Their Side Of The Story

Percy Ignatius Weasley

I have always been the odd one out. If it were not for my hair I might question my parentage, but I am certainly a Weasley - at least by birth. I never quite fitted in, though.

I am the quiet, studious one in the family, though I have never been sure why. It is not necessarily that I am any more intelligent than the others. I think it might have been the twins, not that I'm blaming them; it's just the way things worked out. I wasn't quite two when they were born, you see, so I got rather left in the middle.

Bill and Charlie were old enough by then to occupy themselves, and certainly old enough to not want me tagging along with them. I could hardly walk, let alone keep up when they wanted to run somewhere. They had each other, at least until Bill went to school, and the twins obviously had each other so I found that I had to keep myself company. Books filled the gap.

When Ron, and especially Ginny, turned up I became the oldest brother in effect. Bill first went away to school when Ginny was just a few weeks old - three weeks to the day if you want to be exact - and Charlie followed him just after she turned two. By that stage I was seven and more than capable of reading them stories. I liked that. I have never found little children a nuisance. I liked the way they would listen to me, and I could make them laugh. Mother liked it as well because she normally had her hands full either running the house or trying to stop Fred and George destroying it.

I never quite had the same relationship with them as I did with my youngest siblings. They were not ones for sitting still, or being told stories and I suppose they really did have that link that twins are supposed to have. They thought in the same way and acted in the same way, although Fred was certainly the leader.

Whilst on the subject I suppose I should get Myth Number One out of the way.

I wish I had died instead of Fred.

No, I do not wish that and never have done.

I wish he had lived, but I cannot envision that I would have offered to swap places with him, even if there had been the opportunity. Does that make me a coward, or unworthy? I think not, just a realist.

That leads on to Myth Number Two, which I might as well deal with at the same time. It keeps everything in order and then I can get on with the rest.

I blame myself for his death.

No, I have never done so.

The blast, Expulsio probably, came from nowhere so whether we were talking to each other or on guard would have made no difference. I have, I can assure you, re-run that scenario many times and I cannot see another outcome. You cannot plan for randomness and a thousand things could have been different that night. We could have been standing the other way around, or he could have been in a different corridor or just a few feet away. Or perhaps he could have been out in the grounds. Or, or, or. Nobody was guaranteed to survive, so blaming myself for what happened would be senseless and illogical.

I've answered those questions so many times it has become rote, a barrier to protect me from the sense of loss I feel. The sight of his body, lying broken on the floor, is one that will never leave me. He was my brother, part of my family, and taken from us. I am proud of him. I was proud of every one of them that night and I was proud to be a Weasley. Most of all I was proud of my Mother and Father.

It was probably the first time I had been proud of them and in that lies the root of the difficulties I had with my family; my parents in particular. Deep down, when I really analyse the problem, I was never ashamed of them but I was disappointed in them. I thought they had let themselves down, and us in turn.

It was not purely their support for Albus Dumbledore as opposed to The Ministry. That was simply the catalyst for a situation that had been brewing for many years. It actually went back to before I was born.