Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"I sleep better here," is what Percy says.

He doesn't meet Oliver's eyes with it, but he doesn't really have to. Oliver stands there, arms folded, and Percy is a pretty shite liar, so he can see plain as day what he actually means.

"When was the last time you slept? Actually slept through the night?"

Percy turns his face fully away this time. His leg is jittering under the table and his hands keep fidgeting, thumbs twisting in and out of his fists. Closer, now, he can hear how his breaths are unsteady too. It's too dark to tell but the shadows under his eyes somehow seem worse than before.

"You look like a drowned rat," he says. It comes out a little colder than he'd meant it to.

Percy doesn't respond. He just sits there and his leg jitters and stares anywhere but at him.

Oliver takes a deep breath. After the rotten day he's already had, he doesn't want to repeat what happened last time. No. They're not going to argue just because they're both not in the state of mind to have a real conversation. First of all because in Percy's state he's not so sure he can even survive a second angry flounce out into the pouring rain.

He turns to grab his icepack out of the freezer, and then, looking at ice cream and ice cubes and ice crystals, he takes in another deep breath. He counts to ten.

"All right." He swivels around and takes his own seat, arms on the table and looking Percy dead on. "If we're going to do this, then we need to talk first."

Percy doesn't answer. But he doesn't say no, either. He sits there and fidgets around, but he doesn't say no.

Okay. Oliver supposes he can, at the very least, extend a proper olive branch. He thinks that's what Percy is trying to do, here, even if he's not really doing so good at job at it.

Looking at him now, Oliver can't help but worry that he's already at the brink, and just starting this conversation is the limit of what he's able to do at all.

He sits across from him, twisting his fingers into the icepack. Another deep breath. Percy looks up over the rim of his glasses to stare at him, and his eyes are what finally put the rest of his frustration to rest. It's that same look again. The one that's silently begging him, but for what, exactly, neither one of them seems to know. To fix it. To make it better. For things between them, with both of them, to just be as easy as they'd been back in school.

Well. He can't do that. But he can do this.

"I never really told you how I hurt my shoulder," he starts quietly.

Up to this point, Percy has looked almost like he's vibrating, shaking off in his own little world that isn't quite in sync with the rest of theirs. At that he blinks, nervous eyes finally flicking back to Oliver, and for the first time he looks grounded. He opens his mouth, then just shakes his head.

"Yeah. Well. Out here, I didn't realize how bad things were getting until it was pretty much too late. By the time I'd gotten back to London, the Order had already collapsed, and it's not like Muggleborns were standing on street corners with signs saying help me." He sits back, still massaging his shoulder. Percy continues to watch him and it's Oliver's turn to look away. "I helped a couple people, I guess. Felt like I was doing fuck all until word got out about Hogwarts, and then I pretty much did fuck all there, too. Like-- yeah, I was there, hexed some Death Eaters. Don't think I made much of a difference, at the end of the day."

Percy narrows his eyes. He still looks like he wants to say something, but remains quiet. It seems like he can tell this isn't the point to interrupt.

Or perhaps he's just wary of saying the wrong thing again. He looks like even the breath of an argument might break him in half.

Oliver swallows hard, and keeps going.

"Afterwards, McGonagall was enlisting people to search the castle for... for survivors." And the dead. Those, too. "Anyone that needed help but couldn't make it back on their own. Most people weren't in any shape to help but I was, and it's one of the few things I could actually be bloody good at; I had to do it. So while everyone else was off celebrating, and you guys were at St. Mungo's, I was just... flying around the school. Mostly digging out corpses."

"Oliver."

He doesn't say anything else. Just his name. It sounds like he doesn't know what else to give.

"I did help a few people. At least I think I did. I was able to get them to Madam Pomfrey... kind of afraid to follow up and see if any actually made it, to be honest. There was a lot of blood and... I... I try not to think about it. But there was this--" He cuts himself off, swallowing hard again, then just shuts his mouth and waits for the lump in his throat to go away. "The last one was at the Astronomy tower. The roof was caved in and I almost thought no one was there. I was just about to keep flying when I saw-- saw just-- this pair of shoes. Kid's shoes, Percy. It was a little kid."

Percy stiffens. Oliver shuts his eyes.

"She was already dead. That was pretty obvious. But I just panicked when I saw and started trying to dig her out. I was too scared to use magic; I'd been going for days at that point, what if I lost control, what if made it worse, what if I crushed her-- but like I said. Didn't matter. She was already dead."

She'd looked no older than a third year. A tiny little third year or younger, with soot on her uniform and dust in her hair. There'd been a pretty silver necklace and bows in her pigtails and a green and silver tie. Slytherin. She'd been a Slytherin.

Oliver doesn't know who she was. He has no idea what she was still doing at the castle-- if she'd tried to come back to fight, and if she had, who's side it was on. If she'd gotten lost in the evacuation. If she'd wanted to run but hadn't known which side would protect her. He doesn't even know her name.

Up in the tower like that, he's always thought that she was just trying to hide.

His eyes shut, he doesn't see Percy's hand coming until it's already on his. And it's cold, and damp, and even now, just a little bit shaky. It shouldn't be comforting at all.

He opens his eyes and looks back across the table at him. There's only one word for the look in his shadowed eyes: haunted.

He looks like he's seen dead bodies of his own.

"I didn't even realize I'd hurt my shoulder until after I'd brought her... her body back, I mean. I was already trying to get back on my broom but Madam Pomfrey stopped me. And then McGonagall got one good look at me and she hugged me. Can you believe that, Perce? Apparently she hugs people now. She told me I was done and took my broom herself." He doesn't remember much about it all. It had felt too awful, too horrible, and it wasn't even until later that he'd realized how little sleep he'd had and that if he'd gone flying again he actually might not have come back. He remembers his old Head of House sitting next to him and telling him he'd done a good job. That it was time to stop now and let someone else take over. And she'd looked at him so damn sadly it'd made his head want to burst. He hadn't been hurt by the war, he hadn't done anything that mattered, there were so many people more deserving than him, why was she, why--

Oliver forces back the old rising wave of disgust that he's never managed to temper, the one that he doesn't think is ever going to go away, and again looks Percy right in the eyes.

"So. I'm not saying you have to tell me everything, Percy. But I'm not an idiot. I know something is wrong with you. And--" He has to swallow the lump in his throat again, damn it, because that's not what this is supposed to be about. "And I'm serious, I thought you were dying when I came out from my room that morning and saw you like that. I've seen enough dead bodies for a lifetime. If you won't at least tell me why I can be sure you won't be one of them, then. You're going to have to find a different flat. I'm sorry."

It's not really what he wants to say. He takes one look at Percy and wants to just tell him to go to bed and that everything's fine and they can talk about it later, or that it's not a big deal, really, he doesn't need to know, if he doesn't want to talk about it then they just don't have to, it's fine, he should just get some sleep right now, that's all that matters. It's not about Oliver, Oliver's fine, please stop looking like that...

But Oliver knows if he does that then later is never going to come. And then they'll just wind up right where they were before. And he does need to know, damn it.

He can't just be an-- an emotional support dog. As much as he's slept better with Percy around he's also found himself three times as stressed and it's because of how much he bloody scares him. If Percy sleeps better here too, great, but he'll need to meet him halfway to keep the couch.

Or spare room, Oliver considers tiredly. If they're doing away with the pretense that this is just a temporary arrangement, they might as well get to work finding something to transfigure into a bed.

Percy, at least, does not look hostile. He's clearly heard what Oliver said and is considering it, or at least as best as he can in the awful state that he's in. His hand is still on his. It's not warmed up at all.

Finally, he takes off his glasses to rub his eyes, and then just sit there with his face in his hands. In the dark like that, his wet hair clinging to his skin and his face nearly white, Oliver can see exactly just what the past week has been like for him. Oliver hasn't slept well, but Percy really hasn't slept at all.

"You know, they make potions for that."

Percy slips his hands down to stare at him uncomprehendingly, and Oliver shrugs, gesturing at the overall state of him. "To sleep."

"Oh." He looks away again, now staring down at his hands on the table. "No. I... they don't work for me." He hesitates a moment longer, and the unsettled look on his face isn't going away.

At last, he puts his head down on his arms. His glasses are still off and he stares at the table rather than Oliver. There's a cold, distant glaze in his eyes, like what he's seeing is not in this room at all.

"I hit my head," he says quietly. "I wasn't at the Battle of Hogwarts at all. I was still in St. Mungo's when it happened, and had no idea the war was over until they told us days later."

Hit his head. Yeah. Oliver had figured that one.

"That's also why I wasn't there for Fred. I... I w-would've been. Oliver." He looks back at him, almost pleading all over again. "I would've been there in a second. But when I tried to ask the healers about the Weasleys, I couldn't... I couldn't remember their names. I could see them all in my head but there was just this-- hole where their names were supposed to be. I could see Mum and Dad seeing us off at the train for school and in my head I knew they were my mother and father but Mum and Dad just were gone. Never mind Arthur and Molly. And by the time I could fill it in they already knew he was going to be okay."

Oliver winces.

There's nothing, really, on Percy's face at all. He's just staring coldly into space with glazed eyes and looks like this is nothing more than Binns' driest lecture on the driest period in history.

His voice is hiding the smallest little quiver, and all Oliver can think about is how he'd been just the worst person in the whole entire world, maybe, to yell at him about this before.

"No one recognized you?" he asks weakly. He doesn't mean it as an accusation but bites his lip, worrying it came out like one anyway. "Come on, not one person in Mungo's remembered any of the redheads from Hogwarts and made the connection?"

But Percy shakes his head. Somehow his voice drops even lower than before. "I was there under a fake name. The Order did that a lot, when someone needed treatment but Death Eaters would've been looking for them. And my hair was--" He stops, audibly swallowing. "They had to cut my hair."

Oliver can't help it. His breath catches in his throat, and Percy hears it, because he shrinks a little, arms pulled in tighter and a faint flush creeping up his face. And Oliver feels terrible for it, but it's not like he can take it back now.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise. He'd seen the scar, and he's pretty sure Percy knows he saw it too. And that's not the only head injury he's seen, either. He's had the experience to know how bad it must have been. But still... Oliver had been so upset with him before, and in his head it had just been a picture of Percy refusing to make contact because he was petty and stubborn while Fred was fighting for his life. That's clearly how the rest of the family sees it.

But that wasn't it at all.

Percy hesitates, his wary gaze at last lifting to meet his. "Do you remember when we were in our third year, and you got knocked off your broom? I think it was Ravenclaw?"

He smiles weakly. "Not at all, actually. Do remember the hospital wing afterwards." He stops, realizing where Percy is going with this, and the unease in his chest intensifies. "I woke up and couldn't read. It was like the letters were all just your runes homework. You insisted on taking notes and reading them to me for the classes I missed."

It hadn't been that scary to him at the time. Perhaps because he was thirteen and his head had been stuffed full with thoughts of nothing but Quidditch, and what did he care if he couldn't write Binns' next essay or read McGonagall's grueling and dull chapter on the importance of base materials in the transfiguration of inanimate objects. He didn't need to be able to turn a desk into a chair, because he was going to fly for a living.

Thinking back on it now it should've been properly terrifying. Maybe it would've been, if it had happened later, when his view of the future had been a little less rosy and filled with nothing but broomsticks and Quaffles.

He's sure it had been terrifying, for Percy.

He... can't imagine how terrifying it would've been for him, actually.

Percy has looked back down to the table again, this time with a dismal shrug. He just keeps doing that with everything. Like it doesn't even matter. "That's what everything was like, at first. I couldn't... I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even read Kingsley's note explaining what had happened, which didn't help when all the staff were calling me Edward Willowby and I could barely remember my own name. There was no point when I could've just owled my family and let them know. Not until it didn't matter."

"That's not true at all. And you know it. Just because Fred stopped-- stopped dying doesn't mean you being there wouldn't have mattered."

Percy doesn't answer this time. Probably because he doesn't have a rebuttal.

And it's not just about Fred, either. Sure, in abstract, Percy should've been there for him and the rest of his family. But as long as they're talking in abstract, they should've also been there for him. And he knows that they would've been in a second if they'd known. This ridiculous fight that Charlie had mentioned; there's not a damn thing he could've done that would've been so bad that Mrs. Weasley wouldn't have barreled down the door to his hospital room in a heartbeat and started interrogating healers.

And Percy has to know that, too. He's deliberately not talking about it. He's not answering the unspoken question of why he hadn't asked for his family when he could.

Just as he's deliberately not talking about how exactly he hurt his head in the first place. Oliver hasn't missed that, either. If it had just been a battle with Death Eaters he would've said so. And he's not. Kingsley, he'd mentioned, the new Minister. Oliver doesn't know much about him, just that he was working at the Ministry during Voldemort's regime and had been one of the most important people in undermining the Death Eaters' political power. Percy would've been at the Ministry too, but whatever it is he'd done during the war, it hadn't made it into the papers.

Whatever it was, it got his head cracked open like an egg. Whatever it was, he's not saying.

"I'm sorry," Oliver says.

Percy blinks at him, and Oliver just gestures. "For yelling at you, before." And everything else. Everything that Percy has said tonight. "I... I wasn't being fair."

"Weren't you?"

"What?"

"Well?" Percy tilts his head; his eyes have gone peculiarly flat. "I'm still here now. I left St. Mungo's without even checking in on it all just a floor above me. Wasn't that your point?"

"I. B-but..."

Percy doesn't continue. He just looks at him, eyes flat and empty, and Oliver feels like he's been punched in the stomach.

Well. Yes. It was his point. Had been his point.

But it's not now.

He might not understand why Percy had done what he had, but it's abundantly clear right now that he has a reason. Even if he's not saying it. He certainly hadn't left Mungo's and cleared right out to Paris for fun.

Whatever's going on here, Oliver feels pretty damn sure that the way to address it is not yelling at someone who looks so fragile that a stiff breeze could break him.

When he does not manage to come up with a rebuttal, Percy, thank god, lets it drop. He just slides back down to the table, head on his hands again, and shuts his eyes.

"The healers said if I were a Muggle I'd probably be dead. If not dead then I'd still be in Mungo's now, not much better than a vegetable. But-- thanks to the miracle of magic. Here I am." His mouth twitches bitterly. It can't really be called a smile. "I woke up and couldn't move the left side of my body or read or remember my family's names, and three weeks later I'm taking a position at the French Ministry with a diagnosis of recurrent headaches." He hesitates again, gaze flicking back up to Oliver. There's still something uneasy about it. "That's what that was. A headache."

Oliver sighs. "I've had headaches, Perce."

"Well, I don't know what to tell you, because that's what they said." There's finally a flicker of life on his face and he rubs his heavy eyes again. One hand moves to play with his glasses but he doesn't put them back on. "Or. They said migraine, technically. Something that wizards usually don't get. They told me it's like a bad headache, but it's not. My head does hurt but it's like there's something... wrong with me. My leg--" He hesitates, seeming to almost shrink back. "Usually it takes just a little bit of extra focus, now. I don't really even notice it anymore. But on days like that it's like you're ask me to try to swim upwards through a swamp. I can barely talk or think, not because it hurts but because it just doesn't... doesn't work. But that's all it is, Oliver. I'm not going to die. Or if I am, that's not what's going to kill me."

It's not all that funny. But, he supposes Percy doesn't really look like he was trying to tell a joke.

"Could they not prescribe you anything? I know they have potions for pain-"

But Percy is shaking his head again. "They said the only potions strong enough are too dangerous to use outside of a healer's supervision. If it lasts for longer than two days I'm supposed to go to a hospital. Which... I suppose I should've mentioned that earlier. Sorry." Another heavy silence passes between them, and Percy closes his eyes. "In St. Mungo's I had them a lot more. They said once the potions made me stop breathing. So I've been rather reluctant to not take the healers at their word on this."

Oliver flinches again, shuddering at the new wave of horror. "Okay," he says hoarsely. "No potions. Got it." He wait another moment, still sifting through all of the new information and trying not to think about how awful all of this really is. "Is that why you have so much trouble sleeping, too?"

But Percy, for the second time, shakes his head. "It's not."

Just that. It's not.

"Perce-"

"Oliver."

Oliver starts to push on again, because for god's sake, they are not done. Then he stops cold at the look on Percy's face.

It's that strange look again. The one he's come to recognize means the answer is no, it is an unequivocal, unquestionable no, but... he can't say it. For whatever reason, that particular word seems to have all but vanished from his prodigious vocabulary.

And fuck, he doesn't like to think that. He doesn't like that at all. The same person who'd once given him a whole five minute lecture on why no, he will not come to the game when they have an exam tomorrow, and he will not let them cheat off his homework, no, Mr. Wood-- and now he can't do it at all. The word won't even come out of his mouth. The last time it had even gotten close he'd bloody disapparated and tried to move out before he'd tell Oliver to stop.

"What's-" He stops, the words catching in his throat, and has to snap his mouth shut. What's wrong with you is what he wants to say, but he can't. Percy is staring at him, almost pleading for this conversation to stop, and he can't tell him no, either.

He's told Percy what he needed and Percy had given it to him. Without hesitation or complaint. The fact that there's more he's not saying is horrifying, because the story he's already told him thus far tonight is already too awful for words. And there's still, somehow, more. It's still, somehow, worse.

Percy is trying. Oliver, too, has to meet him halfway.

He stands up, and hold his hand out. "Come on."

Percy is still too jumpy. Too uneasy. He blinks at Oliver with those heavy, shadowed eyes, then is staring away instead, fumbling for his glasses. "Huh?"

"Both of us need to sleep before we fall over. And both of us need to get changed before we catch a cold." He looks around the dark space, and only now notices the neat stack of perfectly folded clothes set back on the couch on top of a work briefcase. He's still not sure Percy actually owns a trunk, or anything else at all beyond a cycle of suits, work robes, and a pair of pajamas.

Hit on the head so hard he'd lost all his common sense too, did he? Oliver can't shake off the dark thought, but he does at least manage to hold his tongue.

Nothing that Percy has said tonight explains just why exactly he'd shown up without any of his things or even a plan for a place to stay.

"Use my bed again," he says. "The living room gets cold." What he really means to say is that that's the one time Percy had actually slept well in what has to be weeks, and just looking at him now-- it's clear he needs it. He desperately needs it. He'd never agree to it if he said the reason out loud but right now there are some things more important than winning an argument.

It probably speaks to just how weary he really is that Percy does not even try to find a rebuttal. He just ducks his head, pale and shivering, and gets to his feet without another word.

As bad as Oliver feels about all of this and as terrible as Percy looks, Oliver has also spent all day at practice in the rain. He grabs the shower first, and takes longer than strictly necessary to just enjoy the hot water and feel a bit less like a wrung out dish cloth. When he finally does finish, freshly dressed for bed and the day's muck washed off and the shadows still lingering at the back of his mind, all he can really do is just hope that tomorrow will be better.

When he steps quietly back into the hallway, he's not all that surprised to see that Percy isn't coming next.

Not even twenty minutes, and he's already fast asleep.

He's not even under the covers. It looks like he'd barely even bothered to get changed. His normally fiery hair is still lackluster brown and limp, and he really should've at least dried himself off, but... if he has finally gotten to sleep, Oliver's not going to wake him up. The shadows under his eyes earlier had been nearly purple and he's not sure he'd ever seen him look that tired. Twelve O.W.L.s couldn't do it, but whatever this is could.

Oliver is just checking his alarm, making sure that it's set for tomorrow, when there's a gasp behind him.

Percy is awake again. Just barely, his head jerked off the pillow and one hand knotted into the blankets. He's panting, still, staring at nothing. And the look on his face-- Oliver can't describe it.

It's like before. Like he's not even in the room at all.

"All right, mate...?"

Percy sucks in another breath, gritting his teeth. "No." He flops over onto his back instead, panting and staring at the ceiling.

It seems this the only time he can ever get Percy to bloody talk to him. When he's so tired he can barely keep his eyes open.

"It's this," Percy starts, and he still refuses to look at him. He grabs at the sheets even tighter and each breath is harsh, almost too harsh. It sounds like he's been punched in the stomach and can't catch his breath. "I can't-- I don't. I don't like how. I don't like how it feels. Falling asleep." He shuts his eyes but his breathing still doesn't calm down. "They tried potions, in St. Mungo's. But they didn't work. They told me to stop fighting them but I wasn't, I. I-- I can't help how it feels, Oliver."

"Hey--" But that's all that comes out. Oliver wants to say something, but he can't. He has no idea what's wrong.

Looking at Percy like this feels terrible. And he can't fix it.

Finally, he just sits back down on his side of the bed. "I'm sorry." For making him talk about this. That St. Mungo's couldn't help. That it had happened at all. "Come... come on."

Percy lets out a muffled mmph, blinking blearily at him as Oliver pulls him closer. And Oliver's face feels a little warm but it's all he can think of to do. "It helped last time, didn't it?"

Percy blinks heavily again. He stares up at him, but there's none of the stubbornness or embarrassment that he might've expected. Instead he just lets Oliver pull him closer, and he stares at him with shadows under his eyes and breaths still unsteady, and doesn't say anything at all.

Then he shuts his eyes, and melts back down into the bed, Oliver's shoulder used once again as a pillow.

He's back asleep within seconds.

This time, Oliver does not spend the time mentally writing a letter to Charlie. As worried as he is, as badly as he wants to know what's going on... he can tell that if he keeps digging behind his back, Percy is going to leave again.

He just has to wait until he's ready to tell him on his own.

But it doesn't hurt, he reflects grimly, that Charlie wouldn't even be able to help him if he asked. No... as many questions as tonight has left him with, that is not one of them. His family aren't here when he so obviously needs help because they have no idea what happened to him. They'd be there the very moment they knew, Oliver is sure of that, and Percy has to be too. And he's not telling them. They don't even know he was hurt in the first place.

Why? Why does he not want them to know so badly he'd fled the bloody country?

From here, this time Oliver can't see the scar. He's morbidly grateful for it because he thinks now that he knows how bad it was, the thing would turn his stomach; instead he just squirms down a little lower himself, trying to get comfortable on his own pillow. Percy shifts a little, and he freezes, but it's a false alarm. His head returns to Oliver's shoulder and one cold arm slips around his. His hair is damp and his fingers are clammy, and the look on his face is the most at peace he's ever seen him.

Something in Oliver's chest squeezes tightly. He doesn't dare move to touch him, but if he could-- he wants to put his fingers in his hair. To touch his cold face. To give him a bloody hug.

Maybe it's been too long since he'd shared his bed with someone who wasn't just a friend, he thinks exhaustedly, rubbing his face.

Percy... what happened to you?

The next morning, Oliver is dragged out of bed five minutes before his alarm was set to go off by an owl at his bedroom window. He's already grumbling before he can catch himself, but it doesn't matter; the tapping on the glass has woken Percy, too.

"Sorry," he starts, then clears his throat; his voice came out gravelly and his nose is stuffed up. "See if you can get back to sleep."

"Had to get up soon anyway." Percy works himself up onto an elbow, squinting at him. "Well?"

Oliver skims the note with a sigh, hand held out for the barn owl to nip at. "Looks like practice is off. With Coach's apologies for making us play in the rain. Although I think he's just sorry that he has a cold, and so does the assistant coach, and the captain."

"Wonder how that happened," Percy remarks dryly. Despite his comment about needing to get up soon, he makes no attempt to move in the slightest, still lying down on his side of the bed with his head propped up. Yesterday's shadows under his eyes are still there.

Oliver hesitates.

"Call in sick today."

"What?"

"You heard me." He shrugs at the baffled look on his face and can't help but grin; Percy's almost scandalized at the suggestion, and it's a memory of much simpler times. "You can't tell me you couldn't use it. And you've got what, two years of vacation time saved up?"

Percy's eyes skitter away again and there's a twitch of something on his face. "In case you've forgotten, I do need to save my sick days now."

He says it without heat but guilt still clenches in Oliver's stomach. It's true. He hadn't been thinking about that at all. Although the distant look on Percy's face says he's not really thinking about it, either.

"What would we do, exactly?" he asks instead, still not meeting his eyes. "Just sleep all day?"

"Sure, if you could manage it." He sits back down after seeing the owl off, running a hand through his stuck up hair. "We also need to get started on that spare room. You can't live on the couch forever. But sleeping all day is sort of the point of a day off, Perce. Relaxing. I know you haven't heard of it but it's this really neat concept where you take a day and don't do anything, and then you feel better the next day-- it's all like magic, really--"

"Very funny." He rolls over onto his back, blinking without his glasses and again staring at nothing. "About... last night."

Oliver shrugs. "Don't mention it. I'm just glad you got some sleep, is all."

But Percy's unfocused gaze drifts back onto him. His mouth slips into a frown and his face stays clouded. "You say that a lot. You... you keep acting like what you're doing isn't... special. Or that anyone would've done the same, but. You are helping, Oliver." He glances away, something uneasy on his face now. He looks uncomfortable but doesn't stop. "I've slept better here than I did in the hospital with a whole team of healers and potions."

It's Oliver's turn to flush. He's suddenly glad Percy doesn't have his glasses so he can't see his face and swallows hard, trying to hold back the sudden wave of emotion. "It's--" nothing, he almost says, but that's just repeating what Percy is telling him to stop. It's not enough is more accurate, but he thinks Percy will like that even less than he does this.

He can't take credit for helping Percy to sleep through the damn night. That shouldn't be in question in the first place.

"I'm glad," is what he lands on, at last. It's true enough, he supposes. It's not bloody close to enough, but any amount that he can help is something.

He couldn't help enough during the war. All he can do is try to help enough now.

Percy does wind up calling out of work. Probably for the first time in his life, Oliver reckons.

The day is still gloomy and overcast, a faint on and off drizzle. It's certainly for the best that practice was cancelled. But to Oliver, it reminds him too much of the war, when every single day was cloudy at best and every morning was a chilly, foggy sunrise, and he keeps the blinds shut.

They eat breakfast together; Oliver cooks, Percy washes the dishes, Oliver stops himself from teasing how he could possibly have grown up with Mrs. Weasley as a mother and still not even know how to scramble eggs. Percy nods off twice at the table. Oliver sends him to the couch to 'wait for a second', and within just a few minutes of banging about in the kitchen he's asleep again, this time for good.

He was really telling the truth, then, about sound helping. But-- it's not just sound, Oliver considers, rubbing his shoulder. It seems to be... anything. Anything that distracts him enough from whatever it is that's going on in his head.

Percy always being awake before, when Oliver got back late from practice, and then up bright and early the next morning to start it all over, makes a lot more sense now. And he doesn't like it one bit.

He leaves the radio on, and dozes off himself.

When he fades back in again, it's been long enough that the radio has switched to a different game. Percy is still dead to the world, curled up on his side like a great cat and completely unmoved since early this morning. The only real change is the new sunlight, filtering in through the blinds and making the dust in the air glow.

He really needs to get around to cleaning this place, doesn't he?

Oliver would ordinarily feel guilty about waking Percy up, but after sharing the flat with him for as long as he has, he's started to realize that if he doesn't do anything, Percy won't do anything, either. He'll just lie there all day and alternatively sleep and stare into space and the only reason he'll even bloody eat is if Oliver tells him to do it. Which, sure, he's been content to let him do for a while-- it's not his life; if Percy wants to spend it asleep what's it to him-- but after last night...

It feels almost like Percy is silently asking for help. He's not saying what's wrong, but he's not trying to hide it, either. He could have been tight-lipped about it all, just quoting what the healers had said about his head and nothing more, but that's not what he'd done. Oliver could still be in the dark but he's not. And that means something.

So if Oliver can help, that's what he's going to do.

He charms the blinds up and the curtains aside with a loud snick, and swivels to face Percy with his hands on his hips and as big a smile on his face as he can manage. "Good morning! Get up and get dressed. We're going out."

Percy grumbles something, squinting and shrinking, like he's trying to squirrel deeper into the blankets to protect his eyes. "What... what time is it?"

Oliver doesn't actually know himself, and has to lean back to catch sight of the clock in the kitchen. "Almost eleven, apparently. Good... afternoon?"

He grumbles something else, rubbing at his face and eyes and looking particularly surly while doing so. "And we're going where?"

"Down to the café. Fresh air's good for you and as long as we're taking the day, time for you to start learning how to have a conversation with the locals. Plus the food is decent."

"Mmph." Percy glares over the edge of his blanket.

By the look of him alone, if this were not even five years ago, the answer would be a resounding no. If Oliver wanted him to go to Hogsmeade he would have to bodily drag him out of bed and away from his books, and that would be assaulting a prefect, and he'd have to give detention, and then he could miss Quidditch, and what would Oliver do then, hmm?

It's not five years ago.

"Okay," he mutters, and unfolds like origami.

Oliver refuses to feel guilty. He refuses. He won't do it.

Instead, shoos him back to the bathroom to take a shower.

With yesterday's unpleasant weather and today's chill, the streets aren't all that busy, and neither is the café. Oliver is grateful for it, because there really is nothing worse than a crowd of people all speaking around and at him in a language he can't understand. And Percy, too, seems a little less uneasy when he sees the lack of a crowd.

Victoria doesn't work mornings, so there's no one there to tut when he clumsily greets the server, or shake their head when he again points to what he hopes are sandwiches on the menu. Percy at least doesn't know enough to call him out, but the pointed look he gives him still says it all.

"Hey," Oliver starts. "I know I'm bad, but at least I'm trying. If I weren't here you'd be stuck waiting for someone to take pity on you and tell you the word for tea." The word is actually the same; at least, it sure sounds the same to him, but he'll let Percy discover that one on his own. "Although today might be a bad day to start since I feel like I'm coming down with a cold, too..."

"If only we could've just stayed in and rested. If only someone hadn't thought that was a bad idea."

Yes. If only Percy could've said no. But he can't, so here they are instead, Oliver's stuffy nose or no, and they're not going to leave until he's bullied him into at least managing a single sentence, and he's not going to feel badly about it. He will not. He will not.

Their sandwiches appear. The good: he did, actually, manage to order sandwiches. The bad: Oliver checks, and immediately finds that his best guess of an order for himself has come with crushed almonds. He glances at Percy sheepishly, who just rolls his eyes in return and swaps the plates.

"For all the nagging you've done, and you still don't know the word for what you're allergic to?"

"It's a lot of words, believe it or not," Oliver grumbles, and is pleased to see that he'd (somehow) managed to order a grilled cheese for Percy. At least he'd gotten one of the orders right, and this one is assuredly nut free. "And anyway. En tout cas. I'm still qualified to nag, and will be as long as I'm better than you." He sniffles, and once again ignores Percy's pointed look as he slaps the beginner's pamphlet across the table at him. It's supposed to be for tourists, and after a month he's decidedly not a tourist anymore, but they've got to start somewhere.

And Percy, to his credit, does flip it open, even if only after another surly look. Though Oliver isn't sure how much is because he actually wants to and how much is just because he's been told to do it and he won't say no.

Oliver actually really does feel a bit under the weather. It might have really been for the best if they'd stayed in today, but, well, too late now. Between his stuffy nose and own bastardized accent he also struggles to actually be of much help, but if he's being entirely honest with himself, today is less about getting Percy able to stumble through a foreign hello and more about just dragging him out of the damn flat. So on that metric, at least, it's a success.

He doesn't know how much any of this is actually helping. Which is something he tries not to think about.

How much him basically manipulating Percy into doing, Merlin, anything, is actually making anything better at all. But he's already tried the reverse, hasn't he? They've been living together for a month now, and the way Percy tells it he'd showed up on his doorstep pretty much fresh out of St. Mungo's, and... Oliver thinks he's worse off now than he was then. At least in St. Mungo's there'd been healers there to make sure he ate and give him potions if he wasn't sleeping, and he would've been actively recovering, but now--

Oliver isn't a healer. And Percy isn't in a bad enough state to need one.

Sure, in some ways he's better. He sleeps more, now, and has gotten better at engaging in conversation that isn't just repeating back to him whatever he thinks Oliver wants to hear, but...

But he still won't do anything. Not if Oliver doesn't bodily drag him into it.

He still won't, or can't, say no.

So he has no idea if he what he's doing is helping. But he has to try.

With the dreary weather and the weekday early afternoon, everything at least stays rather peaceful, and there's no hustle and bustle to drive them back to the flat. They linger for nearly two hours, and by the time Victoria's shift starts, Oliver has a dull headache and the look on Percy's face says he's not the only one. Maybe this evening Percy wins and they'll spend it inside the flat eating leftover pizza and groaning at so much as the thought of moving.

Oliver manages his own exchange of greetings well enough, and even thinks he understands when she does a double take at his voice and asks if he's not feeling well. "Oui," he sighs. "Malheureux." He glances across the table at Percy who is again looking startled and wrong-footed at the flurry he's supposed to try to emulate, and gives him an encouraging grin.

"I--" he starts, then coughs, clearing his throat. "Right. Um. C-comment-- comment allez-vous?"

"Oh!" She claps her hands together, beaming; Percy meanwhile, is already starting to flush. "So you will be staying, then! Merveilleux! There is no need to be so formal with me, though. Any friend of Oliver's is a friend of mine!"

Percy blinks again, eyes flickering uncertainly between the two of them. He clearly hadn't known he was being formal at all, and Oliver would laugh if he didn't almost feel bad for him.

"Staying, yeah, but not today," Oliver sighs, leaning back in his chair. "Think it's best we get going; need all the rest I can get before practice tomorrow. I don't think Coach will take pity on us two days in a row."

"Oh but of course. And don't want you spreading that cold to my customers, too." She kisses him on the cheek and squeezes Percy around the shoulders and tells them both to rest up, and it's nothing but warm and friendly, and Percy--

Nearly squeaks.

It's a tiny sound buried in the back of his throat. Victoria doesn't notice; she barely knows him. But Oliver does. And he sees Percy almost freeze, sitting there like a block of ice and his white face suddenly carved from stone. He doesn't move, even as Victoria heads away, he doesn't look at Oliver, he just-- sits there.

It reminds him a little too much of how he'd been when he'd first moved in. How often he'd just sit at the kitchen table silent and motionless, utterly helpless until presented with a cue from Oliver to jump on. It's not that he's scared or panicked, he's just shut down.

Which, Oliver might be able to handle a little better, if he had any idea what the hell just happened.

"Uh," he starts. He's at a total loss. "Percy?"

Percy flinches again, staring at Oliver then back down at his hands and not up again. He seems to almost shrink, his throat jumping, and is zipping his Muggle jacket up to his chin with shaking hands. "My apologies," he nearly stammers. "It's nothing, I'll-- I'll meet you outside."

He's on his feet so suddenly he nearly bumps the table, and then is out the door without another word. And Oliver is left sitting behind alone.

He's completely nonplussed, and he really doesn't think it's to do with the head cold.

Just what the hell was that?

As always, with Percy, he can't help but compare it to their school days, because he just has nothing else to compare it to. He remembers the first time he'd realized his pompous stuck-up roommate had a crush just like the rest of them, when Penny had given him a mere polite good morning in the Great Hall and Percy had flushed and spoken too quickly and called her Miss Waterclear and said he'd liked her s-shoes, and when she was gone he'd just thunked his head on the table and turned red up to his ears. It had been ridiculous, in the way only Percy could be, so ridiculous it was endearing.

He hadn't done any of whatever the hell this was.

Oliver can see Percy outside now, shuffling his feet and fidgeting on the mostly empty street. From behind like this he looks perfectly normal. Perfectly-- perfectly fine.

He's not.

And the more time he spends with him, the more he realizes just exactly how far he is from it.

He swallows hard, and stands up to follow him.

Oliver has no idea what to say on the walk back. He doesn't even know if saying anything at all is a good idea in the first place. And it's not as if Percy wants to talk about it, either. Or at least that's what he thinks, as he leads the way back in a near uncomfortable silence.

But when they finally reach their street, Percy shuffles nervously again, and Oliver glances over just in time to see him staring back at his shoes.

"Victoria," he says quietly. "Do you... like her?"

Somehow, Oliver doesn't really think that's what this is all about.

"What are you asking, exactly?"

"She..." Percy looks away, hugging himself. "She likes you. I think."

Yeah. Oliver is pretty sure she does. Just as Oliver is pretty sure that after a couple years of playing pro Quidditch, he's officially aged out of that phase in his life where he's up for taking the first pretty thing that smiles at him to bed. Just as he's also pretty sure Percy is not all that freaked out about a girl flirting with Oliver.

"We're just friends, Percy." He folds his arms, returning his attention to the street. "She might, I dunno. I don't really think I'm up for dating a Muggle right now, to be honest. Want someone I can actually talk about last year about. And Quidditch. Someone who doesn't think I play rugby, you know." He stops just short of asking why it matters. He knows he won't get an answer if he does.

He hasn't heard Percy mention Penny, actually. Not that Percy seems to be in the sort of state to be dating anyone right now. He'd seen Penny in passing at Hogwarts that day, so he knows she survived the war too... he hopes Percy didn't run away from her just like he's run from his family.

Oliver bites his lip.

"If Victoria... if something she did bothered y-"

"She didn't bother me," he says, almost too quickly.

"Percy..."

The light changes, and Percy sets off across the street without waiting for him to finish. Oliver, a knot in the pit of his stomach, lets him go.

He just wishes he knew what was wrong. He's walking in a minefield with a blindfold on, and the only person who can take it off is saying okay and she didn't bother me and I'm fine.

He's not. He's not fine. And Oliver quite frankly is feeling a bit not-fine himself these days because of it. He couldn't help enough people during the war and apparently can't help anyone after it either.

With whatever mood Percy's sunk into, Oliver is happy to be outpaced and take his time on the stairs. It's not as if they have plans for the rest of the day, anyway. When he finally does make it up to the flat, three sneezes later and with sore knees and clammy hands, it's to find that Percy has already vanished into the shower.

He tries very hard not to be worried about that in the slightest, and instead goes for his icepack.

By the time his fifteen minutes are up, Percy still isn't out.

That night, they do wind up setting up the spare room.

Oliver carefully levitates the couch to follow him, step by step, because he really doesn't have any other furniture big enough to turn into a bed; meanwhile, Percy has wrapped a scarf around his face and attacks the dust in the room with a passion he must've learned from his mother. Oliver really hadn't thought it was that bad, but Percy seems to think otherwise, and given that Oliver can't stop sneezing he's doesn't exactly have standing to disagree.

"Are you sure?" Percy asks for the fourth time, his voice muffled under the scarf. "I c-"

"Perce, for the last time, yes. It's not like I'm having a load of parties in desperate need of a couch, is it. Besides if people do come over we can just transfigure it back." He finally drops the couch in the corner and stands back, arms folded. "Would you mind, actually? You know I dropped McGonagall's after fifth year."

Percy blinks at him. "Oh. I-- of course." He sniffs, clearing his throat, and lifts his wand.

Oliver isn't too sure what he's expecting, here. Probably a copy of his own bed, which this time he won't even be able to blame Percy for; it's not as if either one of them is an interior decorator. But what he is not expecting is what happens next.

The couch turns into a bed... sort of. It's mostly got the shape right, but the material is all wrong. The blanket looks like cardboard glued to a bed, a bed that is halfway melting into the floor, like he's somehow made it out of cold milk. Oliver can't help it, he lets out a startled laugh, even as next to him Percy looks like he wants to follow it into the floor. "Mate, the reason I asked you is so it wouldn't look like that!"

"I'm, I'm s-sorry, I'm so sorry, I-- I'm out of practice, let me--" Percy rushes to cast the spell again, this time muttering the incantations under his breath and his face a bright red. And this time, the bed turns out perfectly, and not at all like Oliver's flailing failures in fifth year transfiguration.

The relief on his face is unmistakable, but Oliver shrugs it off. It makes sense he'd be out of practice, doesn't it? He probably hasn't used much magic since his head injury. Two tries isn't bad. It's certainly better than Oliver could've managed, at any rate.

He stands back to behold their handiwork, while Percy busies himself again dusting and, it seems, looking anywhere but at him. He's still blushing up to his ears.

It's not very impressive, for a bedroom, but it'll do. It's really just a bed and Percy's clothes laid out neatly on an old cabinet. Oliver would feel bad, if he owned anything else, but... he really doesn't seem to.

Although, on the thought of feeling bad. "Actually, I wanted to bring up..." He hesitates, biting his lip. But Percy is still not paying attention. "If you need to hold off on rent for a bit, that's fine. I know breaking your lease can't be cheap, especially in Paris."

"Oh. No. That's fine, thank you. I have the money."

Oliver can't help himself from raising an eyebrow, and barely stops the whistle. "Guess the Ministry pays well these days, huh?"

Percy's shoulders hunch up. For several moments, he doesn't answer at all, and his back stays turned to him. Somehow, the dusting has gotten even more aggressive.

"Not quite," he mumbles at last. His voice comes out muffled from the scarf, barely even audible. "It's... from the restitution fund. From the war."

"I-- oh."

"I didn't want the money," he continues quietly. He still won't look back at Oliver. It sounds like he's saying this part more for himself than him. "The fund is supposed to be for. For other people. People who really needed it, or got hurt, not--. But Minister Shacklebolt insisted."

He stops there. And Oliver doesn't know what to say.

Something feels wrong about this, now. But he can't quite put his finger on it, and the new silence between them is very, very uncomfortable. Percy still won't look at him and Oliver finds himself casting about for something, anything, to change the subject with.

"I've been wondering," Oliver starts, and he nearly stammers in getting the words out. "Where'd you go, when you apparated out? With you never leaving the flat I was surprised you knew anywhere in Paris well enough to manage it."

This, thankfully, seems to be safer ground than his previous line of inquiry. Percy at last glances back at him, and with a weary sigh the scarf finally gets tugged down. "The roof, actually." He fiddles with his hands sheepishly, looking almost embarrassed. "You're right; I don't think I could've pulled it off anywhere else. I'm lucky I didn't splinch myself, to be honest."

The roof is where they keep the team owls, and Oliver can't help but smile again. Percy has followed him up there a few times despite having nothing to send. "You always were fond of the owls in school, weren't you?" He walks over to sit on the bed, testing it; it's properly soft and bouncy this time. "Speaking of, where is Hermes, anyway?"

"I, er, don't know."

"What?"

Percy sits down himself, settling on the floor back against the wall. "I don't know," he repeats. And that's all he says.

What does that mean? How can he not know what happened to his own owl? Percy had loved Hermes, and now he just-- doesn't know?

He's back in that damn minefield.

Since it seems that everything he says tonight is a bad idea, Oliver suddenly finds that he's not very keen on prodding again and instead wants nothing more than an excuse to get out of this room. It all abruptly feels very cold and lonely, just a bed backed up into the corner and nothing else, and he almost feels bad for it again, but it's not as if they could've done any better on such short notice. He can't help but wonder if this might be worse for Percy, shut away from the sounds in the living room, but... Oliver's not a mind reader. Eventually he is going to have to speak up if he wants something.

Today has been awkward and strange all around, but now that it's at its end, Oliver at least knows where they stand, now. Flatmates, again. Percy, still acting strange and bizarre and so damn nervous all the time, but-- trying. He's trying. His family not in the picture, which Oliver still is damn displeased about but he knows it's off limits to bring that up right now.

It's something.

"Well," he starts. "I still don't feel great, so I think I'm going to turn in early. No chance we'll get out of practice tomorrow; the season's about to start."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Oliver fidgets uncomfortably. Percy continues to stare vaguely into space, and somehow looks even more uncomfortable than him.

"So, uh." He gets to his feet, sniffling again. "I guess I'll just be, um, g-"

"Oliver."

"Wh-"

Percy lurches to his feet, grabs him by the collar, and kisses him.

What the ever-living f-

"Percy!" Oliver jerks back; Percy steps with him. "Percy, what are you doing?!"

He's flushed and bright-eyed, almost too bright. Oliver can't read the look on his face but as someone who's been snogged many times before, he doesn't think he's ever seen that look before after it and he doesn't like to see it now.

"What was that?"

"A kiss," Percy says flatly. "Wasn't it?" He's breathing too fast. His head is tilted to the side and he staring back at Oliver with the most casual look in the world but his eyes are tiny and he's nearly panting now like a dog.

"Okay. Let me rephrase. Why was-- that?"

"I like you," Percy answers too quickly. "And you kissed back."

Oliver reels. "Yeah, because I was bloody surprised, you... I'm not saying I'm not flattered, I mean, I just..."

He just what? He doesn't like Percy? He has no idea, he's never bloody thought about it. And Percy is right, he did kiss back, but--

But Percy doesn't look like someone trying to ask him on a date. He's still flushed and panting, but there's no nervous smile or pink blush or awkward attempt to blow it off. He's just staring at him, perpetually out of breath. He looks almost drunk.

His hands, Oliver realizes, are shaking.

No. Tonight, today, has been a bloody minefield, and he's not stepping into another trench now. No. "All right." He holds his hands up, taking another step back; this time, thank Merlin, Percy doesn't follow. "I'm sick, you're exhausted-- we're not doing this now. We're waiting until we can have a conversation about this. Okay?"

He winces internally at the word, because there it is again, the last thing he wants to hear. Percy's stare is piercing and almost desperate, and the look on his face makes him feel like he's swallowing glass, but he has to put his foot down. The last thing either of them needs is to have a conversation like this now. He is not going to be guilted into-- into what? What the hell does Percy even want, because Oliver really isn't feeling that it's a first date that he's after.

"Okay," Percy says at last.

He hates that damn word.

"Okay," Oliver returns, swallowing hard. "Good night. Hope the new room works out. We'll talk tomorrow."

He leaves, feeling a bit shaky himself, now. And this time, Percy doesn't stop him.

And Oliver can't help it. He thinks about that look on Percy's face, and the timing of it all, and every bloody thing he knows about Percy Weasley, and... he doesn't want to admit it, but...

Fuck.

He really, really hopes that entire display wasn't because Percy doesn't want to sleep alone.

It only hits him much latter that night, tossing and turning in his own bed, punching the hot pillow over and over and sniffling and swearing his only problem is just trying to find a position where he can bloody breathe.

Percy had said he hadn't wanted the restitution money. That Minister Shacklebolt had forced him to take it.

But Oliver read about the restitution fund in the paper weeks ago. Harry had donated all of the Black family fortune, and most of the Potter's, and the Ministry had taken all of the Malfoy's; nearly all of the richest families had sided with Voldemort, in fact, and found their accounts emptied as a result. Shacklebolt had taken the money before any of the survivors had had time to wheel and deal to get out of it. The Prophet had said that all Muggleborns were automatically eligible, and so was anyone that had had an Unforgivable used on them, or had had a family member killed by Death Eaters. Anyone else that felt they had been badly injured or lost property as a result of Voldemort's regime was also free to apply. Simple enough. Okay.

So why does Percy have the money?

He's not a Muggleborn. Fred is still alive. And there's no Unforgivable Curse that he's mentioned. So the money wouldn't have just shown up on his doorstep, he would've had to apply for it, wouldn't he?

Except he'd said he hadn't wanted it. And Oliver is sure he was telling the truth on that point. Percy Weasley wasn't one to take charity.

So... so... what, then?

Oliver doesn't have an answer. He doesn't even have a guess, really.

It's just that he knows that Percy's story, once again, is not adding up.

He rolls onto his over side with a grumble, still trying to wrestle his pillow into shape. And of course it's not working, so after another few futile whumps, he finds himself glaring at the wall instead, the wall that he now shares with Percy.

It's a pretty easy guess that he isn't sleeping, either.

Somehow, they don't talk about it the next day.

Oliver just doesn't know what to say. Has no clue how to even start the discussion. For once, he'd rather wait for Percy to bring it up, to try and get a feel for what exactly he was after, but... he doesn't. He doesn't even try. The next morning he acts exactly like he always does, except maybe even more closed off than before; he emerges from his new room fully dressed for work just before Oliver is about to leave himself, prim and proper and steady as can be, and all he gets is a perfunctory goodbye as he heads out the door.

He has no idea what to do. He doesn't even feel like he can ask any of his teammates for advice; none of them could understand, not without meeting him. This isn't just a surprise kiss from someone he'd thought was just a friend. It's-- it's Percy, for Merlin's sake.

Oliver doesn't even fully grasp what that means himself until he tries to think about what he feels for Percy and realizes he can't even answer the question. Because the answer doesn't matter. Of course he's fond of Percy, and while he wouldn't say he's infatuated with him he wouldn't necessarily say no to a date, either, except of course he would. Percy freaked out upon getting hugged by a friendly stranger and anything beyond just a few months ago is a complete fucking mystery beyond the fact that it was that bad, and he-- he's fragile, damn it.

Even if it would make Percy spitting mad to hear him say it that doesn't mean it's not true.

No, he's not going to start dating his flatmate that is so unsteady and scared he's lucky to get him out the door. And he's especially not going to do it when he still thinks Percy isn't interested in a date at all and instead is so desperate to sleep at night he'll kiss him to get it.

Because, he can't help but think darkly again, he's still not an emotional support dog. He wants to help but... that wouldn't be helping him, damn it. It wouldn't be helping either of them.

The week passes in a discomforting stalemate. Percy goes to work and comes back and sits dully at the table and barely eats and vanishes into his room. Oliver sneezes and takes steaming hot showers that last too long and suffers through practice and fumbles through questions about his day. Neither one brings It up, and soon Oliver can't help but hope it's going to be forgotten about entirely.

Two days before the first game day of the season, it's Oliver's turn not to sleep through the night.

He already doesn't really remember the dream, when he jolts awake with it still dark outside and silent in the flat. His shoulder hurts and his stomach is in knots and he tastes dust, but the specifics are already fading. He just remembers Hogwarts. Again.

It's always Hogwarts.

He never remembers the specifics. He doesn't think they really matter, at the end of the day.

He'd spent most of his life at that damn school. Some of his best memories are there. And now he never wants to go back there again.

It's a little less than an hour before his alarm is set, and Oliver already knows from experience that if he clings to the dream of that extra hour of sleep it's not going to come and he's just going to start the morning frustrated with himself and exhausted and miserable. The more he lies in bed kicking at the sheets the more he won't be able to stop thinking about it, and the last bloody thing in the world that he wants to do is think about Hogwarts right now.

He grabs his dressing gown, stretching as carefully as he can and hugging his arm close, and ambles out for a cup of tea.

Because that's just how things are going, lately, he's not all that surprised to see that Percy has already beaten him to it.

He blinks at him from the table, startled and out of sorts, but Oliver is just too tired and stressed in the same breath to manage the same feeling. He just shoves his hands in his pockets and scowls at nothing and walks noisily to join him. "So I guess you're doing this again, huh."

He really doesn't want the company right now.

With his mind on tea, he turns his back to the cabinets and starts digging around for the chamomile. So he doesn't see whatever's on Percy's face, but he does hear the same in his voice-- the sudden coldness, and for perhaps the first time since moving in something that is not a meek acquiescence to whatever Oliver wants.

"Stop it, Oliver. I'm... I'm doing the best that I can."

Oliver's hands still. Something miserably cold and guilty stirs in his stomach. He stares down at the tea and doesn't know what to say.

"I. Sorry."

Percy doesn't answer.

Since there's no one asleep anymore, Oliver doesn't need to be quiet, but he still finds himself hushed anyway. He tries to use his wand instead of the Muggle kettle, which only kind of works, but he doesn't care enough to try again.

He knows Percy could do it properly. But no offer comes, and Oliver just sits wordlessly opposite him, staring down into his over-steeped tea, and tries to think about nothing at all.

Thankfully, they all seen to be in agreement, here, because no attempt at conversation comes from across the table either. They just sit there in the dark, too early to get ready for the day but too late to try and go back to sleep, and Oliver sips at his terrible cup of tea and Percy doesn't do anything at all, because of course he doesn't, and that's all.

He's so tired.

The sun slowly rises, glowing through closed blinds. He can hear the city start to wake up, cars down on the streets and radios switching on and alarms going off. With everything no longer being so hushed and quiet it all starts to feel a little more real, a little more grounded, and some of the tension in his chest finally unwinds.

"You can forget about Tuesday," Percy says quietly, his fingers locking together. "I don't know what I was thinking, really. It's fine."

Oliver's mouth slips into a heavy frown.

"What were you thinking?"

"I just said-"

"No, Percy, really." He waits, but then he can't help himself and the words are just coming out. "Don't tell me all that was just because you didn't want to sleep alone."

"...Okay-"

"No, don't say okay! An answer, an actual answer, not just what you think I want to hear!"

Percy shrinks, his shoulders hunching and his head tucking into his chest. He stares firmly away and his hands are fidgeting faster than ever, and a flush is creeping up his neck now, but he looks desperately worse than just embarrassed. "I don't know," he says again, his voice cracking. "I told you. I have no idea what I was thinking. I just looked at you and that was all I could think to do. I know it was wrong and I'm sorry. What else do you want me to say?"

Nothing, Oliver thinks, rather miserably. He doesn't want Percy to say anything except the truth. But that's something that he just seems constitutionally incapable of now. Whatever the truth was that night, Percy doesn't seem to really know what it was anymore, but it also hardly seems to matter. What else do you want me to say?

He doesn't want to be back to this.

"That's not what I meant," he says quietly. He finds that looking at Percy is only making him feel worse, so he stares at his own hands instead. He doesn't want an apology.

He just wants things to stop being this bloody hard.

Oliver sighs, shifting his mug from hand to hand. He doesn't really want to finish the rest. "Do you remember the end of sixth year? With Flint?"

Percy frowns at him, clearly unsure where this is going. "I'm not sure I could forget. It was the only time I got detention."

"I would hardly call that detention, first of all, McGonagall just worked with you on studying for your exams," Oliver laughs, rolling his eyes. "But yeah. Flint was running his mouth, about Penny, about the Muggleborns. And then he brought up Ginny. I was about to hex him for it but then out of nowhere you show up, screaming your head off-- you punched him in the face. I couldn't believe it."

Oliver is pretty sure Percy would've gotten the shit beaten out of him after that; burly Flint, broad-shouldered and muscled and always on the Quidditch pitch, and then there's Mr. Never Leaves the Library Weasley over here. But Oliver had been there too, and in the end it had taken two professors to break up the brawl. Later, Oliver with a cracked rib and Percy with a black eye and split lip, they'd sat in McGonagall's office, and she'd looked so angry when she'd heard what Flint had said she'd barely been able to give detention at all. It certainly hadn't felt like detention, Percy and McGonagall looking at the next year's curriculum together while Oliver had gotten a head start on practice plans.

"What's your point, Oliver?"

"My point," he stresses, and for the first time all morning finds it easy to meet his eyes, "is that you never do anything without thinking. Except when you do. And when you did you gave Flint such a scare that Ginny's name never came out of his mouth again, and apparently also kissed me, which is not actually the worst thing in the world. So maybe you should try doing it some more. Because your alternative right now is apparently doing nothing. And I don't think that's working out for you."

Percy levels another flat stare at him. The shadows under his eyes still haven't gone away. "It also gave me a broken finger."

"All right. So join a gym! Learn how to punch properly! That's something, isn't it? Better than sitting here staring at the walls at night!"

"Okay," he deadpans. "I'll join an all night gym and learn how to punch out my coworker that keeps giving me the wrong tea at the office. Will do, Oliver." He drops his face into his hands, shoulders slumped and fingers digging into his hair. "I don't want to do anything."

Yeah. Oliver's figured that. And that's the bloody problem.

All these circular conversations with Percy are starting to drive him mad. It's always dancing around the fact that there is something wrong, something big, something that he's not saying, something that is very very wrong with him. They both know it. And yet it keeps happening.

The clock ticks away. Soon it'll be officially time to get ready to face the day. Which between his cold finally going away but the nightmare still lingering at the back of his mind, he can already feel today is going to be just as grueling as every practice this week.

He hesitates, biting his lip, and looks at Percy out of the corner of his eye again.

"We've got our first game in two days. Since I'm on the team, I've got free tickets. You should come."

Percy doesn't move. His head stays in his hands, and sitting there like that he looks like the most exhausted person in the world. "...okay."

Oliver winces a little. Right. That one was probably his fault. "What I mean is you should come if you want to. Not because I want you to." And he knows Percy just said he doesn't want to do anything, but-- there has to be a limit. There has to. Percy has to know it'll be good for him to get out of his fucking room and that's why he goes, not because he really cares about Quidditch, or because he thinks Oliver just wants to bully him into having someone cheering for him at the game, or...

He hesitates again. He remembers the games at Hogwarts, how noisy and chaotic and crowded they all were, which was just part of the fun for people like him but... less so, for people like Percy. And he looks at Percy now, and knows that less fun is no longer the way to put it, or... maybe he shouldn't even go at all, anymore. He hadn't even thought of that before offering the tickets but now cringes at himself. Maybe shouting and bright lights and crowds aren't the best idea for someone who had their head cracked open.

"I, uh. I should've mentioned-- the team tickets, I mean," he fumbles. "You'd be off with the other friends and family. They're all great, I've met them before. And it's a little quieter there, I mean. Less... you know."

"Oh." Percy still isn't looking at him. But his shoulders loosen a little, and Oliver doesn't think he's imagining it when his voice lifts. "Okay."

He has no idea if the difference actually matters to him or not. He has no idea if Percy is even going to go in the first place, and if he does, if it's for a good reason or a bad one. He has no idea if it's even a good idea for him to go or not.

He has no idea what that damn word means anymore.

"Okay," Oliver agrees weakly.

And that'll have to be that.

Game day comes.

Oliver deliberately does not go home after their morning meet-up, instead spending the rest of the day helping set up for that night. He's already given Percy the tickets, and he'll either come or not; he doesn't want to linger around the flat and guilt him into showing up if that isn't what he wants.

He's not sure why the idea of him coming even has him so nervous in the first place. He knows Percy doesn't care about Quidditch, and it's not like Oliver's at the point in his career where he still needs to have a friend in the audience cheering for him. Sure, it'd be nice if he wanted to support him, but it's not like Percy is any sort of state to be worrying about that right now.

Oliver has just decided Percy's not in the state for a relationship right now. If Percy were well enough off that he'd just decide to come to a game he doesn't really care about to blow off some steam and have fun and improve Oliver's night, maybe that wouldn't be the case. But he knows Percy isn't going to show up, and that's why he's never even considered kissing him back.

It was probably dumb to bring up the tickets in the first place.

Oliver works off his nerves doing long, lazy warm-ups with their Beaters, and they watch grainy Muggle video footage of the team they're about to play-- teams with pureblood management still haven't caught on to that neat little trick-- and for the first time in a bloody year is finally able to feel that excited tingle in his chest that he only gets about the greatest sport in the world.

He really, really loves Quidditch.

When he finally takes to the sky, he's exhilarated. It's all the best parts of his very first game at Hogwarts and none of the bad ones. He ducks underneath a magically blown kiss and circles the stadium with the rest of the team, and he can feel it in the air; he's not the only one over the moon to have this again after last year. It's warm and the stadium is bright and the wind catches his sleeves and blows through his short hair, and everyone is screaming and cheering like animals, and it's the best he's felt in ages.

He splits off from the others as they circle towards where he knows where everyone's friends and family have gathered, and doesn't let himself linger on why. His shoulder doesn't hurt at all.

The game takes three and a half hours. Oliver misses four goals, blocks nineteen, and gets in a lucky headshot at the Beater who'd tried to clobber him off his broom. Which is not a foul if they deserve it, thank you very much, and the Beater is just headed back his way for another hit when the Snitch is caught and the game is over.

Oliver hasn't hit or even strained his shoulder even once, which is deserving of a drink. They win, which is deserving another. And gets in a smirk at the surly Beater as he flies off to rejoin the rest of his team, which deserves a third.

Best bloody day of the year.

It might actually literally be that, for him.

They'd expected it to be an easy win, and it was, but that doesn't mean they're still not going to go out celebrating to kick off a good start to the season with a bang. The Chasers are already bickering back and forth in French about which pub they're going to go to first as they land, finally headed out of the roaring applause and flashing lights, only to get hit with another round of it all the second they reach their team's locker room.

Oliver has actually forgotten entirely about his own anxiety tonight, giving a high-five to someone's brother and ducking again under a hug meant for someone else, grinning ear to ear. He's just here to celebrate and enjoy himself and relax, and that's all that's on his mind as he tugs his helmet off and leans his broom up with the others.

He stops short.

Percy is here after all.

He's disentangled himself from the crowd, still wearing his clothes from work that morning and standing uncomfortably near the back, looking very much like he wants nothing at all to do with the conversation that their Seeker and his girlfriend are trying to involve him in. He doesn't fit in in the slightest, not with his tie and work robes and dress shoes, and looks pale and tired and more uneasy by the second.

He's also here.

Percy raises a hand the second his scanning eyes land on him, looking almost painfully relieved. He has to start ducking his way around others to reach him too, and Oliver meets him halfway, grabbing his hand and tugging him over to a quieter corner.

"You-- you came," he says breathlessly.

"You asked me to." His face is pink and his hair is windswept, and he sniffs, holding his head high. "And. And I really have to insist. I don't get the sense of a spectator sport when you're all so far away I can't even tell if you actually got hit by a Bludger or not, I think you're all maniacs, really, I do-"

This time, Oliver kisses him.