Chapter 2 - Paterfamilias

23 August 1999

Throughout his entire life, there had always been one person that Percy knew he could count on: his father.

Arthur Weasley was, simply put, the cornerstone of the family. He had always been there for everyone, and Percy had always been able to count on his father for support. Whether or not Arthur knew it, Percy had always looked up to him... even when he wasn't around to say so. That time of his life was more diifficult than anyone could have imagined, but at least now, a year after the end of the war, he could make up for lost time.

Percy wasn't quite sure how his father did it - staying so positive and supportive for everyone after everything they had been through - but he did know one thing with absolute certainty: if Percy got the chance to be a father, he hoped he would be just like his own father.

Today, he was seeing his father for advice. It wasn't often that Percy found himself back at the Burrow for breakfast nowadays, but today was special. Today would be his first day in his new position as Head of the Floo Network Authority, and the importance of that was starting to make itself very evident to Percy. He had been a bit dismissive - too much so - of the promotion at first, deeming it nowhere near the now seemingly unattainable Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation.

It was an important position, though. Even before the war, he had not advanced enough to be someone else's boss, and that was something that was finally setting in for Percy.

Percy was leaning against a countertop in the kitchen of the Burrow drinking a cup of coffee when his father arrived downstairs. Although seeming a bit surprised at first, Arthur Weasley quickly fixed a wide grin on his face and approached his son with arms spread. Father and son hugged, and a brief moment of silence filled the kitchen.

"It's wonderful to see you, Percy - you look well," Arthur commented brightly, moving to pour himself some coffee as well.

"Thank you. You too," Percy returned, his smile a bit strained.

Arthur picked up on the hesitation in his son's voice almost immediately. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing's wrong," Percy answered. It was true, to some extent. Nothing was wrong, it was just... new. Strange. And he wasn't quite sure what to make of anything at that point.

"Is that so?" Arthur questioned with a disbelieving chuckle.

There was a beat of silence before Percy finally replied. "You think I'm made for this?" he asked quietly.

He wasn't entirely sure what he was asking. Percy had always been ambitious, but a lot of what needed to be done and what he wanted to do got rather mixed up over the last few years. Now, he felt like up was down and left was right. He had put his duty over his personal desires for so long that he wasn't even sure if he was doing the right thing anymore.

"For the Ministry?" his father asked in reply, a bit confused by his son's question.

"No... or yes," Percy answered cryptically. "I'm not even sure, apparently."

"You're scared of repeating history," Arthur stated plainly.

When Percy looked up, his slightly eyes wide in shock at his father's word, he only found a faint smile on the older man's face. That turned Percy's shocked look into a confused frown. He had expected a look of fear or concern on his father's face. As far as the Weasley patriarch knew, the events following Percy's graduation were the result of simple adolescent misguidance.

"I guess so," Percy answered slowly, deciding to go along with his father. He had never had an opportunity to come clean right after the war, what with Fred's death... and after that, it had just seemed as if he had waited too long. He stalled with a sip of his coffee before continuing, "I just feel like if I end up being the same way at my second chance, then I'm really not cut out for it, am I? And if I'm not cut out for this... then what do I do?"

"Percy," his father stared, his tone stern. "You have no idea how proud all of us are of you. Not just me and your mum. All of us. You can't let the past make you feel so uncertain about everything."

"I know, I know," Percy agreed tiredly. "It's just that - "

"It's just nothing," Arthur interrupted calmly. "You have always been incredibly smart and ambitious, Percy. You were born to lead, and that's exactly what you'll do in the Ministry. And I do not believe for a second that you would make the same mistake twice."

"How are you so sure about that?" Percy muttered under his breath as he looked down into the dark depths of his coffee.

"I already said it - you're smart," Arthur answered, a grin spreading across his face. "And smart men learn from their mistakes."

Percy looked up to meet his father's eyes, and the infectious grin spread from father to son. He wanted to just tell him everything then, but even to this day, Percy was scared it would all just sound like one big excuse for how he walked out on them. Setting down the cup of coffee, Percy approached Arthur with his arms spread and enveloped the older man into a tight embrace. Arthur didn't hesitate to hug his son back.

It had been a long year, Percy knew, but he had a feeling that things would be looking up soon.

Percy's first day in charge had gone... well enough.

It was his first day, after all, and he was his biggest critic. Percy was a perfectionist by trade, which did sound like some made-up rubbish but it couldn't be more true for the professionally dressed Weasley. And when it came to first days - especially a first day at being in charge of a considerable amount of people and a very important aspect of the wizarding world - that bar of perfection would only be set higher.

The work day had come to a close, though, and Percy knew that it didn't matter how he judged his performance. The only judgement that truly mattered was that of his employees, and he would be facing that judgement upon exiting his office to go home for the day.

What he was about to do felt like a lot heftier than just clocking out for the day.

When Percy opened the door of his new office, he had expected to be faced with silence. The first thing he was faced with, however, was a cheery grin from his secretary.

"Evening, Mister Weasley," the young man greeted kindly. "Off for the day?"

"Yes, I've finished everything I needed to get done today," Percy replied. "You should make your way home soon as well. Mondays are already inherently longer than the other work days."

"Duly noted," the secretary said with a chuckle.

On his way out of the main office for the Floo Network Authority, Percy was faced with all sorts of other greetings and kind goodbyes. No one seemed to be affronted by his presence, and no one had gone out of their way to avoid him on his way out.

It wasn't that Percy was expecting a negative reaction from any of his new employees. He had made sure to be as competent and accommodating as possible in his new position; however, he knew that if he were to be lapsing into old habits, that would show in the way that his employees acted around him. Percy was an observant person, and whenever he looked back on his past work for the Ministry, he just knew that he had been horribly blinded.

"Audrey, honestly, is that any way to dress?" Her father's irritated tone did not go unnoticed

"Well, you see, I'm not quite done yet, Father," Audrey shot back smartly.

Audrey was currently pouring herself a very large mug of coffee, standing in the spacious kitchen of her parents' home - her childhood home - barefoot and in her work trousers, a sports bra, and her black long-sleeve shirt hanging around her neck, not quite having gotten around to sticking her arms through the other two openings in the piece of clothing. Her pitch black hair was its usual curly, frizzy mess, as she hadn't gotten a chance to magically straighten it and pull it back in a tight ponytail. Audrey would blame he father for the untameable hair and could only dream of having her mother's smooth waves.

"I didn't know I raised my daughter to talk back like that," Kristopher Shacklebolt commented dryly as he took the carafe of coffee from his daughter to pour himself a mug of coffee as well.

"Hey, if you want to have me over for Sunday dinner, you have to deal with me on a Monday morning," Audrey replied with a smirk. "Twenty-one years of me should've taught you that much."

She then made her way to the breakfast room, all the while trying to get one arm through the rest of her shirt and drink her coffee at the same time. Needless to say, it was not the most graceful or well-coordinated of endeavours. It didn't take long for the mug to slip out of Audrey's fingers and her heart to plummet at the thought of spilling her morning coffee. She hadn't had nearly enough of it to be able to deal with that kind of tragedy.

Fortunately, someone was around to mutter a quick, "Arresto Momentum," and stop the mug just a few inches shy of the floor. Audrey let out a sigh of relief and reached down to grab her mug, but the momentary gratefulness quickly faded as she knew exactly who had been around to stop the mug from hitting the floor. She turned to her older brother with a raised eyebrow and a questioning look.

"What? No, 'thanks Keegan?'" he teased with a smirk.

"Practicing your wandless magic again, I see," Audrey commented as she nodded towards his extended hand.

Keegan let the arm fall to his side with a shrug. "Getting good, aren't I?" he asked with a wink.

Audrey only rolled her eyes as she took a seat at the breakfast table. Keegan was the stereotypical older brother. He was a golden boy, setting the bar so damn high that Audrey could have never reached it in a million years. He had been Prefect, Head Boy, Quidditch captain, and had received several offers from several Quidditch teams that had wanted a Beater like him. In the end, Keegan had taken the law enforcement route and ended up working as an Obliviator - as if being good at sports wasn't enough.

It never really bothered Audrey, though. There would obviously always be competition between the two of them, but that was what made both of them successful in their own rights. And when Keegan wasn't being extremely cocky and overconfident, Audrey quite liked to look up to him as a role model. They also did tend to get along quite well, since the age gap between them was only three years.

As Audrey was sitting down at the table, her eyes took in the already prepared meal in front of her. Fried eggs, sausages, toast, and a bowl of yogurt with fruit. She looked up with a raised eyebrow and a glare just as her father sat down at the head of the table next to her.

"You still have Leila," she stated plainly, disappointment clear in her tone.

"Let's not start with this again," Kristopher said tiredly. "She's a house elf, Audrey. They'll throw a right tantrum if you try to fire them. It's not like we treat her poorly - she has her own room and no one in this family has ever laid a hand on her."

No one except for Aunt Kelsey, probably, Audrey thought bitterly. "You're right, I'm tired of this argument," Audrey replied, although she didn't put much heart into the words as she didn't quite mean them. Her father clearly noticed this, but chose to move past it. They both knew how to pick their battles.

Keegan slid into the seat across from her and added, "She's a softie, Dad. Can't help it," he teased.

Audrey only rolled her eyes as she started eating her breakfast. Today was not a morning for arguments. Monday mornings rarely were, as she didn't quite have the energy for that kind of interaction. She had to reserve some of it for Auror training, after all.

"It's been nice having both of you around for the weekend to catch up," Kristopher commented after a long pause. "But I'm sure you've both figured out by now that I invited you over to discuss some important matters, as well."

"Of course," Audrey muttered, not moving her eyes from the breakfast in front of her.

Her father chose to ignore her sarcasm and continued. "We must tread carefully now. The Shacklebolt family has a very good reputation right now, thanks to your Uncle Kingsley," he said. "The last thing we want is someone putting the family in a bad light. There are, unfortunately, a lot of things that could be used against us."

"I think you meant 'thanks to Uncle Kingsley, Keegan, and Audrey,'" Audrey snapped, looking up at her father with a glare. "Keegan and I were also in the Order, in case you forgot."

"Audrey..." Kristopher started tiredly.

"You know what he means, Audrey," Keegan supplied, the look on his face warning her to pipe down.

"Oh, I do, and we wouldn't have to worry about any of this if it wasn't for Aunt Kelsey and her Death Eater friends deciding it was a good idea to scare Mum and Dad into turning a blind eye," Audrey retorted angrily as she faced Keegan. "And if you had done something about it," she added as she turned to look at her father again.

"I've said it many times before and I'll say it again," Kristopher started in a threateningly calm tone. "I would kill anyone for you two and your mother. Stepping out of the way of a few Death Eaters was a small price to pay for your lives."

Audrey set her sights on her breakfast plate once more, refusing to delve into that conversation. She still remembered the day that her Aunt Kelsey and her troupe of Death Eaters had broken into the manor. That was a night for a family dinner - the four of them laughing over elderflower wine and cheese - and the cloaked murderers had simply walked in like they owned the place and dragged her father into the study. Twenty minutes later, they had left. Her father had refused to take the Dark Mark - Audrey had never known him to support pureblood supremacy and she knew that he would only take that horrid tattoo over his dead body - but he had promised to not get in Voldemort's way so Audrey, Keegan, and Zhara, his wife, wouldn't be targeted.

Of course, Audrey understood the decision. She didn't have children, after all, so it wasn't right for her to judge her father's decisions when it came to protecting the family. But she didn't want to just sit around and let someone control them like that. And neither did Keegan. The next day, they had both left their posts at the Minsitry and joined the Order.

Her father had stayed at the Ministry, quite obviously, in his position as the Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and so had her mother, in her position as an Unspeakable. But Audrey and Keegan spent the majority of 1997 and 1998 in hiding, doing work for the Order of the Phoenix. She didn't regret a moment of it, and quite enjoyed working alongside her Uncle Kingsley; however, she did wish her father and mother could have been there, too.

"None of us can change the past," Kristopher started with a forced calmness. "All we can do is focus on the future and make sure no one tries to drag our name in the mud because of Kelsey. Some people are already whispering that it's strange to have a Shacklebolt Minister and a Shacklebolt Department Head."

"You've had that position for the last four years!" Audrey exclaimed. "None of us have done anything wrong, so that means we have nothing to worry about."

"Don't be immature, Audrey," Keegan snapped. "You know better than anyone that people are vultures for blackmail."

She did know it, but she would've liked it much more if it weren't true.

"Men... Audrey," a voice echoed through the breakfast room. "What kind of breakfast talk is that?"

In a matter of seconds, Zhara Shacklebolt was standing by her husband's side with her forearm resting along the back of his chair. Her dark hair was let loose, flowing down to her shoulders in smooth waves and she was wearing a freshly pressed business suit. She was a Shafiq by birth, and that Arabic heritage shone through her accent.

"Abnayiy al'aeizza," Zhara started in a calm tone, "you both know very well that every decision that your father makes is with the intent to keep you two safe. And he is very proud of the way you two took a stand and joined the Order. Isn't that right, Kris?"

There was a silent beat before Kristopher replied, "Of course," with a stoic look on his face.

Zhara turned her warm smile to Audrey and Keegan. "This last year has been difficult for us, and things will continue to be difficult," she continued, "but we will surely come out unscathed if we stick together. We are a family, and a family falls apart once unity is lost. I think that is the only valuable lesson that you two could possibly learn from your Aunt Kelsey."

The room was filled with silence after that. Audrey could always remember her mother having an impeccable knack for knowing just what to say and when to say it. Perhaps it was a result of growing up in a strict pureblood home, or maybe she just happened to be effortlessly intelligent. Audrey could never be as close with her mother as other daughters were, though, due to the secretive nature of her job. It wasn't something that could be risked, anyways.

"Am I understood?" Zhara added in a colder tone, her smile gone and an eyebrow raised in a demanding manner.

"Yes, Mother," Audrey and Keegan chorused tiredly.

Training had been gruelling today, but well worth it, in Audrey's opinion.

Auror training was everything she had always hoped it would be. Competitive. Fast-paced. Challenging. It pushed Audrey to be better than she was the day before. It forced her to buy as many books as possible and study all of the newest and oldest techniques in any subject relevant to her training. She had wanted to be an Auror for so long that, at this point, Audrey didn't just want to pass her training - she wanted to excel.

Excelling meant that she had to recognize when there was room for improvement. Today had been such a day. Combat without magic was always something with which Audrey had struggled. She had grown up in a magical pureblood family, after all, and rarely had any need to learn how to fight with her hands. She was strong, of course, from her years of playing Quidditch, but she didn't quite have the skill set to hold her own in a fist fight. And if it came down to the Muggle world - where secrecy was key - that would be an exceptionally important skill set to have.

Audrey closed and locked her assigned locker as she let out a tired breath. One day down, four to go. Auror training was about taking it one week at a time. It was too intensive to look at the big picture straight away.

"Already tired, Shacklebolt?" a voice teased.

Audrey looked up to see a fellow Auror-in-training and a smirk quickly settled on her face. "Watch your back, Davies," she warned. "I can still kick your arse in a pick-up game of Quidditch."

"Doubtful," Davies argued jokingly.

Audrey shrugged and swung her backpack over her shoulder. "You can't hide from the truth, love," she said, sarcasm evident in her tone.

After that, Audrey left the locker room with a light laugh. The competition was fierce in the Auror training programme, but she got along fairly well with all of her colleagues. Some gave her unnecessarily weird stares when they discovered that she was a Slytherin, but those quickly disappeared if they took the time to get to know her.

Upon exiting the locker room, however, Audrey's smile dropped a bit. Standing outside, obviously waiting for her, was her older brother. "This can't be good," Audrey stated upon seeing him.

"What? Can't I come say hello to my little sister?" Keegan argued as he swung an arm over Audrey's shoulder and the two started walking.

"Hello," Audrey said slowly. "Now what do you want?"

"I'm not sure if you just know me very well or simply question my every motive," Keegan said with feigned hurt in his voice.

Audrey simply rolled her eyes and grumbled, "Just spit it out. Doubt I can do anything to get out of whatever you're going to drop on me."

"Take over babysitting Oralee tomorrow?" Keegan questioned, although it was obviously meant as a command.

Oralee was their four year-old sweetheart of a cousin, and since she had been given the day off tomorrow for getting ahead on some assignments... well, Audrey supposed it couldn't hurt to spend some time with family. "All right," she agreed with a begrudging tone.

"Ah, I knew I could count on you, sis," Keegan stated blissfully.

And here we get to learn a bit more about Audrey and her family! Let me know what you thought of this rendition of the famous faceless woman in a review. Thank you for reading, lovely people!

Please feel free to go to the tumblr account for this story (url: bymoonlightandsunrises) for graphics and more information on the characters :)

Translation:

Abnayiy al'aeizza (Arabic) - My dear children