Apologise and Leave

It wasn't until the noise of thin, rigid aluminium being crushed underfoot reached his ears that Percy snapped out of the self-pitying reverie he'd fallen into. The bright red of the coke can stood out sharply against the grey pavement. A passer-by prone to reading novels of the mass-produced variety might have made some comparison to the red of his hair and the grey of the skies; fortunately the only witness was a stray cat, far more interested in the next meal than books of any description. Percy himself would never have been caught reading such a thing. Fred and George were always on the lookout for blackmail material and he was damned if he was going to present it to them neatly wrapped up and tied with a curly bow.

Except that these days they didn't care about him, unless it were to wish him dead.

He was somewhere that he didn't recognise. He assumed he was still in London; not even a wizard could walk out of the city in one afternoon, unless they were wearing seven-league boots, which he wasn't. Out of his league, as it were.

He caught his thoughts right there. Making bad puns to one's self really had to be the limit. The limit of what, he didn't know. Nothing too important, surely, since there was nothing of import in his head. Only cauldron bottom thicknesses and how many sugars to put in someone's tea. Maybe he should consider becoming a waiter. He could probably write a set of guidelines on how to make the beverages for every single member of the Ministry by now. With the exception of the Unspeakables.

And Unspeakables were really at the crux of the matter. Unspeakables. The Department of Mysteries. The events of three months ago.

Ron would be back at school by now. Prefect. Keeper. Friend. The last would come first for him. It was how Ron was. Whereas Percy had been prefect first and foremost. Later he'd let "Ministry employee" take the place of "prefect." Oliver had been Quidditch player above all else.

Again he caught himself. That wasn't true. Not really. If he were to be truly honest with himself - which he seemed to be doing - Oliver had tried to be a friend and lover above Quidditch, but Percy had managed to push him away with his blind arrogance. With his priorities that had been all wrong and his single-minded pursuit of his top priority, his determination to let nothing interfere with his career.

It was - he firmly pushed his mind to complete the thought, not letting it shy away as it had been for the past few days - it was time to speak to Oliver. To apologise. To share his realisation that there was a world outside the walls of his Ministry office.

He firmly quashed the scrap of hope that Oliver might accept his apology and take him back. Oliver had no reason to believe that he'd genuinely realised the enormity of his errors. Indeed, he had every reason not to. But he deserved to be told, whether he believed or not.

It was a fortunate thing that apparition only required knowing where one was going to, not where one was.

***

Oliver was exhausted. He'd just finished a long day of training - from dawn until well after dusk. Quidditch stopped for no man, woman, or dragon; that kind of thinking, far from being new to Oliver, had been the basis around which he structured almost his entire life. But now the coach seemed to think that all of the team needed to build up stamina and concentration, which meant twelve hours and more of practice each day. As a result he wanted nothing more than to get home, collapse into bed and never, ever have to think again.

The last thing he needed was a sleepless night spent re-hashing decisions made more than a year ago and trying to define emotions that were still around. Unfortunately, given the person who was sitting on his front step, elbows on knees and head hanging, it looked like that was precisely what he was going to get.

It was also the last thing he'd expected. The last time he'd seen him - other than the odd glimpse from the other side of Diagon Alley - they'd hardly parted on friendly terms. Oliver distinctly recalled telling him to get out and stay out. Or something to that effect.

He wearily propped his bag on the fence post.

"I thought I told you not to come here again."

Percy's head snapped up. He was pale, Oliver noticed; well, nothing new there, but the heavy circles under his eyes, dark enough to be seen even with the glasses to help conceal them, were. His hair was surprisingly unkempt, too. Oliver honestly could not remember ever seeing Percy with hair that wasn't neat. Even when he'd just woken up, his hair managed to arrange itself into some semblance of order.

Oliver forcibly stopped himself from following that train of thought. There were only painful memories to be found in that direction.

"I - well - ah - well, yes you did. Sort of."

Oliver blinked. He didn't recall there being any room for doubt.

"You told me to get out and stay out until I realised that there was more to the world than what my precious Ministry decided was allowed to exist," Percy clarified.

He had closed his eyes and his face was carefully blank. His tone, though, became bitter at the end. Oliver recognised the words as his own; he hadn't realised that they'd affected Percy enough that he'd had remembered them. He hadn't realised that they'd had any effect at all, come to think of it. At the time Percy had just apparated away without another word, then or since.

Percy opened his eyes and fixed them on Oliver.

"I've had that realisation and a few others. A lot of others, really. I've come to apologise. To say I'm sorry for everything I ever did that hurt you."

One shaking hand nervously adjusted his glasses.

"And I'm not asking you to ever see me again. It's probably better for you if you don't, I don't seem to be able to stay around people without hurting them one way or another. I just... I wanted to say goodbye. We never did, before. And I thought you ought to know... well. That I'm sorry, for what it's worth."

He stood. Oliver saw his throat move as he swallowed.

"Goodbye, Oliver."

The crack of disapparition broke the paralysis that had come over Oliver. He slowly walked up to his front door and inside his home.

He dropped his bag inside the front door and made himself a hot cup of tea before sitting at the kitchen table.

He thought Percy had just apologised to him. He wasn't entirely sure that he hadn't hallucinated the entire meeting.

He remembered the messy hair. He couldn't have hallucinated that; hallucinations came from your own brain, didn't they? Essentially your own imagination. And he would never, ever have imagined Percy with messy hair.

So it had been real. Percy had come here, apologised - and left.

Oliver turned over memories and emotions in his mind. He still cared for Percy. He'd never stopped caring, not really, or at least not for the Percy who was buried beneath the Ministry employee. He hadn't gone out with anyone since Percy; he refused to use someone as a rebound board, for one thing. He had simply accepted that Percy would not be a part of his life again and for a while, neither would anyone else.

He'd daydreamed, sometimes, of Percy turning up, apologising, professing his love, himself forgiving him and things progressing as they will when two horny men are involved. He'd simply never considered that it would ever be anything beyond a naively optimistic hope.

Percy had turned up, apologised and left.

Damn it! What had happened to the star Keeper of Hogwarts? He hadn't been able to keep Percy around for even a second after he'd finished speaking.

He tossed the now-cold tea into the sink. Percy had come, apologised, and left, so Oliver was just going to have to follow.

***

Percy was not expecting any visitors that night. Truth be told, he never had visitors these days. Thus the rattle of the fireplace came as a complete shock, causing him to drop the cup he was holding.

A swift "Reparo!" fixed the problem and he went, empty cup in hand, to see who was coming into his home.

At the sight of Oliver emerging from the flames, the cup was dropped for the second time in as many minutes. This time, however, it landed on the couch and its fall, although completely unnoticed, did it no damage.

"You didn't block me from your floo." Oliver sounded surprised.

"I... no, I suppose I didn't. It never occurred to me, I guess. And I suppose a bit of hope still lingered."

Percy wished he could have bitten the words back the instant they escaped his mouth.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have - why did you come? I didn't expect to you to - I thought you wouldn't want to see me. I didn't expect you to, that wasn't why I was there."

And now he wished that he could take all that back, reconstruct it and transform it from embarrassing babble into something that at least had correctly structured sentences.

"I know, you said - but you left before I could think." Oliver expelled the breath he'd been holding. "Did you mean what you said, just then, about hope?"

This certainly wasn't what Percy would have expected out of another encounter with Oliver.

"I think... yes. I did. Oliver - why did you come?"

"I don't want you out of my life."

It was said deliberately, carefully, so that Percy knew there was no mistake. It seemed they were both being unusually candid tonight.

"You didn't seem to think that last time we spoke." He heard the sarcastic tone sliding past his ear, too late to be altered. Why, oh why could he not drop pretences even when he wanted to? And why could he not say even one thing as he wanted to?

Oliver's eyes narrowed.

"Correction; I don't want Percy out of my life. Percy Ignatius Weasley, secretary to Minister Fudge, is someone I never want to see again. Let me know when he's gone."

"Oliver, I - please, don't go. Please."

Oliver stopped, about to toss the powder onto the fire, but didn't turn back around to face Percy again.

"I wish - I didn't mean to make that sound like it did. I know why you said what you did, now, I understand why you couldn't stand to see me anymore. I wish I could stop playing the part of the Ministry employee. But I think I've forgotten how to be anything else.
"Everyone says "I am what I am," Oliver, but I'm not what I am, and I wish I could be."

Oliver stared at the mantelpiece. There were no photos on it, no ornaments; it was bare, lacking even dust. Slowly he lowered his arm from where it had paused in the process of throwing the floo powder and turned around.

"I think you just made a very good start."

For the first time since arriving home that afternoon, he smiled. And it felt like the first real smile he'd done in ages. He took the two steps necessary to carry him to Percy and wrapped him in a hug.

He felt familiar arms hesitantly wrap around him in turn, felt Percy's head rest on his where it always had.

Almost without thinking he tilted his own head upwards, lips seeking, finding, keeping.

"Mmm... missed.... missed this."

"Missed which?" He was a bit more coherent than Percy, but not by much. Lips left lips, finding chin and jaw and throat instead, while hands roamed freely, recollecting paths half-forgotten.

"This... contact... touching...everything... just you."

The loud growling of his stomach brought Oliver rather abruptly back to reality, eyes wide open, feeling stunned. Percy, for his part, simply stared, then started laughing helplessly. Oliver slowly grinned, then joined him in laughing as his stomach grumbled once again.

"Did you even eat anything before coming here?" Percy demanded.

"Umm... no," Oliver admitted.

"I should feel flattered, I think. I managed to get between the great Oliver Wood and his after-practice meal?"

"Didn't even drink the tea I'd made."

Percy smiled and tugged gently on Oliver's arm, pulling him towards the kitchen.

"Come on then, I'd better cook you something. Can't have you fainting from hunger while we're figuring things out."

"You do want to figure things out, then?"

"Merlin, yes!"

Percy put some pasta on before turning to look Oliver full in the eyes.

"I never wanted you out of my life either, Oliver. I was just too blind to realise I was pushing you further away everyday, with everything I did and said."

He turned back to the stove, starting the vegetables, as Oliver sat and considered.

***

He snuggled deeper into the person that was next to him, getting closer, as close as he could. Sleep had claimed Oliver soon after dinner, giving him enough time to change into sleepwear and to get to bed, but not much else. Percy hadn't minded; tonight had been far more than he had ever hoped to have again and he had missed the simple companionship of sleeping in the same bed as another.

Before the beginning of summer, he remembered wishing that he'd never had to grow up. He missed the lack of responsibility of being a child. There had been a book his father had brought home once, a Muggle book. There'd been a land where no one grew older, ever. You needed fairydust to get there, for some reason, he couldn't remember why. He'd wished he could go there.

But now... not growing up would have meant not having this chance with Oliver. It would have meant not having the first chance either.

It was too exacting a price. Given the choice, now, he'd stay here, with Oliver. Whatever it was he felt for the man next to him, it was too precious to survive eternity without.