Today didn't turn out to be what it was supposed to be.
(There are multiple, hundreds, thousands, millions of marriages going on at this moment. Multiple-hundred-thousand-millions of women in flowing white dresses and "I do"'s and "I now pronounce you husband and wife"'s and post-I-do kisses and old aunts wiping their tears with old-fashioned handkerchiefs and glass-breakings.)
One woman in a flowing white dress is missing.
One "I do" is missing.
One "I now pronounce you husband and wife" is missing.
One post-I-do kiss is missing.
One old aunt wiping their tears with an old-fashioned handkerchief (everybody inevitably has one of these aunts, whether they like it or not) is missing.
One glass-breaking is missing.
One marriage is missing—one new unity is missing, off to begin a new phase of life.
Instead, there is a grave in a small cemetery.
It is like all graves there: the name is etched on the grave as well as the lifespan (Penelope Clearwater, 1976 – 2001) and there are flowers—there lay on her grave the loveliest daffodils, always replaced whenever they begin to wither.
(She was going to have daffodils in her wedding bouquet. They had planned it all, down to the tiniest detail. Percy was that sort of person, and Penelope didn't mind.)
Instead, there is a man, a man who would have—should have, shouldhaveshouldhaveshouldhave—become a husband today.
Her grave says Clearwater because she never became a Weasley, never became a Weasley because she would have today.
He looks at her grave, traces his finger along the words, fingers the daffodils, swallows.
"I do," Percy murmurs, "I do. IdoIdoIdoIdoIdo."
(There is no answer.)
Sort of the same Penelope/Percy fanon thing as Rachelle Neveu's (check out her HP fics, by the way--they're amazing), but with Penelope dying before they get married, and from too many problems due to her imprisonment in Azkaban kind of, instead of dying while giving birth.
Was written for a challenge, but the word requirement was six-hundred words at the least which this...isn't, but I sort of liked it, so here it is.
As for the glass-breaking, there's a Jewish tradition during weddings to break a glass cup at the end. I forget why. And I liked it, so it's in, even though neither Penelope nor Percy are Jewish.
Uncapitalized title for aesthetic reasons.