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percyficmod (percyficmod) wrote in percy_ficathon, @ 2007-09-24 20:49:00

A gift for our members and watchers!
Title: Five Bad Days
Author: TBA
Giftee: Our members and watchers
Pairing/Characters: Percy/Cedric
Rating: PG-13, if that
Word Count: ~2800
Warnings: A little angst at the end.
Disclaimer: Oh, if only they were mine. They're JKR's and I'm just playing with them.
Summary: Some bad days are worse than others.
Author's Notes: Thanks to my beta, who completely saved this.



1.
Percy was not having a good day. There was a madman on the loose and Dementors hovering about, which translated into frightened students wanting reassurance from the Head Boy. Escaped murderers and Dementors were the status quo these days, though, and were not what had Percy in a foul mood. He'd missed getting any decent breakfast due to a couple of third-years fighting in the corridor, he'd only scraped an A on his latest Transfiguration essay, and Penny had left him! He might have been a bit less insulted if she'd thrown him over for some Quidditch player or something normal. No, she'd dumped him for her N.E.W.T.s! Needed to concentrate on revising this year, she'd said. Thereby implying that Percy was an inferior revising partner! He only hoped the rumour mill would do its job and his brothers would never get wind of the real story, or he'd never hear the end of it.

Needless to say, he'd been distracted in lessons, and more than a bit cross with the students who had come to see him this afternoon. At least the next name on the charmed parchment outside his door suggested that the next half-hour of his life would be fairly painless; Cedric Diggory was a decent enough bloke. Perhaps he was only coming for some advice on his prefect duties.

Cheered by the thought that some part of his day might be useful, Percy managed to open the door with a smile when Diggory knocked (at 4:00 sharp, he noted approvingly), and even offered him tea.

"So, are the younger years in my house as mad as they seem to me?" Diggory asked once the requisite pleasantries had been exchanged.

Percy bit back a rather uncharitable comment. "They're frightened. Everyone is somewhat, I think," he said, straightening his badge. It had taken him ages to undo Fred and George's jinx. Diggory allowed Percy a comforting ramble on encouraging maturity in the students, nodding and hmming in all the right places and not taking more than his fair share of the biscuits. Yes, Diggory was all right.

2.
Yet again, Percy was not having a good day. He ought to have been; he'd always liked Halloween, and the weather was perfect, crisp and cool with just a hint of a fog in the morning, though the last could have been from the Dementors. He wondered if the Dementors could be contributing to his feeling rather out of sorts, but then wouldn't everyone be? No, the root of the problem was that it was the first Hogsmeade weekend and he was at a complete loss. He ought to have been in Madam Puddifoot's with Penny, sharing a pot of that vanilla tea she liked and a pastry or two.

Instead he was wandering the grounds, which he thought he probably shouldn't be doing, and trying not to feel sorry for himself. It wasn't even that he missed Penny, exactly. He missed the idea of her more than anything else, now that it had had a few weeks to sink in. He'd been somebody's boyfriend, which had made him feel more... important or useful or something, and he'd had someone for company on days like today. He was so intent on kicking the stones in his path that he was quite surprised when he collided with something.

"Watch where you're-- Oh, hello, Weasley." Diggory's annoyance transformed into a bright smile when he saw it was Percy he'd smacked into.

"Sorry, Diggory," he grumbled. "Bit late to be going down now, isn't it?"

Diggory gave him an unreadable look and held up a broom, which Percy hadn't noticed previously. "My date's stuck in detention," he said with a rueful smile. "Didn't have any other reason to go, so I thought I'd do a bit of flying."

Percy had also failed to notice how close to the Quidditch pitch he'd wandered. He nodded and made to go on his way.

"D'you want to join me?"

Percy couldn't hide a slight shock. No one had asked him to go flying in ages, ever since he'd made it clear to his brothers that he thought Quidditch was a waste of time. That wasn't entirely true; he privately rather enjoyed it, but he was not the cheering and shouting sort, so it was easier to let them think he just couldn't be bothered about it. He also quite liked flying, though he didn't get much chance to. "Oh, I haven't got a broom," he said with a shrug he hoped looked nonchalant.

"You can use my spare one if you want. It's only a Cleansweep, but it'll do."

Percy bit his lip. "I really should work on my Transfiguration essay." It was true; he needed to bring his marks back up after the dreaded A.

"Oh, come on, Weasley, just for a bit. You can swot all you want after."

Oddly, he wasn't quite as insulted at being called a swot when it came from Diggory. Fred and George used the term quite disapprovingly (sometimes in little rhymes and songs), but Diggory just seemed to be teasing in a friendly sort of way. So he allowed himself to be pulled into the broom shed, where he promptly tripped over someone's carelessly stowed gear. He grabbed Diggory's shoulder in a vain attempt to keep from falling, only succeeding in taking Diggory down too and sprawling in an ungainly heap on top of him.

"Well, I usually insist on being bought dinner first," Diggory said.

Percy felt his face flaming as he scrambled up, still feeling the warmth from where Diggory's body had pressed against his, two burning spots where hands had briefly rested on his hips. And any blood rushing toward his groin was just because they were hands at all, and there'd been no hands for some time. Not that anyone's hands had ever really--

Diggory was laughing. Laughing.

Percy fixed him with a scowl. He hated being laughed at. "It isn't funny!"

He had the decency to look contrite, at least. "I wasn't laughing at you. I ended up on my arse too, you know," he said, shoving the offending set of pads back into its cubby hole.

Percy thought it best not to point out that he'd ended up on Diggory rather than his own arse.

They took a turn around the pitch, then soared leisurely over the grounds, finally coming to rest at the edge of the lake as the sun was setting. Diggory flashed him a brilliant grin and flopped down on the grass. Percy followed suit, though he did not flop. Diggory's hair was artistically mussed, but Percy was sure his own looked like a rat's nest. Artistically mussed? Oh, Weasley, the altitude must've gone to your head.

He tried not to gasp or gape or blush as Diggory reached toward him and seemed to lightly touch his hair. "Leaf," Diggory said, pulling his hand back after a moment and showing the offending object before dropping it.

"Oh. Thanks." Percy ran a hand through his hair, now more self-conscious than ever. "I should get back. My housemates will have been to Zonko's."

"Yeah, couldn't let those dungbombs run rampant," Diggory replied with a crooked grin. He leaned forward, and this time Percy was unable to suppress a gasp as Diggory drew closer and closer and... grabbed the broom on Percy's other side. "I'll just put these away, you go on."

Percy nodded dumbly, trying to will his heart back to a normal rhythm. Of course he'd been reaching for the broom! What else could it have been, honestly?

3.
Percy was having a very bad night. Quite possibly the worst night in history. Of course it was exciting to be left in charge of the entire school, but the circumstances left rather a lot to be desired. Standing sleep-deprived watch over the other students while the staff searched the castle for Sirius Black was not his idea of a good time. It had been sort of entertaining at first, maintaining order, but now he was starting not to care much at all who talked or got up or threw things. They looked rather like a load of grapes there on the floor, he thought, especially if he gave in to his eyes' urge to defocus. Penny was no sort of company and not even terribly useful at keeping watch, having abandoned paying attention to anything in favour of her Ancient Runes text. So he just sat on the head table and counted the grapes.

He nearly fell off the table when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He whipped around to tell off whoever it was and found his face inches from that of a grinning Cedric. Who'd apparently become Cedric at some point in the course of the evening. He chalked it up to fatigue. "You're meant to be asleep, aren't you?" he whispered.

"Couldn't. I ended up next to Finch-Fletchley, and he snores like a dragon. Thought I'd help you keep watch."

Percy started to protest, but found he couldn't summon the energy to send the other boy back. "Er. Thanks. Not very interesting. Like watching grapes sleep." Oh, that hadn't made any sense.

Cedric was laughing softly. "You are tired, aren't you?"

"Hmm, yes." They whispered about the current crisis and Arithmancy and who snored, and then Percy found himself starting awake. Meaning he'd fallen asleep. With his head on Diggory's shoulder. He blushed to the roots of his hair, sitting bolt upright and furtively checking his mouth to make sure he hadn't dribbled. "Sorry."

Cedric waved a hand. "You weren't out long. Though if you're going to make a habit of using me as furniture, I may have to start charging."

Percy hadn't thought it possible for his face to get any redder, but he was proven wrong.

4.
Good days were apparently in short supply. Percy had had a very good night, until he'd realised the body in the dream that had caused him to wake panting and sticky was decidedly male. He knew all the rational reasoning behind such things, teenage hormones and whatnot. The whole thing had left him unsettled, though, partially due to some suspicions he had about the body's owner. He'd never seen those parts of Cedric, of course, but the strange feeling he got in his stomach every time the Hufflepuff looked up at him across the library table they'd taken to jointly occupying over the past week were damning. He'd read somewhere that dreams of that nature could merely indicate a wish to know someone better, but he he had a feeling that wasn't the case here. Friendly claps on the shoulder whose heat lingered for several minutes afterward didn't tend to point to a wish for a stronger friendship. Honestly, he wasn't sure they were even friends.

Cedric snapped his book shut, startling Percy out of his thoughts. "Have you done your Astronomy yet?"

Percy furrowed his brow in confusion. "I don't take Astronomy."

"Oh." He looked oddly disappointed. "Thought you did for some reason, sorry," Cedric said, seeming to recover his good humour quickly. "I do, though, and I've got a chart for tomorrow."

Percy nodded and started putting his own things away. "I'll walk as far as Gryffindor with you. Notes I need next are back in my room."

The corridors were quiet; being out and about after dark was a frightening prospect for many people these days, so the only sound was the click and scuff of their shoes on the old stone floors. That was something Percy liked about Cedric-- not his shoes, of course, but that he didn't feel the need for useless chatter to fill space. He'd got the impression from some of his housemates that they mistook Cedric's quiet for stupidity, but Percy knew better.

"You know," Cedric said as they climbed the staircase to the landing where they would part, "if you're not horribly busy, I could do with a hand on the readings. Makes it go loads faster." He scratched the back of his head, looking down.

Percy tripped slightly, though hopefully not enough to notice. If he wasn't completely mistaken, he'd just been invited up to the Astronomy Tower. Well, of course he had, but what if he'd been Invited Up to the Astronomy Tower? Didn't they give you partners in Astronomy for this sort of thing? Oh, why not. It wasn't as though it would get any worse, and Percy had never been one to deny himself things he wanted. If Cedric was a thing he wanted, which remained to be seen.

It was beginning to look as though the invitation had been completely innocent. Percy had been taking down numbers and positions for the past half hour, and was beginning to get a cramp in his hand when Cedric finally announced he was done and unbent himself from the telescope, stretching and rolling his neck. He grinned at Percy, arms still half-stretched over his head and his jumper exposing a tiny bit of skin at the hem. "Thanks for that. Would've taken ages on my own. My partner's some Slytherin who won't have anything to do with me." Ah. So there had been a partner. Percy was poised to get up, but Cedric sat down and joined him on the windowsill he'd perched on. He pointed at some invisible thing in the sky. "See that?"

"Er, no."

"That little sort of blinking thing, just there?"

Percy followed where Cedric was pointing and squinted. "I think so."

"That's a comet."

"Can you see it with the telescope?"

"Not with these, no."

"Oh. Too bad." Percy couldn't really find anything to say. The comet was interesting in theory, but it was rather disappointingly unspectacular, so he just stared out at the stars, pointedly not looking down at the murky shapes of the Dementors around the castle's perimeter. He cast a glance back inside to find Cedric was looking at him. "What?"

"What can you see without your glasses?"

"Almost nothing, why?" In answer, his glasses were lifted from his face and the world blurred into vague shapes. He hated having his glasses taken away. Fred and George used to hide them in the worst places. It had been an absolute nightmare before he could do magic at home, always having to get Charlie or his mum to summon them. "Oh, come on, give them back," he said irritably, groping blindly at where he thought Cedric's hand might have gone. What he got was the side of Cedric's head, and dropped his hand away hastily when he realised he'd been about to run his fingers through the oddly soft hair.

As suddenly as it had gone, his sight returned, and Cedric was grinning back at him. "Sorry," he said, though he didn't look it.

Cedric didn't pull back after straightening the glasses, though, and Percy involuntarily licked his lips.

And then it just happened. They both leaned forward slowly, and their lips met. It was just the barest ghost at first, questioning. When neither of them pulled away, a few more soft brushes melded into a real kiss, all hot breath and tongues and the occasional laughing collision of teeth, and Percy was finally allowed to feel Cedric's hair between his fingers, and he'd never been kissed like this before.

Laughs and sighs turned to moaning as Cedric moved forward to straddle Percy's lap, bending to kiss his neck. "You have," he said between swipes of his tongue and teasing nips of teeth up and down Percy's throat, "no idea," he found a particularly nice spot just below Percy's ear, "how long I've wanted to do this."

"Maybe some idea," Percy said, feeling breathless as he pulled Cedric up to claim his mouth again.

5.
The letters are all he's got left. From that first Christmas holiday, from the summer after. The cryptic notes from the following year about where and when to meet. All of them are filled with optimism that tastes bitter now.

There are a few things in with them-- a strip of Muggle photos taken on a day they managed to steal in London that one and only summer, a leather cord, a horrible singing valentine that's long since lost its voice, a 'Potter Stinks' badge.

No one knew Percy had any right to mourn, and so he's never shown it. He just threw himself into work, vowing that he'd make enough of a something of himself for the both of them.

It isn't until the war is over and the blinders are off that Percy realises it's time to let go. He packs away the letters and the trinkets in a charmed box and locks them away in his old school trunk. It's the worst day he's had in a while.


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