Author's note: OK, I don't normally write fanfiction - I think I have even less free time than a Hogwarts student - so this is sort of a first attempt on my behalf. It combines two of the loves of my life, "Harry Potter", and U2 (the song is "Gone", from the album "Pop").

It is dedicated to the 3 P's: Procrastination (which I did a lot of on my school essay while writing this instead), Prefects (I am not one, but I sympathise ... I was a librarian in middle school, lol!) - and the much-maligned Percy!

Please please please give me feedback!

Disclaimer. Me no own nada!

Rating: PG, cos yeah.

Subject: Angst, heartache, a cracking good tune (which should, for effect, be played as you read).

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You don't get much free time, or at least not much time alone, as a Hogwarts student. The lessons teach you the intricacies of the wizarding life - fascinating, but somewhat less so when you have to write homework essays on them. The common rooms are warm and friendly, the sorting system meaning that you are apparently surrounded by others like you, to talk to, joke with, tell your problems. The charismatic teachers keep everyone working to a higher goal - they open your mind with the sheer wonder of the gift, the true magic of the vocation. And they frown definitively on procrastination; magic is a gift not to be thrown away.

The whole school is a hardworking, organised little community; there's a sort of understanding binding everyone together. And, like any sort of commitment, sometimes the togetherness can feel like a trap - yet the moment you admit feeling trapped is the moment you find yourself outside this magic circle.

No, you don't have much time to yourself as a Hogwarts student. Especially not as a dedicated Hogwarts Prefect. You have to work for your reputation and for your credit - you have to prove yourself worthy of being a professional wizard, and the more you do and learn, the more you realise how little you have actually done and learnt. It's not a simple rat-race, it's honour. Power is addictive, but the call of honour is inescapable, and those who procrastinate on answering it will find the guilt is equally inescapable.

So when, checking his timetable in a niche of the bustling Great Hall, he found he had a trinket of spare time between then and the Prefects' Meeting, Percy Weasley stood around uncertainly for a couple of minutes, deciding what to do with it. A serious frown creased his pale forehead, and he fiddled with his silver badge as he always did when thinking.

"Speck of dirt there, Perce?"

"How many times have you washed it today then ..."

"... only twelve? Dear me!"

"Maybe you should try the "Lumos" spell on it, it might shine brighter than the sunbeams coming out of your -"

"Get lost, dearest brothers of mine."

Fred and George, however, had already disappeared into the crowd of laughs and chatters going up the stairs to Gryffindor common room. Neck burning red, Percy walked towards the huge open doors. It was a calm English summer day - sunlight lay pale on the off-white sky, and the lake shimmered platinum. Beautiful in an understated way - he loved that.

He leaned there for a second, still frowning, a light breeze washing the angry blush off his skin, ruffling neat red hair. The sunlight caught his badge and made it shine bright burning magnesium. He glanced at it, then suddenly straightened up and was gone, down to the lawn. It was empty save for two girls, their backs currently turned to him, under a tree - Percy walked down right down the gleaming waterside at the other end of the grounds from them.

Percy sat on the fresh, supple grass, shielding his eyes from the surprising glare of the water. He looked down at where it lapped silver at the reeds, near his feet. A deep sigh escaped his lips and a deep sad gaze escaped from under the frown.

What was he doing here? Why did he forsake warm friendship for cold sunlight? Peaceful but lonely - well, it was better than flustered and lonely, he reminded himself. He knew too well how lonely you can be, even when you can't move for bumping into other people.

In the common room he could feel the touch of friendship around him, but it went no further than that. He could see it, he clung to it, but in the end he could never have it for himself, that connection to the others. All the jokes and chatter around him would dissipate as students wandered off to their respective lives, but when they returned Percy knew they would not be returning for him.

Resentment pulled his small full mouth into a pout, and he flicked a pebble into the water, watched the ripples hurry away.

Percy Weasley. Grown up in the warm family of the Weasleys, with loving parents, accomplished, friendly older brothers, younger siblings full of energy and wit ... No wonder that he turned to loneliness to escape his problems. He had always wanted to do well, to prove himself a worthy Weasley, a worthy wizard, and a worthy person. Why couldn't he manage all three? His intelligent and serious mind always analysed things, and he had set himself high goals - if people only knew or cared to know, they didn't involve mere power. He was a boy in search of fulfilment, and he faced both the misery of being teased for pomposity and the danger of actually becoming sanctimonious, daily.

He was Percy the Prefect. He took on the role gladly at first. To him it meant dedicated, responsible, serious, caring for others as well as himself. It defined him as something other than "the most boring Weasley brother". Pity that to everyone else, it meant ambitious little snot.

Pity that he allowed them to think that, and hid behind it, because if not he would have to prove himself, all over again. And he couldn't face that - not again. He remembered all too well the childhood happiness of the Weasley idyll, before adolescence brought him to question what he had always believed to be unconditional acceptance. He remembered realising, as a young teenager: Bill and Charlie contributed adventure and dedication, Fred and George laughter and energy, Ron depth, and later, Ginny, sweetness ... so what did prissy Percy offer, apart from cold grades on a paper and "boring" intellectual musings? How could one love their family so much, and feel so miserable and useless while being with them?

Percy leaned back on the grass. Music wafted over from the Ravenclaws ... a Muggle song, soulful and dark. He liked music like that, but he still had to fight the urge to tell them off for playing it so loud. Percy the Prefect - the name so much a part of him by now that the wish to be free of it was tearing him apart.

The clouds burnt patches of white into his vision. The grass bristled through his robes as he stretched out his lanky limbs. No, he didn't want to go up to the common room, to the house of Gryffindor where he belonged. Sometimes he wondered why he hadn't been placed in Slytherin instead ... everyone else seemed to think he'd do fine there, he thought bitterly. Something instinctive told Percy he was a good person, and honest, and tender, and deeply sensitive - simply because he bothered to think about these things, to question his own self-worth and ask himself if he could be better. Ironically, self-doubt was also the reason for the layers of insecurity, coldness, finally loneliness. What was the use of being a good person at heart if nobody cared; and the more he tortured himself about it on the inside, the further it took him away from the snooty Prefect people saw on the outside?

Damn it, almost time for that dratted Meeting. Percy sat up and brushed bits of grass off himself, in his precise way. He hadn't exactly used his time profitably, as Prof McGonagall would say. He could have been learning more, reading, expanding his mind and thinking about the mysteries, the science, the beauty, the moral ambiguities of the world of professional wizardry. Percy the Procrastinator didn't exactly fit him right. He had chosen the respectable and honourable professional path, where he would help others, help to organise the world right so that others could live in it, so that people like Harry and Ron could go against good rules for better causes, because they had enough freedom to break them. But he had left behind another type of magic; emotion, love, spontaneous moments of aching beauty like the one he now enjoyed by the lake.

I am no Dumbledore, he thought sadly, I can work my damndest for good credit but I'm useless at the qualities which I know really matter, the things that can't be measured on paper. The awful thing is that nobody is going to contradict me on that. I won't let them even know about it.

Like Penelope, for instance ... Percy thought back to the letters they had exchanged. He wrote to her with a hungry desire to know more about her, the only way he knew to show her he cared. But he hadn't dared to tell her any of the truth about himself, as much as he longed to do so. He didn't expect her to understand, because he thought she was a perfectly great person with many qualities far more important than the ability to understand pseuds like him.

It had shocked him when she had kissed him for the first time, in that empty classroom. He had longed for ages to feel love, to kiss someone; had needed it more than anything in the world. And yet when it came, he felt nothing but confusion. He hadn't known how to kiss properly, and when Penelope looked at him with emotion in her eyes, he had only felt vulnerable, naive - stupid, even. Why would she want to teach him how to kiss, why would she want to understand him? He was pathetic.

He had left, and he hadn't seen her till after the whole Basilisk business, which had pushed his own insecurity to the back of his mind, replaced it with concern for her. Now it was back, and he was also sure somebody, probably Ginny, would eventually tell the world about their "relationship", and he'd become even more of a laughing stock. Worse still, so would Penny by association. Percy wasn't supposed to have hormones or the emotion called love, and if he did, well it'd be a fine good laugh. He shut himself off from her ... they hadn't kissed since, was the ironic thing. He'd get all the teasing and none of the real happiness inside - because he was too damn insecure, too hopeless. Pathetic Percy.

Percy Weasley got up and straightened out his robes, adjusted his glasses, smoothed his red hair. Even from a distance, you could see the serious look on his face, you could almost feel the pressure behind his blue eyes. He turned around and took one last look at the softly shining lake, tilted his lightly freckled face up to the cool heavens.

"You know, if you extract the preppiness, and remove "Skele-Gro - New Extra Rigidity Formula" from his daily diet, your lad's almost cute", said Penelope's friend as they watched languidly from under the tree. Penny automatically smiled, her eyes never leaving the tall redhead now striding purposefully across the grass, her mind never leaving its sad contemplation. The song ended as he neared them; the next rock track began loudly as he passed, causing him to glance over at them, and stumble to a stop when he saw her. His eyes widened with something like doubt, a sheen like his usual seriousness, and a deep light a lot like sadness.

"Hello, Penelope", he said, fidgeting with his badge. Fiona rolled her eyes and pretended to busy herself with the half-open book previously lying ignored at her side.

"Hi, Percy - "

"Look," he mumbled, "I, er, have to go to the Gryffindor Prefects' meeting, right now ..." he tailed off, looking at his feet, his lips pursing uncomfortably. Penelope got the sudden urge to kiss him, it had felt so - so - so -nice, last time.

"I'd love to talk to you again sometime ..." she said

Fifi muttered under her breath, "Yes, right, talking .... about politics I presume". Penny suppressed both her smile and the kick she longed to direct at her dear friend. Percy, however, looked uncomfortable.

"Yeah ..." he gave her a half-smile. "Well - bye." Fiona raised a hand in goodbye. Percy walked, more slowly but still formally, away.

I'm not coming down

Fifi chuckled to herself, gladly closing the boring schoolbook. "It's kind of sweet, really ... although if he reminds everyone that he's a Prefect one more time I may just have to impale him with his own badge."

"I think he's already doing that himself ..." Penny thought aloud, and ignoring the quizzical "whatever" she got from her lazing friend, she continued to think, even after his swish of black robes had disappeared through the Hogwarts doors.

You're gone now, Percy, but someday, somebody is going to catch you, and hold you, and know you ... I just wish it could possibly be me.