Just a Bit of Reflection
I think I wrote this to get an lj code for one of my friends. Yay whoring the talents what God gave you, eh?

Just a Bit of Reflection 5-31-02
Summary: Percy tries to work out his Issues. Percy's Issues: laughing, pistachio ice cream, profanity, Ministry policy, family, and a former Gryffindor Quidditch captain.
Rating: PG



It's been very hard, this...quietness.

I wasn't always like this. Well, actually, I probably was. I was probably always withdrawn, and for good reason. I have two older brothers and three younger ones, all with personalities so vibrant you'd think they'd march around in separate entities from my brothers' bodies. Who was I to fight that outnumbered battle, how was I supposed to take on five huge personas all on my own?

Of course, this is just an excuse. My brothers aren't responsible for me. I am.

I wish I hadn't acted myself into this corner. Of course, I wish I hadn't done many things. But for each thing I HAVE done, there are five I HAVEN'T that I kick myself for. Like...not ever playing in the rain. Ever. I was never a play-in-the-rain sort of person, I told myself. Sit-in-the-rain, stand-in-the-rain, be-drenched-by-the-rain-in-a-monumentally-depressing- manner, of course. But I never played in it.

I never told Penny that her theories on the involvement of wizards in the French Revolution (Robespierre was NOT a Slytherin!) were complete bollocks.

I never felt brave enough to eat pistachio ice cream. I maintain it still looks alarmingly like frozen mucus.

...I never told Oliver...

I've never even said "fuck." I KNOW the word, after all. I did go through seven years of education with other adolescents, and that will give anyone a pretty thorough basis in the study of profanity. But I never have actually said it. Thought it a million times, of course. But I've never actually SPOKEN it...Even as I write this, my lips won't move silently as I pen the word.

I think perhaps this is indicative of my personality. I can think the most incredibly awful and inappropriate things, but when it comes to actually voicing these thoughts, I fail. It has probably saved me a lot of embarrassment, of course, but it has probably cost me a few friends and laughs too. But safety above all, of course, or I'm not Percy Weasley.

I could use laughs. I haven't laughed enough. That is the biggest regret of my life: not laughing. And I could have laughed. Oh, I'm sure I could have.

I could have told Fred and George about the time I switched the apple juice in their baby bottles with urine. I would have laughed at that. Especially at the way they kept screaming and screaming about it until finally Mum hit them with Silencing Charms and ordered them to finish their juice or they'd get the belt. They're not the only ones in the family with an appreciation of irony.

I could have told Penny the TRUTH when we broke up, I could have told her that I really fancy boys and that the only reason I was dating her was that her hands looked uncannily like Oliver's--she had man-looking hands.

I could have told Oliver that the real reason I requested a private room in my seventh year was not because of the added stress of being Head Boy, but because my...erm...dreams were becoming a rather shameful habit and I was afraid he would hear me groaning about HIM in my sleep. This is also why I have Soundproofing Charms on my bedroom at home, though I let the twins think it is for some reason because of them. Whatever makes them happy, I guess.

I could have told Mum and Dad that I hadn't really saved a Muggle woman from a few thieves and inadvertently had my wrists grazed by one thief's knife--that the scars were from that particularly painful night last spring when Ron, Hermione and Harry disappeared from Hogsmeade and the Ministry was attacked. I was the only one from my department to make it out--I've often wondered what God meant by that. And then the reports came in that a Quidditch game in Puddlemere (Oliver was there) had been ambushed and that most of the players had died trying to fight off the Death Eaters since they were the only ones that had their wands. My God, I was the one who had the eminently brilliant idea to confiscate spectators' wands at matches in the first place to avoid attacks. Fortunately, no one seems to remember.

But I do.

Oh dear, I'm crying again.

Thank God Oliver was all right.

...I don't know what God meant by THAT, either.

I've not been a good older brother to the twins and Ron and Ginny. I never had a talk with Ron to get him to tell Hermione how he felt about her. I never told Ginny about the painfully obvious glances Harry kept shooting her when he was here over the summer. I'm sure they'll figure it out on their own, after all, they don't need my help. But I wish I would have given it to them, just the same.

I wish I would've helped the twins learn a bit of humility by practicing Leg-Locker Curses on them a bit.

I haven't told Mum I don't like corned beef. I haven't told Dad that it's pronounced ee-leck-TRIH-sih-tee.

I STILL haven't told Oliver...

But that's the good thing about life, isn't it? You're never stuck in a situation you can't get out of. You can fight anything, you can walk away from anything, and you can always walk up to something and slam it dead between the eyes and then run like hell.

Right. No more "haven't"s.

I'm going to go tell Oliver.