A/N – Holy Cow, this one took forever to get out on paper. I originally wanted to pick up right before Percy and Audrey's Christmas date – which is alluded to, but never seen, in their chapter of "One for Each Night" – but then I changed my mind and wanted to start after that, and then four rewrites later I came up with this. Hopefully, everyone out there in Internet-land will like it!
Also, Princess Unicorn is both totally real and totally awesome. Google it! Her horn can pierce the sky! :)
IX
He stands in the doorway with the box held tightly in his hands, fear and dread and restlessness filling every nerve ending in his body. His hand seems very far away as he reaches forth to ring the doorbell and it almost feels like it doesn't even belong to him. His feet itch with the urge to run – to leave this box on the doorstep and take off screaming into the hills – but he takes a deep breath and tries to will his heart to stop racing, hoping that he can stay calm long enough to get through this.
He has to stay calm, because today is Penelope's birthday.
Karen Clearwater opens the door to hers and James' Manchester home, smiling widely as she waves Percy inside. There are pink balloons and streamers tied to every corner of the ceiling and a dozen children are running underfoot as Penelope and her friends rush past them and through the front door towards the front porch.
"Stay where I can see you, young lady! Oh, and it's nice to see you, Percy," Karen says as an afterthought, right before she kisses his cheek in greeting. She takes the box from his hands and sets it on a table already laden with brightly-wrapped gifts, then motions for him to follow her into the kitchen. James Clearwater and his wife's parents are sitting around the scrubbed wooden table, eating pizza and talking about Spain's chances for the Cup, but once he realizes they aren't talking Quidditch Percy tunes it out and shakes James' hand when he rises from his chair.
"Glad you could make it, Perce," James says. He gives Percy his chair and moves to heat him up some of the pizza, and then steps out to the garage to get another beer. Penelope and her friends rush back in through the door and Penelope practically leaps into the chair across from Percy, her face red and her curly hair wild around her shoulders. Her friends continue their trek towards the backyard, but Penelope just stares at him.
"Who're you?" she asks.
"Penelope, darling, don't you remember your Uncle Percy?" Karen says as she hands Percy the plate from the microwave. "He's known you almost as long as you've been alive."
Penelope wrinkles her nose in distaste, presumably at the use of her full name. Percy smiles at the little girl, who in turn cocks her head to the side and stares at him for a long moment. But then she seems to decide that the joyful shrieks coming from the swing set are more important than determining who Percy is to her and she takes off running, nearly knocking into her father as he opens the door leading back into the kitchen. James and Karen both call after her, but she pulls a face at the back door and ducks out of sight before either of them can react.
"I'm sorry about that," Karen smiles apologetically, shushing her mother's muttered complaints – the words "holy terror" being the only ones he can understand – with a wave of her hand. "She's such a handful sometimes! It makes me long for the days where I could just lock her in the playpen and not have to worry for a solid half-hour that anything valuable would break."
The rest of the party passes by in a blur of loud conversation, laughing children, and too-sweet cake laden with frosting flowers. Penelope leads her party guests through the backyard as if it is a dangerous jungle laden with lions and bears, and when her father calls them all in for cake do they start an extremely complicated-looking board game called Cranium (according to the lid on the vibrantly colored box that Karen brings down from a shelf in the hall closet) and sit in a semicircle on the carpet while Penelope opens her presents. Throughout all of this, Percy sits off to the side with an untouched beer bottle in his hand. He smiles when James or Karen sends a glance his way, but most of the time he stays quiet and watches the goings-on around him. Like every other Clearwater gathering he is invited to, he is quiet and careful with what he says because he is, after all, a glutton for punishment.
His is the last present Penelope has left to open, and he smiles at the little girl in the center of the floor when her mother passes the parcel to her outstretched hands. She tears excitedly at the paper, and the room goes quiet when Penelope stares at the pink box in her hands like it is the Holy Grail and not just a doll. He's almost afraid that she doesn't like it, but then she leaps up from the floor and all that worry turns out to be for nothing.
"Princess Unicorn!" Penelope shrieks, brandishing the doll's box for all to see. "Thank you, Uncle Percy! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
She flings herself at him and pulls him into a one-armed hug before rushing off with her mother to find a pair of scissors to open the box; her little friends following close behind and eager to examine this new toy.
"Where'd you find one of those?" James asks when Percy helps him gather up the discarded wrapping paper for the trash bin. "She's been asking for that for ages, but I thought they weren't supposed to be out for another month or so?"
"My brother got it for me," he answers. "Apparently one of his deliverymen at the joke shop knows someone who knows someone, and I stopped asking questions after that."
The party starts to wind down after that. Karen's parents leave despite their daughter and granddaughter's protests, and one by one Penelope's gaggle of girlfriends are picked up by their parents until the only people left in the house are Percy, Penelope, and her parents. The four move themselves to the backyard once the trash and general birthday party debris is cleared from the floor and the kitchen and Penelope immediately pulls her mother towards the swings, leaving James and Percy to sit quietly on the steps of the back porch.
"Penelope is getting big," Percy says as he takes the seat beside his former brother-in-law. He has a drink in his hand that he's barely touched, and down by the swing set the girl in question is showing her brand-new Princess Unicorn to her mother as the wide wooden seat moves back and forth in a gentle, rocking rhythm. The sun is starting to set over the backyard, backlighting the yellow leaves hanging in the trees so that they look like they have caught on fire. It's been a beautiful day.
"Actually, she prefers to be called 'Penn', now." James smirks and takes a swig of his beer. "She thinks 'Penelope' and 'Penny' are far too girly."
"Penn Clearwater," Percy says aloud. "It sounds like it belongs on an aging sportswriter's byline, not a little girl."
James chuckles wryly. "Try telling her that. We've gotten complaints from her teachers, and most of them are about her refusal to answer to anything but 'Penn.'"
"No meetings about accidental magic, yet?"
"Oh, no, Karen and I have had to sit through a couple of those. About a month ago, a boy on the playground stole a Mars bar she'd brought in her lunch and started teasing her about her name, calling her 'Pen-elope –'" He pronounces the name like one would say cantaloupe. "– and when the boy went to eat the candy bar, it somehow turned into a block of ice. He chipped two teeth, and we were called in for a 'conversation' with the guidance counselor the next day."
Penelope – Penn – waves to them both when she realizes that they are watching, Princess Unicorn tucked under her arm and her mother's arm wrapped around her shoulders. Percy waves back and tries to smile.
She doesn't look like his Penelope at all, which Percy supposes is both a blessing and a curse. There's too much of Karen in her features; the brown eyes, the olive skin, and the proud, almost defiant tilt of her chin all belong to her mother. Even the traits that undoubtedly came from the Clearwater side of her family – particularly, the straight, angular set of her nose – have too much of her father in them. The only thing that she seems to have inherited from the aunt she never got the chance to know is the uncontrollably curly hair that falls around her shoulders, but even then her hair is far too dark to remind him of her namesake. He wonders if it's wrong to wish that he saw more of the Penelope he loved in her sweet, innocent face, but when it all comes down to it he would never want to put that kind of legacy on a little girl.
"I miss her, too," James says, resting a hand on Percy's shoulder and pulling him out of his thoughts. Percy wants to ask if James was thinking the same thing, but stops himself. "But you don't have to mourn forever."
James squeezes his shoulder gently and rises from the steps, crossing the lawn in long strides as he walks out to the swing where his wife and daughter are waiting. Percy sits for a few moments afterwards, repeating the words in his head like some strange, ancient mantra: "you don't have to, you don't have to, you don't have to mourn forever." But he's carried his grief for so long that it's almost a part of him now – beating like a second heart inside him – and Percy isn't too sure that he would be the same without it.
He says his goodbyes, and the wind is cold on his face as he flies his motorcycle home to London.
IX½
Percy sits in his workspace, chin resting in his hands and his eyes wandering across the paperwork in front of him without really taking in anything at all. It's Friday afternoon and although he never thought he would admit this since the end of the War, he would honestly rather be anywhere else in the world than the Ministry.
He looks out the window, half-expecting to find the sunshine he saw on his way into work, but only finds blindingly white snow swirling outside the charmed glass. He isn't all that surprised; Magical Maintenance has been asking for better benefits for almost three months, and they have been messing with the Weather Charms on the windows until their demands are met. It's been "snowing" almost nonstop since September, but Percy knows that it could be worse. After all, he remembers when they wanted raises and made sure that there was nothing but hurricanes for a good six months.
He sighs and turns back to his desk – trying his hardest to keep his eyes from crossing as he attempts to read the contracts he'd had Kevin draw up for him earlier in the day – but before he can even pick up his quill, a small, quick movement catches his peripheral vision. He moves to strike it, thinking it's a spider, but it turns out to only be a flash of light reflecting on the glass of one of the many picture frames lining the edge of his desk. He knocks one over and he flinches, thinking that the glass had broken when it fell to the floor with a clatter, but he breathes a sigh of relief when he realizes that his favorite photograph of Penelope has not suffered any damage.
He sets the photograph back on the desk. Behind the glass of her frame, Penelope smiles, waves, and turns the pages of her book – the same motions her image moves through day after day. Idly, almost unknowingly, he wonders what it would be like to be with anyone other than Penelope. He glances across the aisle to where Audrey sits, chewing on her lower lip in concentration and staring at the paperwork laid out before her, and Percy suddenly feels as though he has been given an electric shock.
He's worked with her day in and day out for the past two years, but it suddenly occurs to him that he's never really looked at Audrey Davies. Despite her arrogant, argumentative nature she's actually quite pretty in the agreeable, girl-next-door kind of way that some people find attractive, with her dark hair and her blue eyes and…and he catches himself staring at the soft curve of her mouth. It's only then, when he realizes that he wants to know how she tastes, that he turns away, filled with fear and embarrassment and some sort of nervous, jumbled-up feeling he can't figure out how to name. He forces himself to turn back to the paperwork he's been ignoring, muttering to himself about how he is "not going to do this" – not now, not here, and especially not with her.
When the clock above the reception desk strikes five and everyone in the office rises to leave, Percy is the first to spring out of his chair. He races through gathering his belongings, hoping that he can make it to the elevator before anyone else. He's going to George's for dinner even though he is not invited, hoping that George and his kids can distract him with their chatter, their questions, and the yuletide advent calendar that they are starting tonight He practically sprints in his rush to get to the elevator, nearly knocking over several of his fellow employees in his haste, but he is forced to skid to a halt as the crowd around him slows to wait by the closed doors. He rocks on the balls of his feet, anxiously watching the little arrow above the elevator count the floors it is passing and feeling like he is going to burst out of his skin with this newfound energy.
"Going down?"
"What?" He whips around nervously, only to find Audrey standing right behind him. She points to the elevator doors and almost as if by magic, they open. The people around them shuffle towards the small compartment and Audrey is the last to enter. She holds the door open with her hand and raises an eyebrow as if to say, "are you coming or going, dummy?", when Percy realizes that he never answered her question.
"N-no, I, I think I'll take the stairs today. Good…good-night, Audrey," he stammers. "I'll see you Monday."
Audrey smiles as the doors close, and everything he wants to say gets tangled on his tongue. For the first time in a very, very long time, Percy Weasley finds that he can't get the words out.
IX¾
He doesn't know how they find out, but the only thing that anyone can seem to talk about at the Weasley Family Christmas Party is that Percy has a date the very next day. Even though Ron has decided to leave the Auror Corps and work with George full time, Fleur announces that she and Bill are going to start trying for another child, and Ginny plans on leaving the Holyhead Harpies to write full-time for the sports section of The Daily Prophet, the only thing anyone wants to talk about is Percy's upcoming "romantic rendezvous."
His brothers joke and tease, asking if she's as blind as he is, and Ginny and his sisters-in-law all make a fuss about whether or not she's pretty enough (or in Hermione's case, smart enough) for "their Percy." His father claps him on the back and congratulates him and his mother corners him by the pantry when he helps bring out the dessert, pulling him into a rib-crushing hug and whispering "I'm so happy for you, darling," in his ear before carrying a rather large apple pie out to the dining room table. When the time comes for his nieces and nephews to open their midnight present, Roxanne tells all of her cousins that she is going to be the first to meet their "new auntie," which makes her father laugh and makes Percy want to crawl in a hole and die from embarrassment.
"Do I emit some type of scent that they're picking up on?" he asks Ginny as they gather the dinner dishes for washing. "Seriously, Gin, how does everyone know all this when I only made plans ten minutes before I got here?
Ginny smirks and sets down the stack of plates on the countertop before reaching up to rub her thumb against his cheek. "You've been wearing this all night, Percy," she says, holding up her hand for him to see. There is red lipstick smudged across the pad of her thumb, and Percy's heart sinks into his stomach as he recalls his and Audrey's failed attempt to kiss from earlier in the evening. "And as Dad's fond of saying, it isn't exactly sprocket science."
Percy groans and swipes at his face with his hand, and when he pulls it away there is lipstick spread all across his palm. He tries again, smearing the lipstick further across his skin in the process, and Ginny laughs and wets a dishtowel, reaching up to wipe at his face before he spreads it any more.
"Calm down, Percy," she scolds him jokingly. "We don't mean any harm by it. We're all just happy that you're finally finding someone…even if her taste in men is a little off." Ginny winks and turns away to rinse off the towel, and Percy can only stare at his little sister, dumbstruck, as she asks him to put the dishes in the sink so she can wash them.
This feeling seems to follow him all through the next day, right up until he arrives at the little corner café in Diagon Alley he'd arranged to meet Audrey at the night before. It's surprisingly crowded for the day after Christmas, and he sits by himself in a corner booth of the Quill and Quirke Café trying to convince himself that she isn't going to stand him up. He tears the paper napkin nervously between his fingers and keeps glancing towards the door.
When she arrives, he almost doesn't recognize her at first. She looks so different outside of work, not when he's used to seeing her looking smart in her pinstriped skirts and too-high heels. She looks almost underdressed in her denims and heavy overcoat, but there's a casual type of sophistication in the way she carries herself that Percy can't overlook. When she hangs her coat on the back of her chair and unwinds the scarf from her neck, the necklace that he bought her shines brightly against her collarbone. He raises his gaze to meet her eyes – Merlin forbid she think he was looking at something else – but it fills him with a strange sense of pride, nonetheless, to see that she is wearing what he gave to her.
"Did you and your family have a good time last night?" he asks as a harried-looking waitress brings them their menus.
Audrey gives him a bemused little smile as she takes hers. "My family?"
"Yes, your family. You know…the people at your party?" He pauses. "Weren't they your family?"
"Oh!" she laughs and her fingers tighten around the corners of her menu. "Oh, no, that wasn't my family."
"They weren't?"
"No, my roommate decided that she wanted to throw a big party for her family, and since I didn't have anywhere else to get to I got roped into helping her with everything."
"Didn't you want to spend the holidays with your parents, though?"
She takes a sip of her water and does not look him in the eye. "My parents are abroad. They, ah, couldn't make it to Christmas this year."
Her tone is surprisingly tense as she talks about her family, so Percy drops it and changes the subject; Godric knows that not every family is as tightly-knit as the Weasleys, and if she's got some problems with her parents then he doesn't want to pry. He talks about work and the cases they're going to continue working on once the holidays are over, and when she asks about his family he is more than happy to tell her stories about his brothers and sister and nieces and nephews. She talks about her dog, her roommate, her time in Ravenclaw tower, and by the time their food arrives Percy finds himself nearly doubled over in laughter from some story about her getting trapped outside the Ravenclaw Common Room for two hours after being unable to answer the doorknocker's question. It surprises him only because he hasn't felt this comfortable around new people in absolute ages, but his conversation with Audrey is so encouragingly familiar at times that it almost seems as if he's known her longer than he has.
When they finish their dinner they walk down through Diagon, still talking and admiring the holiday decorations as the snow crunches underneath their feet, and when they are a few storefronts away from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes Audrey pulls him into an alleyway. She looks so small compared to him, especially in this cramped and tiny passageway, and to look her in the eyes Percy has to tilt his head at an odd angle. Never before has he cursed being so tall.
"We shouldn't do this," he says, shoving his hands deeper into his coat pockets for warmth. He takes a step back, careful to keep a small amount of space and general propriety between them. The friendly familiarity that has seemed to spring up between them overnight is a little frightening, to tell the truth, and he doesn't want to ruin anything by taking things too fast.
"Do what?"
"This." He makes an odd, sweeping gesture between the two of them and tries not to think about how just how close they are. "It's against Ministry policy, you know, having an, er, inter-office relationship. It's a conflict of interest."
"Are you saying that a friendly dinner is a relationship, Mr. Weasley?" Audrey smirks. "Because I think it's going to take more than just dinner for that." Her hands curl over his shoulders and he can feel the brick of the building behind him even through the thick wool of his coat as she gently pushes him backwards. She moves closer, lessening the space between their bodies until there's not even an inch between them and if he was able to focus on anything but her mouth, Percy is sure that he could count the individual snowflakes caught in her hair. She stands up on tiptoe and this time, they don't miss.
It starts off awkwardly, as most first kisses do; bumping noses and teeth, but they soon find a pleasant balance. Percy's hands flutter awkwardly at her sides, unable to find a proper place to rest them. Audrey wraps her arms tighter around his neck and he pulls her closer, finally settling his hands on the small of her back and the back of her neck, respectively. Her lips are soft against his own and he feels like his body is on fire – it's been so long since he actually kissed someone that he'd forgotten how nice it could be – but he runs his fingers through Audrey's dark hair and tries not to think about how all of this is going to work.
"For Merlin's sake, Percy," someone catcalls from just outside the alleyway. "Keep it in your robes! There're children afoot!"
For a delightfully dizzying, disoriented moment, Percy had completely forgotten that they were actually out in public. But with George's laughing voice bringing him back to reality he remembers where he is, who he's with, and exactly what he's doing, and it sends shockwaves of embarrassment throughout his body. They break apart and stare at where George is standing at the entrance of the alleyway with Verity and his kids, Fred peering from behind Verity's legs and George covering the eyes of a squirming Roxanne. Beet-red, Audrey quickly releases her hold on Percy while he straightens his clothes as best he can. They leave the alley as quickly as they can, and when George drops his hands from his daughter's eyes Roxanne's jaw falls open in shock.
"Er…Audrey, I'd like you to meet some of my family," he says rather shakily. "This is my brother, George, and his children, Fred and Roxanne. And this is Verity," he adds quickly. "She's a close friend of the family."
George smirks as he steps forward to shake her hand, and Percy feels like he's going to burn up from the abject humiliation, but Audrey laughs and takes George's hand. Roxanne, now that she's able to see again, won't stop whispering loudly in her father's ear about how "pretty" her "new auntie" is.
"It's freezing out here," Verity says quickly, once the she realizes exactly what Roxanne has said. "D'you want to come back to the shop and warm up? I was going to make some hot chocolate for the kids, if you're interested."
He doesn't know who makes the decision, but the next thing Percy knows he and Audrey are being herded towards the joke shop, Fred clinging to Verity and Audrey's hands as they walk down the snow-covered street. George and Percy are a few steps behind them, and when they are only a few feet from the front doors, Roxanne moans that she wants to get down and "walk with Auntie Audrey", which just makes Percy feel even more awkward than before, if that's even possible.
"I knew she was going to be a looker, Perce," George winks as he sets Roxanne on the ground. "Ron owes me and Charlie ten galleons.
Percy groans inwardly, wondering if it's possible for someone to drop dead from sheer embarrassment. But secretly – deep, deep down inside, where he won't even admit it to himself – he's actually rather glad that George stumbled upon him and Audrey in that alley.
It's a different way to start things, yes, but that just means that it can't get any worse.
