Percy Weasley hugged his mother goodbye as his father patted him on the back. He gently pulled away from his mother who prolonged the hug unnecessarily.

"Have a great year! My boy the prefect!" his mom said giving him a warm kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you mother! I'll write often." he said and turned away from her to board the train. As he got on he could hear his mother seizing Ron and going through the same actions she had just done with him. When he got on the train he headed straight to the prefect's compartment which this year, he was allowed to enter. He felta sense of pride. All his hard work was definitely paying off.

He took a seat and just as quickly as his sense of pride had arrived, a more dominant sense loneliness enveloped him. He had no one to talk to because he didn't really have any friends; he spent most of his time studying. Of course, he had what he considered acquaintances, but none whom he could truly call a good 'friend.' Oh well, he thought, I've gone through four years like this. Bring on another.

This year, Percy feared, might be the most difficult yet. He had shared his summer with Penelope Clearwater in secret, and they had gotten intimate. They didn't do anything too extreme but they did snog quite a lot. It was then that Percy ended any sort of relationship with Penelope because he felt that something didn't feel quite right. He found out that he was unmistakably gay. He could never dream of telling a soul. And if it came to it, he would live the rest of his life hiding his sexual identity because up to this point, he has never had any feelings towards any boy.

He felt sad about Penelope though, because when he broke up with her via owl, she was extremely offended. Their summer romance had consisted of nothing but snogging and second base, and the academic school year meant that their relationship would become something more due to the fact that they couldn't spend their whole time snogging at Hogwarts. Penelope Clearwater, clearly, was looking forward to this part of the relationship. So when she received that owl from Percy two weeks before the start of term her excitement turned to devastation as she read Percy's final words: "We're not right for each other. Please forgive me."

Percy hadn't noticed that the train was already moving and he had missed his chance to wave goodbye to his mother as he always did. This meant he'd have to write her a letter tonight and be awfully sweet with her. Just then a seventh year girl from Ravenclaw who sported a Head Girl badge walked in and looked about the room before settling her eyes on Percy.

"You there, I haven't seen you patrol the carts. Walk around, get used to the idea of looking for trouble makers, will ya?" she said in a friendly tone.

"Er-sorry. I'll go right now." Percy said instantly and stood up.

"No worries! You're going to have a great year! I remember when I became a prefect, of course I'm head girl now, but I still remember how good it felt to be a prefect. This is my last year at Hogwarts! I'm so excited, and sad about it at the same time. Oh, I'm sorry!" the Ravenclaw girl said as she realized that she was talking too much and Percy was being too polite to say anything.

"Well, I'll be going now. Nice talking to you." Percy said with a smile that was supposed to reassure the girl that he wasn't bothered by her. He walked with forced authority down the hallway looking into compartments. I'll get the hang of it, he thought. And surely enough, only five minutes had passed before Percy's walk looked naturally in control. But after all, he was meant to be a leader.

As he looked into the compartments he saw many faces that he recognized and many faces that he didn't. First years, and people that had managed to fly under his radar. He looked into one of the compartments and saw his two brothers, Fred and George, sitting with a bunch of other people who Percy recognized as being on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Among them Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet , and Oliver Wood who looked very excited about something.

He watched the lot for a little bit unaware that he was being very obvious. They all seemed to be very interested in something Oliver was saying. Probably some nonsense about Quidditch, he thought. Just then his two brothers turned and acknowledged his presence which prompted the whole compartment to follow their gaze. With all eyes on him he stood at his tallest and pretended he had barely arrived. Fred got up from his seat and opened the compartment door.

"What's the matter? You miss your baby brothers already?" he asked teasingly.

"As you know, George ("I'm Fred!")- right, Fred, I'm a prefect now and I was simply doing my responsibilities of making sure that everything stays in order." he said in a professional voice.

"We promise our older brother that we won't be naughty boys!" George taunted from his seat.

"Yeah and if we are, we won't resist if you give us a good spanking." Fred added and the whole compartment broke into laughter. This made Percy rather upset; he didn't like the idea of his brothers undermining his authority.

Percy opened his mouth to speak but he didn't say a word because just then a very loud "Ribbit! Ribbit!" emitted from Oliver Wood.

"Pardon me?" Percy asked looking rather shocked. Oliver Wood looked up at him with the same level of confusion.

"It wasn't me" he said to Percy and when he saw the look of suspicion on his face added, "I promise."

"Blimey! Under your seat, Oliver!" bellowed Fred and George as an unpleasant looking toad made an appearance. Oliver picked it up and Alicia Spinnet recoiled at the sight of it.

"You don't think this is the toad that those two first years were talking about, do ya?" asked Oliver to his friends.

"It most definitely is! You better hurry and give it to them." Alicia said too eagerly.

"Some first years were looking for it, you say? Well give it here," Percy said and stretched his hand towards Oliver, "if I hurry hopefully I can catch them going door to door."

"Er…okay." Oliver said holding the toad out to him. Oliver's hands where cupped as if trying to catch raindrops and the toad was sitting in the middle. Percy reached for it but just as he did so the toad leaped out his hands and onto the floor near Alicia's feet who jumped onto her seat and almost on top of Angelina.

The whole compartment, including Percy, were so amused by Alicia's reaction that it was only after the incident calmed that Percy realized his hand was in Oliver's where the toad had been. The two boys went red and Percy pulled his hand back.

"Sorry about that. Well, I'd best be going now. I'm a prefect you know." and with that Percy hastily exited the compartment and left the toad behind.

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