Title: The Golden Rule

Author's note: my first ever Percy fic

Rated: Uhhhh...I guess it's around PG

Feedback: is always welcome

Disclaimer: I do not own JK Rowling's stuff

Percy liked order, because people didn’t end up in tears as much.

His family was not an orderly one.

There were practical jokes, and lost stuff, and loud fights. There were tears, and grass stains, and broken furniture.

So Percy dreamed in books.

He dreamed of living in other families, ones that followed the rules and did what society told them.

He dreamed of a father who was upwardly mobile at work, putting aside his obsession with muggle things as any head of house ought to. One who didn’t have a twinkle in his eye while admonishing his brothers. One who would listen to him as he discussed his latest A earning paper.

But instead he had his father, a man who puttered about with light switches. A man who could barely conceal his glee when his brothers did something with his mother’s baking supplies to make their brooms go faster, resulting in three broken windows and an orange stain that would not come out of the rug, since they decided to pour the concoction on their brooms while still inside the house before mounting them, luckily it would seem, as the brooms went absolutely berserk once doused with the stuff. Needless to say, his father had little interest in discussing his research, preferring instead to bury himself in his morning newspaper.

He dreamed of a mother who completed one task before moving on to another, a quiet woman who never raised her voice because she never needed to. A woman who could hold a lengthy conversation with him, who wouldn’t be too distracted to do more than insert an occasional “mmm-hmm,” or “that’s nice,” before nagging him about washing his hands for the next meal.

But instead, his was a constantly moving, frazzled mess who could barely keep track of his birthday, let alone a conversation.

Most of all, he dreamed of brothers completely unlike his own. Brothers who would help him with homework, brothers he could help with homework. Brothers who were civil. Brothers he could play a nice game of chess with.

But…well, he was a Weasley.

No, the Weasleys were not an orderly family. Not at all.

But all through Hogwarts and even a bit after, Percy dreamed they could be. If only they would just try. If only they could just see how happy an orderly existence could be, how full of nice things and rest.

Percy dreamed, until one day, he thought he could give up.

He thought if they lived without his interventions, then surely they would see.

But he was wrong.

And he knew it.

Because even though the Weasleys had always existed seemingly independent of society’s vision and corresponding rules, there was one rule they all followed. One that bound them to each other, and bound them to protect those they loved and those weaker than themselves. And that was the most important rule of all. The one he forgot in his academic quest for a better family and bureaucratic quest for a better wizarding world. The golden rule.

Just before the final battle, it came as a revelation.

There he was surrounded by rules and regulations, and none of them could help anybody. None of them could save anybody. And it just wasn't right.

It wasn't right for the Ministry officials to lie and cover up the threat for months, years. Because of that a little muggle girl named Lauren was dead. And untold others besides her.

It wasn't right for Voldemort or his followers to parade around, virtually unchallenged by those charged with upholding the law.

They had all failed to follow the golden rule, violating countless rights any reasonable wizard would have considered inalienable and self-evident if asked. And he could finally see them for what they were. Bullies and cowards who blustered about shamelessly. Men and women who either refused to see or simply could not see the blade that hung over their heads, ready to fall.

So he left. And he fought alongside the man who loved light switches, and the woman who went off to find a frying pan in the middle of a discussion on hinkypunks.

He watched parents who had left their baby, fall. Watched pink hair fill with blood where she lay. Watched the pink slowly fade to mousy brown.

But he kept waving his wand. He threw charms, not hexes- hexes felt too odd. He transfigured madly, changing people into chairs with though, the entire time, he had a nagging feeling he was breaking the rules. He ticked them off in his head, having memorized them long ago, long before he ever got his badge.

All that mattered was the golden one. The one that could have saved Lauren. The one that could have saved them all if those in power had remembered it in time. The one that wasn't written in any compendium in the legal office. The golden rule.

Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.

He chanted it in his head, emphasizing each syllable with a swish, a flick, a jab of his wand.

The golden rule, lined with red.