{if you came for the latest pairing, please proceed to the last chapter}
Percy and Penelope.
The Limitations of Pepperup Potion.
Penelope surveyed a charmingly decorated Diagon Alley apartment, and suddenly felt the thrum of nausea go through her. A hand placed on her forehead revealed only a slight increase in temperature, nothing out of the ordinary. Her boss at Flourish and Blotts had sent her a tersely worded owl to "take some Pepper-Up Potion and come back to work." The only problem was that she had been taking Pepper-Up Potion. Through the weekend. It had started with the flu, she was sure of it, chills, fever, body-aches, nausea. She'd come home Friday with the worst of it and Percy had carefully brewed her Pepper-Up Potion frowning over a worn copy of their sixth-year Potions textbook.
The thought of ingesting anymore of the stuff was making her more nauseous. Her mother had seen fit to inform her that the flu was not the only little winter visitor she could be entertaining. That message had included a thorough talking-to about "that Weasley fellow".
"And how long has it been dear?"
"Mother."
"Ten years?"
"There was a war!"
"Wars happen," Mrs. Clearwater replied nonchalantly, "weddings apparently, do not." At this point, Penelope had closed the bathroom door and had a whispery argument with her mother. Percy was already wary enough around her family, the Clearwater name was synonymous with wealth and Penelope knew that he was still self-conscious about his humbler upbringing. She tried to keep their meetings in neutral places, at the apartment or in London, far away from their ancestral manor in the countryside.
In the end, she'd gone to the little muggle store outside The Leaky Cauldron and found the aisle with small, flimsy, rectangular cardboard boxes. For whatever reason, they were all pastel pinks and blues. There was definitely a spell for this she was sure, but her co-workers were nosy, if she so much as wandered into that section of the homespells and remedies she'd be interrogated and probably subjected to a well-meaning but equally nauseating round of well-wishes.
They hadn't talked about this yet, she could feel the nerves bunching up inside her chest. "It's better to know," she told herself, "we'll figure it out, one way or the other."
The clerk had barely looked up while he rang her up, she was proficient with muggle money so the exchange took less than a minute. Then she was out in the cold, plastic bag tucked quickly away into her coat, through the Leaky Cauldron, up the street, up the stairs. Safe, back in the apartment she shared with Percy, no one in their world the wiser. Penelope knew she should tell her friends, but she didn't know how. The ones with children? It seemed presumptive. The ones without? Pointless. Some of them knew about her mother's Victorian-era timetable.
She shook her head, once she knew the results she would call up the courage, she needed data, facts. Steeling herself she followed the directions to the letter. Now to wait. This would all be fine, all fi—
She heard an odd thumping on the staircase and a muffled curse in the hallway, she flew off the toilet seat, bundled the test in toilet paper and threw it in the wastebasket. She fled the bathroom like it was a crime scene. The door to the apartment opened and Penny was surprised to see Percy home in the middle of the day.
"Penny!" he was surprised to see her up, when he'd left she'd been miserable, "is everything okay?" He was struggling with something, "I bungled the locomotor charm." He finally hauled something large and bulky into the apartment. The weirdest sensation came over Penelope, the package as it faced her was rounded and for a second she was convinced it was a pram.
She felt her heart stop and didn't hear Percy's explanation.
Percy saw her eyes go hazy, "Are you alright? Maybe you should sit down." He guided her to a sofa.
"I was worried you see, that the potion was the wrong color, it was a few shades off what I remember my mother making."
The words flitted past her until she caught the drift, "It's a cauldron?" she asked faintly.
He ripped the packaging off and revealed a top of the line thick-bottomed cauldron, "I knew my old one was second-hand but I read up on it and some of the less pricey models are made with flimsier materials. I always suspected there was another reason I got and E in Potions instead of an O."
"Aside from Snape hating your family?" the unsettling feeling was not going away, in fact she was starting to feel the prick of tears in her eyelids, it had to be true, Penelope was convinced there would be two lines on the little stick hidden in the wastebasket. She felt horror flood through her, this was not how she wanted him to find out. She needed get away, compose herself.
Percy saw the change come over his girlfriend, "Penny what's wrong?"
She fled to the bedroom throwing the door closed behind her and bursting into sobs.
"Penny?" Percy's voice was truly worried now.
"YOU BOUGHT A CAULDRON!" it was the first thing that popped into her head.
Ooo
It was nearing 2AM when she finally ventured out of the room. She found Percy asleep on the couch. Their screaming match through the door of bedroom had left her feeling hoarse and miserable. She went into their little kitchen and saw a mug resting on the countertop, it held a fresh, still steaming dose of Pepperup Potion. Surprisingly the wafting fumes did not call-up waves of nausea.
She sipped it and felt the instant relaxation of her exhausted stomach and the comforting blast of warmth pour through her chest. There was a note on the counter.
Sorry Penny, please don't be mad, the old batch got ruined by the old cauldron. I was so worried about you still being sick. Of course, this cauldron is ours, the single serving cauldrons aren't very economical.
She felt a helpless bubble of laughter in her chest and looked in the corner of the kitchen. A gleaming black medium sized cauldron sat contentedly in the hearth. And now she knew. Almost carelessly she set down the mug and tiptoed back to the bathroom.
The pregnancy test was still in the wastebasket, Percy probably wouldn't have even known what it was, she mused. She unwrapped it and sat on the edge of the tub carefully interpreting a negative single line.
A soft sigh escaped her.
Ooo
Percy woke in the morning to find the couch he'd been sleeping on Transfigured slightly longer and a blanket tucked around his shoulders.
O.o
What is Behind the Scenes?
I'm writing a slightly longer fic about Cho and Draco and all these extra scenes don't fit into it, unfortunately, but I've still imagined them all, and they all want their time in the sun…pairings for this one will change to reflect the characters on the brain.