An owl memo was strutting around Pansy's desk when she returned from a morning committee meeting. Numbers swirled in Pansy's brain, and she ignored the owl in favor of getting the Galleon calculations down on parchment — Garrison needed four different budget scenarios for magical transportation fees on his desk by two o'clock.

After ten minutes of working through scenario number one, Percy's memo owl started hooting. Pansy whispered, "Hush!" and went back to her calculations.

The memo owl merely hooted louder.

Geoffrey, who sat at the desk next to her, leaned over. "Pansy, you'd better answer it. I ignored one once and it started trying to peck me in the eyes."

"Percy wouldn't do that," she said, scandalized at the thought of him being so demanding.

"Oh, he would," Geoffrey replied. "When the Undersecretary needs something, Percy makes sure she gets it."

Pansy stared at the owl. There was a fifty-fifty chance the memo was a personal one and not related to work. She bent back to her budget scenarios.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Geoffrey remarked, and turned back to his work.

The owl continued strutting and hooting, and after a few minutes, it jumped onto her shoulder and started hooting in her ear.

"Fine!" she griped, exasperated. Geoffrey glanced over with an amused grin and a raised brow that said 'I told you so.'

She unfolded the owl.

Pansy -

The Undersecretary would like an update on the Transportation Committee's meeting with the Department this morning. Please meet us in her office before 11:00.

- Percy

Pansy looked at the clock. Shite. Eleven o'clock was in five minutes. She grabbed her notes and a quill and rushed from her desk to Undersecretary Smith's office.

"Apologies," she told Hephizabah when she arrived, slightly out of breath. "I was preoccupied with the follow up from our meeting and didn't realize you needed me before eleven."

She proceeded to relay the high points of the meeting in rapid succession, barely finishing her update before the members of the Finance Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth started filing through the door.

"Pansy, can I see you in my office please," Percy said as the last few committee members trickled in. It was an order, not a request, and it simultaneously made her knickers wet and pissed her off.

"I'm in the middle of working through budget scenarios for the Portkey and floo fees; Garrison wants them by two o'clock. I'll come by after that."

"It'll only take ten minutes, Pansy. I need to talk through the hearing Garrison's presiding over this afternoon; the Undersecretary has some information I need to give you." He sounded all business.

Fuck that. She had work to do, and she wasn't stepping foot in his office unless it involved a shag on his desk. "I really need to get these scenarios done, Percy. I'll come by after that; the hearing's not till four."

"I can help you with the budgets." His voice dropped, to the same pitch as yesterday in the file room. Merlin damn him to hell.

She followed him into his office. She expected him to close and lock the door and press her up against it to snog the living daylights out of her. Instead, he left the door open, strode to his desk chair, and motioned for her to sit in front of his desk, just like he'd do with Olivia, or Ernie, or fucking Geoffrey, or herself a week ago.

She wanted to rail at him, but he was just so… focused on their work. She couldn't bring herself to call him out. Before she'd managed to even come to that conclusion, he was prattling on about the candidates for this afternoon's confirmation hearing for the new deputy head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation.

Ten minutes later, she had a ream of notes to take back to Garrison. "Are we done now?" she asked, rising from her seat. "Because it's been ten minutes, and I really need to get these budget scenarios finished."

He frowned. "I told you I could help you with them."

She snapped. "I thought you said that just to get me into your office! Unless 'scenarios' is code for 'snogging you silly,' I don't need your help." She started toward his door.

"Pansy." His voice was firm enough to make her stop in her tracks. "Come back, please." This time it was gentler, slightly pleading.

She closed her eyes for a moment in frustration and then turned around.

He approached her and spelled his office door closed as he did so. He stopped several feet away and spoke. "I really like you. I do want to snog you silly. Pretty much all the time.

"But we also need to work together, and I have —" he glanced at his watch " — fifteen minutes before my next meeting, and you and I both need to make sure Garrison gets Hephzibah's information before he goes into the confirmation hearing this afternoon."

He stepped closer to her. "I really am happy to help you with your budgets until I need to leave. I wasn't lying. But I'm also happy to snog you silly if you prefer — if you have time to spare from your budget preparation."

She was torn between throwing his responsibility back in his face — she was more important than legislative matters, wasn't she? — and admitting that he was right. Regardless of her choice, she admitted to herself that he was clearly more an adult than she was, focusing on their work responsibilities before getting carried away by lust, and perhaps she had something to learn from him.

While she debated her response, he closed the distance between them and grabbed her around the waist. He dipped his head, pressing kisses along the side of her neck. She twined her fingers in the soft waves of his hair and tilted her head to the side, granting him better access. Slowly, he dragged his velvety lips along her neck, up to her jaw, and made his way to her mouth, licking and nibbling the entire way.

He whispered, "You seem much more interested in snogging than budgets, so I assume you don't want my help. With the budgets, that is."

She gave a minute shake of her head, and they fell together in a liplock that sent fireworks through her belly. After a few moments, she pulled back and leaned her face into his chest, wrapping her arms around him and fishing her hands under his suit jacket and up his back, rubbing her fingers against the fabric of his shirt.

He pulled her in close, and she felt treasured, safe. Neither of them spoke for a moment, and then she murmured, "You're right, about work being more important right now, but I wish you weren't."

He squeezed her tighter, and then they broke apart. She sighed. "I really do need to get these budgets done, and I know you need to prepare for your next meeting. But, if you have any time after four, once Garrison's in his confirmation hearing, I'm around…"

He nodded and bent down to kiss her a last time before she made her way back to her desk. Sodding work responsibilities and adulthood and political aspirations.

It was Friday night, and Pansy was midway through her dinner date Percy. He was dressed in the black button down and dark Muggle jeans she'd seen him in at Hansen's several weeks ago, along with the boxy black glasses, and she couldn't take her eyes off him.

They were discussing his family, and at a pause in their conversation, he remarked, "I don't think I've ever had someone stare at me like you do. I'm not going anywhere, you know."

She smirked. "Am I creeping you out?"

"No! No. It's… nice. And a bit disconcerting. In equal measure."

"I can stop. You just — gods Percy — I'm not used to seeing you in casual clothes, and you look good enough to eat. I mean, you always look good enough to eat, but right now…" She shook her head in appreciation, and then laughed at the blush that flooded his cheeks and ears. "Am I embarrassing you?" she teased.

He chuckled and grabbed her hand. "Yes, but I like it. You know, I wore your favorite suit today."

Her brows knit. "I didn't know I had a favorite suit."

"You do. Every time I wear the gray plaid three-piece, you come to my office two or three extra times a day. I wore it your second day of work and you stared at me all day, despite how much you hated me at the time."

"I didn't hate you. I was just confused."

He laughed, and she thought she might never get tired of hearing his laughter directed at her; she craved it, after spending weeks observing him act this way with others but not her.

"Say what you want; I know the truth!" he said, squeezing her hand, his palm warm against hers.

It was so easy to be here, with him. He was kind and supportive, and he was sincere in everything he said. He had a quiet, easy confidence that she wished she could emulate. She was confident about many things, but the self-assurance he possessed, deep down in his core, was something she had to feign. What little she remembered of him from Hogwarts, he was always trying to prove himself; she wondered how he had come to be so at ease with himself and others in the ensuing years.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, after she sat studying him in silence for a few moments.

"How did you get to where you are today?" she asked. "I don't mean work-wise. I mean your confidence, the way you're so comfortable with yourself and your place in the world."

His lips curled into a wry smile, no dimple with this one. "It took a lot of self-reflection after the war. I don't know if you know anything about my position at the Ministry during Voldemort's rise?"

She didn't.

"Well, I worked in Fudge's office, and I believed him when he said Harry was crazy and Voldemort hadn't returned. Or, at least, I told myself I believed him. I let my ambition get in the way of my values, and I let it come between me and my family. Dad thought Fudge appointed me to his office just so he could keep tabs on my family, which pushed me even farther into Fudge's camp. I was so angry that Dad thought I couldn't have gotten that position on my own.

"I mean, looking back, Dad was at last partly right. A nineteen-year-old would never get a position that close to the Minister without some kind of ulterior motive or Galleons exchanging hands. But I was too focused on proving that I was better than the rest of my family to realize it. I needed to prove I wasn't going to end up squandering my life away in a dead-end, low-paying position like Dad. I wanted to prove that, even though I was a Weasley, I had value. I wasn't going to be a laughingstock like the rest of the family."

Pansy's eyes softened as he told his story. She sympathized with him, and even felt a little guilty, given how she and her friends had always made fun of the Weasley. She thought about the preconceived ideas she'd had about him as a result, before she'd gotten to know him.

He continued, staring at his fingers, which absently traced circles on the table top, "My family was so upset and disappointed in me, and I was so angry with them. All of them. I remember wishing I were someone else — I mean, I wanted to be me, my personality, my dreams and goals, but I wished I were someone else's son."

He looked up at Pansy, memories of his past anguish apparent in the set of his jaw. "When Voldemort's return was finally public, I was too ashamed of my behavior to reach out to my family, and I also still wanted to separate myself from them. The Ministry still distrusted them, distrusted anyone who'd supported Dumbledore. And even without Voldemort in the mix, I was very aware of how society viewed my family. I wanted to be more than that. While at the same time, I was convinced I didn't deserve to reconnect with my family."

She stared at him, rapt.

"And then the battle happened," he said, simply. "At that point, none of the things I'd been worried about mattered. All that mattered was winning the war and making sure my family was safe." He shrugged. "I mean, it took a couple of years after that for me to come to terms with everything, but really, in the end, what matters is that the people you love are safe, and that you can make positive change in the world. Proving yourself is only important to you; no one else really cares what you do with yourself. They care about how you can help them or support them. And so I realized, I don't matter in the grand scheme of things. But how I contribute to people's lives does."

He gazed at her, his expression open and unashamed, and Pansy's thoughts stuttered as she held his hand on the table top and pondered his words. She had the sudden sensation of falling from a lofty height, like in a dream where your stomach roils but you wake up before you land. He'd shared a clearly painful part of his past to her, and she was grateful for it.

She squeezed his hand. If she wasn't careful, she was going to find herself falling in love with him. Maybe part of her already had.