application for polychromatic
[nick / name]: Ann
[personal LJ name]: _bellisima
[other characters currently played]: n/a
[e-mail]: thegoodwitch at gmail dot com
[AIM / messenger]: _bellisima on Plurk
[series]: Harry Potter
[character]: Percy Weasley
[character history / background]: Percy on the HP wiki
[character abilities]: Percy is a pure-blood wizard, and can focus his innate magic through his wand to override the natural laws of the world around him and make his life easier in most respects. For more information about the magic he can use, please refer here. Percy's very talented with Transfiguration and hexing, though there's very little he isn't very good at. He also can memorize rules quickly and thoroughly and call upon them at any time, no matter how obscure.
[character personality]: i. ambition
"'Course, he's very ambitious, Percy, he's got it all planned out. ...He wants to be Minister for Magic..."
- Ron, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The first word that comes to mind when describing Percy Weasley is ambitious. He has his eyes set on the prize, and that prize is high. Nothing less than being Minister for Magic will work for him, and everything he does is meant to further that goal. Percy is an extremely hard worker and very dedicated to what's set before him. When he is set a task, no matter how comparatively silly, he will do whatever he has to - whatever that means for him, his well-being, or his relationships outside of work - to get it done as thoroughly and perfectly as he can. When he's given power, he takes it almost gleefully, but never puts a toe out of line and never tests the limit of his power. He throws himself into his job completely, often arriving early and leaving late, even when that's not necessary, just to do the best work possible. He idolizes people who have power, and will not hesitate to try and work himself into their good graces, making valuable connections that will - he hopes - one day vault him up the ladder and into the upper echelons of magical government.
ii. appearances
"[Percy] had pinned his Head Boy badge to the fez perched jauntily on top of his neat hair, his horn-rimmed glasses flashing in the sun."
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Appearances are very, very important to Percy, physically as well as socially. He strives to always appear at his greatest advantage; ensembles that make it clear that this is someone upon whom you can rely, someone who will not let you down. Since joining the Ministry, he prefers perfectly tailored suits in unquestionably respectable shades of black, grey, blue, and green with highly polished dress shoes, and even on his days off, he is rarely seen in anything more casual than a sweater vest and a button-down shirt with neat, clean jeans. He hasn't been seen in public without a tie since he made prefect at age 15, and he has no intention of changing that anytime soon. He also believes that friendships and connections should only be made with people who will further one's career, and that one should be unafraid to "sever ties" with anyone who might prove a stumbling block to said future success. To go along with this, Percy puts on what he believes to be an important, dignified, classy persona - the kind of personality he imagines one might see in the Minister for Magic. He speaks formally, uses big words, even went so far as to train out his native Devon accent with a proper RP accent. However, most people just interpret his behavior as arrogant, pompous, and officious, which annoys him. His bluster and pomp also cover a very deep-seated insecurity and feelings of inferiority: coming to Hogwarts after Head Boy Bill and Quidditch Captain Charlie made it clear that he had some very big shoes to fill, so he was determined to fill them the best way he knew how. Despite all of this, he still has his awkward moments, and quite often, and he flushes easily when he's angry, frustrated, or embarrassed. His defenses are a mile high and a foot thick, so any teasing - or what he interprets as such - is usually met with either cold silence or a sharp, sarcastic retort. He does have a rather dry sense of humor, though it only comes out around people he's comfortable with.
iii. family
"Percy and I were in the vicinity - working, you know - and he couldn't resist dropping in and seeing you all."
- Rufus Scrimgeour, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Percy loves his family very much. Though it's easy to write him off as not caring for them since he left when they needed him most, it's apparent that he does care for them very, very deeply. Between bullying Ginny to take Pepper-Up Potion when she's looking peaky and chastising the twins for doing something that could harm others as well as them, it's clear that he only wants what's best for them. Even though he is unquestionably the black sheep of the Weasley family, he's still the only one of Ron's older brothers to write him to congratulate him when he makes prefect, and he's immediately willing to run into the lake, sacrificing his dignity, at the second Triwizard task to make sure Ron is all right. Despite his later attempts to distance himself from his family, it's clear they've affected him: he has Molly's tendencies towards mother-henning, and it was likely a desire to follow in Arthur's footsteps that led him into his career at the Ministry. It was this love of family that led him straight to the Battle of Hogwarts without hesitation, even wondering if he was late, and the reason Fred's death cut him to the bone. He's also inherited the Weasley tendency to feel very deeply, even if he tries not to show it: when he is truly happy, he's jumping up and down and screaming (as when Gryffindor wins the House Cup his seventh year), and when he loses his temper, he goes all out in his rage.
iv. the rules
"Percy was a great believer in rigidly following the rules..."
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
It would not be a stretch to say that the rules, as an abstract entity, are Percy's favorite. If there are rules to follow, Percy will know them forwards and backwards and will follow them to the letter. He disapproves highly of breaking the rules, and even bending them practically makes him hyperventilate. (In the interest of full disclosure, though, he doesn't seem to mind breaking them in very rare cases - it's highly unlikely it was permissible for prefects to snog in empty classrooms.) However, as a concrete reality, the lead-up to the war and the war itself are showing to him, over and over again, that 'the rules' are fallible and one's personal respect for them doesn't matter if no one else is following them. Sometimes, he's discovered, one has to do what one should do, not what one ought to do. It was this thought that led him to poke around in places that he did, technically, not have access to in order to keep an eye on his family - specifically Ginny. He had to know that she was safe, and if he couldn't keep her that way himself, then at least he wouldn't be unprepared when - if the unthinkable happened.
v. the aftermath
"No - no - no!" someone was shouting. "No! Fred! No!"
And Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Up until he was twenty-one years old, Percy had no real conception of death. Not in a truly personal way, anyway: his uncles Fabian and Gideon had died when he was five, when he was too young to really understand what death was. Following the Battle of Hogwarts, and the subsequent death of his younger brother, Percy now understands it better than he ever would have wished to.
Fred's death has had the contrasting effects of bonding Percy closer to the Weasleys than he ever has been, and at the same time, pushing him further away. He's closer, of course, to support his parents and his siblings through their own grieving process and perhaps close some of the distance still left between them following his defection to the Ministry. At the same time, he feels further away from them than he ever has, because he blames himself for Fred's death, firmly believes that he should have died in his brother's place, and is overwhelmed by a feeling of failure at his inability to avenge Fred's murder. Rationally, he knows that it was a chance of war, that the casualities in war are random and awful and that there is no question of should have, and that he was distraught and badly injured, his wand arm useless due to a hit from Rookwood's curse during their duel, so of course Aberforth Dumbledore had every right to step in and save his life by Stunning the Death Eater. He knows these things rationally, but in his heart, he can't rationalize away the guilt.
Of course, he deals with the pain, the depression, the nightmares, and all that comes with it in the way Percy Weasley has always dealt with everything: by throwing himself into his work and bottling everything up, making sure his tie is tight and his glasses are straight, because there are important things to be done and work to be completed, and he simply doesn't have the time to be anything but fine.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: About a week following the Battle of Hogwarts
[journal post]: [The feed opens on Percy sitting behind a desk, wearing a neat dark blue suit, hair perfectly gelled, every inch the polished young professional. His hands are folded atop it.]
Good evening, residents of the City.
[It's also worth noting that while he's not shouting (this time), he's still speaking with his voice pitched slightly too loudly. Clearly, while he got the "you don't need to shout for them to hear you" memo, he doesn't entirely believe it.]
My name is Percy Weasley, and it seems I will be joining you here for a long enough period to require gainful employment. I am a very organized, detail-oriented, hard worker, with experience in international cooperation as well as working directly with one of the top government officials in Britain. I am an excellent editor and transcriptionist and I have an unmatched mind for rules and regulations.
My CV is available on request. Allow me to assure you that if you hire me, you will be getting the very best employee. I look forward to hearing from you.
[A brief smile and a brisk nod, and he ends the transmission.]
[third person / log sample]: The Ministry is, as it usually is at this time of night, dark and quiet. The green braziers normally illuminating the darkened hallways are extinguished, and the only sound or light comes from the night watchmen as they stroll along the halls, boot heels clicking against the black marble floors, light from their wands reflecting off the white stone veins running through the walls. Most of the doors are closed and locked, the office left behind for the warmth of home and hearth.
On the first floor (Minister for Magic and Support Staff), one office door is cracked open, a thin line of yellow light picking out individual fibers in the carpet covering the floor. Inside, Percy hunches over another piece of paperwork, quill held between his fingers, careful to keep the tip tilted up so no ink accidentally drips onto the paper. He's been sitting here, staring at this very dull bit of legislation (something very important, probably, it matters but right now it doesn't matter) and reading the same sentence over and over again, with absolutely no idea what it actually says. Setting down his quill, he rubs a hand over his face, dragging his fingers against his palm to dispel the wetness gathered on his fingertips. Percy breathes in, then picks up his quill and returns his attention to the parchment in front of him, ignoring the heat and prickling slowly growing behind his eyes.
He doesn't acknowledge the tears until the parchment is too blurred by them to see, until he blinks and two acid-hot tracks slide along his face, and the breath he lets out is less a breath and more of a choked sob. Even then, even as he takes off his glasses and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, he's not giving in to the grief swirling up and threatening to overwhelm him, but fighting it down, fingers clenching into fists against his forehead and taking in shaking breaths through his nose. Not now, he tells himself, not now, not now, not now. He can mourn later, when he's at home, when there's nothing else to be done. (He knows from experience that by the time 'later' comes, he'll be too exhausted to cry, thus allowing him to circumvent it entirely.) Finally, he digs his handkerchief from the jacket pocket of his suit, pressing it to his eyes and dabbing away the stubborn moisture still remaining, settling his glasses back on his nose and pushing them up into place.
This, he reminds himself, is important. This is what matters. He's fine. He will deal with - all the rest later. Pressing his lips together, he picks up his quill again, returning to the paperwork, the clock ticking away the minutes towards a 'later' that will never come.