Fury
I awoke to a warm hand shaking my shoulder, a brush of silken hair caressing the side of my face and the unfortunate conclusion that a trail of saliva was dribbling its glistening way down my chin.
I sat up jerkily, wincing as talons raked the inside of my skull and hot pokers began stabbing at the insides of my eyeballs. My tongue felt like a half-dead and rotted animal inside my mouth; its fur sticky and matted with Merlin knows what. I swallowed convulsively, attempting to kick start production in my salivary glands once more.
There was a damp, tangy smell wafting around the room, and after some effort I located it to be originating from a rather unappealing stain upon my trouser leg. I assumed it to be the remains of my drink. The stench of alcohol drifted up to me and I gagged, swallowing back the vile taste of vomit.
Slowly, the blurred images in my peripheral vision began to sharpen, and the world kaleidoscoped wearily back into focus. As it did so it brought a very familiar, and very dear, face swimming directly into my field of view.
Maria.
Maria was a truly remarkable lady. Intelligent, too much so for her own good at times, insightful, compassionate, beautiful and gracious, she was everything I had ever dreamed of wanting in a woman. To my great surprise and delight she had, at one point, appeared similarly enamoured with myself.
We had entertained a brief dalliance at the Ministry some months ago, and I do believe I had been quite on the way to being very much in love with her. Lamentably, however, she had ended our romance in late September, claiming that, although she did indeed have a great deal of feeling for me, she could not be truly happy with someone who was not happy with themselves.
When I denounced this absurd claim, stated that I was really quite content at the present time, she claimed I was emotionally repressed and unavailable due, in part, to the pain encumbered upon me from the rift within my family. Although I argued fiercely, she remained staunch in her argument that she was not a strong enough woman to deal with the issues inherent in my seven broken family relationships, in addition to our own partnership. Furthermore, she pressed the point that it was unfair of me to burden her with such emotional baggage if I did not have the courage to at least try and repair the situation. At the time I did not take kindly to these remarks.
With hindsight, and a truly horrendous hangover, I can see that she may have had a point.
Giving my shoulder a compassionate pat with her gracefully tapered fingers, Maria squeezed herself around the coffee table and sat daintily across from me, her feet elegantly dancing across a few too many dubious stains upon the carpeting. I watched her fold her hands comfortably in her lap, but found myself unable to meet her eyes. My face heated as I imagined what I must look like; a down-trodden, pathetic, lonely, miserable man with no-where to go at Christmas and no-one to miss him.
I swatted self-consciously at the drool on my chin, and then winced as the force of it sent electric waves of pain reverberating around the inside of my skull. A similar sensation was evoked when I attempted in vain to arrange my limbs in any position that could possibly hide my rumpled appearance and the various stains upon my person. I refused to entertain the thought that I didn’t know which bodily fluid they were the result of.
I chanced a quick look at Maria. She raised an eyebrow at my shuffling, but otherwise remained mute. I uttered a pained groan. Merlin, but I hated whisky.
Maria looked disparagingly around my apartment, seeming to take in the empty spirit bottles and bedraggled remnants of Christmas decor all in one.
“I stopped by because I thought you might need... someone... today,” she murmured. When I blearily met her eyes, she sighed sadly. “I can see I was right.”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t need to. It was obvious what I was “ nothing but a pathetic mess, a miserable shell of a man. She had been right to end our relationship; I could offer her nothing.
Maria seemed to sense the direction my thoughts had taken, for she rose swiftly from her seat and slapped me rather more harshly than was completely necessary.
“Now there’ll be no more of that, Percy Ignatius,” she intoned, achieving a remarkable impression of my mother as she did so. A sharp beat of pain crossed my chest as I thought of Molly again. “Pull yourself together this instant!”
With that she brandished her wand and, with a few efficient flicks, banished the alcoholic remnants of my pity-party, cast an air-freshening charm, removed (thankfully) my hangover, and, lastly, vanished every shard of clothing I was wearing.
I let out a rather loud, and I’m ashamed to say, feminine, shriek.
Gaping at her in shock, it took me a moment to organise my thoughts enough to grab a cushion from the neighbouring chair. Holding it judiciously over my privates, I was still at a loss for words when Maria chuckled wickedly from the opposite chair.
“Oh, relax, Perce... it’s nothing I haven’t seen before, after all.”
I blushed and held my cushion in place more firmly than ever. “What... what d’you... why?” was all I could stammer, as the damned vixen continued to smirk.
“Well, you needed something to pull your mind out of that stupor you were dwelling in,” she shrugged, completely unremorseful. “And besides,” she added, “you stink.”
I inhaled sharply, and then winced. I did at that.
“So,” she continued, “you will go and shower, and take the opportunity to think over everything that’s happened and what you want to do about it. When you come back out, we’ll talk.”
“Talk?” I echoed, still pretty bewildered at everything that had happened.
“Yes,” she replied, her tone brooking no dissidence. She looked at me for a moment longer, and her face softened with some emotion I had no name for as she elaborated, “you can’t go on like this any longer, Percy. I won’t let you.”
I swallowed, quite unsure what to do with the emotion that had suddenly suffused the room. Maria saved me from fumbling for a solution.
She brandished her wand once more. “Shower!”
“But-“ I protested, my thoughts flying to the fact that I really only had one small cushion... and at this precise moment in time it seemed an awfully long way to the bathroom.
“Now!”
Long experience had taught me that there were some moments when you just didn’t argue with Maria. Raising my chin, I tried to ignore the blush that bloomed once more across my cheeks as I walked as proudly as I could from the room.
Maria’s laugh chased me all the way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Several minutes later I stood under the faucet, letting a cascade of hot water pound across my body. It was cleansing in more than the obvious way, and I found my thoughts drifting to the emotional turmoil of the last couple of days. Meditating upon the state that Maria had found me in, the state she had saved me from, I found an emotion surfacing that had been suppressed for a long time by the onslaught of misery.
Anger.
I was furious. With myself; for degenerating into the husk that I was, with my father; for letting me go so easily and with my siblings; for following blindly in their parents tread. For had any of them sought me out after that horrendous fight with my father? Had any of them bothered to hear my side of the story?
No.
Instead, they had cut all ties with me as easily as if they had been slicing open their presents on Christmas morning. It had been me, me, that had wept for their loss last night and me who had degraded himself so thoroughly in front of a woman I could very possibly have loved. I snarled at the image my head produced all too readily “ a broken man, unconscious, and clutching a whisky bottle to his chest. This is what my family had reduced me to. Yet, had any of them spent Christmas Eve in dejected misery? I doubted it. The Burrow would have been alive, just like it had every Christmas before, with laughter, gaiety and excitement for the coming day. Not a thought would have been spared for the son missing from their midst.
I shut off the faucet jerkily, my skin pink and glowing from the scrubbing it had received. Seething, I stalked out of the shower stall and towelled myself dry with quick, harsh strokes. Today was not a morning for drying charms; I needed to expend some energy physically or I was sure I would break something.
Finally, clean, dry and presentable once more, I emerged into the sitting room, my anger held containing by a tight leash.
The room was transformed. Maria had obviously been busy in my absence, for I gasped at the sight that met my eyes. The carpet was clean and stain free, the surfaces had been dusted and all my belongings were neatly set in their rightful places. My little Christmas tree had clearly been spruced up somewhat, and was now looking in awe at the tinsel layered between its arms and the brightly coloured baubles hanging on the ends of its fingers. Every now and then it would jingle one in delight. Furthermore, it did not escape my notice that there was now a single, elegantly wrapped present hidden beneath its lower branches, upon which it was sitting like a mother hen nursing its egg.
A tantalising smell wafted out from the kitchen, and with it came Maria, emerging carrying a layered tray of bacon, sausages, beans and toast. My mouth watered at the sight and I was soon tucking in, not needing Maria’s imperious, “Eat!” in the slightest.
There was a companionable silence for a while, but as I popped the last bite into my mouth I was aware that my reprieve was over. She would want to talk, to lecture me and to make me do ‘the right thing’. She always did; how I hated it.
To forestall her, I blurted out the one question that had burning on my tongue ever since she arrived. “Why are you here?”
Maria looked at me considering, but answered simply. “I thought you would need someone.”
“So you came... to be my someone?” I asked, rather confused. “I thought you didn’t want to be with me anymore.” The old hurt rose up as I uttered that, and I ruthlessly crushed it back down.
“Oh, Perce,” she murmured softly, and a wave of sadness tinged her features. “I said I couldn’t be with you anymore “ not that I didn’t want to be.”
“Oh.”
That was all the response I could muster, and a new silence fell, this one not as comfortable as the last.
Inevitably, she murmured the question I least wanted to hear. “Are you going to go back?”
I jutted my chin stubbornly. “I don’t see why I should. Let them come to me!”
“Percy,” she admonished, and I felt my leash snap “ how I hated being treated like a child!
“Well, I was right, wasn’t I?!” I roared. “I said Harry Potter would be trouble! I said he’d end up bringing disaster to our family, and just look what’s happened “ Ron injured last year, Ginny fighting for him before she’s even finished school, Bill savaged by a beast, Mum in tears, Dad having a nervous breakdown... I saw it all! I warned them, and they didn’t listen... they never listen!”
Maria just looked at me gently. “And this has been their problem all along, hasn’t it, Perce? They’ve never listened to you.”
The air whooshed out of me as I heard her words, and for a moment I struggled to breathe. How did the woman do it? How did she manage to see my so clearly, like no-one had ever seen me before?
“Never,” I whispered back. “Not when I tried to warn them. Not when I got my job at the Ministry, not even after I worked and worked every year to get the best grades possible so that I could go home and show my parents what an excellent son I was.”
I didn’t know where this bitterness was coming from. I was sure I hadn’t felt it this keenly before Maria started questioning me. It had certainly never hurt this much before.
“Your mother knew, and your father too “ I’m sure of it.”
I considered that, and then decided that if this was a moment for baring all then I would be as honest as I could.
“Yes,” I nodded slowly. “Mother noticed. She was always proud, for a day or so at least... but then it was back to keeping Fred and George out of trouble, and cooing over Bill’s new fiancé, and making sure Ginny had everything she wanted, and marvelling at Ron’s famous friend and... and it was never about me.”
Maria came to sit beside me, and she grasped my larger hand with her smaller one. She didn’t say anything, merely listened. Somehow, though, her mere presence soothed me “ it helped the words to flow, to tumble out of me from a dark place within that I hadn’t truly realised existed until now.
“And when Harry Potter arrived,” I spat, never before realising I harboured this much bitterness towards the younger man, “and my mother welcomed him into our family, it was like she was replacing one of her own, as if none of her sons were good enough compared to famous Harry Potter and she just had to replace us with a newer, shinier, celebrity model!”
“Percy, he’s an orphan!“ she objected.
“But he stole my parents!” I roared, my venom in full flow by now.
“I bet he’s sitting at the Burrow right now, laughing with my brothers and flirting with Ginny. They probably don’t even realise I’m gone “ not when they have him to replace me!”
The misery was back, and I made no move to stop it enveloping me. “I bet they prefer him. Ron would probably sell his soul to have Harry Potter for a brother, instead of me.”
At this, Maria interjected. “You can’t believe that, Percy.”
I was silent for a moment, but then I sighed. “It’s true. I’m no fool, Maria; I know what they all thought of me “ of Pinhead Percy. I worked so hard all those years, not only to impress my parents, but also to set a good example to my siblings, to show them I was worthy. I’m not funny like Fred and George, and I’ll never be as cool as Bill or as relaxed as Charlie. I’ll never have the easy comradeship that allows Ron to make friends so easily, or the feisty personality that draws people to Ginny. I’m not like them... but I thought that maybe, if I worked really hard, I could be the intelligent brother, one they could look up to and aspire to be like. I thought that might be enough.”
I sighed again, and let me head drop backwards against the chair rest. “It wasn’t. Nothing was ever enough for them.”
Maria cuddled herself into my side. “It was enough for me.” Then she looked up at me and added drolly, “and believe me, I have very high standards - so you can’t have been that bad.”
I snorted and looked down at her beautiful face. She reached a hand up to stroke my cheek, and my eyes fell closed at her gentle touch. She began talking to me, in a soft, earnest tone, and I found myself content enough to simply listen as I held her.
“You are a good man, Percy, one of the best I’ve ever found. I could sit here all day and tell you that all your assumptions are wrong - that your family are hurting just as much as you, that they wish they could take back all the cruel things they’ve said, and that, more than anything, they wish you were sitting with them today.”
“I could tell you that your mother never took you for granted, or loved you any less when Harry Potter befriended Ron. I believe, and I am ashamed that you don’t, that she simply had a big enough heart to take in one lonely, orphaned boy without it compromising the love she felt for her other children.”
“I could tell you that if your siblings never realised the truly remarkable person that you are, then they are fools. Some of the most wonderful people in life are those that stand out of the sun’s direct glare, content to watch and offer guidance from the shadows, forming quiet but lasting friendships as they go.”
“You do not have to make people laugh to be worthy, nor battle dragons to be heroic. You just need to be yourself “ to be happy with who you are.”
I listened to her take a breath, and then I felt her hands on my face, gently coaxing my eyes open. Reluctantly, I looked at her.
“I could tell you all of this, Percy,” she murmured softly, “but I do not think you would ever believe me.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but she closed it for me before I had the chance to speak. “You will only ever believe them.”
Slowly, she removed her fingers from my lips, upon which they had been gently pressed. I took a ragged breath, and then another one, as I meditated on all she had said to me. Moments passed, and still I could not think of anything to say. Eventually, I satisfied myself by giving a shaky nod as I realised that, as always, she was right.
“Good,” she announced, satisfied, and fluidly rose to her feet. “Shall we go, then?”
“Go?” I croaked. After all my talking, my embittered bravado, the idea of seeing my family again still terrified me.
Maria held out her hand imperiously.
“But...” I stuttered, trying to find some way to forestall her. “They’ve... I’ve... We’ve both said such hurtful, hateful things to each other.“
Maria smiled at me, the smile that made me think her a very old woman and me a young child. “Then you simply have to find some kindly things to say that will wash away the hurt.”
Easier said than done, I thought to myself, skulking further into the confines of my chair. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t see them “ not after everything that had happened.
“Percy,” she admonished me. “You are a stronger man than this. Come, together we will mend this battlefield.”
I swallowed nervously, and eyed her outstretched hand. “Together?” I repeated softly, thinking that, just now, that one word meant more to me than any other.
“Together.”
And at that, I nodded once to myself, and, shaking only slightly, joined my hand to hers.