Pride Before a Fall

Pride before a Fall

You wouldn't believe it was possible to share a dorm with one person for seven years and barely know them.

You wouldn't believe it, but it was.

After all that happened later, Oliver Wood felt slightly guilty about that, wondering if it was because he'd never really tried to make friends with Percy Weasley, wondering if maybe he should have.

It didn't, of course, help that Percy wasn't the easiest person to make friends with anyway. Oliver never quite worked out why. After all, Fred and George were the complete opposite, ambling cheerily along surrounded by a small army of mates, trading partners, Quidditch fiends, pranksters, lookouts, fellow students on detention or anyone else who would be an appreciative audience for whatever burst of mischief had just occurred to them. However, as much as they messed around and ribbed him relentlessly during practises, Oliver had never considered kicking them off the team: although very few people in Hogwarts would believe it, they did have a serious side, and when they were really needed they had never let him or the team down. And - well, you could talk to them, complain that Davies was obviously trying to set the World Record for Most Cobbing in a Single Match or that Flint was being his usual repulsive self and perving at the Chasers, or ask for help with a truly horrible Potions essay. Oliver's memories of their brother Charlie were rather hazy, but from what he could remember the former Captain had been much the same - cheery, energetic and utterly laid-back about everything with the possible exception of Quidditch. Percy, on the other hand, was very different - so different that at times Oliver seriously doubted that Percy and the twins were even related, let alone brothers.

Percy had been exactly the same the year he and Oliver had started at Hogwarts: Oliver could remember that quite clearly, the rather skinny boy with freckles and shocking red hair that didn't seem to match the rest of him, in a slightly worn uniform that was as pressed and neatly draped as the display dummies in Madam Malkin's window. He wouldn't even have noticed Oliver sitting opposite if he hadn't spoken to him.

"Is it just the two of us, then?"

The pale hazel eyes focused on him. "I'm sorry?"

"It's just us. Only two boys in Gryffindor first year," Oliver explained. The boy shrugged.

"I suppose so."

He seemed distant. Oliver tried again.

"I'm Oliver. Oliver Wood."

"Percy Ignatius Weasley."

Oliver raised his eyebrows. "Weasley? Do you know Charlie Weasley?"

There was a flicker of emotion there, for a second, but it was gone before Percy replied. "He's my older brother."

"Oh yeah. He said he had some younger brothers." Oliver remembered how Charlie had groaned and rolled his eyes theatrically before turning back to the Kestrels match in play, but didn't say so. "Is your - um - twin not here?" he added, a little lower: although Squibs were no longer a source of public disgrace and ridicule as they had once been, it was often painful for an old wizarding family to admit that they had one in their midst. Percy frowned, and Oliver winced inwardly. Oh damn. Bad move.

"No. I'm not a twin. My brothers Fred and George are, but they aren't old enough for Hogwarts until next year."

"Oh." Oliver hunted around for a safe topic. "Must be great having Charlie as a brother, I heard the Fifth years saying he's brilliant at Quidditch, best Captain they've had in years. Does he play with you when he's at home?"

Percy shook his head. "Not really. I'm not very interested in Quidditch, actually," he said, apparently unaware of the incredulous look he was getting from across the table.

"Oh. Right."

Percy was no more talkative as they filed up to their house dorms after dinner. As it happened, there were only two four-poster beds in the first-years' dorm, one on the inner wall next to the wardrobes, the other against the outer wall next to the windows that looked out onto the school grounds and the mountains beyond. Oliver considered, noted a handy bit of wall space beside the latter bed that'd just suit his broom and nipped around Percy to secure the territory with a flying leap. He burrowed merrily under the counterpane and curled up in the woolly darkness, awaiting a reaction; if he'd pulled the same stunt on his own younger brother, Aidan, it would have resulted in a minor war of annexation until one or the other of the brothers flung a Singing Teeth Hex at the other or gave up. He waited. Nothing happened, and when Oliver poked his head out from the covers Percy was carefully putting his textbooks on the shelf beside the other bed.

"Bags I this bed," he said.

Percy didn't look up from his unpacking: his books were arranged in order of height, with ink bottles in a neat row in front and spare parchment and quills in two small piles. "All right."

"You don't mind? I'll toss you for it - heads or tails?"

Percy placed a pair of crisp blue-and-white striped pyjamas on the pillow, smoothing out a crease. "No, thank you."

Oh well. He'd tried. Oliver gave a mental shrug and untangled himself from the bed sheets to start his own unpacking. Probably Percy was homesick, or not feeling too good and in no mood to be friendly. He'd talk when he felt like it.

And then lessons had started in earnest, and Oliver had enough on his mind without trying to engage Percy in light conversation. They shared the same classes, and even sat next to each other in some, but any attempt at a whispered chat, when Flitwick's back was turned or Binns was even more deadly boring than usual, turned into a few polite meaningless statements before dropping dead. Eventually Oliver decided that Percy was one of those people who just preferred to keep themselves to themselves, and left him to it. He was making other friends, anyway. The Gryffindor Quidditch team had spotted the avid spectator at their practises and enlisted him to ferry water for the team, look after their stuff during practise and help them to carry their brooms back to the shed afterwards. Titus Fletcher, the huge Yorkshire-born seventh-year who played Keeper, started instructing Oliver in the best Keeper dodges, joking that he had to make sure that their next Keeper was up to snuff. Stuart Brock and Corvinus Barnes, from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, were always game for a throwabout and discussions of the latest match or the Quidditch League tables, and so Oliver ended up spending most of his time with his other friends, and only saying hello to Percy when they passed in the corridors. They were friendly enough in the mornings and at bedtimes, but the stiff reserve that Oliver had seen that first day hadn't gone away over time. Oliver had never seen anyone so - so - ordered; everything about Percy was in its place, neat, clean and pressed, not a hair or a word out of place. While his side of the dorm looked as if a very local and domesticated bomb had hit it, Percy's remained neat and orderly, and when he was dumping his books onto the work table after classes Oliver often saw Percy carefully slotting his own books back into their places.

On the other hand, Percy must have been doing something right. Year after year, he held his position at the top of every class, even Potions, which with Snape the Gryffindor-phobe marking their work was nothing short of unbelievable. A lot of people wondered out loud how in Merlin's name he managed it. Oliver didn't know any more than they did, but he could hazard a guess. Since they'd first started getting homework he'd pass Percy in the common room on his way to bed, still bent over a piece of parchment with a textbook open next to him. In second year, Oliver joined the Gryffindor Quidditch team, replacing Titus as their Keeper, but even when he trailed back to the Gryffindor tower in the evenings, tired, aching and sweating, the chances were good that he'd be in bed and half asleep before Percy returned from the library. It could be a family thing, of course - after all, Bill and Charlie Weasley had both been Head Boy and done fairly spectacularly in their exams - but then Fred and George, who'd finally arrived in Hogwarts two years behind him and Percy, showed no sign of it whatsoever. They seemed far more interested in research - as in researching exactly how many different school rules you could break in a week.

In other circumstances Oliver might've wondered if Percy wasn't working rather too hard, might've noticed that he frequently looked worn out and picked at his food, his expression closed-off, as if he sat inside a solid bubble that the rowdy chatter of four tables full of students couldn't penetrate. But Oliver was more than busy enough himself, and when he became Captain in his fourth year, most of the time he was busy enough to flop into bed late in the evening and fall asleep at once.

Fifth year was a mixed sort of year. On the one hand, Professor McGonagall had winkled out Harry Potter to play Seeker for them. Oliver still grinned whenever he remembered Flint's reaction when he first saw Harry; "You're that desperate, Wood, that you'd play a skinny little runt like him? You poor pathetic bastard." The expression on Flint's face after the Gryffindors had comprehensively thrashed the Slytherins, thanks to Harry, had been a sight to treasure. Pity the year had gone so downhill after that, finishing up with OWLs in the summer, a complete demolition at the hands of the Ravenclaws that Davies was bragging about for weeks and Harry ending up in the hospital wing after fighting You-Know-Who (another memory, not so pleasant - the Weasley twins pelting up to Oliver, who was minus a Seeker five minutes before a match and so fit to be tied, and babbling something about Harry in hospital and being attacked by You-Know-Who growing out of Professor Quirrell's head. Oliver's reply was mostly unprintable, but along the lines of: very funny. Now tell Harry to be here in two minutes if he wants to see second year. Two minutes later, McGonagall had arrived to inform him that Harry was indeed in the hospital wing and was going nowhere. Oliver was suitably embarrassed). Just to make life really difficult, OWLs had arrived with inconsiderate speed, and Oliver, still smarting from their defeat, had found himself along with every other fifth year in the school feverishly scanning over piles of books and question papers in an effort to hold five years' worth of lessons in his brain at once, which was about as easy as herding a nest of Doxies. Oliver was using an old revision technique tried and tested by generations of Hogwarts students: revise as much as possible, and then pray that what you missed won't come up. Percy, on the other hand, wasn't leaving anything to chance. Oliver was surprised to see a neatly designed revision timetable, subjects shaded in different colours, go up on the wall next to Percy's bed a full two months before the start of OWLs. Once, when Percy was in the library, Oliver had given in to nosiness and wandered over to take a closer look. It looked scarily organised. Percy'd even planned times for revising certain kinds of spells and all the different potions written in, although on closer inspection he didn't appear to have left any time for homework. Or, Oliver noticed, any time off. If he had been an anxious kind of person, Oliver would have started to wonder if he should have been that organised himself. As it was, he just felt profoundly grateful that he'd never been top of the class, if this was how much effort it took to stay there.

Term ended, not a day too early for Oliver, as it meant a chance to get away from all the people going over their exam papers and conferring in small groups about what they might have missed. Not surprisingly, he spotted Percy at the table in the dorm with an open textbook and an exam paper, frowning slightly as he read. His own results arrived two-thirds through a long drowsy summer spent mostly refining team tactics and getting sunburn. They were good, if not spectacular, but that was okay; since the Training Day at the Puddlesmere United home ground, his dream of turning professional was beginning to look like something that could actually happen, and luckily you didn't need O-grade OWLs for it. His parents were proud, and promptly sent Felix the family owl scooting round every friend and relative they had with the news, but he got the feeling that Mam and Dad would've been proud of anything above a pass. A lot like Percy's parents in that respect. Percy, though, had landed ten OWLs. That didn't surprise Oliver in the slightest: what did surprise him was that Percy didn't say a word about it to anyone, as far as he could tell. He'd asked Percy, of course - the only question you heard from the new sixth-years' lips was 'How did you do?' - but Percy said 'All right' and didn't elaborate. It was Fred and George who told Oliver, after their first training session of the new season.

"Ten Os?"

"Yeah," said Fred, rolling his eyes. "Tell us about it."

"If he carries on like this we're going to have to disown him," George said. "Going around being all scholarly and hard-working."

"It's ruining our reputations," Fred added.

Oliver congratulated Percy that evening, but Percy just shrugged. Strange. If he'd had ten Os himself, he'd've been bouncing off the walls in joy. But then Percy always had been quiet.

When the attacks started, students found frozen rigid as marble statues, and concern with Percy's diffidence flew right out of Oliver's head. Percy was hardly in their dorm at all, as the teachers were relying heavily on the prefects to keep watch over the other students, and Percy, as he did with everything else, was taking his responsibilities beyond what was expected of him. It was a tough time for all of them, and as Quidditch-obsessed as he appeared (which was slightly more than he was) not even Oliver escaped the pall of fear that choked the entire castle. With two halfbloods on the team he was severely worried that one of them might be the next victim of the mysterious Heir, and kept looking for the rest of the team to check they were safe until Angelina threatened to brain him with a Potions textbook.

"You're just worried we'll get Petrified and you'll have to forfeit to Hufflepuff," she snapped savagely. "We are going to the Library. It's full of people. Nothing is going to happen to us there. Go on, push off!"

Which was rather unfair, Oliver thought.

Close to the end of the year, a whole slew of things happened at once. All the house Quidditch matches were cancelled, five minutes before Gryffindor's match against Hufflepuff, which caused Oliver, in the privacy of the dorm, to kick the hell out of his trunk and swear with great feeling for a good ten minutes (Percy had wisely decided not to intervene, but his face was a picture of disapproval). Then there was Ginny Weasley's kidnapping by the Monster of Slytherin and Harry's daring rescue raid right into the Chamber of Secrets. During the celebration feast the Great Hall was full of people wondering how on earth Harry had gone up against a full-grown basilisk and lived. Not so Oliver, who would have given a fair amount of Galleons to find out why his Seeker had to be the one with a death wish. When asked, Alicia muttered something about 'two of a kind', but refused to comment further. However, the most astounding news didn't break until Oliver was on the Hogwarts Express back to London, watching the hills drift past the window and the birds swooping in formation over the lakes. He was jolted from a vague musing on what he'd do over the summer by the carriage door slamming open and the Weasley twins barrelling in like a pair of huge ginger Labradors.

"What the heck? Fred, have you never heard of knocking?"

Fred, who like his brother had collapsed wheezing and flushed into the seat opposite, just grinned. Oliver sighed.

"All right, what is it?"

Fred chortled in ill-contained glee. "Oh, you're not going to believe this. You really aren't."

Oliver frowned. "Believe what?"

"Go on, guess."

"You'll never get it," his twin added.

"Tell me," Oliver said, "or I'll chuck you out into the corridor and Percy'll come along and tick you off for causing a disturbance."

This drew a fresh burst of sniggers from the twins. " Funny you should mention him, actually," Fred said, grinning again, putting his feet up on the opposite seat. Oliver swiped at them.

"Tell me, you gits, or else."

"Oh, all right... we just heard - "

" - from a very reliable source -"

" - our darling baby sister - "

" - that Perfect Percy the Prefect has got a girlfriend," George finished with a flourish. "What about that, then?"

Oliver gaped. Percy? Percy the ordered, Percy the prim and proper had been off chasing some girl? "Are you sure?" he said at last. "Your sister wasn't having you on, was she?"

George shook his head. "We asked around, and apparently it's true."

"Really Percy?" Oliver considered in some disbelief. "You're right, I don't think I do believe it. I never thought he was the type."

"Nor did we," Fred said.

Oliver laughed. "Merlin. Percy in love. I wonder how he fits that into his timetable. Who's the lucky girl, anyway?"

"Penelope Clearwater," Fred replied. "She's a Ravenclaw prefect, you've probably seen her - curly blonde hair, tallish, used to go out with Roger Davies - "

"That's not much help," George observed. "Every girl above third year used to go out with Roger Davies."

Oliver snorted. Davies seemed to be working his way through the female half of Hogwarts: where he found the time for continual dating on top of captaining the Ravenclaw team, Oliver had no idea. He racked his brain. Ah...

"Isn't that the prefect who was attacked, Penelope Clearwater?" he asked.

"Yep," Fred said.

Oliver nodded. No wonder Percy had been so tense and anxious. Poor bloke. "Why on earth is she going out with him?" he wondered out loud. "I mean, Percy's a nice bloke and everything," he added hastily, noticing a definite chilliness from the Weasley front, "but she's a chatty sort of girl, lots of friends, likes going out for a laugh - and Percy's quiet, really serious and spends most of his time studying. They're not exactly compatible, are they? So what's the attraction?"

"No idea. Maybe she needs some help with her homework."

"Or maybe Perce's got talents we don't know about," George leered. Fred spluttered with laughter. Oliver winced.

"I think I'm quite happy not knowing, thanks," he said firmly. "I have to share a dorm with him, remember?"

"Oh, you poor thing," Fred said in mock sympathy.

"Learn a good Silencing Spell," George advised, "so you can get some sleep if they start -"

"Aaaaaaggghhh! Stop! No more!" Oliver howled. The Weasley twins cracked up again. Oliver scowled at them.

"You are depraved evil-minded sods, the pair of you."

"Terrible," Fred agreed happily. "Anyway, now that we're here, d'you fancy a game of Snap?"

"No more innuendoes?"

"All right, if you insist."

"Deal."

Summer drifted past, long hot days blurring into each other until at last, on the first of September, Oliver found himself lugging his trunk onto Platform 9 ¾, broom bumping along at his side, as he did every year. Only this year, it was different. This was the last autumn he'd catch the Hogwarts Express, the last year he'd captain the Gryffindor Quidditch team, the last chance he'd ever have of scooping the Quidditch Cup for Gryffindor. The year ahead suddenly seemed far more daunting than ever before, though Oliver couldn't quite say why. In fact, he was still turning it over in his mind, gazing out of the window while ignoring the cheery gossiping of Percy's girlfriend and her friend on the opposite seat, when the train slowed and shuddered to a halt. Oliver was jolted from his thoughts as the lights faltered, then failed altogether, and the carriage filled with shadow. Then the cold came, stealing up from around his feet, a bitter icy cold that froze muscle, blood and bones until his fingers were painfully stiff and his teeth chattered. The two girls had gone deadly quiet, shrinking against each other, eyes wide and frightened, as they all heard it...a slow sucking sound, like the breathing of some massive dying animal. He tried to get up, but he couldn't, he was too cold, and as a long shadow darkened the doorway a memory rose up and hit him with such force he gasped -

He was twelve years old, waking up in the hospital wing at Hogwarts, after he'd been hurt in a Quidditch match. He'd swerved to avoid the opposition's Seeker and a Bludger had hit the back of his head, badly concussing him. He'd found that out later, of course. What he remembered, what was overwhelming him now, was how he'd felt as he woke up - he'd opened his eyes alone in a strange room, utterly confused, but before he could wonder how he'd got there a horrible pain shot through his head, feeling as if it might crack his skull open, so that he opened his mouth to cry out in agony but ended up doubling over as he threw up, snatching gulps of air in between waves of sickness and sobbing -

- and then it was gone, the lights flickered on, and the air in the carriage was warm again. Oliver took a deep breath, and was surprised to see his hands shaking on the armrests as the girls opposite him moved again, twittering nervously. He shook his head. This is not a good start to the year.

It started bad, and then it got worse. Percy had been made Head Boy and he seemed to be mildly drunk on his new authority. His stiff and polite manner took on a faint smugness, so that for the first time in years his presence grated on Oliver's nerves. Fortunately, within weeks Percy was so preoccupied with homework and studying for NEWTs that he forgot to stand on his dignity.

Oliver had other things on his mind. The Quidditch Cup, for example.

I leave at the end of this year. Either we win it this year or I never will. I'll have spent five years on the team without ever taking the Cup for Gryffindor. That doesn't say very much for me, does it?

He felt a little guilty thinking only of himself when the rest of the team deserved the credit as much as he did.

They're a good team. The best. They deserve to get the Cup. But I want us to win it while I'm Captain. I don't mind about the glory. I just want this, this one thing, for me.

The thought lurked on the fringes of his mind while he drilled the team through the practises, squeezing the best he could out of them, needling him when they grumbled 'obsessed' and 'bloody slavedriver'. But it wasn't until that horrendous match versus Hufflepuff that it returned to attack him with a vengeance. Oliver was guarding the goals, squinting the rain out of his eyes, when he saw the small shape of Harry on his Nimbus sweep upwards into the rain-lashed sky, falter and suddenly, sickeningly, separate from his broom and drop like a stone towards the ground. The blood froze in Oliver's veins: he couldn't move, could barely hear the people yelling and screaming over the raging winds. He didn't want to look, didn't want to see Harry hit the ground, but he couldn't tear his eyes away. Without warning, Harry's falling shape slowed down and stopped: Dumbledore, wand aloft, was hurrying out onto the pitch with surprising speed for such an old man. Harry was stretchered off the pitch, unconscious but unharmed; forty feet up, Oliver sagged with relief.

He never knew afterwards how he landed or walked the short distance to the changing rooms. Everything after Harry's fall was a blur until he was undressed and in the changing room showers. The Weasley twins were long gone, though he hadn't seen them go. He turned his face into the running water: the water was warm enough to fill the room with steam, but it hadn't managed to disperse the chill in his bones. The lurking little thought clawed viciously into his brain, replaying the last hour in his mind, whispering cruelly: it's your fault.

Oliver shook his head involuntarily. No. It isn't. It can't be. It was an accident. The Dementors weren't meant to come into the grounds. It should never have happened.

Oh, but it is. You've wanted this Cup for years.

For the team. For Gryffindor.

No. You said it yourself. You wanted it for you. You wanted it so badly that you didn't care what else happened along the way. If Harry'd got the Snitch before he fell, you'd be pleased that Gryffindor won right now, not worrying about him. Or are you going to try and deny that?

That's not true. It's not.

Isn't it?

Oliver swallowed, the sick, bitter taste of guilt in his mouth.

Do you still want it? Whatever it costs?

Oliver leaned against the clammy tiles of the showers, resting his head on his forearm, and cursed the storm, his bad luck, every Dementor ever spawned and most of all his own selfishness, silently begging any deity that might be listening that Harry would be all right. His pride could go to hell. Not even the Quidditch Cup was worth someone's life.

Harry was all right. Within a day he was up and about, as miserable at their defeat as the rest of the team, his brush with sudden death apparently forgotten. If Harry hadn't had enough surprises already, a brand-spanking-new Firebolt arrived by Owl Post a couple of weeks later, sender unknown (although Oliver instantly decided that whoever it was, he liked them very much). The rest of the team revived and pulled together, performing better than Oliver had ever seen before, the memory of their defeat firing their determination to make their next match a comeback to remember. This time, thank Merlin, it was not for nothing. They fought their way through two of the most razor-edge matches ever held at Hogwarts and before he could take it in that they had done it, they had won, Oliver was standing beside Professor Dumbledore, chest still hitching with sobs, the huge Quidditch trophy cool and heavy in his hands.

The silver glittered in the sunlight, shining more brightly than he'd ever seen before, even in his dreams.

It would have been wonderful, Oliver thought wistfully, if the year had ended then, amid the cheering and celebrating and every one of the Gryffindor team giddy and glowing with triumph. It would have been wonderful to go home with the memory fresh in his mind and that marvellous warm feeling inside that made him break out in smiles at nothing at all. School being what it is, of course, matters didn't turn out half so pleasantly. The Quidditch cup hadn't had chance to gather dust in McGonagall's office before exam timetables were posted on the house noticeboards and exam fever settled over the whole school. Oliver was no exception. This was his NEWT year, and as much as he loved Quidditch, a tiny voice of prudence warned him that it would be wise to do the best he could in these exams. He'd heard through the school grapevine that Flint was looking to get a place on the pro teams after he left. That didn't bother him unduly, but it did remind him that he would face competition, and he'd need as many options open as he could get.

So he ended up in the warm, stuffy library or the Gryffindor common room for hours at a time (neither of which were particularly pleasant places to be, being full to the rafters of revising students, all with the look of the soon-to-be-examined - glazed, preoccupied faces with only the eyes betraying the state of quiet panic within) reading over History of Magic notes that had been impossible to learn the first time round, ferreting through heaps of textbooks to find the right wand movements for Human Transfigurations, falling asleep muttering the seven kinds of counter-hexes under his breath. By the end of the first week, Oliver was well and truly sick of the sight of textbooks, and would have seriously considered doing a striptease on the staff table at dinnertime to get onto the pitch for a friendly game. Alas, the Chasers had all vanished behind a stack of books, and Fred and George were apparently breaking the habit of a lifetime and actually working, so Oliver had to sigh heavily and go back to revision.

By the end of the second week Oliver felt he was going mad. He had read and re-read his notes so often his brain felt too full, as if the facts he'd forced in might leak out if he moved too sharply. To make it worse, although his head felt jammed to capacity, every time he tried to remember what he'd read, little bits kept slipping out of his memory. He started dreaming of weird mishmashes of Potions lessons and Congregations of the Wizengamot and Defence classes until he wasn't sure if he'd read some little piece of information or only dreamed it. The absolute worst dreams of all were the ones where he was sitting in the exam hall and turned over the question paper to find that he couldn't understand a single question, reading and re-reading it in a mounting panic until he woke up.

It was small comfort to know that he wasn't the only one, or even the worst affected by the quiet insanity infecting the school. Not even close. Percy had started his usual drill of the neat timetable over the worktable a full month and a half before the start of the official revision period, although this time Oliver had been far too busy with last minute troubleshooting for the Quidditch final to sneak a look. True to form, Oliver would shamble into the dorm every evening to find Percy bent over a textbook or past exam papers. After the first two weeks had passed with no sign of Percy easing up on his constant studying, Oliver had passed a comment on the way to dinner.

"You want to ease up a bit, Perce. You're making the rest of us look bad enough as it is."

"I don't know about the rest of you," Percy said, half-turning to frown at Oliver, glasses sliding down his nose, "but I need to do well in these exams, and to do that I need to work, strange as it may seem. So, if you don't mind..."

Oliver gave Percy a doubtful look. The light from the fading sunshine outside was catching Percy's face, darkening the skin under his eyes and making his face look...different. Thinner.

"There's such a thing as working too hard, y'know,"

Percy gave an exasperated sniff and turned back to his work. "You sound like my mother. I'm fine, thank you."

The last sentence sounded like a huff developing, so Oliver shrugged and left Percy to it. He wouldn't have thought anything of it usually, in fact didn't even think of it until weeks later when Percy arrived late to the Gryffindor table for lunch.

"Could you pass the pumpkin juice, please, Oliver?" Percy yawned, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes.

"Sure." Oliver looked at the other boy as he passed the jug over. A flicker of concern passed through him. Shorn of the protecting glasses, Percy's eyes were red and heavy, shadows pooled under his eyes. His face, too, was definitely thinner, the cheeks more hollow, giving him a pinched, anxious look. Percy picked up a roll and buttered it, apparently deaf to the chatter all around him.

"You okay, Perce?" Oliver asked quietly.

Percy blinked. "Sorry?"

"You look a bit...I dunno, tired."

Percy shook his head. "I'm fine. Just busy." He finished the roll, but ate nothing else, leaving his jacket potato almost untouched.

Oliver didn't see Percy the rest of that day, not even at bedtime. At half past nine he was so tired that he decided to call it a night, and was sound asleep by the time Percy came up to bed.

Oliver woke, disoriented, several hours later. Behind his curtains there was only a red-tinted darkness, and nothing that might have woken him. He shoved himself up onto his elbows, squinting around groggily. Suddenly he heard it - a faint groan from the direction of Percy's bed. Oliver considered, and decided to risk an enquiry.

"Perce? You all right?" he called softly.

Silence, for a long moment, then words, mumbled and running together so that Oliver couldn't hear them. Then silence again. Oliver frowned. Should he take a closer look?

"No-oo-oo, nonononono... can't, I can't!.... please..."

In any other circumstances Oliver would have left severely alone, so as not risk of being traumatised for life, but Percy was almost wailing in distress, begging someone unknown and unseen.

"I want it to stop, please make it stop..." Percy's voice dropped lower, choked with sobs and misery. Oliver had heard enough. He got out of bed, shoving the curtains out of the way, and crossed the moonlit room to Percy's bed. He tweaked the curtain back and the moon over his shoulder shot a soft silvery beam of light onto Percy's bed. Percy, however, seemed utterly oblivious. His bedclothes had got heaped and tangled all over the bed, and Percy was shifting restlessly from side to side, head twisting against the pillow. Oliver hadn't been hearing things, Percy was breathing in little gulps and sobs, tears gleaming on his cheeks, his sleeping face locked in an anguished grimace. He raised an arm, swatting vaguely at thin air.

"Tol'you, I can't...no more...no, no, no..." he whimpered.

Oliver stood undecided. What now? Were you even supposed to wake people from nightmares?

Sod this, my feet are freezing.

Percy groaned again, and Oliver gently shook his shoulder.

"Perce. Perce. Perce, wake up."

Two shakes later, Percy coughed, started and opened his eyes. He looked bewildered, and very young and frail without his glasses.

"Whuh?" He blinked blearily at Oliver, perched on the foot of the bed. "Oliver?"

"Yep. Sorry to wake you, Perce, but you were having one heck of a nightmare."

Percy's eyes were suddenly distant, closed off. "I was? I....I don't remember."

Oliver nodded, then added, "You all right now?"

Percy rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand. "Yes, yes, I'll be fine. Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

Oliver slid off the end of the bed and stumped back to his own. A couple of times in the night he thought he might have heard a voice, murmuring, but he couldn't be sure.

"Nononono no-oo-oo!"

Oliver swore at the sleep-blurred cry. Percy, again. Third time in a week. It was getting worse, had been for the last couple of weeks. Now that the exams had started, Percy's nightmares were getting increasingly intense and frequent. Recently he was only free of them when he was too exhausted from his hours of revision to dream. Perhaps Black's attack on the Gryffindor tower had made it worse, but Oliver doubted it. Percy's usual hardworking tendencies were going into overdrive: he hardly spent a minute away from his revision, and it was starting to show. His face had grown pale and bony, so that his ginger hair didn't seem to belong to him; he'd lost weight; he snapped at the slightest thing. A Gryffindor first year had been using five minutes break to tell a group of his friends a juicy new joke, and when they'd burst out in fits of laughter Percy had stalked over and slapped a week's detentions on the whole group before they'd got their breath back. It wasn't the only time, either. On top of that, Percy himself was hardly eating, just picking at his food at mealtimes. Oliver was not by nature given to anxiety or speculations (if he were, the odds were good he would never have set foot on a Quidditch pitch) but even so, he was getting downright worried about his dorm-mate. So far he hadn't said anything, as showing concern about another boy, even in Hogwarts, was likely to get him landed with the kind of rumours that people know perfectly well aren't true, but find way too scandalous not to repeat. But this was going a bit far.

He got out of bed and made the familiar trip to Percy's bedside.

"Perce!"

This time Percy woke at his voice alone. "Gh? Oh..." Percy sighed. "I'm sorry, Oliver, I really am."

"The same again?"

"Yes." Percy yawned, and reached for his glasses to check the time.

"That's the third time this week. It's happening almost every night...Perce, you need to see someone about this."

Percy blinked. "What do you mean?"

"These nightmares. I mean, look at you, Perce! You can't sleep, you're not eating, and you look knackered all the time. You can't go on like this, not with exams as well. Go and see Madam Pomfrey, see if she's got anything that would help. You can't be the only one getting wound up from exams. I know I am."

Percy's eyes slid sideways, as if he didn't want to look Oliver in the eye. "Yes, but it's difficult..."

"Can't be worse than this," Oliver observed. "It's too late now, but you must have five minutes free some time tomorrow. For Merlin's sake, go and talk to her and just see what she says."

Percy nodded, eventually. "All right."

Oliver didn't get chance to talk to Percy again until after dinner a few days later. He caught up with Percy on the fourth-floor corridor.

"Hey, Perce."

Percy rearranged his armful of books. "Hello, Oliver."

"What did Madam Pomfrey say about - "

Percy froze. A guilty look crossed his face. "I've - er - been very busy," he said, a little too loudly. "I suppose I must have, well, forgotten."

He was lying and they both knew it. Oliver's jaw clenched, and he resisted an urge to shake Percy until he got some sense into that stubborn skull, or better still, sling him over one shoulder and carry him, kicking and screaming, to Madam Pomfrey. Luckily for Percy's dignity, Flint was slouched against a wall watching them, and Oliver had no intention of feeding the Slytherin gossip mill.

"It doesn't matter, anyway," Percy added hurriedly. "I'm fine, really."

" No, you aren't," Oliver said, but Percy had already scuttled away.

Another time, Oliver might have dug his heels in, gone to Professor Dumbledore or Madam Pomfrey himself, but the next week a clutch of exams hit him hard, leaving him too mentally exhausted to do anything but sit in the common room and listen to the chattering of the first years, as soothing as a bubbling fountain in the distance. He hadn't spoken to Percy in days: Percy was spending most of his day in the library, poring over their exam papers (something Oliver would never understand. In his opinion, going through an exam once was more than enough). What brief glimpses of him Oliver did see were not encouraging. The tired, worn look had grown worse, except that now there was something else underneath: a kind of brittle taut air around Percy, as if he were a violin string being twisted and tightened to its limits and liable to snap at any moment. Something panicky and desperate.

Finally, three days before his last exam, Oliver caught the twins on their way out to sit by the lake.

"Can I talk to you a minute?" he asked.

Fred shrugged. "Outside all right? And Wood - swear on Harry's Firebolt that this isn't about Quidditch."

"Or History of Magic," George added.

Oliver was completely lost. "Why'd I want to talk about History of Magic?"

"No idea. But we don't," Fred said. "Had it this morning."

"Bad?"

"Bloody horrible."

Oliver looked sympathetic as the twins settled on a good shady spot next to a stone wall. Fred perched comfortably on a large block, dislodging a chunk of moss.

"So," he said. "What's this about, Ol?"

"Have any of you noticed anything odd about Percy recently?" Oliver said.

"Our Percy, you mean?" Fred asked.

"No, Percy Parfitt the Quidditch commentator - of course I mean your Percy!"

"Odder than normal?" George put in.

"I'm serious," Oliver snapped.

"Of course he's odd. Personally I call it being a pompous twerp, but..." Fred shrugged.

"Why d'you want to know?" Fred asked.

"There's something really wrong with him," Oliver stated badly. "He's been working non-stop for weeks, revising, and...it's affecting him. He keeps having these nightmares, waking up screaming, he's not eating or sleeping properly, and - well, take a look at him. He looks ready to collapse. And it keeps getting worse."

"It's the exams," Fred said, serious for once. "Everyone's like that, especially the fifth and seventh years."

"I'm not. And nor are you," Oliver pointed out.

"Yeah, but we're not like Percy, Ol. This isn't the only stuff that matters to us. But Percy... he's always been different."

Oliver raised his eyebrows.

George continued. "He's always been funny like this. Like he has to be the best at everything, all the time. Prefect, Head Boy, perfect student that all the teachers like - he never stops."

"But why is it so bad now?"

"He wants to be Minister for Magic, you know," Fred said. "To get a Ministry job you need good NEWT grades. Good NEWT grades are one thing, but there are a lot of people with good grades, and only so many jobs."

"Good grades aren't enough for Perce, though," George said. "He won't be happy with anything less than straight Os in everything. And if he doesn't get this Ministry job, it'd be the end of the world."

"It's the end of the world right now," Oliver said. "He can't go on like he's doing for much longer. The strain'll drive him nuts."

George shrugged. "It's what he wants. Personally I'd rather be the conductor on the Knight Bus than go through all that, but that's just me."

"Maybe you could talk to him," Oliver suggested. "Just persuade him to ease up on it a bit."

"No point," Fred said flatly.

"Why the hell not?" Oliver asked, frowning in disbelief. The twins didn't exactly get on with Percy, but he was still their brother.

"Try telling him, and you'll find out," Fred answered. "We grew up with Percy, Ol, and we could never get him to listen to us, any more than you."

Oliver walked out of the exam room, dropped the exam paper in the nearest wastebasket and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes and enjoying the coolness of the wall through his shirt.

Over. It was over.

After the last two weeks of frenzied activity, cramming and sitting exams, the sudden release felt strange, disorienting. No Quidditch, no exams, no lessons, even, and a whole week to fill as he wished. After a day or so doing nothing but eating and sleeping until his frazzled nerves repaired themselves, Oliver got bored, cadged a few interesting books of Lee Jordan and spent most of his time sprawled in the grounds, reading or discussing the upcoming Quidditch World Cup. The day after exams finished, Mum and Dad had owled him to say they'd got tickets for the finals, as a post-NEWTs treat, which almost made up for having to sit the NEWTs.

Oliver, then, was ambling around in a sunny mood, whistling a garbled bit of Wyrd Sisters, when Fred and George came jogging up.

"Hi."

"Have you seen Percy anywhere, Ol?" Fred asked. Oliver noticed the matching looks of concern on their faces, and his mood took a definite dip.

"Not since this morning." He'd seen Percy through the library window, sitting with a stack of textbooks and exam papers fencing him around, alternately chewing on a quill and scribbling something down with fierce, hunted concentration. "Why?"

"We can't find him anywhere," George said. "He wasn't at breakfast."

"Or lunch," Fred added.

Oliver felt a sharp prickle of unease. "Have you tried the hospital wing?" he asked.

Fred nodded. "Not there."

"You speak to his girlfriend?"

"Uh - huh. She says she hasn't even spoken to him in over a week. Sounded right pissed off, too."

"Try the library," Oliver suggested.

"Going there now. But if you see him, Ol, could you let us know, okay?"

"Sure. I don't think he's gone far, though. Results come out tomorrow, and then there's the Graduation Feast. He won't miss that, not after all the work he put into his exams."

"Hope so," Fred said. He didn't sound convinced.

Evening came, first dinner, then an easy few hours as the Gryffindors unwound in the common room, at ease and laughing again. It was around ten that Oliver wandered upstairs to bed and saw that the curtains around Percy's bed were already closed. He stopped, puzzled. He hadn't seen Percy come in or go upstairs, but he hadn't been paying much attention. He shrugged, and started getting ready for bed. It wasn't until he was stretching out under the covers that he remembered Fred and George. He should probably let Percy know his brothers would like to hear he was all right. Sighing, he rolled onto his feet and pattered over to Percy's bed. He thumped the closed curtains.

"Hey, Perce. Percy. You awake?"

No reply. Oliver listened for any sound of movement, but there was none.

"Percy?"

Come to think of it, he couldn't hear breathing, either. Suddenly suspicious, he flipped the curtains open.

There wasn't much light from the dimmed lamps in the dorm, but there was enough to let Oliver see clearly that Percy's bed was empty. It hadn't been slept in.

Oliver lay in the darkness, wide awake, ears straining to hear anyone moving in the dorm. He heard an animal shrieking outside, one of the school Hippogriffs by the sound of it, but he ignored it. Since discovering that Percy was missing he was getting really concerned, but he was tired and the bed was comfortable, and after a while his eyes closed by themselves.

He woke, several hours later, to the sound of creaking. Scraping. What...? A chair. A chair being moved, over by Percy's bed. He sat up, and through his bedcurtains he could see a light burning in the dorm.

Percy was sitting in his pyjamas at the desk, bent over a sheet of parchment covered in sums. He was prodding at the latest, muttering to himself as he added up, "...then add two for 4b, 3 for 4c, eight for 5 minus one, that's...41. Then two essay questions, thirty marks each -" He didn't even hear Oliver come to stand behind him.

"Perce, what are you doing?"

Percy jumped, sending little black splodges of ink across his carefully worked calculations. He swore quietly. "Now look what you made me do," he said fretfully, reaching for his wand to vanish the marks.

Oliver ignored the comment. "What are you doing?" he repeated. Percy half-turned, a strange, almost guilty look on his face.

"It's nothing important, really," he said. "I just wanted to check on something in the Transfiguration paper, there was part of question two, two b, that I wasn't sure about, so I looked it up...I think I missed out a point about Transfiguring magical objects, but - "

Oliver picked up the exam paper (not without some reluctance) and inspected it. Question two b was only worth three marks, and three difficult marks at that. He said so.

"But it could make all the difference!" Percy insisted, his voice rising. "If I didn't get all the marks from question six - I can't remember what I wrote for that, so I could have - then it'd only take about fifteen marks to drop me a whole grade." He spoke the last words with a kind of horror.

"Look, Perce, there is no way you're going to fail these exams," Oliver said reasonably. "If you failed, then so would the whole school."

"That's not the point," Percy snapped. "The Ministry have very high standards, and if I'm going to get recommended for promotion they'll expect the highest working standards from me. Anything less and it reflects badly on the Ministry."

"Sure, high standards are good, but nobody can be perfect, Perce!" Oliver said. "Look, whatever you wrote, it's done, the exams are finished and you can't change it now. I'm tired, you look half-dead and it's three a.m., Perce. Put the damn book away and get some sleep before you pass out."

Percy looked back at the pile of books.

"All right, I'll just finish this off and then I'll go to bed, I promise." He reached for the pen, but Oliver had got there first and laid it on the shelf out of reach.

"Perce, I can't sleep while you're faffing about out here. It can wait until tomorrow, okay?" he said firmly. Percy frowned.

"I have to find out what mark I got first. I'll be able to rest better if I know."

"That's rubbish," Oliver stated.

"Oh, what do you know about it anyway, Wood?" Percy snarled. "You've never given a damn about exams, or anything else except Quidditch. You could fail everything and you wouldn't be bothered, would you? Well, you've got what you wanted, you won the Cup, so sod off and leave me alone. I don't expect you to understand."

Oliver toyed briefly with the idea of smacking Percy around the head for being such a snobbish git, but restrained himself. Instead he leaned over the desk so that Percy shrank back from his stare.

" I understand this, Weasley," he said. "This is a bloody waste of time. You can't remember what you wrote, you don't know how the papers will be marked but you're going over it over and over again like it's going to make any difference what soev -" He had a sudden thought, glancing down at the pile of books. "You've been doing this ever since exams finished, haven't you? Over a week, and you haven't been at meals, you haven't rested properly, you've just been in the library all damn day, every day, trying to..." He tailed off. Percy swallowed, and looked as if he'd very much like to wriggle out of his chair and bolt for the common room, but he didn't move, and he didn't deny it either. Oliver leaned back, and Percy slumped in his chair.

"Perce," Oliver said gently, "can't you see that's not - not normal? It's taken you over. This," he indicated the desk, "this isn't being bothered, this is being obsessed. It's..." he hunted for a word, "it's a bit crazy, you know?"

He had hit a nerve. Percy flushed in anger, and he sat bolt upright despite his tiredness. "You think I'm crazy?" he demanded, furious.

"No! I think this studying thing is getting out of hand -" but Percy wasn't listening.

"This is Fred and George's idea, isn't it?" His face contorted in bitter anger. "I just don't believe them. They break nearly every single school rule, I spend half my time trying to get them to behave before they're expelled, and because I happen to be the one person in the family who tries to be responsible, they go starting rumours that I'm going mad!"

"It isn't that, Perce! They are worried about you, and so am I! If you don't stop this you'll...you'll..." He broke off helplessly.

"You're worried about me? Then perhaps you could do me a favour. Next time Fred and George want to make me the butt of one of their jokes, stay out of it," Percy spat. "You know, I really thought you were a decent bloke, Wood. Not the sort to stoop that low." Percy snorted. "Turns out you're as selfish and spiteful as the rest of them. Well, you can go to hell. And take your worrying with you."

Oliver recoiled, stung. " Well, I thought I was acting like a good friend trying to stop you killing yourself with overwork, but I don't know why I bothered," he growled. Percy turned pointedly away from him, rearranging his textbooks in a manner calculated to annoy. "Fine. Go loopy. Give yourself a heart attack for some stupid desk job. It's your life. But I'm not being kept awake all night, so you're gonna pack away that stuff and go to bed now."

Percy didn't turn around. "You go to bed. I've got work to do."

The urge to punch Percy was quite strong, but Oliver held firm. Just. "You think I'm kidding. I'm going to count to five, and either you put your stuff away or I do it for you, and I don't care how much gets broken or whether I have to put a Full Body-Bind Curse on you to do it."

Percy snorted. "You wouldn't."

"Try me. Five."

"Don't be stupid, Wood." He shrugged. "Besides, I can block - "

"Four."

"- any curse better than you can cast them," Percy finished with no small hint of smugness.

"Three - true, but I can cast them way faster than you can block them - two..."

Percy made a sound that sounded like 'tsk'. "Have you finished being stupid? Then - "

"Yep. And so have you. Zero." With well-practised speed Oliver whipped the books off the table. Percy gasped in surprise, but before he could move Oliver had yelled "Accio!" around the pile of books wobbling wildly on one arm and collected the parchments as well. Dark eyes flashing defiance at Percy he turned and bolted to his own school trunk, reached it, flung it open.

"Wood! You - you bastard!"

Oliver tumbled the books in, hearing a thud as the chair overturned behind him. He reached up and had just thumped the lid down when he felt hands clawing his shoulder, a knee thud into the back of his thigh and heard his t-shirt rip.

"Give them back!" Percy howled, sounding utterly demented.

Oliver twisted, one arm elbowing Percy back while he tried desperately to cast a Locking Charm with the other hand. "No-get-off-me!" he grunted, trying to break Percy's grip and failing. Merlin! How did the skinny little bugger get so strong?

"Give-me -" Percy hissed, nails digging unmercifully into Oliver's arm.

"No-bloody-way-Claustro!"

The spell took, just before Percy lunged at Oliver's hand and sent his wand skittering over the floor. Percy collapsed back, wheezing, sending a killing glare at Oliver, who was leaning against his trunk, panting. For a moment, neither of them moved, and then -

Oliver wouldn't've stopped more goals than he'd had hot dinners if he hadn't been good at seeing intentions. He saw Percy's eyes flicker and so was halfway to his feet before Percy stumbled up and pounced on Oliver's wand. He caught up as Percy turned and locked his hand around Percy's wrist as tight as he could, trying to force him to drop it. Percy clung on, teeth gritted and breath hissing.

"Bloody-let-go!" Oliver snarled as they staggered backwards. Percy stumbled, almost lost his balance.

"No!" It was a piercing, hysterical shriek, and Oliver didn't even have time to jump before Percy shoved at him and something smacked into his right cheek, hard enough to bruise. The pain was so unexpected he gasped. What -?

Percy had hit him. Cheek burning, Oliver glanced up at Percy's face, glasses askew, panic-crazed, and thought, Sod this. Gathering his strength, he twisted Percy's arm outwards, caught the wand in his other hand and brought his elbow sharply across. It caught Percy in the face: he cried out and let go of the wand, falling backwards to hit Oliver's bed with a crash. Oliver staggered back to sit down hard on his trunk. He stayed there, breathing hard, while he took stock of his injuries. His right cheek was already puffy and sore, and a slight stickiness suggested Percy's nails had drawn blood. There was a nasty Chinese-burn on the other wrist, but otherwise he was fine. Percy, sprawled on the other bed, hadn't moved. Oliver felt a stab of guilt: now that he knew he wasn't really hurt, clobbering Percy did seem rather extreme. Oh Merlin - how do I explain this one to the twins? 'Yeah, I saw Percy, and he says he was quite all right till I broke his nose for him'.

Oliver got up, and walked over to the bed, leaning cautiously over the prone figure. Was he breathing? Ready to duck back if Percy arose out for revenge, Oliver leaned closer.

Percy's face was half-buried in the bedclothes, his shoulders curled tightly up around his ears, so it was hard to see him. His face seemed screwed up, as if he was in pain, and Oliver's sinking feeling got worse. Percy's shoulders jerked, and he made a strange noise. Then again, and again. Oliver hesitated, puzzled. The he understood.

Percy was crying. Crying so hard he was shaking from it, so hard he could hardly breathe.

It took what felt like hours before the tears slowed enough for Percy to be even half-coherent; hours where Oliver sat awkwardly beside Percy, patting his shoulder and mumbling what he hoped were soothing things. At least it hadn't been his punch that had set Percy off: when Oliver asked if he was hurt or needed the nurse, Percy shook his head dumbly. They sat side by side on the edge of the bed, Percy leaning on Oliver's shoulder, eyes puffed up and half closed, breath coming in gulps and hiccups so that Oliver could feel him shaking. Oliver thought, and then ferreted around in his bedside table and found a wodge of clean tissues, which he passed to Percy.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

Percy sniffed loudly, and leaned forwards, resting on his forearms. "I'll be all right now."

"But you're not all right, are you, Perce? No, don't even try to say you're fine really. You aren't, and we both know it."

Percy opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it again. Minutes passed. Finally Oliver spoke.

"What's really bothering you, Perce? All this - revising till it nearly kills you, the stuff with the marks...there has to be some reason for it. So what's going on?"

Percy didn't answer for a moment. "I can't explain it. You wouldn't understand what I mean."

"Maybe not. But I might. And seeing as I'm the only one here and listening to you, you've got nothing to lose, have you?"

Percy looked wary. "Oliver, I've already made a complete idiot of myself tonight. If it got out that the Head Boy couldn't cope with - " He bit the sentence off, looking annoyed that he'd said more than he intended. Oliver raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

"You're kidding me, right? You think I'd blab this all over the school? 'Hey lads, guess what Perfect Percy did last night!'" He shook his head. "I'm not that stuck for entertainment, and this ain't even close to funny. Look, I'll make a deal with you. Tell me what's bothering you, and I swear it won't leave this room. On my new Nimbus. Swear." He was a little doubtful about bringing his beloved broom into it, but it would at least convince Percy that he was serious.

"You won't tell anyone? Not even Fred and George?"

Oliver shook his head. "No, I won't tell them. But you should. They're your brothers, and they're as worried as I am."

Percy laughed, a short, humourless sound. "I can't. They think I'm funny in the head already. And they'd be bound to say something to Mum and Dad." He sniffed again, staring at the floor.

"Is that such a bad thing?" Oliver asked.

"I don't know," Percy sighed. "I just wanted..." He tailed off, fingers picking the tissues to shreds. Oliver waited patiently, and eventually Percy continued. "When I was made Prefect, Mum was so proud, you know? Like I was the bee's knees, so clever and responsible...Before then, I was always Bill and Charlie's younger brother, even to her-" he said bitterly. Oliver made a disbelieving noise. "You don't believe me, do you? It's true, though. They were the older ones she was proud of, Ron and Ginny were her babies, Fred and George were the naughty ones she spent all her time telling off, but me - I wasn't anything in particular. I was just another one. But this, " for a moment his face showed a gleam of animation, "this was different. It was nice, being special. I don't suppose you can imagine what it's like, trying to get any attention with six brothers and sisters in the house. You might as well be invisible."

Oliver, blessed with a single younger brother, shook his head.

" I can't tell her any of this. Not now," Percy said. " I can't say to her 'Actually, Mum, I hate being Head Boy, I never have a minute even to think on my own and between that and working so hard to get my good grades I sometimes think I might suddenly start screaming one day and go on and on and on till I die of it.'" The words tumbled out in a flood, angry and pained. "She wouldn't say anything, she'd just - God, I know what she'd do. She'd put a brave face on it, she'd never admit it but I 'd know she was so disappointed..."

"Perce, I've met your Mum. I know what she's like. If she knew that this was what it did to you, she'd probably insist that you gave it up. She'd say it wasn't worth losing you."

"I know," Percy said miserably. "But I don't want to give it up."

Oliver frowned. "That doesn't make any sense. It's driving you nuts, for Merlin's sake!"

" I want her to be proud of me," Percy admitted. "And it's stupid, but I keep thinking that it'd be worth it, in the end, if I got to the top of the Ministry, went further than anyone else -" He sniffed. "She's always talking about Bill or Charlie, the things they're doing in their jobs. Or Ron, or Ginny, or the twins. Anyone but me. Whatever I do, someone's done it before me - even being Head Boy!" he said irritably. "I can't have anything myself! But this - I thought..."

"You wanted to be the very best for once," Oliver guessed.

Percy snorted. " I can't even remember a time when I wasn't being good all the time so I'd set a good example. Everything I've ever bloody well done has been for someone else - for Mum, for the others, never for me. So I tried to be best at everything, the best I could think of, all-the- " he yawned, "all the time." He blinked, rubbing his eyes. "And it was okay, to start with, but now I'm just so tired."

"That's not surprising. It's almost four in the morning."

"No, not like that," Percy said wearily, leaning more heavily into Oliver's shoulder. "It was wonderful, listening to her telling everyone I was top of the class, I was so clever..." he said, a wistful tone creeping into his voice. "But there was always something more to do. There were exams again the next year, and the next, and then OWLs and now these - it never stopped, and it got harder and harder so I worked more and more just to be sure I'd keep doing as well as I did before." He closed his eyes, hiccupping quietly, swaying backwards on the bed. After a second's thought, Oliver propped one arm across Percy's back to steady him. Percy didn't open his eyes, but leaned into it gratefully. "Every time, I was sure that it would all go wrong this time," he murmured, half to himself. "I was sure I would fail. Even when I didn't, I'd only got away with it until the next time. It got worse every year, until now...Have I really been acting odd recently?" he asked, opening his eyes.

"Very," Oliver said.

"I don't remember. I don't know why, but I can hardly remember a thing from the whole of this term."

"The stress, I bet," Oliver said. "It messes you up. I haven't been feeling right for weeks."

"I do envy you, you know," Percy said with a sad little smile. "You know that some things are important, but you don't worry about them. I wish I could do that."

It was Oliver's turn to snort. "Yeah, right! Have you ever seen me before a game? You ask Fred and George - before that game against Ravenclaw I was a bloody babbling idiot. Of course I worry. But I just do the best I can then try to take my mind off it, and I have people to talk to if I need them."

"I could use some of them," Percy said.

"You've got some, Perce, you just won't talk to them. Do you know that this is the first time in seven years you've admitted to me that you're feeling stressed, and we share a dorm! And what about Penelope? When did you last talk to her?"

Percy winced. "She dumped me. Almost two weeks ago."

Damn. "Hell, I'm sorry, Perce."

Percy shrugged, a tight, unhappy gesture. "She said I had no time for her," he said, swiping away the fresh tears trickling down his cheek. "That I was more concerned about my work than about her."

"That's not really fair, though - " Oliver began.

"It is," Percy interrupted. I was more worried about my NEWTs than I was her. I didn't mean it to be like that, but I always had so much work...Every time I could have spent time with her, I kept worrying: what if I fail? What if my grades aren't good enough because I didn't do this little bit extra? So I didn't see her. Not then, or the next time..." Another tear plopped onto his faded flannel pyjamas.

"Doesn't mean you don't care about her," Oliver pointed out.

"That's not much use if I'm never there," Percy said.

"Good point."

They sat there quietly for a long while, still side by side. The tower was absolutely silent, and although the sky outside was gradually lightening not even the very earliest birds were out yet. Oliver yawned, closed his eyes and wondered how Aidan was doing at home. Little bugger'd better not have been using my kit...

He jerked awake and felt Percy shift next to him. "Da-aa-aa-aa-amn." Oliver rehinged his jaw and tried again. "Damn. Sorry. Dozed off."

"Mm." Percy yawned too. "S'okay. M' sorry, Oliver, you've been up for hours and I've been whingeing on..."

"No problem," Oliver said sleepily. "It's a relief to have you acting normal again." He thought. "Well, sort of normal."

"Yeah, but...well, you didn't have to listen to all this, and..." Percy paused. "I'm grateful. Really."

"Glad I could help. But if you're feeling better - "

"Much better, thanks."

" - then I think we could both do with some sleep," Oliver finished.

"Mm."

"C'mon." Oliver got up and offered Percy a hand. The redhead took it and staggered to his feet. "Whoa - grab my arm before you fall over."

Oliver steered Percy across the dorm until he sank onto his own bed. Percy sighed and fumbled his glassed onto the bedside table.

"Okay?"

Percy nodded against the pillows. "Okay."

"G'night, Perce."

"Night."

Oliver dropped back on his own bed, dragged the blankets in around him and curled up. He heard Percy's breathing grow slow and even, before he too fell asleep.

"OY! WOOD! Lazy arse! Any chance of movement this year?"

Oliver groaned. "Is that Fred or George?"

"Fred."

Oliver winched an eye open. "Sod off anyway, you noisy bugger."

"Will I hell. You'll get out of shape lying around like that. I'm looking after your assets here. Anyway, you'll miss lunch. Toodles."

The door banged shut. Oliver rolled over and sat up, palming sleep out of his eyes. Lunchtime? Whu-? Then he remembered.

"Percy? You awake yet?"

He'd expected a sleepy mumble from Percy, and was quite surprised to hear a crisp, "Yes, I am. Good morning."

Oliver blinked hard until his vision cleared. Percy was sitting on his bed (already neatly made) knotting his tie.

"Hey." He yawned. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, thank you."

Oliver sat up. Something was definitely not right here. "You feeling better?"

Percy looked at him with a polite, neutral expression. "Yes, of course."

Oliver got up, and peered at the clock. "Half-eleven. Sheesh. He wasn't kidding." He'd have to wash after lunch if he wanted to get anything to eat. He found all the bits of his uniform and started dressing, and he was halfway through buttoning his shirt when a though hit him. He glanced over at Percy. "Y'know, Perce, you could probably have a word with Madam Pomfrey at lunchtime, when it'd be private. Everyone else'll be at lunch and I haven't heard of anyone staying in there at the moment. If you tell her what you told me she'll know what'd help better than I would."

Percy went still: Oliver saw it out of the corner of his eye. "Oh. Yes."

The silence lengthened. "Well..."

Oliver stopped trying to tie his tie and turned to look at Percy. Percy was staring at his shoes, avoiding his eyes. "I've been thinking, and...um...well, I wasn't myself last night, we've all been under a lot of strain, what with the exams and everything, and it affected me badly..."

Oliver felt his stomach sink to his socks. Oh hell, no. Suddenly he knew where the conversation was heading, and it wasn't good. "Percy -"

"- but the NEWTs are finished now and I'm feeling much better, so it was probably just a temporary thing. There's really no point in bothering anyone about it," Percy gabbled, getting up and snatching up his outer robes. "And, um, Oliver?" Oliver said nothing, but Percy met his gaze briefly and Oliver saw him wince. "Um, I - I know you've had to put up with a lot from me recently, and I really appreciate it, but I just wanted to ask if you could keep what we said last night to yourself. The Heads of Department at the Ministry are - well, you know - a bit funny about that kind of thing, and if I got about it might make things really difficult for me, so - um - would you...?"

He looked pleadingly at Oliver. Oliver stared back at him, saw the desperation there, and nodded. There really wasn't anything else he could do.

"Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Well, I'd better go if I'm going to make lunch, so - "

But he had to try. In three steps he was between Percy and the door. Percy shrank back.

"No -it's okay." Oliver took a deep breath and looked right into Percy's hazel eyes. "Perce, listen to me, " he began, quiet and urgent. "I won't tell anyone about last night, I already promised I wouldn't. But every word you said to me then was true, and it's still true right now. You don't want to work for the Ministry, you never did, and you are definitely not all better now. Now in two minutes you can walk out of here and I won't stop you, but I just want to say one thing to you first. Don't do this, Perce. That Ministry job will send you around the bend. However many Galleons and posh offices and fancy titles you get with it, it will never be worth it. And you know it."

Percy swallowed hard. For a split second Oliver saw his eyes flicker, was sure he'd listen, but then:

"I'll manage," Percy croaked. "I'll have to."

"But you won't," Oliver said. Percy didn't answer, and when Oliver stepped out of his way he scurried to the open door and out of the dorm, head down, without looking back. Oliver watched him go. He could have called him back, tried to persuade him, but he knew there was no point. Percy had made his decision, and he would see it through if it killed him.

At the Graduation Feast that evening, Oliver watched as Percy went up to receive his NEWT certificate - eight O-grade NEWTs and a formal offer of employment from the Ministry of Magic. No surprises there. To the rest of the school, Percy looked just as he always did, but Oliver was very aware of the brittleness of it all, the way Percy's pleased smile didn't reach his eyes.

Lee Jordan reached for the pumpkin juice and grinned at Oliver. "All right for some, huh?" he said, nodding at Percy, seated at the other end of the table. "Top-grade NEWTs, hot girlfriend, cushy job at the Ministry...is ole Perfect Percy lucky or what?"

Oliver pretended he hadn't heard. Inside, though, he knew the answer. He would think the same when he heard about Percy's furious row with his family, and again, years later, when Fred and George owled him with the news that Percy had been admitted to St Mungo's suffering from a complete nervous breakdown.

No, Percy wasn't lucky. Not lucky at all.

Finis