"Hello Minister!" bellowed Percy, sending a neat jinx straight at Thicknesse, who dropped his wand and clawed at the front of his robes, apparently in awful discomfort. "Did I mention I'm resigning?"
"You're joking, Perce!"shouted Fred as the Death Eater he was battling collapsed under the weight of three separate Stunning Spell. Thicknesse had fallen to the ground with tiny spikes erupting all over him; he seemed to be turning into some sort of sea urchin. Fred looked at Percy with glee.
"You actually are joking, Perce….I don't think I've heard you joke since you were-"
The air exploded. They had been grouped together, Harry, Ron, Hermonie, Fred and Percy, the two Death Eaters at their feet, one Stunned, the other Transfigured; and in that fragment of a moment, when danger seemed temporaily at bay, the world was rent felt himself flying through hthe air, and all he could do was hold as tightly as possible to the thin stick of wood that was his one and only weapon, and shield his head in his arms: He heard the screams and yells of his companions with a hope of knowing what had happened to them-
And then the world resolved itself into pain and semidarkness: He was half buried in the wreckage of a corridor that had been subjected to a terrible attack. Cold air told him that the side of the castle had been blown away, and hot stickiness on his cheek told he was bleeding copiously. Then he heard a terrible cry that pulled at his insides, that expressed agony of a kind neither flame nor curse could cause, and he stood up, swaying, more frightened than he had been that day, more frightened, perhaps, then he had been in his life….
And Hermonie was struggling to her feet in the wreckage, and three redheaded men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart. Harry grabbed Hermonie's hand as the staggered and stumbled over stone and wood.
"No-no-no!" someone was shouting. "No! Percy! No!"
And George was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Percy's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last smile still etched upon his face…
It was hours later, when Fred and George had brought him to the Great Hall, when the family had gathered around, that Ginny turned his hand over, and saw the simple gold band. "He was married?" she asked, tears coming up in everyone's eyes. Ginny popped the ring loose, and turned it over. "Penelope Weasley" she read slowly. "She was here earlier." The Weasley's stood, surveying the crowd. "She's there." Bill said, moving slowly past other people grouped around deceased loved ones, moving not to the side of the Great of those were alive, but the lines of the dead. From the distance, they couldn't see much of her, lying so still on the floor, but Bill picked her up, bring her close to Percy. She wore an identical ring on her left hand. "We never knew." Mrs. Weasley broke into fresh sobs. "Never – knew – and – he's – gone!"
They got permission to bury Penelope with Percy, and they had identical graves, side-by-side, on the edge of the Burrow property. It took a little work, but they found a copy of the wedding certificate, hidden in amongst Percy's things in his apartment. It was framed, and hung on the wall, next to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's own.
The Weasley's Wizard Wheezes became a booming, international business. Fred and George still run the shop in Diagon Alley. A single corner of the eye-popping store is set aside, and set in black. Pictures are set haphazardly, Muggle and wizard, of the wizards who died in the war. Two are taped together, of Penelope and Percy Weasley, and they hold hands all day through the edge of the picture. Percy's birthday is the only day the shop closes, as both boys travel to the Burrow and spend it near their brother, who came back just before they lost him. He was still there, years later, fussy horn-rimmed glasses and rule following. His face on the clock was permanently on home. After all, he was with Penelope and his family. Where else was home?