A Tragic Future Undone
Percy was the only one left.
He still remembered their funerals. The slow, steady, mournful tune of the funeral march marching on. The caskets that looked too much like beds and less like boxes, as if his family had simply gone to sleep and never woken up. The sad, sympathetic, pitying faces of the mourners were burned into his memory, right along with the blank, pale, emotionless faces of his siblings and parents as they laid stiff and cold in the coffins.
Ginny’s funeral had been the first.
Eleven year old Ginny hadn’t even completed her first year at Hogwarts before she was dragged into the Chamber of Secrets, walked to her death like a puppet on strings, and had never come back out. Percy still remembered how the Aurors had descended into the now inactive Chamber Of Secrets and had brought Ginny’s body back up to carry her out on a stretcher, covered by a thin white sheet. Percy was grateful in a strange way that they covered her with the sheet. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t look at his baby sister, the one who had asked him to read to her every night, the one who had asked him to braid her hair when their mother was too busy, the one who had forced him to play dolls with her because their other brothers wouldn’t be caught dead playing with dolls. The baby sister that Percy had always tried to protect and had let down in the most spectacular fashion.
That summer, they buried Percy’s eleven year old baby sister in the apple orchard near the Burrow. He had barely seen his mother’s face for those long, two months as she wasted away by his sister’s grave everyday.
Next had been his father.
Percy hadn’t been home in over six months when he got the letter, informing him that his father had been attacked by a snake and was now in the hospital.
Percy had stared at the letter for hours before throwing it away. His father didn’t want to see him anyway.
A couple of days later, Percy got another letter, announcing that his father had died of an infection.
Percy went to the funeral but stood apart from everyone else. He could feel their glares and hatred without even looking at them. He felt it even more when he couldn’t bring himself to walk up to the coffin, to see the man who had kissed his forehead and bandaged his scraped knees and had waved goodbye at the train station as Percy went off to Hogwarts lying in that godforsaken box. He couldn’t even look at the face of his father, the father that Percy had always strived to make proud and had let down in the most spectacular fashion.
Bill had tried to approach him once, and Percy had turned on his heel and Apparated away before Bill had reached him.
He was a coward.
Bill had been next.
Bill had died alone on the cold, stone floors of Hogwarts, bleeding out from a hundred werewolf wounds. His funeral had been an open casket, despite the coroner’s warnings to his mother. Molly Weasley had demanded that she see her child’s face one last time before they put him in the ground, and the coroners had reluctantly agreed.
It was worse than any of them could have imagined.
Bill had always been the most handsome Weasley, but now, the handsome face that had once made girls swoon was completely mutilated. Deep gouges stretched across his cheeks, tearing cleanly through skin and exposing the muscle underneath. He didn’t even look like Bill anymore. He didn’t look like Percy’s big brother anymore.
The big brother that had allowed Percy to climb into his bed during thunderstorms because the lightning reminded Percy too much of the spells from the war, the ones that made people go to sleep and never wake up. The big brother that had snuck Percy into his dorm room when Percy got homesick on his first night at Hogwarts. The big brother that had congratulated him on Prefect and Headboy and getting a job at the Ministry straight out of Hogwarts. The big brother that Percy had always strived to make proud and had let down in the most spectacular fashion.
Percy couldn’t look at him anymore. He turned away and Apparated on the spot.
He was still a coward.
Charlie had died at some point during the war. Percy said at some point because no one knew exactly when. The Dragon Reserve he worked at had been attacked by Death Eaters looking to weaponize the dragons. All of the workers had been killed, including Charlie. By the time anyone came to check on the Dragon Reserve, days, maybe even weeks, had passed-with the cold of January, it was hard to tell- and all they could tell for sure was that Charlie had died from a Killing Curse.
Percy had taken one look at Charlie, and even though he looked peaceful compared to Bill’s maimed form, Percy had Apparated away and had thrown up into the nearest bush.
Percy was tired of being a coward.
Maybe that’s what made him show up at the Battle Of Hogwarts.
They accepted his apology. For the life of him, Percy couldn’t figure out why.
At least Fred hugged him one last time before he died, laughing at a stupid joke Percy had made before the wall behind him exploded and the smile had frozen on his face forever.
Ron and Hermione had died less than an hour later, killed by Nagini. Neville had been too late to save them, but Percy was thankful he had avenged them, slicing through the snake with the Sword of Gryffindor and then setting the snake’s corpse on fire.
Harry had followed his best friends, but at least he had taken Voldemort down with him. Harry’s Expilliarmus had deflected Voldemort’s Avada Kedavra, but as Voldemort fell, Bellatrix, enraged by her master’s death, had sent a Killing Curse at Harry’s back. This time, Harry did not survive the Killing Curse with nothing but a lightning scar to show for it.
Molly Weasley had lost too much. Five of her biological children and two of her honorary children were dead, and she was determined to take at least one of their killer’s down. She screamed so loudly in anguish and rage that Percy could hear it clear across the battlefield, and she attacked.
Molly Weasley and Bellatrix Lestrange dueled. Bellatrix hit Molly with a particularly brutal cutting curse, and blood gushed from a dozen slices all over the mother who felt like she had nothing left to lose, but for every curse Bellatrix got in, Molly got in two.
Molly had hit Bellatrix with a Blood-Boiling Curse, had conjured three snakes to attack her, had gotten in a cutting curse of her own, and had finally finished Bellatrix off with a Killing Curse before she went down.
By the time Percy got across the battlefield, it was too late. His mother had lost too much blood, and Percy’s mother had died in his arms.
And just like that, George and Percy were the only ones left.
Only a week later, George willingly and purposefully downed a vial of poison, and then, Percy was the only one left.
Percy had nothing left to lose.
It only took him two months consisting of mostly sleepless nights to create the illegal Time Turner.
It only took him half a second to turn it and erase the past seven years.