Title: In Between Days

Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood
Categories: AU/canon divergence, war, slash
Length: long, 23,524 words
Warnings: references to injury, torture, wartime setting, minor character death

Author on LJ: perpetual_motion on dreamwidth
Author Website: Perpetual Motion (perpetfic) on AO3

Summary: Wherein book 7 is completely ignored because wars don't tend to happen so quickly; Percy Weasley runs a safehouse [because that's as close to administrative work as you can get in a war], and everyone gets a chance to play minor character bingo. Get your cards and markers ready!

Review: So there has been a reasonable amount of HP on here lately and I would rather post variety, but I read this for the first time only yesterday and I Must Rec, because I was blown away by how fantastic this is.

This is Percy Weasley's war, as he runs his safehouse with a removed precision and attention to detail -- living with the information silences and asking only what's necessary to perform his assigned role in precaution against capture. Character cameos pop in and out, delivering fragments of other peoples' stories throughout, and the Golden Trio are entirely absent from proceedings as we get to see the struggles of other characters fighting in their different fashions, in the longer slog, out of the spotlight.

The sparse style really fits Percy's perspective and state of mind, pulled in so tight to do the job and allowing himself so little, and the way he organises his world, to best offer the people he's taking care of what they need. It's lovely to see this character in an essentially caregiving role, too, a contrast to the administrivia and rule-obsessed focus he so often has (and in this fic he definitely still also has), and recall that he looked after the twins while they were growing up. The characterisation is subtle and glorious, making the moments where characters with an outside perspective on Percy's closed world make observations that pull all the hints together so very earned.

Of course, one of the agents flitting in and out of Percy's safehouse is Oliver, but the romance, while definitely engaging, to the degree that I'm now seeking out more of this pairing to read, feels more like a bonus on top of a very different kind of story.

There are sequels that expand events after the war a little, and I love that there are sequels and you should read those, too, but this fic is where my rec is at.

In Between Days
Alternate link to In Between Days on Dreamwidth