InsaneJournal

Twenty Years Later (All Was Lost) (Percy/Teddy, PG)
Title: Twenty Years Later (All Was Lost)
Pairing: Unrequited Percy/Teddy, past Percy/Remus
Rating: PG
Word Count: 274
Warnings: Angst.
Disclaimer: Not mine. JKR's.
Summary: Percy realises why he likes Teddy so much.
Notes: An Advent Drabble for nqdonne, who requested Percy/Teddy.

Percy thinks Teddy's hair looks the nicest when it's brown and straight and falling over his forehead. And his eyes, well, they look nicest when they're the funny sort of yellowish-grey that Percy's fairly sure is their natural colour.

He never tells Teddy this, not directly, but when Teddy looks like that he seems calmer, more serious, not like the frivolous Veela-snogging teen he once was with that ridiculous turquoise hair and the violet eyes that did no one any good.

Percy likes it when Teddy dresses in old jumpers and softly worn trousers. The autumn and winter are best for this, and Percy smiles and looks away, though he wants to run his hands through Teddy's brown hair and kiss him slowly, softly, until they fall together.

He doesn't tell Teddy about the shock of realisation he has one day when he rounds a corner of the overcrowded Burrow into the living room and sees the boy curled up in an armchair in front of the fire, intent on his book. Percy had a question for the boy, but it dies on his lips as he discovers Remus there in Teddy's place.

Percy ducks back into the dining room, his breaths short. Of course that's it. That's been it all along. How stupid he's been to ignore it. He flashes on nights by fires long burnt out, nights he's tried so hard to forget in the too-long aftermath of war. Teddy is twenty now, Percy an old man by comparison at forty-one, and Percy closes his eyes and tries to persuade himself that he can't chase his lost dream any longer.