Mirror, Mirror

Percy sat in the front room feeling numb. If he had just not strayed into the mirror to begin with he would never have ruined everything. Now instead of losing Fred most of his family and his friends were dead. He had done this, if he just left well enough alone things would be better. Fred would have never wanted others to die to save him.

“Ron set up the pensieve for you,” Elainie said. She looked so much like Severus it was uncanny but on her it worked. She was still young but there was something so alive in her. Something Severus didn’t have but Sirius did.

“The pensieve?”

“I told you they thought if you came back you would need to see what happened. Ron’s set it up to play the memories one after another. He said he would go in with you if you needed.”

Could Percy make Ron relive the hell he had been put through? He would have loved to say he could do it alone, but he couldn’t. Percy had no idea what he was see in there, but he knew it was bad.

“I think I need him with me.”

She nodded. The girl was so grown up for thirteen, Percy remembered Ginny at that age. All she would talk about was boys, friends, and her lessons. Elainie had none of that youthful carelessness. She wasn’t devastated and that worried him. How much had she had to lose before she became indifferent to it all. When she told Percy about Kingsley, she didn’t even look sad.

“Most of these were collected from dying people, remember that. It was a horrible job but needed to be done. Once we knew we were losing we knew that you would come back and maybe if you did you could fix it. So, they wanted you to know exactly what went wrong. How everything happened. Be gentle with Ron, besides you and MJ, he’s all I’ve got.”

“MJ, you said that before. Who is that?”

“MJ is your daughter. Molly Jean, you named her after your mum and Hermione.”

“I get mum but why Hermione?”

“Because you would have lost MJ early on if it wasn’t for her. There are memories in the pensieve, it’s part of all of this.”

“You’re not like any thirteen-year-old I’ve ever met,” he admitted.

“My dad died in front of my eyes. Terence, my so-called brother, had him killed. He died holding my hand. My papa died alone in a cellar from blood loss. It was weeks before we were able to get his body. I was eight, my childhood died that day. I’ve been the caretaker of the secrets since then.”

“What does that mean?”

“Besides his kids, I’m the only one Terence won’t kill. I was trained to tell you everything you needed to know. I was the only one they thought would live. Come on, follow me.”

Percy followed her into a sparse room with a pensieve in the middle, Ron standing beside it his stare a million miles away.

“I just have one more question. Where is MJ?”

“She’s with Alice, you didn’t know if you’d be coming back. In case your plan didn’t work,” Ron said.

“What was my plan?”

“To kill Rookwood then kill Higgs.”

“Oh.” Percy had been on a mission of death, which was what he came into after leaving the mirror.

“This isn’t easy, you’ll want to escape but if you do you’ll have to watch it all again from the beginning, so stick through it,” Ron said.

His little brother had once been full of life. Jokes, laughing, jealousy, temperamental and everything in between. But this Ron, this one was…empty.

“I’ll be here in case you need to be pulled out,” Elainie said.

“Don’t do it unless you have to,” Ron told her.

Percy then looked down; this was it. He lowered his face into the pensieve.

Percy was at the Burrow, there was a fire going and a toddler sitting on Charlie’s back.

“Go, dragon,” she said, hitting Charlie’s head.

“This is the start,” Ron said.

“Don’t hit your uncle, you little imp,” his mum said.

“Not Charlie. Is dragon.”

Charlie then roared, causing Lucy to fall back. She was caught in the air, while floating she giggled, his mum then lowered her to the ground with her wand. Looking around the room he saw himself. The one that took his place.

“Naughty,” Memory Percy said.

Lucy screeched and ran for Memory Percy. He scooped her up into his arms, kissing her chubby cheek.

“We weren’t expecting you for a few more hours,” his mum said.

“It’s weird, I never knew I could love someone this much. It’s also weird she’s mine but not. I just don’t understand how Terence could turn his back. It was like as soon as he went to see his parents he became a different person.”

“They had your memories, but they faded, the only stuff that remained was what you did while there. Any other knowledge was lost,” Ron said, answering Percy’s unasked question.

“So, Terence remembered being Snape and Sirius’s son, and Lucy but he didn’t remember his life in the future?” Percy asked.

“There were some things, like he remembered his son. I’m not sure if he just didn’t leave a note or something though because you said you didn’t remember anything from before. When Terence got back, he went home to his brother and parents, to see them. I think eighteen-year-old Terence just wanted to be loved by them.”

“Whose memory is this?”

“Mine,” Ron said pointing behind them. A much younger Ron was sitting by the fire, he was wearing his Christmas jumper.

“He’ll come around, he loves the bones of you,” Charlie said.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Are we expecting anyone this late?” his mum asked.

“Not that I know of,” Charlie said.

Memory Percy walked over to the door and opened it. Terence was standing on the other side, but he wasn’t alone. His mother, father and brother were with him. The only reason Percy recognized them was because he had seen a few photographs of them.

“Terence? What are you doing here so late?” Memory Percy asked.

“I came for my daughter.”

“What?” Memory Percy asked.

“You heard me. I want my daughter. Filthy blood traitor, she’s not going to be raised as one of you.”

“What?” Memory Percy asked again. He looked as confused as Percy was now.

“You heard me.”

Terence pushed passed Memory Percy and the rest of his family invaded the small  cozy living room. Percy couldn’t figure out what was going on. His Terence would never act this way and the Terence he knew the first time around would never do this. He hated his family and only did anything to others to keep them off his back.

Terence picked up Lucy, she excitedly blew a raspberry on his cheek.

“You’re not taking my daughter,” Memory Percy said. He looked so small compared to Terence. They were the same height, but Terence was so much more intimidating.

“Percy, I really don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to,” Terence snapped.

“You’re taking her nowhere and hurting no one,” Charlie said, standing at full height, he was much more intimidating than Terence.

“We came in peace, we tried to do this the easy way,” Terence’s adopted mum said.

Before Percy knew what was happening a green light shot out from her wand. The most horrible words came out of her mouth. The deadly curse was sent at Charlie, but his mum jumped in front of him. His mum slid to the ground, hitting with a loud thump.

Still trying to process what he saw, he watched Terence’s eyes clear, they had been different before, but he didn’t know how to explain it.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?” Terence cried out, falling to his knees looking at the dead body of Molly Weasley.

“Grab the brat, let’s go,” Terence’s father said.

“What? No. What did you do?” Terence was hovering over Percy’s mum’s body now.

Neither Memory Percy, Charlie nor Ron had moved. They were in a state of shock just looking at their dead mother. Charlie was the first one to snap out of it.

Percy watched as his brother who tried to never hurt anyone, unless they were on a Quidditch pitch, pull out his wand and send the same deadly curse at the woman who killed their mother. Only this mother, instead of protecting her child, pushed him in front of her. Terence’s little brother was hit full force with the curse and crumbled to the ground.

The silence after the horrible curse was deafening. He saw it then; Percy saw when his Terence ceased to be. He had remembered him telling him once that his brother was the only one he needed to save from the war. And now, his mind couldn’t take what just happened and the Black and Prince part of him came out. The real one, the one with centuries of dark magic running through his veins. But he wasn’t the only one to change in that moment. He watched both Memory Percy and Charlie point their wands at the other family. It looked like it would be a duel to the death but there was noise of feet on the stairs, the rest of his family was coming. The Higgs parents ran out the door and disapparated, Terence grabbed his brother’s dead body and drug him outside, doing the same. The Burrow must have a spell keeping it from happening inside.

“We don’t need to watch the rest; I just stop this and it will be all fine.”

“You don’t know the whole story yet, trust me, there is more than meets the eyes here,” Ron said as their surroundings changed.