Chapter Text
Percy walked through several hallways, he liked to take short cuts to get where he was going. The Ministry was a very big place, and you could get lost if you didn’t know the way. He rubbed his still flat stomach. Sometimes it sucked being a pureblood. Because of the magic in his bloodline, he was able to get pregnant. It also didn’t help that the bloke he had a drunken one-night stand with was a wizard too. When he had been in Hogwarts the other man annoyed him…but as his brothers pointed out, everyone annoys him. Really, was it so hard to follow the rules?
“What are you doing in here Weasley?”
He jumped a little because he wasn’t expecting anyone here. He was just planning on cutting through.
“Sorry, Dawkins, I was just taking a short cut.”
“This isn’t a short cut. Do you know what kind of things lurk behind these doors?” Dawkins, a tall, brutish man, said.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.” He was just so tired he couldn’t even argue with the man. Morning sickness was a lie, he was always sick at midnight, and it lasted for hours.
“Just don’t do it again. I don’t want to explain to your father that he lost another son but instead of a war hero, this one would have died an idiot.”
The man turned and walked out the door, leaving Percy fuming. All he was trying to do was save some energy. Just as he made his way to the door, he knew to be the exit, the door across from him opened. There was no one there, but he could hear a loud buzzing. Suddenly the buzzing stopped and a familiar voice calling to him.
“Percy, I’m so cold. Please help me.”
Percy knew about some of the dark things that were in the Department of Mysteries if only because of Ron and his friends. In the years since the end of the war, there was one time he went out to have drinks with his brothers and Harry. After a few too many, Harry had told them about the veil that Sirius fell behind, spoke of voices from behind the veil. Was that what this was?
Slowly he walked to the door, knowing it was illegal to enter. While his shortcut wasn’t, knowingly entering one of the forbidden rooms very much was. But Fred was calling to him. Maybe he could save him. It sounded insane but he had to see if it was possible. His brain was trying to tell him that if it was, then Harry would have saved Sirius.
Stepping inside the room, there was no veil. It was a mirror. He had heard about the Mirror of Erised. Could that be this? It was supposed to show what you want the most. Looking in the mirror he thought he would see his family, alive and whole. What he saw instead was Fred but not the Fred that died, this Fred was much younger. He was beating on the window of the Burrow. From the snow all around it had to be Christmas time.
“Percy, I’m so cold. Please help me.”
Percy remembered this, it really happened. George had trapped Fred out of the house. The twins had been twelve and he was fourteen. Their parents had gone to do a last-minute shop for Christmas dinner. Charlie was supposed to be watching them, but he was busy ignoring them. That made Percy the one that had to go let Fred in and admonish George. What thanks did he get? Later they teamed up on him and caused him to break his new gift. He had been so excited when he unwrapped it too. His parents couldn’t afford another, and he didn’t want them to feel bad, so he told them he fixed it.
The mirror was now showing him in his room, reading a book. He had looked so young. Reaching out, he went to touch the mirror that was up close to his younger self. His hand didn’t stop on the mirror, it went right threw. Before he knew it, he was being sucked into it.
“What just happened?” he asked, his voice higher than it had been a moment ago.
Looking down he saw he was now in the body of his fourteen-year-old self. Had he just merged with his own self? Was this a dream? Did one of the brain-eating things that had attacked Ron get him?
Before he could think more on it, he heard Fred crying from outside. If this was a dream, he hoped he didn’t wake up. In this dream his little brother was alive. He hurried downstairs and saw George cackling at the door.
“Let him in now. He’s your twin, you will regret this if something happens to him.”
“You’re just going to tell mum. Fine, we were just playing.” He opened the door by removing something that he had jamming it. Once Fred was in, he too started laughing saying he was going to get even. Percy just shook his head; he would never understand his family.
Later that night, he was still there. He wondered what had happened. He walked his room countless times trying to find the mirror but apparently it wasn’t on this side. Did that mean he was stuck here? He wasn’t fourteen he was nearing thirty.
Feeling exhausted, he decided to just go to sleep. It had to be a dream; he would wake up in his small flat. Drifting off the sleep was easier than he thought, that was until he woke up at midnight and threw up.
“Percy, luv, are you alright?” his mother asked as she stood in the doorway of the lavatory.
“I’m fine, just ate too much.”
“You barely ate anything. Are you poorly? Do you need a tonic?”
“No, I’m quite alright. Go back to bed, you don’t have to worry about me.”
“It’s you I worry about most,” she said quietly before she turned and walked away.
He would like to argue with her there, but it was a few years away from Ron and his yearly run-ins with death.
Once she was gone, he put his hand over his stomach. It looks like he brought the baby here with him. What did that mean? In this time, he was a fourteen-year-old virgin. What would people think if he just showed up pregnant. They would want to know who the other father was. How could he explain that the other father wouldn’t remember they had sex because it wouldn’t have happened yet for another fifteen years. Would the baby be healthy? Would it be real? If he hadn’t had sex in this time, was it a phantom pregnancy? The sad part was he didn’t even know which one he wanted. While he was too young in this time to have a baby, he couldn’t imagine not having the baby he had grown to love.
Then there was the whole Harry and Voldemort…thing. Next year Harry would be turning eleven and going to Hogwarts. After speaking to his brother-in-law over the years he knew what Harry would have changed if he could. He wanted more of a normal childhood at school. He would have found a way to save Sirius and be able to live with him. He would save those he were unable to the first time. Right now, the murders had only just started again. Not many people were even putting it together as the Death Eaters preparing for Harry Potter to come into the light of the Wizarding World again.
“If I can change things, I will,” he said as he entered his room. All of his brothers could live to a grand old age. Tonks and Lupin could raise their son. But a part of him worried if changing things would make things worse. What if saving Fred cost him George or Charlie? What if saving Tonks and Lupin caused them not to get together and Teddy not even be born? Shaking his head, he would have to risk it. There was no way he was watching Fred die for a second time.