Underground Resistance | Percy Weasley

Prologue

Acelina Yaxley understood from a young age that she was meant to do only a few things: look pretty, say nothing, and marry well.

Acelina Yaxley understood those rules, but it didn't essentially mean she agreed with them.

Corban Yaxley and his wife Phoebe Yaxley née Crouch had three children. Cecilia was the eldest, a beautiful woman who followed her father's rules like they were the law: she wore the most expensive robes, didn't speak out of turn, and was about to marry into a family of her parents' friends. Edric Yaxley was the youngest but the rules his father had set for his sisters didn't apply to him – he had to show confidence, intelligence, and it was expected from him that he would follow in his father's footsteps when he was older. The Yaxley family name was resting on his shoulders.

Acelina was the middle child, the Yaxley's second daughter, and in the first few years of her life, she too had followed her father's rules like they were the law. She and her sister were inseparable and did everything together. That changed when they went to Hogwarts.

At the castle, located in the Scottish Highlands, a whole new world opened for Acelina. A new world in which the prejudice and pure-bloodsupremacy her parents taught her weren't the norms. A world in which Muggle-Borns weren't Mudbloods.

Against her parents' wishes, Aceline was sorted into Ravenclaw, instead of Slytherin as everyone expected and as her sister years before her.

Her parents hadn't been happy, to put it lightly. Cecilia had refused to speak to or acknowledge Acelina for almost four months after the initial sorting. It wasn't until they went home for Christmas that Cecilia finally spoke to her again. At the dinner table on their first day home, Acelina told her parents about the sorting. Everyone knew there was no debating with the Sorting Hat and her parents had disgruntledly accepted her placement in Ravenclaw. After all, Ravenclaw wasn't as bad as Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, was it now?

With Acelina not being sorted into Slytherin where Cecilia or the other children of the Pureblood families could keep an eye on her, Corban Yaxley expected that his youngest daughter would be influenced by her fellow housemates. Her mind would get infected with the idea that Mudbloods were as worthy of possessing magical ability as Purebloods.

Corban Yaxley turned out to be correct. His youngest daughter did get infected with those different ideas and beliefs now that she was exposed to the real world and other children who didn't share the same heritage as her. The more time Acelina spent with her classmates, the more she realised how wrong her parents' views of Muggle-Borns and half-bloods were. But at the same time, Acelina also realised she would be in big trouble if her parents – especially her father – found out that she didn't share their beliefs any longer.

And so, eleven-year-old Acelina Yaxley decided to play along and do what her parents expected from her: learn the rules, act accordingly, and conceal the resistance bubbling in her mind.

Acelina wore her grandmother's pearls, retreated into the reading room when family friends came over, learned to shield her mind against any Legilimens in her parents' circle, and played her part as the perfect Yaxley daughter. She managed to graduate at the top of her class with flying colours – landing her a sought-after internship at the Improper Use of Magic Office with the opportunity to get a Masters in Charms.

All of it wasn't enough, though.

In the eyes of her father, Acelina was on her way to becoming too independent and should get married to someone who shared his views of the magical world. Someone who could keep an eye on Acelina when she left her parental home. When Cecilia and Acelina were younger, their parents had made arrangements regarding future courtships for their daughters. Without Acelina's knowledge, her hand had been promised to Marcus Flint, the only son of the Flint family, another pure-blood family that was close friends with the Yaxley family.

Acelina was informed about the arrangement after her graduation. She had been furious, a logical reaction. She knew Marcus Flint from their shared time at Hogwarts, but they had never shared more than five words with each other in the seven years they shared the castle. Marcus gave her the creeps with how he would look at her with his signature smirk and she didn't like the way he would parade around the castle with his friends, bullying younger students for their own entertainment.

While the urge to storm off had been stronger than ever, but there was nothing Acelina could do. She wasn't old enough to receive her part of the Yaxley fortune and her father had enough connections within the Ministry that her career plans would be destroyed before she even began. So, Acelina did what she had done all her life: look pretty, say nothing, and marry well.

It took a while, but Acelina managed to convince Marcus she wanted a career before they would start a family. The man hadn't been happy to say the least; in pure-blood families, it was normal for the wife to stay at home and take care of the household and the husband would take care of the financial side of things. Reluctantly, Marcus had agreed to leave the issue alone for the time being, but Acelina had to promise him she would give him at least one heir.

In order to avoid her fiancé as much as possible, Acelina poured herself into her internship and studies at the Ministry. She was so close to completing her Masters in Charms and had managed to work herself up to Senior Intern when her life changed again, as drastically as the first time.

When Voldemort took over the Ministry of Magic.

The take-over of the Ministry had happened quietly and unbeknownst to most of the employees, the Ministry had fallen under Voldemort's control. Acelina had known immediately because her father had been instated as Head of the Department of Magical Law enforcement. It had been a clear sign that something had changed as Acelina's father had fought during the First Wizarding War as a Death Eater like many of the other pure-blood families. Her father had believed in Voldemort's pure-blood supremacy but managed to avoid imprisonment in Azkaban by convincing the Ministry he had been poorly influenced and would change his ways.

In hindsight, Acelina could have seen it coming but when she was called into her father's office only hours after the news of Pius Thicknesse replacing Rufus Scrimgeour as Minister for Magic, it hadn't occurred to her that her position in the Ministry could change this drastically.

It wasn't a secret that her father disapproved of her workaholic behaviour. If it was up to him, Acelina had married right after graduating Hogwarts and would have at least one child running around by now.

In her father's office, he had announced that from the second of August, Acelina would be transferred to the Muggle-Born Registration Commission for her new job as the personal secretary to the Head of the Commission, Dolores Umbridge.

The news had shocked Acelina. By now, she knew better than to argue and so she didn't. But deep inside, she was furious. All her hard work went down the drain; she wouldn't be able to finish her Masters at the Muggle-Born Registration Commission, and the prospects of her preferred career within the Ministry of Magic were brought back to nothing.

As she stepped out of her father's office, Acelina decided she finally had had enough. She wouldn't play the perfect daughter any longer, she would fight back this time. From the inside.