The Chasm

Luna held him for a good long while, as though she were testing to see how long Percy could sit without yielding to her. It was over four minutes before his straight spine curved and his shoulders slumped just low enough for his ear to rest against the top of her head. Feeling him relax, Luna said, "Are you ready?"

Percy thought for a moment before answering. "No. No, not really," he sighed, sounding heavy. "But I suppose that doesn't really matter. Whatever this is, you're going to do it anyway, aren't you?"

"Yes," she said simply, and she wound her fingers suddenly through his, and with a crack!, they were once again squeezing through space.

When his feet touched what he thought was solid ground, Percy straightened up and looked around. He quickly realized that they weren't on solid ground at all. They were on a rooftop, somewhere in Diagon Alley. It looked different these days, with so many of the shops having changed hands or reopened since the War, but the shape of the buildings and the line of the street made it instantly recognizable.

Percy was immediately anxious at being so high up. He had never liked heights; indeed, flying was the only thing at Hogwarts that he'd ever come remotely close to failing, because his stomach would swoop and his mouth would go dry, and he was unable to concentrate on anything but how far he was from anything solid. Up here, he was quickly noticing the slanty pitch of the roof and how small things that ought to be large looked, and he had to stare down at his shoes to keep from growing dizzy. He was concentrating so hard on remaining calm that he couldn't even be indignant toward Luna, who was still holding his hand and watching him curiously.

"You won't fall," she told him. "I've put up a barrier. Of course, you can't see it. You might slide a little, but once we get up higher, it flattens out. I meant to Apparate us there. I got close, though, didn't I?"

"Where... where are we?" Percy asked, controlling his voice.

"Diagon Alley."

"I know that. Where in Diagon Alley? And why are we up on a bloody roof?"

Luna didn't answer. She had dropped to her hands and knees and was making her way up the incline, gesturing behind her for Percy to follow. He debated for a moment before deciding that Luna had the correct idea, and he dropped -- rather distastefully and with a bit of a tremble -- to his own knees to follow, mentally bemoaning having worn a relatively new pair of trousers.

Luna reached the flatter part first, and Percy gingerly crawled up to sit beside her, his heart beating fast. It had gotten mostly dark by this point; it was nearly eight. They had come to rest near a window. Luna put out her hand and touched his in a gesture of silence. She squeezed two of his fingers tightly and pointed.

Following her finger, he looked through the window. What he saw nearly sent him tumbling backwards into the alleyway (or into the barrier, whichever; he wasn't sure that the latter actually existed). His brother George was sprawled across a battered-looking sofa, his long legs resting atop a table that was slightly too high for its purpose. George's hair had gotten shaggy (before he could stop himself, Percy thought I bet Mum would like to take a scissor to that), and he was bare-footed and bare-chested, his pale skin covered in a galaxy of freckles that marked him, undoubtedly, as a Weasley. His left ear -- the one he had left -- was facing the window, for which Percy felt silently grateful. He was still and silent. No book. No magazine. No guest. No tea. No cat curled on his lap for a stroke. No strange object being prised or prodded or blown to bits. It was just George, quiet and alone on a Friday evening. The only thing that moved in the room was a photograph sitting on the sill of the window on the other side. In the photo, Fred and George were about fifteen, and they were in their Quidditch robes, mugging for the camera and wrestling with one another, broomsticks in hand. If he hadn't spent most of his life looking at his younger brother's face, he wouldn't have recognized him as he sat now. Quiet and alone were not how he ever pictured George.

Percy's breath caught in his chest, and he looked away, his eyes suddenly dry and achy, as though seeing George had stolen their life. Luna was still looking through the window at George, her head tilted and her blond hair hanging in a sheet. Forcing himself to speak, Percy said, stiffly, "What are we doing here? This is my brother's flat. This is spying."

Luna turned to look at him. "It's all right. He'll understand." Reaching into her robes, she pulled out her wand and tapped the top of Percy's head. He felt as though cold water were dripping down him, and he realized that she had Disillusioned him. She tapped herself, and he watched her fade into the background. "And now he won't see us and get into a snit. He doesn't use the window much, anyhow."

"How do you... what do you mean, he doesn't use the window much? You've been here before? Why are you spying on my brother?" Percy's stomach felt like a stone. A sudden wave of protectiveness washed over him and broke across his neck, making him break into a sweat there. She was invading George's privacy, and hadn't he suffered enough indignity?

"Fred wants me to. I know it's sort of sneaky. But George doesn't do anything very odd." As she spoke, Luna reached into her robes again and withdrew the two pairs of Ogling Ocs she'd shown Percy earlier in the day. She rested one on the roof in front of Percy when he didn't put out his hand to take it from her. Her own pair, she adjusted on her nose, and then tapped the earpiece.

Percy stared at her. "This is absurd. I can't believe I'm here. I'm not going to put those on."

But Luna didn't appear to be listening. She was gazing intently through the window, the huge glasses looking bizarrely as though they were floating, though Percy could still see her outline. She put a finger to her lips, and then removed the glasses. "Use mine," she said. "They work better. Hurry, he's starting."

Percy looked at her quizzically, but she slid them onto his face and gently palmed his chin so that he was looking through the window. Fully expecting to see more of his brother than he ever wanted to (Could these things see through the side of the sofa? he wondered briefly), Percy closed his eyes. Luna was expecting this. "Open your eyes," she whispered. "Don't worry; I've fixed them. I don't look at George naked."

Shaking his head and fighting his every moral impulse, Percy slowly opened his eyes. A strange thing started to happen. The silvery lines in the spectacles started to move and circle together in front of him in a dizzying spiral, then melted together until they made a solid, shimmering screen. He heard Luna rustling beside him; she was putting on the second pair. She reached over and laid her hand gently across his balled-up fist. An image started to come into focus, wavy and flickering at first, and then growing more vivid and steady.

A woman -- Merlin, it was his Mum! -- was on the floor of the Burrow's sitting room on a spread-out bedsheet. She was young, her red hair long and wild around her face with humidity, though it was being held back by an elastic. She was nude. At least, Percy surmised that she was nude. He could see her top half, only (he gulped and cast his eyes to the side at the sight of his mum's bare breasts, but Luna nudged him gently and he fixed his gaze back on her) and the bottom of her bare legs, because, kneeling between them, was a yellow-robed Attendant. Behind his mum, he saw the younger, utterly awed face of his father gazing over his wife's shoulder with wide eyes. She was leaning against him, sweating hard and red in the face, looking pained and intent. Their arms were entwined together.

"What in Merlin's name..." Percy started, but Luna shushed him.

"Just watch," she whispered. "It's beautiful."

Percy started to ask another question, but his mouth stopped mid-word and hung there. The Attendant reached both arms forward, and there was a brief pause. Then, she lifted her arms, and in between her hands was a tiny, purplish-faced, bloody looking creature. Within a few seconds, it appeared to be bawling its head off, though Percy could hear nothing. Both his mother's and father's eyes took on an instant glow of adoration and amazement, and the Attendant held out the infant for his father. Percy watched as his father guided the baby down against his wife's bare chest, and the Attendant reached to the side for a blanket and draped it over them. Percy could read his father's lips as he said, A boy, and stared down at the squawking thing pressed to its mother's breast.

The Attendant took up a scissor, and Percy guessed that she was cutting the cord, though he couldn't see for sure. Neither his mother nor his father seemed to notice. They were utterly caught up in the moment, in each other, and in their newborn son.

Suddenly, his mother's eyes grew wide and then squeezed together, and he could tell from her expression that she was crying out in pain. His father looked anxious, and he held a hand to the baby in her arms to steady it. He looked searchingly at the Attendant. The Attendant gestured to somebody outside the frame, and Percy watched as a second woman in yellow robes came in through the archway separating the kitchen and the sitting room. His field of vision shifted.

Through the doorway behind the second Attendant, he could see two small figures perched on a chair at the kitchen table. Squinting, Percy recognized them. His brother Bill (with close-cropped hair, no less, and looking extremely serious) was in moon-patterned pyjamas, his feet dangling over the edge of the chair, not touching the floor. Straddling Bill's lap, skinny legs and bare feet braced behind Bill's calves (in pyjamas that were already too short), craning his tiny neck toward the sitting room with wide blue eyes that were not yet bespectacled, was Percy himself, a curious but well-behaved two year-old.

Percy gasped audibly. Luna's hand pressed down into his, and she squeezed. "Bat-nose," she whispered, then giggled. "Baby bat-nose." In spite of himself, and in spite of the absurdity of the situation, Percy smiled his second genuine smile of the night.

The second Attendant leaned gently over his parents and cradled the infant for a moment (Percy now realized it was George, red and screaming and utterly furious-looking) before rubbing him down with some sort of potion and scrubbing away the blood and vernix off to the side.

By now, his mother was crying out again, and his father was rubbing her arms and shoulders slowly, looking worried but excited all at once. The Attendant was leaning down, nodding encouragingly, and before long, Percy saw her reach out her hands again and hold them there for a moment as Fred made his way into the world. Fred, Percy noted with painful affection, was howling in rage before he even came into view - possibly even before his feet were free. Demanding attention right from the go, he thought. He couldn't figure out how he knew that, since he could hear nothing, but somehow he did.

The Attendant placed Fred against his mum's chest as she cut the cord, and Percy read his father's lips as he said, with delight, Another boy! Then, inexplicably, both of his parents began to laugh, his mother with tears tracing down her flushed face, as if she had suddenly forgotten her pain. Her fingers traced over the lines of Fred's small, screwed-up face, feeling his nose, his fine eyelashes, his flailing infant arms. Even pressed to his mother's bare body, he would not quiet.

A quick glance off to the side, and Percy saw that George, too, was wailing still, seemingly inconsolable under the Attendant's touch. His father reached out, and the Attendant brought George over and placed him in the crook of his arm. His father kissed George's wrinkled forehead, but George refused the comfort.

His mother spread out her arm, looking exhausted but so, so strong, and her husband dipped underneath and moved George into her arm, where she held him beside Fred. Instantly -- the moment their peculiar little feet bumped one another -- both Fred and George ceased their wailing.

The screen suddenly flickered. Percy tried desperately to hold on to the image, but it faded away before his eyes. Instinctively, he removed the glasses and began to rub at the thin material without thinking, but Luna stopped him, smiling. "They're not like yours," she whispered. "Cleaning doesn't work."

His hand stilled. Behind his eyes, he felt a stinging start, and he shut his eyelids against it, desperately willing it away. Luna watched, openly staring. He successfully fought off the threat, and only then did he realize that his hands were shaking, and that Luna hadn't let go of them at all.

"You're tired," she pronounced. And he was. Percy was suddenly so, so, so tired. His bones felt like they were made of lead. "Let's be finished for the night." She stowed both sets of Ogling Ocs carefully back inside her robes, removed the Disillusionment charms, and before Percy could say another word, they were off with another crack!

___________________________________________________________________


Back inside Luna's home, Percy sat at her kitchen table across from her, quietly sipping tea and letting the steam fog up his glasses. It was a long time before either of them spoke.

Finally, Percy broke the silence. "Those glasses. Those.. Ogling Ocs. They see thoughts? And memories?"

"Yes," Luna said, bringing her mug to her lips and looking at him over the edge of it, seemingly relieved to hear him speak.

"How... how did I see what I saw, then? I don't even have any memory of that; I was too young. How did George?"

Luna shrugged. "I don't know, honestly. I think that somebody must have given him that memory somehow. I think he heard it a bunch of times until it turned into his. Or maybe he saw pictures. Or maybe both."

Understanding suddenly dawned on Percy, and he slowly nodded. "Mum," he said. Behind his glasses, his eyes darkened a little. Luna put down her tea and folded her hands, listening intently now. "Every year, on our birthdays," he explained, "Mum would sit us in her lap and tell us the story of when we were born. I mean every year, truly. From the time we turned a year old. I can remember her distinctly having to wait until Ron was practically asleep the first time. And the second, because he wouldn't sit still for her otherwise. She made us sit in her lap," he said, laughing a bit (though it sounded strangely sad), "no matter how old we got. Ridiculous. Imagine Fred and George, one on each knee, at fourteen. Really!"

Luna was smiling broadly at this, a dreamy look in her eyes.

"Anyway," Percy continued, "that must be where it came from." He wanted to stop here, but suddenly, his mouth had gotten away from him, and he couldn't, and everything was spilling out, unbidden.

"Two years ago, on my birthday, I got a Howler. I tried to ignore it, even though I knew better, and I locked myself in the bathroom like a stupid git. Well, it turned out to be from Mum. And the whole Howler was my story. She just hollered and hollered until she was finished, and I was standing in my shower stall, and I couldn't get away from it. At the end of it, she said what she said to all of us, at the end of our stories. And I loved you more than I had ever loved anyone.. And that was all."

Luna said nothing, just watched, as though this was the most fascinating thing she had ever heard. Percy's ears burned, and there was a knot in his chest, but he wasn't finished.

"Last year, I didn't get a Howler. I just got an owl. And I was going to throw it away without reading it, but... but I didn't. I opened it. And she had written out the whole thing, start to finish, on the parchment. But... but some parts of it were different. There was a line in there..." Percy closed his eyes, trying to recall the exact words. "It said, And so help me, I'll murder you if you breathe a word of this to the rest of them, but you were the most beautiful baby that I'd ever seen. You were the prettiest out of all of my babies. Next to Fred and George, you were the smallest, and your eyes were perfectly clear, like little mirrors in your face. That's what it said. That I was... was the best-looking out of all of them." Percy laughed, but it sounded like a strangled cough, and he brought his hand up to cover his mouth.

Luna's eyes were wide and gentle. She traced a finger around the edge of her mug. "You still are," she pronounced, nodding with emphasis. Percy met her gaze, and his eyes were shot through with pain and disbelief.

"Please," he said, shaking his head.

Luna smiled faintly. "Please what? More tea?" His mug refilled itself. "Tell me the rest of your story," she said. "I want to know about the pretty bat-nosed Weasley baby."

He argued, telling her to just put on the Ogling Ocs if she was that interested, but she persisted, and so he told her. He told her how he had been born on the hottest night of the year, and that his mother had always said that that was the only bit of trouble he'd ever given her, choosing ninety-degree heat (he didn't mention that she had left out that last part in both the Howler and the owl.) He told her how Charlie had cried the entire time his mother was in labor, trying to tug at her hair. He told her how he'd actually come into the world outdoors, in the garden, because his mother couldn't stand the stifling heat inside the Burrow (so bad even your father's bloody cooling charm was useless!), and the Attendant was fluttering around like a nervous honeybee and almost let him fall head-first into the grass. How he hadn't cried at all, just hiccoughed and started breathing. How he'd -- and here he blushed -- nursed like a right champ!

Luna smiled the whole way, giggling. At some point, her hands reached across the table to cup his, and it gave him a momentary pause, but he didn't stop. They were soft, and it all felt very innocent, and he couldn't remember his hands ever getting as much attention as they had gotten tonight. He let it happen.

And he let her coax him into staying, protesting only four times through his deepening yawns, and he insisted on taking the sofa (I absolutely will not take your bed; that's ridiculous; you've done enough, entirely missing that she had no problem sharing), and she let him, bringing out a spare set of sheets and a blanket and setting a glass of something on the end table that she promised would give him sweet dreams. Percy was asleep before he could drink it, however, and he didn't see Luna drop a kiss on his forehead and rub a bit of the smoky-colored liquid over the spot where her lips had been.