The Blind Date

The door of Waverly's closed behind them as Percy and Oliver stepped into evening air. Neither of them knew quite what to say. Oliver turned to look at Percy, who was blinking dazedly and shaking his head ever so slightly back and forth. A moment later Percy turned to catch Oliver's eye. They didn't speak for a moment. Suddenly Oliver burst out laughing. Percy grinned and ran his hand awkwardly through his hair.

"Well that was rather awful," Percy ventured.

Oliver chuckled. "I think my favorite part was when the girl at the piano dedicated that lovely rendition of 'I Will Always Love You' to us."

Percy shuddered. "My eardrums will never be the same."

"But Percy, it is our song, after all." Oliver grinned.

"Damn Fred and George for telling them that."

"Oh, I don't know, I thought she did a rather good job- and IIIIIIIIII-ee-IIII..." Oliver's voice carried loudly, sounding, if possible, even worse than the piano girl from the restaurant. "Will always luuuvvv youu..."

"Oliver!" Percy hissed at him, looking around with a scandalized expression.

"What?" Oliver turned to Percy, a hand still pressed dramatically to his heart.

"I-" Percy stopped. "I think you might've had one too many butterbeers," he finished primly.

"And you, my friend, have not had enough." They were walking now, down the street.

"I don't like drinking," said Percy.

"I remember." A comfortable silence settled as they strolled along.

A sudden thought occurred to Percy. He stopped. "So we really are...friends, then?" he asked hesitantly, glancing toward Oliver and then to his feet. "I mean, you just said-"

"After surviving an evening like that? Yeah, I'd say so."

"Okay then," Percy said. He looked up from his shoes and Oliver caught an almost-controlled expression of something- relief?-in his eyes. Hmm. They stood watching each other for a moment, before Percy broke away. "Well, I suppose I ought to be going- I mean I do have a lot to do tomorrow, you know. Reports. What have you. Um...right." Percy pulled out his wand as though to apparate.

"Wait!"

Percy froze, his chest tightening.

"Besides the fact that tomorrow's Saturday and I know you don't have to go into work," Oliver said with a knowing smile (Percy blushed), "I've heard of this great new coffee shop that just opened in Diagon Alley near Flourish and Blotts. I've been meaning to go for a while."

"Oh?"

"So maybe we could get together there sometime- really catch up, without the distraction of, you know, celebrating our anniversary."

"Oh. Yes. Certainly." Percy nodded.

"How about Monday? Around 12:00?"

"I think I'm free then."

"Right."

Silence. Percy seemed to be searching for something to say.

"Well. Good evening then, Oliver."

Percy stuck out his hand as though he was concluding a business meeting.

"Oh- goodnight, Percy." The corner of Oliver's mouth twitched as he shook Percy's hand.

And with that, they both apparated away.

*~*~*~*

Percy appeared in the main room of his small flat an instant later. He stared thoughtfully at his surroundings for a moment before setting his wand down in its place on the coffee table.

Percy loved his flat.

He loved the muted beige paint on the walls. He loved the slightly shabby, but tasteful furniture that he had bought himself. He loved the fact that he lived in a place that was entirely his own. And if it was almost appallingly quiet sometimes, at least his flat was free from the dirty clothes and random explosions that were so common at the Burrow. He liked the solitude.

"So!"

Percy jumped. He spun around.

"My, my, Percy, home at 10:30 on a Friday. Isn't it past your bedtime?"

"What are you two doing here?" Percy glared at Fred and George. "And how the devil did you get in?"

Fred and George made their way past Percy into the kitchenette instead of answering him.

"You have any food around here?" George began rifling through his carefully arranged cabinets while Fred turned and stretched himself out on the sofa.

"I- stop that! In fact, you both can leave right now!"

"Ooh, Fig Newtons." George, foraging completed, went over to the sofa. He elbowed Fred over, put his feet up on the coffee table, and shoved three cookies in his mouth at once.

"Oh, don't be in such a snit, Perce. Didn't your date go well?" Fred's questioning glance was far too innocent to be believed.

"Oh, shut up. You know perfectly well what happened."

George finished chewing and swallowed heavily. "Actually we missed what happened after the cake-"

"Ah, the cake."

"One of your more brilliant ideas, Fred, if I do say so myself."

"You may." Fred inclined his head graciously toward his brother.

"I'm going to throttle the pair of you." Percy's voice was calmly murderous.

"Oh you wouldn't do that to your favorite brothers, now would you?" Fred looked wounded once again.

"Really Percy, that's not very nice."

"Yes, you know how sensitive George is."

"And after all the work we did to make his date go well," George said, turning to his brother.

"By the way, did it go well?" As Fred and George stared at Percy expectantly, their brother began to look less murderous and more uncomfortable. "Well, how did it go?" Fred prompted. George devoured another three Fig Newtons in one go, still staring.

"Um..."

"It went 'um'. You know, Percy, sometimes I forget the sheer power of you eloquence. 'Um'. Very impressive."

"Aww, Fred, look!" George said, spitting a few crumbs out as he talked. "He's blushing! Isn't that sweet?"

"It went fine!" Percy blurted out finally.

Fred and George shared a grin.

"Really?"

"How far did you get?"

"I bet that mint stuff came in handy didn't it, Perce?"

"Hey hey!" Fred elbowed George.

"No- that's not what I- look, we're just friends."

"What?" Fred looked disappointed for just an instant.

"We're just friends," Percy repeated slowly. He couldn't quite bring himself to meet their eyes as he said it.

George looked at Percy skeptically. "Sure, Perce. And that's why you're blushing even more."

"I'm not- you're getting crumbs on the couch," Percy snapped.

"Fine, big brother, don't tell us." Fred stood up and raised his hands in mock defeat.

"If that's how you want to be." George stood up too. "Only remember- we have ways of finding out the truth." There was something in George's truly wicked smile that made Percy's stomach drop with an ominous, cold feeling. Oh no.

"Wait. Wait- what are you going to-"

But they had already disappeared.

*~*~*~*

On 12:10on a Monday, Grizzelda's MuggleCoffee Shop seemed to be entirely populated by wizards and witches in professional robes. Percy, for his part, blended in perfectly (though he did look a little more uptight than most). Oliver, for his, had not arrived.

Grizzelda'shad opened a few weeks ago to booming business. The entire operation was based on the novelty of a wizard coffee shop run entirely the Muggleway- with Muggle drinks, Mugglefurniture, even a Muggle telephone. The coffee and pastries were prepared without any magic at all. Percy had heard all about it from his father, of course, who had been in ten times the opening week.

"Sorry I'm late, Percy!" A blur or blue and gold robes landed in the seat opposite Percy with a thunk. "I had an early morning practice session- it ran a little longer than I thought it would. Didn't even have time to change." Oliver took a deep breath and settled into his chair. "Have you been waiting long?"

"Oh, no, not really."

"Hmm. I bet it's been ten minutes."

"How did you know?"

"Because it's 12:10 now, and for some reason you strike me as a punctual sort."

"Really.Whatever gave you that idea?" Percy asked dryly. Oliver quirked a smile at him.

"I don't know. Intuition.Or maybe it was the fact that I roomed with you for seven years, every day of which you woke up precisely at 7:00 a.m."

"Oh." Percy didn't know what to say to that, so he settled for looking around the coffee shop. He caught a flash of red hair in the corner by the window and tensed.

It couldn't be.

Not again.

The person turned.

"Thank Merlin," Percy whispered with a sigh.

The red hair belonged to a forty year old man whom Percy had never seen before, with a perfectly benign (as opposed to evil) expression on his face.

"What are you looking at?"

"Oh- I just can't shake the suspicion that Fred and George might be lurking around here."

"Your brothers are definitely a piece of work," Oliver said with a smile.

"Don't I know it."

"I bet you told them off properly for Friday."

"I attempted to but they got away before I had the chance." Percy looked decidedly disgruntled at this.

Oliver chuckled suddenly. "Remember back in sixth year when they turned Filch's office into an aquarium when he was sick and charged people to go swimming in it? You must have been blue in the face when you finished yelling at them."

"Well, it was a ghastly thing to do. Mrs. Norris was never the same again." Oliver looked thoughtfully at the expression on Percy's face.

"You know, I have a sneaking suspicion that- underneath your upstanding exterior- you actually thought that it was funny." Oliver leaned forward across the table.

"Hardly."

"Not even a little?"

"No!"

"Really?"

"Yes, really!As a prefect it was-"

"You're smiling, Percy,"

"I am not." But he was.

*~*~*~*

About an hour later Percy and Oliver had gone through two cups of Muggle coffee each.

"...lately the smuggling from the Floo network has reached an all time high. Highest in fifty years, actually. We're getting flying carpets and other enchanted Muggle objects flooding the black market from the International Floo Network, not to mention the dark arts products..."

All Oliver had asked was, "How's work going?" and Percy had taken off. He was now talking animatedly about his latest project, eyes lit up, hands gesturing excitedly.

"So my department is working on tightening trade restrictions and developing and implementing a better monitoring system on the network. That- Oh. I've been running on, haven't I?" Percy said with a sheepish smile.

"No. No- that's really interesting," said Oliver. And for some reason, coming from Percy of all people, it actually was. "I never realized that it was such a big problem."

"Yeah, well not doing anything about it just creates more problems for the Ministry, especially Dad's department."

"I see. Well it sounds like you're working really hard."

Percy shrugged. "Not really."

"Why do I get the feeling that 'Not really' means you've been pulling ten hour days?" Oliver asked in mock puzzlement.

"I haven't been working ten hours a day. At least not everyday." Percy took a sip of his coffee. "Sometimes it's more," he muttered into his cup, avoiding Oliver's amused glare.

"Percy, when was the last time you had a holiday?"

"Erm." Oliver had a feeling 'erm' meant "since never'.

"You know what? You need a day- just one day- when you don't have to think about work or anything and just enjoy yourself."

"I do?" Judging by Percy's expression, the concept seemed almost foreign to him.

"Yeah. Are you doing anything this Saturday?"

To Oliver's surprise, Percy pulled out a leather date book from his robes and flipped to Saturday. "Ah. Well, I'd planned on reorganizing my files, actually."

Oliver put on an I-cant-believe-I'm-being-blown-off-for-file-folders expression.

Percy sighed. "But, I suppose I could move that to...Tuesday maybe?" He pulled put a quill and was soon engrossed fixing his schedule.

"Well then, you and I are going to spend all day Saturday doing fun stuff," Oliver said with an excited smile.

"Are we?" Percy asked, glancing up from his date book. "Hold on a second. Now if I move that there, I'll have to do the preliminary research..." After a few moments of this, Percy finished, closing his date book with a satisfied nod. "There."

"Great! It'll be a crack. I promise." Oliver grinned. He knew just the thing to help Percy loosen up a bit.

"Well, I don't know..." Percy now looked slightly suspicious.

"Come on, anyone can see you're overworked. You need to relax."

"What exactly do you have in mind, anyway?"

"It's a surprise. Besides, you can't back out now, you already re-arranged your schedule for it." That had him. Percy frowned at his date book.

"Oh, all right," Percy sighed. "I don't know why I let-."

"Just send me an owl with directions to your flat sometime this week."

"Okay."

"Oh, do you have the time? I have an afternoon training session at 2:00." Percy looked down at his wristwatch. His eyes widened in horror.

"Oh no!"

"What is it?"

"I should have been back from my lunch break fifteen minutes ago! I completely lost track of the time. Oh dear, they're going to sack me or something." Oliver would have laughed but he could see that Percy was genuinely dismayed. Percy stood up and reached for his wand. "I've got to go, but I'll send you that owl later. Goodbye, Oliver."

"Bye Percy."

*~*~*~*

And somewhere, just a few crooked blocks down the street from Grizzelda's, in number ninety-three Diagon Alley, a joke shop with bright, garish paint and a sign on the electric blue door that said "Closed- back in fifteen minutes", in the back room, by the box of canary creams, Fred and George Weasley got an idea. Fred and George got a wonderful, awful idea.