Cowboys and Angels

moment fourteen: first contact (October 1987.)

He barely noticed him at the Sorting festival that year; he was too busy scoping out the new year's intake of Slytherins - why would he fucking notice Gryffindors, and one who clearly wasn't built to play Quidditch if his life depended on it? Even if he was said to be a brother of Charlie Weasley, you could tell where all the talent in that family had gone. There was that tosser in the same year, tall, but not gangly. Kind of...smooth, and his name began with...W, he remembered that much. Someone to look out for, but he hadn't even made the team.

And if he wasn't good enough for the team, he certainly wasn't enough for Marcus Flint to bother with. Nah, he had far better things to do.

He'd seen the other one, W-something bounce along - typical Gryffindor, more energy than sense, and he'd seen those big cow eyes tremble at the sight of his name not being up on the team board.

Marcus smiled at the memory; it was the kind of thing he liked to replay, again and again and again. Bastard obviously had an ego, though, to even try out for the House team - everyone knew first years' didn't get on, and besides, what talent could he have shown Hooch in the two months classes had been in session?

Not enough, obviously.

Marcus was skulking around the corridors near the Slytherin dorms - he would have said strutting, but that would have implied he was showing off to people, and there wasn't anyone else there - when he heard someone slowly, shuffling down the corridor, stopping every now and then.

Surely enough, that skinny little red-headed Gryffindor twerp turned round a corner, and Marcus was waiting for him. He thought his name was Peter, or Patrick, or seomthing.

"Lost your way, have you?" he sneered.

"I seem to be disoriented, that is all," replied the Gryffindor. "All I need is a moment, and I'll be on my way."

"You don't sound like either of your brothers. Sure you're a Weasley?" Marcus looked him up and down.

"I assure you, I am fully aware of my family. I know exactly the reputations my brothers' have made for themselves."

Marcus darted back, knew he'd seen a chink in the armour now. "Ah. Scared you won't be Daddy's favourite? Scared you won't match up to your brothers?" The Weasley didn't speak, but there was a kind of cold pain in his eyes, and Marcus chuckled. "Bet you're a cocksucker," he said, casually.

"I beg your pardon?"

"A cocksucker. Look at you. You want a big meaty cock, don't you, girly boy?" He virtually spat out the word. "Faggot."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Now, please, could you direct me to the Gryffindor dorm?"

"Awww, is the ickle first year cocksucker lost? Maybe he should get himself a boyfriend to lead him around the place. That Quidditch try-hard in your year, perhaps."

"Fortunately I am not familiar with this...person you mention. Quidditch isn't exactly my thing."

They looked at each other for a few seconds, and then Marcus gave him concise directions on how to get back.

The other's eyes softened for a moment, confused, and then hardened again. "Why did you help me?"

Marcus grinned. "This way, you return home safe and sound. Which means me and mine can say hello to the first year faggot any time we want."

The Weasley wasted no time in leaving.

moment fifteen: the heady feeling of freedom (November 1987.)

Percy sat at the table pouring over a book. His shoulders were hunched over and he almost seemed to be willing himself to be smaller, unable to be noticed, identified and therefore targeted. He idly wondered if the book might contain an Invisibility Spell, or some kind of charm that made people more disposed to like him.

But of course not - although such things may have existed (they certainly were legend, the glamours of old) they would not, he assumed, be readily available to one tentative little first year, and certainly not for the reasons and explanations he had in mind.

He had bumped into Flint again a few days later - or rather, he'd been walking through the courtyard, and Flint and his gang of numbskulls had be lounging against one of the walls, making as many suggestive remarks to the passing female students as they could without getting caught. He'd immediately turned around, but Flint had caught sight, and soon enough, he'd followed Percy down the corridors, with others in tow.

Unfortunately, he was still quite new to the castle, and with its tendency to change at will anyway, he became lost after a short while, and rather obviously so. Reaching a sudden dead end, he'd found himself cornered.

"What, don't you want to play with us?" Flint had demanded, grinning at his friends.

"No," Percy had said stiffly, with all the prepossession he still had in him.

"Who else is gonna play with you then, runt?" asked a shorter student, who looked young - boyishly so. Percy later discovered this was Terence Higgs: of Slytherin, naturally, and a Quidditch player as well. One of them was in first year like Percy - one Adrian Percy, and he never learnt the names of the other two.

They were all reasonably well built, strapping young men - the kind of men Percy had noticed on his brothers' Quidditch posters, the kind of men Percy himself could never be.

Forsaking physical violence - as that would leave a mark - they merely insinuated oh so carefully what they would do to the little Gryffindor cocksucker one day with the kind of casual ease that made Percy wonder (hours later, when he was away, and safe) just how many students they'd intimidated like this and finally when he was terrified, visibly shaking on the edge of promising anything they asked for, any depraved act, Flint nodded, and they all walked away, leaving Percy quaking in their wake.

So now he had buried himself in the library, seeking refuge and respite. Pouring over books, because he couldn't join them, so he would beat them instead. Prove that one didn't need Quidditch, or muscles in order to gain the respect of one's peers - besides, they couldn't harass him here, Madam Pince made sure of that.

Once or twice a week they would catch him, on the way to class or the library, or meals, but they did not touch him. In some ways that was worse: physical impressions left a bruise, something he could point to and use, an explicit condemnation of them and a vindication of his behaviour. But he trained himself to not to dwell on those times, and found succour amongst the stacks.

It was quiet, and comfortable, and Percy soaked up an almost palpable sense of reassurance from the tomes. In those heady, early days, he believed that it did not matter so if he didn't socialise much or have many - if any friends. Books, after all, were the best friends one could have; they did not condemn, nor demean, nor savage: they could instruct and elate, but could never harm, and so Percy read, burying himself in comforting words, so he didn't have to remember the ones that stung.