Breaking Protocol {Percy Weasley}

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Love isn't a throwaway emotion, something to invoke on a whim. It isn't transitory like lust or something to regret like anger. When love is allowed to permeate every action, influence every thought, guide every deed, it leads to an inner peace not attainable any other way. It is the light in every dark night, shining brightly into each recess of the mind, healing, igniting passions that would otherwise have died.

Love does not hurt, Percy thought as he wandered down the dimly lit corridor, what hurts is the absence of love. The absence of Clara's love is like acid pooling in his chest, pumping though his veins and burning him to death from the inside out. With every beat of his heart, another wave of acid shot through his raw body. The hurt of her absence is like a spider web--intricate, yet strong. Percy didn't think that all the time in the world would be enough to let the memory of her love pass. All the joy in his heart, the joy Clara had planted inside his soul, is gone.

He cannot cry, cannot grieve for her, for Clara stole herself away from him. She took the love she had offered him and locked it back inside herself, out of Percy's reach which left him dry and dying--desperate for a taste of her love.

Percy thought he was safe. Thought that letting Clara's love permeate every aspect of his life wouldn't destroy him like it was now, but he was wrong. He knew better, knew better than to get into any relationship; yet somehow Clara managed to lasso an ever tightening rope around his torso and pull him into her addictive clutches, feeding him a drug he can never ween off of.

It was at least an hour past curfew when Percy finally made it back to the Gryffindor tower. He had waited by the Hufflepuff entrance, even after the young Hufflepuff girl came back with the hard news. He had hoped that Clara would come out, at least to see him off herself, but half an hour passed and there was no sign of his beloved Clarissa.

Percy walked slowly and without sound up the boy's stairway, his head hanging low and shoulders slumped forward. Pushing open his dorm room door, Percy noticed a lamp still shown brightly on the nightstand next to Oliver Wood's bed.

"Percy," Oliver said, getting up from where he sat on his bed. "I was beginning to get worried, it's like an hour passed our curfew."

Percy stood across the room, face rigid, jaw clamped tight, and balled fists at his side. He didn't even know he was angry until he saw Oliver, standing before him like nothing had happened between them. Like Oliver didn't knock poor Penelope up and proceed to not object when she claimed it to be Percy's baby. Like he wasn't the reason Clara and Percy broke up.

The bark in his voice even surprised Percy. "You conspicuously lecherous wretch!" Percy shouted, storming forward until he stood face to face with the very muscular Oliver Wood. He looked at Percy with guilty brown eyes but did not move from his spot as Percy continued to shout in his face.

"You're nothing but a belligerent chromosome deficient cesspool of sub-human filth!" Percy bellowed, his throat tightening as the boiling anger inside him became almost unbearable. "A malingering dull-witted mutilation of decency!"

A second voice in his mind was urging him to stop, but this was an explosion in progress, no reverse gear, no dampeners. Percy's every word was clipped, punching into the air. He jabbed the air with a pointed finger at each utterance, his eyes narrowed and set hard.

Oliver didn't so much as flinch as Percy screamed into his face. He stood there, stone-faced as he took whatever heavy insults Percy could throw his way. Percy's chest heaved, his nostrils flaring as he glared up at Oliver who only sighed.

"Are you done now?" Oliver asked in a calm voice.

SLAP!

The open-hand smack was a loud clap that left a pink welt on Oliver's tanned cheeks. His head reeled to the side from the surprisingly strong force, and breathing in a deep breath through his nose, Oliver turned back to face Percy.