Not Just a Normal Day at the Office

Clare stretched out on her white leather sofa. She had fought her boss hard enough to get it; so she may as well enjoy it. As a psychiatrist, she saw a lot of woe and worries, as well as craziness, and needed some rest and relaxation between appointments as often as she could.

This was one of those days when she needed to use her free time wisely to relax and clear her mind, and that was what she was trying to do. She had just gotten through a teenager with a hectic and uncaring home and was going to get a new patient as soon as her secretary announced his coming. She stared up at her light blue ceiling, then shifted her eyes to the pastel green walls, and thanked her lucky stars that she had such a calm and mellow room. She was startled out of her daze by the company line ringing. She swung her legs over the side of the couch and picked up her phone.

“Clare here.” She was still in a bit of a daze, but slowly her senses were coming back.

“Miss Kot—” Clare recognized this voice immediately.

“Clare, Meg, Clare. How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t like being called Ms. anything. It makes me feel so old.”

“Sorry Clare,” Clare could almost see the girl’s apologetic smile. “You new patient is here, I have him signed up for one preliminary examination, and he’s ready to come up if you’re ready for him.”

Clare rolled her eyes good-naturedly at the standard textbook answer. “Sure; send him up.”

“Will do.” Clare heard the click at the other end of the line and hung up her phone. She sat in the chair behind her desk and waited for the knock on her door. In a few minutes, the knock came.

“Come in.” The door opened and Clare was quite literally stunned. In front of her, was a tall balding man, and the hair that he still had was quite red. Clare mentally kicked herself. You are way too obsessed with those books, she silently admonished herself.

He approached her desk swiftly. “Hello,” he said pleasantly, “my name is Arthur Weasley.” He held out his hand, and she obligingly shook it. This doesn’t mean anything. Tons of people could be named Arthur Weasley; they can even change their name to that. This wouldn’t even be an issue if I wasn’t so obsessed with Harry Potter.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Weasley.”

“Please — call me Arthur.”

“Sure,” she said with a kind smile, the one that had helped her get her job. “My name is Clare Kot and I’m the psychiatrist. Call me anything you feel comfortable with. I won’t mind. Today, we’re just going to talk. We’ll try to figure out your problem and decide if you need further treatment.”

“Alright — Clare.” Arthur seemed exceedingly nervous.

“Sit down wherever you like,” she said, gesturing around the office. Arthur sat down gingerly on the couch and looked at Clare. She took out a clipboard and pen and sat down on an office chair. She wrote Arthur Weasley on the top of the page and underlined it. Feeling his gaze, Clare looked up and slid across from him.

“Um …” He seemed nervous and Clare could almost feel what was coming. “Don’t think me crazy, but …” Oh no, whenever they said that there usually was some craziness in their case. Clare ignored this and nodded at Arthur, expecting more. “I’m a … wizard.” Way too much HP, now I’m hearing things.

“Excuse me?” She said patiently.

“I’m a wizard.” She knew she had heard him correctly this time. Ah well, one more for the loony bin. She moved to write something on the clipboard.

“Ah,” Clare said quietly.

“No, really! I can prove it!” Now he seemed frantic.

“Please do.” What was this guy going to do? Pull a rabbit out of a hat?

He pulled out a stick of wood, quite different from the usual ones she had seen from magic shops. He made a swish and flick motion and muttered “Wingardium Leviosa.” Next thing she knew, the clipboard was rising out of her hands. She slackened her hold on it and it floated out of her hands. This was definitely new. Her eyes widened and watched the progress of the clipboard. Artur flicked his wand again and the clipboard was back in his hands. Now Clare was staring at him and inspecting the clipboard suspiciously. “Lumos,” Arthur said and the wand lit up. “Nox,” now the light was extinguished. “Avis,” was said and a couple of birds flew out of the wand and out of the open window. Arthur looked at Clare again.

Clare was speechless, for once in her life, she had witnessed something truly amazing. “You are. You’re a wizard.” But what happened to that vow of secrecy? They aren’t supposed to tell anyone something like that. Arthur sadly nodded, probably expecting some sort of hostility. “But then … why are you going to a psychiatrist who can’t do magic? Wouldn’t it be easier with one who could?” Clare was honestly confused over all this.

“Muggles – people who can’t do magic, like you – are called Muggles. Why aren’t I going to a wizard with this but a Muggle?” You have got to be kidding me. Clare nodded, expectantly. “Simply because there are no … psychiatrists – is that what you call them? – who are wizards. We don’t think we need anyone like that so we don’t have any people like that.”

“Hmm,” Clare was really thinking on this whole situation. “Still, wouldn’t it be easier to go to a wizard friend?”

“No. My family all know the situation but I don’t think they could be any help; they wouldn’t be looking at it the same way as I do. But others would think I was crazy because of the cause. So, a Muggle with the right information would be best way.”

“Okay,” Clare muttered, adamant to get to the bottom of all this. She got up and poured herself a glass of cold water and downed it quickly and re-filled the glass. She sat back down in her chair. “Would you mind explaining about this world of yours? Just what I have to know?”

“Sure,” he smiled, and so he did. He explained a world suspiciously like the Harry Potter world without specific names being mentioned. This is impossible. Actually, it is. Even if it was the Harry Potter world they can’t go and tell Muggles about this. But then how do you explain the magic, for lack of a better word?

“Wow,” Clare gasped at the end of his account of the Wizarding world. “So…. What seems to be the problem?”

“It’s my son, Percy.” This doesn’t make any sense at all..

“Arthur, why don’t you tell me about the rest of your family first, and then skip to Percy?”

“Sure. My wife, Molly, is very formidable. She’s a nice woman but she’s a like a dragon with her hair and temper. — My whole family has red hair,” he clarified.

“I have two oldest sons, Bill and Charlie. Bill worked at Gringotts, the bank, as a curse breaker—”

“You don’t have to explain; I think I can guess.” Actually, I’m pretty sure I know.

Arthur nodded. “Now he has a desk job to help out in the war more. Charlie is a bit younger than him and he works in Romania with dragons. They were both good kids, always. Bill got good grades and became prefect, then head boy. Charlie was prefect and Quidditch captain — it’s a sport. I never had any real problems with them.

“Then after them, is Percy, and then my twins: Fred and George. They’re very big pranksters. They make all sorts of tricks and strange candies. You don’t want to trust them too much. My wife yelled at them more than once. They were at their last year of school but they dropped out very recently. Molly was not very happy to see them so early. They started a joke shop just recently, they’re doing very well. Molly is proud of how they’re doing, even if she isn’t all that pleased at how they’re doing it.

“I have yet another son after all of them. He’s going to start his sixth year at school. He’s friends with the boy that I mentioned. Maybe he’s not the best student but he’s a prefect and a good kid. You can easily be proud of him.”

“Wow! That’s a lot of sons.” Clare had a feeling this wasn’t all.

“That’s not it. I still have a daughter. She was the first female born into the family for quite some time. Her name’s Ginny. She gets good grades, and is a very sweet girl overall.”

“Virginia?” She questioned.

“No, Ginerva,” he answered; she groaned inwardly (this is what she had been afraid of) and gave a shudder at the name.

Arthur laughed softly, “That’s what she thinks.”

Clare gave a small smile to Arthur. “I can see why. Tell me about Percy. Not the conflict between the two of you, but about him.”

“I’m not sure where to start….”

“Try beginning; that’s usually the best place to start.” This is usually was one of her sarcastic responses but this time she was being patient and kind, as her job called her to be.

“Molly’s pregnancy with him was far from smooth. She was very uptight and vicious those nine months. That’s actually how we first suspected she was pregnant. Little Bill and Charlie suffered a lot through that year; any little thing they did, she just exploded. I’m not sure who was the most relieved when her time finally came.

Molly let me name him. She had named Bill and Charlie but she let me name him.”

“You didn’t much naming, now did you?”

“No, I only named Percy, Ron and Ginny. You notice that my name starts with A, then Bill’s name starts with B, the Charlie is C.”

Clare was actually confused by this; she had noticed it but it didn’t make sense. “Isn’t Bill’s full name William?”

“Actually, no, it’s Bilius.”

“I feel sorry for the kid; that’s such a strange name. Sorry — keep going.”

“So the names go in alphabetical order, or would have gone. I know that Molly had planned Percy to be David but I couldn’t help myself. Then the pattern was disrupted, so we just named the rest of them differently.” Arthur looked sheepish at this little confession.

“Is there any specific reason for his name being as it is? A book, perhaps?” Clare was now suspicious of Arthur.

“Yes. Muggles have a King Arthur and his knights of the round table that I’m particularly fond of, because of my name. One of the knights is a Sir Percival and I’ve always liked that guy so … I named Percy after him.

“Percy’s middle name is a little less specific. It’s Ignatius; I just thought it would fit him.

“Percy was always very strict and stuck to the rules. He didn’t hold with nonsense and other abstract things. He got good grades, never got into any kind of trouble. First he became prefect, then head boy and we were so proud of him....” Arthur drifted off helplessly.

“He sounds like a good kid.” Clare didn’t want to push Arthur too much.

“He was but …”

“But?”

“He changed.”

“Why don’t you tell me the problem?” Not that I really need telling the problem, but it would be interesting to see it from his point of view.

“After school ended, Percy got a job as an assistant to a man in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He loved the job and worshipped the guy even though he was being treated like dirt and was being used. Then, it turned out that the guy was being impersonated by someone. Percy was blamed for it; that he should have recognized that it wasn’t the real guy. Percy suffered at work.” Well, reading the books I have sympathized with him, but now this is getting out of hand. Although, I already did have some ideas on this issue… Clare took her cue.

“Well, you have to look at it from his point of view. A person who he practically worships finally notices him and offers him a job. He was, of course, going to jump at the opportunity. And who wouldn’t? The guy may not know his name and treat him like dirt but he doesn’t really care. This is a chance he could have never expected, however minor it was. Then something happens and in his blithe state, he doesn’t notice it. Not he’s being blamed for it. Wouldn’t you be at least a little brokenhearted if the happened to you?”

“I can understand that situation, but that isn’t the problem.”

“So what is the problem?”

“The ministry have never been very fond of me. They say I’m crazy because of my side in the war and they wanted to prove my side’s leader crazy as well because they don’t believe a big that we do. So the Ministry wants to keep away from me and now they’re convinced that Percy made a huge mistake. We didn’t really expect him to even be able to stay in the ministry. Then, we all got a big surprise. Percy was promoted to junior assistant to the Minster. He came home one night and told us that he had been promoted. I think he expected us to be proud of him.”

I have to pretend that I don’t know anything about this. “And you weren’t?”

“The point isn’t that he got the job; it was why. I know it was to get information about our side and to break us apart from the inside and to a degree, it worked. I told him that.” Arthur paused and became a little quieter. “That was the one time I argued with any of my kids. He didn’t take it too well and sided with the Ministry. He even threw my … err … financial situation into my face. Soon after that he moved out; he avoids me at work and he even walked out of my family picture.”

Clare had a strange expression on her face. In truth, it was a combination of sadness and amusement, quite a strange thing. Arthur took it for confusion about his comment on the picture, and opened his mouth to explain, but Clare stopped him, holding up her hands.

“Don’t bother explaining — I don’t think I want to know.” Actually I already know, but that’s not the issue here. I just want to cut this short, really.

“Well, recently the bad guy that my side is against made an appearance at the ministry. Quite a few people saw him, including the Minister, so it’s no longer an issue of whether he’s back or not.

“After so much time of ignoring each other and pretending the other doesn’t exist it’s going to be hard to get back to on normal family terms, even speaking terms; he’s not the kind of person who likes being proven wrong. So, I came to you for some help on all of this.”

“Well, let’s start on why he could have sided against you.” Arthur nodded. “What was the proof that the guy came back?”

Arthur hesitated. “Well — there wasn’t much proof. The only proof was the word of the guy who saw him come back, passed around by gossipers and other, not so trustworthy people.”

“So, you’re telling me that everyone was supposed to believe this just because a teen said so and his teachers believed him.”

“Well … yes. But he went through a lot and saw him more than once and the Headmaster is a respectable person.”

“It sounded as if he was being made a fool.”

“Yes, but that was only because people didn’t want to believe him.”

“There you go; you answered your own question.” Arthur gave a bewildered expression. “Percy didn’t believe you because he didn’t want it to be true. Another factor was that the majority of people, including those that he worked for didn’t believe it.”

“Nobody wants it to be true, but Percy had believed the rest of the happenings involving him, why wouldn’t he believe me?” Arthur wanted answers and he was in no hurry to leave.

“Well … this is the part where it’s good that you came to a … er … Muggle for help.”

“How is that?”

“You’ll understand in a second.” You’ll never really understand, but I’m not a psychiatrist for nothing. “You can see that we have to get by without magic. We have alternatives to waving a wand that are so great that sometimes, technology works better than magic ever could. We grow up knowing about things like telephones and reading stories about magic. You grow up with brooms and cauldrons. The majority of us believe that magic and other supernatural things are just plain impossible. We look at the Salem Witch Trials and thing about how crazy they were to believe in magic. We look for possibilities of the supernatural but we just find them impossibilities. We thing those that say they saw fairies and aliens are crazy but are interested in it nonetheless. We need to see it to believe it. And for us, that’s the best thing.

“You grow up with flying brooms, cauldrons and all other types of magic. You grow up knowing about things like dragons and seeing all sorts of strange stuff. You probably all see strange things that you never thought possible but are forced to believe. You can’t be too critical of what you see.

“So Percy has a very Muggle attitude. He doesn’t believe it unless he sees it. That sounds likely based on what you told me about him.” And his very logical, no nonsense attitude, which he seems to have. “The other people who don’t believe you purely don’t want to believe it and are going back to Muggle instincts. It’s actually a very likely attitude in the face of a war.”

Arthur was quite shocked at this. “Well yes – that makes a lot of sense. Yes, I do think you’ve explained this to me and made it a lot clearer. But still — what about Percy?”

“Now, Percy will be forced to believe that you and the rest had been telling the truth from the beginning. However, that still doesn’t promise anything. It will probably take your son a bit to come to terms with the war and the situation. That will probably get him to help you and your side gather followers and so on. You said that he doesn’t like being proven wrong, so he’ll take time in getting back in touch with you. He’ll probably start by acknowledging you and speaking to you, then, gradually, he’ll get back in touch with the whole family.” Clare concluded her assessment of the situation on a happy note.

Arthur brightened up. “You really think so?”

“That I do.” Or, he could turn totally against you and side with old Voldie.

Arthur jumped up and seized Clare’s hand. “Thank you! Thank you, so much!” And with that, Arthur rushed out of the room, leaving Clare staring at where he had been sitting.

She stood up shakily and drank some more water. “Well,” she muttered, and went back to her desk and put the clipboard away. “That was something.” She lay down on her couch and stared at the blue, sky-like, ceiling that she so loved. That was a surprise. I would have never actually expected my stupid obsession to get me anything other than a problem. Then she came back to her senses. She remembered that her next patient was convinced that she was a dog. No, that was the craziness. The guy was nothing more than a Harry Potter junkie who liked Arthur so much that he was convinced that he was Arthur. He was convinced of that and he had a problem with how Percy acted. That was all. I think I see more and more craziness everyday. I just need to forget about this. She just didn’t know how right she was. And with that last conscious thought, Clare took a well deserved nap to clear her mind before her next patient came.

After a few minutes of watching Clare, when Artur was sure that she was asleep, he came back into the room. Very quietly as to not wake her, he walked over to her desk. He found the clipboard, and erased it with a quick spell. He then walked over to her and with a bit of regret, muttered “Obliviate,” and apparated back to Grimmuald Place.