A Virtue of Necessity

A Virtue of Necessity

Chapter One - Next of Kin

I groaned from my position on the bathroom floor as a tapping noise echoed through the flat. Oh, lovely, I thought, still reeling from a particularly bad bout of morning sickness. I rose from the cold linoleum, cleaned myself up, and went to the living room to let the owl in.

The roll of creamy parchment was rather thick and official-looking, and I recognized the seal of the Ministry of Magic holding it closed. Frowning slightly, I broke the wax and unrolled the letter, feeling the slightest bit of unease curl in my belly. The letter was penned in an official script.

Dear Miss Clearwater,

As the next of kin on file for one Mister Percy Weasley, Personal Assistant to the Minister of Magic, you are hereby informed that Mister Weasley lost his life in the way of duty this afternoon at 4:35 pm. Please accept our deepest condolences on your loss. Our legal department will be in touch about compensation.

Regards,

Evelyn Squire

Head of Personnel

I stared in shock, the blood draining from my face. I dropped the letter on the carpet, stumbling back awkwardly and hitting the backs of my knees painfully on the coffee table.

Percy. Dead.

My mind refused to wrap around the concept. A burning pain jabbed at the vicinity of my heart, and I let out a cry at the incomprehensible tragedy. The utter irony.

I realized with perfect clarity that even now, three weeks after I had tossed him out of my flat, when he was dead by some unknown calamity, he was breaking my heart again. I loved him just as much as I always had, and it was burning a hole in my chest. Oh Percy, you prat. Why did you have to die? Why couldn't I have gone on hating you from a distance, hearing about your exploits at the Ministry and feeling vindicated in my resentment?

But if he'd had to pay for his sins of abandonment - of which there were many - he had paid them all with his awful death. I couldn't hate a dead man, couldn't even blame him. All I had left of the confused tangle of feelings labelled Percy Weasley was the withered love that had once bloomed like daffodils, and the knowledge that the father of my child was gone forever.

I read the letter again, this time absorbing more than just the one damning phrase. Next of kin. The words jumped out at me like accusations, sharp reminders that I hadn't been anything of the sort, had no call to take the place of those who had the right of such a name. Those I would now have to inform of their prodigal son's death.

Oh, God.

How was I to do that? I took a long, shuddering breath and went to wash my face and change out of my pyjamas. I hadn't got into Ravenclaw by procrastinating when there was work to be done. So I'd gird my loins, and get this awful duty out of the way as soon as I could.

+

I stood in the front yard of the Burrow, a place I had never yet seen but which had taken on mythical proportions in my mind after countless descriptions from Percy. I knew he had missed the Burrow and what it represented fiercely, though he'd never admitted as much to me.

But it was just a house, after all, and a rather dilapidated and homely one at that. Still, it exuded an air of cheery welcome, and I felt somehow reassured by its ordinary appeal. I straightened my shoulders and made my way to the front door, mentally rehearsing a speech I knew I'd never say.

The door opened even before I could reach it, and a very harried looking Molly Weasley poked her head out at me.

"Yes?" she looked older than the last time I had seen her, waving off her children and their friends at Platform 9 ¾, at the beginning of my seventh year. Lines of worry were etched into a thinner face, and she looked run off her feet.

I smiled awkwardly. "My name is Penelope Clearwater," I started.

A loud voice came from somewhere beyond the doorway. "Oi! We aren't home to any of that wanker's friends!"

Mrs. Weasley's smile stiffened a bit, but she made no response to the unseen speaker.

I looked at my hands, but spoke clearly. "I understand why you might feel that way. But I think you'll want to hear me out regardless." My voice broke at the last word, my mouth twisted.

Her eyes narrowed in concern, and she took a closer look at me. She seemed to see for the first time my drawn features, my ravaged face. Her eyes softened, and she put an arm around me, drawing me into the house with her.

The interior of the Burrow was much as I expected; haphazard and homey. The house itself seemed to welcome a guest in like a loving mother. Passing into the house, I saw the unseen commentator to my right - a Weasley twin, I couldn't tell which. He glared at me. I ignored him.

Steered into the living room, I was confronted with a battered clock that had nine painted hands pointing straight up at Mortal Peril. Arthur's was on top, but she imagined Percy's was somewhere in there, never to move again. I wrenched my eyes away with a shiver, finding this Wizarding clock too much for my Muggle-born sensibilities.

Percy's mother sat her down on a squishy couch and hovered with the ease of long habit. "Will you have some tea, dear?" she asked politely.

"I - no, I - thank you, but I'm fine. Actually -" I twisted my hands in my lap and looked into Molly's perceptive brown eyes. "Won't you have a seat?"

Molly's smile disappeared, her expression grown grave with a mother's instinctive dread. She sat swiftly, gripping her skirt tightly. "What is it, Miss Clearwater?"

I looked down, finding it unbearable to look Percy's mother in the face while I - Oh God. "Well, the thing is, Mrs. Weasley -" I exhaled in a rush, then met Molly's eyes. "I haven't seen Percy in three weeks. We, er, we had an argument." Something seemed to catch in my throat, and I was suddenly unable to continue.

"Good on you, Penny!" crowed the twin from the corner. "I hope you gave Bighead Boy what for!" I glared in his direction. He rolled his eyes and turned away.

I returned my attention to Molly, who was giving me a sympathetic look. "What I wanted to tell you was - this morning I received a letter from the Ministry. It was for - next of kin," I said, whispering the last in an attempt to soften the blow. The unnamed twin made a rude sound. I felt awful having to tell Percy's mother that he had listed a stranger - to Molly, at least - as his closest family member. Finding it hard to breathe, I gave in to the inevitable, took the letter from my purse and handed it over, the last of my courage spent.

Molly took it with shaking hands, but I could tell from her expression that she had guessed its contents already.

I watched the strained eyes skim the page, saw the work-aged fingers let go, the paper falling to the carpet, a harsh cry punctuating its descent. Molly's kind face crumpled. Tears came again to my eyes, and I turned away from the awful sight of her grief.

I heard someone walk swiftly to Molly, heard her son doing his best to comfort her with unintelligible whispers - his gasp of shock as he read the letter.

God. I was really starting to hate the Ministry. At least the Muggle government would have sent the message in person - although that might even have been worse. A letter was somehow less demanding, a dumb, uncritical audience at the moment of breakage.

And I had both subjected Molly to my unwelcome presence and brought the damning and damned letter. I felt awful, and trapped. What now? I couldn't exactly leave, after dropping this so abruptly on the Weasleys. But nor could I stay; I felt like an intruder, and had no right to witness this scene or the ones that would inevitably follow.

I finally looked up, not wanting to see their faces but unable to stop myself. The twin glared at me accusingly, and I didn't blame him; I saw in his pale face that he saw me as a physical representation of the bad news. And I hadn't exactly handled my role here with any kind of finesse - it had been awkward at best. Disastrous, if one were to be honest.

I stood so rapidly that it made my stomach tilt and whirl; I put a steadying hand to my abdomen and gulped the rising bile down. Not here; I can't puke up my guts in Percy's mum's living room, I thought with sick panic.

The twin's expression had changed to one of puzzled concern, telling me I had probably turned quite green. Lovely.

"Er..." I started shakily, having no idea how to continue. Excuse me, Mrs. Weasley, but your unborn grandchild has turned me into a puke machine, and can I leave now? I doubted that would go over well. And that reminded me of my so-far suppressed guilt over concealing said grandchild's existence from his own family. Percy certainly hadn't told them.

Molly had raised her head at my eloquent utterance, and now I stared into her grim and weary face. Molly was usually the kind of person whose constant activity caused the observer to forget her age in an orange whirl of energy; but now she sat hunched, shoulders slumped, and I could easily see the woman who had borne and raised seven children, who had just lost her third eldest for the second time. Lost him, this time, beyond all recovery. I wanted to sob myself, because I could see Molly was still incapable of it.

I had never felt so out of place in my life, not even on my first day at Platform 9 ¾ . I wanted to run from the vulnerability in Molly's stricken eyes; the unspoken resentment, the arrested grief.

I couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed my purse from the seat next to me, banging it on my leg as I stood ungracefully, and fumbled it over my shoulder.

I took a couple of steps toward Molly, then faltered. "Mrs. Weasley, I'm - I'm so sorry, for everything. He did love you, even in the end -" I shut my eyes tightly, remembering the pain that would enter his eyes when he talked of his family - "more than he loved me, certainly. I feel awful that you had to find out like this." I stared miserably at my toes, my voice almost a whisper now. "If you'll excuse me."

It was cowardly of me to walk away, but I was too desperate for escape to try to salvage my dignity.

"Miss Clearwater - Penelope." I stopped, hating my instinctive acquiescence to authority. And Molly Weasley's voice carried authority with the natural ease of long habit. "Please stay, Penelope."

I turned.

Molly's eye's were sad and sincere. "We both loved Percy. Love him still. And I'd be honoured to have you stay for dinner."

I cursed my soft heart and suggestible nature, opening my mouth to form the protest that wouldn't quite come. "But -"

"After all," she cut me off with a bittersweet smile, "he chose you."

That shut me up. I followed her into the kitchen.

+

Dinner was deathly quiet; an extremely unusual occurrence in the Weasley household, according to Percy's complaints about life at the Burrow. They sat in bleak silence, avoiding one another's eyes and pushing food listlessly around on their plates. Arthur looked haggard and broken; layered over the grief was another sorrow, a sense that he had lost something essential he'd been waiting for, been robbed of a chance he hadn't known he'd been counting on. Molly was pale and resolute, serving up the massive roast, mashed potatoes, beans and squash with grim determination. She had exhausted herself in the kitchen, cooking as if it would grant Percy eternal salvation. Fred, George, and Ronald were sullen and red-eyed, and Ginny looked simply - devastated. I remembered how she had come to Percy sobbing in her first year after I'd been petrified, grabbing him around the waist and soaking his school robes with her tears. He'd comforted her then, thinking she was homesick.

Bill and Charlie were absent, but I knew they'd soon be receiving the letters Arthur had scribbled and posted to them by express owl. Bill was a stranger to me, but I vaguely remembered Charlie as a red blur on a broom, wowing the crowd at Gryffindor Quidditch matches for my first four years of Hogwarts. Even the Ravenclaws had been impressed by his skill.

I still felt awkward despite Molly's invitation, which Arthur had immediately seconded after hearing the news. I was indecently glad that I hadn't had to witness the telling. Instead I had waited in the kitchen with my fingers clenched in my skirt, watching a dishtowel rooster strut circuits round his terrycloth yard. Until with his red-orange feathers he reminded me sharply of Percy and I had to turn away.

The meal ended as it had begun; painfully. I rose to help Molly with the dishes, but she waved me back down, motioning Ginny and Ron to go with her. The two youngest disappeared into the kitchen after her, presumably for a heart-to-heart with their mother. I was left at the table with Arthur, Fred and George, each of whom seemed to be in their own miserable fog.

I closed my eyes and wished I was home in bed. Abruptly, the small amount of food I'd forced down for politeness' sake revolted violently in my stomach, and I shot to my feet. "Excuse me," I gasped out, and ran from the room, heading for the washroom. I realized when I reached the hallway, however, that I had no idea where the damn thing was. Feeling very green, I fumbled guiltily at each door, heading up the stairs as I discovered only a closet on the first floor. Up the stairs to the first landing, where I pushed into the one door set into the wall - and stopped dead.

It was neat as a pin, no dust to be seen anywhere; it rather looked as if it was waiting for its owner to come back at any moment - that was Molly's heart showing. A line of trophies lined the wall. Academic awards given to one Percy Ignatius Weasley. His Prefect badge from fifth and sixth years; I wondered why he hadn't taken it with him. The room smelled like his sweaters, a mixture of old books and laundry soap.

I suddenly couldn't breathe, couldn't see for the tears clouding my vision. I rushed up the next short flight of stairs, opened the first door I saw and vomited into the basin, thanking God I had found the loo in time.

I put my elbows down on the counter and bent my head over them, sobbing hopelessly. My tears mixed with the bile in the basin, my mouth was sour and my head ached. I twisted the faucet blindly until water ran, rinsing my mouth with shaking hands.

I can't do this. I clenched my right fist in my thick hair, pulling, welcoming the pain. This at least was something I was inflicting on myself, that I didn't have to feel guilty about. My hand loosened, fell to the counter. I was whimpering now, not having the energy even to cry properly, weary down to my bones.

A muttered swear word sounded behind me. I turned, mortified.

And saw the blurred outline of a tall, lanky redhead standing in the doorway. My heart caught in my chest.

I reached out my hand, voice a broken whisper. "Percy."

He flinched. Not Percy, I realized even as I said his name. Ron, who had the same build and seemed to live in a far more dangerous world than the rest of his family. Though ironically, he hadn't been the first one to die.

Shut up, Penelope.

I dropped my useless, reaching arm, feeling like a fool. "Sorry," I muttered as I bent to the sink and concentrated fiercely on washing my face.

"I'm sorry," replied Ron, in a surprisingly deep voice. "I didn't mean to disturb you... I was coming up to write to Harry and Hermione, and I saw... Percy's door was -" he stopped abruptly.

I turned around. He was all elbows and knees, still at the gawky stage Percy had passed out of a couple of years ago. I had last seen him at the Yule Ball during the TriWizard Tournament, awkward in his shabby dress robes and his adolescent yearning for Hermione Granger. Now he had a man's voice, a man's body, but a boy's grief twisted his young face.

I could tell he wanted to leave, was aching to send off letters to his best friends, receive some reassurances. But he hesitated. "Are you all right?"

I put a hand to my stomach, and thought how my distress must be hurting the baby. I needed to be fine. I was fine. I opened my mouth to tell Ron that.

"I'm pregnant," I blurted.