Percy Weasley prided himself on punctuality, peacekeeping, and perfection. He thought that was the definition of being a prefect, and he had even made a small sign to hang over the Prefect’s Common Room with those three virtues stenciled on it—it had been knocked into the fire by the Slytherin Prefect’s, though, and he was midway through making a second, fire proof one. But just because the sign was down didn’t mean that it wasn’t true. Percy had spent his whole life training to be a prefect, it seemed to him, and he had decided that being punctual, peaceful, and perfect had helped him a lot in that regard.

Which was why he was so flattered that Headmaster Dumbledore HIMSELF was waiting outside of Divination with a special mission.

“Headmaster!”

“Hello, Mr. Weasley. This is your last class for the day, is it not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hmm…would you be adverse to perhaps doing me a favor? I understand if you wish to study, or perhaps be with your friends—“

Percy had intended to study History of Magic this afternoon, but to turn down a special errand, a favor for Professor Dumbledore? Never!

“Oh, no sir, I hadn’t any plans. What do you want me to do?”

“We have a new student, Mr. Weasley, one who, due to unfortunate circumstances, has just arrived.”

“A first year?”

“Yes. I’m aware you have a brother in that year—Ronald, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. I’m quite capable of dealing with first years.” Percy’s chest puffed up a bit with pride. “Ten of them have come to me for homesickness, sir.”

“Very impressive, Mr. Weasley. Well, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind showing the boy around? A brief tour of Hogwarts, perhaps emphasizing areas he would need to be? I have a staff meeting in twenty minutes, otherwise I would do it, but I know that you will show this boy everything he needs to know.”

Percy beamed and nodded quickly. “Thank you, sir, I would be honored to, sir!”

“Ah, good, good, my thanks, Mr. Weasley. He’s just been Sorted into Gryffindor, but magic ass a whole is a bit new to him so—“ the Headmaster chuckled, “—be careful. But I’ll entrust him to your capable hands.”

Dumbledore turned to see the boy all the way down the hallway, staring in awe of a painting of a knight.

“Harry—“ Dumbledore said softly, touching the boys shoulder, and Harry spun around quickly. “Harry, this is Percy Weasley. He’s your house Prefect, and he’ll be showing you around Hogwarts.”

“How d’you do,” Harry said quietly. Percy nodded pompously, then stopped in awe as he saw Harry’s scar.

“Professor—is he—“ Percy started to stutter out, and Dumbledore nodded soberly. “We all—well, we did the math, we knew—but why is he so late?”

“Please, Mr. Weasley—do not pry there,” Dumbledore answereed seriously, and Percy nodded again, thia time frantically.

“Oh, no sir, of course not, sir, I’ll be the very model of discretion!” Percy babbled, and Harry frowned and looked at the floor. It wass if they were all talking in code, and Harry didn’t like not knowing what was happening to him.

“Headmaster?” Harry said softly, tugging on the mans sleeve gently. “I have a question, actually.” The painting of the knight had reminded him, asking him where he got such a horrid scar, and he remembered what Snape said on the carriage. “Professor Snape said that my parent’s didn’t die in a car crash and that I didn’t get my scar there, I was wondering if—“

Percy was gaping at him like he had just said he didn’t know what his name was, and Professor Dumbledore simply shook his head.

“Later, Harry. We will discuss all of this later.” And with that, Professor Dumbledore walked away, leaving Harry hoping that, maybe later, there would be answers.

Percy regained himself quite quickly and started to lead Harry around the school. He was quite interesting about it, actually, and showed Harry all of his classroms and gave him little tips on what to avoid.

“The stairways like too trick you and they change a lot, or sometimes steps disappear, but the way I remember it is ‘Stairs are Slippery Shifters’, so just keep that in mind on the stairs and they don’t trip you up as much, I think they like a little recognition.”

Finally, they stood outside a portrait of an enormous lady in a pink dress, who reminded Harry a little bit of Aunt Marge only her face was nicer and there was no dog in the picture.

“Password?” she said, then she seemed to be squinting at him, and she put her face closer to the edge of the cavas. “A new student, this late? My dear, what—“

“The Headmaster will explain everything to you, Madam,” Percy said grandly, then with equal grandeur, he intoned ‘Patricium!’ and the portrait swung open.

During their tour, Percy had seemed a little stuck up, but nice all the same. When they had passed the red-haired queen portrait again, they both stopped and Percy had told him how it looked like old pictures of his mum. But now, once they had gotten back to the common room, Percy became stuffy and arrogant.

“Jordan, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times, that spider is not allowed in the common room! Keep in your dorm or with Professor Kettleburn, but it frightens the girls—I don’t care if it isn’t poisonous, Jordan, just do what I say or I’ll be docking points from the lot of you, see if I don’t! Spinnet, Bell, what are you doing?”

“Aw, Percy, we were just going over some of the new plays Ollie gave us—“

“Go over plays in your head, not with the common room chairs. WEASLEY!” he bellowed, then looked regretful as three other boys just as red headed as Percy looked up.

Two of them were sitting in front of the fire making a tower out of playing cards. As soon as Percy called, the tower exloded and the two--twins?—looked over at Percy murderously.

The other boy was in a corner, laughing with a sandy haired boy and a black boy. He, too, glared at Percy and even yelled “What d’you want, Perce?”

“Ron, I mean.” Percy amended his call of Weasley and Ron, the boy in the corner, regreetfully got up and dragged his feet over to his brother.

“What, Perce? You were the one who told me to make friends, now you’re dragging me away from them?”

“You—“ Percy said, puffing his chest, “—are going to be a part of a special mission from Dumbledore.”

Harry looked alarmed.

“Yeah? Well, I don’t wanna. I’ve just made friends with Seamus and Dean, and you can’t make me.” The boy glared and Harry wanted to get away from this loud, filled to the brim room, maybe go find a cupboard, and cover his his ears and wonder how he’d gotten there.

“Please, Ron, you can still be with Seamus and Dean. I just want you to take Harry with you,” Percy pleaded, and for the first time Ron looked at Harry. “He’s a first year, he’s new, please, Ron. Remember how lonely you were until you made friends with Dean and Seamus?”

“I don’t want to. He’ll just ruin everything, he looks like a wet blanket, just like you,” Ron shot back angrily. “’Sides, me and Dean and Seamus’re talking about Quidditch. I bet he doesn’t even know what Quidditch is, do you?”

Harry shook his head.

“See, Perce? Please, Percy, I just have started to talk to them and they havent taken the mickey once on me being poor. I can’t just drag a new kid in!”

Percy glared at Ron. “Ronald Weasley, you are behaving horribly. I am owling Mum tonight—“

“Aw, Perce, don’t, she’ll send me a Howler!”

“Then just do ONE LITTLE THING and take Harry over to be with your friends!”

“Please, it’s all right—I can just go over there, I don’t want to be a bother,” Harry whispered, and both boys looked at him.

Ron relented. “Aw, no, it’s not a problem. I’m sorry, I just haven’t made any friends and it’s been a month, and this is the first time that Dean and Seamus have talked to me. I didn’t mean to be mean about it.” With that, Ron led him back over to the table in the corner.

“Who’s he?” the sandy haired boy asked in a weird accent Harry had never heard before.

“His name’s Harry, he’s our age. What were we talking about?”

The black boy said “I was wondering what makes the balls fly. Is it like, a levitation charm, or—“

“Why’s he so late, huh? Is he a Squib?”

“Be quiet, Seamus,” the black boy said. “Maybe he couldn’t come because of family reasons. Now, Ron, you have that copy of Quidditch through the—“

“No, Dean. I want to know what’s wrong with him. What’s a matter, Squibby, didn’t do your magic till now?”

“Leave him alone, Seamus, he’s not a Squib, he wouldn’t be here!” Ron shot back angrily, the back of his neck turning red and his ears going and angry pink. “Leave off him, he’s got just as much a right to be here as you, me, and Dean.”

“What, and not Neville?” Seamus said, then he descended into a fit of mean giggles. “That really is an example of a Squib—why don’t you give the kid to him, yeah? Then we could get back to our conversation.”

“Shut it, Seamus!” Ron said, clenching his fists.

“If, uhm, if you don’t want me here, I mean, I can go,” Harry squeaked. “I mean, I can, uh, go find my dormitory, or, or—“

Ron and Seamus glared at him. Dean tried again to get back to the original conversation.

“So, the balls, they levitate?”

“Only the Bludgers and the Snitch. If you drop the Quaffle, it falls. And it’s more than levitation, it’s an actually flight pattern,” Ron said. “My brother once made an apple act like a Bludger, he found the charm somewhere. Animus-something. It’s like, they have a little brain in there, and it flies anyway, y’know?”

Seamus didn’t say another word the whole conversation, though Harry joined in once or twice with quiet observations on Muggle flying things, Dean aggreeing and adding on (‘Planes, Ron, they fly in the air and there’s a pilot—no, it’s to do with aerodynamics—god, wizards don’t know anything about nothing, do they, Harry?’)

Seamus never joined in. All he did was stare at Harry, and he wondered what he would have to do to get the attention back to himself.

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Severus Snape was throwing ingredients around his store room (the one’s in unbreakable vials, of course) when Dumbledore arrived.

“Staff meeting over?” Severus sneered, then threw a Mandrake liver at the wall.

“Yes, though there was a lot of wondering over where you were. I told them you were resting.”

THUMP! A jar of pickled newt eyes hit the wall next. “How kind of you.”

“Well, Minerva is very excited about having Harry in her house. I believe she ran from the meeting to the common room to find the boy.”

“She always knew, didn’t she?”

“Knew what, my boy?”

Severus turned and stopped throwing vials, staring the Headmaster in the eye. “That the Dursleys were no good.”

Dumbledore sighed. “We have no proof of that.”

Snape snorted and threw a jar of fangs at the wall. “No proof? Headmaster, the boy IS proof! One look at him and you can see he’s been abused!”

“Many things can account for running away, Severus. It is not always abuse.”

“But this time it is, and you know it!”

“I know nothing but what Harry has told me, Severus. That he ran away for a taste of adventure. Do I suspect otherwise? Of course I do! But suspecting other things does not mean abuse, it does not mean I can storm into the Dursley home, and it does not mean abuse!”

Dumbledore sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I have to trust that Harry will entrust one of us with the truth. And I have to hope, when that time comes, that it’s not too late. Sometimes you have to let people make the mistakes they want to make.”

Severus glared at the Headmaster. “Like you let me?” he spat, and with that he rushed from the room, his robes fluttering behind him as he slammed the door on a quiet, regretful Dumbledore.

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Harry had just been getting into the conversation when it all went to pieces. He had been listening avidly to Ron explain the rules of Quidditch (while Dean kept chiming in that it was pretty cool, but not as good as football) when a tall lady in robes, glasses, and a gray bun in the back of her head had thrown open the portrait door and, after a moments pause, rushed over to Harry, throwing her arms around him and pulling her close to her.

The whole room of people were staring and harry was petrified. He wasn’t sure he liked hugging, he decided. He had always wanted a hug from Aunt Petunia, like she gave Dudley, and he had hugged Mrs. Figg’s cats enough times to know that being the hug giver could be nice, but he didn’t like being trapped in someone’s arms like this.

Maybe it was something you had to get used to.

But the lady was rocking him back and forth and crying, and Dean had asked “Erm, Professsor McGonnagal? Are you OK?”

She let him go then, wiping her eyes and smiling. “Yes, Mr. Thomas, yes I am.” She was staring at Harry in a way that made him feel like she could see through him, and he wondered if Professor Snape had figured it out, if he had told everyone. “Oh, Harry.”

Now she sounded like the Headmaster, and Harry let himself relax. Maybe she had been worried, like the Headmaster. That was okay, right?

“Mr. Potter,” she said, still smiling at him. “Come with me. We have a lot to discuss.”

Seamus was whispering ‘teacher’s pet’ from behind him, but Ron looked dumbstruck.

“Harry—Harry Potter?” he squeaked, and the whole room got even quieter for a moment, then filled with an uproar as he followed Professor McGonnagal away from the room and to her office.

He sat down in a chair across from her desk, where she finally settled, still staring at him and smiling.

“Well, Mr. Potter. I hear I’ve quite a bit of explaining to do.” Her smile fell off her face, then, and she seemed more seriously. “First, though, I have something to give you.”

She started opening her desk drawers, then pulled out a small white parecel. It had a little red and gold ribbon tying it shut, and she handed it to him carefully.

“I went through Poppy’s photo’s—she used to always have a camera on her, she thought Muggle photography was quaint—and I found one that I thought you might enjoy.”

Harry carefully opened the parcel to find it was a framed picture of—himself?

No, that boy was too old to be him—at least sixteen. And then, next to him—

“Is—are these my parents?” Harry asked, tracing over their faces with his fingers and fighting back tears.

His mum was even prettier than he imagined. The two of them were sitting underneath a tree, with a sparkling lake he remembered from the carriage ride in the background. His mother seemed to be laughing right at the camera, smiling at him, and he could hear her speak, if he listened hard enough. ‘I love you, Harry, I’m sorry,’ he could hear.

And the man, his father—he didn’t know what to expect of a father, which is why he rarely dreamed about finding one. All he knew from Uncle Vernon was to laugh boomingly and be mean to the supid boy in the cupboard. But looking at this man, he knew what a father would do. He would carry him on his back and tell him stories and fix his cuts and smile, always smile like he was there.

“Yes, they are. I’m sorry it’s not one with you in it, but by the time anyone thought we might need such a picture they were in hiding.”

Harry kept tracing over his parents faces. “Hiding from what? How did they die?”

Harry heard a story that not even he could make up. A story of an evil wizard and a powerful prophecy, a mothers love and a hateful curse.

“So—she died to save me.” Harry’s voice was flat and he was scared he might cry in front of the professor, which would be embarassing.

“Yes.”

“So, if it wasn’t for me, she’d still be alive.” Two tiny tears rolled down his cheeks and he squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t cry anymore.

He felt the professor’s hand on his back. “No. If Lily hadn’t had you, she never would have lived. At least, not in any way of happiness. And neither would James. They needed you, Harry. They loved you so much, that life without you wouldn’t be life.”

Harry felt her arms envelope him again, and this time he hugged back with all his might, crying into the professors robes and holding his picture tight to him as he cried away eleven years of missing.