May 2001
"I owe you a drink," Phil said as he came into Percy's office at the end of a particularly trying day. "Are you free or have you got wedding stuff waiting for you at home?"
"I'm free, I have been relegated to official fetcher and carrier. Audrey and her family have got everything under control, or so I have been told multiple times," Percy replied. "And you don't owe me anything."
Phil didn't look convinced but said no more as Percy tidied his desk. They left the Ministry and made their way to the pub. Enclosed in a booth, Percy let out a sigh, stretching out his shoulders.
"Long day?" Phil asked with sympathy.
Percy nodded. "Unofficially, the Minister is still unhappy with me. It doesn't help he attended the Potter wedding, and well, I would be much happier if people stopped thanking me. As would the Minister."
"Ahh," Phil said with understanding. "Like that is it."
Percy nodded as he lifted his pint. "Officially I had nothing to do with it, and so officially I can't be called onto the carpet for it. Unofficially I can have my days filled with tedious, pointless busywork until Kingsley gets over it."
"Merlin, that's unfair."
"He's mostly over it, to be honest, and it's the nature of the beast I'm afraid. Anyway, enough of that, how is Suzanna settling in at Hogwarts?"
"Sorted into Ravenclaw, she's a good fit there. She wants to be a vet."
"Magi-zoology?"
"No, a muggle vet. We didn't know she was magical till her letter, so it's a bit of a change. She's going to do her OWLs then if she still wants to be a vet she can leave and go get her qualifications."
"Really? Won't she be behind her peers?"
"Yeah, but she can be behind a year. As long as she has the results, she can go to college late then into vet school. There's no age limit on that."
Percy drank more of his pint. "How many?" he asked idly.
"How many what?"
"Oh, err, sorry. I was thinking out loud."
"Go on," Phil gestured with his glass.
"Well, I was just thinking how many kids coming from muggle and half-blood families had plans before they get their letters."
"Most of them," Phil replied. "I mean every kid dreams of what they want to be, don't they? Finding out about magic just gives you different options. It's not great, in her case because we're finding out how much work Suzanna is going to have to do if she wants to be a vet. I'll be honest, I hope she decides to be a magi-zoologist because at least she can do her exams and be qualified and won't have to start again."
A small frown appeared between Percy's eyes.
"Ah no," Phil said, pointing his finger at him over the table. "Percy, you're getting married in three weeks. You've just passed the repeal; you can't make this your next project. You'll never get the top job."
Percy nodded. "Suzanna should get to be a vet if she wants, magic shouldn't hold her back."
"It won't," Phil said. "It will take longer, and she'll have to work a bit harder, but if she wants it, then that's what it will take."
"But what if we could offer apprenticeships? What if we could find a way that students could start studying when their muggle counterparts do so that they can apply at the same time as their peers. I'm not suggesting setting up a secondary education system, but there must be a way to help those that want or need it."
Phil leaned back, nursing his glass. "Maybe, but are you sure it's worth it?"
"I'm going to have a family with Audrey, Phil. What if they want to be astronauts or pilots or scuba diving instructors? No, I think this needs looking at, some groundwork could be done. Take a look at some of the statistics, a little bit of initial investigation."
"Merlin, Percy. Kingsley is going to have hippogryphs if you do this."
"Maybe," he shrugged unconcernedly. "I like a project, something worthwhile. How many people get into the Ministry jobs and do nothing? I want more from the Ministry than keeping the status quo."
"I've been thinking," Minerva said as she led Percy and Audrey down the hall to the conservatory of McGonagall Lodge. "A magical binding would save you a lot of bother later on. I know Kingsley gave you that waiver or whatever it was, but I think if you agree to go through with a binding then even magically, they can't argue. And what's more, since your wedding day falls on the solstice, I think I've found the perfect location even if I do say so myself. The Nine Ladies, on Stanton Moor."
"I don't believe I know it," Percy said, cocking his head in interest.
"The Nine Ladies is what the muggles call it. Although if we ever called it anything else, I don't know it. My point is that you should bind yourself to Audrey with magic. To do so, you're going to have to use a ritual site. Stonehenge is overrun with muggles these days as are most of the sites in Ireland. Stanton Moor, however, is off the beaten track and holds no significance to the muggles as it isn't on the equinox line. You need to perform the ritual in a circle of standing stones to bind your magic. Although if I'm not mistaken, by doing so on the summer solstice means that you're going to be drawing on fertility rites as well. Are you ready to accept the consequences?"
"Yes, of course."
"Percy, Audrey's muggle, you are a Weasley. There is very little chance you will struggle to conceive. There are no genetic issues of bloodlines, your parents had seven children. It's unheard of. You must realise that the same is all but certainly possible for you and Audrey. Muggle contraception won't hold out against ancient magic. I would fully expect the consummation of the binding to result in pregnancy."
"You're kidding!" Audrey said in shock, glancing between Minerva and Percy.
"No. Rituals are what ritual circles are used for after all, and if they didn't work, there wouldn't be so many of them. You'll be evoking circle magic." Minerva explained.
"I hadn't thoughtꟷ," Percy said hesitantly.
"Oh, don't be daft, Percy." Minerva flapped a hand at him.
"But Audrey," Percy began again.
"Audrey, needn't worry; she has enough witches that will join hands for her."
"Pardon?" Audrey said with pointed concern.
Minerva took pity on the decidedly uneasy young woman in front of her. "Essentially, what you are doing is marrying by magical means. You aren't magical, but that doesn't matter. In days of yore, you would have essentially 'given' yourself to Percy. It's not as bad as that," Minerva said with a laugh as Audrey pulled a face at the implied misogyny. "It's no worse than being given away now, is it? But I digress. You will give yourself to Percy, as a supplicant, if you like. You promise to be his, he promises to be yours, and in that binding, he swears his magic to your protection, health, and happiness."
"Wait, swears? You lot have funny notions about vows, what does it mean."
"It means exactly that. Percy's magic will encourage him to ensure your health, wealth, and happiness."
"Encourage?" Audrey asked eyebrows raised.
"Yes. It's still a choice, you will still argue, fall out and that sort of thing, it isn't going to force Percy into anything. Magic is slightly, sentient, I suppose, Percy is still going to be able to put his foot in it, but his magic will nudge him if you are in danger or worried or generally unhappy. It will not help him solve the problem mind; he'll have to do that on his own." Minerva said with a smile.
"Isn't that slightly invasive for both of us?" Audrey asked.
"Well, it depends, I suppose. Do you think having your husband know if you are in danger is invasive?"
"Well no, but,"
"You're reading too much into it," Minerva advised. "It's a feeling a niggle that something is off no more."
"So, I give myself to Percy as a supplicant, and he binds his magic to me. So why do I need witches, and why do they need to join hands?"
"Because you are evoking old magic. Percy will have wizards walking for him, you need the same, it's about balance. You don't have any magic, but you are female, and it is based on a fertility ritual. We can stand in for you for the magic, we'll each give a little bit of ours to you to help seal the bond. Think of it as a sort of welcome to the family. We approve and accept you, thus willing give a bit of ourselves to you. The men will do the same for Percy."
"You and Percy walk into the circle holding hands. Once you two are in the middle, the women join hands and walk thrice around the inside of the circle while the men walk thrice around the outside in the opposite direction. While that happens, the binding is recited and is completed in time for the sun to come up."
"Binding?"
"Ropes," Minerva said innocently
"What!?" Audrey squeaked.
Minerva twinkled in humour. "Binding chords. Quite real. Colours signify things, and they are magically imbued. There's usually three. Harry and Hermione used them if you recall. Be glad I doubt Percy wishes this to be a traditional ceremony."
"Dare I ask?" Audrey asked in feigned horror.
"Heard the term 'sky clad'?"
"Oh my god!" Audrey choked on a laugh.
Minerva cackled.
"No, we're not, please." Audrey turned to Percy mostly serious.
"No," Percy assured her. "We aren't, you will wear a robe."
"Robe?" Audrey turned back to Minerva.
"That's the only thing you'll be wearing," Minerva put in. "No shoes, no makeup, just you. Take a shower before you sleep. If you want to wash in the morning, then we can get you some purified water, but you have to come in your natural form as it were. Hair down as well."
"So just me in a robe?"
"Yes, Percy will be the same, as will all the wizards and witches. It's delightfully pagan, my dear, harking back to when we revered the earth, lived and worked together. Once the binding is done, we'll all leave, and you'll consummate your bond."
"You want us to have sex outside in the middle of the moor?"
Minerva laughed again. "Yes. Although I shall warn you now, my dear if the bond takes, you might not give a fig if we sat around and watched."
"You, mean…?" Audrey asked.
"Yes, it drives your desire for each other. It is a fertility rite."
"And you think I'll conceive even if I'm not ovulating?"
"It's very likely."
"I don't think I'm going to tell my Mum about this," Audrey said, taking a large gulp of her tea.
"You'll need seven witches."
"I don't think I know seven witches," Audrey tilted her head considering.
"Nonsense," Minerva said.
"No, really, I don't think I do."
"Fleur and Ginny will stand for you," Percy said.
"Exactly, Hermione will come of course, and Harry for you, Percy. Don't look at me like that," Minerva said. "If you wish to contact them both and say that you aren't inviting them, then I wish you the joy of it."
"No, I wouldn't want to not invite them, but isn't it a lot to ask them to do this?" Audrey asked.
"Nonsense," Minerva waved her off. "It's an honour to be asked. Nymphadora would if you asked, and I would ask her mother as well. They are related to Percy," Minerva said over Audrey's objection. "Ginny, Nymphadora and Andromeda make up the feminine side of Percy's family, it is important to the magic. Hermione is muggle-born mirroring another aspect of your life. I would suggest that you invite Luna Lovegood as well. The Lovegood family are near to part fay as it gets, she has a connection with things that aren't discernible to most. She would be a strong aspect."
"I don't think I know her."
"She's friends with Ginny, Harry and Hermione, she came to Ginny's birthday party at our house, and was at the Potter wedding," Percy said
"There you go your seven witches. You shan't have as many problems," Minerva said to Percy. "Bill, Fred, George, Harry, Severus, and Arthur. They will all stand for you, I'm sure. You only need to find one more. Kingsley will do the binding. Do you think Charlie would stand with you? We need to start planning. I will contact Andromeda as soon as I may. I've not planned a binding ceremony in so long."
"You are coming to the muggle wedding?" Audrey asked the smug witch. "Please, you've done so much for us, I really do want you there."
"Of course, I will be. I've seen the progress the elves are making on your dress, and I must say I think you're going to look spectacular."
"I'd like to invite everyone that comes to the binding to the church. Do you think they would come?"
"I'm positive that if you ask my dear, they won't refuse you," Minerva replied honestly.
"Even Severus?" Percy asked deadpan.
"I'm quite sure that he will be secretly pleased to be asked and quite certain he will hide it behind his most dour expression."
"Asking him to the be in the photographs might be a bit much then?" Audrey sniggered.
Minerva's laughter pealed out. "By all means, ask him, but please allow me to be there, for I would dearly hate to miss it."
June 2001
Audrey hadn't thought she would sleep, but when she was gently shaken awake by a spindly hand that she knew wasn't human, it was dark.
"Miss must be wakening." The voice whispered in the dark.
"Stitches?"
"Yes." the elf replied, then a dull low light illuminated the room, allowing her to see but not so bright to blind her sleep-fogged eyes. "You must be coming with Stitches to prepare."
Audrey nodded her acceptance and felt the immediate jerk of apparition.
Audrey landed on a bed, glad she had slept in a t-shirt and pyjama bottoms in anticipation of being whisked away in the middle of the night. Anything else would have been somewhat embarrassing due to the number of gathered women already in the room.
Warm greetings were exchanged as Audrey climbed off the bed and stretched, rubbing her eyes and trying to jump-start her brain. It was disconcerting to be woken then transported the length of the country even if required no effort from herself.
Minerva shooed Audrey towards the en-suite of the bedroom she had appeared in, and Audrey recognised it as the room she and Percy had stayed in during their visit.
"There's a bowl of water by the sink. Use that to wash," Minerva advised. "Then we'll get you into your robe."
Audrey closed to door and made quick use of the loo before whipping off her sleepwear and dipping the natural sponge into the bowl of gently warmed water. The wash helped her brain whirl to life, ensuring she would be at least capable of speech in the next fifteen minutes. Audrey suspected that Minerva had been pre-warned of her tendency to be dumb first thing by Percy. Ablutions complete she slipped a dressing gown from the back of the door and returned to the room.
Her witches were waiting when she returned to the room the robe was laid out on the bed.
"Now then," Minerva said, holding the robe out like a coat. "Out of that and into this and we'll show you how to fasten it. Once the binding is done, you'll call for Stitches, and she will return you to your bed, leaving everyone none the wiser."
Audrey nodded, letting her dressing gown slip to the floor and let Minerva help her into the robe shielding her modesty from those gathered. Once it was securely fastened, Audrey found her voice.
"I want to thank you all for this what you're about to do for Percy and me."
The short grass was cold and damp beneath her bare feet. Audrey concentrated on following the low light provided by her escort as they crossed the clearing towards the circle.
It was no Stonehenge. To describe them as boulders was being generous. They were barely knee-high and only big enough for a person to perch on. But for all that in the gloaming light there was something in the air. Something that harked back to the mystical. Or she was being silly, caught up in the idea that they were gathering here in their robes, these magical people who wielded power she had no comprehension of, to join her and Percy. To offer their approval and blessing and magic to the match.
They stood huddled together for warmth, the robes were only thin and the morning cool, until the sharp crack of apparition signalled the other half of their party had arrived.
Audrey felt a shiver run down her spine. Somehow, sheltered amongst the group of witches as she was, she had not noticed the effect of their costumes, but as the men came towards their group wands held loosely, robes glowing white, she became aware of the raw power of them.
Audrey stayed where she was, knowing that these people would need a few minutes to work at the beginning of the ritual without her. She saw no overt magic, but the hairs on her body rose in tandem as the two groups separated and took their places. Percy approached and offered his hand. Audrey accepted it and walked towards the gap between the stones that aligned them with the rising sun as she had been told they would. As they stepped into the circle, the two halves of the circle split and started walking a low chant marking their steps.
Kingsley smiled briefly, waiting until both halves had done a full rotation before laying the three coloured chords over their joined hands.
Kingsley recited the blessing as the two halves made one more rotation. The chant a steady monotone, in time with the steps. The bindings tightened around her hands, drawing her eyes to them and as the two halves completed their third and final rotation, the chords brightened until Audrey was forced to blink and then vanished.
She felt as if perhaps she was grasping a live wire as a rush of tingles washed over her, radiating outwards from her hands up and down through her body. Every hair straining to stand on its very tip. Then it was gone, and her eyes locked with Percy's and genuine desire slammed into her. Audrey let it propel her closer to him, her head tilting to meet his descending lips, and her hands suddenly free to touch him went gleefully to their work.
Magical was a muggle expression. It denoted something out of the ordinary, something that was other.
To Percy, magical was mundane, he was a wizard after all. He didn't really understand how the muggles applied the term magical to things that were in fact not magical, but then he had never thought he had a poet's soul. Not him, stiff-necked uptight Percival Weasley.
Since leaving home, since Audrey, since the war, he had come to realise that the way his family had seen him at fifteen, sixteen and seventeen wasn't necessarily who he was, but still. He didn't have the soul of a poet; he was not an artist. But at that moment, he thought he might be able to understand, be able to glimpse at what it was.
He had turned to watch. He had debated with himself over if he should or not but at the last moment, decided that she was already his and so he should.
As she stepped through the doorway on the arm of her father dressed in antique lace, a bouquet of carefully selected flowers in her hand, Percy understood.
The organ music swelled the congregation turned and time stopped.
It was cliché, but it didn't make it less accurate.
He'd seen her every day for years, but it was like the first time. Only it wasn't, because he knew her, loved her. He was watching her walk towards him a with that smile he loved so dearly under her veil.
Percy instead thought magical was an apt description. It was. She was.
He hoped to Merlin someone had captured that moment with a camera, preferably a wizarding one because he never wanted to forget it.
He was brimming, straining at the seams. It wasn't magic, he knew the feeling of his magic rising, this wasn't that. This was pride, and, Merlin, happiness wasn't a big enough word, it didn't cover even a percentage of what he felt he was... exultant. If he had to cast a Patronus in this instant, Percy knew without a doubt it would be a lion. It would burn with the brightness of a thousand suns and roar with all the clamour of thunder. He didn't feel big enough to hold all his feelings inside him, he was going to burst.
She was walking up the aisle towards him, sunlight from the tall windows gilding her, and he couldn't take his eyes off her. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. All the blood in his body had made a rapid descent to his feet, his stomach hot on its heels. Upon hitting his toes, it rebounded back to his head. He concentrated on breathing. She was still walking up the aisle, just how long was it? Had someone jinxed it? It hadn't been that long when he'd walked up it, and he'd stopped to greet people and say hello nearly every three steps.
But then, she was there, her hand slotted into his and the world abruptly righted itself. Percy took a breath and helped lift the veil back over her head. Rose and Rachel came forward and fussed with it, so Percy let go and found her slim fingers again. It was then he noticed the goblin-wrought jewellery at her throat and hanging from her ears. His gaze dropped to their hands where she still held the bouquet, and he saw the delicate small flowers of shimmering angel's breath, and he felt the implications hit him like a truck.
His throat closed, he felt himself tear up. He hadn't really paid attention. Hadn't really understood Audrey's strange insistence of certain things but now he did. In the small ways that she could, she was including his world, her acceptance of him, of his magic. At her very muggle wedding, Audrey was standing at his side with declarations of acceptance visible for those who knew what they were seeing. It didn't matter his mother was not present. It didn't matter that his father had had to come and apologise for her and that Percy had felt the hurt cut into him as deeply as it ever did. It didn't matter because Audrey was stood there willing to tie her life to his, with all the complications it would bring.
He didn't deserve this woman.
Percy blinked trying to regain his control. Audrey smiled beatifically at him, and he knew she'd understood everything he'd just been through.
A gentle cough snapped his attention back to his surroundings. Father Andrews met his eye with a twitch of his lips. He lifted his book held in the flat of both hands, with one more understanding look he raised his chin and addressed the church. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this Congregation, to join together this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony."
The swore their vows, sang the hymns, and signed the registry then paraded back down the aisle of the church together. The pomp, the ceremony, the circus and pageantry that was a muggle church wedding was suddenly the best thing ever. Percy had the wherewithal to know that not every eye in the church was dry, but he felt as if someone had cast an overly enthusiastic cheering charm on him along with a mild levitation charm.
A discrete finite incantatem netted no difference in how he felt.
They stood on the steps of the church while the confetti was thrown to be captured by the photographer. No one had told Fred and George about the confetti, but after a moment's surprise, they found or conjured more and gleefully joined in. It was perfect, it was more than he had ever hoped for.