All Hail the Dark Lord, Or Something Idiotic Like That

The Rebellion pt3

A/N: Not my story! Original available on ao3

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Percy stepped into the twilight of a winter evening feeling like he was stepping into a new world...or maybe an old one he recognized from his nightmares. This is what he remembered the war felt like, when you didn't know who you could trust, when any day could be your last. With a sharp twist, he didn't even pause in his apparition away from the marble building that suddenly felt exactly like a prison he was leaving.

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Percy appeared expertly on the stoop of twelve Grimmauld Place and immediately opened the door without knocking. The oppressive wards felt like water as he walked through them. Thankfully he was welcomed, or it would be fire he would be trapped in until his corpse was unrecognizable instead of the uncomfortable pressure before he was standing in the gloomy entry hall.

"About time," a tired-looking portrait commented by the door. "He's been pacing all day and mumbling to himself. If I was alive, I'd have cursed him already."

Percy rolled his eyes at Walburga Black. The woman had eventually given up on trying to get them out of the house and they'd come to a very tentative truce...especially when Kreacher had been killed. That had been the turning point in Walburga's attitude. She now looked at Harry with a hard look and gave him a little nod when he walked by. Percy figured he should have realized sooner that Harry had some kind of plan to avenge the elf that he'd filled the portrait in on, but he'd been so caught up in his research in the Black library and in the Department of Mysteries...what he was using to run from his grief, that he hadn't been paying much attention to what Harry and an old portrait had been doing.

He made his way up the familiar staircase to the room where he knew Harry would be in, and what he'd just learned to be a ritual room...he'd thought before that Harry kept the door closed since it had been Sirius's room and there were too many memories for him to face it, but no, it was because he'd set up a highly illegal dark magic ritual and practice room...honestly, Percy couldn't judge. He knew a lot of other things Harry was involved in, so this should have frankly been expected. His own area of research was the darkest of magics, and apparently, they were about to commit some kind of treason anyway...no, he honestly really didn't care at this point.

Percy slowly opened the door and peeked his head into the room. Harry Potter was counting under his breath while slowly stirring a bubbling cauldron...not that anyone would recognize this man as Harry Potter anymore. It'd been a very long time since the press had caught him on camera due to come fairly illegal glamour charms and the fact he spent most of his time in the muggle world or back alleys in the wixen one now, and they probably wouldn't even associate this man with their image of the Boy-Who-Lived if they did see him.

While the rest of them had changed more inwardly, Harry had gradually marked his internal changes externally, dramatically changing his looks from what the wixen world imagined him to be and look. His hair was longer than Percy's at this point and in a long braid down his back liberally sprinkled with grey strands well before the grey should be there, he'd fixed his vision so no longer wore glasses, he had multiple silver piercings in his ears, eyebrow, and nose, and the tattoos had gradually been added as well. Most of the tattoos were actually runic magic for protection, focus, stability, fortitude, and many other things that Percy hadn't fully researched. Some of the tattoos were clearly sentimental though with a silvery otter on his wrist for Hermione and a lion that Percy knew was for his youngest brother on his right ankle among many others representing those they'd lost.

He waited until Harry finished counting to step in. "I got it," he said quietly, patting the pocket of his robes.

"Thank Merlin," Harry closed his too green eyes and breathed out in relief. "Did anyone try to stop you?"