Chapter Text
“Can you live……”
A voice echoed through the darkness and caused Oliver to open his eyes, groggily. It was so dark, but he already felt that he wasn’t lying in his bed anymore, making him screw his eyes shut. Another nightmare? Please no, he couldn’t take this wendigo hurting Percy anymore…
He looked up, confused. He….genuinely didn’t know where he was. Usually he recognized the scenery, but this time he was walking in the dark, quite literally, getting up and rubbing the back of his head.
“Can you live with the consequences….”
He heard the voice again, flinching and turning. Who was whispering these words? He didn’t see anyone... To be fair, it was very dark, so it made sense that he didn’t see anyone. But he also didn’t hear any steps either, he only heird clanking and winding, accompanied by the weird voice that was circling around him.
“Consequences…...”
Oliver screwed his eyes shut, blindly feeling around the place to see if he could find anything that would get him out of here, but he had no such luck. The floor was cold and unforgiving and his head felt dizzy, forcing himself to open his eyes.
He probably shouldn’t have done it, because he came face to face with a strange atrocity that was easily 10 feet tall, a dark blue cloak covering its entire body and head. It had a humanoid shape, but he heard metallic noises from underneath it, the creature subtly floating over the ground, the robe not long enough to disguise a lack of feet on the ground, red eyes glowing through the shadow of the cloak.
Oliver yelped and stumbled back, hitting the ground once more as the creature laughed, advancing towards him with the same metallic clinking and winding and Oliver tried to reach for his wand, only now realizing that he didn’t have it, he still wore his PJ’s….
“Consequences….!” Declared the creature in an enthusiastic tone, it had a relatively normal voice, kinda deep and smug sounding, but it sounded like a voice a quidditch commentator could have. Oliver could only stare...he almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Who- Who are you? Why aren’t you attacking me?!” Oliver had more than enough nightmares to know by now that these creatures were always up to no good, focused on hurting Oliver and Percy and apparently Bill too to the best of their abilities.
The creature laughed,the scale in its boney hand shaking from the vibrations: “Don’t be silly! I don’t hurt. I only judge. That’s what I am here for! To execute judgement! For I am known as The Blue Judge!”
Oliver could only stare in complete bewilderment while the blue judge was staring at him with that eerie smile of his, grinning creepily, sharp teeth on display, as if there was no problem with the situation. There probably weren't any problems for The Blue Judge.
“Wh-why are you here…?” Oliver knew his questions were stupid, but he just couldn’t wrap his head around why this creature would be here with him right now…
“Why, to judge, of course.” that really wasn’t helpful at all, but before Oliver could say anything, a gong like noise echoing through the room, making the brunet cover his ears as The Blue Judge laughed, declaring:
“Enough talking! It is time for the judgement! You must not hesitate and you must not think about the answer, just answer! It will reveal the consequences of your actions!”
Oliver felt himself tensing up, put on the spot as he stared at The Blue Judge, who was spinning in place before he finally declared:
“You are a young hopeful wizard from Scotland with the aspiration of becoming a professional quidditch player! You are popular despite not socializing a lot with other students, your focus lying in quidditch. Despite that, you have made four loyal friends, you are the closest with Percival Weasley! Now….let the judgement begin!”
Oliver didn’t like how The Blue Judge knew so much about him, but this was just a dream, that was most likely why he knew so much. He could only stare in astonishment, swallowing heavily when another sound echoed through the empty room, then the judging seemed to finally begin as The Blue Judge spoke once again.
“You’re spying on Percy.” He began and Oliver immediately tensed up, already not liking where this is going. Why did everyone need to drag Percy into everything? He just wanted him to be safe….
“You didn’t mean to spy on him, but you noticed how he accepted a letter from a crippled owl, the same owl that delivered the threatening letters to Percy before. You notice him trying to hide the letters and not tell anyone, despite him being in danger. What do you do?”
Oliver couldn’t hesitate, The Blue Judge told him that, so he said what he actually did: “I tell Bill and Charlie…”
The Blue Judge spun in place at the answer, then declaring: “Let’s see what the consequences have to say! What you will have to live with!”
The scale began to move, moving up and down, creaking noises coming from The Blue Judge while they did so, Oliver staring like entranced at the scale. He didn’t even know what he was hoping for. Was there really a right answer…?
One of the sides of the scale stayed down, despite no weight being on it, all the noises coming to a creaking stop, the room deathly silent now. The Blue Judge regarded the scale for a moment, before elaborating : “You are worried for your friend, so you go to his older brothers, the oldest giving him a harsh lecture! What follows is another letter. Percy is very scared. A body will be found because you didn’t keep quiet about the letters and Percy will be upset with you.”
The Blue Judge’s head turned, the scale balancing out again, looking down at Oliver with glowing eyes. “It was your choice. Now you have to live with it.”
His eyes dulled, despite barely visible it was obvious how his expression changed, the long fingers grabbing the scales loosening. “It is my job to judge the living, to see if there is any saving for them...I have seen a lot of things, but I am worried for you, child. The wendigo is coming closer and my hopes for you are fading…”
The scenery faded away and The Blue Judge vanished with a whisper of “You cannot escape the consequences of your actions….” and before Oliver could even realize what was going on, he was awake and lying in his bed, breathing heavily as he looked at the curtains of his bed, then out of the window. A cloudless, starry night, the trees changing colours, the leaves would soon fall from the trees.
Oliver took a shuddering breath and sunk back into the pillows, contemplating. Consequences….he wondered if his words held any truth. It would make sense what he said...was Percy really upset with him? He glanced over to his sleeping friend, who hugged his pillow close to himself and was curled up. He looked like he had been crying, cheeks reddened and still glistening from dried up tears.
It was his choice, a voice in Oliver’s head echoed, now he had to live with it...Oliver lowered his head, feeling guilty about what he did. He should have just….stopped to talk with Percy. He rarely stopped, now that he thought about it. He always wanted to...be fast and get everything done. He probably should apologize to Percy...But he shouldn’t wake him up right now...
No, he should probably wait until Percy was awake and coherent before uttering some strangely worded apology that would confuse his friend. He sighed, burying his face in his hands, muttering to himself: “This is a disaster…” The Blue Judge’s words didn’t get out of his head and were still echoing in his mind, bouncing in his brain.
He rubbed his eyes, letting his thoughts wander, wondering just what the meaning of this was...maybe he should talk with Trelawney about Judges? The one that he met had a dark blue robe and was named after it too, so he could only assume that there were more judges, as weird as that sounded...he needed to think about this properly, but for now…
He got out of his bed and grabbed some parchment from Percy, writing a hastily written letter to the divination teacher and giving it to Nimbus, who went on his way to deliver the mail. Oliver described the dream and The Blue Judge in the letter, hoping that Trelawney might write him an answer. But he couldn’t stay awake and hope that Trelawney was up and would write him now, he needed to go back to bed.
So he crawled back under the covers, muttering to himself, then yawning, his eyes falling close, the voice of The Judge still echoing in his mind…
A few hours later His eyes suddenly flew open when he realized one thing, sitting up straight in bed. The Blue Judge said a body would be found...And that was what the letter said too! What was he supposed to do about this…? Nobody would believe him if he said he had a dream where he found out someone was going to die...He couldn’t even say who was going to die because he didn't know, and if he went out to try and prevent something he would maybe get killed too…
He ruffled his hair, groaning in frustration. What was he going to do…?
“What are you doing…?”
Oliver flinched, glancing over to Percy who was looking at him, still half asleep, eyes half lidded and body propped up on an arm. He looked like he was going to fall asleep again any second, but Oliver wanted to make use of the chance he had.
“I Just…..wanted to apologize...for not talking with you about the letters first…”
Percy looked confused, as if trying to find out what the hell Oliver was talking about, blinking groggily before recognition flashed over his face, his expression darkening for a moment before sighing. “It’s okay...you didn’t know why I did it, you were only worried…”
“I should have asked before…”
“Yeah, you should….so what now?”
Oliver furrowed his brows: “What do you mean ‘what now’?”
“You apologized. What else do you want to do? You act like you committed an unforgivable crime. I was upset but you apologized and I forgive you. All we can do is keep going. I only really need a genuine apology to not be mad anymore and you looked at me like a puppy right now, so...I’m not mad anymore…It was probably for the better that you told them...Besides, it’s not like I can get rid of you, we live together.”
Heavy relief washed over Oliver as he exclaimed: “Thank ya Perce...Yer a good friend.”
“Don’t grow cheesy on me. Go back to bed, it’s still early and we have potions in the morning.”
Oliver groaned at the thought of Snape making their lives harder, but complied, lying back down in bed and cuddling into the pillows, discarding his worries for the night.