There was something about Percy that was off. On the surface, he was the nice young man her mother had always told her to settle down with. He held doors open, he was unfailingly polite and a little reserved enough to be interesting. He took notice of her likes and dislikes and acted accordingly. He didn't drone on about his job, boring her to tears with how important or how hard his days were. In fact, of his work Percy said very little. He didn't obsess over football and in fact he had the first time she mentioned it, asking if he watched or supported a team, looked at her blankly.

That Audrey thought was the thing that got her thinking about Percy. That blank look, the one he hid as quickly as it came. It happened less and less the more time she spent with him, but the source of it puzzled her. Why would a young bloke, well educated, with a host of brothers not know what football was or understand the idea of a soap opera?

Smaller things such as not having eaten Chinese food or pizza had not raised as much suspicion when they had cropped up. Not everyone's parents were adventurous when it came to cuisine, and a Scottish boarding school didn't strike her as likely to serve Chicken Tikka Masala. Percy couldn't drive and couldn't name a single car brand. He'd never flown, but he had spoken fleetingly of a visit to Egypt.

Since she'd started keeping track of the idiosyncrasies of Percy, Audrey realised that there was an awful lot of them.

But that left her in a quandary of its own. She liked Percy. She didn't really want to stop seeing him. But if something was off, she didn't want to wake up one morning and find out she'd fallen for someone who wasn't who they said they were. Or worse, was no longer there at all.

She'd have to confront him, only what to say? Hi, Percy, look there are a few things that don't add up and before I decide I've fallen for you could you tell me if you're a serial killer? Or a con man? Or an undercover something with a fabricated backstory? – Yeah, that wouldn't make her look crazy.

Oh, and how come Percy never got stuck in traffic? Like never ever. If they arranged to meet no matter the weather, or location, or state of the roads he was always on time. He'd had to cancel on her a few times which was refreshingly normal, but if they were going to meet, Percy was always on time. No one managed that on London's public transport. No one.

There was something rotten in the state of Denmark.

Finally, after a week of prevaricating Audrey had done something about it. She'd made a phone call and agreed to a lunch meeting. Now Audrey was sat in the busy London restaurant nursing a glass of wine while waiting for her companion to show up. She stared out the window watching the passing people as they scurried about on their lunch breaks escaping the confining office, the bad lighting, and the terrible canteen food. Audrey thanked her stars she hadn't had to get a job like that. That so far, she'd been able to follow her passion.

Audrey spied Rose coming down the street, and it drew a smile to her face. Rose was fun, quirky, the sort of person who was written off as pretty and shallow by most who didn't see past the blonde hair and the dedication to fashion Rose had slaved to since she was old enough to spend her pocket money unsupervised. Rose came through the door, flirted with the closest waiter by reflex and made her way to Audrey. She dropped into the seat with a genuine smile of greeting. "Hello, I'm not late, am I?"

"No," Audrey assured her. "I came via the market, and it wasn't as good as it could have been, so I was quicker than I planned."

"Someone else had all the good stuff already?" Rose asked with a sympathetic smile.

"Probably," Audrey said. "Drink?"

"Yes, whatever you're having."

Audrey waved a waiter over ordered Rose a drink and settled back into her chair waiting. It was a short wait.

"So?" Rose asked arching an eyebrow.

Audrey smiled hesitantly. "I need a favour."

"Obviously, otherwise you wouldn't have called me out of my little circle of typists to this rather nice restaurant to treat me for lunch, would you?" Rose answered with a cheeky grin.

"It's, well I'm not sure I should be asking you this, but it's Percy."

"Percy?" Rose looked startled, and the cheeky grin faded to real concern. "It's been what? Six months, what's he done? He's not asked you for money has he?"

"No, nothing like that," Audrey reassured her fiddling with the cuff of her sleeve not meeting Rose's gaze.

"Then what? He seems nice enough, smitten with you obviously. Didn't even so much as look at the rest of us in the pub and you've had that goofy grin on your face for months now."

Audrey shifted in her chair taking a fortifying sip of her wine. "He never talks about his work."

Roses face stayed attentive waiting for further information. Audrey swallowed the doubt about what she was trying to explain, making her words come slowly. "He doesn't, at all never. Well alright," Audrey qualified. "No more than how his day was or warning me if he's going to be really busy and working late. Do you not think that's weird?"

"Umm no?" Rose said. "I mean a bloke who doesn't spout off about how fantastic his job is and his never-ending list of workmates who you've never met but are supposed to be able to keep straight and remember sounds great." Rose looked at Audrey over the top of her wine glass before taking a sip.

"I know," Audrey said frustrated. "I know, and it is, and he's interested in what I do, and you know how unusual that is. But Percy doesn't socialise with anyone from work either. He's never said he's gone out with them after work and he only ever seems to attend functions he's required to. He's not interested in football or any kind of sport other than a passing enquiry if it's something I'm interested in. He'll sit and watch TV with me, but he'll pick up a book more often and not and let me watch what I want."

"Audrey, love, what's the problem and how can I help? He seems pretty ideal to me. I mean, if he had a bit more muscle and was broader in the chest, and was a bit easier going. Because he looks the type to not have piles of clothes on the floor and I live in organised chaos, and I couldn't cope with someone picking up after me or trying to get me to put things away." Rose smiled encouragingly.

"Could you, maybe, you know, find out?" Audrey asked sending Rose a pleading look for understanding.

"Find out what?" Rose replied looking puzzled.

"Who he works with. What they think of him? I've never met any of his friends, he's estranged from his family. Who else is there?"

Rose looked concerned. "Audrey, do you think there's something off about him?"

"Yes. No. I don't know," Audrey said putting her glass down in favour of sinking her hands into her hair. "It's been six months, and I'm not comparing him to, you know, Steve, I'm not, but if I was…"

"Percy's ahead?" Rose provided knowingly.

"Streets ahead. And I don't want to suddenly find out he's been lying to me all this time or God, I don't know, is a con man or something. What if he's got a criminal record!" Audrey exclaimed.

Rose laughed. "Audrey calm down. Percy doesn't strike me as the type. He's straight-laced by the book kind of guy, and he's great. He's witty in a dry way, he's not a foam party type, but he's certainly the type to get you in a cab at the end of the night and home safe. If it eases your mind, I'll ask around the pool, see if anyone knows of him and I'll ask Jennifer to ask around her pool. She's got higher clearance than me."

"You don't think I'm crazy?" Audrey asked worriedly. "That I'm maybe looking for problems that don't exist?"

"No, I think you're crazy, but I get it. Somethings bothering you and this is an easy thing to do. Give me a week or two, and I'll have your answers." Rose reached over and patted her hand. "Now, you promised me lunch, and that waiter has been dying to come over here and introduce himself so what are we having?"

By the time Audrey got home, she half regretted asking Rose to find out about Percy through her contacts, but she pushed it out of her head. It might be untrusting, but if something were wrong, she'd look stupider for ignoring her gut.

Two weeks later when Audrey had managed to forget the favour she'd asked of Rose, she'd settled in front of the TV just as the doorbell went. Surprised since she wasn't expecting Percy, she went to the door to find Rose on her doorstep. The favour came rushing back, and the look on Rose's face made her stomach swoop.

"Come in," Audrey said leading her friend back to her sofa and the burbling TV. Rose shrugged off her coat dropping it over the armchair and settled onto the sofa next to Audrey, fishing a bottle of wine out of her large floppy handbag.

Audrey looked at the bottle and then at Rose's face before wordlessly getting to her feet and collecting glasses and a corkscrew from the kitchen. Back on the sofa, Rose took the corkscrew, opened the bottle and poured two large glasses.

"I'm sorry," she said handing Audrey a glass. "There's no Percy Weasley listed as taking an entry-level position in any of the Ministerial departments that my pool works with which is a good third of them. I didn't want to tell you that, so I asked the others and asked Jennifer to ask around as well. He's not an employee as far as I can find out. I'm so sorry love."

Audrey looked at Rose with a blank face. "So, he doesn't work for a Minister?"

"It doesn't look like it, but only within the bits I can find out about. There's nothing to say he works in a different branch. I'm sorry I don't have better news."

"It's ok," Audrey said fighting down her feelings.

"Look, so if he doesn't work for a Minister, maybe he's just a flunkie. A paper pusher buried in a pool of other paper pushers and thought that working for a Minister sounded more impressive. He wouldn't be the first to stretch the bounds of their job description, and Percy's a good guy, you just need to ask him," Rose said encouragingly.

Audrey's smile was woeful. "Ask him how? Something felt off, and I have terrible luck with men, so I thought having my friend ask around about you was a better idea than asking you straight out because I didn't want my heart broken? My god, I'm like every chick lit ever written."

"Yeah," Rose agreed. "But it does mean you were wrong to investigate, although maybe don't mention his habit of being on time was the thing that pushed you over the edge."

Audrey looked at her friend for a beat and they both dissolved into giggles. "Oh hell, I'm mad aren't I?"

"All the best people are," Rose said nudging Audrey with her shoulder comfortingly.

They settled on the sofa turning to the TV and sharing the bottle of wine. When it was finished, and they had talked about Audrey's next move, Rose stood collecting up her discarded shoes, coat, and handbag. "What are you going to do?" she asked referring to the scenarios they had gone through which had ranged from the extreme of leaving the country with no warning to more rationally asking Percy to explain.

"I'll ask him. I'll have to I suppose, I have to now, and we'll see what he says." Audrey said walking her friend to the door.

"I think it's highly unlikely that it's going to be any more than he exaggerated his job to impress you. But if it isn't, just so you know, my freezer has ice cream, and there's wine in the fridge," Rose said hugging Audrey goodbye as she stepped through the door.

"Thanks, Rose," Audrey replied.

"No problem kiddo," Rose said smiling and waved as she headed for the stairs.

Audrey didn't see Percy for two more days. He arrived at her door at half past six on the dot carrying a bag of hot take away. She let him in, greeted him with the usual friendly kiss, and they sat at her tiny table to eat the food. Audrey admitted that she made a poor showing and a blind man could see something was distracting her, so it came as no surprise when Percy cleared the dishes away and returned to the table. He retook his seat, and she let him take one of her hands in his. When he asked her directly if something was wrong, she took a deep breath.

"Maybe," she admitted.

"Is there something I can do?" Percy asked. Audrey felt her heart melt at the earnest expression on his face, the way his hair was ever so slightly mussed and knew that if she was this far gone already, it was only going to hurt worse if something was truly not as it should be.

"Percy, who do you work for?"

Percy frowned slightly at her his puzzlement showing. "The Ministry, I told you."

"I know what you said Percy, and to be honest it wasn't much. And well, there isn't a good way to say this, and I know that it's possibly not the best way of handling things, but I didn't know what else to do. I thought that maybe if I were just inventing trouble, then it wouldn't matter because I wouldn't have to tell you, but it didn't work out that way and now—."

"Audrey," Percy interrupted squeezing her hand. "You aren't making sense. What's the matter?"

"I asked Rose to look into which department you worked for in the Ministry. She couldn't find you on the list of people employed within Whitehall."

Percy looked shocked, Audrey bit her lip and tried to explain. "I know I probably shouldn't have, but I thought she'd just tell me you were on the rolls and it would just be me being slightly crazy. But you weren't," she shrugged helplessly. "And now I don't know what to think. I've had this feeling, and I tried to ignore it I did. I wanted to, but I couldn't."

Percy blew out a breath. "Feeling?"

"You're going to think I'm crazy," Audrey said miserably. "I've probably ruined everything already, and you're not going to want to keep seeing the crazy stalker girlfriend who sent her friends to check up on you."

A small smile passed over Percy's face, and Audrey couldn't help the small flicker of hope that as nuts as she clearly was, she might still have a relationship at the end of the night

"I do work in the Ministry," Percy said. "I don't know how deep Rose can dig and there's a lot I can't tell you because my work is classified." He held the hand up that wasn't holding hers to halt her reply. "I know that that sounds like an excuse, but it isn't. The work we do is covered by the Official Secrets Act. I simply can't tell you. What I told you I did is the cover I use, no one is usually that interested in something that sounds a lot like boring paper pushing."

"What about everything else?" Audrey blurted.

"What everything else?" Percy asked.

Audrey bit her lip again. She pretty much had to say something now, but it all sounded so stupid when faced with actually saying it out loud.

"I can't tell you if you don't explain," Percy said with a worried look on his face.

Audrey nodded. "I know, but it sounds nuts, it really does."

Percy smiled a small warm smile at her squeezing her hand in encouragement. "I like you a lot Audrey Stone, and I would like our relationship to continue, but for us to do that we need to clear up whatever it is that's bothering you."

Audrey swallowed. She'd never felt just as stupid as she did right now but she acknowledged that Percy was right, if she didn't explain what was bothering her then she'd probably go looking for problems. Better to have it out now. "It's small things," she said slowly, watching his face carefully. "Not just that you never talk about work which if as you say it's classified, I can understand. But you're not interested in football or any sport on TV. Or TV at all really, and sometimes you get this look. This blank look, like you didn't understand what I asked you, even about everyday stuff like famous art, or places, or events that have happened. It's like you don't know about this stuff until I mention it. And you never bring up a topic of conversation that I haven't done first, and it's just, well it's like you don't know what stuff is, but I can't see how you don't."

Percy looked down at their hands still linked across the table. Abruptly he stood, tugging her to her feet and led her to the sofa. He indicated for her to sit and waited until she had before he took his place next to her. Audrey couldn't help the fluttering of fear that appeared around the edge of her stomach. She'd expected him to laugh her off. This didn't look like he was going to laugh it off. She suddenly worried that she'd inadvertently stumbled over something he had been trying to hide because she wouldn't like it.

Percy looked at her still holding her hand. "I understand what you are saying, and in some respects you are right. I don't have an opinion about football or television because they aren't part of my life."

"How?" Audrey said.

Percy's smile grew thinner. "I suppose the modern way of seeing it was that I was brought up in a commune."

Audrey sucked in a startled breath. Of all the things she had imagined Percy would say that hadn't even made it to the list. "Do they even exist in the UK?" she asked before she could stop herself.

Percy smiled wryly at her. "Yes, but it's probably not quite what you are thinking. It was a closed small community. We didn't have mains electricity so no television or kettles or washing machines."

"You're Amish?!" Audrey exclaimed. "That's why you didn't have them in your flat for that first month."

"Yes, well not the Amish part," Percy replied with a nod. "But until I started spending time here and you started visiting I didn't see the need."

"But you said you went to school in Scotland?"

"I did," Percy said. "I was home-schooled until I turned eleven then I went to school in Scotland, but it was the school all the community children went to until I finished at seventeen. The school operated on the same principles."

"But how did you get a job in government? I mean if you lived without electricity how do you even cope?" Audrey asked.

"Well," Percy said. "You adapt pretty quickly. And I did start in an entry-level position, I was just moved quite quickly into the department I am in now, and honestly, it does involve a lot of paper. There's nothing overly modern about reading reports and collating information."

"And your family?"

"It's complicated," Percy answered. "Once we finish school we were sent out into the world to find jobs but with the expectation that we would hold to the values that we had been taught. It's not that I disagree with the values of hard work, honesty, doing the right thing. But the leader I suppose you could call him. He was, well, I thought he was putting my family in danger, and they didn't agree with me, and well, we fought. Things were said that perhaps would have been better not said but…"

Audrey squeezed Percy's hand "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to drag up bad memories."

"It's alright," Percy said. "I never quite fit in but they are my family, and I want what's best for them."

Audrey leant back on the sofa considering everything Percy had said. She turned her head slightly so she could see him and thought about the things that had been nagging at her. It did make sense, the lack of knowledge that he had about things, but she couldn't quite believe that communes still existed in Nineties Britain. It seemed such a sixties thing to do, live in a community off the grid, managing without modern amenities.

"Would you do me one favour?" Percy asked.

"What's that?" Audrey replied.

"Would you not mention it? To your friends and parents. It's just that people don't understand, they jump to conclusions. That is if you still want to see me?"

Audrey scooted closer to Percy on the sofa taking his other hand in hers, so she held both, and looked up into his face earnest and honest. "I do, I do want to keep seeing you. I'm afraid I'm very much on the way to falling for you Percy Weasley, and I'm sorry if I've stepped over boundaries you didn't want me to, asking about your past."

Any worries that Audrey might have had that she might have scared Percy off fled as a grin bloomed on his face. It was a broad happy smile that she didn't think she'd seen before. It took years from him and made her breath catch in her chest at how attractive Percy was.

They got comfortable on the sofa. Audrey leaning into Percy's chest, her feet curled to one side, his arm wrapped around her and by unspoken agreement left the topic of Percy's past alone. Instead, they talked about the next visit to Audrey's parents for lunch and whether or not they should look into taking some time off and perhaps going away for a weekend.

When Percy left that night, he trotted down the stairs from Audrey's flat to the street. Crossing the road he continued out of sight before apparating home. Once there he shed his outerwear and headed straight for his bed. Night time routine complete he found himself staring up at the ceiling, his mind reeling over the evening.

Audrey had actually looked into him, had noticed his lack of knowledge about the muggle world. He rubbed a tired hand over his face, she'd accepted the excuse, and it had been a good thing she had. He knew the rules, he would have had to make a call to the Ministry and have the Obliviate squad come out. It wouldn't do him any favours at the Ministry to be known to be fraternising with Muggles. Worse, though, he didn't want to have Audrey's memories tampered with. She had a right to be suspicious of him, and as much as he was required to keep magic from her, he didn't think she deserved obliviating because he hadn't played his part well enough. Percy vowed to do better to cover his tracks better and to give Audrey no more reasons to suspect him.