12:53
There was really no sense in keeping them around if he did not find them aesthetically pleasing. That was the purpose of art; was it not?
He carefully packed them away in boxes. No use throwing them out. They could be useful somewhere.
Now the walls looked blank. Bare.
There was no harm in looking in the Gorus Catalogue. He did need new pieces now, and sometimes a little measured change could have a dramatic impact. Like when he had started filing his papers by complaint, rather than region. His productivity had risen by thirty four percent.
Percy flipped randomly through the pages. No, no, no, his colour scheme was pale tans and dark browns, not blue. No, no, and my, that was rather gaudy, wasn't it? Rather like the picture in the prefects' bathroom at Hogwarts. A crowd of exuberant merpeople frolicked in the sea. The bright turquoise and marine-blue was almost blinding. Almost indecent. Shameful. A young merman flipped chocolate hair at him, turning his back, and exposing a length soft olive skin.
Percy flipped to the next page, there was a surprising lack of artwork that suited a colour scheme of pale tans and dark browns. More of those landscapes. Maybe he would go with a set in blue; it wouldn't be that difficult to transfigure everything into another colour. He certainly had helped his mom do it often enough.
He was back at the page with the merpeople.
A little girl, maybe four, with sun-kissed blond hair and blue eye's like Ginny's, looked up at him. She smiled, a shy smile and offered him a seashell.
1:30
He bought a picture with merpeople. In fact, he bought a set. Three of them. A cluster of young women combing their hair on a sand-swept shore. A communal game of water-tag, in which young mermen raced through the water, full of endless energy and enthusiasm. The one with the impudent brown-eyed youth. And the little golden girl playing on the deserted reef. She had such haunting eyes.
Percy rarely entertained visitors. He was the only one who had to look at it.
Which meant; the beige wallpaper had to go. He found his wand, lying in its place, suspended over the mantle. He hadn't touched it in . . . he could not recollect how long. It wasn't a necessary instrument in his work. It was old. One of the cheaper wands from Ollivander's. Percy hadn't even picked it out. His father had borrowed a Comprehensive Potentiality Tester off of one of his coworkers, and found that Percy was best suited for a wand of unicorn hair. They had then sent Percy's measurements in.
He felt that sudden thrill that had always overwhelmed him. Playing with fire. . .
He tapped the wall gently with his wand. He had given up on using words a year ago. Words were very good for structuring a spell, giving it a set form, but limiting in that the pronunciation had to be absolutely correct. White was a good colour. Full of contrast for the blue.
The wall turned lilac.
Percy had not thought of lilac.
But it did look good. The colour glowed, like that instant before dawn, when Percy made himself breakfast in the morning. He could almost fancy that hidden underneath was the soft glittering subtleties of the fading stars.
And the sofa ~ became a soft sapphire lounging couch. How was anyone supposed to maintain a proper posture when they sat on one of those things? Reading was going to be terribly difficult. And the kitchen ~ became a sunny yellow. Too bright for the rest of the house. Certainly going to be an eyesore when people looked into the window.
It became almost game. Trying to guess what would his wand conjure up before it happened. And that was the key point; Percy had no control over the spontaneous spectacles that were occurring. It was just happening.