Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Whisper in the Dark
28 July 1994 – Azkaban Prison
It was meant to be routine.
A simple parchment drop—sealed orders from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to Azkaban’s warden. In and out before midday. No wandwork, no questioning. Just protocol.
Percy Weasley had volunteered, naturally.
First month at the Ministry, tie fastened sharp, shoes shined, pin straight. It was the kind of task others avoided—no one wanted to go near Dementors if they didn’t have to. But Percy had stepped forward, eager to distinguish himself.
Now, inside the fortress, he understood why no one else had wanted it. The air pressed against his lungs like water. Not the natural weight of damp stone or sea wind, but something else—something deeper. Like grief you couldn’t name—but could drown in.
Torches burned low, more smoke than flame, their light devoured by the stone walls. The Dementors didn’t move quickly; they floated just at the edge of sight, trailing despair behind them like a veil. Percy kept his eyes forward, his steps brisk, his thoughts locked into tight, repeating lines.
Clause 27-B: Magical Custodial Transfer Procedure. Clause 27-B. Clause 27-B…
It helped. Slightly.
Then—one drifted close. Too close. It passed on Percy’s right, silent as fog.
He felt it before he saw it—like ice in his lungs, like hands in his chest.
Don’t slow down.
But his breath caught, and without thinking, he stepped left—closer to the wall. Closer to the cell.
He didn’t look. Not at first. But he felt it—the stare.
And then he turned. A man sat inside.
Not standing. Not ranting. Just… watching. His eyes—sunken, yellowed, far too clear.
“You,” the man whispered. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Percy flinched.
“Go back to your books, little Ministry man. Go back to your masks.”
A pause. A wet, crackling breath.
“You’ve got the wrong name.”
Percy stiffened. His fingers twitched on his wand.
“That red’s not yours,” the man rasped. “Not really. Not with that silence in your spine.”
He smiled—slow, awful.
“You’re something old.”
A beat.
“I know the smell of cursed blood.”
Percy turned, about to walk away, to shake it off, to tell himself the man was mad like all the rest—just another broken thing in this place.
But then the man’s voice shifted. Softer. Almost curious.
“Do they know?”
Percy froze.
“The ones who raised you. Do they see it? Or are they too wrapped in noise to notice what's coiled in their midst?”
His wand hand tightened.
“Don’t,” Percy said. It came out thinner than he meant it to.
“You burn cold. Deep down.”
The man tilted his head, eyes gleaming.
“Tell me… when the Sorting Hat paused on your head—what did it whisper?”
Percy’s breath hitched.
“No one told me,” the prisoner murmured, “but I know. You begged it not to. Didn't you? Not there. Because even as a boy, you knew what you were.”
Percy stepped back.
“Enough.”
“But it’s never enough, is it?” The man’s voice was gaining rhythm now, like something old and half-remembered returning. “No matter how straight you stand, how clean you write your name—it scratches at you. Doesn't it? That wrongness. That hunger.”
“I said enough!”
The man only laughed. Not loud. Not mad. Delighted.
“I don’t know what you are, boy. But I know what you’re not.”
Percy’s hand was already raised. The Silencio spell left his wand before he’d fully thought it through.
Silence.
The man’s mouth moved once more, but nothing came out. Then he stilled. The smile remained, but his eyes faded into a blank, glassy stare.
Percy stood motionless for a breath. Then another, wand still raised.
The man’s eyes were wide, staring through Percy now instead of at him. His chest didn't rise. His smile had slackened—just slightly. But enough.
Percy took one step forward.
His fingers gripped the bars, cold iron biting through glove and skin.
Still nothing. No twitch. No breath.
He waited. Five seconds. Ten.
Maybe he’s unconscious. Maybe the Dementors drained too much. Maybe he was already dying. Maybe—
The man didn’t stir.
And Percy—eventually, carefully—let go of the bars.
(---)
He walked the rest of the corridor like a ghost.
Delivered the sealed parchment to the warden with a nod. Signed his name in the visitor’s log with his usual, steady hand. No one questioned him. No one looked twice.
The man in the cell hadn’t moved.
(---)
He landed in the Ministry atrium on polished stone with barely a sound. He straightened his robes. Smoothed his fringe. His shoes clicked crisply against the marble as he crossed the floor.
A lift opened. He stepped in.
I know the smell of cursed blood.
The metal doors closed.
You begged it not to. Didn't you? Not there. Not them. Because even as a boy, you knew what you were.
The floor numbers ticked upward. 3… 4… 5…
I don’t know what you are, boy. But I know what you’re not.
He felt sweat prickle beneath his collar, but his expression didn’t shift. He nodded politely at a witch from Magical Accidents. Replied “Good afternoon” to someone he didn’t recognize.
He passed through the Department of Magical Law Enforcement like a man completing a checklist.
Sat down at his desk.
Marked the delivery as complete. I
nitialed it.
Filed it.
Just another task.
I killed him.
The thought came like a hand around the throat—sudden, suffocating.
He pushed it down. Swallowed it whole.
(---)
A colleague passed behind him.
“Well done, Weasley,” the man said cheerfully. “Not everyone’s got the spine to make that run. Nasty place. Grim. Good to get it out of the way early in your record.”
Percy smiled.
He heard himself say, “Thank you, sir.”
He looked back down at the parchment in front of him.
His signature sat there, neat and decisive.
P. Weasley.
The letters swam slightly at the edges.
You’ve got the wrong name.
(---)
The rain hadn’t stopped.
It slicked the windows of Percy’s Bloomsbury flat in thin silver streams, the kind that caught the lamplight like threads of unraveling thought. Somewhere in the distance, a Muggle tram rattled past. The world outside was moving. Ordinary. Safe.
Inside, Percy sat at the edge of his bed, coat still on, wand still in his pocket, his satchel discarded on the floor like shed skin. He hadn’t lit a lamp. The dim blue-grey of twilight filtered in enough to see by. Enough to remember.
He hadn’t screamed. Hadn’t cried. Hadn’t even flinched when the prisoner’s body fell. It was the stillness afterward that haunted him. The silence.
The eyes. The smile. The words.
You’ve got the wrong name.
That red’s not yours.
I know the smell of cursed blood.
He pressed his fingers together, staring down at his palms like they might reveal something—blood, guilt, a mark he’d missed. But they were clean. Steady. Familiar.
Too familiar.
He’d always been steady. Always held himself like he was made of glass. Rules first. Order above all. The practiced one. The careful one. The one who needed everything just right. Because when things weren’t just right, they slipped.
He remembered asking his mother once, when he was eight, why he wasn’t like the others. Not in looks—he had the red hair, the freckles, the same narrow nose as his father. No one had ever questioned it.
But he wasn’t loud like Charlie, or laughing like Fred and George. He didn’t tumble through the house or shout across the table. He sat too still. He read too much. He corrected people.
“You’re just a quiet one,” she’d said, kissing the top of his head. “A thoughtful boy. Like your grandfather was.”
And he had believed her.
Tried to believe her.
But even then, he had felt it.
The misfit.
The one who burned colder.
At eleven, it had nearly broken him.
The Sorting Hat had hesitated. Not long—but enough.
“Ah,” it had murmured. “Ambitious. Controlled. Very sharp, this one. You’d do well in—” He hadn’t let it finish. He’d begged. Not Slytherin. Not Slytherin. Not them. Not me.
Because Weasleys were Gryffindors. All of them. It wasn’t just a House—it was a birthright.
If he wasn’t…
The Hat had relented. With reluctance. With doubt.
“Very well… Gryffindor.”
His first compromise.
His first mask.
And he had worn it so well.
To everyone else, he was just Percy. Uptight Percy. Pompous Percy. The one who lectured, and planned, and kept his prefect badge polished. The one who didn’t laugh at the twins’ jokes. The one who never quite fit, but never said why. Because he didn’t know why.
Not really.
Just that something had always been wrong.
A quiet wrongness, cold and coiled behind his ribs. Something he had spent his whole life smothering beneath rules and robes and the right kind of smile.
And today, a stranger—half-dead in a cell—had looked straight through him and named it.
Not with a name, but with a truth.
You walk like someone else.
You don’t smile like them.
You know what you are—not them, but not yourself either.
He leaned forward, burying his face in his hands.
He didn’t know what it meant.
But something had broken today.
Something in him.
A crack he couldn’t plaster over. A thread he couldn’t unpull.
Something was wrong. Had always been wrong. And for the first time, he might be ready to find out why.