Characters: Penelope, Percy
Summary: When she wants to smile, it's time to stop living in the house of air.
Pairings: Percy x Penelope
Author's Note: This, I think, is my Harry Potter OTP, even if it is non-canonical as of DH (Just who the heck is Audrey, Rowling?). I think it may be because it's the first pairing we see in Harry Potter where the characters weren't already married pre-canon and neither one of them are dead.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
To be in Ravenclaw doesn't suggest wisdom or even intelligence so much as it does a thirst for knowledge, sometimes an unreasonable one. Which explains why she wants so badly to work in the Department of Mysteries and why she'll listen to him go on and on about regulations and the like. It's new knowledge, all of it, and she soaks it up eagerly.
To she that thirsts knowledge as a drowning man thirsts for air, Ravenclaw is a haven, a sanctuary.
But sometimes, the house of air she inhabits can be so cold.
This is what she has learned: Ravenclaw is a House where truth is valued above all things. The pursuit of knowledge is paramount, everything else secondary. Close bonds are not formed so readily among the members, since it always seems to just get in the way of knowledge.
The girls don't talk to each other, she's noticed. When she tries, they look at her like she's just a little mad.
Maybe Penelope Clearwater doesn't want to live like that. Maybe she wants someone she can talk to. Maybe she doesn't want to be so disconnected from the rest of the world, like the rest of this house of air.
Percy Weasley is like a breath of fresh air after a long excursion in a dusty room.
He's shy, awkward, somewhat nervous. Penelope knows quite well who his younger brothers are; had she grown up with them, she suspects she'd be nervous as well.
But to her, he's kind and sweet in a bashful sort of way. And what's really important, is that Percy listens. He talks to her (indeed, Penelope notices with a certain wry amusement, he talks to her a lot, thanks to the fact that his family simply don't want to listen), and listens when she talks.
There's support in sunlight, smiles found in libraries and corridors and abandoned classrooms.
The house of air is good for the pursuit of knowledge. Penelope knows what she needs when she wants to smile.