[FIC] Bashert: Anthony/Percy :: gift for wayharshtai Title: Bashert Author: Recipient:wayharshtai Pairing: Anthony Goldstein/Percy Weasley Rating: R Word Count: 2007 Warnings: Frank and sometimes unpretty discussion of religion. Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. Summary: Anthony is a Jew, he's small, he's homosexual, and he lives in Sheffield. He's fucked. Author's Notes: The summary quote is bastardized from Alan Bennett's History Boys. Immense thanks to everyone who helped me with this, whether they knew they were helping or not.
Anthony is nine, and his brother is dead. There are about a thousand people in his house that he doesn't know. He's sad about his brother but his belly is full of eggs.
His mother is still wailing, and her cries are making Anthony's head ache. He understands dead in an abstract sort of way—he knows he will never see his brother again—but he also knows that his brother is better now, not coughing all night long every night in the bed next to Anthony's and keeping Anthony awake so that he yawns in the afternoons.
His mother is certain that this is the beginning of a cycle of tragedy, though his father stoically insists it is not. Anthony can hear them, though they have closed their bedroom door.
He hears his mother say lots of things, and then he hears the words might not even get into Hogwarts.
Yes, I will, Anthony swears silently to himself. Yes, I will. He curls his hands into fists and his nails cut half-moons into his palms.
Yes, I will.
Anthony is eleven, and he is going to be a student at Hogwarts. His mother is going to take him shopping in Diagon Alley in London, where he has never been before, but until she is ready to go, Anthony is free to sprawl across his bed and eat biscuits and read his Tintins as long as he doesn't get crumbs on the sheets and as long as he studies later. His mother likes to remind him that he is a Jew first and a wizard second. Anthony thinks privately that she only says this because her own magic is weak.
He would never allow this thought to pass his lips.
Anthony is thirteen, and he can't help but tremble with wonder at what it will feel like to become a man. He wonders if it will feel the same as the first time he waved a wand in Ollivander's shop, if sparks will flare and his heart will pound.
As it turns out, there are no sparks, but his heart does indeed pound and he wants to throw up and he fucks up when he's reading from the Torah and he can't believe the word fuck just crossed his mind and he wants to die. Some fucking Ravenclaw he is. Some fucking Jew.
His mother holds him close to her breast after the party that night and smoothes his hair and he swears that he won't cry. He is a man, now, and he is a wizard.
But he does cry, despite his resolve, and he starts to hiccup, and his tears fall onto his mother's dress, and she kisses his head and says he must be tired.
He agrees so that she will go away.
He spreads himself out on his bed and stares up at the ceiling where his father has spelled constellations that move with the seasons so that Anthony can study his Astronomy. Anthony takes his glasses off and the stars go blurry, and he starts to cry a bit again, and the stars are blurrier still.
Anthony can hear the murmuring of his parents' voices down the hall as he falls asleep still in his new brown suit.
Anthony is fifteen, and he is fucked. He is worse than fucked. He is staring at Michael Corner's naked arse that's three feet away and Michael is going to turn around at any moment but Anthony can't tear his eyes away. Except then Michael starts to wash his arse and he slips a finger in his crack and it's too much, and Anthony's about five seconds from coming even though he hasn't touched himself.
He rinses his hair and shuts off the taps and scurries from the shower room, slipping a bit as he wraps his towel about his waist and jams his specs on to his face, hoping as hard as he can that no one can see how his prick is tenting out the fabric or hear how loudly his heart is pounding. He collapses on his bed and draws the curtains and bites his lip and masturbates furiously just to get it over with.
When he comes, it is all he can do to keep from shouting. It doesn't feel good. He won't let it feel good.
He is so, so fucked.
Anthony is seventeen, and his mother writes him letters once a week, always hinting that she may have found him a wife. Anthony writes back promptly every time, always ignoring her hints. He's not going to marry a nice Jewish girl. He's not going to marry a girl at all. He knows this by now, but of course his parents don't.
They're proud of how humble he is, how modest. The school robes make that easy, he thinks to himself when he reads this in his mother's letter, and he has to stifle a hysterical laugh in the middle of the Great Hall. He passes it off, he hopes, as a fit of coughing.
His parents don't know that he thinks about Michael Corner when he wanks, about Ron Weasley, about Harry bloody Potter with his stupid green eyes and his stupid scar. They don't know that he wanks at all. They don't know about the magazines that he's sent for and secreted away.
They'll never know why he's never had a girlfriend and never will.
Not if he can help it.
But celibacy is a sin, and homosexuality is a sin, too, and so Anthony is fucked either way.
I have to study twice as much as anyone else, he writes to his mother, three times as hard as any Gryffindor. His parents will like this joke, he hopes. Maybe take the pressure off, if only for a moment.
He shrinks his religious texts to fit in his pockets and he carries his schoolbooks in his arms. His stomach burns and gurgles with shame when he gets an erection. His trousers grow tight and he can feel the books against his thigh.
Anthony is nineteen, and his mother still writes him once a week, and her hints have grown to paragraphs extolling the virtues of a particular girl. He hasn't been home to Sheffield in six months, and he writes in his letters to her that it's because he's been working so hard. I have to work twice as hard as anyone else, he writes, but that's a lie.
He's in love.
He is in love with his boss, who is neither nice nor Jewish nor a girl. His mother would not approve.
Anthony barely remembers Percy from school, since they were in different houses and different years, but he remembers wanking over Percy's stupid brother, and Percy's better looking and a better dresser than Ron could ever have hoped to be, and Anthony kind of can't believe he's in love, but he is. He's in love with a man who's a bit of a snob, with stupid red hair and thicker specs than Anthony's own.
He is sick in a Ministry toilet the day he tenders his resignation. He marches into Percy's office after washing out his mouth, though, determined.
Percy raises an eyebrow and asks what Anthony's plans are, and Anthony doesn't have a good response to that. He fumbles for a moment, stuttering, then spits out that he plans to take Percy out for dinner, if Percy wouldn't mind, please, thank you, sir. His cheeks go red and he mentally berates himself. He starts to sweat, and he pushes his glasses up on his nose. The realisation of how small he is compared to Percy looms in his mind. He is like a sparrow.
But then he remembers that even a sparrow trapped inside a house is not really trapped, and he breathes a little more easily.
Percy nods slowly and says he understands, but they don't have their dinner together until two weeks later, after Anthony's worked his last day at the Ministry. Percy insists on this.
They make up for lost time, though, by falling upon each other the moment they arrive back at Percy's flat. And Anthony's never done this before but he's too afraid to say it, and it doesn't matter anyway because Percy's talking the whole time, telling Anthony how badly he's wanted to do this for ages and ages now, how wonderful it feels to be inside him. And Anthony trembles but he arches up and thrusts back against Percy and he feels the silk of Percy's tie brushing the back of his own neck because Percy didn't even bother undressing all the way, just shoved down his own trousers and pants along with Anthony's, and Anthony never thought it would be like this.
Percy comes inside him, still talking, telling Anthony he's perfect, and Anthony bites his lip and doesn't think about how this is a sin.
Anthony is twenty-one, and somehow that single evening with Percy has turned into a multitude of evenings and mornings and afternoons and fights and kisses and teas and Saturdays when guilt eats at Anthony's insides. He's still not sure how it all happened, but he's happy.
He's happy with Percy, anyway. And Percy swears he's happy with Anthony. And Anthony thinks that that should be enough—that love should be enough, for that's what it is—but there's the small matter of his parents, whom he's seen only twice since he resigned from the Ministry, each visit strained.
And there's the rather large matter of G-d, with whom he hasn't communicated since long before that, but whose presence he still feels, mostly in a gut-clenching way, mostly when he's being fucked by Percy. It's not that he doesn't enjoy their sex—he does, oh, how he does—but it always seems as if there's a third party in the room, somehow, and Anthony's not quite okay with that.
Anthony is twenty-three, and he's realised something.
Mum and Dad, he writes at the top of a piece of parchment. He pauses. His penmanship is awful; his hand is shaking. But maybe Percy's Gryffindor tendencies have rubbed off a bit, for he continues.
I feel I must tell you something. I have been hiding my real self from you for too long now. I miss you terribly.
I am in
He pauses and takes a breath, then forces himself to go on before he can crumple the parchment.
love, and have been living with someone for a little over three years now.
His name is Percy Weasley. I'd like for you to meet him.
Love,
Anthony.
He thinks that simplicity is, perhaps, best.
Percy agrees to send it for him. Anthony can't bring himself to do it. His heart is so high in his throat that he can't even breathe. He can hear his mother wailing again. One son dead and one son queer. I should be the dead one, Anthony tells himself silently. He would never allow this thought to pass his lips.
When an owl taps at the window the next afternoon, Anthony is curled so tightly into a ball that he cannot get up from the sofa. Percy goes to the window and fetches the letter for him.
Anthony begs Percy to open the envelope. He can't bring himself to do it. He is so, so fucked.
Percy opens it and pauses and lets out a long breath and shows it to him, then, and that is when Anthony realises that Percy was nervous, too, and he loves Percy just a little bit more for that.
On the parchment are five words in his father's handwriting, which Anthony is shocked to see.
You are still our son.
Nothing else, not even a signature. Anthony knows it was all his father could manage.
Anthony's eyes fill up, but Percy holds him and whispers against his hair that it's a start.