Percy's Ring Shopping Adventures with Penny and Alicia can be found in chapter 37 of The Unlikely Pair.

5 Weeks, 4 Days After The Final Battle

Percy spent the next few days trying hard not to be lonely. He went into work early, stayed late, and eschewed going home to visit Fred in the hospital. He went to the Burrow for dinner often.

Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes had finally reopened last week, and George was always appreciative of extra hands to sweep and restock. George had hired Angelina to work alongside Verity, their original customer service assistant, and business was booming at WWW.

Percy often found himself chuckling as he lined up products on the shelves in the twins' shop. At one point in his life, he'd called them idiotic. Some of them were rather stupid, but so many of them were ingenius. Percy had a small stash of products at home-Extendable Ears that he was saving for a special occasion, and a Daydream Charm that he hadn't found the time to try, yet.

Spending more time with his family was a nice distraction from going home to his empty house. His siblings were quick to invite him over, or to pop by with a bottle of wine or a board game. Percy sensed that not only was he trying to distract himself, but his friends and family were working just as hard to try and distract him from Hermione's absence.

Penny and Alicia invited Percy over to dinner after work one evening. He was handed a glass of wine when he arrived, and both girls were smiling broadly.

"What? Why do you look like that?" As one, Penny and Alicia raised their left hands to Percy, each flaunting a beautiful ring on her finger.

"You're engaged?!" Percy yelped, and wrapped them both in a hug, "Oh my goodness, congratulations! I'm so happy for you!"

Over a simple stir-fry supper, Percy did what any good friend would do, and pressed them for details of the story of their engagement and imminent wedding plans.

As it turned out, the girls' anniversary had been over the weekend. Each girl had taken it upon herself to plan out something special: Penny had planned a picnic supper at a local park, and Alicia had taken it upon herself to rent a two-seated broomstick, so their supper was followed by a sunset ride.

When they'd arrived back at home, they'd done a little bit more...celebrating.

Following that, each girl had reached over to her nightstand, pulled out the ring box, and proposed.

At exactly the same time.

Well, Penny was sure that Alicia had asked first. Alicia was equally sure that it had been a tie. Percy enjoyed listening to them squabble.

"I can't believe you kept it a secret that you went ring shopping with both of us!" Alicia lightly punched his shoulder.

"Well, I wasn't exactly going to spill the beans. I don't know who would have been more upset with me if I'd done that," Penny's classic sapphire and white gold setting was lovely, and Alicia's rose gold and pearl ring glowed. Percy had indeed gone separately with each girl to pick out the other's engagement ring.

Had that really only been a handful of months ago, that they'd gone out ring shopping? It felt like a lifetime ago.

"We were hoping to be married in the fall, maybe around the end of September," Alicia supplied, "Neither of us want a summer wedding, and it would be tasteless to marry too close to Halloween or Christmas," Percy nodded.

"We wanted to ask you, Percy, if you'd be willing to perform the ceremony for us?"

"Of course, I would be honored," Each girl embraced him again, and the conversation devolved into wedding plans, small talk about work, and other comfortable chatting.

"How's work going, Percy? Almost a month in, right?" Alicia asked him.

"It's going a lot better than I thought it would," Percy answered, truthfully. He didn't love the job, but he was good at it, and the work culture was a good match for him. The DMLE was a busy place, with plenty of details and documentation, and a sense of urgency to get the job done right.

"Good. I'm happy for you," Alicia said, "I wish I could say the same. Damn, I hate my new job,"

"Do you?"

"Remember what I said about becoming a secretary?" Alicia asked Percy. He nodded, "Well, I WISH I could be a secretary. Right now I feel like I'm just a mum, nagging the members of the Wizengamot about what time their meetings start, and how walk-in committee meetings aren't allowed, and no, you cannot bring food or drink into the courtrooms. I didn't sign up for this," Penny took Alicia's hand.

"I'm sorry, Alicia,"

"I've been thinking about giving my two weeks notice. But I just don't know what I would do instead. I'm good at paperwork. I like working with people. I'm organized. I'm tired of politics, even though I'm good at that, too,"

"I wish I could help. We haven't gotten the budget approved for the DMLE yet, or else I'm sure that Tonks would love to have you come work with her,"

"I'm not sure I want to keep working in the ministry at all," Alicia said.

"Really?" Alicia had lived and breathed the ministry for the last couple of years, just like Percy had.

"I'm just so burned out. I want something...fun, I guess. I want to look forward to going to work everyday, for once. Lately I've been dreading getting up in the morning, and counting down the minutes till I can leave in the afternoon," Alicia really did look miserable.

"It's okay, love. You could quit the ministry tomorrow and it would be alright," Penny soothed. Percy had the sense that Alicia and Penny had talked about this at length together.

"I know. I just want to be doing something useful. Whatever that is,"

Percy relayed the events of the evening to Hermione in their book that evening. She was likely to be dead asleep and wouldn't see it for a few hours, but he spared no detail, especially in the story of Alicia and Penny's engagement. Girls liked hearing about all of those details.

Hermione's letters had been brief lately, but Percy understood why.

Her parents were recovering in the magical hospital in Newcastle. As it turned out, the sort of mind-healing required after sustaining concussions was similar to the sort of magic required to reverse memory spells. Her parents were fully aware that they were Daniel and Helena, equally aware that they'd been living as Monica and Wendell, and more than a little overwhelmed by the fact that their daughter had gone behind their back to send them halfway around the world.

This had, in fact, been a rather serious argument between Hermione and her father.

"He was furious with me, when he found out what I had done," Hermione had written, "'Using your magic to manipulate us like that, how could you even think of such a thing?' He told me he's never been so disappointed with me before,"

It had taken Hermione pulling out a few copies of the Daily Prophet, the ones with all of the names of the dead and missing, Harry's and her own Wanted posters, and showing her father the still-healing curse scar on her arm, among other things, to convince him that he and her mum had been in danger.

Eventually, Daniel had calmed down. Hermione had deeply, sincerely apologized multiple times for having used magic on him and her mother. Percy knew that a good amount of the decision-making on Hermione's part had been utterly flooded with panic and fear, and that Hermione herself also regretted sending her parents away like that. He hoped that her father would see that; Hermione's panic had been crystal clear to Percy when he'd found her on his doorstep, just hours after having done it.

Hermione's mum, Helena, was still in serious condition. She'd had muggle brain surgery, which Hermione had explained to Percy as 'opening up her head to repair the inside by hand, like a mechanic.' The muggle surgeons had done an excellent job, but the recovery for that kind of procedure was slow, even with magic to speed up healing and manage pain.

Hermione had moved from the hotel in Sydney to her parents' condo, which was in a suburb between Sydney and Newcastle. Her parents had joined a dental practice group when they arrived, which Hermione was proud to say was thriving. Wendell and Monica Wilkins were well-settled into the community.

"What if they want to stay here, after all this?" Hermione had worried to Percy in a letter a few nights ago, "I hadn't even thought of it. They could love Australia and want to live here permanently. I would never get to see them,"

Percy wasn't completely sure how to respond, other than to feel guilty at his selfish relief that Hermione did not also want to move to Australia.

Hermione wanted to return home to him.