A Virtue of Necessity

A Virtue of Necessity

Prologue

July 1996

Two sharp knocks roused me from my reverie.

I stood from my careful seat on the edge of the couch and walked to the door of my flat, heart pounding unmercifully. Reaching with a damp palm for the doorknob, I gripped it and twisted to the right, pulling the door open and pasting a shaky smile on my pale face.

"Hullo, Penny."

Percy stood before me with fiery hair that was the tiniest bit windblown, glasses glinting in the fluorescent lights of the hallway. He was grinning, and held a bouquet of bright flowers in one hand.

I smiled genuinely at him, reassured by the welcome sight. "Come in," I said with affection, stepping back from the doorway and letting him in. He swept by me and into the flat, walking with that proud gait he always had when he was particularly pleased with the world, chest puffing out and chin rising. It could be seen as pompous, I knew, if one were to glance only at the surface and not the insecure boy just below.

I thought it was sweet when he strutted.

"I have news," we both blurted out at once, Percy with exultation, my voice trembling with uncertainty. He didn't seem to notice my agitation, and beamed at me. I hadn't seen him this ecstatic since his appointment to Fudge's cabinet last year.

"You first, then," I urged with a half-hearted grin, wanting to postpone the moment of truth for as long as possible. Not that I doubted him of course, but...

"I've been promoted, Penny! To Fudge's personal assistant, starting next month." I stopped smiling abruptly, instead worrying my bottom lip between my teeth.

"But, Percy - wasn't Fudge discredited a fortnight ago? I mean, he denied You-Know-Who's return for so long. Do you really think it's wise to ally yourself with him at this point?"

He huffed out a breath, some of his good humour vanishing. "He's still the Minister of Magic, Penelope." I winced at his use of my full name. "And he's admitted to making a mistake last year. Honestly, do you blame him, truly? Why would he take the word of a fourteen-year-old and a former Death Eater?"

"And Dumbledore," I reminded him pointedly. He flushed, looking away.

"Yes, well, he's a good Minister nonetheless. Isn't a man allowed to make a mistake once in his life?" He was looking at the flowers in his hand as he said this, worrying the petals on a yellow flower. A spark of hope ignited in my chest. Did he mean...?

"Percy?" I asked in breathless anticipation. "Percy, are you talking about your family? Maybe you can reconcile with them, now everything's out in the open?"

His face closed off immediately, and I fought the rising wave of disappointment. "No." he said sharply. "They do not understand, and they still work against Minister Fudge, even now that he's made a public statement. And they won't even..." his mouth tightened and he turned slightly toward the door. I realized we were still standing in the entryway to my flat. "I don't wish to discuss this."

I sighed. We'd had a spectacular row about this, once, when the rift between Percy and his family had first occurred. Percy had been adamant that he was doing the right thing, and I had been angry at him for putting his work before family. I knew first-hand how precious and fleeting familial ties could be. We had both been unwilling to compromise, and in the end I had left it, agreeing that we wouldn't speak of it again, for the sake of keeping the peace.

But now, things were different. I couldn't afford to stay silent under the circumstances; still, I decided to give it a bit of time before pushing him again.

"Are those for me?" I asked sweetly, gesturing to the multicoloured bouquet he gripped in his slender fingers.

He gave me a warm look. "And who else would they be for, my breathtaking daffodil?" I giggled at the silly name he had started calling me in our sixth year. Now it was a running joke between us.

"I don't so much as resemble a daffodil, Mr. Weasley, and you know it," I replied haughtily, and extended a hand for the flowers.

When the flowers had been trimmed and put in a vase on the kitchen table, I dropped next to him on the settee, where he was waiting patiently, nervousness attacking my stomach again with a vengeance.

"So?" he questioned with a raised eyebrow and a gentle look. "What's your news, Penny? Something good, I hope."

I laughed, and it was a little too high-pitched. "I think so, yes."

"Well?"

"I - er... well, you see..." I huffed with frustration and stared down at my hands, which were inexplicably gripping each other tightly in my lap.

"Spit it out, Daffy," he joked, but I detected a note of trepidation in his tone. I couldn't look at him.

Now or never.

"I'm pregnant," I blurted in a rush.

The small room rang with silence. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, and I raised my head slowly, dreading what I would find on his beloved face.

He sat still as stone, his face white and stunned, and I wondered if I had looked like that, when I'd been petrified. The moments stretched out between us. I swore I could hear my heart cracking in two. He moved away from me, to the end of the couch, and cleared his throat, once, twice. When he spoke, his voice was a weak shadow of itself, lacking its usual confidence.

"But we - it only happened once."

He made it sound like an accident of sorts, a mistake. And it had been, in a way; neither of us had been ready and our relationship had been somewhat awkward since. I grimaced, although certain I had meant to smile. "You Weasley men are just too virile for your own good, I suppose," I said, my miserable attempt at humour falling to the floor and shattering there.

"Well, I - well." He seemed to come to a decision, and straightened before me, suddenly transforming back into my Percy, his face full of determination. I could have cried with the relief. "I'll pay for the termination procedure, of course, take you to St. Mungo's on the day. Just tell me when."

His voice rang with pompous assurance, and for the first time, I hated it, felt the coldness in his words, and the ice spread through my limbs and penetrated my heart.

No. Oh no.

I gaped at him, every line of my face etched with pain and disbelief, and the dread I had held so close to my chest, that now had mutated into full-blown despair, threatened to bubble up and erupt in a piercing scream. I clamped my lips tightly shut and turned away from him, unable to look into that prissy face a moment longer.

"And what if I were to say that I don't want to terminate?" I asked him evenly.

He huffed out a breath, and I could hear the disbelief and panic in it - I knew him so well. "Penelope! Honestly now, don't be ridiculous. There's a war on, and I have important work to do... and besides, it would be highly improper for someone in my position - "

Swinging from despair to white-hot anger in one hot second, I whirled on him. "Do you mean to tell me, Percy, that if I keep this baby, you won't marry me? That you'll allow your child to grow up a - a bastard?" He flinched at the harsh word, and so did I, inwardly; but I was far too angry to dwell on it.

"Well, I... we hadn't really made any plans, you know... and work - the Ministry takes up so much of my time..."

I stared at him, his shifty eyes skittering across the floor, his defensive posture, and I realized something with sudden clarity. "You never intended to marry me at all," I breathed in discovery. "You've been leading me by the nose this whole time! What kind of a Weasley are you, anyway?!"

This last accusation seemed to cut deepest, and I was viciously glad of it. He deserved it, not only for what he was doing to me, but for the pain he'd caused his family. It was a good thing, I supposed, that things were ending now between us; I'd gotten tired of tiptoeing around that invisible hippogriff in our relationship anyway.

He glared at me, red as his hair. "You see, that's exactly why I could never marry you. You just haven't the right outlook. It was all right when we were young and in love, but Penny" - here I saw a remnant of the earnest boy I'd fallen for - "great things are afoot, and I intend to take part in them. And that's something neither you nor my family understand. You just aren't the right sort of wife for a man like me." This last was said with such stiff pomposity that I wanted to strangle him.

I turned, walked to the kitchen, retrieved the fresh vase of flowers from the table, and upended it calmly on his head. He stared at me like a stunned fish, mouth agape, flowers in his dripping red hair.

"Get out of my home," I said in a voice cold with suppressed venom. "I don't ever want to see you again."

I practically pushed him out the door, slamming it behind him, and then leaned against the cold wood and let the tears come.