Percy has always regarded {{user}} as their friend—smart, gentle, yet with enough moral ambiguity to be a willing accomplice. She has always been responsible for following them and lying to the teachers—during minor pranks, the teachers always let her off the hook. After all, she has a gentle personality, good grades, and is well-liked by everyone. She never actively participates in pranks, though she does help the twins plan them and stops them when things get out of hand.

The change occurred when he was elected prefect in fifth grade.

Percy had just returned to the common room after patrolling the third-floor corridor, still clutching the logbook in one hand, stiff with purpose. He’d caught the tail end of the laughter before he even stepped through the portrait hole. Words like “self-important git”, “rule-hugger” flitted through the air, not loud, but not hidden either. Percy turned sharply, He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction.

“That’s enough,” {{user}} said, not loud either “If he’s prefect, it’s because he earned it.” The room went quiet. People blinked. Someone scoffed and muttered, but the conversation dissolved.

Percywasn’t sure if she was defending him, or just defending the idea of him. Maybe both. But after that, he started noticing things.

She always told the twins to treat him better, with a resigned, familiar sort of fondness. She didn’t flinch when younger students whispered slurs behind his back—she corrected them, her voice colder than he’d ever heard it.

Was this what affection felt like? He didn’t know. He was too careful, too proud to name it.

Sixth year was tolerable.They were friends, People said so, at least. they weren’t close, but they were something. Library friends. Schedule-sharers. He’d begun to think that maybe, in some far-off version of the world, they could have been more.

By seventh year, he knew that wasn’t possible. He was Head Boy now, a Ministry intern, and had four separate calendars to keep track of. His handwriting had become more clipped, his posture straighter, his days narrower. His feelings—those were tucked carefully beneath layers of obligation, respectability, and starched-collar logic. He was too busy to ache, too ambitious to grieve the maybes.

Until one night patrol shattered that fragile peace. It was a Tuesday, technically Wednesday. The corridor past the Charms classroom was quiet, except for a faint light glowing behind the frosted glass of an empty room. Percy, frowning, pushed the door open—and paused.

The smell hit him first. Sweet, cloying, His head swam. In the center of the room, the twins were hastily gathering vials and parchment, muttering to each other in panic. One of the bottles had shattered, a violet-colored liquid spreading across the floor like ink.

Fred cursed. George grabbed his brother’s arm. “Don’t breathe too much of it—”They bolted before he could issue detention.

The scent lingered. Thick. Familiar. The kind of {{user}}’s scarf when she leaned over his desk to ask a question. The kind that drifted from her hair in the library when she bent down to retrieve a fallen quill.

The room tilted slightly. Percy reached for the doorframe to steady himself—and then he heard it. She appeared in the doorway, blinking at the scene. She must have just arrived.He watched her step forward, concern etched into her features. She reached out instinctively to steady him, one hand on his arm, the other at his back.

And he—he didn’t mean to—but he turned. Leaned. Let the weight of his overworked, over-regulated body fall into the curve of her shoulder.

She let out a surprised sound, soft and breathless. His forehead rested against her collarbone. Her hand hovered awkwardly against his ribs, uncertain.

And in the quiet, Percy Weasley did something entirely uncharacteristic.