Set after the war and before the epilogue.

REVISED: 7/8/10

Sometimes, Percy wishes he were blind.

He sees things in their faces. He catches the stares that they send him when they think he's not looking, the muttered words that they exchange when his back is turned, the looks in their eyes that spell their thoughts out quite baldly for the world to see. Percy's not an idiot. He knows whom they would prefer alive.

Now he knows what it must have been like for Harry when nearly everyone—and Percy is slightly ashamed to admit that he himself was included in this grouping—believed him mad.

Sometimes, Percy feels like he should have died in Fred's place.

It would have been better for them all, after all; his family needs Fred more than they really need him. Fred was a true Weasley, through and through. Percy wishes, bitterly, that he could say the same for himself. But he can't: he's always been the outsider, the pariah in the whole lot; the only things that connect them are flaming hair and the blood that they share. Sure, they would have mourned him for a while, shed a few tears over his death. But they would have gotten over him eventually. With Fred, however, Percy's not so sure. He was one of the brightest Weasleys in many generations as he's heard Molly repeat tearfully to all their relatives. She was never that proud of Percy because let's face it: he's not a true Weasley.

Sometimes, Percy wonders why Fred had to die.

7/8/10: Angsty, maybe a little OOC. I wondered how a former traitor would take his brother's death after the war.