Death.
That's what everyone was so afraid of. What everyone wanted to avoid.
Everyone was always so worried that they would die.
Of all things Percy didn't understand, this was one of the most confusing ones.
Who's life is so good that they want to stay here?
People striving for immortality? Yeah, Percy really did not understand that. If Percy ever had to make a list of people he though were most insane, Voldemort and Nicholas Flamel would be at the top of the list.
Immortality.
Who the fuck wants that?
Surely not Percy Weasley.
He would even go so far as to say that the thought of morality was the only thing that comforted him these days.
Immortality was infinite pain, suffering, longing, loss. An infinite amount of time being trapped in the carbon prison called our bodies.
Mortality was infinite nothingness. There's no pain or suffering in nothing. Nothing to think about.
Simply devoid of existence.
That, Percy Weasley thought, that sounded like pure bliss.
The day the Earth, his body, or some faceless wizard finally looked at him with pitiful eyes and just
let
him
go.
into nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Simply says
you no longer have to carry the burden of existence.
But not life. Percy Weasley had not been alive for a very long time. He'd rid of that awhile ago.
But it had been seventeen long, long years and still no one had decided to just do it and take him out.
Not even one of Fred and George's pranks. He'd found himself getting less and less annoyed with them, hoping one day one would go wrong and he'd just no longer exist.
But no,
Fred and George couldn't even do that right.
But Percy no longer wanted to leave his timely demise up to Fred or some random death eater that went fuck it and decided to kill some random Hogwarts student.
Percy had always been independent. After all, his parents had seven children to look after and he simply just got stuck in the middle.
He was
quiet
sensitive
well behaved
self sufficient,
of course he needed less attention than his siblings.
Percy knew that, for this, he'd have to pick up his independence and do this for himself too.
It wasn't that Percy hated life or looking at the shining sun, he just despised breathing in oxygen and did not see the point of continuous suffering and ridicule if he was inevitably going to be sent into non-existence at some point or another.
But at the same time, there were some things about existence that Percy did not completely hate.
The sun
the moon
the stars
flowers
clouds
Penelope Clearwater
Oliver Wood
but,
they were no longer enough to keep Percy willing to prolong his own existence.
So one night, after Percy had finished his transfiguration essay on account of not wanting to let down Professor McGonagall, he sent an owl to his mum and dad, simply saying,
Dear Mother and Father,
I'm sorry for this.
-Percy
And just sent it. He simply had nothing else to add to the curt letter, had nothing more to add to the world.
Percy wanted to see Oliver right before he left, for he did not want the one thing he left behind in the world to be pain.
But Oliver was at quidditch practice.
Percy wanted to see Penny before he left.
But Penny was working on a potions essay.
And Percy did not want to pull Oliver or Penny away from things that mattered to them.
Percy wasn't worth it; they'd get mad at him for interrupting, Percy was sure.
So he did what he did best and disappeared. Disappeared from his dorm to go disappear from the world. He walked the long journey to the astronomy tower, completely alone.
Once he got there, he looked at the stars, the same exact stars he could see from his window at The Burrow.
The same stars that wizards had been looking up at for hundreds of years.
which almost comforted him.
The stars live so long they may as well be immortal
but
humans, wizards, muggles,
completely mortal.
The stars burning since the beginning of the universe were still looking down, watching as Percy Weasley planned to end it all.
He stared up at the moon in the sky. The same moon, formed billions of years ago when an asteroid smashed into the Earth.
Almost like the Earth
died
and was reborn as the moon.
Almost like a phoenix, completely unlike Percy Weasley, who would not be reborn.
Who would just
not exist.
Percy thought that immortality as a celestial body sounded almost nice, coming without the suffering and judgment a human body brought upon oneself.
However, He was not a celestial body but a human being, so the only way out of human suffering was to get out of existence.
So all he did was look away from the moon. He grabbed the railing, the only thing separating him from the very edge of the tower, and hopped over it.
Standing at the very edge of the tower, mere millimeters away from falling off, he looked at all the beauties of the world. The Black lake, the Forbidden Forest, the Whomping Willow, the sky, the stars, the moon, everything.
And it wasn't enough. It would never be enough.
So Percy Weasley leaned forward and fell off the astronomy tower.
And he landed hard on the ground below.
and his world got quiet.
He had finally been pulled into the hug of mortality.