Greatest Loss

Percy

For Percy Weasley it was another late night working on a needed law for the ministry. He used to work overtime because he believed in the system, back before the incident with Crouch. Now he worked overtime to fix problems within it. Admittedly that was hard to do when your family saw what you were doing as a scrambling attempt to get on their good side, when in truth he'd been working with them all along. The fact that his parents knew this was a wonderful blessing.

He was so focused on his work he didn't hear his wife exit the bedroom in the back of their small house and come to watch him.

Penelope regarded him with the eyes of the longtime lover she was. His position was all too familiar , that hunched over, hyper-dedicated pose that had been familiar to her years ago when she had sat with him in the library. Had it only been seven years ago that she'd begun to associate with and fall for the tall and lanky prefect?

Spotting his weariness she crossed the room and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Percy, you need to get some sleep."

He didn't even look up at her, but instead continued with what he was doing. He was nearly done, could nearly feel comfortable when this had been completed successfully. "Give me a minute Pen."

"Percy!"

"I'll be up in a minute Penelope I promise. And you shouldn't be awake at this hour," he said, looking at her with his ever famous "I know best" expression that drove just about everyone up the wall. "You need your rest."

Penny laughed a bit, remembering all too fondly the nights he'd never had problems keeping her up to all hours, be his intentions romantic or if he had a new theory for helping the wizarding world. "You're becoming more of a worrier than you were before," she commented, leaning over and kissing him gently.

"With good reason," he murmured. Then he turned to her and rubbed his hand affectionately over her slightly rounded belly.

An odd tapping at the window made her stand straight and turn. "Post at this time of night?"

She crossed the room quickly and took the letter from the owl that swooped in. "It's for you Perce."

Percy stood and joined his wife and slipped the letter out of her fingers. He examined it carefully as if it might be dangerous. "Thanks. Odd don't you think?" he asked finally as he stopped turning the letter and neatly opened it.

Penny watched as his eyes skimmed the parchment quickly and proficiently as he had done for seemingly forever. He paused, staring at it as if the words written on it were in no language he he'd ever seen and then began again, more diligently.

Then he did something she'd never seen him do. He ripped the letter into pieces and threw it in the trash barrel. He then turned and walked away from her before freezing. She followed his gaze to the pictures that lined their mantle.

"Percy?"

""Mum," was the only thing audible that came through his lips, and even that was little more than a whisper.

"I... I have to go home," he said finally, shaking himself out of the trance he'd been in.

Percy moved quickly picking up his wand and his various forms of identification. He was poised to apperate out of their modest home when Penny caught his arm.

"You're not apperating, not when you are this upset," she insisted. "You're too likely to get splinched."

"I have to," he said, wrenching his arm away from her while attempting to be gentle. I have to see form myself. She can't be dead," he muttered eventually, more to himself than her. But the words made Penny gasp and take a step back.

His gaze snapped to hers, his eyes blazing with that passion she'd always loved seeing. "It's a lie," he practically growled. "They're trying to flush us all out with a lie."

Penny bent and picked up the discarded envelope. She fingered the perfect seal that she had seen all too often. It, along with the envelope, was Ministry regulation. The seal was that of Cornelius Fudge himself. "Percy, I don't think it is."

"They could have stolen the damn seal. This is my mum, she can't be dead. No one in the family would let it happen."

"Of course they wouldn't," she said in reassurance, but couldn't help but be realistic where her husband couldn't. "But that doesn't mean--"

"She isn't dead!" he shouted at her.

Penny took a few steps towards him but he backed away. "She isn't dead," he repeated in a whisper.

And then, in an instant, there were tears in Percy's eyes that hadn't been there the moment before. And he never looked more like the young confused child she supposed he had been the last time this war had affected their world. A time she's never known about.

He burried his head in his hands and sunk to a sitting position on the floor. "She can't be gone Penny. You don't understand. I can't have lost her like this."

Now that he would be wiling to accept her, Penny rushed to his side and sat beside him. She wrapped her arms as tightly around him as she could. "Percy."

He turned his face to her shoulder and began to sob. "There were so many things... I didn't even get to say goodbye. I didn't get to say goodbye."

Tears leaked out of her own eyes as she gently stroked the hair on his head in an attempt to sooth. "It'll be alright. Eventually it'll be alright."

"No," he managed in a clear and resolute voice. "It won't ever be alright again."