The Perseus Complex

The Perseus Complex

Chapter 2- Measured Out in Miles

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"It's set for now. We won't have to go in until later." Lucius Malfoy made one last check on the restraining charms and then crossed the room to an armchair.

"Go-" Wormtail's voice halted for a moment, "-in?"

"Not you," said Lucius firmly. "You're staying here to watch the restraints."

"But why do they need to be watched anyway? You've checked them nearly a dozen times." Avery's tone carried a hint of ridicule that he hadn't bothered to hide. Unlike Wormtail he knew that Lucius wasn't about to curse anyone. The way his right foot bounced nervously as he sat was more than enough proof of that.

"Because he's not stunned. He can still move, and he just might once we go in."

"All right then. Whatever you say." The sarcasm was stronger now, and Avery finished of with a salute in Lucius' direction that was missed by his darting eyes.

"We just have to let it run its course for now." Lucius wrung his hands and trailed off; oblivious to the way Avery was snickering as he prodded the fire with a poker.

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First there was nothing, but then colors whirled before his eyes, spinning and melting into each other. He dropped to his knees and crawled over the ground, reaching out for the familiar horn-rimmed lenses. The colors slowed, forming shapes that were smeared and imposing. He squinted so his eyes were two thin slits, but the scenery remained blurred and unclear. Then voices that were almost familiar to him seemed to float out of the colors. His eyes relaxed and widened, but his ears strained desperately.

"Look at him on the ground like that."

"Must be mad."

"You're mad."

"You are too then."

"But he's not."

"What is he then, if he's not mad?"

"He's Percy."

"I see your point. What are you doing down there, Percy?"

"My glasses- I can't see." He turned to the voices, but they seemed to change position almost immediately. Suddenly they were behind him and closer than before.

"He is mad."

"I told you."

"My glasses-"

"They're right there on your face."

"How are they on my face if I can't see?" The whole sentence spurted out like a tired sigh.

"Perhaps if you opened your eyes?"

"Usually works for me."

He clenched his teeth. As he was preparing to explain that his eyes were already open, his hand went up out of habit to adjust his glasses. He meant to stop his hand because there was nothing there -he was sure he did- but somehow the hand continued of it's own accord until it reached the corner of the frames that weren't there and moved them slightly. His hands went to his eyes immediately, finding them behind the lenses. And they were closed.

"But-" He opened them slowly and fell back in surprise as two faces came into focus, both peering down like children examining a funny colored caterpillar that's inching it's way over one of dad's prize tomatoes.

"There you go! Much better with them open?" The faces pulled backwards and exchanged a playful smile.

"Er, yes." His ears were tinged just slightly with pink as he picked himself up from the ground. He looked, or rather looked up to the faces and found them more than almost familiar. "What are you two doing in bowler hats and suits?!"

"We think we look quite dashing," said George with a sideways sort of grin.

"And there's also the spectacular opportunity to do this now." Fred looked to George and then they both flicked off their hats and replaced them with a complicated series of flips and turns that might have been more impressive to Percy if he hadn't been so confused.

"Yes, but how then?"

"It's your fault really."

"Truly tragic."

"We told you all those muggle books would spoil your brain when you had us packing them to move."

"If only you'd listened." George pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at the corners of his eyes.

"It's your doing in any case."

Percy paused, and for a moment he meant to ask them what they meant, but a sudden realization derailed that train of thought. "You're taller!"

"What do you mean?" Fred asked, the smile slipping off his face.

"I've always been taller than you two, but now you're up higher than me."

"Oh, that." They both looked relieved. "Maybe it's you that's grown shorter."

"People don't grow shorter."

"Not people. Just you."

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"You're no fun anymore," muttered Avery as he shot a glance at Lucius that started off like a speeding bullet but ended something like a slight breeze. There was something about his eyes (or perhaps just him) that caused his malice to loose energy at an exponential rate to distance. Not that he was any less annoyed; the force just petered out two yards short of its target.

He jabbed the fire with the poker. He could almost imagine Lucius' face amid the tumbling flames, the iron spear sliding neatly through the forehead. He pulled it back slowly, letting the flesh splinter ever so gently. And then, when it was free once more, he pulled his arm back and then thrust it forward. The tip plunged into one eye, then the next. But then the blow loosened a bit of the left ear, and the flaming ember flew across the room, landing squarely onto a pile of papers. The face abandoned the logs and Avery who was too busy putting back the poker to notice.

"It's on fire!" shrieked Wormtail. Flames were engulfing the pages of calculations that became progressively untidier as the fire continued down as though the numbers had finally caught on and were trying to escape.

"Eh?" Avery turned to the scene with practiced nonchalance. He now stood as far from the fire as could be managed; the poker, meanwhile, swung in its holder like a doom-ridden pendulum.

"You idiots!" yelled Lucius as he pointed his wand onto the fire. Water splashed up on the other two, the result of intentionally poor aim. He crossed the room and dragged Avery's robes, with Avery inside, to the table where the test subject lay.

"What did /I/ do?" Avery straightened his robes indignantly.

"Shut up. I can tell by looking at you that you did it."

"What are you playing at? I haven't done anything." He nodded his head in the direction of Wormtail. "Look at him. See how guilty /he/ looks?"

"I might have believed you if it hadn't been for the fact that you've been an ass all morning."

"Me? You're the one who's been sitting there waiting to wet your pants since we got here."

"Don't say another word."

"And what's he here for anyway?" He gestured to Wormtail again. "Anyone could send us in and watch the boy."

"I have my reasons," said Lucius. He glanced at Wormtail. The nervous man was trying to salvage the paperwork. Then, in a whisper, "He was the boy's pet for nine years. The settings are based on his information. If something goes wrong and he's here watching on top of it all, we won't even miss our supper. He, on the other hand...." The corners of Lucius' mouth twitched and then crawled up in search of his eyes. True malice glinted off his smile and found itself reflected in Avery's own curving mouth.

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Percy was perhaps the last in his family to really know his Uncle Bilius; he had died somewhat mysteriously only a few months before the night that made Harry Potter famous when the twins were only three and Ron had just turned a year. What memories hid did have, though, were obscured. Other, more permanent fixtures in his life had changed, at least in his perspective, as he had. Trees had slowly grown smaller, many books had grown less enigmatic, and people who had once been too amazing to be believed had grown to be more tangible and real. But Bilius, or rather what Percy remembered of him, was always distorted with a five-year-old's vision. And it was his vision that made it all the more strange.

Bilius' funeral had fallen on a wet, unpleasant day as many funerals do. That evening, mud had somehow appeared deep in the crevasses of George's left ear. Somewhere along the way it had also managed to suck the shoes off of both twins so that they ran screaming over a hill in only their socks. Percy had been left to hold Ron's hand then. It had often been like that, though Bill and Charlie were never there to chase down the twins as they had been on that day.

None of them were sure what had happened next, mostly because none had been watching. Here Percy's sharp memory became warped; every image unfocused and smeared into the next. The wet chill alone had remained as his stomach reeled worse than it had when Charlie had taken him out for "flying lessons." Something was wrong that he had to fix- something that no one else could see. His mind ached with seasickness, but he had to stop it. Every fiber of his body had ached as he tried to do something, anything at all.

Someone had cried out, a woman he had never heard before, and Percy had hit the ground with a thud that stopped all the spinning. Ron was startled; his fussing turned to a constant wail. Percy had tripped without moving, fallen without leaving the ground it seemed. And then there was the glowing green flash, half-obscured in the sky by the rain and wind.

No one remembered it like he had. He had fallen in the mud. Ron had cried. The twins had been caught. And they all were taken home to have warm baths. Ron had been the only one to scream. No one else ever said anything about the green light that Percy knew had seared through the rain.

When Percy was found to have a reasonably serious vision impairment several weeks later, it was assumed by all (including Percy) that the problem had always existed and that it was only brought to attention then because he was just beginning to read at that time. His gradual progression into poorer eyesight had always been attributed, in part, to his bookishness and the strain his constant reading put on his eyes. There was no reason for them to believe otherwise. Or rather, there was no reason that could possibly be considered, even in a family immersed in the bizarrities of the magical world.

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