[Written for the 1st H.M.S. Pomp & Circumstance Fanfic Challenge]
By Allison E. Lane
[Author's Note: Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling. I just borrowed it for a little while. Apologies for the bad formatting--it's somehow FanFiction.Net's fault.]
Even at fifteen years of age, Percy Weasley was a man of regulations. Rules were made for a reason; they were to be followed unquestioningly and upheld to the best of one's ability. As a prefect, Percy took his rule enforcement duties very seriously. He never hesitated to upbraid anyone—regardless of House or age—for behaving out of line. He was often teased for his unyielding adherence to what he considered right and just, but for the most part Percy managed to put the jeers and taunts behind him. He knew there was nothing to be ashamed of in following the rules. It was just a shame that he was considered a freak for doing so.
So perhaps it was Fate that placed in his path the one person who might not consider him freakish.
Percy often spent his free time before dinner in the library, even more so now that the O.W.L.s were approaching. One evening in early spring, he was navigating the library stacks on autopilot, his nose stuck in a book, mumbling to himself as he went in search of yet another potentially helpful tome on potions. He never even saw the girl crouching between two bookshelves until he quite literally tripped over her.
"Ouch—"
"Watch it—"
Percy, book, and girl went tumbling into an undignified heap. When Percy had extricated himself from the embarrassing tangle and shoved his glasses back into place, he demanded, "Just what were you doing there in the middle of the aisle?"
Flustered, the girl pushed back a thick lock of curls that had fallen in her face, her own glasses still askew. She looked younger than he and wore Ravenclaw robes. "I—I was looking for a book."
She had hesitated just long enough to make Percy suspicious. Glancing at the shelves where she had been kneeling, he saw that several books had been shoved aside to form a window of sorts. A quick peek revealed Percy's housemate Oliver Wood seated at a table a few feet away, only half listening to a Ravenclaw first-year who was chattering breathlessly away on some topic or another. Probably Quidditch.
Percy sighed inwardly. It looked as if the girl had been ogling the Gryffindor Quidditch captain. As if Oliver needed more fans. "Spying on Oliver Wood, were you?"
The girl colored nicely. "No," she shot back indignantly, then suddenly bit her lip. Percy waited while she seemed to come to some sort of inner decision, then looked squarely at him. "Actually, yes. Some of the Ravenclaws wanted to play a practical joke on him. I volunteered to carry it out." Percy's eyebrows shot up into his forehead. "The plan was to place a charm on Oliver that would make him repulsive to the girls but make him irresistibly attracted to them—give him back a little of his own. But only temporarily, of course," she added quickly.
Percy had risen to his feet, retrieving his book and dusting off his robes, and automatically extending a hand to help the girl; it was the gentlemanly thing to do, after all. She accepted the help with dignity. "Well, that was very wrong of you, Miss—"
"Clearwater. Penelope Clearwater," said the girl, who had the sense to look properly abashed.
"—Miss Clearwater," Percy continued very sternly. "Five points from Ravenclaw." An additional thought struck him—a stroke of genius, really. Quite possibly for both Oliver's and this girl's sakes. "And as a lesson… plan to spend the entire day with Oliver tomorrow. He's not so bad as you Ravenclaws might think."
Penelope said nothing, only smiled slightly.
"Meet him at the Gryffindor table tomorrow at eight o'clock sharp," Percy said, opening his book and turning to leave. "He's running a Quidditch practice."
Well, the day doesn't seem to have been a total loss, Percy mused as he walked with Penelope back to Ravenclaw Tower the next evening. To his mild surprise, Penelope had done as asked—it hadn't quite been a detention, after all—and spent the day more or less glued to Oliver's side. She had even brought a broom along to the Quidditch pitch and spent the duration of practice hovering calmly around the goalposts, weathering Oliver's mania with a patience that had astounded Percy, who had watched from the stands. She absorbed the twins' blatant ribbing without a single word of protest and even sent a few zingers back at them, offered to quiz Oliver on his O.W.L.s, and played a few hands of Exploding Snap with him, Lee Jordan, and the twins. To Oliver's credit, he actually acknowledged Penelope's presence a few times, instead of blithely ignoring her as he usually did to any female who didn't play Quidditch.
When curfew time came, Percy offered to escort Penelope back to her own common room. He had to admit a certain amount of respect for her having come clean with the truth, and then upholding her end of the punishment he had given her instead of attempting to talk her way out of her corner, as he had assumed a Ravenclaw might do.
"Sentence served admirably, Prefect Weasley?"
Percy stopped to look down at Penelope, and saw they were near a beautifully patterned wall tapestry that he guessed hid the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room. She was smiling up at him, gray eyes twinkling with humor. Feeling a bit thrown, he decided to opt for reciprocal humor. "Quite admirably, Miss Clearwater."
Her smile widened—it was a remarkable expression, transforming the quiet lines of her face into something that sparkled. "It wasn't such a bad day," she said. "You were right, Oliver's not so terrible as he seems. He's only a little bit self-absorbed."
Percy resisted the urge to laugh at the joke—it was wrong to speak ill of others—and instead offered a tight smile. "Goodnight then, Miss Clearwater."
He hesitated in turning away when he saw that Penelope hadn't budged. "Maybe I'll see you around?" she asked.
Percy blinked at her, surprised. No one, certainly no girl, had ever expressed much interest in wanting to be around him. It was a completely foreign concept. "Maybe so," he replied finally, nodding as he turned to walk away down the corridor, leaving Penelope smiling to herself by the Ravenclaw tapestry.