#the percy tutor agenda is RISING

[mirrorofliterature]

How do you interpret Percy's relationships with the other students at Hogwarts (i.e. not his family or their friends)? Do you think they looked up to him, were annoyed by him, etc.? What about his relationships with the professors?

Generally, I interpret his relationship with other people at Hogwarts as positive.

I understand why many people think he would be widely disliked due to Harry’s general disdain towards Percy, but that’s a perspective that is heavily influenced and filtered through Ron and the twins’ bias. I think the students who were friends with his siblings tended to be outliers, rather than the rule. For example, in a study of cracked gold, Ginny’s friends are confused about why her favourite brother is Percy, because whilst Percy is steady and dependable, the twins are fun; it’s also unlikely that as second-third years three years below the twins they would have been targeted before Percy left and the twins started to test out products on the younger years. Also, this was a throwaway line to illustrate how peculiar it was for Ginny’s favourite brother to be Percy to a handful of tween/early teen girls, who are not a majority of Hogwart’s population. 

But from the perspective of the general populace? Well, School Captains - School Co-Captains - School Head Prefects - whatever you want to call them, the two senior year-level students chosen as school leaders. They are generally well-liked by the broad student population. It doesn’t make sense that this level of authority would be given to a student who the general student populace does not like. Let us look at other known Head Boys and Girls (how unnecessarily gendered - I am going to call them Head Prefects from now on): Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, James Potter (probably the clearest example as he was /not/ a prefect beforehand), Lily Evans and Bill Weasley (who is ‘cool’). So, logically speaking, Percy must have not been unpopular, with a base of ‘well respected’ at the bare minimum.

I don’t think Percy was necessarily, strictly, popular a la James or Bill. I think he was well-liked and generally well-regarded amongst the student population, probably more like Minerva was. Me and some of my lovely Percy Weasley peers have developed a web of ideas where Percy tutors younger students and is generally a great mentor to them, drawing from his strong big brother tendencies deflected by his actual siblings: thanks to @infinitelycynical, @cixxsxturn and others for the collaborative brainstorming a few months ago. I think Percy - as a calm, studious and helpful personality who, yes, was a little uptight about rules - was generally well-liked and respected by the students, particularly in contrast to the twins, who liked to constantly disturb people’s lives with their pranks.

Now moving on to the professors - I think they generally liked him: again, he made Prefect, and then Head Boy (Prefect). He was clearly a studious, dedicated student. I think Snape did not like him, but gave him begrudging respect, purely because he was a Gryffindor Weasley and he is a narrow-minded prick. The professors are much clearer-cut than students: from my own experience, teachers greatly enjoy students who actually do the work and engage in the lessons. Note that I said engage, not dominate. A student like Hermione can be taxing and draining as she demands all of the professor’s attention and doesn’t allow the other students to participate. Percy, on the other hand, is more mellow, and seems more willing to work collaboratively (as he does in the Ministry, as he likely studied with Penelope, as he likely helped Oliver out with Quidditch strategy, etc).

Throughout Hogwarts, I think Percy was liked by most people and respected almost universally. Maybe not at the start, maybe not when he was still learning how to interact socially (cough, autistic, cough), but I think as he grew, as he gained friends such as Oliver and Penelope and was allowed to flourish outside of his family’s stifling dynamic, by the time he became Prefect, he had become the good student and mentor viewed positively by most of Hogwarts. 

And that eventually carried through the rest of his life, in a vibe similar to that described by @louff4tw in this post.

Essentially:

Thoughts on Percy Weasley?

Weasleys: :/

Everyone else: 👍