Disclaimer: Percy doesn't belong to me. I'm just hanging out inside his head for a little while and writing down what's in there. :-) Oliver isn't mine either. I'm just borrowing him so Percy will have something to think about. No suing!

Warning: This is slash, I guess, as I write Percy as being homosexual. I just see him as that. If you don't like it, don't read it.

Dedication: To Kitten who made me love Percy even though I didn't want to.

Author's Note: Okay, this is pretty depressing in the first chapter. This will hopefully end up being Percy/Oliver. That's what I have planned anyway. There are some dark themes in here, just to warn you. It's rather morbid. But I need to write it. I get these ideas, and they don't let me rest until they're on paper.

Same As It Ever Was

Life. What's the point, really? We're born, we live, we work, struggle, fight every day of our lives only to die. And once we're dead, we're remembered for perhaps twenty, thirty years, and then our name fades into obscurity. In all honesty, why go through with it all?

Oh, some people say there's some greater purpose to it all, some higher meaning. But what? What possible meaning could all of our tiny little lives have? They say that one man can make a difference. That is true yes, but *any* man. If one doesn't do it, another will. Everything will be done eventually, regardless of who does it. Particular individuals don't matter, only individuality in general.

I suppose that's my problem. I know, keenly and acutely, just how useless I really am. And it doesn't help to have it reemphasized by my family, my rivals, my coworkers, my superiors....I'm well aware I amount to absolutely nothing. Anyone can do my job. Some of them could probably do it better. I make a big deal out of it, in some vain hope of convincing myself I *am* useful.

But I'm not.

At all.

I had a vain hope, that after Mr. Crouch died, I would be moved up to department head. I wonder now why I even bothered getting my hopes up. I've seen three superiors in the space of a year, and none of them have had any idea what they're doing. No one seems to realize that I'm the only one who ever gets anything done around here. They hardly even see me, never bother to learn my name. Nearly everyone accepts me as 'Weatherby'.

I sometimes sit and wonder what the world would be like without me. But I stop when I realize it would be exactly the same.

I sit, alone in my small cramped flat in Diagon Alley, finished with my reports and papers, and I stare into the flames of the hearth and think. I have lived here for nearly two months now, and there is nothing here to mark it as mine. No personal knick-knacks, no private clutter. There is a bed, a stove, a cupboard, a small table and a chair. This is understandable. Which means to say it is something I understand.

I have nothing with which to define myself. Ginny is the girl. Ron is the youngest. Fred and George are the twins. Charlie was the star Quidditch player, and Bill was the wild one. I am....the middle child, effectively. Bland, boring, undefined. Just like everything else in my life. Bland boring job, bland boring apartment, bland boring wardrobe. I suppose, compared to my brothers, even my looks are rather bland and boring. Pale skin, red hair trimmed short and neat, round glasses, lean frame. Nothing dashing or outstanding.

And it isn't as though I can change. This is *me*. I can't simply wake up and be someone else. That wouldn't make me matter anymore, I'd simply be doing something else that someone else is perfectly capable of doing. People think you can change. You can't, not really. What you can do is lie to yourself and everyone around you, create some sort of facade, and live an even worse life then before. If you have to be miserable, you may as well be miserable honestly. What was that line? Better to be a fake somebody then a real nobody? That isn't true at all. *Everyone* is a nobody, they just don't realize it.

I sometimes wonder if I'm the only person that realizes this. I must be. People are far too cheerful to know. How can you be happy, knowing that you don't matter? They accuse me of being prudish and arrogant, but I'm not. I am simply aware of the truth: Nothing I have done or will do will ever matter. I am one in a million, a nameless face that will pass briefly through the light and then fade into obscurity.

I have considered taking up drinking, but then I may forget. Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power. I subscribe to the latter way of thinking. I ought to be thinking about other things. But I find I can't. What is there for me to think on? I have no hobbies, no livelihoods. Again we come back to the core. What is the point? I suppose I ought to sleep. It's getting late, and I have work tomorrow. Same as always. Nothing ever changes...

***

My alarm goes off at exactly six in the morning. That gives me an hour to get myself ready and Apparate into work on time. I make myself breakfast, an English muffin and a glass of orange juice. Healthy, bland, familiar. Dailey Prophet read as I eat, each article scanned for anything of importance. I shower, dress, make myself presentable. And then it's off to work, where my inbox will be full, and will remain so regardless of what I do.

I need something. I can't go on like this. I'd kill myself, but no one would care, and besides it takes too much effort. I just need some sort of change in my routine. It won't make any difference, but I could at least be less miserable then I am. I'll settle for that. I know I'm never going to be happy, I can't be. But even less wretched would be an improvement.

The office. It could pass for a Muggle office, it really could. Dull grey walls, busy looking people scampering about with files and folders. Narrow corridors with plain doors marked only by small plaques on the front. It sickens me.

A full inbox. As always. Mind numbing work, really. The same thing, over and over. Forms to fill, reports to file, going through an inkwell a day. I am surprised my fingers aren't calloused from all the time I spend holding a quill. They certainly ache enough, at the end of the day. I rub them with cream, when I can afford it. My pay is quite meager, and I send as much home as I can.

My mind wanders as I trudge through my day. I find myself missing my days at school. I had a semblance of a purpose there. I was prefect, then Head Boy. If I hadn't been, someone else, but it was something. I could call it mine, for that span of time it was. And I had, if not friends, at least acquaintances. And a girlfriend, sad joke that was. I formed a relationship with Penelope because it was expected. I had little interest in her in that way, she isn't to my tastes. No woman is. There's a little fact I don't advertise. Bad enough my life is the way it is, add in the factor that I prefer other men to women...

They'd never let it rest. No one knows. I think, perhaps one person suspects. Oliver Wood was the closest thing I had to a friend. We were dorm mates, and he had a certain likeability to him. Far too sports obsessed if you ask me, but a decent boy. He followed the rules, and at least attempted to show me respect. And he was...handsome. Not to mention eerily perceptive. I would often catch him giving me odd looks, especially after I'd been out with Penny. And he once commented how she really didn't seem my type at all, which was quite odd considering had I been interested in women, we would have been the perfect match.

If he knew, he never said, and I'm thankful for that. I suppose, if I truly wanted, that could be my definition. But I don't want to be defined by my taste in partners. Not that I've ever truly *had* a partner. I acted the part with Penny, even went so far as to be mildly physical with her. But I was as excited by kissing her as I was by my own mother. As in there was nothing but familial affection. It was easy, when we went our separate ways. She wanted to travel, I wanted to stay. We parted friends.

I miss her. I could talk to her, if I needed to. Nothing so deep and exposing as my innermost thoughts, but I would hint at the futility of it all. And I once made comments of it to Oliver, when he accused me of being a stick in the mud. He never mentioned it again.

I think I may have had feelings for him. I realize it now, of course. Hind sight is twenty twenty. But it doesn't matter. Even if I'd realized it beforehand, what would I have done about it? Oliver certainly wouldn't have returned my affections. I wonder what he's doing. From what I hear down in the Magical Sports and Games department, Puddlemore United will be spending their training season here, in England. Perhaps...No.

There would be no point in sending an owl. I doubt I would even get a response. But....well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt. I could congratulate him on his teams win last season, I hear he did quite well. He always was a superb Keeper. Yes. I will send him an owl. Maybe that will make me feel a bit better, and writing a letter is certainly a change. I write home sometimes, but nothing more then a few lines. I am always home for dinner on the weekends, mum wouldn't have it any other way.

I pick up my quill, and retrieve a fresh piece of parchment.

Dear Oliver,

I heard of your teams success in the last season, and I wished to congratulate you.

What else to say? Nothing, really. I've never been one with words. Signed. Sealed. I'll send it today. Later, of course, after work. I shouldn't have taken the time to write it anyway. Not that it matters. Not that I'll get a response....

~~~~~~~~~~~

I've fallen prey to short chapters. But I have so much to do....