Mirror, Mirror

“We need to talk about it,” Terence said, catching up to Percy after potions. They had a temporary professor; Snape wasn’t feeling well they were told. Percy knew the truth; they went after the snake.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We need to get back to our time. If you’re getting sicker so am I and probably Lucy. We can’t stay any longer, you heard Madame Pomfrey, the only thing that is keeping your body from shutting down is your magic and it’s depleting fast. We have to go home.”

“But what if it doesn’t work? What if Lucy can’t come back with us?”

“If we don’t she’ll die, all three of us will. We’re not meant to be here, the magic that allowed us here is calling our number. I’m taking Lucy with me, I can’t make you, but you need to decide what you want. A life with us or a death here.”

“But what about Fred?”

“My dads know how to finish off the Horcruxes. Please, think about yourself this once. You will die if we stay another day.”

“I’m scared of what kind of world we’re going to be stepping into. What if we failed?”

“We didn’t. Harry knows about being a Horcrux and how to stop it. No way is Quirrell getting away. As long as they get rid of the Horcrux in Harry first everything will be perfect. But this isn’t our time.”

“But your son.”

“I could never create the way he was conceived again, and I wouldn’t want to. The disease he had was killing him and no magic would fix that. I have my memories; I’ll need to put them in a pensive before we leave. I’m not sure if going back will mess with our memories of the us in the future before all of this.”

“I’m not sure Lucy will be there with us. I’m not sure how much time will have gone by, I’m not sure if I’m ready for the answer.”

“Look at me. Good or bad, we’re in this together. I’ll tell you what, we’ll go to Madame Pomfrey and have her check both me and Lucy. If Lucy is healthy maybe we leave her in this time.”

“WHAT? NO!”

“It’s the only way to guarantee she’ll exist.”

“But I won’t get to watch her grow up.”

“But she will be raised by you. Just the you that takes our place. Still not really sure how that’s going to work.”

“What if a me and you don’t replace us?”

“Then she’ll be raised by your family, I’ve heard they haven’t killed a kid yet.” Percy made a pained face. “Fuck. Sorry, seeing Fred walking around and alive for the past almost two years made me forget.”

“I guess then we say our goodbyes.”

Later that night they had all gathered in the Burrow. Earlier they had gone to Madame Pomfrey to check over Terence and Lucy. Lucy was fine but Terence was in worse shape then Percy. It was strange because they both felt fine just a little tired. Percy made the extremely hard decision to leave Lucy. He couldn’t risk her just not existing anymore and there were too many unknowns about what they were doing.

His mum was running around making sure everyone had something to snack on. It was strange to watch Dumbledore eat a treacle tart in his parents’ living room. Lucy was on the floor, she was old enough to walk now but just barely, so she stuck to crawling. Right now, she was crawling between people’s legs and every so often she would turn her head and bite someone’s ankle. Percy always thought ankle biter was just a saying. After several yells Terence finally picked her up but instead of admonishing her he pointed out all the people she bit were Gryffindor’s. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Regulus, Snape, and Terence’s ankles had been noticeably unbitten.

“You’re going to be a Slytherin aren’t you?” Terence said, getting her to nod.

“I’ll be damned if my granddaughter is a Slytherin,” Sirius said good-naturedly. Somethings really did change; he would probably have been spitting mad about it before his memories of Snape were restored. Sirius and Snape took to the magic deciding to make Terence one of her parents well.

Once everyone stopped laughing, Percy stood up from where he was sitting by the floo.

“The reason we called this meeting is that we are going back to at least try and get back home. There will be no talking us out of it, it’s time.” They decided not to share that they were dying in this time. “We’ve also decided to leave Lucy here. It’s killing me to make that decision, but we can’t risk her life. We don’t know if she’ll travel like us because I was pregnant with her. As much as it breaks me, she’s going to stay. We don’t know if another version of ourselves will come, like the ones we took over or what. It’s completely unknown.” Percy looked at his mum. “Will you take care of her?”

His mum was crying but she nodded. “Of course, I will. Do you have to go today?”

“Yes, I’m sorry mum.”

“I understand.”

There were hugs from so many people, all of his brothers and his sister. His dad held on to him for a long-time, first-time Percy really felt like his dad loved him. Watching Snape hug Terence was shocking but his boyfriend didn’t push him away. Sirius even slyly wiped away a stray tear.

“I’m going to miss this laid-back Percy,” George said.

“We’ll probably get Perfect Percy back,” Fred agreed.

“Well, if you do try and be nicer to him, trust me, he’s more fragile than you think,” Percy told them.

They looked a little ashamed but if he could protect younger Percy he would. After some more hugs and goodbyes, they left with Dumbledore.

When they arrived at the Ministry Percy thought it would be hard to get in at night. Dumbledore had them outside the Department of Mysteries faster than Percy ever gotten there.

“You promise to make sure you’ll give Harry the potion before dealing with Voldemort and Quirrell?” Percy just wanted to get that promise.

“I do promise. You’ve done the hard part for us. That first day back after Christmas break I knew something was different about you.”

“How?”

“When Ron was appointed to Slytherin you were the only one of your brothers that didn’t look devastated. The Percy that left for Christmas would have been the first to demand Ron being moved.”

“That’s how you knew?”

“I said I knew something was different, not that I knew why. That took me an embarrassingly long time.”

Percy had destroyed the ring so there was no chance for Dumbledore to try it on. But until Voldemort was really gone Percy was worried that Dumbledore would be dead on the other side like he was before. Maybe he wasn’t Dumbledore’s biggest fan but unlike when he thought Fudge was right he really did think Dumbledore meant for the best.

Terence was staring at the mirror when Percy looked at him.

“Is there something we have to do to make it work?” I asked.

Terence shook his head. “I think Dumbledore being here is causing it not to.”

“I’ll take my leave then. I hope to see you boys on the other side.” With that he left the room.

“How long do we wait?” Percy asked just as he heard Terence gasp.

Inside the mirror was a view of a room that looked like an office. It took a minute for Percy to place it, it was the Minister’s office.

“Do we go?” he asked.

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

They grabbed each other’s hands, with each of their free hands they reached out to the mirror, gliding through much like when he arrived to this time.

“See you on the other side,” Terence said before he stepped forward, something happened, and Terence’s hand was jerked out of his. Percy made the last step into the mirror, too late to turn back now.