December 7th, 1996

Jack Graves turned from the window to look at me. He seemed older, his hair had been white for years, but I was beginning to see the lines of stress and time on his face. The lines at the corners of his eyes seemed deeper and there was a faint one at the corner of his mouth, as if already the stress of the presidency was helping the rest of him to match age with his hair. I recalled the werewolf uprising in Yellowstone, the werewolves had been pushed back for now, the pack leaders escaping capture in lands they were far more familiar with than MACUSA was. Law enforcement who tried to follow would find themselves in their undergarments on the path that led out of the park. It was becoming a bit of a stain on my father's early presidency.

My father was still a frightening presence, but he was alone, there was no Vanessa to dig her burrs in the aftermath, but there was no Annette to help me either. So far, my father and I were as close to equal as we would ever be.

I would wait for him to speak first.

Giving in was not something I could allow from myself.

It was an easy thing, to ignore the rage that burned under my skin. The ugly beast that slept inside me that fed upon my insecurities, doubts and unpleasantness that I struggled to manage at points came to the surface in my trembling hands and tight throat. Explosive anger was dangerous, it made people stupid.

I just had to hold it together.

"Audrey."

"Jack."

His expression darkened at my lack of respect for him as my father.

"You look nice."

In a story, perhaps all would be forgiven or put aside, pride swept away with the tide to find something of the love between a father and daughter. The kind of instinctive love that held redemption and compassion in its grasp. In a perfect world, I could throw the fact that I had found Alex in his face. That I was right and Jack was wrong and I would magically have his love and affection as I healed the rift between the three of us. But I had yet to truly know the truth of Thalia's promise, Alex remained more of a ghost than a man. And in the end, this was no story. This was no fairy tale that promised such clean, perfect resolutions. Jack Graves had his pride and I had mine.

And our pride could tear us both apart.

"It's past time you came home." Jack's voice was low, brokering no argument on the matter.

"No."

He stepped forward, his black dress robes making him look more intimidating until I managed to decide that he looked like white headed woodpecker.

I held my ground, refusing to look away or be cowed.

"This temper tantrum has gone on long enough."

"What tantrum? The only tantrum I remember is you coming around the dinner table ready to pop me in the mouth for telling the truth."

'Like you did to Alex' hung between us, unspoken and heavy for the memory of it.

Jack's brow furrowed, his jaw set stubbornly as he readied himself to pursue a new angle. He had tried direct orders already. I wondered what he would try next.

"Here's what's happening, this country is going to implode and you do not need to be here when it does. I don't know how you've been evading the Aurors I sent as your detail, but you need to update your address with the Embassy Office."

"If an unchanged address can stump them, maybe they need a new job."

The moment of silence between us allowed me to take in the room properly, I shifted my weight slightly to try and ease my aching feet. Lucinda's secondary office was full of books of all sorts, while her main office held her collection of law and administrative guides, this room seemed to hold a more personal collection of favorites. Books of gardening, finance and an assortment of spell books lined the shelves from floor to ceiling with some shelves of fiction mixed in on a smaller bookcase. The paintings on the wall were primarily of landscapes, a place for the portraits to come if they wanted out of their frames for a time. I was sure I saw Callum in the fields of wheat of one painting, watching the confrontation between myself and Jack in his quiet way, hidden from sight in the tall golden fields with only his red hair giving away his location.

My gaze moved to the portrait of my mother, she was still and silent. Unmoving and eerie in her still portrait with her steady deep blue almost violet eyes and her curtain of wavy blonde hair. She looked forward at the two of us with unblinking eyes as if what sparks of life were in that portrait were judging Jack for his incompetence and myself for playing this stupid little game.

A noise of rustling paper gathered my attention back to Jack, who was picking up a collection of files he had laid on his desk with the MACUSA Embassy label on the front of the manilla folders and opened them to look at the contents.

"Don't be like that. You think I'm ignorant about what's going on here?" There was anger in Jack's voice, the kind that was edged with righteousness.

No. But I was not going to dignify it with a response.

"Scrimgeour was a Head Auror, a position of active pursuit of dark sorcerers and he has failed abysmally at even preparing this country for such an event. Fudge was weak willed and wanted yes men in positions of power and MACUSA fears that the Ministry is already corrupt with pureblood supremacists, the Minister of Canada fears the same. To his core, Scrimgeour always agreed with Fudge and never seemed to put up any kind of fight on this matter or any other and I don't trust him to clean house."

In that, we were in agreement, though I was a bit surprised that Jack was so firm in his opinion after one brief meeting with Scrimgeour, though, given my family, perhaps I shouldn't be.

Jack turned the page, his expression becoming more of the stern father I remembered from the dinner table than the MACUSA president and I knew who was next on his list.

"How well do you know the Weasley boy?"

"Well enough."

Jack looked at me as if he wanted me to say more as I knew he saw us talking at the very least.

I knew Percy well enough to dance with, make jokes with, to trust him if he said everything would be alright. I had no answers that would satisfy Jack, not that I cared too in any case. Percy was none of his business and neither was anything that was going on between us.

"He's my friend."

Jack looked at me with a raised eyebrow that was both judgmental and uncomfortably preceptive. There was a pause as he took me in for a moment before looking back down at the folder before he addressed me again. "Don't get involved with overambitious clerks who come from nothing, that boy has nothing to offer you."

I grasped the fabric of my dress in a tightly closed fist to try and keep myself collected. To deliver something measured and cutting in lieu of something stupid and senseless.

This is between us, don't weaponize Percy like that.

"I thought Americans love a bootstrap narrative? Or did you forget that grandpa helped get you into Auror training?" The corners of my mouth turned upwards into a mocking smile. "I think there's a bit more to respect in a person who puts in the work to get somewhere and not coast on family laurels like you did."

When I thought about my future, there was always something I admired in my school crushes, it was ambition. I saw it with my father turned too extreme ends, for my father did not know how to quit any task or challenge. I liked intelligence and formed opinions who would not be frightened of me for expressing differing ones or who could explain a point they had reached. There was something else I liked as well, a degree of emotional openness that I knew I struggled with. Jack Graves had taught me what I could admire in a partner, but also how healthy moderation could be in his lack of it.

Percy was very much like my father, but he was a lot softer in personality. I would not call Percy dumb, but his first, second and third inclinations about people did not seem to be about using them for his own gain. His heart was in the right place and he would never be a good politician for it but he would be a good man when he accepted that no matter how ambitious he was, he did not have the ruthlessness to step on everyone in his way to the top of the pile.

I tended to file people's motives away for later use and I found the blunt, earnest way Percy interacted with the world to be fascinating.

"If you come back to New York, I'll put you to work in my administration."

"Your administration? Let me guess, you need someone in the family to help Vanessa play hostess because you pulled Annette out to be charming and she scared a dignitary with her murder talk?"

His silence gave me my answer.

I bet Annette did her spiel on acid and body disintegration.

"Are you going to pay me this time? That's the only way I'd spend any time with your wife."

He snapped the folder closed, it seemed like we were going to avoid Umbridge for a more personal disagreement. "I don't like your attitude."

"I didn't like you cheating on my dying mom!"

The room grew quiet like a crypt. The words had flown from me like a torrent of past hurt escaping me at the first and only opportunity it ever had.

Lucina was never mentioned in my house, the funeral was a quiet affair and probably the last time I had seen Lucinda until I had arrived on the doorstep of her home over a decade later. The funeral was on a dreary day at a local church, while my family was not religious in any capacity, churches were a way for magical people in America to gather in groups within a nonmagical community without having to be questioned by nosy No-Majs. The buildings were enchanted to turn away the nonmagical at the door. My mother had been liked as that lady with the nice accent and the funeral was well attended.

"Our marriage had been coming apart for years and it started long before you were born!"

"That's not an excuse! Neither of you could admit to failure and I had a front row seat to all of it!"

Jack's eyes widened slightly and he crossed his arms in front of him, perhaps, for the first time, appearing almost embarrassed. "I didn't think you'd remember that."

"The screaming! The fighting! How could I not remember?"

I had no memory of Lucina raising her voice unless she was fighting with Jack. Finances. Politics. Childrearing. The time he spent at the office. If there was something to fight about, the two of them would find it. Vanessa was more agreeable with Jack than my mother ever was, she and Jack did not fight much in my hearing or anyone else's.

Vanessa not fighting with Jack did not make her a good person, it just meant she was malleable in that area of her life. They had a healthy relationship because Vanessa could spew her venom in other places.

"I have no real memories of us as a happy family if we ever were one!"

Jack at least at the good sense to have a flash of something akin to regret on his face.

The silence between stretched like a chasm and seemed to mold itself to the shape of the room like a third person had joined us in this space.

Jack broke the silence, his expression growing hard as he changed the subject to something he was able to discuss, something that was not so emotionally catastrophic. He began to pace in front of the desk like an irate cat, his shoes silent on the carpet as he returned to our shared comfort topic of politics.

"I need you out of the UK because you will be used against MACUSA if these Death Eaters gain real control of the government, it would hurt our dealings here and opens you to the risk of becoming a political hostage. My intelligence reports are telling me that Voldemort's followers most likely already infiltrated the Ministry. It's not safe for you to stay here! You can come back when this mess is settled."

That was… unsettling.

"Governments don't fall in a day!"

"The Lebedev Affair?"

Right. The shift of power from the old magical aristocracy of Russia to their Premier elected leader of the region. It was one of the great global shakeups of the early twentieth century with regards to wizarding governance. What leadership that existed fell within two weeks and was so silent that there was no way to guard against it from within. I had written a ten page paper on the topic when I was sixteen.

"Why would I go back? I've done nothing but suffer your choices! Endure your ambition! And now you want to try and act like a concerned father!"

"You're my daughter. I do love you."

"Really?" A bitter laugh escaped me. "Because every bit of love you have shown me feels conditional on doing what you want! I'm tired of being a prop for your career. That's not a life!"

I thought about Tavish, who had shown me more love and affection in the last year than Jack Graves had in at least a decade, and felt myself begin to relax. I had met good men in my time away, good men who saw me as a person and did not struggle to show me that I was worthy of care and affection. It had helped me put Jack in perspective as someone who was perhaps too damaged and selfish, too driven by his own ambition to really see me as a person.

I was free to love my father, but loving someone meant seeing them as a full person and as time passed and I continued to learn about the world and decide my place in it, Jack Graves became less of a looming presence over my decisions.

I had others who were good to me. People who cared for me. Tavish loved me like a granddaughter. Lucinda had revealed a depth of compassion and love that I was only truly beginning to grasp. Elihu looked out for me and gave me a true political education, treating me like I was important apart from my relationship to the Graves family.

Why could I find affection and mentorship from everyone except my father?

This… rift was not my fault at all. I bore no responsibility for it and it was never mine to fix.

Jack Graves was many things. A skilled politician. Deft duelist. Intelligent in matters of state. An adulterer. Callous. And in my eyes, a failure of a father.

I could not continue to follow behind him hoping for crumbs of affection from a man who did not know how to give it.

My life was better and richer for having the courage to walk away from the world that was becoming too small for me.

"Annette misses you."

"Don't bring her into this!"

Jack's fist slammed on the desk with a resounding bang. "Dammit Audrey! I want you to be safe!"

"Safe? No you just want me out of the way so you don't have to factor two children into your decision making if this Voldemort thing gets worse!"

"I'm offering you opportunities that other people your age would do anything for and you're throwing it in my face!"

"Give it to one of them! You can't use nepotism and money to get me to do what you want! Are you extending the same courtesy to Alex?"

It was like I had cast a spell over my father for how quickly his demeanor shifted, a familiar anger in his eyes, a quill snapping in two in his hands. There was the Jack I knew so well, singleminded and quick to anger. This was why I had waited to bring up this particular part of the argument that sent me out the door over a year ago.

"Your brother," Jack's eyes were wide and his nostrils flared as I watched him try to keep his voice low when all he wanted to do was explode, "is unable to be found. We've found no sign of him since I took office and my people have looked." He stepped towards me, his eyes steely. "Give up on the fool, if he's alive he does not want to be found and he's far better at hiding than you are," he paused suddenly, "or he's long dead and this quest of yours is fruitless."

My father speaking the worst thing aloud was like being stabbed through the heart. I knew better. I knew the truth of things and the shock of the statement wore off as quickly as it had consumed me.

"Are you telling me, that I have had more success than the strong arm of MACUSA?" My voice was lilting and high for the repressed of my amused laughter. "I succeeded where your people with more resources than I can comprehend failed?" Laughter pulled itself from my throat. "Alex has a girlfriend. I found her weeks ago and your son is still very much alive! I think you need to replace your staff, Jack."

Jack peered down at me with a shocked expression as I let the taste of victory linger on my tongue. He looked as if he had more questions before he remembered the fight that began this familial rift and shifted to a stony expression.

"When I told you I would find my brother I meant it! You're pretty quick to give him up for dead!"

"I'm being reasonable! More reasonable than half of my children!"

"When I find Alex, you won't have to worry about my being reasonable-"

"Have you seen him?"

"No, but-"

"What if he's dead? Has that ever crossed your mind?"

"I thought you said you didn't have a son?"

"Humor me." His voice was low and threatening.

"If he's dead, I'll bring him home." The words poured out of me with such conviction that I surprised myself. Alex being dead had not crossed my mind in months. "As much as he'd hate to return to your nightmare of a house!"

Jack's lip curled back in a snarl and I felt I had taken things a bit too far.

"Leave this to my team and come home!"

"I said no!"

"So this is how you repay me for everything I've done for you? Everything that I am offering you is something you throw back in my face like a petulant child?"

"Love's not conditional, you just think it is! Lucinda honestly cares about me, Tavish treats me the way I wish you did and they ask for nothing in return except my company! Which is more than I can say for you or your bitch of a wife, who made it her mission to see me out of that house with every little comment she made to me out of your hearing!"

Jack looked ready to surge forward and shake me at the comment I made about Vanessa, but restrained himself as I finished. It was like he heard me, but did not want to hear me if that made any real sense at all.

"That happy family you think you have is an illusion because you're too focused on your career to see the cracks in your house. Where the hell were you? Why was I alone with my mom when she died?" There was a shift in Jack's expression. Wide eyes and tensed shoulders and I continued my tirade. "You can't honestly put anyone first in your life except yourself and it's pathetic!"

"You're a spoiled little girl with no idea how the world works! I did everything to ensure my children had easy lives and now you're over here treating me like something on the bottom of your shoe? This is not a path you want to go down little girl!"

I stepped forward, my temper surging higher at Jack's lack of faith and the insult he had laid upon me.

"Say whatever you want to say about me to your press team Jack, hell, tell them what an ungrateful little bitch I am! I don't care! Fuck you!"

I stormed out of the office like the hounds of hell were nipping at my heels, almost hitting one of my father's security detail with the door. I didn't stop. I wanted to run from the room. I wanted to escape this house. I managed to slow to a brisk walk as I came to the end of the hall and down the staircase so I would not fall down the stairs or roll an ankle in my heels.

If those were my last words to Jack Graves then so be it!

My knees shook as I stepped off the stairs, I turned away from the noise of the party, my stomach in knots of horror and anxiety that made me want to escape into the cold and ice beyond the doors. I could not stand the thought of so many people, so many schemers willing to surrender their morals and ethics for a sliver of power and influence. I never understood the appeal. I wish I had no understanding of those things but here I was cursed and burdened with the responsibility of such matters by both birth and circumstance.

Was this what it was to be an independent person? Someone who could tell others that they meant nothing to them? To have the knowledge and confidence to go through life on a set course?

This was the most freedom I had ever felt in my life.

The little girl I was at the Byrgen House was gone.

The approval of Jack Graves no longer held any true sway over my life.

My life was truly becoming my own.

I turned away from the party to take the large door into the back garden where Tavish had set up his more grandiose displays for the guests in the form of a shimmering maze of ice and snow. It was refreshing to step out of the stuffy house and into the cold, wild air that cooled my skin and temper in equal measure. It was like a cold drink of water or a spring rain, not bitter or breath taking from the shock of it, but calming like Mother Nature had kissed my forehead to comfort me.

"Tinsy."

There was a quiet pop behind me, I turned to find Tinsy in a tiny apron and the blouse I had given her when I left Byrgen House, both items clean and pressed. She had a couple of small cheese knives at her waist.

"Yes?"

"I hid a bottle of wine in the pantry. It's a very pink, very sweet wine. Could you bring that to me please?"

"Would you like a glass?"

I thought about it for a moment. "No, thank you."

This was a straight out of the bottle kind of night.

Tinsy disappeared with a faint popping noise and I looked around, taking in the quiet of the night and the fairy lights that drifted quietly throughout the maze to make sure no one walked into any of the walls of ice.

If I saw Tavish ambling about in his kilt and dress robes, I would have to tell him that he was both a visionary for coming up with the design and a genius for pulling it together on such short notice. Tavish deserved every bit of praise he was getting tonight.

Tinsy returned quickly holding the bottle, pressing it into my hands with a smile and reminder to drink in moderation before disappearing back to the kitchen.

Now I just needed to find a place to be until people started leaving. Maybe I would just walk the maze. I knew Tavish had set up a few stop points with benches throughout, he was considerate that way.

When I got into the maze, I felt no tension from my meeting with Jack, I found myself focusing solely on the puzzle being offered to me, an array of teasing turns and reflections that would have me by turns amused and annoyed as I worked through the puzzle. Each third left turn was a dead end, every second right the ones in between would lead to short corridors that had two dead ends in opposite directions. I soon realized that the mirrors were pointing in the directions I needed to go, the reflective surface acting as a guide to the heart of the maze.

After a series of turns and altered courses, I made my way through the ice and snow to the center of the maze, the statue and the fountain it rested on revealed as I stepped into the threshold. I paid very little mind to the statue, my feet were killing me and I had to sit down.

The bench was cold, but I was quick to fix that with a warming spell before I sat down to breathe in the cold night air and feel my peace as I dealt with everything that had happened tonight. The statue on the fountain's center was a work of art. Tavish said it was a faerie princess who fell in love with a wizard, but her lover died in a war and she chose to die instead of living her very long life without him. A morbid, fanciful story I thought. I let the idea of it consume my thoughts and admiration before unwillingly wandering to harder topics from the last few hours.

All would be well.

I had survived the night and if I was lucky I would never have to do something like this again.

If I ever saw Jack again, it would be on my terms. Not his.

I would be with Alex, we would face him together and get the closure on that chapter of our lives. Yes. That would be how this story ended. Even if they never reconciled, even if I never forgave Jack myself, Annette needed to meet her brother. There was a part of me that wanted all of the Graves children together, there were no photographs of the four of us. Jack would play nice for his image if nothing else, or maybe a sincere, if undemonstrated, desire to extend a hand to his wayward firstborn. Jack was callous, but he was not a monster.

"There you are!"

I looked up to find Percy at the entrance of the heart of the maze, my hands gripping the edge of the bench with white knuckles as I looked upon him with wide eyes. There were flakes of snow in his hair, standing stark against the brilliant shade of red and the cold had put a pink hue in his cheeks.

I suddenly remembered I had left him after he had gone to get me a drink. Just another way Jack screws up my life.

"I'm so sorry about that!" My brain was whirring as I tried to come up with anything other than the truth as Percy moved closer. "Lucinda needed me to help with a dress crisis!"

"It's fine, I knew you were probably going to be busy tonight." He stopped and glanced around, taking in this spot at the heart of the maze. "This is amazing!"

"Tavish put a lot of work into it. He's incredibly talented. I just thought he was a gardener until he told me he did ice sculpture. He's basically the weird artist who lives in the backyard."

Percy laughed as I tapped the bottle of wine with my wand to pop the cork over the ice wall of the maze and into the night before inviting him to have a seat next to me.

"Want to try this?"

"Yes please!"

I passed him the open bottle as he sat down, allowing him the opportunity of the first sip. He was a guest, it was only polite. Percy examined the bottle with trepidation before pulling his wand out of his pocket and conjuring two small wine glasses to rest between us while he poured the wine before setting the bottle on the ground next to us.

"Impressive." I held my glass in the air. "A toast."

"To what?"

Freedom.

"To… not strangling any politicians."

"To our clean records."

The glasses clinked quietly in the night air before we took the customary sip. The wine was sweet and cool with hints of berries, citrus, sweet but more like preservatives then a true taste of jam like with other wines of this sort.

"The party was nice." Percy said, the hand not holding his glass moving with no goal aside from expressing his excitement as he spoke. "I never thought I would see so many international figures in the same place!"

"You see Elihu every couple of weeks at least."

"He's more of a representative. I didn't think the President of MACUSA would show up, or that I would be in the kind of circles to see him at a private event!" Percy paused thoughtfully, "I thought he would be shorter."

I thought he'd be less of a prick.

"You didn't talk to him, did you?"

"Never had an opportunity."

Oh thank Merlin!

"You didn't miss much, Jack's a hard personality."

He has a file on you and you would not have been prepared for that.

I decided this subject needed to change quickly before I said a lot of things I would regret. I finished the rest of my glass of wine before pouring myself another, feeling slightly dreamy for the experience.

"I thought it was going to be cloudy and miserable tonight."

"Odd for this time of year, but it's nice," He leaned back slightly to peer up at the dark sky and sparkling stars. "There's Orion."

I did my best to follow his gaze, but the stars had always been a patternless mess of scattered lights, like a tube of glitter I had spilled on a blue rug in my bedroom as a girl. They were senseless and cold, astronomy was an impractical thing to me, I lived a life of being told tales of dead heroes whose memories were inside the MACUSA Remembrance Hall. The tales of heroes who had been placed in the heavens were interesting, grand trials where they were often felled by sins of pride or jealous, spiteful gods. Sometimes, a person tends to tire of hearing about the dead.

Percy seemed to sense my confusion and leaned in closer to point to where he was looking. "There's the belt. A bit to the right is his bow."

"It just looks like a mess to me." I finished my second glass of wine and moved closer to Percy, our shoulders touching as I did my best to follow where he was pointing while listening to him tell me what to look for in these winter constellations, his voice was low and quiet, the fountain in front of us provided a low hum in the background, both steadying me as the wine began to affect my sense of balance.

I did not know how long we sat there, Percy telling me about the stories of the stars that were beginning to mean something to me because they meant something to him, even though I still found the formations of the stars senseless. I felt the most normal I had ever felt in my life, that Percy had no political motives in relation to me despite anything my father thought.

"Do you want to go back inside?"

A sigh escaped me as I nodded, my head feeling as if it were filled with cotton. "That might be a good idea."

The wine was gone at this point and Percy vanished the bottle and glasses before getting to his feet to extend a hand to me with a boyish grin. I took his hand and accepted his help, my feet were no longer sore but I refused to risk falling flat on my face in front of my cute coworker. If that happened, I would have to throw myself into the fountain in a dramatic fashion and drown like Ophelia.

When I fell forward, Percy was quick to steady me with his hand on my shoulders, his other hand still gripping mine tightly.

"Sorry. Foot fell asleep." I looked up at him, my eyes moving to his fave from where I was eye level with his chest with an embarrassed laugh.

"You're fine, I've got you."

I was unsure who leaned in as the clock began to chime the midnight hour. Had that much time passed over the course of this evening? Where had the night gone? My stomach flipped and fluttered inside me as felt myself move closer to him, mirroring his movements, leaving me feeling a combination of sick and fascinated. I was curious, I wanted to see what would happen, the wine lowering my inhibitions on the matter.

It stopped mattering that we were coworkers. Politics ceased to be relevant in my mind. All I could focus on was the bright blue of his eyes the rogue strands of hair that were falling across his forehead. The wanting was easy. Committing to the action was far more difficult.

Well, it should have been harder.

I was unsure who broke the last inches of distance between us, or perhaps it was a mutual, unspoken agreement.

When our lips touched, I felt small sparks dance along my flushing face that moved to my stomach. I had no idea which of us had initiated the kiss. There was warmth coming from where he was resting his hands, the warmth moved as his hands slid down to rest on my waist, pulling me closer while my hands slid up to his shoulders to grasp the collar of his robes .

It was an easy thing to stand on the very tips of my toes to capture his lips in mine after he broke the kiss to catch his breath. Another several seconds passed where I thought about nothing but how close we were and how nice this was.

We came apart once more, his face as flushed and pink as my own felt. There was a smear of my lipstick at the corner of his mouth, his glasses were slightly crooked and I resisted the urge to fix them for him as I turned my attention to the ice sculpture behind him because I was feeling very drunk and very stupid somewhere between the euphoria of the thing we had just done and the reality of it.

I had just kissed Percy Weasley.

In my rich aunt's beautiful ice garden.

I'm dressed like a fairy tale princess.

By the Twelve!

He tightened his hold on my waist as I removed my hands from his shoulders. His grip quickly loosened and we both stepped apart.

I'm not sure how to handle this! What should I say? Should I just leave and pray we never discuss this again? Say thank you for that exceptional kiss, I'll look back on it fondly while I raise cats in my dotage?

What came out instead was a vowel. "Ah…"

Merlin, Audrey!

"I think I hear Lucinda! Bye!"

In that moment, I learned how to run in heels and realized I was a quick study in not breaking my ankle in the process.

I could hear his voice behind me, sounding unusually breathless and I could not bring myself to change course or slow my pace. If I stopped, I would hear all of the reasons we would never work, and it was not like either of us had the ability to quit our jobs for a relationship. I was too politically useful and Percy was just too hyper-competent, but a person could live without hyper-competence and I could not destroy his career like that!

There was an awakening fear of my views of Percy being wrong, that he would be willing to step on a spouse or a girlfriend to attain and keep power. Lucina Graves had taught me something with her death, to never be in a position to be a pretty prop for someone's ambitions. No matter how pretty the boy's eyes were.

If I allowed myself to care for Percy, then would I be repeating my mother's mistakes? He was clearly ambitious like my father, he had the capacity to be nice like my father was occasionally and if Eddie was right, had cast aside his family for politics like… Well, like my brother.

And like me.

Maybe I was callous like my father? No. I didn't think so. I could never do what he did. What if my compass was just turned in the other direction? I did leave Annette and Aldridge with two lunatics for parents. No. Vanessa never treated them the way she treated me and Alex, she was more involved with her own children. She played favorites in several ways. Jack Graves never knew what to do with daughters after thirteen, but I always thought he was wonderful to Alex until everything happened.

The kiss was nice though.

Maybe because it felt like a fairy tale with the lights and the fountain, the dress and- No! None of that! I'm here to find Alex. Not to repeat my mother's life and her mistakes.

I… I need time.

I planned what I would say to Percy if he mentioned anything about going out or the kiss or any of it. I would be firm, but polite -I don't remember- and start looking for work in any other department or with the MACUSA Embassy? I was not sure that would work. It would be like running back to Jack's territory and I couldn't handle that. Plus I liked the Ministry, for all its faults it was not a bad job.

Wait. The Minister would just refuse any transfer request I made.

Well. Hell.

How quickly can I get dragon pox so I don't have to go back to work?

A stroke of brilliance came upon me like a bolt of lightning as I touched the door of the house, the noise of the party echoing beyond the door as I tried to corral my scattered thoughts. There was a shop that sold things to help a person skip out of work and responsibilities. The Ministry bought shield hats from them in bulk and the paperwork I had seen indicated that they sold an assortment of other items for more nefarious entertainment.

The Weasley Store!

Perfect!

Going to a Weasley to avoid a Weasley was probably the most ironic part of this whole experience. I would go in the morning. If I look sick when I call out of work for a week, no one will pay it any mind at all and I can avoid one of the most awkward conversations of my life so far.

Oo0Oo0

Author's Note: Are Jack and Audrey healthy communicators? No. Audrey has never fought with him until the start of the story and she's going for the throat like a petulant middle schooler.

I was a pretty avid people watcher in college, my friends in the dorm generally wanted to talk about their various issues in my presence, mostly of a romantic nature. While I acknowledge that Percy and Audrey are both a bit smarter than a sizable number of my old college friends, they're still young enough to do some very dumb things in a social arena that are in a very gray area.

Alright, I have the big early images of this fic committed to the page and this arc is at an end. Story wise I also to make sure the outline chapters are in the places they need to be to make sense.

Also, I need to read some books. I was taken to a secondhand bookstore and made several impulse purchases. Like fifteen (They were cheap). And I showed restraint. I may talk about my book reading on Tumblr and tell a funny library story or three.

When I return, I'll be changing my update schedule as well. I'll be updating every two weeks instead of every week. The chapters are long, and as my school start date gets closer I know there's a lot I can't really do until closer to the departure date but I need to start getting stuff together and checking what I have in regards to paperwork.

I'll be back July 2nd! See you then!