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Percy Weasley's week started the same way that every one of his weeks started. He woke up from a nightmare and stared at the ceiling of his tiny, expensive flat in Barking. His breath shuddered in and out, thin chest shaking and his ribs looking like nothing more than exposed bones in the moonlight coming in through his grubby window. The overcast sky gradually lightened, a dull, grey Monday night giving way to a dull, grey Monday morn. His dreams were always the same. He dreamed of the Death Eaters in the Ministry, the way that every visit to his superior's office had turned into intense nausea as he wondered whether he was going to live through the visit or die where he stood. He dreamed of shouting at his father, calling him a liar and a fool. He dreamed of Barty Crouch's mad, ranting eyes as he grew more and more caged before he eventually disappeared altogether. He dreamed of Yaxley's smile, which never touched his eyes, but sometimes seemed kinder than it had any right to be. He dreamed of Fred falling.
He had always hated Fred. It seems like such a callous thing to say, especially now that Fred was dead in the ground and George was walking around like someone tore him in half and then told him he had to keep breathing. They were twins; maybe it was only to be expected that George would be a little lost, but all Percy wanted to say was that George needed to pull himself together. It was disgraceful, the way that George let everyone see that he was falling apart. If Percy had the decency to do it at three o'clock in the morning, shouldn't everyone else do the same?
After the war, people seem to settle into two ways of viewing the world: those who want to forget everything bad that happened and move on as if it was all fine, and those who couldn't let it go. Percy would give anything to belong to first party, those that move on and forward, but he couldn't. He had apologised to his family for not believing them, and it shouldn't matter that they hadn't bothered to do the same. They hadn't bothered to apologise for years of making fun of him, for asking him to kill his own dreams to support theirs, for telling him to fight in a war if he wanted to be considered an honorable man.
The clock on the wall, finally realising that it was time for Percy to wake up, began to glow gradually brighter until the light of it burned into his eyes. Cursing under his breath, Percy scrabbled for his wand in the bedside table. His nails dug into the wood for a moment before he finally managed to grab it. "Nox," he said, pointing the wand decidedly at the clock. The charm immediately died down, the sun on the clock-face turning back into a moon. Percy swung out of bed, cursing some more as his feet hit the bare wood. He had laid out his robes for work the night before and began to pull them on methodically, the formal black subfusc beneath and the upright, crisp black robe above. A good robe could be like armor, as Percy had learned during Yaxley and Thicknesse's reign. Yaxley had always appreciated it when "wizards dressed like wizards," with traditional clothing and sleeves tied up in Grecian cords. Sometimes, it had even put him in a good enough mood that Percy had to worry about the curses a little less than usual. Sometimes, it made Yaxley even more bitter that "society had fallen so far" that a well-dressed wizard was an anomaly.
"Just think, Mr. Weasley," Yaxley had said thoughtfully, his finger lifting Percy's chin so their eyes had to meet. "What a world it would be if everyone just did things the proper way. Wouldn't it be nice if people just weren't so lazy?"
"Yes, sir," Percy had said, steady where he stood. Despite what his family always said, he wasn't a coward. He didn't break with Yaxley's gaze; he had nothing to hide, even if the man was an experienced Legilimens. "I've always thought so myself."
Yaxley smiled, thumb rubbing against Percy's cheekbone before he moved away. His hands were cold, but the touch burned like a brand. "Good boy. Off you trot."
Percy couldn't even hear people say that to dogs anymore without getting sick. He had heard a Muggle girl talking to her dog just yesterday and he'd had to find a bin.
Finally sorted, daily ablutions done, clothed and ready, Percy headed to the Ministry.
Most people who had worked under Thicknesse, and therefore under Yaxley, hadn't come back. Percy certainly wouldn't have, if he weren't quite so stubborn. He had refused to be cowed by his family, though, when they had wanted him to quit-- he certainly wasn't going to be haunted by a memory. (Especially not the memory of a touch or a smile, a hand on his waist or a chin on his shoulder, as if Percy was no more than furniture, as if Percy had no more right to say "no" or "stop" than a chair.)
"The owl's have been going for you non-stop," his office-mate, Elsbeth Xing, advised as soon as he stepped into their shared space. "I've taken to leaving the window open, just letting 'em come in. Do you have a new girl or summat, because I think then that someone needs to take that girl aside and just say, 'nah, hen, get your act together now. There's no call to be bothering your man like this, now is there?'"
Percy huffed a sigh. "As I've told you before, my family is just large, and I can't receive owls at my flat." He held out his hand for the messages and she slapped them down, eyes sparkling.
"So you say, Percy, so you say."
Percy flipped through the letters. There was an invitation from his mother to dinner again, a cheery letter from Bill and Fleur, who were traveling in India for Gringotts, and a newsletter from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes announcing their grand re-opening. On the bottom of the stack, however, was a slightly more unexpected letter, little more than note.
Percy, began the letter, in a rough, blockish writing that Percy was perhaps too familiar with at this point. Each letter was pressed in so deep with ink so black that the paper looked bent out of shape.
I'm back in London. Would like to see you if you have time.
Cheers.
M
"Hmm." Percy couldn't help the startled noise, but Elsbeth latched onto it like a terrier.
"What is it, then? Something interesting going on with Ron and his lady friend?"
Percy just waved a hand at her, since he couldn't care less about the goings-on with Ron and whatever bit of fluff he was dating at the moment. After Hermione had finally thrown him over, Percy had lost any bit of interest in Ron that he'd ever had. "No, just an old classmate, wanting to get in touch," he said, tucking the letter into a pocket and tossing the rest on his desk.
Elsbeth's face fell. "Ugh, you need a more interesting life, Weasley," she accused. "Whatever. That report on broom safety regulations won't write itself, I suppose."
"Too right," said Percy, as pompously as he knew how. He sat at his desk and pulled out the report, but found himself fingering the edges of the paper in his pocket, touching the raised imprints of the letters written on it.
Marcus had always pressed too hard whenever he was nervous.
Marcus Flint should have been a year ahead of Percy in school, but he was in the same year because he was held back, the only student for that to happen to in three generations. It wasn't that he was stupid, or that he had troll blood, like some of the younger students like to gossip over. It was that he had more important things to think about than silly little schoolboy bullshite, as he so eloquently put it.
When Professor McGonagall had told Percy that as Head Boy, it was Percy's obligation to tutor the resident dunce, he had almost refused. However, her stern rebuke had led to him standing outside Flint's private room, glaring furiously at the doorknob like he could set it afire. Flint had been given a private room since everyone else from his year had graduated as planned. It had seemed to Percy then like a reward for being a delinquent.
He knocked on the door. When there was no response, he knocked again, louder. After another minute, he knocked again and finally, finally, the door swung open. There was a cacophony of noise behind Flint, a fast-spitting rap that sounded like something the Muggle youths would listen to. The walls were covered in a mix of Quidditch posters and Muggle football posters proclaiming allegiance to West Ham. The bed was a wreck of blankets, and the creases of the bedsheets were still imprinted in Flint's cheek.
"What're you doing 'ere, Weasley?" Flint asked, rubbing his face.
"Were you sleeping?" Percy was aghast, but he still managed to catch the door before Flint closed it in his face.
"Don't need you here to go on, passing judgment on me sleeping habits," Flint grumbled. He swung the door open again, scratching just below his shirt as he turned to let Percy into the room. "I was up all night to get here for start of term, wasn't I? Couldn't make the train with all the rest of you."
Percy found his gaze caught by the drag of Flint's Muggle t-shirt, riding up over his stomach. Couldn't Flint even bother to dress in his school robes? Muggle clothing was positively indecent.
"And why not? You only have to arrive on time for one train a year, so how can you possibly miss it?"
Flint laughed lowly, turning to face Percy. "Don't know what kinda posh life you lead, Weasley, but I catch more than one train a year. Hell, count the tube, and I spend more time in trains than I does out of them."
The abrupt motion of Flint turning had stopped Percy just short of running into him, and Percy rocked back a bit, twisting to glare up at the other boy.
The thing was, Percy was tall. Standing next to Flint, though, he could understand why the first years thought Flint might have troll blood. It wasn't just that Flint was tall-- he was massive. He was a good five inches taller than Percy, with muscles all through his arms and chest. He had thick black hair and a scar on his cheek, as if someone had hit him hard enough to break the skin and it hadn't healed right. Percy had never met someone so unwizardly in his life.
"I'm supposed to be tutoring you this year, per Professor McGonagall," he said shortly, glaring at Flint. He wouldn't back down, even if Flint was looming over him like a gargoyle."I had thought that you would have been settled in enough overnight that we could work out a schedule. Clearly I was wrong. I'll come back--"
Flint snorted. Percy couldn't read his expression then. It was too mixed with disgust and annoyance and just a little bit of something else that in anyone else would have looked like guilt or shame. "Fine, Weasley. How's Wednesday evenings?" he said. "I still have Quidditch practise, so we've got to be smart about it."
"Fine," Percy said. "Would you like to meet here or the library?" He wasn't about to offer up his own room to someone like Flint-- Merlin knew what Flint would do if he had access to the wards.
"Here," Flint grunted, watching Percy. Percy turned away.
"Fine."
Percy was exhausted by the end of his day at the Ministry. He was always exhausted lately. After two panic attacks, one when he had been called into the Minister's office to give a report, and another when one of his co-workers mentioned Yaxley, he felt worn thin. No one had known, though. He'd held himself together in public so he could fall apart in private, like any decent man would. And now he wanted to fall apart again, because he was at home, and he could, and he was so tired lately why was it so hard lately why couldn't he just sleep lately?
When he Floo'd in, he saw Marcus sitting on his sofa, elbows on his knees.
Marcus leveled him a frank look over the bridge of his broken nose, grey eyes unimpressed. "You look like shite, Perce."
"This is bullocks!" Flint said, tossing Arithmantic Quadrants so hard that it dented the wall. Percy flinched as it went past his ear, much as he hated himself for it. He didn't like to let Flint know that any of his little outbursts and tendency to loom bothered Percy at all.
"Bullocks or not," he said, delicately picking his way over the crass words, "it's still necessary for you to learn it, if you want to pass."
"I have more important things to do with me time than sit around, reading books that have nothing to do with the real world, don't I?"
Percy flicked his wand toward the book. "Accio book," he demanded, and it shot to his hands. He turned it over, ghosting his fingertips along the surface. The binding wasn't cracked, fortunately, for all that the wall was. "What could possibly be more important than learning when you are at a school specifically to learn?" he asked, exasperated.
"Some of us have more going on than school," Flint said, and the evasion made Percy narrow his eyes.
"Like what? Quidditch?"
Flint laughed. "Quidditch is just for fun, Perce. It's not life or death."
"Don't call me that. Does that mean that whatever you have going on is life or death?"
"Of course not." When Flint smiled, one corner of his mouth went higher than the other, and his eyes looked like sun-warmed stone, dark and lush and lazy. Why did someone so crude have to be so ridiculously attractive all the time? It would be much easier on Percy if he was as trollish as his manners and size would suggest. "You know, I'm the first of my family to go to Hogwarts?"
"What?" That couldn't possibly be right. Percy had seen the Flint name on and off again throughout historical record, and would have sworn on his last breath that it was a traditional Pureblood family. Granted, he had been confused by Flint's accent, which was an East London one if he'd ever heard one, but you never knew with Slytherins. He wouldn't put it past one of them to pick up a London accent for fun.
"No one seems to notice, since Flint's not an uncommon name, but it's true. Pureblood as they come, but we could never get up the entrance fees, so none of us have gone. There aren't any wizarding schools for us folks who don't have the dosh to attend Hogwarts."
Percy stayed quiet at that. He hated discussing money since he had so little of it, but they had never had so little that there was a question of the Weasley children all going to Hogwarts. Yes, their robes may be ratty, but they were Weasleys. He had never thought about wizards and witches not being able to afford Hogwarts-- going to Hogwarts was just what one did.
"You're not going to ask me how we managed to get the money now, then?" Flint taunted, gaze hard.
Percy shook his head. "No, that's your business."
Looking surprised, Flint dropped his chin a bit. Percy could see his hand fisted against his thigh, nails biting into the flesh of his hand. "Well, good. I wouldn't have told you anyway."
Percy didn't even realise at the time that the subject had been changed.
"What happened to, 'if you have time'?" Percy asked, trying to muster a smile. He began brushing the soot of his robes, loosening the neck.
Marcus grinned, teeth white and sharp-looking. His hair had been buzzed on the sides at some point, leaving it long in a strip right down the center. His ears had been pierced at some point, thick black spirals cutting through them harshly, and there was another piercing through his septum.
"I figured you could make time."
"Is it safe for you to be back?"
Marcus reached out a hand and grabbed Percy by the wrist. He flinched back briefly, but stilled at the familiar warmth. He wasn't sure if anyone other than Yaxley had touched him in years, beyond sporadic hugs from his mother when he wasn't able to avoid them. Even those were few and far between, since Percy wasn't overly fond of being around his family at the best of times.
"Yeah, I paid me debts and we're all square now." Marcus' eyes searched his, mouth turning down at the corners. "I heard that England got itself sorted too while I was away."
"It did," Percy admitted wryly. "With a slight wrinkle or two in the path." He wasn't sure when he had turned his wrist, lacing his fingers with Marcus', but he didn't regret it. He let Marcus pull him down onto the sofa, resting his weight into Marcus' side and studying the other man's fingertips carefully. He turned their entwined hands where they rested on his leg, tightening his grip as he stared. There were no tell-tale nicotine stains on Marcus' fingers, which was good. Cigarettes were a filthy, Muggle habit, and Percy was always worried Marcus would take them up again if he was around his set.
"It's been a while." The words were low, as if Marcus didn't really want to point it out. Percy leaned a little more against him, feeling the day begin to catch up with him again.
"Three years," he agreed. "Do you feel any differently now?"
"Nah, mate. Not a bit."
Flint stood on the roof of the Astronomy Tower, wind tugging at this hair and hands glowing from reflected light as he cupped one hand around the other to shelter his cigarette from the wind. His hair was just a little too long for regulations, a tangled mess that caught in his color, and he almost looked strange in wizard robes now that Percy had seen him Muggle clothes.
"Cigarettes?" Percy said, wrinkling his nose so that his glasses rode up.
"I cast Dragon Lung, don't you worry," Flint said, a lazy smile making his eyes turn dark and liquid again. Percy had to look away. Every one of the prefects, the Head Boy, and the Head Girl all had to take turns being stationed on the Astronomy Tower rather than patrolling the halls. It was not only a popular spot for couples to meet for a snog, but a spate of suicides in the 60s had made a nightly guard a necessity. They'd had to reschedule their study sessions after the Sirius Black business at Halloween, and Percy had reckoned that the Astronomy Tower would be a perfect spot. Seeing Flint in starlight, however, was almost painful.
"Not the point," grumbled Percy, trying to get back on track.
"What, is the point some kind of elitist wizard bullshite?" Flint asked bluntly. "Because mate, I'm not that kind of wizard."
Percy didn't know what to say, since honestly, anything he would say would definitely sound like elitist wizard bullshite. Instead, since Flint was distracted, he watched him: the long fingers tugging at robes as if they sat ill, the eyes steady as they stared out over the Forbidden Forest. Percy hadn't felt like this with Penelope. He didn't understand what made Flint so different, unless it was the confidence. Flint had confidence in everything he did. He took up space, where Percy had been trained over the course of his life to take up as little as possible. He was loud and he said what he thought, and also, he seemed to have a funny little scar just below his lip as well as the one on his cheek. Percy kind of wanted to touch it, to see how the divot felt beneath his fingertips.
Flint was staring back. Percy could feel himself turning red, ears heating up until they matched the same color as his hair.
"What?" he asked crossly, not expecting an answer. "What do you want to start with today? You were mentioning History of Magic was giving you trouble."
"Huh." Flint flicked the cigarette from his fingers, stubbing it out beneath his boot and crossing the roof rapidly. Two strides brought him over to Percy, where Percy had to crane up to glare at him. "Never noticed that before," he remarked, never breaking eye contact, and then he bent down.
Flint tasted and smelled like cigarette smoke, like burnt coffee without cream. It was like an earthquake, Flint's mouth on his, tongue on his bottom lip, hands that were so large and so warm framing his face, curling in the red of his hair, cradling the back of his neck so that Percy was held still, so that Flint could come back again and again, mouth slotting over his easily. As if this was all easy. Percy's back hit the wall, but his head was supported by Flint's hands.
"If you wanted this, all you had to do was say."
"I don't want this," Percy insisted, and then reached up to kiss Flint again. He fisted his hands in Flint's robes, ignoring the way Flint's hair caught in his mouth. He'd be damned if he couldn't learn how to kiss just as well as Flint.
When Marcus tried to lift his chin so that Percy would look at him, Percy recoiled back so fast he almost fell of the couch. Breathing hard, he stared at Marcus, who was staring back with a furrowed brow.
"I can leave, if you want," Marcus said carefully.
Percy shook his head, nearly making his horn-rimmed glasses fly off his face. "No, I just--" He sat back down gingerly. "I-- it's not you. It just… happens now. I'm getting over it."
At Marcus flat look, he tried to smile. "They say that everyone who worked at the Ministry during the take-over has PTSD. They're working on training some Mind-Healers with Muggle psychologists, but they're having trouble finding volunteers, and there's not enough trained people. I'm working on it."
Marcus made a little huff, hand flexing a bit on his leg as he tried to keep from touching Percy. Percy gently rubbed the buzzed sides of Marcus' head. It was velvet soft, he realised as he stroked his fingers over it, curling around the curve of Marcus' ear. What else had changed besides the hair, he wondered. Did Marcus still kiss like an earthquake?
"What can I do to help?"
Percy's hand stilled, and he made a face. He hated talking about this-- this weakness that he had, that he couldn't seem to shake off no matter how much he tried. "Just… make sure I see you when you're about to touch me. Sometimes it doesn't matter, but sometimes it does. It's impossible to predict." He found it endlessly frustrating, because he never knew what would set him off and what would be fine. He didn't know when he was going to have a panic attack, or when he was going to get a flashback so strong he forgot to breathe until it stopped.
"All right." Marcus' hand curled around the back of his neck, notching them together so their foreheads touched. "You still love me, Weasley?"
Percy smiled. "I don't love you at all." He kissed Marcus, and the world shook.
They never dated, not the way that people usually did. Percy was very focused on getting Marcus to pass the year, not to mention passing the year himself. Oliver would have had a fit, as well, which Percy just wasn't about.
"Until I no longer have to live in the same house as Oliver Wood, we barely know each other," he insisted. "He'll be suspicious that I'm spying for the Slytherin team or something like that, and I'll find myself locked in the toilet."
"Not to mention, I'm beneath you."
Percy just rolled his eyes, because he had never met someone before who was so proud about being low class.
"Good," he'd said. "You can give my mother a heart attack, but we're still telling them once school is done."
They hadn't, though. At first, he was busy interviewing, and then he was busy getting started at his new job. Marcus was busy doing… something. Something that involved the man who had paid his entrance fees to Hogwarts, something that meant he showed up bruised and frustrated every time they grabbed Indian take-away before finding a convenient wall to support them while they kissed. Marcus still lived with his mother-- and that had been interesting experience, going into a crummy Muggle flat in Bethnal Green to meet a Russian witch with a heavy accent who was wrestling with Marcus' seven-year-old brother and eight-year-old sister. Percy had never been somewhere like that before, where the rubbish bins overflowed on the streets, and it seemed like there were more restaurants than houses. Percy still lived with his parents, until he moved out to London to be closer to Marcus. Then he'd fallen out with his parents, and there was no point in telling them about Marcus then. The two of them barely had a few months together in the Barking flat before Marcus had to leave.
"Are you joking?" Percy asked flatly. "We have Death Eater activity all over the place, people going missing everywhere, and Harry Potter screaming up and down the rooftops about how You-Know-Who has risen again, and you want to leave England?"
"It sounds even more reasonable than before when you put it like that," Marcus said, trying on a smile. He looked stressed though, and he couldn't seem to stop himself from pulling Percy more snugly into his arms. "It's for the boss."
"The boss."
"I owe him, luv. Don't say it like that. I might think all the Hogwarts blokes are ridiculous posh bastards, but having a Hogwarts education still means something."
"How long will you be gone?" Percy curled his fingers into Marcus' Muggle shirt, trying to breathe him in. He couldn't leave. Percy didn't know if he could do this without Marcus there, grounding him, giving him a home to go back to when his own had rejected him.
"Until I'm back." Marcus sighed, his chest shuddering under Percy's grip. "We'll write. I'll come to visit if I can. You still love me, Weasley?"
"I don't love you at all."
If only that were true.
"You'll stay now?" Percy asked Marcus, half-asleep in his arms. "You'll have to meet my mother. She'll hate you. And my father will be very confused."
"I don't care." Marcus' arms tightened around him, his lips touching Percy's ear. "I'm back, which means I'm with you. Always."