"The Sorrows of Your Changing Face," Percy/Tonks, NC-17 Title: The Sorrows of Your Changing Face Author:kethlenda Characters/Pairing: Percy/Tonks Summary: Two lonely people meet at the Leaky on a winter's night. Smut ensues. Rating: NC-17 Warning(s): angst, smut Originally Written: 12/05 Notes: Written for violet_quill at smutty_claus. Beta by Sionn.
Christmas Day, 1997
The snow globe sat on the mantel like a moment frozen in time. It was a wizarding snow globe, not like the static sort sold in Muggle shops, so the little man and the little woman were actually skating around on real Lilliputian ice skates, and the snow fell on and on without ever needing to be shaken. Always they turned in the same circle, the same pas de deux, and never actually got anywhere.
Tonks smiled, a bit guiltily, at the realization that Remus had never questioned the little knick-knack, had never asked where she had got it or who the tiny figures were meant to represent. Maybe it had never even occurred to him to ask. Maybe he had never made the connection. After all, the tiny woman was brunette. And how long had it been since he had seen her like that? Maybe he just thought they were random generic figures, nameless, signifying nothing.
She leaned in and stroked the globe, as though somehow she could ruffle the little man’s red hair through the cold unyielding glass. Then she ran her hand over the inscription on the base, whispering the lines to herself as she read them for the hundredth, the thousandth, time.
“How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face.”
Christmas Day, 1996
Percy Weasley needed a drink.
Not that he knew much about drinking, but this seemed just the moment to learn. There was nothing like being bullied into going home to see the family you weren’t speaking to, just because your boss just had to talk to that obnoxious Potter brat and needed a convenient excuse to drop by. And nothing like telling yourself it wouldn’t be so bad, it couldn’t possibly be that bad, only to walk away from the dinner table with turnip mush smeared all over your glasses and three different siblings claiming credit for the hex. Really made a man feel at home, it did.
After cleaning his glasses, he’d Apparated to London, where he planned to spend Christmas Day—or what was left of it—in his flat, working on some Ministry paperwork he’d taken home with him over hols. He had work in the morning, after all.
But first things first. The Leaky Cauldron.
The Leaky Cauldron was a dive, of course, and most nights Percy wouldn’t be caught dead, or even Imperiused, in it, but this was a special occasion. And right at that moment, as his boots crunched in the slowly accumulating snow and the cold nibbled at his hands, the golden light through its grimy window looked very like a lighthouse beacon to a man lost at sea.
Steeling his resolve, he walked in and plopped down onto one of the stools. It creaked audibly as he sat, and as Percy weighed ten stone soaking wet, he worried about its structural integrity. He wondered what it would take to pass a regulation requiring all pubs to have their furniture in good repair.
The bartender was an elderly man, bald as an egg. “What’ll you have, sir?”
“A shot of Ogden’s Old Firewhisky,” said Percy. He had seen the late, lamented Mr. Crouch drinking it once. It seemed to be a dignified, manly sort of drink. Not like the fizzy pink concoction the woman next to him was nursing, that was for sure.
Make that the fizzy pink concoction she’d just snorted through her nose. “Percy Ignatius Weasley. Have you ever had Ogden’s?”
It was Nymphadora Tonks. He remembered now, vaguely, something Mum had said about Tonks spending Christmas alone.
“Er…” he stammered, “er, of course I have, lots of times.”
“I’ll eat my hat,” she said, grinning.
The barkeep set the glass down in front of Percy. Tonks looked at him expectantly, her smile smug, her fingers idly twirling the plastic miniature broomstick that garnished her drink.
Percy downed the shot. There, now that wasn’t so...
A tongue of flame whooshed out of Percy’s mouth, leaving him in a sweat, his throat stinging. “What the bloody hell…”
“Thought so,” said Tonks. “And when you’ve recovered, why don’t you tell me how you came to be alone in a pub on Christmas.”
Percy caught his breath, and gratefully accepted the glass of water the bartender had silently placed next to the whisky glass. He glugged the water with a shameful lack of decorum. Finally, after a few minutes, he felt up to talking again.
“Had a row with the family.”
“About what?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “The rows aren’t really about anything anymore. It’s just all bollixed up and every little thing sets it off. You know how it is? It’s easier to keep fighting than to stop.”
“Another Ogden’s?” asked the bartender. Percy surprised himself by saying yes.
“Anyway,” he continued as the man set another shot in front of him, “Christmas dinner ended with my brothers and sister hexing the parsnips into my face...Oh, bloody hell,” he finished, realizing that Tonks had started laughing.
“I’m sorry, Percy,” she said between paroxysms of laughter; as he watched, tears appeared at the corners of her twinkling eyes. “I shouldn’t—it’s just the mental picture...perfect Percy with parsnips on his face…”
“It’s all right,” said Percy, and realized with surprise that it really was all right. He had been expecting to feel the sting of wounded dignity, but instead he was just glad to see Tonks smiling. She really did have a lovely smile. Lately, though, it seemed like she was always broody and quiet, and her hair had gone brown for some reason. Not that he minded the brown. It was pretty. Especially in the trembling candlelight of the Leaky. It looked like chocolate or dark honey or something else delicious like that.
And the best thing about her was the mischievous look in her eyes. Bloody hell, it was nice to see that again.
He couldn’t believe he was thinking that, considering what he had thought the first time he’d seen that glint of trouble…
“Tonks, remember the first time we met?”
“Oi. Yes. You were this swotty little third-year—“
“You were seventh year—“
“You were, like, a little pint-sized prefect in training, and you caught me sneaking out of Gryffindor Tower, and you asked me where I was going…”
“And you told me you were going to enchant Professor McGonagall’s desk up onto the top of the Astronomy Tower…”
“I was surprised you didn’t turn me in,” said Tonks, who was laughing so hard that tears glistened at the corners of her eyes.
Percy fell silent, and took another drink of firewhisky. A sip this time, not a gulp. He’d learned his lesson.
So why hadn’t he turned her in?, he wondered. The disturbing thought occurred to him that it had been because he thought she was pretty. And because he’d rather liked her. He’d been right at that age when he’d started noticing girls, and she had been the first one he had noticed.
“You’re blushing, Percy.”
The whisky burned a path down his throat, and he let it fill him with false bravado. “Of course not. I was just thinking it was a good thing for you that I wasn’t a prefect yet.”
“Oh?” She was still toying with the plastic broomstick, stabbing it in and out of her drink in a very…interesting…sort of motion. “And what would you have done to me, Mister Perfect Prefect?”
“Detention,” he said loftily.
“Hmmm. Locked up in a room, all by myself…And what would you do with me, Percy Weasley, if you had me all locked up in a room by myself?”
“Er…”
“Bartender? I’d like to rent a room for the night.”
It was warm in the little room above the pub. Percy hadn’t been properly warm all night, what with the snowy weather and the other lost souls who’d been drifting in and out of the Leaky, leaving the door to flap in the relentless wind.
But up here, sitting on a bed piled with covers, with a crackling fire dancing in the hearth, and the whisky coursing through his blood, he was warm.
Of course, anticipation couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it. There was nothing to anticipate. Of course he wasn’t going to shag Tonks. He worked with her, for Merlin’s sake. He had to face her every day at the Ministry. It was just plain wrong to get involved with someone from the office.
Then she emerged from the loo, dressed in nothing but a pink satin bra and matching knickers.
Percy gulped. She was even sexier than he’d thought. He felt his cheeks burn, and this time, he couldn’t blame it on the alcohol.
“Oh, my God,” she said, studying his face. “It’s just like the whisky. You’ve never done this before, have you?”
“Er…no.”
“Well, you’re in for a treat.” She sashayed across the room and sat down. Right in his lap.
He swallowed again. “Er…”
“Shut up, Percy,” she said lovingly, and covered his mouth with her own. She kissed him with a need that shocked him; he was used to her being flippant and self-reliant. This intensity, this desire, it was new to him. It went to his veins like the drink had done, and he clasped her close, kissing her back as deeply as she kissed him.
It seemed the most natural thing in the world, then, to let his hands explore her through the silky fabric of her bra, to cup her small breasts in his hands, softly at first, and then to run his fingers over her nipples until they hardened with desire. He was rougher then, pinching at her nipples, then impatiently working at the clasp of the bra, unable to get it off fast enough. How did women ever get used to these things?
She pulled away from his lips, smiling, and reached back to undo the hooks herself. The flimsy garment fell, disregarded, to the floor.
Breathless, he stared at her bared breasts and wondered at their beauty, and at the way the tiny pink nipples grew even harder as he pinched and stroked them. Not thinking, he rubbed himself against her through his clothes and her knickers. He was hard as hell, and wanted nothing so much as to be out of these robes and inside her.
As if she had read his mind, she hopped off of his lap and stood there, breathing heavily, staring at him. “Get out of those clothes, Percy. Please.” Her voice was ragged. It was evident that she wanted this as much as he did.
In a flash, he ripped off the clothes and threw them to the floor. He felt the warm heat of the hearthfire on his bare skin, and out of the corner of his eye saw something pink and satiny sailing across the room. He felt self-conscious again, worried she wouldn’t like his body, worrying he wouldn’t know what he was doing,
“Now lie down,” she said, softly but with authority.
He did. A moment later, she crawled on top of him, her lithe body sliding down his, the rough curls of her pubic hair ticking at his hard cock. He moaned, moving his hips against hers, wanting more.
She shifted, so that the head of his cock was right at her entrance. He could feel the hot wetness of her cunt. And then she lowered herself onto him, and he moaned as he slid into her.
She rode him slowly but hard. He watched her face as she seemed to shed all the cares that had dogged her over the part months. She closed her eyes, threw back her head, and let out a small strangled cry, and he lost himself in her, coming inside her.
Afterward, she slept in his arms. She looked so young when she slept, so innocent and carefree. He wished he could somehow let her stay like this forever, moving from ecstasy to tranquility and then to ecstasy again, without a moment of sadness or worry to cloud her face.
When he awoke in the morning, she was gone. She left behind her only a dent in the pillow and her scent.
He was late for work. But there were more important things on his to-do list at the moment. For one, he hadn’t bought her a Christmas gift.
And so, Percy owled in sick for the first time in his life, and went shopping in Diagon Alley.
It was the day after Christmas, and so everything was reduced, but he would have gladly paid full price for the snow globe. It was perfect. “We can enchant the figures to look like anyone you like,” said the salesman. “I assume the man should be a redhead, like yourself?”
Percy nodded.
“And the young lady? What color is her hair?”
Pink, he wanted to say, but then he thought of the comments Fleur and even his brothers had made about Tonks over dinner, about how plain she looked with her hair less flashy and that wistful look in her eyes. He wanted to make sure she knew that she was just as beautiful now as she always had been. That she could cry and show weakness if she needed to, and he would still see her for herself.
“Brown. Her hair is brown. And could you put a bit of poetry on the base?”
Christmas Day, 1997
They had only touched one more time. It was at Bill and Fleur’s wedding in June. She’d been dancing with Remus. Her hair was pink again. She’d got what she wanted, hadn’t she?
A familiar voice. “May I cut in, Professor Lupin?”
And then she had been in his arms again, dancing silently in circles like the tiny simulacra that whirled endlessly through the snow on her mantel. There had been no words. No one else had known how heated his hand had felt on her waist, reminding her of less restrained, less polite caresses. No one else had noticed how she could barely meet his eyes, for they seemed to burn with joy and sadness and passion all rolled into one.
And then the song had ended.
She never did tell Remus.
It was Christmas again, a year since that night at the Leaky. It felt like only a week ago. It felt like a lifetime ago.
Softly, she recited to herself the final verse of the poem.
“And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crown of stars.”