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It was so horrible. So unbelievable. Percy had known Cedric very well. They had attended prefect meetings together for two years, and before that, they had been casual friends since childhood. Percy would go escape the crush of Weasley siblings to play with the Only Child neighbor. Cedric had always been nice to him, had always been happy to see him, had never made Percy feel awkward or uncool.

Now Cedric was dead in the Triwizard Tournament. A tragic accident. No one at work would tell him anything else. Merlin, this Tournament had been damned from the start, with Harry's bizarre involvement, Mr. Crouch's illness and disappearance, and now this. With everything that had happened, Percy kept reliving the anxiety he'd felt sitting on the judging panel for the Second Task in February, watching the cold Black Lake where somewhere, his youngest brother was waiting for a fourteen-year-old to rescue him. Yes, he knew the merfolk were keeping an eye on things, but what if something had gone wrong, and Ron had drowned? After all, accidents happened in the Triwizard Tournament. A lethal accident did happen during the Third Task...

A dark part of Percy felt responsible, even though he knew he wasn't, logically. But he had taken over so many of Mr. Crouch's day-to-day tasks over the course of the year, he might have been the one to sign off on whatever obstacle in the maze had killed Cedric. No one had told him the details, since he was off the Tournament working group. He would have known, might have been there watching and judging the task, if he had not failed his first job at the Ministry so badly. Failed Mr. Crouch so badly. He still didn't know what had happened to the boss he had respected so much, the man with the genius intellect who valued and trusted Percy for his anal attention to bureaucratic details everyone else found so annoying, even if it had taken him months to learn Percy's name. Maybe he was dead, too. It's not like anyone would tell him that either, if he missed the announcement in the papers. He didn't deserve to know, apparently, not about Cedric, not about Crouch.

At least, so it seemed until all his siblings returned from Hogwarts for the summer holidays. Even Bill and Charlie were there the morning their parents called a rare family meeting.

"Things are going to be different this summer," Arthur began heavily. "It's dangerous out there. Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, I don't want any of you lot going out alone."

"We're of age -" Fred and George objected.

"But you haven't taken your apparition tests yet," their father said sternly. "If you're cornered, you could be killed." Wait, what? "Ron and Ginny, I expect you to stay with me, Mum, Bill, Charlie, or Percy any time you leave the house."

"Excuse me, but why exactly are we all supposed to be so paranoid all of a sudden?" Percy broke in before the conversation could get more confusing.

Everyone turned to look at him as if he was daft. "Do the words 'Moldy Shorts' mean anything to you?" Fred quipped.

Percy scowled at him and folded his arms across his chest. "No."

"Purple warts?"

"No."

"Cedric Diggory?" Ron said, sounding incredulous.

Percy winced at the reminder. "What about him?"

Ginny gasped. "Mum, Dad, you didn't tell Percy?!"

"Of course we did," Molly scolded her.

"Tell me what?" Percy said cautiously.

Arthur frowned, then muttered under his breath, "Damn fool of a Weasley."

"Me?" Percy asked, rather irritated at this point.

"No, me," Arthur sighed. "You've been working non-stop this whole time, and I should have realized you didn't know when I heard the way Fudge was talking about it in the Ministry. Slipped my mind and... slipped my mind. I'm sorry, son."

"Sorry for what?"

Arthur took a deep breath. "Well... Cedric didn't just die in an accident in the Tournament. Turns out, he and Harry were both, er, kidnapped from the Third Task... and Cedric was murdered."

It was like the floor fell out from under his chair. "WHAT?"

"And it turns out, Mr. Crouch is dead. He, and Madeye, were Imperiused by, er, a rogue Death Eater for most of the school year as part of a plot to orchestrate the Triwizard Tournament around this kidnapping plot to get at Harry Potter for a Dark ritual to resurrect You-Know-Who. The ritual worked, and we've only young Harry to thank that we know about it. You-Know-Who is back."

Percy fell back in his chair and stared at his father in shock. "That is... utterly bonkers."

"Oh, who'd have thought Death Eaters and You-Know-Who would break the rules," Fred sang mockingly.

"Not Prissy Percy," George snickered back. Molly snapped her fingers at them.

"Why would anyone try to kidnap Harry Potter during the Triwizard Tournament in Hogwarts when hundreds of eyes are on him rather than snatch him off the streets of Hogsmeade, or just wait for him to go home, even if one was mad enough to go after a celebrity to use in experimental necromancy?" Percy shot back. He wasn't up for the twins' snide jokes right now.

"So you're questioning Harry's story?" Ginny said angrily.

"Hard to question Harry's story when I haven't heard it, Gin," Percy said. "Why haven't I heard any of this at work, Dad?"

"Fudge wants to hush it up. Doesn't want to believe it's true."

"And we're sure it is true?" Percy said doubtfully. He had gotten an 'O' on his Defense N.E.W.T. Even if there was some crazy ex-Death Eater plot to resurrect He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, those kinds of life-for-a-life rituals backfired 99% of the time, and even if they worked produced only partially human results, according to Facing the Faceless. Perhaps more importantly, he couldn't imagine a ritual to raise the dead would be successful if its primary sacrifice, in this case Harry, had survived and escaped to tell about it. He glanced at Ginny. She and Ron were both glaring at him now, as if he'd straight-up called their friend a liar.

"They caught the Death Eater who arranged it all."

"Oh. Okay..." So there was a plot, at least, Percy supposed. "Then how could even the Minister of Magic hush it up? He can't do that unilaterally. Even if he was corrupt enough to try, Bones wouldn't let him." He couldn't think why affable, supportive Minister Fudge would do such a terrible thing as try to cover up a murder at all, let alone when the murderer, or at least his accomplice, was already in hand.

"Well, he sort of died before he could testify to any Ministry officials, but Dumbledore got the story from him first." What? "And then Dumbledore got Harry's full account of what happened to him in the Third Task. There's no doubt in the Headmaster's mind, and that's good enough for me."

"Oh." This was still... perplexing. Percy wished he had gotten an eloquent debriefing from Headmaster Dumbledore rather than whatever the hell this was.

"It's not like this came out of nowhere, Perce," Ron said impatiently. "Remember the World Cup? And Scabbers?"

"What does my old, dead pet rat have to do with anything, Ronald?" Percy asked, rubbing his forehead.

"Yeah, what does your old-"

"-dead-"

"-fat-"

"-lazy-"

"-pet rat have to do with anything?" Fred and George asked.

Ron blushed. "Er... well... forgot I never told you lot about this," he mumbled.

"About what?" Molly said, eyes narrowed dangerously.

"You know how Sirius Black is innocent?"

Everyone nodded again. Except Percy, who looked back up in surprise again. "No," he said pointedly. Arthur winced again.

"Right. Well," Ron began quickly, "he was innocent, framed by a Death Eater named Peter Pettigrew who, turns out, is an unregistered rat animagus. He spent twelve years pretending to be Scabbers, and Sirius recognized him when we had that family picture on the front page of the Prophet when we went to Egypt. And so Sirius broke out of Azkaban in order to chase down Pettigrew, and almost got him. Not fibbing, I even saw Scabbers transform back into Pettigrew. Only he escaped, and Harry says he's the other Death Eater who helped out with the kidnapping and ritual thingy."

I had a Death Eater for a pet? Percy's eyes were bugging out of his skull, but no one was paying attention to him as Molly was now berating Ron for keeping such an important secret from her, one that impacted the whole rest of the family. "Cuppa tea," Percy said faintly. He stood up and drifted over to the stove, listening to his mother's yelling with half an ear. Why was he the only one kept in the dark about all these bizarre things purportedly happening to and around the family? It was beyond confusing to learn about this way, if you could call these rambling, partial explanations "learning." It hurt, too. Didn't his parents and siblings trust him enough to confide in him? Or did they really just not think of him? He couldn't figure out which was worse.

"- Death Eater in your dormitory, in Harry's dormitory..."

Percy dropped the cup he was holding. That's right. If Ron was right with this insane story and wasn't just talking out of his arse, then... then Percy had slept with a criminial in his bed for nine years, from the age he was four. And then he'd given the rat to his baby brother... Suddenly all the other mad things his father had been talking about this morning fell away in the face of this far more personally affronting revelation.

Surely not. Surely no one, not even an insane follower of You-Know-Who, would choose to spend twelve years as a rat! A chill took him. But then, twelve years was an awfully long life span for a common garden rat, wasn't it? Why had he never noticed that? Oh, come on, Perce. What child looks at their pet and thinks "why isn't this thing dead yet?" And yet, Percy berated himself again, that was the kind of "prissy" attention to detail he prided himself on. He should have noticed the aberration. Just as he should have realized what was wrong with Mr. Crouch was more serious than overwork. So why didn't he?

He felt suddenly dizzy as it hit him. Nine years with a Death Eater in his bedroom, eh? The man - Pettigrew, was it? - could have done anything to him. It could have been as simple as a Confundus charm to get him to look the other way or as terrible as an Imperius. Was his mind even his own? Could he trust his own judgment? Or had he been slowly warped by a Death Eater since the age of four?

He futilely wracked his brains, trying to remember what life had been like before he found Scabbers. Was he very different at three compared to four? He mentally scoffed. How would he know? He'd have to ask Mum... but he shrank from that idea. He didn't want to ask his parents if they thought there could be something wrong with him. He didn't want to see their worried faces while Mum tutted and said "don't be silly," chewing her bottom lip all the while. He didn't want even more of their scrutiny and overbearing sympathy than he was already getting after the Crouch fiasco. And he really didn't want the answer to be "yes."

Yes, there was an evil man who lived in your bedroom with you and victimized you for nine years, and we didn't even notice. Yes, you've been changed and molded and broken by a criminal you should have been smart enough to recognize, and that's why you're a failure all these years later. Yes, we let him hurt you, and who knows what he might have done, a grown man with criminal tendencies with complete access to and control over an ignorant child!? And Merlin, Percy had given him to Ron!

"Percy, come back to the table, please," Molly called.

"Not just now, Mum," he said faintly. He didn't make himself that cup of tea. He just walked out into the garden and sat down in the sun.

It couldn't be. It just couldn't be. If he believed that, he had to give up... everything. His confidence. His trust in his own intellect. His trust in his parents.

What if that man touched Ron?

No. No, no, no. He could not have failed his little brother that way. Maybe... maybe that rat only appeared to live so long because the first one had died when he was little and Mum had quietly found a replacement for it before he'd noticed? Mothers did silly things like that, didn't they?

Was it better to think Mum had coddled him like that, when she'd never done so for the others when their pets had died?

What if he touched you? Abused you, silenced and restrained in the night, and Obliviated you afterwards? For nine years.

Percy shuddered convulsively and rested his head on his knees. It was much better to think Mum had just decided he, Percy, of all the Weasley siblings, could not handle the loss of a pet. Thus why Scabbers finally died less than three years after he'd bequeathed him to Ron. Ron could handle it, he couldn't. After all, wasn't Percy the squeamish one when it came to butchering chickens? It fit. Percy may be smart, but he was weak. Weaker than his siblings, at least.

It didn't take long for Percy's quick mind to poke Ron's garbled story about Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew full of holes. How would Ron know who Pettigrew was anyway? Black would have had to tell him, and it was much more likely that Black had merely Confunded the thirteen-year-old. Which naturally called into question what Harry had (apparently) reported about Pettigrew, too. Maybe Harry and Cedric had been ambushed by some rogue Death Eater in the maze, but there was no way that Death Eater could have gotten all the accoutrements for a Dark resurrection ritual past Hogwarts' wards, even ignoring the fact that there were so many spectators. More likely, traumatized Harry didn't understand what he was seeing or was just repeating what a deluded madman had told him. Poor Cedric had probably died trying to fend off the lunatic.

It was sad, tragic. But it was leagues better and more sensible than the story of the pet rat animagus who organized an international tournament just to kidnap a national celebrity from the climactic final event, all to bring back a dead warlord. Percy wondered why Albus Dumbledore apparently believed the unbelievable version. But then, Albus Dumbledore did have an unhealthy delight in the absurd. Maybe... he didn't actually believe it, but had failed to communicate the truth effectively. In which case, Percy rather resented the brilliant but honestly sometimes quite careless old Headmaster for misleading his family like this and causing so much undue stress.

The garden door opened. Bill stepped out. "Hey... are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Percy said quickly. Of course he was. He was annoyed by the freakish direction his morning had gone, but there was no harm done, was there? Things would settle down soon enough.

"You sure? You seemed pretty freaked out for a moment there."

"I'm fine, Bill," Percy said firmly. "What time is it, anyway?"

"Er, almost nine. If you're ready to come back in, Mum and Dad do have more to talk ab- Woah. Okay, then."

Percy shot off the bench and pushed past his oldest brother. Almost nine! He wasn't even fully dressed! He'd be late for work at this rate, even with his reduced hours. He bolted past the table and up the stairs, ignoring his parents' calling after him. He changed into his work robes in record time. He didn't bother to brush his teeth or comb his hair before charging back down the stairs.

"Percy-"

"Late for work, Dad! We'll talk later!"

"Percy, this is important!"

"Hush, Molly, you know how much pressure he's under. I know you're worried, but it can wait until evening..."

Percy didn't hear anything more as he practically dove into the fireplace to floo to the Ministry.

His surreal morning continued. Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, appeared at his desk at eleven o'clock and handed him an application to fill out for a transfer to Fudge's office. "Hem, hem. Dolores Umbridge, an absolute pleasure. Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Weasley, but I have something for you. You see, we in the Minister's office think it's a waste leaving you here as a low-level paper pusher," she said in a high, girlish voice. "It's criminal the way they're blaming what happened with Barty on you, just because you're the newest hire in the Department and they're jealous of the responsibility Barty had given you."

Percy blinked. He hadn't actually considered that interpretation before. Mostly because no one had ever been particularly jealous of him before, at least, no one he actually knew. His accomplishments - outstanding grades and a Head Boy badge - were praised by his parents, his teachers, and Bill (who of course had the same record) and literally no one else.

"I know you wrote you wanted to be in the Department of International Magic Cooperation in your initial Ministry applications last year, but this unfair setback changes things, doesn't it? To be honest, I thought you'd do well in the Minister's office even last year, but Barty said he wanted you and had a better opening than we did at the time. Think about it, won't you, Mr. Weasley? This is a good opportunity for you, and I really do need the assistance of someone like yourself." She gave a little, girlish laugh. "You know, someone young and energetic, with a good mind and good work ethic. I promise, we won't give you more than you're ready for like Barty did. It's not your fault, what happened, you know. How could they expect you to realize he was so sick, the poor thing, when you'd only been working with him for a few months? For all you knew, any stress he was under was easily explained by the Tournament." She gestured around the open office. "They should have been the ones to tell you there was a change in his work they didn't understand. If they had, I'm sure someone so meticulous as you would have reported it properly, so we could have gotten poor Barty the help he needed... In fact, I'm sure you could tell me exactly the protocol for reporting a coworker as possibly unfit for duty right now, couldn't you?"

Percy found himself nodding. "It's in the employee handbook, page six hundred and fifty through six hundred and fifty-nine."

She laughed again and patted his hand. "There, just as I thought. Now, you don't have to get that back to me right this minute. I know you're busy. Just, think about it, alright? I like to see bright young stars like you succeed in life. You deserve a second chance, Mr. Weasley."

Percy stared at her a moment, taking in her rather hideous pink wardrobe. If he'd only ever seen her clothes and heard her laugh, he'd probably have assumed her to have an extremely annoying and fatuous personality. Amazing, really, how her appearance and mode of speech belied her insight. But then, she wouldn't be a Senior Undersecretary if she didn't have the skills for it, would she?

"Thank you, Madam Umbridge. I'll get back to you by the end of the week."

"Oh, take your time, young man. I don't make hasty hiring decisions, but as I said, I had my eye on you last year, too."

"I'm honored by the attention."

"Not at all. Good day, Mr. Weasley."

"Good day, Madam Umbridge."

The visit from the Undersecretary gave Percy the boost he needed to get through his afternoon work with something more like his usual, pre-demotion vigor. He even managed to leave earlier than usual, around seven o'clock. He typically didn't get home until around ten. At least, he didn't pre-demotion.

He was so happy about the transfer offer, he told his father about it the minute he got home, before even looking for the dinner plate Mum always saved for him. Arthur immediately said it was a trap, and that Madam Umbridge wanted to use Percy to spy on the Weasley family because of their close proximity to Dumbledore.

"What close proximity?" Percy asked, simultaneously insulted and caught off guard by Arthur's reasoning. Dumbledore had never visited the Burrow as long as Percy could remember, and Arthur's job rarely if ever took him to the office of the Chief Warlock on the occasions the Headmaster was actually in it.

"Dumbledore will need us in the war, just like last time, Percy."

"What war?"

Charlie sighed dramatically from behind Percy. "And we're back to the chorus from this morning. Perce, this is what happens when you're never home and so miss family meetings and things."

"Pardon me for caring about my job, when I was almost fired last month!"

"Merlin, lighten up."

"Charlie, I'm talking to Percy. Let me handle it," Arthur said.

"Sorry, Dad."

Percy looked back at his father, nonplussed. "What war?" he repeated. He snapped a bit more than he intended to, and Arthur frowned.

"Remember what we talked about this morning?"

"Oh, the ludicrous story of the crazy people who somehow managed to pull off a successful kidnapping and necromancy plot, at Hogwarts, under the noses of even more people than usual?"

"Don't talk to your father that way," Molly ordered from the kitchen. She waved her wand over a bowl of pot pie and floated it over to the table. "And eat while you talk." She went back to charming the dishes to wash themselves and making bread dough for the morning.

"I know it must sound fantastical, especially hearing it the way you did this morning, but it's the truth. You-Know-Who is back, and Dumbledore will be leading the war effort against him."

"He'll be doing what now? Dad, even if You-Know-Who is back, which I am far from convinced about, shouldn't it be the Ministry in charge? And I don't mean the Chief Warlock. That's not an executive position." For Merlin's sake, Mr. Crouch authored half the wartime policies last time. Percy had read them. They were brilliant.

"What do you mean you're not convinced, Percy?" Arthur asked. "I told you, Dumbledore said that-"

"If Dumbledore is seriously convinced by the word of a Death Eater who is now dead with a story that therefore cannot now be properly verified by the aurors, and by the account of a fourteen-year-old who was probably scared out of his mind and cannot possibly have understood what the hell was going on around him if it involved a ritual sacrifice to raise the dead anyway... then Dumbledore might just be losing it," Percy said.

Arthur shook his head. "It's a lot to take in, I know. But Percy, Harry saw You-Know-Who and fought him!"

"That makes it even more unbelievable, Dad. I'm not doubting that Harry saw and experienced something terrible. Even if all he saw was Cedric dying in an accident, that would be bad enough. But really, I've read enough about necromancy to know that you've probably botched the ritual if your sacrifice survived. Unless Cedric was the sacrifice?"

"No, Harry was always the target."

"There you are, then. Either it was botched, or it wasn't necromancy in the first place. How would Harry know it was You-Know-Who, anyway? Sure, he's the Boy Who Lived, but it's not like he could recognize a face he'd only seen once when he was a baby. The man he saw and fought with was probably just the Death Eater accomplice you mentioned this morning."

"Pettigrew? No, Ron says Harry would definitely have recognized him too..."

"What would Ron know?" Percy asked dismissively. "He wasn't there." There was a niggling feeling in the back of Percy's mind, like he had forgotten something else important that Ron had said this morning. For some reason, though, he wasn't curious about it and did not want to remember it. "If you look at this even a little skeptically, Dad, it falls apart and looks more like Dumbledore making trouble than anything else."

Arthur gaped at him. "How can you say that? Albus Dumbledore is... he's Dumbledore! Your mother and I believe him."

"Why? Why do you believe him? Just because of his titles? And you say I'm starstruck by Minister Fudge just because I got a job offer? Look, all you've told me about all this that was independently verified, at least at one point, is that there was some harebrained Death Eater scheme to kidnap Harry. There's been sporadic reports of Death Eater activity every few years ever since the end of the war. Just think of what happened to Ginny! I'm going to need a bit more evidence before I decide to believe this time, their botched ritual worked! What did Dumbledore tell you that made you so sure, Dad?"

"I've already told you everything I know," Arthur said firmly. "And it's enough to go on. I believe Dumbledore. I'll fight for him."

Percy's eyes widened. "Are you an idiot?" he blurted.

"Percy!" Molly cried.

"No, I mean... look. Seriously, Dad, this is not enough information to know anything. Did Harry tell Ron anything more maybe?"

"Harry had to watch a friend die and then fight for his life against You-Know-Who," Molly said hotly. "No one is making the poor boy say more than he needs to."

"But Mum, he needs to make an official statement to sort this out! The Ministry can't just take Dumbledore's word for something like this when both eyewitnesses are either dead or silent!" This was sounding worse and worse. He turned back to his father. "Please, Dad, don't be rash. Even if Dumbledore's right, he's going about this the wrong way by alienating the Ministry."

"What makes you think he's alienating the Ministry?" Arthur asked, confused.

"By the very fact that you interpreted a perfectly normal job offer for me as an attempt by the duly elected Minister of Magic to spy on you! On you! Because you're apparently allied with Dumbledore in some not-yet-existent war! Dad, regardless of whatever the Death Eaters might be doing, you're putting our family in the middle of Dumbledore's power struggle with the Ministry!"

"Dumbledore would never endanger us."

"Maybe not, but you apparently would."

"DON'T SPEAK TO YOUR FATHER LIKE THAT!" Molly roared at him.

"I'll say what I like, Mum! If Dumbledore wants to declare war on the Death Eaters, he should bring it to the Ministry to do it right. If he wants me to sign on to betraying my Ministry oaths and becoming a vigilante, I'll need a little more to go on than you lot do."

"Don't speak to your mother like that," Arthur shouted. It was... frightening, because Arthur never shouted.

Percy took a deep breath. "There are laws, Dad, and even Albus Dumbledore is not above them. Neither are you. Neither am I. Neither is the Minister. If Dumbledore takes this through the proper channels, and Harry testifies as he needs to, and you're right about all this, then I'm sure it will work out, and then we can all be on the same page."

"Percy, son, Fudge doesn't want that to happen. He doesn't want to deal with it. Dumbledore says-"

"Dumbledore says 'trust me instead of your elected government officials,' apparently," Percy interrupted. "You're suddenly convinced Minister Fudge is totally corrupt, when you've never said anything like that before, just because Dumbledore said so? I don't know why you're so loyal to Dumbledore, Dad! I'm not. I respect him as a brilliant wizard and everything, but he's not really done much recently to prove he still deserves all his honorifics, has he? He's Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, but he hasn't introduced any legislation in the past ten years. He even ended up suspended as Hogwarts Headmaster when he let Ginny spend the year possessed by a cursed book! I know why I didn't realize what was happening that year: I was fifteen and didn't know any better. What's his excuse? No, if it's a choice between 'believe Dumbledore because he says so' and wait for the Ministry to figure out what the hell happened during the Third Task, I'll wait for the Ministry, thanks."

"You're choosing your job over your father and me?" Molly growled.

"I- no! That's not what I said at all!"

"Your father and I have discussed this with the Headmaster personally. We have already decided what is best for the family."

"What, and I'm not allowed to think for myself?" Percy sputtered.

"Uh, Perce-" Charlie said cautiously.

"You're not allowed to disrespect us like this, not when you're still living in our house, young man!"

"Oh, so if I don't swear allegiance to Lord Dumbledore I'll be thrown out, is that it?"

"Everybody needs to calm down," Charlie said.

"You don't disrespect the Headmaster like that!" Molly shouted.

"I can't even criticize him, now? You know what, I don't want to go down with the two of you if and when Dumbledore's ship finally sinks. I have a lot more faith in the Ministry, the institution where I work and where I have wanted to work for as long as I can remember, than I do in Albus Dumbledore's demands to take him at his word. I don't want to lose my job, and I'm taking the one that Madam Umbridge just offered." Both his parents opened their mouths to shout at him some more, but he beat them to it. "And since you can't stand that and it comes with a raise, guess I'll be moving out." He stomped towards the stairs, ignoring the ongoing shouting from both parents. He only hesitated a moment when confronted with the wide-eyed stares of all his younger siblings. He squared his shoulders and pushed past them up to his room. His old Hogwarts trunk was still there. He took out his wand, and the trunk was neatly packed in under a minute, all the books shrunk down to fit. He whistled for Hermes and put the owl in his cage.

He looked around the bare room, a quiver of uncertainty penetrating his fury at his parents. He squashed it down. He did not deserve the reaction he had gotten for merely questioning the authority of Albus bloody Dumbledore. He picked up Hermes' cage and levitated the trunk to follow behind him. He hesitated again when he encountered Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny all still standing on the stairs. Ginny's eyes were red. He resolutely fixed his eyes on the kitchen floor and descended the stairs. It would be utterly humiliating to back down now.

"Percy, put that back in your room, we are not done with this!" Molly said the instant she saw him.

"No, Mum, we are," he said firmly. Arthur was silent now, staring at him with wide, confused eyes.

"Percy, wait," Charlie ventured. Bill was there too, now, having come in from the shed at last. He was staring at the tension in the room uncomprehendingly.

Percy ignored him and walked straight to the hearth and the jar of floo powder. He took a pinch and threw it into the fire. "Leaky Cauldron." He'd get a room for the night and figure out the rest in the morning.

"You do not have permission to leave!" Molly shouted, walking towards him. She whipped out her wand, probably ready to summon his trunk back. He scurried into the green flames before she had the chance.

Bill and Charlie both followed him through, pestering him to "give Mum and Dad a chance, you know what they're like." Neither of them acknowledged the legitimacy of his own position and arguments. He decided not to point that out to them and instead ignored their cajoling all the way up to his room. He slammed the door in their faces and locked it. He ignored their insistent knocking.

Only when he was alone did he sink down on the floor and process what he had just done. He'd never had a row with his father like that before, rarely even argued with his hot-tempered Mum. And now he had. And now he had left the Burrow. Merlin, if this didn't work out, would they let him back?

Was he justified leaving in the first place?

Yes, he was, he decided. Maybe if he heard Harry's story himself, he'd be convinced, but third-hand evidence was no evidence at all for something like this. Maybe he should even write to Harry and ask him if he'd given a statement to the aurors, encourage him a little if needed.

No, best not get ahead of himself. For all he knew, the statement had been given and filed. He'd look for that first before bothering Harry. The poor boy must feel awful.

It was all preposterous anyway. He reviewed his own arguments again, and they were sound. Yes, it would be terrible if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had somehow returned, but the odds were not high, he thought. Much more likely it was only Death Eaters causing trouble, which was bad enough but nothing the Ministry couldn't handle. He'd look for the file tomorrow over lunch. Maybe show it to Dad, especially if it looked like it would clear all this up.

It would all blow over, surely.

He spent the rest of the evening distracting himself by filling out the application Madam Umbridge had given him.

It didn't blow over. Percy submitted his application. He found and read the report about the Third Task, or at least he read the part that wasn't too confidential for him to access on his current credentials. One more reason to take the job with Fudge, he thought bitterly. It did not look like Harry had ever made an official statement, though. Percy tried to chase down his father in the Atrium to tell him that, but Arthur wouldn't meet his eyes. He was avoiding him. That hurt more than Percy could say.

Bill and Charlie were waiting for him at the Leaky Cauldron again, but they weren't the ones who he wanted to talk to. He informed them of what he'd found in the file and icily asked them to tell Dad, since Arthur wouldn't talk to him. They did not follow him up to his room this time.

He found a new apartment. He started the new job. He read all the memos that came to the Minister's office about Dumbledore's more and more suspicious activities. There was absolutely no sign of You-Know-Who starting up a new reign of terror. He tried to talk to his father about it, but Arthur was still avoiding him.

Harry Potter never submitted an official statement, which Percy viewed as mounting evidence against Dumbledore. Either Harry knew something that absolutely must be on the record that Dumbledore was encouraging him to withhold, or else Dumbledore was taking advantage of Harry's trauma for his own purposes. The situation grew even more suspicious when Harry earned himself a disciplinary hearing for use of extremely powerful underage magic. Percy didn't know what to think about the hearing, honestly. Either Harry had gone nuts, talking about Dementors in Little Whinging, which was honestly just horrible to consider, or... he didn't know what the other explanation would be, honestly. Every single Dementor in the British Isles had been relocated to Azkaban or the Ministry holding unit decades ago. Their movements were heavily monitored. Percy checked the records, and none were unaccounted for during the time of the supposed attack.

Which meant poor Harry was probably assaulted by something or someone else entirely, maybe just muggle ruffians, and in panic after his recent trauma misinterpreted what he was seeing and defended himself. And Dumbledore really was just taking advantage of a mentally unstable youth. He sent an owl to Harry anyway, to let him know he had the option to file an official report with the aurors. He was raised by muggles and might not know, if Dad or someone hadn't told him. The owl returned, letter undelivered, which was weird.

Percy congratulated Dolores when she was appointed the new Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. She'd been an invaluable mentor to him over the summer, and he hoped she'd benefit his siblings just as well.

Percy was so busy with his new job, he didn't even hear about his father's admission to St. Mungo's until he'd been there for almost a week. Percy managed to visit that very day, even though visiting hours were over, after pleading with the witch at the front desk for over an hour. The ward was dark when Percy slipped in, except for the illumination charms around Arthur's bed. Arthur was sitting up with his back towards the door. There were several healers clustered around him, replacing the heavy bandages wound around his chest. Percy didn't make a sound, just watched quietly from behind before letting himself back out into the hall. The only thing he could think of to say to his father at the moment was "I told you so, I told you Dumbledore was trouble." Arthur didn't need to hear that right now.

Percy spent an entire weekend lying on his bed, ignoring owls, when the mass breakout from Azkaban happened. He usually worked weekends, at least mornings, but not this time. This was the first time since leaving home he started to doubt the Ministry. Everything had been fine, up until now. There had been no evidence that Dumbledore's rumors of doom and gloom had any basis in an ongoing reality, until now. Yes, the aurors' suspicion that the breakout had been facilitated by Sirius Black was very reasonable, but what if there was more to it?

For the first time in months, he tried to talk to his father again when he dragged himself to work on Monday. Unbelievably, Arthur was still avoiding him. Should he talk to Mum? He winced at the very idea of showing up at the Burrow now. Not after he'd returned the Christmas sweater she'd made him, too angry to keep it after reading the accompanying letter. Could he talk to Bill or Charlie, maybe? It wasn't something he could just put in a letter, though.

He started going to Gringotts in person rather than doing all his banking by mail. He saw Bill a few times but hesitated to approach him. Maybe if he lingered in the lobby, Bill would see him... He finally made contact with Bill over a month after the Azkaban breakout. He was calmer by then, because it had been another month of nothing much happening. Maybe he had gotten alarmed for nothing. He still decided to speak to Bill though, when he managed to catch his brother leaving work.

"Bill!" he cried. Bill spun around to face him, looking very surprised, and not pleasantly so.

"Percy. What do you want?"

Percy pulled up short and flushed. "I... can we talk?"

"Depends. Are you ready to apologize to Dad?"

Percy scowled. "Depends. Is he ready to stop avoiding me?"

"You didn't even visit him in the hospital, Percy. I thought you were better than that!"

"I did visit," Percy countered hotly. "He just didn't see me because the one chance I had, he had a billion healers around him!"

Bill's angry expression softened slightly. "Oh."

"I've been trying to talk to him for months, and he won't even look at me."

Bill sighed. "We can talk. What's on your mind?"

Slowly, Percy tried to explain himself, tried to explain his understanding of what had been happening for the last year. Bill was patient and didn't interrupt as they walked, which Percy was very grateful for. When Percy finished, he said, "Damn, they really got you, didn't they?"

"It's perfectly logical, Bill," Percy said defensively.

"It is, isn't it, when you're missing half the facts? But you're not looking for the facts."

"Why do you think I'm here talking to you?"

"Why didn't you come to me sooner? It's been half a year, Perce."

"I... I didn't have the time. I work twelve hours per day, seven days per week."

"Of course you do, Perce. You'll work yourself to death if the war doesn't kill you first. You need to sort out your priorities, mate. Work isn't worth turning your back on something this important. It isn't worth turning your back on your family. I know you were a little hurt with everything Mum and Dad were saying to you that day back in June, but..." he shrugged, even as Percy felt his hackles rising. He was more than a little hurt by having his every opinion invalidated. "I can answer your questions, but you're the one who has to give up your pride enough to be willing to hear the truth."

"Whatever. There's been absolutely nothing concrete to suggest You-Know-Who is back in business. I would have heard about it as the Minister's assistant."

"No, there hasn't, because they've been taking advantage of the Minister's silence to build up their strength from the shadows before starting any confrontations they're not ready for."

"That's disturbing, but unprovable."

"Oh, I have evidence."

"Really? Tell me."

Bill shook his head with a small smile. "I can't. It's a secret we can't share with the Ministry, not right now."

Percy met his eyes. "That really doesn't increase my confidence in Dumbledore, you know."

"No, I can see why it wouldn't," Bill said with a small laugh.

"What's the line you've been given about the Azkaban breakout? Surely you can talk about that. Why isn't it just Sirius Black?"

Bill laughed again, louder. "Oh, as to that, it would be rather difficult for Sirius to be the new leader of the Death Eaters, considering he never was one in the first place." He chuckled again.

"What are you talking about, of course he was!"

Bill raised an eyebrow. "No, he really wasn't. Did you just completely forget what Ron said about him or something?"

Rat. Scabbers. Animagus. Pettigrew. Percy stumbled and almost fell. His stomach turned over. He had forgotten that. Nine. Years. Because he hadn't wanted to remember that. You put a criminal in Ron's bed. Because he couldn't remember that without going crazy.

"Perce, you okay?"

But he remembered the answer to that one, too. It was fine. He was fine. "The Scabbers thing? That was barking. No, see, Mum used to replace 'Scabbers' every time the old one died. She thought I didn't notice, thought I'd be too upset otherwise. Black Confunded Ron to make him say those things..."

Bill grabbed Percy's shoulder, pulling him to a stop. "Percy, what the hell are you talking about?"

"It's the obvious explanation," Percy said.

"Is that seriously what you've been telling yourself? You're round the bend!"

"Really, Bill, why would a Death Eater disguise himself as a rat in our garden of all things? It makes much more sense if it was just a series of ordinary rats."

"Well, maybe it would make sense, if it wasn't clearly the same rat the whole bloody time. Perce, I'm getting a little worried about you."

"I'm fine."

"Why don't we just ask Mum?" Bill said soothingly. "She'll be able to tell you that she was not substituting out your pet rat every few years when it got old."

"She'll lie about it," Percy said instantly. "She'll be embarrassed."

"I think she'd rather be embarrassed than let everyone think we harbored a Death Eater in the house for twelve years, don't you?"

"We didn't," Percy snarled. "Scabbers was just a fucking rat. He wasn't an animagus. He didn't do anything to me, and he didn't do anything to Ron."

Bill's face whitened, and his grip tightened on Percy's shoulder. "Percy," he whispered. "Did Pettigrew do something to you?"

"Let me go."

"We should go talk to Mum."

"Let me go, Bill."

"Come on, let's go home."

Percy made an inarticulate sound of rage, and felt a sudden pulse of accidental magic flowing through him. Bill let go of him immediately, eyes wide, face full of worry. Percy spun on his heel and disapparated back to his apartment.

He stopped trying to talk to his father, even though he saw Arthur was now the one trying to meet his eyes in the Ministry Atrium. He ignored the times his mother or Bill came knocking at his apartment door and spent even more time at work in order to avoid them. He ignored all the owls they sent, even going so far as to use a banishing charm on poor Errol when he kept pecking at Percy's fingers trying to get him to take the letter and write back.

He didn't read Harry's article in The Quibbler when it came out. He was too busy, blissfully so. He was working fourteen hours per day now, twelve hours on weekends. Even when the interview was mentioned in memos, he felt no urge to seek it out. (There was a little voice in the back of his mind that told him not to, every time he thought maybe he should read it for himself. The little voice did not want to read anything that might mention Peter Pettigrew).

He felt totally vindicated when he heard the words "Dumbledore's Army" right before the sneaky Headmaster of Hogwarts stunned him and the rest of the Ministry delegation.

And then there was the day in June when Harry Potter, Ron and Ginny, and a bunch of their friends broke into the Department of Mysteries, and the night ended with Lord Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange seen by about a hundred Ministry officials in the Atrium. There was no more doubt. There were no more lies. Dumbledore was right. His parents were right. Percy was wrong.

That would not have been so bad, if the news had not also broken that Sirius Black had been innocent all along and then tragically died in the attack. Percy had been prepared to believe the Death Eaters really were getting ready for another war from the beginning, so long as he was presented with sufficient evidence. It was not even so great a leap to think that the botched resurrection ritual really had worked. Sirius Black being innocent was the bit that Percy couldn't take, because it meant Black had not Confunded Ron, and meant that he had indeed spent nine years of his childhood with a Death Eater. While the rest of the world shouted with fear around him, Percy could only obsess over this one small aspect. What had Pettigrew done to him? He couldn't imagine a Death Eater would lie in wait for nine years and not do anything evil. He had nightmares all the time, imagining horrible things happening to himself, and to Ron. He couldn't go home. Couldn't see the place where all those nightmares might have happened. Couldn't risk seeing Ron.

He threw himself into his work, because it was the only way for him to stop obsessing over it. He worked for Scrimgeour just as diligently as he had for Fudge and for Crouch.

Somehow, he didn't even realize that the Burrow was a stop on the Minister's Christmas Day agenda until they were on their way there. "Wait, Minister Scrimgeour!" he said in a panic, gathering papers and decidedly not following the man out of the office.

"What?"

"I..." I don't want to go home for Christmas... He flushed pink as the Minister stared at him with one raised eyebrow. He couldn't really say that without inviting questions he couldn't bear to answer. "Nothing." Scrimgeour snorted and strode away. Percy hurried after him.

They got most of the way across the back yard before he glimpsed Molly Weasley gaping at him through the window. Couldn't run now. Well, he was a Gryffindor. He led the way to the back door and opened it. There were all the Weasleys, along with Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, old Professor Lupin for some reason, and an extremely beautiful blonde woman Percy vaguely recognized but couldn't place sitting around the table.

There was a moment of painful silence. Then Percy said rather stiffly, "Happy Christmas, Mother."

"Oh, Percy!" said Molly, and she threw herself into his arms. He held her awkwardly.

Minister Scrimgeour came up behind him, leaning on his walking stick and smiling as he observed this affecting scene. Percy had never hated a boss before, but he did in that moment.

"You must forgive me this intrusion," the Minister said, when Molly looked round at him, beaming and wiping her eyes. "Percy and I were in the vicinity - working, you know - and he couldn't resist dropping in and seeing you all."

Percy stood, poker-straight, and stared over everybody else's heads. He didn't want to be here, but that didn't matter. He wouldn't contradict the Minister. And he wouldn't look at Ron. Anyone else, yes, even Bill and his Father. But not Ron.

"Please, come in, sit down, Minister!" fluttered Molly, straightening her hat. "Have a little purkey, or some tudding...I mean - "

"No, no, my dear Molly," said Scrimgeour. "I don't want intrude, I wouldn't be here at all if Percy hadn't wanted to see you all so badly..."

"Oh, Perce!" Molly said tearfully, reaching up to kiss his cheek. He held still and let her. He spied the window will where Scabbers had liked to sun himself and barely refrained from wincing. Merlin, this was torture.

"...We've only popped in for five minutes, so I'll have a stroll around the yard while you catch up with Percy. No, no, I assure you. I don't want to butt in! Well if anybody cared to show me your charming garden...ah, that young man's finished, why doesn't he take a stroll with me?" He pointed at Harry.

The atmosphere around the table changed perceptibly. Everybody looked from Scrimgeour to Harry. Percy almost rolled his eyes. Nobody could possibly find Scrimgeour's pretense that he did not know Harry's name convincing, or find it natural that he should be chosen to accompany the Minister around the garden when Ginny, George, and the blond woman also had clean plates. It was downright embarrassing to be involved in this, Percy thought a little hysterically.

"Yeah, all right," said Harry into the silence. "It's fine," he said quietly, as he passed Lupin, who had half risen from his seat. "Fine," he added, as Arthur opened his mouth to speak. Thank you, Harry, for not making this even worse.

"Wonderful!" said Scrimgeour, standing back to let Harry pass through the door ahead of him. "We'll just take a turn around the garden and then Percy and I'll be off. Carry on, everyone!"

Molly hugged him again. "Percy! Oh, Percy, how wonderful."

"You sold out Harry," Ron said accusingly. Don't look at him.

"Ron!" Molly scolded.

"I'm sorry he's here. I didn't even realize he was coming here until we were on our way," Percy started babbling. He couldn't look at Ron, so he looked at his father instead, who was regarding him coolly. "I shouldn't have come. I'm sorry we intruded. I'll just go."

Bill got up quickly. "No, Percy. It's good you came." He sounded anxious, which made Percy want to run and hide under the chicken coop.

Fred and George got up too, and unlike Bill, they looked livid. "Oh, yes, Prissy Percy, very good you came."

"We've got presents and everything."

"Accio."

Before he even knew what was happening, the twins were forcing a Christmas hat on his head and roughly shoving food in his face. Mum and Dad were both yelling at them to stop. Mum sounded like she was crying, too. Eventually, Percy shook them off long enough to raise a shield about himself and fled, half-blinded with mashed parsnip.

The Minister watched with raised eyebrows as Percy cleaned off his glasses and fixed his broken nose. He coughed. "I see why you did not want to come here today, Mr. Weasley. I... apologize."

Percy put his glasses back on and cleaned a few spots of parsnip and gravy off his robe with a quick Scourgify. He shuffled his papers for a moment, glad Fred and George hadn't got gravy all over them at least. "You have an appointment with the head goblin at Gringotts next, sir," he said stiffly.

Scrimgeour nodded at him and tapped his shoulder. "Lead the way."

Dumbledore died. Percy spent the funeral studiously avoiding contact with any other Weasleys, no matter how hard Bill tried to corner him.

He RSVP'd in the negative to the invitation to Bill's wedding. Fleur Delacour was the name of the girl he'd seen at Christmas. His brother's fiancée, the Triwizard champion from Beaux Batons. He would have liked to see the wedding and meet Fleur properly, but he couldn't put himself in proximity to Mum and Dad, Ron, or Fred and George.

And then Minister Scrimgeour was murdered in the office. Percy kept his job with the emergency transition to Minister Pius Thicknesse. Percy's personal problems finally, finally paled in significance.

Part of him knew exactly what had happened, exactly when it happened. But a greater part of him could not bear to let go of the hours and hours of daily paperwork that kept him sane enough to sleep at night. So he kept doing his paperwork and doing it perfectly, even as he realized he was no longer serving the government he had respected so much for so long. He was not alone. Almost no one outside the auror department left their jobs, at least not right away.

He finally saw Dolores Umbridge for what she was when she happily drafted the anti-muggleborn legislation. There was very little he could do about it, about any of it. He didn't have the contacts the rest of his family had to join in an effective counter-resistance, and it was too dangerous to renew contact with his family now even if he wanted to. He did do the only thing he could: help Dolores with revisions to the bill to ensure it was in keeping with proper Ministry protocols and procedures. The original twenty-page document bloated up to three hundred eighty-three. He was probably the only person in the Ministry who both read it all the way through and understood it perfectly. The upshot was that the legislation now required just as much time-consuming bureaucracy on the part of the Ministry as it did on the part of the muggleborns it was targeting. The changes would inevitably consume vast amounts of both time and money for each muggleborn hearing. Maybe it wouldn't make a difference in the end, but it might slow down some of the atrocities, long enough for some more people to escape.

He also ensured when the Voldemort Taboo was enacted, it contained all the requisite subspells to prevent Accidental Activations Via Semantic Similarity: Moldy Shorts, Purple Warts, Golden Farts, and all the rest were completely allowed. Fred and George could rest easier. They might even be proud of him for forcing the unpleasant witch who actually incanted the spell to have to say all those rude names.

He made sure everyone else's inboxes were always, always full, while spending an hour each morning before everyone else in the office arrived reorganizing them to make sure the most dangerous documents always, always started the day near the bottom of the stack. Not at the bottom, no, that was an amateurish mistake. When people were looking for that thing-that-had-to-be-completed, they searched first from the top of the inbox, and then more lacklusterly from the bottom. Percy's inbox was the only one that was always, always emptied by the end of the day.

Somebody must have noticed what he was doing, because eventually, a house elf named Dobby accosted him at his apartment. It tied him up and interrogated him for quite awhile. He refused to say anything until it revealed it used to be the Malfoy house elf and that it had tried to avert the whole Chamber of Secrets thing that had nearly killed Ginny. And that Harry Potter had freed it afterwards. Percy was convinced when the elf happily cursed out the whole Malfoy family for five minutes straight. He answered the elf's questions, and it told him that Aberforth Dumbledore would contact him when the time came for the general population to rise up against the current government. Until then, he was to continue his good work at the Ministry. The elf disappeared with a loud Crack, and Percy never saw it again.

His energy was renewed, though. He started working eighteen hours per day instead of fourteen, taking all his meals at work and only returning home every other day to shower. It was extremely therapeutic. It also earned him a promotion, which was nice. The budget was too strained for the promotion to come with a pay raise, but that was okay since Percy barely spent any of his paycheck anyways, except for rent.

He was so absorbed in his work, he almost was able to forget why he was feeling so anxious and doing all these odd things until a goat-shaped patronus showed up in his office to inform him that Voldemort was laying siege to Hogwarts. Initially, this made no sense, because Voldemort already controlled Hogwarts. But then it was clarified that no, Undesirables one through three had stolen into the castle and deposed Headmaster Snape, a believable story considering they had very successfully broken into and out of Gringotts the day before. Thus, it was not Hogwarts which Voldemort was attacking, precisely. It was Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley. Percy got up and left his desk that very moment. If Ron was making a final stand, Percy would damn well be there with him.

He apparated to the Hogs Head Inn as the patronus instructed. He saw the old barman sending off another goat patronus. He tried to remember if he'd even met the man before and decided that, no, he hadn't. "How did you know to call me?" he asked.

The barman looked over at him. "Percy Weasley?"

"Yes."

He smiled and shrugged. "I heard about you. You were always estranged from your family for personal reasons, not ideological ones. I know what that's like."

"Thank you," Percy said, wondering how the complete stranger could have possibly figured that out.

"The passage is back there," the barman said, gesturing through another doorway. "I'm Aberforth, by the way."

"Are you really? That makes sense." Percy nodded and walked passed him. He walked through the strange passageway into Hogwarts. He walked the familiar halls. Everyone he saw seemed to be moving towards the Great Hall, so he followed them. And there were his family. Mum and Dad, all six of his siblings. When did Bill get those scars all over his face? When did George lose an ear?

The Weasley family froze when they saw him. Percy stopped walking too, as a flood of confused emotions crashed over him. He was relieved to see them all alive. He was ashamed it had taken him so long to face them again. He was afraid they would reject him. And he was still honestly a little annoyed that they had ended up estranged like this in the first place, as it wasn't entirely his fault. Not entirely.

Fear of rejection won, though. He hadn't forgotten what that Christmas was like. "I was a fool!" he blurted before anyone else could say it for him. "I was an idiot, I was a pompous prat, I — was a — a —"

"Ministry-loving, family-disowning, power-hungry moron," Fred offered.

Percy blushed. "Yes, I was."

"Well, you can't say fairer than that." Fred grinned widely and was the first to step forwards and welcome him back to the family.

And then Fred was the only one of the family to wind up dead in the battle.

Percy was a mess afterwards, worse than Mum, even. Mum spent a lot of her time taking care of him, whenever she wasn't taking care of George. She complained he'd let himself get too thin (he had), speculated he wasn't sleeping enough (he wasn't), and kept saying that he was blaming himself (he was) when he shouldn't (arguable).

He traded rooms with George. Neither of them wanted to sleep in their old ones again, nor did they want to go back to their respective apartments.

Kingsley Shacklebolt was made interim Minister and sent an owl asking when Percy was going to be able to come back to work. Percy almost went back to his apartment to find his work robes that very morning, except a second, faster owl showed up just as the first one left with a panicked note to Molly and Arthur Weasley. Apparently, Shacklebolt had just reviewed Percy's time card for the last month and had changed his mind about asking him to come back to work. He was instead ordered to take at least a month off and consider being evaluated in St. Mungo's in case he needed any nutrition potions.

It took a few weeks for Bill to get Percy alone in the living room. "Hey, Perce."

"Hey."

"You feeling okay?"

Percy shrugged. He felt the same as he had since first seeing Fred's face frozen in the moment of death. He wasn't okay, but it would be misleading to admit it.

"I've been wanting to talk to you for awhile." Percy looked at him. "For over two years now, actually. Perce... when you came to me at Gringotts that day... when we talked about Pettigrew..."

"I was delusional. I know that now."

Bill nodded, slowly. "Okay. But... did you really believe that thing you said about Mum and Scabbers?"

Percy couldn't help but laugh, even though it wasn't funny. "I believed it," he admitted. "Merlin, I believed everything I said to you about it."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want to believe that Scabbers was Pettigrew. I didn't want to believe that about myself, or about Mum and Dad, or about Ron. I couldn't stand to think about it."

"You didn't want to believe what about you and Ron?" Bill asked softly.

Percy took a deep breath. It was a small fear that didn't matter now anyway, not with everything else that had happened. He could talk about it. "I didn't want to believe that I had spent every day and night for nine years at the complete mercy of a Death Eater, before delivering my youngest brother into the hands of said Death Eater. Pettigrew could have done anything to me and to Ron, Bill. Surely you understand that?"

Bill nodded, face pale. "I understand that, Perce. I got what you were saying back then, too. I didn't want to believe it either. I don't want to believe either you or Ron... suffered that way... So I'm going to ask you the same question I did then. Did Pettigrew do something to you?"

Percy shuddered, visions from his nightmares flashing before his eyes: a demonic, shadowy figure pinning him to a bed, hitting him, cutting him, using the Cruciatus, tearing off his clothes, violating him, making him want to scream, if only he had a voice... "I don't know," he admitted. "I don't remember anything like that. I never suspected Scabbers of being anything other than a rat, though, and that makes me wonder if I was Confunded. Or Imperiused. Or Obliviated. Merlin, Bill, I can't know, and that's what was making me so barmy for so long. I was mad at Dad for ignoring my reservations about Harry and Dumbledore, but I only needed a better explanation to believe that. But Scabbers... it hit different."

"Yeah," Bill said quietly. "That does hit different, when you think about it. And I'm sorry, I didn't think about it like you did, not at the time. Not until that time at Gringotts, when it was too late. I wrote to you so often after that."

"I know you did. I didn't read the letters, though. I couldn't."

"I sort of figured that out." They were quiet for a moment. "I didn't tell Mum and Dad what exactly we talked about that day, only that I'd spoken to you and you were doubting the Ministry line somewhat. It didn't feel right to talk about Pettigrew with them behind your back."

"Thank you."

"Do you want to tell them now?"

Percy laughed again. "What good will it do? It will only make Mum even more upset than she already is."

"It's possible. But it's also possible Dad'll be able to be a little more normal around you if he can wrap his head around why you... acted like you did."

"I don't want Dad to act like I'm... damaged."

"Oh, Perce, you aren't broken. You're hurt, and you're grieving for Fred like the rest of us are, but we can get through this."

"What if he's the reason I am the way I am, Bill?" Percy whispered. "What if I only went crazy like that because of what he did to my head when I was a child?"

"No. You can't think like that. You'll drive yourself up the wall again."

"I can't not think like that."

"Yes, you can," Bill insisted. "We can work it out."

Percy shook his head ruefully. "I've been doing nothing but 'working it out' since the day Ron told us all about Pettigrew. Why do you think I was working so damn hard? Paperwork is the only way I've found besides the literal collapse of society to distract my brain from this kind of thinking."

Bill leaned in and hugged him then. "I'm sorry, Perce. I'm sorry no one saw what this was doing to you. But I refuse to believe you're damaged the way you think you might be." He smoothed Percy's hair, then leaned back and smiled at him. "After all, I don't think anyone with long term brain damage from repeated Obliviation or whatever you've talked yourself into could ever rise up to be the Senior Assistant to the Minister of Magic at the tender age of twenty-one. And Aberforth told me what you did to Umbridge's legislation and the taboo. The taboo is what tipped him off about you, you know."

Percy was slightly taken aback. "How the hell did he know that was me?"

Bill grinned. "Oh, Ursula Pucey, the witch who had to read the bloody thing aloud, showed up at the Hogs Head griping about it afterward. He got her talking and learned all the You-Know-Who euphemisms you'd written into the Accidental Activations exclusions list. When he reported back to what was left of the Order of the Phoenix, we were all gobsmacked someone still in the Ministry had the balls to do something like that." His grin slipped a little. "Fred thought it was brilliant, you know. George was the one who pointed out only someone as 'prattish' as you would know that part of an obscure protocol so well as to figure out how to abuse it."

"I only did it because I knew the twins couldn't resist the 'Moldy Shorts' line," Percy explained quickly. "I wasn't deliberately pranking Ursula."

Bill chuckled. "No, I didn't think you were. Actually, none of us thought you had anything to do with it, it seemed so unlike you except for the method. It was Aberforth who figured it out, from listening to us and talking to other visitors at his bar, and he never actually told us he'd made contact with you. We were all surprised when you showed up at Hogwarts. I talked to Aberforth afterwards." He touched Percy's shoulder again. "Look, even if Pettigrew did do something to you, which would be horrible beyond words... I love you the way you are, little brother. You're a good person, and you did good during the war. A lot of it. If you'll let me help you, you'll get through this, and who knows? Maybe you'll still be on track to become Minister of Magic by the time you're thirty."

Percy offered the ghost of a smiled. He didn't feel very enthusiastic about his old, childish goal in life, but he appreciated Bill's effort. "Thanks, Bill. For everything."

"Hey, I'm your big brother. I'll always be here for you."

Percy's lip trembled. "I know."

"You know, maybe you don't want to talk to Mum and Dad, but... maybe you should talk to Ron?"

"I don't know. I don't want him to feel like this if he doesn't already."

"Trust me, he doesn't, and he won't. He's not like you, Percy. He's known about Pettigrew a lot longer for one thing, and he didn't have Scabbers for nearly so long. Maybe he'll get angry at Pettigrew again, but he won't stew on and internalize that the way you did. Plus, I mean, Ron was older than you when he got Scabbers. It's not quite the same thing. Scary to think about, yes, but not the same."

"You think so?"

"I know it. He's been through so much other crazy shit in the last year, the Scabbers/Pettigrew thing will barely rate a mention to him, anyway."

Percy shook his head. "He shouldn't have had to deal with all that. Neither should Ginny, or Harry and Hermione, or any of them." Fred... He started crying again, and Bill held him, rocking him gently on the couch.

Bill was right, though. Ron heard him out. He got angry at Pettigrew and stormed off. Then he stormed back after talking to Hermione about it and awkwardly apologized to Percy for not being more sensitive. And then he grinned when Percy rather tearfully promised, "I'm your big brother. I messed up, but I never will again. I'll always be here for you."

It felt so good to say, he said it to Ginny and George later. Ginny rolled her eyes and went to look for Harry once she was certain he'd finished his heartfelt speech. George punched his shoulder and called him a prat, but then sat next to him at dinner for the first time since the Battle of Hogwarts.

Percy spent a lot of time with Bill the next few weeks, going on long walks together out of the smothering grips of Molly Weasley. Ron came along once in awhile, though mostly he just listened to the conversation rather than actively participated. When Bill went back to work, George started seeking him out instead. Seems he was also getting tired of Mum, without actually wanting to move yet.

It was Ron who gave them both the push they needed to move back out from under Mum's apron strings. He commented on one of their walks together, "Hey guys, I've been thinking about moving out, but I'm broke after being on the run for a year, and I don't want to bum off Bill and Fleur anymore than I already have. Do either of you still have your apartments? And maybe an idea for a job?"

"Well... I guess I could use more help at the shop," George said quietly. "I can't pay much right now, though."

"I can lend you both some money, if you need," Percy said. "I've saved... a lot."

They both ogled him. "Perce... are you a wealthy Weasley now?" George ventured.

"Well, maybe not rich enough to afford the dragon hide waistcoats I saw you and Fred sporting that one time when your business first got big, but... I also barely spent anything for the last three years. And I still have my apartment, if you want to be roommates for a bit, Ron."

"That'd be great! I'm going with Hermione to find her parents in Australia first - she Obliviated them for their own safety, you know -but after that, you're on!" It suddenly made a lot more sense why Bill was never worried about Ron's reaction to the idea of possibly being Obliviated at some point in his childhood. Ron had a unique perspective on the matter of Obliviation.

And so, Percy went back to his apartment. And with Ron there, sleeping soundly on the couch without a care in the world, he even managed to sleep through the night again himself. Ron decorated the place for him, something Percy had never done himself. Mum came over and redecorated for the both of them so it was no longer blindingly orange. Percy went back to work. He worked a normal number of hours (twelve, only five days a week, banned from the office on weekends). A year in, once the budget was no longer so out of whack, he got the raise that should have gone with his wartime promotion.

He still had nightmares about Pettigrew, occasionally, just as he still had nightmares about Fred's death, and Cedric's now that he had finally read the whole story in the Quibbler, and even Scrimgeour's... but they were only nightmares.