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Gazing at the dark, cold surface of the lake, his mind is completely blank.
Fifteen minutes have passed. Not a minute more, not a minute less. Percy made sure to adjust his watch before the task began. More than once.
He waits.
There's the buzzing sound of a thousand excited voices in the crowd that slowly decreases as the students realize there won't be much to see. They tilt their bodies and stretch their necks to try and catch the briefest glance of any action, unsuccessfully. The judges remain mostly quiet; at some point, Ludo Bagman's thunderous voice echoes close to his ears, in spite of the man's attempt to whisper. "I'd be freezing if I were them" he says.
He certainly would. The champions' reactions as the water covers their feet says enough. Some had laughed as Harry remained in place without moving a muscle instead of entering the lake along with the others. Cold should be the last of your concerns, Percy wanted to say in strange vexation. He digressed, however, aware that the current circumstances weren't any favorable for the contestant. The weather also didn't help. It wasn't the best day for a swim.
The lump in his throat was as if he'd just swallowed an entire gillyweed.
Thirty minutes.
He caught himself trying to visualize how it is, down there. He wonders if it's possible to see a thing in the middle of all the sludge and seaweeds, what and how many creature there are. If it's too cold, and how Ron must be feeling, if he's capable of such. Percy repealed the concern, but for some reason it insisted on coming back. Along with other thoughts and dreams. And memories.
Imagination was something he'd always considered expendable, even detrimental — Fred and George were living proof of that. They would constantly mock him about this, as they mocked him about everything else, accusing him of simply being jealous for not having enough inventiveness himself. As always, the twins couldn't be more wrong.
He had too much of it.
Forty-five minutes.
The bubble around Fleur Delacour's head pops as she emerges from the water, trying to cast a spell on the grindylow locked in her arm. She fights and resists as the paramedics struggle to lead her towards the bank, screaming to let her go back ma sœur. For her sister. Just then Percy realizes how hard his nails dig into his own thighs.
He might be part of the jury, but at the end he's only serving as a replacement for his boss. Outside the rules and the dangers, he knew as much as any other spectator. He wasn't told what would happen at the end of the task. If, would any of the champions fail, and the time ran out…
Suddenly, he's eleven years old and all his parents can say is how lovely the beach is and all he wants is his room, his bed, his books. Not a single tree nearby and the sunshade's broken. His older brothers fooled around, running and splashing water on each other as Mum yelled at them to help her with the chairs. His only true company was Ginny, her irritated face white with sunscreen, gazing longingly as Fred and George challenged a seven-year-old Ron for a race to the nearest buoy and back. She mumbled something about not being fair and wishing she could go too. He showed her the waves were a tad too strong, how intense the grip of the current was. You'd only be swept away and that wouldn't be any fun, would it? he asked. That did not seemed to help her feel any better.
She was the one to notice when Ron started drowning, but it was Percy who got to him first.
An hour to recover what has taken from them.
And what then?
Twenty seconds left, Krum brings Hermione to safety, his head still transfigured into a shark's. One minute late, Diggory drops down in the sand holding his girlfriend by her hand.
And where's my brother? he almost shouts. His insides burns at the sight of the headmaster's apathetic look, the blasé expectation in the audience's expression. Ron's still down there and he's going to come back, he has to come back, because Percy won't know what to do with himself if he doesn't. Because he knows one day he might lose everybody in his life, knows he needs to be ready to lose everybody — his father, his mother, his siblings — but not him.
Because Percy loves him. Loves him too much. Needs him too much, more than he should. His own kin.
His little brother.
His everything.
His…
Ron.
Closer to the other side of the lake, helping Harry carry what seems to be a very young child, who looks at lot like Delacour. The fervid flames of his hair standing out like a star in the dark against the colorless landscape.
Ron.
It's a blink of an eye, and Percy starts running, leaving the judges' table, pushing the countless students out of the way. Running as fast as he did all these years ago, barely feeling his legs, or his heart that almost jumps out of his mouth. Not giving a damn if his new shoes and pants get wet as he reaches the bank. The whole world is nothing but a blur until his fingers close against Ron's wrist and Percy pulls him to his arms until their bodies collide, away from the cold and everything else.
"Ugh- gerroff, Percy, I'm all right!"
Hands press his chest trying to push him away, but Percy only squeezes him harder. He only distances himself enough to be able to look at Ron's face — the clean-blue eyes, once frighteningly huge and searching for his older brother as he was carried to safety, now glancing him with plain annoyance and embarrassment; the exquisite definition of muscles that made him seem so mature, yet still oh so young. Percy covers every inch with kisses, grasping the taste of the salty water in his skin. He wants to taste it in his lips, in front of the entire school, and no one would dare to stop him. Not even himself. Not this time.
Reality only comes back in the form of Madam Pomfrey, who expertly frees Ron from his embrace to cover him with a blanket, instructing him to join the other task participants. He goes straight towards Harry and Hermione, and they immediately immerse in their own world again, one completely out of reach for all but them three. Percy can still see his brother trembling, laid down in the sand, fiercely knotted to him until he realizes the danger has passed, then quickly standing up and telling him he's "all right" just so the twins won't think of him as a wimp. He doesn't need to pretend anymore. How much has he grown.
As the panic slowly starts to dissipate, all those thoughts and feelings that had burst out slowly return to where they belong; carefully hidden someplace even he refused to go for his own sake. For the sake of them all. Despite the most subtle gesture he manages to capture — that one last look Ron gives him before leaving; how he didn't bothered to clean his face after Percy's countless pecks — he knows it's nothing but a sweet illusion, fruit of his cursedly imaginative mind.
His clothes are completely soaked, as he's certain he'll have to replace them for new ones. It doesn't matter much. He only faintly hopes he's not the only one that remembers that day at the beach, and all the other days where he had nothing to hide and Ron would smile at him like he's the most important thing in the world. His big brother. If that's all he gets to be, that's what he'll be. Until the next time Ron endangers himself again, and he won't be able to contain himself again.
And what then?
His mind is completely blank.