I: because memory moves in orbits of absence

The Quidditch World Cup debacle. Two months and Mr. Crouch still jumps at any mention of Winky, still insists on calling him Weatherby. He doesn't know why he slogs so hard; in the end all the credit will go to Weatherby anyway, who doesn't even exist. But still, he keeps at it. Does the research, signs every report with a flourish. Big and bold. "Percival O. Weasley." Maybe one day someone will read it.

This isn't what he planned for himself. He hopes maybe Mr. Crouch will get sick, give him a chance to show his stuff. Actually, he really hopes Mr. Crouch will croak, but whenever that comes up he squashes it down so he never realises that he had thought it at all. It sickens him with fear, to know that twenty, thirty, forty years from now he will become this bitter, pompous old man-one that many admire but few like, and even fewer love. But nevertheless, he tells everyone how lovely it all is. How important it all is, even if they don't want to listen.

He wouldn't want anyone to think that what he'd been working for his whole life had turned out to be a mistake.

Oh, it's pleasant enough at his department. It isn't like school, where doing his work right meant everyone hated him for spoiling their fun. His office is nice. The people are nice. The talk around the water cooler is nice.

"So, Mrs. Riley, how is your son doing at Beauxbatons?"

"Oh just lovely. He adores France."

Even the gossip has no bite. "That Bertha Jorkins. Bit fluffy in the head, isn't she?"

"Oh now. She has a good nose for stories, you have to give her that."

"Shame she hasn't come back from her holiday."

So he jumps at the chance to go out for drinks when he runs into Oliver Wood after work one day. The invitation is a surprise; he and Oliver never shared much of anything, despite having roomed together for seven years. Seven years of talks on Quidditch matches and bantering about girls; borrowing notes and cribbing homework and arguments about lost socks and who left the towels on the floor. And there it ended. The invitation is an empty gesture, a concession to propriety, something Percy understands and is quite good at.

He knows his lines, plays his part. Old school chum-asks Oliver how being reserve Keeper is panning out, notices Oliver absently rubbing a plain white-gold ring.

"Found a girl you like better than Quidditch, yet?"

Oliver stops fiddling his ring, suddenly lights up. "Huh. Yeah. Well, not better than Quidditch." He laughs. "Just as much. She's nutters. Beautiful, and brilliant, but nutters."

"Does she have a name?"

"Yeah. Alice. Alice Girdlestone. Her parents hate me, but mine love her. You know how it is."

No, I don't, but Percy checks himself in time. "They think she's too good for you, I suppose."

"Oh, she is, she is." Oliver looks sheepish. "All those girls I had at school and I had to fall for the woman who shouldn't look at me twice." Percy tries to look interested, waiting to hear more about Oliver's wonder girl. It doesn't take much to get Oliver to talk-Percy had to listen to years of Oliver gleefully recounting his dalliances to him and the other Gryffindor boys.

So it floors him when instead, Oliver asks, "What about you? Whatever happened to Penelope?"

He toys with his beer, a real one. After school, he discovered that he couldn't stand that butter crap. He watches beads of moisture slide down the bottle, puddle at the bottom. The pub is almost empty, it being Thursday. There's a man with a piano onstage, a failed attempt at giving the place a touch of class. The clinking of glasses, the tinkling of notes. A plaintive moan that's supposed to pass for singing. "She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly…"

"Sorry." Percy looks up; Oliver is clearly embarrassed. "I mean, if you don't want to talk about it-it's not like you ever did before."

"No, I didn't, did I?" He drains the last of his beer. "She's not the kind of girl you ever really talk about, anyway. Not like the ones you were involved with, if I recall correctly."

At this, Oliver grins. "Too pure and all that, was she? Not like the more, ah, liberal girls I knew."

He smiles back. The way his lips stretch feels strange, alien. "You could say that."

Then again, perhaps you couldn't.

TBC