Chapter Text
Oliver drops the Nguyens off at the airport without any unwanted interruptions and a newly acquired encyclopedic knowledge of the latest Pokémon game.
The streets are quiet as he drives back from the airport, but this time the quietness is almost serene instead of oppressive. He makes his way home almost in a daze, worn out after the unexpected mission, his actions like clockwork.
Oliver drives until he reaches Reading and leaves the car behind at its drop-off location. He catches the last train to Basingstoke as midnight draws rapidly closer.
On the train, he cannot help but worry endlessly as the rest of the world sleeps: about whether or not the Nguyens will make their flight, whether Percy has safely made his way back home, or whether all of his loved ones will survive the war. He worries. He frets. Stuck on the train, Oliver cannot do anything but twiddle his fingers.
Once he reaches Basingstoke, he goes to the station’s bathroom and apparates directly back into his brightly lit apartment. His lights and heating have been on all night - everything is about covering your tracks, not saving money on your electricity bill.
When the Nguyens’ departure time passes without any alarms, he sighs, dropping his head into his hands. They will be alright. He trusts Penelope has charted an unpleasant but safe zig-zag route across the world for them to Melbourne.
He falls asleep like that, sitting haphazardly on the couch, the lights flickering out as he finally loses himself to exhaustion.
.
The next day, Oliver wakes up late with a crick in his neck.
He stretches, wincing as his back cracks, mind slipping from fuzzy unconsciousness to dreary reality. Given that his slumber was not interrupted by any panicked calls or fire messages or letters, everyone he loves must still be alive, or so he tells himself. The world has not gotten darker whilst he slept. He has to tell himself everyone is alive, or he will -
Oliver sighs. It is an unenviable life, simply dragging oneself from one day to the next, alone and in perpetual danger.
Today, he has a relatively lowkey Order mission to complete: establishing and reinforcing magical protections in several mostly muggle streets near St Mungos.
He showers quickly before putting on a blond curly wig and some green contacts, a muggle disguise not easily removed by magic. If anyone spots someone wandering around, they will not realise it is Oliver. Not that Oliver is particularly memorable without a disguise, but it is important to not leave any trace behind.
He is no longer at Hogwarts: mistakes can cost lives, not merely house points.
Oliver apparates to his designated ‘out of order’ bathroom in a nearby public park, dressed in a thrifted brown suit that feels like a straightjacket despite its snug fit. He opens the toilet door and casually strolls out, walking to the nearest tube station.
Oliver takes a deep breath. Act natural, blend in, and discreetly perform some high-level magic whilst avoiding Death Eater detection to protect dozens of innocent people from their cruelty. An easy day ahead, as always.
.
His patrol goes well, which essentially means he placed all the wards competently and did not get caught. Anything else is an unmitigated failure.
Oliver catches the tube to another park with another ‘out of order’ toilet, removes the wig and contacts and suit, and apparates back to his apartment around four o’clock. If anyone asks his muggle neighbours, Oliver has been at home all day working as a journalist.
All he does is lie and avoid detection, these days. Oliver misses living freely. But the world has been bleached of colour and he cannot bear to do nothing. Quidditch has been indefinitely suspended, formally because the teams are being searched for ‘fakers’ and informally because the Death Eaters are cultivating a culture of fear and drudgery. Oliver alone has helped smuggle three professional Quidditch players out of the country so far.
It is Friday night, not that that has meant anything since the war started. Before the war, it might have meant drinking with his friends or visiting his family. Now, it means another night of solitude. He speaks only to people about and for the war: any other conversations are superfluous and dangerous.
As Oliver slowly washes his dishes to the upbeat tune of Sweet Dreams , his flat remains devoid of life. The music may drown out his thoughts, but only temporarily.
Like most days, he is too tired to cook. To maintain the image of a full time journalist, he waits until five o’clock to get pizza for dinner.
The pizza is… pizza. Perfectly adequate, but nothing too special. But even if it was the best pizza in the world, it would still taste like nothing.
As Oliver contemplates between turning on the TV and mindlessly watching whatever mediocre show is on or doing his laundry and folding his socks, someone knocks on his door, quietly but frantically.
Oliver drops the TV remote and picks up his wand, getting up and approaching his door carefully.
After he casts a silent spell checking for malicious magic, Oliver cracks his door open. “Who is it?”
Oliver sees a flash of copper curls, and he thinks - but surely not, Oliver just saw Percy yesterday, it is too early yet for another mission -
And Percy being here - for the sake of simply seeing Oliver - is too ludicrous to be real, even if they are best friends, this is war -
“Percy Weasley,” maybe Percy croaks. Oliver raises his wand, pointing it at the slit. “Your first pet hamster’s name was Puddlemere. And,” he adds, hurriedly, “in our fifth year, you came out to me as gay, and I came out to you as bi in our seventh year, and my sister named my brother’s owl Pigwidgeon -”
“And Annabeth named our cat Icarus -”
“Annabel,” Percy corrects, reflexively.
Oliver lowers his wand. “Come in.” He waits until Percy has crossed the threshold and his door is firmly shut before he hisses: “Perce, what’re you doing here?” Oliver runs a hand through his hair. “Is it something like - last night?”
“No.” Percy swallows, looking away from Oliver, eyes lingering on the pile of unfolded laundry. “It’s - I just needed to see you were safe. I mean - I wanted to make sure you were okay after last night.”
Oliver raises an eyebrow. “You would’ve heard if anything happened to me, Perce.” The words are only half-true. Oliver isn’t Harry and could disappear quietly quite easily. Still, he pushes on. “You shouldn’t be here, then, if it’s not related to a mission.”
It hurts, to say those words. Oliver misses Percy, so much that it hurts, but it’s not safe. Personal feelings don’t matter in a war.
Percy does not go away. If anything, he moves closer. “If anyone asks my neighbours, they’ll say I’m home as I left the light on with the radio playing, and I have a ward which will warn me if any wix approaches my apartment.” Percy sighs, running a hand through his hair.
Oliver watches him closely, too closely. He wants to touch. But that is an impossibility, as likely as playing Quidditch with Godric Gryffindor.
Oliver huffs and looks behind himself, checking that his curtains are drawn. They are. “I trust you to be careful, it’s just risky -”
Percy raises his hand, cutting Oliver off. “I have covered my bases.” He runs another hand through his hair, messing up his curls even more. Oliver should not be thinking about how much he wants to -
Percy’s next words tear Oliver back to reality. “I just - is every mission like that?”
“A lot of driving and meeting new people?” Oliver says, walking back to the living room and turning on the kettle with a flick of his hand: Percy’s middle name may as well be stubborn . He is not leaving until he says his piece, whatever it is.
“Dangerous?” Percy’s voice rises as he follows Oliver. The air crackles.
“It’s only dangerous near the end,” Oliver says, “there’s nothing criminal about driving by yourself.”
“Right,” Percy says, eyes glimmering. “Right. But if anything went wrong - so much could go wrong - you would be made an example of, you -”
Oliver looks away. Looking at Percy is impossible, his gaze containing too much concern, too much worry, too much naked love. “But I’m fine, Perce. I know what I’m doing.”
Oliver never dreamed of becoming a solider. Back when he was a teenager, when war felt like a distant memory, he fantasised about playing Quidditch and kissing Percy. But some skills are transferable. Oliver knows strategy, patience, and keeping things finely balanced enough to prevent spontaneous explosions.
Percy’s breath hitches. “And I don’t doubt that! But I knew you were risking your life, I just - wasn’t confronted with it - and, and -”
Percy’s voice breaks.
“We all risk our lives every day,” Oliver says, but his heart twists, flips. “I’m nothing special. Your job is much harder.”
He wonders, sometimes, what it would be like to be caught. A terrible experience, no doubt, but Oliver strives to stay undetected moreso for everyone else than himself - at the end of the day, Oliver is another cog in the machine of the resistance. Replaceable.
Percy - Percy is not.
Percy bites his lip so hard that the blood starts to drain away until it is almost white. “How can you say that - of course, you are special, Ollie - I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you -”
“This is war,” Oliver says, with a shrug that hides his brimming nerves. “Any of us could die any day. But we fight, because what else can we do? Cower? That’s not us.”
“It’s not,” Percy agrees, softly, “but sometimes I wish it was. I can’t lose you.”
"And I can't lose you, too." Oliver looks away as the kettle finally whistles, the air suddenly too thick. If he could keep Percy here, out of the fray, he would. But he can’t. "Okay?"
"Okay," Percy responds, quietly. "But I will do everything in my power to keep you safe."
Everything is silent.
Oliver sighs. "Alright. Stay safe too.” Another beat. “Sit down then, Perce, and have a cuppa. You came all this way, after all.” The words are stilted, resigned.
But Percy doesn’t sit down. Instead, he continues to stand, taking a deep breath before stepping forward. “And one more thing.” He swallows. “Being faced with your potential death made me think. Can I kiss you?”
Oliver can do nothing but blink. “What?”
“Sorry, I must sound out of my mind -”
“I mean,” Oliver adds, quickly, before the opportunity turns into dust, “if you want to, yeah?”
He must be dreaming.
Yet Percy steps closer, close enough that Oliver can make out each delicate eyelash. “To be perfectly straightforward, I’m kind of in love with you.”
It is everything Oliver has ever wanted. It is so much more than he has ever dared hope for. The silence between them yawns for a second too long until -
“I love you too,” Oliver says, dazed, and it feels like a dream, it must be a dream, but then -
Then they are kissing, and there has never been anything more real.
It is too much and not enough all at once - like someone is slowly dripping nectar into his mouth.
Percy's lips taste faintly like mint. His lips are soft, his hand is cupping Oliver’s cheek, so gently, so perfectly, melding into each other until they are one. But all that is eclipsed by the mere fact that he is kissing Percy . He has not kissed anyone in ages, but he cannot remember it feeling like this - like pure joy melted from sunlight on the most perfect day, bright and inescapable, seeping into his very soul.
They break apart, both smiling too wide to continue kissing. Oliver hasn’t smiled this much in months.
Still, Oliver whispers, “Don’t stop.”
Percy’s hand drops to Oliver’s shoulder. “Of course,” he says, lips brushing up against Oliver’s ear, and Oliver shivers.
Oliver and Percy come back together, once, twice, thrice. Again and again, until they are sitting on the couch, until Oliver’s hands are deeply tangled in Percy’s hair, until Percy has his hands wound around Oliver’s neck.
Finally, they pull apart. “I could do this forever,” Oliver says, softly, unwinding his hands from Percy’s curls to hug him instead.
Percy leans forward, burying his head in the crook of Oliver’s neck, his curls brushing against Oliver’s chin. “I wish we could,” he says. “But unfortunately, we are not bystanders. We are fighters.”
“And that’s why I love you,” Oliver says, pulling Percy impossibly closer. “So much.”
“I love you,” Percy says, a little dazed. “I know you weren’t in any immediate danger yesterday - but it felt like your life was hanging in balance all of today, and I couldn’t bear it. Is it selfish that I want to run away and keep you safe?”
“Maybe,” Oliver acknowledges, “but then I’m a little selfish too.”
He wants nothing more than to freeze time and stay in this moment forever. And for a few hours on a random Friday night during the war, Oliver’s world narrows down to Percy and nothing else.
They will get through this war. Together.