"I Never Loved You." I Say...

This is a response to the "I never loved you." Challenge on the fanfic.net HP challenge forums.


Thanks to Jilliane for red-mousing this story. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

"I Never Loved You," I Say...

"I never loved you," I say as I look on the remnant that is her. I catalogue her familiarly unfamiliar features, the mouse-brown hair, the gold-kissed skin, the mud brown eyes. They are clouding now from death, those eyes. They will turn strange as whatever it was that made her who she was flees this world. They will become hoary, opaque, and frightening. I stifle a pang of longing as I gaze on her, the drab little sparrow who had worn peacock plumage to cover her imaginedinadequacies. She never let me see her as she truly was, not really. With me it was always flamboyantly coloured hair, short skirts, and a heart-shaped patch of pubic hair. She thought I needed a little excitement, some glamour. I was plain Earl Grey to her full bodied wine, but I never wanted to see her like this, still and lifeless, ready for the grave.

She let the werewolf see her as she truly was, a voice whispers in my head, a gibberous rustling of mad desires and suppressed passion.

For a moment I hate him, her husband. He is lying next to her, pale and equally mortal, a knight errant carried on his shield, but even as the emotion rises, I realise that the dead aren't for hating. They don't care if I stand here until the end of time feeding my recycled words to her; those words spoken to the slab of meat that was her are the one untruth I can never take back. I would if I could, but the dead don't listen, they are past that.

"I never loved you," she said on that summer's night so long ago. I was sweating from our joint exertions, my auburn hair plastered against my brow, my white skin glowing in the moonlight. "Perce, I'm sorry, but it's true."

"Oh, leave off," I said with a laugh. Only I could hear the secret hollowness of the sound as it melded with the night music outside her flat. There was the tinkling crash of a bottle, a crying woman, a dog telling the other dogs where he was, a woman singing, a man coming with a cry of triumph, crickets calling, always calling, all underscored by the symphony of my shattering heart. "We both get what we need from this. I never loved you either. Now shove over and let me sleep. I have to work tomorrow.

She fell easily to sleep, the slumber of the blameless, whilst I was in agony at her somnolent side. I was jealous of the pillow she hugged, of the thin cotton sheet that covered her skin. It should have been my body on hers, my chest that she draped her languorous arm over. I hated her at that moment more than I loved her.

And I did/do love her, I think, in that triptych of past, present, and future, where all memories gambol about like the mad creatures in a Bosch painting. A garden of earthly delights melded with theecstasy of heaven and the agony of hell. I am the creature whose body is split open, who looks back at the demons in his torso fearfully.

She never let me hold any delusions about our liaison. We fucked we scratched an itch that needed it. To her that was the extent of ourrelationship , even though my heart had been engaged from the beginning. She had been my first, and even now, my only, not for sex but for more tender feelings. They are words I cannot say aloud to this day. Oh, there had been a few girls at Hogwarts that allowed me to mess about with them. I wouldn't be a Weasley if I didn't dip my wick a few times over the years, but I was careful and there had been no unplanned family for me, no howling babes and virago wives. I was on the fast track to Ministry fame and fortune. I couldn't pause for fear I would drown in the Weasley fate of nappies, scrimping, and faceless servitude in thelabyrinthine Ministry.

And then she had come along.

I come back to myself, startled for a moment at my surroundings. I am in the Great Hall and Voldemort has just been killed by the Boy who Lived Again and Again. My family is here, the one I did not acknowledge for so many years. I had hoped to carve a new one out for myself, but it was denied me when theAuror met the Werewolf. I watch them from a distance and see my parents in their aged light. It seemed callous what I did when I cut them from my life, and I know not many will believe me, but I did what I had to do. I worked for one despot to avoid servitude to an even bigger tyrant. It was Snape that recruited me to spy. At the time, I saw it as a way to make a name for myself, to show my family that I was not plain,bespectacled Percy. I had some idea that I would show myself at the end of my tenure, would dazzle them with my daring.

Yet now as I look across the hall, at Fred's lifeless body, at the clot of Weasley red surrounding him, I know I will never tell anyone what I did. I will let my wartime exploits pass to obscurity. I see the cult of Potter, and thevilification of Severus Snape, and I know that the one person who ever understood anything about what I did is dead. It's better that way, I think. It's better for him, at least.

&*&*&

I go through the long hours of my life after the Final Battle in a haze of self-loathing and recrimination. I am still Percy-the-git to this family. Worse, I am still Percy-the-git to myself. I am standing outside near Mum's chicken pen, far enough away from the house that I can pretend I have some privacy, when Harry comes out of the coop, hair askew, glasses glinting in the late evening light. He stops beside me after locking the ragged gate, patched together as is so much at the Burrow. I observe Potter from my periphery. He is, I think, just as patched together as the rest of us. More so, if what I overheard him saying to my sister the other day was true.

I look at him full on, take his measure, and he meets my intrusion with openness. In all the years he's been around the family, I don't think I ever took the time to see how truly young and needy he is, and I think back to the impression he made the first time I saw him with his hair sticking out at impossible angles, ratty trainers, tatty, too large clothes. Such a contrast to the image he presented after he exited the train that first day. It wasn't fair of Snape to treat him as he did, but I understood the need. Potter, for all his seedy air of neglect, was a handsome child, a compelling being.

I say, "I'm leaving."

Potter's attention appears to be on a fat hen who is frantically moving her chicks to the coop. Nightfall brings foxes. After a long enough time that I think he's forgotten I've spoken, he says, "You never really returned, Percy. We all know that."

"Yeah." I risk sounding like Ronald with my nonsequiturs, but there is nothing more to say, not really.

Words have become extrinsic to my existence. They are so outside the ability to express the scope of what I've seen, what I've done, and what I've become that I can't use them. I'm like Mum in that. She bustles to communicate her despair over Fred, her anger over Bill, her fear over everything else. I retreat, become Percy the prig. It's in our natures to deny others access to a deeper understanding of us. Perhaps it's fear that drives the compulsion. Perhaps we both know that behind our façade of bustling or priggishness, there's nothing more. We're all glamour and smoke inside.

Perhaps that's why she could never love me. Perhaps she saw the cold and empty spaces inside me. She must have to have given herself to the werewolf so willingly.

I turn from Potter, realising with some shock that the boy just gave me more understanding than my family has ever done. I say, as he opens the gate to the coop again, "Tell them... thanks."

I leave...

The Burrow, Ottery St. Catchpole, England, Europe.

I spend some time drifting, revelling in the ichors that oozes from my psyche with a thousand self-inflicted injuries. I make no connections that last longer than a quick shag or a cool pint. I have no ambitions besides feeding the hollowness that consumes me.

I did terrible things out of necessity or expedience during the war.

I find a position in Canada. I live in a small town in British Columbia, and Apparate daily to Vancouver. I spend little time with humans. Other than work, I have no contact with anyone.

There is solace in my solitude, though I begin to think it makes me strange. I find myself muttering imprecations at minor impediments, speaking to myself as if I would answer. I also see her everywhere. One day I follow a young woman through the streets of Vancouver. She is dressed all in black with nut brown skin, more gold than dark. Her hair is brown, not quitemousey , but close. I picture her with brown eyes. I wonder if she has magic, though I sense no arcane energies flowing from her. She does not notice me, and so I take time to create a history for her.

She is an exiled princess from an island in the Pacific. Her people are in a revolution against an evil overlord and she will return once she meets the one prophesied. He will be her mate and there will be a happily ever after...

She is an heiress of a great fortune. She was stolen at birth by wandering hags, enchanted to remember nothing of her magical past. Only her one true soul-mate will break the spell...

She is a waitress that gets a lottery ticket as a tip, only to find that it is the winning number...

All the tales I spin have happy endings because I need to believe that people have them, even if I'm not among their number.

She stops at an alleyway, looking furtively about before ducking down the darkened entrance. My heart collides painfully with my throat as I contemplate losing her. She must be magical, else why would she choose an alleyway to visit? I duck into the darkness, listening for the crack of Apparition. Instead, I hear the scuffling of leather on concrete and the soft snick of a cigarette lighter.

I sink into the shadows, away from the light. The woman is in profile to me. The light dies down and then is reignited as she pulls a long drag on the cigarette she has between her fingers. I feelunaccountably disappointed. I ease away from her, hoping that my foolishness will go unnoticed.

She speaks, in a voice like a brass trumpet, "What do you want with me?"

"Nothing," I respond, with that priggish tone that always got Fred and George's back up. I wonder if the effect of my tone would be lessened in George now that there's no twin. It would be cruel of me to find out.

She turns to me, face full on. She's a plump little partridge, I see, with her hair in two poufs on her crown. Her lips are full and she does have brown eyes. They sparkle knowingly in the light of her cigarette as she takes another long draw. The mark of Africa is clearly stamped on her features but so are otherethnicities. She could be anyone and everyone, except for a Weasley. There will never be mistaking any of us for any other breed.

She drops her fag to the ground, tamping it dead with her pointed toe shoes. She says, "You look like you could use a friend."

My breathing skitters to a halt. I have been waiting around for her scathing assessment; I thought I needed to feel the whipcord cut of her words. Her words nearly unman me as tears spring to my eyes and I turn away. "You don't know me."

She says in that same unequivocal tone, "No, I don't. But do we ever really know anyone? I mean, really?"

"You're a philosopher," I say, hearing the needling tone of Severus as I let the words slip between my lips.

She gifts me with a soft snort and then walks past me. "Well, aren't you the smart one?"

She turns around and holds out her hand. "Let's go have some coffee and we'll discuss the relative merits of reason over insanity. I have a feeling we both know at little bit about both subjects."

I take her hand. It is soft and feminine and suddenly I am transported to that long ago summer day, the first one where Nymphadora Tonks grabbed hold of my hand and took me to her flat.

The girl's hand is well-maintained and reeks of smoke. She asks, "What's your name?"

I answer and ask her the same as we emerge from the dim alley and stride into the light. Hers is the first name I have collected willingly since I left home. She says, "My name is Audrey and I have a feeling we are going to have a long, lovely friendship, Percy."

&*&*&

I return to Hogwarts, to the mass grave where my first love lies with her husband, both dead three years today, a hellish anniversary. She was always meant for him. I realise that now. I look back up the hill where Audrey awaits me. We married in Vancouver, where we stayed until she completed Uni, and then we travelled for a year. We decided only recently to return to England. We want to start a family.

I turn back to the grave and drop the white rose which I clasp on top of it. It is one of many. We all suffered losses that night, we all came through scarred. It is enough for me now, that I am alive. That was the lesson Audrey taught me.

"I never loved you," I say as I prepare to walk away. "I found that out when I met Audrey. You'd like her, Nym. She's a great deal like you."

I leave the grave, the one I had entered the night she died, the one that Audrey saved me from. My life is waiting for me at the top of the hill, and I go to it with a lighter spirit.



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