Chapter Text
Percy's earliest memory takes place at the height of summer, a sweltering August day. After their morning lessons, Percy, the twins, and Ron are permitted to play outside in the shade wearing little more than their underwear. Charlie and Bill and Ginny are all inside still. Ginny because she’s just a baby, brought home from St. Mungo’s mere days ago, and the older boys because Mummy’s worried they’re going to be behind once they get to Hogwarts (Bill is going next year!), so they have extra lessons in the afternoon. Not that Mummy’s overseeing them all like she ordinarily does. With Ginny being so new to the world, Daddy’s still home from work for the time being, helping around the house as much as he can.
And when Daddy can’t be somewhere, that’s when he de-le-gates. It’s a big word but Percy’s just learnt to say it without stumbling over the sounds. What it means, basically, is that sometimes, Daddy doesn’t have the best view of the back garden through the window, so Percy must be an extra pair of eyes and ears for him. The twins and sometimes even Charlie have been fond of calling Percy four-eyes ever since he got his glasses, but he tries not to let their teasing bother him. Four eyes are all the better to watch with, makes him the best suited to his task. And besides, Daddy has glasses, too. It’s something special they have in common, just the two of them.
Anyway. Percy’s under strict instructions to try and keep his younger brothers out of trouble, and get an adult immediately (that is, straight away), if he can’t. He said he would do his best, and he keeps his promises.
Just the other day, George (or was it Fred?) had been bitten by a gnome, after pestering and pestering and pestering the little creature no matter how many times Percy had told him don’t. It hadn’t even bled that much, and George had told him not to even bother telling anybody, but Percy’s instructions had been clear, and he’d told Mummy straight away.
When she’d come marching out of the bedroom with hands on hips, both twins were crying big fat tears. They’d been attacked by a whole army of gnomes to hear the tale of it, and no matter how much Percy tried to explain that it was only a little nibble, that he’d told the twins to stay away, Mummy had yelled at them all anyway, in a way which had made his neck and face feel like they were burning, and then one of the gnomes had caught fire and Ginny had started crying, too.
Later that night, after Daddy had settled him into bed, Mummy had come into the room he shared with Bill and Charlie and crushed him to her chest in a massive bear hug that drowned out all his other senses. “I’m sorry,” she’d gasped, almost on the verge of tears herself. “Didn’t mean to snap. You’re such a well-behaved boy. So responsible.” Percy’s chest had puffed with the praise, and all he had known in that moment was that he wanted to feel this way again and again and again.
Today is even warmer than the days that had preceded it, and Percy is happy to see that the twins are capable of learning, for they’re giving the gnomes a wide berth, opting instead to make pies in the mud that had formed from last night’s rainfall. They’ll get filthy, but that’s fine. None of them will get yelled at for that, they’ll just have to be cleaned up before they’re let back upstairs. Ron’s sitting near them, and Percy is doubly glad to see that the twins are letting him play, too.
Percy, of course, is far too dignified to play in the mud himself, instead flicking through the pages of the hand-me-down book he’d brought with him: Quidditch Through the Ages. A present from Charlie.
It’s surprisingly pleasant, all things considered. Percy looks up whenever he hears a noise that might be a cry or a yell, but it’s just the twins and Ron getting very excited about their make-believe pie shop.
“Oi! Look at that!” Fred cries out, and Percy glances from his book with disinterest, expecting to see a giant pile of mud shaped to look like dung or something, but the shape shimmering into the view on the horizon is anything but.
Percy jumps to his feet, book snapping shut as he does so. His first instinct is to run inside and get an adult, but it doesn’t seem like a threat in the usual vein of items and beings that can hurt them around the house. In fact, he thinks he’s seen something like this before: once or twice, late at night, when he should have been asleep, but couldn’t. The silvery creatures would sneak into the window of Mummy and Daddy’s bedroom and … do what, exactly, Percy didn’t know.
But it did mean that they were probably expecting this one, too. It advances towards the house at an impressive pace, and as it gets closer, Percy realises that he recognises its shape from his picture books.
A phoenix.
When he makes it back to the house, he hesitates at the doorway, wondering if he should order his brothers inside, away from the shimmering silver phoenix. But it’s not dangerous, is it? Not like so many of the other things he’d been warned about (gnomes, strangers, that strange mark in the sky he’d seen on the front of the Daily Prophet before Daddy had snatched it away), and besides, with the others where they are and entranced by the creature, he’ll be able to see them from the kitchen.
Inhaling deeply, he steps inside. Daddy and Bill and Charlie barely look at him, so entranced they are with the numerals on the blackboard, a levitating piece of chalk completing equations. Mummy is particularly worried about Charlie’s arithmetic: even Percy can do his sums faster than Charlie, and Charlie is nine.
Percy takes another breath, gathering all the important he can muster. “Daddy,” he says, “there’s a phoenix outside for you.”
Charlie laughs. “A phoenix?” he says, and Percy immediately resents the way it sounds like his brother doesn’t believe him. “Come off it, Perce.” Despite Charlie’s admonishment, Percy doesn’t miss the way Bill’s eyes narrow in curiosity and he especially notices the way Daddy’s knuckles tighten as he grips the back of a chair.
“Sorry, boys,” Daddy mutters to the older boys before turning his attention to Percy with a nod. “Lead the way.”
They don’t need to go very far to catch up with the phoenix. Fred, George and Ron have it surrounded as it drifts closer and closer to the house. Percy can feel Bill and Charlie’s curious gazes back from the doorway.
There are several long moments where it feels like they’re all just watching each other, but then the phoenix opens its silvery beak and begins to speak in a voice deep and kind. “I have news for Molly, I’m afraid.”
Daddy inhales sharply, looking even paler than before. “I’ll go get her,” he says, talking to the phoenix like it’s a person. As he heads back into the house, he turns to look back over his shoulder and motions for the creature to follow. Percy goes to accompany them, but Daddy raises a hand. “Stay in the yard with your brothers,” he says, and as he catches Bill and Charlie eavesdropping, he instructs them to get some sunshine outside, too.
With his older brothers at his back, Percy’s no longer in charge. It doesn’t bother him as much as it would otherwise, because that means Bill’s the one looking after them, and Bill’s always been very responsible. A role model, Mummy says.
Percy goes back to reading his book, but it’s hard to focus, the words swimming on the page in front of his eyes much like they had before he’d got his glasses. He can hear Bill and Charlie talking in low, hushed voices, like they don’t want them to hear, and with a pang of guilt, Percy tries his best to listen.
“Wonder what all that’s about,” says Charlie, brow furrowed in confusion. “Can’t say I’m complaining, though. I was going to go mental if I had to look at another fraction.” He laughs, but quickly sobers at the serious expression on Bill’s face.
Bill’s thinking hard about whether he should say anything, Percy can tell. Slowly, Bill starts, considering his words carefully. “I heard Uncle Fabian and Uncle Gideon—”
Whatever he’s about to say is cut off by an inhuman scream from the second floor of the house. Their parents’ bedroom. It’s the worst sound Percy’s ever heard in his entire life, far worse than the shouts of the gnomes when Daddy and Bill and Charlie throw them from the garden when their number grows too large. It sounds like a response to a pain that he, Percy, can barely begin to imagine.
The six of them all stare at each other for a long, terrified moment, and without even saying anything, they run into the house together, mud the farthest thing from their minds.
The rest of the summer passes by without further incident, a series of warm balmy weeks that all blend into one another. Despite the unremarkable nature of the days that follow the phoenix’s arrival, whatever its message for Mummy had been had a marked affect on her. She tried her best to pretend nothing was wrong, but it didn’t escape anyone’s notice that her smile never reached her eyes, and that she was always on the verge of tears, if not succumbing to them entirely.
No matter how often they ask, Daddy won’t tell them what’s wrong. “Mummy’s going through a hard time right now,” he says absently, before always doing his best to change the subject. They’re all going through a hard time right now – there’s a war going on, Bill and Charlie say – and people are fighting and dying for what they believe in, or sometimes even for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or nothing at all. Although none of them know anything for certain, they can’t help but think that maybe that’s what happened.
No-one’s spoken of Uncle Fabian and Uncle Gideon in weeks. They don’t talk about it, but they try and make things as easy for Mummy as possible. Even the twins are remarkably well-behaved, which just goes to show how wrong everything else is.
Mummy’s mood doesn’t improve until the end of October when Harry Potter, a baby who’s even younger than Ron, somehow defeats You-Know-Who, the evil wizard who has been wreaking havoc all across the United Kingdom.
Daddy lets him read the newspaper now. Instead of skulls and snakes floating in the sky, witches and wizards across the country celebrate the end of the war with fireworks and revelry. The wizarding world can rebuild.
The Weasley family can rebuild.
Maybe they’ll never have to hear Mummy make that noise again.
Later in the spring, Percy finds a rat half-hidden in the hedges on the outskirts of The Burrow. Or maybe they find each other. Even though it’s missing a toe, likely the result of some scuffle or miraculous escape, it’s a friendly little thing. It makes Percy think it’s lived with people before.
Despite his doubts, Mummy and Daddy let him keep it.
Scabbers is the first thing that feels truly his, just his.