Characters: Arthur, Percy, Penelope (in spirit), Penelope's parents (mentioned)
Summary: The blow of her death made him seem duller.
Pairings: Percy x Penelope
Author's Note: Here is the third installment in the 'Prodigal Son' series, a series of oneshots focusing on Percy Weasley during and just after The Deathly Hallows. The first installment was Fates and Choices; the second, Burnout. If you liked this, I suggest you go read them to get a feel for the background of this oneshot.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

There was once a pretty girl named Penny, whom you loved so very much
She had hair that curled and eyes that danced, and a laugh as gold as sunlight
But she was so fragile, your Penny, as frail and lovely as spun glass
She was only human, your Penny

There were those who thought to take her from you
And they made her blood spill like rain
Now all the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Penny back together again

Arthur Weasley honestly couldn't remember having ever been to Lincoln before. In the past, for his work with the Order of the Phoenix and the Ministry of Magic, Arthur had been to many places (nearly everywhere of consequence in Britain and Scotland), but he had never journeyed to Lincoln. He supposed he might have liked it a bit better, had the circumstances for his visit been different, and had it not been raining; Arthur counted himself fortunate to be seated under the awning of a suburban porch.

What a nightmare.

It hadn't even been two weeks yet, and reports were already coming in, whispers trickling down the gutter drains. The Muggle-Born Registration Commission and the organization of wizards assigned to track down those who did not choose to come before the Commission had been set up so fast that Arthur was sure that Voldemort had been nursing the idea long before he put the coup d'état at the Ministry into action. There had been the few who, naively, believed that they would be able to sort everything out by simply reporting to the Commission, but after they didn't come back most of those summoned got the message and burned their letters of notice.

There were, at least so Arthur understood, eighteen who had been dragged before the Commission by the Snatchers so far, in varying states of injury. There were at least a dozen confirmed to be dead already.

His daughter-in-law was one of them.

Others might have wondered how this had happened. Others might have thrown their hands up in despair of ever knowing how it had happened. Not Arthur Weasley. He had his memories; he'd known Muggle-Born wizards during the First War, watched their numbers dwindle down, some of them cut down beside them. He had his memories and he learned from them. With the grim knowledge of dark days that had gone and then returned, Arthur knew how this had happened.

Penelope had come to Lincoln, because she was (she and Percy had talked long and hard about this before finally coming to an agreement) leaving the country with a few other Muggle-born wizards for her own safety. She wanted to let her parents know what was happening and where she would be. Percy had tried to insist that she get out of the country immediately, saying that he would tell her parents, but Penelope had refused to change her position, and, reluctantly, Percy had relented and let her go.

Then, she must have been cornered by a Snatcher.

Arthur could see it as clearly as though he had been thrust into a Pensieve. She would have been on her way back to London when she was intercepted. Penelope would have been alone, isolated with no way of quick escape thanks to her inability to Apparate, and with no way out, she had only two options: run, or stand and fight. Penelope had chosen to fight.

And it had brought her to the point of death.

Percy had started to get nervous when Penelope still hadn't gotten back to where they were hiding out in London six hours after she said she'd be back. When they had first gotten to the safe house, Percy had Disapparated despite Arthur's warnings, and returned again about ten minutes later; he wouldn't say what for. When those six hours had passed after Penelope had said she would be back, he Disapparated again; Arthur presumed he'd gone to look for Penelope. Percy returned back, again ten minutes later, and when Arthur asked him where he'd gone, again he said nothing.

They waited another twelve hours.

Then, Arthur got a report from a friend of his at the Ministry who was working undercover for the Order of the Phoenix.

For the first half hour, Percy had completely broken down, sobbing insensibly and shattering to a state incapable of forming intelligible words. Arthur had stared at him in horror, patting his back desperately, wishing desperately that Molly was there. Molly would have known what to do; he did not. He'd been with men and women when they discovered their spouses were dead, and still, he had never been able to figure out how to comfort them in any way but rub their backs stupidly and occasionally whisper worthless platitudes that they couldn't hear. He was afraid to hug him; he was afraid Percy wouldn't accept that

For the next six hours after that, Percy was silent. Hollow-eyed and fierce in his lack of words. In the dingy darkness of the safe house, Arthur had eyed him warily, with the air of someone who expected an explosion to occur at any moment and shake the foundations of a flawed world. No more tears were shed; Percy's face was coated in a sheen of salt from his tears but dry. Arthur looked at him and wondered if he would ever speak again.

After six and a half hours had passed and the sun was high in the sky though hidden by gray clouds, Percy finally spoke again. He looked at his father, and said, in a quiet, terrible voice, that someone needed to tell Penelope's parents. Soon. That was how he had learned that Percy and Penelope had been married, after all, despite the fact that Penelope still answered to 'Clearwater', when Percy referred to them as his in-laws.

"Will you… I can't… I don't think I can…"

Percy floundered with a dry, cracked throat, and Arthur understood. He didn't want to go alone. He didn't want to go alone, didn't want to face his parents-in-law alone with the news that their daughter was dead. Arthur understood. Even if Percy had said nothing, hadn't spoken these words to him, Arthur still would have heard them. And he still would have gone. He wasn't about to let Percy do this alone.

Lincoln was gray and rainy when they arrived there via Apparition, in a wooded area in a neat, tidy suburb on the southern outskirts of town. Arthur had stared at the houses as they walked down a street, pulling cloak hoods over their heads and not caring of being spotted—who was going to be out on a day like this? Just the same as the houses in Privet Drive these were uniform, nearly identical in appearance from house to house if not nearly as dour and artificial-seeming as Privet Drive's houses. Muggles certainly seemed to value order and neatness, or at least so it appeared to Arthur.

Percy had stopped by a one-storey house seeming very much like all the others, a brightly colored pinwheel sticking out of a flowerbed, glistening with water beads, motioning for his father to follow him up the walkway, until they got to the porch.

When he'd knocked on the door, a woman with faint silver streaks in her curly brown hair opened the door, and addressed Percy as though they were familiar—this was Mrs. Clearwater, it seemed. Seeing the two red-haired men on her porch, she allowed them in.

Arthur stared around the living room a little after the introductions were made and he had shaken hands with Mr. Clearwater and an elderly man with keen, piercing revealed to be Mrs. Clearwater's father. He'd seen a home computer sitting in the corner of the living room—a fascinating device, really—and under any other circumstances Arthur would have eagerly quizzed the Clearwaters on how the machine worked, but he didn't think now was the best time.

Percy started to speak, in hushed tones, to his in-laws, and Arthur took that moment to step outside. Percy had completely forgotten he was there.

He could hear muffled sobbing through the door.

That was how Arthur had come to be sitting outside on a porch in a suburb of Lincoln on a rainy day, staring into silver sheets of rain, folding his worn emerald cloak about him and wondering, he admitted uncharitably, when Percy would be done inside.

The answer came to him a second later when the door opened, and Percy slipped out onto the porch. A heavy sigh filled the air as he sat down on the steps, legs practically giving out beneath him.

"So?" Arthur asked cautiously, not trying to be unkind but really morbidly curious.

"It went about as well as I had expected," Percy muttered in way of a reply. "They don't understand why Penny's ancestry should have made her a target."

"Did you expect them to?"

"No. Why should they?" Percy rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath. "How can anyone understand that sort of ugliness? I wouldn't trust anyone who could." he added bitterly.

His voice was dull, and when Arthur took a good look at Percy everything about him seemed a bit duller. He wore a gray cloak, which would have completely washed him out to start with but the effect was more profound under these circumstances. His blue eyes that had always been closer to gray than all of the other blue-eyed members of the family, seemed the same shade as glass now. Percy's pale skin looked pasty in this lighting; even his hair, which had always been a darker shade of red than his siblings since he didn't go outside as much, showed slight sandy roots at his neck.

Percy was showing up as duller, in appearance, in heart and mind. What the blow of her death had done to him.

Now all the king's horses
And all the king's men
Couldn't put Percy back together again

Arthur put a hand with a tight grip on Percy's shoulder bracingly, forcing him to look at him. Percy did so with a newly haggard face and eyes that stared at Arthur's mouth rather than meeting his gaze. "You understand now, don't you?" Arthur asked gently. He had to pull Percy out of the slough of grief as quickly as he could now, or he never would be able to. "You understand why we have to fight them. It wasn't always like this, but it is now, and the Ministry isn't what it once was. It's a den of Death Eaters and traitors."

"I know that!" Percy snapped in a harsh voice that grew thick on the final word. Arthur winced and felt his stomach seize when he saw tears trickling out of Percy's eyes again, slow and certainly not caring of Percy's dignity; Percy himself started wiping them away furiously as they came, unable to stop the tide entirely. "I have eyes, you know; I use them. I've seen what the Ministry was turning into; how could I not?" he asked, words catching and sticky in his throat. "For God's sake, I loved my job—" Arthur couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the use of the past tense "—but I couldn't look half the people I worked with in the eye. For various reasons," Percy added, intensely bitter. He seemed to be going for brutal honesty now, instead of attempting to hide that which caused him shame.

This provoked a puzzled frown out of Arthur. "Then why did you stay on, if things had gotten so miserable for you? You've never been one to take that sort of thing lying down, Percy." That was true; Percy, for all his shortcomings, would always stand up for himself if he truly felt he was being treated poorly without an adequate excuse. Feeling as though he was being mistreated was what had led Percy to leave home in the first place. Arthur didn't think that something like that would change too quickly.

"I had… reasons." Percy seemed to be deliberately avoiding his father's gaze now. "I had… a very good reason," he murmured. "Penny and I… We talked, and… we debated, and…" Arthur wasn't entirely sure what Percy was talking about anymore; his brow furrowed "…we eventually came to the conclusion that either one of us quitting work just-just wouldn't do."

Arthur decided to ignore this outburst, coming to the matter at hand. "Are you all done in there, Percy? No goodbyes or any more condolences to make? Are all of their questions answered?"

"To the best of my ability, yes," Percy replied, drawing in a deep breath through his nose.

"Alright then." Arthur patted his shoulder and stood; Percy hopped to his feet beside him, suddenly looking highly uncomfortable. "We need to leave. Kingsley's expecting us."

"Wait…" Percy's brow was deeply furrowed, face registering more than a little uncertainty. "Before we do that, there's something else I need to take care of in London."

"Can it wait?"

"No. It's important."

Arthur personally hoped it was important enough for them to be wasting more time than they ought, potentially risking their lives. It's probably best to humor him for now.

Two sharp CRACKS filled the air.

When Mrs. Clearwater came outside five minutes later, remembering the importance of hospitality under all circumstances and wanting to ask the two men who had appeared on her doorstep if they wanted something to eat or drink before they left, there was no one there.

I hope you all liked it. Next up is Unsolicited Advice.