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There were many ways to describe Percy Weasley's life, but in one word he supposes it could be summed up with: monotonous. Now this, in his professional opinion, was not a bad thing. In an era of basilisks in the school pipes, he-who-shall-not-be-named around every corner, and a frankly concerning level of lax around background checks for teachers, he had worked very hard to keep out of the way.
He was going to finish school with perfect grades, get a respectable job and a respectable wife and (unlike his parents) have a respectable amount of children. Call him stuck up or pompous, but he liked the life he was building. The safety of it, in this world, there was no death-eaters or wars or stress it was easy, simple and yes, okay, a little bland. Percy had a surefire way of making sure things worked out for him. He never asked for what he knew he wouldn't get, and fought with every breath to get the things he knew he could. He stopped asking the twins to care about his endeavors, yet barely slept every night for a year to become a prefect. He stopped asking his dad to take his position seriously and made sure he could recite the answer to every practice question of the NEWTS backwards. Finally, he never ever showed his interest in men, instead pursuing Penelope Clearwater. Which admittedly also didn't work out, but affairs of the heart and brain were horribly complicated compared to affairs of the page and wand.
By never grasping for things he could never have (no matter how badly he wanted them) Percy was able to keep the crushing blows in his life to a minimum. Maybe that was why he accepted when Oliver Wood extended the olive branch of friendship. Perhaps, the smallest and most pathetic part of Percy was lonely. Besides, Percy was good at things like this. He had spent his entire life compartmentalizing everything, there came a point in his childhood where he realized the only way he was to be liked was if he was a carbon copy of his older brothers. He was expected to be attractive, funny, athletic, intelligent, and interesting. Percy realized he would never be all those things, but if he did one thing very well, he may get somewhere worth being. And so he worked, he pushed every part of himself into his intelligence, he knew at least two facts about any given subject in the world and at the age of Eleven could recite every book and article he had in his room cover to cover. Turns out, without all that other stuff, people still don't like you very much. Who knew?
So yes, his hubris had finally struck him down and he had thought if anything, keeping his attraction to Oliver would be one of the easier tasks in his day. Unfortunately, Oliver turned out to be one of the best people Percy had ever met. Unlike what everyone who raised an eyebrow in question at their friendship thinks, they were quite alike. They were both intensely passionate about the things they loved, they were both fans of strict schedules and life plans, they both tried their hardest to stay away from the drivel that came with living with teenagers, neither of them liked to do drugs or drink excessively or could afford to do extravagant things. Oliver was a jock, this was clear as day to anyone who talked to him for more than a minute or so much as glanced in his room. But he was also kind and humorous, and rather intelligent in his own way. He wasn't the same book smart as Percy, yet he still listened with rapt attention to whatever Percy was talking about despite the fact he was sure Oliver didn't really care about the state of the government or the top forty reasons why health and safety codes are outdated and simply no longer functioning in society the way they should. And in turn, Percy listened to every Puddlemere United game play-by-play from last months to sixty years ago when they- in Oliver's opinion- started to really take off. Two years ago Percy would rather take an unforgivable to the brain and then be forced to tap dance and sing the Hogwarts anthem in front of the minister than hear one more word about Quidditch from anyone. But when Oliver spoke his eyes lit up, and Percy could swear it was always the most interesting thing he'd heard in his entire life.
That really should have been the warning sign, I mean really any person who managed to get Percy excited about Quidditch just by talking about it already had a dangerous amount of power, let alone a person with big brown eyes which if Percy had any less respect for Oliver or himself- he would probably describe as something cliché like gorgeous or doe-like or merlin forbid sparkling.
Penny was the first to notice. Penny was always the first to notice. Penny was the first to notice he didn't enjoy kissing her like he should, or that he didn't like touching her like he should, or that he didn't like her like he should. He almost cried when she confronted him- which was silly because she was very calm about the entire thing. And ever since then, they'd been best friends. And so when she started to look at him from the corner of her eyes when Oliver's name was brought up or smirk a little when he walked a little too close to the Quidditch Pitch as they practiced (which was not stalking thank you very much, he was being supportive! just from...a distance.) It only took about a week before she cracked and asked if Percy and Oliver had made out yet. To which he responded very gracefully by choking so hard on his drink she became genuinely concerned he was going to die on the spot- which was pretty much how he felt at that moment.
If Percy was good at something- he made sure to be the best at it. His entire life had fit into boxes, checklists, time stamps and deadlines. His picture-perfect life was tangible, and anything that threatened it was disposed of. It became harder when the thing that threatened it was the unfairly attractive whirlwind that came into his life with understanding and bonding and ludicrously expensive merchandise. Ignoring Oliver lasted about one day, and then Oliver asked if he was okay in a way nobody had ever asked before and he threw away the attempt before he could register the decision. Next he tried to avoid him, short-sighted on his part as they share a dorm room and it's not like he had anyone else to stay with. Third, he tried simply living with it. He could spend his life being Oliver's friend. He could still get perfect grades and a respectable job and marry a respectable woman, and Oliver would be his Pro-Quidditch star best man whom he was most certainly not in love with (but by then probably anyone who watches Quidditch and has a brain will also be in love with Oliver which both makes him feel less weird and makes him ragingly jealous of thousands of hypothetical people with hypothetical celebrity crushes.)
Contrary to popular belief, Percy rarely found things in his life to be easy. If anything, he'd say he struggled more than the average person. His brothers, for all his snark about them, seemed to just fit in the world. Percy stuck out, no matter how hard he tried to blend., his appearance often gave people pause for a few seconds, and not in a good way. He was too sharp in some places, and too soft in others. His hair was too red, his eyes were too poor, his body was too tall. Thankfully neither he nor the general populace considered him to be utterly grotesque. But he was just odd enough to have people notice. Just his luck really. Oliver was different. Oliver was a couple inches shorter than Percy, but his proportions all worked together to give him the incredibly attractive but still-approachable look he'd come to admire. His body wasn't cut from marble, it was unmistakably human. With a strong and dependable frame, rippling muscles and all, but eyes and face just soft enough he stood out from the typical mold of Quidditch-obsessed jocks.
Maybe it's why it shocked Percy so much when he heard his friend utter the words that sent his life into a spiral. The words that set his neatly filed life tumbling in a flurry of papers and crashing cabinets. "I love you."
Three words Percy had in recent years only heard from his mother. Slurred out by his plastered best friend who had just been celebrating the win of the Quidditch cup. Percy had seen Oliver work himself to the bone for this, had listened to his rants and frustrated teary words and early morning workouts. Watched him come to the dorm late every night looking exhausted from practice. He was ready for any amount of cheers and words to come out of Oliver's mouth when they saw each other, everything but the eight letters, three words that did. He almost thought he'd misheard him. That this was some bizarre dream or all those years of potions to help him stay awake had finally caught up to him and driven him mad. But then Oliver swayed a little closer- stumbling slightly in his intoxicated state- and spoke up again.
"I promised myself I'd tell you if we won. And we won, so. I lo-"
"Congratulations" Percy rushed out, stopping the brown-haired boy from repeating himself "On the win, I mean" As if his confession was forgotten, Oliver launched into an excited barely comprehensible ramble about the game, and Percy let him. Let the confession fade away, it's easier this way. He told himself. Besides he was drunk, he didn't really mean it. He probably wouldn't even remember it. Percy Weasley had enough humiliation in his life already without adding to it by doing something like admitting his feelings to someone who can barely keep a train of thought straight. By never grasping for things he could never have, no matter how badly he wanted them, Percy was able to keep the crushing blows in his life to a minimum. That's what he had always told himself. And losing Oliver Wood would be the worst blow of them all. It'd be putting everything on the line, the biggest risk he'd ever taken. Percy Weasley and Risk did not belong together in the same sentence. So as he guided his friend to their room, and forced him into bed for the night with some water and pepper-up-potion for his upcoming hangover, he let himself process his thoughts.
And with the moon shining across Oliver's face from only a few feet away, he let the quiet rebellious notion unfurl in his chest. That tomorrow his friend may wake with his confession still in memory, that they could have an awkward yet meaningful conversation that belonged in the trashy, melodramatic romance books Ginny had that he definitely did not sneak away from time to time. Maybe they could work. The fantasy was exhilarating, but that's all it could be. Fantasy. Tomorrow they would move on, this would be a blurry night Percy would think about from time to time years in the future and smile about.
And if that night Percy dreamt of domesticity in the warm hands and heart of Oliver Wood, that was really nobody's business but his own.