Chapter Text
there is a kind of love so filled with rage
that i can’t even look at your face
even as it exists in my mind.
...
“Hello Percy,” says Luna.
Your eyes are red. Your cheeks are raw from scrubbing hard enough to scrape away the top layer of skin. Your hands shake, when you think too much; they don’t shake at all when you forget, and somehow that’s worse.
Fred is gone.
It’s not your first thought in the morning when you get up, and that feels like a terrible kind of sacrilege.
“Hello Luna,” you say, and sit down besides her.
...
It isn’t-
It isn’t like that.
But you’re mourning, and you’re learning that you aren’t a quiet mourner. Things tend to explode if you stay still long enough to remember that Fred is- not here. As if he’s passed his love for explosions onto you with his last breath.
Nobody seems to understand, though. Everyone walks around you on eggshells, until you take your wand and a cloak and walk out of the Burrow one morning, skin itching something fierce. You walk and walk, feet blistering in your boots, hands sweating on your wand, eyes streaming with something other than tears.
“Hello Percy,” Luna says, slipping beside you as if nothing were amiss. “How are you today?”
You’d always ignored Luna, more than anything else. It felt kinder than to shout at her for her strangeness.
“Fine,” you grunt. “I’m just- fine.”
“Good,” Luna says, and lifts her wand, reaching out to you. “Because I have a job for you.”
You twist through a tiny, airless tube for endless moments, and finally land on a cold, dreary island before you can say anything more. It takes you a beat to realize, and then you do: it’s Azkaban. Horror clutches at your heart.
“You sent people here,” Luna says, softly, when it’s clear you’re unable to speak. “You-”
“I know what I did.”
“Then you’ll fight back.” She looks harder, brighter, than any Luna that you’ve ever known. You remember, suddenly- she’s lost a father where you’ve lost your brother, but Luna has no other family to hold her, or grieve beside her. “There are cells the Death Eaters sealed, here. Someone has to unseal them.”
“Sealed-” You break off. It’s been weeks since the end of the war; if they sealed them off to only outside influence the people inside might have had a week, at most, what with the lack of water and food. If the Death Eaters also sealed off the air, as most wards tend to do...
“The people inside must be-”
Luna nods. “Dead.”
Then why? You want to ask, before she smiles, sad and small.
“They deserve burials,” she tells you. “Burials in better places than this.” Luna swallows, and there’s a brief glimpse of a girl with sunlight hair in that motion; a girl whom you hadn’t ever loved, a girl you miss, suddenly, with a fierceness that surprises even you. “Flowers and tombstones and grass. Warmth. Wands.”
Oh. Oh, if their wands were taken- they must be-
“Muggleborns,” you whisper.
“Dead,” she repeats. “And you helped send them there.”
Ginny would have flung accusations at you, eyes shining like a hundred swords. Ron would have glared until you gave in, and then acted sanctimonious for all of a few minutes before forgiving you. Fred- he’d have probably painted your face with some week-old blood, trying to make his point and horrify you as always.
Luna doesn’t say anything more, but the undercurrent is clear to you: you can go back home, you can wallow in self-loathing and misery and continue to blow things up whenever someone startles you. Or you can try to fix what you’ve done. You can be of use, and it looks like no one else wants to do this job so it’s not like you’ll have to talk to many people.
You’re a Gryffindor at heart anyway.
“Let’s go,” you say, through gritted teeth.
...
That’s how it starts.
Luna asks, and you accept, and it hurts like you’ve got a splinter the size of a fist digging into your chest; but it feels good, too, in it’s own way.
There are a hundred people in Azkaban whose cells were warded properly when the Death Eaters fled. It was a mix of panic- the Battle of Hogwarts happened so quickly- and idiocy and bureaucratic mix-ups, but of the almost six hundred muggleborns that were locked up in Azkaban over the course of the year, more than five hundred escaped. Those who didn’t were the old, the weak, the quiet; from what you’ve been able to deduce, some people even sacrificed themselves to keep holes in the wards open long enough for others to flee.
It’s not like you’re the best warder Luna could have gotten. Hell, Bill’s better than you by a long shot; this is his actual job- but your mother’s always depended most on Bill and she actually needs him, now, what with- Fred. Charlie’d flunked Ancient Runes in his third year and taken up Divination instead; George might be better than you, now, but he’s too... something.
Broken, you think, and the thought burns inside of you, enough that you hiss out, flick your wand at an innocent bit of stone and watch it explode. Like a clock.
A hand settles on your forearm. “The nimbopaths tend to be stronger here,” she says. “Maybe we should drink some tea?”
“Just- thoughts,” you say, quietly. Nevermind that neither of you have brought tea with you; what’s important is that her hand feels very warm, and there’s something scarily like guilt rising up your throat. “I’ll finish this ward myself, don’t worry. There’s another one in the left hallway, if you want to map it out.”
Luna leaves. You knead your forehead and get back to work, carving runes with both wand and knife, carefully cracking the barrier until you can get to the gaunt corpse behind it.
You don’t scream when you see the bodies.
(You haven’t screamed since you saw Fred die.)
...
Nobody asks where you go, which surprises you more than you’d think. But they just accept that you disappear- even George, who’s been spending the most time with you. It’s regular, at least, insofar as that you leave at dawn and return only past midnight. The only people who see you are Harry and Ron and Hermione, and the three of them are strange enough that they don’t seem to find anything out of the ordinary in your wrinkled clothes or shabby appearance.
Finally, a week- or two, or three- later, Charlie sits you down.
“You need to rest,” he says, quietly. “You’re running yourself into the ground. Kingsley wouldn’t want that.”
I don’t give a damn about Kingsley, is on the tip of your tongue. I’ll run myself into the ground if I want to, is marching right behind it. I deserve this, is what echoes behind it all.
“There’s things I have to do,” you say instead.
Luna’s found a spell that keeps the bodies from decomposing. There’s a long line of them, now, arranged in one of the better-aired corridors of Azkaban; corpses in stasis that you both need to find graves for, names for, wands for. One of them had hair the color of a sunrise, streaked with a dye that sits next to your shaving cream in the store in Diagon Alley. You’d almost broken down three days ago, when you saw that purple box.
When you left that store, there was a box with Wott’s Ever-Changing Dye, Spec. Ed: SUNRISE! emblazoned on it, hidden with your daily supplies.
Maybe in a few months you’ll stop dreaming about your sins.
“I never even see you,” Charlie says. “You’re gone before I wake up, you come back after I fall asleep, you’re looking like a ghost. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you, Perce, but you’d best stop before you break down. Mum can’t handle you going off your rocker, alright?”
You jerk away. “I’m sorry,” you say, precisely, each word crisp as the apples that grow in fresh spring, new and green and tart enough to draw tears to the eye, “that I am inconveniencing you.”
“Shit,” you hear him mutter, before Charlie launches himself forwards; but it’s too late.
You cross the kitchen’s threshold, and there- sitting, like a fucking mosaic of pieces that, through your tears, looks almost like Fred- is George. George and your mother and your father and the rest of your family, but Fred isn’t there, he isn’t there, he’ll never be there to tease you or frighten you or love you, not anymore.
“I’m fine,” you say, and it’s not a lie, though you can see that nobody believes you. “I’m fine,” you repeat, and Charlie’s behind you and he puts his hand on your shoulder and it’s not fine, but you’re fine, you’re fine and it’s the world that’s not fine at all.
Fred’s gone, and you’ve got a list of sins that you’ll spend the rest of your life scrubbing.
I’m not even twenty-five, you think, and I’ll never do anything great.
“I am,” you say, and this time it is defiant, as foolishly defiant as ever Fred had been, “fine.”
A shrug of your shoulders, and before Charlie can catch you, before anyone can believe that you’re going to do this again, the son who had loved rules more than he’d ever loved family- you’re gone.
...
The cliffside is cold, and you don’t have a cloak or the will to perform a warming charm.
You don’t cry, but when it rains, you don’t wipe your face either.
Your eyes are red.
...
“You haven’t told them?” Luna asks you the next day, when you show up in sodden clothes and hair as tangled as Potter’s on a bad day.
“Three more cells,” you reply. “We’re almost done.”
You reach for the doorknob, but it clicks shut with a finality that makes you whirl back to Luna. She looks back at you with a look in her eyes that makes you want to wince, her wand held high and stiff between you two. It feels like someone’s made you swallow ice.
“And after that we need to find names, and ground to bury them, and wands.” Her lips, already thin, depress further. “This will not end, Percy. Every day there will be something more, and you have to-”
“You don’t get to tell me what I have to do,” you whisper.
It’s nothing but the truth. Luna brought you here, but it’s your decision to actually do something instead of mourn. Your guilt is your own; no one, not Charlie, not George, not Luna- not a single person in the world gets to tell you that this guilt is lessened by coming here. They don’t get to do this to you. And if you want to spend the rest of your life righting the wrongs of a war that you were on the wrong side of, then there is nothing that will stop you.
“You need to tell them what’s happening,” Luna says, reaching out to place a hand on your shoulder. “They’re going to worry. Percy- Fred wouldn’t want you to do this.”
You step away, and slash your wand down, once, twice, thrice. The door falls into pieces, stripped wood, and you step out into the corridor. The wind catches at your cloak and hair, still soaked through. You don’t shiver.
“I signed forty-three documents,” you say softly, watching her, waiting for the inevitable horror, revulsion, hatred. “Did you know that? I signed away forty-three people’s lives. Fred’s the least of my sins.” A breath, and wood crunches under your feet as if they were bones, dried and dead. “You can tell my parents that, if you want to.” The ice in your throat spreads to your arms, to your fingers, to your heart. “But I’m going to break Azkaban’s wards today, and tomorrow I’ll find a burial ground for the dead, and the day after that I’ll find out how to make wands, and you can help me bury these people if you want to but I’m not going to stop, do you hear me?”
...
You’ve always been good with charms. Penelope’s always been good with potions.
The summer of ‘96, you have a long, explosive fight with her. You hadn’t been living together, not exactly; you’re both too independent for that. But you have an extra towel and toothbrush in your bathroom and the particular brand of rough-grain bread that Penelope likes in your kitchen, and it’s the closest you’ve come to sharing your life with anyone else.
She’s afraid.
You’re not just a Gryffindor, she says, blue eyes shining, face earnest, please, come with me- there’s other places you can succeed. It doesn’t have to be here, you-
I’m not going anywhere, you say, and you’re terrified, of course you are, you’re angry and grieving and alone and-
And you have done a lot wrong, in your life, but you haven’t run. At least in some small, aching way, you belong to Gryffindor for reasons other than your blood.
Penelope doesn’t say goodbye.
You find a thin vial resting on your bed that night- black and glittering, like the night sky ground into a liquid. You recognize it, of course. By all rights, you should turn it into the Ministry. By all rights, you should put her name on a list of criminals, for brewing one of the most dangerous potions in the world.
You pocket the vial instead.
...
(Your best subject had been charms.
But you’re even better at paperwork. It’s why Crouch takes you on- they mock you, your brothers, your family, but he took you on and he kept you on because you were good at what you did.
Forty-three people suffer for that.)
...
Azkaban surrenders the last of its sealed cells quietly, and you levitate the last body to the corridor where the rest have been lying for the past fortnight. Luna is there- her hair looks like moonlight-purified water, colorless and pure in the dull darkness.
She has a new wand, one that Ollivander made for her after the Malfoys took hers. It’s too temperamental for your taste; it reacts more to Luna’s emotions than to her words, and the results can be unpredictable. The day after you both uncovered one of the younger victims, it had only released saltwater for the full day, no matter what else Luna tried.
But it also matches Luna’s personality. Like right now: there’s a glittering charm bracelet that she’s woven out of light and some old metal scraps lying on the floor, and it shines around almost twenty people’s wrists and throats, pale blue or sparking purple or glowing yellow, like a strange string of faery lights.
"The stasis spell goes from darkness to darkness,” she says, folding one boy’s fingers open slowly, massaging the cold flesh.
You bite back the first words you think of, the acid bite of your previous meeting still concentrated. “What does that mean?”
“You have another three weeks,” replies Luna, softly. “Then the graves will rise up and swallow them once more.”
The stasis spell will fall, you realize. That’s what she’s trying to say. The spell will last from new moon to new moon, and it will fall soon and the bodies will rot, and that means-
“Graves,” you say. “Wands. We’ll need-”
“No,” says Luna. “Not us.”
You.
It had slipped your mind, but- yes, now you remember, Luna and Ron and Ginny and Ron’s friends- they’re all heading back to Hogwarts. Another week and they’re going to leave, and you’re going to have to do this alone.
Alone.
You know how that feels. You have it scored straight into your bones.
“I’ll handle it,” you say.
...
The Ministry is silent when you enter it.
It’s too early in the morning; fog still lines London’s streets, and the streetlights are still lighting up the city. The tips of your robes are damp. Your footsteps echo on the marble stone.
(The last time you were here, you killed fifteen men.
Yaxley had asked for tea, and you’d felt some shift in the air- you’d nodded docilely, you’d made the tea with careful, even hands, and then, when they were ignoring you, while they were casually discussing some crime on humanity, you’d poured Penny’s black, shining poison straight into the dark liquid.
You’d waited patiently, calmly, as they dropped.
Thirteen men like that- and then you left, quietly, and sealed the door shut. Three more men had chased you, up and down the hallways, and you’d killed two with quick wandwork but the last- the last you’d captured and carved, slowly, with your careful, even wandwork, and you hadn’t stopped until he sputtered out the truth of Hogwarts’ siege.
Nobody knows, of course. You couldn’t stand it if they did. But when you apparated to Hogwarts, it was with the blood of sixteen men on your hands.)
Kingsley’s in his office. It’s not the room where you tortured a man, not even on the same floor, but your hands tremble all the same.
“Minister,” you say, as you enter.
Kingsley looks- drawn. His bones are sharp under his skin, but he burns brighter than you remember from before, as if the pared flesh has revealed some of the fierceness beneath. When he waves you to a seat, it’s a sort of kindness.
“Percy,” he says. “I wondered when I’d see you in here.”
“Ah. I’m...” you think, for a dizzy moment, that you’ll just accept, that you’ll take the opening Kingsley offered and slide back into your old position as if nothing has changed. The nausea that rises with the dizziness clears your head, firms your voice. “I’m afraid I’m not here for the reason you think.”
“Oh?”
You swallow. “Do you know about Azkaban?”
“I read a report on it a few days ago, yes,” says Kingsley, spreading his hand on one of the stacks of papers currently crowding his desk.
I could file that, you think, abruptly seized by a desire for it. I could sort out this mess. I’d be good at it. I could-
You could. You’d reshape the nation. And you’d be scrupulously fair, viciously, steadily, fair. You’d know it, because you’d have all of it in the palm of your hand, you’d be the one doing it.
But there are other ways of doing good.
You know that now.
“Someone from Hogwarts is working on clearing it,” says Kingsley. “It’s going well, according to- ah, yes, I think it was Xeno’s daughter- a good girl, with her head in the air, perhaps, but- she’s smart, and got through a stint in Azkaban herself without breaking. Is there a problem with it?”
“No, no problem,” you reply. “But I’ve been working with her on clearing it.”
The world doesn’t stop turning when you say it out loud.
So you continue.
“We’ve recovered forty bodies. Muggleborn bodies. We’ll need place to bury them, before the stasis spell we’ve put on them starts to breakdown.”
Kingsley pauses. “Ah. I’d wondered- I thought you’d be here the day I entered, you know? But then I remembered your brother. When was his funeral?”
“Months ago,” you say, through clenched teeth, desperately trying to keep yourself from twitching. “A month after the Hogwarts- battle.”
“You’ve been excavating Azkaban all along, Percy?”
The kindness drags along your nerves. You don’t want kindness. You want professionalism, and crisp agreements, and not this- this stupid hurting rage.
“Not for very long,” you say, though, because Kingsley’s being kind while still remaining within the bounds of professionalism. “It’s going faster than I’d expected. But the stasis spell works only from new moon to new moon.”
“Did you have any particular rituals in mind?”
“I had some ideas.” You swallow. “There’s- I think, sunlight. That’s something they deserve.”
“Not something we have a lot of here,” says Kingsley mildly.
“There’s charms for that,” you reply. “And I thought- think- there’s an island. Off of Azkaban. It comes near enough to the anti-muggle wards that we won’t need to do anything complex. It’s abandoned, and...”
Perfect, you think, but don’t say. Nothing’s perfect, is what you’ve learned. It’s all just piece-meal attempts at cobbling together a vision that might, if one squints, look vaguely acceptable. But you’ve visited the island and it’s small and rough and scarred and still: perfect.
“I’ll see what I can do,” says Kingsley.
You force yourself to nod back to him.
“Percy,” he says, when you’ve gathered your coat and almost managed to leave, “your office remains empty. I look forward to seeing it filled soon.”
You freeze. You force air into your lungs. You say, without turning, “I’ll offer you a list of meritorious candidates when I get some time, Minister.”
“I need help,” says Kingsley, and his hand closes on your shoulder. You shudder. “You’re one of the few people from the old Ministry who hasn’t been arrested, you know, and we need the experience.” He pauses. “And you look like you could use the work.”
“I’m fine,” you say automatically. Then, slower, “And I cannot help you, Minister. I would be far greater a burden than an aid.”
“Percy-”
You shy away from the contact. Pull your robes around you. Nod, grimly, politely, and grind out, laboriously: “I thank you for the opportunity, Minister. But I... there are some things that cannot be- undone. Sometimes, people- people cannot be trusted. Not after they’ve- not after what they’ve done.”
“I know where your loyalty lies, son,” says Kingsley, but he doesn’t try to touch your shoulder once more. “We know where you fought when it mattered.”
Your lips twist in a facsimile of a smile. “All of you keep saying that,” you say, in a voice too low for addressing the Minister, but you don’t care. You don’t care. You are not off the rails completely, but you can taste that wildness and it is heady as much as it is frightening. “As if this war’s lasted for all of one battle. There has been a war in our country for three years, Minister Shacklebolt, and there has been a battle waged in every wizarding home within our borders. I know where I stood for too long- and I know that there are things that cannot be forgiven, no matter what else is done after the fact.”
Kingsley looks- old. His face is set in taut, narrow lines, and his eyes shine in the morning light, almost-gold. “I know this war, Percy.”
“It doesn’t feel like it,” you say recklessly, before drawing yourself up. Breathing in. This, at least, you can offer. Advice, if not the work of your hands. “Children died, Minister. Muggleborns. Halfbloods. Purebloods. We all bled for a madman, and the answer that our government has for us is to sit tight. Is it any wonder people sit in their homes and ask when the next Dark Lord will rise?”
“Voldemort is gone.”
“Albus Dumbledore kept secrets,” you say. “And now, so does Harry Potter. History is set to repeat itself, Minister- and it is set to become as we once were, led by Lords and Ladies. Where do we, the common man, lie then? The chattel between lords at best. The victims, at worst. What we lost when we elected to turn our heads and bite our tongues and let a one year old boy become our savior...”
You trail off. Your hands are shaking, now, and your head is aching. There’s a small crowd surrounding the Minister, just a little ways off, but you can see the flash of a pink string quickly moving out of sight. Extendable Ears.
So now your political stance is solidified.
Nausea builds in your gut. You look at Kingsley, and regret swims before you. That he was caught even listening to your near-treasonous words might spell the end to his brief tenure as Minister. It’s quite a shame- you rather like him, even if he’s too willing to return to the status quo.
“I’m sorry,” you breathe, and turn, and flee as quick as you can without actually running.
...
After, you get drunk. Roaringly drunk. As you’ve never done before in your life.
Impotent anger and bitter hatred and caustic self-loathing. It all melts underneath the touch of the- whatever- that the bartender gives you. At least you’d had the knowledge to go into muggle London, where there’s nobody who’ll report you to your mother; otherwise you’d be waking tomorrow to a howler from your mother and a quick, apologetic Hangover Relief from your father.
Only that’s how it might have been, once, for Charlie and Bill.
Now. You doubt your mother would even notice your absence. Even if she did, why would she care about one son drinking away his night when another’s buried six feet under the earth? So. No howler from your mother. No potion from your father either, though, and that’s a shame. Thank Merlin you probably have one stored away in your potions cupboard, just in case.
“One more,” you say to the bartender.
He shakes his head. Anger flashes through you, so hot it hurts. It reminds you of when you were a kid- your accidental magic had only ever come out when you wanted the twins to be silent. Once, you’d managed to silence the entire Burrow for a glorious three hours.
Fred and George had gotten you back for that, with interest; but you hadn’t cared.
“C’mon,” you say, levering yourself up those last few feet. “C’mon, you know I’m good for it, I need-”
The bartender shakes his head one last time, final, and the fragile bridge holding you to- sanity, or normalcy, or maybe just that land of reason that you’ve clutched onto your whole life- shatters. You lunge forwards and drag the bartender closer to you, and something is glowing at your feet so when you look down you realize that it’s not something but it’s you, and that glowing thing is coming from your fingers which are dripping fire.
Then there’s hands around your shoulders, dragging you away from the bartender. Hands that remain firm and tight all the way until you push through the door, and you’re stumbling, you’re choking on all the air you need but aren’t getting.
“Fuckin’ hell,” you hear from what must be the man who’s holding you, “can’t say I’ve ever seen-”
His voice wavers in and out, like a bad connection on the Floo. You vaguely register that it’s familiar; you don’t pay much attention to anything other than the blessedly cold air in your lungs and the rough stone beneath your shins. You feel sick.
“Weasley,” you hear, and it makes your chest want to shrivel up. “Weasley, hey, the fuck’s your name- it was- Percy, yeah, Percy, you hearing me? Up, Merlin, get up, would you? Obliviators’re on the way. Best if we aren’t caught here- Percy, hey- Percy!”
The world goes dark, and you don’t even regret it.
...
You do regret it when you come to the next morning.
Sunlight’s spearing through the butter-yellow curtains straight into your eyes. You make a mush-mouthed sound and flap your hand at it ineffectually. But trying to turn over hurts your head even more; you just flop backwards in the end, and close your eyes.
“Weasley?” you hear from a distant corner.
“Hnngh,” you say.
“Weasley,” sighs the man, entering your line of sight. It’s a man you vaguely remember- you’ve seen him around, though you think he was a Ravenclaw back in Hogwarts. A prefect, you’re fairly certain, below you. His hair’s damp and he’s wearing a loose tracksuit and he looks... unfairly put together for the misery you’re currently feeling. “D’you remember what happened last night?”
“Mmph.” Painfully, you swallow. Then, still aching, you lever yourself upright. Like hell’re you going to speak to a Hogwarts prefect lying down like an invalid. “Kind of. Fire?”
“You were dripping it,” agrees Prefect. “It was a miracle you didn’t burn the pub down.”
You wince. “I. It. I thought.” Then you pause, take in the entirety of your situation- you’ve just crashed on a stranger’s couch because you were too drunk the previous night after spending a full day getting wasted in a muggle pub and trying to burn it down, all because you chewed out the Minister for something that isn’t even his fault. There’s really only one thing you can say. “I was stupid.”
Monumentally stupid.
Unfathomably stupid.
“Mm,” agrees Prefect. He walks away, then comes back with two things: a copy of the paper, and a fizzing blue mug. “Drink that first. And- you are Percy, right? Percy Weasley?”
“Yes,” you agree slowly.
“You’ll want to read that paper, then.” Prefect’s eyes are sharp on your face. “You don’t remember me?”
“Prefect, right? Ravenclaw?” You shrug. “Don’t remember your name.”
“Roger Davies.” Davies nods to the paper. “Read it. And- Weasley?”
“Yeah?”
“Not all of us liked your brothers,” he says evenly. “Not all of us made the right decisions. A lot of us were- not brave. But we survived.” He pauses, and there’s something in his eyes that makes you want to swallow- something bright, and fragile, and perhaps brighter for its fragility. “A leader should know that.”
“‘m no leader,” you say, sighing as you sip the hangover relief. It blazes down the back of your throat. A good hurt, though, so you barely even grimace.
Then you look up, and Davies is frowning at you.
“Shame, that,” is all he says. “Think you’d do a good job at it. Always did.”
“Thanks for the relief,” you tell him, before you rise to your feet.
You shake his hand as firmly as you can manage. Stumble to the fireplace, mumble your address and manage three steps into your home before you collapse from the dizziness. When you open your eyes again, the paper’s crumpled tight in your fists. You let go. Smooth it out.
Your breath is snatched right out of your lungs.
“Fuck,” you whisper. You don’t like to swear, but there isn’t any other way to treat this. “Fucking fuck. Oh my fucking god!”
Hungover or not, you have to go home. You have to make sure your parents know-
Know what?
That you’re not a traitor? That you’re not the radical revolutionary the paper paints you as? That with a two minute speech to the Minister, you’re suddenly not the poster child for change from the top to the dregs of society?
Percy Weasley: Radical or Traditional?
You steel yourself. Get in the shower. Shave. Pick out some crisply folded robes. Comb your hair back. By the end of it, you’ve made your decision. Then you stand in front of your fireplace for a good five minutes, dithering, before you call out, “Roger Davies’ home!”
You don’t walk back into his home, just call and allow him the ability to pick up or decline. He does, after a pause so long your knees start to ache.
“Yeah?” he asks, wandering into view. “Forget something, Weasley?”
“My manners,” you say wryly.
“You said thanks already.”
“I know.” You swallow. You can still back out. But if you say the words, if you give them a voice... you can’t take them back. You can never take them back. “But I told you that I’m no leader. I’m not, you know, not a general. Not a Lord. I’m the normal one.”
“Yeah, I got that,” says Davies.
You tilt your head at him. “I don’t know if I’m the best for this. But... I think I can help you.”
...
You don’t return to the Ministry. But nobody stops you when you start clearing shrubbery to make a proper burial service, so you don’t stop either. You’ve told the Minister your plans, anyhow, and if someone has the temerity enough to attempt to stop you you’ve got his name ready to drop with a flatly insincere smile.
Luna comes to your flat two days later, Ollivander twitchy but at her side. She doesn’t mention the Prophet article, which you’re grateful enough for that you forgive her interference with your family.
(It’s not like you don’t understand, you soothe yourself. Everybody wants a happy ending, all the hurts smoothed away. And for Luna, who’s an only child, who has been such a source of strength to her father- it must seem even stranger, even crueler, for you not to desire with all your body and mind to return to them. Have the Weasleys not suffered enough? Why are you so fucking incapable of kindness?
But war has pared something away in you- worn down those pieces that wanted things with hard desperation, cut away those parts that made you want love or approval or appreciation.
What is left of you now?)
Ollivander hems and haws and looks increasingly insulted at your desire to bury wands with the Azkaban muggleborns; it’s very rare to lose wands like that, and usually done only for people who have nobody else in the world. No family, no friends. Nobody who’ll take or remember these people.
You don’t care.
These people had wands, but they were yanked out of their fists. There’s no way to track that down, now, and the injustice of it bubbles in your chest every time you feel exhaustion dog at your heels.
“The- the waste- it’s unconscionable- how can I-”
“Waste?” you ask mildly.
Luna leans back, starlight-hair glittering. She doesn’t look away from you, eyes level and warm. You straighten your spine and dig out the boy who’d bargained with pureblood supremacists, words cajoling; gaze unflinching.
“Their old wands will sit in some old pureblood vault for decades,” you tell Ollivander. “We cannot retrieve them; those records have been destroyed, or perhaps never maintained in the first place. If ever they see light of day, they will be in the hands of the very people who took them away.” You lean forwards, and take no joy in the subtle flinch of Ollivander’s shoulders. “We are burying wizards and witches, Mr. Ollivander, and they shall be marked as such. They will be given that dignity.”
His pale, silver eyes say everything he’s too polite to say.
Traitor, radical, fool.
Too angry to be any use. Too stupid to be quiet. Too cruel to be part of the Light.
Well, that’s fine. What use have labels been to you anyways?
Why do you care so much? sneers Ollivander, silent, wordless.
And you do not answer: Because I could have blown up the Ministry if I was pushed, and I don’t know why I didn’t push myself. Because I let the war pass me by and my family is made up of people who cannot forget that, even if they will forgive me. Because I am here, and I can, and so I will.
“I cannot make wands for people I do not know,” says Ollivander finally.
“I have their profiles arranged,” you reply, hand resting heavily on a stack of parchment. “Take your best guess.”
“I have not made wands in- months. The process- I cannot- the speed will be too low to-”
“Then I will help you,” you say lowly, and watch the flash of irritable defiance in Ollivander’s face flare and fade out. “Forty wands. We’ll get this done before the month is out.”
It’s going to be a challenge, of course, but you have never shrunk from honest, hard work before, and you won’t start now. Youngest aide to an official in the history of Britain; sharpest Weasley in a family that you had to claw distinction out of; the face of a burgeoning radicalist movement through the nation. You’ve done it all before, and you’ve done it well, and you’ll do this too, properly.
Beautifully.