In "The Unlikely Pair", Percy's coworker and office-mate at the Ministry of Magic is Alicia Spinnet. The two of them work together to subtly undermine dark politics and bigoted lawmaking during most of the second half of the story.

Alicia is dating Percy's ex-girlfriend, Penelope Clearwater. Percy and Penny dated during their 6th and 7th years at Hogwarts (CoS & PoA). Penny broke up with Percy near the end of their 7th year at Hogwarts and went on to become a Healer, realized that she liked girls, and started dating Alicia.

Percy is good friends with Penny and Alicia, who moved in together shortly before the final battle. Further detail can be found in "The Unlikely Pair."

1 Day After The Final Battle

After a tumultuous first day at work, in which Kingsley, Arthur, Bill, Fleur, Percy, Tonks, Hermione, and Alicia realized just how MUCH work it would take to reboot the country, the Weasley clan plus Hermione and Harry assembled in Fred's hospital room. Fred's healer, Healer Luyanda, joined them. George was napping in the corner, still in the clothing that he'd been wearing at the battle.

"Hello everyone. This is the first time I've seen all of you at once, so I wanted to chat to you a bit about St. Mungo's. I understand you're all immediate family," the healer cast a quirked brow at Hermione and Harry, the only ones without red hair, but said nothing, "Visiting hours are 24/7 for immediate family, with the expectation that the patient needs rest and the family will be able to keep everything calm and quiet,"

Healer Luyanda made eye contact with every single person in the room, just to drive the point home.

"Visiting hours for non-family members begin at 8am and end at 8pm everyday. The tea room is on the fifth floor, and the mediwitches at the station at the far end of every corridor can answer any questions you might have," Healer Luyanda paused, and in that pause, Hermione muffled a cough. Percy quietly conjured a glass of water for her.

"Now, about Fred. He was brought into the hospital with a number of serious injuries, including traumatic brain injury, an open abdominal wound, and a broken pelvis, and several other smaller battle injuries. Thankfully, he was brought to us straight away and we were able to get him settled here. The battle wounds and broken ribs from the CPR were treated upon his arrival and are on the mend. The abdominal wound was healed by our surgical team yesterday evening, and he'll be on a course of antibiotics to ensure that no infection develops.

"The pelvic fracture," Healer Luyanda held up her hands in a shape that Percy supposed was supposed to resemble the shape of two human hipbones, "Was what we call an open-book fracture, meaning that instead of his two hipbones sitting evenly like this," She motioned with her hands, "His pelvis looked a bit more like this," Her left fingers flared outwards, "We've reset the fracture, so his bones are all in their proper place. With injuries like this, we don't like to use Skele-gro until the fracture has knitted together a bit by itself, so for now he is wearing a stabilizing brace. We'll reassess the fracture and if everything is going smoothly, we'll administer a dose of Skele-gro in about a week, give or take.

"Now, the traumatic brain injury is the one we are keeping an eye on. He has had one seizure since he was admitted, but we're confident that it was a one-time event. In the meantime, we've been tracking his brain activity and are seeing some irregularities in the areas of the brain involving speech, personality, and movement. The brain is a finicky organ, which is why we're keeping him sedated for now, to give it time to sort itself out. The sedation is also keeping him from feeling pain from the pelvic fracture. In about 48 hours, we'll lighten the sedation so that when he wakes up, we can run more tests and assess any possible damage,"

"When you say brain damage, Healer Luyanda, what could that mean? Fred here is a businessman," Charlie asked.

"Traumatic Brain Injuries fall on a spectrum. Depending on the damage, he might wake up with some issues that may disappear with time or therapy. With the areas of the brain that involve speech and movement, we most commonly see patients with this type of brain injury struggling to speak or to understand speech. We have speech therapists that we contract with that can work with him if this is the case. His injury might also impact his motor skills; there are fine motor skills like holding a pencil or tying a shoe that he might need to relearn, or he might experience difficulty balancing, walking, or using one or both of his arms. Again, if this is the case, there are therapists that will work with him to relearn these skills.

"You said personality?" George chipped in, from the corner of the room. Healer Luyanda's face softened.

"In terms of personality, this is the area which we know the least about. Every patient is different. When Fred wakes, he might experience amnesia from the event or from other events in his past. He might be more moody than usual, or if he's normally more mellow, he might be more lighthearted and bubbly. Or he may not experience any of these things at all. The brain is an incredibly complex organ. Fred could wake up in two days and be one hundred percent the way you remember, or he might be a bit different. But he'll still be your Fred, and our team is dedicated to getting him the best possible care,"

"Thank you, Healer Luyanda, for speaking with all of us. I think we're all glad to be on the same page," Arthur spoke up. Everyone in the room nodded in agreement.

"Of course. I do my morning rounds starting at about 8am, and usually round again at around 3pm before heading home for the day. My mediwitches are always around and if you have any questions for me, you can ask one of them and they will get the message to me. Now, before I go, do you have any questions for me?" It seemed everyone did have questions, but no one spoke up, "Have a good night everyone, I will see you tomorrow," And she departed.

2 Days After The Final Battle

Percy felt like he could barely breathe. He had spent the last two days writing and editing the new employee handbook with Alicia, consulting on old and new policies with Kingsley, checking in about funeral preparations, refugee relocation, and foster child placements with Bill, Arthur, Fleur, and Tonks, and trying to prepare the ministry to reopen. Many people, including Marklin Funeral Homes, who was arranging a memorial, and Charlie and Viktor, who were together coordinating the refugee relocation, floated in and out to give updates.

Lee, George and Lee's friend from Hogwarts, had been hired as the Ministry's press spokesperson, and he was busier than anyone, handling requests for interviews and many, many questions from both the people of the Magical UK, and diplomats from all around the world.

Tomorrow, Percy would be calling in all of the new and returning department heads to get them up to speed. The custodial and maintenance employees would return tomorrow as well. The day after, the rest of the ministry employees would return to work and the government would begin normal operations again.

Well, as normal as possible.

Hermione had stayed home today, saying something about spending time with Luna and helping her get ready to travel. Luna would be staying just long enough to see her father's body buried, then headed to spend time with the Scamanders, just as she had mentioned.

Percy had agreed easily to Hermione's request to stay home; her cough was getting worse and she wasn't eating well.

"Hey Percy, got a minute?" Bill knocked on the open door to Percy's office. Another man about Ron's age was with him. The two of them were holding stacks of manilla envelopes and rolls of parchment.

"Come in, yeah," Percy cleared his desk.

"Mr. Weasley, I'm Anthony Goldstein, I don't know if we've met before," Anthony was short and bulky, with curly dark hair and a pleasant expression.

"You can call me Percy, Anthony. Nice to meet you," They shook hands, "What can I do for you both?"

"We need to hire several accountants, payroll specialists, and financial coordinators immediately, and I think hiring Anthony to be in charge of the accounting department would be wise. Anthony?" Bill inclined his head.

"My parents kept me home from Hogwarts this year, and in the meantime I took several accounting courses at a local junior college. My whole family is in banking, and I've always had a knack for arithmancy," Anthony and Bill began to roll out the parchments for Percy to look at.

"My parents used to ask me questions about finances in the Wizarding World, and when I didn't have the answers, I reached out to Gringotts. Bill and I corresponded a few times, a couple of years ago. He is the one who contacted me yesterday, and we got our hands on these financial documents. They are, for lack of any better words in any of the languages I know, absolutely fucking garbage,"

"Spending at the ministry in the last 4 years has been absolutely ridiculous." Bill chimed in, "It's obvious from looking at these. Each department's administrative assistant was supposed to be handling financials, but obviously there was enough corruption and lack of oversight in the last several years that...well, no one was really paying attention when thousands of galleons were donated to 'charity' and spent on 'fundraising',"

"I know Bill has said your plan is to strip the assets from our war criminals, and I think that's a good plan to get large amounts of money rolling around in the economy again, considering most of the ministry's funding in the last several years has gone directly into their vaults. But the larger issue is that no one is truly keeping track of spending or payroll at the ministry at all, and I don't think anyone here has ever heard of budgeting or spreadsheets before, to be completely honest,"

"You know, I think you're right. I don't know enough about the situation, to be honest, but I trust Bill and I trust his judgement of you and your information," Percy ran his sleeve over his forehead, "So what how to do we fix this? I'm assuming you came here with at least an idea of a solution,"

"I wanted to propose hiring four of my elder siblings. They're all muggles, all certified public accountants with varying levels of experience in the workforce, and all them are informed of the magical world and relatively familiar with the wizarding money and banking system in the UK,"

"You have four older siblings?" Percy asked.

"Big Jewish families, you know?" Anthony shrugged. Percy tilted his head, familiar with the idea. "I'm the fifth in the line up, and then there's three younger ones after me. I'm the only magical one, but my family has known about me and my magic since I was 4,"

"I have the banking background to liaise with their department," Bill added, "I'm a cursebreaker, but you can't work with Gringotts for a decade without learning a lot about banking. Anthony would run the department here, and I'd like to propose that I work with their department while we get it up and running. And at some point, probably in the next couple of months, we'll need to ratify a few amendments to you and Alicia's big bill of changes to include financial oversight and limitations and budgeting and auditing and all of that," Percy's brain was spinning at the thought of adding even more to his already miles-long to-do list.

"This all sounds really good. Honestly, I hadn't thought of any of this. Yes, definitely. Do you have paperwork drawn up, Bill?"

"Yes, right here. I'll have Kingsley sign it later, he's got to approve the addition of the "Department of Accounting and Economy,"

"Bring in your siblings the day after tomorrow, and we'll get them oriented, yeah?" Percy thought this was everything, but Bill and Anthony didn't move.

"There's...a lot of money decisions that need to be made ASAP. We were hoping we could get moving on this today," Bill said. He laid out several more rolls of parchment in front of Percy to see. Percy blinked several times behind his glasses and tried to skim the documents.

As it turned out, the international magical world had already begun to reach out generously after hearing the news of the final battle and the end of Magical UK's war. Donations of supplies and offers of skilled volunteers had been pouring in.

St. Mungo's already accepted any healer from North America, Europe, India, China, or Japan with a medical license, and several other countries with trained healers were arriving by the day to assist with care. Fred's own healer was a relatively new hire from South Africa.

The United States had flown over hundreds of Magical Coast Guard members and Reservists to assist the Aurors in law enforcement, search and rescue, and civil police services. From all over the world, wandmakers, potioneers, charms specialists, realtors, carpenters, hell, even tailors were offering to volunteer their time and services to the UK's magical citizens.

Canada had offered half a million galleons towards the rebuilding of Hogwarts, with the stipulation that Canadian magic students would be permitted to complete a one-year exchange program with Hogwarts once the school's renovation was completed. Kingsley and Professor McGonagall had already given a verbal agreement; it was an easy enough thing to agree too, Muggle schools frequently allowed students to spend a semester or year abroad studying in another country for credit towards A-levels or bachelor's degrees.

France was offering to send over a team of magical architects and contractors to oversee the architecture plans for the rebuilding of Hogwarts. Fleur was coordinating that as well. Several of the world's smaller magical nations, such as the magical community in Namibia, were offering volunteers for clean up and repair of the castle's library, dorms, and classrooms.

Egypt and Iran's magical nations had offered to host a charity quodpot tournament to raise money to rebuild the country, and France, Spain, Bulgaria, Romania, Saudi Arabia, and Poland had volunteered their teams and finances. Fleur had apparently already been collaborating with them, and had additionally invited Senegal and China to participate. The game had already been scheduled for three weeks from tomorrow. South Africa was hosting, and it was sure to be a huge success.

Hogwarts clean-up would begin in three days time. Some of Alicia's classmates were spearheading the effort to organize the volunteers, resources, and donations on that end. Though a lot of details were yet to be worked out, the general consensus was that Hogwarts would be reopened by September 1st for incoming students to begin the new year, come hell or high water.

Domestically, the Hufflepuff Alumni Society was prepared to offer several thousand galleons in mini-grants towards helping local small business owners repair and rebuild shops in Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, Godric's Hollow, and the few other small wizarding communities around the UK. Combined with the international aid, Bill and Anthony laid out that with careful management and oversight, Magical UK would recover well.

Especially once proceedings to convict war criminals began. Any person sentenced to 40 or more years in prison would be forced to a large amount of their assets. Once the proceedings began to imprison the Death Eaters and Sympathists, the Ministry would be adding significant amounts of money to their stores, to the benefit of the country.

Anthony had taken an extra step and done the financial breakdown: 28 wizarding families held nearly 40 percent of the total wealth of the nation. Members from 22 of those families were currently awaiting trial and members from at least 20 of those families would likely be given life in Azkaban for their crimes.

The plans for that funding largely included relocation grants for refugees and financial compensation for the families of those who had died from the violence of the previous regime. Percy mentally added the future job of redistribution of those funds to Anthony's department, likely something Bill could help to coordinate.

Percy's head was swimming. His head pounded. It was already late afternoon. He'd been in the office since 7am and hadn't eaten anything since a midmorning pastry.

"I...Bill, can you get the paperwork going for hiring Anthony's family? I'd really like to help, but I'm just exhausted,"

"Of course, Percy. You should get home. You've done a lot today,"

"I think I will. You two can stay and work in my office if you like. Think about where you'd want the accounting department to be housed. There's different office spaces open on the fifth and seventh floors. Check the directory, and talk to me about it in the morning, okay?"

"Sounds good," Percy gathered his belongings quickly, before he could second guess his choice to leave for the day.

Back in his apartment on Acacia Avenue, Dean was in the kitchen, helping Luna make a stew for dinner. Hermione was taking a nap on the couch, Juno in her arms, Crookshanks at her feet.

"Hello, Percy. We're almost done with this, are you going to eat with us?"

"Yeah, I'll join you in a few minutes," Percy headed down the hall to change out of his work robes.

Hermione slept through the three of them quietly eating dinner, and didn't wake up until after the sun was down.

"Hey," she coughed, greeting Percy, who sat across from her reading a book.

"Hello. Want some dinner? I can reheat you some stew,"

"No thank you, I'm not hungry," She was pale and her lips were more grey than pink. He managed to talk her into some tea and toast. She was coughing a lot more, every few breaths now instead of every few minutes.

"Think you've caught a cold, Hermione?"

"Maybe. I feel pretty terrible,"

Her coughing continued through their very short card game, and kept her from sleeping soundly when she went to bed early. Percy went to bed an hour after she did, and couldn't help but worry as it seemed like she was wheezing a little bit. He dozed off, but woke up at around 1am to her coughing, hard. He sat beside her as she coughed into a handkerchief. She reached to flip the light on.

Though the lamp shone golden, he could see that her cheeks were pink and she was sweating. She was definitely wheezing now. But it was the blood on the corners of her lips that panicked Percy. He glanced down at the handkerchief in her lap while she sipped at the water. It was dotted with way more blood that he thought any person should be coughing up in the middle of the night.

Percy tried not to panic. He conjured her a glass of water and pressed it carefully into her hand.

"Drink that, would you? I'll be right back," She nodded. Percy nearly ran out of the room. He took a handful of floo powder and tossed it into the fireplace.

"Alicia and Penny's house!" Percy stuck his head into the fireplace. He was looking into his friends' living room, which was dark, "Hello! Penny, hello! Wake up! I need help!" It didn't take long for Penny and Alicia to appear, both in sleeping clothes.

"Percy, what's wrong?" Alicia asked.

"It's Hermione. She's coughing up blood. Please come," Penny nodded immediately, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"Alicia, grab my bag from the closet. I'll be there in 2 minutes, Percy, don't worry. Just go back and sit with her," Penny and Alicia disappeared from his view, and Percy pulled his head out of the fireplace.

Hermione was coughing again when Percy got back to her.

"I've called for Penny to come and see you,"

"Percy, you didn't have to call anyone," Hermione murmured, "It's just a cold," Percy heard the fireplace whoosh, and Penny appeared in the bedroom seconds later.

"Hey, Hermione. Percy said you weren't feeling well. Can I have a look at you?" Hermione shrugged, allowing Penny to cast a few spells on her, take her temperature, and peer into her ears, eyes, and mouth. Hermione continued to cough, and Penny cast a spell on the bloody handkerchief as well.

"Hermione, you've got a pretty high fever right now, and that cough doesn't sound good. I'd like to take you to St. Mungo's to run a few more tests. Okay?"

"Yeah, I suppose," Hermione shrugged again. Her eyes were a little glassy.

Penny pulled a jumper over Hermione's head and guided her arms through the sleeves. Percy collected Hermione's wand, a light blanket, and her muggle wallet.

Penny's status as a healer at St. Mungo's, as well as Hermione's status as "second most important young adult in the Magical UK" landed her a private room on the ward where Fred was admitted. Though Percy feared the after-effects of a dark curse or potion, the Healers diagnosed Hermione with muggle pneumonia, moderate malnutrition, and a localized infection of the wound on her forearm.

All of these issues had no doubt been exacerbated by her recent adventures being tortured and sliced up with a magical knife, riding a dragon and falling into a freezing cold lake, and her gallivant into a room full of cursed fire and smoke.

For now, Hermione was resting comfortably, an oxygen cannula in her nose. Penny urged Percy to go home.

"Go home, rest, go to work in the morning, and come back afterwards. I work tomorrow, I'll come check on her. She's going to sleep a lot in the next few days, you don't need to be here for that when you've got an entire country to run,"

Percy was too exhausted to put up much of a counterargument.