When he was nine years old, he picked the wrong team, and he never wants to do that again. He had never been one for Qudditch; he preferred books and chess and other things, and he could never dream of being as good as Charlie (no one was) or even Bill. Even the twins, barely seven, and little Ron wandering around with his stuffed orange dragon, got far more excited about things like stats and Snitches than he ever had.

But that summer, everyone in the Burrow went a little Quidditch mad. It would be the World Cup that fall, there hadn't been a new baby since that strange creature—a girl—had arrived three years before, and things were very quiet at the Ministry, so even Mum and Dad got in on it to some extent. Dad had picked his team, the Caerphilly Catapults, mostly because it reminded him of Muggles, and Mum, to be part of the fun, picked the Pride of Portree for herself and Ginny (who was of course too young to care) completely at random. Bill and Charlie had had yet another first fight over who could claim Puddlemere United; it was one of their more vicious tussles. They were well matched, for though Bill was older and taller, Charlie was stockier and just as strong; in the end, they declared it a draw, and both became Puddlemere fans. The twins picked the Tutshill Tornados because Mum was always calling them tornados, and Ron, undeterred by his brothers' protests of "they're trash!" liked orange and so the Cannons it was.

It was a lot of pressure on Percy, who didn't know enough to choose a decent team. He lay in bed, wide awake till late in the night, worrying and worrying about his pick.

"You have to choose," Bill had said. "Even Mum chose. The season starts soon."

"And make it good," Charlie added, and then they were off to the pond for a swim, leaving him to his own devices as usual. It weighed heavily on his mind after that. If he chose a lousy team, Bill and Charlie wouldn't tell him; they would just laugh when it lost. His brothers weren't cruel, but they were boys, and that's the way boys act. Besides, they treated Percy exactly the same way they treated each other, and they could not understand why he didn't laugh (he'd always been accused of being the only Weasley without a sense of humor). They were close, best friends as well as brothers, and they would have invited him closer into their circle, but he was sensitive and didn't want to be with them if they were going to mock him.

Despite all this, he worshipped his older brothers. He would do anything to gain their respect, and here was his chance. If he picked a good team, if it played decently, then maybe their Quidditch-obsessed minds would take him seriously. So he agonized for several days, subtly asking questions to get some idea of how he should choose. Young as he was, he liked to make decisions based on knowledge and not guesswork.

But in the end, he simply had to choose. There was nothing else to do. And so he hung up red and white all around his side of the room: the Wigtown Wanderers would be his team.

They lost, of course. Third game, miserably. He'd known they would, and yet he was still crushed. As they listened to the game, his chest got tighter and tighter with each point Puddlemere scored. At the end of the match, he could barely breathe, not with his brothers laughing good-naturedly in the background.

It was the worst summer of his life. Nearly every day, there was a new game, and each one seemed a personal affront. The Cannons were out their first game, of course, but no one cared because Ron was so young, and once he made up his mind about something he never changed it. But everyone else' teams did well. Dad's made it four games further than the Wanderers, and Mum's one longer than that. But the worst humiliation of all was that Bill and Charlie picked the winner—and the Tornados came in second.

His brothers exulted for days as though they had ensured the victory themselves. They relived every moment of every game and talked about nothing else. It was all worse than Percy had imagined, for instead of mocking him as he had expected, they simply seemed to have forgotten that he existed. Their world was Quidditch, and he had no part in it.

Sitting on a branch in the willow by the pond one late August night, he looked up at the stars—they seemed to be winking at him—and made a vow. He would never pick the wrong team again.

It was easy in school. Gryffindor was right, of course; it was Gryffindor. The prefects were right, and so were the teachers (he became Head Boy so easily that no one else even had a chance). He picked the right friends, the ones who would go far, who would make something of themselves. He even picked the right girlfriend, one who was made to be Head Girl just as he was Head Boy.

As he got older, it got more complicated. All of a sudden, Ron's friend Harry was making outrageous claims, and worst of all, people believed him. But he could not let himself believe it, because if it was true, that meant terrible things about Ginny's first year and that meant he had failed his family again (he could not see that being different and being a failure are two separate things).

It was such a relief that the Ministry confirmed his beliefs. The Ministry of Magic represented everything that was good and orderly and principled, and it could be trusted. He was certain he was choosing rightly this time, and he clung to that belief desperately. Every day he grew more and more upset and confused: why would his family believe the ramblings of a boy who was very obviously scarred from witnessing the accidental death of a classmate when the Ministry, which had far more information than anyone else, knew that it just wasn't true?

But they did believe, and seemed as confused with him as he was with them. And though he took no pleasure in it (though he was certain that the twins believed otherwise), he knew that he had to make the break. It was a choice between letting himself be hoodwinked by impressionable Harry Potter or making the right decision, doing the right thing, choosing the right team this time around.

Being who he was, it really wasn't a decision at all.