The Perils of Being Percy

The impending Christmas holidays threatened Percy like a runaway Bludger intent on knocking him upside the head. No matter how hard he tried to dodge the issue, whenever he turned around there it was. Plenty of holidays had been spent away from his parents, who usually were visiting either Bill or Charlie, or both, during that time. But he had never been parted from the rest of his siblings before on Christmas Day.

A family-free Christmas wasn't the enticing event he'd imagined it would be so many times in his youth. The prospect of spending the day alone in the flat, while Penny worked the holiday shift at St. Mungo's, filled him with a certain dread. After all, even the Ministry closed down for Christmas. Without Penny's company he wouldn't have anything to do but be miserable about the current state of his personal life.

He and Penny had been quarreling frequently albeit not steadily about their living arrangement off and on since their last Christmas holiday. Percy wanted to make their union legal. Legitimizing their relationship for the benefit of the rest of the Wizarding world was not one of Penny's priorities. She told Percy the first time he proposed a wedding ceremony last Christmas that she needed to get settled into her new job as a Healer in training. That was her first excuse.

When he asked her again, early last summer, Penny said she didn't have time to plan a wedding all by herself and that Percy never took time enough off of work to help her. That was the second excuse. They did start living together then, though. Penny had been pushing for them to move in together for quite a long time, and they started saving money to pay for a small cottage, someday. Percy was mainly convinced at that point that marriage was just around the corner, the logical next step, and he couldn't figure out why Penny's logic didn't match up to his own. There were very few perks to ago along with the inanity of his position in Fudge's office, but the salary was good. Percy had put away a tidy sum since he'd started his new job and he very much wanted to make Penny a legitimate, legal Weasley.

Her third excuse was given to him the past week when he had thought things might be quiet enough at the Ministry over the holiday to take Penny on a trip. He wanted to take her to Las Vegas in the States, and elope with her there. He checked out the logistics of his proposal with the Department of Internal and International Magical Person's Affairs. Applying for the special license they needed to go anywhere they liked for the ceremony while having a legal British union. Percy believed he was finding a solution to his holiday doldrums.

Penny was less than enthused about the proposed trip. She had got it into her head that the perfect time for reconciliation with his family was Christmas. She'd become increasingly perturbed over these last few weeks that Percy had taken no steps in that direction. Deciding an intervention was in order she informed him he could forget about having a wedding without his family being there.

Percy objected strongly with the argument that he wasn't marrying his family. Penny countered with: Wasn't family the whole point of all this legal wrangling mumbo-jumbo, anyhow? She was perfectly satisfied with things as they stood. Her parents were as happy about their relationship as they would ever be. It was Percy who had the problem, she felt, and she had no compunction about telling him that his biggest problem right now was that he wasn't on speaking terms with his family.

Percy took that comment like the sting of a lash. Even though he had almost expected her to say something like it. Aggrieved by her attitude and tone, Percy retorted that she might consider the notion that it was not all his fault that there wasn't a single person in his whole family who would talk to him, and, by the way, what sort of girlfriend would automatically take their side of the argument even if it had been?

Their own argument escalated pretty rapidly at that point. Penny accused him of being stubborn, and old-fashioned. Percy accused her of being a traitor to their bed, which just then she got up out of, and hadn't returned to it in over a week. Penny spent her recent nights on the old sofa, jammed as it was into the corner behind the kitchen table. Even the nights when Percy didn't come home the bed remained empty, as if the very idea that he might sneak in late and crawl into bed with her was too much for her to bear. Her rejection wounded him deeply, and as usual he covered up for his angst with an acid tongue and bursts of temper.

That night at home, lying supine and feeling very alone on their bed, Percy tormented himself with the details of the week old quarrel. Penny had gone to work. Leaving the flat after scarcely having spoken to him for over an hour. Right now he believed this was likely going to be one of the most miserable nights of his life. Talking to her led to quarreling more often than not anymore. Annoyed with her as he was, Percy didn't care so much that she wouldn't speak to him, but it irritated the hell out of him that she wouldn't sleep with him.

He just wished that she would let him touch her. The physical side of their relationship was the rock that anchored it. Which is why whenever she was angry with him she flinched when he came near her. She'd jumped away from him when he accidentally brushed past her tonight like he was swinging a steaming cauldron, or worse, like he was contaminated with the Dragon pox and any contact with him meant sure contagion.

Miserable, but exhausted, having helped the Minister and Madame Umbridge word and spell another impossibly absurd Educational Decree bound to insight the Hogwarts students and staff into bloody insurrection any day now, Percy fell asleep. And had a horrible nightmare.

Dementors were chasing him and his twin brothers Fred and George into a dark alleyway. Percy, in the rear, was holding them off, but barely. He called after Fred and George, "Run! Don't slow down! I've got them covered. I've got them----" Whipping out his wand he attempted a futile Patronus Charm. The purl of sparkling water that displayed itself every time he managed an effective charm was absent from this dream. The Dementors were drawing closer. Percy dropped to the ground. Curling up into a ball. Black cloaks swept over his head in a bitter cold haze, tickling the back of his neck with drops of ice. They didn't want him, he realized, his heart pounding so loud in his chest thump reverberated in his eardrums. The Dementors were after Fred and George, who were shouting Percy's help. Percy felt sick with fear for them. He struggled to his feet, but a Dementor blocked his path. Panicked, he realized he wasn't going to get to them in time. Shivering with despair he tried to resist the pull of grief the Dementor seemed to be sucking out of his very soul. His worst fears were being made real. How would he ever explain to his parents that he'd let Fred and George go?

Freezing bony fingers dug into his shoulder and Percy woke up immediately with a start. He was shaking, covered with cold sweat. Penny was standing over their bed looking terrified and ill. He knew just by the look of her that something was very wrong. "Sweetie, what's wrong? Are you sick? What's happened?" He leaned up onto on elbow, blindly searching one handed for his glasses on the bedside table. Penny grabbed the glasses she could clearly see and handed them to him.

Percy adjusted his spectacles, and blinked his eyes. The signs of terrible news were written all over her face. She was wild-eyed, and trembling. It wasn't unusual for Penny to come home from the hospital upset and covered in other people's blood, but he'd never seen her quite so upset and he's never seen her uniform so drenched in blood.

"Penny, tell me," he pleaded scouring her body for signs of injury. All of that blood couldn't possible be hers.

"P--P---Percy," she chattered rhythmically with her shaking, "I A--A--Apparated home as quickly as I c-c-could t-t-to tell you. It's your fa-fa-father, he's in hospital."

Percy latched onto her wrist, jumping out of bed. "What do you mean he's been injured?" he hissed, not noticing that he held onto her so tightly she would bear a bruise, in the shape of his thumb, on her wrist the next morning. "How? Where? Why, for Lady of the Lake's sake?"

"Just what I say," Penny replied, worried. "He's very badly injured and I don't know what's happened to him." Swallowing hard, seeming not to want to tell him something, she forced herself to add, "But, Percy, there was an awful lot of blood. I'm not sure he's going to make it."

Percy let go of her wrist, and dropped down onto the bed. Mouth open, gaping in horror. "What do you mean 'not going to make it'? How in Merlin's name has this happened? Dumbledore assured me-----". Percy stood up suddenly, and started pacing the length of the room.

"I don't know," Penny told him frantically. "I didn't stay around long enough to hear very much. I wanted to come home and tell you that you must go to see him right now. Whatever happened to him, it happened tonight in the Ministry of Magic. I overheard someone say so." She frowned. "I think I overheard one of the portraits say so."

"The Ministry! Oh, no. No. I'd better get there fast. Penny, I have to go right now." He dropped a quick kiss on her forehead, pulled away, and then on second thought tugged her into a tight embrace. "Thank you for telling me this, sweetie. I love you." He kissed her again, and attempted to Apparate out of the bedroom, but didn't get anywhere because she was still clinging to his arm.

"Penny, sweetheart, I really have to go right now!" he said urgently.

'I know that, Percy!" She handed him his robes. "But you're not wearing anything!"

"Oh, right," Percy snatched the robe out of her hands, yanked it over his head and Apparated out of the room.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Percy realized he'd Apparated without a second to spare. He heard voices coming down the corridor headed straight for the Minister's office. Sitting down behind his desk he made it look as though he had been working at it all night long. Frantically covering its surface with the usual pile of letters from concerned individuals in fear for their very lives from Voldemort and the latest version of evil Umbridge's latest stupid decree. Then he intentionally spilled a bottle of ink all over himself.

Fudge would believe without hesitation that dull, dependable, Weasley, always concerned with appearances, had been dutifully answering the Minister's mail right here all night. That wasn't a problem. Percy was thinking fast as he sat there, naked beneath his robes, waiting for the Minister and whoever he was talking with to come bursting into the office at any moment.

Fudge was shouting at the top of his lungs to Kingsley Shacklebolt and George Dawlish.

"I want a thorough inquiry into the matter! Every stone pile overturned! Every zoo searched! Every snake farm taken apart! What is this world coming to? Reptiles slithering all over the place! And another thing, Shacklebolt, I won't accept any excuses this time. You can't convince me that Arthur Weasley was here tonight doing anything but trying to cause trouble for this office and I'm telling you now that I want his blood!"

"I'm not sure they'll be much blood left in him, sir," Shacklebolt was informing Fudge. "I understand it that Arthur Weasley is very seriously injured." Looking up at that moment they saw Percy sitting behind his desk very white faced, listening to every word.

"Weasley!" Fudge boomed, "Still hard at work I see?"

"Yes, Minister, of course, no better way to enjoy the holidays than answering a bit of your mail," Percy replied, feeling faint. "Have I heard you correctly, sir? Has my father been injured?"

"Well, uh...yes, Weasley," Fudge replied with his usual phony sounding sympathy. "Terribly sorry to tell you too, that he was injured here in the Ministry. I think your father was up to no good tonight when it happened."

"No good, sir?" Percy stammered, experiencing real fear that had nothing to do with the act he put on to scam Fudge. His father's life was on the line here, to say nothing of his freedom, and the job he used to support his family with. "What do you mean by that, sir?"

"I mean the offices are closed for the day, Weasley!" Fudge shouted. "He was found here tonight bleeding all over the corridor leading to the Department of Mysteries! I've been very suspicious of your father. He's not dependable like you are. Then, you already know that don't you? I think you're the only man in your family who has an ounce of common sense."

"Yes, sir. I'm certain of that as well, sir," said Percy. "I was saying as much to my father about his lack of loyalty to you, tonight sir, when he came back to the Ministry to talk to me."

"Do you mean to say that Arthur was here with you, tonight?" Fudge blustered, caught out unaware. Clearly he didn't like the feeling that his current prey might be squirming free from the noose of his justice.

Kingsley Shacklebolt winked at Percy over the Minister's head. Percy scarcely noticed it. He was shaking all over with a combination of rage, and fear, and sickening despair, thinking that his father might be dying even as he stood there telling lies. Covering up for his being found in the ministry that night.

"Yes, sir," Percy answered Fudge evenly, never giving away his act. "He attempted to convince me to visit at home over the holiday. The dissention over the correct placement of our family's loyalties has upset my mother very much, you see. He had hoped that I might relent and agree to see her." In truth, Arthur had made no attempt whatsoever to communicate with Percy in anyway since they'd quarreled, but Percy continued embellishing his fabricated story without betraying himself by so much as the flicker of an eyelash. "Naturally, he wanted to speak to me privately. That's why he returned to the Ministry tonight. I was delivering Madame Umbridge's latest decree to the Decree Archival Department when he caught up to me in that corridor that leads to the Department of Mysteries."

"Well, that's a bit of unexpected news, Weasley," Fudge replied unhappily. Looking back at Shacklebolt he added, "I guess that explains Weasley Sr.'s presence in the Ministry then. Call off the inquiry."

Shacklebolt bowed to the Minister and left the room in a hurry. Giving Percy the thumbs up sign over the back of Fudge's head. The Minister of Magic, turning back to Percy with a gimlet eye, warned him, "Weasley, I don't need to remind you that your loyalties must remain here in this office if you want to continue in your position as my assistant, do I?"

"No, sir," Percy replied promptly. "You do not."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Percy returned home to a dark and empty flat. He supposed Penny had gone back to work, which bought him a little bit of time to fabricate some sort of explanation for his behavior. I don't know what the hell to say to her about this, he thought numbly. How will I explain to her that I had to go into work tonight, instead of to the hospital to see my father, without sounding like I'm heartless, insane, or an undercover spy? I need a drink.

Remembering there was a bottle of Old Ogden's Fire Whiskey in the cupboard Percy yanked the flask off the shelf, shoved the cap into his mouth, twisting it with his teeth. Lifting the bottle to his lips with a shaking hand he chugged it all back with a few short gulps and waited for the fire in the back of his throat to filter through to the rest of him. Thinking it better for him to be seated just now when his knees were threatening to knock together, Percy returned to his chair at the table.

He didn't seem to have any sense of himself in the room that night. He wasn't even sure how long he sat there. I am not here right now. This is not my life. My father is at home in bed asleep, and so am I." He repeated this mantra in his head trying to be convinced that he was just a ghost moving through another man's nightmares. This spy gig was becoming a lot more complicated than he'd bargained for.

Resting his elbows on his knees and dropping his white freckled face into the palms of his large hands, Percy mourned his loss tonight. Whether his father lived through it, or not, this experience had changed him for good. Percy Weasley, the man, Apparated himself to the ministry tonight. Percy Weasley, the boy, dropped dead onto the bedroom floor when he didn't go to St. Mungo's instead. Either way, if his father died tonight, Percy was going to want to die too.

This whole scam had been his idea. To his credit, Dumbledore said it was a good one. The Minister of Magic was a bumbling imbecile, thoroughly ineffectual in any capacity. His rule at the Ministry had been disturbing and chaotic enough before Voldemort's return. Now his regime was positively lethal. Dumbledore needed a spy, somebody the Minister would trust implicitly.

Percy knew he could pull it off. There was a lot at stake here, and it wasn't something he undertook lightly. He struggled long and hard with himself before deciding that it was worth causing friction in his family for it to appear to anyone who knew him that his loyalty was to the Ministry of Magic alone.

Dumbledore had warned him that this would very probably be the hardest thing he ever had to do in his young life. He'd warned him that the consequences would be serious, and maybe even permanent. Percy hadn't really understood what his warning meant until tonight when Penny told him his father was injured.

Death was the consequence Dumbledore had been talking about. Percy knew that, in this moment, beyond any doubt. Dumbledore had been trying to explain the consequences of death to him, brutal, senseless, untimely death and not just physical death, emotional death, the death of relationships, the death of innocence.

Percy's ribs ached with the pain of holding back the sobs. How is it possible to know that I've just done the right thing and still feel so terrible about having done it? For the very first time since he'd begun this deception he realized that he might not ever be reunited with his family. This rift could become permanent, and it wasn't a sacrifice he'd planned on making. His double role at the Ministry had seemed like a challenge at first, even a game. Percy never imagined how quickly he would become tired of playing it.

Deciding the whiskey hadn't done enough to calm him down, Percy got up to heat the kettle, promising himself; If the tea doesn't work, I'll just find something large and heavy and whack myself over the head with it.

Penny popped up with unfortunate timing, shouting, "Percy! Where have you been all of this time?"

Percy dropped the heavy teakettle. Splashing boiling water all over his wand hand and arm, Now's the hell of a time for her to get the hang of Apparation. He watched his flesh blister and pucker amazed that he wasn't feeling any pain. Perhaps he'd drunk enough whiskey after all.

"Oh, Percy!" Penny wailed, rushing over to take his burned hand and stick it under the cold tap. "Oh my goodness! I am so sorry I startled you. Let me take care of this for you." Pulling some ointment and bandages from her healing supplies she started bandaging his hand and arm.

"Percy, where on earth have you been tonight? I was waiting for you outside of your father's room and you never showed up. Your mother is there now, she's simply beside herself."

"How is my father?" he managed to ask her through his haze of alcohol and pain. "Will he be all right?"

"There isn't any word just yet. I know the Healers are doing everything they can for him, though." Penny stared curiously, wondering why he was behaving so strangely. His breath reeked of Old Ogden's. His eyes were watching her with a far away sort of vague, unfocused expression. "You've been behaving very strangely about all of this, Percy. Your father is in serious condition. Why aren't you at the hospital with him now?"

Percy moved his unfocused gaze to the floor. "I had to go into work tonight." Not having come up with any reasonable excuse he could give her, he was being truthful without embellishing. "I had some urgent information I had to pass onto the Minister."

"What could possibly be more urgent than your father dying in hospital? Percy Weasley, I do believe you've finally done you're nut!" Penny purveyed him indignantly. She didn't know whether she felt more ashamed or confused, but his behavior this night was a mystery and a disappointment to her. Whoever this young man was, it was not the dependable Percy Weasley she had come to love.

"Don't say that, Penny." Percy sank to the floor with a moan. "He's not really going to die?" He looked at her pleadingly, wishing hard for reassurances she wasn't able to give.

"Percy, for heaven's sake," Penny pleaded kneeling on the cold linoleum floor beside him. "Get up from there and let's go now to see your father. Come on then!"

"I can't come, Penny. I can't visit my father tonight." Percy slumped back against the kitchen sink and hung his head. He dipped his head into his hands and started to cry. Penny was flabbergasted, and horrified. One time, in the midst of a very bad quarrel, he'd grown teary eyed and hoarse, but she had never seen him sob like this. Like his heart was breaking.

"Percy. Please. Please talk to me. What is all of this about tonight? Are you in some kind of trouble? Percy, I want to help you, I'm trying so hard to understand what you're doing, but I don't. I just don't get it. How can you not want to see your father?"

He didn't answer, and he didn't stop crying. Hurt and bewildered by his actions Penny didn't know what else to do but to hold him close. She wanted to be angry with him, she was angry with him, but his grief tore at her heart. Whatever his reasons were, Percy wasn't happy about decision he'd made, and seeing him so sad was ripping her guts to shreds.

Penny gave up on trying to get him to go the hospital with her that night. She managed to coax him off of the kitchen floor and into their bed, thinking that he was behaving as though he were ill himself. She believed, in fact, that he was actually ill. Percy was sick at heart. Penny knew him well enough to understand that much. Curling up next to him in bed, not even considering sleeping on the sofa, she clutched his hand until the sun came up.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Dawn found Percy squinting painfully into the thin sunlight pouring into the window between their bed and the Alley below. Snow had fallen onto the alley last night, making Diagon Alley look like a picture of a fairy tale world at Christmas time. Percy was a part of that same fairy tale. But the powerful Knight, who still had to defeat the dragon, rescue the princess, and win her heart, was given to somebody else. Percy wasn't the hero of the tale; he played the part of a scribe who had already won the love of a fair lady. Now he worried about keeping her heart. His part of the story involved much more heartache than heroism, more drudgery than adventure, and he very much dreaded waking his lady with a kiss right now to say what he had to.

Penny was asleep, curled around his pillow as though she held something precious in her arms. She was dreaming about him he assumed with good reason. It made him so happy to see her there in their bed, where she belonged, for the first time in over a week. Despite a brutal hangover banging behind his eyeballs he smiled. Luscious sweet Penny gloriously curved from her head to her feet. Her bare hip swelled over the corner of his pillow, her skin glowed in the early daylight. She bewitched him. Somehow he knew the first time he ever saw her, covered neck to ankles in flowing black robes, that the curves twitching underneath would cushion all of his angles to perfection. Like they were a part of the same sculpture, one side flowing, one clean lined, but fit together by a master designer.

Percy felt caught in a time warp, a ten-second truce, too good to last. More than anything he wanted to climb into bed with her just then and love her until this nightmare was over. But he had a job to do today and some bad news to share with Penny that went with it. There was no point in putting if off any longer. "Penny," he whispered, giving her a soft kiss on the lips. "Wake up for a minute, will you?" Unlike Percy, she was not a fast riser. She tumbled slowly to consciousness to find him fully dressed and standing beside the bed.

"What are you doing up already?" she complained sleepily. "The sun is barely up." Suddenly alert, she remembered the events of the past evening. "Oh, Percy, are you all right? You can't sleep can you? I know you're worried about your father. If you'll just wait a bit for me to get ready I'll go with you to see him."

The bitter battle well in hand, Percy answered her, "I'm all right, I guess. I can't sleep and I am very worried about my father. But I'm not going to the hospital to see him. I have to go into the Ministry early today."

"You're not," she forbade him firmly. This nonsense had to end. "You are going to come with me to work today and you are going to mend this quarrel with your family before it's too late."

"I am going to work," Percy said just as firmly as he could manage. Considering he liked her plans for him much better than his own. "The Minister will need all of my help today and then some. A giant venomous viper roaming the corridors of The Ministry of Magic is not something Cornelius Fudge is going to be able to handle on his own. I have to be sure he covers this up and it doesn't get into the papers."

Penny scoffed at him, "Why do you even care about that bungling idiot? He deserves to be tossed out of the Ministry onto his arse today, even if it is almost Christmas. Let him be thrown to the wolves, why don't you? It's no more than he deserves."

"Because it's my job to make sure that the Minister has what he needs to do his job," Percy replied, sounding arrogant but feeling hopeless. It was his job to make the Minister to look good, and more importantly it was his job to make sure that the Minister couldn't make his father look bad. If he failed at this task, all of his work so far might as well have been for nothing, and Percy wasn't about to give up. "If Fudge looks bad right now, we all look bad," he finished grimly. Imagining just how badly all of this could go, not only for his family, for the whole cause. Everything was on the line now and there wasn't time to make Penny understand.

Percy turned away from Penny's glare. He stared out the window again for a minute, before telling her, "I'll be working very late tonight, at least."

"What about the Holiday party at St. Mungo's tonight?" Penny cried, sounding so disappointed he cringed. "I was going to wear the new dress that you bought me and finally introduce you to some of my friends."

"I'm sorry, Pen," he told her more regretfully than she could imagine. "I can't take you to that party tonight. I hope you go without me, though, and have some fun. One of us should have some fun this Christmas."

Penny, huffing herself out of bed, stalked into the lavatory shouting over her shoulder, "You can damn well believe I'll go to that party without you. You can go to hell for all I care."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Percy did go to hell, his own version of it anyway. To add to his misery over the fact that he was now officially the worst boyfriend----Penny would probably go home from the party with Trey tonight-- and the evilest son--failing to visit his father in hospital put him pretty much on par with the worst of anything that Fred and George had ever done----the Minister was verging on apoplectic when he Apparated into the outer office. "I tell you this must be kept quiet!" Fudge bellowed at the Members of the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures already huddled in his office so early that day. "I don't care if that serpent is booked for the European tour of slithering rampages. The sanctity of the Ministry itself must not be compromised by the irrational fears and forebodings of Dumbledore's gang."

"Just so, Minister, just so," McNair rumbled in response. "We won't hold a full inquiry into this matter. Best to keep things quiet, I'll write up a top-secret report of the incident and that will be an end to it."

Percy knew that McNair was a confirmed Death Eater, because Harry knew that McNair was a confirmed Death Eater. It didn't take an enormous leap of logic to equate McNair's acquiescence with Fudge to a hidden agenda that would keep Voldemort under ground, unnoticed until he could round up some more snakes for the slithering rampage. And Percy was a very logical person.

He ran out of his office, down the corridor, rushed into the broom closet and pulled out his mirror to say, "Professor Dumbledore, sir. The Ministry is in full cover-up mode just now. Don't expect the snake to make the papers. McNair's willing to conceal the whole incident from the public, but I'm going to be busy all day winding down Fudge. If you could just do one favor for me, please sir? Will you tell my father that I love him when you see him? That much won't give me away, will it?"

True to his word, Percy wound down Fudge all day long. He ran interference with the press for Fudge, who was so distraught over the notion of a giant reptile shedding itself somewhere in the Ministry of Magic he couldn't be pried away from his dartboard without the risk of a serious tantrum.

Percy wrote up a disciplinary action slip on Dumbledore at the behest of Madame Umbridge who was accusing the current Headmaster of Hogwarts of illegally transporting Hogwarts students to unknown locations under very suspicious circumstances, from right beneath her nose.

Couldn't be too difficult to sneak past a nose that lies flush on its wearer's face. Percy harshly derided Madame Umbridge's lack of proboscis while scribbling her directives onto parchment. Then per her instructions he took them to the Department of Magical Ministerial Publishing to be reproduced a hundred times in triplicate and sent to anyone who might be willing to help her toss Dumbledore head first out of the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts.

Very early the next morning Percy Apparated home to the flat he shared with Penny. Hoping with all his of his sad heart that he would find her waiting for him in bed, but she wasn't home yet and. she hadn't left him so much as a note. Percy gazed morosely at the clock on the kitchen wall that advised him it was three o'clock in the morning. It snickered wickedly before loudly announcing, "Three o'clock in the morning, and all is not well."

"Oh, shut up!" Percy snapped. "I despise that stupid talking clock mother gave me. The woman is obsessed with freakish time pieces." Swearing, he stormed into the bedroom and threw himself onto his lonely bed, fully clothed. For a while he passed the time torturing himself with visions of Trey ogling Penny's voluptuous breasts spilling out of the low-cut neckline of her red dress. "Y'all know how big everythin' is in Texas?" he drawled suggestively in Percy's imagination. "I think your bosoms would fit right in there."

Outraged, depressed, and angry, Percy tossed over onto his stomach and willed images of Penny and other men out of his mind. He didn't doubt her faithfulness, not really, but he knew she wasn't above a little bit of outrageous flirting and he punished himself with the thought that it was no more than he deserved for abandoning her.

He woke a few hours later, wire framed glasses bent and embedded into his cheek bone, to stagger into the other room and see if Penny had come home yet. She was sleeping on the sofa. Still wearing the red dress he had bought for her Christmas gift. Stunned by the look of her in it, Percy was forced to compare his intellect to that of a flesh-eating slug. What sort of idiot would sit at a desk all night, doing his boss's job, letting his boss play darts in the next room, while his girlfriend goes to a party alone, at night, looking like that? And wearing that dress!

He found himself eyeing her critically; regretting the way the dress he picked out for her displayed her ample assets. He had a bad habit of dressing her to please; please himself, that is. Not always considering how much her appearance might please other men as well, or at least not considering that she would be out pleasing other men while unescorted by him.

Percy threw himself back onto the bed and tried smothering himself with his own pillow. Unfortunately, he couldn't manage it. He had to face Penny again when she came in to use the lavatory.

"Oh, will you look at that," she sniped at him on her way past. "There's a lump in my bed."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Things between them did not improve in the intervening days. Penny stayed on the sofa, even though Percy did manage to cut out of work early enough to join her family for Christmas Eve night.

Penny's parents, Richard Clearwater and Sophaclesius Gump, or Sophie as she preferred to be called, were rabidly intellectual. Clearwater was a noted - revered in some circles - magical historian and genealogist. His favorite historical place and period was pre-Roman empire Egypt. He told Percy once that Sorcerer's living in ancient Egypt had powers so incredible they made today's Wizards and Witches look like cheap sideshow freaks. Clearwater's main caveat, expounded upon in his vast compendium of published scrolls, was that magical abilities were at risk of disappearing altogether if Wizard kind stopped bearing children with Muggles. As a plethora of evidence he cited the Egyptian Royal family who perpetually interbred, often incestuously, with one another to the point where Cleopatra couldn't even Adava Kadavra herself to death and had to resort to snake bite.

Sophie was a Muggle woman, a bio-chemical engineer in the Muggle world and the source of the dreaded Muggle blood that made Penny such an easy target for the giant snake that petrified her at Hogwarts. Penny was their only child, which was just as well, Percy thought, because they scarcely had time to care properly for the one. Richard and Sophie were overly involved with their careers in academia and had little time for Penny and even less for one another. Percy wasn't certain the Clearwater's were actually married, although they had been together since before Penny's birth and occasionally stayed together in the Clearwater family home, a half-timbered frame house in Godric's Hollow.

Penny's parents were always very polite to Percy, but they seemed to snub him anyway. Percy was no mean intellect. His own curriculum vitae nothing to sneeze at. But he wasn't in the same brain league as Penny's parents were, or at least they didn't seem to think that he was. Still, they were very proud of all Penny's intellectual accomplishments, even if they weren't thrilled with her choice of life-mate.

After being in a committed relationship with their daughter for four years, Percy assumed Penny's parents had resigned themselves to the fact that she wasn't going to get him out of her system. But they treated him only cordially and made vague, patronizing statements about his choice of career. Something to the effect of noble service to the public being deemed such a worthy effort. Sophie, in particular, had no fondness for the Ministry of Magic.

It was the politicians curse. Those who could manage their own lives did. Those who could not ran for public office. Penny's parents had tossed Percy into the Minister's camp when he accepted his first job and never really looked back at him. Percy suspected that Richard and Sophie were relieved that he and Penny were not legally married. Mostly he suspected that because they came right out and told him so at every opportunity.

Thus the stage was set for a bloody brutal battle that raged between Penny and Percy from the second they Apparated back into their flat that night until the wee early hours of the morning. When they were too hoarse to shout at one another anymore, they separated into their corners. She sulked tearfully on the sofa. He fumed alone in bed. And they didn't quarrel again until almost daybreak.