Date: 18th April
Time: 7:58 PM
Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage
Percy Weasley had rarely felt so satisfied with himself. Normally he always had this little voice in the back of his head saying, "You could do better!" or "If you'd spent more time and effort on that, it would have turned out better!" but now, now, Percy was just content with what he'd accomplished. And what he'd accomplished was the biggest smile on Audrey's face that he'd ever seen.
Mr. and Mrs. Simmons had retreated to the front porch to enjoy the warm evening. Joey was in the library reading one of Ignatius Weasley's novels. ("Wizards read fiction?!" he'd shouted when he found a murder mystery among the late wizard's collection; "Why wouldn't they?" Audrey had ever so irritably replied.) And so, Audrey and Percy were left alone in the living room which bothered them in no way at all.
"How did you get such a huge cake, right now," Audrey shoved a large bite of red velvet birthday cake into her mouth, "what with the strict rations and all?"
"It was nothing," Percy shrugged. In fact, he'd had to go to the black market to acquire that much of that many ingredients for that immensity of dessert. "I know a guy."
Audrey shook her head. "Well, however you did it, thank you! I've never had this much cake for my birthday before!"
"It was really nothing," Percy smiled again.
Date: 16th April
Time: 9:46 AM
Location: Percy's desk at the Ministry of Magic
"Something on your mind?" Alicia asked.
"Eh?" Percy asked distracted. "Oh! No, just…just thinking."
"About?"
Out of habit as much as out of caution, Percy looked both ways before speaking. "Audrey's birthday is in two days."
"Oooh! I love birthdays," Alicia's eyes lit up.
"Yeah, but…I'm not sure what to do for it. I mean, what do you do for your girlfriend's birthday when you've only been together a few weeks and you also happen to be hiding her and her family in your house because there's a war on and if they left the house, they'd most likely be killed."
"The first year is always difficult," Alicia nodded.
Percy grinned. "What do you get someone at a time like this? I don't want to get her something useless, but…" He groaned.
"Well…I've heard that you shouldn't spend your money on things so much as experiences. Maybe you could use that mentality somehow."
Percy nodded. "I'll work on that."
Date: 16th April
Time: 5:34 PM
Location: One of the few bakeries not yet closed on Diagon Alley
"You've got to be kidding me!" Percy cried. "I've been in line for half-an-hour!"
"Not my problem!" the baker grumbled. "These new Ministry rations. Can't get nothing anymore."
Percy was very much tempted to correct the man's grammar, but thought better of it. "Look, my girlfriend's birthday is Saturday! This is a bakery! How can you not have something as basic as red velvet cake?"
"Don't have nothing much but bread anymore," the man snapped. "Now we're closing soon so…"
Percy stalked out of the bakery furious. He took a deep breath. He glanced around. On one hand, he was a Ministry official who ought to set a better example. On the other hand, he didn't care in the least bit. On the first hand, he wouldn't be doing Audrey or her family much of a service if he got caught doing anything illegal. On the second hand, if he did break the (completely stupid, by the way) law a little, he could make Audrey happy.
Seeing that there was no one around, Percy made his decision and he marched on.
Date: 18th April
Time: 7:59 PM
Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage
"This is delicious," Audrey shoved more cake in her mouth. How anyone could consume that much cake in that little time without anything to drink was completely beyond Percy, but as long as she was happy, so was he.
"I'm glad you like it."
"No, really. Mum is a good cook and all, but you're like a professional chef!"
"…Thank you?"
Date: 16th April
Time: 7:48 PM
Location: Uncle Ignatius's
"So, why were you so late home today?" Joey asked Percy.
"Reasons," was all he replied.
"Don't say that. Audrey says that all the time and it's annoying," Joey scowled. The two of them were in the library looking for the fourth novel in a wizard murder mystery series with which Joey had become, and apparently Old Ignatius Weasley had been, obsessed.
Percy sighed. "Can you keep a secret?"
"Sure," Joey shrugged. His eyes narrowed. "What kind of a secret?"
"The kind that you can't tell your sister because it'll ruin her birthday surprise," Percy dragged a stool over to the self in front of which they were standing.
"Yeah! What are you getting her?"
"Sshh! Keep your voice down!" Percy hissed. "I'm making her a red velvet cake."
Joey's face fell. "That's it?"
"Sorry to disappoint you," Percy stepped on the stool and reached up to pluck the book from the shelf. He handed it to Joey, "Next time I'll have a better secret."
"That's not it," Joey rolled her eyes. "It's Audrey. You can't do something boring for her birthday."
"Boring?! Do you have any idea how much work I'm going through just to get the ingredients to make her a cake? I spent a fortune on the black market and I'm not entirely sure whether or not that bloke is going to come through or not. He was rather shady." Percy stepped off the stool and carried it back to the window where he'd found it. "Besides, what with the war going on…"
"Why are you going to so much work for her?" Joey asked suspiciously.
Percy didn't meet his eyes. "No reason. It's her birthday."
"And what about the rest of our birthdays?"
When Percy didn't answer fast enough, Joey just laughed. "Does she know?"
"Know what?" Percy asked. He could feel the back of his neck slowly getting warmer.
"Isn't it obvious?" Joey grinned. "That you're madly in love with her?"
Percy suppressed a smile. "Nothing leaves this room, right?"
Joey's grin grew. "Right."
"She doesn't know the half of it."
Date: 18th April
Time: 8:05 PM
Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage
"Yahhh-Alrogh'?" Audrey managed to ask between bites. She swallowed. "You alright?"
"Yeah," Percy smiled. "Just lost in thought, I guess." Percy had realized just a moment too late that he'd been staring at her.
Audrey grinned, leaning her head against his shoulder. "You're probably regretting this decision aren't you?"
"What decision?" he glanced at her before resting his head atop hers.
"All this cake. You probably weren't expecting it to be attacked to violently." She sighed dramatically. "A lady isn't supposed to show any flaws until the…I don't know…twentieth date maybe?"
"Not for a second. And since when do you act like a proper young lady?"
She tried to swat him, failed as she was leaned up against him which only made him laugh.
Date: 17th April
Time: 6:04 PM
Location: Nocturne Alley
Percy had been waiting in front of the shops for over half an hour and the guy still hadn't shown up. He was about ready to leave and accept the fact that he'd wasted seventeen galleons when a loud CRACK startled him.
A large, bald man stood before him. He was not that tall Percy realized, maybe an inch or so shorter than Percy, but the size of his bulging muscles and the menacing look on his face gave the impression of largeness. "Problem?" the man growled.
Percy stood up straight, realizing that he'd been staring. "Are you Baldwin?"
"Who's askin'?" the man asked.
"Weasley. Percy Weasley. I came here yesterday. Do you have the ingredients?" Once again Percy was struck by the sheer oddness that he was shopping on the black market to acquire a birthday cake.
The man half-lumbered-half-stalked into his shop. Percy, unsure of what he was supposed to do, hesitated for a moment before following him into the shop. The man grunted at Percy. He placed three large boxes on the counter behind which he stood. Percy reached for them, but the man stopped him. "Money first."
Percy wondered if the man was capable of forming sentences consisting of more than two words. "I gave you more than half yesterday."
"You're point?"
Percy sighed a pulled out his wallet. He waved the remaining galleons in front of the man's face and placed them on the counter. The man slid the boxes towards Percy. Percy picked up the boxes and attempted to leave, but Baldwin spoke again. "Weasley."
Percy turned to face Baldwin, suddenly alert. What if this was a trap? What if the Ministry was following him? What if he'd just doomed Audrey and her family? Would he be able to warn them before too late?
"I know your brothers. Gave me a discount at their joke shop in exchange for cheaper pastries."
And then Percy recognized him. This man, Baldwin, had owned a bakery just two stores down from Weasley's Wizard Weezes. And now he was reduced to smuggling on the black market. "I'm so sorry."
The man grunted. "Not your fault," and stalked off to the back.
Percy wasn't so sure.
Date: 18th April
Time: 8:07 PM
Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage
Audrey leaned over and pecked Percy on the corner of his mouth. "You had icing on your face," she said as an explanation.
Percy nodded and sighed contently.
Date 18th April
Time: 6:03 AM
Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage
"You must really like her," Joey said and Percy jumped.
He'd been trying to sneak the cake ingredients into the kitchen and (silently) bake her cake without anyone noticing. How he would hide the cake until that evening was a still mystery to him, but he wasn't concerned about that right now.
"What are you doing up so early?" Percy hissed.
"I could ask you the same thing, but I already know," Joey walked past him smirking.
Percy was struck by how often Joey did that as though they were only fourth-years which, Percy suddenly realized, Joey would have been had he gone to Hogwarts. Which of course caused Percy to feel another twinge of guilt about how this war was affecting people so young.
"You could help instead of acting like a ten-year-old," Percy grumbled.
"That's why I came down here."
And so they baked.
And baked.
And baked.
The boxes Percy had picked up yesterday were in fact enchanted so that they may fit far more ingredients than the external size of the box would suggest.
Which meant that the cake had to be baked in sections on account of average-sized state of the oven. Even with the enchanted over that could completely cook a frozen turkey in under ten minutes, Percy and Joey had their work cut out for them. About a fourth of the way through, Joey remarked that the kitchen was not big enough to hold that much of anything and thus began icing the cake in the dining room.
Percy, who'd been so occupied hurriedly baking as fast as he could (honestly, how much did he buy?), hardly noticed what Joey had been doing with the cake sections and icing until he realized how much cake had accumulated on the kitchen counter without Joey taking it into the dining. Grumpily marching out to chastise Joey for not keeping up his end of the work, Percy stopped dead in his tracks.
In front of him stood a five-meter, half-complete, to-scale model of Hogwarts entirely made out of red velvet cake and chocolate icing.
"How did you…?"
"I thought it was getting boring just a giant block held together with icing. And then I realized these slabs of cake were a lot like large bricks so I thought, 'Why not?'" Joey grinned proudly. "It's not perfect, but it'll do for short-notice."
"But you've never even been there!" was all Percy could say.
"No, but I've seen pictures. And Audrey's explained it well enough that I might as well have," Joey smirked at Percy's awe. "You'd better get back to work. It's nearly nine o'clock. And this is one of the only two days of the year that Audrey's even a little bit a morning person." (The other of course being Christmas.)
Percy nodded still in shock.
Date 18th April
Time: 10:06 AM
Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage
Audrey glanced at the clock and sighed. It was probably time that she officially woke up. She'd been up for a while now, but she wasn't in the mood for pretending that it wasn't her birthday. It was a big birthday-22-but that didn't mean she didn't want to celebrate it. But there was a war going on and she and her family were fugitives. And she was being childish anyway, but…she'd better go downstairs before they started to worry about her.
And she went downstairs to one of the best surprises in her life up to that point: her family and Percy standing around a seven-meter (Percy had evidently charmed the ceilings to be much taller than usual) red-velvet, chocolate covered Hogwarts.
Percy and Joey had finished the cake only forty-two minutes before she'd come downstairs and they and Mr. and Mrs. Simmons had spent most of that time debating on how to pose around the cake.
"What is this?" she asked?
Her parents just smiled. "It was those two," her mom pointed two Percy and Joey.
Audrey looked between the two of them.
"It was Percy's idea," Joey grinned. That in itself was a shock: Joey giving someone else credit.
"Joey designed the castle," Percy clarified, "I just baked the cake."
Not even a little bit fooled by the obvious downplaying of the birthday present, Audrey through her arms around Percy's neck. "Thank you!" The two of them stayed there just a little bit too long before they realized that her family was still there and still didn't technically know they were together.
Audrey stepped back only slightly less awkwardly than Percy felt.
"Dig in!"
Date: 18th April
Time: 8:09 PM
Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage
"Thank you," Audrey said. "This was sort of the best birthday surprise ever."
"You're joking, right?"
"Nope. I can honestly say that I've never had a seven meter tall castle of red velvet cake."
"Six meters."
"Oh, well never mind then. If it's only six meters, then I've had much better presents."
Percy sighed. "We are going to be eating cake for weeks."
"Days," Audrey corrected him. "Red velvet is my favorite." That much was obvious; she'd eaten nothing all day but cake. Lots and lots of cake.
Right arm wrapped around her shoulders, Percy cupped Audrey's cheek with his left hand and pulled her closer. "Happy birthday," he whispered and he kissed her.
Unbeknownst to the couple, Mr. and Mrs. Simmons had begun to return to the cottage only to see Audrey and Percy and choose to remain on the porch.
And Joey had been spying the whole time.