Chapter Text
Arthur isn't quite sure how to approach the situation.
He's never found himself a natural at this, really-- being a dad. Mollywobbles, on the other hand, Molly, bless her, she is a natural mother, almost as if she were born for it. But when Percy had asked so quietly to speak with him privately, he'd just found himself thrown. And now they're in his shed with the Muggle car, Percy settled on his stool with eyes on the floor, and he just doesn't know what he's supposed to say.
He realizes he's not sure the last time he's heard Percy say a word, before he'd asked to come out here. It's longer than it should've been. Percy's always been the quietest of their boys, but there's a difference between quiet and silent. So silent.
A nine year old boy oughtn't be silent.
"You know--" he starts, but the spell breaks, and Percy's mouth is suddenly moving even if his eyes can not.
"Do you promise to believe me? If I tell you something?"
Arthur blinks.
"Something unbelievable," Percy presses, and it's only when the silence has stretched on again. "It's. I wouldn't believe it, if I were you."
He blinks again. He swallows, his mouth suddenly dry.
"Is something wrong?" he asks instead, because he simply doesn't have the foggiest what Percy could be getting at. "You know, if you've done something wrong, Perce, that's okay. It's not the end of the world. We can fix it. You just have to tell me what it is."
But Percy does not answer. He stares at the floor and waits, his little hands squeezing at his trousers and his face white. He just sits and sits, clearly untouched by the offer. He is demanding an answer and nothing more and nothing less. And Percy is their best-behaved, of course. Arthur could understand a meltdown if he'd done something wrong, but this... this isn't that, is it?
Somehow, very peculiarly, he sits across from a boy and he is the one who feels like a child.
"Yes," he says finally. "I'll listen to whatever you have to say. Of course I will, Percy. I'm your dad."
It's not the answer he was really asking for. Listening is not believing.
And Percy, he can see, hears that. He still does not look up. He squirms, legs swinging once, and his face twists and tightens, like a toy that's been coiled too far. His eyes bounce left and right until they squeeze shut and he breathes out an exhale that mists in the cold and shakes harder than his hands.
Percy--
"Time travel," he says. "T-... time travel."
Arthur nearly swallows his own tongue.
"Or... I don't know the proper term. I'm sorry. I never studied the theory. But time--" Percy dares to look up at him, and when their eyes lock this time he doesn't look away. "I know what's going to happen."
Sufficiently winded himself, now, Arthur staggers to his own table. He blinks and shakes his head, huffing greatly, and finds himself smiling but he's not happy at all. His stomach flutters anxiously and he shakes his head again. Percy still hasn't moved.
"I've... never heard of it, I suppose. But that doesn't mean it's impossible!" Percy's eyes have darted to him again and he offers what he hopes is a reassuring smile, reaching out to ruffle that red head. "Accidental magic can--"
But this, he sees, is wrong.
"No. No!" Percy jerks away and lands on his feet, shaking his head back and forth, bleached even paler than before. "It wasn't... I'm not a child! At least-- I'm not supposed to be."
An unsettled silence falls between them again. Arthur doesn't, can't, know what to say.
Instead, he looks at his son, and slowly begins to understand.
Percy has been acting strange for days. He's been quiet, and avoided eye contact and conversation with everyone. And he'd been acting strange when he'd asked to speak in private, and he'd looked strange sitting there in his shed, perfectly straight-backed and still with eyes that never would quite meet his. And it had been nagging at him, a quite mutter in the back of his head, but it had been too ridiculous to entertain and he'd never--
But now, he sees it.
It reminds him of how people were during the war. Doing anything but making eye contact, because the dangers of running into a Legilmens and having them read something, anything, anything from your mind was too much. Too real.
But... no. That's impossible. It's not just impossible, it's absurd. To look at his nine year old boy, and think--
Arthur swallows dryly again, and shakes his head, just like Percy.
"I can prove it," Percy says hoarsely. He looks up and he's trembling, now, but their eyes lock. "Your patronus. It's a weasel."
That wasn't spur of the moment. It'd been planned, of course. Percy, ever their most responsible one, he'd known his words would be unbelievable. He'd come armed with proof.
Arthur releases a deep, shuddering breath, and folds in two. His shoulders bow under the weight of the world and he drops his face into his hands, eyes squeezed shut. His body is almost numb and he feels like he's floating and bound to earth all at once, and by Merlin, he can't pull a single coherent thought together.
It's outlandish. And he should be laughing right now. He should be ruffling Percy's hair and pulling him close and telling him it's okay, it's okay. Talk with me, we'll figure this out. It's so obviously not true, and instead his young son has simply read the wrong book or had a bad dream and needs to be talked back down to earth.
And if had been Ron or the twins sitting here saying this, then he knows that's what he'd be doing.
But he's not. He's not.
"I can do magic, too. If you lend me your wand. Whatever spell you want. Er..." He wavers, for the first time. "Not the Patronus. I can't... I never could perform that spell. Not properly."
His voice has fallen to a whisper, and for the first time, he hears it. Shame. A child's shame.
Arthur doesn't need the proof. Not in his heart. But he looks down at his son and sees someone who needs his help, and he hands him his wand because it's all the help he could give.
The proof, if he'd needed it at all, was there. Percy holds the wand the way only a wizard would, a properly trained one, not at all like the twins waving sticks or even the reverence of a child touching their first wand. He grips it easily in his tiny hand and points straight for the nearest book on Muggle appliances, and with a simple, coordinated little wave, has turned it to a rabbit.
One hop, a skitter to the near edge of the table, big eyes jumping about and soft ears twitching, white all over and a little bunny tail, and Percy's turned it back. Midair the spell catches, and the book falls back, settled neatly against the spread of papers.
Percy clears his throat without flourish, and holds the wand back to him.
Inanimate object to animal transfiguration. Fourth year transfiguration. Nonverbal spells. Fifth year Defense Against the Dark Arts. Both executed flawlessly. Both executed... easily.
He's nine years old and better at magic than their oldest, studying at Hogwarts for years already and with perfect marks carried home by every owl.
Either they've got a little Albus Dumbledore on their hands-- a little Albus Dumbledore who, until these past few days, had shown no sign of being anything but their Percy-- or...
"I believe you," he hears himself say. "I believe you, son."
They sit together in silence. Percy doesn't move, just stands there too tense and too stiff for a little boy, and Arthur stares at his feet and feels faintly sick. It's all ridiculous. He's acting crazy, is what it is. He's a grown man, and his little boy comes to him telling stories, and he believes them without effort, and that's the thing, it is. He's not just saying the words. In his heart, he believes him.
In his heart, he knows it's true.
He drags his eyes back to Percy at last. His son shivers on the balls of his feet, can't quite decide where to look, and this time Arthur's hand finds his way to his shoulder instead of his head. The way he'd approach an adult, man-to-man.
There's two questions, really, when he gets down to it. He doesn't mean to, but he asks the one that doesn't matter first.
"How?"
Percy finally looks up at him again, his eyes huge in a child's face.
"How?" Arthur repeats, his voice barely a rasp. "I've never heard of such a thing. Not ever."
But Percy is shaking his head, and for the first time is just as young as he should be. "I don't know, Dad. I don't know anything more than you." His fingers tangle together and he seems to all but shrink. "I wanted... I just wanted to... fix it. T-to..."
His voice dwindles, and what comes next is so quiet it almost isn't heard at all. "I'm sorry."
Arthur's throat is dry. He doesn't ask again.
He's overwhelmed, of course, must be in shock, but the shock helps as he sits here, numb and reeling, and can somehow still think through it though it makes no sense at all. Percy has said nothing about where-- when-- he is from. Percy is wary to even look at him and each word he's said has been guarded, and he knows that this is a deliberate choice. Percy is choosing not to tell him what it is that's happened, what will happen, what must go wrong. But Arthur looks at him and it is only because he's lived it himself that he recognizes the shadow of living through a war.
He doesn't know what war. If You-Know-Who returns, like Dumbledore had warned, all those years ago, or if it is some other dark wizard (Merlin forbid) or something else entirely. He knows that look. His most precious memory is when he'd realized that the war was over, and none of his children would ever grow up to shoulder the same burden that had grieved him and Molly so heavily.
And yet now Percy has the same look that he had, ten years ago.
If Percy is not giving him the details, then it is for a reason.
So instead, Arthur asks his second question.
"What do you need from me?"
Percy is not giving him for the details, for a reason. And Percy has also come to him for a reason.
His son shudders again, and this time he can feel it: it is with relief. He looks at the hand on his shoulder and a spot of color fades into his cheeks, and Arthur can feel the tension under his grip fail at last.
He wonders how long Percy has been like this. How many days he's felt so dire before he finally dared to break his silence. How long his son had spiraled into a breakdown and... and he hadn't noticed. Not Molly, either. Whether that was their failure as parents or how bad things were to get, that Percy knew how to hide.
"I..." Percy stutters, almost frail. He shivers and swallows and closes his eyes, visibly mastering himself. "I need information. I wouldn't have troubled you but without a wand I need the assistance, and I couldn't wait."
Wait, he hears. Wait until he was eleven. Wait until Charlie's wand was passed to him, and then what?
He's struck by the perilous thought of his nine year old son apparating out at night and is suddenly deliriously glad that even Percy had been unable to finagle himself a wand.
He finds his voice again, just barely. "Information on?"
"Time travel. If that is what is happened. Memory displacement, perhaps. Anything that might explain how I'm here."
It isn't what he was expecting. The name of a dark wizard, perhaps, or a spell, but then, he supposes, that would've done away with the whole secrecy attempt. Percy being tight-lipped about just what it was he'd run from, and Arthur already knows if he asks, he won't get an answer.
He can, instead, do nothing but nod. "I'll do my best," is all he can say. He doesn't even know where to start.
The silence lingers again. Percy doesn't speak but also doesn't leave, and Arthur's chest is heavy with it all.
"Molly--" he says finally, but again, Percy is jolted into action, only to shake his head and in an instant.
"No! I... I mean. No, please." His eyes flicker and his shoulders are stiff again. "I.. don't want to scare her."
"Scare her? Perce, of everything that she'll be, you know that scared is not one of them. Not your mother!"
But Percy is quiet again, eyes still not meeting his. He does not answer.
And once again, Arthur can do nothing but read his son for what he will not say.
Molly fought in the war with him. She's got nerves of steel, and they temper into iron when her children are in danger. She can fight. She's a brilliant witch. And she is his mother. If Arthur knows, she should, too. He doesn't feel right, to keep secrets from her. But the look on Percy's face is adamant.
And he begins to understand.
Percy doesn't... need this information. Not really. If Arthur can even find it, and slim chance that he can, he doubts this can be reversed. It doesn't change his situation. Whatever war they might be headed into will not change. There's nothing that Arthur can actually do for him except... be there.
And this is all that Percy is asking of him.
He will, then. He'll be there. For whatever it is to come.
Percy's eyes flicker to him again. There's a new wariness there, something disturbingly young, again. He says something, but this time his voice is too tiny to be heard.
"What was that, son?"
"Y-you... believed me." He blinks behind his glasses like an owl. "I thought you'd... but you believed me. So easily. I didn't even have to repeat all the members of the Order."
The Order, he thinks, his stomach stirring unpleasantly. Percy ought not to know about the Order. He wouldn't, surely. Not unless You-Know-Who...
But that is not what he has been asked.
And it is true. He's believed him, almost too easily. Molly wouldn't have. She would still be demanding proof, or fussing over him looking for a confundus charm. The other kids would all have been sure he was playing some sort of ill thought out prank and run off five minutes ago. But Arthur has not. And there were a lot of answers he could give as to why. But-- as before, there is really only one that matters.
"Because I know my family," he says. "And I know that you are the one son I can always trust to be honest. You wouldn't make this up. So unless someone out there has decided to polyjuice or imperius my nine year old son for the most convoluted conspiracy in the world... I know that I can trust you, Percy."
Percy's little white face scrunches up. His eyes go huge and his breath wobbles.
And then he wails.
He throws himself at Arthur, clutching onto his robes and burying into his side and weeping great big tears and sobbing, and for the first time looks just a child.
Percy is too young to come with him to work. At least, to the secrets that he must delve into. And even if he weren't, Arthur suddenly doesn't want Percy anyone near people at the Ministry who might just be smart enough to ask just the wrong questions.
Arthur gets the information instead, and comes home armed with few answers and just one book.
He is not surprised when neither is satisfactory.
"It wasn't a time turner! I'm sure of it, I know it!"
"Percy," he tries tiredly, but his son slams the book shut, and once again has somehow managed to act his age.
"No. Time turners do not change history, they set it in stone! That's not what's happening here! History has already changed because of me, you brought this book home because of me-- a time turner wouldn't do that!"
"Well, time turners were the only answer they gave me. At least, the only answer the Department of Mysteries would give to an outsider."
Percy pouts magnificently, down on the floor of his shed, and Arthur releases another long sigh and eyes the window. Everyone else is still occupied with Quidditch. Fred and George had laughed that Percy would rather work in here than play in the sky. Something that would've once made his face turn as red as his hair, and today Arthur isn't even sure he'd heard them.
A long moment passes, and Percy shakes his head, book pulled close. "Sorry," he mutters stiffly. "I suppose I always knew it as a long shot. I appreciate the book, though. I never had the chance to read up on the theory before... maybe there'll be something illuminating in here after all."
Arthur doubts it. He thinks Percy doubts it, too. If whatever he had done was so decidedly unrelated to time turners, then either the Department of Mysteries really didn't know about it, and it certainly wasn't being written down for the casual wizard to check out and read, or they did know about it... and it certainly wasn't being written down for the casual wizard to check out and read.
There's something still very disquieting, looking at such a young boy dutifully reading such a complicated text on the floor. He looks grateful for it, even. Arthur had taken a look at it before, and knows it would make Bill's head spin. It had made his head spin a little.
"You should try to keep that hidden," he says lamely, though he's not sure Percy is listening anymore. "Your mother wouldn't be glad that I'm giving you such things."
Percy doesn't react, already engrossed thoroughly, or perhaps he just doesn't want to. Arthur sits meekly back down, and again doesn't know what to say.
Percy has been avoiding being caught alone with him, since... since. Arthur isn't sure why, but luckily no one else has picked up on it. There's always work to be done at the Burrow, and no questions to be raised when there's suddenly dishes to be washed or twins to be corralled, and it's always when the room has gone empty but just for the two of them. He doesn't know if Percy is trying to avoid questions-- or stop himself from saying too much. Whatever that might mean.
There's a lot he doesn't know about Percy, these days. There's a lot that he's afraid to find out.
They toil together in silence, Arthur mostly pretending to work on the car and Percy buried in his book. He is going awfully slowly, though, curly head firmly down and hands crinkling the pages. Arthur is just beginning to wonder if the book might not be as easy for him as he'd thought when there's a crash outside and a distant cry. "Boys!"
Molly sounds exasperated, not scared, and that's a dime a dozen around here. He pays it no mind.
And has barely managed to put the gear down before Percy is on his feet and bolted out of the shed like a terrified rabbit. The book is left behind without a second thought, fallen on the dirt, and outside there's a different voice shouting now.
Arthur blinks wildly, and totters after the chaos without a clue as to what's gone wrong.
"--understand how dangerous that was?! You could've gotten seriously hurt, could've died, Fred! Fred!"
The twins are on the ground together, their brooms and legs tangled together in what was obviously a flying accident. Or maybe not an accident, if he knows them at all. They look fine, a little dirty and breathless but fine, and the worst of it is the broken brooms that will cost a fortune to get fixed. They'd only just gotten old enough to be allowed off the toys at all.
Percy's concern, however, is clearly not with finances.
Percy looms over his brothers, finger wagging and voice cracked, and he's so young that it's just as high as Molly's, but he doesn't have the force of a mother behind it. Instead he's just a nine year old boy, lecturing and screaming in the garden. Bill and Charlie have landed and are looking at him oddly, and even Molly has gone quiet to blink at him with eyes wide as saucers.
"Why do you have to be so reckless?! Huh? Huh?! Why would you do something where you knew you'd get hurt and not even--"
"Oi, will you shut it already, Perce?! You're not Mum!"
"I'll say what I like when you two are trying to get yourselves killed!"
"It was a stupid trick you prat, not like you would know, you never fly anywhere, boring tosser--"
"Don't you dare--"
"Boys! Boys! That is enough!"
Molly is shaken, finally, striding forward with her head held high, one hand snagging Percy's ear while the other waves her wand vaguely in the twins' direction. "Percival Weasley! You apologize to your bothers right now!"
Arthur takes a few more seconds to catch up, and in that time Percy has still not done so. He's staring down at his brothers, face flame-red and eyes burning wild, and Fred and George both look mutinous themselves. If he hadn't known something was amiss he wouldn't have seen it, but he does know. He knows that Percy isn't nine years old at all, so he looks at the budding argument and that isn't what he sees at all.
A cold feeling forms in the pit of his stomach.
"Percy!" Molly insists, shaking him again. "You know it's wrong to speak to your brothers that way!" She looks to Arthur, silently demanding backup.
But Percy's face, slowly, has fallen. It swims, blind fury collapsing into something that looks almost ill, and he takes a quavering step back. As far as he can get with Molly's hand still on his ear.
"I'm sorry," he whispers first. Then, louder: "I'm s-sorry."
Molly lets him go, when he complies, and the moment she has, he's turned on his heel and fled.
"Git!" Fred howls after him, and "Crybaby!" George shouts.
"Boys," Molly chides again, softer now. She straightens her wand arm, turning to make sure Fred isn't hurt worse than bruises, but levels a sharp look at Arthur before, and he understands the silent order. She's not happy she's been left to parent the gaggle alone.
Keeping this secret from her had never sat well with him in the first place. Now-- now he doesn't think it's going to work at all.
He swallows hard, and moves to intercept Bill instead, who has already headed to check on his little brother. "I think Percy just needs some alone time right now," he tells Bill, clapping him on the shoulder. "I'll quick make sure he's okay."
Bill is frowning, though, and wary, his narrowed eyes lingering after where Percy had ran to the Burrow. He, it seems, know his brother even better than Molly.
He knows that what just happened was not normal. Percy, who'd shout and puff his chest out and wag his finger at the twins day in and day out. But that wasn't what had happened.
Not this time.
Arthur, sick to his stomach, wonders if he'd have realized it, before Percy had come to him. Would he have seen anything? Would he have even come out of his shed? There's yelling and falls and fights every day between seven sons and one baby girl, and Percy and the twins are always butting heads most of all. Would he have even thought twice, or would Bill have been the only one to see that something was badly, badly wrong?
Bill, who is just a little boy himself. All his children are so small and too little. On a good day, he knows they ask too much of the oldest, but today...
Today, all he knows to do is follow Percy.
He finds him huddled behind the Burrow. He's down on his heels, hands clutched up over his ears and eyes staring at nothing, dim and haunted, haunted, haunted. He's gasping for breath and his chin is smeared with vomit.
"Percy," he dares.
His son doesn't respond. He's not sure if he's been heard at all.
Slowly, he inches to wait at his side. When no response still is given, he sits behind him, his sore knees creaking and joints popping, and he sits his hand in his hair and waits.
"Percy."
"I'm sorry," he whispers again. "I'm sorry."
When Molly moves back inside to start preparing dinner, Percy, his eyes on the floor and his voice low, asks if he can help. When supper is called, it's with the twins' favorite dessert: a chocolate and vanilla pudding sprinkled with red sparking candies from Honeydukes. It looks a mess, bearing the signs of Percy's small, inexperienced hands instead of Molly's expert ones, but he knows it'll taste delicious.
"Baby," Fred says around a mouthful, rolling his eyes. But the afternoon's hostility is gone.
"Only girls cook, dummy--"
"Fred Weasley!"
"It's George, Mum."
"Or maybe I'm George. Who knows?"
"Boys!"
Percy had always taken things personally. A little sensitive, he was, the exact worst match for the twins. Arthur knows that his son would've been unable to accept their teasing for what it was and would've stormed off instead, scowling and hands up in the air that he'd tried to apologize but they'd gotten to make fun of him again, and no one in this house cares about justice--
But he doesn't, now.
Arthur watches without a word as Percy, instead, breaks out into a huge, frail grin. He stays silent and doesn't touch his plate, and he stares at Fred and George like... like Molly had when they were born. Like they'd handed him the world and he still can't believe it.
He's as happy as Arthur has ever seen him.
There's something cold and nasty in his throat, and Arthur, too, leaves his pudding untouched.