Chapter Text
It was often said that no one can live their life without some regrets. Many people had regrets. They were an unfortunate side-effect of life as his Aunt Myrtle would say. However Percy could say with certainty that he probably had more than your average wizard.
There are different kinds of regrets. There are small regrets such as forgetting to turn on the kettle or not preparing enough for an exam (Not Prefect Percy. No he was too studious for that-)
Then there were big regrets.
Not realizing what was wrong with Ginny. (He was a prefect. He was her older brother. Why didn’t he see the signs?)
Or Mr. Crouch.
Or Scabbers.
Every muggleborn he failed to save during the Second War. He would often see them lined up outside of the courtrooms awaiting trial. Many of them children —with no lawyer, no representation or protection, no justice— punished in a kangaroo court. He had tried to do what he could. He forged papers, faked death certificates, and arranged for transportation to safer places. (But he couldn’t save everyone. It wasn’t enough. It was never enough.)
Many of his regrets are related to his family. Not attending Bill’s wedding. Leaving his family for the ministry. (He had been so hurt, so angry. They never acknowledged him. He had always been an outsider. At least at the ministry he belonged-) And not being there for his siblings when they needed him. Not being able to protect them from harm. And never being quite able to bond with them-
(“You actually are joking, Perce.. I don’t think I’ve heard you joke since you were-”
The wall falls.)
Fred.
When he had first split with his family, he would have scoffed at the idea that he would regret it. He was 19 with a chip on his shoulder. They were holding him back and he had chuffed against their expectations and their mockery for too long. He was free now and he had no regrets. Not even when it felt like a punch to the gut when his father would walk out of any room they were both in. He refused to regret it as he listened to his mother sob through the door of his new flat. Or regret it when he sat across his family with Scridgemore (he could see their scorn and in that moment all he felt was vindicated. He had always thought since the summer of his 6th year that Harry was cared about more than him. And hadn’t he been proven right? For someone so prideful, being right had never burned so acidically on his tongue-)
The year is 1999 and Percy Weasley is 24 years old. Older and perhaps wiser, he is no longer as naive or blind. The world feels grayer now and the regrets pile on like boulders and threaten to press him to death. He can feel it whenever he walks down Diagon Alley and sees former muggle-born shops that had been destroyed during the war. Their buildings scorched, their items looted, and their owners long gone.
It weighs heavy in his heart when he goes back to the Burrow— once home but would he ever be able to repent enough to call it that?— for family dinner and the grief is so palpable he can taste it. His mother cooks in the kitchen. Her love has always been like an open flame— all consuming and burning— and her grief fills the air like smoke. It makes his eyes water and coats his tastebuds with ash.
All the arms on the clock point at home. All except for one. His chair remains empty. (“Oh, are you a prefect, Percy? We had no idea-” “Shut up-”
“Sorry, George, dear.” “Only joking, I am Fred.”)
Those regrets crush him every time he walks past that dreaded hallway outside the former courtrooms of the Muggle-Born registration commission.
(A muggleborn waits with knobby knees outside the courtyard. She can’t be any older than eleven. She is flanked by two aurors on either side as if she is dangerous. As if she something to fear. Not a delicate trembling child. Her muggle parents are nowhere to be found. And if they are still alive, not even they could help her now.
The girl tries to stifle her sobs as she sits outside the courtroom. She has no idea why she has been snatched out of her home.
Her teary eyes meet his.
He does the only thing he can do in that moment.
He looks away.)
He has so many regrets that they have calcified, hardening and fusing with his very bones. They serve as constant reminders of what he has done (what he failed to do-). Those regrets will exist in his very soul for the rest of his life and he has accepted that the only way for them to die with them.
And sometimes there will be good days. He will walk the streets freely and watch as bustling families buy school supplies in Diagon Alley. He will talk with his brothers and will feel relief at them laughing with him not at him. He will see the sun shine on a dewey morning and feel the breeze in his hair. He will breathe in deeply and know that he is okay.
Then sometimes there are bad days. The world doesn’t seem quite real on those days as he is thrown back into a time when there was an enemy on every corner. During the war, trust was something too costly for anyone to be able to afford. And the peace that currently exists now seems too good to be true. Percy goes through his day, half-expecting a Bombarda or a Crucio to fly over his head. His heart beats twice as fast, his hands tremble uncontrollably, and his calcified soul aches like the way old joints do in trepidation for an oncoming storm. But Percy hadn’t survived this long through sheer dumb luck. He survived by shutting his mouth and keeping his head down. Throughout all of his years, the one thing he did keep was the chip on his shoulder.
He works to reestablish the ministry and heads the Department of Transportation. He helps build monuments for fallen wizards and create curriculum for school (History forgotten is history repeated as Minister Shacklebolt loves to say-). He writes speeches, proposals for new floo networks, policies, and newsletters on prison reform. He works and works and works. Percy Weasley had learned a long time ago how to work past the point of exhaustion and then push himself further. Yet it never feels like enough. He writes over the old policies with new ideas. He likes to think that with each stroke of his quill, he gets closer to one day receiving penance.
That night, he silently extinguishes the lights with a wave of his wand and crawls into his bed. He notes with a frown that frost is creeping up his window. Winter must be coming early this year. His bones creak.
It is early winter in 1999 when Percy closes his eyes.
And it is the summer of 1991 when he awakes.