Our Daily Sins

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Our Daily Sins -- Part One: Give Us This Day
By: Romantic Puck

Light glistened along the poorly detailed renderings of stripped backs. Whip tongues arched in mid-onslaught, the goblin's pleasure leering out at Percy from the blurred lines of the history book.

Percy Weasley was in the middle of an essay on Medieval discipline techniques when he'd become aware of the late hour, his pocket-watch being spelled to alarm him an hour before curfew. He could never be too careful when it came to properly reminding himself to enforce his prefects duties, so he'd made it a habit of reminding students to head inside an hour before nightfall.

Sighing, he folded up his parchment, slid his quill and ink into his bag, and shivered out of his chair. It was unpleasantly cold for as early in November as it was, and he wasn't particularly looking forward to wandering about outside in his thinly worn clothing.

But he knew it was for the best, and so he dutifully gave Madame Pince his permission slip to check out the book on the torture methods, and smiled pleasantly at the strained look she gave him. It wasn't the worst book in the collection as far as graphic depictions went, but it was the most informative. And Percy still had five inches of parchment to write in the next day, so information was key.

The heavy main doors slid away under his long and thin fingers, left hand pushing the door open while the redhead's right busily tightened his robes and readjusted his Prefect's badge. It was shiny and golden and gave him the right to inform others of the rules-- and to make sure that they took care of themselves. He was well aware of the attacks that had been going on, and all of the prefects had been informed of the special rules and curfews.

And Percy would never allow anyone to consider him anything less than a great prefect.

Wind whipped under his robes and forced out a shiver, but the redhead ducked his head and squeaked down the steps leading to the main doors. It had rained just as early as that afternoon – Oliver had been furious, it had made Quidditch practice nearly impossible, not that Percy was too miserably upset, half of those players would do well to study half as much as they played the game.

Each step of his feet squished, and he winced into the graying sky-- the clouds flew along, swallowing the first glimpses of several early-rising owls heading towards the Forbidden Forest. Unable to help himself, he winced at the idea of the mice the owls would be hunting, and made a silent hope that Scabbers was safe with Ron, eyes searching the distance for students just as much as he was glancing up to see if Hermes, his own owl, was among the pack of hollow-boned fliers.

It was getting too dark to really tell, so he lowered his hand from where he'd shaded his eyes, more out of habit than necessity, and gave the grounds a scan for students. The recent attacks had scared most of the children into staying inside, but Percy knew that there were always people who were too stubborn to go inside. Living with Fred and George had informed the red-headed prefect all about the lengths that stubborn fools would go to get their way.

Including heading out in weather that was muddying his shoes and pants quicker than if he'd simply taken them off and rolled them in the mud. There wasn't much grass, and the wind was wild, as he hiked across the failing light, heading for a group of Gryffindor first-year girls hovering just far enough away to really give Percy a walk.

There were other students out, but they were the farthest away, so he would try to deal with them first.

“No way, he's still out?” A brunette giggled, looking behind her. Percy was approaching from the left, and still managed to be amazed that they hadn't noticed his squeaking shoes, swishing wet pants, or his dreadfully red hair (which was sure to stand out, even in the near-blackness).

“Totally! Oliver's really dedicated,” a blonde insisted, peering where the brunette had glanced.

For the life of him, if Oliver was still out, Percy had no idea why he wouldn't just play on the Quidditch pitch. But sure enough, he squinted his pale eyes through the poorly adjusted glasses (they were out-dated enough to give him head-aches, but he knew his parents couldn't really afford to continually buy him new prescriptions for the frames, so he made due with what he had), and saw the Whomping Willow arching to reach two dark forms who were darting in and out of the shadows.

He tapped the initial brunette on the shoulder, and she squealed loudly in his ear. Jerking, he winced and reminded her, in his most professional tone, “It's only forty-five minutes until curfew, and even less until night has fallen. The Headmaster wants all students inside before dark, so you had better get moving.”

Glaring at him, as though it was Percy's fault that they had been so busy mindlessly drooling over Oliver that they hadn't seen him, they squished past him in the dark, muttering about how nobody could stand that wiry red-head.

Percy ignored them.

They could say what he wanted; the middle Weasley boy knew better. He had friends, and a girlfriend.

He drew his spine up straighter, despite every nerve in his legs straining to convince him to tilt and push through the muck, and marched over to where the hazy figures were darting around beside the tree.

As he approached, the figures solidified into something that brought out the true insanity of Oliver Wood. In true Wood fashion, the fool had lost his head for Quidditch, dragging his team out in the mud to play ball near the Willow.

The team was drenched in mud, which explained how Percy's straining eyes had missed half of the movement when he was looking from the distance. Closing in he noticed Oliver shouting at a decidedly female muck monster to “dive left, catch it Katie!”

From what Percy could tell, they were shooting in and out of the Willow's arms and struggling not to get hit, all the while tossing the Quaffle around.

“What are you doing?” Percy snapped. He was sure his voice had cracked-- what could he have been thinking? “They could get killed!”

Oliver jumped at Percy's words, and narrowly missed a straining branch. Rolling, he propped himself up at the horrified prefect's feet, grinning ridiculously in his dripping face. He had a few cuts on him, and, from what Percy could see, so did several members of the team.

“Aw, hey Perce,” Oliver responded happily, slinking to his feet with muscles that moved below his soaked Quidditch robes. He had strength that Percy could never imagine keeping, and yet he had about the intelligence of a toadstool. “We're just practicing – the lightening kept us from it earlier.”

Percy spluttered in horror, in the dark, as a male form's glasses crunched below the trees. Harry, he'd bet his money on it. Merlin, his mother would kill Percy if he let anything happen to Harry. “Get them out of there, now!”

Brown eyes blinked through a dark mask of mud, but Oliver shrugged, whirled, and waved his arm at his team. “That's enough fer tonight guys, get to the showers and head inside, yeh hear? And Harry, mate, sorry about the glasses,” he called, as Harry struggled past them, staring dejectedly at his glasses and muttering some spell that Percy knew from personal experience was the wrong one.

He would have helped, but he had bigger fish to fry in the near dark. They were just outside the Willow's range, and yet he could hear the branches whistling louder than any squelching from the Quidditch team's shoes.

“Are yeh happy now?” Oliver grumped.

“Don't you ever bring them here again,” Percy said.

“Aw, come on, we were just practicing! Fred and George were in detention, so we couldn't be settin' out the bludgers. That was when I realized-- the Willow would be perfect!”

“Well it's not. If someone had gotten seriously hurt, it would be on your—oomph!” Percy felt his cheek fly on fire, at around the same time that Oliver's crushing weight tackled him, head slamming into the thick and unwelcome harshness of the ground.

Gasping, he choked and rolled where Oliver moved him, indignation being left behind in luau of pain and self-preservation. The ground was colder than the air, the mud binding sticks to his still-burning cheek.

He felt the tugs let-up, and then the pressure of Oliver's muscular body was gone. Opening his eyes, Percy realized he couldn't see a thing because of the mud on his glasses. Wincing, he took them off, and tried to sit up, dirty-blue eyes squinting into the darkness for the almost- reassuring for of Oliver Wood.

Mud moved in mid-air, and Percy followed the blurs, head screeching it's protest. “What on earth,” he muttered, reaching under his robes for a cloth he always kept on him.

Wiping his glasses the best he could, he felt the sting of his cheek, and the pain of his head. The mud dripped daintily away while the glasses were replaced, revealing Oliver's caked-on grimace. “Sorry about that, Perce, I thought we were outta range.”

A startled hand reached up to touch his muddy cheek, brows knotted. He'd been hit hard with something before he fell, and, pulling his trembling fingers away, vibrantly slick and fresh blood hung in plain view, staining the mud. Great, just great.

“Merlin, Oliver,” Percy shook out. He was nervous, and stayed seated for a few moments longer than Oliver, who had shrugged his shoulders and leaped to his feet. Stretching, Oliver ducked back under the tree to retrieve the remaining Quaffles and roll back out.

“I'm really sorry, Perce.”

Climbing to his feet, the twilight spun around him, stomach lurching. His head was pounding, vibrating out from the cut on his cheek, which was still bleeding. Percy clamped his hand to the wound, debating what to do to make the thing stop pouring. If there was anything Percy Ignatious Weasley hated, it was the sight of blood. “Sorry doesn't mean anything, Oliver --”

“Look, McGonagall could give me detention if ya tell her. Give it to the team.” Oliver's dark form was standing below him. He was tall, but not half as tall as the injured prefect, who stared defiantly down at his muscular peer.

“Oliver, you could have gotten them killed. You got me injured!”

“The game's this weekend, Perce, come'n!” His eyes were wide, and his arms were gesturing, in a way that made the world spin with the jerking and whipping squeals of the willow's branches, the wind drying the muddied and freezing robes to Percy's legs.

“Fine, but I'd better never catch you here again,” he muttered, turning away to avoid the waves of dizziness that had overcome him. “I'm a prefect, you know.”

“I didn't think it hit yeh that hard,” Oliver called, running up to him. Percy careened back towards the building, breathing harsh, feet sliding through the mud and trying to foil his attempts at seeking refuge in the building.

“Leave me alone,” Percy muttered. He was sure that the cheek that wasn't bleeding was blushing. He was strong – maybe not Oliver strong, but he wasn't going to be babied just because some stupid tree hit his cheek. His brother's would never let him hear the end of it.

But the room was spinning, and Percy felt his knees giving out, falling into Oliver's startled grip. He hauled the pale and shaking man back towards Hogwarts, breathing out the sigh on his lips.

End of Part One -- Reviews Feed My Soul!