Thank you to (wattpad) liliana_perez_, _Night_black_wolf, KrakenHart838, nightskyjy25, (fanfiction) LunaLovegood48, and weirdhead for your encouraging comments, and I loved reading your reactions to the story! ❤️❤️❤️ **Sorry about the brief mixup when this was written in code, I think it's fixed now!**

"Hey Gred?" Fred called to his twin. George quickly turned around, hearing the undertones of worry and confusion in his twin's voice.
"Yeah, Forge?" He responded gently. He felt for their twin link, searching for his brother's emotions. They had always been able to feel each other, even as children, and over time they practiced with it and grew the link so they could send quick pictures with impressions through it, in addition to partially closing it off if one of them was too overwhelmed and didn't want to shut down the other completely. He felt the wave of Fred's emotions crashing though him, and realized his twin must've been blocking him for a while, if it had built up this badly without him noticing.
"You remember what Neeks told us a couple days ago? Not the Greek stuff, but the bits about Percy, well, our Percy." George sent a pulse of reassurance down the bond, attempting to comfort and reassure his brother, to soothe away some of his stress. "I want to contact him," Fred continued, "he is really good at numbers and books and things, not that we can't do some, and we have Lee, but I think he could still help...and..." George felt another wave of conflict wash down the fully-open bond, and he quickly pulled his twin into a hug.
"Oh, Freddie," he crooned, feeling Fred's want for his family, especially his older brothers, and Percy especially. Fred sent him a hazy picture-memory of Percy cuddling them in his lap, telling them a story, feeling safe and loved and understood and full of fun and mischief, and his hurt over the sudden stop to those stories. How he wasn't sure if that was even a memory or not, or just his desperate desire for someone in their family to have understood their love of pranks and fun. It sparked a similar memory in George, but he refrained from sending it. He wasn't sure if the thought that those early stories were a dream or the thought that Percy had stopped the stories hurt worse.
The bell rang suddenly in the entrance of the shop. George looked up, confused, because the store was closed at the moment, and only someone keyed into the wards would be able to get through the at the moment. "Who would it be?" George thought, confused. "Only Bill, Charlie, Dad, Harry, Lee, and Nico are keyed in, and they're all at work or at Hogwarts. Unless...no, there's no way it's Percy, rather ight? We only keyed him in as a bit of a desperate hope, and him turning up just as we were talking about him is so improbable." But he saw Percy walking through the door off the shop, looking uncertain and maybe a bit hopeful.
"Fred? George? Are either of you here? I know the store was closed, but Nico made me come and told me I could get in..." Percy called, looking around uncertainly. Fred and George froze, watching him through the one way viewing doors. They all stood there, two conflicted and hurt, one uncertain and hopeful, for a while. Eventually Percy slumped. "I knew this was a bad idea. I never should've listened to Nico, no matter how convincing he was." He started pacing, gripping his hair. "What should I do?" He half wailed quietly to himself. "Do I come back some other day? Keep waiting? Try to find them in the back or their flat?" He slumped to the ground, sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, back against one of the walls, staring at the counter and the fires to the back. "I can hide undercover in a corrupt then Death Eater run Ministry, I can pretend to hate my family, I can fight people through the halls, I can even try to make up with Mum, even though Dad won't even look at me... but I can't meet with the two little brothers I missed the damn most. I can't do this." He slowly stood up and walked to the door, supers slumped and head hanging.
George felt Fred growing tenser in his arms as they listened to and watched their brother, and felt Fred's trembling conflict. Finally, when Percy was almost to the fire, he whispered, "Percy, wait..." there should've been no way that Percy could hear him, but he paused, his hand hovering over the door handle. "Percy, wait!" Fred said again, much louder, and broke away from George, then burst through the doors separating the two rooms. He paused with one hand still on the doors, the other hand clenching and unclenching, half-reaching for Percy. George moved up behind his brother, still hiding behind the doors, but let his hand rest lightly on Fred's back.
"Fred?" Percy whispered, and flipped around, staring at his brother. His face was a mix of hope, caution, fear, and something George couldn't quite identify, but thought might be love.
Fred took a deep breath and straightened his back and shoulders. "What... what did you mean, what you said about Nico, and the Ministry, and... about us?" his shoulders twitched inwards, and he continued, "and how did you know I was Fred? It was just a guess, right?" he tried to sound confident, but his voice cracked at the end.
Percy looked taken aback, then blushed scarlet. "You were listening to all that?" Suddenly he looked really confused. "And what do you mean, I just guessed? Of course I can tell you apart, you're my brothers!"
"Mum can't... and neither can Dad, or Ron, or Ginny." Fred whispered.
"I can, I've always been able to!" Percy said emphatically, half reaching out his hands towards Fred. "You and George are so alike, but you're different people! You are more introverted, kinder, more gentle, can understand others emotions better, like sweet foods, enjoy Potions and Charms the most. George can shield himself against anger and pain better, which is one of the reasons he stands a bit in front of you whenever you're scolded, especially by Mum. He likes salty foods, and enjoys cooking even though he's awful at it, and you hate cooking even though you're amazing at it. He likes Transfiguration, Arithmancy, and Runes, and his voice is a bit lower than yours. Your voice has a bit of a up-down lilt at the end of a question or a sentence when you're uncertain. His favorite magical animal is a niffler, and yours is a pygmy puff, especially the most energetic ones. Your favorite nonmagical animal is a golden retriever, and George's is a wolf. But you're not completely different, either. You both enjoy mischief, especially pranks, and love magical creatures, and are so protective of those you truly love. You both worshipped Loki, Norse god of mischief, ever since you were two and I would tell you stories about him to put you to sleep. And I gave you a dog plushie and George a wolf plushie for your second birthday, and I'd saved up doing extra chores for months to get them. And on your fourth birthday, I got George a stuffed niffler, and you a stuffed pygmy puff because it took me another two years to get enough money to buy them. And I kept giving you presents every two years, until I could do it every year, because you're my little brothers. And...I love you, so, so, much, and I'm incredibly sorry I've been awful at showing that for a while, we'll, for a long time.." As he talked, he moved closer incredibly slowly, until he could almost reach out and touch Fred's clenching hand, his voice growing quieter and more gentle as he continued. His hand extended a bit, trembling, and his face was so full of regret and that same emotion George thought might be love that George couldn't breathe or move for fear of making this dream go away.
Fred suddenly grabbed that hand. "I... we...thought that only Bill, Charlie, Lee Jordan, Harry, and Nico could tell us apart," he whispered, "and it hurt, that our family, the most you, then Mum and Dad, didn't seem to care enough to try." His voice was wavering so badly that George made up his mind, pushing up to wrap one arm around Fred's shoulders as he talked. Fred continued, relaxing into George a bit, "and you hurt the most, because I thought I remembered you playing with us, and reading us stories and telling us apart, but it all stopped one day. After that, you practically ignored us, and just looked sad or depressed or so neutral, and none of our jokes and pranks worked to make you happy anymore. And your and your stories were the one person in our family that let me...us...feel really, truly ok, and safe, and accepted, and loved in our house... nobody else really understood our mischief and jokes...and when that was gone, oh, P-Percy, that hurt so bad..." and suddenly, Percy was squeezing them both in a hug so tight all George could feel was Percy and Fred next to him, and it felt like all his tension and bottled up hurt was squeezed out of him and trickled to the floor, all the pain he didn't even realize was there because he was so used to it. It felt so, so perfect, and George never wanted it to end. He felt safe and loved, like a thousands pounds he didn't know were there had been lifted off his shoulders.
"I'm sorry..." George tears on his cheek, and realized he was crying, and Percy was crying, and feeling through the twin bond, he knew that Fred was crying too. "I'm sorry," Percy whispered again, "it's not your fault, I'm sorry I had to stop, I'm sorry I took away your safe space, I'm sorry."
George spoke for the first time. "Why?" he said brokenly, not letting go, afraid that if he did, everything would come back and he'd be carrying that weight again.
"Mum told me to," Percy said quietly back, "she thought the stories I told you were making you mischievous, she didn't understand that you were born that way, and that all I was doing was trying my best to make you feel understood. She basically grounded me from story time, she said until you two stopped playing so many pranks. I started reading more, so I'd have better, newer stories to tell you when she finally let me do it again. But... you didn't change, just like I knew you never would, and Mum never really understood, and by the time she finally relented, I was eleven and leaving to Hogwarts, and you'd apparently forgotten, and all anyone had seen me as for years was a bookworm. So that's what I stayed, I studied at Hogwarts and tried to talk to you over the summer a couple times...but all I could see and hear were mum's angry face and voice when I tried, so I stopped. And at Hogwarts I could see how much Mum's howlers hurt you, which hurt even more, but I was still so nervous to talk to you...and I'm sorry I'm such a coward. But..." he trailed off, blushing bright red. "I still have every list of stories I made, ever since I started at seven, all through Hogwarts, even up to now. I worked at the Ministry partially because I'd made it through all the Hogwarts library, and had asked all the Ravenclaws, even some Hufflepuffs and Slytherins, and occasionally a couple Gryffindor for all the stories they knew, and I wanted to," He blushed even deeper, "I wanted to check the Ministry archives for more information and stories, true or invented."
Fred and George pulled back slightly from the hug in unison, looked at each other, then surged forward again, squeezing Percy between them tightly. "Thanks, Percy," Fred whispered softly. "I'd love to see them sometime." George nodded emphatically across from him. "And...c-c-could you m-m-maybe tell us some?"
Percy's smile became so bright he could've beat Gilderoy Lockhart at his best for the Witches Weekly's Best Smile Contest. "I'd love that!" he said enthusiastically. "You two were always my favorite, Ron and Ginny were a bit spoiled, being the youngest, and then became Quidditch and Harry Potter obsessed, and I just didn't understand them. And I wanted somebody to protect..." He trailed off, blushing again, "like Bill and Charlie did for me..."
As he was talking, George started pulling all three through the back doors, up the stairs to their flat, and to the couch. Once they all sat down and Percy was done, he started the interrogation. Putting himself on the right and Fred on the left, still with his arms and each other, he asked the question that had been bothering him. "What did you mean, when you first entered the shop, about pretending to hate your family and fighting Death Eaters?"
Percy looked suddenly extremely nervous and uncomfortable. "Well, when I started at the Ministry, I was Mr. Crouch's assistant, with the intent to transfer to the Records and Archives Department within the year. But while I was helping go over and organize old records, I found a ton of discrepancies between records, many missing or badly classified records, and mistakes in filing and within the records, dating from well before the first war with Voldemort, but increasing exponentially through the war. I stupidly took my lists to Mr. Crouch first, since I was his assistant, and he threatened me. He was deeply involved with a lot of that, especially the wartime parts. He threatened my job, and when that didn't work, Dad's job, and any future plans you two might make, and eventually Ron and Ginny. He bragged to me about all the contacts he still had within the Ministry, and said even Dumbledore was involved with a lot of it. So I had no one to go to, so I agreed, and he made me do whatever he said. He made me take vows, luckily not in real able ones, but still binding ones, that I wouldn't tell anyone outside of the Ministry or anyone who could do something about the corruption, and kept holding you all over me to keep me compliant. He made me pretend to hate you all, to distance me further from any support or someone to notice something was wrong. He made me move into a different flat, to further disorient me, and forced me to be the perfect, devoted assistant. I could do almost nothing without his permission, and so I kept working, and started pretending that I agreed with him, and understood his point of view. He started to tell me more, he liked having someone to brag to about all his past accomplishments, and I wrote it all down, and found more records and evidence of corruption, and compiled an enormous folder of proof. Before Voldemort's return, almost everyone was corrupt, taking bribes, exchanging favors, everyone but the unimportant, lower level clerks and Madame Bones, and a few aurors. But even once Mr. Crouch was gone I couldn't back out and return to my family, I was in too deep, he'd passed the vows to an associate, and I had to stay and keep pretending so that I could gather more information and support. So I gathered support, my vows allowed me to tell those unimportant clerks at the lower levels all I'd found, so I did, and we gathered support. I eventually got every employee who was not corrupt or strongly affiliated with Dumbledore or Voldemort on my side, which included several from every department, even the aurors, and started working from the inside. We called ourselves The White Circle, because our symbol was a purple M inside a white circle, to represent the cleansing and reforms we wanted, but the fact that we still supported the Ministry. Then Voldemort returned, and he killed important person who didn't support him, which removed most of the corruption, and installed Death Eaters and his supporters. Me and the entire White Circle decided to stay, and we ran internal disturbances, helping Muggleborns fudge records, deleting travel records to prevent Death Eaters from catching those who fled, leaking information to known resistance members without letting them know we were a resistance too, anything we could. It was hard, the Death Eaters knew I was a Weasley, but I had been distancing myself so publicly for a while, so they were unsure. I pretended to be mostly neutral, a bit anti-Dumbledore, so they didn't really torture me, and I made sure my group stayed neutral and clearly proclaimed that fact. Everyone who joined knew that if you wanted to publicly fight Voldemort, then you joined Dumbledores little club, if you supported Voldemort you joined him, but we were a third option. We had a lot of Slytherins and Ravenclaws join us, and a ton of Hufflepuffs, almost no Gryffindors, though. I researched expansion charms extensively and made every one of my people a small apartment under their desks, with a tiny kitchenette, a bedroom, a area to store stuff in, be it books or heirlooms, and a safe room, where even if someone unauthorized entered, only a team of four expert ward masters would be able to enter. They looked like slightly expanded rooms under the desks with shrunken mattresses, for anyone who looked closely, they were layered with so many wards and notice-me-nots. It wasn't safe to have homes to raid, not with the risk of discovering our plans, luckily, we were all so low on the chain, nobody cared about us. The only actual location we had was my tiny apartment from Mr. Crouch, which I made look sparse and unloved in, then hid a training room under expansion charms in a warded closet. I trained my people, made sure all of them were close to expert duelists, and when Voldemort fell, we cleaned out the Ministry. When he died, all the Death Eaters screamed, their marks disappearing, so we attacked and killed most of them, arresting only a few. Our aurors made sure they got actual trials and were properly sentenced. When everyone voted Kingsley Shacklebolt as the Minister, he was so busy trying to take care of the Death Eaters who were outside the Ministry and had gotten away, he didn't care how the Departments were organized and had leaders, he just cared that they were." Percy suddenly smirked. "Did you read those Sherlock Holmes books you found on your pillows your birthday second year?"
Fred and George nodded, confused, then suddenly George realized. "Oh Merlin, Percy, you're like Mycroft Holmes! That's so cool!"
Fred started wriggling in his seat from excitement. "I loved that book! That was you that gave them to us? Thanks, Percy! And I can't believe it, our brother is Mycroft Holmes and nobody knows!"
"Please, Perce..."
"...will you introduce us..."
"...to your minions? Do you..."
"...have a Anthea minion..."
"...tons of surveillance..."
"...and instant communication methods? We have..."
"...those phones..."
"...but those are new!" The twins were almost speechless with questions. "Do Bill and Charlie know?" they chorus.
"Yes, I'm like Mycroft Holmes, yes, I gave you those books for your birthday, I gave you anonymous presents every two years because I couldn't earn enough money to buy them every year until I had graduated and I wanted to be able to give you something without Mum looking disapproving, yes, I will introduce you to my minions, yes, I have Anthea-type minion, but there's two of them, they're twins named Diana and Apollo, I have surveillance, it's mass monitoring spells connected to small notebooks, I can listen to any message in or about the Ministry, see any message, and view any file, in addition to two way message books for all my White Circle. And you've modified phones to work with magic? That's amazing! And yes, Bill and Charlie know some, I've reconnected with them and they know I was coerced through my Ministry career, though not anymore, and I have some influence on important people who are maybe above me. I was...scared to drive them away, since they were the only ones who were even a bit supportive after the war ended."

Suddenly, two arms wrapped tightly around Percy from behind. "Forgetting about me and Penelope, Perce?" A voice said cheerfully. "I'm hurt, I thought you loved us!"
Percy rolled his eyes and looked up. "Yes, I love Penelope, you idiot. And, for some reason, you have my fiancé and entire secret group wrapped around your little finger, tiny flower."
Fred and George looked up to and saw Harry smiling at all of them. "Harry!" they chorused, "What? Why are you a tiny flower and friends with Percy and his unimaginatively named secret group?"
"Hmmph. I'll have you know I was a founding member! Percy, you didn't tell them? And you know my animangus form, it's a Cherry Blossom Dragon. Percy likes to make fun of me for being tiny and had no imagination," He pouted at them.
Fred and George quickly jumped up. "Tiny flower! We don't have a name for your animangus form! Quick, Gred!" Fred cried.
"Midget...twiggy...spring...wings...leaf...Japan...Poppins!" George spouted off.
Percy said dryly, "Charlie's already claimed little dragon, and Bill calls him poppin, something about a muggle movie. The entire White Circle calls him Felix, something about ridiculous luck, and Penelope calls him honey or sweetie. Those are all off limits, they'll be upset."
Fred and George conferred quickly while Percy and Harry waited serenely, Harry sitting next to Percy on the couch. "Leafwing!" Fred proclaimed, "is your new marauder name, and we'll just keep calling you Harrikins or Hare-bear, or sweetheart in dire circumstances. And what do you mean you're a founding member?"
"Percy contacted me after fourth year over the summer about Voldemort's return. He told me about the Ministry and got my support. I've been supplying information about the Order of the Pheonix and my dreams about Voldemort. That's where I kept disappearing to over the summer, meetings with Percy." He thought for a minute, then said, "he's also been kinda helping Lee with your accounting, it was his idea to have me sign the contract stating I was a silent investor and owned thirty percent of the company." Harry gave Percy another quick hug and smiled at the twins.
Fred took a deep breath and said sarcastically, "any more life changing revelations, Perce?"
Percy shifted nervously, and Harry's smile grew brighter. "Actually..." he said quietly, "I'm engaged to Penelope Clearwater..."
"We already knew that!" George said in relief.
"...and we're getting married in four hours." Percy finished. "Harry has been after me for years to reunite with you two, and he finally recruited Nico. He basically manhandled to your shop through my terrified paralysis and gave me a calming draught before telling me if you two weren't at my wedding, I'd regret it forever and he'd help Penelope eviscerate me." Percy blushed crimson. "Surprise?"
Harry bounced up from his seat on the couch. "I brought some of my new friends, Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, and Daphne Greengrass, and they have your outfits and are here to help you get ready!" He chirped excitedly. "I'll see you two at the wedding! Come on, Percy!" He opened the flat door for the three Slytherins, who came in with rather predatory looks on their faces, Draco holding two garment bags, and the two girls holding bags that looked suspiciously like hair supplies. He and Percy exited after the three entered, cheerfully abandoning the twins to the tender mercies of the new arrivals.
"Run!" George whispered to Fred.
"Oh, no, boys," Daphne cooed, and they heard the swish of a wand locking the door.

I hope you enjoyed! I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. I'm thinking about writing an accompanying series of one-shots, that would be different backgrounds, or POV of other characters for a couple parts, that I would post separately. I have some ideas and bits written that wouldn't fit in flow-wise, but I still wanted to write them. I'll probably post it sometime this week/today-ish. And sorry, this might delay some chapters, but I sometimes just need to write something else to be able to focus again on something...so that's what the one shots are, but's I wrote to refocus that I figured some people might enjoy.
Also, a few quick clarifications:
Short version: this fic is mostly gen, a few minor background relationships, all canon (I'm 74% sure on that, but I don't care enough to google it. Oh well.)
Long version: There will be NO pairings of main characters (Nico, Harry, and Draco) because I'm awful at writing relationships. The only pairings I can think of are Percy J/Annabeth, Percy W/Penelope Clearwater...assume canon pairings in PJO/HOO (ignoring Jasper's breakup and Jason's death, of course), and canon pairings for HP (also ignoring Hinny...and the epilogue...and Fred's death...and I might bring back Sirius (in a "veil is not working right possibly because of Nico" kind of way), and I'm of the strong, fervent, passionate opinion that Remus, Tonks, and Teddy all survived and went on an extended tour of America...because I can't handle those deaths either...I just want to be happy, ok? It's FANFICTION, and I can choose...) Sorry, but hope that helped.