InsaneJournal

When old age shall this generation waste (Percy/Harry, PG)
Title: When old age shall this generation waste
Pairing: Percy/Harry
Rating: PG
Word Count: 720
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: Not mine. JKR's.
Summary: Percy and Harry have always grown stronger when faced with misunderstandings.
Notes: For the amazing celandineb whom I have always thought a great writer and an even better person, and who sweetly granted me extra paid time. Thank you so much! And yes, I am an unapologetic Keats fangirl and always will be. Originally posted to LJ on 5/26/07.

"Who was your first?" asks Harry, and Percy is startled out of his reverie. It's an odd question. Not in its essence—it's a natural thing to wonder, to ask, to share. But the timing—the timing is off.

Percy turns away from the window and smiles, the same weary, thin smile he knows Harry is used to by now, after all these years, the smile that says I'm trying not to indulge you right now. He shifts his shoulders, aching a bit, not realising how long he's been standing still and gazing at nothing, as he finds himself doing a lot lately.

"My first what?" he asks, though halfway through the question Harry is already scowling.

"Your first," Harry repeats, and they both pause. Percy puts two fingers to his chin, and Harry cocks his head to the side. "I know it wasn't me."

"No," Percy agrees, "As I wasn't yours. It's to be expected." Harry nods from his armchair, and Percy curls into the cushions on the end of the sofa nearest Harry's seat. There is another pause, comfortable, the room not oppressively silent around them, not anticipatory, but settling, always settling.

"Odd timing you've got," Percy finally says, and Harry looks at him, a corner of his mouth curving in a question.

But Harry doesn't ask, and Percy doesn't press the matter, and though he'll answer, he has to ask his own questions first. Too many years of not asking the right questions put him so far behind he's sometimes afraid he'll never catch up—with Harry, with his family, with himself.

"Shouldn’t you have asked me this years ago, if you were so keen to know?" Percy puts out a hand and Harry takes it, neither of them consciously registering the gesture.

Harry shrugs. "Maybe. But I wasn't keen to know. I was only wondering." He strokes Percy's fingers with his own and his voice is at that particular timbre that shoots straight to Percy's heart and twinges, the cadence of closeted nights never quite unremembered.

"Cedric," Percy says, finally, and Harry's fingers tighten around his own.

"Diggory?"

"Yes," Percy says, and waits.

Harry nods. "When?"

This is another odd question, this time in its essence.

"I was young. Too young to know what I was really doing, probably."

Nothing is really a surprise between them anymore, and Harry nods again, slowly, and strokes the broad, smooth surface of one of Percy's fingernails.

Percy doesn't reciprocate the question—this one's not important. Once upon a time, he would have cared, but now—now he's content with what he's got. And if Harry wants to tell Percy, he will.

Harry gets up from his armchair, leaving the embrace of its well-worn groove, and curls next to Percy on the sofa, tousled head on Percy's shoulder, hand upon his knee.

"Cedric died when you were eighteen," Harry says, and Percy curves an arm around him.

"Yes." Facts.

"Did you sleep with him when you were at school together, or after you left?"

The oddest question of all. Percy shifts, jostling Harry, and peers into his eyes.

"I never slept with Cedric."

Harry furrows his brow, opens his mouth, breathes, but doesn't speak.

"Oh," says Percy then, and "Oh," again. "You thought—I thought—"

"What was he, then?" asks Harry, and it's not the first time they've thought along parallel lines, never converging, and it won't be the last.

It's harder to say than Percy might have thought.

"I—loved him."

Percy's mouth might have gone dry once, and once he might have had to push down a rising lump of emotion in his chest, but it's facts now, so far removed from boys and secrets and hopelessness.

"I thought I did, anyway," Percy continues, tangling his fingers with Harry's.

"I'm sure you did," Harry replies, and that's when Percy knows he did. Percy doesn't love lightly, doesn't believe easily. Percy loved Cedric. And now his mouth is dry, now that lump of emotion threatens his composure, now he tightens his fingers around Harry's and doesn't let go.

"I love you," he says, and it's the truth, and all he needs Harry to believe.

And Harry, bless him, does, and loves him in return, and that is all Percy knows on earth, and all he needs to know.