Percy Weasley

“I don’t know . . . ”

Percy’s voice quacked, his body pressed up against the wall of the office. He could feel the sweat race down his back, the pure fear that rose in billows of smoke from his gut and into his mind. He couldn’t think clearly, the pain that was still coursing through his body the only thing he could concentrate on. He repeated every curse in his mind, mouthed every jinx he'd been hit with. Still, he remained strong and standing, endured most of it through sheer stubbornness. It was the Cruciatus Curse that brought him to the ground, sent him curling into the corner with an inability to breathe beyond his own screams. They wanted information and for once it was information that he didn’t have.

“Where did they go?”

Wand pointed directly at his chest, Percy wiped the streaks from the corners of his eyes, stared up into the face of Matthew Selwyn, a face he had almost been comforted to see when he left the burrow earlier that morning. It was amazing what the body did against the will of the mind in moments of torture, how quickly pain brought all feeling back to him when for weeks he had felt nothing. 

“I told you, I don’t -”

The words were lost, consumed by the roar of agony that ripped from his throat. He could feel his body convulse even if it didn’t register through the pain; Percy could feel the burn in his muscles, the tearing of ligaments as he twisted and arced. The room went out of focus in the same jarring way it returned, white little stars that shot across the deep red that filled his vision. He could hear Selwyn sigh almost bored. It ended all at once, a strangled gasp for air that held a hint of copper in it. The cracks echoed into his core as Percy’s body relaxed as best it could, violent twitches that matched the horrific and dangerous pounding in his chest. 

“He’s needed.”

The voice. He knew that voice, and Percy tried to listen, to hear past the screaming that reverberated through his splitting skull.

"He has some things to answer for." 

“Listen here, you little prick. You raise that wand to me again and I’ll obliviate you to the point you won’t even be able to feed yourself. Weasley is coming with me, and if you have an issue with it take it up with someone who gives a damn.”

Large hands gripped the collar of his shirt and roughly he was hauled to his feet. Legs shook under his weight, pale face tinged green and the rough outline of Lukas Burnley sharpened. In a swift tug, Percy was propelled from the small office space he had been cornered in. Nothing was said, not even a look in his direction as Lukas steered him along the corridors, painful jabs in the back to make him walk faster. Each step a new discomfort was found, an ache that dully rose against the dying throbs of others, replenished his agony in waves.

“What were they after?”

The question was swift, left Lukas in a growl before either was fully in his office. There was a fear in his voice and comprehension dawned on Percy, that through Zoshia’s rampage he had managed to retain one of the family trees Percy had made them. 

“I -” The cough racked his body, red blotches sprayed over his hand that started to tremble. He was going to die here, maybe not today but eventually. He could feel it, knew it in his soul. “The Order, they think I know their location.”

Lukas nodded, the relief short-lived on his face as he took in every inch of Percy, eyes closed heavily. “Why are you still here, Percy? Why didn’t you get out?”

He didn’t mean to scoff, the childish roll of the eyes that made his world spin angrily. “Where would I have gone? We can’t just walk out of here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

The man's face morphed into a fatherly concern that created a longing in Percy’s chest for his own family, to have just a chance to fix things. "Why didn’t you go underground with your family?" Lukas stepped forward, his eyes heavy. “Tell me you didn't stay here because of Zosh.”

Percy paused long enough for the gravity of what was just said to him to sink in. Long enough for his heart to plummet from his chest, an endless spiral through an ice bath, frozen and screaming, horrors compiling over the joy he should have been feeling that his family was alive.

“Go with…?” He was looking for clarification, needed to hear that he misunderstood what he was just told. Where are they? A question Percy thought was meant for the order now made sense, became clear as day to him. They wanted to know where his family had gone, and Percy who had been staying at the burrow since he thought they were dead, was now seen in alliance with them. 

Hands hit the table hard, Percy’s grip latched to it for support as his lungs stuttered in his chest, every ounce of pain amplified. They were alive. His dad had left the Ministry, took everyone underground. Everyone but him. “No. I - I spoke with my dad the day before they vanished. He wouldn’t of - they wouldn’t . . .”

Words choked against the rise of emotions, the truth he knew both in his gut and heart, the bitter reality that they went without him. Even with everything his father knew was happening to him, the torture they were putting him through, they still left without as much as a word. No one looked back, tried to get in contact with him or force him to leave the Ministry behind, not that it would have been a fight. He had only just been speaking with his father about fixing things, mending the damage they had done, planned to speak to them about returning home.

They left.

They left him behind.

They abandoned him to death eaters.

Horror devoured him in a strangled gasp for air. It became harder to breathe every time he repeated it to himself, an unsettling sob that struggled to break free and came out in increments of sharp noises. 

“Are you alright?” Lukas’s hands fell over his shoulders, forced Percy out of the ball he was folding into and to face him.

He wanted to be sick, felt the pit of his stomach tighten and seize, eyes wide with anguish. Even if Percy lied, told Lukas he was fine the physical reaction to the news said otherwise, his own head shaking violently to the question despite the meager ‘yes’ that left him. His hand shook as it clamped over his mouth, stifled the scream that engulfed his chest in a wild flame. 

“I’m sorry, I thought maybe you knew and decided to stay. Zoshia -”

“I thought they were dead! I thought death eaters took them but…but they left me.”

They hated him that much. Despised his very existence to the point they’d rather leave him to the death eaters than take him back, give him a chance to show he had changed. If they knew he was the one slipping information to Remus, would it have been different? Would it make them look at him differently, see that hurt had swayed him all those years ago and not greed and power? Or was he too far gone to them, so despicable that he was no longer seen as their son or brother?

An awful noise broke the silence Lukas gave Percy, hot tears pooling under the rims of his glasses, the very tears he was certain he had dried up in mourning his family. Quietly, Lukas closed the door to the small space, breaking the open door rule and furthering it by locking and silencing the room. He kept his back turned to the young wizard suffering from an internal breakdown, ignored the spray of ink as the ink well hit the wall in anger. He allowed Percy the time to vent before he pulled himself back together. When he was certain it was over, the angry cries turned to exhausted sniffs, did Lukas turn back around.

“Why don’t you go talk to Zosh?” His head tilted, a look that purely resembled his daughter’s. “I know you two are in a tiny row right now, but you don’t seem to have anyone else.”

Shame piled on him, Percy’s chest caving in. He wanted to go to her, would have given anything just to see her. “A little row isn’t the word I’d use.”

“It’s my fault though,” Lukas said, his shoulders lifted in a half-hearted shrug to Percy’s heavy eye roll. “She accused me of manipulating you.”

Their eyes locked, Percy’s lips pressed in a firm line, an ache under his eyes as they narrowed against the puffy tender skin from his breakdown moments before. He didn’t say anything for a moment and then finally cleared his throat, speaking with a finality. “You didn’t manipulate me.”

“I reached out to you for a very specific reason.” Lukas countered, his hands buried deep in his pockets. “Your annoying meticulous nature, even in breaking the law you aim for perfection.”

Percy snorted, a ghost of a smile on his face. 

“And because you care about Zoshia, and using her as leverage, yes I manipulated you into making that family tree.”

He thought over the words for a moment, placed them alongside the other moments in his life where he had been clearly used and controlled for other reasons, selfish reasons. There was no comparison. Each instance he knew he was being twisted, his direction swayed but in making the family tree it was to his own accord. “Manipulation is a method of influencing a person or a situation unfairly. Unscrupulously. You are working off the basis that I wouldn’t have helped and you twisted my arm to get what you needed.” Percy’s chin lifted, his shoulders squared back. “I didn’t hesitate and still wouldn’t.”

“Go talk to her, I know she misses your stupid face. Her words, not mine.”

Percy’s mind wandered briefly, the back of his hand roughly drug under his eyes to remove any traces of his outburst. Anything, he would do anything, endure anything if it meant they kept their attention on him and not the Burnley’s; if he could keep switching the focus from them and to something else. Fixing the bridge he burned with her would have been a distraction, one that would put the focus on the Burnley’s and be their downfall. 

“You and Zosh need to leave. I can’t keep pulling the focus from you, especially not with the way Zoshia is actively protesting Umbridge.”

“Percy.”

“She’s always wanted to go to Barcelona.” Percy looked at him, a silent plea to listen and get out while they still had the chance. “Please.”

Lukas pondered the words for a moment, a look that held two meanings; only cowards ran, but that Percy was right. Wand out, he removed the silencing charm, the door opening enough to avoid trouble. “Rome, huh? Have you ever been?”

“What? No.”

Lukas’ head bobbed slightly. “I hear it’s lovely in the summer. You should go.”

“Yes, let me add that to my to-do list,” Percy snapped. It took him a moment to put the words together with the pointed stare Lukas gave him before moving to the door, the shadow shrinking as someone drew closer to the room. 

“I’m saying, as a good and close friend of my daughters, I’d be honored if you came, should you get the time off. Think of it as doing me a favor, you two can run around and geek out over history stuff and I’ll rest on a beach.” Lukas smiled as he backed for the door, a curt nod to the death eater that passed. “Just think about it.”

It was an offer, a way out that Percy looked down at his feet in shame. It shouldn’t have been Zoshia’s dad making the offer, it should have been his own getting him out. “I’ll see about the time off, thank you.”