Archive of Our Own ^beta

He was born again on September 2nd, 1977 with little fanfare in the middle of the night, the third boy of a redheaded family soon to be overflowing with children. His pouty lips were sure to be a heartstopper when he was older, his mother remarked two weeks after his birth. Surely he'll have another fantastical obsession, much like our other two boys, tiredly despaired his father.

But there was something wild, something just that little bit special about his birth - and in the wix world, witch births are charged with raw, accidental magic that can quite literally knock your socks off. It wasnt the fact that, despite it being her third go around, Molly Weasley did in fact knock the socks off of four of her mediwitches. No, it was more about the sudden silence of the room once he was out. The sudden overwhelming feel of calming power coming from the poor boy who wouldn't know how to harness it until Hogwarts, which wasn't felt by a single wix in the world beside himself that night.

Beside the point, Percival Ignatius Weasley was a, generally, quiet boy, until, in 1981, when he found a peculiar little rat in the garden. Sadly, this was when the overwhelming flood of memories from his previous life arrived. His previous body had a literal perfect memory - down to every page of every book that they had ever read, which was, sadly, a lot - and caused him to shut down in the middle of de-gnoming the garden. This allowed his magic to create an accidental shield from everything wishing harm - this will be a useful tool in the story later.

He was not delivered to St. Mungoes for Magical Maladies because he was not injured, and the Obliviators were not called because there were no muggles to witness this. In fact, the only thing that did happen was William and Charlie picked him up, and carted him inside. Fred and George brought the rat along, in their small, childish glory. Molly Weasley was so shocked her water broke, a whole day earlier than she expected it to. This, in turn, made everyone else panic. It was an eventful day, after all.

And now, in 1989, five children of Ottery St. Catchpole headed for Kings Cross station. Of course, they were not very on time.

"Fred, George," Percy called, "Please give me back Peter!"

....I never said he had no sense of humor.

"But Percy," Fred starts.

"We need him," George continues.

"-To show off to Lee!" They finish together, holding the rat high in the air as if he were a holy item.

Percy sighs, tempted to end this whole charade and just expose him as an animagus just to spite the lot of them.

Cedric laughs a little, elbowing Percy in the side gently to get his attention. Percy sighs again, and they shortly arrive at the barrier.

Bill and Charlie go through without much fanfare, and so does George, but Fred hesitates slightly. Percy reaches forward to put a hand on his shoulder in support, and then unceremoniously pushes him through the brick illusion. He follows immediately after, unprepared for the sudden amount of noise.

Sure, it isnt as much as it will be in '91 or '92, with the influx of children, but it's still very loud. Percy can barely make out snippets of conversation, and even then, most of them aren't interesting. He bravely ignores them all in order to get to the very last compartment on the train - the one mentioned so often in his memories. Of course, the cabin is empty - who would want to sit so far away from the platform, and the front? There won't be anything left on the trolley by the time it gets back there!

And that's exactly why, Percival thinks as he slides the door closed, luggage crowding the ground around him as he looks in awe at the wall, where the name T.M.Riddle is carved deep into the wood, he would sit here. Smiling, he tosses his luggage up into the storage, almost hitting the ceiling, before arranging his personal belongings bag, settling it onto the seat with Peter's empty cage.

He pokes his head into the hall, and as if on cue, the two readheaded boys down the corridor turn and start sprinting down towards him, holding aloft the rat. Percy snorts, holding out a hand for the rat to gently land in.

"We've shown him off," Fred begins.

"Plenty to other first years," George finishes smoothly.

"But now Peter's back in your caring hands! Have fun," they say, speaking in tandem as they twirl off down the hallway.

Percy shakes his head, holding Peter to his chest, and closing the compartment. He can only hope that they don't end up like another pair of redheaded twins he's watched. Sighing, he releases Peter into his container, locking it up tight.

"I'm sorry," he says unapologetically to the traitorous rat locked in the cage, "but until I find out how you handle trains, I'm afraid you'll have to stay in there for now, okay, Peter?"

The bastard has the audacity to chirp at him, before running around in circles inside the cage. Percy turns his back to him before silently snarling, withdrawing a book about "privacy spells, wards, and more" from his bag.

He flips open to a page about notice-me-not spells and gets to work on the door. Percival re-reads the instructions dubiously, before sighing and cutting his finger open and smearing blood across the opening of the door, as well as the bottom corners of all the windows he wants to 'hide'. Tracing the wand movements with his unicorn hair wand of thirteen and 3/4 inches of Willow wood (brittle flexibility, of course), he silently repeats the highly overpowered invisibility charm.

"Invisibilia locus," he intones, firmly imagining the outside area to be completely unnoticeable, and just a patch of wood. The blood on the inside allows him or, any other person sharing his exact blood down to the cell count, to enter and see in or out. So basically only him and whoever he smears his blood onto or gives some sort of blood filled jewellery that they would wear all the time. Of course, it will have to be redone every three years, according to the book.

After that, he layers over every silencing charm, anti-eavesdropping spell, and anti-jinxes/hexes ward he's ever learned about onto the compartment. And a small ward to prevent dark or unwanted intentions and items even passing by this room unless literally slathered in his blood (or if they're already in the room when the wards go up, cough cough Peter). And, considering he was at the very end of the train, it seems like it wouldn't be a problem unless he wanted to hide the Horcruxes in this compartment. Which he didn't, because the only time he will have any horcrux in this compartment is when he invites Harry Potter in when redoing the invisibility spell, and when he takes home the diadem in his fourth year.

Or maybe whenever he brings Harry Potter in because, honestly, he needs the friendship and increase in mental health, not to mention he can probably get Harry to get into the house where he will flourish. Aka Slytherin. And, its already basically garunteed that it's Gryffindor for him. Unless he gets Hufflepuff. Hufflepuff will get him places, thats for sure.

In any case, Percival completes his protection spree of the cabin, and turns to change into his robes for Hogwarts. Peter is instantly covered by his hand-me-down hoodie before anything else. After that, its only a matter of how easy it is to get the damn clasps on the robes to connect to each other.

Once that's done, he settles in for the long haul.

To Howarts, and to the future.

Percival (Not) Weasley had a very good life, if he says so himself. In fact, he had two very good lives. He is not homeless, he is not bullied (or at least he thinks he wasn't), he is not hated by his family, he has amazing siblings, he isn't living in poverty, he can wear whatever he wants, and other such frivolities.

But Percival didn't really have friends, his first go around. So, when he ends up in Hufflepuff with neighborhood/schoolyard local hot boy, who seems to think that Percival is his friend and he should know this, Percival doesn't really know how to react.

In Hufflepuff, almost everyone is friendly. It may seem stereotypical, but it's true. All of the first years (except for the four Slytherins, having been sequestered away in the Slytherin commons every time they weren't at class) seem to be friends, even with the smaller group of only thirteen (nine exluding the Slytherin group), the third smallest of the Hogwarts years, with third year having a whopping three students and fourth having only one.

So yes, it was safe to say that Percival, having been born in a lull during a devastating war the second life and the trademarked wierd kid in his first, did not know how to have friends.

[Which was why it was wierd when he entered his third year and suddenly the whole school was (supposedly) out for his blood. (And if it wasn't his blood, maybe it was perhaps the fact that it was practically certified by the unicorns that he, the Prettiest Weasley Except Bill, was Still a Virgin - added onto the fact that he had died one in his first life.) (..the unicorns were from a once in a lifetime chance of being able to see the birthing process on the third day of the second term of his second year. He plans to return to see the growth of the baby unicorn and place protections around the herd.)]

It was practically a godsend when Harry Potter was able to give him a real reason to not sit with anyone on the train.

He had somewhat perfected his vanishing act for the train rides, but it was still nerve wracking to hear multiple someones calling your name from several spots on the train.

Regardless, he had the nessecary items ready to include a horcrux to his secret compartment, having felt the wards dissipate the previous night. So, when Harry Potter, being subtly manipulated by his mother (she never yells that loud any other year, ever, and she has never forgotten the platform number once) after she had had a meeting with Dumbledore the previous night, showed up in the muggle side of the platform, Percival steered him away before any of his family could set eyes on him.

"Here, just walk through this barrier here. I will be right next to you, we can go however slow you need," he says, gently guiding Harry to the wall between platforms. "It feels like a light blanket passing over your body, and then youre on the other side. It's simple."

Harry nervously glances back and forth between Percival's kind face and the brick wall that seems awfully solid. None the less, he adjusts his grip on his trolley to that of a python in the first stages of strangling its food, and nods at Percy.

"Thanks. I think I'm ready now," he says, fidgeting slightly when Percy lightly places a hand on his shoulder and trolley.

"I have everything I need in my bag, so we don't have to worry about trying to guide a separate trolley. What I'm going to do is start pushing your cart through the barrier gently, so you can see that it will be completely fine. After that, we will pass through the barrier as smoothly as butter. Okay?"

Harry nods, and as Percival does exactly what he said he would, he gasps in amazement. Then, he eagerly pushes the cart forward, taking Percy with him in his excitement. He exhales deeply in awe once on the other side of the barrier.

Percy laughs, guiding him closer to the end of the train before it stops expanding. Behind him, he can faintly hear his mother instructing his brother to find and befrend Harry Potter and then he'll get a galleon all to himself. He snorts in disgust before charming all of Harry's items to be featherlight. Its so obvious that Harry still doesnt know anything about the wizarding world, so thank the gods for the introductory and supplementary books in his bag. Its a nine hour train ride, so it would be best to have some sort of reading material, he reasoned with himself.

He knew it was just to prepare Harry for the imminent clusterfuck that would be Hogwarts School Of Bitchcraft and Idiocracy.

They arrived at the last compartment without stop, Percival lifting all but Hedwig and his expanded bag into the rack above their heads. Harry sits heavily next to his owl, looking around the compartment in barely-concealed incredulity, as if he can't believe he's magic yet.

Percival opens his expanded bag, more like a satchel really, before pulling out all of the items required for his ritual.

"Harry, would you like to help me with this? It's good experience," he says, pulling out his many herbs and his mini-cauldron. This would flow perfectly into the three questions for potions that he wants Harry to memorize.

"Erm. Sure, I guess." Harry slides off of the bench and kneels beside Percy. Looking over the many pre-prepared ingredients Percy has organized on a small board next to his cauldron. "What's all this?"

Percy glances over at Harry from the corner of his eye as he more finely grinds the juniper with his mortar and pestle. "It's a standard travelling potions kit. Professor Snape deemed me well enough with potions to practice over the summer, so this is what I was using. Today, we are using it to make this compartment invisible to people who arent in it when the ritual is done."

The potion doesn't actually do that. What it does is nullifies the natural dark energies that a horcrux emits when it just exists. He's been playing around with the Diadem and the potion's properties, safe in the knowledge that only the killing curse, basalisk venom, and fiendfyre can destroy it. It's very effective, according to his previous experiments. He will need to slather it over Harry's scar, and the only way to make that not weird is to do it over his forehead as well, not to mention the bottoms of the seats, where Harry was clutching with his bare hands.

He pours in the general potions base and starts to ask Harry to pass him inegredients, before he realizes Harry doesn't actually know any of the ingredients, and just asks for them by what dish they've been contained in. Being colourblind in his past life didn't carry over, thankfully, but he does still have the habit of labeling colours with certain images, which helps in this instance.

They silently brew together for the next twenty minutes, before he finishes moments before the chime that notifies everyone that the train has stopped expanding. He quickly cools the cauldron, and by extention brings the potion down to a reasonable temperature, with a quick freezing charm. Rolling up his sleeves, he takes a natural-fiber sponge and dips it in the potion before swiping the thick substance over his forehead. He takes another dip before looking at Harry.

"Here, lift your fringe," he says, holding the dripping sponge as Harry does so. Not reacting at the scar, he slathers it over his scar before filling out the rest of Harry's forehead with it. He takes the sponge and does a quick sweep for the undersides of the seats, before taking out a small, silver knife.

"Do you consent to have a small bit of your blood taken for the purpose of this ritual?" Percival needs to be quick about it, considering the train will start moving in less that five minutes.

Harry, thankfully, nods, and Percy takes his fingertip to nick and then quickly swipe on the bottom of each window, before episkey-ing the wound and scourgify-ing the knife and doing his own hand. He smears his right next to Harry's, careful not to mix them, and chants his new and improved spell.

"Invisibilia locus. Pars meam suscepit," he breathes, tightly flicking his wand at the end of the incantation. He can feel the drain in his magic as the potion lightly dissipates into the air, leaving behind a vaugely fruity smell. His breath is light and airy, but also feels like he just got socked with a tonne of bricks. "Quick word of warning. Don't ever try that by yourself."

Harry looks at Percy in awe, clearly having felt the ambient magic. He nods eagerly before gathering the now empty dishes and helping Percival pack them after a quick general-use scourgify. The mini-cauldron and accesories gets unceremoniously shoved into his bag, before they both recline on their individual seats just as the train's whistle blows and it jolts into movement.

Percy starts.

"Beg your pardon, I never introduced myself, did I? Percival Ignatius Weasley, of Hufflepuff House, at your service," he says, holding out his rather dainty hand to the younger boy.

"Um. Harry Potter... No house, at your service," Harry quickly replies, shaking Percy's hand.

He hums, retracting his hand and looking the boy up and down. Then he stands and pulls down Harry's trunk.

"Get your robes out, let's see what we need to fix. You have your Hogwarts letter in there?"

Harry quickly opens the trunk - not a single lock or other security/protections on it, tsk tsk, - and nods as he pulls the slightly crinkled letter out from between a few books. There arent any seperate compartments on this thing! For shame, the Heir of an Ancient and Noble house using a single compartment, unprotected trunk.

Percival gently takes the letter out of Harry's hand, before reading its address and tapping his wand against it three times. As usual, the name lengthens into the full name, rather than the abbreviations. Hadrian James Potter. Thank god it wasn't Harrison, he would have had trouble trying to work with that.

He opens it and scans over the materials list and frowns deeply.

"All right, Hadrian - is it alright if I call you Hadrian? Well, Hadrian, it seems that you are missing several items from.your school list. For one, you have none of the primers, or the muggleborn supplementary books, but every few years theres a halfblood who doesnt get that list and needs to borrow, don't worry. I have them here, because honestly you can never be too prepared. I also have a time turner, but that's a little hush hush considering it isn't exactly ministry approved, so we can use that later to get you caught up," he says quickly, returning the letter and paper to a rather bewildered Hadrian and grabbing the rather dingy first year robes. They look like a second-hand eBay cosplay of poor quality, honestly. "I will transfigure these to be a little better of a material, assuming you aren't allergenic to silk and wool rather than this awful polyester blend, and you certainly can't wear those shoes to your own sorting, it would be a tragedy."

And Hadrian was forced to sit though the train ride, forced to have his hair styled and artfully tamed with Sleakeasy's, and also learned quite a bit about his own family as he was pampered and run through a very violently quick crash course of wizarding etiquette.

Hadrian - that was his name! - was very excited to learn that he had other living relatives that he could legally live with, along with the fact that two of them were on this train at this very moment! And, if the headmaster - who was also his guardian, how crazy is that? - refused to allow him to live with the Tonks or Malfoys, then he could live with the Weasley's, because they were also related? Which was amazing considering Percival was very polite and smart, and seemed to be a good role model. But one thing stuck out to Hadrian when he was talking with Percy.

"Hadrian it's very important that you let the Sorting Hat put you where ever it wants you to go. It has divination runes sewn into its seams, done by Rowena Ravenclaw herself. Divination is the telling of the future, and if the witch most accredited to her smartness and skill with basically anything she put her mind to made a had that told you you needed to go to Slytherin - then you're damn well going to Slytherin. Pardon my language," he had paused bashfully, stopping for only a moment before continuing attacking his hair viciously, "But every house has it's goods and bads. Slytherin may be viewed as bad, because that's where the Dark Lord came from, but ambition is why he was sorted there. Does that mean every politician should be looked down on?"

Hadrian shook his head here, with a minor scolding remark from Percy - who was nicer about it than Aunt Petunia. He was even more gentle about taming his hair - and more effective at it!

"Hufflepuff is seen as useless people, but that's only because we welcome everyone, and have strong loyalty. But loyalty isn't easily earned from us, and to get it comes with hard work, which is why half of us are sorted there in the first place.

"Ravenclaws are seen as know it alls, but is it really so bad to know an obscure healing spell in a moment of dire need because you looked in a library? I certainly can't see anything bad about that.

"And, yes, I am not being hypocritical, Gryffindor may be the place where everyone expects you to go, but if the hat says it isn't right for you, chances are, it won't be, because Gryffindor is known for brash or impulsive people. But they can also be really amazing people who go into more dangerous jobs that our society needs - like curse breakers, or dragon tamers, like my brothers. If there wasn't someone to remove a deadly curse placed on a family heirloom, or someone to come and remove a wild dragon from near wix or muggle areas, then where would we be?"

Percival had said all of this so patiently, as if it was true. And Hadrian didn't know if it was false or not, but he had been very helpful today, and Hadrian was very inclined to believe him.

.....Which was why, to the schock of all but one wizard in Britain, Hadrian James Potter was sorted into Slytherin.

And it was also why one meddling headmaster had to rearrange his chessboard of plans, and why Ronald Weasley did not actually get a galleon, for all that he had searched the train up and down for Harry.