Summer of '93 [PERCIVER]

6 - ENCOUNTER

"Fred! George! Whatever it is that you're whispering about, cut it out! I will not have you cause trouble whilst in the hotel, do you understand me?" Molly scolded, her words hissed in an effort to be quiet, but still harsh.

Fred and George halted their whispering and exchanged looks with one another, the communicative looks all twins possessed. George snickered and nudged Fred, who nudged him right back. The two shoved one another back and forth for a few seconds until George nearly fell from his chair from how hard Fred pushed him. Both grinned widely, their eyes sparkling with mirth. Not even a second after, and Fred conceded with a wide smirk across his face. Percy silently groaned; this could only mean one thing.

"Apologies, Mother dearest. If it dissatisfies you for us to whisper about our plans at the table," Fred began, trying hard to contain his laughter,

"Then we'll just talk about them so everyone can hear. Isn't that better, Mum?" George finished with a lazy smirk, one glance from Fred had him bursting into laughter.

Percy silently placed his head in his left hand, holding the menu with his right. The topic of Fred and George's conversation was going to be inevitably distasteful. He didn't even want to think about the slowly but surely sinking message the two were sending to Ron and Ginny that the world wasn't an innocent place and that babies did not come from storks. They were far too young to know of such mature concepts, let alone to hear conversations about them and actively participate in the discussion! Percy would be scandalised if they ever found out of anything like that because of him.

He attempted to focus on the menu in front of him, but found that he couldn't, much to his displeasure.

"Alright Fred, the masterplan."

"Ah, yes! Operation 'How to bang a Cali girl'!"

Percy rolled his eyes as he listened to his father chide them for not having manners about such a thing and how they were far too young for it. As the twins continued to noisily discuss their poorly formatted and frankly inappropriate plan. As his mother began to lecture them, he flicked through the menu, trying to find something to stimulate the appetite he had lost. Nothing, nothing at all. He sighed, and internally declared it a lost cause with no hope of redemption.

His thoughts quickly drifted away as his family became mere background noise along with the rest of the restaurant. Of all the things he could potentially think about, books, schoolwork, that letter he was working on to his older brother Charlie, it was Oliver his mind fixated on. Oliver, volleyball, and the rocks.

That hour or two on the beach held more significance for him than their previous direct interactions combined. All of those smiles, his laugh, his kindness, it was no longer indirect. Not anymore. Percy had dreamed of it all of last night, sprinting through fictitious memories of his own creation without effort. It was real now; he was not falling for a hyper-realistic fictional character. This Oliver had substance; he was the Oliver. He was everything Percy hoped he would be and more.

Whenever Oliver occupied his mind, it was as though all the cold had left the world entirely, leaving only warmth. When his eyes flickered in Oliver's direction, warmth filled places he thought it wasn't able to. His fingers, toes, head. Things he thought only fictional characters experienced. At first, he thought it was admiration. Soon after, he learned that admiration does not rear its head in the form of dreaming about him at night, or in the form of writing 'Mr. Percival Weasley-Wood' in the margins of his History of Magic homework. He then thought it was a crush. For a long while, Percy had believed this, indulging himself in it whilst alone. However, yesterday had changed everything.

"We're ready to order."

His perception of his love life would never truly be the same again. What he held for Oliver was infatuation, he was absolutely smitten. If a fictional character in one of his books was in the same situation as he, he would scold them and tell them not to be dense. That they were utterly and most certainly too devoted for it to be a silly little crush.