Chapter Text
Charlie’s trouble began, like most trouble did, with Fred and George bothering Percy.
Charlie was stressed out enough without having to put up with his brothers bickering at school as well as at home. Now that the twins were in first-year, Charlie really couldn’t catch a break. He loved them, but there were limits to his patience. It’s not like his school life had been quiet up until fifth year. In comparison to this year, the previous years had been extraordinary peaceful – and then the twins came crashing into Hogwarts – and Charlie understood why Percy didn’t quite know how to handle them in addition to his schoolwork. Charlie didn’t really know either.
Charlie had his Prefect duties too, which made having his own brothers be the most mischievous Firsties in Hogwarts history a little bit more stressful than if he were unrelated. On top of that, he was coming to the end of his sixth year, which meant that he had to choose his career path – and then do well enough to actually achieve it. Percy acted like Third Year decided everything, and Charlie kind of wanted to draw him aside and tell him that he should maybe let the twins loosen him up a little before he squandered what little free-spirited youth he had left.
But Charlie also knew Percy, and there was very little reasoning with him when he dug his heals in – and besides, Percy being a studious uptight bookworm would probably serve him better than having a criminal record – or wherever the twins were headed.
Charlie would have left it alone, he really would have, but the latest method the twins had of teasing Percy was crossing a line.
“For the last time, I do not have a boyfriend! Would you shut-up!” Percy yelled and stormed out of the common room.
“Ah Percy, nothing bad about being queer!” Fred yelled after him. “Just don’t know why you feel the need to hide it.”
“He’s probably hideous, so he won’t introduce you,” little Lee Jordan offered. George laughed.
“Probably met snogging books in the library, with how much he claims he’s just been studying,” Fred guessed.
This new teasing – that Percy had some secret boyfriend and the twins needed to forcibly drag him out of the closet – had been going on for nearly a week. Charlie had ignored it in the beginning, thinking it was oddly unfounded and the twins would move on to their usual teasing of Percy being teacher’s pet, or boring, or whatever other complaint they’d had for the past few years during the summer breaks. But the twins were persisting, and Percy was becoming more and more agitated and red-faced, and now little Lee Jordan was in on the teasing, and other kids were overhearing, and Charlie had run out of excuses to not engage.
“Boys,” Charlie spoke up, realizing that for once, it was just him, the twins, and Lee in the common room. He’d have preferred if Lee wasn’t here either, but he probably needed a lecture too. “You need to stop going after Percy about this.”
Fred rolled his eyes, and George huffed. Lee looked like he’d been invited to spectate a game.
“All of you,” Charlie said – to make sure Lee knew he was included on the team. “Even if it were true, it’s inappropriate to speculate on people’s relationships – especially if they’re…”
“Queer?” George finished the sentence. “You can say it, it’s just us – it honestly explains so much about him, we figured he’d be relieved that he could be honest!”
“That’s not the way it works and you aren’t even going about it the right way if it were!” Charlie argued. “Listen, you turn everything into teasing – even if Percy were gay, he wouldn’t want to be teased about it. That makes it seem like a vulnerability – something that should stay hidden if he doesn’t want to be made fun of. Also, it’s not only Percy you have to think about – it’s everyone around you that can hear you. You think there aren’t little queer Firsties, who are trying to fit into a new school where they might not even have older brothers or siblings to look out for them, and the first thing they hear is you teasing someone for being gay? You pranking that person by turning his ink pots glittery? That doesn’t tell them that you support him, that tells them that you’re targeting him because he’s different – and that makes them scared that if they’re also different, you’ll target them next.”
Fred and George both looked a little pale, having gone silent as he spoke. Charlie continued.
“I know that you care about Percy. I know that this is how you always are with him – but all the strangers in this school don’t know that. Even Percy’s friends don’t know that – because they’ve only known Percy the last two years before you got here. Also, if you’d actually been paying attention, you would see that Percy very much has a crush on one of his fellow third-year students, a girl, and you’re kind of ruining his chances by boldly stating that he’s dating some made-up bloke.”
“But he’s NOT made-up!” George exclaimed. “Look, we’re sorry – okay, we didn’t mean to… we don’t want people to… what you said. But we aren’t making it up – Percy spends all his time holed up in his room with some bloke named Peter, and if they were really studying, then he’d introduce us – but he’s keeping him a big bloody secret and we just want to know why!”
“There is no one in Gryffindor named Peter,” Charlie said.
“Then maybe he’s in a different house – maybe he’s sleeping with the enemy and it’s some snake.”
Charlie closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose and prayed for some level of patience to suddenly be bestowed upon him from a higher power – and he realized that he probably looked just like his mother.
“Listen, I don’t know why you’re dead set on this, but you have to stop,” Charlie repeated. “You’re possibly frightening other students, not to mention making yourselves look like giant pricks. Some families kick their children out of the house for being queer, you get that, right? Their biggest fear might be that they lose the love of their siblings, or their parents, and here you are teasing Percy relentlessly, proving them right! So just leave it. Leave him alone for a bit. Try to be half-decent to him, if you can manage it.”
“We ARE half-decent!” Fred argued.
Charlie laughed, probably a little too bitterly, if Fred’s reaction was anything to go by. Then the portrait hole opened and a couple of second years came in.
“Think about what I said,” Charlie repeated. “I have to get to Quidditch practice.”
Charlie hoped it would end there.
*
The peace lasted a week. Charlie barely had time to enjoy it. McGonagall was pressuring him about whether she should be calling in a favour with her Quidditch Scout friend and get him into a summer training camp, or whether he was going to take up Professor Kettleburn’s offer of a possible internship with a Welsh reserve. On top of that, he had to choose a topic for his final research project in Potions, and the more time passed, the less options he had due to brewing times.
The twins ambushed him in a corridor on his way back from the library and pulled him into an unused classroom, quickly putting Lee Jordan in the hallway to be look-out, because they hadn’t learned privacy or locking charms yet – though Charlie figured it would only be a matter of time given their obvious need.
“We need to talk to you,” George started, looking surprisingly awkward – something the twins rarely were, especially when they were seemingly acting of their own volition.
“It’s important,” Fred added.
“I’ve gathered,” Charlie said, using the opportunity to take his heavy schoolbag off his shoulder and throw it onto the teacher’s desk, before sitting himself on the edge of the desk while the twins fidgeted on their feet in front of him. Charlie had gotten a cramp taking notes and took the opportunity to massage his fingers, giving the twins a moment to start in on whatever they wanted.
“First, we want to apologize,” Fred said. Charlie lifted his head in surprise.
“Apologize to who?”
“You and Percy, but Percy got mad at us again when we tried, so we don’t think it went well,” George said with a wince.
“You tried to apologize to Percy?” Charlie repeated, feeling a little dumbfounded. He’d never heard the twins apologize to anyone in their lives.
“We didn’t mean to… um, that is – we want to make sure that you both know that we love you, no matter who you love or date or study with, or whatever. We didn’t mean to-” George said.
“-sound like bigoted pricks,” Fred finished for him. “And if Mum or Dad ever kick anyone out of the house for being queer or whatever, we’ll hex them! Not that we think they would! Decent people don’t do that their kids. Same goes for Ron and Ginny, if it turns out they’re bent.”
“Er, gay, queer, or whatever the right thing is to say. We only know the really wrong words,” George added.
Charlie took this in.
“And you feel the need to say this to me too?” Charlie said slowly.
“Right, er, we’re not – not making assumptions or anything,” George said, obviously trying to find the right words. “But after you yelled at us last time-”
“I don’t think I ‘yelled’-“
“After you yelled at us,” Fred continued firmly. “We thought about what you said, and it occurred to us, that we don’t… uh, we never asked you about yourself and we’ve never seen you – I mean, all the upper years seem to be at least somewhat paired off, or obviously pining over someone or flirting – it’s gross, to be honest, but you… er… don’t?”
“Which is refreshing!”
“Yes! It’s why we love you so much! Keeping it in your pants! Admirable!”
Charlie buried his head in his hands for a moment and reminded himself that the twins were still eleven.
“However, that means that, um, like you pointed out – we don’t know who around us might be queer, and we don’t want anyone to get the idea that we’d… er, not love them any more if they were, or we’d… target them in a mean way, like you implied… and we didn’t think we were being mean to Percy either! We were trying to do the opposite! You know, show our support!”
“By relentlessly teasing him?” Charlie asked, slightly bewildered.
“Yes!” Fred said with a smile. “You know, like nothing has changed – that… we know, so he doesn’t have to hide it. So, just in case, we wanted to let you know that um, if you were also different, we still love you.”
While Fred and George both recovered from what was clearly the most awkward conversation they’ve ever volunteered for in their life, Charlie took a moment to think. This was a lot to take in on a random Friday afternoon.
“Thank you,” Charlie said, figuring that was a good place to start. “I accept your apology.”
Both boys breathed a sigh of relief, and it was really only then that Charlie realized how tense they had been up until that moment.
“So, Percy didn’t take the apology well, you said,” Charlie prodded. The twins’ happy faces faded into resigned misery and Charlie felt like the universe was out of balance.
“No, he… er, called us liars and… you know, the usual, and said he didn’t care if we loved him or not because he wasn’t a poof, and uh… we didn’t use that word, he did, by the way, er…. Maybe we shouldn’t have told you that part,” George looked over a Fred, who shrugged, looking uncomfortable yet again.
“I’m sorry that he said that to you,” Charlie tried.
“It’s alright,” Fred shrugged. “4 out of 5 siblings isn’t bad. It’s just that you’re going to leaving home soon, like Bill did, and then it’ll just be us, and it’ll be a while before Ron gets here, and Ginny’s a girl and so much younger, so we thought you know, we should try to get Percy to like us!”
“We went about it wrong, we get that now,” George quickly added. “We thought that if we knew his secrets, that he’d see us as confidants! We’d be someone he could talk to! But we cocked it up and made it worse, so… we’ll just, we’ll leave him alone, like you said.”
“We just wanted to make sure we still had you, that you didn’t also think we- er, that we er… that we’d hate you if you were queer or something.”
“I don’t think that,” Charlie reassured them, while his mind was reeling over all the other revelations they’d just revealed. Charlie had never really thought about the relationships between his siblings. Percy always seemed to prefer being on his own, and the twins had each other… but maybe that was the problem. The rest of the family always treated the twins like they were one person, but then also assumed that they were enough company for each other on their own.
“Just so I understand,” Charlie said, trying to choose his words carefully. “This all happened because you wanted to get closer to Percy, to be his friends,” the twins were nodding. “So, you thought the best way to do that would be to make up a pretend boyfriend for him and try to get him to confess to being queer?”
“He’s not pretend!” Fred exclaimed.
“We’re not making him up!” George added. “Percy is just really good at hiding him. We even tried to find him outside their classes, but I think he skips a lot. Honestly, it’s more surprising that Percy would date a troublemaker, but that gave us hope too!”
“Exactly! Good for Percy – sleeping with his boyfriend, getting up to mischief, all without being discovered. A talent! We need to learn his ways,” Fred continued.
It didn’t sound at all like Percy. Yet, Charlie had never seen the twins more convinced of anything.
“But you’ve never seen this boy?” Charlie confirmed.
“Not as such, no,” George shrugged.
“As such?” Charlie repeated. The twins shared a significant look.
Charlie waiting in silence as a game of telepathy seemed to be taking place.
“You have to swear on the dragons that you won’t reveal our secret,” Fred finally said, turning to Charlie with such a stern look that Charlie wondered if maybe Fred was the one that was most like their mother.
“Swear on the dragons that everything we tell you and show you stays between us,” George repeated. “If you break the vow, you cannot go near a single dragon in your life.”
Charlie’s heart suddenly sped up – it wasn’t like they were asking for an Unbreakable Vow - he didn’t even know if they knew what that was, but at the same time, Charlie felt like nothing more serious had ever been asked of him. He cast a look at the closed door, wondering if Lee Jordan was still just on the other side in the hall. Charlie cast a privacy ward just in case.
“I swear on the dragons that I will not reveal to anyone what you are about to tell or show me,” Charlie repeated.
George nodded, while Fred eyes were on Charlie’s wand, no doubt having memorized the wand movements.
“We need to use the desk,” George said, motioning Charlie to stand. He did, transferring his bag onto the floor, his curiosity now even higher.
Fred pulled an old piece of parchment from his pocket and unfolded it, laying it out on the desk. The paper was wrinkled, yellowed, creased, and completely blank.
“We found it a couple months ago,” George explained. “But it took us forever to figure out how it worked.”
Fred gentle placed his wand tip on the parchment and spoke.
“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”