A gift for celandineb! Title: Learning How Eternity Works Author: TBA Giftee: celandineb Pairing: Percy/Cedric Rating: R Word Count: 3847 Warnings: None. Disclaimer: Percy and Cedric and everything else you recognise belong to JKR. Summary: Alone in an unfamiliar place, Percy finds his own way. Author's Notes: Thanks to E--without your aid I'd be crying in the corner and this fic woud be languishing on my hard drive. To celandineb: ♥
or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility: whose texture compels me with the color of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing (e. e. cummings)
Percy's first thought, upon blinking open his eyes, was that he must be dead.
He wasn't certain, upon reflection, how he'd come to that conclusion. Actually, it could hardly be called a conclusion, for those required thought processes and Percy's realisation had been instinctual. No, Percy knew he was dead, and, as the realisation sank in, a smile spread across his face before he could stop it.
The concept of dead was far less unsettling than Percy had ever expected.
Percy wasn't certain where he was. He was lying on something very soft, he knew that much, but he could see nothing but white mist. He sat up and peered into the haze but could make out no shape nor shadow. He looked down and saw that he was naked and, a moment later, the thought that nakedness was something to be ashamed of flashed across his mind. He fumbled for his robes and found nothing.
"Robes," he muttered, and as he spoke, his hand closed on something thick and woollen. He pulled the cloth to himself—it was a set of tailored robes of the type he had always fancied but had never been able to afford. Percy smiled and slipped them over his shoulders, studying the collar and the fussy little buttons.
It couldn't be a coincidence.
"So I just have to ask for it?" Percy called into the mist.
There was no response.
"Well, I—I need shoes. And socks." Percy paused. "A whole set of clothes, actually—shirt and trousers and vest. And, um, pants." He put a hand out into the mist and found what he needed—a new set of clothing, crisp white underthings, black socks, and a pair of black wingtips that had never belonged to anyone else before him.
Percy finished dressing and reflected that, so far, death was nothing to be afraid of.
A moment later, he reflected on his earlier nude state. His body was smooth and young, not sagging under the assault of time. He stretched his hands out in front of him—his fingers were still pale, long, and tapered, the nails neatly buffed, but the skin was taut and fresh, and there were no age spots anymore, only a light dusting of freckles.
Percy smiled.
Death was rather interesting indeed.
***
By noon (he wasn't certain what time zone he was in, but the watch he'd discovered in the mist said it was twelve, and Percy thought that death likely had no reason to lie to him) Percy had created quite a nice little afterlife for himself.
His house was modest, with only four rooms (he'd considered adding a guest bedroom but decided that, as he'd not yet seen another living—well—another soul around, he shouldn't be presumptuous) and a small garden in back. The flagstone path at the front of the house led nowhere (yet) but Percy wasn't concerned about that.
There was tea in the cupboards and a fire in the grate, there were books on the shelves and robes in the closets. There was a fat armchair in front of the fire and a big downy bed in the bedroom. There was a claw-footed tub in the bathroom and there were marigolds growing in the windowboxes.
"Not a bad way to spend eternity," Percy decided aloud, settling in with a cup of Earl Grey and a book he'd selected at random. It turned out to be Hogwarts, A History. Percy smiled and sipped his tea and began to read.
***
Percy snapped the book shut and checked his watch. It was noon. He wasn't certain how long he'd been reading, but his tea was gone and the fire was dying down.
He wondered if there were sunsets in the afterlife.
Percy stood and stretched and wandered outside. He decided that his garden should have a bench—a wooden one with a high back and chunky armrests, please—and he sat upon it when it materialised, his chin in his hands.
Something was missing.
"I need—a family," he said aloud.
It was something he'd admitted once before, stepping into an unfamiliar world, but he hardly dared hope he would once again regain them so easily.
No one appeared.
***
The bench had been comfortable at first, but soon Percy's back began to ache. He hadn't the first idea how long he'd been sitting there, waiting for someone—anyone—to come strolling into his garden.
Percy checked his watch. It was noon. He should probably have some lunch, but he wasn't hungry. He wandered back into the house and pulled a book from the shelf at random. It was a photograph album. Percy furrowed his brow and sat on the floor, his legs crossed, and began to page through it.
There were pictures of his family—his mother and his father in their younger years, then with children surrounding them, his father with less and less hair. Percy hadn't seen the family album in years, and he studied each photograph, tracing the smiles and the red hair and the shining eyes.
There was Ron in that ridiculous maroon jumper, a riot of red jumping in a pile of autumn leaves, his smile showing the gap where his two front teeth were missing. Percy remembered he had showed Ron how to fold the teeth in a handkerchief and put them under his pillow, and in the morning there had been a slightly battered Sickle all for Ron's own.
Ginny was there, a toddler with chubby fists and her hair in wispy plaits, laughing at something beyond the picture's frame, her mouth open and her eyes closed. Percy remembered that day—it was Ginny's birthday, which would account for the fact that she was wearing a pink dress and a party hat. Fred and George had turned Percy's hair blue and he hadn't realised it until halfway through the birthday party when he'd caught his reflection in the teapot. Percy smiled to himself. All right, maybe it had been a little bit funny. He just wished he could have told his young self so.
There was Charlie holding a baby dragon in his wide, square hands, soot on his face and sweat on his brow, smiling as hard as a person possibly could. And Bill at seventeen, holding up his Head Boy badge and beaming across the Burrow's breakfast table, Percy looking on enviously from the background. And Fred and George playing one-on-one Quidditch in the back garden, spiralling up and away, then back down again, the wind pushing their hair from their faces and whipping their cheeks to a red glow.
Percy turned a page, his eyebrows lifted in anticipation of the next set of photographs, and something fell out onto his lap. He picked it up and stared at the solemn-faced boy blinking back at him, and his breath caught in his throat.
Ron must have cut it out of the Prophet, or maybe his mum had—she'd always loved their neighbours, the Diggorys, though the families got together but rarely. But regardless of who had put the clipping in the album, Percy found himself locking eyes with Cedric for the first time since he couldn't remember when.
"It's been a long, long time," he murmured, rubbing his thumb over the face in the photograph. "I miss you. You were only seventeen when you—"
His thumb stilled, and Percy held his breath.
He pushed the album to the floor, heedless of its contents, and scrambled to the window.
"I—" he called, then stopped himself. Cedric wasn't a bench or a bathtub, something to be called into existence for Percy's convenience. Percy ran a hand through his hair, then tried to push his glasses up on his nose, which is when he realised he wasn't wearing his glasses.
"Well, I—!" Percy furrowed his brow and crossed his arms over his chest. To think that he hadn't automatically been given his specs! They were a part of him, practically! It didn't matter that he could see more clearly than he'd ever seen before—it was the principle of the thing that mattered. Percy strode to the door and wrenched it open. He stood on the flagstone path and shouted at what served as a sky with all the breath in his lungs.
"I NEED MY GLASSES, AND YOU CAN SEND CEDRIC DIGGORY ALONG AS WELL!"
Percy's glasses didn't appear, but after a moment, a shape began to emerge from the mist at the end of the path.
Percy blinked.
Cedric smiled.
"Percy," he said, his hands in his robe pockets, "I was wondering when you'd be along."
Percy gaped at Cedric and reached a hand towards him.
"It's really you?"
Cedric stepped closer and grasped Percy's hand in his own, broader one. He nodded.
"It's really me. Welcome to eternity."
Percy couldn't help himself—he laughed out loud, disbelieving, and pulled Cedric into a rough embrace, the sort that Percy Weasley never gave. Cedric hugged him back, crushing the air from his lungs, but Percy didn't care anymore about trivial things like breathing.
"Cedric," he murmured against the other boy's skin, "Oh, my god, Cedric."
"Perce, Perce," Cedric murmured back, and he embraced Percy even harder.
They stood together for what felt like eternity (but really, it couldn't have been) until Cedric pulled away just a fraction of an inch.
"How old were you, Perce?"
Percy frowned. "I—" He couldn't quite remember. He checked his watch over Cedric's shoulder. It was only noon; he couldn't have been in eternity for very long.
"I had a birthday," he said, "It was a big one. Only very recently. I might've been fifty. I'm not sure." He paused. Cedric's face was just as he remembered it, eternally seventeen. "How old do I look?"
"Just as I remembered you," Cedric said, grinning, "Seventeen, eighteen—only, where are your glasses?"
"I haven't figured that out yet," Percy replied, "But I've found you. That's a good start to eternity."
They eased out of the embrace and turned as one towards Percy's house. Without thinking, Percy clasped Cedric's hand in his as they walked inside.
Cedric squeezed Percy's hand as Percy closed the door behind them.
There was a moment before they kissed, a moment in which a hundred stories passed silently between them, and then the moment had passed and Percy's hands were holding Cedric's face and his mouth was on Cedric's and Cedric's arms were around Percy and eternity didn't matter anymore.
"Have you been waiting very long?" Percy gasped between kisses, his hands roaming, remembering.
"Not compared to eternity," Cedric replied, and Percy grinned against Cedric's mouth and walked him backwards into the bedroom.
***
They had kissed and they had explored, but they had never made love when they were together on earth. Schoolboy nerves and subsequent separation had seen to that. But in eternity, it was the most natural thing that could have happened.
Percy pressed Cedric to the big downy bed he'd called into existence, kissing Cedric's throat and face and ears. Cedric writhed under him, tugging at the fussy buttons on Percy's robes, kissing him back, and smiling, always smiling.
"I love you," Percy murmured against the heated skin of Cedric's throat, and Cedric put his hands in Percy's hair.
"There wasn't anyone else?"
Percy paused and looked up at Cedric.
"There was," he replied, "I got married. To, well, a woman. But underneath everything, there was always you." He returned his focus to Cedric's skin, warm and alive, and he grinned when Cedric whimpered under his ministrations. He undid Cedric's robes and explored the flesh underneath, moving ever downwards, past sternum and rib and hip, and he cast aside clothes and ran his fingers through the patch of blond curls he'd never before been at leisure to explore.
Cedric's prick was hot and hard under Percy, and he kissed the very head of it, marvelling, and Cedric choked and grabbed Percy's robes and hauled him upwards.
Percy blinked at Cedric, whose smile had turned wistful.
"Just—" Cedric coloured a little, his cheeks staining downwards in that impossibly ideal blush that Percy had always loved to be the cause of.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," said Cedric, and he grinned, and he pulled Percy's face to his and kissed him soundly. "Absolutely nothing, actually. Take off your clothes," Cedric whispered then, and Percy did, toeing off his shoes and socks and struggling out of his robes. He laid his wristwatch on the bedside table, noting it was only noon.
When finally Percy was wearing only his pants, Cedric propped himself up on his elbows.
"You still wear y-fronts," he said, grinning.
"Well…yes," said Percy, a little defensively.
"No, it's great, Perce, it's bloody brilliant—I wondered if, when you got here, you'd be the same, and—come here, Perce—you are. You are. Every bit of you is just as I remember."
Percy curled into Cedric's offered embrace, and Cedric let out a little sigh against Percy's shoulder. A moment later, Cedric began to thrust against Percy, so slowly that Percy wondered if Cedric even realised he was doing it.
Percy kissed Cedric's neck and began to thrust in turn, growing hard, his cock straining against his pants and dampening them. Cedric tipped his head back, exposing his throat to Percy, and he let out a little contented sigh that turned to a whine.
"Perce," he managed, his breath coming in bursts, "Can we—need you—"
Percy nodded. "How do we—I mean, we never did this when we were—"
"—Alive. I know." Cedric curled his hands around Percy's arms. "There was a spell I knew, but I—well, we don't have wands. Um." Cedric looked around the bedroom as if he might suddenly discover that they had, after all, been granted wands.
"I want you, Cedric," Percy murmured, dropping kisses all along Cedric's neck, then moved to his chest to suck on a nipple. When he was alive he mightn't have ever said those words in that order, especially out loud, but there was something intrinsically freeing about eternity—and it didn't hurt that he was fairly certain by now that Cedric wanted him, too.
"If we could just, maybe—god, Perce, keep doing that, please. If we only had some, um, lubricant or something—we need lubricant. Yes."
Percy lifted his head, certain he'd see some on the bedside table.
Nothing was there.
Percy furrowed his brow. "I've only had to ask for things, and they appeared."
"I know," Cedric said, sitting up, "But this is your eternity. You have to ask for it. I've got no pull here."
"Wait," said Percy, scrambling to his knees and pressing the heel of his hand against his raging erection, "Wait, what do you mean, my eternity?"
Cedric shook his head. "Never mind, Perce. I'll explain later, okay? Can't we just—" Cedric moved closer to Percy, wrapping his arms around him and burying his head in Percy's neck. "Want you in me, Perce. I do."
Percy breathed against Cedric, inhaling the earthy scent of him, the scent that had been so close to being forgotten.
"Please," Cedric said again, and Percy took him in his arms and they sank to the bed.
Cedric could explain eternity to him later. Later was one thing he had plenty of.
***
It wasn't that Percy hadn't enjoyed sex with his wife while he was alive. Of course he had. It was just that sex with Penelope had never been Sex With Cedric.
And it wasn't that he hadn't loved Penny, either. Of course he had.
And he'd been content.
Of course he had.
(Complacent.)
But now he had eternity.
And Cedric.
Percy rolled over and put an arm across Cedric, who snuffled in his sleep and smacked his lips.
He didn't think about why some things were just easier to accept in eternity.
***
Cedric was asking something, his voice creeping through the fog of sleep. Percy rubbed a hand across his eyes and rolled over.
"Sorry, what?"
Cedric's eyes were bright. "I'm sorry. I didn't realise you were asleep."
"No, that's all right. What did you ask me?"
Cedric licked his lips. "I asked you if you remember how I died."
Percy thought about it for a moment.
"No," he answered honestly, "I'm sorry. I really don't."
Cedric nodded and thought for a moment. "It's probably better that way."
"Yes," said Percy, and they looked at each other for a long moment.
"You remember us, though," Cedric said. It wasn't a question.
"Oh, yes," said Percy, and he put a hand to Cedric's face.
"Yes," said Cedric, and he kissed Percy's fingertips, a preamble to the slow kiss he pressed to Percy's mouth.
It was just like the first time.
***
"So what you're saying is that we each have our own versions of eternity, and some of them overlap."
"Basically, yes." Cedric dumped sugar into his tea and stirred it. "Mine started as white mist. Did yours?"
"I—yes, but—how do we find each other? How did you find me? How do I find, I don't know, my brother Fred? My nephew Jamie? What about people who might be here—wherever here is—that I don't know have died? What about—"
"Percy! Too many questions!" Cedric was grinning, despite his protests, and Percy twisted his worried face into a smile as well.
"Sorry." Percy paused and sipped his tea, moving a little closer to Cedric and putting his head on Cedric's shoulder. The ease they shared was like nothing Percy had ever known before, and he revelled in it.
"Listen, Perce, I don't know everything about how eternity works. I don't even really know how long I've been here. I know that we don't have our wands, and I know that there's no one mean in my eternity, and I know your glasses are missing, and I know that you should come to my house, and I know that there are boundaries, but I don't know what they are. I'm not too worried, though. Even if I never figure it out, I don't think it matters."
Percy mulled this over for a moment.
"Do you know," he said finally, his head still on Cedric's shoulder, his hand wrapped around the comforting warmth of his mug of tea, "I think that was the longest string of words that I ever heard come out of your mouth."
Cedric laughed and pushed him and called him a wanker.
Percy kissed Cedric and told him he loved him.
***
"I love you, too, you know," Cedric said as they lay together in a tangled, sated heap on Percy's sofa.
***
"Where are we going?"
Cedric just smiled and waggled his eyebrows at Percy and tugged on his hand.
"Come on, Cedric, there can't be that many places to go. Where are we—"
Cedric frowned, looking down at Percy's wrist.
"Why are you wearing that watch?"
Percy frowned and cocked his head to the side. "What—why—well, so I can know what time it is, of course!"
Cedric made a face as if he were trying to tell Percy simultaneously that he loved him and that Percy was an idiot.
"You can't tell time in eternity," he said, and Percy watched open-mouthed as Cedric unstrapped the watch from his wrist and flung it into the mist at the end of the flagstone path.
He began to protest—too late, the watch was clearly gone—but Cedric held him close and told him to close his eyes.
"It's a bit like Apparating, I think," Cedric said, "Just concentrate on me."
***
"You can open your eyes now. We've done it."
At first, Percy didn't quite understand what he was seeing. There was a cheerful little cottage, smaller than Percy's own, painted yellow and white and with green grass all around it. The top of the Dutch door was open and Percy could see through the front room and into the kitchen where a kettle was whistling on the cooker.
"I left the kettle on," Cedric said, and he took his arms from around Percy and ran into the house.
"Oh," said Percy, blinking, then "Oh." He turned to look behind him. A flagstone path ran for several yards before stopping at the door of his own house. Percy turned back and Cedric was leaning against the doorframe, watching him and smiling.
"Welcome to my eternity," said Cedric, and Percy put his hands in his pockets and shook his head, his mouth open in a disbelieving grin, a million questions forming on his lips.
"Cedric," he said, and that was all he managed before he found himself moving to the door and inside Cedric's home.
***
"Maybe we should be doing something else," Percy said through kiss-bruised lips as Cedric mouthed his way along Percy's hip.
"Like what," Cedric asked, his words muffled and his voice husky, "One-on-one-Quidditch?"
Percy smiled, then groaned when Cedric licked the crease where his thigh met his groin.
"I just meant that—there's so much to—oh god, Cedric—so much to do, so much to figure out—"
"We've got eternity," Cedric reminded Percy, and Percy relaxed and tipped his head back and breathed.
***
When Percy awoke, he fumbled for his glasses on the bedside table. He felt a small box and a glass, neither of which he remembered putting there, before his searching fingers closed on the familiar shape of his horn-rims.
He slid the specs onto his face and blinked up at the ceiling. It was yellow. He was fairly certain he didn't have a yellow ceiling.
There was clatter of dishes from outside the room, and Percy sat up.
His voice was caught in his throat. He coughed and ran a hand through his hair.
"Percy? Are you awake?"
The voice had come from the same direction as the clattering dishes, and at first Percy only nodded in response, then coughed again and cleared his throat.
"Cedric?"
There was an interminable pause, then the bedroom door opened, and Cedric stood in the doorway, the morning sun filtering through his hair giving him a golden halo.
"You slept late," he said, biting his lip as if attempting to suppress an idiotic smile, "Breakfast is ready."
Percy stretched and yawned and reached for the bathrobe that Cedric offered him, not as embarrassed as he once might've been by his own nudity.
"I see you found your glasses," Cedric said, standing close. Percy blinked—he took so for granted fumbling for his glasses when he awoke that he hadn't realised the action had been an anomaly.
"Yes," he said, putting his arms around Cedric, "I suppose I have."
"Welcome home," Cedric said. "Come on and we'll have breakfast. There's a lot to do, Perce, and all we've got is eternity."