A/N: I usually prefer to write longer chapters, but, for whatever reason, this story wants short ones. I think Pansy can only process so much at once, and the chapters are reflecting that. No beta, all mistakes are my own.
The following day, Pansy arrived at the office a half hour early, intent on getting a handle on her day's tasks before her boss arrived. Pansy had thick skin, but even she had her limits on the number of times she could be chastised in a day before starting to doubt herself. She settled in at her desk, sipping a perfectly prepared cup of piping hot English breakfast tea with a pinch of sugar.
Several other assistants were at their desks at this hour, but the office was largely empty. Percy Weasley entered the room, because of course he would be here early, with a small stack of files in his hands. Today he sported a gray three-piece suit and— did he have on a new pair of glasses? She looked closer as he deposited a file on a desk across the room, stopping to pen a quick note for the staffer, who wasn't yet in. The frames were a similar shape as yesterday's, but these were a metallic gray, which matched his suit, and they had thicker temple arms.
She watched him make his way to another desk, this one occupied, and he stopped to chat with the staffer for a moment. Weasley smiled at the man — Pansy thought the barest hint of a dimple appeared in his cheek as he did so, but she couldn't be sure — and passed him the file. Then he threw his head back and laughed, which was so at odds with his demeanor during their interactions yesterday, that she spilled her tea down the front of her shirt.
"Merlin's saggy bollocks!" The tea was hot on her skin as it trickled down her chest.
Her exclamation drew the attention of the others in the room, including Weasley and his conversation partner, and she flushed under the scrutiny.
"Apologies," she mumbled to no one in particular, holding up her cup in explanation. "I spilled my tea." At least she had her wand to fix the problem this time, she thought, siphoning the liquid from her shirt. She pointed the wand down her collar, drawing the remaining dribbles from between her breasts, when a throat cleared next to her.
She jumped, nearly upsetting her tea again, and pulled her wand from her blouse. "Don't startle me like that, Weasley," she groused, adrenaline shooting through her veins at an alarming speed over being caught in such an awkward position. She looked up at him as he stood over her, willing herself to hold his gaze and calm her nerves.
"Apologies, Miss Parkinson." He handed her a file. "The Undersecretary would like Garrison to review this prior to the vote tomorrow. Please pass it along when he gets in this morning."
She accepted the file wordlessly.
He nodded toward her blouse. "You might want to try an Impervious charm on your clothing in the future. It'll save you the trouble of cleaning so many spills."
She spluttered, composure slipping again, "It was one spill, Weasley, just a bit of tea."
"I believe part of your lunch ended up in the same spot yesterday." The barest hint of a smile curled at one corner of his lip. He was jesting at her expense, and she didn't like it, not a bit.
Huffing, she bit out, "If I want advice from you, I'll ask for it, Weasley. I'll make sure Garrison gets the file." She set it down on her desk, a bit harder than she intended, and bent back toward her work. She was done talking to the ginger-headed twat.
"Thank you, Miss Parkinson."
His shoes tapped a staccato beat on the floor as he strode to the door, and her eyes drifted up from her papers to watch him leave. Even Draco's suits weren't that stylish; maybe she could surprise Draco with a similar one for Christmas. She should ask Weasley where he got it, someday when she could carry on a conversation without insulting him or spilling something on herself. She snorted; the Dark Lord might rise again before that happened.
She wondered how he afforded such nice clothes. The Ministry paid well, but it didn't pay that well. And, unless their circumstances had changed, she knew his family was poor. The thoughts were gauche, and pointless, and she forced her attention back to her work, trying to put Weasley and his gray three-piece suit out of her mind.
Pansy collapsed on her sofa Friday evening, intent on taking a short nap before meeting some of the girls from work out for drinks. Stella and Oliva had invited her, and, given she'd be working with them for the foreseeable future, she grudgingly admitted to herself that she should get to know them. Show them she didn't have fangs. Not venomous ones, at least.
Her first week working for the Wizengamot had gotten progressively better, and she had finally gone a whole day today without being on the receiving end of so much as a frown from Garrison, which was an accomplishment. She also hadn't spilled anything on herself in front of Weasley again, which she supposed was an accomplishment as well.
He was in and out of the staffers' main desk area multiple times a day, exchanging files and relaying messages from the Undersecretary. Sometimes he had files and messages for her, sometimes for others. He had worn three different pairs of glasses and five different suits over the course of the week: one with a collarless shirt and no tie, two of them three-piece, and one with, of all things, a pocket watch. Who wore pocket watches anymore? Coupled with his matching tie tack, he was almost an affront to look at that day.
He distributed gestures and conversation along with his files and messages: a handshake here, a smile there, a chuckle with Stella, a pat on the back with Ernie. Pansy was pretty sure that, yes, he did have a small dimple in one cheek that made an appearance with just the right kind of grin — one not so big that the dimple disappeared into the creases of his cheeks, but one wide enough so that his smile reached his eyes. Not that she had seen it up close, because she hadn't been the recipient of one of his grins. Pleasant smiles, yes — banal and perhaps a bit patronizing, though maybe that was just her imagining things. But grins, no:
"Miss Parkinson, the Undersecretary requests that Garrison meet her today at one o'clock. Please give him this agenda." A bland smile and a nod, and then his retreating form, covered in an understated gray plaid with miniscule purple lines woven throughout. The metallic gray glasses that day.
"Miss Parkinson, please see that Garrison receives this study from the Department of Magical Transportation prior to tomorrow's session." A mild upward twist of his lips and a perfunctory bob of his chin before he moved on to another staffer several desks away. A nearly black three-piece suit and the tortoiseshell glasses that day.
"Miss Parkinson, the Undersecretary would like you to pass these memos to Garrison, and she requests a scroll this afternoon with an update on this morning's court proceedings."
His pocket watch had distracted her that day.
"Miss Parkinson?"
She had glanced up at him. Gold framed glasses today, with bronze detailing at the hinges. "Yes?" she had asked.
His brows had knit. "I said, the Undersecretary wants Garrison to receive—"
"Yes, yes, I heard you. Garrison gets these files and I'll bring you the court proceedings this afternoon." Her eyes had flicked back down to the pocket watch, matched perfectly with his tie tack.
"It's August Steiner," he had said.
"What?"
"August Steiner. They have the best mechanical movement. The pocket watch."
"Oh." She had stood there dumbly, looking back up at his blue eyes, which were watching her through those damned gold frames, and the corner of his lip curled into the same same barely-there smile from Tuesday — the one when he suggested she Impervious her shirt.
He passed the files to her. "Have a good morning, Miss Parkinson."
She stared after him, the files unnoticed in her hands. Why in Morgana's name was he wearing a pocket watch?
"So then they asked Thompson if he knew his brother had embezzled funds from the Death Eater Rehabilitation Fund, and he said yes, but that it was a service to society, because the Death Eater fund should be dissolved anyway, and the Galleons should go to people who actually deserve it." Olivia was recounting a Wizengamot hearing she'd sat in on this week, which had been controversial and heavily attended by the press.
Pansy was trying to follow the conversation, but it was boring, and she didn't understand the court case well enough to keep up. She sipped her martini, wishing she were out with her friends instead, and tapped her nails on the table top. She gave up paying attention to the conversation, making sure to laugh when the other girls laughed, and to gasp when they gasped, and surreptitiously shifted her attention to watching the other customers at the pub.
A group of middle aged couples seemed to be out celebrating a birthday, some handsome wizards were starting to get rowdy in a corner booth, and a group of women she thought might be Harpies players were talking loudly over one another several tables away.
"…and then Percy made a statement to the press explaining that the Ministry's position on Death Eater rehabilitation hasn't changed." A girl whose name Pansy didn't remember was talking. "The reporters grilled him, basically saying they thought Thompson was in the right, and that the Ministry was hurting regular wizards by keeping Galleons tied up in the Death Eater fund. Percy was amazing, he had an answer for every question, and he had some of the reporters laughing with him by the end of the press conference. I want to learn how to do that."
"I thought Weasley was a stuffy twat."
All the girls turned and looked at Pansy. Morgana's tits, she'd said that out loud.
"What?" Stella asked.
In for a Knut, in for a Galleon. "Sorry, I meant, I thought Weasley was kind of stiff and reserved; I can't picture him making people laugh at a press conference."
Olivia looked at her wide eyed. "Oh, no, Percy can be really funny sometimes. But it's mostly in the way he's so…" she turned to the girl next to her. "How would you say it, Catherine?"
"Sincere, maybe?" the girl replied. "He really means what he says, and he really cares about the Ministry's work, but in a way that's… I don't know— friendly, I guess."
That wasn't Pansy's impression of him at all, but she'd already said more than she intended, so she said, "That's good to know," and took a large sip of her drink to keep her tongue in check.
The girls returned to talking about the Thompson hearing and the Death Eater fund, and Pansy decided it was time to go. She popped the olive in her mouth from the bottom of her glass and rose from the table, thanking the girls for inviting her and making her excuses for leaving, saying it had been a long first week at work. Which was true, though sheer boredom was her reason for leaving.
After a trip to the loo, she made her way toward the entrance when the door opened and a group of men walked in, including the pocket-watch-wearing reporter-befriender himself. He was wearing a black button down shirt and dark Muggle jeans, which made his ginger hair seem to glow in the low light of the pub, and a pair of glasses she hadn't seen yet; these were black and more boxy than those he'd sported at work so far. Her stomach did strange things at the sight of him in such casual clothes; it felt like she'd missed a step on the staircase or jumped on a lift just as it started moving down.
She quickly changed directions, taking a circuitous route toward the door. Weasley had a wide smile on his face, talking with the man next to him, who Pansy didn't recognize. She glanced at him one last time, curious who his friends were, before stepping out into the street and making her way to the Wild Wand where Theo, Draco, Astoria, and Daphne were gathered tonight. She needed another martini, or two, and some good conversation not involving court hearings or priggish, fusty red-heads.