that was what they wanted whenever he was around either of them. Which he gets — when he's at home, he doesn't want to play with his little brothers. Bill and Charlie have lives here, it makes sense that they don't want to hang out with their little brother either. And while Oliver is his closest friend, Oliver is also fairly popular and has other people to hang out with. So, Percy became used to spending a good portion of his time alone. Until he meets Duncan.
Duncan Higgs is someone he met on a night when Percy couldn't sleep and had wandered into the common room to get some reading done. He never did find out what Duncan was doing up too. At the time, he hadn't cared. He'd just sat down at a table by the fireplace, soon interrupted by a tall figure taking the spot opposite him. Duncan had asked Percy questions about himself, not about his brothers. He'd listened to Percy talk. He was charming and brave and let Percy ramble about all of the things his family would have shut him down for. Duncan, very quickly, made Percy feel seen, like the things he wanted in life were actually attainable rather than silly daydreams.
Duncan Higgs is also four years older than him, a sixth year to Percy's second.
When Charlie finds out that Duncan has been hanging around his little brother, he pulls Percy aside and tells him that he needs to stop. And when Percy decides that Charlie doesn't know what he's talking about, Bill gets dragged into it too. They end up cornering Percy a few weeks before Christmas holiday to "talk to him". Like always, Bill speaks with all the wisdom of a first born and Charlie speaks the things that Bill dances around. Neither of them know Duncan, not really. He's sandwiched between the two of them in school years though, so apparently that means they both knew enough. Duncan isn't a good person, they'd said. Something about Duncan not having any friends in his own year, and everyone thinking he was weird, and why would he want to be hanging around a kid in the first place?
As an adult, Percy knows that his brothers hadn't meant anything rude by that last line. As an adult, Percy is able to look back and see perfectly well that a sixteen year old had no business treating a twelve year old the way Duncan had treated him. When he is one of those twelve year olds though, Percy doesn't care about his brothers' warnings. They're just jealous that Percy had found someone cooler than them to hang around. Someone who cared about him, and would meet up with him after class to show him some of the grounds' hidden gems. Someone who didn't make Percy feel like he needed to be anything or anyone else.
So when Duncan pushes Percy up against the wall of greenhouse three, behind the building where they can't be seen, he doesn't know how to react.
Not just because it's his first kiss, though that is a big part. But because Percy had never thought of Duncan like that before. He'd only recently started to think of anyone like that. It makes sense though, When Duncan would sit across from him at dinner and smiled at him, it made Percy's stomach feel like it was doing somersaults. There had even been a time when Duncan was helping him tackle a particularly difficult astronomy chart, that his hand had brushed over Percy's in a way that made his face flush hot. So maybe he'd never outright thought of Duncan like that, but he finds he doesn't mind the idea of kissing Duncan.
In theory, that is.
When Duncan kisses Percy, its out of the blue. And rough. And he either doesn't know (or doesn't care, his brothers will later say) that Percy has never done this before, so he just stands there confused while Duncan nips and licks and controls. He presses Percy back, hard, against the greenhouse wall, so much so that the pain almost makes Percy pull away. At twelve, Percy is getting ready to hit a growth spurt, but is still awkwardly skinny. When one of Duncan's hands curls against his hip, Percy can't move even if he wanted to.
(He doesn't know if he wants to.)
Later when they're walking back to the castle, Duncan holds his hand and tells him that he likes him. Which... Percy had already picked up on, the bruise on his left hip is proof of that. Actually hearing Duncan say it aloud makes him grin though, possible the largest smile he'd had since starting at Hogwarts. That feeling, more than anything else, is why Percy doesn't question it when Duncan says that this should be a secret between them. Because Percy gets it. If they say anything, then Bill and Charlie will find out for sure. They wouldn't understand. No one would understand, because what Percy and Duncan have is personal. If it means that Percy can have something that is entirely his own, then he is more than happy to keep his mouth shut.
(When Percy is a seventh year and Ginny is a second, he overhears a group of Hufflepuff boys make crude comments when she walks by. Within an hour, he's reported them all to Professor Sprout, and told them each personally to never look at his little sister again, or any of the younger students for that matter. Its as close to a threat as he ever came to making while in school.)
Percy is thirteen the first time he gets drunk.
Earlier that day, Gryffindor had won a particularly intense Quidditch game against Slytherin, so clearly a celebration was in order. Percy has attended every Quidditch game since he started at school, first to cheer on Charlie and then later because Duncan said he liked the company. Percy preferred when he was going for his brother, but he couldn't very well say no to Duncan. He had actually been looking forward to this game, though. It was Oliver's first match against Slytherin since joining the team, so now there are two people to root for. As best he could, anyway. Whenever either Charlie or Oliver had made a particularly impressive move, Percy's first instinct had been to stand from his seat. After the first two times he'd done that, Duncan had taken to gripping Percy's knee a bit harder than what was necessary, silently telling him that he should stop getting up.
Duncan did a lot of things a bit harder than what was necessary. Like grab Percy's wrists to follow him. Or scold him if he didn't like what Percy was doing. Or press up against him when the two of them were alone, even if all Percy wanted was to talk like they used to.
Now isn't the time for that though! Now, someone has slipped in a few bottles of firewhiskey, the fireplace has been charmed to play music, and the majority of Gryffindor house is well on its way to intoxication. Charlie, Oliver, and the rest of the team are heralded as heroes. The twins, in their first-year, are happy just to be included, and somehow that makes them more tolerable. It had been a good day. It was supposed to be a good evening, too.
To this day, Percy isn't sure how Duncan got him to drink. Maybe it was his excitement after seeing both his brother and his best friend bring the team to victory, or maybe it was just so that Duncan would stop trying to coax him in to getting drunk like everyone else. Just one cup? He'd asked. So Percy did. It was different than any brand of firewhiskey he'd smelled in the past, but he hadn't thought anything of it. Not with the music pounding in his ears and the raucous celebration happening around him. And Duncan had looked so happy when Percy downed half the cup — it had been a long time since he had looked happy with anything Percy did. Wanting to make him smile more, Percy drank the rest of the cup and ignored how awful it tasted and the way that it burned his throat.
Everything after that is either a blur or a retelling of events he picked up from other people. Somehow Duncan convinced him to dance. He slightly remembers Charlie coming up to him and asking if he had been drinking, to which he'd apparently shouted, "hell yeah, I have!" Percy hugged his brother and told him what a great game he'd played. Duncan got him to dance some more. The twins told him he should drink more often, if it made him this much fun. Then Duncan promised to help Percy get to bed. Percy closed his eyes, thinking to himself that he should get water first.
When he next opens his eyes, he's alone in a bed that isn't his own in a dormitory that isn't the third years'. Everything hurts.
Percy has never had the luxury of feeling things in the moment, so his body runs on autopilot when he finds his clothes scattered on the ground and tugs them back on. His glasses are folded on the nightstand beside the bed, and for a second he thinks how thoughtful that was, before feeling sick to his stomach. He still isn't paying attention when he leaves the seventh year dorms to go back to his, and is only stopped when he literally runs into Charlie. Charlie, who only faintly smells like alcohol and apologizes for almost knocking Percy over, until he stops to take an actual look at his younger brother. What happened, Perce? Somehow, even though his head is pounding and he can't make eye contact without wanting to puke, Percy can tell that Charlie knows the answer already.
He doesn't see Duncan after that.
(When Percy is twenty-four and Charlie is twenty-eight, and they're both sitting up on Christmas Eve at the Burrow after everyone else has gone to sleep, he finally has the courage to ask what happened to Duncan. Charlie tells him about how he tracked him down to the lake, and that he didn't need magic to break two of his teeth. He'd been given two options: leave or staff would be informed. The creep was seventeen, no one could stop him from dropping out. Figured that was a better option than everyone finding out that he'd - Charlie doesn't finish that sentence, and Percy is glad. He also tells Percy that he never told anyone, but that he wishes he had. Percy tells Charlie that he should have listened to him and Bill when he had the chance.
Charlie tells him it wasn't his fault.
Percy isn't sure how to respond to that.)
Percy is fifteen when he kisses someone for the first time and it doesn’t hurt.
Penny smells like roses and fresh ink, and he could tell by the taste on her lips that she’d had cherry delight for that evening’s dessert. The two of them had been sharing a table in the library for months now. It started with trying to get rid of the other so that they could each have the table to themselves . It was in the perfect location, you see — next to a window that lets enough sunshine pour in without it being overbearing, and in between the aisles dedicated to magical history from years 1541-1547, and astronomy. When neither of them had conceded in giving up the table, they’d agreed to share. At first begrudgingly, but over time it shifted to them swapping study tips and stress headaches as they cram for the O.W.L.s.
It was their table. Kissing Penny for the first time in any other location would just feel wrong.
And as soon as he does, Percy isn't sure how he hasn't done it already. All the months of sharing their table, and all the nights they’d paired up for patrol, and all the weekends she’d convinced him to enjoy himself rather than sulk alone in Gryffindor Tower. It was pretty backwards, a Ravenclaw getting a Gryffindor to let go, but somehow it works for them. Penny tells him about her muggle upbringing, and how the thing she misses most when she's at school (other than her family) is her piano back home. In turn, Percy tells her about each of his siblings and his aspirations, and how he thinks he's going to lose his mind with all the O.W.L.s he's working towards, but it'll be worth it in the end.
She smiles at him and listens. Not in the way that Duncan would smile and listen, like he was just going along with whatever Percy said in order to get what he wanted. Penny makes sure that he goes to meals at least twice a day and that he stays hydrated, tells him that she's seen enough of her housemates lose their minds over trying to be the best and "I don't want that to happen to you, too". She hums to herself when she's trying to remember something particularly difficult, and every time she does, Percy looks up from his textbooks to stare at her. Without him having to say anything, she knows to hum just a bit louder for him.
Penelope Clearwater cares. That's what it is; she cares about Percy and his well-being, not because she thinks she can get something out of it but because she just does.
Percy likes her. When she kisses back, he's pretty sure she likes him too. And when they return to their studying, holding each others hands underneath the table, its the happiest Percy has felt in a very long time.
(Ginny finds out a year later, and Percy can't stand to think about having his little piece of happiness ruined by his family knowing. So he swears her to secrecy, but she ends up telling anyway. As expected, its met with teasing from his brothers. Not meant to be malicious. He doubts anything they did was meant to be malicious, but that didn't make their taunts any easier to hear. He wishes they knew just how much Penny was a breath of fresh air, considering the first, last, and only poor excuse for a relationship that he had to his name. That would mean admitting to it, though, and Percy has spent years convincing himself that things with Duncan didn't still hurt, that he was past it.
Telling his family about how much Penny meant to him would be confronting how much he still had to recover from. He's not ready for that just yet.)
Percy is sixteen the first time he doubts Dumbledore.
The doubt doesn't come crashing down on him at once. It's like the trickle of a leaky faucet, small drops falling one by one until there's too much to ignore. And over the next few years of his life, Percy will come to doubt Dumbledore time and time again and, by extension, doubt everything he's been told since the day he was born. But at sixteen, he wakes up to his mother asking if he knew where the younger boys were and if they'd taken his dad's car.
Percy hadn't thought anything of Harry when first meeting him. How could he have? It wasn't until the sorting ceremony that he realized who the kid even was. Prior to that, Percy had assumed that some muggleborn had been sent alone to King's Cross. A bit negligent, but he'd been too focused on his impending prefect duties to pay much attention. Even when he spent a solid year watching Harry and Ron's friendship grow, Percy still hadn't paid too much attention. In hindsight, he should have noticed something was off much sooner. He didn't though. He didn't think about how Harry wolfed down food as if he hadn't eaten in months, or how his clothes were much too big for him whenever Percy saw him in something other than school robes. Sure he had strong thoughts at the end of the year, when word got around that three first years (including his baby brother) had saved the school. But he didn't think anything off about Harry, nothing outside of the fact that he was Ron's best friend and that he'd been a hero as long as Percy could remember.
When he went downstairs for breakfast that summer of '92, going on an hour of sleep after Molly's frantic searching, he hears the twins and Ron try toexplain themselves. Not to him, oh no. Percy had learned a long time ago that the three of them couldn't care less about his approval or disapproval. They hadn't been trying to convince him of anything, but Percy still listens as they tell Molly about the conditions they'd found Harry in. To call it appalling would be an understatement. And, when he remembers Harry's attire and eating habits and the way he'd occasionally flinch if someone spoke too loudly, all things Percy had ignored the year before, he does what any responsible almost-adult would do.
He writes Professor Dumbledore.
Surely Dumbledore would do something about it. Harry would be staying with them for the remainder of the summer, and most likely for Christmas holiday if Molly had anything to say about it. But somehow, Percy doubts that either of his parents would think ahead to next summer. If Dumbledore knew about Harry's relatives... neglect seemed to cover the bare minimum of the situation. If Dumbledore was told about this now, then he could do something to make sure it didn't happen again. At the very least, he should be made aware of his students.
Once he's sent Hermes off with the letter, Percy has to wonder if Dumbledore already knew.
He pushes that thought away quickly enough though. No, whatever was happening at Harry's relatives' home must have been a recent development. That was the only explanation, even if it did nothing to make sense of how Harry had acted during his first year. Dumbledore hadn't known. But now, because of Percy, he would be made aware that something was wrong, and he would make it right.
By the time Ron and Harry crash land into the Whomping Willow after yet again stealing the car (he'd thought the twins would be the cause of his inevitable aneurysm, but Ron may very well join in), Percy has assumed that the Harry Situation was care of. Actually, by that time, he's overwhelmed with exasperation at the two of them to even remember that he'd sent a letter in the first place. And then he's too bust by notifying his mother, though he's sure a school official had already taken the time to do the same. And then he's spending the start of year making sure Ginny settled in to classes alright. Its not until about two weeks into term that he's pulled from class by none other than Professor Dumbledore himself.
"I do ask your forgiveness that I didn't reply to your letter. There was much to attend to before the start of term, I'm sure you can imagine?" Percy can't imagine what preparation could supersede the safety of a student, but this is the headmaster he's talking to. So he just nods and says that yes, of course he understands. Dumbledore confirms that he did receive Percy's letter and that his concerns were noted. He also compliments Percy for being diligent in his prefect duties even when on summer holiday. The compliment works to lower his guard, too — right after it was given, Dumbledore assures Percy that he was doing everything he could to ensure Harry's home was safe, and that there is no need to worry.
So Percy doesn't worry. If Dumbledore said Harry was safe, then he had to be safe.
(Except the following year, when Percy overhears from Ron that Harry ran away from his relative's house over the summer. And when Harry comes to stay with them for the World Cup the summer after Percy graduates and, like all the times Harry has stayed with them before, he devours whatever is put in front of him so quick that it's a wonder it doesn't make him sick. Percy is sure that Harry is not, in fact, safe at home.
What fully unlocks the door of doubt when it comes to Dumbledore isn't an event that involves Harry though. It's when Percy, all of eighteen years old and standing in for his boss at the Triwizard Tournament, hears Fleur Delacour frantically screaming when she thinks her little sister will die in the lake. The Ministry claimed that extra precautions had been put in to place to guarantee no one would die this time around, Percy knows. But Fleur is still screaming, up until the moment that Harry's head bobs to the surface with Gabrielle Delacour in tow — and, as it has been since they were first years, Ron at his side.
Percy can't be sure that the Ministry had any control over the merpeople, but seeing as how the lake was on Hogwarts' grounds, Dumbledore had to have had some say in what happened to the students chosen as bait. Including his little brother. It's Percy who rushes to make sure Ron is alright, forgetting that he is supposed to be there as an unbiased delegate from the Ministry. And Ron seems fine, if not a little bit shaky from the ordeal. He's good at hiding it, but he lets Percy fuss over him long enough (before pushing away to rejoin his friends) that they both know he's not fully alright.
When Percy goes back home at the end of the day, he can't convince himself that Ron would've been alright if Harry had failed. He can't convince to himself that Fleur Delacour wasn't justified in her worry over her sister. And he can't convince himself that Dumbledore is a good guy.)
Percy is also sixteen when his baby sister is dragged into the Chamber of Secrets.
When he'd gotten word that Penelope had been petrified, it felt like the worst thing that could possibly happen. Worse than Duncan, even. Hearing from Professor McGonagall that Ginny had been taken, though... that felt like the world might actually end. And the worst part, the absolute worst thing of all, is that Percy can't do a single thing about it.
Percy always knows what to do, and if for some reason he doesn't, then he is very good at pretending he knows. In his lifetime, he's read more books and learned more facts than he could possibly quantitate. He had gotten twelve OWLs in his fifth year for Merlin's sake, all while juggling his Prefect duties. At this rate, he'll be surprised if he doesn't get the Head Boy position next year. Because he's Percy, which in his family is synonymous with overachieving and always knowing the right course of action.
More importantly than being someone with official duties as determined by the school though, Percy is supposed to be the big brother. And he had known that something was wrong with Ginny, had known it from the first few weeks. He figured it was typical first-year adjustment, but even the most homesick kids settled in soon enough. Ginny hadn't; in fact, as the months had gone by, she only seemed to get paler and thinner. So Percy kept an eye on her, pestered her to come to dinner most nights, even managed to get her to down a Pepperup potion at one point. It hadn't been enough though. Was that why she had been taken? Because she was physically weak, and her brother (not the oldest, but the oldest on hand for the time being) hadn't done enough to make sure she was okay?
Did Percy play a part in this?
Percy was able to tolerate exactly four minutes of silence, sitting with Ron and the twins after McGonagall told them the news, before he retreats back to his own dormitory. He can't just sit there, knowing he'd failed to keep Ginny safe and seeing the looks on his brothers' faces that he also can't do anything about. Oliver is in the room when he gets there, and has the common sense not to ask if Percy is okay (he's not ) or if there's anything Oliver can do (there isn't). Whathe does do, is clap Percy on the shoulder and say that he'll be on the field if Percy needs anything. Once he leaves, Percy is alone, like he's been so many other times in his life. This is different though. Percy alone and useless.
He can handle most emotions that are thrown his way, but uselessness is one that he's never (and will never) be able to grasp. It's something he's only felt a handful of times in his life, if that. What good is he if he can't make sure the people who depend on him are alright? He could hound his siblings to do their homework, and make sure that they ate enough, and do everything he'd unintentionally picked up form his mother over the years, but what use was it now? If he had any less dignity, Percy would have screamed. Kicked at his nightstand. Done something to get all of these feelings out of him.
But he can't do that. He's not sure why he can't do it, he just knows that he can't. It's not the Percy way to react.So he does the only thing he knows how to do, which is be the responsible one and pen a letter to his parents. He isn't sure if they've been informed yet, but he doesn't trust Dumbledore enough to bet on it. Something should have been done as soon as the first student was petrified. This could have been avoided. This should have been avoided. That's what Percy tells himself while trying to keep the letter as straight forward as he can manage. If its his fault for not taking care of Ginny, then at least some of the blame had to be put on the actual adults in the situation.
Its no less his fault, but he's not deluding himself into thinking otherwise.
(In the end, it falls on a prepubescent boy to save the school for the second year in a row. When Percy receives his Head Boy badge in the mail later, he's ecstatic. In part because its one step closer to his ultimate life plan; in part because maybe now he'll be in a position to fully keep his siblings safe, because clearly no one else is going to do it.)
Percy is eighteen, almost nineteen, when he yells vile, nasty things at his father and leaves home.
The thing is, while they may have been awful things, Percy knows that they're true. Most of them, anyway. It was unfair of him to put the family's poverty entirely on his father's shoulders, when he knows that Arthur is an incredibly hard worker and that their financial situation was never a matter of him not being good at his job. It was a matter of him not being respected, which said more about the wizarding community than anything else.
Had they expected him to just stand there while they unintentionally undermined all of his hard work, though? They believed that the only way he'd moved up in the Ministry was because his family had ties to Harry. Percy didn't have ties to Harry, though. He barely knew the kid outside of the constant trouble Ron found himself in whenever they were together. And even if the Ministry wanted to use Percy for intel, there were other ways could've done it than making him junior assistant to Fudge. He wasn't so arrogant that he would just spill his family's private business to his new boss!
His family didn't want to accept that though. No, it couldn't be that Percy had proven himself, even with the debacle that had been Crouch's... everything the year before. The Ministry had tried to blame him, as if he should have known that the boss he'd only had for a few months was under the Imperius curse. They tried to prove him wrong, but Percy stood his ground, and continued to show his loyalty and adaptiveness, and that's how he got the job. If his family knew him at all, they wouldn't have been so quick to think the worst. He was given a position in the Ministry right out of school, with perfect grades under his belt and in spite of his father.
His entire life, he'd been raised to know right from wrong. Good was right, bad was wrong. But the distinction between what was good and what was bad had become so blurred, how could Percy be expected to blindly follow like the rest of them? And his father still worked for the Ministry, the very organization they all seemed to think was out to take down Dumbledore! The man who'd been in the background of everything! No, Percy may be a lot of things, but naive isn't one of them.
He ends up on Oliver's couch for a few months, just until he can get back on his feet. He visits Penny, still one of his closest friends regardless of their amicable break-up shortly before graduation, and finally hears her play the piano. He goes to work. He ignores the letters from his family — ones begging him to come home from his mother, Bill, and Charlie, and ones making sure he knows just how awful he is from the twins. He finds himself in Oliver's bed twice, once under the ruse of alcohol and once when completely sober, and then moves to his own place before he can fuck up yet another relationship.
He urges Ron to sever ties with Harry, because it's clear by now that that association will only lead to trouble.
He doesn't visit his father in the hospital when he's attacked.
He makes a life for himself, by himself.
Percy is doing okay.
(When He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's return is undeniable, Percy realizes he's trapped. The second he realizes that, he's catapulted back in time to when he was thirteen, head-over-heels for his abuser when he should have been listening to his family.)
Percy is three weeks shy of his twenty-first birthday when he risks himself.
By now, he knows he had made a mistake, though not a factual one. He is still firmly rooted in the belief that Dumbledore wasn't any more righteous than the the Ministry, but with You-Know-Who's return, and the disorder that has been the Ministry for months now, he can't fixate on his family's (and his own) rights and wrongs. Tensions have been particularly high at work, and Percy is convinced that he's going to end up dead from stress long before the war is over. But again, he can't fixate on that right now.
It's dangerous; just being alive in this day and age is dangerous, though. Despite years of proving his (albeit waning) loyalty to the Ministry, he's still sure he's being closely watched. So Percy transfigures a pile of clothes to vaguely resemble a human form and stuffs it into his bed. He'd been complaining of a cold all week at work; if someone is monitoring his flat, it wouldn't be too odd for them to think he was laying in bed recovering all day. From there, it's a matter of transfiguring his appearance just enough to be hidden, and then sneaking out of his own flat.
His brother is getting married. Percy refuses to miss it, even if his family can't know.
He only stays for the ceremony, seated between some distant cousin and the Lovegoods. Fleur is as beautiful as he remembers. Bill, despite the scars marring his face, smiles so brightly that you'd forget the world is going to hell and back outside the tent. Percy applauds with the rest of the guest and then promptly leaves before the reception states. If he stays any longer. he might not be able to go back.
When he does return to his flat, he's met with an urgent message to get to work despite it being his day off.
The Ministry has been taken, and as soon as he hears, Percy wishes he'd have stayed for the reception.
(Months after the war is over, there comes a day when the whole family is reminiscing on the wedding. They all pointedly avoid looking at Percy when they do, not wanting to bring up the fact that he wasn't there. When the conversation is coming to a close, Percy can't stand it any longer and tells them that he had been there. He even describes Fleur's dress as best he can, like he needs to prove that he's telling the truth. His mother cries. Fleur, three months pregnant with Victoire, cries. When he goes back to his own home that evening, Percy cries too.)
Percy is twenty-one and the world is burning down around him.
He thinks of his youngest brother being referred to as a traitor, along with two other kids who Percy remembers from their first day at Hogwarts. He thinks of his father, whose sudden disappearance from work tells Percy his family is officially in hiding. He thinks of Penelope, who he doesn't dare write; all he can do is hope every single day that she won't be dragged in by that sham of a muggleborn commission. He thinks of Oliver, who can't enjoy what should be the height of his career when the world is at war. His professors, people who he had (mostly) admired now being forced to teach in a totalitarian regime. Harry, who Percy has never particularly liked but who sure as hell does not deserve the weight of a dying world. He even thinks of Duncan, who doesn't deserve a single ounce of Percy's time, but if he hears of any other person that he knows needlessly dying, that could very well be his breaking point.
He thinks of how happy Bill and Fleur had looked when he saw them, only for their wedding day to be ruined by something Percy had refused to accept until it was too late.
Percy is twenty-one. He thinks about a lot of things, each and every one of them punctuating the simple fact that he was wrong.
(Percy is not okay .)
Percy is also twenty-one when he's properly reunited with his family.
Its short lived, because within a few hours, he'll watch one of his brothers die. All because Percy had made a joke in a very unjoking situation, and his brother had been distracted enough to be made an easy target.
(Even when Percy is twenty-two, thirty-two, forty-two, fifty-two, he questions if returning to his family was worth losing Fred.)