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A few days after Percy is summarily rejected by his co-prefect when asking her to the last Hogsmeade weekend of the year, he ends up wandering the halls. Maybe he’s not cool enough to take to Hogsmeade, but he thought they had enough of rapport after a year of working together to make going out a no-brainer. He didn't expect that she would laugh at him in addition to rejecting him. Just another rejection in a long stream of them.
Too different for his family.
Too bookish to be friends with most of the guys in his house.
He finds himself on the third floor and remembers the warning.
"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."
This is about time other kids are already talking to McGonagall about how Snape is after the stone.
Percy sees a trapdoor under a snoozing dog and hears a harp playing a relaxing tune. He wonders what’s going on. Already one of those days, and perhaps a little exhausted from emotional upheavals and OWL induced stress, he decides to go forward and check it out, seeing as nothing is going his way things can’t get much worse, and he is a Gryffindor.
As someone who just sat twelve OWLs, he can easily get past the Devil's Snare, a quick first year spell, Lumos Solem, and he’s on his way to a brightly lit chamber. And seriously, he might not be the most Weasley of the Weasleys, but every Weasley can fly. After opening the door and adjusting to the dark, he sees a human sized game of wizard’s chess. Who do you think taught Ron half of his current strategies? Even if playtime didn’t result in his brother thinking more than two steps ahead, he still plays often and can manage a win half the time. Already downed trolls are simple to walk past, but the smell was something awful. He’s already on edge by the time he hit’s the sixth chamber. A logic puzzle isn’t that difficult for the most logical Weasleys.
Wand ready, because what can possibly be good about someone who travels these challenges intentionally, he wonders what that says about his mental state. Years with the twins have been survived by not letting them get the jump on him, so after downing the potion and crossing the flames a banisher fires off into the distracted Professor.
Percy feels a bit panicked about throwing his professor against a wall, but he wasn’t really thinking and would likely have attacked anyone or anything on the other side of the fire. Percy goes to check on him but gets distracted by the mirror in front of him. A disembodied voice talking about the stone finally makes all those random questions about Flamel make since. He wonders why anyone would want such a lonely life as he looks at the mirror.
In the mirror he sees, what he assumes is, an older version of himself grinning, dotingly holding in his arms a lady who looks at him with love in her eyes. She puts a stone in his pocket and kisses the older him on his cheek. The mirror him isn’t surrounded by his current family, but he sees a few friends, and a few kids tugging on his trouser legs. He feels underappreciated with his current family, maybe he ought to work towards finding his own. That image in the mirror isn’t a bad goal to work towards.
He walks back through the maze and catches the kids before they approach the door. He reassures them that Snape is not down there, and whatever is there is going to be safe, and escorts them back to the dorms. Hermione may have gotten Neville with a body bind, but she would never throw a curse Percy’s way. They follow him begrudgingly. He’s their prefect, so he is adamant that they get to bed. A restless night follows to ensure his charges don’t sneak off before the morning. He does consider stopping by the Owlery to send a letter with Hermes but decides that whatever is going on in the out of bounds corridor is nothing that can’t be solved in the morning.
Meanwhile a disoriented Quirrell approaches the mirror at his master’s behest. He stares at his reflection. The trap works. Dumbledore returns and can contain this threat to his school. This isn’t something he was sure that could work, in fact it had a less than a five percent chance of success. He risked putting kids in harm's way in hopes that he could prevent another war.
Luckily, he’s able to leave this work to adults, rather than relying on another prophetic miracle. An alchemical concoction he prepared to immobilize a foe for transport, something he once used after his duel with Gellert, can contain both professor and wraith. Dumbledore knows about the unicorn blood. Voldemort is doomed. His current life is cursed, and the only escape from this alchemical prison is death, which is prevented from the blood he consumed, the trap works.
Dumbledore calls upon his brother to bond a hidden place. In Dumbledore’s mind, you can always count on family, even if the disagreements are unreconcilable. He hides his cursed trapped former student/defense professor in a safe place only he and his brother can access.
Percy goes through the motions the next morning and is awarded 50 points for keeping students from misadventures. Since the points are awarded the day after, there no upsets with the house cup. Gryffindor did win their Quidditch game because Harry wasn’t incapacitated, though Harry did have to spend a night cleaning in the trophy room.
Percy notices that Harry seems unhappy. He wishes people would notice when he looked like that. He takes his prefect responsibilities seriously. Percy offers a sympathetic shoulder to Harry. Harry tells him about a recent conversation with the headmaster and how he feels unsafe with the Dursleys. Harry is a little tired from the end of the year drama and ends up oversharing. Percy doesn’t know how to react to Harry’s confession about living in the cupboard under the stairs, so he tells Harry that he’ll write, and that if anything happens, he will make sure someone can help him. If Dumbledore says Harry must go back for protection, then Percy will ensure that Harry is treated properly while staying there.
The summer comes along and after writing a letter to Harry and waiting a week for a reply that never comes, he ends up writing Dumbledore. He mentions the lack of replies, the cupboard under the stairs, the worry that some families don’t appreciate their kids like they should, he implores Dumbledore to check on Harry, because protecting Harry from external forces won’t help him if he’s hurt from the inside.
Having a good week so far, Dumbledore figures he should check in on Harry, their small conversation at the end of the year was unpleasant, so he should really find some time to talk face to face, outside of conversations to reject a summer stay at Hogwarts. Historically the last orphan who requested to stay over the summer didn’t come back to Hogwarts a better person.
So, Dumbledore shows up, invites himself in, and walks to Harry’s room. He’s a little disgusted at locks on exterior of door, the cat flap, and the smell. He’s disturbed by how many of his assumptions have been turned on his head. Until Dumbledore can figure the Voldemort situation out, the prophecy is in play, and he must assume Harry will be pivotal to Voldemort’s demise. Harry’s mother’s protection, tied to her blood, may be the lynchpin in the coming war. He suspects something off about the scar but can’t do anything to remove the mark or he could be ensuring dark days.
Dumbledore decides to call in Severus, because while he could handle the Dursleys, he’d rather leave others to do so.
While Severus is getting a full history and potentially casting a compulsion or two, Dumbledore looks the other way and fixes up Harry’s room. Dumbledore calls Lemny, his house elf, to help and assures Harry three meals a day and access to his school supplies so that Harry can read and do homework. He apologizes for the home situation and assures him he’ll keep an eye on things.
After Dumbledore mentions Percy writing, Harry mentions he hasn’t gotten any letters. Luckily Lemny catches Dobby just in time for them to handle the mail situation. While Dobby warns of danger at Hogwarts, he’s not clear on what that danger is. Dumbledore makes a pact with himself to be vigilant in the coming school year.
Dumbledore drops by the burrow and thanks Percy and tells him that this kind of “looking out for charges” behavior is making him a shoo-in for Head Boy. Percy is now happy, and this triggers a fierce protective instinct inside of Percy. He’s going to be a more diligent prefect in the coming year.
After the embarrassing bookshop brawl, his sister starts acting weird. Very weird. He keeps an eye out. He learnt from his first year as a prefect to look for trouble when kids go quiet.
By first attack he’s leading the headcount effort. The current fifth year prefects don’t take their role as serious as he’d like. He’s sure of this by the time the Creevy kid gets petrified. While the fifth-year prefects may be slacking, he’s paying enough attention to know his sister is both unaccounted for and is acting off during the time of this latest attack.
Ginerva won’t talk about what’s bothering her, not to him, not to the female Gryffindor prefects. Not to the Ravenclaw Prefect, Penelope Clearwater, who’s been accompanying him on rounds lately and is quite easy to talk to. This year’s Hogsmeade is a sure to be entertaining with this pretty Ravenclaw accompanying him.
Percy figures asking someone to swipe Ginny’s diary is the lesser of two evils in this situation. They need to know what’s going on with her, and if something is causing her to go all quiet, they fear for the worse. He knows that not all students are ethical and worries someone is misbehaving with his little sister.
The diary is empty. They take it Flitwick. Flitwick is the guy in another timeline who would be trusted to examine a firebolt for dark arts and he’s the guy who can cast protections on Hogwarts that are strong enough to cause Voldemort backlash. He’s a dueling champion, he’s a brilliant charms master, so when examining the diary, he can tell something is off.
When Flitwick examines the diary, all hell breaks loose. He knows exactly what it is. They get real curse breakers in; the ones people don’t talk about from the Department of Mysteries. While Dumbledore hates stuff out of his control, he doesn’t have this kind of expertise.
Dumbledore asks about tracking down more of this malevolent magic and enquires if it can be safely extracted from a living person. While he and the healers he trusted couldn’t help Harry, he never considered rather than dark magic taint, the scar could be a curse.
The night of the second attack Lemny is still on the lookout, so Dobby ends up hogtied when coming to the hospital after fixing bludgers. Dobby ends up working at Hogwarts once one of the other house-elves lets him know that while the Wizards can dismiss them, house-elves can voluntarily transfer services on their own. He ends up working for Harry, after going through the Lemny training course the rest of the school year. While it’s shameful to get dismissed, meaning an elf understand their master enough to know their services weren’t wanted or apricated. The house-elveshave free agency. Their magic works better when doing work for others, but there’s no physical bond, just an empathetic appreciation.
By the time Harry is ready to leave the hospital wing, the curse breakers tell him to stay put and get Harry fixed up quickly. They recommend some nutritional potions after a closer medical examination. No bones to regrow, Madam Pomfrey wouldn’t have missed that, but Harry could use some more meat on his bones.
The hunting team uses the diary to track down other Horcruxes. Walburga is dead, and they need access to 12 Grimmauld Place. They investigate ownership and find it belongs to Sirius Black, and that opens another can of worms.
Dumbledore is pissed, he assumed there was a trial, after all a pretrial confession isn’t enough reason to send someone to Azkaban, otherwise people would Imperio others into taking the fall and going to jail for them.
He calls for a trial, Dumbledore is visibly pissed, so his magic is doing that thing where it makes everyone nearly piss themselves. Sirius is out and into holding cells almost immediately. And the trial is short. Illegal animagi is a fine normally and time in Azkaban only as secondary offense (if used for spying or trespassing, etc.). He’s finally free and uses only a fraction of his compensation money to pay the fine. He’s pissed about Pettigrew’s Order of Merlin, that scum is a war hero. After he figures out it was awarded posthumously, he gathers himself enough to ask if anyone knows of a rat with a missing toe.
By the time Albus shares that detail in the staff meeting, Minerva sprinting, with a team of professors following her, to the boy’s dorm. They capture Pettigrew. He ends up breaking a leg or two curtesy of an angry Severus Snape.
Seeing and wanting to be part of the spotlight, Lockhart pulls another Lockhart special after claiming crime or no crime we shouldn’t let people stay injured. Lockhart shows off his healing talents and Pettigrew no longer has bones in his right leg. If Lockhart could maintain a poker face, maybe his peers would start to think he’s a secret genius, but he’s not that fast. They look at him with clear disdain and he retreats from the room. Now Peter is missing bones in one leg and has another fractured, so he’s not going anywhere besides a holding cell.
A few weeks later and Sirius mentally sound enough to get the rundown on the Harry and Horcrux situation. Sirius can see that Dumbledore has made some mistakes, but most of those decisions were made with good intentions.
After all Dumbledore was handling the chaos involved with wrapping up a war, he shouldn’t have to make people do their jobs, but at least he realized people were idiots in time to get some of the more volatile death munchers locked up.
Sirius is not exactly happy about the Harry situation, but he can agree that James lack of estate planning probably made blood relatives the best of available options, seeing as everyone wanted to adopt the hero child. Sirius agrees that blood protection is fine until they wrap up Horcrux situation but wants visitation on weekend and the go ahead to take Harry on a vacation or two. The blood protection will be fine so long as Harry calls Privet Drive home.
After a tear rendering story from Kreacher, they get locket horcrux. The curse breakers have already gotten the horcrux from Room of Requirement with Lemny’s help. They recovered the ring from the Gaunt shack while Sirius was recovering. All that’s left is horcrux in Gringotts. There’s no way a bank is okay holding on to a piece of soul, so after a quick conversation they recover and destroy that bit too.
Percy wrote the Flamel family before or during the Harry situation. Percy still doesn’t want eternal life, and while he could use some money, using misappropriated possessions is too much like theft for a Weasley to stomach. The Flamel’s don’t want the stone back. They mention that if he passed the mirror character test, then he’s the type of person who can be trusted to safeguard it in the future, they leave him a vault. Percy doesn’t tell anyone but takes the knight bus to Gringotts and leaves it in the vault the gifted to him. He doesn’t feel bad when he grabs a handful of gallons before heading out. Having someone will something to you, along with responsibility, is a job, not a handout.
Percy is a bit happier now that he’s sort of adopted Harry. And while Harry sees his godfather as a funny uncle, he seeks out the stable older brother figure in Percy to talk to. Afterall, talking to Percy in the past has literally changed Harry’s life for the better. Harry knows Percy will take steps to protect him, and others, from danger and keep him out of trouble. Harry wants to be like Percy when he’s older, but he doesn’t voice this out loud to anyone outside of Hermione. He assumes the others wouldn’t understand.
On the Hogwarts Express, on way back to Hogwarts, he had hugged Percy and thanked him for taking care of him over the summer. Percy told Harry that he could come to him anytime. Percy is the first authority-type figure to be there for him. After seeing how much Percy cared for his family members, even with them not appreciating how cool Percy is, he’s even more impressed.
The Ginny situation could have been bad, but due to Percy’s intervention not only was it resolved, but people also even came to deal with the scar he used to like. Life without it is one where he can become his own person. Real heroes are like Percy, they don’t flaunt their accomplishments like that fop of a defense professor, they just try to do their best.
Harry marks down all electives outside of divination for next year. He’s going to continue trying his best. He wants to be someone Percy can be proud of. This relationship goes both ways, people can make their own family
All the horcruxes are taken care of, Harry is cleansed, Dumbledore lets the team of specialists deal with Quirrell. During that process both Quirrell and Voldemort move on to their next great misadventure.
Lucius Malfoy is arrested for giving a cursed diary to a minor. He manages to negotiate house arrest for 10 years and agrees to stay out of politics. He ends up funding a division of curse breakers attached to auror department. He also provides funds for St Mungo's, for those damaged by dark curses. To compensate Hogwarts, he buys new brooms for rest of houses and new training brooms. While he took a large financial hit and can no longer participate in politics, he’s not being constantly tortured, so he’s begrudgingly happy. Narcissa takes a few vacations with just her and Draco. Without his father’s influence Draco learns to stop spewing as much of the normal pureblood stuff.
Third year for Harry comes along, and while he’s busy with his schedule, he’s truly starting to succeed as a student. A family friend as a defense professor helps him feel safe in the castle. The curse lifted with Voldemort’s death, so hopefully this is the start of a good trend. Harry spends his Hogsmeade weekends with friends while Percy spends his with Penelope.
The summer before Harry’s fourth year has only a little drama. The Aurors handle the situation with attack on world cup smoothly, a certain potions professor warned of potential unrest. Barty Crouch Jr. and his father are arrested, quickly trialed, and thrown in Azkaban. By the time the tournament kicks off, Harry's not in it. He is very happy to be out of the spotlight. He does make a challenge for himself to attend the Yule ball.
Harry writes Percy to ask for advice on figuring out who to take. While Percy has some trauma from rejection in the past, his time with Penelope has healed those wounds. Percy knows enough to recommend that a solid relationship starts with someone you enjoy spending time with.
Percy tells Harry that he’d have more fun with a girl who sees him as him, someone who can handle a little attention without balking.
Harry thinks of that cute girl Luna who he met on the train, she’s a little quirky, but she doesn’t bug him about stuff he doesn’t want to talk about. He runs it by his surrogate sister Hermione, who confirms that she also sees him like a brother. He musters the nerve to ask Luna to next Hogsmeade weekend and the Ball. She says yes. Hermione ends up going to the ball with Victor.
Percy shows up to represent the Department of International Magical Co-operation. The rest of the department is still dealing with the fallout of the Barty Crouch debacle and aftereffects of the world cup. The ceremonial parts of the Triwizard Tournament aren’t a high priority. The current department head is more than happy to dispatch this up-and-coming employee to represent them in this event, while the rest of them deal with legwork necessary to make sure the upcoming tasks go off without a hitch. He figures a younger guy like Percy would enjoy the Yule Ball more than an old hat and figures it can act as sort of a reward. Percy shows up with Penelope on his arm and seems to be handling his additional responsibilities well.
Ten Years Later
Percy, Senior Undersecretary for the Minister of Magic, former Head Boy, (unofficial) older brother to Harry Potter, (unofficial) coolest Weasley. He has a wife who he loves and two kids – an adorable son named Nickolas and a beautiful baby girl called Hope.
Percy is headed to work. His kids are trying to climb his trouser legs to keep him from leaving the house. He leans up against his wife Penelope as she wraps him in a hug and tucks a note in his pocket while planting a kiss on his cheek. He pauses and remembers seeing this image in the mirror a long time ago and smiles. After he floos to the office, he opens the note.
Remember, Harry and Luna are coming today with little Orion. Don’t let work keep you late. Love you. – Penny.
He’s out the floo at 5pm and back at his cozy house and with his wife and kids. Dinner comes around and he’s surrounded by people who care about him.