AN: My sister and I were driving home from On the Border and were talking about HP and different ship names. We decided Luna needed someone and I've always thought Percy would be the only Weasely I would date and he often gets a bad rap. This is a Percy-Luna.
Disclaimer: I don't have any rights to any of the characters. If I did, I would be paying off all these student loans.
Chapter 1:
"Hello". Percy heard a soft voice behind him. He was waiting for the lifts, they had been moving slowly ever since Scrimgeour took over the government. He had been grumbling to himself that despite his deficiencies, Fudge kept the lifts moving. "Yes." He said shortly, turning around. He was secretly hoping there would be a problem and he could rush back to the office, looking powerful and important. He was greeted by the sight of a rather dreamy looking girl who was staring up at him through big, blue eyes.
"You're Percy Weasely, Ronald's brother, right? I met him. We were both in Dumbledore's Army." Her unblinking stare would make a lesser man uncomfortable, he thought uncomfortably and shifted a little closer to the lift, pressing the button repeatedly.
"Yes. I am his older brother." Percy sniffed and tried not to think of his family. Why did they have to always side with that Harry Potter? They were HIS family, not Harry's.
"Hmmm." The girls looked thoughtfully at his finger as it pressed the lift button yet again. "If you continue to do that, you may get Rum-Thumb. It's a horrible condition that causes great boils to erupt from various orifices of your body and turns you various rainbow colors." She cocked her head to the side.
Percy froze with his hand still pressed into the button. "Are you sure?" His voice rose slightly and he looked around to make sure no one would see him if he turned pink, or worse violet.
"Yes, we did an article over it last month. There's been quite an epidemic in the past year." The girl's head cocked to the side. It showed off the burnished blonde of her hair and Percy found himself staring at it, before shaking himself free of her. It occurred to him that she spoke of article.
"Really, you are a writer for a journal."
"Yes, although I still attend Hogwarts, so I write with my father only during the summers." She stared at the lift button dreamily. "I'm Luna, Luna Lovegood."
Percy felt dismay fill him. "Oh, you work on The Quibbler." He felt his hopes for an article in the Daily Prophet die a gruesome death against the rocks of truth. They were pulverized.
Luna seemed not to notice Percy's disappointment. "Yes. We are here to interview the Minister right now, although father said he might not get in to see him today. We'll be back tomorrow, and every day until the Minister grants us an interview." Her light voice hardened slightly on saying "The Minister." She frowned, "I suppose I will be here a lot."
Percy smiled, wondering why the lift still had not come. With so many defensive spells being cast in the Ministry, some simple magical spells worked less reliably, like lifts, lights, locks, practical jokes. He smiled to himself. His brothers, Fred and George were twins and worked in tandem always. They sent him a box today with some lovely glasses within. Not knowing what jinx they placed on them, he gave the pair to his competition, ahem, coworker Phyllia Roseburn. She had only a slightly yellow cast.
Percy knew the glasses were probably intended to turn him a bright canary yellow. No doubt to make him feel worse about deserting the family in the time of troubles and less-than-subtly, in a typically obvious way, tell him he was weak and cowardly for not joining the Order. He sighed; the twins had never understood that a seed could be as effective as a plant. Their lack of subtlety was no longer Percy's problem. He could ignore them now. The one benefit of his familial estrangement.
"Um, yes." Percy felt he should say something to the strange girl. She looked at his hair and then into his eyes. He felt a tingle, somewhere.
Suddenly, a memo zoomed, rather half-heartedly, toward him from around the dimly lit corner. It stopped in front of Percy and waited for his acknowledgment. He grabbed it from the air and read, "Dear Ministry employee, the lift system is hereby inoperable. You will be contacted with more information should you choose to remain in your offices. The stairs are, of course, available for your use. Have a pleasant evening, Maintenance Manager Floos-Barr (Ministry Memo #1123490)." Percy slumped slightly against the wall before remembering Luna and straightening.
"The memo says we must take the stairs, or wait until maintenance comes up with an alternative." Percy looked around. He had no idea where the stairs were, being new to this floor and his position as under-secretary to Mabel Blarney, new head of the Improper Use of Magic Office.
"I would try that door," Luna said, looking unconcerned and making no movement to look for the stairs down. Percy tried the door and discovered… a broom cupboard filled with magical cleaning solutions and a couple ratty towels. "They could have created an illusion. Maybe these are the stairs." She moved almost imperceptibly toward the cupboard and peered around. Percy tapped his foot and looked for a likely door. He had NO intention of asking who 'they' were.
"Who are they?" He heard himself ask. It was as though someone else had taken over his body, someone who wanted to hear crackpot theories from this girl who still went to Hogwarts.
"You know, the Oggilvanies, they live deep in the Department of Mysteries and are rarely seen." She looked solemnly into the dark of the cupboard, as though expecting to see a little green man fly from within and accost them, screaming, 'Give me back my mysteries', or some such nonsense. He shook his head.
"I see you have not seen them. My father and I once spent an entire week here, looking, but they refuse to appear for us." She looked sadly at him and he suddenly wanted to round up ever Oggilvany in the world.
"Umm, why do they live in the Department of Mysteries?" Percy looked uncomfortably over his shoulder; there was a door toward the end of the hall, surrounded by darkness. He started moving toward it and Luna followed, looked longingly behind her, toward the cupboard.
"My father says they need some sort of dark potion the ministry is creating down there. They may even be addicted to it. We need to gather more information and the Minister will not allow us to stay here overnight again." She breezily shook her smooth hair from her face. It cascaded down her back, rippling below her shoulders. Percy felt an odd desire to smooth some flyaways down from around her face.
He opened the door to see a long, well-lit stairway. It seemed o go on forever. He sighed and walked through the doorway.
"Maybe you shouldn't. There may be a Lousey Railcot toward the bottom, they are good friends with the Oggilvany. Lousey Railcots love to eat people." Luna cocked her head to the side. "Do you want to die?"
"No!" Percy exclaimed and hesitated before starting down the stairs.
Luna hesitated and followed, humming to herself. She looked as though she had no worries and nothing to think about except not falling down the stairs. Percy kept looking behind his at the girl in blue and tripped twice before focusing on getting down the stairs and ignoring his fellow stair-stepper.
The stairs were wooden, darkened with use and age to a deep mahogany. The walls were a creamy puce and light radiated from everywhere. On each floor, an identical door sat with the number of the floor written in the upper center area. The green of the door looked unfashionably old to the mod tastes of Percy. He read WQ Magazine to keep up with the latest in wizard fashions. The girl behind him wore a set of blue robes that looked new while her hair hung loose. Whenever she moves, he caught glimpses of her earrings, large yellow daisies suspended from gold chains. He was still trying to find a way to get rid of Luna when they reached the Atrium. He started pushing the door open when Luna placed her hand on his arm. He felt a sting of heat and felt his face turning red. Percy had hoped he was beyond this sort of thing. He was 21 years old, certainly old enough, and mature enough, to not be embarrassed when a girl touched you. It had never bothered him when Penelope, his ex-girlfriend, touched him casually on the arm.
Luna grasped his arm and motioned him to silence. He looked around and saw nothing. She pointed to the dusty corner and said, "I think I saw an Oggilvany. It's gone now. It's proven. Oggilvanies exist. I cannot wait to tell my father. Maybe we should put out a special issue."
"I saw nothing." Percy peered into the corner and shook his head.
Luna began humming and stared at Percy for a long moment. "Yes, I see." She said in a softer voice than normal and opened the door into the Atrium. "Goodbye." She said as she breezed from the stairwell.
Percy felt as though the Hogwarts Express had trodden over him with its large, red wheels and tasteless Hogwarts students laughing within. Luna was definitely unlike anyone he had ever met. Even though he knew he should forget he ever met her, he was hoping to see her at work again. She may be crazy, he thought, but she's also exciting and her father is somewhat important in his publishing job. Some people do believe what he writes. Percy whistled, "I'll Put a Hex on You in the Morning if you Touch That," as he strolled toward the apparition rooms.