Work Text:
Numbness stretched throughout every part of Percy’s body, screams and sounds of collapsing rubble all around him. Spells flew overhead but he didn’t budge, eyes glued onto his brother’s lifeless face, his final smile spread across his lips. Fred had been laughing.
Barely aware, Percy felt blood on his hands.
He could only vaguely register Ron’s hands on his shoulders, screaming at him to get up, to run, before someone would kill them too. Percy couldn’t bring himself to care. What had happened was his fault, no doubts or questions about it. He had tried to do right by them, apologized, called himself a bloody fool in front of the entire order, ready to fight by their side, and where had that led them?
Fred’s corpse in front of him, growing colder by the second.
He’d helped Harry move the body to a more hidden corner where a suit of armor had previously stood, hoping to shield it from the action, if only for some time, but that was all his body could take before collapsing to his knees. His hands were firm in his lap, not allowing himself to touch Fred any more than he had, his wand hanging loose between his fingertips.
“You’re joking, Perce! You actually are joking, Perce… I don’t think I’ve heard you joke since you were–”
And then he was gone, and Percy had depraved his brother from ever speaking to George again, from saying his final words to him. That’s how it was supposed to go. Two halves of a whole. One of them, so small, back then, joking they wouldn’t let the other die before him. Percy couldn’t remember which one said it.
But now it was all over. A pointless death. His laugh had distracted him. Percy had distracted him. And now Fred Weasley, Percy’s little brother, was dead on the castle floor.
Percy finally moved, but it wasn’t of his own free will. Ron and Harry had grabbed him by the shoulders and hoisted him to his feet. He let them, shaky and weak, feeling Ron grab his hand for just long enough to keep his wand from clattering to the floor.
And then, he could no longer see Fred.
Spells kept flying, people kept screaming, and Percy was pulled along by the trio in front of him. Had they been going somewhere? None of it seemed to matter anymore.
Finally, he let his eyes wander, just for a moment, being met with Ron’s pained, tear-stained face, caked with dirt and blood. His eyes were desperate, silently begging Percy for something that he instantly picked up on.
Ron, grief stricken, but clearly using all the power within him not to break, couldn’t bear to lose another brother.
He could laugh. Percy was sure Ron would have spit on his grave just a few hours earlier, but now, in the heat of battle with the weight of an unfathomable loss placed upon their shoulders, the years of animosity and distance evaporated, leaving two brothers who had just experienced the biggest tragedy of their lifetimes.
He had to be there for him. Ron had been through hell and back these last few months and Percy couldn’t just–
They rounded a corner and all his thoughts came to a halt.
There was a tall man wearing a black robe, sprinting after a gaggle students, firing exploding charms above them. His eyes sharp, beard shaggy, dark and coated with dust but a manic smile still painted his face, as if the battlefield was but a playground and he was it in a game of tag.
All of Percy’s systems reset as recognition dawned.
Augustus Rookwood, a man Percy had no personal connection with, one of the many who escaped during the infamous Azkaban breakout two years back.
And the man, who just for a moment, had stood behind the blasted wall that killed Fred.
Ron’s grip didn’t matter anymore as rage unlike anything Percy had ever experienced before took hold of him. It burrowed into his veins and clouded his head until all that was left was anger.
After it was all over, he would spend months, years even, blaming himself for Fred’s death, wasting away at his job or the bottom of a bottle, knowing that had Percy not been there, their family would still be whole.
But now, in the heart of battle, staring at Fred’s true murderer, Percy snapped.
“ROOKWOOD!!”
His roar drew the man’s attention, letting the students he was pursuing escape, as Percy went into a mad sprint towards the man, who immediately raised his wand, but Percy was faster, a stupify charm sprouting from his own, wordlessly fueled by his fury.
Rookwood deflected it with ease, but Percy threw a stunning curse just as quickly as the embers of the stupefy left his wand, and the curses just kept coming. He was relentless, screaming out each attack as the Death Eater skillfully deflected them, looking only mildly annoyed at having been distracted from his original chase.
Percy didn’t know if the trio was still behind him, but that was the furthest thing from his mind. All he knew was that the man in front of him had to die.
And Percy would kill him.
The thing that Augustus Rookwood didn't understand, was that for months now, Percy had been on the edge. He’d had nothing left to lose, his family abandoned, his friends lost to the time or the tide of war and his job invaded by those who hated people like him.
Blood traitor had practically been his new workplace nickname.
He’d been tired and angry, trying to help from the inside, but nothing could be done when the system he was trying to game was built on the ideas he opposed.
But now that his family had accepted him again, everything seemed to make sense. He’d resigned, committed high treason by attacking the minister and Fred’s blood was only just beginning to dry on his skin.
If he were to die taking down Fred’s killer, he would be okay with that.
The two were locked in a duel, spells flying back and forth at a pace Percy would never have imagined being able to keep up with, and still, he just kept going, emptying his mind of anything besides the task at hand and his rage.
Rookwood was gaining his upper hand quickly, and Percy felt himself take instinctive steps back as he advanced, his spells turning more defensive by the second. He gritted his teeth in frustration.
“Getting tired yet, Weasley?”
He didn’t respond, using the man’s brief distraction to send a powerful hex his way, Rookwood’s smile faltering slightly as he deflected it. Percy wouldn’t entertain his taunts.
Another step backwards, his footing almost failed him as it hit some rocky debris on the ground. The stumble got him to look away from the duel just for a second to assess his surroundings, horror dawning as he took it all in.
Just a few steps away, Fred’s body was hidden behind a stone wall, the rubble that was his end sprawled all around them, having been the cause of his near tumble. His breath hitched, that terrible moment replaying in his mind as the lights and dust from the broken wall’s opening seeped into the hallway.
His wand flew out of his hand.
The distraction had been enough for Rookwood to catch him off guard, disarming him with ease, the wand landing somewhere behind him, far enough for its clatter to the ground to be drowned out by the battles being fought all around them.
By all accounts that should have been the end. Percy should have frozen up and been hit with a killing curse the death eater would surely send his way, or at the very least, a curse that would leave him maimed and writhing on the ground. Percy was never a good dueler, after all.
But for a split second as the shock of being disarmed ran through him, he caught the glimpse of bloodied ginger hair within the corner of his eye and the world around him stopped. A lifetime could have passed in that millisecond. Nothing existed for a moment but him, Rookwood and the corpse.
And in a moment, one of them would join Fred in bearing that title.
Percy felt his knees drop to the ground, but that wasn’t by accident. As Rookwood's killing blow flew over his head, his hands clenched around a sharp, heavy object. Just a plain rock, laying on the ground after the explosion, unremarkable, as if it hadn’t played any part in Fred’s death. He didn’t look to see if it was slick with blood. He didn’t need to for what happened next.
Percy had never been strong, physically, at least. He was without a doubt the least athletic member of his family, and his physical health had gone on the decline in the last few years with the stress of his job.
And yet, when he sprung to his feet, rushing at the death eater, the rock felt like air in his hand.
Rookwood moved to cast another fatal spell, but Percy was faster, tackling the man to the ground, his head hitting the concrete with a thud. From his eyes, blown wide open, it was clear that this was the last thing he’d expected.
They were both purebloods, familiar with the etiquette of wizard dueling, and one thing stressed was to keep it from the barbaric ways of Muggles, they should never physically touch during it, but it was magic that should reign supreme. Of course, Percy’s parents had never used that exact wording, rather saying it had to do with a show of honor, but Percy had never shied away from learning how the upper classes of his society operated or thought.
So for him to use physical force so openly would not even have crossed Rookwood’s mind as an option.
He didn’t have a moment to think nor gather himself, no spells on his lips waiting to be uttered as Percy let out a cry of pure rage as the rock in his hand caved into Rookwood’s skull.
There was a splattering of blood on his face, the man beneath him trying to say something but it only came out as a gasp of air as Percy struck his skull again.
He was an animal, no longer human, no longer capable of rational thought. All his mind could possibly focus on was the image of the man below him dead, desecrated beyond recognition.
Percy didn’t know when he died, whether Rookwood had been screaming, or even whether or not he had fought back. All Percy could do, all he could remember, was striking the rock over and over into the man, his face becoming more unrecognizable by the second. Percy may have been screaming at him, he wasn’t sure, but he knew his body was gradually being covered with blood.
Rookwood barely had a face anymore, and yet, Percy kept going. There were tears streaming down his face, but with all the wet blood already coating it, he could barely feel it. When his hand finally came to a stop, it was gradual, the appendage slowly losing power, each blow growing slower until the rock slipped from his numb fingers.
The upper half of the Death Eaters face was gone, replaced with a cave in of blood and gore, parts of brain leaking out. The lower half didn’t look much better, his teeth buried into his bloody skin and gums, his nose cracked in multiple places, gashes littering the rest of what could still be called skin, red soaking through his beard.
It was an undignified death for a pureblood.
Percy felt numb again. There wasn’t a sense of horror for what he had done, even when his senses slowly cleared. He moved up his hand to touch the tears refusing to stop streaming down from his face and felt the blood smear all over his cheek.
Sluggishly, he stood up, the extent of his damage more observable from afar. Finally, something stirred within him.
A shallow sense of pride.
That man had deserved every blow and more.
He hadn’t intended to take him out like this. It was supposed to be by wand, like any good wizard would do.
And yet his method was raw. His years of studying magic were rendered useless in a second. He was sure that if he’d still had his wand, he wouldn’t have been able to produce a spell. He would have shoved it into the man’s eye-socket.
At the reminder of his wand, he looked around to try to spot it, noticing how quiet everything had become. Was there a ceasefire? If one had been announced, he surely wouldn’t have been in the right headspace to hear it.
It didn’t take him long to locate it. Of course, it had rolled right next to Fred.
He slowly walked to pick it up, bending down, and facing his little brother's face as he did.
He was peaceful. Still smiling. Nothing like the pile of flesh and brains his killer had been reduced to.
He should bring him to their family. He had to find them. But how could he even consider picking him up when Rookwood’s blood still coated every inch of his very being? Fred didn’t deserve to touch that.
Scanning his eyes around, he located a conveniently fallen piece of tapestry. A Gryffindor banner. Fitting.
As he worked to cover his brother, making sure he wouldn’t touch a drop of Death Eater blood, Percy idly wondered what his family would think if they knew what he had done…