Disclaimer: I just own the plot not the wonderful characters I'm messing around with.
A/N: After leaving you with various one-shots I'm posting the first chapter of my new story all about Percy who I love! The one shot I posted the other week, 'Someone to talk to' is a pre-curser to this but they both make sense on their own. This starts in the summer after the events of the fifth book. Enjoy!
All credit for the story title, which I'm rather fond of, goes to my evil muse and fellow writer, honestiago.
Thanks by the way to everyone who reviewed 'Someone to Talk To'.
What You Left Behind
Chapter 1: Darkest Fears
"Now I'm suspended between my darkest fears and dearest hopes."
Emphasis
Percy Weasley was working late, hardly earth shattering news as it had been months since he had left the office much before midnight. He wasn't sure why he did it anymore, other than he just didn't see the appeal in going home alone to his empty little flat. Besides, sleep wasn't coming very easily to him anymore. He got wearily to his feet and walked across the office. He pulled open a large oak door and then jumped back as a figure stepped into the room.
Tall and imposing, Lucius Malfoy didn't look like he'd spent months in Azkaban. His face was set in a cold sneer and he raised his wand. "Well, well, well, Weasley, all alone up here?"
It was true, Percy was one of the last people left in the building, he could make all the noise he liked and there would be no one to hear him.
Lucius advanced like a jungle cat, powerful, graceful, dignified and deadly. "What's the matter Weasley, cat got your tongue?"
Percy shook his head, "No. What do you want?"
Lucius laughed coldly, "What do you think Weasley? I certainly didn't come to make an appointment with the Minister. Though I'm sure either myself or one of my associates will deal with him sooner or later. I'm just here to take care of you."
"Oh." Percy guessed that the phrase 'take care of' was highly euphemistic.
"Of course," Lucius said after a moment, "There is another option."
"And what would that be?" Percy asked, despite the fact he well knew the answer.
"Join us. Serve the Dark Lord "
"Why?"
"You want power, you want respect. How can you ever get that here? You never have before."
"Things can change."
"Things never really change, nor do people. Join us."
"You keep saying that."
"Yes, I do."
"I don't want to kill people!" It was supposed to sound emphatic and final but instead his statement sounded tired and empty.
"You'll end up doing that whatever side you're on. This is it Weasley, this is war. People kill and people die, that's just the way it goes. And only one side wins."
Percy shook his head in disagreement, "No one truly wins in war, some just lose less than others."
The figure laughed. "Not very Gryffindor of you. I thought they were supposed to just charge in and damn the consequences. Isn't it all supposed to be worth it so long as truth and light triumph?"
Percy shrugged wearily, "I'm not much like the other Gryffindors."
"No," Lucius agreed, "Unlike them, you're being offered a chance to live. Rather than to die for a fool."
"If you're referring to Dumbledore then I don't serve him, I serve the Minister for Magic."
Lucius laughed derisively, "Dumbledore's puppet!"
"He is not!" Fire finally sounded in Percy's voice, though whether due to real indignation or simply due to years of conditioning even Percy wasn't sure.
"Weasley even you can't be blind enough to think that Fudge is anything but an idiot who will now run to Dumbledore for help. Then should he by some means win this war that's coming, which he won't, he will cleverly claim the whole of the credit for himself. You'll never get a look in if you win and you'll die if you lose, where's the sense in your loyalty to this ministry?"
Percy could find nothing to say to that.
"You see Weasley? There is nothing for you here."
"And what is there for me if I join you?" The words left his mouth before he could quite believe he would ever say them.
Lucius laughed, sensing victory, "Power, respect. The things you want most, show your family what you are truly capable of. It is well known that you have long wished to be thought of as more than 'just another worthless Weasley'."
"My choices according to you appear to be to live for, for," he couldn't even say the name, he never had been able to, "Your Dark Lord, or to die for Dumbledore."
Lucius smirked unpleasantly, "If you want to get down to the bare bones of the issue, that is exactly your choice." He raised his wand to point directly at Percy's head, "Your answer Weasley. Join us or die."
"My answer? My answer is this," Percy raised his wand, "Riddikulus!"
The boggart which had been masquerading as Lucius Malfoy tripped over it's own black Death Eater robes and Percy levitated it back into the sturdy oak cupboard before firmly locking the door. He was supposed to have disposed of the boggart weeks ago but after first seeing what form it took before him he had been unable to stop thinking about it. It was for this reason that he had locked it in a cupboard in his office. The creature was going nowhere until he could give it an answer. And when he could do that, he'd act on it. Go and apologise to his family, go and join the Death Eaters, run away as far as he could, whatever his answer was.
"I just wish I had an answer." Percy sighed and collapsed into his chair. "He's my father's worst enemy, my whole family's enemy, and a Death Eater besides anything else! Why would I support them? How low do you have to have sunk when you can't even answer the question of whether you wish to join them or not?"
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Arthur Weasley watched from the doorway, pain gripping his heart, as his third son sank his head into his hands. He wanted to go in and speak to him, to convince him that though they seemed at times to be fighting a losing battle it was one that was worth fighting. But he knew he couldn't do that, Percy would have to come to his own conclusions in his own way. He'd never listened to anything but his own opinions before and it seemed unlikely he'd start now; perhaps it was best that he didn't.
Arthur knew that if he went in there, even if Percy did listen to him he would never know if Percy was simply taking the easy way out and doing what he was told or if he truly did want to fight beside them, if he truly wanted a reconciliation with the family he'd spurned. No, it was best for both of them that Percy never know he had been there and, with this in mind, Arthur Weasley walked away quietly with a heavy heart.
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Percy glanced up suddenly, a small sound catching his attention in the otherwise silent building. He looked at the doorway but there was no one there. He sighed and walked out into the corridor, just in time to see the lift door close but not in time to see who was in it. He shook his head, whoever they were they were nothing to do with him, no one was anything to do with him anymore. He had nothing, no ties to either side and no clue where he was going or what he was doing.
He sat back down at his desk and looked at his in-tray, it was overflowing and had been for days; ever since that idiot child, who his own parents had always seem to be more concerned about than they were about their own children, had turned out to be right. The howlers had been dealt with immediately but the other mail had simply been allowed to pile up while Percy had spent weeks just trying to wrap his head around what had happened.
Now, he began to sort through the post. He opened an innocuous looking brown envelope addressed to him personally. Usually hate mail was addressed to the Minister, if it was addressed to him it normally meant it was to do with some aspect of ministry business that he was supposed to be managing.
He ripped it open and drew out the parchment within, he was actually surprised at the use of an envelope as most wizards simply sealed letters with sealing wax but then many muggleborns continued to use muggle envelopes and writing paper.
As soon as he pulled out the parchment though he knew he shouldn't have opened this letter. A shower of sparks hit him and there was a brief flash of pain in his forehead before it began to itch unbearably. He slapped his hand to his head and felt part of the skin become raised and sore.
He went into the next-door office where one of the Minister's secretaries had her desk, rifling the drawers he came up with a mirror. He looked in it and gasped.
In large, raised red letters the word GIT was clearly inscribed across his forehead.
He strode back into his office and read the parchment.
Happy now? You turned your back on your family and made mum cry and you were wrong all along. You deserve everything that's coming to you. Unfortunately this'll wear off in 24 hours but just wait until we perfect the recipe!
We'd sign it your brothers but I guess we're not any more.
Fred and George Weasley
Weasley Wizards Wheezes
Typical. You leave home, turn your back on your family and the few friends you actually have and yet somehow you still can't escape the worst side of family life. Percy crumpled the parchment in his fist and suddenly knew the answer, it had been staring him in the face all along.
What had he been thinking, of course he had ties to people, of all the things he had heard the Death Eaters stood for, one suddenly made sense. Blood mattered.
Only not in the way they thought it did, blood bound you to people in ties you couldn't break whether you wanted to or not. Percy was as inescapably bound to his family as he had always been.
He flung open the cupboard door and Lucius Malfoy strode out, arrogant as always, only this time Percy didn't let him speak.
"No. I will not join you, I don't care what happens to me anymore but I won't join your crazy crusade! And frankly being 'just another worthless Weasley' sounds very appealing right now! Riddikulus!"
Good as beating his boggart, and manoeuvring it into a packing crate to be sent down to be dealt with in the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures office felt, it quickly wore off.
So I've decided not to be a Death Eater, well that doesn't exactly make me a good person. Percy snorted in amusement at his thoughts.
But what now?
Go back and admit he was wrong? Percy hated being wrong and he hated admitting it even more. But it was the only thing left to do, he couldn't sit out the war at the ministry, knowing that at anytime something could happen to one of them and they'd never know, they'd never know he cared.
And he did care; even about Fred and George, much as he wanted to strangle them.
Seeing his face in the mirror with the all too accurate description on his forehead had made him realise that he even missed the pranks, the constant belittling he had suffered at his brothers' hands. He missed Fred and George's blatant disrespect for authority, after all 'authority' was proving to be a dubious thing lately. He missed Ron's fiery temper and the arguments the two of them always seemed to be drawn into, Charlie had always said it was because the two of them were more similar than either of them would have liked but Percy just knew that right then he would have given anything to have Ron yelling at him again.
He missed Ginny's concerned, motherly nature, the fact she'd actually kept quiet about him and Penny for months before telling anyone. He missed Charlie's unfailing optimism and the fact that of all his brothers he had been the one to take him seriously on occasions, he and Charlie had been so wildly different but Charlie had always proved to be impossible not to get along with.
He missed Bill, his somewhat distant eldest brother, he and Bill had seemed at odds from day one, both intelligent, both head boy, people assumed they'd get along but in truth Percy could hardly have been more different to his popular, confident brother; or more distant from him.
He missed his mother, all she had ever done was love him and he had turned around and thrown it back in her face; he could not now quite believe that he had sent her jumper back at Christmas, for that alone he felt like the lowest form of life on the earth.
And of course he missed his patient, ever well-meaning father, the things he had said to him, Percy shuddered at the memory. He hadn't even been to the hospital when he had heard about the attack on his father, it wasn't that he hadn't cared he just...hadn't gone. No wonder Fred and George, and probably everyone else connected in any way with his family, hated him. Of all of them though it was his relationship with his father which he had managed to damage the most. He had said all the hurtful things he could think of, he hadn't meant half of them even then. All of this because he had been too arrogant to see that he was being used, even when his parents had tried to point it out to him. He had been so happy the morning he'd been promoted and by the end of the day he had been friendless and alone.
Now, well now he was friendless, alone and without the righteous indignation that had fuelled him for so long, but despite it all things were getting better. Barely an hour ago he had been unable to decide even on which side he stood, and now? Well he knew which side he stood on and he knew what he had to do, he just didn't think it was going to be easy.
He sighed and packed away his work things. He packed his briefcase carefully, delaying the inevitable when he would have no reason to linger and would have to face the people he had hurt in every way he could.
Still, like the other Gryffindors or not, he had to have been put in the house for some reason. He'd just have to find the courage his house was supposed to have and go and get what he deserved, which he was sure his brothers would be only too happy to hand out.
He walked through the deserted corridors and down to the main entrance lobby; the fountain had been restored Percy noticed, they'd been working on it for days.
He took a deep breath and disapparated, thinking briefly that whatever happened now it would be worth it. Worth not having to live day-by-day knowing that if anything should happen to the people he loved they'd probably never even know that he loved them. Worth not having to pretend anymore that he could cope on his own or that he even wanted too. Worth it just to see his family again and to tell them he was sorry.
He apparated down the road from the Burrow and smiled; sometimes all it took to make you feel better about things was to know where you wanted to be, even if you still weren't sure where you were. He had a feeling that the next couple of hours were going to be amongst the hardest of his life but he was determined to get through them somehow, determined for the first time in over a year to do what he knew was right rather than what he knew, or rather thought, would benefit him. It was time to find out if people were right when they said you could never go home, and time to hope like hell they weren't.
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A/N: Well I hope you all liked that, the next chapter will be up next week. I'd love to know what you thought of this!
The quote that the chapter title comes from by the way is from a song by Sting called 'Dead Man's Rope'.
Oh and for my Sev/Remus fans I said I'd keep you updated on my sequel to 'Shades of Grey' so the news is that I'm separating the Ron and Hermione story I said would be in the same fic, it'll be two separate fics set in the same universe. It's easier to focus on Sev and Remus that way. Work has begun on the sequel, I'll let you know when I'm near to finishing it.