A Virtue of Necessity

A Virtue of Necessity

Chapter 4 - Eulogy

Sunday was quiet. I spent a lot of time walking around Ottery St. Catchpole, finding a basic sort of comfort in the Muggle town. I found a tiny bookshop and went in, a bell jingling merrily over my head as I moved through the doorway. Walking slowly between the teetering shelves of books, I ran my hands along the dusty spines.

I made my way to the small table in the back and sank into the comfortable armchair next to it, remembering the long hours I'd spent in my childhood in a small-town bookshop just like this, discovering worlds of knowledge and adventure in the printed page. There were no house-elves dusting the bookshelves, no twirling, glowing models of the solar system. Only peace, and books, and the proverbial kindly old shopkeeper. I wondered if the Weasleys' noise and clamour had ever disturbed this sanctuary.

Later, sitting in a shady spot near the pond with an ice cream bar I had enjoyed as a child, I contemplated the familiar logo and the comfort of reliving childhood pleasures. The taste brought memories of chasing down the ice cream truck as it passed through with the other kids in the neighbourhood, of skinned knees and summer and running wild from dawn to dusk. Remembering little Penny, I scarcely recognized myself in her. I had become serious, wary, after coming to Hogwarts, though also more confident of my abilities. Falling in love with Percy had made me even less prone to flights of fancy, and all too soon I was a Professional Young Adult. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had an ice cream outdoors, with my bare toes digging into the grass, and the sound of splashing ducks nearby.

Folding up the sticky wrapper and putting it in my purse to toss later, I lay back in the grass and gazed at the sky, remembering the early days with Percy, when he had been earnest and gawky, and I skinny and studious, each of us blindly, breathlessly in love with the other.

I fell asleep there in the sun, dreaming of our first kiss.

-

The next day I went to work and tried to stick to my normal routine, as if nothing had changed. My efforts were rendered useless as soon as I stepped into my cubicle on the first morning.

"Penny!" cried Sarah. "Oh, Penny, I heard about Percy." Her eyes were wide and anguished. "I'm so sorry."

I looked down and swallowed the lump in my throat. "Thanks Sarah," I responded after a moment. She was an oddball, but she was genuine, and I found myself thankful for that. I gave her a small smile. "So. What's the crisis today?"

For once she got the hint, and dropped the subject. I worked all day as I had the previous week, with grim diligence, not stopping for lunch or conversation. There were no major crises, only routine paperwork, so that by the end of the day I had phrases like Please state your reasons for requesting a new Floo connection floating across my vision at regular intervals, and I wanted nothing more than my own soft bed.

Instead I went to Molly's and slept in Charlie's old one.

-

I was coming down the stairs on Tuesday when I heard Molly's voice, shrill and strained, coming from the kitchen.

" - but you must, Charlie! The war is getting serious now, and you know the Romanian government is known for its shady dealings. I worry about you, surrounded by strange dark wizards - "

"There are no dark wizards at the preserve, Mum," came Charlie's voice. "Just my colleagues and dirty great fire-breathing dragons."

His attempt at humour fell flat. "Oh, and how much do you really know about these colleagues of yours? They could be Death Eaters for all you know!"

Charlie's voice was calm. "Mum, even if I were working in England, there'd be just as much of a chance that I'd encounter a Death Eater - more, in fact. You-Know-Who is based here, after all."

There was a sudden bang, as of a hand hitting the table hard. I jumped.

"I just want you home! I want all my babies in the same place, at least. I know I can't take care of you all, but at least I'd see you more often than once a month and know you're still alive - " she broke off, and seemed to sob once, quietly. I clenched my fingers together. Was this pain felt by all mothers? Would I feel this way once my baby was born?

My hand went to my flat stomach, and I crept quietly back up the stairs, the sound of Molly's low sobs following me.

-

That afternoon, I was changing out of my work robes when a tapping sounded at the window. I looked up to see a nondescript brown owl, of the sort the Ministry uses, petitioning for entry. My gut clenched in dread. Slowly, I walked to the window and lifted the glass. Attached to the owl's leg was a lumpy envelope. The owl was long gone by the time I could bring myself to open it. A piece of paper fell out, and a small brown box. To my relief, there was no Ministry letterhead, only a brief letter penned in a neat hand.

Dear Miss Clearwater,

I hope this letter finds you well. The attached package contains all of Percy's personal effects from his office. (The box is one cubic metre when enlarged; simply tap it twice with your wand and stand back.) He told me not two months before his death that if anything should happen to him, I was to pack up his things posthaste and owl them to you. I apologize for the delay. I have no excuse, except I couldn't believe he was gone.

He was a good friend to me. I am terribly sorry for your loss.

Please let me know if I can do anything further to help.

Sincerely,

Malcolm McTavish

P. S. Please don't think too badly of him. He did his best.

I stared, then read it again. And still had no idea what to make of it. The letter was straightforward enough, if abrupt, but what on earth did the man mean by his postscript? And more importantly, if they were such good friends, why had I never heard his name? He told me... if anything should happen to him... I shuddered. Had Percy anticipated his own death? And if so, why?

Hands trembling, I closed the window and sat down on the narrow bed. Something very strange was going on here. Suddenly I recalled the unpleasant man who had approached me at the Ministry. Was he somehow involved? I dropped the letter and shook my head violently. Stop being so melodramatic. There's a war on, everyone's anticipating their deaths. The grief and the hormones were turning me into a paranoid freak. Dismissing the matter from my mind, I put away the letter and the unopened box in my trunk and went downstairs to help Molly with dinner.

-

Wednesday dawned indecently clear and beautiful. I had taken the day off for the funeral, which would be held at ten o'clock, in a small graveyard a short distance from the Burrow, hidden from Muggles in the usual way.

When I opened my eyes, it took only a moment before I felt a sudden weight pressing on my chest, pinning me to the bed. The weight of grief, and the weight of what I was about to do. Bury my Percy, lay him in the ground with my paltry words floating over his insensible head. It was too much - I wished bitterly that I had refused Molly. It would have been wrenching enough to stand quietly beside his family, rigid and silent; to speak about him as he passed to the next world was something I was both unworthy and unwilling to do.

I took deep breaths until the crushing wave of grief had receded somewhat, and forced my self out of bed. Stumbling over to the dresser where I had put the clothes I'd brought from my flat, I took out a black blouse and a long grey skirt I'd set aside for today.

Stripping out of my pyjamas, I pulled on my underthings and then my clothes with clumsy fingers. Taking a deep breath, I brushed my hair in slow, even strokes, focusing all my attention the mechanical task. I raised my eyes to the mirror to see my pale face, gaunt and wide-eyed, pinched and pained and haunted. The sight of my own despair made it emerge sharply from the dull fog I had been keeping myself in. With a sudden cry, I threw the hairbrush against the far wall with a thump, and fell down on my knees, clutching my head. A strange keening noise came from my throat, and hot tears burned my eyes and fell onto my skirt. Darkness seemed to cover me. Percy was gone, and with him my dreams; my baby had no father, and no one to care for him but a frail and cowardly girl; the war was slowly taking everyone with indiscriminate violence; I was alone and the world was falling down around me.

I did not know how much time passed before I returned to my senses. I got up stiffly from my crouch on the ground, uncaring of the ache in my knees, and walked to the door. I took a long, shuddering breath. Solitude suddenly seemed an unbearable prison, and I needed the distraction of others around me. I grasped the doorknob and pulled the door open with a wrench.

A wide-eyed Charlie Weasley stared at me in chagrin.

I froze in horror. Had he heard me, wailing like a lost child? As if I was the only one grieving in this house? I thought of Molly, and felt ashamed. I opened and closed my mouth in silence, aware that my face was red and tear-stained, my hair probably tangled. Finally I said hoarsely, "Good morning," and closed my eyes at how false that was.

"Are you all right?" he asked quietly.

I looked at him. His eyes were dark and shadowed, and his face pale under his freckles. Deep brackets of strain showed around his mouth. I made a helpless fluttering gesture with one hand.

His lips thinned. "Of course not." Looking down, he said, "I meant, can I help you with anything?" It was a futile request, and we both knew it, but there was real kindness in his voice, and so I bit back my initial sharp refusal.

"No, but thank you. I was just... going down." He nodded, gesturing for me to go ahead, but I hung back, lowering my head. So I followed him down the creaky staircase, his broad back filling my vision.

We walked to the graveyard after a silent breakfast, walking in an unsteady train, Molly and Arthur in the front, holding hands. I was at the end, watching the heels of Ginny's shoes swing forward and back. The cemetery itself was small and quiet, with trees all around it. The pale grey headstones glowed in the summer sunlight, and the grass was green and bright from a recent rainfall. My breath hitched at the sight of the closed coffin, a long plain box of polished wood the colour of Percy's wand. I wondered if that was a coincidence. Does the coffin choose the wizard? I thought morbidly, then pushed away the thought with a shudder.

No one had visited us since the publication on Percy's obituary in the Prophet. Harry and Hermione had stayed away, partly out of respect and partly, I suspected, because they couldn't face our grief. I couldn't blame them. I myself was functioning somewhat normally only because of an enforced numbness that didn't allow the pain to enter my mind - except for those sudden onslaughts of emotion that left me gasping - but I too felt awkward and useless in the face of the Weasleys' anguish. There was no comfort with such loss, nothing to say or do that would soften the devastating blow.

Fleur Delacour, Bill's fiancée, had been planning to come and stay for the summer, but those plans had been postponed indefinitely.

But though we were the first ones in the empty graveyard, soon afterward people began arriving: first the Lovegoods, who lived in the town as well; Professor Dumbledore, looking older and grimmer than usual; Rufus Scrimgeour, the Minister himself; Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, moving to flank Ron protectively; Fleur, looking pale and sad and disturbingly lovely; and a few young men about Percy's age that looked vaguely familiar. I gulped and clutched the small piece of paper in my hand. I was to speak in front of all these people?

Suddenly we were standing facing the coffin, and the moment was upon us. Ginny laid her bouquet of white lilies tenderly on the lid, and Arthur cleared his throat.

"Thank you for coming," he said quietly. "We appreciate your support in this time of - great loss to our family." He took a shaky breath, then gestured towards me. "Penelope, if you will."

I stood frozen, staring at the box holding Percy's dead body. The speech I had prepared was gone from my head as if it had never been. I had no idea what to say, no words to express the huge, throbbing knot of grief lodged in my throat.

The silence stretched. I took a shuddering breath and stepped forward, laying my hand on the shiny wood. This was the hardest thing I had ever done; but I had to do it, for the Weasleys standing bereft behind me, who had lost so much of Percy even before his death, and had never truly known him even when they had him. I had to give him back to them, as far as I could.

But I was too much of a coward to look at them while I did it. I slid my wand from my pocket and touched it to my throat with a whispered "Sonorus".

"Percy." I winced at the sound of my own hoarse voice, cleared my throat. "Percy Weasley was a man who was fierce in his loyalty to what he believed in." I felt more than heard his family's disbelief behind me, but ploughed on. "He was also incredibly independent-minded. He wanted to choose his own path, his own mission, and once it was done, it was his forever. He would not budge from his course. This made him stubborn, yes; a family trait, I think we can all agree." I put on a half-smile and turned to face the Weasleys. They looked pale, hollow-eyed... lost. I took a deep breath and continued, "He was unable at times to see how this mislead him. He could be self-righteous. But he was also bright, and shy, and earnest." My voice broke. "He was intelligent, and dignified, and in quiet moments, unexpectedly and terribly sweet. And I loved him. I loved him. I don't regret one single moment of that love." I dropped my head, hiding my face from the miserable weight of eyes upon me. I couldn't see for the tears that had risen with breathtaking swiftness.

Suddenly dizzy, I clutched hard onto the solid weight of wood, my wand in my right hand, Percy's coffin under my left.

Someone with strong arms and red hair hugged me; and then another, and another.

-

I was sitting at my desk at the Ministry a few days later when he approached me again - the dark stranger who had offered his dubious condolences. This time he said nothing at first, only stood imperiously next to my desk, waiting for me to acknowledge him. I signed the paperwork I was completing with exaggerated care, then raised my head to look at him.

"How can I help you?" I asked with a bare minimum of civility, gesturing toward the chair by my desk.

He sneered at me from above; I suspected he enjoyed looking down at people. "It has come to my attention, Miss Clearwater, that there has been an administrative error of sorts. I am sure that a conscientious Ministry worker such as yourself will be pleased to assist in correcting it."

I wanted to roll my eyes at his excessively bureaucratic language. Smiling politely, I responded, "What kind of error are you talking about, Mr... I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

"That is because I never gave it to you," he said curtly. "It appears that the late Percy Weasley's former office has been prematurely cleared, without Ministry approval."

Well. What on earth was this? I pretended to consider his words, then frowned, trying to give an impression of innocent confusion. "Do you mean to say that there are official documents missing? That there was Ministry property removed?"

He looked disgruntled. "No, there was no... official paperwork, per se."

I shrugged. "Well, then, I see no problem. Obviously Percy's personal belongings have been delivered to his family already; standard procedure, I expect. I see no need for Ministry clearance in such a case."

A muscle twitched in his jaw. "It does not matter what you see the need for, Clearwater," he hissed, "and furthermore, as you are the listed next of kin for Weasley, his things would in fact go to you."

"Again, I must ask, what exactly is the problem?"

He clenched his fists, then relaxed them with a visible effort. "The Ministry cannot run efficiently without the proper procedure and documentation. You know this." He gestured at the neatly completed Floo Req. form on my desk. "But Weasley's office has been emptied without any filing of paperwork, no official inspection to speak of!"

I was starting to feel distinctly bullied. He had, once again, approached me when the office was rather deserted, and I was lost as to how to get rid of him. Besides, I was dying of curiosity. What did he want to root through Percy's stuff for? What had been his relationship to Percy? And who the hell was he anyway? I thought hard, then said, "If what you say is true, sir, then I am as much at a loss as you are, for it seems as Percy's next of kin I should have received his belongings, which are apparently gone for good, who knows where." He watched me with his hard black eyes. I couldn't tell if he had bought it or not.

I put a hand to my forehead and closed my eyes with unfeigned weariness. "I'm sorry I can't help you. But really, there's a war on. There are much more important things to worry about."

I stayed that way until I heard his heavy footsteps receding, then laid my head on my desk.

What on earth had Percy been up to?

-

Next Saturday I finally opened the box Malcolm McTavish had sent me. I couldn't put it off forever, and my encounter with the mysterious man had me wondering what on earth was in there to merit such pursuit.

I locked Charlie's bedroom door - I supposed it was my bedroom now, but I couldn't think of it that way - and sat on the floor with the miniaturized box in front of me. Two taps of the wand. I took a deep breath, tapped, and moved back as the tiny cube grew and grew until it was a meter square.

Heart pounding, I moved forward and slit the Spellotape along the top with my wand.

There was a mess of things inside, more than I had expected actually, as Percy had never been the sort to accumulate belongings. There were the expected cartons of papers - not official Ministry documents, of course, but Percy's habitual copious notes documenting everything he did at work. I took those out and set them aside.

There was a battered chess set, a large pile of books with titles like Rising to the Top with Magical Ease, and Annals of the Ministry of Magic. One was called The Burden of Visionary Ambition; I closed my eyes for moment. At the bottom I saw the ragged copy of Prefects Who Gained Power that I had given him for his birthday in sixth year, and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I moved on.

The rest was mostly innocuous: extra parchment; a profusion of quills both old and new, and some even broken and ragged; bottles of ink in various colours; awards of excellence from the Ministry that he had displayed proudly on his office walls; a packet of letters tied up with a beige ribbon, which peaked my interest at first but turned out to be dull messages from the disgraced Fudge; and various other odds and ends one would expect to find in an office.

At the bottom of the box, in one corner, was a lumpy bundle of something. I reached in and picked it up, and when I brought into the light I saw that it was something soft wrapped in brightly coloured Christmas paper. It looked as if someone had abused it; it was torn in spots, and crumpled, but still unopened. I debated with my conscience for a moment, then gave in and unwrapped it, removing the tape carefully as was my habit.

It was clothing, with a note pinned on the front.

Oi Wanker,

We know you're a traitorous bugger, but even we're amazed that you could return this. Mum cried for hours. And on bloody Christmas. You fucker. I guess you really were switched at birth. No way a Weasley could be that much of a rotten bastard to his own family. We don't care what you do with this, but don't return it again, or we'll hunt you down and drive that stick that's up your arse straight up into your defective brain.

F&G

I dropped the note on the floor, feeling nauseous, and unfolded what I already knew would be a Weasley jumper. It was lovely and soft, a golden colour I knew would have looked wonderful on Percy, with a large brown P on the front. I crushed it to my face and sobbed, once, without tears. It smelled like Molly.

Fiercely, I thought, His child is going to love you enough for two grandmothers, Molly. I promise.

It was chilly that night. I wore Percy's jumper to bed.