Hogs Head
The weekend finishes in a blink of an eye.
With their home clean and tidy and no children to mind under his feet, Percy finds himself a bit restless after work. In a previous life, all he did was work; but now that the Ministry and well-staffed and well managed (He knows it’s Hermione’s doing. If she decides to run for Minister, he’d endorse her fully), there’s little work to take home. Not to mention there’s no threat of a looming war. There’s no risk to lives if he messes up some paperwork. Not that he thinks about that much.
During the start of the war, he had been an idiot.
He had put his faith in a system that was supposed to be just, and it failed him. When he came to his senses, his family had already sworn their allegiance to Albus Dumbledore. Percy had fought with his father about it. Dumbledore was using them all for his own agenda, and just like he hadn’t seen the Ministry for what it was, so were his family with Dumbledore.
People seemed to forget that Percy had been there during the Tri-Wizard Tournament. He had been there when Harry had pulled his brother out of that lake, and he had been there when Cedric’s body was discovered in front of that crowd. Dumbledore had let that happen, despite knowing the risks. Not to mention, he hadn’t closed the school during Ginny’s first year. He hadn’t even had a teacher write to his parents that Ginny was a good as dead, trapped in the Chamber of Secrets. He had asked Percy to do it. That was something Percy would never forgive Albus Dumbledore for. Percy had been sixteen and scared to death and that old crackpot had asked him to write a letter to his family telling them to get to the school because their daughter was practically dead.
Trying to avoid his empty home, Percy goes to the Hogs Head. He takes a Portkey to Hogsmeade and lands right in front of the old inn.
As he approaches, the creaking wooden sign sways gently in the summer breeze, its weathered surface adorned with a slightly off-kilter, hand-painted hog's head. Percy looks at it for a moment- it had been updated from the worn-out wooden sign with a wild boar's severed head leaking blood onto the white cloth around it. The old bastard must have finally tossed the old sign away.
He enters.
The Hog’s Head Inn is in one word, gross. The entire place is comprised of one small, dingy, and very dirty room that smells, strongly of goats. It’s a grubby pub, the tables are all broken, and the entire place looks like it hadn’t been cleaned in more than a decade. To be fair, it probably hadn’t. The windows are so encrusted with grime it’s impossible to see out them, the only light in the place coming from the stubs of candles sitting on rough wooden tables.
The place is nearly empty. There’s goblin in the corner nursing a mug of something that smells like blood. Percy merely nods in greeting. The goblin ignores him. There’s a witch at one of the tables playing a card game by herself. She places a card down and cackles loudly like she’s just won, nearly knocking over her drink in the process.
Percy walks up to the bar. Above the bar is the mounted the head of a boar, which was enchanted to seem alive. Percy had to admit it did have quite a fearsome look to it with four tusks, one of which was broken still, and a scar over its left eye. There’s a large amount of drool dripping out of its mouth. It snorts at Percy sits as he sits.
An old wizard looks up from the ancient wooden till. Percy nods at him.
“Hello Aberforth.”
The dour man grunts, looking unpleased. But he still puts a glass full of firewhiskey in front of Percy without a word. Percy takes it.
Their relationship was… complicated to say the least. But they understood each other. Both of them had been estranged from their families, both of them thought their brothers were idealistic and unreasonable. Common ground breeds familiarity.
After the fight with his father, Percy had been at an impasse. He knew what was going on was wrong, but he couldn’t just join the Order and start throwing spells left and right. That would only bring trouble. That would only bring attention. So, Percy did the only thing he knew how- bureaucracy.
It hadn’t been easy at first. He hadn’t wanted to spy for the Order, but his current connections would only get him so far. Not to mention he wasn’t sure who he could trust not to rat him out to either Order itself or to the Ministry. He hadn’t even been sure who was in the Order besides his family, so he made his best guest. Who did he know who hated authority and could keep their mouth shut?
Nymphadora Tonks.
Before everything went to hell, he had cornered her as she left the Auror’s office. She had tried to play dumb at first, but with one eyeroll from Percy and few harsh words, she’d given in. If anyone understood being the black sheep, it was Tonks. She had grown up her whole life with a mother who was the black sheep of her family, and Tonks herself had been seen as a bit odd due to her Metamorphmagus abilities.
In the end, he offered to spy but only for information. No tasks, no orders, no missions. That was all he was able to offer her. With that offer came the Hog’s Head and thus Aberforth, as the middleman. Percy would go to the pub after work and discreetly drop information through enchanted coins. It was a bit of tricky magic, but he was able to charm his money so that when the correct word was recited, the ridges of the coins would raise into tiny letters.
Aberforth, the old coot, would the coins to Tonks, who would decipher the coins, get it to the order. Aberforth was the reason Percy had known the battle was occurring. He had sent his Patronus to inform Percy and let him use the secret passageway to get to the school without a second thought. For that, he had Percy’s respect.
The glass in front of Percy is emptied quickly. Aberforth sets another one in front of Percy without asking. Percy nods gratefully. When he had quiet days like this, the bite of the stuff was the only thing that would numb him enough to feel human. Aberforth understood that. Percy wasn’t sure half the time what the old man was thinking, but sometimes he’d look behind that dirty lenses of his spectacles and see piercing, brilliant blue eyes. Eyes that understood a lot more than Aberforth let on.
All the drops, all the listening and spying that he did, it wasn’t enough. After the Death Eaters took over Hogwarts, and Percy’s role at worked changed from menial tasks to recording muggleborn trials, he knew something needed to give. It was either his pride or his loyalty.
Forging the papers had been the easy part.
Getting them back into the court records without being noticed was another matter. Penelope had been his first attempt. He forged a family tree to include a distant great-aunt of the Clearwater line having magic and managed to slip it into her file before her own trial, during which she had been cleared. Penny had been very, very confused, but was smart enough to keep her mouth shut about her forged lineage.
Percy never told her that he was the one who changed the records.
After that, work became his life. Every day he’d go into work early, getting his tasks done. He’d stay late into the night, often bringing records home with him. He would painstakingly cast spells with a steady hand, line-by-line, imbibing his own magic into the family trees. He would spend hours later into the night coaxing the words to change, line by line. Then when he was sure it was fine, he’d carefully sneak the forms back into the induvial files, so when they were pulled by Umbridge’s people their lineage would be unquestioned.
It took over everything. He’d been so busy that he’d neglected everything from his friendships to his health and even his own mail and correspondence. He hadn’t even noticed that his mother’s Christmas gift to him had been returned to her. It was unopened because he hadn’t been there to receive it.
As the war went on, he started getting more and more family trees to study, and more papers to forge. The lies piled up. Whenever he dropped information at the Hog’s Head, he was sure his stress was apparent to Aberforth. This is when their wordless fire whiskey tradition had started. Percy was worried all the time. His stomach hurt constantly, and he would sometimes throw up blood which had gathered in his stomach from the ulcers he developed from the stress. His hair was turning grey at barely twenty, and he was rarely able to sleep without the aid of whiskey. He would get sick constantly, and he lost weight he couldn’t afford to lose.
It was a good thing he’d master cosmetic spells, because his guilt would be written all over his face if he wasn’t. He was good, yes. But not that good.
Percy still remembers the names of the Muggleborns he failed to save.
One of the worst days of his life had been when he had picked up a morning copy of the Prophet and saw the photo of a mutilated bodies of a family that he had forged papers for. He vomited bile and blood in the bathroom, rinsed out his mouth, and went into work. He remembers their faces. He remembers all of them, the ones he saved, and the ones lost. In the back of his wardrobe was a small piece of parchment, where he recorded the names in tiny penmanship. Maybe one day he’d have the courage to read it.
Percy never told anyone.
Not his parents or siblings, not Audrey. Not Penelope, or even Tonks. For all the Metamorphmagus knew, he was only dropping information. He’s pretty sure that Aberforth knew he was forging documents in addition to spying, but the old man never said anything. After Tonks died, he was sure his last connection to the Order was erased from memory. No one would know he had helped, and that was the way he wanted it.
Still, there were times, right after the war, when Kingsley would give him an odd look as he worked, leaning over his desk with his back aching and his temples throbbing, before shaking his head and leaving him alone. Like he was sure that Percy knew more than he was letting on.
During nights like these, when he was alone with his thoughts, he found himself reflecting on the war. On Fred, the brother he failed to save. If he closes his eyes, he can still hear the wall falling. A sound that could only be dulled but never silenced.
He drains his second glass. Aberforth sets a third in front of him, looking at him with those piercing eyes. Percy feels something in the corner of his mind.
“I wish you’d just ask rather than use Legilimency.” Percy tells the man.
“I’d have just asked if your thoughts weren’t so loud.”
“Sorry. Old memories.”
“That wasn’t very old.”
Percy looks up from his drink suddenly. Aberforth is staring at him.
“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”
Aberforth snorts. “She don’t treat you right.”
Percy groans into his drink. He must have sifted through his jumbled, drunken thoughts and saw something about Audrey. “Not you too. I’ve got it handled.”
Aberforth raises a grizzled eyebrow.
“Just drop it. Please.”
The old wizard nods and goes back to polishing a glass with a dirty rag and Percy is grateful. Aberforth was may things; grouchy and abrasive and too obsessed with goats for his own good, but he knew to respect boundaries. Percy’s managed to gather some information here and there about the man. He’s pretty sure he had a son, once. Aberforth had mentioned it in passing. Maybe that’s why despite his ornery personality and Percy’s general uptightness they’re able to understand one another.
Percy goes back to his drink, trying very hard to think about Audrey. He loved her, he did. She was he whole life, her and the girls. She just had some things she needed to work through, and she was in counseling, wasn’t she? Every couple had their rocky patches.
“Not like that.” Aberforth comments suddenly.
Percy sighs. “I’m going to leave if you keep doing that.”
Aberforth refills Percy’s glass and pours himself one. Percy raises an eyebrow. Aberforth hardly drank with patron, Percy least of all. The one time he had was right after the battle.
“She doesn’t treat you very well, boy.” He takes a sip of his drink.
“Why does everyone keep saying that? We’re fine.”
Aberforth peers at him over his dirty spectacles thoughtfully.
“Where is she, then?”
Percy rolls his eyes. “She’s with the kids at her sister’s. I couldn’t get time off of work, so they had to go without me.”
The old wizard hums considerably. “Did you tell her that?”
Percy pauses, glass halfway to lips. “What do you mean? Of course, I-,” he hesitates. Audrey had told him that she had told him they had discussed her visiting her sister and that he couldn’t go because of work. Percy had once been certain that he hadn’t, but Audrey had seemed so sure… not that it made any sense, because Percy certainly had many vacation days saved up.
“I-, of course I did.” Percy finishes solidly, his head getting fuzzy. His drinking habits were another thing leftover from the war. He’d calmed down considerably, but it still takes him several drinks to feel tipsy. “I must have.”
Aberforth nods, letting Percy think on it. He swallows his drink in one long sip. When he’s done, he levels those blue eyes on Percy.
“Don’t lose yourself in this.”
Percy can only nod. Aberforth takes Percy’s glass from him. Instead of placing a fifth glass in front of him, he sets a bowl of a hearty stew in front of him. It smells delightful, with hunks of potato and beef. This is the part of the night when Aberforth effectively cuts him off. The food is enough to sober him up.
When he finishes the stew, he places more money than he owes on the counter, nods at Aberforth, and walks back to the Floo station. He’s clear-headed enough that he can find his way safely to his home. Once he’s inside, he collapses into his armchair. He doesn’t turn the lights on, he doesn’t light a fire. He doesn’t change out of his clothes. He only takes off his glasses and leans back in his armchair. He supposes he should be thinking about Audrey, but he doesn’t Instead he thinks about what could have been.
If only he had been a bit braver. If he had been quicker. If he had been smarter.
Only if Fred would still be alive.
Then Percy would be okay.