Work Text:
Rain lashed the windows of the Knight Bus. Percy took a sip of hot chocolate, taking advantage of the bus’s temporary stillness. Stan helped a woman in a drenched overcoat up the steps before hoisting her bag and a small cage onto the bus. Percy leaned forward to peer into the cage, which to his surprise contained not an owl, but a fat grey rat.
“Careful, love,” said the rat’s owner as she wrung out her coat. “He bites.”
Stan secured the cage in the luggage rack and sat down across from Percy.
“She didn’t need to warn me,” he whispered. “No chance of me trying to pet that thing. I don’t like rats – it’s the tail, you know? And their gross rat feet.”
Percy looked at the cage again. A pink nose and a few whiskers poked through the bars.
“I don’t mind rats,” he admitted. “I had a pet rat once.”
“Did you?” Stan looked at him in amusement.
“I brought him with me everywhere when I was a kid. My mum–” Mentioning her made his chest constrict, but he plowed on. “My mum used to love telling people how I would read to him.”
A laugh burst from Stan’s lips. “Of course you did. What did you read?”
Percy shrugged. “Babbity Rabbity, the Very Hungry Hippogriff, the usual.”
“Did he enjoy the books?”
Percy scoured Stan’s face and voice for any hint of mockery, but he saw only genuine curiosity. “He seemed to. He used to run over to the bookshelf and point to the books with his tail. Or, at least that’s how I remember it. I’m sure I imagined that.”
Except Percy could still hear his brothers teasing him for having no imagination.
“He used to sit with me while I did my homework,” Percy continued. He recalled long nights in the common room spent pouring over Transfiguration homework while the other Gryffindors laughed and played Exploding Snap. With Scabbers perched on his shoulder, Percy wasn’t lonely – most of the time, anyway.
“What happened to him?” Stan asked, his voice pulling Percy back to the present.
“I gave him to my brother. I got an owl instead.” He couldn’t bring himself to tell Stan the whole truth, that he had given Scabbers to Ron so he wouldn’t be lonely during his first year at Hogwarts.
Heat hung heavy in the air, the worn cooling charms on the Knight Bus unable to combat the August humidity. The bus rattled along a lonely stretch of highway, snores from the only passenger mingling with the soft chatter of Ernie’s radio.
“Here.” Stan pressed a cold bottle of Butterbeer into Percy’s hand and sat down in the seat across from him. “I figured it’s a bit warm for hot chocolate.”
Percy gulped the sweet, cold liquid. “Maybe a little.” He set down the bottle, securing it with the mild sticking charm he had perfected over the months of riding around in the Knight Bus, and picked up his cards.
“Sorry you’re spending your birthday on the Knight Bus,” Stan said as he tossed down a six of diamonds. “Nobody could cover my shift.”
Percy remembered his last birthday: the close silence of his flat, a single cupcake from the bakery down the street, an unopened birthday card from his mother.
He reached across the table and squeezed Stan’s hand. “This is perfect.”
The brakes screeched, and the elderly man in the first bed tottered to his feet and off the bus. Ernie parked the bus on the side of the abandoned street, and a moment later a cake floated through the air, candles flickering.
“Ernie made it,” Stan explained. “I told him chocolate is your favorite. Make a wish.”
Percy fixed this moment in his mind and blew out the candles.
Stan leaned against the back of the sofa and frowned at Percy. “You sure you don’t want to come with me?”
Percy thought of Stan’s friends, friendly and confident and loud. They attempted to engage him in conversation, but he tripped over his words and over-thought his answers – Would Jimmy the Tornadoes fan be offended if Percy critiqued the team’s defense strategy? Would they tease him for preferring the Weird Sisters’ earlier work, or would they appreciate an unpopular opinion? – and by the time he forced out a response, the conversation had moved on. He saw the sidelong glances they gave Stan; he knew they wondered what their mate was doing with someone like him.
“No, I’d better not. I’ve got to go into the office early tomorrow.” It was true, although could he consider it going in early if he had been doing so for months?
Stan kissed Percy’s cheek. “Such a hard worker. Alright, I’ll have a drink for you.”
“Kind of you. Don’t do that thing you do when you get drunk, though,” Percy said, grinning.
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“Don’t give me that. You tell your Stan stories. Last time we went to the Leaky, you told Tom you were Myron Wagtail’s personal driver–”
“Well he did come onto the Knight Bus once, or someone who looked a lot like him–”
“Another time you claimed to be a personal friend of the Muggle Queen.”
Stan let out a hoot of laughter. “Well, I think she’d like me if she got the chance to meet me. What’s not to like?” He sat down on the sofa beside Percy and took his hand. “I see your point, though. I’ll try to scale it back, but no promises if Johnny starts buying firewhisky shots.”
A hint of fall crispness hung in the air, and leaves crunched under Percy’s feet as he and Stan strolled past Gringotts. A flash of red caught his eye, and he froze. Fred stopped in front of him, his relaxed smile turning hard and cruel. Percy’s brain screamed at him to flee, but his legs had turned heavy and refused to cooperate.
“I’m surprised to see you out and about, Perce. I expected you’d be too busy sucking Scrimgeour’s dick to do much shopping.”
Heat flooded Percy’s face. “I don’t–”
Fred’s eyes flicked to Stan. “Are you his boyfriend? Don’t get too attached. Percy will always choose the fucking Ministry, even if he knows they’re wrong.” Fred strode away, smart dragonhide boots clicking on the pavement. “Give my regards to Rufus!” he called over his shoulder.
Percy gazed down at the street, heart pounding, face flaming, Fred’s words ringing in his head.
Stan cleared his throat. “Your brother?”
Percy nodded. He did not look up.
“Are you cheating on me with Scrimgeour? I’d judge you a bit for Fudge, but Scrimgeour is sort of fit. Great arse.”
The corners of Percy’s mouth tugged into a reluctant smile. Stan’s arms wrapped around him, pulling him close. He breathed in the clean scent of Stan’s soap mingled with the astringent skin potion he used liberally. A few deep breaths grounded Percy.
“He’s wrong about you,” Stan murmured, fingers tracing circles on Percy’s back. “Your family never understood you, never appreciated you, but I know you. I know if it came down to it, you’d choose me.”
Percy nestled deeper into the embrace and hoped Stan was right.
Percy stared at the newspaper, breakfast churning in his stomach. He tore his eyes away from the article, but the words were burned into his brain. Stanley Shunpike, conductor on the popular Wizarding conveyance the Knight Bus, has been arrested on suspicion of Death Eater activity. Stan would protest the newspaper’s use of his full name – “Only my gran calls me Stanley.” Except he was probably shivering in a cell in Azkaban by now. Names would be the last thing on his mind. If they kept him locked up long enough, he would be lucky if he remembered his name at all.
A knock at the door jarred him from his thoughts, and he bumped into the table as he stood up, knocking over his tea. He let the newspaper absorb the spill and hurried to the door. Ernie Prang stood on his doorstep, his face pale and his white hair sticking up at odd angles.
“They’ve arrested Stan!” He yanked his hands through his hair, eyes bulging. “He didn’t turn up at work this morning, so I went by his place. The door was wide open, and they’d searched the whole house – his things were everywhere – but he was gone. And then I saw in the Prophet he’s been arrested for Death Eater involvement!”
“Yes,” Percy croaked. The response felt inadequate, but what else was there to say? “Would you like to come in?”
Ernie followed Percy into his flat and paced around the cramped sitting area. “Stan’s no Death Eater! How could anyone believe he could be involved in a Death Eater plot?”
Percy swallowed. “The Ministry is under a lot of pressure. An arrest — any arrest — will reassure the public.”
“So Stan’s been dragged to Azkaban so people can sleep better at night?” Ernie collapsed into a chair, then sprang up and continued his frenzied path around the room. “He would never join, but even if he wanted to, the Death Eaters wouldn’t trust him with important plans – the kid couldn’t keep his mouth shut!”
Shunpike was overheard talking about the Death Eaters’ secret plans in a pub, the article had said. Percy thought of Stan’s flushed cheeks and exaggerated hand motions when he drank a few pints and started telling his Stan stories. He sighed.
“I suppose that’s what got him into this mess.”
“You’ve got to help him! Tell them Stan has nothing to do with the Death Eaters, that it’s all a misunderstanding!”
Percy’s stomach sank. He had been waiting for this. “I don’t think anything I say will make much of a difference, Ernie.”
Ernie stopped pacing and stood in front of Percy, his eyes wide and earnest. “Of course it will! You work for the Minister! Tell him Stan’s innocent, that you can vouch for him – he’ll have to listen to you.”
Percy shook his head. “I’m only a Junior Assistant. I don’t have that kind of influence.”
“You’ve got to at least try!” Ernie grabbed Percy’s shoulders. He was so close, Percy could smell coffee and cigarettes on his breath. “You can’t just let him rot in Azkaban. Maybe it won’t do any good, but what can it hurt to try?”
Percy’s gaze slid to the floor; he couldn’t stand to see the hope and desperation on Ernie’s face. “Well, the situation at work is rather tricky just now. Arguing with the Ministry’s decisions, however misguided they might be, is not wise. It might make things… difficult for me.”
Ernie released Percy and took a step back. When Percy worked up the nerve to look up again, he saw disappointment splashed across Ernie’s face. It was the same look he had seen on his father’s face the night he had left home, before it had ignited into anger.
“I see,” Ernie said quietly. “You don’t want to risk your career.”
“I’ve worked my way up from the bottom,” Percy began, but he broke off when Ernie raised his hand.
“Save it.” He scrutinized Percy, eyes narrowed behind his thick lenses. “You know, I’ve always told Stan he’s too trusting. He thinks the world of people, and they always let him down. I dunno why I thought you’d be any different. He was wrong about you, too.”
He slumped out of the flat, the door clicking shut behind him. Percy put his head in his hands and pictured Stan in an Azkaban cell, wallowing in the guilt until it overpowered his senses. Then he cleared his throat, Vanished the spilled tea, and headed to work. He had a brief to write before a meeting at 10:00. Rufus Scrimgeour did not like to be kept waiting.