When Angels Fall

When Angels Fall
Chapter One - Waning Light

I don't think you trust,

In my self righteous suicide,

I cry when angels deserve to die

In my self righteous suicide,

I cry when angels deserve to die

- lyrics from System of a Down’s "Chop Suey"

“Weasley! Where the hell are those goddamn reports?”

“I put them on your desk, sir--”

“I don’t see them! Weasley, I’m trying to run an efficient office here and I can’t do it with incompetence in my employees. Find those reports and have them on my desk by five! If they‘re not here by that time consider yourself out of work!”

“Yes, sir.” Percy’s face remained impassive as Ken Sequoia, his new boss, barked instructions and insults at him. This was the sort of thing you had to put up with if you ever wanted to escape your status of lowly odd jobs and errands boy. And Percy definitely wanted to rise from his position. If enduring this would get him to the top, he would put up with it.

‘Ass,’ Percy thought as Mr. Sequoia stomped away from his cubicle. Ken Sequoia had been an advisor in the Ministry and a good friend of the late Mr. Crouch before taking over as head of the Department of International Cooperation. Ken was just as strict, uptight, and bossy as Crouch had been. ‘But,’ Percy thought bitterly, ‘at least Mr. Crouch was polite when he pushed me around.’

Percy had an overwhelming desire to chuck his spell-o-tape dispenser at the back of the retreating man’s head, but he restrained himself. Ever since the Crouch incident last year, Percy’s respect for authoritative Ministry workers had dissolved considerably.

Percy got up to look around for the reports he had already turned in. He had been searching for about twenty minutes when Ken walked out of his private office.

“Never mind, Weasley,” he growled. “I found them.”

Without so much as a simple sorry, he retreated back into his office, the door slamming with a resounding thud behind him.

Percy scowled. He had worked hard on those reports! And not one lousy comment on his effort. At this rate it’d be another ten years before he got anywhere in the Ministry. But he kept working hard, if only to get out of the hellish position he was at in life now. Whatever it took.

He glanced up at the clock. 4: 43. Seventeen more minutes of the most recent day of Hell left. Percy looked away from the clock. It gave him a headache to watch it too long. Everything gave him a headache lately.

The clock at last struck five and Percy slammed his quill down.

“Finally,” he muttered, standing up. He quickly organized the bits of parchment strewn over his desk and emerged from his small office into the bustle of the hallways weaving between the hundreds of cubicles in the enormous department. International Cooperation was perhaps the largest department in the Ministry aside from Magical Law Enforcement. Percy quickly pushed his way out of the large several-storied building, eager to get out of there.

‘Another ten minutes of copying papers and organizing would have pushed me over the edge,’ he thought not for the first time. He pulled his cloak over his robes and walked the short distance to a designated Apparating point outside the Ministry. It was nothing more than a small grassy field, but it was always busy with witches and wizards popping in and out. Percy didn’t look back at the mammoth, grey-marbled building once before he vanished into thin air.

******

Percy appeared silently in the tiny kitchen of his small flat in Dover. He had moved there just a few months ago in July after Penelope graduated from Hogwarts. Percy stared out the kitchen window silently for a moment, his tired brown eyes watching the angry torrents of the waves in the sea that could scarcely be seen though the pane, the view hindered by buildings. The sky was grey with darkening clouds and purple lightning streaked the sky, highlighting the foaming waves and cackling over the town.

There was a dazzling flash that illuminated the heavens . Percy counted; One, two, three…The lightning was shortly accompanied by a resonant boom. Three thousand miles away. Or was it three hundred? Percy could not recall the old game his mother had taught him when he was young and frightened of storms. It had been a long time since he had admitted fear to anyone.

Another brilliant burst and loud clap brought him out of his thoughts. He turned away from the window just as tiny droplets of water bean to sprinkle over the glass, soon turning into a raging downpour that pounded furiously on Dover.

“Penny!” Percy called walking through the apartment. “Penny?” No answer. Percy frowned. The flat was small and he quickly walked through it in search; kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom. Not a soul in sight.

“Where the hell is she in this weather?” Percy wondered out loud to himself. As if in answer to his question he suddenly became aware of a neatly folded piece of parchment lying on the deep blue satin covers of their bed. Percy snatched it up and unfolded it, scanning the curvy script:

Percy,

I’ve gone out for a bit and will return soon after you arrive home. Perhaps before if you’ve decided to work late again. There are a few things we need to discuss when I get back so please don’t go off anywhere before I return.

Love Penelope

Percy tossed the note onto his rich, dark oaken desk, his lips forming a tight frown at the ominous message. He thought there was a hint of annoyance in the line about his working late.

‘If she wants to live in a tiny flat in a muggle town her whole life that’s just fine, but I sure as hell don’t, and I’m working hard to get both of us out of here,’ he unconsciously defended himself in his mind. He supported both of them because Penelope’s career as an aspiring author scarcely brought in any money, but Percy didn’t mind. He approved of such an intellectual profession and enjoyed conversations with Penny about her latest novel ideas.

Now though he did not feel so supportive. He flopped down on the medium-sized bed, his red hair contrasting against the blue, and stared at the cracking plaster of the ceiling. His head was propped up on his folded hands and he stretched out to his full-length lying, feeling thoroughly exhausted.

He was tired. Tired of an occupation that he once worshipped when he still thought that he worked for good people. Tired of being Perfect Percy who diligently toiled day after day, exceeding standards set by society yet still having the world look down at him. Tired of existing when he realized that all this was for nothing, that the fairy tale world of good things happen to good people, true happiness, and honest men are better off in the end existed only in the minds of the naïve. Cliché now seemed the values he once held close to his heart. He could at least thank Mr. Crouch for one thing; proving that the world was indeed a bitter place and trust should be carefully placed.

There was, however, a light in his gloom, a torch brightening the shadowy inner workings of his soul, an escape from the fears and doubts that haunted his mind.

The apartment door opened.

“Percy?” Penelope’s voice called out through the apartment. Percy tried to detect an emotion in her voice, anything that might clue him in on what she was thinking that evening. He could perceive no such hint.

“Percy, are you home?” Her footsteps could be heard going into the kitchen, shoes wet from the downpour squeaking on the tiled floor. She set down something with a dull thud -- a briefcase?-- on the small cherry wood table that stood in the center of the kitchen.

“In here, love,” Percy called, pulling himself up into a sitting position. Penelope emerged from the main part of the flat into the bedroom, shaking her curly hair slightly. The light brown ringlets were even curlier than usual in their damp state.

“Horrible out,” she commented casually as she walked into the bathroom adjoined with their bedroom to dry off. Her statement was emphasized with lightning and thunder erupting in the sky.

“So, where were you?” Percy asked trying to keep his tone offhand as Penelope walked back out, drying her hair with a blue terrycloth towel.

“Out with a friend,” she replied smoothly. “Roger and I went to the grand opening of that new bookshop in Diagon Alley. The Flourish and Blotts expansion that we read about in the paper last week.”

A stab of jealousy went through Percy at the mention of Roger Davies, one of Penelope’s classmates from her old house. He was also slightly hurt that she had opted to go to the big event that the Prophet had been advertising for weeks with Roger rather than him. His face must have betrayed his thoughts because Penny sighed and said:

“Percy, don’t do this. You’re more mature than that. Besides,” Penny said as she sat on the bed near Percy’s legs, “You were off overworking again.”

Percy sensed the edge to her voice and inwardly cringed.

“And I wanted to talk to you about that.” Penny paused a moment, nervously toying with a tiny piece of loose thread from the comforter. She began speaking again in a rush. “Percy, I’ve been thinking; we’re really not getting anywhere. You’re always at work, you hardly ever make time for me, for us! And you’re always in such a bad mood when I do get to see you.”

Percy frowned and said in a flat voice, “You’re breaking up with me.” It was more of a statement than a question.

Penny smiled sadly. “It’s just that we can barely consider ourselves a couple anyway. We’ve become just two acquaintances living under the same roof. I can’t -- I won’t do this anymore. I’m so sorry, Percy.”

Penelope looked truly sorry as she rose from the bed and Percy regarded her with a sad expression, his eyes distant and forlorn.

“But where will you go?” Percy asked, clinging to the last hope of her staying.

“I’m moving in with a friend. I’m so sorry Percy,” she repeated. When he didn’t respond she went on. “I’ll leave now. Most of my things are already there.”

So that’s where she was. Percy figured that she had spent the day moving her things out with the help of that Roger Davies.

“Are you--,” Percy began.

Penny cut him off. “Yes, I’m sure. Goodbye, Percy.”

She leaned over and pecked a kiss on his cheek. Then, without looking back, she walked out of the room, out of the apartment, out of his life.

******

Percy stared numbly at the bedroom wall. Penelope…gone. He was in shock, and he could’ve sworn that his heart stopped beating for a moment. Nearly three years they had been together and now that precious foundation of their relationship that he had been so desperately clinging on to for his own sanity was shattered…

A long second passed, time stretching itself dramatically for the benefit of agonizing comprehension. A strangled sob emerged from a lump in Percy’s throat.

Some mourned at funerals when a loved one passed away, shedding bitter tears at a life lost and opportunities missed by the deceased. But how do you mourn when it is you that dies? Weep beside your own coffin with your soulless body laying within the folds of fine silk lining the wooden confinement?

Penelope had meant so much. She was his whole life. Long after Percy had given up gaining the respect of his family, putting trust in the Ministry, and making any more undependable friends he still had Penelope. And now he had driven even her away.

And she was never coming back.

This dawned on Percy like a bucket of ice-cold water being thrown in his face.

“Fuck!” Percy leapt from the bed in an instant and pounded his furiously on the bedside table. Now that the initial shock had officially worn away, rage boiled in him, veiling the grief he should have felt. Though whether he was angry at her, Roger, or himself was unclear, even to him. The room shook slightly with the vibrations from his violent lashing at the small table.

A small figurine toppled off the table and landed gently in the thin cream-coloured carpeting. Percy stopped his sudden outburst and bent to scoop it up. It was tiny delicate model of a guardian angel with long flowing hair, hands saintly folded in front of her chest, and eyes raised peacefully towards the heavens.

The figure shattered a moment later against the far wall of the bedroom after Percy forcefully threw it. Thousands of tiny pieces of the seraphic symbol fell to the floor.

Percy stormed out of the room before the last miniscule fragment even hit the ground.

******

The wind was still howling and the waves were still hostile when Percy approached the seaside. There was a beach, vast and beautiful, completely unknown to muggle residents and tourists that magical people often visited but right now it was vacant of life save the lone redhead standing at the water’s edge.

Icy water lapped over his feet, soaking him from the knees down. The rain still pounded the earth relentlessly, drenching the rest of Percy’s body. The bitter cold water seeped into his skin, but the chill went disregarded. A torrent of rage and misery that could match the most fierce storm of Poseidon and Zeus combined shook through Percy’s being.

Outlandish thoughts began erupting in his mind and he felt an overwhelming desire to join with the mammoth waves, to throw himself to the sea and free himself from despair and anxiety, never to return to the world that laughed in his face.

Percy took a deliberate step into the water, his advancing foot ankle-deep in the frothing glacial water.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a calm voice came from behind him. Percy turned to see a figure slightly shorter than himself and clothed in a black, hooded cloak standing less than ten paces behind him.