It was strange, wandering the stair case of their once family home. It seemed smaller somehow, smaller without his brothers and sisters running around, without his mother cooking or his father tinkering with some muggle toy. He gazed round his old room with an uncomfortable sigh, how many hours had he sat at his desk, scribbling away at some pointless piece of homework rather than outside having fun with his family. How many times had he told them he was just far too busy to come with them?

Oh how he regretted that now. How he wished he could change it all, just go back to when it all changed, go back and make things right. There's so much he'd change. The way he treated his siblings, the things he said, the way he acted, the things he did. He dreamed so many times of a better life, a life where he'd been a different person...but that's all that was it was...a dream. A wish. A want.

It wouldn't be long before he went back to his life, well he'd hardly call it a life, merely an exsistance. He'd not lived since the day George had died. No one knew that he was struggling so hard, no one knew what had really been going on in his head. And it was all his fault, not that anyone blamed him for that, they didn't need to – he blamed himself enough for everyone. If only he'd been able to stop Fred from dying. If only he'd never walked out on his family then maybe everything would be fine, maybe his family would still be together. Maybe they would have spoken in the last three years, maybe his sister wouldn't have walked away. Maybe George wouldn't have killed himself, maybe Ron would be a better father instead of sitting in that god forsaken pub every single day...maybe his parents would still care. Maybe...

A flicker of movement caught his eye. Turning around sharply he couldn't see anything, but he knew someone had moved. Slowly walking up the second stair case he whipped out his wand and prepared himself to cast whatever spell he needed.

"Please don't hurt me, I don't want to hurt you." A childlike voice mused from somewhere to his left. Quickly he spun round and raised his wand.

"Lumos!" To his surprise a young girl – who couldn't have been any older than six – stood in front of him, bathed in a green sort of glow. "Wh-wh-who are you?"

"Fate. And we are not happy." As he stepped closer to the young girl he could see the look of pure anger, mixed with a tinge of sadness and a hint of confusion. "This is not what we planned, this is not how things should have happened. We are not pleased."

Percy opened his mouth to speak but couldn't bring himself to say anything, what was there to say? He was so confused right now.

"We are the fates, we control everything. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. Too much has gone wrong." Her face turned into a small smile, before she slowly began walking towards him. He wanted to move, to apparate, to get out of there but he couldn't. He was frozen to the spot. "We have been watching, we have been searching, we have been waiting and we have found you. You are the one."

Quick as a fire fly on a rainy day she moved, a small flick of the hand and a white glow which bathed the entire staircase. Percy felt himself stumble as the light blinded him, he could feel himself falling. He grabbed out for anything to hold on to but there was nothing. There was nothing except this white light which had now completely surrounded him. He felt like he was floating and like he was falling rapidly at the same time, he was cold but he was hot, he was terrified yet oddly excited at the same time. One thing was for certain, he was tired. So unimaginably tired. No matter how hard he fought his eye lids finally closed and he drifted away into a soft slumber.