Written for:
The 'What a Word' Challenge - Trucidation: slaughter
The Legendary Gods and Goddesses Competition: Hephaestus – write about someone who works really hard
Percy is focused and ambitious, and Audrey is an initially unwanted burst of fresh air into his organised life.
They meet in an elevator a few months after the war. Percy has just decided to return to work, and Kingsley has offered him a high-ranking position in the Department of Magical Transportation. They exchange friendly smiles and discover, upon exiting on the same floor, that Audrey will be working under Percy.
(Well, theoretically, anyway. In practise, all she has to do is smile and she's got him wrapped around her little finger.)
"We simply couldn't put up with such trucidation!"
"Trucidation, Perce?" Audrey teases with a smile. "Why can't you just say killing, or slaughter?"
Percy looks affronted. "The Minister says trucidation." He thought she'd have been impressed by his vocabulary, but instead here she is, laughing at him.
"Oh, well then, if the Minister uses it…" She's kidding, and when she sees Percy doesn't seem amused, she elbows him playfully in the ribs. "Trucidation," she repeats, in a poor imitation of Percy, and she's pleased to see a smile emerge on his face.
"I knew you had a sense of humour in there somewhere!"
For a long time, she's the only one who can bring it out.
"I was Prefect and Head Boy at Hogwarts," he tells her importantly one day.
"Really?" She says, arching one eye-brow. "I was Head of my dorm, but I don't think that counts, because we were all a bit tipsy when we voted…"
"Tipsy? Well – you… We'd better get back to work." Part of him, the Percy that he'd been before the war, wants to reprimand her for consuming alcohol in her dorm and being so irresponsible, but a larger part is annoyed that nothing he says seems to impress her in the slightest. And then he wonders, why is he even trying to impress her at all?
They share their first kiss on the anniversary of the war. They're at a hotel in India, where they've gone to discuss the use (and occasional misuse) of flying carpets. Usually, Percy would be loud and opinionated and unwilling to back down or concede defeat. This time, he is quiet and distracted and Audrey knows there's something wrong.
She questions him throughout the day, and he snaps that he's fine.
That night, she appears at his door holding a bottle of Firewhiskey and two glasses. "Thought you might like some company," she says, and because he can't bear to be alone with his thoughts any longer, he opens the door a little wider and lets her in.
A few glasses of alcohol later, he spills out all his secrets to her. He tells her about how he was too blinded by ambition and walked out on his family, and about how he finally mustered up the courage to come back. He starts crying when he tells her about Fred dying, and he's not sure whether it's the alcohol, or just the fact that it's been a year and the pain is still fresh and unbelievably agonizing, but he's not afraid or ashamed to cry in front of Audrey.
"He laughed, Audrey, my brother laughed at a joke that I made, for the first time ever. The one time I try to be funny, and it gets him
killed. I should have known better!" His confession is slow, punctuated by pauses and deep breaths as he tries to control his emotions.
She doesn't know what to say, but she tries to comfort him anyway. "Merlin, Percy, I had no idea…" She'd known that he and his family were involved in the war, of course, she doubted there was a witch or wizard in Britain who didn't know the Weasley name now, but the details were an entirely different, and far more tragic, story.
Audrey begins to understand why he seems almost afraid to smile, why any sort of joke makes him shut down immediately. In Percy's mind, humour is not safe, and humour gets people killed. She vows then and there that even if it takes her the rest of her life, she will change his mind.
She succeeds, too, and it doesn't take her whole life, just a couple of years.
Somewhere along the line, they start having lunch together every day, and although neither of them admits it to the other, they look forward to those lunch hours more and more as time goes on.
She meets his father entirely by accident at the Ministry while they're having lunch one day. She's in the middle of telling a story about how he'd told her off one day for running in the corridors, brandishing his Head Boy badge as though it was the answer to everything. She hopes Percy might crack a smile at that. Instead, he goes very red in the face and becomes suddenly engrossed in the contents of his sandwich.
In the next minute, a tall, balding man with red hair is standing over them, smiling at Percy. "Afternoon Percy, I didn't know you ate here!"
"I – only sometimes - " he splutters, clearly flustered for some reason; his ears turning as red as his face.
The man notices Audrey while Percy struggles to form a coherent sentence. "Hello," he says cheerfully, "I'm Arthur Weasley, Percy's father. Are you a friend of his?"
"I'm Audrey," she replies, meeting his smile with one of her own. "I'm a – a friend of Percy's." He doesn't miss her hesitation.
"Nice to meet you Audrey, and it was good to see you Perce. Pop around for dinner soon, I think mum would love the company. And you're always welcome to join us," he adds, winking at Audrey.
"Sorry," Percy says awkwardly once he's gone.
"Don't be. I'd love to meet your family." There's an unspoken question in her statement – is he ready for her to meet his family? He's not, at least not for a while, and it's not until after she meets them that Audrey realises why, and she grows to love and understand Percy a little more.
He's always been different from them – they know it, and he knows it. It doesn't mean they love him any less (even if he sometimes thinks they do), they just don't treat him the same.
They're nothing but polite to Audrey, but she gets the feeling that they'll tease Percy about her when she's not there, and she's right.
He might never have fit perfectly with the rest of his family, yet when he's with Audrey, he doesn't have to. He belongs with her, and she belongs with him. They don't need anybody else if they have each other.
Percy is composed and diligent, and Audrey is almost the complete opposite, but when Percy looks back on it later, he sees that a breath of fresh air in the form of understanding Audrey Jones was exactly what he needed.