I

When she comes back – comes home – from Azkaban, Penelope is unbelievably thin.

She's skeletal. Emaciated. Gaunt. All the former inmates look like that, but it still shakes Percy to the core when he sees her in the hospital after all the prisoners are liberated. He takes her to her parent's place out in Clapham once she gets released, and her parents cry and her brother laughs and her brother's wife goes into labor. They trek to the hospital in a large group, spinster aunts and distant cousins practically crawling out of the woodwork to meet them there, but Penelope stays behind and Percy stays with her. He makes her some soup and they wind up falling asleep on her childhood bed before anyone realizes that they're not with them. He cries into her hair as she sleeps, thinking of Fred and his family and the fact that he could not help her at all while the government he trusted locked her away, but when she wakes up she smiles at him and it feels like everything will be alright, if only for a little while.

And Penelope seems happy enough. She sits with her family, her brother's newborn daughter held up to her bony shoulder, smiling with her mouth but not with her eyes. She laughs at the programs on the Wireless until the laughter turns into horrible, racking coughs. She eats all of her favorite foods, but carefully – too much too quickly and she gets sick. She sings as she helps Percy clean his apartment, but she doesn't dance anymore – she tires too easily. She has trouble remembering parts of her life that came before Azkaban, and more than once he'd caught her checking her diary for the answers. Percy finds himself repeating his questions more than once, because Penny is too far away in her head to hear them the first time.

He loves her – he's always loved her – but he can't help but wonder if his Penelope, the one who quoted Henley and Keats and could eat an entire box of macaroni and cheese in one sitting, is still somewhere in Azkaban.

I ½

He comes home one evening after a particularly rough day at the Ministry, completely expecting Penny to have dinner on the table and ready to lend him a sympathetic ear while he recounts Dolores Umbridge's trial by the Wizengamot. Or, perhaps, to even be waiting for him in their bedroom, her hair loose around her shoulders and wearing that silly pink nightdress he loves so much. Percy turns his key in the lock, his heart beating a little faster than it was as he thinks about what could be on the other side of the door, but nothing could have prepared him for what he finds.

Penelope is curled up on their couch in her pajamas, her knees pulled up to her chest and her eyes red from crying. Her mother sits next to her, brushing her hair back and pressing a cool cloth to her daughter's forehead, while Justin Finch-Fletchley leans against the doorway leading into the kitchen with the telephone cradled against his ear. He opens his mouth as of to speak, but when he catches sight of Percy he mutters a quick "good-bye" into the mouthpiece and hangs it back up.

"She had a miscarriage," Justin says quietly, taking Percy by his elbow and leading him into the bedroom. "The Healer says that it was a slim chance that she'd be able to carry the baby to term in the first place, but the fact that she was even able to get pregnant is reason enough to celebrate."

Percy sputters and stammers in response; he didn't even know that his fiancée was carrying his child, and he has to find out like this?

"She didn't want to tell you until she was further along," Justin says, answering the question before Percy can even put his words together. "She...she wanted it to be a surprise."

He gives Percy a weak smile, and for the first time, Percy sees just how young Justin really is under all the lines he gained from Azkaban. Justin clasps his shoulder gently, offering what little comfort he can before they head back into the sitting room. Percy drops to his knees when he approaches Penelope, and when she once again burst into tears he holds her as tightly as he can without hurting her small, brittle body.

He has no intention of ever letting her go.