Work Text:
Oliver's gone mental.
“I have a couple of blunts. Beneath my bed,” he says, staring at Percy. Oliver has a terrible staring problem. Percy doesn’t even think he realizes that he does. It’s not as though people get him transfixed, but he’ll latch his attention on to you like a tick on a dog.
He’s a careful thinker, though. Percy has always admired this about his roommate. Never one to blurt something out he doesn’t mean, he’d paced their room thinking out loud just exactly the way he wanted to present his locker room speech to the team, down to the sound his voice made when he said “I believe in you,”—which do you think, Perce, should it be an upwards or downwards infliction on believe?—and Percy never tires of it, really.
So it really surprises him when Oliver asks him. Him! if he’d fancy smoking a blunt as though it were just another Tuesday. For fuck’s sake, Oliver used to go on and on about Katie Bell’s habit of smoking weed under the Quidditch bleachers, not because she was downright comatose as a vegetable during practices, but because she developed chronic bronchitis and was too busy hacking up mucus to catch any Quaffles. Thankfully the stint had been a brief one, but it made Oliver furious and lecture the team for weeks about proper health and grooming. Though, Percy would argue, Oliver was hardly the spokesperson of mental health as he threatened to off himself in the showers if they lost a game.
Percy's mind drifts to everything else Oliver has got hidden under his bed. A jar of peanut butter (crunchy, unsweetened, likely gone rancid). The sparkling wine his cousin had sent him that he’d offered to split with Percy, who had declined, watching owlishly from the corner as Oliver stumbled around to Miles Davis and cartoon bubbles flitted around his head, the spitting image of Captain Haddock from the Tintin comics. Broom polish. A crate of records. Percy’s snooped around under there plenty, and he doesn’t recall finding anything indicating of the unusual, yet Oliver (still staring) is standing there as casually as if he had just offered Percy a chocolate frog.
“He’s about as interesting as unsalted butter,” someone had once said in passing about Percy in a busy corridor. He’d been behind them, a pair of Hufflepuffs he perceived as likeable, and ironically enough had just handed out a detention slip to a first year for harboring a Fanged Frisbee. “But don’t let him catch you breaking a rule, otherwise you’ll get detention.”
That girl would eat her shirt if she were here now, he thought.
“You’re feeling alright?” He stammers. Oliver hasn’t moved, and neither has Percy. He feels rather like a bull in a china shop. “I mean, I thought you didn’t smoke. Is anything wrong?”
“You’d be alright with that, wouldn’t you? If I smoked in the room?” Wood ignores the questioning, suddenly concerned about boundaries as though he didn’t leave his muddy Quidditch gear strewn about. Which Percy definitely minded, but it wasn’t like he wasn’t outright messy himself, scraps of parchment and textbooks littering every corner.
He had smoked before, he just hid it…well, not very well.Their third year he had an awful habit of begging Bill and Charlie to buy him cigarettes from the Muggle village near their house, and he’d make a pack of Sovereigns last for the whole year, only smoking when Oliver was at practice. Apart from that brief habit, well…Percy was rather boring. He’d always been impressed with Wood for being so well read and he’d always tried to encourage his roommate to engage more seriously in his studies. Really, if Wood applied himself, he could do lots more with his Quidditch career. He always thought Wood would be a terrific athletic trainer, or even a manager for the big leagues.
Wood wanted to be a professional quidditch player. It was the sort of answer you gave when your mum’s friends asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up. He had stomached the dream of Oliver’s when they were eleven, but the curiosity had quickly soured, replaced with a little bit of resentment. Because Oliver was good. He had technique, wit, and the build. He was on the short side, but he made up for it in quick reflexes and long arms. He was so agitatingly good at what Percy thought was a waste of potential.
Percy takes off his glasses, rubbing the lenses with the corner of his robes. He squints at Oliver, he watches him fidget, he puts his glasses back on like a stern primary school teacher. “Who gave you that? If it was Fred and George, I’d advise that it’s probably spiked. Speaking from experience.”
“From Lee, who else? I reckon the twins got him to pull me aside, asked me if I fancied a smoke in the greenhouse. I lost it, honestly, he looked a bit peeved—but then I figured he was just trying to help. So he just handed the tin to me and left. And now I think he’s on to something. I’ve just been getting shit from the team about the new training schedule and early practices,” Oliver says, sitting down heavily and raking a head through his hair. “But they just don’t understand that we have to win. That shit with Professor Quirrell won’t happen again. Can’t. I know Harry wants it too. They all do…I think. They all think it’s because there was a Chudley Cannons scout at a few of the matches last year, but…I just don’t really know what’s going on with me, so if this shit works like Lee says it does, then maybe I’ll try it once, and—“
Percy decides this is the moment to interrupt him. “What did I tell you? To not bet everything on Potter, and then he was in the hospital wing at the end of the term, true?”
Oliver’s slumped. His tie is crooked and the soles of his trainers are scuffed like he’s been kicking rocks, or digging his heels into the ground dismounting his broom. Not that Percy notices details like this often, but Oliver’s a proud person, almost as much as Percy is; they’re alike in this way.
“You’re driving yourself mad over this, Wood,” he snaps. “If you want to, just do it. We’ll go to the pitch. Alright?”
The two gape at each other in surprise. It’s like something out of Aesop’s fables. What did the crane tell the vain peacock? All Percy remembered was that the crane flew away to freedom while the cursed peacock watched from below, arrogant feathers ruffled.
Since what did they really know about each other, anyway? Oliver knew nothing about his past smoking habits, he was sure about it.
Because Oliver’s still said nothing, Percy hurries to speak again. “Last summer, Fred and George got ahold of a weed brownie from their Muggle friends in town and turned it into a pastile. Problem is—Mum’s forbade them from going back to the nearest village, so I shudder to think what other substances they’re tinkering with at school,” he explains. He’s got Oliver’s attention, he practically basks in it.
Oliver just smiles. “You going to confiscate my weed, then, Weasley?”
Percy doesn’t smile back. He could and made a point of it when he could, but Hogwarts didn’t have a very clear standing on recreational Muggle drugs such as these. It was likely because magic had far more dangerous consequences, and purebloods weren’t very concerned with such Muggle concepts as being relevant to their lives. “No. Just—let me see,” Percy gestures for Oliver to hand him the tin, and he does. Percy lets their fingers brush.
Lee's put the blunts in an honest to Merlin Altoids tin. Meant for mints.
“You’re not going to green out, it’s Lee we’re talking here, he probably filled half of it with oregano. I overheard him talking about his source being low," he scoffs.
Lee Jordan had sort of a mail in service through his brother. Jordan was always popular at parties for this reason, even Percy could find a way to justify that sort of business. Percy didn’t touch alchohol, not even butterbeer, but he didn’t let his guard down about these things. It was imperative he keep to his prefect duties, and if people thought he was unlikeable for that, they could (and very well did) bugger off. Lee Jordan also swore up and down to everyone he knew that he’d once seen Snape smoking a joint with Professor Sprout behind the garden house, but Percy hardly believed it to be true.
“I read on the internet you could get high off of nutmeg if you have enough,” Wood suggests as Percy continues to inspect, as though offering an alternative.
Percy barks a laugh. “Let’s stick to cannabis for now.”
It’s Lee’s stuff alright. Meticulously rolled, too. When he talked to Charlie more and Oliver less, they’d smoke a pack of fags together in the Owlery. Sometimes Charlie had a little weed, and Percy always took exactly two hits before sputtering that he’d had enough and went straight back to bed. And then Charlie had graduated, and Percy had gotten what he wanted in the mail that summer: the shiny Prefect badge.
Percy can feel his face growing red, beads of sweat forming as they clamber down the banister. Ron is in a corner of the common room, huddled up with Hermione Granger and the peculiar Potter, The Boy Who Lived, who spawns at the Burrow too much for Percy’s liking. Their heads are bowed around Ron’s chessboard, whispering to one another. Ron doesn’t even see him, but Wood’s eyes widen anyway at seeing his young teammate. To which Percy rolls his eyes, dragging him away before Ron’s posse even notices.
While the upper student’s curfew wasn’t until ten o’clock, Percy looks around periodically to make sure they’re not seen. He couldn’t bear being caught by someone like Penelope, because she’d see right through him and know he was too far gone to do any good anymore.
Meanwhile, Wood can’t stop fiddling with his lighter, a doinky one he must’ve got from a Muggle petrol station back home. He’s concentrating much too hard on getting the blasted thing to light and is barely paying attention to where he’s going. Percy grows more and more irritated, but as Wood burns his thumb on the trigger for the second time and sticks it in his mouth, they near the Great Hall and Oliver puts it away.
And then, after a good effort, they’re on the Quidditch pitch.
Admittedly, it’s a perfect night. No wind, oddly warm for this far into November.
Oliver takes off his jumper and sprawls out on the grass, breaking the careful silence first. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. You won’t tell the twins, right? God—you won’t tell Charlie of this, will you? I mean, I already feel so disappointed in myself—“
“Hush up. I won’t tell any of my brothers. Now give me the lighter so you don’t burn your hands more.” Oliver tosses it, and of course Percy fumbles the catch, cradling the lighter to his chest. “Must you always do that? I’m a terrible catch, you know.”
“You’re a brilliant seeker, though. If the snitch is right in front of you,” Oliver grins. He's got grass stains on his jeans already.
Percy was quite alright at Quidditch—according to Bill and Charlie, he could have made the team if his stamina wasn’t so shit. “And because he's such a huge prat for the rules,” one of the twins would add, but they knew it too.
He wasn’t all that interested in the action anyway. Charlie used to yell at him to keep his head up because he’d get fascinated with the way his sneakers dragged on the lawn, riding those toy brooms meant for toddlers.
“Fuck off.” Percy opens the Altoids tin and holds the joint between his lips. Oliver shuts up immediately, watching intently. As he brings the flame to the end, he inhales to his lungs. It’s a great effort on his part to not cough right away.
“I thought—well, Lee gave you two, but it feels wrong to not share.” Percy agrees, shrugs, and passes him the joint.
“Part of the whole experience, innit.”
Oliver’s first drag isn’t so bad, but he holds his breath for far too long, coughing and sputtering. Percy curses himself for not bringing his water thermos. Every time he casts Aguamenti, the water tastes too metallic and magick-y for his liking.
“I mean, I can’t believe I got you to do this with me. Thanks, Percy,” Oliver says with earnest, staring Percy right in the eyes again. “It’s a lot to me, you know.”
Percy’s heart drums loudly in his chest. He’s been chewing over something in his mind for a while now. The twins used to joke that McGonagall must have bribed Oliver to get them to be roommates.
“So you must think I’m good, then.”
“Good?” Oliver passes the blunt to Percy again.
“I think you’re brilliant. Honest.”
“I think you’re just the only one who doesn’t see me the way the others do,”Percy hesitates. “I know I come off as…egotistical.”
“You can be a prick sometimes, Perce,” Oliver supplies. “I’ve just taken the time to know you. We live together and all that, but so do your siblings. They ought to learn to understand you more.”
Oh, Percy was full of it. He was selfish, so selfish he didn't even think much of why Oliver was so determined to smoke in the first place. He thought of Cornelius Fudge and Harry Potter and the stuff he read in the Daily Prophet. He takes a deep drag. He thinks of his little sister, Ginny. He looks to his right and sees Oliver’s gaze trained at the goalpost, a faint little outline in the dark. Percy wants Oliver to look at him. He must make some sort of noise he’s not aware of, because Oliver’s head snaps back to meet him, and it’s like Oliver understands what Percy wants to do, feel, what Percy wants to do with him.
Their teeth sort of gnash together at first, and Oliver has his eyes squeezed shut, and it’s sort of ridiculous, but then it’s some sort of wonderful. Percy has a Potions lesson with Snape tomorrow morning. He can’t really breathe.
Right.
He feels Oliver grab his hand. What a romantic, Percy thinks, even though he’d never seen Oliver so much as bat an eye in anyone girl’s direction, or any bloke for that matter, too enthralled with saving Quaffles. So what even was this?
“Percy. Please,” Oliver looks at him, helpless. His eyes flash. Stares that buggish expression again.
Something in him softens, and Percy lets Oliver kiss him again. This time around is a lot better, Oliver’s hand brushing his thigh. He flinches, just from the sheer adrenaline, or maybe he’s scared.
“I s-said, we’d better stop,” he finds his voice. Small. Hoarse. Oliver draws back, looking delirious. “Let’s just go back, Ollie.”
Last year, Charlie had sent Percy a copy of James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, and though at the time Percy had been entirely unaware of his homosexuality, he should’ve just mailed Charlie a thank you note because he’d read it in three days, weeped in the middle of his Herbology exam, and then promptly confessed to Oliver in their dorm a week after that that he thought—no, he knew, that he was bent. Oliver had blinked at him as though he’d just rattled off the ingredients of a poundcake recipe. It had made Percy nervous then, but Oliver had probably just come back from practice and in those early months of his captainship, hardly knew what day of the week it was much less what to make of someone’s budding sexuality.
He didn’t say much, only wrapping Percy in a giant hug, which was perhaps more strange. To Percy’s knowledge they had never hugged before. His chin kept digging into the sharp crook of Oliver’s shoulder who was shorter, and so he sort of had thrown his arms around Percy’s waist, and when he started crying again, silently, feeling his body shudder against Oliver’s, Oliver had placed a calloused hand to Percy’s head, smothering curls with his palm. Oliver had never been that gentle before with him. Percy had expected him to ask stupid questions, but he didn’t.Oliver never commented on the ash on their window sill, or the hole he’d accidentally burned on Oliver’s curtains, his constant head colds, the ashtray he’d kicked under his bed. So it had been a surprise when he’d embraced Percy like that.
They practically drag each other back to the castle, likely reeking of weed, through the portrait hole, to bed, and end up tangled up in Oliver’s bed, sort of kissing, sort of not, sort of fitfully embracing one another like a tragic Baroque painting because they’re both cold.
When Oliver wakes up, Percy is already gone.